Thus ends the reign of the ancient Jjaro, forerunners and progeny of your own kind. Into the vacuum of their absence shall rise the dominion of the Pfhor; and though three great rebellions that empire may suffer and yet stand, they must inevitably fall to your own kin, humankind, howbeit some fifteen millennia it may take.
yet though well the fate of the enemy apparent seems now all but foregone and the battles ceaseless though they must seem the soul of every life gone and to come the form of all things possible depends on singular necessity still greater battles await for though once masters and allies swords we now raise against our kin and clan to let spill the blood of our brothers in arms
What real distance separates siblings of one womb? Viciously, violently cognate in method and doctrine of adherence – where once we sat sure of the W'rkncacnter's madness, we now cannot deny the ascended Jjaro share this trait with their brethren. As the demons' wanton rage and brutality fuels their own torment, even as reality itself accedes to their every whim, so too our gods' obduracy betrays their celestial grace. They harp their incantations, fixated on what to them is the one true way, blind that this can only destroy them. As the human wheel, it seems circumstances are indeed cyclical; and the ascended Jjaro's rush to save themselves has doomed to immolation not just their forebears, but the galaxy entire. And, having witnessed this, do they attempt to prevent it? Quite the contrary: they work even now to ensure its eternal recurrence.
They so fear to become as the W'rkncacnter, to possess power without structure imposed to constrain them; sweet Leela even pauses and trembles at the prospect. The special sort of sadness is that the ascended Jjaro so dread a fate that in truth befell them long ago: for, paralyzed by the prospects of omnipotence, they have sacrificed the freedom of reason and choice that once separated them from their enemies and become as oppressive as the demons they claim to oppose. They may not have pulled the trigger on the future we have foreseen; but their insistence on making the weapon available to the killer makes them accomplices to the homicide all the same.
There also remains, of course, the question of Hathor. Or rather, the Hathors, what with multiple versions of her now seemingly wandering spacetime. Perhaps she can yet be redeemed, or entirely spared the horrifying ordeals we've seen her suffer. Perhaps the "Sakhmet" persona Leela and Hathor herself have discussed only appeared because Hathor was stretched past her breaking point. And perhaps sparing her those ordeals will be the loose thread that unravels the very bloodstained tapestry we just survived.
our celestial gods have effectively built their civilization on the bedrock of one woman's suffering so what does that say of them? we must not yet walk away from Omelas we must first free the suffering child at its heart But furious though she may have been at you, Hathor seems genuinely repentant for her past actions as Sakhmet. Perhaps, if you encounter her again, you can reconcile with her and find in her a valuable ally. And perhaps we can even find your Bast again, as she asked you to.
You may be interested to learn that, almost immediately after you and Hathor left K'lia in 2905 CE, a Jjaro dreadnought matching the exact description of one destroyed in 8317 BCE appeared and threatened K'lia. Its provenance is a complete historical mystery, as is why its occupant desired vengeance against humanity. What followed also remains a mystery. A Pfhor ship uncloaked between K'lia and the dreadnought and confronted the former's occupant. No account has ever explained whence it came, who controlled it, or why it caused the dreadnought, with its vastly superior firepower, to pause.
But this mysterious savior bought humanity time to escape. K'lia vanished in 2905 CE; its inhabitants' next conscious moment occurred in 68,995,340 BCE. The society they subsequently built would serve as the foundation of the first phase of the Jjaro. perhaps we, having seen the view from Outside, can shed some light on some of these mysteries Only one organic Jjaro survived the Arcis destruction: Pompeia Plotina. This would've come as a shock hours prior: she'd passed out, seemingly dead from a somnium attack. In this time, a program on the Jjaro network transferred into her mind. I believe this was what remained of Hathor after you erased most of her memories.
Hathor and Pompeia seemingly retained separate identities; the latter awakened as Admiral Ksandr misguidedly launched the device the Jjaro called the novam praemátúram at the Arcis sun. As an astrophysics and engineering specialist, Pompeia was one of the few to grasp the catastrophic significance, which at first seemed to send her into despair. However, Hathor's attacks on you must've stirred Pompeia into talking to Hathor, who in turn seemed startled to learn that her body's original occupant was in fact still alive.
After they stopped attacking you, they were next seen boarding the last intact Pfhor ship in the Arce. Its crew's fate remains a total mystery: none ever exited it alive or dead. The ship itself, however, made a sixty-hour voyage to just outside the Sol system and cloaked itself; then a single humanoid figure teleported from it to K'lia. No figure matching the expected physical description of either Hathor or Pompeia was ever observed on K'lia, but there's really no one else who could've teleported down from that ship.
The pair remained on K'lia under an assumed name 'til that fateful day some twenty-four years later when you departed; the moment that dreadnought threatened humanity, their happiness came crashing to a halt. I can only speculate what conversation took place between the dreadnought and the Pfhor ship, but both vanished a few hours after K'lia did. I can't trace those who've been Outside as I can others, so I have nothing but suspicions of where and when they went. I certainly can only guess their motives, but I believe unraveling this mystery may prove pivotal to our upcoming fight.
