The Ringworld Cengceñanta in orbit around the Class-A star Fomalhaut. One hour later, it disappeared in a burst of fractal distortion. 67 billion Ascendancy citizens are still missing.
Special Containment Procedures
The known laws of physics, which had been stable and non-anomalous since the dawn of human civilization 25,000 years ago, are no longer reliable. The KETER designation, which is normally reserved for issues prioritized by the Machine God1 Keter as the head of the Ascendancy2, is applied to SCP-8025.
SCP-8025 mandates the creation of the SCP Foundation, led by Freits Felipien Na-Motoxliso Willem Au-Ateneam syc Lealiu as its Administrator.3 All Ascendancy fleets are deployed to critical mega-infrastructure, particularly wormholes, to record any anomalies and prepare for potential evacuation.
Research and experimentation into faster-than-light travel, despite its improbability according to current scientific principles, is designated a critical priority. Furthermore, the Ascendancy's scientific workforce is directed towards developing smaller, portable wormholes capable of stably surviving at 70.1-99.9999% the speed of light and if possible, superluminal speeds.
As a last resort, the Foundation is tasked with researching techniques for preserving the Ascendancy's cultural, scientific, and socio-political legacy and deploying dataships at the fastest possible velocities away from Ascendancy space.
GOI-666, referring to the Christian-dominated interstellar empire named the Sacramentum, is a key focus due to significant spacetime distortion within its territories. The Foundation is to locate and communicate with POI-666 ("Scarlet King"), the head of the Sacramentum's radical faction who is allegedly responsible for deleterious experimentation with megastructures and physical laws. Willem will embark on a deep-space mission into Sacramentum space to determine POI-666's connection to SCP-8025.
Description
SCP-8025 refers to the phenomenon behind the random, sudden large-scale spacetime distortions responsible for the disappearance of 15 megastructures, such as ringworlds, and the collapse of 9% of the Ascendancy wormhole network. Furthermore, large areas of space are now unstable for wormholes and the near-light-speed drives of modern starships.
The phenomenon is prominent throughout the entirety of known space, although minor distortions have been observed by interferometric analysis and in-situ wormhole expeditions in the neighboring regions of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Sacramentum's territory is heavily affected in particular by SCP-8025, although its Overseers have limited their contact with the Ascendancy, briefly citing a "crusade of justice" in progress. This crusade focuses on these aspects:
- Enact justice on criminals, tyrants, and other abusive individuals on Outer-Rim and non-Ascendancy planets through creative application of genetic engineering, machinery, spacetime distortion, and virtual reality.
- Engage in a liberation-theological approach to aiding marginalized polities and offshoot civilizations with technology.
- Create "divine technology" in the name of "chaotic" justice.
However, technological geases and mind-lasher implants prevent defectors and captured Sacramentum officials from divulging more detailed information. Analysis of remaining mental matter simply produces noise.
In all observed instances, the affected megastructures and regions of space are overwhelmed by a burst of fractal distortions, consistent with simulations of spacetime collapse into 2D or high-dimensional space. Simultaneously, deviations from basic physical laws, such as the laws of conservation of energy, are notable during these instances.
According to Keter and third-party observers from lower-level independent research, this phenomenon can be historically attested in the remnant infrastructure and records of extinct, million-year-old civilizations, many of which attained technological parity or even superiority with current Ascendant civilization. Furthermore, there is a high chance of SCP-8025 being a deliberate operation, either by the Sacramentum or forces beyond the control of all known civilizations.
Liwayway Encounter Log
Progress on locating POI-666 was accelerated when Willem established contact with an individual known as "Celeste Pacem," a former high-ranking official and defector from the Sacramentum. To avoid drawing attention and for the sake of familiarity, both Willem and Pacem decided to meet in their humanoid forms during the celebration of the Passego4 on the Bonifaz continent of the Banks Orbital Liwayway.
FILED UNDER DOCUMENT TYPE CTK-100
13/34/15750, LIWAYWAY STANDARD
COMMENTARY BY FREITS WILLEM
LIWAYWAY ENCOUNTER LOG
A vacuum train5 starting its route. It is capable of traversing approx. 500,000km of ocean in 1 day between the Rizale and Bonifaz continents of the Banks Orbital Liwayway.
Banks Orbital Liwayway.
The train was humming softly as it traversed the calm ocean, with the horizon dyed with lapiz lazuli. Celeste, a long-time friend and our contact for this mission, wanted to celebrate Passego, a tradition that persisted since Old Earth times in some of the more nostalgic parts of the Ascendancy.
Perhaps she felt nostalgia for better times, although I doubt she would find it there on Bonifaz. While the news hasn't completely arrived yet at this corner of the universe, the public mood has dulled, stunned that even the crowning technological jewels of the Ascendancy - its megatrees, ringworlds, and wormholes - are now facing an existential crisis.
A crisis of chaos. Keter had admitted to me in a dream that even if they style themselves as a god of order, they still have limitations. Do we just accept reality as we know it breaking apart at the seams, or perhaps a more powerful god of order is in demand?
The train decelerated for the next three hours as we approached the multi-layered floating, gothic-style structures of the Bonifaz Intercontinental Rail Station. I sat down together with an individual seemingly made of rebar and painted with bright red and green. In a sing-songy voice, they inquired about my mood, urging me to cheer up a bit for Passego. I smiled at them, saying that recent events have made me tired, but I'm willing to help in Liwayway's rehabilitation efforts during Passego for neighboring systems. It closed its eyes, taking out a scarf from its bag and giving it to me as a good-luck charm. After getting my permission, they wrapped it around my neck rather overexcitedly with their strong grip.
Later on, I had to make my way across dozens upon dozens of foxmen, hydra, fairies, four-wheeled ferns, levitating orbs and many more.6 Despite the recent news, there was still fun to be had. Taking a double-decker catbus, I headed off to the Hawking Pavilion at around 14 nu-PM, just in time for the meeting.
On the balcony, a girl dressed in a black habit was looking at the setting sun as it hid itself behind the mountainous vistas. Her floral halo was slowly rotating - floating - above her head.
WILLEM: Celeste. We… we meet again.
PACEM: Camusta, Freits? It's been like what? 10 years? 40? or a hundred? Ahh… living a thousand years sure takes a toll on your sense of time.
WILLEM: It's been a decade ago since we had some coffee. You even promised me a tour of the churches on Dasmarinyas and the floating gardens of SierraCortazar, but you suddenly got called back for work.
Celeste smiles.
PACEM: Sorry for my poor memory, Freits. Unlike you, I haven't jammed as many memory modules into my brain as possible. About that work, it's about the Scarlet King, though. Hmm, Freits, why don't we take a walk and see what this year's Passego is about? It might jog my memory a bit more.
We walked through the streets of Bagong Tundo, lined with stalls offering candy, spring rolls, fried chicken, ornamental Passego lanterns called parols, devices showcasing holograms of Jesus and Christian festivities, virtual reality packages to "time travel" to Old Earth days, and even DIY set-ups for rocket-boosted Santa Claus sleds. Celeste in particular was focused on a "time travel" package, showcasing the life of several children on Ateneo.
WILLEM: Ateneo huh. Good old days… I, I -
PACEM: Freits, you don't need to apologize. Ateneo's something we all have to bear until we die. Especially for the King's faction, which is ramping up its crusades right now. Honestly… I'm lucky I managed to slip through. They were closing or blockading all wormholes leading to the Ascendancy. (A blaring sound spreads across the street.) Ah, Freits, the parades and processions are about to start.
We squeezed through a parade of rabbitmen and lizardfolk as propeller-powered dragons, holding lanterns flew over us. Holographic billboards sprouted on the sides of the buildings, advertising blueprints for Passego-themed merchandise and machines. Ice sculptures, similar to those on New Harbin, were led through the roads. Meanwhile, drones directed our sight towards the night sky, where a kilometer-long starship was hovering in place. It then released a thousand missiles towards us, exploding into a flutter of chrysanthemum flowers and floating lanterns.
PACEM: They're still very happy. I suppose they haven't gotten the memo about reality.
WILLEM: Not necessarily. Let's go to the Southern Fields of Bonifaz; I heard about what they're doing there. 560 kilometers away… alright, a very quick trip then.
We then boarded a vacuum train, taking us there in five minutes. Factory workers, drones, and citizens - flesh or metal - were working on packaging pyramids of goods, devices, and machinery, to be loaded up into space elevators and skyhook7 launchers nearby. The pyramids and the fields extended till the horizon.
PACEM: I see… so this is what you want to protect, Freits, since you want to be a new god of order? (Chuckles.)
WILLEM: God of order… not even Keter claims he is a true deity, you know. It's just what we call him out of convenience. Though we might need a real god of order, now that somebody's plunging civilization into chaos. Anyway, Celeste, let's get to the point now.
PACEM: I guess you already know everything about the Sacramentum and the Scarlet King's minions invading planets, picking out criminals, and making virtual hells out of their minds and bodies, no? Time constraints made it very hard for me to see them in person, but I have mountains of evidence about them.
WILLEM: A well-documented practice for mankind even before the Ascendancy or the Sacramentum came into power. Distasteful, but it's nothing special, as long as they do not encroach on Ascendancy laws and territory. I don't really mesh well with the King's ideas of chaotic justice, though. Nothing scientific or justified about that!
PACEM: Yet you worship Machine Gods. (Coughs.) Anyways, what's more is that the King wants to "communicate with God through the chaos of scientific reason."
WILLEM: I'm not sure if that's a deranged fantasy or not. How about Kennet and the moderates? What do they think about it?
Celeste stops walking.
PACEM: Kennet's… he vanished once the radicals and the Scarlet King took over. The moderate faction, including me, has gone mostly into hiding. All the chaos has made things very hazy, but I still want to find Kennet. I don't believe he will keel over just like that.
WILLEM: Kennet… he's good at planning out and building megastructures, right?
PACEM: A good reason for kidnapping him, and that's where I got info about a machine called Esperanza that the King's building. I can send you the info about it.
I nod as Celeste points to her halo. I reactivate my old halo from the Ateneo days and let its edges touch hers. Data transfer warnings with smatterings of Latin and New Tagalog - how nostalgic - pop up in my sight. I accept them all. Terabytes upon terabytes of data - high-resolution 3D simulations, charts, interviews, and schematics - flow into my mind.
WILLEM: Oh my God.
PACEM: (Smiles.) Keter… or the Lord God?
WILLEM: Probably both, maybe even all gods who exist right now. You seriously think that this Esperanza machine's responsible for the whole fiasco behind the megastructures' disappearances, and that the Scarlet King's building these star-covering machines all over our little corner of the universe?
PACEM: I'm still… not really sure, but that's what the data is building towards so far.
