One of the greatest secrets of the Continuum is that Narcissists are, at least in part, right. Reality is mutable, and the proper application of Frag can free them from the walls of our reality. The rules that create Continuum space are simply one interpretation of the physics of time travel, and not an inherent feature. Certain segments of the Quicker Fraternity have to embrace at least the edges of this truth earlier, but almost willful self-denial often keeps them from fully accepting the ramifications. Spanners who achieve span 6 are fully educated in an experience much like receiving their memories of the In Between. Having lived a lie for dozens, if not hundreds, of human lifetimes and often hunted and killed those who they discover were proclaiming the truth the moment of revelation rocks many spanners to their core.
However, the Continuum insists, the lie is necessary. The wall of sentient will produces a potent defense, not against the Narcissists which lesser spanners believe to be the great plague of their reality, but against much darker and more alien civilizations with their own, incompatible histories that lay beyond that wall. The cost, the sacrifice of the potential realities Narcissists dream of, is one the Continuum is more than willing to accept to protect the time of the Societies and Inheritors. In fact, the building of that great wall required the scouring and scorching of entire realities too different from our own to be absorbed but close enough to allow access. It was, in fact, this act that created the great deserts of our own history.
From this defensive position the Inheritors launch ships Down, beyond the Antedesertium Capracornian era, to the Continuum's true battles for survival. Here, Continuum fleets launch incursions against these hostile civilizations and defend against attacks from those eternal enemies. The battles against the Narcissist kingdoms are merely a sideshow compared to these great clashes; fending off a society trapped as an unwilling rearguard against invaders which make the Inheritors seem all too human.
~~*~~