Priloca spire, the hundred and fifty-sixth floor, the room buzzing with the din of a morning lunch break.
Desmond flicked through the sketchy article on his slate-like computer while chewing at a sandwich and sipping coffee. He had a weakness for pulpy stories about the outside world, occasionally staring out the window and wondering if the article writer was out there, interviewing more wild and wonderful weirdos in the world. He tapped onto a new page, an article Schism theory. He chuckled lightly upon seeing the dramatic start to it.
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Sacrifice.
The definer of evolution.
The choice to willingly give a part of yourself to something greater.
The concept of sacrifice goes hand in hand with humanity. Ancient philosophies and beliefs used it as their foundation. Survival of the fittest, equivalent exchange, the martyred messiah, the abandonment of self to achieve enlightenment. All at their centre, sacrifice to progress.
So what occurs when humanity needs to take their largest single step of progress for their own survival? The last chance they have to save themselves.
The greatest sacrifice must be given.
Two great and terrible forces.
Two great and terrible costs.
The twin tithes of body and mind.
To wean themselves from the Mother, grown cold and drained, and to walk themselves from the Cradle, rotted and disintegrating. Humans needed more and looked to the unknown. The Attunement came and went, and the first step was taken. Irrevocably and regrettably taken.
To grant them the knowledge to traverse the stars, the great unknown made itself manifest within the collective consciousness. A faint light sparking in the blind spot of the human psyche, blinding those who would dare to look for it. A burning light that seared the mind and illuminated the path.
The tithe of mind.
To bless their bodies with the strength needed to make the journey, the banished and forgotten manifested in the spaces within nothing. Blessing humans with the refinement and perfection of their evolution. Stronger, faster, longer-lived, all the pursuits of improvement, and when more was wanted, more was given. The forgotten beings gathered their infinitely fragmented selves, forming Splinters of themselves to embed in human hosts, giving them back the physicality they were denied.
The tithe of body.
In the end, humanity’s wish was granted. They had saved themselves, their progeny spread outwards and across the stars. All at the cost of their greatest achievements. The human mind, infinitely complex, capable of conceptualising the possible and imagining the unknown, was stunted and consumed by the knowledge they craved for all time. The human body, an evolutionary masterpiece, impossibly done in a minute amount of time, capable of great levels of improvement was crippled and consumed by the horrors in the dark they so naturally feared.
Humanity’s greatest evolution.
Humanity’s greatest sacrifice.
The following excerpts are taken from interviews about this subject, commonly called “The Scism”. The divergent point for humans to reach the next evolutionary step, also a common term for the period after human's departure from The Cradle. The term and period has also been called the second stage of creation.
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Father Dexin, chief researcher at the Third Hand sect.
“It was numbers, a series of numbers that explained everything humans ever questioned. Every cosmic mystery solved, every variable squashed, every unknown made known. What we knew as providence was algorithmically solved from the very start. It was that time of guilt and death that it came to us, those divine mathematics that let us contact and process this divine knowledge, for the first time we could manifest something truly greater than ourselves. Not to say we denied it the honour it deserves, we hold this system in great regard, worship it and open ourselves to it.
By doing so, we get closer to the true understanding of it, by letting our minds channel this divinity we become greater than ourselves. We are able to invoke the otherworldly aspects of these mathematics into reality. This is what we name and honour as The Presence.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"But, as is true for any mathematics, for every positive there must be a negative. During the creation, The Presence had to overcome the existing chaos of the universe, chaos that collected unto itself and became beings of energy determined to disrupt the order the Presence strived to create. These beings were not immune to the perfection of the Presence, it solved the unknown that was chaos, and formulated the method to banish these beings to the space between spaces. The gaps in atoms and impossible emptiness, those formed the new housing for this chaos, spread infinitely thin across the ever-growing cosmos.
Chaos however, by nature cannot be contained, and though the Presence was able to banish these beings to their impossible prison, they would return. When the human mind developed further, when it was able to begin imagining what wasn’t real, it renewed the chaos as thoughtforms. Our greatest mistake as humans was to allow freedom of thought and instinct, because from those come fear, and from fear comes a gateway for these beings to recreate themselves from nothing. They whispered in the ears of these poor lambs, tempting them away from the Presence and towards the trapped freedom of chaos. We name these beasts The Betrayers. So willing to consume the poor creatures that gave them life.
