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

• Galactic core
  • Earth

• Scutum-Centaurus Arm
  • Girandole

Other

• The 10th Coronet
• Artemisios

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

History

Earth

See: Rigour for more details

Rigour

The known history of the Divine Cycle begins with Rigour, a tool created by Dr. Irene Klipsch-Dove to aid in planetary colonization efforts by the Orion Conservation Conglomerate. As its power and influence grows, Rigour takes over huge parts of humanity, turning them into its workforce in its non-stop push for productivity. Dr. Klipsch-Dove flees to a forested planet and develops Liberty and Discovery, as well as Righteousness in an attempt to stop Rigour, with Liberty and Discovery finding and rejecting the Orion worker Chital as their first Candidate.

The First Stellar Combustor

While Rigour pushes forward from Earth, many flee from its influence. Led by Righteousness, they drop stellar combustors in their wake to destroy the star systems between them and Rigour. While this damages Rigour and kills many of its workers, it is not enough to kill the Divine, only slow it down. In the wake of Rigour, a great deal of technology, history and knowledge from the Sol system is lost, leading to a gap in the historical record of unknown length.

The Second Stellar Combustor

At least sixty thousand years later, Rigour finally catches up to what is now the Autonomous Diaspora, and this time it launches a war against them. The first Diasporan Divines are created, Independence, Truth, and Equality, to engage with the threat. The Diaspora again uses a half dozen stellar combustors with the intent to try and destroy Rigour, which are delivered on a one way mission by a vessel piloted by rebels from Rigour's control, the Wayfarer True. While this does not succeed, it does propel Rigour through space, eventually landing on Ionias in the Golden Branch and going dormant. Rigour's old forces, now no longer thralls, would go on to form the People's Conglomerate of Orion.

In the Golden Branch, Rigour's body was inhabited by other former thralls who were now impossibly far from the worlds they knew, the only familiarity their dormant Divine. These people would split into two groups. One would eventually form into the Apostolosian Empire, building the Apokine, a mech that would connect psychically with the collective will of their people, in a reflection of Rigour itself. The other would use and study pieces of Rigour, eventually rallying under Chess Kesh to form the Principality of Kesh. This civilization would eventually collapse and be controlled from the shadows by the Rapid Evening, a group of highly advanced spies and saboteurs dedicated to preventing the use of Rigour's technology.

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.