Ether.
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“Mana, Sentient Energy, Qi, names given to the incarnation of the superior will of a long-lost being, given form as the medium to enact their intents and desires on the world.
A highly volatile energy, with the desire and ability to change its nature, empowering every substance that comes into contact with it, thus changing its very nature.
It has greatly affected the world so much that the ancients do not remember a time before this power seeped into every aspect of this string of matter we call Reality.
What I do know is this power is not meant for us. Us as in Everyone. It has destroyed the natural course of action, has contorted the perception of every species towards Life and Death, dominions we should have no hold over are now being toyed by mere individuals like puppets on strings!
This energy, this power, can be understood with just one single word:
“INCOMPREHENSIBLE.”
‘Where did this come from?
Why were sentients bestowed with such power?
What is its nature?’
Several questions, some answered, some unanswered.
To this day, it remains a mystery to be solved.
One can only hope that someday, the secrets behind every question in existence gets unraveled.”
* Page 353, Section XIV,
‘Journal of the Wise Old Man Agnehelius’,
Circa 892 C.O.C. (Chaos Order Calendar)
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Soul
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“Soul.
What defines a Soul?
Is it the presence of intelligent consciousness that ascertains the existence of the soul?
Is it the ability to make decisions and order judgment that proves it?
On the other hand, do the existence of emotions and evokings confirm the existence of the deeper essence of an individual that does not rely on the physical brain?
What we do know is that every living individual that is sentient, responsive and observant contains this astral projection of their consciousness, that is, the actual person themselves. The physical body the soul inhabits is the medium, or doorway if you will, to contact the physical world.
From this, the following questions arise:
1. How do souls get paired up with their respective mortal shells?
2. Why do they cross the bridge to the mortal world when they reside in an intangible and placid reality that we call the Astral Realm?
3. When and how do the souls know the exact time to bond with their respective shells when it is in the womb?
4. Is Limbo a part of the same realm?
To my students and fellow bibliophiles who are gazing upon this sentence, I regretfully state that we have found none of the answers you are here for.
Perhaps you, my fellow, could invoke your inner explorer and journey across the cosmos to find the answers to these questions.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Nevertheless, I will, on my conscience, not allow myself to tell what to do with the information that you will gather.
It is yours to keep.
Dispose or impart. It is up to you.
Before moving on to the next unit, heed the advice of this old man and glance at your inner soul just one more time. Try talking to it.
I know it may come across as the futile rambling of a senile geriatric, but who knows? Maybe you’ll find the inspiration you’re looking for.”
-Page 477, Unit 35,
‘A Sage’s Dissertation on the Astral and its like’,
Imperial Library No. 19878,
Neutral Empire of Lazarynth,
Circa. 53 V.O.C (Verdant Order Calendar)
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The World
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1. First Cosmos, U1.
Origins: Unknown
Progression: Standard, Non-Ethereal
(As disclosed by the Solus Archives.)
Energy Presence detected: 4 –
Standard,
Anti (Attributes detected- Deceleration, Decay, Temporal Negation, Absorption),
Dark (Attributes detected- Stasis, Illumination Disfigurement, Deceleration) and
Sentient (Attributes detected- Intent, Command, Presence, Will, Unification).
Sentient Civilizations (at the time of the Great Exodus):
1,216,764 known civilizations:
T0 – 1,000,431
(Individual Genuses of the Neutral Micro-Organisms and sub-atomic energy dextrisms)
T1 – 167,890
(Plague inducing Micro-organisms)
T2 – 47,395
(Docile Micro-Organisms) (Note: the Technocratic strain of the Obsidian Virus was Semi-T3)
T3 – 7,987
(Universal Flora and Fauna of detrimental intellect and keen, overruling instincts)
T4 – 653
(Tier One Civilizations of the Information Age)
T5 – 52
(Tier Two Wayfaring Civilizations, the Mercantile Guild being their representative Senate)
T6 – 7
(Tier Three Overseers, each established and responsible for their own hypercluster)
T7 – 1
(The Vod, leader of the Exodus and highest known civilization from U1)
Notable Achievements (marked at the end of the Habitable Epoch):
1. The deterioration rate of the World Membrane had sped up by an unidentifiable margin, leading to the fragmentation and dissolution of various celestial bodies inhabiting the adjacent space in real time. Evidence on the culprit has yet to be found.
2. Immense Heat Entropy throughout the Universe caused Dark Matter to coagulate around the affected perforations. Said state of matter was responsible for the stability and isolation of heat emanating from it. As the amount of dark matter isolating celestial bodies came to a catastrophically low amount, a bare minimum of isolative covering, the laws of thermodynamics won out, causing thermodynamic equilibrium in the immediate vacant spaces around energetic bodies. This went ahead and caused the implosion of the affected bodies, rendering them uninhabitable.
3. All Sentient beings had a unanimous agreement to cease all discord and co-operate for the preservation of all present life in the cosmos. This agreement came to be known as the “Vod Peace Treaty”, signed by the Survivors’ Council, under the supervision of the strongest lifeform present, the Vod of the Energy-Shifters.
4. All servient members of the surviving sentient races underwent body-template-grafting surgeries to become ‘tetrabrachial humanoids’, with their respective racial characteristics, to shed their unsoughtful anatomies for managing efficiency in times of mass emergency migrations or exodus, thus resulting in a vicissitudinous lifestyle, begetting the moniker of ‘cosmic nomads’.
5. The term ‘Humans’ was dissolved to being an epithet for the humanoid subordinates of all Council Member’s races, the bodies being a reminder of the subsumed genus of the extinct race with the highest reproductive and maturity rate out of all documented sentient lifeforms, thus being chosen as the acceptable template for the survival of the other races.
6. As of the last recorded backlog from the Survivors’ Armada, all participating races of the Survivors’ Council were reported as having boarded all of the residential vessels of the Life Squadron.
Notes: Not much has been discovered and recovered from the memories of the Solus, except for the widely disclosed information about its Non-Ethereal birth and the low birth rate of sentience across the definition of the world membrane.
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