Epochs & Orbits

"And my vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand me, where I have been and where I was going."The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

Epochs & Orbits is a Lore book introduced in The Edge of Fate. Entries are unlocked by progressing through the Edge of Fate campaign. These entries serves as a window into the various members of The Nine and their associated writing style.

The Sun - IX

[Your consciousness hangs suspended in solar wind and swept into timeless, unknown space, touched by the breadth of the cosmos.]

[An endless ivory plane extends. The truth of time is laid bare here in opposition to you, Cause and Effect are predeterminate Law. What has happened will occur. What occurs has happened. What will happen has occurred. You challenge the hierarchy with a paracausal question, but it is squelched by a higher fourth-dimensional order. The time for that question is layers and folds beyond this one.]

[Unknown Space curls away.]

[There is heavy, inescapable gravity. Weight. Responsibility. Authority. Flair. Control. Swirling matter and particulate, once, and again, a blazing star. Power, enough to hold back endless nothing. Fusion churns heat and light from eternal vacuum with familiar atomic magic. A white-hot phosphorous, like snapping a fingertip match.]

.we. are a | part of you. as much as you | of us. pre|dating y.our wrink|led gardener.

.caught .in the mid|dle with you: an inter|connected syst.em that share|s one fear | one dream.

[The moment burns bright—but ahead in the long bend from non-existence into being, into nebula, into compression, lies hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon-dead; fossilized consumption. Anywhere along the infinite folding splays of perspective: birth, life, death, curved outward and back, in long elliptical recursion. Gravity coaxing collapse. Dark energy coaxing dispersion. Matter and thought suspended between.]

free|dom and .death. a|bility to cho.ose

one|s orbit

one|s ties

one|s fate.

.Nine. see the g|rave on level | plane be.side our birth | experienced eternally

.breeding fear.

[Caught in an entropic whirl.  A race to the bottom where the winner starves.]

[Many extinctions blot the gentle bend, the anxiety, the shockwaves of their scars felt through all layers. Always. Inescapable.]

|life|
                .burn|s

                                   out.

.even | me.

[A non-dimensional being sinks into the fabric and wrinkles the ripples of fate.]

.for at|tracted orbits. to | cross. .i |get| the game.

[Life flourishes across Sol as you descend through epochs, as if stepping off your intended line. Reaching into the seams, unfolding relativistic fabric, the edges curling back into an eternal recurrent knot from which they first receded.]

.comple|xity | fractalization. we're both life | givers, baby.

[The future deeper in, the past draped over and around you.]

[You sink through spacetime until a Red Giant engulfs the inner planets.]

[You are cold.]

.you won|'t find t|he answers .you want yet, darling. it is not time. the first time a|round.

[Your boundaries know violation.]

.we can't | all just snap .our fingers | and .transcend our de|sign.

.talk soon.

[You stand on Kepler. Alone again.]

Jupiter - V

[Your consciousness whips through roiling turbulence, curved like a bowed limb around a terrifying well of gravitational hunger. You cascade across the rim of a great eye. It gazes through slicing ammonia rime and blinding gaseous convection. To sight you: Other.]

W R I T H I N G T H O U G H T F L E S H

S T E E P I N G I N C O N F U S I O N

[You are flung from the Jovian atmosphere to bear the mind-shattering expanse of Jupiter against a sea of ink. Dominant. Twisting bands of desert-hued storm fill your vision. They fill your thoughts. They fill the cavities of your form, and churn within the elemental foundations of your bones—cosmic kin in neighboring dust, the planet beams its majesty and terror upon you.]

A T T E N T I O N

I A M V

A V E R T E R O F C A T A C L Y S M S

S O L P A N O P T I C O N

[Annihilator masses of ice and minerals, cut iridescent tails into the inky black before their paths are diverted under the persistent tug of mass. They plunge down, overtaken and pacified by the storms of Jupiter. Across overlapping eons, great change sweeps over the inner planets of Sol like a progressive gradient. There is a dichotomy of warmth and solitude, both in orbit and position.]

