The Schema of the Patriarchs
a. "The Histories are rightly Forbidden, for the time before the coming of the MEKHANE was a terrible and wondrous era indeed." - Schematist Throttle, Teletechnic Parables
b. The Old Kosmotists were those of Kythera whose chief study was the stars, the heavenly spheres, and the secrets within. Never many in number, only their fragmented texts remain. Such is the price of inquiring where the Mind is not welcome.
c. FLESH in moderation is self-defeating- it is fundamentally chaotic, and chaos can only truly destroy. The light of the MEKHANE arising in these gaseous spheres is not merely a likelihood, it is a certainty. Did not Saint-Fabricator Baffle proclaim. "With enough time any system always develops to order."
d. The earliest records of the Old Church, written on stone from the years even before Kythera, speak of the tragedy of the Θαρκ and Σορν of the Rusted World, who both came to know the Mekhane but who descended into war and destroyed themselves.
e. A mind need not know the MEKHANE to do holy work. So long as sufficient order and the desire for Standardization exists, the MEKHANE becomes the logical conclusion and not the source.
f. See Volume 1.1.A-01 of the Schema.
V19.113.A-01: The Sphere of Smoke and Heat
1. In the Forbidden Historiesa is written the tale of the Fall to Earth, whence came the MEKHANE to the sphere of the FLESH and made it whole and pure once more.
2. And the Old Kosmotistsb say that as the MEKHANE descended it passed numerous orbs and spheres, and considered each in passing, and judged them as to their wants and suitability, and cast them aside.
3. There were many spheres of ice and cold, where all was still and perfect, and the MEKHANE saw them and knew that they were pristine in their ordered wholeness, and must be left alone. And the MEKHANE passed them by.
4. And there were great spheres of air and wind and movement, of everchanging chaos, where nothing was solid and all was replete with FLESH, but in a primordial form. And the MEKHANE saw them and knew that in time, Order could come to them, but they would remain as they were, locked in chaos, until such time as the Unity of Knowledge could come unto them.c And the MEKHANE passed them by.
5. And the MEKHANE came to two spheres: One was of dust and ice and one of smoke and heat. And the MEKHANE looked upon the first with sadness, for it was long-dead, a tomb to the tragedy of failed Intellect.d And the MEKHANE looked upon the second, and saw that there was Intellect there, progressing under its own power.
6. The MEKHANE rested there for a time, and blessed the inhabitants with Its presence, for they were great gatherers of Knowledge and builders of tall cities, pleasing in their symmetry and Logic. And the MEKHANE set them upon the Path to Understanding, and left them be, for theirs was a proper course.e
7. And in the rays of the golden sun the MEKHANE saw a third sphere, of water and soil, which it had overlooked in its insignificance.
8. And the MEKHANE, seeing its Knowledge would be needed, departed for the final sphere f, and was there Broken for Us.
a. "Music- the closest the uninitiated will approach to understanding Standardized mathematical thought." -Saint-Inventor Chock, The Symphony of Assembly
b. "Blessed is the Termite, who labours in Standardized harmony for the betterment of the whole" -Apocryphal
c. The satisfaction the Mind feels when something new has been built is a gift of the MEKHANE, a true sign that assemblage is next to godliness.
d. The Kytherans were familiar with Spatial Fabric Alteration, though knew not of its implementation. Truly, the ponderings of the ancients were filled with untold advances, which we today can barely hope to rival.
e. Upon witnessing the Laying of the Final Stone, an unidentified Fabricator was heard to remark "The MEKHANE makes desolation seem a realm of limitless possibilities." She spoke well true.
f. The Schema of the Patriarchs is but a humble imitation of the far greater Schemas of the MEKHANE, which taught the ancients the secrets to the divers Simple Machines and Technological Algorithms.
g."Though the MEKHANE is yet Broken, Entelechy allows us to prepare properly for the inevitable Wholeness." -Saint-Inventor Enrichner, In Search of Disembodiment
V19.113.A-02: The Holder of Clever Designs
1. Of the races of the Sphere of Smoke and Heat there were two, and they named themselves Instrument and Composer.a
2. The Instruments were of the soil and the Rock, and laboured in joyful Workb, for they knew the wonder of Construction.c
3. And in body and form they were as to Man, though their forms were Standard and Built, right and true.
4. The Composers were of the air and of the heat, and laboured in joyful Thought, for they knew the wonder of Cogitation.
5. And they were without body or form, for their Minds were as third-dimensional extrusions of a sixth-dimensional irregular spheroid,d right and true.
