Just as every civilization capable of fighting across worlds did, the Fallen Apostles had deployed vast numbers of defense systems in each of their Border Worlds. Besides interference stations and disruptors drifting through the void, these defenses included Passage Lock facilities integrated with the World Barrier.
We all knew what it took to "jump into" a world from the void. If a world were viewed as a database packetized with a particular encoding method, then a void fleet would be a set of extra data with special encoding and response frequencies. That extra data had to be frequency-modulated and translated, changing its own "frequency" to make contact with the world and changing its own "encoding" so both sides could interpret each other before it could enter a material universe.
The defensive devices installed on the World Barrier generally worked from that angle: they concealed the World Barrier's true "frequency," released constantly fluctuating chaotic information, altered the various constants of physical law displayed by the universe, and prevented outside objects from entering through deception, encryption, distortion, and refusal to respond. The Empire Fleet's struggle against the Fallen Apostles at the World Barrier was more like a decoding war that tested processing speed and scanning precision. There was no blaze of artillery, no armies charging under cover; the thrilling contest was hidden in clashes at the data level. As the most powerful of the accompanying mainframes, Bubble personally took part in the fight. She linked herself to the Empire Admiral's Shipboard Mainframe and worked as a hyper-speed calculator for nearly half an hour before finally breaking through the enemy's "Firewall" on the World Barrier. The moment the barrier was breached, she said something that struck me deeply:
"Child's Father, this world is password-free now..."
Do you know how badly I wanted to