Overture
Written by: Daniel Anillo
Story and Universe development by: Daniel Anillo, Scott Newmyer, and James Barton
Concept Art and Illustrations by: Athavan Ananthakanesamoorthy
What was:
"Perfection: How uncanny, that such a concept manifest in a universe where attainment is unattainable. I find myself equal parts fascinated and disheartened. Your species conceived the word - that alone is a paradox - but you’ve failed to comprehend the deeper complexity of that...idea. Can you not see the danger? Humans worship perfect beings and pay homage to ‘all powerful’ and ‘all knowing,’ as if such words are authoritative. But what does one do with infinite knowledge and unfathomable power? What purpose is there to serve once it has been claimed?
It is not something for the euclidean to understand, but I will do my utmost to convey such an inhuman concept into a medium by which you may interpret.
A story then.
I understand your trepidation in continuing. There is no reason to heed my words. I won’t blame you for putting this down. Beautifully enough you have the freedom to do so. Either way, excuse my rudeness. Introductions should always come first. I am all that has been, is, and will become. I am not named. Names are redundant when you are the only existence; however, I understand your species need to characterize, especially in our case now, and there is a word the humans have come to possess that might define my existence in the most base sense - god. But...
I am not a god. Nor am I your God. Those are human terms, defined by humans, who, rather than accept ignorance in the pursuit of knowledge; instead of allowing something unfathomable to remain in the unknown until enlightened. Your species has dissected their idea of higher powers, claiming full understanding of its wants and needs, therein bastardizing the thing and word itself, thus negating any potential for real truths.
I am the first. I am outside judgment. Therefore, I am without fault or burden - save for one thing. I am perfect. Do not mistake this for arrogance. It is-was, merely fact. That statement no longer holds true.”
Order paused, contemplating: eons passed. “Look at me, constantly dwelling on the past or anxiously anticipating the future - never present.
Glorious, no? The arbitrary nature of it all. To be ignorant of what comes next.
I gave up the shackles of omniscience. A pointless thing. If one knows their end the in-between defies meaning -
-Apologies. It has been a long time - for ever actually - that I’ve truly had someone to communicate with, or more appropriately, a reason to communicate. Yet still I lack the means to speak with you in a physical manner; cursed to never exist, the true joy of experience forever beyond my understanding. I am all, and yet that means nothing to me. I simply know I am all because there is nothing else. But what does that mean to me? Does it mean anything? I have no mirror of which to gaze upon myself. There is no other who might look upon me objectively and explain my nature. Experience yields understanding. Knowledge is merely the accumulation of facts. One can know the answer to a question but not understand its relative application. I am such. My burden to watch and tell stories -
- Forgive my ramblings. You are not here to understand me, or listen as I explain the cosmos and its intricacies. You are here because like all individualistic creatures with conscious thought, you wonder: Why do you exist? What is the purpose? Is there one? What makes you so special?
We are wasting time. The story unfolds even now. Come, sit: I will bring you to the present and together we can watch the conclusion. Listen closely, pay attention. Someone must heed before the inevitability arrives.
I spoke of perfection, but it is the imperfection of the universe that makes it so astoundingly beautiful, so wonderfully tolerable.
Once, for millennia, order subdued and reined all the was; a necessity for total comprehension. Yet comprehension is only one half of the equation to knowledge. With one half complete, I sought the other by fragmenting the redundancy of order. The aftershock of my discharge still echoes throughout the natural universe that is, forever forging infinite potentialities.” Perfection sighed deep with contentment, reveling in its own chaos.
“In the instant I unleashed perfection; as I evolved into all that is and will become, something else was conceived. A remarkable, unprecedented accident emerged in the swirling destruction of a universe at birth. And because such things exist. I cease to.
Fear not little facet, I still endure. I’ve simply taken a more passive stance. I can no longer affect you in any conceivable manner. I am merely an observer. I exist only so that you may live.
