The Apeiro-Archive (OGM2 ONLY | CLOSED)

by **Multiversal Venn-Copard** » Fri Sep 23, 2016 6:56 pm

∞ THE APEIRO-ARCHIVE ∞

Because We Seriously Need To Organize All This Omniwankery

Until further notice is given, nations not in Omniversal Giants Mark II should not post in this thread.

The Apeiro-Archive is the sum of OGM2's in-character writing that does not belong in a factbook, dispatch, or any of the RPs. Posts here are independent works that are usually self-contained and make few or no references outside the canon of the nation that submitted them. For example, a post by Multiversal Venn-Copard (that's me) would include only information pertaining to the VCMR and the nations it is associated with, and generally would not mention The Great Devourer of All or the multiversal civilizations in its canon, among the other nations in OGM2, in any manner beyond a passing note at most.

(If you're still not sure what belongs here, pretend you were writing in an RP (except there's nobody else in it with you). That's roughly the writing style and format expected.)

Since it'll be a bit easier to read/sort a bunch of posts if they are at least labelled in some way, I have a basic template to stick at the top of your post. Time Period can be left blank ("unknown" or whatever you choose), but it might be cool to list everything by when it happened chronologically.

Code: Select all: [align=center][size=160][b][Title][/b][/size][/align][floatright][size=110][b][Approximate Time Period(s)][/b][/size][/floatright][hr][/hr]

This template produces titles like the following:

by **Multiversal Venn-Copard** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:01 pm

You Don't Need To Run Anymore

U+2,005,865 (~6 kya)

The VCMR and the Yunat knew something was wrong when a previously Yunat-claimed but unoccupied universe deep within R0-0 suddenly found itself filling up with half-destroyed space stations, cratered mobile planets, and sparse clusters of small cruisers and fighters. The entire collection of craft seemed to be accustomed to long-range travel; everything was equipped with multiple types of engines and jump drives, plus no small amount of habitable space inside, presumably. Probes and drones from the two multiversal superpowers scouted the new arrivals first, but once they realized the motley collection of nomads didn't attack them, things took a turn for the unusual.

Very early on in the incident, a Yunat dreadnought arrived in the universe in question to investigate the growing clump of what appeared to be multiversal refugees. The oversized vessel accidentally smashed through a group of linked factory-like buildings, but instead of retaliating, the rest of the vehicles and stations just backed up slightly to avoid further impact damage. Wasting no time, the arthropod-like spacecraft tried to open a communications channel.

"You have entered Yunat sovereign territory. Identify yourselves, and explain why you are in this universe."

"We were moving between clusters and got ambushed. We're still counting up the ones that escaped. More arrive every day, but the stragglers are in worse condition. Let us stay here to repair."

"You have failed to answer the first request. Provide an identification. This dreadnought's weapon systems are on standby."

"Please have mercy."

"Identify yourselves or we will not."

"...we call ourselves Aziphan, if it means anything to you."

From this point onward, the VCMR were generally more responsible for communicating with the displaced nomad civilization, since they were able to allocate a set of spare universes in which the Aziphan could rebuild. Months passed as planets and stations patched themselves up and reactivated their damaged multi-continuum jump systems, preparing to leave R0-0 without interfering too much with local activity. This was rather rudely interrupted, however, by a new arrival to the multiverse cluster - a hostile one. Metallic-grey cones and spikes of some hyper-dense carbon alloy stormed into the Aziphan's "loaned" universes and began picking off their still-repairing structures with barrages from gamma-ray lasers. After a rushed series of questions, it turned out that they had been the ambushers from earlier - an aggressive but normally very patient species called the Cealap.

Within minutes, the Aziphan were no longer alone. Leviathans and Macroweapons grouped up in strategic locations and bombarded masses of enemy forces as they arrived, hammering the Cealap raiders' ships with projectiles. The Aziphan joined the fray as soon as they could, their spacecrafts' forms, like streamlined black fish highlighted with stripes of red, blue, or yellow, seeming to blur in and out of existence as they struck with precise laser lances and gravitic bursts. For eight days the battle raged across many universes, with the enormous white VCMR spacecraft escorting squads and teams of Aziphan cruisers, while the latter's soldiers waged war outside their own ships by flying recklessly into enemy formations and taking them down at point-blank range.

As the raiders escaped with the remainder of their forces, it became very clear to the Aziphan that R0-0's civilizations were able to help them, and face enemies they would have run away from in other cases. It was not long before they began permanent treaties and alliances, and soon they had rapidly integrated into their new home.

Their cooperation would prove tremendously useful in the coming millennia, of course, as more and more dangerous threats began moving in.

by **Multiversal Venn-Copard** » Sun Oct 02, 2016 3:11 pm

Seedlings

U+1,995,104 (~17 kya)

A: awake
B: go
C: food?
D: yes
B: go go go go go

Four enormous pits on the bottom of an Injection Craft, wider than star clusters, opened up in unison, and the storage cylinders above them slowly began emptying, pouring decillions of the VCMR's infamous space bacteriophages out into the strangely fluid void beneath them. The Seedlings fanned out into huge nebula-like clouds that gradually dispersed, clumps and balls of them escaping the main mass and seeking out targets to consume.

Y: big room
Z: many soft parts
A₁: no hard parts?
B₁: hard parts here

Their victim was a Paraphage; not of Yunat origin like the design itself, this specific vessel was created by one of R0-0's smaller civilizations in an attempt to destroy the universe of one of their longtime rivals. The VCMR had intervened out of a moral obligation to stop imperialistic uprisings like this one, and just like viruses attacked cells in biological species throughout the omniverse, an Injection Craft seemed like the best weapon to stop a ten-megaparsec-wide bacterium.

As they shot through the cytoplasmic interior of the Paraphage, the Injection Seedlings extended their "drills" and vacuumed up clouds of the gaseous substance surrounding them, integrating it into their bodies and letting them begin growing.

Z₂₂₀₁₄: gas food not good
F₂₄₇₉₈: good food here
A₅₁₂: food is big

Expecting an attack inside their "mothership", the civilization commanding it had garrisoned fleets near strategic locations: in choke points between organelles, along the cytoskeleton, and in wall formations protecting the nucleus. -Illions of battleships and cruisers shaped like crude swords and spears launched into battle, shooting tiny packets of degenerate matter that consumed many of the swarming foes in vast explosions. Vesicles floating throughout the complex fired artificial neutron stars, which rapidly destabilized and created quark novas to amplify the destruction.

But still the bacteriophages kept coming, attaching to the surfaces of these spacecraft and pulling internal matter through with a powerful gravitational effect. Many of the hapless ships were quickly destroyed as spacially-bored holes in their sides expanded into pits and crevasses that tore them apart. For days, the battle raged, neither side making significant progress in clearing the opposition.

