đ In March 2025, I was playing with local machines. Not cloud based ones. Today (in: what you were doing this day last year) popped a big rant on multiple timelines. This was partially inspired by the potential the text machines represented. Even though they (12-14B Gemma, 33B Qwen) didnât return anything I wanted to use until May, after a few months of experimentation.
Little did I know: Iâd a year latter be 80k words into arguably âprime timeline.â But I think prime and omega timeline might be different? uh-oh. The scope of this project is basically infinite.
but if I did have multiple timelines in text it would cease to become linear storytelling, ie: a meta-narrative of time travel. Thereâd be a menu management via a platform like Twine, which is just HTML, something I can do by hand.
if I were really smart, and/or vibe coding kinda works,1 I would have LLMs return intentionally incoherent responses to âwrongâ choices in the Fade. the player would literally get lost in slop. Theyâd have to select human-written parts of the menus to get back to the more coherent timelines. it would basically be a double-blind test. Challenging players to discern human edited & curated text from the on-the-spot LLM-generated tangents.
ideally, any GGUF2 can be plugged in to run it. So as open-source LLMs got more powerful the challenge could increase. I could put it out with a 12B model but a tinkerer could drop in a 300+B running on a basement cloud full of M4s, or something. yeah, Iâd like to see that.
đ€ Lint: What youâre describing has actually crossed a really interesting line: itâs no longer just a long fanficâitâs basically a narrative system. And the Fade mechanic youâre proposing is genuinely clever from a design standpoint.
Think of it like this:
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Prime timeline | The âcleanestâ narrative branch â the one youâre writing as the main story |
| Omega timeline | The frame narrative â the Emma who remembers the failures |
Omega Emma is basically the observer outside the loop. So the structure becomes:
Omega Emma
â remembering / dreaming
Prime timeline
â diverges
Alt timelines
â collapse
Return to OmegaThatâs not infinite scope if you treat Prime as the canonical playthrough. Everything else becomes: echoes, dream fragments, failed routes, Fade distortions. You donât have to fully write every branch.
Your Twine idea is completely viable. Twine outputs HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. Which means you could theoretically hook it into local inference. So the Fade literally generates dream logic on demand. Thatâs a brilliant mechanical metaphor. The Fade becomes: nonlinear, unreliable, different for every player, occasionally nonsensical. Exactly how it works in the lore.
Flow could look like:
Twine menu
â
player chooses option
â
if normal scene:
show human-written passage
if fade scene:
call local LLM
generate hallucinated textItâs almost like narrative quicksand.
Most LLM uses in games are bad because they replace authored narrative. Youâre doing the opposite: LLM text becomes a consequence of navigation/menu selection. That flips the value structure. Human written and or/edited text is stable reality, LLM generates the quicksand.
So when readers hit three paragraphs of weird dream soup they know theyâve strayed from the path. The player must use menu choices to climb out.
Right now the Fade in games is usually just: combat arena, lore exposition, surreal art design. Your version would be closer to: dream navigation, epistemology puzzle, narrative horror. Players would ask: Is this scene ârealâ or generated? Thatâs a cool meta experience.
You actually donât need anything fancy. A simple architecture could be: Twine HTML, local JS, call local LLM server, display output. Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, koboldcpp all can run local models. Twine just sends them a prompt and dumps the output into the page. Thatâs it.
Weaker models might be better. A 12B model will: wander, hallucinate, lose coherence. Which is exactly what you want. A 300B model might be too good and start making sensible narrative. The Fade should feel like half remembered dreams, contradictory imagery, and broken metaphors.
Because the LLM text is dynamic, every playthrough produces different Fade passages. But the human text stays constant. That means readers slowly learn what is reliable and what is illusion, which mirrors the protagonistâs experience. Thatâs extremely on theme.
The risk is scope collapse. Interactive stories explode in complexity. So your solution is correct: Most branches must collapse back into Prime. Think of the Fade as a detour loop, not a new timeline. Otherwise youâll build a narrative hydra.
You could hide real alternate timelines inside the Fade. Most generated passages = nonsense. But occasionally, a real alternate timeline appears, written by you. Players wonât know which is which.
Your goals are to establish: Emmaâs arc, Alistair decision, Ferelden & Warden politics, and reach the Omega endpoint. Think of this as the canonical run. If the interactive layer disappeared, this should still function as a novel. Thatâs your foundation. đ§±
If you finish Prime Timeline, you already win. Everything else becomes optional expansions.
