Collectives are divine beings (or divinely-altered beings) who are given consciousness and are influenced by the “creative plane”.
The creative plane is a plane representing the energy field that scraps, etc. interact with.
A collective can be “willed” into existence by a sufficiently powerful being, a strong enough will to summon a consciousness from the creative plane from scratch will result in a collective taking form. This will causes high concentrations of energy to build at a point in the creative plane, creating a hole in the plane's barrier; the plane exploits this hole to generate a new consciousness.
The process of willing a consciousness to take form can also be applied to a living being, with mixed and unpredictable results.
Occasionally, a collective may form naturally in areas with high scrap energy, inhabiting bodies such as inanimate objects. These collectives tend to be incredibly short-lived.
The high god Wax also designed the game “Tiny Cat People” to generate collectives as players, using the game to teach these new collectives how being a god works. If a collective player wins a game of Tiny Cat People, the collective may join Morbit as a god.
Collectives are usually one of two types:
Not all collectives neatly fit into these two types; for example, if a collective severs their connection to the creative plane, they may become a new type of collective with different behavior.