The Making of "BLAME!"
This text was made during the serialization of "BLAME" and, regarding the setting and contents of the story, was recorded almost directly from the author and editors.

[BLAME!]
This story is about the questing Killy who wanders in the incomplete, layered city.
The thing he is searching for is the Net Terminal Gene Infection.
He also has the invincible [Gravitational Beam Emitter]

[Killy - Article #0]
He is the man who has been searching for the Net Terminal Gene since long ago in this world.
His strength is of the highest degree and his fighting capacity is tremendous.
His body is a very reliable type of cyborg, since there is a device input connecter.
According to the presiding Safeguard Sanakan, after she was restored, Killy is able to translate literature that appears in the center of his vision and various information can enter.

[Net Terminal Gene - Part #0 Hypothesis]
This is what Killy is looking for.
Long ago, the infection began mutating.
If it is found, one can access the Netsphere.
Then, according to the words of the Governing Agency's Proxy Organism, if he were to speak, the world will turn to a state of chaos.
In Toa Heavy Industries, it was believed that Seu carried the dispatched gene.

[Gravitational Beam Emitter - Hypothesis #0]
This is the gun Killy has.
It's the kind of matchless weapon where nothing can withstand it's direct hit.
Instead of solid matter bullets, an energy-like beam is fired.
It is also capable of power regulation and rapid fire.
For a long time it was the only weapon Killy had.
It became clear that the presiding Safeguards also used such things.

[Silicon Life]
From a personal perspective, the advancement of Cyborg sciences is difficult. But a group of criminals persued reinforced bodies and eventually became cyborgs themselves.
Reputed as Silicon Life, they are the force spreading the Net Terminal Gene Infection in order to maintain the world's Chaos.
There are both males and females, and they grow from fetuses.
They are concerned with avoiding "Logic Contradictions" in their artificial intelligence.
They can only have intelligence and memories if such data has been entered.
If they fall into "Logic Contradiction" they will go crazy. After all, intelligence is very important.
Also, they raise their mechanized children.
Killy fights against them.
Safeguards also fight against them with the ultra-strength armed might that each one of them possesses.

[Electric Life Company]
The Governing Agency, its Safeguards, and Silicon Life all ignore the city thriving in what is called the Abandoned Level. The Electric Life Company is located there with its team of scientists.
As a matter of fact, it is the workers of that company who have control over the governing of the city.
There, Cibo was Head Scientist, but she worked against the Presiding Master of the company.
Her escape from that shut-in place was done with Killy's help. She succeeded in taking control and then decided to cooperate in Killy's quest.

[Megastructure - 1]
The superstructure that makes up the world is divided up by numerous ultra-durable walls through which nothing besides Killy's Gravitational Beam Emitter can penetrate.
There is a relationship between the barriers and Safeguard activity.
They tend to activate when one approaches a wall.
Within the walls, there is a system which maintains the environment.
The area is created by the Builders.

[Safeguard 2]
Safeguards are automatically invoked by humans without legitimate Net Terminal Genes trying to connect to the Netsphere.
Neither the Netsphere's governing level nor the Governing Agency can interfere with their function or stop them.
They might be akin to a virus checker.

[The World 1]
The world is one extensively enormous structure with all the buildings linked together to make giant cities.
According to the Governing Agency's governing level, the world is plagued with "random growth".
This never ending growth made the world chaotic.
To stop it, the Net Terminal Gene must be found.

[Governing Agency]
This is the governing level that can be accessed with the Net Terminal Gene.
Is it the entire world's OS?
Even if that's so, does the network space outside of the Netsphere equal the entirety of the BLAME! world? In that case, access seems possible.
However, even though the Governing Agency doesn't (cannot) control the world in anyway, it still may be the Netsphere's OS.
And given that, the world's OS, as a foundation, becomes unimportant.
However, is it the "System"?
In the lower levels, the ones with the Safeguards, etc., Builders reconstruct the city meaninglessly with the same look.
Killy's quest is to find hope for the rebuilt world.
Can he manage that?

[Builders]
These are beings who manufacture structures.
For these types of machines, individuality (consciousness) is (normally) absent.
An area with a lot of Builder activity is called a "Growth Zone."
The city is being randomly expanded.
The Netsphere's hardware is built within the principal body framework.
The Governing Agency says that this is the foremost cause of the world's chaos.

[The World 2/ Network]
In the BLAME! world, the world is completely besieged by the electric network.
Using modern language, one can say it is a complete ubiquitous world.
And concerning that higher network, the operating computer's performance resembles a thing of high speed processing, unlimited capacity, and unlimited size.
But something can only be "omnipotent" and "omniscient" in theory. In reality, something described as "nearly limitless" actually does have some limit, and so is no unlimited.
Also, one is made to think that there are boundaries to the computers ability because most of the leftover data in its memory is junk.
This junk info is that of some hundred or thousand billion humans. Each of their experiences takes up a large quantity of memory and recordings.
These records are just simply being stored and has become the enormous burden of the network.

[World 3/ Shape and Size]
This world extends to approximately the outer edge of the solar system.
The layered city is a smaller portion of it, coming up to Jupitar's orbit.
Materials for the world come only from the planets.
This closely resembles what is called a "Dyson Sphere".
In 1959 the space researcher, Freeman Dyson, proposed the Dyson Sphere theory.
He thought that if you take a fixed star, like the sun, and cover it in a shell, energy that would normally be cast off into space would instead could be used to fuel our world.
However, as will be stated later on, the Blame! world's basic establishing factor is the engineering and management of Dark Matter as soon as it became possible to do so.
Since there is the possibility, one would think that the world lost its spherical shape so why not think of the layers as being shaped like a stack of thick donuts.

[The World 4/ Power]
With circumstances similar to a Dyson Sphere, basically the sun is like a power furnace.
It also acts as a nuclear power generator and one can imagine it being used this way.
With only that as power, one can expect to obtain unlimited power for one thousand million years.
When considering how the layered world handles power transmission, one must think it relies on the Gravity Furnace, as will be stated later.

[World 5/ Environment]
In this world, there are no germs. There are no living viruses.
Nano machines are always present in the air, but living, dangerous bacteria are not.
Whenever there is an outbreak of disease, it is instantly exterminated by the nanomachines.
The reason for this began with the Governing Agency in their effort to prevent disease in order to benefit humans. They created the program, although there are system errors.
Compared to the Earth's surface, there is a giant manufactured volume of living space. All of that had no germs from the beginning.
And then, even if a human is injured, so long as he has been giving regenerative abilities, it's all right.
Also, the connections in the Nervous System which create the shock of pain are immediately destroyed. Therefore, even surgery is okay.

[Killy? #1]
He's human but has had high level cybernetic enhancements.
He's pretty nearly ageless and immortal.
Given that, there's a high probability that he has been living for over 1000 years.
He probably doesn't have any recollection of much of his life.
Ages ago, when the Netsphere was completely functional, he might have had some kind of police officer job.
Then there was the change from the human race to Silicon Life.
Humans cast off their living bodies.
Criminals got in the way of the network because they had been antagonized so much by people who used different bodies, that they came to hold a terrible grudge.

[Net Terminal Gene? Part #1 Hypothesis]
There was no distinct time when it arose but it was right around the time when the Netsphere came to be.
Then, a large quantity of diverse people existed, along with, presumably, Net criminals.

Translation to be continued. . . Weekly Updates. . .