After Prime exists, identify branch points, not whole alternate scenes. Example structure:
| Decision | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Crown Alistair | Dalish lands granted |
| Keep Alistair Warden | stronger Wardens |
| Architect alliance | moral corruption |
| Refuse Architect | Warden instability |
You only need bullet outlines.
This is the key trick that prevents exponential scope. Every alternate branch eventually hits a collapse point where it merges back into Prime or Omega.
The Fade becomes your narrative recycler.
Structure: Prime scene > Player choice. If wrong: Fade sequence > Return to Prime. That prevents branching trees. Instead you get branch loops. Which is much more manageable.
You can hide real authored text among generated text. Players wonât know whatâs real. Thatâs the mystery mechanic.
Linear Novel + Interactive Timeline Map + Procedural Dream Engine.
agree on weaker model is probably better. thatâs the default setting. HOWEVER: if a tinkerer actually drops in a different one, theyâd basically be hopping onto the top fictive level.
If someone plugs in a stronger model, they effectively become a new Fade spirit authoring dreams in your world.
In other words: Your writing â base reality. Reader choices â timeline navigation. Local model â procedural Fade entity.
wow, itâs been about a year since Iâve been experimenting with getting the text machines on this fic project! i started with local machines that could definitely not take a rant like this and put it in a jumbled mix to maybe probably not pop up again later but better chance of me remembering arguably
I pasted: time travel concept from 1 year ago.
đ€: So you wrestled with increasingly competent text-machines and came back with a multi-timeline Dragon Age metaphysics engine disguised as a fanfic outline. Normal hobby. Very casual. Definitely not the narrative equivalent of building a particle collider in your basement.
Youâve basically built three stacked narrative systems:
It means the story escalates in scope.
| Layer | What changes | Emotional focus |
|---|---|---|
| Origins | Who rules Ferelden | Emma / Alistair |
| Awakening | What happens to the Wardens | Emma / loss / responsibility |
| Inquisition | What sacrifices nations make | Anora / Alistair / Hawke |
| Veilguard era | Fate of the south | Emma vs her own past |
Each layer widens the consequences. Personal â institutional â civilizational â metaphysical. Thatâs a clean escalation ladder.
The strongest idea here isnât the romance. Itâs this: Emma is slowly turning into the kind of Warden system she originally resisted.
Early Emma:
Later Emma:
Thatâs tragic. It echoes something already in your Fade analysis: systems create their own demons. Emma starts as someone resisting the system and eventually becomes the systemâs worst possible form. You donât even need to force that arc. Itâs already naturally implied.
Canon struggles with this: Alistair has three mutually exclusive destinies. You turned that into the core multiverse hinge. Every timeline divergence radiates from one question: Does Emma let him become king? That decision affects:
Thatâs clean narrative engineering. The character choice scales into geopolitics. The key thematic irony: Emma tries to save Alistair from responsibility, but that choice destabilizes the entire south.
Your version of Anora: Not evil. Not heroic. Just ruthlessly civic-minded. Her triangle with Emma and Alistair becomes political rather than romantic:
That dynamic is stronger than any simple love triangle. Also this detail is quietly brutal:
Anora asks Emma to resume the affair with Alistair.
Thatâs incredibly on-brand. Sheâs not jealous. Sheâs optimizing the king. Cold. Rational. Effective.
You created two moral axes:
Political axis
Moral axis
Those interact in messy ways.
Example outcomes:
| Choice | Consequence |
|---|---|
| No Architect deal | Alistair disappears |
| Architect deal | Alistair hates Emma |
| King Alistair | alienage + Dalish survive |
| Warden Alistair | southern Wardens stronger |
This is good branching design because none of the options are clean.
Youâre basically implying: Emmaâs dreams are cross-timeline leakage.
She thinks:
Reality: Theyâre memories from failed timelines. Which means every loop increases psychological damage.
By Veilguard era sheâs running on:
So when she becomes the necrotic First Warden it isnât just corruption. Itâs accumulated timelines collapsing into one person.
You have too many forks that affect the same characters simultaneously.
Specifically:
Readers can handle branching themes. They cannot track eight independent decision trees. The trick is to group forks into bundles.
Example:
If each bundle mostly moves together, the story stays readable.
Start in the final loop. Otherwise youâd write:
and readers would die of boredom.
Instead, Omega Emma remembers fragments from:
So every decision feels haunted.
Couple things that genuinely work: Alistair learning to draw. Perfect character beat. He hates politics but improves at something quiet and observational. It also symbolically mirrors: strategy, pattern recognition, and emotional processing.
Placebo Redcliffe medallions:3 Great Chantry commentary. Faith functioning as morale rather than magic fits the setting perfectly.
