Summary and Explanation:

The book is a bridge between many of my previous dreams and stories. It is more than just a book, it is the beginning of the universe in which my games will occur. The ending is no ending, but a meager halfway point and an escape into something much more vast. When this story realizes its full potential, the city will open up for the reader (and eventually the player) offering up a large cast of characters, some related to one another, others off on their own.

 

The time period is unclear (some point in the near future), but the city nonetheless seems to be falling apart what with a monolithic corporation that has its handprints everywhere, as well as a variety of disappearances and strange 'crimes'. While the plot is structured over a year's worth of activities, the book is non-linear. At the start, you may choose a character to read as. Each character is a different life, and you must navigate the world of The Static Variable just as they do. 

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From a detective who contacts a long-dead philosopher by radio over night and hallucinates during the day, to an infamous poet who discoveres a book that contains all other books (including his own unfinished magnum opus), to a scientist who unburies a strange liquid on Mars that may contain life and must find a way to tell the world aliens exist, there is a character here for everyone. The stories meet at the center of it all as the mystery of the city's disappearances comes together in the final act.