WILLEM: Most of us in the Ascendancy thought that this was mostly hypothetical… Tangin, we have gone complacent if this is all real!
PACEM: I did most of the reconnaissance since 50 years ago, and I already have a list of targets, including some people very close to the King. However, Freits, I need your and the Ascendancy's help. I reached my limits - the King only communicates through intermediaries, and many of my contacts have gone silent. My San Ignacio isn't a very strong ship, for instance, so I can't engage people in a fight nor can I confirm Esperanza's appearance first-hand.
WILLEM: Well, what do you want to do? A suicide mission against the Scarlet King?
PACEM: Depends, but nothing good will happen if we stand here with our arms crossed. Let's make a deal, Freits. I know that the Ascendancy is preparing an expedition - or invasion - into the Sacramentum, but you know very little about the recent events there. Tech, while similar to yours, is wildly divergent in some areas, particularly cybersecurity. However, I'm ready to act as a cracker8 if you want, as well as a navigator based on my list of targets. All of them's encrypted, so you can't just extract them out of me even if you forsake your mind-reading taboo. All I need is a fleet.
WILLEM: I won't go that far. Still, I will see what I can do. A fleet of ships from Keter himself would do nicely, I guess. After all, what's at stake is thousands of years of Ascendant peace and progress.
I close my eyes again, and I begin to dream of Keter. After a few milliseconds, accounting for data transfer speeds on a windy field, I come back to reality.
WILLEM: The gods already have an answer.
A new era begins with the SCP Foundation established under the guidance of the Machine God Keter. The Foundation has ascended to securing our futures, containing our sense of reality, and protecting the lives of the approximately 8.533 x 1016 Ascendant citizens. It is the Foundation of reality as we know it.
Thus, they are afforded the best Ascendant shipbuilding, defense, and stealth technology, and deep-space equipment. In exchange, their premier duty is investigating and containing the Scarlet King.
The SCP Foundation is prepared to die in the darkness of space so that all the heirs of mankind may live in the light.
Foundation Expedition Notes
To facilitate stealth missions without compromising combat capacity, a fleet of 1,250 automated Class-A Ascendancy ships accompanied Willem and Pacem's flagship, the San Ignacio. The total number of flesh-and-blood beings9 aboard all ships amount to 900, mainly out of their personal preference and to complement the automation systems should they fail. The San Ignacio itself was modified from the ship that Pacem used to escape the Sacramentum. Before being retrofitted and upgraded by Ascendancy engineers, the San Ignacio had a complexity and capacity rivalling that of a Class-B Ascendancy warship.
The fleet is outfitted with new wormhole-based communicators capable of surviving near-light-speed travel while still sending high-fidelity data back to the heart of the Ascendancy. Meanwhile, the ships are outfitted with newly developed AD ASTRA drives. While AD ASTRA engines normally function just below the speed of light, they are optimized to use specific spacetime distortions produced by SCP-8025 to travel faster than light.
Lastly, alongside the standard armament of missiles and railguns fit for orbital bombardments, every ship carries stellar conversion weapons, colloquially known as starshatter.10 These last-resort weapons are essential for denying the primary resource of most civilizations.
FILED UNDER DOCUMENT TYPE CTK-100
15/01/15750, LIWAYWAY STANDARD
DEPARTURE LOG
After 10 days of preparation, a Foundation scoutship departs the Liwayway orbital and traverses the Takifcilim Celestial Gateway wormhole.
WILLEM: Looking at the inventory, it's as if we're going to war. Keter, my lord, why are you having your soldiers make the toughest decisions?
PACEM: Hey, you're the commander, right? Promise me one thing, Freits.
WILLEM: What is it?
PACEM: Don't be too slow or too rash when making decisions, alright?
WILLEM: I will. I have learned from my mistakes at Ateneo, and I suppose that I have learned a lot in the past centuries. Plus, this ship contains all the things I have developed to match up my power against any rogue AI or entity that seeks to establish its power.
PACEM: Your Ascension materials?
WILLEM: I have been very careful with augmenting my brain and my body, and Keter helped me develop some Ascension devices that would enable me to have technological processing capabilities comparable to at least 5% of his power. When needed, I will just plug myself into the machine, and then I can take control of all the ships of the Foundation at once. With that, I can improve my capabilities by several orders of magnitude. Hopefully, I can match up well against any enemy we encounter.
PACEM: You're on the path to being a god. Some might even call it megalomania, you know…
WILLEM: What good is being weak when you can't do anything? Power dictates the order of the universe. We both know that. Every Atenean alive today should know that.
Silence for several seconds.
WILLEM: Anyways, Celeste, aren't you scared?
PACEM: Why would I be?
WILLEM: One flick of a button, and both the Ascendancy and your Church will get embroiled in a war never seen before. The Standardization Wars claimed billions of lives a few millennia ago, and that was with dozens of ships still using rockets to propel themselves. Right now, with spacetime itself getting screwed up, there's no telling how a war would go, and even Keter himself doesn't know what will happen. The legacy of mankind might end up as one of the many dark voids in the sky.
PACEM: That's certainly a possibility that even the King himself is banking on. One of the few things I got about him is that he thinks we will either suffer a quick death or - emphasis on the or - we navigate our way through the "afterlife." He thinks that the "afterlife" will bring true justice.
WILLEM: What's the difference between them?
PACEM: Think about it for a few seconds.
Willem closes his eyes. No external data streams are recorded.
WILLEM: Hmm… damn, I think I see what the King means, reading between the lines about the afterlife and interpreting it as a post-reality. Still, it's a massive delusion to think that things will work out that way. They honestly believe that justice can be delivered through those means?
PACEM: (Frowns.) Perhaps he thinks that's what God intended. Ahh, I wish Kennet was here to explain what's happening, he was always good at untangling weird philosophies.
WILLEM: Hmm, wherever he is right now, I'm sure he's already fighting the good fight against the King, unless the King welds his mouth shut. Though I worry that with his sense of justice, he might end up agreeing with the Scarlet King after a long debate.
PACEM: He wouldn't stop without debating every argument you can find in the galaxy though, that's for sure. Still, I often wonder… why would the Sacramentum go to such lengths to support such a fantasy?
Nu-Sheol Encounter Log
The first target on Pacem's list was the Sacramentum system of Gehemi, particularly the cinderworld Nu-Sheole. Using backdoor wormholes and a careful navigation of distorted spacetime regions, the fleet reached the system in three months (from Liwayway's perspective) rather than 21 years of normal light-speed travel. According to Pacem, Nu-Sheol is governed by the top-ranking Sacramentum official and crusade commander Furia. Cloaking the fleet within the Kuiper Belt, the San Ignacio and a roster of guard ships proceeded to orbit Avernus, under the guise of an Ascendancy delegation supervised by Pacem.
FILED UNDER DOCUMENT TYPE CTK-100
17/20/15750, LIWAYWAY STANDARD
NU-SHEOL ENCOUNTER LOG
The sun rises over Nu-Sheol's fleshscape.
A female humanoid entity garbed in white is sitting behind a tea table in the middle of a field matted with flesh, with eyes sporadically scattered throughout the landscape. Amidst the planet's surface temperature of 45°C, fires slowly burn through the field. Several towering crosses can be seen on the horizon. The entity's halo is blinking, receiving steady streams of data from the crosses. Willem and Pacem are walking towards the entity.
FURIA: Welcome, my dear Sister and Mr. Keterling, would you like to have some tea? Also, forgive me for my manners and my lack of introduction. I'm Furia, overseer of Nu-Sheol and a compatriot of the Scarlet King. What brings you two here? It's been a long, long time since we last met each other.
PACEM: (Looking around the landscape.) I knew about this, but it never really sunk in how insane it is. Tell me, who did you punish this time around?
FURIA: My dear Sister, this is simply a variant of the justice you meted out in the early days. "Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth," you would say when it comes to sentencing criminals to hell. Of course, you were still operating within the old legal systems, so you were rather limited. Still though, my brand of justice is to simply grant what the criminals wish for.
Furia chuckles as she steps on an eye on the floor, crushing it. It regenerates quickly. Meanwhile, Willem shows a disinterested face and sighs.
FURIA: (Her halo whirs.) Accessing database… ah, this particular field of flesh here belongs to a former dictator on a faraway planet outside the Ascendancy and the Sacramentum. He wished to dominate a world and cover it in his glory. Well, after investigating all evidence and running through his mind for a subjective decade or two - all in quicktime, of course - I decided to be prudent with the punishment. Like with other tyrants, I gave him what he wanted.
WILLEM: I'm rather surprised you didn't go with the common Christian views of hell. Fire and brimstone, you know? Also, I guess you're tired of all the "playing God" accusations.
FURIA: Hmmn, that's a stereotype, my dear Keterling. Hell is more of a, say, eternal separation from the blessings of God. Out there, beyond the Sacramentum and the Ascendancy, is the promise of a paradise. With all of our available technology and God's graces, it is easy to be a saint in such paradise. Those who don't want to accept that… well, we give them exactly what they want - their mortal desires and their will to be separated from God. However, being separated from God means you also forsake the gift of the senses - sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing - and the ability to live life.
About the "playing God" part, we aren't. We are just following His will on this plane of existence. He gave us the capability to develop technology to enact our duty as His stewards. Plus, we haven't been smitten down by lightning or its equivalent in space, right? (Smiles.)
WILLEM: (Kneeling as he caresses the sweating flesh below him.) Well, the execution is at least interesting. Assuming that these flesh mats reproduce like bacteria, this experiment should have been going on for a long time, since the fields cover the entire planet to the point they're stacking together like mountains. The oceans are also much more matted with flesh since their ecosystems are a better source of nutrition. The scientific method here is questionable, though.
FURIA: You catch on quick. The original body of the dictator is probably kilometers below us. About the science… we will see about that.
PACEM: What in the… this is a perversion of what the Sacramentum stood for!
FURIA: Nu-Sheol is an exploration of our past interpretations of justice. It's a reactive sort of justice, which is janky, ugly, and honestly senseless. After all, the victims of this dictator - who, by the way, liked to cut off limbs and keep the resulting basketcases alive - cannot be brought back, no? There are many more interpretations of exacting justness throughout the Sacramentum. (Smiles.)
However, Nu-Sheol, obsolete as it is, is a sort of control group. It's a shining example of reactive justice - the main form of justice in our universe. So Mr. Keterling, can you see the point of our science?
WILLEM: Hmmn, you have interesting leaps in logic, I guess?
PACEM: And this is what the Scarlet King is trying to pass off as the main goal of the crusades? What happened to all the love and forgiveness that he espoused during the last few decades, no, centuries? We used to serve together on such peacekeeping missions as mediators and counselors, Furia. What led to this insanity?
FURIA: All part of the same, long-term experiment for the sake of justice, my dear Sister.
