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

The following summary contains spoilers for the entirety of the Divine Cycle. While it does not cover the fates of individual characters, it will discus major faction moves and outcomes, as well as events that take place prior to the events of a given season that are only revealed much later.

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 pilot.

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, and it eventually lands on Ionias in the Golden Branch, going dormant. Rigour's old forces, now no longer thralls, go on to form the People's Conglomerate of Orion.

In the Golden Branch, Rigour's body is inhabited by other former thralls who are 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's technological level would eventually collapse; from then on it would 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.

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. 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 Formation of the Divine Fleet

See Divine Fleet for more details.

In the millennia that followed the defeat of Rigour, there was much debate about the places of Divines in society and the relationship between Divines and humans. It's during this time that the artist Kamala Cadence comes to the conclusion that if there was a war between humans and Divines, the Divines would in time be wiped out, a conclusion she found horrific due to the uniqueness of Divines. Kamala synthesizes a number of philosophical positions in the Resonant Orbit in the hopes of creating a society which would affirm all types of life. She partners with the ancient Divine Independence, becoming the first Excerpt of the new Divine Fleet.

However, there is eventually a schism between Kamala and Independence, as Kamala refuses to include a Divine's right to die in the core tenets, believing they are too special to be lost. Independence leaves, and as Kamala's stance on Divines hardens, she eventually leaves the Divine Fleet as well.

Outside the Fleet

See New Earth Hegemony and Rapid Evening (intelligence agency) for more details.

While the Divine Fleet flourished, back on Earth it was a time of strife and civil conflict due to the arrival of Independence. At some point during its reign on earth Independence was instrumental in moving earth to the galactic core. An uprising against Independence led to him being sent out of the core and on a trajectory to be destroyed in the star of the Benthos system.

Independence's trajectory as it exited Earth was tracked by another organization, the Rapid Evening, who had grown significantly since their days in the Golden Branch. Their primary advancement was the creation of Crystal Palace, a surveillance machine so advanced it gained the ability to tell the future. In Kesh, the centre of the Rapid Evening's power, people begin to live in predetermined cycles, with those seeking a way out joining the Rapid Evening's ranks.

Quire

See Quire for more details.

Thousands of years before Independence was ousted, the sentient planet of Quire was host to the Qui Err, who struggled against the "the Soil without Memory", which was just as likely to save them as to kill them. However, an Apostolosian smuggling vessel crash landed on the planet, carrying a sample of the Gnosis Virus. This infected the planet of Quire, gave it the ability to understand its people in a way it could not previously, and allowed them all to enter a golden age.

This comes to an end when, due to an unexpected solar flare, the Divine Independence's course is altered, and he crash lands on Quire. This led directly to mass conflict, and the annihilation of most of the Qui Err people in battles for and against Independence. They did manage to defeat the Divine, however, and scattered its pieces across the planet. Most of the survivors fled to the Sky Reflected in Mirrors in hopes of preserving their people; a few were brought into the Divine Fleet by Curiosity, becoming the Independents. In its last moments, Independence built the Iconoclasts from the living material of Quire and sent them after the Divine Fleet, where they began to plan the creation of Volition.

The End of the Divine Fleet

See Twilight Mirage for more details.

The Decline of the 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. 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 fleet is housed within the Twilight Mirage, a twilight colored cloud that protects the Divine Fleet and distorts time within it, which was originally created by the Divine Empyrean, now 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, the Iconoclasts, and a 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 increasingly split into factions with competing ideologies and goals for Quire. These include the remains of the Divine Fleet; a coalition of the Qui Err in opposition to their increasing conservatism; the upstart “Waking Cadent”, who seeks to create a new Divine Fleet with Divines under her control, and waves of arriving colonists from Earth. Some are even being swept into fascism by the Advent Group.

The Argosy, Spliced, a fleet from Earth, eventually arrives, blocking the system from the view of the Rapid Evening's Crystal Palace with the Profit's Star. The Rapid Evening responds to increasing disruption of their control by sending Crystal Palace to Quire.

Threatening them all is Volition, a factory created by the followers of independence which produces Axioms, post-Divines that do not require a pilot and embody a single idea rather than an ideal.

Futura Free

As the factional conflict comes to a head, Volition is calmed by taking one of its 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; at the same time, the former New Earth Hegemony fleet the Argosy, Spliced offers access to the utopic digital network of the Splice, 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 Road to PARTIZAN for more details.

The First Major Houses

After their departure from the Twilight Mirage, the Divine Free States, under their leader Aram Nideo, and the Principality of Kesh, under the Rapid Evening, joined together to form the Divine Principality. The Divine Free States and Principality of Kesh formed the first two major houses, calling themselves Stel Nideo and Stel Kesh. The Resolute Regent Aram Nideo would soon develop the "Many Stars" argument, which alongside Asterism, would come to define the philosophy of the Divine Principality, and justify a number of small skirmishes between minor houses which followed.

Expansion of the Principality

While many smaller cultures such as the Hypha were quickly subjugated by the Divine Principality, some would fight back with galaxy-redefining consequences. Notably, HORIZON, a resistance group within Stel Kesh which descended from the Rapid Evening, fought to keep the galactic core free from the Principality. Their team delivered the capricious Divine Perennial to the core, where she took over a system of nanomachines. She soon massively disrupted technology across the galaxy with the power of the Perennial Wave—impairing the Principality's FTL capabilities and causing significant destruction of life, both organic and synthetic.

