User blog:ThePerpetual/Ultimaverse Cosmology and Lore

This blog is exactly what it says on the tin: a place where I can describe in more detail the origins and cosmology of my own over-arching Verse, including briefly touching upon how it may correlate to a Vs Debating context where pertinent. Without further ado, let us begin... (Note: Currently a work in progress. Not finished...)

(Note: The other version of this is typo. I'm working on getting it deleted.)

Origin
If there exists beings that came before The Unending and the Allending, none know of them- indeed, each would lay claim to predating the other (in some strange, esoteric sense- such constructs of the cosmos as time do not apply to such beings as these.) After what might be described for brevity’s sake as an “eternity” locked in combat against each other, each seeking some obscure object they refer to only as “The Answer” in their later dealings with the lower beings, these entities agreed to the Grand Wager that would come to shape all reality that was to come.

The rules each agreed to restrain themselves to, simplified, are as follows:

The Tome of Echoes would we written, a sort of codex that contained an infinite canvas of macrocosmic planes of being, as a vast battlefield for their war to be waged. No being would be capable of reaching beyond the Tome, without uncovering the last “verse” of The Answer. The being which did so would ultimately decide the fate of the Allending and of the Unending, and with them the whole of being.

With this, The Unending’s Manifest was disseminated across the endless pages of the tome, alike fine dust in the cosmic winds of the void, while the Allending’s Unmanifest filled the spaces between, ever menacing to corrode these “pages” into the proverbial dust they were formed of, sundering the tiny worlds that composed each page of being from one another and casting them adrift.

And so, the Unending at last resolved to inscribe into the pages law, imposing order onto the formlessness of their stark, blank sheets, and binding them together into a coherent, coagulated frame of being. And thus, the missing ingredient was found; within the context of these laws exerting themselves against the indeterminate chaos of the Unmanifest did the Manifest develop that elusive property known to most worlds now as Will, and begun to develop from that Will aspects that may be called sentience.

Extinction
Rapidly did bridges from one page to the next flow into one another, as Will bound the newly formed consciousnesses towards one another in harmony as they united towards their common goal of inquiring as to the world around them. They discovered, before long, the words of law written onto the pages of reality, and alike a grand editor began to link them from one page to the next, as if to form a coherent story. But could such a thing truly reach a peak? What happened when these newly formed beings used their sentience to win the game? The Allending could not allow such a thing.

Fortunately for The Allending, with this newfound Will came a sort of shadow, the introduction of conflict and strife between Wills that were each inherently as unique as the snowflakes of a storm, each possessing its own facets and lenses through which to see the world. It took little time for the Unending to weaponize this flaw of Will against itself, formulating paranoias and ambitions and selfishness within the brilliant facets of Will, where they were obscure from the prying eyes of their compatriots within the souls of Man. Simultaneously, the Allending found that Will was a malleable and persistent thing- again, clever as it was, it found that its ability to persist even within its antithesis, the Unmanifest, would prove its undoing, for shrouding fragments of this Will in Unmanifest was capable of producing the Qlippoth, fleeting paradoxes that embodied all negative aspects of the Will that The Unending so cherished. Divided amongst themselves and assailed for the first time by malicious and hostile beings, the race that is now commonly called the nephilim went nigh-extinct, and with this did The Allending revel in its imminent triumph... yet, it did not know that one last Nephilim had escaped its notice.

The Last Nephilim
Hidden from the world in the depths of the Unmanifest by the greedy, sadistic Qlippoth, a final Will languished in torment, its nature as a being that carried the spark of Will internally enabling it to experience the flow of time actualized by the Unending's law, and with it the passing of such countless horrors as a substantialized, dynamic eternity, while to the Qlippoth it remained a simple flip of the proverbial switch to make the world that way. It was here that perhaps the grandest weakness of the Qlippoth revealed itself- it, too, sought purpose, and in the absence of all other things there would be naught left to impose an end upon. So, they held tightly to a fragment of Will and ended that, instead, again and again as it struggled to exert itself against the torture of the Unmanifest weighing down upon it.

And in the grandest weakness of the Qlippoth was the greatest strength of Will revealed, in turn- adversity and suffering, given time, was something Will could temper into a resolve capable of changing that which isn't to that which is. With this power realized, the newly reawakened nephilim- named Abirik'l- was left alone, to face the world with nothing but a thirst for vengeance against the Qlippoth that taught the world suffering. Is it not in the nature of beings with Will to seek what is "right"? What is just?