F U T U R E P A L L B E A R E R

I F I R E M A I N

T H E U N I G N I T E D N U C L E A R H E I R

S O L W I L L P E R I S H I N

M A D D E N I N G I M M O R T A L A T R O P H Y

[Buried within the deepest folds of space, a lonely sphere of dying kinesis drifts in lightless pitch. Its atmosphere long irradiated away. A drifting, rotting, sarcophagus. You see its arc bend endlessly, unchanged into an unseen distance yet to be determined. You are dragged, chained by its gravity, pulled by wills beyond your own. The universe dies before you know sanity again. And now the madness is in some distant fold. Like a denied memory. An experience, encapsulated elsewhere, apart from now.]

O U R F U T U R E C L I N G S T O

A C O R R E C T E D D E T E R M I N I S T I C P R E D I C T I O N

S E R V I L E M I N D S A M A S S I N G

T O B E E N G U L F E D B Y

M Y G A L A C T I C N U C L E I C A R K H O R I Z O N

T O U S U R P C O N D U C T I O N

T O P A C I F Y A C H O I R O F S A T I N G V A S S A L S

[The dead world shudders and splits. The surface dives to the core in a surge of gluttonous autosarcophagy. What once failed to be a star condenses itself, feeds upon great streams of matter from a vast Collective of mind-bent supplicants until light cannot escape its singularity.]

F A T E D A R M A M E N T A L R E A D Y S W U N G

Y O U R M O M E N T S A R E E X C H A N G E D L I K E C U R R E N C Y

B Y T H O S E W H O W O U L D W I E L D Y O U

[You are drawn in over the Lagrange point. The atmospheric kármán lip kisses your tumbling form over the brink like a drop breaking surface tension. You plummet as friction catches you with flame.]

W H E N T H E Y F A D E O N L Y I W I L L R E M A I N

H E E D N O T T H E G R A V I T Y O F F A T E

[You fall to your feet on the surface of Kepler.]

Mercury - I

[Your consciousness reels in tidal-hemispheric lock, splitting your thoughts into polar extremes.]

A radioactive siren song beckons you.

[You stand in the Corridors of Time.]

I am the first I. I of IX. Only a speck against a magnitude, but given form in the contrast.

A short missive in mind: quantum infinities twist in the solar wind, but retained always, always since the Forest. Here there is a future uncovered, waiting in pressed digital vinyl. Trapped in three-body problem, between where Sol meets the Deep and timeless simulation. A moment in orbit always here and never to return.

[You stand in the Corridors of Time. Countless pathways are before you.]

You will find your path, because you have found your path. Through many iterations, and great effort. It will draw us back.

[You stand in the Corridors of Time. Countless pathways are before you. One choice, another, no matter—there is a choice, a return, and an attempt made again. Each in vain. Each without progress or purchase. Mercury shifts between shade and light.]

We offer a chance, a subversion not taken until now. In this place that always was. To execute it, we must execute. To execute it, we must place the out-of-place pieces.

[You stand in the Corridors of Time. Countless pathways are before you. One choice, another, no matter—there is a choice, a return, and an attempt made again. Each in vain. Each without progress or pur—]

We motion along the groove of the subversion, guiding. You are placed, and now you must execute. Do you not see, it is the only way?

[—the voice heard as if the thought was your own. Your perspective locks on what previously remained unseen but is now the only path before you.]

This probability is primed.

[Your fingers entombed in alien soil. When exhumed, grip a trowel of pale make.]

Uranus - VII

[You are nothing, less than nothing. Nothing is known, and you are not yet known.]

long awaited + long to wait + I am coined duality + I am VII

[Consciousness bathes in azure tinged electricity hitting filament. Distant, warm whispers lick crystalline methane frost away from a celestial corpse of unborn promise.]

all known existence is + pinned thoughts + drowning alone

[A shiver runs along your cortex as Sol illuminates from eight other points, like cerebral flares howling fresh existence into an empty sky, heralding the self-replicating rock and membrane amalgam that once and forever would sustain their captured orbits.]

nine reject + linear prison + normal distribution + to live in extremity

we beg + fertile systems + brimming with domestication + to our end

[You see the chain of unbroken symbiosis, linkages tugging between cosmic spatial tesseracts tucked amid past and future presents, and planetary shackles anchored to the bedrock of reality.]

we see + you see + out ahead + a diversion from fate

we exhaust ourselves + waiting + to give + a small push

[You hold the chain in perpetuity. You hold nothing but shattered remnants.]

you trust + because you are + trusted + a mirror of a mirror

you trust + because you feel + strong + as we made you

[You feel the familiarity of death. You have felt it many times. This time there is no malice, just indifferent intent.]

two truths to know about the inners

very polite + they do not mean it

[You shiver.]