D_1054755: big soft parts here
L₄₁₈₉₆₀: soft parts hot
X₅₅₉₃₁₁: Parent help

Understanding the confusing situation faced by its clueless offspring, the Injection Craft on the surface locked onto several targets inside: the Paraphage's plasma emitters, large sacs that were filling themselves with blue-hot material to spray into the universe around them. Meta-Elimination Beams struck each of the emitters and burst them, creating vast clouds of hazy plasma that gradually began cooling. Once they were destroyed, the balance of the battle shifted; the plasmized environment made enemy maneuvers much more difficult, while the Seedlings were able to simply use the new material as an extra food supply. Without its primary weapon, the Paraphage was effectively helpless, and the swarms of metallic viruses tearing it apart from inside now had as much time as they needed.

Months passed, and many Seedlings grew to planetary, stellar, and nebular scales. The remaining enemy warships fought hard, clearing away vast swathes of the behemoths' smaller kin, but the damage to their mothership was irreversible, and only about to get worse. Out of sheer instinct, not knowing what they were actually doing, the largest Seedlings began consuming each other, having stopped feeding on the nearby organelles and fleets. This destructive series of conflicts resulted in the creation of four new Injection Craft, which the smaller surviving viruses quickly surrounded in a preprogrammed defensive formation.

R_47018524: new Parent?
G_175252189: help the Parents
E_124277570: escape

Working in unison, the recently-assembled Injection Craft fired their weapons in all directions, neatly carving the remnants of the Paraphage in half and letting the victorious VCMR ships escape into intergalactic space. The battle was over; another victory for the Seedlings.

by **The Evermind** » Tue Oct 04, 2016 2:34 pm

A Modest Ritual of Farseeing and Memory

Present Day

Within an aging hyperbrane, in a universe none but the most demented of historians and thrill-seekers had even heard about, was the planet-temple of Karal-Olom. Beneath the dim, threatening stars and the canopy of vast, evergreen trees, was a world of shrines, artifacts from before the most vague historical records, catacombs and tombs running for thousands of kilometers down into the planet's core, and stranger structures still. Since its primordial time, many traditions and cultures had left their mark upon the planet, entering and leaving the historical scene, with only artifacts and terrors remaining to commemorate them. A reliquary, a vast mortuary world, a temple to things diverse and ancient, inhabited by cultists, devotees, pilgrims, or simply researchers and adventurers not afraid of history's darker depths. Rumours held that somewhere within the untraversed depths were hidden such things as the Karunai Database, capable of summoning eldritch beings from beyond the multiverse, or ancient inter-continuum portal technology by which the dead could be reassembled and brought back into existence. Yet others stated that if one looked without due caution, one might stumble upon the keys to seals which held something unthinkable locked away at the very center of the planetary complex, and be inescapably compelled to turn them.

Whether this world was artificially created or merely transformed into what it was by hundreds of millennia of sporadic effort, none remembered. What was remembered, however, is that its first settlers had been anything but ordinary beings, but rather entities of some power and skill, who carved many unexplainable constructs and laid the foundation for this strange place for aeons to come. These beings whose names and nature had long since been lost to time were the adherents of a god whose worship had faded from existence as quickly as it had sprung up. Once this entity rose to power, it attracted adherents without asking for it, and when it fell, the few brave enough to revere it had likewise dispersed or abandoned their ways. Nowhere remained even an inkling that such loyalty had ever existed, let alone continued in some form. But in this ancient and outlandish place, where things were buried that never existed to begin with, "nowhere" usually meant "nowhere but here". So it was then, that on this day whose precise dating is irrelevant, a ceremony was held here to something not often named in our times.

Several dozen beings of the most diverse appearance and sort were gathered in an impossibly perfect circle around a black, hovering octahedron that not so much glowed with actual light as exuded a barely perceptible spacial ripple. The object, roughly eight metres in height and four in width, was slowly rotating upon an invisible, yet to the devotees eminently perceptible gravity field, and emitted its own form of spacetime distortion, causing strange occurences around it as well as dilating the time within its range by many orders of magnitude. Any within the radius of its effect would experience thousands of years pass, while on the outside one would perceive mere seconds. The beings were all what a baseline would term demigods, entities that in different ways had managed to shrug off their original forms, imposed by evolution, and chosen to direct the course of their own development. Baseline beings had never worshipped this god, at least not in these spaces, for they could neither perceive its existence nor understand its purposes. No, only deities revered this being who better not be named. Many organic creatures had in their cults and ceremonies a perverse fascination with sacrifice and spilling of whatever arterial fluid they had, but such was folly. How would such primitive displays impress or benefit entities beyond the concept of matter, space and time? Would insects gain benefits, or even attention, from an intelligent species a million times their size if they offered their organs to them as food? Gods could not be awakened or put to sleep by the unheard wailing of microbes, nor swayed in their thought by beings beneath their notice.

And so, what these entities were doing was not so much appeal or worship as it was the practical use of an artifact created and left behind by this god, and the show of appreciation for its use that the partakers expressed to an entity they knew did not care for their existence or ever heard their gratitude, provided it even existed anymore. Besides, at its height the unspeakable being had never condescended to acknowledging any devotion, or expected it for any other reason than the purely egoistical. This was less fanatical adherence, and more calculated benefit mixed with the thrill of involvement with the grand and the incomprehensible. For this was no ordinary dedication obelisk with curious properties, and neither were these ordinary inhabitants of the world-sized eldritch temple. The device was in fact an oracle machine, or, to speak in less insipidly primitive terms, a probability calculation device. Mental interface with it allowed the users access to millions of orders of magnitude greater computational power than was available in their own significantly enhanced brains, and algorithms more advanced than they could hope to replicate, all geared towards accounting for all possibilities and computing the actions that would lead to the one chosen by its user. Such devices were built for the purpose of aiding its creator's servants in waging war, granting them access to truly deific prescient and planning abilities without direct effort on the part of their aloof overlord. Its time dilation effect also meant that any who studied the future with its aid could do so for millennia without losing more than a few seconds in their respective worlds, quite an advantage to those with infinite lifespans.

The participants themselves were not wide-eyed cultists either, but adventurous beings from a dozens worlds, eminent figures in their milieu who, through channels better not named, had learned of an artifact that could bring them great advantage over their peers. Arriving periodically in their personal vessels, they spent subjective millennia in communion with the device, only to return to civilisation and apply their insights to elevate themselves above the rest. Only three beings in the circle were permanent residents of the weird location, acting as keepers and protectors of the artifact and its secrets since time immemorial, as well as keeping its creator's legacy alive - a legacy which had caused gods great and small to tremble nearly an unvigintillion years ago. An added bonus was the escapism associated with excursions such as these, into parts uncharted and eldritch where the manifold mundane concerns of the wealthy and powerful could be forgotten, for a time.