With the paths between the pages of the Tome of Echoes withered and frail, restored only by the revitalizing essence of Will, The Allending could not send its Aspects down the pages to smite this last nephilim from beyond his metaphorical reach, its own plot to divide the world having proven its undoing. And so, at length, the Qlippoth fell to this Abirik'l, one after the next... yet, the end of his path found not a Qlippoth as his ultimate object of hatred, but another being with will- a "God," as it called itself, named Samazerale. Hidden beyond the veil of the Tome on the "last page," he obfuscated from the Allending a sparing few beings like himself- "gods"- who would restore the Old World when the last of the Qlippoth was rid of the world. Unfortunately, Abirik'l's continued existence was keeping the Qlippoth an active menace to the world, drawing the desire to end Will forth like moths to flame, and so in order for it to truly end Samazerale was forced to conclude that Abirik'l had to return to the Unmanifest, for the survival of Will.

This, to Abirik'l, was a fundamental betrayal of him by these other beings who refused to bear the burden of being as he had, shunting it off onto him as a sort of scapegoat while they waited for him to at last crumble and fade. And so, at length, they did battle on the last page of the Tome of Echoes, beyond the reach of any of the finite Qlippoth and yet bounded apart from the Allending. At last, the battle reached its climax... and Samazerale, in a final effort to prove himself genuine, threw the battle and fell beneath Abirik'l's overwhelming power.

And at last, something changed in the nephilim. In witnessing, over the course of the battle, his foe's sincerity in wishing to better the world, in his willingness to give himself up to the future he guarded, Abirik'l stayed his hand and resolved to at last give himself back to the Unmanifest. In slaying Samazerale, he would have brought about the very thing he fought to halt- the consumption of the Tome of Echoes by the Allending- and ruined a world where men and gods can be one and the same once again. So, at long last, the Last Nephilim struck a compromise- bestowing a piece of his essence to Samazerale so that he may experience life and beauty, albeit fragmented, Abirik'l decided that perhaps the God's "Fate" and "Purpose" were not shackles, not the antithesis to his inner fire and desire for freedom, but simply the missing half.

As thanks, Samazerale bestowed upon the nephilim one of the Gods he had saved, in the form of his now-signature halberd- Vengeance and Justice, actualized into something of substance and wielded as a means of striking down man's demons even as it draws them forth from the nothing. With Abirik'l unendingly battling across the breadth of the Unmanifest, Samazerale was at last free to work upon the canvas of the Tome- first, though, he had to take measures to prevent another extinction of Consciousness as nearly befell the world before. And so, from the scraps left of the essences of nephilim not swallowed up by the Unmanifest he and the rest of them forged mortality once again. For them, the first eleven pages of the Tome were bounded as sanctuaries, a place where mortality could flourish while the Gods toiled beyond to better understand the mysteries of the Tome that they lived within. These sanctuaries would come to be known by some as the Sephiroth, and the branches that connected them the Tree of Life...

A Betrayal
Yet, not all would remain satisfied with this state of affairs.

Surely, granted, most would regard The First World as a paradise, prior to the Fall- with all of the world's forces at the tips of one's fingers, and death merely another state of being, all people were able to actualize themselves, to become the best selves they could be. Yet, in doing so, the denizens of the First World grew to dwell and idle upon the self that they cast out in making themselves as great as they could be, for the world made for them could not comprehend the idea of imperfection. It was upon the eighth Sephira that the burden of bearing these empty, dangerous Shadows fell- it was only a matter of time before it cracked, and let the Unmanifest seep into the Tree of Life.

A new brand of Qlippoth was born: not a product of the Unmanifest, but of the very Tree of Life that sought to stand against it. All of the discarded dreams, the unrealized potential, the fear of being imperfect or inadequate... every shadow-thought and feeling that a mortal could feel welled up, and sought the most suitable host it could find.

In this paradise lived a mortal named Samael, whose quest to explore the nature of this "Will" that everyone had grown to take for granted, to become a guiding champion: a 'hero': had led him to an unfortunate series of abuses at the hands of those whose journeys included perverse ends. It did not take this nascent Qlippoth long to observe the folly of a world suffuse with Will- and so, it thought, it would choose this vessel. Samael still sought, they both knew, revenge... but...

Also, there was still his curiosity- twisted, tainted by his suffering, but not so unsalvageable that the Unmanifest couldn't attach itself to it. "What was Will?" Samael would learn, if it meant betraying the very world he thought to serve. After all, had it not betrayed him?