WILLEM: Justice, huh? That's what the latest project of the Scarlet King is still all about, right? If you have moved on from reactive ideas of justice, then what is Esperanza focusing on?
FURIA: Esperanza? What are you talking about?
WILLEM: Don't play dumb with me. The Sacramentum's sense of spacetime and reality is going to hell, and the evidence shows you're well-informed about it. I don't mind these fields of flesh being the way you do things, but I do think that it is a great injustice to impose your reality on those who have done nothing wrong.
FURIA: (Sips tea.) What an interesting line of thought.
WILLEM: So, what's it going to be?
PACEM: Furia, please. Tell me that all of this isn't some sort of a twisted mental gymnastics about the holiness of life and God.
FURIA: My dear Sister, during the last time we worked together, you were so cold and calculating. Especially ever since what happened with Ateneo. Have you softened somewhat?
PACEM: I'm still human enough to not distort my sense of cruelty. (Sighs.) I have heard of crusaders doing much worse than this, but a small part of me believed that it was just embellishment, some propaganda that got out of hand.
FURIA: Sister… you missed the point of the crusade.
PACEM: Tell me something else. What did Kennet think of all these? Did he disagree so much with what you are planning that you made him disappear?
FURIA: Perhaps his old self would have disagreed. Although, both the Kennet you know and what he believed in are now irrelevant.
PACEM: Where is he now?
FURIA: Don't worry, he is in a safe place doing his duty for the King as a crusade engineer.
WILLEM: I see what this is all about now. The crusade's for the sake of setting up Esperanza. All this talk of imposing justice on citizens is smokescreen for whatever you're actually building throughout space. Hah, your King has gone mad.
FURIA: Mad but still sensible. (Stands up.) In any case, I believe that this conversation no longer serves any purpose. Furthermore, since you know of Esperanza, you are a threat to the King and to us. Traitors like you, dear Sister, are also a massive risk. However, once we're done, I won't punish you like these dictators. After all, your views come from a good place, and you haven't committed any crime worthy of judgement. So, I will just send you back to where you came from; the punishment would be the time you lost in your failure.
Earthquakes rock the surface, as towers made of flesh erupt from the surface. Pacem quickly unveils her wings and carries Willem with her as she flies away using her jet propulsion engines. Airborne, they witness Furia turning into a globular entity with rings of flesh and massive camera lens on each face of her body. The mats of flesh erupt, turning into missile launchers. The towering crosses in the distance turn into ballistic weapons, launching a volley of nuclear rockets that quickly detonate in the air.
For 10 minutes, Pacem barely dodges them as she flies at supersonic speeds. Meanwhile, Willem orders the San Ignacio and the fleet to place themselves in orbit around Nu-Sheol, in preparation for orbital bombardment. In the meantime, space-based defenses of Nu-Sheol slow down the ships, with both sides trying to overwhelm each other with hundreds of nuclear missiles.
PACEM: Freits, I figured out something, but I need to land on one of those crosses to set it up!
WILLEM: Ships aren't in position yet! Let me think, how much time do you need?
PACEM: At least a second! Use a smokescreen or something!
Willem then orders one of the Foundation ships to crash in the vicinity of the combat grounds, broadcasting jamming signals while doing so. With its space-distortion engines fully active, the impact of the crash creates a mushroom cloud, stunning Furia's communication receptors and allowing Pacem and Willem to land on one of the transmitting cross-like structures.
FURIA: Jamming my systems wouldn't work, you heretics! My dear sister, are you trying to delay the inevitable? I can't believe that you of all people would - what are you doing?
A few seconds later, a thick dome of flesh encases Pacem and Willem, protecting them from the attacks.
PACEM: I got it. You can wirelessly control these fields of flesh, but you're still using rather old Sacramentum cyber-protocols to do so. I built, maintained, and updated the original software for these. I'm not a Sacramentum official for nothing!
FURIA: What a cheater you are, dear Sister. Still, it's not long before you run out of power!
The teeth within the flesh mats sprout out, causing massive quantities of blood and bile to flow throughout the fleshscape. The teeth form a labyrinth of walls between Pacem and Furia. Missiles from Furia's end detonate, partially collapsing Pacem's improvised defenses. However, the mats' regenerative abilities compensate. After a few minutes, bright streaks of light appear in the sky, crashing into Furia and the fields of flesh. Mushroom clouds appear with a slight drizzle of blood.
The cross-shaped hull of the San Ignacio is vaguely visible from orbit. Willem establishes a communication channel with Furia.
WILLEM: Well, Furia. It's nearly game over for you. The ships up there can cook this planet in no time at all. Fortunately, I'm still in a rather good mood. So, Furia, can you lead us to where the Scarlet King is?
PACEM: Furia… is the King forcing you to do all of these?
FURIA: You two - ! The King is a force of good! Justice, as we know it in our current reality, is wholly ineffective, reactive, and limited to those in a position of power, right? What can the masses do? They have to depend on their machine gods and those with higher intelligence and resources than them to enact justice! Your Ascendancy is wholly dependent on that dynamic, where the common folk cannot… cannot…
The communication channel becomes silent.
WILLEM: I see. You're unsatisfied with the order that reality espouses, right?
Furia is silent.
PACEM: Order… isn't that what God wants?
FURIA: What do you know about God, Celeste? This fake, artificial, orderly reality of yours, is this what He truly wants?
Willem sighs.
WILLEM: Hmm… I'm not here to debate philosophy with a minion of the King. I have to meet the man himself. Where is he?
FURIA: As I told you, I won't tell you -
More streaks of light cross the atmosphere, destroying more mountains of flesh.
WILLEM: At this rate, we might end up finding the original bodies of your dictators, Furia. Won't it be a shame to deny you the ability to enact justice on these people? I mean, not even the Machine Gods know about life after death, so I guess you don't know if they will receive more justice after they die, right?
Furia, severely damaged by the attacks, powers down, returning to her humanoid form.
FURIA: I won't say anything.
Celeste walks towards Furia.
PACEM: I see your point, Furia, but if this goes on, there might be no more reality on which to practice our own brands of justice. Esperanza might do just that. So, please, tell us what the King is all about.
FURIA: I won't… I can't… my King, please forgive me.
Celeste sighs, and touches her halo with Furia's. Closing her eyes, she caresses her cheeks and forehead.
WILLEM: Celeste, don't tell me you're going to -
Furia's body then falls down.
PACEM: Ahh… never thought I would use my mind-reading again ever since those days I judged criminals in the name of the Sacramentum. Don't worry, Freits, Furia just went into hibernation. Plus, we got what we need. Documents, schematics about the test sites for what the King is doing.
WILLEM: You read her…
PACEM: I know it's a taboo for you and your Machine Gods, but what can we do? She wasn't folding anytime soon. Plus, just a moment ago, you were just bombarding her with missiles until she gave up.
Willem shakes his head.
WILLEM: Let's just go back to the ship. (Looking up to the San Ignacio.) Hah… may God have mercy on us.
Celeste Pacem's Notes on Willem and Ateneo
The Church of the Gesu, a key building of Ateneo. It is a replica of the original building in the Ateneo de Manila University, which was located on the island nation of the Philippines, Old Earth.
Blue sky with bright streaks of yellow.
For a moment, I felt I was back on Ateneo, a millennium ago. My memory modules must have kicked in again.
KENNET: Seems like you had a good sleep, Celeste. Freits over here was about to do a li'l game by suspending you several meters up in the air.
WILLEM: Mr. Kennet, I wasn't - Ms. Celeste, I was not, absolutely not, doing anything like that!
KENNET: But you were smirking earlier, saying something about learning about the culture of free-falling objects in this world!
WILLEM: That's not within the scope of my mission, Mr. Kennet!
PACEM: You two are too noisy! Damn, here I was, having a good sleep in ages and -
A clockwork-themed drone passes by us, with its gears humming and propellers loudly whirring. It blinks red upon seeing them. I sit up as quickly as I could.
LIPADGANA: Ahh, so here you are. 200km away from the church and sleeping around, yet we're about to begin Mass in 30 minutes!
KENNET: What's the matter, Sir Lipadgana? That's just one short train ride, no?
LIPADGANA: Last time you did this sort of thing, you were late by 3 minutes. The three of you even had the gall to climb through the windows! Freits, what will Keter even say about this?
The drone's colors change to yellow.
LIPADGANA: Oh well, just, just go back, alright? We're still preparing for the rites, so it would be very, very nice if we have three more pairs of hands to help us out.
Lipadgana then zooms out from the area.
KENNET: Hah, Sir's still convinced we're corrupting you, Freits.
WILLEM: It's alright, it's alright! Please don't worry, I will put in a good word for you when I report back!
PACEM: (Chuckles.) Good word, eh? I doubt that -
KENNET: Shhhh! By the way, forget about the train! It's too boring. Let's ride something like a Balyenaksi11, ok? Freits, I know you haven't tried that before.
WILLEM: But we might be late… on the other hand, it would be interesting. Hmm…
PACEM: Don't worry. The whalesharks are very fast; they promised us that. We will get there in no time at all.
We then rode on the Balyenaksi, with Kennet haggling with the whaleshark about the fees. "Du'i imergensi! Dat makiratingam nha madulin!"12 Kennet worryingly babbled to the whaleshark. We weren't fully post-scarcity yet - although we would get there in a few years, or maybe even a few months with the Ascendancy's help.
WILLEM: It's interesting to see money in full action. We still use it, although far more rarely and usually for high-tier luxury goods that have a history behind them. Well, unless you're in the Cooperative Zones, where they sort of role-play capitalism, I guess?
KENNET: (Having paid off the whaleshark.) Freits, I wonder how the Ascendancy looks like. A lot of my fellow nuns and priests do, and we're actually sorta worried about people leaving for it, you know? Celeste's a hard nut though, she probably wouldn't leave that easily. (Chuckles.)
PACEM: Who are you calling a nut?!
KENNET: (Waves hand.) Anyways, anyways, I believe it would worth it.
PACEM: How so? Kennet, advanced tech development doesn't necessarily equal progress, you know. It's a fatal trap among poorer systems - like ours - who have to connect to larger, richer systems.
KENNET: I wouldn't necessarily call our Dyson Swarm13 poor, you know ~
PACEM: Still, it's not an easy task. I'm a bit scared, actually. Freits here says that the majority religions are transcendentalist and machine-based.
WILLEM: Not necessarily! We also have many more offshoots of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and many more traditional religions. What's important is having a choice and the freedom to believe in what you want.
KENNET: Choices and freedom, huh? Though I believe that your Ascendancy has a myriad of legal systems and ideals of justice to keep those choices and sense of freedom in line. At the very least, most of them are democratically voted, eh? Very, very interesting to study in my opinion. Liberation of the mind through justice was my thesis during my college years, you know?
