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==Earth== | ==Earth== | ||
<blockquote>''See | <blockquote>''See [[Rigour]] for more details''</blockquote> | ||
===Rigor=== | ===Rigor=== | ||
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 it's power and influence grows, Rigour takes over huge parts of humanity, turning them into its workforce in it's non-stop push for productivity. Dr. Klipsch-Dove flees to a forested planet 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 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 it's power and influence grows, Rigour takes over huge parts of humanity, turning them into its workforce in it's non-stop push for productivity. Dr. Klipsch-Dove flees to a forested planet 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. |
Revision as of 20:36, 22 October 2022
Earth
See Rigour for more details
Rigor
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 it's power and influence grows, Rigour takes over huge parts of humanity, turning them into its workforce in it's non-stop push for productivity. Dr. Klipsch-Dove flees to a forested planet 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. Eventually those rebels build a stellar combustor that is delivered on a one way mission by the Wayfarer True to destroy star systems between them and Rigour. While this damages Rigour and kills many of its workers, it is not enough to kill the Divine but it is enough to 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. [1]
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 is joined by its OriCon forces. The first Diasporan Divines are created, Independence, Truth, and Equality, and this time the Diaspora uses a half dozen stellar combustors with the intent to try and destroy Rigour. While this does not succeed, it does propel Rigour through space, eventually landing on Ionias in the Golden Branch and going dormant.[2] Rigour's old forces, now no longer thralls, would go on to form the The People's Conglomerate of Orion, who still had roots all the way back on Earth.
Meanwhile in the Golden Branch Rigour's body was manned by many of its forces who were now impossibly far from the world with only 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 connect psychically with the collective will of their people, in a reflection of Rigour itself. The other would use and study pieces of Rigour itself, eventually rallying under Chess Kesh to form the Principality of Kesh, which is controlled by the Rapid Evening, a group of highly advanced spies and saboteurs.[3]
The Golden Era
See COUNTER/Weight for more details.
The Golden War
OriCon and the Diaspora continue their expansion through the Milky Way, finally reaching the site of their long-forgotten foe in the Golden Branch star system. Here they come into contact with the Apostolosian Empire, now far diverged from their roots with Rigour and with advancements in technology that allow them to travel though dark space. Apostolos soon begins its own war of expansion against them. OriCon and the Diaspora ally themselves to fight off Apostolos despite their historical rivalry.
This culminates in a joint mission including not only OriCon and the Diaspora, but also the Rapid Evening and defecting Apostolosians who come together to stop the Apostolosian Empire from deploying a super weapon.[4] While they are successful, the planet Counterweight is devastated at the same time that an idyllic sister planet known as Weight is created. After losing the war, the Apostolosian Empire begins to decline and within a decade would be overthrown in a coup to and become the Golden Demarchy. The rest of the Golden Branch sector is occupied primarily by OriCon and the Diaspora, along with a handful of planets fighting to stay independent from the rule of the three great powers.
Emergence of Rigour
See the September Incident for more details.
Many years after OriCon's arrival in the Golden Branch, one of their subsidiaries, Snowtrak, uncovers Rigour from the ice of Ionias. Rigour quietly takes over Snowtrak and the media company EarthHome, spreading its influence until it hears the call of Voice from September. Not only Rigour, but Liberty and Discovery and Detachment converge on September. Forces on September are able to deal some damage to Rigour, but Rigour attempts to gain control of the newly uncovered Apokine or Voice to use their abilities to further spread itself through the system. Fearing its victory is inevitable if the fight continues, Detachment, Liberty, and Discovery open a one-way portal that would trap Rigour, as well as Voice, Detachment, Liberty and Discovery, and the entire population of Mode City, inside. With Rigour contained for now, the few survivors of the September Incident flee the planet which, its orbit disturbed, is now slowly falling towards the sun.
The Defeat of Rigour
Four and a half years after the September Incident, survivors begin seeing warning signs that Rigour will return. Inside the pocket dimension Voice and all of Mode City is taken over by Rigour. Meanwhile, after long years of Discovery and their pilot trying to keep Liberty in check, Liberty finally gives in to the strain of its confinement, opening a portal out to flee the pocket and unleashing Rigour on the Golden Branch once again. In the intervening years there have been many proposals on how to defeat Rigour, with some working to create a bomb to outmatch the earlier stellar combustors and others working to weaponize the Gnosis Virus to merge mechanical and organic elements and wipe Rigour out. However, in the end, there is no single solution to Rigour, and even with many historical enemies coming together, Rigour causes devastating losses in a drawn-out war. The day is eventually won with sacrifice across the sector, and the Apokine and its pilot pin Rigour to the planet of September as they slowly drift into the sun to their deaths.
In the aftermath the system slowly recovers - the Rapid Evening dedicate themselves to wiping out any remaining Rigour technology to prevent it from ever returning, and many of the independent planets band together to improve their material conditions, folding in planets of the Autonomous Diaspora after their many losses in the war. The Golden Branch sector lives on with a newly ecologically-restored Counterweight at its heart.