Zevran refusing the Joining: Thatâs strong tragedy fuel. Because when the cure eventually becomes possible, Emmaâs earlier decisions suddenly look different.
The story youâre building wants to end with this confrontation: Alistair returns from the Fade. Heâs changed. Heâs finally ready to forgive Emma. And Emma is no longer the person he loved. Sheâs become the First Warden monster she spent her life resisting. Not because she was evil. Because she kept trying to fix every timeline. Thatâs tragedy.
Youâre not writing a simple novelization. Youâre writing a deterministic tragedy about leadership and regret disguised as a Dragon Age fanfic. Which is exactly the kind of insane over-engineering that produces good longform fiction.4
Just keep one thing under control: The story only works if every giant political consequence traces back to one personal decision. Emma trying to save Alistair from being king. Everything else should ripple outward from that. Otherwise the plot turns into a spreadsheet. And spreadsheets are where stories go to die.
The player as the Maker? or some kind of divinatory connection to Warden Emelyn (Emma), who does not understand she dreams about her alternate universe selves. Forks are decisions that create a major diverging timeline/s.
The biggest fork: Making Alistair a Warden or King. Emma wants nothing more than to spare Alistair a life of royalty, for them to go on as Wardens, elope, and cure the calling.
Generally, Emma will actively work to unattach herself and everyone she cares about from heavy responsibilities, havenât they done enough? some of them Alistair wouldnât turn away from (Wardens) but others he would (being King). The prime ending is tragic. Emma makes Anora Queen alone. Alistair remains a Warden and dies with Emelyn in the deep roads as southern Thedas is totally overrun by Veilguardâs mega-blight.
When they are about Alistair potentially becoming king, Emmaâs dreams use a lot of Chantry imagery, in particular of the pendant used by the (retroactive) knights of Redcliffe during the undead siege of the village. Alistairâs royal blood is a placebo, just like those medallions.
Emelyn will be having strange dreams about elven armies as she explores Bracillian forrest ruins & aquires the skill of the ancient elven arcane warriors. The ancient elven arcane warrior only wishes for death in return for his teaching, but through his bond to Emelyn, he expiriences her love and grief for Areli. so then he wants his people (the elves of the Bracillian forrest) to be saved.
So, why is prime Warden-Commander Emelyn without Alistair (and Zevran) in Awakening?
Prime Wardens travel toward Amaranthine together having the most blissful and optimistic time. They are seperated, Amaranthine is overrun, and Alistair is captured by the Architect, with Velennaâs sister. If Alistair is captured, Emelyn and Sigrun become a couple, although guiltily as she is searching the deep roads, almost positive Alistair is still alive. Sigrun understands this too well.
If Amaranthineâs population has troubles accepting the Warden-Commander as Arl of Amaranthine, she may marry Nathan to keep the ownership of Amaranthine in the Howe family and formalize alliance between Wardens and Howes, although succession from two Wardens is now an impending crisis. Emelyn (especially if sheâs married to Nathan Howe) as Arl/s of Amaranthine and Warden/s are sure to cause some controversy for the Wardens. This will take years/decades, but itâs possible because these conflicts, Emmaâs Wardens of Amaranthine will split from Hossberg Wardens.
Fork: Warden politics. When further from the âbest ending,â Emma is willing to let the Wardens go and allow the Hossberg Wardens & First Warden there to fuck everything up. but when closer to âgood endingâ she is driven by a need for control over her own faction she doesnât yet totally understand. (she must save Southern Thedas, landback to the elves, prevent the extinction of Orzammar and challenge their alliance with Tivinter)
Fork: Alliances or enemies with the Architect. if Emma makes a deal with the Architect to free the hostages, they are saved, but Alistair may never forgive her. If she doesnât make the deal, the Architect dissapears with his captives.
If Emelyn makes the deal, Alistair could return to Amaranthine to find her with a new husband and lover (and these are seperate people) further driving his alienation & drinking.
If Alistair doesnât meet his end with the Architect, and remains seperated from Emma, he risks being left in the fade by the Inquisitor. Emma will have dreams about Alistair trapped in the fade, which she believes to be his father, Maric. (who is also trapped in the fade, so)
if heâs King, Anora Alistair and Emelyn become a queerplatonic team, which will lead to drama and blackmail. Emelyn becomes (to the Ferelden populists) a sort of Rasputin figure as anti-magic sentiments increase in Inquisition. This will blow back on Amaranthine and Nathan Howe, especially if heâs married to Emma.