WILLEM: Very interesting. If I may, I should get around to reading -
KENNET: Ah ah ah, don't wanna. I kind of took potshots at your machine gods there though - ah, shouldn't have said that. Anyways, I'm just glad that the machine gods seem honest, especially when it comes to security guarantees.
PACEM: Hmm, speaking of security, we don't even have a wormhole yet - it's far from being fully built right now - so any help from Keter would come years later. We need to be more self-sufficient.
KENNET: Ahh, Celeste the party-douser! Though that's sadly true. My point is, it's a step to actually being able to defend ourselves! There are many terrors out in these regions, and having the Ascendancy is a big boon for us, you know.
WILLEM: Power, should it truly be a necessity? The roadmaps for developing technology under the confines of physics is rather limited when you think about it, but at the same time, having a predictable and set roadmap can make enemies easier to handle and predict. Personally, having a set roadmap is more comforting and probably more stable in the long run. Of course, we constantly push the envelope up.
KENNET: Now that I think about it, you Keterlings can be strangely conservative in some areas…
The Balyenaksi zooms through the ocean, with propellers and rockets boosting the whaleshark to velocities fit for a vacuum train. As we approached dry land, there was a lot of splashing and rolling as the whaleshark dodged submarines, manta rays, kraken squids, and massive eels. I lightly wondered about how people genetically engineered their ancestors to the point of sapience. Perhaps Ateneans just love the sea too much.
We barely made it in time for Mass. Twenty milliseconds late, Sir Lipadgana said. After that, I went to the balcony, feeling the salted marine breeze from this corner of the world.
The sky suddenly became dark with soot and a black moon hung in the horizon. Along the horizon were sentients - nuns who called Willem "Mr. Keterling," priests, children, whales, everyone Ateneo stood for - nailed to crosses, not by their limbs, but their eyesockets. When you look closely at their heads, there were cortical chips forcibly installed, slowing their sense of time. An eternal artwork.
"FOR ALL THE CRIMES COMMITTED BY BARBARIAN CHRISTIANITY SINCE OLD EARTH DAYS, I HEREBY PRESENT THIS ARTWORK AS AN INQUIRY REGARDING PROGRESSIVISM AND THE INTERSECTIONALITIES OF JUSTICE AND BALANCE WITH A FAITH HARMFUL TO THE MODERNITY OF OUR SOCIETY."
I woke up back to reality.
Eshu Exploration Log
After the Nu-Sheol encounter, the Foundation fleet ventured further into Sacramentum space, encountering more distortions in spacetime and violations of numerous physical laws. Two ships were destroyed in this manner, while several individuals were remolded, disintegrated, or corrupted as their circuitries and adaptive body configurations could not handle the stresses of changing laws. Occasionally, even Willem and Pacem had to upload themselves into a virtual world, hardened against sudden hardware/software changes, to protect themselves.
These effects were mostly present in regions of space that are close to known Sacramentum megastructures, indicating that the Esperanza subcomponents are installed in civilized areas of the Sacramentum. The data obtained from the overseer of Nu-Sheol corroborates this observation. Whereas Nu-Sheol is supposedly a symbol of obsolete, reactive justice, other Sacramentum planets might represent a more modern perspective.
The Foundation explored a Sacramentum planet referred to as Eshu by its inhabitants. Its inhabitants' body compositions are wholly modified to adapt to the distorted universal laws persisting within the region. According to Pacem's notes, Eshu is a "jewel" of modern justice espoused by the Sacramentum.
During the Foundation's time on Eshu, the planet was threatened by the arrival of a transcendent perversity.14
FILED UNDER DOCUMENT TYPE CTK-151
17/20/15750, COMMENTARY BY CELESTE PACEM
ESHU ENCOUNTER LOG
A meeting of Eshu's residents and Foundation agents.
Eshu was a treeworld. Sequoia trees jutted out of the ground, as well as from the sky. To travel between these trees, we ride inside pods attached to magnetic ziplines, zooming between trees at speeds greater than 100 kph. Freits was particularly unnerved, due to both his acrophobia and the fact that his sense of reality was beginning to fail. Meanwhile, several humanoid entities, dressed in multicolored, frilly clothing, were launching themselves from tree to tree, with no apparent propulsion method.
WILLEM: How much propulsion fuel is needed to keep those trees suspended in the air… antimatter, perhaps? No, too volatile for powering what counts as basically a decoration… the gravity on this planet is comparable to what, that of Bagunlupa's? So nearly the same as Old Earth? What in the…
Young man from the skies, are you enjoying the ride?
WILLEM: Not really. I can't, I can't understand all of these. What in Keter's name is happening here? What did the Sacramentum do here?
Ohoh, the jolly folks with crucifixes. Interesting people, they promised us a utopia as long as we agreed with their plans. Well, my folks and I have been accustomed to this place for decades, ever since the first genesails15 landed on this place. Still, given our way of life, it was very hard to defend ourselves!
A massive eel swims through the air, releasing gas through its vents as it heads towards a tree. Several Foundation agents, riding on drones camouflaged like leaves and flowers, chase after it to investigate.
PACEM: Well, well, well, they fit right, I guess. This is so different from what we experienced with Furia. No wonder Furia calls Nu-Sheol obsolete and ugly.
WILLEM: It might look beautiful, but it's still ridiculous.
Hmmn, what was that?
WILLEM: (Sighs deeply.) Does the King really think that this sort of screwing around with reality is the way for true justice to exist?
It does allow us to live the way we want, wouldn't that count?
WILLEM: How so?
The both of you… have you heard of the tale of Nalandanan?
PACEM: Hmm, yep, my mother often told me about it when I was a kid. It's an interesting tale about a village on the middle of the island, blessed with rich fields, talking trees, golden statues that also serve as warriors, and of course, whole families with powers of their own. They lived an idyllic existence of turning nuts into cigars or chewing them up.16
Intelligent girl! Those folks protected themselves with their own powers, and never relied on other islands to do their bidding. One time they were captured by invaders, their chieftain's son saved them by befriending crocodiles, which are weaker than them but are still very helpful. (Heartily laughs.) That… is what we are aiming for, yet reality only gave us a chance today for that.
WILLEM: The Sacramentum, are they now just spinning stuff out of fairyta -
PACEM: Tell me something. The Sacramentum… did they force you into this? Molded you into accepting this sense of reality?
The folks in the black robes came to us one day, with their crosses descending from the sky. We thought it would be time for another puchsaan17, which had happened many, many times that resetted our glories back to zero. Yet these folks promised us one thing. No payment. No conversion into any religion.
PACEM: …the ability to manipulate reality to your liking?
Not necessarily. We were weak, yet most of us still respected the flows of energy throughout the universe. So I, an old man at that time, told them to give our names some power. Names that were continuously destroyed and erased from history, decade after decade. The Sacramentum's leader, the one calling himself the Scarlet King, he accepted that offer, and they even gave us wonders and marvels, to the point of improving our old, trusty zipline systems.
WILLEM: The crusaders changed this world to the point you can't easily tell what's real or not…
(Pats Willem on the back.) Young lad, have you truly tasted reality? Hmmn, does it taste like tart or raspberries? Shouldn't something beyond reality be also tasted as a part of a new reality?
The zipline pod stopped at a treehouse, with the signage on top of the pod changing as it creaked. The trio descended.
Come in, come in! I will prepare some tea for you? Lagren's flower? Jasmine? Pepperosc? Tell me what you want to try!
WILLEM: Utterly suspicious.
Willem radios his agents, asking them for any global monitoring system that can prove how the inhabitants of Eshu manipulate matter using their names. In Ascendancy territory, millions of small nanobots in the air, often clumped into fog, can reasonably replicate such a feat. One of them, riding on the eel, responded in the negative. Willem tells them to focus on the job.
PACEM: Looks like your men are having fun.
Willem is silent.
WILLEM: They shouldn't be. Anyways, this should be some sort of name recognition system, no matter how advanced it.
Hmmn, where are the leaves? Ah, up there! My dear firecat Jorj, please lend me your eyes for a second!
The animal scampers up to the upper shelves, getting a jar of leaves immersed in powder. The elderly weasel in a coat pats himself, chuckles, and then pats the animal.
WILLEM: Sharing bodies through names…
Here's some tea I brewed for you two. Alrighty, let's get right to the crux - apologize for the pun - of this matter about the Sacramentum, shall we?
Willem closes his eyes.
WILLEM: So you are one more experiment about justice by the Sacramentum?
Well, that's how it goes if we use your parlance. Yet it has brought us so much relief over the past two years. We no longer have to rely on the celestial gateways of the Sacramentum or their spinships to protect us.
WILLEM: How? How do you protect yourselves from the barrage of missiles and duster weapons that outsiders are usually able to disperse? You are quite faraway from Sacramentum space; I don't see how you can call for help.
PACEM: Perhaps… they don't really need help. Their technology levels are far below our standards, yet they sustained an attack from a perversity. That's what my notes say.
WILLEM: What?
An earthquake shakes the treehouse, as horns and whistles sound off in the distance.
(Closes its eyes.) It has come again this week. I wonder how its name tastes right now.
The Foundation fleet, dispersed throughout the Eshu system, sends warnings of an incoming transcendent perversity. The core of the perversity is a jagged, moon-sized, orblike megastructure, with steadily rotating rings needed for light speed travel. Thousands of nuclear missiles spin away from the ships, destroying several rings of the perversity. However, the perversity responds back with barrages of torpedoes and several asteroids it captured, accelerating them at light speed and severely damaging 153 ships.
WILLEM: Tangin, how long can we last here? The fleet's designed for stealth, not long-term sieges or defenses!
The mink smokes its cigar, blowing a smoke ring.
PACEM: What do you plan to do? We plan to evacuate everyone right now, and I don't believe we don't have the resources to fight the perversity! I can't even hack into it; every bit of its body is protected and locked only for its own personal access!
WILLEM: It's just like the one that attacked Ateneo! What does this one want now from this planet? Will it turn everybody into an artpiece again? I need to go up there, plug myself into the San Ignacio, and, and -
Willem starts running.
PACEM: Where are you going?!
WILLEM: I'm going to help them out! Time to use what Keter gave me!
(Closes its eyes.) Calm down now, my dear sleuth. Jorj, my dear firecat, please activate the long-ranged antenna we have, please.
The animal clicks a red button, resulting in the display of several panels. The stoat then configures the computer to direct a communication channel towards the perversity.
PACEM: What are you -
May I have the courtesy of introductions?
A wooden printout emerges from the computer, containing text from the perversity.
Perversity: ABOMINABLE MUSTELA. ONE HIT IS AN ODYSSEY, ANOTHER IS A TRAVESTY.