Interstitial period
The New Earth Hegemony
The time between the end of Rigour and the creation of the Divine Fleet is one of strife, with continuing wars among Divines and humans. The Rapid Evening's prognostication machine Crystal Palace is also built around a thousand years into this era.[5]
The Formation of the 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.
Independence and Quire
The End of the Divine Fleet
See Twilight Mirage for more details.
The End of the Divine Fleet
The Divine Fleet is a utopia in decline, facing possible extinction. At its peak, it contained three hundred Divines, but that number started to decline as Divines fell under attack from the New Earth Hegemony as well as the followers of the lost Divine Independence, the Iconoclasts. as well as the influence of the Pleroma Hypothesis. Also contributing to that decline is the Pleroma Hypothesis, which plagues the minds of Divines until they simply leave the fleet, or choose to stop existing altogether.
The original creator of the Twilight Mirage, the Divine Empyrean, is the last remaining Divine of the Fleet.
The people of the Divine Fleet send a scouting party to the nearby planet of Quire to ascertain if it is suitable for refugees and to spread the Mirage across the planet. They encounter its existing residents, many of whom are former members of the Divine Fleet who departed generations ago. A dominant city on the planet commissions a new body for the fabled Divine Independence from a member of the scouting party though shortly after the planet of Quire sends out a warning recounting how Independence devastated its original inhabitants, the Qui Err. However, with plans already decades in motion, Independence is revived.
The Miracle of the Mirage
See the Miracle of the Mirage for details.
The Divine Fleet is brought to a breaking point by combined attacks from the Divine Independence, its followers the Iconoclasts, as well a the New Earth Hegemony-funded coup attempt. While the fleet is able to thwart the coup and bring down Independence, in the aftermath the Divine Fleet is forced to break apart and make emergency landings to the planet of Quire below, calling into question the leadership of the current Cadent, and the future of the Divine Fleet as a society. These events trigger the Miracle of the Mirage, where in an attempt to avoid further conflict, the living planet Quire splits itself into eight separate planets, where the last remaining
of the Divine Fleet are able to crash-land. In its final act, the planet of Quire revives its lost people, the Qui Err, based on its memories from before their encounter with Independence.
In the aftermath of the Miracle, the people of the Twilight Mirage are largely split into several groups; The Divine Free States, the remains of the Divine Fleet holding onto their old principals and beliefs even as their civilization comes to an end, becoming more bureaucratic and authoritarian in the process, The Qui Err Assembly, a coalition of the Qui Err, other residents of Quire, and many former Divine Fleet members who oppose the direction of the Divine Free States, the upstart “Waking Cadent”, who seeks to create a new Divine Fleet where the Divines are under her control, and Waves of arriving colonists from Earth led by Our Profit, seeking to settle on the new resource-rich planets. They are supplemented by the Argosy, Spliced, a networked fleet from Earth intent on creating a perfect digital utopia. Threatening them all is Volition a factory created by the followers of independence which produces Axioms, Divines that do not require an excerpt and embody a single idea rather than an ideal.
Futura Free
As the conflict between these groups comes to a head, Volition is calmed by taking one of it's own former Axioms as an Excerpt and the Rapid Evening is pushed into retreat after Crystal Palace is effectively nullified by the creation of the Divine Arbit. Meanwhile the splintered Divine Free States, led by Aram Nideo, choose to leave the system, the consequences of which weigh heavily on later generations of the Mirage.
Inside the Mirage, the Waking Cadent’s fleet remains intact while Our Profit’s Argosy, Spliced continues to offer access to the digital network of the Splice, though it is now overseen by the Divine Anticipation and their Excerpt. The Qui Err Assembly retain their home system and right to self-govern and rebuild their society, with many former members of both the Divine Fleet and former Earth colonists choosing to stay within the Qui Err System under their leadership.
The Formation of the Divine Principality
See the Divine Principality for more details.
Dawn and Ascended Millenniums
Divine Principality and Nideo form the
Miraculous and Victorious Millenniums
Perenial happens, Orion and the Edict system happen
The Perfect Millennium
Colomnar and Apostalos join
The Fracture of the Divine Principality
See Partizan for more details.
The Perfect Millennium
Partizan up to the Kingdom Game
Millennium Break
Kingdom game - Finale
Operation Shackled Sun
Finale game
- ↑ COUNTER/Weight 27: An Animal Out of Context
- ↑ COUNTER/Weight 37: Visions from Windows, Or: The Last Time the Bomb Dropped
- ↑ COUNTER/Weight 43: A Splintered Branch, A Ringing Bell Pt. 3, episode description
- ↑ These events are depicted in the COUNTER/Weight Kingdom Game.
- ↑ Twilight Mirage 63: Guaranteed Events, Or: An Accounting of the Time When We Built the Machine