System Fundamentals
The majority of sentient beings introduced to The System rarely intuit, much less confirm knowledge that "The System" is not a homogenous singular, but instead a layer cake of various systems. Each of which has it's own rules and S.O.P. All of which seem to be running on top of something older and more fundamental. The System stretches out in it's many forms throughout the Multiverse, ever expanding it's influence on the many versions of reality that exist.
The System
The System, as a high-level simplification of what it is and how it works, is that it is composed of higher dimensional energy constructs that guide the flow of ambient extradimensional energies when they overlap and interact with a reality.
To put it simpler, there is a sentient energy that helps distribute the fundamental energies of reality to the worlds it connects with so they can attempt to reach their highest potential.
What? I tried, maybe you should spend more Stat points in Intelligence next time. Just saying..
Major Layers of The System
[[systems-flowchart.excalidraw]]
Layers of The System
The Major Layers are really organizing principles for components of The System. The System seeks to produce the most optimal beings possible. The different layers have different ideas of how to interpret that and implement mechanisms to generate it from raw reality.
The System does this because it needs these optimal beings. That need forces it to pursue all possible paths to optimal that exist.
How does this relate to the Layers of the System? Because each is a pathway to generating powerful beings and refining them to their optimal state. This is all the more complicated because there's no limit to one layer or another operating on the same region of reality, they can overlap easily and the interaction can vary greatly from world to world. All serves to create research data for the system to find the path to optimal.
Each layer listed above has an infinite number of possible shards, each one assigned to oversee a world through it's Great Challenges. Each one layered in an area interacts with the other layers in interesting ways, leading to an infinitely variable set of System Protocols and uses that to transform living beings into an adaptive learning network of worlds using the developed images and refined energy stolen from all the creatures on the planets connected to the System. Not that the System advertises this or explains it's reasons why it does so. This is the kind of thing that takes a lot of time and effort on your character's part to uncover in game.