Divine Universe

Spoiler warning! This article contains major spoilers for all of the Divine Cycle. Tread carefully!

The Divine Universe is the informal name for the setting first created for COUNTER/Weight, and expanded with Twilight Mirage, PARTIZAN, and the upcoming PALISADE. The stories which take place in the Divine Universe are referred to as the Divine Cycle.

The Divine Universe takes place in the Milky Way, unknown thousands of years after humanity's expansion to the stars.

Places

A Partizan era map from the Divine Principality.

Major Regions

• Golden Branch
  • Apostolos
  • Counterweight
  • Kesh

• Twilight Mirage
  • Quire system
  • Palisade

• The Divine Principality
  • Stel Nideo
  • Stel Kesh
    • Partizan (moon)
  • Stel Apostolos
  • Stel Orion
  • Stel Columnar

• Scutum-Centaurus Arm
  • Girandole

Other

• The 10th Coronet
• Artemisios

• Collier
• Crown
• Leraphon IV
• Leraphon V
• Iraleph

History

Rigour

See: Rigour.

Rigour, created as a tool to aid in planetary colonization efforts by the Orion Conservation Conglomerate, takes hold of humanity. The people who would become the Autonomous Diaspora flee, using a stellar combustor to destroy star systems between them and Rigour. In the wake of Rigour, a great deal of technology, history and knowledge is lost, leading to a gap in the historical record of unknown length.

At least sixty thousand years later (but possibly much more), Rigour and its OriCon forces encounter the Diaspora once again. The first Diasporan Divines are created, and stellar combustors are used, this time to try and destroy Rigour. Rigour is propelled through space, eventually landing on Ionias in the Golden Branch and going dormant. Survivors of Rigour would go on to form the Rapid Evening and the Apostolosian Empire.

Golden era

For twenty thousand years, OriCon and the Diaspora continue their expansion through the Milky Way. OriCon experiences a succession of popular revolutions and capitalist overthrows.

Events of COUNTER/Weight

In the Golden Branch, the Golden War occurs between OriCon, the Diaspora and the Apostolosian Empire. Soon after, there's a final conflict with Rigour, where it is finally destroyed at great cost.

Interstitial period

The time between the end of Rigour and the creation of the Divine Fleet is one of strife, with continuing wars between Divines and humans. This period is when the Divine Fealty is created; the Rapid Evening's prognostication machine Crystal Palace is also built around a thousand years into this era.

Divine Fleet

Kamala Cadence founds the Resonant Orbit alongside Independence. The Divine Fleet is formed, a nomadic society of Divines and humans. The Fleet remains prosperous for thirty thousand years. However, at the end of that time, Divines of the Fleet begin to decline and die, in part due to the efforts of the New Earth Hegemony but also due to internal conflict regarding the Pleroma Hypothesis. Empyrean creates the Twilight Mirage, an artificial nebula, around the planet Quire to protect and hide the Fleet.

Divine Principality

See: History of the Divine Principality.

The Divine Principality rises from the union of the Divine Free States and the Rapid Evening. Over the course of a few thousand years, this empire becomes a galactic superpower, as it violently subsumes almost all other civilizations in the Milky Way within itself. The few cultures that remain are the Branched, the Twilight Mirage, and those beings living in the so-called no man's sky of the Scutum-Centaurus Arm.