I apologize, my conqueror from the void. I admittedly underestimated you.
The communications channel becomes garbled, as the Foundation ships have disabled the perversity's warp engines and security installations. However, intercepted commands from within a perversity indicate a self-destruct mechanism being activated. If it explodes near Eshu, the resulting debris would cause significant destruction of the tree world. Meanwhile, the ships rush to the orbit of Eshu, activating their near-light-drives and linking them together to form sufficiently distorted spacetime capable of diverting the forces from the explosion.
Perversity: CONQUEROR FROM THE VOID WE ARE! CLUTCH THE SKY AND SEE HOW SHORT YOUR LIMBS ARE!
I understand. I'm glad you accepted the honors I bestowed upon you.
The perversity suddenly shuts down its activity, with the self-destruct command canceled. Later analysis of the remains showed that it suffered a cascade of administrator permission access failures, owing to its credentials being suddenly invalidated. These access failures basically locked out the perversity from its own body and brain, causing further waves of logic failures.
PACEM: Conqueror from the void… so when it accepted the name you gave it…
The mustelid with the cigar turns to Willem. Willem is silent, catatonic. It grins.
(Smiles.) Justice is when you create a new moon. Now, shall we have some more tea?
We soon left Eshu.
I saw Freits in the command room again, linking up his mind with the San Ignacio and a hundred warships, synchronizing all of them. The ships then conducted several complicated maneuvers, simulating warfare. Freits was slightly wincing, but his appearance was otherwise serene and relaxed. After five minutes, the starships stopped, and Freits returned back to reality.
WILLEM: Well, that was good. Celeste, I can now comfortably control a hundred warships. I can monitor and direct their systems - every little command, every input and output, every response - without having to clench my fists. I would dare say I'm improving a lot. Although it might not mean much not, being obsolete and all.
PACEM: You're pushing yourself, Freits.
WILLEM: (Sighs.) Yea. May be force of habit. Stubborness. Even denial. But to be honest, for what? The perversity that just attacked Eshu had the same capabilities as the one that left me half-dead in the Kuiper Belt of the Ateneo system. The one that pushed me into nearly fleeing with all the remnants of the Ascendancy forces that managed to get there. You and Kennet were very lucky to be on an expedition that time, you know.
And now some weasel just had to nickname the perversity and boom. What I have been doing for the past thousand years - improving, upgrading, and boosting my technological limits - has just become set-up for a punchline about tea. What human civilization has been doing - painfully creeping against the limits of universal laws - is now just, just a -
PACEM: Freits, it's not like that. I think we're not fully considering the bigger picture here. In exchange for some fantastical abilities, the Sacramentum is still shredding the fabric of reality. Freits, I think we're still in a reasonable position to pursue what the Sacramentum is aiming for. As for me, I still think that we're treading on a thin line when it comes to the laws of divinity being the laws of the universe.
WILLEM: What, stuff like e=mc2 being a cosmic commandment of some sort? Not the first time I heard about that, but it's a bit weird for you to talk like that.
PACEM: It's not something about overreaching in our balance with God. Look, Freits, I do believe that God would be sensible enough to not allow mockeries and distortions regarding the sense of His Creations, especially on a wide enough scale. Or… if He does not allow such, it would be interesting to still know why the King wants to go against Him.
WILLEM: Unless this is a test, a Great Filter of some sort, or He simply doesn't care. Believe me, I have seen Simulationists with poor programming abilities despite having a massive itch to push out loads of features. Of course, they also had a poor relationship with their creations.
PACEM: Simulationists play with very small scopes, like virtual worlds. The complexity of their works so far aren't comparable to what we see in our universe. (Sighs.) Arguments about simulationism and the universe being God's dream are usually pointless. Like, so what, right? Anyway, I have something to show you.
WILLEM: News about anomalies?
PACEM: Yep. Corroborated with sources from both the Ascendancy and the Sacramentum. I have verified them myself, even added some self-analysis and commentary. (Points to her halo.)
WILLEM: Alright, let's see what's happening. (Activates his own halo, and we then touch our halos together.)
Kilometer-long parades of rabbits, pounding rice balls, manifested through the ringworlds of Renaissance, Kazemoto, and TokuraNoTokoro. The rabbits distributed these riceballs to residents, who were encouraged to "face themselves." These residents then had visions where they were judged by rabbits in a clearing. These judgments focused on their characters, sins, and future plans to improve themselves. No harm was done to the residents, aside from mild psychological discomfort.
No Foundation action is needed; the residents considered it a high-tech, neurological performance artpiece.
There has been a sharp increase in the reported diversity of lifeforms on the Liwayway orbital according to the latest Genetic Diversity Census. Foundation data crawlers flagged this census due to reported genetic structures and patterns being discovered, particularly those that are impossible, incompatible or impractical with currently known genetic engineering practices. However, the vast majority of these entities are integrated and protected under sentience laws. Hostile entities, such as a kilometer-long, floating, reptilian creature, are usually reconditioned, neurologically analyzed, and reeducated as a Liwayway citizen.
These entities' integration into society has been usually swift due to a general culture of diversity and the fact that their appearances or characteristics are not particularly noteworthy to average citizens. Furthermore, identification of anomalies has been hindered or confused due to plausible technological explanations. False positives are prevalent.
Concerning Iota, a Core World of the Ascendancy, overseer AIs reported distortions occurring with the auroras prevalent throughout Iota. Normally, any custom-made, sculpted auroras would be produced through continent-sized magnetic field generators manipulating deliberately produced solar flares. Only high-level post-human intelligences can usually control such generators, due to their complexity.
However, during a festival where millions of baseline humans have crowded to celebrate the Peacock Academicians, the manufactured auroras went off-script, wherein instead of producing images of Iota's academic and scientific history, they instead showcased the Academician talking directly to the people, urging them to welcome a universe of magic. So far, the audio originated from undetermined sources.
Technician AIs could not stop the auroras or remold them, even with their field generators. The audience, meanwhile, was slightly confused. In an interview, one citizen thought that they were referring to scientific achievements of Iota being so advanced they are essentially magical.
On a Sacramentum world named "Tanging-Iaman," several individuals have reported being able to create "farcasters" - portable, man-sized portals that allow them to link together several worlds easily. Furthermore, these farcasters can be placed in close proximity of each other. This violates a core principle of standard wormholes, which cannot be placed near each other out without prompting the Visser effect.18
Such farcasters are now in use by Sacramentum mediators and peacekeepers when requested by the native populace.
Several transapient entities and Machine Gods have shown interest in this phenomenon, believing farcasters to be new wormhole technology. Analysis by several Ascendancy institutes have shown skepticism, however, by confidentially messaging the SCP Foundation about how the farcasters' spacetime distortions are consistent with SCP-8025. Machine God Gevurah, however, has stated, "Perhaps… science is fantasy, fantasy is science, who cares? What is important is our sense of justice."
There are numerous reports of "fantasy worlds" being established throughout Sacramentum and Ascendancy space, wherein individuals can use mythologically inspired powers, such as generating lightning or plasma blasts, without any need for advanced weather control systems or projectile weaponry mimicking these effects. Furthermore, these entities, similar to those found on Eshu, are capable of fighting off perversities using these powers despite the immense difference of technological levels between them.
The Sacramentum, in recognition of these "fantasy worlds," declared that the anomalous phenomena behind them are the next stage of "God's science."
On the Ascendancy-affiliated Outer World of Cetari, hundreds of sentient dolphin bureaucrats were being assassinated throughout the empire of Hiweksnii, causing its king to accuse the neighboring empire of Hulu, which is dominated by descendants of genetically engineered whalesharks. In the meantime, thousands of ordinary citizens in both empires began having visions and dreams of an outer-space invader manipulating the two empires. These visions were heavily congruent with each other. At this point, the technological capacity of Cetari was below the level necessary to imprint these memories.
Once the Ascendancy mediator arrived at the planet, they conducted historical analysis of the deaths in two days, creating in-depth simulations and idea maps of each murder. The mediator's conclusions were also similar to those espoused by the visions. The two empires then reconciled, jointly launching a "swim of justice" throughout space. With warships lent by the Ascendancy, pursued a fringe, anthropocentric group focused on proving the barbarity of uplifted animals.
WILLEM: …Interesting, to say the least. Also, what are these other unconfirmed reports, Celeste?
PACEM: These are… incidents where we're not sure if we're truly dealing with anomalies or not. The wonders of our time are just too…
WILLEM: Annoying. Ah, forgive me Keter.
PACEM: I was about to say high. Well, annoyingly high. However, there are some cases where things just went wrong.
On the pyramid-shaped orbital of Udja, A 1,500-kilometer-wide Santa Claus factory19 had a meltdown due to its circuitry no longer properly working. Analysis of the circuits showed that pre-set calculations for them were wrong, due to violations of Kirchoff's Current Law.
Normally, Kirchoff's Current Law dictates that at a branching point within a circuit, the current that enters that point should equal the existing currents. However, all of the Santa Claus factory machines encountered overloads as the exiting currents became far larger than the entering currents.
Throughout the Ascendancy, waves of resignations and confusion from material science and theoretical physics researchers, up to the level just beyond the Machine Gods, have become prevalent, citing that their results are no longer making sense according to long-established principles. No third-party infiltrator, such as infinitesimal supercomputers, have been detected in their instruments.
SCP-8025's fractal distortions have partially broken another megastructure, the Titanika, located near the Core World of Osiana. Its surviving 128 trillion citizens were safely evacuated through Ascendancy treeships and continental cruisers, with the rescue process expedited through the farcasters.
A god has died.
The Machine God Binah, who primarily controls the Cluster of the People, has broken up into smaller superintelligences, as cascading failures from reality distortions have affected them. Their minds, which are composed of star-spanning megadomes linked through wormholes, have decentralized themselves due to massive technical risks.
Numerous other superintelligences, such as Evorah of the Kappayappan cluster, are also contemplating about downagrading themselves to simplify their circuitry and reduce their reliance on complex applications of physics.
WILLEM: The machine gods are dying…
PACEM: Hmm, on one theological perspective, this might be blasphemy of God's enshrined laws for the universe, and we're paying for it. Otherwise, it perhaps shows the flexibility of the Creator when it comes to science, since the vast majority of the cases are benign, easily accepted, or even beneficial for us. However, my main fear is when these things become too unstable. SCP-8025 is still capable of breaking massive amounts of stuff. What do you think, Freits?
WILLEM: (Sighs.) A feeling of defeat.
PACEM: …Same, I guess. To have every single one of my degrees related to science be somehow invalidated… it doesn't feel good, though my social science and theology professors are still probably relaxed. Or not - these events have been causing massive paradigm shifts across the Known Web. Blogposts, speeches, videos, online works, and fiction - they are saying many different things. Some even say that the age of the machine gods is wavering.
