Overview:
Alpha is normally invisible, uninteractable particle that acts as a fundamental building block of the Universe of Timelord.odt. It is not a form of matter, or even a form of energy, in its ground state. In fact, it does not normally exist within the observable Universe either. That is because in its ground state, it is the observable Universe in effect. It is a Universal agent, part of the fabric of space and time. Alpha is not the only constituent of the Universe, where it is actually part of a series of particles that cannot be observed, yet fulfill important functions for the Universe (Beta, Gamma, and Episolon are other known particles, though they are explored much less than Alpha.) As to the function of Alpha, its role is to govern how reality works. Because Alpha exists, there is physics, and changing the structure of Alpha in the universe changes the physics everyone inside that universe experiences.
Alpha itself is not “magic,” rather it can be considered the father of all magic because exploiting Alpha is effectively, in a very crude sense, the definition of magic. In its true form, Alpha is intangible to everyone, even Hybolians, and no machinery can interact with it, let alone restructure it. Hypothetically, mastering the use of Alpha would make you a master of reality, as one could freely alter the physical world—nothing would be impossible for you because you’ve literally gotten to the point where you can determine what is and isn’t possible.
However, Alpha’s realized potential and its on-paper potential are two very different things; the last thing you should consider something like Alpha to be is something that is user-friendly. Something that you cannot interact with, let alone touch, means that most of Alpha’s potential is completely inaccessible regardless of approach. But as time passes, people chip away at it and it steadily advances in its usefulness. To the Hybolian Universe, Alpha slowly became one of the most important discoveries known about Niag and Auxe. Alpha is to Hybolians as the industrial revolution was to the British Empire. For the campaigns Zeus, Deondavra, and Ckronos did on Niag, Alpha was a quintessential field of interest that allowed them to dominate the realm.
Properties:
Spatial
If you play a Sandbox video game, you need files to allow the game to generate. Those files determine every aspect of the game you’re playing. Every object you encounter is created from the information stored in these files. If the universe were a Sandbox video game, Alpha’s true form would be the raw data used to create those files. Alpha, in its true form is structured into a code of sorts that is used to create the “files” that the universe reads and executes. However, in most Sandbox games, the game’s program files completely beyond your reach as long as you’re inside the game. Imaging playing a game like Skyrim and accessing the game’s source files with nothing other than your virtual Iron Sword and Shield; You can’t exit the game, go onto the computer, and change the files on your desktop—you physically have to do it in-game, and as long as you’re sticking to items inside the game, doing so is completely impossible.
Niag and Auxe are not believed to be artificial creations—and, even if they were, would need to have been created by incomprehensible gods far beyond the level of being within these universes (Deondavra explicitly believes in a scientific explanation of the creation of Niag, because to him there’s really no evidence to suggest to him that the Universe was created by gods. Zeus likely agrees; Alpha is taken as a field science, not magic.) No one can or could possibly know what exists beyond Niag or Auxe. On the other hand, a deep understanding on how their Universes work paves the way on allowing Hybolians to better appropriate them as their own. Advancements such as the discovery of Auxe, the creation of the Neathens, and the creation of conventional humanity are all products of Hybolians gaining a better understanding of Niag and Alpha.
Alpha itself, however, is not a component of the universe and you cannot create a universe from Alpha alone. It is believed that Niag and Auxe exist by having a mixture of various hypothetical agents, as implied by the name “Alpha,” meaning it’s just the first (and the most well-known.) A second agent has been identified too, called Beta.
Alpha Magi & Alpha Mana
Alpha Magi is Alpha that has been forcefully converted into physical mass, or, in other words, something you can hold in your hand. Alpha Magi is the only form of Alpha that can be properly interacted with, and it’s created though an undisclosed process (which is likely a different method for various factions) that converts it from Alpha Mana. When Zeus, Deondavra, or Ckronos made any major technological breakthroughs involving Alpha, they did it exclusively through the use of Alpha Magi.
Alpha Mana is Alpha that has been forcefully converted into energy, extracted directly from the surrounding universe; Alpha Mana can only be extracted (manually) by a Hybolian, and this reason relates to the Skyrim Analogy: It’s completely impossible to access Skyrim’s game files with just an Iron Sword and Shield, but Hybolians change the scenario by being able to act as a third party. The Universe doesn’t properly understand the third party, so when Hybolians interact with the universe in a specific way, weird things happen. That said, the Universe also never intended for Hybolians to have a method of accessing Alpha. It also never intended Alpha to physically manifest in the Universe.
That makes appropriating Alpha Mana to do your bidding nowhere near as easy as it looks—Again, no one was really meant to control it. Hybolians can draw on Alpha Mana, but they have no substantial control over the Alpha they summon; it doesn’t bend to their will or respond to physical action. Controlling Alpha to a Hybolian is like trying to control a conventional fighter jet when you have no arms or legs. It’s an incredibly difficult learning curve; the Hybolians who can’t use Alpha at all look upon the ones that can like they’re superhuman—they can’t comprehend how they’re doing it. It’s like they’ve figured out how to fit an elephant in a refrigerator.
In addition to that, once you’ve actually brought about summoning Alpha Mana, there still comes around the fact that the Universe doesn’t really want you to have it. The moment a Hybolian stops trying to summon Alpha, all the Alpha Mana that was summoned will vanish instantly and turn back into the spatial variant of Alpha. In addition, the more Alpha Mana a single Hybolian summons, the harder it will be to summon more. It takes a lot of training for a Hybolian to draw out lots of Alpha Mana at once, let alone just controlling it. If you summon more than what you can handle, Alpha Mana has harmful effects to the Hybolian body. A Hybolian relies on using his or her body as a “magnet”, causing Alpha to “attract” and “gravitate” towards the user (this effectively ends the list of control options the Hybolian has in regard to Alpha Mana.) The Alpha Mana, like the 9th electron in an atomic shell, is unstable and really doesn’t want to be there. Just a little bit of Alpha Mana is tolerable, but too much will cause the Alpha Mana to revolt and forcefully return itself into a spatial state, which can physically damage the Hybolian.
Nevertheless, after eons of practice some Hybolians do get the knack for both summoning and controlling it in the end, and can even use Alpha Mana in battle, better known as Alpha Magick.
The fact that Alpha Mana vanishes instantly when a Hybolian isn’t influencing it sentences Alpha Mana into having no industrial purposes whatsoever—there’s just no way to properly contain it. Alpha Mana can’t be used as a power source, and even if you could create a battery to store it (you can’t), all the energy would spontaneously vanish before the energy in the battery could reach whatever you wish to power. The only exception to this is if the you have a Hybolian ready to manually power the machine, but since there are relatively few Hybolians skilled enough to do this, this is quite a negligible niche.
Alpha’s true form exists mostly as a speculative theory, and Alpha Mana is nearly as useless, but Alpha Magi, the physical form of Alpha, exists in a stable form. If you obtain Alpha as physical mass, you’ll be able to keep it indefinitely. This means it can be researched and experimented on, and incorporated into modern technologies for the better of Hybolian society. Alpha Magi is also considered evidence that proves the theories presented by the hypothetical “true form” Alpha. Magi meets nowhere near the potential of true Alpha—it’s not capable of warping all reality, but it still can give Hybolians a taste of what Alpha really is. Alpha Magi can be used for two things: It is useful as an exotic material, but it can also be used to “enchant” (Hybolian) objects by overwriting their preexisting physical abilities. For example, Alpha Magi is potentially capable of overwriting the properties of materials such as steel or glass to make them harder, stronger, or lighter, on a truly otherworldly scale. This only happens when the theories on how Alpha’s true form works get applied to Alpha Magi.