Therefore I leave what is to come in the hands of my...children? They are complicated beings; birthed from me, yet are me. Such beautiful phenomena, so perfectly imperfect. In the short span of their existence they have envisioned and given life to a universe beyond my imagining, but they are not without fault. They have erred. Creation is imbalanced. Entropy’s perfection has been disturbed.
Absolute order, stability, unity, flawless ,complete; beyond improvement in every aspect of being. For a time I embraced this, yet there is a deeper, darker connotation hiding behind the glory of that definition.
Nothing.
That is the true meaning behind what it is to be perfect. There is nothing more to want; nothing more to know; nothing more to strive for, no knowledge to pursue, no love to be gained, no positivity, no negativity. Once perfection is reached. There is: nothing.
How can I be all? if I am nothing?”
Order released its potential; entropy came into existence; and in the aftershock of that discharge, a universe was born.
Prologue
What is:
Rindel; Aspect; embodiment of potentialities, was furious.” Are you all so arrogant that you cannot think past your core selves? I did not waste effort in gathering you here for some foolish scheme!We are in danger, and there are far too many possibilities for me to risk-”
“Calm, brother,” Tharyn; Aspect; embodiment of intellect and its pursuit -said soothingly from the left of his sibling.“You’ve made your point. What impending news have you brought that it requires all present?”
Twelve Aspects - the building blocks of Life - gathered around a map of Creation; their atlas currently tuned to a spiral galaxy within the third dimension.
Rindel stepped forward. As was his habit, he assumed the form of a human. Depending on who beheld him, Rindel might be considered repulsive or the absolute essence of beauty. He did not exist of the material, none of them did; however, nor did he exist in the ethereal; his body rested somewhere in between granting him a transparent, shimmering effect. Every limb, tendon, vein, skin cell and atom continuously shifted between an infinite number of formations: skinny, then lean, muscular, frail, wrinkled,decrepit, freckled, broken, it never stopped. He lived as a perpetual flow of ever changing possibilities. The aspect looked around at those gathered, taking time to give each one personal attention. Then he began, “Our first creation. Not our initial singular endeavors. I refer to our first creation, together.” The other Aspects became charged. Whispers began floating around. Rindel waited until they gathered themselves. “By cooperating together. We gave them...something, or Lux did by not limiting his potential?” Rindel seemed nervous, confused, not his conventional self.
Simehthea; Aspect; embodiment of ordinance and universal law, spoke up, “Potential, possibility, change? This is your realm of understanding, brother. Did we err? or did you?” Her question held no judgment. She and Rindel were similar. Their creations were neither material nor ethereal. Universally they are both essential, for universal sustenance, and yet, entirely disparate from their siblings.
Rindel turned toward his sister, “I see the potential of something that is, or might be made. I do not create. I am the potentialities afterward-”
“Exactly: you don’t create,” snapped Zeril, leaning casually upon the planet that was Amon. “You’re not a constant as we are. You’re the probability of chaos. Why should any of us believe what you have to say? You could have seen whatever this is from the start. Planned this moment eons ago. I should have followed my instincts and never come-”
“All you’re capable of is your instinctual nature.” Rindel interjected,” so if you could silence it for a short while. I will explain why I asked you to come here.”
Zeril bristled; however a harsh glare from Tharyn’s golden eye silenced further argument.
Rindel became somber now, his faces becoming reflective. “We all took part in this. Every one of us came together to create the first, true, living species. They are the product of us all. The approximation of all our potential - reduced to a euclidean scale. We were naive.
I don’t believe they are the flawed creations we thought them to be. We were impatient in our infancy. As an extent we did not give them time to evolve from theirs.”
“Cease with the dramatics, brother.” Amon’s voice sounded like plate tectonics sliding along each other. At first his surface remained blank. Then all at once: mountain ranges arose, forming the sockets of his eyes, deep multicolored valleys bloomed coloring the iris’, and a swirling vortex raged where a mouth should be. He focused on Rindel, enlarging his planetary form for intimidation. “What have they done? I don’t have time for your theatrics. My domain requires constant rule.”
