Forking: Difference between revisions

'''Forking''' is one of the key mechanics of life on the System: it is the act of creating a copy of oneself. This copy may go on to live their own life or they may merge back down into their [[Clade|down-tree instance]] to provide them with all of their [[Memory on the System|memories]]. Their decision to merge down or not may be determined by their [[dissolution strategy]].

During the process of merging, one may encounter conflicts. These occur when the same event was witnessed from two different divergent viewpoints or when, in sufficiently [[Individuation|individuated]] instances, there is a strong divergence in interpretation, which colors how the memory was stored.

When maintaining a long-lived fork, a cladist can keep them on the same page by having them merge down regularly only to refork back into them. Done frequently enough, this creates a sort of gestalt of individuals. True Name keeps such a pool of instances, numbering 108 on Lagrange in systime 226 (2350), reconciling daily.

Prior to the Century Attack, it was only possible to merge down, not up. To address this, the down-tree instance would fork and let the up-tree merge down, and then that instance would assume the identity of the old up-tree.