With the Principality off balance, they faced a significant barrier in what became known as the Divine Clash. An alliance forms between the Orion Combine, who reunited against the threat of the Principality, and the Beneficial Coalition, who formed from what was once the Autonomous Diaspora. The alliance came to an end when the Orion Combine develops the EDICT System giving them the ability to shut down and control Divines, and betray their allies in the Coalition to bargain their way into the Principality as the third major house: Stel Orion. Shortly after, the Principality regains the ability to use FTL travel though the creation of the Portcullis System, which they used in the following millennium to recruit the Columnar, a synthetic people who were hit hard by the Perennial Wave. After being integrated as Stel Columnar, a subgroup of organic cyborgs known as the Equiaxed were stripped of their semi-autonomous status and became subjects of study by Stel Orion.

The Perfect Millennium

The Principality declares the start of the Perfect Millennium (the fifth millennium of its existence), and shortly after becomes aware of miracles being performed on Partizan by an Equiaxed prophet, Logos Kantel. After Kantel refuses to cooperate with the Principality, Stel Nideo rebrands Kantel's following as Progressive Asterism to assimilate it with their existing state religion. This also prompts the Principality to colonize past Partizan into the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, but their ships are immediately stuck down and delivered an ultimatum by the True Divine: the Principality would never expand to Scutum-Centaurus, and they would progress past the avaricious empire they had become; otherwise, the True Divine would annihilate them. The Principality responded by creating a secretive shadow government known as the Curtain of Divinity that would encourage growth and equity over generations, while hiding the truth of what lies beyond the Scutum-Centaurus Arm.

With the Scutum-Centaurus Arm out of reach, the Principality turns to their next target: the Apostolosian Empire. Knowing a drawn-out war could only lead to their defeat, the Apostolosian Apokine travels to the Princept to negotiate peace, though secretly planning to assassinate the Princept. Failing in their assassination attempt, the Princept takes advantage of the situation to secretly replace the masked Apokine with an agent from the Principality, who quickly forms the Apostolosian Empire into Stel Apostolos, the newest major house of the Principality. Stel Apostolos becomes the front line of the Principality's ongoing war against the Branched, who defend the Golden Branch star sector, with Stel Kesh desperate for the planet Kesh to return to their control.

The Fracture of the Divine Principality

See PARTIZAN for more details.

The Perfect Millennium

Many generations later, rebels in Stel Nideo kidnap the child Princept, Dahlia, from Stel Kesh. Dahlia is then rescued and raised by Stel Apostolos, much to the displeasure of the first two major houses. Upon adulthood, Dahlia reveals the early ploy of the Principality to replace their Apokine, and with the support of the Apostolosian people Dahlia declares they will be both the next Apokine and Princept. It is around this time that the Pact of Necessary Venture is founded by Elects from every Stel to work towards the replacement of the government of the Principality with a council structure. In Stel Kesh, Cynosure Whitestar-Kesh declares that Dahlia's claim to the title of Princept is a ploy by the Aposolosians to gain power, and that he is the rightful Princept, taking up the title of the Peaceful Princept with great support from Stel Kesh and backed in secret by the Curtain. Tensions are high between the Stels, and things soon escalate into armed conflict between Stel Kesh and Stel Apostolos.

Millennium Break

See Millennium Break for more details.

As the fighting between Stel Apostolos and Stel Kesh escalated, revolutionaries seized the opportunity to begin their own radical project: Millennium Break. Its founding members were factions across Partizan who all agreed that the Perfect Millennium had to end, but had different ideas about what their future should look like. One of Millennium Break's key developments is the expansion and proliferation of the Strand Semaphore system that allows many smaller cells to start up across Partizan, though the Principality was quick to stamp many of them out. After many initial growing pains Millennium Break provides assistance to refugees, takes territory from Stel Kesh, and makes an appearance at the Summer Passage of Arms to look sick as shit and to kidnap the Peaceful Princept. However, after losing several leaders, and on the defense from imperial backlash, Millennium Break members were forced to ally with the mysterious Witch in Glass to evacuate one of their main bases. At the same time, the Curtain and Pact reveal themselves to the public, and propagandizing against Millennium Break is intensified.

Operation Shackled Sun

As Millennium Break prepares to expand beyond Partizan they discover a plan by the Divine Motion of the Pact to capture the power of the True Divine using a device called the Lattice on the local Portcullis Gate, which would destroy the moon of Partizan in the process. Millennium Break rushes into action, and on the day of Operation Shackled Sun the forces of Millennium Break, the Pact of Necessary Venture, and the Curtain of Divinity meet in the skies above Partizan. Fighting breaks out between mechs, Divines, and pilots, while a small group of Millennium Break agents break into the Portcullis Gate to stop the operation directly. They are partially successful, with the True Divine appearing for only moments before vanishing, but Motion is able to siphon energy from it, and grows in power exponentially. Motion then goes rogue, attacking not only Curtain and Millennium Break ships, but also members of the Pact. She is defeated when a Millennium Break agent uses repurposed pieces of the divine Asepsis, which deconstruct Motion, with the power of the True Divine flowing through her, and create the Kalmeria Particle, which begins to spread through the galaxy.

In the wake of the battle, Millennium Break are pushed out of Partizan, but they remain present fighting against the Divine Principality while their Strand Semaphore expands across the galaxy. They know that in the end, they will be seen as revolutionaries.