# Jamverse > Jamverse is an extended universe fiction project published on Protocolized. It comprises four interconnected story cycles exploring protocols, systems, mythologies, and the invisible rules that shape how people live. https://jamverse.protocolized.io ## About Jamverse is a shared fictional universe hosted at jamverse.protocolized.io and published by Protocolized (protocolized.io), a magazine focused on protocol studies. The four universes explore social technology: the protocols, rituals, institutions, and legends that structure human life — and what happens when those structures take on a life of their own. There are currently 15 published stories across four universes. A writing contest (the Jamverse Jam Contest, theme: Stigmergy) is open until July 31, 2026 with a $1,000 grand prize. Approved contest entries are published to the site's Artifacts section, where the community can vote on them. All entries are licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. ## Universes ### The Stockton Chronicles Near-future Northern California where automation and innovation cause massive upheaval to careers, communities, and culture. Themes: liquid democracy, always-on AI agents, fast-moving biotech, economic displacement, shared housing co-ops, the influencer-industrial complex. - Universe page and toybox: https://jamverse.protocolized.io/universe/stockton-chronicles - Primary author: Randy Lubin ### Legends & Ledgers A timeless, folkloric world spanning rugged logging camps, isolated island states, wandering shows, and woods with long memories. Reimagines American tall tales in a parallel America, one town and one folk monster at a time. The technology explored is social technology: invented authority, myth as protection, rituals that metabolize crisis, bureaucratic obstruction as freedom. - Universe page and toybox: https://jamverse.protocolized.io/universe/legends-and-ledgers ### Trainverse (UET-1) A political thriller set on a train that travels from Lisbon to Laos, through Eastern Europe, Siberia, much of China and Southeast Asia. The train is a moving special economic zone that has to balance its priorities with various legal jurisdictions. Motion is legal protection. ECOROUTE biometric surveillance never stops. Key elements: bio-bands, the Pono (institutional memory device), Mirage Handler (human smuggling protocol), Caduceus DRZ, Zoothesia DRZ, Car 7. - Universe page and toybox: https://jamverse.protocolized.io/universe/trainverse ### Zoothesia Set in Mayaford (named for māyā, Sanskrit: illusion), where a harm-prediction algorithm colloquially called "The Zoo" shapes every citizen's sight based on a simple rule with wild consequences: Perception Must Preserve. The harm you might do determines the world you are allowed to inhabit. Key elements: Overlays (deep AR), Kapala-Halo, Foulmaxxing/Phobisculting, Faceting, Charntown (invisible tent city), Oren (Zoothetic psychopomp), ProfBot. - Universe page and toybox: https://jamverse.protocolized.io/universe/zoothesia ## Stories All stories are published on Protocolized. Listed most-recent first. ### The Big Man (Legends & Ledgers) Published: June 12, 2026 Author: Elizabeth Maher A woman invents a fictional giant to keep control of the logging company she inherits — then her creation starts having opinions she never wrote. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/the-big-man ### The Overloaded Train (Trainverse) Published: May 22, 2026 To see what the surveillance system refuses to show, a train attendant learns he first has to make himself invisible. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/the-overloaded-train ### All You Can Do Here Is Leave (Legends & Ledgers) Published: May 8, 2026 Author: Elizabeth Maher A family's letters home from a village that seems almost perfect — read in the order they arrive. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/all-you-can-do-here-is-leave ### The Headless Empire (Trainverse) Published: Apr 23, 2026 The CEO who built an unkillable financial system has vanished — leaving his assistant to reckon with a machine that runs perfectly without him. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/the-headless-empire ### Caduceus City (The Stockton Chronicles) Published: Feb 28, 2026 Author: Randy Lubin The protocols that keep a biotech campus running perfectly are also what make a death so easy to hide. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/caduceus-city ### T.R.O.(L.L.) (Legends & Ledgers) Published: Feb 6, 2026 A border guard who sees everything and reports almost nothing becomes, without meaning to, a monument. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/troll ### Minor Differences Repeating Forever (Zoothesia · Ch. 6) Published: Jan 23, 2026 Karina spots her exact double leaving a clinic. The fractal has already been running longer than she has. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/minor-differences-repeating-forever ### Missing Not at Random (Zoothesia · Ch. 5) Published: Jan 14, 2026 A teenager's school report about her missing brother becomes an investigation — the protocol that erased him didn't account for her. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/missing-not-at-random ### Day Traitor (Zoothesia · Ch. 4) Published: Jan 2, 2026 A trader who profits from reading the market's invisible patterns begins to suspect he is one of them. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/day-traitor ### The Predation Circuit (Zoothesia · Ch. 3) Published: Dec 23, 2025 On his eighteenth birthday, a young man wakes to an empty city and learns the surveillance that isolated him left one gap. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/the-predation-circuit ### Would You Stop Following Me If I (Zoothesia · Ch. 2) Published: Dec 3, 2025 When AR overlays let your ex-boyfriend see only what he wants to see, becoming monstrous isn't enough to be left alone. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/would-you-stop-following-me-if-i ### Perception Must Preserve (Zoothesia · Ch. 1) Published: Nov 25, 2025 A world that filters what everyone sees raises one question no one has answered: who controls the filter? URL: https://protocolized.io/p/perception-must-preserve ### Signals in the Margins (Trainverse) Published: Oct 4, 2025 Someone has replaced years of the train's security archive with soup recipes. The detective investigating finds the recipes are the point. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/signals-in-the-margins ### The Caucus (The Stockton Chronicles) Published: 2023 Author: Randy Lubin A young delegate at a liquid democracy forum learns the rules were written by people who already knew how to bend them. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/the-caucus ### Joan Henry vs the Algorithm (The Stockton Chronicles) Published: 2023 Author: Randy Lubin A narrative designer bets her livelihood on the one thing she's sure an algorithm can't replicate. URL: https://protocolized.io/p/joan-henry-vs-the-algorithm ## Jamverse Jam Contest: Stigmergy An open contest for writers, poets, and artists. Create a small artifact (under 1,000 words, a poem, a comic panel, a forum thread, an encyclopedia entry — any form) set in one of the Jamverse universes. Draw at least one element from a universe toybox. The artifact should engage the theme of stigmergy and reveal a surprising "traffic jam" (an emergent effect of the universe's protocols). Stigmergy: a mechanism of indirect coordination where agents communicate and collaborate by modifying their environment, stimulating further action in others. - Deadline: July 31, 2026 - Grand prize: $1,000 (winner published on Jamverse) - Runner-up prizes: 10 × $200 (published on Jamverse) - Up to 3 entries per person - Full contest details: https://jamverse.protocolized.io/contest - Submit an entry: https://jamverse.protocolized.io/submit - Prompt generator (Oblique Protocols): https://jamverse.protocolized.io/shuffle ### How to enter Entries are written directly in the submission form: a title and the artifact text (markdown supported), plus optional image attachments and an optional link to an original document for rich visual layouts. Select the universe(s) drawn from and the specific toybox elements used. If AI was used, describe how. Entrants agree to license their entry under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) — others may share and remix it, including commercially, with attribution and under the same license. ## Artifacts & community voting Approved entries are published to the Artifacts section at https://jamverse.protocolized.io/artifacts — each with its own page rendering the entry's text and any attached images. All artifacts are licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Visitors can vote: each browser gets a budget of 40 votes to distribute across artifacts. Scoring is square-root-weighted (an artifact's score is the sum of the square roots of the votes it receives from each voter), so spreading votes across several artifacts counts for more than piling them all on one — concentration has diminishing returns. Voting closes at the end of August 2, 2026 (two days after the July 31 submission deadline); votes cast after that are not counted. ## Key pages - Home: https://jamverse.protocolized.io - All stories (filtered by universe): https://jamverse.protocolized.io/stories - Contest call: https://jamverse.protocolized.io/contest - Submission form: https://jamverse.protocolized.io/submit - Artifacts (published entries + voting): https://jamverse.protocolized.io/artifacts - Prompt generator: https://jamverse.protocolized.io/shuffle - Protocol Lexicon (500+ terms from protocol studies): https://protocolized.io/resources/protocol-lexicon/ - Publisher: https://protocolized.io