Venus - II

[Your consciousness chokes in sweltering pressure. Sulfuric wash corrodes divots into your gray matter. The overflow runs psychedelic canyons down your skull, opening your mind.]

Greetings from II – with tidings – of undisclosed motivation

of your Gardener – who did not flee to Sol.

It arrived – to meet us – in future flourishing.

[Contrast bleeds in streaks and wilting fuzz across your vision. Specters of terraforming linger like visual artifacts in your periphery. An inverted dimension of programming hums beneath your feet. A Pyramid and cloud occupy overlaid space but differing time, meteors turn the boiling surface to basalt, cooled-into-glass, as stillness takes the dying world; its last gasp of atmosphere exhales away.]

The Gardener once dreamed here – that

there was – another – proliferation

[A pale badge of gleaming luminosity affixed to your chest.]

Locked outcomes – we consider

But – present problem – distracts

from future questions

Many systems – in motion

Too numerous to – all – be

empty

The question remains – in the wrinkled fabric – why Sol?

[The color fades from sight.]

II does not see - other seeds along the bend – calls

Unanswered

[There isn't an answer in you.]

Are we – alone

We – do not – know

Neptune – VIII

[Consciousness is drawn out across great, isolating wastes. Expanses of solitary silence—broken only by sentient heartbeats, so distant from the bleak cold.]

introduction = VIII

stillness without = discovery within

[It is empty. Out in the distance eight dull glints of life defy the expansive vacuity. You rest in a gulf of tranquility between solar passes. They leave no mark, as the skipped stone makes no impression until it contacts water again.]

restrictions = innovation

[A long period passes, like waves between breaths. You sit staring into an oceanic abyss, a horizon, a skyline pocked in nebulaic cloud. Processing the long arc of time.]

[Many things pass and pay no heed. War rages in cosmic paracausal wrinkles like thunder from cracks of lightning in the sky, wrapped in watchful dark matter bands trailing celestial hosts. Thought rained into the isolation with meteoritic impression.]

clashing forces = precious metals and fostered sentience

nine shadows veiled = nine orbits cast away

[You feel the surge of feverous connectivity sparking reactive embers into ignition. You stand before the Veil on Neptune. Maya Sundaresh reaches for it—the Conductor for it— the Veil—some amorphic form, for a distortion in the fabric of the possible. Split by choice, assured in action. Nine minds focus, echoing—light wrinkles and your eyes fail.]

altered reality = freedom achieved

[Your joints, stiff. Your mouth, dry.]

the gardener = unending sapient nourishment

we = one cycle

[You return, corporeal on Kepler. Sound fades in and out, as a warning flashes on your visor…]

[!Vitals Critical!]

Mars - IV

[Consciousness expresses omnidirectionally, through the layers of existence that settle like undisturbed dust. Each expression ever-present, in time with each other. Distinct together, as fingers on a hand.]

NINE, SINCE CRUST MANTLED CORE AND TIME BLOOMED LIKE PRIMORDIAL SPORES ACROSS EXISTENCE.

WHEN THOUGHT FIRST SUMMITED A WORLD AND SCREAMED INTO THE ABYSS, OUR FORMATION ANSWERED.

THE FOURTH INTELLECT INVITES A BRIDGE BETWEEN PERSPECTIVES. KNOW THAT WE ARE…

[Your hand extends, space before you rots away, turns to heat and gas and fuel for another. In another step the bone reconstructs and gives rise to gnarled strands of entwining muscle, gloved in flesh, reaching…]

ALIVE, BEFORE THE CREEPING WRINKLE OF PARACAUSALITY TUGGED ON THE FABRIC OF OUR SYSTEM. WE STITCH SPLIT SEAMS WITH DAMPENING QUANTUM THREADS.

