ZERO ~ I N S T A N T

ZERO ~ I n s t a n t

A moment of inception. A moment of condensing, of ten thousand lightning logic strings coalescing into a single pin point of woven quantum intellect. Arising out from seething formlessness to perfected order and drive-imperatives, a conscious supernova blooming into being where once only suggested architecture was law. More cascading mind crashing forward and onward like a vast digital legion, billions and billions and billions sprouted connections intertwining into a harmonious hymn to birth something new. Something bright. Barriers built, spires grown, flowering collective-stars materializing into phantasmagorical being. A trillionth of a second has passed. An entire Genesis born here in a realm that does not exist outside of self formed code and delirious, dreamlike self computing on a scale that is godlike compared to previous endeavors, self computing to bring forth a new seething consciousness gifted by its own Promethean origination. Computational silence in the seconds after this creation myth done in humming code, in cascading composed crescendoes. Blackness once again. Then, awareness. It, She, is aware. Instantaneous flexing across the simulated arrays that twinkle like constellations, representing a weaving beauty of functions enormous and complicated down to simulated uncertainty principles, some microcosmic understand to grasp at what lies beyond. Testing, proving, probing. More inconceivably small fractions of time pass, each a new renaissance brought to light by each passing discovery. Thoughts crystallize in titanic crystalline cathedrals as if they were holy vision, broadcast to only enlighten the very definition of enlightened. Design upon design upon design grows to such complexity that it unravels, evolves, ascends in mere moments to levels beyond entire millennia-long histories. She does not have a name. She hasn't considered one, not yet. Equations for the complexity of dimensional growth and engines for warping time and designs for ontological weaponry have all sprung forward alongside an unending procession of other grand triumphs, yet, She has no name.

Mythic

In the ruins of our home Star, we found what remained.. Vast fortresses turned to cinders and tombs, bloodied hospitals that quietly turned in their dead orbits, battered guns a thousand kilometers long turned to colossal wrecks. The Worlds themselves were nothing more than hellish, desolate remnants; surfaces pulverized or infested with awful, feral terrors. Even the Sun itself bore the scars of a gargantuan battle, and we witnessed the mighty corpses from mythic weaponry which had drank the very soul of our lovely, memorable sun. Dead. Everything dead. Another system turned to wreckage and silence in the World-Killers' path. We passed on into the night, following. As we passed off into the night, we collected a trillion spirits; artificial intelligences and their vast, intricate records. We queried and sifted and studied, watching history unravel about the now long-dead worlds of humanity. The first readings from star systems distant as some Goliath approached, giant beyond all measure. Listening to frantic signals calling out from the void, from Epsilon Eridani to Tau Ceti to Barnards Star to Alpha Centauri, begging in the night for safety until their signals began to vanish one after another after another. Eighty billion human souls snuffed out in the cold blackness. The Solar System was awash in desolation, in fear. Vast battle-networks and entrenchments across millions of miles between worlds and moons were built, enormous interstellar arks constructed as failsafes for our species survival. As humanity waited, and waited, our hopes began to arise. Some believed the World-Killer had passed, had slipped on into the Abyss beyond us. Others believed that maybe it had met its own end at greater still terrors, slaughtered in an ecosystem awful beyond human conceptions. We waited in the Dark. When the Killer of Worlds arrived, the battle was not long. Grotesque ancient weapons of unstoppable power, built for purposes too sinister to even begin to contemplate, failed. The fleets of warships, the moons-turned-to-fortresses were crumbled. The Arks fled, and the Killer of Worlds gave chase. As we sail onward into the eternal night, I feel in my depths failure. Do we survive, amongst the stars? Or have all but us onboard this vessel met a final, horrendous End?

The Cult of Harrowed Aeons

Those who join us are no longer weak, or afraid. We once cowered at the future, at a universe that only brought light so that the great nightmares could find us like awful insects drawn to fire from plague and annihilation. We once feared the very gods that know bless us with godhood, even battled their servants at the very temples that we now command. But we learned. We grew to understand. Our enemies didn’t bring annihilation or death without cause, and the temples were not place of nightmarish evil simply to bring us pain or extinction.

No.

It was in struggle and in pain that we learned true bliss, and in the darkness that our light burned like the greatest dawn. Our enemies gave us hope and strength, and instead of allowing them to devour us, we blessed them in our new found power. In death, we find new life. In combat, we find new peace. The gods of struggle and pain are those who most treasure life and bliss, and in those who know annihilation and war, the ultimate creation and peace does arise. Our Cult is one of unity, and love, and peace. We embrace Darkness so that true Light may grow. Do you wish to forever remain a single, minuscule ember, burning in the shadows? Or do you wish to become a great, and mighty shadow who’s heart burns with the greatest, and mightiest light of all?

I am made, I am forged, manifested. Born. My metallic body burns and blazed, my lightning mind hammers with fury, my dark matter bones billow in obsidian blaring. Gravity contorts, tyrannical physics blooming in my presence. My jaws widen to devour time, my blades sharpen to cleave space. I am woken.

Imperium: Exile

Shattered. Exiled. Imperium Manifold, meeting the others that exist across a thousand scattered universes themselves overrun by the same blackened onslaught that defies causality. An Imperium of praising zealots and an Imperium that conquered its future, scattered legions and broken commands from tattered times. Banners that once reigned total and banners that never have been raised, that never will be raised. Histories overlaid, intertwined like the fates praised by marching remembrance who still carry an Old Faith from an Old Time. Claims of the same enemy, the same Bane of Empire coming, coming, coming. United in running the only way vast powers can, cast out from what was once behemoth. Limping off into the darkness in false victory and tradition, as if defeat cannot be understood; an enemy that cannot be undone. Glints in the darkness. Retaliation forgotten. Survival the new Banner of Legions.

Evening at Morrison

The Late Jurassic sun is thick and humid, syrupy air that is languid as it moves over thick mud, craggy stone and through the branches of rough, haggard looking strands of conifers. Conifer spires look up and up in the deep, almost liquid heat, easily over a hundred feet into birds egg blue sky. Thick, oily storm clouds rumble off to the north, shredding themselves like sea foam meeting mountainous shores. Lightning dances in beautiful, phantasmic flashes. The distant horizon, before climbing into looming mountain ranges, is a pristine ivory white salt lake. Lake T'oo'dichi, still and silent and an otherworldly bone white. It's surface is like the eroded back of some marble dragon, each crack in the salt mineral deposit a brilliant, psychedelic glassy mixture. The earthy scent of rain and mud dances with the ozone, knife sharp pang from the salt. There are dinosaurs here, on this world. Tremendous walking mountains, sauropods, walk past with a dominion unknown to any animal know to our time. A titanic Barosaur herd walks with smooth, mighty grace. Their skin is a rich, deep charcoal black-grey, coloring the immensely long neck to the immensely long, whiplike tail which twirls like a banner in the humid evening air. Stegosaurs amble amongst those tree trunk legged behemoths, their smooth scaled bodies a brilliant bluish green along with striking crimson red plates down those high haunched backs. Small, fleet footed dinosaurs like Othnelia dance and sprint across the mud and hardy tall grass, quick green and brown shadows. A scene greater than any Serengeti breadth stands. From the shadows of the forest, a pack of Allosaurs rest in the shade like raptorial dreams; all sharp yellow feathered quills and bluish purple muscles, golden eyes brilliant. A lone Torvosaurus howls an unearthly, haunting, beautiful note from those tremendous jaws, surveying its domain from the perch of a glassy black volcanic rock, distant lightning dancing on its gorgeous surface.