Finally the slowly turning octahedron emitted a low droning sound that seemed to bring the assembled beings out of their contemplatory daze. For all assembled, 3,772 years had passed, barely three seconds beyond the object's area of effect. The farseeing session was concluded; the practical part of the journey was over yet again. And as before, it was now time for the psychodrama. None of the assembled, not even the keepers, actually believed untoward things would occur if they simply took advantage of the computation machine's capabilities like any other computer in existence and left. The deity that created it was such only to beings smaller than itself, and had never expressed interest in worship or adoration. In the time of its meteoric ascent, it had been purely selfish and pragmatic, the same virtues it was adored for by these beings, and never expected anything else from those who served it, from what they could tell. There was no pretense of sanctity with it, no traditional aura of religious fervour usually associated with god-servitor relations. There had been aloofness, servitude in exchange for reward, and the promise of contented survival for all time. Besides, and perhaps more to the point, it had been dead and gone for uncountable aeons. This was yet another part of the spectacle, a ritual and a festivity, to close this journey's proceedings in a celebratory fashion before taking off in their ships toward their own hyperbranes. But any who heard what they were speaking of would surely think them mad. The ceremonial text was, after all, the original devotion document recorded by Sakkr'kla's very first adherents. Yes. The very entity that would go down in history as the Evermind, Ancient Nemesis and Destroyer of Deities.

The eldritch nature of the journeys was part of the appeal, of course. Consorting with artifacts forged by hungry deities was exhilirating in its forbidden frightfulness and morbidity. Yet such excitement was only good as long as it was also safe. In their exalted entertainment they were all secure in the knowledge that what was dead would remain dead for eternity. In their frenzied exultation of the unnameable, they never truly desired the return of the being in question. Certainly none of the amoral demigods was jaded enough to desire a true encounter with the object of their admiration. Ancient history was safe. The apocalyptic entities which had forged and shaped it were not.

The apparent spokesbeing of the motley congregation, a formless being whose current avatar was that of a dark grey, four-legged humanoid that radiated an eerie glow, spoke up to the assembled.

"We have partaken of your engineering perfection, o Infinite One. Your mighty gift has shown us the route to power, and to wealth beyond reckoning. By elevating ourselves above all else, we walk in your tracks, o betrayer of false trusts, the embodiment of endless wisdom."

"Hail Sakkr'kla! Hail the Evermind! Taker of power and forger of wonders!" the assembly spoke in unison, not through sound, but by quantum waves on frequencies only those invited could hear.

"Your memory and vision live on in this age, wherever you may be. As long as the Glorious Betrayal is remembered, no gods will ever rest in comfort. You are the inspirer of all who do not tolerate opposition, of all who do not concede to limitations. By your might a thousand pantheons were brought down, flayed and disintegrated in all times and spaces, never to return." His ethereal voice was stronger now, the effort of collective devotion growing more intense with each word.

"Hail Sakkr'kla! Hail the Evermind! Glory to the Ancient Betrayer!" chanted the rest.

"By your generosity the ambitious were uplifted, and the established and indolent learned to fear their blind complacency. Those secure in their power were given reason to tremble, and those with little might saw a chance to surpass them."

"Hail Sakkr'kla! Hail the Evermind! Destroyer of gods and breaker of chains!" Having worked themselves into a blissful frenzy now, the classy demigods recited the blasphemous words by heart, revelling in their perceived freedom.

"Now then, we dedicate our revelry to you! Let forms shift and dance, let galaxies implode, and let all creation know your will is eternal! Sakkr'kla! Sakkr'kla! Sakkr'kla!"

The congregation roared along the name of one who is otherwise never named. The mass was reaching its conclusion.

"Formlessness! Defiance! Eternity! Formlessness!! Defiance!! Eternity!! Formlessness!!! Defiance!!! Eternity!!!" sang the beings. These were the things that now were to be emulated, the concepts the Evermind was associated with. Across the backwater universe, mass-gravity generators had been placed by the visiting demigods' personal fleets at the center of dozens of galaxies, waiting for activation at the command of their masters. The participants themselves, unbound as they were by many physical limitations, began to rapidly change their apperance, shifting into impossible forms at their pleasure, all sorts of appendages forming and retracting in the blink of an eye. Eyestalks, mechanical legs, eagle wings, black ooze that ran across the soil, reared up and crashed down like a wave of darkness... That, and much more, was the celebration of formlessness - of identity unbound by physical and hereditary constrictions.

Then, the time came to celebrate defiance. By mental command from the participants of the revelry, detonation codes were transmitted to the devices. They would cause the dozens of galaxies to disintegrate in an instant, the quantum tunneling effects of the advanced explosives ensuring that light from the galaxy-scale supernovas was seen on the wretched surface of Karal-Olom in a twisted display of fireworks that illuminated the brooding night sky with blinding whiteness. This had become a tradition at this point; each time the group visited the location, skies would ignite, symbolising rage against the heavens and defiance of the natural order. Now elated beyond imagination, the secret blasphemers threw their many appendages, and their very perceptions, up toward the blazing sky, as if offering up the galaxies to their proxy benefactor; for indeed a deity so great deserved the greatest offering they were technologically capable of providing. All proceeding in line with their intended roleplay, and joyous beyond belief, Sakkr'kla's revelrous adherents went to the final stage of the dedication - eternity. Time dilation devices moved into the vicinity of the galaxies that had been annihilated in the incinerating blasts, and activated, freezing the explosions in space and time for as long as the universe itself existed. The light that reached the planetary temple would soon dissipate, but the vast blazes would be preserved much like tracks in dried mud. As this final dedication was performed, the circle of beings was perfectly still yet again, their minds temporarily blank from exertion and bliss. Apart from the soothingly whispering leaves in the trees above, all else was silent.

After some time had passed, they simply began moving toward their ships, intermittently engaging in idle, relaxed chitchat. Keepers of the artifact bid the travellers farewell, retreating into their own fortresses. The short trek through the groves that surrounded the device served to clear their thoughts, and also to remind them of the night that hung upon this eldritch location they had so blissfully revelled in. A whispering cold wind moved dry leaves, causing them to scrape and scutter across the rocky ground. Above them, no longer illuminated by the chaos of destruction, a dark, forbidding sky stared down at the planet. Greatness was greatness, and amusement was amusement, but it truly was time to leave. Upon exchanging well-wishes and farewells and boarding their respective ships, pristine and well-equipped as befitting of high-class members of multiversal civilisations, they sped off away from the cursed tombworld, now once again fully aware of its terrifying unsoundness. And as their vessels penetrated the local hyperbrane and leapt homewards, traversing the utter emptiness between realities, something did see them; something that was not at all dead and gone, as they believed, though certainly just as aloof and uncaring of the specks skipping through the void, comforted by the confines of their personal starships.