Fork: Betrayal or sacraficeâ Anora loves Ferelden more than anyone. She is incredibly intellgent and difficult to outmanuever, so will make every effort to avoid this, but at the end of the day will sacrafice damn near anyone (including herself) for the better of her country. is this part of how Alistair gets left in the fade?
If Audrey Hawke was not left in the fade what does she have to do with all this?
Alistair being king is nessisary for the survival of the alienage elves of Denerim. if King, his gift of land to the Dalish who raise an elven army in New Dales is an important alliance to the fight for the south in Veilguard. Anora doesnât know sheâs racist, so she canât make this gift alone.
The Architectâs alliance is needed for survival of much of the south, in particular the dwarves of Orzammar. Architect has a good chance of contributing intelligence for the Cure effort, as well.
in the most regretted timelines, one of Emelynâs worse fates, she becomes the ghoulish and necrotic First Warden (as in the concept tweets) of the twisted underground version of Weisshapt. at this point, too damaged to be spared her Calling, although thereâs still hope for the other Wardens. also thereâs always more mysterious and shitty Warden problems.
As for Alistair, he could by Veilguard be returning from his fade journey. so changed ready to forgive Emelyn, but shocked by what sheâs become. Also, Emmaâs now most intentionally on her journey toward a less regretted timeline, and may have no earthly desires left.
Depending on what happened with Anora betrayal & Alistair missing in the fadeâ who TF rules?! Cousland? how does the time in the fade effect his whole Calling situation?
If Audrey was left in the fade: Merrill will be looking for her.
Omega time loop: Emma ârerollsâ and goes back to the time of her ??Harrowing?, with more strange impressions and impulses she doesnât understand compelling her to make âbetterâ choices. Her dreams are the least bound by time, so in all loops sheâs recieving dreams from the notions of Emmaâs future self as spirits of regret and dispair, etc. but these double down every loop.
During the events of Origins, Alistair and Emelyn broke up anticipating him becoming King and married to Anora. although they continued an affair during the war, after the war and anticipating the wedding, Alistair meant to break it off for good. He has high standards for honoring his marriage by seperating from his love forever.
Emelyn prepares to leave for Amaranthine and may make a journey with another companion (Zevran or Sten) while Alistair stays at the castle and attempts to learn statescraft from Anora.
Alistair is sincerely attempting to measure up to his responsibilities, but Anora is much more the adult in the room. Often bored and misunderstood, Alistair regresses a bit to his boyhood in the chantry, but takes to drawing (or something he can do during boring meetings) and improves rapidly. Anora cooly and respectfully handles her duties with Alistair but they will not be able to concieve a child.
Alistair struggles with guilt, depression and drinking, so Anora does not believe he can stoicly handle a loveless marriage & being King. However, the more Alistair learns about his half brother Cailan (he didnât mean to be cruel, but he was foolish and not a graceful philanderer), the more Alistair resents him and wants to not be like that, and assumes Maric was the same.
Fork: Cailanâs bastard?? That would be conveinient.
Anora mostly wants a child, she doesnât really want to teach Alistair. she wants to be mother to an actual prince and prepare him for lifelong service as King. if no cure for the Calling, Alistair will be dead ~50s, aproximately the same age Maric dissapeared. Anora grew up with Cailan who was too spoiled, she knows Alistair was fucked up and neglected in a totally different way, and wants to do better with her own protege.
Anora writes to Emelyn and asks for help with a few things, with averting a Theirin succession crisis, which Emma has the expertise to look into in spite of her ambivalence. Anora also asks Emelyn to convince Alistair to resume their affair, somewhere away from Denerim, where they donât feel exposed. Anora can see Alistair in denial of his own resentment, the Queen is a good diplomat, and hopes advocating to restore to him something he lost and misses dearly, will improve their relationship, perhaps also his ability to focus on gaining new skills he needs to actually rule. (which he will need to defend the south in Veilguard)
Alistair must be convinced that his âhonorableâ approach to marriage and rulership is not working out. he needs a more pragmatic plan. He might warm up to it slowly, but he must get over his Chantry sensibilities about the institution of marriage and consider the best way to honor both women by what matters most to them.
Emelyn will have a lot of Ferelden problems and Warden problems to debrief with Alistair over their journey, and Alistair will be excited Emelynâs taking him away from the castle to do important Warden stuff. as they are leaving, to his annoyance they are joined by Zevran who is showing signs of blight sickness and wants to become a Warden, but Emelyn wants him to hold out for a cure.
Fork: Zevranâs lifeâ by the time of Veilguard, many blight sick in Hossberg recieve the joining without being compelled to join the Wardensâ it is possible Emelyn foreshadows this with how they handle it.
Hop to: đ€ Lintâs reply ^