# Osmos **Entity class:** Interactive work **Domain:** Games / Systems Thinking / Absorption **Doc Type:** Cultural Reference Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition ***Osmos*** is a physics-based game by Hemisphere Games in which the player controls a mote moving among other motes in a shared field. Larger motes can absorb smaller ones; smaller motes are absorbed by larger ones. Movement requires ejecting matter, so every attempt to change position also changes the player's mass and therefore changes which encounters are survivable. ## Systems significance The game's central lesson is relational rather than martial. Size has no meaning in isolation; it becomes consequential at the boundary where two bodies meet. A mote that can safely absorb one neighbor may disappear into the next, and movement toward opportunity can reduce the very capacity required to survive contact. This makes *Osmos* a compact model of three systems concepts: - **Relative strength:** capability depends upon the relationship between two organized bodies rather than an absolute label attached to either one. - **Absorption:** contact can enlarge one system by ending the distinguishability of another. - **Costly movement:** changing position consumes part of the reserve that made action possible. ## Corpus context [[blog/20170722 - The Atmospheres We Carry|The Atmospheres We Carry]] uses *Osmos* to clarify the bubble teaching in [[livestreams/Culture, Social Belonging, and the Environments We Create - Livestream|Culture, Social Belonging, and the Environments We Create]]. A person or culture can approach another field, exchange with it or be reorganized by it. The analogy is deliberately limited: human beings possess memory, reflection, alliance, choice and the ability to strengthen boundaries without consuming another person. The useful question carried from the game is therefore not who deserves to absorb whom. It is whether contact will preserve two recognizable participants or convert one into material for the other. ## Relationships - **Core ontology:** [[wiki/Metabolic Stack|Metabolic Stack]] · [[wiki/Individuation|Individuation]] · [[wiki/Boundary|Boundary]] - **Social mechanisms:** [[wiki/Behavioral Contagion|Behavioral Contagion]] · [[wiki/Conformity|Conformity]] · [[wiki/Social Learning|Social Learning]] - **Systems context:** [[wiki/Complex Systems|Complex Systems]] · [[wiki/Allometric Scaling|Allometric Scaling]] ## Specialized source - Hemisphere Games, [official *Osmos* site](https://www.osmos-game.hemispheregames.com/).