6. Structure of the Early Part of the Incident
There is actually quite an elaborate series of items before you get into the body of the "terminal" and begin experiencing the implant universe. Section 1 is the same for every penalty universe except for the substitution of the goal into the wording. The remaining sections are specific to the universe being implanted. Of these, section 2 is the one that is important. It lays in the symbols that will be used in the universe. Apparently there was a need to explain what things were supposed to be before the main body of the incident would have any meaning. It is possible that we will need to develop detailed item platens for section 2 of each universe to get full as-isness. But that's not an excessively large number of items. This is followed by many sections of items where they get you to mockup and agree to the implant universe. After all of this, you get pushed into the terminal's body and experience the universe. The sections are as follows:
Before the beginning, the individual is blanketed and pushed in.
Section 1 is the parody of the factors as laid out in platen 1.
Section 2 is the symbols. These items all have the form "THIS MEANS ...". They each have a picture of something significant in the incident and assign it a meaning.
Section 3: Anchor Points. These items are of the form "To (goal) is to look for the ___ (something that acts as an anchor point)". They have you spot various things in the mocked up environment and extend anchor points into them so as to create the space of the universe. For example, in our made up goal above, one of these items might be "to wash is to look for the cleaning bucket". These items are in pairs with the "look for" immediately followed by a "connect to" for the same object.
Section 4 Agreements. These are pairs of items. They are in the form "To (goal) is to agree to the (...)", and "To (goal) is for the (...) to become real". Various people, places, and things shown to you in the symbols section above are fitted into these items and you mock up agreement with them and make them real. In early runs, this section tends to build up a great deal of anticipation and interest in what is going to be shown to you and what is going to happen in the penalty universe. In later runs, this has more of a feeling of dread fascination, like a victim frozen in fear by the monster that is going to eat him.
Section 5 Mis-Remember. These items are in the form "To (goal) is to remember agreeing to the (a) before (b)" where a and b are different items in the agreement section above. They give you a wrong order for everything and get it all jumbled up. It makes it very difficult to meter check which thing is before which other thing in the incident.
Section 6. Confusions. These items are in the form "Now you become confused as to the sequence of agreements leading to (a) and (b)" where a and b are items from the agreements section. Also, they pair the items up differently here than in the mis- remembers above.
Section 7. Future Postulates. These are pairs of items. The first one of each pair gets you to postulate that one of the things you agreed to above is now extended into the future. The form of this first item is "To (goal) is to have future (item)". Then you look into the future and see it and get the item "To (goal) is to predict (item) in your future". In our window washing example, one of the pairs might be "to wash is to have future windows" and "to wash is to predict windows in your future". This gets you to extend the time track of the universe. It also gets you interested in what's going to happen in the universe.
Section 8. The energy postulates. You mock up the forces operating in the universe. This section might belong earlier. I have not done much work on it.
Section 9. The Decisions. This is a short section where your getting various items about wanting to rush through to the end and wanting to be affected etc. while you moving in towards the terminal's body. By this point, the thetan is usually tired of just receiving items and want to get into the terminal and get it over with already.
Section 10. Joining. This is a short section where you get items about deciding to be the terminal and entering the body etc.
All of the above sections together are probably only about 2000 items. At this point in the implant, you are in the body of the terminal and it is a "real" universe. From here on, it runs with the tone scale from 40 on down. The first part will be a series of 7 experiences of the goal quite high on the tone scale. Each experience has quite a lot of items and your quite happy about it except for a few little nagging worries type items that are a sort of dramatic foreshadowing of the later parts of the incident.
Then the incident begins to carry you down the tone scale. And it's mud from there on down.