Here's a though t that may be helpful. Andean communities have long had the notion fo an Apu. This is an entity which gathers on or around a peak near a community, embodying the harmony with which that community lives. A mature apu strives to keep the community in harmony, and so ensure its own health.
Apus can become over-enthusiastic and roboticise their community, forcing people into rote activity in th epursuit fo harmony. This drifts into another state, in which strong feelings, but always negative, are harnesed. This flow is caled "hucha", and results in parasiticisationa nd ultimate destruction fo the community. Echo isa hucha-fuelled apu.
The complex cosmology that supports this notion has two blocks, one of total order, th eother toal disorder, with a flow of th eopposite of hucha, Illya, flwoing fromt he one to the other. Our world constitutes a mebrane that stops these two instantly annihilating each other. It is constructed and maintained by a layer of order called the hanaq, at the orders of another layer, called the uchu. Apus arerooted in the uchu. Other beings - saqras - exist as partial inteligences, spun off from apus and their activities. Echo has a number of such, from the haunted van to Sam rebooted, to ultimately, the unfortunate Flynn.
More on this here: http://www.darksunbrightmoon.com/ See 'plot summary' for a more analytical view of the cosmology.