One force people discovered was...was the noosphere. What we think can influence reality but only if reality is unstable.

The Go-Away bombs dropped during the war stripped away the information that told matter what to be. Any of the physical forces that inform matter what it is, poof, gone, just like that.

But the matter's still left behind. That's what Stuff is, the formless matter.

Because it's so mutable, what people think can shape it. And people think some fucked up things. Or the thoughts are tangled and confused. I've seen it create beautiful things, but some are terrifying. Or strange. Or terrifying and strange.

No one can completely control their thoughts and everyone's got the subconscious ones underneath. So that informs the Stuff what it will be and it takes form again.

We call that "reification." One it's reified and solidified, it stays what it is - unless it's washed in more Stuff that changes it again. But a lot of times when Stuff reifies it does it en masse. So if a wave of it hits a town, it might all solidify into...something, all at once.

So you just have to deal with the new somethings. Or...the people, if the Stuff changed their form.