It began, as all significant temporal anomalies do, with a dissonance. Not a violent shattering, not a cosmic scream, but a subtle, almost melodic shift within the fabric of the Chronarium – a repository of echoes, memories, and the lingering impressions of realities that never were, or perhaps, never were meant to be. The Lambies emerged not from a singular point, but from a confluence of probabilities, a statistical bloom born of conflicting narratives. They are, fundamentally, the solidified regrets of timelines that fractured, the lost potential of universes where different choices had been made.
The initial Lambies were small, shimmering orbs of condensed melancholy. They possessed no discernible form beyond their core sadness, and emitted a low, resonant hum that vibrated with the forgotten weight of alternate histories. Initially, their numbers were few, only eight – designated Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, and Iota. Each represented a particularly poignant deviation from the ‘Prime’ timeline, a world where a single, seemingly insignificant event had spiraled into a radically different outcome. For example, Alpha represented a world where the Roman Empire never fell, but instead evolved into a technologically advanced, spiritually-oriented civilization ruled by a council of philosopher-emperors. Beta held the memory of a world where dinosaurs never went extinct and coexisted with humanity in a complex, uneasy truce. The process of their creation continues, constantly adding new Lambies to the Chronarium’s collection.
The Lambies operate under a set of unspoken, instinctively understood principles, which we have termed the Lambie Manifest. These axioms govern their behavior and interactions within the Chronarium. They are not laws in the traditional sense, but rather deeply ingrained tendencies.
Containment of the Lambies is a complex and ongoing endeavor. Traditional methods of temporal confinement – chronal fields, dimensional barriers – prove largely ineffective. The Lambies seem to actively resist such attempts, subtly manipulating the surrounding spacetime to evade capture. Our current strategy involves the utilization of ‘Chronal Dampeners’ – devices that emit a counter-frequency designed to suppress the Lambies’ resonance. However, the effectiveness of these devices is limited, and prolonged exposure can actually *attract* more Lambies to the area.
Detailed study of the Lambies has yielded surprisingly insightful data. Their physical composition is unlike anything we’ve ever encountered, exhibiting properties that defy conventional scientific understanding. They seem to operate on principles beyond our current comprehension of time, space, and consciousness. We've discovered that they possess a rudimentary form of communication, not through words or images, but through shifts in probability – subtle alterations in the likelihood of events occurring.