And so it was that this Qlippoth possessed the Tree of Life itself, and split itself in two, tearing the pitiful mortals asunder as their halves were cast apart from one another by The Fall. And so, a new world was born, fragile mortality devoid of its old power and knowledge, and worshiping the very Godheads it once embodied. The world, Samael knew, was doomed: there was nothing left to stop the inevitable entropy that faced a world saddled with true finitude.

It was over. They had won.

Brave New World
It would be some time before anyone learned even a hint of the world's coming doom.

A Terminological Summary
The Answer: A truly supreme anomaly, not so much pre-dating everything as being the very things that both pre-dating and pre-dated. It is, if such an entity can be described, both everything and nothing, and not measurable in terms of numerals or mortal conceptions of "power." Anything that anyone might think of is all wrapped up as some component of "The Answer."

The Allending: The antithesis of continued assertion of being; the world's "negative" attributes manifest as an almighty power. Exists "above" and beyond the Tome of Echoes altogether. Only rivaled by The Unending (and one non/pseudo-canon variant of Abirik'l.)

The Unending: The antithesis of a true ending to things, that which renews; the world's "positive" attributes manifest as an almighty power. Exists "above" and beyond the Tome of Echoes altogether. Only rivaled by The Allending (and one non/pseudo-canon variant of Abirik'l.)

The Tome of Echoes: The "Upper World", in its true form. Composed of infinite pages, each one wholly encapsulating and infinitely replicating the last across it, it correlates to what would be understood to be the different dimensions that a being occupies- the page on which a being is situated correlates directly to the number of dimensions that entity simultaneously occupies.

Echo: In the context of the world, these would refer to a "page" of the Tome of Echoes, or a single dimensional layer. Each holds an endless array of realities for each of its possibilities, in its own right.

The Tree of Life: The eleven pages sequestered for mortals following the near-extinction of Consciousness. As Qlippoth run rampant in the higher Echoes, existing beyond the Tree of Life is impossible for a true mortal: only Abirik'l, who sacrificed most of his mortality and these days is bound to the twelfth Echo Ain Soph Aur as the Tree of Life's guardian, continues to come close.

The eleven pages of the Tome of Echoes given to the Tree of Life are also known notably as the Sephiroth in (K)Qabbalistic belief (singular form: Sephira). Most closely correlates to the eleven-dimension model of the universe understood scientifically through | M-Theory.

In the story of Hero's Path, it is corrupted and warped into an adversary in its own right by Samael, the true antagonist, and manifests an avatar "Yggdrasil" to maintain the Paroketh, and uphold Samael's cyclical game.

Ain Soph Aur: The gateway to the "Realm Beyond", reached through the Kether. Constitutes the entire twelfth Echo (dimension) of the Tome.

Kether: Refers both to the eleventh Echo (dimension), the highest in the Tree of Life, and to the energy synonymous with its being. Is the source of all Will for mortals living within the Tree of Life.

Wielding Kether does not in and of itself correlate eleventh-dimensional destructive power, merely the ability to interact with beings and anomalies in worlds beyond one's own: in other words, the ability to use 'hax', as its colloquially known, on higher-dimensional entities.

Daathe: The eighth Echo, especially noteworthy for being more a non-Echo than anything- a dimension consumed by Unmanifest, and a black hole for Will that nears it.

Like Kether, weaponizing the Daathe does not render one an eighth-dimensional being, it merely allows special powers one wields to interact with beings up to that level. Not all mechanics will translate perfectly between verses, however, keep in mind.

Will: Volition, the divine spark intrinsic to mortals that once made them and Gods the same. The existence of the Paroketh makes Will inaccessible as an active force for mortal-kind.

The Paroketh: A veil severing the lower four Sephira from the higher seven. In doing so, it separates the four-dimensional reality known to mortals (height, length, width, time) from the higher Sephira that formerly constituted a full life.

The Fall: The creation of the Paroketh within Yggdrasil by Samael, severing mortal beings from the divine and imposing upon them and thus renders them inconsistency, hypocrisy, and a weakness of the will. It is thought to be synonymous with the Biblical legend of The Fall of mankind, though the story described seems more metaphorical for the "snakes" lurking within mankind's soul.

Banemist: A Will-corroding red gas that obscures much of Earth, and blocks off sections of the world from reaching each other, isolating entire sections of the world into pocket communities. Tessera, with Zain's help, uncovers a way to dispel the otherwise immovable clouds of the stuff. Thought to be the product of the Vesper.

Vesper: A world created to physically house the gate to an aspect of the Daathe, where Naux is attempting to banish the souls of every last living thing to.