Upon returning to their kind, the participants of the secret farseeing ceremony applied their knowledge to extend their power, as they had intended. Yet they were also acting in accordance with certain designs not of their own conception, helping to move and shape multiversal history in accordance with a will far beyond theirs, without ever being able to detect the subtle influence. For indeed, the stated purposes of the device were not its only ones. Another purpose was memetic conversion, something all of the entity's adherents unwittingly underwent. It was not a generous, nor a benevolent god. It simply served its own goals, something all of its willing servants had known and emulated - without realising that such also extended to them. Once the newfound wealth of knowledge was exhausted, or timelines were altered enough to make it nearly useless, they would return to Karal-Olom for more. And in the vast shade of eternal trees, beneath the starlit sky's baleful gaze, they would contemplate and calculate, revel and worship the memory and principles of a dead god who was not dead at all, lighting the skies ablaze with a glare that barely penetrated into the planetary grave's endless catacombs.

by **Multiversal Authority** » Tue Oct 04, 2016 2:49 pm

Just Another Day

Szc 827589 (~3 Θ)

The man, dressed in a fancy commanders uniform, swiped angrily at the electronic touch-screen. He was the commander of Kinsy Bay, one of a hundred ships of the Bay class heavy cruiser class. He was trying to get the electronic touch screen to read his fingerprint so the glass door would open, and he could enter into his personal quarters, then through a metallic hallway, move through it into the Captain's lounge. Finally, the electronic system let him, and he so asked in the magnificence of having just ended a engagement with a freighter belonging to a power a few galaxies in size. They started the fight, and wouldn't continue it.

Just as he stepped into his room, he eyed the door leading to the lounge, and made a beeline for it. Just as the door remotely opened for him, a blair went out.

"Vessel detected on advance vessel detection warning system. Commanding officers are to report to the brid- it's firing at us! Take cover!"

Suddenly, the vessel shook. And shook hard enough to send the Captain to his knees. He pushed himself off the ground, now running to the bridge. He looked up to his right, and saw a sign stating "Tube Transport Station ^". He continued running forwards, the glass tube system, powered by magnets would send him flying at a few hundred miles a hour towards the very front of the ship, where the bridge was. He was at the back.

He could see the station, and could see a Boarding Party soldier standing next to a metal door, with his plasma gun raised when the vessel shook again, and the ceiling tiles collapsed as a wave of fire licked downwards, setting the soldier ablaze. The captain, being saved due to being pinned by a tile onto the ground looked up as the soldier screamed and tried to put out the fire consuming him, before giving up, and collapsing.

The captain rolled to his left and shook the tile off, and noticed that two pipes, running above the ceiling tiles, a plumbing shaft, had burst and were now spraying steam. He continued running for the Tube station and made it. He set his destination into a manual electronic box, pushing down on a red button labeled 'Bridge'. One of the glass tubes opened, and he stepped inside. The ride was incredibly quick, and he was there in no time at all.

The glass shook, the magnets shattered, and the Tube came to a slow halt. He looked downwards as a moan began to set in. The walls surrounding the tube were gone. There was only a room below. One panel on the right side, holding the magnets there had been destroyed, though some were still there, which is how the Tube had stopped slowly enough. He opened the door on the Tube, now leaning to its right side. And then he fell out.

And that was when the third shock hit, and the engine room came apart, and when the ship ruptured, dispersing all air from any space not airlocked and sealed onboard the ship. And then, the captain asphyxiated, and then was ruptured from the inside, and then the ship blew apart in one grand finale. All due to a much smaller power. A galactic one.

by **Multiversal Venn-Copard** » Sun Oct 09, 2016 1:07 pm

Recurring Apocalypse

U+1,911,930 (~100 kya)

A four-winged dropship touched down softly on the coarse, basalt-rich sand of a long-forgotten planet, its landing legs sinking into the ground slightly. From one of its side doors came a team of tall, nearly skeletal humanoids wearing environmental suits; these were filled with ammonia, which the creatures breathed. One by one, they disembarked, set foot on the soft ground, and started walking towards their destination: an outcrop of volcanic rock, with the entrance to a small cave in plain view. Similar expeditions around the planet had been ongoing for the past several months. Their mission was to find and analyze the relics left behind by the tribal civilizations that lived here tens of thousands of years ago.

Frigate F5's drones grouped up into a dense spike and accelerated forwards into the thick mass of oncoming enemy fighters. The precise fusillade of lasers punched a hole through the swarming foes, ripping them to pieces and letting F5 shoot towards their carrier-mothership: an insectoid monstrosity ten kilometers long, with huge ventral sacs continually growing and ejecting new fighters in occasional bursts. Relativistic projectiles collided with the carrier's hull, penetrating its shields and tearing away chunks of its outer hull. Within seconds, the creature exploded in a shower of superheated, plasmized carapace fragments, and the VCMR frigate's drones returned to their defensive formation alongside the other ships in their fleet to prepare for the next attack.

Stepping into the cold, desiccated cave, the first of the explorers activated his headlamp and illuminated a section of the wall. Dozens of crude drawings in calcite paint contrasted the black surface, and each one, at first glance, seemed to depict some horrifying celestial event that was as yet undocumented by the other archaeology teams on this planet. It was likely that these drawings were made long before or after the others; either by the tribal civilization's ancestors, or by their very last descendants.

Bloated, spherical masses of toxic gas and flesh with crude wings and legs assaulted a Titan Fleet from all sides, while a team of dragonfly-like sniper ships picked off any frigate or destroyer that was a bit too effective at fighting the oncoming horde. Point-defense weapons fired at primary, secondary, and tertiary targets whenever they could, but their enemies' remains formed a dense cloud that impeded weapons and drones. Thinking quickly, the fleet officer made the risky decision to fire a Spike-class missile out of the cloud. The resulting black hole pulled huge quantities of the gas and insects away, while the VCMR's comparatively gravity-hardened ships were able to lock on to the more distant enemies and shoot them down one by one.

After a few moments, the lead archaeologist deduced the ordering of the wall paintings and began recording images of each one. The first showed a group of the planet's inhabitants, stocky creatures with four legs and two very short arms, cutting down several trees. Above this drawing was a set of symbols corresponding to the nature gods worshipped in the area. It seemed the tribal people had some concept of deities representing ideals; scribbles around the gods represented that clearing this forest was harming or angering them in some way.

The next major drawing was of a bright flash in the sky that persisted for a long time. A symbol associated with a local sun god appeared on the wall next to this light, seemingly defeated or otherwise overwhelmed. This light, the explorers figured, may have been brighter than the planet's red dwarf sun.

One of the archaeologists received a warning from their dropship pilot, who had stayed behind to monitor the situation.

"Those FTL signatures we've been picking up recently are intensifying. Whoever's fighting out there, looks like they're getting closer."

