The engines of the ancient ages no longer function. Strangely, they seem to be built upon principles that no longer hold true. Everyone is familiar with the Inquiry Age structures, great labyrinths of blue and cyan crystalline matrixes. For a long time, we assumed that we simply did not know how to operate them. Others theorized (somewhat desperately) that the powerfire generated when these matrixes were destroyed was, in fact, their core purpose. The Construct Manuals of Winterdown described the means of operating various systems, but none of their instructions functioned properly. Most sages believed that existing constructs were too damaged to be functional, or else required some magic, or even some type of biology, that no longer existed.

  It was not until the discovery of the completely intact facility at Concentric Ellipses that any meaningful experimentation could be attempted. The residential district conformed perfectly to the designs in the Manuals, and the Control Podiums responded to basic Interface spells. Yet signals could not propagate throughout the network, and only devices near to the Command Core functioned properly. Reckless engineers severed certain conduits and moved certain devices, thereby discovering that any Construct Module could be made to function properly if it was installed near to the Command Core. Seers discovered dissonant aetherial currents generated by the Conduits. These currents resembled invisible waves of powerfire, or perhaps Aura. Finally, Erthan Erithoan, Holy Sage, solicitied Divine Revelation and composed his "Dispensation on Artifice," which revealed that the Gods had created Artificial Dissonance as punishment for an insurrection. That, apparently, had caused the end of the Age of Inquiry and the beginning of the Age of Stars.

  With that knowledge, Artificial Dissonance could be studied scientifically. Artificers created a miniature duplicate of the Command Core and Control Podiums, then copied the networks of Concentric Ellipses. Signals still only managed to propagate about 20% of the way through the system. Thus, they determined that Artifical Dissonance scales lineraly with the size and complexity of a system. Larger conduits are required to counterbalance this dissonance, but larger conduits also produce more dissonance themselves. The maximum complexity of a system is strictly limited by this principle. Modern Constructs are used for simple tasks like opening doors, charging artifacts, firing weapons, and generating heat or light. These tasks do not require complex circuitry, so they are not impaired by Artificial Dissonance. Presumably, the power that threated to supplant the Gods during the Age of Inquiry required a network of enormous complexity.

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  So how, then, do Autonomous Constructs function? In ruins, there are often found many varieties of Guardians, each with magical capabilities and some capacity for reason. And how could the Forges make such creatures, if subject to Artificial Dissonance? The blue and cyan colors employed in these Guardians might cause confusion. While the Forge-born resemble the Artifice from the Age of Inquiry, they are actually much more recent, mostly hailing from the Age of Wonders. The logical processing employed by the Guardians is actually a form of Enchantment grafted onto Artifice, usually Reason, but sometimes a type of Invested Magic, like Destiny, or Psychic Magic, like Will. Thus, a great deal of the logical processing is actually performed off-plane, perhaps in the Celestial Realm or one of the Brilliant Autonomies. This variety of Constructs must be tolerable to the Gods, because their logic is itself subject to the judgement of the Gods, and any emergent complexity must be summarized by one Spirit or another.

  Worth mentioning is Hrdioth's supposition that Construct Artifice itself is not derived from natural laws, but rather reflects the thought process of Mortals. In this framework, the biological design of the Human brain generates certain rational and irrational tendencies, which manifest in the shapes of circuitry and their nodes of generation and execution. If Hrdioth is correct, then the Ancient Constructs of Concentric Ellipses represented an attempt to construct a vast model of the Mortal Mind, while the Guardians of the Age of Wonders aspired to embody a fusion of Mind and Spirit. In any case, it is worth remembering that Construct Artifice is a structured manifestation of thought, and is thereby contiguous with all the other Magical Arts.

  - Epinoth Artaime, "Cognitive Sciences"