The Nine initialized the System two days after the fateful experiment. Since the experiment, the dreadful effect has propagated across the universe at the speed of light. They only have full control in the space occupied, fully integrated, by the system. The System, itself spreading at the speed of light, trails the edge of the effect by two days. For worlds that find themselves newly overtaken, the two-day difference is impactful to say the least. By the grace of The Nine, other worlds are largely spared the worst of the effect.

Firstly. Tardigrades. The hardiest. Most supremely adaptable. Most fascinating, I think, little beasties Rin ever conceived of. At the time System was conceived Tardigrades were spread to the far corners of the universe. They prosper, even in areas still within classical space. Which is their whole point. It is known that Rin conceived of them to prepare other worlds for the ravages of wild Aether as his first great act of creation in the system.

Tardigrades were designed to spread a certain vital packet of genetic information across the universe. With their ability to migrate genetic information to and from bacteria and other types of microbes, and a good bit of luck, over time the genetic packet made its way, more or less intact, into the genomes of all species across the universe.

They however needed to be spread across all of space to do their work. This required a huge effort by Von, Toar and Hove working together. Hove was the Tenth. He sacrificed himself to achieve it.

Hove represented a powerful and compelling Tenet. He was a God of pure enhancement. During the process he converted the entire extent of his life’s energy to boost Taur’s unity to the point where she could dip into the realm of Aether to fuel the process. As well as over the entirety of the classical universe. And he was able to do so for a fraction of a second. Enough for Von and Taur to spread Rin’s solution, the Tardigrades, far and wide. Now Hove is no more. The Nine say that the System is less for his absence. That there is more strife in it than they would have wished for. And they hold his name as sacred. It is said that Von held Toar’s hand during that blink of an eye. So that she could see where to go. It is… Probably a bit more complicated than that. During the fraction of a second that Hove gave them Von and Toar were, together, close to but not quite… Unlimited. They had to rest for days afterwards.

A divine undertaking to be sure. For all that it is imperfect.

The Tardigrades were all they could manage on a cosmic scale, and Tardigrades can only do so much. Once a world is overtaken it takes organisms which have acquired the divine genetic packet less than a second, triggered and fueled by Aether, to grow cores. Some die sooner than that. Others just find their cores growing wrong, or not at all. Both being, if not fatal, then severely problematic for continued prosperity.

An organism needs a core to deal with Aether. Only about 150 million humans survived integration. There are a few new races which were born from humanity’s ranks at that time as well. Groups of people whose cores did not develop normally in a certain number of ways. Likely due to the effect of their own Will. They still ended up with perfectly functional cores.

They were somewhat harmed by losing their humanity, and with it humanity’s innate adaptability, but to give them a fair change Semir bestowed racial blessings upon them in exchange. These blessings are useful to a fault. These races are our relatives, but as these things go... Many territories are in dispute. Within some territories most of the races get along fine. Some races are however instinctively inclined to just not cooperate with others. Always add odds, and most often at war.

The rest of the natural world on earth also suffered greatly. So yes… The whole thing was a bit more miss than hit. Still a bona fide miracle. Two days later when the System, and with it The Nine arrived, everything settled into the order of the System and their patronage. Bringing great relief.

But two terrible days. Those who could grow viable cores had to weather being surrounded by wild Aether. Which is not how a core is meant to function indefinitely. Many weak cores cracked from the pressure. Which meant death. The rest… Those who had a core that grew faulty, or had no core due to incomplete, or poor integration of the divine genetic packet… For most it essentially represented a kill switch.

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But life is hardy, and results varied in extreme, and dangerous ways for those who survived without a fully functional core during those two days. Although the effect was vastly subdued compared to what the Precursors experienced. Mostly because all the living beings with functional cores were soaking up a lot of the wild Aether. Things did get a bit chaotic though. It was not only wild Aether and its effects that killed all those who perished. Not by a long shot.

Cored organisms, humans included, saw themselves spontaneously uncovering skills within disorganized, and bizarre classes. It all happened purely instinctively. Gair’s influence was not yet felt. And Janur was not there to inform people what was happening. All the survivors had to go on was the tutorial, and histories contained within their cores. Which helped quite a bit. But not everybody took to it gracefully. And beasts will be beasts.

Nobody, but the wickedly inclined, could honestly enjoy it. Only the strong survived. It was two days mostly filled with strife.

One thing is certain. It was all the fault of the Precursors. However, without their descendants, The Nine, and their System, it would be much worse. It could have been a universe filled with little isolated pantheons of gods from the “lucky” worlds. And dead worlds. And some speculate, planet sized viscous organisms. Ever growing as new material come into reach. A lonely, unfriendly, eldritch universe.

Things are what they are. The system is for the good of every world it integrates. And not just to help them survive integration.

See. Wild Aether continuously leaks into System from the plane of Aether. Once integration is achieved, the purpose of The System is fundamentally to process and use up wild Aether. If left unchecked even dead matter, originally without any Will would, would eventually be affected.

To achieve it two secondary purposes give shape to The System.

To tame “wild” Aether into “raw” Aether.

To refine raw Aether into useful patterns.

The first purpose is gathering wild Aether from across the volume of space surrounding any given world, it’s Aetherreach, and then impressing a basic pattern upon it that allows it to be corralled into vast networks of subterranean rivers of raw Aether, called the Aetherways. These, through Toar’s unity are only concentrated upon worlds with life. Leaving the rest of the Aetherreach maximally depleted of wild Aether. In the event of a spontaneous Genesis of life within an existing Aetherreach, this allows new life forms to persist, unaffected by Aether. Eventually, if such life reaches viable levels of sophistication, they are also integrated into the system, but in a significantly more controlled manner. Such worlds are the lucky ones.

The second purpose is for the cores within all living beings to access the Aetherways and process raw Aether into basic Mana. The energy that powers skills. Skills being static Aether patterns that grow within a lattice around cores. Skills further refine basic mana into other specialized forms of mana. Specialized mana, such as fire mana, or spirit mana, is expended to lead to the effects of skills.

Unused raw Aether builds up in the Aetherways. If any of the myriad nodes along the Aetherways reaches critical levels, then the system is designed to spawn massive numbers of beast to prevent destabilization.

This hardly ever happens in the most populated areas, but it is common around the borders of civilized territories where beasts and men are continually at odds, and so not enough of either are found. In remote regions powerful beasts contend with each other in what can only be described as a skill-fueled Natural Selection, Survival of the Fittest+++. Men do not intrude lightly upon the wild. Not even the powerful.

If only the beasts spawned by critical Aether overload could be simple mice and butterflies, then this mechanism would not be a problem. However, simple mice and butterflies would not put a dent in bloated Aetherways. So, powerful and dangerous beasts are spawned with offensive and defensive skills. And they tend to desire only to fight the closest other living thing. With a preference for the intelligent races of the world. It is their fault after all.

This ensures vigorous Aether conversion as a contingency.

Every living thing is a gear in the machine. But this is the world we live in. The same as it is for every being on every System world. I think that at this point the ability to let it depress anybody has been bred out of life.

In the words of The Nine: “Diversity is the spice of life. Adversity its stock.” The bottom line. Only through overcoming challenges can intelligent beings become strong. And only through strength can a species prosper. It has been found that that there is a significant correlation between an individual’s total mana use, and longevity. For those who aspire to and succeed in aiding The Nine in the primary purpose of their System - Joe looks the other way.

It is the system they came up with. And it works.