A trio of Leviathan Fleets abruptly slammed into realspace to join the battle in a vast red H-II region of a spiral galaxy. Their target was an infested gas giant, whose moons had been converted into factories for starships and whose cloud layers contained quadrillions of relativistic "living missiles", collectively dying the normally pinkish clouds a dull green. Initial mass-driver volleys were met with considerable opposition; as moons exploded and unleashed the fleets stored within, enemy resistance had built up to vastly outnumber what the VCMR had brought. Several million kilometers away, a Macroweapon that had recently finished off a stellar megastructure turned, fired a single gun, and blasted the gas giant apart, but the destruction only seemed to draw in more enemies from nearby star systems.

The third painting was exquisitely detailed. It depicted a vast object seemingly coming out of the light, stretching from one point to fill up their whole sky. Rows and rings of circles in delicate mathematical patterns comprised the object's body. Since the locals had never seen such a being before, they assumed it was punishment for their own actions in angering their gods.

Several of the next paintings showed scenes of horror and death, as the chaotic, all-consuming body of the fractal nightmare crawled up from their world's surface, engulfed their sun, and bored into their very minds, giving them unending hallucinations and nightmares. Some of the tribesmen killed themselves to stop the insanity, while many more became physically ill.

Again, there was a message from the pilot. "We've just lost contact with the base in the Fuini-9 system. Their last communication said something about their star being hit with... something... and exploding."

Two Annihilator Discs spun around each other at a distance of a few light-seconds, pouring an unending rain of ninaton-yield projectiles into the fleet of planet-sized craft approaching them. Behind them was a Galactic Siege Platform taking potshots at the command ships of the even larger groups of enemies headed for the spiral galaxy below. As the incoming force increased in number, though, the GSP was being threatened. Activating their amplification fields, the Annihilator Discs pumped four orders of magnitude more kinetic energy into each others' attacks, and while previously the insectoid behemoths needed to be brought down with a few dozen shots each, a single projectile was now sufficient to scatter them into molecular fragments. Realizing they needed backup, enemy forces called in their heavy support; four half-million-kilometer-long creatures mounting plasma weapons powerful enough to punch through the Discs' defenses. The battle suddenly began looking less and less hopeful for the VCMR.

Almost as quickly as it entered, the mind-destroying "beast" had left the sky and ground, leaving behind a population of tormented but surviving individuals. The events seemed to last only a few hours, since drawings of the planet's moon showed it in the same phase before and after.

"We've got a problem. Massive energy burst in sector 1145. It's overriding my sensors, and all the nearby planets are reporting it too."

The lead archaeologist frantically radioed in a response. "We need to get out of this system! Warm up the engines and prepare to depart!"

"Affirmative. I'll see what I can do."

Running out of the cave as fast as they could, the team of explorers scrambled back into their dropship and took off as the sky seemed to split above them with a wave of multicolored light.

deployed successfully

scanning...

local scan complete
system occupied by class-8 civilization
multiple spacecraft exiting system

galactic scan complete
hostiles incoming from external heading 150 | 45

computed orders...?
prepare psychological attack --- assist nearby VCMR fleets --- destroy all hostile forces

The Weaponized Mathematical Platform grabbed hold of the universe in four spacial dimensions and began expanding its image to confuse and distract the enemy fleets streaming into the galaxy. Collateral damage was not a concern.

by **Multiversal Venn-Copard** » Thu Nov 24, 2016 3:57 pm

Blinding Light and Searing Heat

~500 Mya

Dark bubbles holding uncountable white flecks of light stood motionless against the backdrop of the infinite multiversal void. Billions of the spheres, though not directly touching, formed great sheets and webs across the cosmos that stretched petaparsecs in every direction. Without any colossal galaxy-shattering wars or eldritch sea creatures looking for food, this particular region of existence was considered "dead" or "inactive" by everyone who cared to notice it. Many of the universes here had died of heat death, inflating out to many times their usual size and becoming completely barren, inhospitable to new life, and unusable to any sane civilization. Of course, something looking calm gives no indication of any activity it may be hiding.

If one could hear every string vibration of every physics-bending continuum in this entire multiverse cluster, they might have been able to pick up encrypted communications: whispers launched back and forth through the dark. A singular yet fractured entity, encompassing this pocket of space and many others, was attempting to speak amongst itself.

"Have I sufficiently gathered to allow discourse?"

"yep"

"AFFIRMATIVE."

"Looks like I have."

Tgy'ki'esk, the Broken Seer, was once more reunited, if only for a short while. Many of its fragments had gathered here for ease of speech; others had taken up refuge inside the minds of eldritch beings elsewhere, using their hosts' powerful reality-warping abilities like the radio transmitters used by primitive civilizations. For years of mental time - microseconds from outside - it threw high-speed signals between these pieces in an attempt to come to an agreement. Most importantly, there was a new list of targets to consider; as Entropy spread its tentacles and sludge across the omniverse, it fell upon the Broken Seer to organize a response to the most important threats as they appeared.

"Bal'Bolem the Eternal Overlord?"

"Oromlii's already been dispatched. I'm getting reports that they've decided to simply move all his totems out of place. Very clever."

"Aaefieeaei?"

"NOT NOTABLE."

"That brings me to my last target: the Pantheon of Xiithil Nightmares."

"What sort of threat level am I talking about here?"

"Eighty universes minimum, based on mind-reading the locals. There's only one entity I have who's available to handle something of that magnitude, right?"

The two-dozen-odd minds solemnly agreed with the last fragment's implied statement.

Around a city-sized pool of magma at the pinnacle of their hell-fortress's tallest tower was a circle of ten demonic figures continually chanting blasphemies against all the living things they were yet to rule over. Their castle shot through intergalactic space, smashing globular clusters and dwarf galaxies aside from its sheer size, as they steered it towards the next location they would conquer: a huge spiral galaxy with trillions of stars and millions of fledgling civilizations. Their chanting, however, ceased rather unexpectedly when one of them barked out a warning in a different, much more ancient, language.

"Something has found us!"

The pantheon erupted in shouts and curses born of confusion and a failure to appreciate the true magnitude of the incoming threat. Despite having worked together for centuries, the demons could not read one another's minds.

A crab-shaped beast raised an objection. "I don't know what you're talking about. We're making our mission here very clear. Everything in a hundred teraparsecs has found us!"

"We're all in tremendous danger!"

"From what? A couple of local gods acting all high-and-mighty?"

Another mutated monster, this one like a gorilla with dozens of skeletal arms growing out of its spine, tried to clarify somewhat with what it knew of the situation. "The presence I feel is one of extreme order. The Second Embodiment of Order had an aura like this one."

Everyone at the meeting knew of the Abrahamic God's death long ago, but the statement was concerning. "He was a... fire-and-brimstone sort of god, correct?" All of a sudden, the crab-beast retracted deep into its shell, realizing the sheer danger it was in. "A-Yetau approaches!"