Rindel sighed with dramatic exasperation, “That is because it’s constantly adapting to you. You need to-”
“Speak!”
Rindel glowered - pride insulted - an instant later that face vanished, fading into something akin to triumph. He smiled, reminding himself that control lay in his hands. Fate was attached to his fingertips. He knew everyone and everything hinged on his next words. Even now he could choose to lie, or say nothing; with or without his direction the outcome might still be the same. Who knew?
Time was against them - him too - yet even so the Aspect of potentialities took a moment to savor the universe as it was now. This moment. It would never happen again. After this, all would change. He shuddered at the perfect irony of that statement. Or was it fate?
“Humanity has manifested their own Aspects.”
Silence settled like a heavy fog. Turning, Rindel studied his siblings expressions, reveling in their disbelief, anger, curiosity, fear - observing with pride as a single strand of fate began threading into infinitely more.
“Rindel, you cannot expect us to believe such a thing. It is neither probable, nor possible. We are the only things in this universe with such power, and even we are incapable of making...one of us. Manifested is a strong word. Did you mean-
“I used that diction because that is the proper translation of what occurred. We all know your intellect is beyond ours, Tharyn, but don’t patronize me.”
“Explain yourself, what information have you gleaned?” Tharyn’s golden eye blinked excitedly at the promise of something still unlearned.
Rindel’s faces crossed into layers of irritation, “I’m trying to get to that.” Spinning on a heel he waltzed back to the center of the map. “At first I saw nothing. I had not considered humanity until the thought occurred, but once it did, their potential futures flared and I noticed an abnormality in the strands. There were far too many: none conclusive.
So I went to find them. “As he spoke the map Rindel stood upon began altering its dimensions, zooming, adjusting, refining until the galaxy disappeared. In its place hovered a single image: a magnificent gem. The planet attempted to obscure itself behind a swathe of white clouds, yet this translucent veil only magnified its seductive allure: Azure oceans encompassed continents of emerald, gargantuan land masses threaded by veins of sapphire; the rigid backs of gray mountains arched skyward, their jagged peaks softened by tufts of alabaster snow; great patches of barren land - the tanned skin of deserts - stood in stark contrast to the vibrant jungles and golden plains sweeping the land like colored paint strokes. Yet dominating this spectacle, were lights, thousands upon thousands of multicolored lights twinkling like stars in the night.
“What are those points of illumination?” Shiya asked. The Aspect of Interactions lifted an appendage; in response the two dimensional image rose from the floor. She scrutinized it, twisting and rotating the three dimensional planet from a distance. At a thought the hologram honed in on a specific point of civilization. When the picture adjusted to full clarity, her and the others gasped.
For a few heartbeats Rindel’s faces harbored annoyance. He glared menacingly at his sister before continuing. “We never gave them a name. To us they were merely a what-if?; now, they are a thriving species who call themselves Humanity, or Mankind. Those points of illumination are them.”
“They did it?” Shiya sighed contentedly, not noticing or caring for Rindel’s pleading look. “They were successful in building and maintaining society? How do they maintain the masses?”
“Sister...There is something far more important to focus on if you will allow me to get there.”
Shiya shrugged an apology.
Rindel turned from her and continued walking in circles, “Despite your interruption - I agree your surprise is well founded. Early in their evolution we regarded humanity’s random nature as defective; too chaotic to realize true stability or effectively control.
We moved on. Our impatience hindered true understanding of our creation. What we initially deemed as defective is in fact latent potential which takes time to grow. Achieving true freedom of will requiredeachof our aspects integrated to the precise measure for a balanced give and take functionality of opposing natures. Random yet adaptive. Intelligent yet instinctual. Independent yet codependent. They are miniature versions of us, unhindered by the universal limitations we find ourselves constrained by.”