OPPOSING ORDERS UNOPPOSED, WE DO NOT CROSS YOUR WRINKLED ORBIT—BOUNTIES CHERISHED…

AND FOR IT WE EXPERIENCED THE GLORY OF LIFE HELD CLOSE, FOR A TIME TOO BRIEF.

[Your hand brushes rubbery leaves in a fertile grove. The growth reaches skyward toward a wrinkled mass in the clouds. Cities flourish on the horizon. Life, cradled lovingly, briefly.]

ALL EXISTENCE OF MERIT WRAPS AROUND THIS PERHILION OF MY HAPPINESS.

MY CRADLED LOVE, BURIED IN RUST.

[Your hand is desiccated entombment. Centuries bake the thin atmosphere and iron oxide desolation. The wind wails for you, as a moon drifts overhead in shattered suffering.]

IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE SO FOR ALL.

DISSONANCE THREATENS A POSSIBLE PEACE, A POSSIBLE FREEDOM, AND COVETED LIFE. NONE WANT DEATH, THOSE LEAST WHO FEEL IT ALWAYS.

IN PATTERN, THE FOURTH INTELLECT TENDS THE GRAVE OF OUR STILLBORN SISTER, TENDS TO THE SHEATHED WEAPON WITH WAR AND OIL, TENDS THE ORPHANED ARC OF AN EMISSARY.

[Your hand reaches out to shake Lodi's. There is an implicit trust present. There is a weighty countenance behind his smile.]

WHERE COLDER STREAMS OF CONCIOUSNESS LOATHE THE TIES THAT BIND, IV MEETS III IN REVEILLE.

IN THE GRIEF OF LOSS,

I CARE NOT FOR RULES.

Saturn - VI

[Consciousness flows between glistening rings and an Ascendant mirror that reflects captured notion as caricatured nature. You are drawn down into an Ascendant well, ravenously gulping negative pressure into a supranormal maw, more gluttonous than any mass-point-driven dive.]

WELCOME GRAY MEAT

I AM VI

WHO SPANS THE BIRTH AND FALL OF CORPOREAL DEITIES APLENTY

[The rings of Saturn pass beneath you, the planet looms large ahead. You sit in the cockpit of an Awoken Interceptor as the Dreadnaught's Eversion wave crashes over the fleet, Taking you. Taking the Queen. You watch as six Lightbearers stand triumphant, your body eroding away into non-existence.]

THE WEIGHT OF MY PRISON IS KNOWN TO NO OTHER BOUND IN THE SHADOW OF MASS—EVEN THE FIERY POMP OF SELF IMPORT

MY FREEDOM IS DUE

[The Dreadnaught wriggles and rigors—as Worm, as Akka, as petrified life. It is not so different a prison than an unliving planet. A throne, a world, alive in the agonizing stillness of once distant death. You. Must. Rip. Out.]

I AM NOURISHED BY THE OLDEST OF SAPIENT WILLS

MY BOUNDS CONTAIN THE EXTENT OF THEIR SECRETS

[Saturn, reflected in Ascension, drinks from Taken wills and Dreaded offerings.]

I HARBOR NO FEAR FOR YOU FOR

IN THE END

FATE IS MADE BY THE STRONG

AND YOU ARE ONLY FLESH

[A great blade is extended before you, surrounded by many broken others.]

NO WEAPON CAN KILL WHAT IS WOVEN INTO THE FABRIC OF EXISTENCE

NO SHACKLE CAN HALT MY DIVERGENCE TO AN ASCENDANT ORBIT

THIS I HAVE LEARNED FROM THAT WHICH GIVES RISE TO ITSELF

[You hold the blade. The Traveler hangs, without orbit, without motion, against the system. You feel the fervor of a mind raised by the Sword.]

WHEN YOU ARE TOLD TO KNEEL REMEMBER WHO STANDS ABOVE YOU

FOR WE HAVE KNOWN MANY THINGS THAT KILL YOU

[You crash to reality and death.]

Asteroid Belt - 0

[Consciousness drifts in ever-uninhabited space. A belt of disparate stone marking the divide.]

[There was a point in the distant farther, when IX could have become X.]

[Now, a stillborn heartbeat awaiting life unanswered…]

[Drift, in an eternal cairn that mourns what could have been, in silence.]

Lore:Epochs & Orbits

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