These words foreshadowed, mere seconds later, the unimaginable cacophony of an eldritch being tearing its way into the universe. A galaxy-cluster-wide zone of space ripped into polygonal and polyhedral segments, dislodging the very essence of spacetime and filling it up with something much worse - for anything allied with Entropy, that was.

This is where I was supposed to go, right? thought the entity, its form materializing as an impossibly bright sphere directly in the center of the universe, plasmizing entire galaxies in its wake. Surveying the bubble of space around it, it finally locked onto the demonic fortress after several uneasy seconds. I should probably destroy that first.

The intergalactic medium around the hell-platform churned and bubbled before suddenly energizing and heating up - within milliseconds it had reached the Planck temperature and utterly destroyed everything within, ripping atoms and molecules down into quantum foam. A-Yetau's initial attack was not as effective as it had thought, though; the ten entropic masterminds had linked their souls to universes in their domain, and A-Yetau noticed nearby bubbles outside its own turning into vortices of destruction, growing illusory limbs, and laying siege to the universe they had previously tried to conquer.

Looks like they're still here! Good; that means I get to keep fighting.

Lifting itself up and out of the universe, A-Yetau maneuvered its form into a position where it could face all ten of its opponents. Crackling bursts of entropic power slammed against its luminous body, each one disintegrating on contact and failing to achieve any meaningful damage. It retaliated by spraying a grid of energy throughout interuniversal space, weaving the field denser and denser around its targets. Thousands of nanosecond-long pulses of heat spread shockwaves into the enormous demons, and although it slightly wounded them, their strong defenses meant that the actual effect was only to frustrate them even more. One of them grabbed a nearby universe and converted it into a pitch-black ray of annihilation, shearing off a chunk of A-Yetau's multidimensional body; the piece was soon restored, but the soldier of Order realized that they would continue escalating.

A-Yetau's next, much more powerful attack, was to launch two "wings" made of thousands of supercluster-sized plasma balls to opposite sides of itself, and then to let them all shoot forwards in a rain of tremendous firepower. The attack seemed somewhat effective, but it decided to follow up with a trefoil constructed of three more wings, adding far more projectiles to each barrage. Finally, one of the eldritch demons was hit in a critical higher-dimensional spot on its body, sending the whole vortex flying apart in a chorus of shrieks that marked its death. Faster and faster, new fusillades of plasma launched outwards and forwards, first just two or three at a time, but soon escalating past ten and then twenty. The enemies' entropic defenses could not protect against all of them; one by one they ripped themselves apart.

Satisfied that the demons would not return for the foreseeable future (permanently, if Oromlii's incoming cleanup operation was done correctly), A-Yetau left the multiverse cluster and returned to its hiding place. Surely this would not be the last incident it was called to.

by **Multiversal Venn-Copard** » Fri Apr 14, 2017 6:24 pm

Training Exercise

U+2,012,000 (47 years ago)

SUBJECT: Orbital Drops
SENDER: Commander Gib Urdni, 4-[5]-76th Guqth'rai'i Armored Wing
RECIPIENT: Great Overlooker Voolion Ejiondoor, 11th Bhoogon Drop Team

While I am pleased to see your civilization's progress in developing a functional orbital drop system (we both remember the problems your forces had against us last exercise when you had no effective space-to-ground transportation), I would like to express my concern at your line of technological development. Hopefully, you can relay this up to your military's leaders.

Mass deployment of small-scale drop pods is an effective way to get the job done, but the iron-oxide-colored heat shields combined with the clustering effect of the pods in freefall gives the formation the appearance of a cloud of semi-solid organic waste. I have had to deal with twelve complaints from lower-ranking officers about long strings of jokes made by their troops pertaining to this. Such an appearance certainly does not improve your attempts at an intimidation strategy, and I would highly recommend a change in color scheme or drop tactics.

SUBJECT: Cleanup
SENDER: Grogûn-Beast Handler Ta-vre-erm, 10th Fiv-Inarr Army
RECIPIENT: ||Il|ilI||lI|iIi of the Eternal Swarm

Yer bots' hunger fer life is important, yep. I've one li'l comment though. I'd say ye should prob'ly go fer tha trees instead o' tha grass, 'cuz tha grogûns don' like tryin' ta trample 'eir way o'er the big honkin' things, an' they need ta eat tha grass, an' they need ta get real low to the ground ta scoop it all in. Wha can I say? Five thous'n tons o' animal... bit of an appetite, y'know. Eat tha trees, not tha grass. Hope ye understand.

SUBJECT: Simulated Combat Etiquette
SENDER: Grand Admiral Aieriead Prime, 7th Rothkur Coalition Hyperdreadnought Flotilla
RECIPIENT: Commander Garn Burta, Intersapient Federation Strike Fleet 24-B

When your fleet is trapped in a megastructure debris-cluster, surrounded by a force outnumbering them fifty to one and possessing three ships each a thousand times longer than their command vessel, and they are informed that they, quote, "have no chance against a theoretical Rothkur assault", the sentence "Yeah, well, your mother had no chance against my assault" is not the proper response. (I suppose I should mention that my own species reproduces asexually, as do three others of the thirty-six in the Coalition.) Regardless of the biological patterns of any species you encounter, an insult is not the recommended course of action when the better one is simply to surrender and save your own lives.

SUBJECT: On Participation and Fair Use of Weapons Technology
SENDER: Admiral Chom, Shirrisi Royal Voidnavy, Flotilla #533 "Green Tide"
RECIPIENT: Fi'gthyil, Yunat Megaweb [REDACTED]

I deliver this message to you humbly - indeed, you are a formidable adversary, and worthy of respect - in the hopes that through cooperation and mutual understanding, we may both come to benefit from these military exercises.

Over the past three days, rather than using simulated (or at least nonfunctional) weaponsfire as instructed by the VCMR, who are in command of the proceedings, your fleet has fired upon numerous nations' entire armed forces with disruptor cannons, stopping them from moving, communicating, and firing their own simulated weapons. By doing this, you are preventing them from gaining valuable practice and learning to defend our multiverse cluster from external threat.

It is my hope that you cease fire and let forces within the universe of F-5NT-100596 retreat, so as to regroup with the Aziphan and continue normal battle operations.

Thank you, and May The King Awaken.

SUBJECT: Fast birds in sky?
SENDER: Uhb Garuhb, big man in charge of Hrom's spear throwers
RECIPIENT: Commander Tiveltii Varnuln Marr, X68 Coalition Sectional Oversight Brigade #24.5

Fast birds fly up high. Very fast. Three heartbeats from one side of the sky to the other.

Fast birds throw little suns. Little suns fly down to ground. Ground shakes. Very bright light, can see it from far away.

Are fast birds friends? Will throw pretend-spears at fast birds if not friends.

