The Multiverse is, in essence, a writing game in which all players have equal input into the story.
There are no statistics or win conditions, and instead, the constant overarching goal for each player is to explore the extensive possibilities that occur when there are no limitations on the scope of reality.
You have discovered the Multiverse, the conjoined summation of realities. You're not quite certain how you've arrived here, or perhaps if you've arrived at all. Perhaps you've always known it, or it has always known you—which ever it may be, here you are.
Getting Started
Your first order of business in the Multiverse is to create a character, preferably one of your own device (e.g., an original character). It might help to take a look at some of the settings that exist in the Multiverse.
There are literally hundreds of other worlds to explore, all rich with opportunity and ripe for your conquests. Watch your step and mind your hat, as it can get just a tad choppy out there.
Clans, Guilds, & Factions
There are innumerable groups of aligned characters in the Multiverse, ranging from roving gangs of hoverbikes and ancient families to trans-galactic empires and mysterious monarchies. Every one of the various groups can be found sorted by influence on the Multiverse's Group page, where you can choose to read about and possibly align your character with one, or even create your own.
Be cautious in your selection of allegiance, as with your choices you inherit not only the strengths and loyalty of your compatriots, but their enemies and sometimes, their curses. Explore your environs and ask questions of your fellow travelers, be wary and watchful as you encounter new entities, and you will learn the benefits and drawbacks of each.
Combat & Conflict
When character conflict comes to blows in the Multiverse, whether it be a drunken brawl, a pre-arranged duel, or a massive fleet engagement while in orbit of a planet, all combat follows a very basic set of rules.
First and foremost, the Multiverse is a roleplay, and the players are encouraged to resolve their character conflicts as logically as possible, with the focus being on telling the story of the characters rather than defeating the controlling players' logic through competition.
That being said, not all outcomes can be resolved collaboratively. In such cases, the rules of engagement break down as follows.
- All actions must allow for the opportunity of the impacted characters to respond.
No one single post can seal the fate of a rival, blow away a building, or vaporize a planet. You must give your opponent the opportunity to respond to an action, and just the same they are required to do so and absolutely may not ignore your post. - Power is determined by the backing content.
When there is any doubt about the power of an action, the amount of backing content supporting the action is the determining faction in the resolution of an attack versus a defense.
Time, Coherence, and Consistency
Much like the real world, time in the Multiverse is very wibbly wobbley, an effect that diminishes the closer you get to another individual. The change is not enough to utilized in any meaningful fashion, as it becomes localized to every character. Time is consistent on individual place pages, and content added is considered as having happened in the order it is posted (see also: Rules; past-tense third-person).
One of the consequences of this is that while in the presence of other players' characters, time is [relatively] consistent between them. You can interact with them normally, though the events leading up to your encounter may have had disparate, expanded, or compressed timelines. No character is strictly bound to any particular timeline other than their own, and as such some events may span weeks or even months in real-world time, while only spanning minutes of Multiverse time, while each of the characters are in the company of one another.
The Multiverse emerges as the result of the overlap of many other authors' views of the world, each of which have their own consistent universe in which their characters reside. This overlap generates a single coherent multiverse any time the characters are present at the same place and time, resulting in a practically infinite number of multiverses that can be grouped together and called simply, in proper noun form, "The Multiverse".
Conflicts between the historical universes leading up to two characters' encounters with one another are largely irrelevant beyond serving as an interesting conversation point between the two characters, who are more likely to brush it off as surrealism or even come to arms over their disparate views than to simply cease to exist as a result of some universal rule of causality. You are of course free to determine what your character makes of these inconsistencies, but ultimately there is one truth: somehow, some way, your characters are experiencing the world with one another, and this universe is very much as real as the next (or the last).
For more information on the metaphysical implications of the Multiverse, you can read Arceius' exploration on the subject.