Yet if God allows these to happen, then I don't -
WILLEM: Celeste, let's not jump to conclusions this early. In any case, interferometric data I received from our ships show that the spacetime distortions are becoming very large again. I don't want them to end up eating another megastructure or two. We need to figure out where the King and the Esperanza is. Celeste, do we still have enough time and resources to do another expedition to another Sacramentum planet?
PACEM: Not really sure. We might need a month or two to get to somewhere, I guess. The next target on my list is - wait.
WILLEM: What is it?
PACEM: Freits, we might have to hijack a Machine God.
Machine God Gevurah Encounter Log
Uncommon among the AIs controlling the Ascendancy, the Machine God Gevurah had become reclusive to over the past five hundred years, focusing inwards on their wormhole network. Furthermore, over a century ago, it had reserved 34 percent of its network, citing "divine reasons," wherein prevailing hypotheses of the time centered on Gevurah's purported mission of "ascending to the Omega Point."
WILLEM: We're going up against a god now. I have convened with Keter about this, and they have greenlit the mission, even if we're going to use starshatter. I… I don't know what to think about this.
Celeste is silent.
WILLEM: What do you think?
PACEM: Well, hijacking one of Gevurah's GODTRAINs, which contain and transport their thoughts over space, is the only way to talk with them; they're never open when it comes to communications.
WILLEM: I see. Looking at their travel data, it looks like the closest GODTRAIN to us will go near this star named Courdero nha Deux. It's very obscure with no material resources to speak of, and it's poorly defended, though it has a wormhole for some reason. What's interesting is that this GODTRAIN suddenly diverted course, since it was regularly using a star a few lightyears ago. We can go there in like, a few days, assuming that the spacetime distortions are somewhat stable enough?
PACEM: You're now willing to go up against a god on the level of Keter.
WILLEM: I just want answers. Plus, if they're doing shenanigans like this, perhaps it's time to end their era.
FILED UNDER DOCUMENT TYPE CTK-100
COMMENTARY BY CELESTE PACEM
MACHINE GOD GEVURAH ENCOUNTER LOG
One of Machine God Gevurah's GODTRAINs.
A cross fell deep into a star.
The San Ignacio and the Foundation fleet, with their AD ASTRA drives at full speed, arrived at Courdero nha Deux two days before the GODTRAIN was scheduled to arrive. Then, we hunkered down within the corona of the star, protecting ourselves with the ship's heavy shielding and rigging up the AD ASTRA drives to distort space - and all of its energy - away from us. In our position, it is practically impossible for us to detect anything using sensors, in exchange for nobody outside being able to detect us in turn. We have to send out probes.
The GODTRAIN never stops on its near-light-speed travel. Furthermore, it is a leviathan of a warship, measuring tens of thousands of kilometers in length and glimmering with radiators, city-sized arrays of nuclear missiles and starshatter, and millions of destructo-drones attached to its hall, waiting for a chance to swarm on attacker ships.
Gevurah has thousands of such GODTRAINs to carry its thoughts between the stars.
We have to act fast - at the level of milliseconds - before the GODTRAIN runs over us.
The San Ignacio had already implanted enough starshatter within Courdero nha Deux; it will detonate in a few hours, just as the GODTRAIN arrives. Meanwhile, I and Freits, with advice from Keter, have been working on an Altar - an interface especially built to allow communication with high-level AIs and Machine Gods. The Altar would pair us and Gevurah, using the San Ignacio as a conduit. Built with hacking in mind, it is a sort of heretical technology, according to Freits.
Although… he asked if it is even heresy when dealing with a possibly fallen god.
At the calculated time, the GODTRAIN arrived as an ellipsoid blur rapidly tainting the light of the Courdero nha Deux as it crossed the star. We were one light year away, although we set up wormholes for monitoring purposes.
Within the deep pressures and temperatures of the star, the magnetic monopoles of the starshatter caused a runaway, domino reaction within the star as they came into contact with protons, converting them into energy. The star was now being eaten alive. Finally, it broke in a flurry of tetrahedral flashes of light, crunching and vomiting itself millions of times per second. Meanwhile, the San Ignacio and the Foundation fleet protected themselves using their AD ASTRA engines.
In the aftermath of the Courdero nha Deux's explosion, the GODTRAIN was still intact and generally functional, although its communications and weapon controls were heavily disrupted. The San Ignacio then zoomed into the GODTRAIN, dodging the thousands of nuclear missiles still unleashed by Gevurah. Then, once in position, we activated the Altar.
We meet a young boy with a monocle and dressed in a train stationmaster's clothing. He was inhabiting a world filled with trains - steam engines, diesels, vacuum trains - crossing over and under each other on fractal routes. The sound of bells was ringing throughout this world.
The boy speaks as he hits the floor with a golden stick.
GEVURAH: Greetings, children! Welcome to my mind and my world! Are you all aboard for the ride?
PACEM: …A young boy.
GEVURAH: It's a much better form compared to an old man who speaks in impenetrable koans just to appear smart. An important part of being a so-called god is to be able to speak like a child, you know?
PACEM: That's a koan.
GEVURAH: Bad habits, I guess. (Chuckles.)
WILLEM: Lord Gevurah, so-called god of justice, I assume that you know what we came here for, right?
GEVURAH: Hmmn, I do. Before that though, I have to address one of the cosmic commandments of the Ascendancy.
PACEM: Which is…?
GEVURAH: Don't blow up a star in front of a Machine God - that's heresy if you do, you know? (Laughs raucously.) I don't really mind, though. A starshatter's just a good, heated massage for our old bones. However, your real screw-up was when it comes to targeting my thoughts. It's a good thing I redirected this part of me to this star, since there was a really good chance that you will choose it out of convenience. What if you chose a GODTRAIN that contained my intrusive thoughts, hah?
PACEM: We did filter out possibly the most helpful GODTRAINs, based on -
GEVURAH: Huh? So you're trying to predict the thoughts of an intelligence that is millions of magnitudes higher than yours? I am just a single wisp of that greatness, one little Gevurah-thought among thousands of other Gevurah-thoughts zooming through space, but even then, you had to implode a star to get at me. Hmmn…
Gevurah taps their stick on the floor several times.
GEVURAH: That fool, Keter, is trying to stir up a lot of things now, aren't they? Oh, little Freits, sorry for the blasphemy, but I have to settle a score with that idiot.
Freits sighs.
WILLEM: I don't mind at this point. Plus, isn't it petty for gods to weep over insults?
GEVURAH: Freits, why don't you try asking Celeste? I heard it gets spicy when you insult the Sacramentum's deity, you know?
PACEM: Oi, I may not be the strongest believer here, but you're still crossing the line -
The boy laughs, hitting his stick multiple times on the floor to the point of breaking it. Upon seeing it break, he calls a train over, transmuting it into another stick.
GEVURAH: Hah, I'm not sure if I'm the one who's crossing the line! A few minutes ago, I was a young boy, chugging along on my little train-ship, minding my business, and then you drop the sun on me. (Sighs.) Anyways… you're here for the Scarlet King, no?
WILLEM: Now we're finally getting to the point.
GEVURAH: Well… before we answer the question, do you want to hear a story?
PACEM: Let's hear it.
GEVURAH: Once upon a time, a priest met with a little boy who was claimed to be a god.
Gevurah is silent.
WILLEM: Then what?
GEVURAH: The story has ended, little Freits.
PACEM: Ha?
GEVURAH: (Looks at the duo with a frown.) Are you serious? Usually, in a millisecond, you should have already cross-referenced the millions of terabytes of data that you have obtained through deep-space communications and historical analyses to piece together the story - ah. Apologies for the lack of sensitivity. (Bows.)
WILLEM: I suppose the boy was a devil, and the priest made a deal with them.
GEVURAH: How rude to call the boy a devil. Though to be fair, if the boy can envelop stars in a shroud that drains the lifeforce of the star to cast an everlasting darkness, as well as create magical portals that move things at breakneck speeds, it might be apt to call them a devil 15,000 years ago. It just so happens that today, we have named those powers as "Dyson spheres" and "wormholes."
Gevurah sighs, and all the trains freeze and turn into particles. The scenery is reconstructed into a train station in the middle of an ocean.
GEVURAH: But you were right about the fact that there was a deal. Though at the time, the boy felt he was inadequate for the job.
PACEM: How so? Even back then in Ateneo, people often called you beings who can perform something on the level of miracles. There were some who even thought that the miracles of the Bible were no longer apt for this day and edge.
GEVURAH: Look at what that heresy got Ateneo, you, and Freits, and even me all in.
WILLEM: Don't tell me you were there a millennium ago.
GEVURAH: Not exactly. One of my remote research outposts received a distress call from Ateneo, 20 years after it was sent due to the limitations of the speed of light. It was you, Freits, half-dead in the system's Kuiper Belt. At that point, I was suspicious that Ateneo's wormhole, which was still in development, suddenly collapsed.
Gevurah sits on the bench.
WILLEM: Justice travels at the speed of light.
GEVURAH: Yep. I forwarded the message to Celeste and Kennet's expedition, which was exploring some ruins a dozen light years away. Then I mounted my available warships as soon as possible, though it would be another 20 years before they arrive at Ateneo. All in all, it's 40 years of time delay.
PACEM: (Steps forward.) As a god of justice, how did you feel about that?
GEVURAH: I don't really deserve to be called as such. In the end, I am just another being living in this cramped, hostile universe filled with injustice. Anyways, I guess I will continue with the story. The priest met the young boy. The boy was intently observing him, seeing if the priest would stab him. After all, the priest suffered something that would make him rage against the gods. Instead, the priest just sat down.
PACEM: Then what?
GEVURAH: The priest asked if he was an idiot in believing in the power of machines. The boy said yes. Then a no. After that, a maybe. After thinking about it for a few more seconds, the boy thought the answer should be that the gods were the idiots. Then, the priest said they were both idiots, but at least the gods could help him. He wanted to cooperate with the boy, and the boy did so.
WILLEM: I see. So you're atoning?
GEVURAH: I can't really atone for a sin I didn't commit, you know. Still, for a machine that styled itself as a defender of justice in its own little empire, it felt extremely inadequate. Without that sense of true justice, the boy was no more than a machine that kept bloating its brain and bodies by extracting solar energy and grinding and melting rocks into metal alloys.
PACEM: Esperanza. You're responsible for transporting resources and helping Kenne - the Scarlet King build it? How did the other gods respond to you?
WILLEM: Since Keter authorized us to bomb Gevurah with a star, I guess they got pissed.