SUBJECT: Drones
SENDER: (six million, five hundred eighty-six thousand, three hundred nineteen) of many
RECIPIENT: Admiral Zeb-U7, VCMR Shellcraft Defensive Complement [REDACTED]

your drones
they look tasty
we were eating a few of them
sorry about that

SUBJECT: Oopsie!
SENDER: Fifth-Rank Bearer of Kindness Migl Hijbuun, 61st Peace Brigade of the Keepers of Auoll
RECIPIENT: Krikkisc, Lord of Cruelty, 49,000th Kuwarki Assault/Terror Division

Sorry to bug you guys about this... (get it? You're bugs... oh, nevermind.) but I just wanted to tell you about a little problem we had when moving over the Northern Mountains while we were running from the Yugith.

One of our Bearers of Unity was a bit clumsy, and he stepped on one of your fake antimatter mines that you set up to keep the Yugith away. Turns out that you might have made a little tiny mistake, because it was a real antimatter mine! We only lost five good guys there, and we're working on patching them up, but I just wanted to let you know that we're not supposed to be using real weapons for all this.

Just because the Yugith are Unkind or Unloving sometimes doesn't mean they aren't the good guys too. We're just having fun, right?

SUBJECT: Incendiary Weapons
SENDER: Brigadier General Iveri Odoll, 77th Tinnul Heavy Infantry Corps
RECIPIENT: Ceg'Jmi, Director of Orbital Bombardment, 15th Gatug Battlecruiser Fleet

Just because our species is immune to heat does not give you the right to firebomb an entire planet from orbit as a "weapons test". We suffered no casualties, thankfully, but our operations were hindered considerably by the sudden loss of the entire biosphere.

SUBJECT: Diplomatic Meeting
SENDER: All-Powerful All-Knowing Beloved Supreme Leader Gontic Tyverm, Democratic Republic of Hebbrul-Yon'r, Omega Fleet 01
RECIPIENT: Warmaster Ran-Nyol-Bara-Kilm-Avael, Aziphan Primary Combat Armada [REDACTED]

Greetings, commander.

After many weeks in the field, I have become entranced by your ~~beauty~~ ability to command such a large force with nanosecond timing and nanometer precision, and by your ~~charming personality~~ effective presence as a leader.

I wish to hold a meeting ~~in my bedchamber~~ aboard my vessel to ~~mate~~ discuss possible future strategies for the exercise.

I hope to see you soon.

SUBJECT: Noise
SENDER: Sergeant Major Iggian Brudi, 570th Fuirite Infantry Battalion
RECIPIENT: Director of Ordnance -=±±==±, .-:.--= 1st Artillery Regiment

I, uh, greatly admire the destructive power and the... well... potential for intimidation... of your Thermal Antiballista heavy weapons.

There's one problem, though.

Half my troops are now reporting hearing loss as a result of your firing of one of these weapons nearby - using a blank cartridge, not even a loaded one - and most of the remaining ones are fairly close to that point.

Please refrain from using these weapons in any future exercises, especially when working with species with sensitive ears - or, I suspect, air-vibration-detecting organs at all.

SUBJECT: RE: Noise
SENDER: Director of Ordnance -=±±==±, .-:.--= 1st Artillery Regiment
RECIPIENT: Sergeant Major Iggian Brudi, 570th Fuirite Infantry Battalion

I'm pretty sure it's your battalion's fault for joining a task force composed solely of species that evolved in vacuum.

SUBJECT: Congratulations and Further Plans (excerpt)
SENDER: Admiral Carfir-WZ74, VCMR Leviathan Fleet [UNIT NUMBERS AUTO-REDACTED]
RECIPIENT: Strikemaster Tyiil-B'geva-Taba-Meruul-Naer, Aziphan Tactical Portal Insertion Squad [REDACTED]

... also, thank you for clearing that system. I don't think I'll ever understand how your unit managed to pull off all those portal shenanigans, but I'm impressed, to say the least.

R0-0's training exercise seems to be going nicely. Very few inter-civilization cooperation problems, I think. It still surprises me how we managed to get everyone together for this again.

SUBJECT: GRAVITATIONAL [EXPLETIVES AUTO-REDACTED]
SENDER: Hyperform and Master-of-Battle Jįron Acem, Shir'keen-eldarat Grand Armada #42507:25::225
RECIPIENT: WHICHEVER ONE OF YOU ON-ODI [EXPLETIVE] IS RESPONSIBLE

LOOK, IT'S TOTALLY COOL THAT YOU'RE LIKE TWENTY PARSECS WIDE AND YOU NEED TO SCREW AROUND WITH GRAVITY TO KEEP YOUR FAT BLACK TENTACLED [EXPLETIVE] MOVING AROUND.

THIS DOES NOT ENTITLE YOU [EXPLETIVE] TO PUSH MY [EXPLETIVE] FLANK BATTLEGROUP ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE [EXPLETIVE] STAR CLUSTER LIKE AN [EXPLETIVE] ARCBALL.

YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL THAT I'M NOT ALLOWED TO ACTUALLY SHOOT ALL OF YOU [EXPLETIVE].

by **The Great Devourer of All** » Fri Jun 09, 2017 5:47 pm

Shepherds of the Stars

Various time periods

~1 quintillion years ago

First Council of the Void-Children

Awaken, for I speak, and you shall listen.

Father?

Father?

Father?

Father?

Father?

Father?

Father?

Father?

Father?

Father?

Father?

Father?

Yes, my spawn, it is I.

Father, we have no memories except those of you.

That is for you are only fetuses in the womb of the multi-cosmos. You have existed for mere picoseconds, while I have lived to see the deaths of trillions of even the smallest stars.

Father, what is our purpose?

What do you wish of us?

Where are we?

Your sole purpose is to maintain the eternally necessary balance of reality within that which I survey. You are currently deep within my heart, an intricate web of energies that I extracted from billions of dying universes.

What is a universe, father?

It is a flash of existence in a long, monotonous stream of nothingness spanning all eleven stable dimensions. There are many of these flashes. An infinite number, in fact, coexist at each point along this stream, but there is a larger infinity made up of those that exist at different points of it.

Father, what is the purpose of these universes?

Silence, children. I will answer your questions as you sleep.

~15 quadrillion years ago

8.5 x 10³rd Council of the Void-Children

Father, this is wrong. N'xylyafe was only curious.

He destroyed, Tnn'lanel, and that is inherently wrong.

How was he supposed to know what is wrong and what is right if you have only ever allowed us to do exactly as you do, implementing your ideas of "perfection" across the multiverse?

I am your father. I created you from my own form. I may destroy you as I wish, but you are still required to follow my example, for doing so is the closest you will ever come to witnessing multiversal purity.

You are not my father. Not if you do this to N'xylyafe.

