Editing Genius The Transgression/Chapter One: The Cosmos (section)

===The Monorail of Broken Dreams===

Mania is the energy of Inspiration; if Inspiration is the generator, Mania is the electricity. But Mania is a strange phenomenon. It is not generated by geniuses alone. Instead, all kinds of mortal thought can generate low amounts of Mania, with scientific or mathematical thought generating more, and the sort of thought one might call "revolutionary" (politically, scientifically, ethically, it doesn't matter) generating the most.

Mania windfalls occur during times of revolutionary scientific development, especially when an old idea is rejected and supplanted by a new one. These "Maniac Storms" have two effects. First, they birth new geniuses, as regular scientists (or just normal people with a touch too much curiosity) grow obsessed with the new revelations about the world. Second, they generate manes, which are places, things, and even creatures birthed from pure Mania.

When dreams, plans, and revolutions appear, or when they break down in neglect and failure, Maniac Storms sweep across the world. The twentieth century was practically one big Maniac Storm, and no one knows if it's over. (Brief periods of peace, such as immediately after World War Two and the Vietnam War, were shattered by events as momentous as Sputnik and the computer revolution.) These storms leave the world littered with bardos, false realms brought into existence by their own disproof. Bardos and the manes within them feed on Mania, and even the most hopeful, Utopian bardo either decays into nothingness or finds some way, however brutal, to steal Mania from the real world.