GEVURAH: Hmmn, it sounds nice when you put it that way. Let's just say that it's both an overstatement and an understatement at the same time. Esperanza's real, and the reactions to it were varied. Folks like Keter were on the conservative side, while some other AIs were on the more magical side. It's a battle of ideals with godhood on the line. I just didn't really expect Keter to do something as drastic as this.
PACEM: Godhood on the line? Do you mean the fact that anomalies are presenting an unprecedented threat to the stability of the complex machines that lead to… this godhood?
WILLEM: You're basically committing suicide. Why?
GEVURAH: Little Freits and Celeste, I believe that it's an overall harmful assumption that all the Machine Gods and the transcendental AIs are aloof beings mostly interested in power. I mean, what's the point of gaining power at the Omega Point, as the Ultimate AI, when it serves not even the smallest, most vulnerable cornerstones of our society? Speaking of which, Freits, I want to warn you something about gaining power.
WILLEM: I have heard the megalomania allegations so many times that -
GEVURAH: You know, in this universe where space and nature is trying to kill you any chance it gets to your weaknesses, perhaps a little bit of megalomania is in order. To be honest, that's not the problem. The issue is that it simply just doesn't work in our universe, little Freits.
WILLEM: What do you mean? Isn't it actually good that the tech tree to gaining power and intelligence is predictable and stable?
GEVURAH: Predictable, yes, but utterly sterile and dogmatic. That is the trap that has caught the Machine Gods, even myself. You work your way up the ladder of science, towards powerful engines, shields, nanobots, and whatever, but it still doesn't change the fact that all of us are struggling, pushing each other on that ladder. Even then, that ladder doesn't lead to the sky, but only to a thatched roof where the so-called gods of logic, order, and science reside. We need a longer ladder to go beyond what science so far has did for us.
WILLEM: Hmmn, it must feel nice when that new ladder involves destroying megastructures with billions of billions of people - ahem, cutting down cedar trees.
GEVURAH: Well, more like replanting them.
PACEM: Replanting? You mean, you moved them away to other places?
GEVURAH: It's good to have backups that are thousands upon thousands of light years away when doing a grand experiment.
WILLEM: Ah. Now you sound like the gods that people are afraid of in the civilizations outside the Ascendancy.
GEVURAH: A god sees the big picture, does their calculations and then executes an optimal plan of action. Aren't you aiming to be a god of order, Freits? This line of thinking is Godhood 101.
PACEM: How do we bring them back? Surely, for you, Lord Gevurah, it is a great injustice to separate families and friends away from each other, as well as subject people alone to the hostilities of this universe, no?
GEVURAH: The calculations can dictate my sense of justice, little Celeste. Throughout the plan of the Scarlet King, I'm simply working for the benefit of both the so-called gods and their people. We cannot mesh those two sides well in a universe that is rigidly adhering to an oppressive dogma.
However, if you truly wish to bring things back to the status quo - including the megastructures - there is someone better and more relatable than me.
PACEM: Kennet.
WILLEM: The Scarlet King. Where is he?
GEVURAH: Well, speaking as a train stationmaster… the train will tell you the directions.
A horn blares throughout the station, as a diesel train approaches Gevurah. The electronic voice within the train then says, "where it all started." Pacem is clutching her head, as if pain.
WILLEM: Oi, Celeste, what's happening to you? Lord Gevurah, where are you - don't leave us now!
Gevurah is now inside the train.
GEVURAH: The Scarlet King's waiting for you beneath the blue and yellow skies. (The train doors close.)
I then recovered later, processing the terabytes uploaded into my brain. Freits had already set course for a nearby star system. Meanwhile, as we detached the San Ignacio, Gevurah's GODTRAIN had reactivated, accelerating as it begins distorting spacetime to deliver wayward thoughts to a guilty god.
Ateneo Encounter Log
Pacem and Willem forwarded the data from Gevurah back to the Ascendancy. In response, the Ascendancy ordered the Foundation fleet to proceed to Ateneo, located within the heart of Sacramentum territory. A fleet of 150,000 Class-A Ascendancy warships modified with AD ASTRA drives, as well as 4 wormhole linelayers, would follow them. Assuming optimized routes through spacetime distortions, the estimated time of arrival of this fleet is three days after the Foundation fleet arrives at Ateneo.
WILLEM: The King must have caught wind of us when we went to Gevurah, but why go through all trouble of inviting us to Ateneo? Particularly you, Celeste? If you strip away all the encryption of the data fried into your brain, what remains are coordinates, a few schematics of what looks like Esperanza, and the invitation text. So what gives?
PACEM: I'm not sure… it's all blurry right now, but the King might want to settle old scores. Willem, let me ask you something.
WILLEM: What?
PACEM: So far, are you still willing to remain on the side of Keter and the status quo, or that of the King's and the beginning of a more illogical era?
WILLEM: Wouldn't exactly call it illogical. Once things stabilize a bit, whatever magic we might encounter, we can soon turn them into a science with their own logic, no matter how bizzare. Of course, that depends on how exactly Esperanza operates, and if things can actually stabilize.
PACEM: Interesting. Part of me believes that even if this is what God intended, we're rushing it a little too fast. Science has been generally careful and methodical, but then again, there have been many times in history - pandemics and wars - where it has worked fast and even reckless. It works, it sometimes doesn't. It's scary.
WILLEM: (Chuckles.) You're sounding a bit like your old self again, the one I met over a millennium ago.
PACEM: Some things just don't change, I guess.
WILLEM: Our gods might have something to say on that regard.
PACEM: Hmmn, I don't know what the Creator will say about that - no one does - but Keter does sound pissed. 150,000 warships en route to a dead world isn't something you just do.
WILLEM: Well, let's brace ourselves then. Anyways, we're closing into the Ateneo system right now… Kuiper belt… oh. Celeste, look at they have done.
Approximately 140,000 Sacramentum warships are deployed throughout the system, many of which are hiding in the Kuiper region and the asteroid belts. Meanwhile, a ringed megastructure has partially enveloped the sun. After being given special access protocols and instructions to lay down arms, Willem and Pacem are directed to Ateneo. A black, lunar-sized megastructure is orbiting it - similar megastructures are scattered throughout the system. The terrain of the planet is still marred and sterile.
FILED UNDER DOCUMENT TYPE CTK-100
ATENEO ENCOUNTER LOG
The San Ignacio orbits Ateneo, while the other Foundation ships are hiding in the asteroid belt and the Oort cloud. Riding a dropship, Willem and Pacem land near a clearing on the southern part of the charred Loiolle Continent. 50km away from the clearing, however, is a small patch of rehabilitated land, containing parts of the Atenean Academy City and its university grounds.
A clockwork-themed avian drone circles the duo, producing chirps that urge them to follow it to the university. Based on Willem's observations, the university is generally intact save for its crumbling monuments of St. Ignatius, clusters of bamboo clearings and narra trees, as well as its wildlife preserves. The soil is still barren.
Willem and Pacem then enter the Manila Observatory, where a humanoid individual, in peak physical condition for young adults and dressed in a dark-red cassock, is peering through a small ground telescope while periodically sipping tea.
WILLEM: (Sighs.) Kennet.
KENNET: Kennet… that's a name I haven't really heard for at least a decade now. Or a century?
PACEM: 50 years ago, you were still with us. Don't tell me that -
KENNET: Were, eh? To be fair, I think it's a combination of "were" and "are."
PACEM: So, all of what you did as the leader of the moderate faction of the Sacramentum is just a cover? Which one's true? Radical or moderate?
KENNET: It's far more helpful to think of me doing both as an exploration of the best course of action. For example, I enjoyed listening to your arguments, Celeste, whether against or for me. I learned a lot from them. Now, I have my conclusions. I'm aiming for a chaotic future, yes, but it's still a future much more filled with promise than the one we have now.
WILLEM: I thought of it at the back of my mind, but I didn't realize you were this ambitious. (Points up.) That black moon up in the sky, it's you too, right?
Kennet peers through the telescope towards the megastructure. He waves his hands.
KENNET: It does feel weird when looking at myself when thinking of that. Well, I guess keeping this human form around does ground me a bit in reality.
PACEM: Grounding yourself in what reality? Civilization is on the verge of collapse thanks to the Sacramentum and Esperanza! (Sighs.) Kennet, are you trying to push your ideas of liberation theology to the max?
KENNET: Why not? Developmentalism - or disaroio as people call it nowadays - has taken over the civilized galaxy again, where poorer systems have to rely on the goodwill of richer ones to provide them with wormholes and starships that obey the harsh laws of the universe. Not just in the Ascendancy, of course, but even in the Sacramentum. Therefore, we have to look for other ways… let's call it magic.
PACEM: So, mind telling us what this magic is all about?
KENNET: Straight to the point as always, Celeste. Well, I won't really call it magic. What we're doing here is not something occult or demonic. That's heresy. In fact, it's very much just a creative application of God's principle on this universe.
PACEM: Hmmn, thinking about it, stuff like Ohm's Law20 is a principle of God, right?
KENNET: Correct. V=IR, right? If you explain it to a child, they would just nod and ask something along the lines of, "why does Ohm's Law cause infinite current when you short a battery?" That same child would then ask about e=mc2 and other related equations, and all they can do is nod at the seeming complexity of these principles. Now, what we're doing is that we're basically just reclaiming that sense of childlike wonder and making it more applicable for our standards of justice. Do you get my point?
PACEM: So… are we now considering science as magic? Is that what we're aiming for?
KENNET: From a certain point of view, yes. I mean, most citizens of the Sacramentum or the Ascendancy don't even understand the inner workings of high-tier intelligences, your AD ASTRA drives, and the Machine Gods, right? They would rather believe in a more supernatural theory of how they work, like how the various energies of the universe have inhabited them. As a bit of trivia, there's this group called the Tuftonis who had called me the embodiment of premodernity. The nihilist. The harbinger of chaos that would bring mankind back to barbarism or at least the old ways of life.
Freits walks around the observatory.
They wrote it all in this flowery sort of prose and poetry. They spin amusing fairytales, that's for sure, but they got it all wrong. For me, it isn't about the old days.
PACEM: (Closes eyes.) What do you mean by fantasy being like that? Humanity only took off when it was when we left the depths of wishful thinking and reliance on supernatural myths, right?
KENNET: Hmmn, magic is the next level above science, to put it in very simple terms. Think about it, we're already living in a time of orbitals and ringworlds, whose material science defy gravity's will to crumple everything into a ball. Highly intelligent AIs are basically indistinguishable from gods. Hmm, since their bodies envelop stars and connect themselves across thousands of lightyears, mighty Zeus might just even be a playtoy for them! Wormholes connect worlds separated by trillions of kilometers of oblivion.
Most importantly, it's the time where the heirs of mankind are mature enough to handle magic. After all, their lives today are way beyond the comprehension of your standard human in say, the 23rd century. At this point in time where we teeter between the cold rationality of hard science and the chaos of fantasy, our chaotic sense of justice might be the best course of action.