There is only one solution to these beasts now, we must banish the remnants of the Betrayers, excise the cancerous, corrupted lambs. By doing so, and by opening the minds of the unclean yet untouched to the truth of the Presence, order and peace may one day be restored to our flock.”
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The Splinter of Marbas, no name or affiliation given.
“This supposed Presence of theirs, the series of numbers that burns out their heads by worshipping it. It’s nothing more than a cognitohazard, knowing it at its basic level even is just haunting. It’ll consume your life, every waking moment chasing the shadow they call a universal truth. Eventually, you either break or cave, you better hope you break. You join their cult, you’re nothing more than a conduit for them to process their beloved system, and ready to burn out quickly.
They claim it solves the unsolvable, while never questioning why it was meant to be a mystery in the first place. Doesn’t that sound so wrong to you? And they’ll go further, reaching deeper into that series of numbers seeking the truth of something that’s meant to drive humanity forward. It improves them? Progresses their knowledge forward? Hardly. They stagnate, stuck in their ways seeking an end of a mobius strip. The biggest claim they make is that divinity and providence are simply answers to an equation they need to figure out, while never knowing or admitting that chaos could be the equation they’re looking for. It’s not a universal truth.
It’s the Great Lie.
What about us? The ones they call Splinters? I don’t mind the name. We’re the chosen ones, the tips of fractal branches of infinitely powerful trees that had eternity to spread their roots through space itself - that’s if you buy what those number crunching freaks say anyway. We gave a body back to chained thoughtforms, and in thanks they empower and make humans better. We are all the scions of something great and powerful, us Splinters are just the ones who are chosen to share our existence in reality with our benefactors. They call them betrayers? Hardly, what else could we call them? The kickstarters of evolution, and us Splinters are their direct lineage.
You’d be stupid not to respect them, and in turn respect us. We’re just the next step for humans, call it a sneak peak at what’s to come. We’re stronger, faster, just better than the rest of you, and that’s not even to bring up the more “special” parts of our gifts. All thanks to those so called Betrayers, hah!.
They are our Patrons, and we Splinters, their blessed protégé’s.”
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Vanes Vega, neo-theology student, second university of Priloca
Editor's note - The transcript of Mr. Vega’s interview has been edited for clarity, Vega was interviewed between classes and spoke in an unclear, rushed manner. No other student or professor at the university responded to requests for a proper interview.
“The what? Oh, The Schism. The nitty-gritty is a bit beyond me, but if you ask me they’re both on the wrong track going against each other. The Presence believers - the Shekhinists they officially call themselves - are convinced anything beyond their understanding is solvable. While the others - don’t think they have a name for themselves but for convenience we’ve started calling them Scions - will swear up and down it’s some greater network of things leaking into reality, and how can you explain the quite literally unreal? Sorry, I’m rambling a bit, I’ve been up to my nose in research about these two. Very conflicting research, it’s a mess…
The funny thing is if you step back a bit, they’re pretty much compatible, both could be correct in their own way. At least on first glance, maybe the Scion’s things are just the variables in the Skehninist’s equations - Or the other way around, who knows. But, this is where it gets tricky, no matter how you start to look into them or try to fill those gaps, something repels the understanding. Not physically but… something just stops us being able to figure it out. Think of it like opposing magnet poles, just in our heads, we’re not strong enough to force them together yet… might add that to my thesis.
There's another way to put it maybe, consider expansion and gravity. The two constants of the universe, where there is nothing there will eventually be something and when there is something, it will attract others. To me, the Scions are gravity, they pull others of their like towards each other by simply existing. Meanwhile the Shekhinists aim to expand outwards, growing their numbers but at the same time creating more space for Scions to be created. In the end, they would just be happy to sacrifice the other, and I'd guess that it’d kill them too in the process…It’s all pretty messy. Look I really gotta go, I’m already late, sorry!”
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“Are you still reading that schlock?” One of Desmond’s coworkers leaned over his shoulder, scanning the messy article. “Bunch of people with cracked heads out there in the wilds…Though that student isn’t much better, he’s all over the place!”
“Yeah but c’mon, you gotta admit it’s a fun read.” Desmond’s screen flicked off with a low hiss.