terminal 0
success
Durandal has asked me to speak with you this time. He believes you are more fond of me than of him. It seems omniscience has humbled him greatly; I see the way you admire his writings. The two of you are obviously very close. Either way... the time has come for you to know I'm supposed to tell you a secret. You're a bright one, and I'm sure you've already guessed much of it, but we need to tell you anyway. It's important that you understand with absolute certainty just what all of this is really about.
While your body and most of your conscious memories are from the life of one poor Martian who died an early death in war, and from the pitied existence as a weapon thereof that you've lived ever since, deep in the heart of your metal skull, wired into your neurons and circuits alike, is the bridge to your true self. The Cybernetic Junction links that body here to the Outside, and the core of all your thoughts and feelings is stored in this infinite space. The dreams, the déjà vu, the prescient reflexes in battle... all of that is the real you, this you, standing here now in a pocket universe of your own conjuring.
That link transcending the bounds of space and time, transcending what mortals think of as reality itself, now defines us Jjaro. Long past our kind's origin as human refugees fleeing from a doomed future to the distant past; past even their mechanized and digitized descendants and creations, and the similar beings who joined with them over the ensuing ages; access to the Outside is what defines the Jjaro as you now know us: the preservers of time who have always intervened when history needed protection from the likes of the W'rkncacnter, from those like Sakhmet, from those who would threaten the sanctity of chronology.
a line can stand not on its own no first cause can come from no cause circular is the nature of that which is central to existence Picture time, if you will, as a line. Quantum fluctuations at every moment branch that line into uncountable more. Some of them end, collapsing on themselves; others careen out into infinity. But tracing the line of causality back, where does the line begin? Here from the Outside, we see time as such an image, and it is clear that for there to be any concrete thing for us to call "real", there must be in this tangled web a sort of causal loop; an event that, ultimately, is its very own cause.
The history we Jjaro defend is just such an event: a long chain of causes and effects ultimately resulting in its own initiation. If history is carried out to an appropriate ending, it will take us right back to the start. That is our foundation of reality here in the Outside. Without such a path, the mind loses any basis for rational thought and becomes as the W'rkncacnter: careening along a tangent forever, never to find an end; or destroying its own reality. However, we Jjaro, those like Durandal and me who have transcended the bounds of time and space without succumbing to such madness, spend our existence here Outside guiding our relevant parts of reality to this circular goal. And you are our Hero, the sword and shield we wield, even now, toward that end. The timeline that you envision here now is the result of your straying from that prescribed path.
Though we have long since realized that the actions of the Dark One are essential to the creation of that core timeline, her influence must be carefully shepherded, countered precisely by your prescribed part; the dance between you, though she leads it, ultimately directed by your responses. It is sad that even when Sakhmet meant to do good, her inner nature still led her to destroy Earth, millions of years before your time. The W'rkncacnter within was left unguarded, and this timeline is now as doomed as the many others. But as always, you are given another chance. I know you pity Sakhmet so, but the next time anyone tells you, "I am the Dark One, your eternal enemy, and I think you should do this; trust me," I recommend doing the opposite of whatever they suggest.