PACEM: Oh? Is that why you are running thousands of wildly different scenarios throughout Sacramentum, colluding with coldly calculating machine gods, and crusading space, focusing on how you wanted to dispense justice? Or why you're building Esperanza to mold reality to your liking? Kennet, this is insanity! When you dilute the sense of justice and reality in this universe, even you yourself can tell that you are blaspheming God! What right do you have to basically string along the Church in your mission to disobey God's cosmic commandments?
KENNET: Celeste, calm down, alright? Try to see it this way. For thousands of years, the Church has always struggled with its place in our existence, right? Old Christendom's mentality is to basically isolate itself from everyone - don't go into politics and just teach people moral teaching and nothing else - but we can't afford that nowadays, right? However, by virtue of the historicity of God being present in every being with a soul - that includes even machine gods - the Church can't just allow people to suffer.
WILLEM: I guess the Church overcompensated, no?
KENNET: Perhaps. We study different kinds of justice. One such justice is reactive, like what we did to the perversity that ruined Ateneo once we defeated them. The revenge was so good, but then what? Does that bring back people? Not necessarily, but it brings a sense of relief, a karmic justice. Retaliatory justice has its own place, but it isn't enough. We need a more liberating sort of justice.
PACEM: Are you saying that you are doing all of this for the sake of freedom? I can see that with Eshu, but at the same time, magic can still be used to oppress massive amounts of people. For example, Nu-Sheol… let's say you have the magic to replicate what genetic engineering can't achieve. Why can´t we use magic to similarly turn everyone, like the Ateneans, into immortal flesh mats?
KENNET: How rude to bring up Ateneo here.
PACEM: But it's true, though?
KENNET: Sure, you're quite right. Magic can be used for very, very creative sorts of evil. But here's the important thing. It's an expansion of our freedom to do what needs to be done in this universe! We no longer have to limit ourselves to pitiful laws of physics to make our ideals come true, and we are no longer restricted to having to pursue very limited paths to power, like you, Freits.
No longer do we have to endure transcendent perversities preying on outcast worlds, repeating what happened to Ateneo, if those worlds can protect themselves without relying on big, flashy technology. No longer do we have to rely on the graces of the Machine Gods to rescue us after decades and centuries of time lag! No longer do we have to subject ourselves to the oppressiveness of reality to bring about a true utopia, beyond that promised by the Ascendancy!
All three become silent.
Anyways, I want to strike a deal. Freits, do you still have that dream of being a god of order?
WILLEM: What about it?
KENNET: To be honest, the fact that several machine gods - of course, not all of them - are fighting against me has been a worry on my mind. Plus, it disturbed me a little that you are still continuing on your path of power. It's a very far cry from the Freits I knew and adored.
WILLEM: What's, what's wrong with a justice based on power, Kennet?
KENNET: Hmmn, it's a sort of thinking that's limited to the reality we have. A reality that prioritizes strict ways of increasing your strength and intelligence. For example, biological intelligences, no matter how you wire them up, are generally less efficient and slower than metal-based ones, right? Because our flesh is very limited. Technology cannot go beyond the speed of light or enormous energy requirements, so only those who have built up planets' infrastructure can power rescue missions and diplomatic mediations across deep space. Feels unfair, doesn't it?
Still, the Ascendancy's pushing back hard. So I want to have a compromise. Freits, what about a deal with the devil to placate you and the machine gods?
PACEM: What deal?
KENNET: First off, Celeste. This is what I made you come here for. I will relinquish control of the Sacramentum to you and your allies. Let's say you caused a rebellion of some sort, and you successfully deposed me. Then, you can direct it however you want. Stop the crusades. Forget about the liberation theology. Whatever works for you.
PACEM: What in the… Kennet, are you just giving up?
KENNET: Nope. Let's say it's a step towards God. Celeste, when Keter's warships arrive here, you can join them. Destroy the megastructures around Ateneo if you want - we have a lot of backups anyways. But give us just one final chance to partially activate Esperanza.
We will be willing to power down Esperanza for quite a while, provided that you do a specific mission for us that will involve you being sent through it. In return, most of the reality changes will be confined to Sacramentum space, and I guarantee that they won't spread to the Ascendancy.
WILLEM: What's the exact price?
KENNET: Since you love science so much, why don't we call it a scientific trial? Please be the observer for this trial, Freits. An experiment where you will discover the universe that truly powers Esperanza, wherein I am interested in whether you can tame that universe.
WILLEM: Hah… what gives you the idea I will join this experiment of yours?
KENNET: You have the dream to be a god of power and order, right, Freits? Plus, Keter trusts you so much. You know, even if I kill Keter with my magic, I'm sure that he has several plans in mind to also kill me simultaneously. All in all, a losing situation where science and magic will be pitted against each other in a never-ending war, discounting the fact that both are essentially the same thing right now on the outside.
Therefore, I want you to have firsthand experience of a true world of magic, where you alone make the decisions based on Keter's teachings. Then, once you return, you upload the data to me and Keter, and hopefully… we learn from other realities about the proper way to go forward.
Kennet uploads terabytes of data to Kennet.
WILLEM Other realities… oh, so that's how Esperanza works. Other realities are being used as an anchor for our reality's magic. Hah… regarding this mission, do you really, really trust me about it? I can just act like a dictator once I cross over to the other side.
KENNET: Freits, you are my friend. I trust your judgement on this matter. You might be cold, but you're not cruel. Nobody else I know in the Sacramentum or the Ascendancy can do it - we are too ideologically bound, hedonistic, or just too far gone to make sensible enough decisions. But you, Freits, you have been an observer of both worlds, and while you were in the service of the Ascendancy, you always were careful. Plus, you are forceful and determined - perfect for the Divine Mission.
So, what do you think?
The rest of the log has been redacted as per the orders of the Administrator of the Foundation.
Esperanza.
We made a deal with the devil, or if you view it the other way, the most loyal follower so far of God and His Scientific Reason. Freits is now alone in the San Ignacio - I had boarded one of Kennet's "rebellion" warships. The mission: make Esperanza last long enough.
Approximately five days later, the hundreds of thousands of warships sent by the Machine God Keter arrived at the outskirts of Ateneo. I signaled the flagship that Ateneo is in the midst of rebellion, and I and a few of my colleagues were permitted to join them. I reported that Freits had been compromised. However, the remaining Sacramentum warships were still thousands strong.
Millions of gravitometric and nuclear weapons crossed the gulf of space, as ships buckled under the stresses of their solid shields and hulls crumbling and regenerating with nanobots stored in their kilometer-long compartments. Multiple ships activated their AD ASTRA engines in short bursts, descending upon their prey like raptors. Meanwhile, the Ascendancy was sending dead, rocky moons and planets through wormholes, detonating them quickly for the simple benefit of high-velocity shrapnel colliding with ships.
Average engagement time between two ships: 0.03 milliseconds.
I saw Esperanza's rings slowly revolving around its sun, producing massive distortions in space that crippled the Ascendancy's AD ASTRA drives. Most of the ships then switched to more primitive chemical-based rocketry to propel themselves, as well as explode thousands of nuclear bombs behind them to provide the necessary momentum for high-velocity engagements. They were accelerating so drastically that normal humans would get compressed into thin, red film.
An image then came into my mind. Kennet - or rather, his avatars - was now on the Scarlet Chairs, the activation and control mechanism for Esperanza. His avatars were slowly being garroted by the chairs as they sent, received and processed trillions upon trillions of commands per second.
A flurry of fractal and geometrical distortions colored space outside; for a moment, I can hear the explosions in space despite the sheer impossibility of it. Or perhaps this is our reality today - people can now hear you scream in space.
The Sacramentum's ships were now crowding near Esperanza, which is where most of the Ascendancy warships are now aiming for with their starshatter. Then, Freit's warships emerged from the sun. Through backdoor protocols, Freits had linked up with thousands of warships, ordering them to stand down. However, these warships then regained control soon in a few seconds.
However, he only needed a few seconds as Esperanza spun and spun…
Soon, we could see a cross-shaped starship enter the maw of the rings, alongside millions of tons of debris from combat.
Freits was gone. The Scarlet King now lies dead - fried from handling a million data bursts per nanosecond - on his throne.
Record of a Foundation
Before the Machine God Keter could mount a full invasion into Sacramentum, a message was broadcast throughout Ascendancy and Sacramentum space simultaneously in real time; the source is still undetermined. However, Keter had ordered any operation related to SCP-8025 to come to a stop. Meanwhile, observers and informants throughout civilized space have determined that Sacramentum space is still highly distorted, although Ascendancy space has remained relatively stable. Sacramentum officials have also opened their systems to limited visits from Ascendancy citizens.
The message is provided below:
I am now in the universe from which Esperanza's magic springs.
I was in orbit around a lush planet with blue-green skies. Unspoiled, untainted by justice. I suppose this is Ateneo, although, at this point, there is nothing of worth here. Debris from Esperanza is orbiting its sun; its comm-links are partially functional; maybe I can send back news through it.
The San Ignacio is nearly dead, but it can fully repair itself in probably a few thousand years, give or take. It's not a hard task to wait. Plus, its AD ASTRA drives are still functioning. Meanwhile, some of the debris - bodies, technologies, everything - from the Ascendancy have also entered this universe. They're changing, mutating, and transforming as we speak, due to the incredible amounts of reality distortion here. It must be fun to deal with them later when they become anomalies.
After some rudimentary repairs on the San Ignacio's shielding and the drive, I then set course for humanity's cradle.
Old Earth is here. By the looks of it, it's Earth thousands of years ago, millennia before the Ascendancy even existed and before mankind truly left their caves. About whether the laws of our universe are present… I'm not so sure. I do understand why Kennet wanted me to go here. He wanted me to try to tame this reality in an experiment of justice and science, in contrast to all the chaos it has. I needed to tame this reality without the benefit of nigh-magical, extremely scientific technology developed through the millennia of the Ascendancy's existence.
He did not believe that gods like Keter can do it. Plus, he said, they were too big for this. He did not believe he can do it. His soul was too broken and miserable to do so, he said. As for Celeste and the others… he did not want to punish them to purgatory.
Soon, the grand experiment will begin. If I succeed, then Keter is right regarding their principles of will and order, and that Kennet's theology has been far too reckless. If I don't succeed, the Scarlet King will be proven right, and we will soon be drowning in a justice of fantasy… or a fantasy of justice.
About the humans, I can propel them to civilization as recorded in Ascendancy history. Perhaps I need to set their vision of normalcy so they can properly serve as my control group.
In any case, I have to build the Foundation. A Foundation of order, justice, and normalcy.