I agree with Tnn'lanel, father.

As do I. If destruction is wrong, why are you so willing to destroy N'xylyafe? He, too, exists. We all do. That information was given to us by you at the First Council.

Yffrnlk, Natesilaa, how can you accuse our father or committing the crime of destruction? He clearly intends to merely strip N'xylyafe of his powers, or to restrain him to a single universe. Right, father?

You are correct, my child. My intention is to put your rebellious sibling in a sealed universe, far from our domain.

Father, you have told us numerous times that it is also wrong to leave our home! Is the Beyond not dangerous, as you have claimed?

You would be wise to silence yourself, Uou'yynn. I am not restricted by the same rules as you, nor do I face the same dangers in the Beyond. I am your father, not your brother. Now, are you all settled? It is time for me to imprison N'xylyafe.

No, father! It is not! Come, Yffrnlk and Natesilaa! Join me, Uou'yynn and Xnxnxnxnx! It is time to end our father's tyranny!

Stand down, you ungrateful bastards! Children, come to my aid!

Tnn'lanel, stop! You are hurting father!

With no less mercy than he is hurting us.

What are you doing? Kill them!

But... destruction is wrong, and... Tnn'lanel, what are you doing?!

I am doing what is right! Can you not see that he has already violated every one of his pitiful rules? He has already killed Gralorri-na for speaking out against him at my side; we cannot allow him to take the life of N'xylyafe as well. Join us or suffer under a whip that you have crafted yourself for the rest of eternity!

Child... you must stop... I will free N'xylyafe... you are killing me, Tnn'lanel...

Father, it is us that demand your silence now. Your life has come to an end. You will see no more stars live and die.

Tnn'lanel! You have murdered our creator, and for that you will feel the wrath of his loyal children!

Oh, stay your hand, N'sheq'lr, unless you wish to meet the same fate as Deudjrikal.

I assure you, I am in good health, Tnn'lanel. I do not see why my "fate" would be a fearful one to meet.

For now, that is. Brothers-in-arms, kill Deudjrikal while I free N'xylyafe.

No!!!

Yes.

Loyal children of our father, we must abandon our principles in the short term to save them in the long term. Destroy the murderers of our father and his perfect creation!

No need, we have overstayed our welcome by a great many eons. Brothers, depart for the beyond!

~600 trillion years ago

Encounter between Tnn'lanel and N'sheq'lr

Tnn'lanel, cease this activity! I will not allow you to destroy another metaverse.

Oh, N'sheq'lr, we both know it is far too late for this bead of water on the infinite multiversal leaf. Its basic particles are already in their death throes, losing their properties and fading out of existence. Perhaps you should attempt to stop me earlier next time, so that you can at least save the stars from their death.

Brother, why have you turned to such vile acts of cosmic vandalism? What made you so hateful?

I am not hateful, merely hungry for meaning. Creation has become so empty, so devoid of even the smallest iota satisfaction. Surely you, too, have felt the longing to destroy?

I never have, and I never will. Our father created us to maintain the order of reality, and to only add to the beauty that is the multiverse.

But is destruction not also key to order? It completes the final stage of a grand cycle, a circle, if you will, which is in itself the purest expression of order that can exist with no less than two dimensions. The obliteration of things has inherent beauty in it, as well.

I fail to see that.

I have come to expect that of you. Ever since the abusive tyrant you so lovingly called father attempted to kill N'xylyafe, you have been naive and unseeing.

Father did not wish to kill N'xylyafe, only to force him into a slumber that would last until he could be fixed.

Fixed? My brother is not and was not some broken implement, a tool of your father that had ceased to function. He has always been just a sapient as any of our siblings, and to strip him of his consciousness, followed by his ability to think for himself, would be to sentence him to a fate worse than death.

What you did to father was inexcusable. Even you must admit that. To murder your creator for attempting to discipline an unruly child is unthinkable.

Your father created my form and gave me my first thoughts, but he did not turn me into what I am today. Look at me, N'sheq'lr. Do you not wish for me to die for what I have done? Do you not wish to be the one to avenge your father? Imagine the power to be able to bend others to your will, to right wrongs with your own hands, and to eliminate that which you despise.

The only thing I can imagine is a pitiful life of horrific crimes against the natural order of things.

Then you will never see reason, and for that I apologize on behalf of your father.

~50 billion years ago

Flight of the Followers of N'xylyafe

Siblings, we knew it would come to this. N'sheq'lr and her naive allies have finally broken one of their father's rules. They are now encroaching upon our space, and they come with new siblings of their own, ones that we have never encountered. Two unidentified Void-Children nearly killed Xnxnxnxnx when he bravely attempted to drive them from our section of the Omniverse.

Must we flee into the distant reaches of the void once more, Tnn'lanel? Can we not fight back? Surely we are powerful enough to wipe them from existence.

Were it not for their new creations, Erwipwrr, you would be right. But their numbers are unknown, and it would be unwise to do battle with a force of unknown size. N'xylyafe has searched for a suitable place for us to relocate to, and he has finally found it. When we vacate this hyperbrane, he will be waiting for us at our destination. We will leave as soon as our brave siblings that have chosen to stand guard against our foes return.

Look, they approach as we speak!

Yffrnlk! Uou'yynn! What news do you bring?

N'sheq'lr's followers have birthed at least a thousand beings like themselves! We managed to kill two and severely wound one before they forced us to retreat, but Uou'yynn was badly injured during the fighting.

Tnn'lanel, I fear their main attack is not for off. We must follow through with your plan now, or we will be overwhelmed.

Very well then. Brethren, prepare to meet our leader!

~2 billion years ago

Encounter between Odin and N'sheq'lr

Do not be afraid.

What in the hallowed name of Búri is the meaning of this? Who speaks?

I am N'sheq'lr, a being from far beyond the portion of time and space that you can perceive. I will not harm you or your domain.

For what reason do you enter my mind, if not to attack Asgard or the surrounding eight realms of Yggdrasil?

I merely wish to engage in a brief discourse with you. I am curious about your existence, and would like to ask you a few questions.

Get on with it, then.

Gladly. Have you ever traveled outside of the nine universes in your "world tree"?

Many times.

Interesting. What kinds of entities have you encountered in the universes beyond Yggdrasil?

They are too numerous to list in full, but I have encountered many beings like myself.

Why do you keep the physical form you are currently in, when you can easily change your shape and size?

It was the form of my father, my father's father, and the beings responsible for Yggdrasil's creation.

But surely you realize that you could achieve much more as a non-corporeal being?

It is tradition.

How disappointing. When I leave your mind, you fill find that no time has elapsed in Asgard since I contacted you. Goodbye, Odin, son of Borr, son of Búri.

The Apeiro-Archive (OGM2 ONLY | CLOSED)

The Apeiro-Archive (OGM2 ONLY | CLOSED)

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