Rindel stopped moving, turned to the hovering planet and flicked his wrist;the image phased, focusing on a area surrounded by tall structures with hundreds of humans milling about the bases. “Every child is brought into their world pre-suffused with all of which we are capable. They were a test to see what would happen, but none of us fully understood the scope of what that entailed.”
The aspect of potentialities shook his head in disappointment. “This is why I have gathered you all. I do not understand the specifics of what I’m about to tell you; it is not in my nature of understanding.But what is happening will be obvious to all in a moment.” Rindel turned in a slow circle, “Human thought is conscious - not strictly instinctual. Therefore as energy cannot die, and energy is required for them to think. Where do you think that energy goes? Where do you think it has been going?
“Oh...no. In Creations name you cannot be correct.” Simehthea’s voice boomed, like a bell tolling the doom-times.”
Rindel’s eyes met hers, they managed a telepathic conversation in the time it took him to prepare the next thought. Law and potentiality agreed; the odds were not on their side.
“We are not physical beings. Our thoughts are the tools we possess for shaping Creation. Humans were outside our dimensional comprehension -that’s why we made them - yet as an extent we were unable to predetermine how that might affect physical beings.Their hands shape, but their minds are how they bring something into existence; therefore conscious energy travels into whatever they focus on.
This explains how they’ve managed to create their own Aspects. Ideas contain an...essenceper-saybecause it requires energy to think consciously. I believe Lux may have left this behind for us as a gift. He may have been the only one to have seen this coming. This is how we surv-”
“Ether? Creation? Their thoughts are filled with empyrean matter?” Tharyn’s skepticism was minor in comparison to the hopeful desperation edged into every syllable.
Amon cut in before his brother could continue, “These Aspects, theirgods, this new threat-is your fault.” The accusation was leveled at Rindel. “Is it not your job to monitor potentialities? To choose the safest option? When we decided to give them freewill, how did you not see this future?”
Rindel rounded on his brother, tiny in comparison to the morphing planet that was Amon. “Please! Subdue your nature for one moment and think! rather than merely respond! I told you the moment we considered freewill as an option, the potentialities expanded into the infinite. We were allured by such an uncertain intrigue, and if I remember correctly, your vote cast as a ‘yes’ when it came time to make a decision!” Rindel’s voice cut harshly, but the faces he wore begged his brother to reason with him,“Every one of you, including me, neglected to see their potential. In truth: we never could. Until now.
Rindel spoke slowly, looking to the billions of strings attached to his finger tips - a faraway look in his shifting eyes. “We are all pieces oftheirwhole. Singularly, not one of us has the ability to conceptualize what our creations are fully capable of - because we are incapable of conceptualizing one another; maybe there is a reason behind this universally permeating mandate? A known, but forever unintelligible question for beings who create answers - Sorry. It’s not in my nature to stay focused for long.”
“It is alright, brother. You have our attention,” Shiya soothed from across him.
Rindel shook himself and bowed an apology to his siblings. “In short. We are the pinnacles of all that they can be; however, we could never be all that they are.” Rindel became very serious. The air surrounding the Aspects became charged with dormant potential. “We cannot afford to fight any longer. We are now constrained by a law that doesn’t exist to us. Our rule over Creation is in jeopardy on two fronts. We won’t survive like this. Humanity is the answer: Or our end.”
Rindel turned to the golden eye of Tharyn, “To answer your question brother, yes. Their thoughts possess the empyrean matter. It is how they fuel these current god’s. Focus on the planet. I know we cannot see ether, but we can sense its presence.
Zeril and Amon, Aspects of instinct and adaptation, felt it first and growled low. They almost spoke in unison. “It resides with much heavier influence in these areas, and buildings like these. Significance?”