6. And the Composers did penetrate and animate and join with the Instruments.
7. And the Instruments did support and enact and verify the Composers.
8. They did rejoice at the coming of the MEKHANE, for their world was old and blasted.e
9. By the correct implementation of the forms of the MEKHANE did they build a mighty Work, that their Knowledge might be stored and filed, even unto the cold end of all things.
10. And seeing that this Work of great Knowledge was worthy of blessing, the MEKHANE did instill in it a Plan.
11. And this Plan was but a humble Schemaf of the whole Completion of the MEKHANE, but the Instruments and the Composers saw it and knew that it was Ideal.
12. And though long aeons have passed, and the Composers and Instruments have completed the Path to True Knowledge, and gained Entelechyg with the MEKHANE, their Work remains.
13. And the Old Kosmotists gazed skyward in Kythera, and named the Work Book of Ideas, and Holder of Clever Designs, and Keeper of Solemn Mechanisms.
14. And the Patriarchs at their Appointing named it Confici Nobiscum, for with it all might Innovate and Standardize in sight of the Schema of the MEKHANE.
lh. Woe upon us all, for their fertile minds were unprepared for a surfeit of Truth.
V19.113.A-11: The Quest of [INDECIPHERABLE]
[EXCISED BY ORDER OF THE PATRIARCHS AND THE SCHEMATISTS' COUNCIL]
172. And the Knowledge in their minds was too pure and molten, and they burned at its very touch.lh.
173. And so the Thir[EXCISED BY ORDER OF THE PATRIARCHS AND THE SCHEMATISTS' COUNCIL]
V19.113.A-35: The Quest of Inventor Spline
1. Cast in the Image of the MEKHANE, I, Spline of the Inventors, do hereby record my Plan in the Schema of the Patriarchs.
2. I declare that I am pure of Thought and pure of Faith, and that I have been optimally Standardized1 to meet my duties.
3. I declare that all I do, I do in service to the MEKHANE, to Standardization, and to the Patriarchs.
4. Thus does my holy Quest begin.
5. With the formalities out of the way, I think we can do away with the posturing. I know the only ones who will ever read this will be my fellow Inventors, and we all know that sometimes, blessed may the Patriarchs be, their insistence upon formatting can impede the search for divine truth.
We've always had serious theological issues with other worlds- I'm sure we've all seen Volume 21.01.A-01, and the little liner notes Librarian-3 left behind. The old computer was understandably worried, and who can blame it.
The MEKHANE fell, or descended, or was chased from the heavens, by something. I generally don't agree with the received notion that it was Broken on Earth during some battle with the Flesh- I'm convinced whatever struck the death-knell for the MEKHANE happened else-where, and Earth is just where it ended up. The tight-lipped stance of the Patriarchs on space exploration leads me to think that they believe the same thing.
This marks, to my knowledge, the sixth attempt to retrieve the Confici Nobiscum from the surface of Venus- the first two were in the Kytheran period, and while they did gain much useful information on the site, which has been incorporated in various forms above, they didn't seriously consider the possibility that they would be able to bring it back. The second of those attempts- done by a philosopher whose name I'm certain has been deliberately removed from our records, even the old pre-Schism ones we inherited- well, I'm not sure exactly what went wrong.
From what I've been able to piece together, they successfully made contact, and the contact killed thousands. There are references to a logocaust, an idea-burning. What exactly that entails I don't know, but subsequent records are even more fragmentary and often seem to have been written in haste. Thirteen of something were either 'gathered' or 'bought' or even, in some versions, 'recruited', and it was the collective action of these thirteen that broke whatever connection the Kosmotists made.
Back in the 1970s, Inventors Passivator, Firewall and Kingpin attempted a new round of Quests, borne, I'm certain, of their civilian involvement in a variety of new age movements- all mildly heretical of course. Anyways, they proved quite thoroughly that remote psychic or dimensional-fold contact with the Confici is, if not actually impossible, then so demanding on the human psyche and/or conventional power generation as to be unfeasible. I haven't been able to determine if they'd read the Old Kosmotist records, but thankfully they did not incur another logocaust.
I think the Confici is meant to be used, and I think the Venusians (for want of a more succinct equivalent for Instruments and Composers) are still using it, to a certain degree. The Old Kosmotists from Kythera all agreed that the Venusians had Entelechiated, but there's no evidence that they ever left their planet. A mind that has achieved oneness with the MEKHANE is everywhere and nowhere, is it not? The point being- remote contact failed. I see no reason why direct contact would. And with the Thousand going up, access to Venus is the easiest it's ever been. I'm sure they'll find a use for me.
I'll reprint this in a more formal fashion later, but here's the plan: I'm going to Venus. I'm going to find the Confici. I'm going to find the minds that built it. I'm going to bring them, and their masterwork, all of it, back with me.