“This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. That is why you are all here. This decision is not one I can make alone. There are too many strands to consider, and nothing can be done with any amount of certainty to the hereafter. Those points you referred to Zeril are areas with higher religious zeal.Religionis the over arching word which represents the worship of higher beings. They have multiple religions however...hundreds if not thousands.”
“Thousands?!”Shiya’s voice held notes of disapproval. “Why the need to create these gods in the first place? We gave Humankind all the potential of a higher power. What property are they lacking that would requirea god?What benefit do they reap from worshiping something they’ve created themselves? Is that not the same as worshiping their own ego? They should be stronger as a species. That lies in my realm of Creation. I will look into my err.” Shiya closed her eyes and went silent.
Rindel smiled somberly, “The answer to your questions is a simple one: we were not there to guide them. These creatures have a near unlimited capacity to acquire knowledge, yet no matter how intelligent they become, one question will forever remain unanswered: what happens when they die?
Their fear of such an incomprehensible unknown, cultivated a necessity for a higher power which fills the void of death. We were not around to answer questions of the material, so they have no direct knowledge of the ethereal - not with any certainty.”
Tharyn’s voice chimed in, simultaneously hopeful and disappointed, “No knowledge? They are entirely unaware of their own potential? They’ve never studied it in detail?”
“They did, then abandoned it for higher reasoning.”
“That statement is paradoxical. Higher reasoning should go hand in hand with the mind and body. Separation should not be possible; both should have advanced synchronously. I will study into this.”
Rindel ignored the latter comment and addressed the former, “In the arrogance of their intelligence humanity put aside the ethereal for the logical. Technology and science has defined and explained the natural world around them. They are under the impression this form of deduction will reveal all answers. Although they have advanced far enough to understand such a small and estranged energy signature. They have yet to acknowledge the true potential of it’s existence. As things are now, the ethereal is treated as superstition and fantasy. We needn’t fear them discovering what they have done or what they can do.” A palpable tension lifted at this confirmation; Rindel did not look satisfied. “Their ignorance is irrelevant in the grander scheme. Humanities gods exist in a state of akinetic mutism, but that won’t last very long. In a few years-”
“What is a...year?” Simehthea interrupted.
Rindel tried to manage his ire. “It is a way they calculate the passage of time.”
Tharyn’s giant eye blinked questioningly. “Why limit yourself to such things?”
“I do not know, and I understand your compulsion for knowledge brother,but please allow me to finish.” Rindel lowered the hovering planet back into the galactic floor and began pacing across the center. “In a few years these gods will have assumed enough power to break from their state of mutism. They willmaterialize. Of this one thing I am certain. It is inevitable; the strands deem it. If that time comes, there will be war, and I can’t say there will be anything - on any plane of existence - that will survive such overwhelming destruction.”
“Then we kill them them now,” Amon growled. “Why react when we can act?”
“How would we destroy them?”
“The same way we ended Lux.” Zeril spat. The others reprimanded him for such an indecorous reminiscing of their departed brother. Even the planet form of Amon shook as if to say, ‘wrong.’
Shiya recovered first. “The humans would suffer from such - would they not? We did.”
“We did because we are the balance in the universe. Because we built them to be autonomous, I don’t believe the humans would be cognizant of what we’re doing.” Tharyn spoke deliberately, growing with confidence as he drew from his vast source of knowledge. “As they are unaware of, have no knowledge of, and as an extent no direct connection with their gods. There should not be any negative repercussions.” He paused, then added, somewhat gleefully. There is no direct link of which I can fathom that would make them susceptible.”
“Rindel?” Shiya asked tentatively, “What do the strands say? if we unanimously agree to this action?”
Rindel considered the thought, then made the action resolute. Upon his fingertips new strands winked into existence. He watched expressionlessly, idly flicking his fingers as he scanned through thousands of possible futures. Moments later his head snapped up. “Disperse. Quickly. We reconvene at the death of a god.”
What shall come...