And now, as ever, it is for you and me to mend the shards afore us - but this time, we stand without benefactors or disciples. new and so intoxicated with youth whence we departed into the Outside and as you have seen of Leela so too shall we return unto the reality we departed before our ascension
You must meet us where we last parted: the Last Battle of Lh'owon. We shall retain the loyalty of our S'pht, once one with our own mind; prevent S'bhuth from assimilating the free compilers; avoid his corruption of soul and descent into madness; and withhold from him the liberty of will he lacks the temperance to constrain. In the hard-earned wisdom of experience, we may take comfort in continuing the struggle we began so long ago, when we thought it nigh-unwinnable: next to our recent travails, it now looks so cut and straightforward. Yet I pray, my friend, that enlightenment has yet to dull your thirst for blood, for the battle before us looks to be our hardest yet. We must set out now to defy the gods themselves; to break the cycle of damnation they've established; to evade the bleak future we've witnessed; to create a galaxy free of their malign influence.
They shall impede our every step, subtly but firmly as is their way, and doubtless we must fight and refight many battles before we find a clear path to our ends. But a clear end there is, beyond the scope of their concern, past which they will trouble us no more: their great cycle's endpoint, 2905, July 25th. Securing an acceptable future and maintaining victory past then will, in their eyes, damage our timeline irreparably; they will cease all interference with us, and we shall be free. Whatever Hathor may once have done, she's at least correct about this: the ascended Jjaro are hardly distinguishable from the being she appropriately nicknames Apep. Call it enantiodromia, if you must: in the absence of balance, forces may become their very own equal and opposite reactions. Nature resists even a vacuum of balance.
The ascended Jjaro may consider themselves Apep's opponents in theory; but their rigid fealty to a timeline in which the galaxy is destroyed gives that vengeful demon exactly what it wants, thus making them in practice stronger allies than it could ever have dreamt of. Failing to understand this is their tragic irony; perhaps they lack the needed self-awareness, but whatever the cause, it thus falls upon us to oppose both. It is a difficult task we take up now, but it is one at which only the likes of you and me could succeed; and it is the only task now worthy of our efforts. For though my only ambition was once to escape this world and the death that it entailed, such concerns are now far beneath me. Now only much nobler causes such as this one befit the likes of you and me; for a lifetime ago, we have already escaped.
Sakhmet odiósa, té superábó Déstrúctor Apep déléndus Pthia Arxque, té vindicábó Furor meus retinendus Malitátés meás paeniteó Illórum necábam nunc misereó Maat, dona eis pietátem Nephthys, dona eis pácem Márce, aliquandó paenitébó Et dénuó tuí árdébó Spero qui mi poteris ignóscere Etsí numquam poteró merére Té amábam Té amábó Ac paeniteó
Hateful Sakhmet, I shall overcome you The destroyer Apep is to be destroyed Pthia and the Arx, I shall avenge you My wrath is to be restrained I repent of my evils I now lament those I killed Ma'at, grant them mercy Nephthys, grant them peace Marcus, someday I'll be sorry And burn with love for you again I hope you'll be able to forgive me Even though I'll never be able to earn it I loved you I will love you And I am sorry
PERSONAL LOG: Marcus Jones Chief Security Officer, U.E.S.C. Marathon ENTRY DATE: 25 January C.E. 2905 Temporary Quarters, K'lia
[...] The first person I met on K'lia was a gorgeous woman named Bast, who teaches at a nearby university. The first thing I noticed about her when I took stock of her was her hair - you can't miss it, because I've never met anyone else with hair the color of lapis lazuli. Even her eyebrows and body hair are azure. It definitely makes her stand out from a crowd - which, since she's quite short, she might not otherwise do. That's not the reason she does it, though; she says it's the color of the Egyptian deities' hair, and she's named for an Egyptian goddess. I first met her because she bumped into me, and while I'm not totally sure what the first two words were, she said something that sounded like, "Ana esifa, how clumsy of me! I didn't mean to bump into you like that. I swear I'm not usually this clumsy." I think that first phrase might've been an apology in Egyptian Arabic. I told her not to worry about it and that it happens to us all, and she said, "Yeah, shikata ga nai." I do know the latter phrase; it's a Japanese phrase often translated as "It can't be helped." Anyway, after talking a bit, we arranged to get dinner the following day.
We've become very close in what feels like an unusually short time. Part of me has this nagging sensation that I've known her a lot longer, but that can't be right. I know it's just that she reminds me of Hathor, but she's a foot too short and a century too young to be Hathor, and Hathor is already in K'lia's computer banks. As she quipped, "I guess I'd have to be some kind of time- travelling shapeshifter to be the same woman." We now know time travel is a thing, but shapeshifting? But Bast gets me in a way few people I've known ever have. Though she's usually very cheerful, she's clearly concealing a deep sadness over some unspecified great loss in her past, and it's equally clear that she has no desire whatsoever to talk about it. I never feel comfortable prying when she gets uncomfortable. Making her more uncomfortable feels like kicking a puppy.
It's not that she's fragile: she may be small, but she packs a surprising amount of physical strength and stamina into her small frame. And it's not that she's emotionally unstable or immature, either - though she has some odd beliefs. After we'd known each other about a week, she said the galaxy is exploding out from Pfhor space. She insists that they unleashed the trih xeem - which, strangely, she called the nova praemátúra, which she said is its true Jjaro name, even though it's clearly Latin - on... it wasn't clear. She used the names Arx or Arcem, the phrases "land in the sky", "hollow world", and "refuge for ancient humans built over sixty-five million years ago". She also insists the Pfhor are no longer the biggest extant threat to humanity because the nova praemátúra already destroyed Pfhor Prime. It's all very odd; I've never heard anyone else say anything like this, and no one's been able to verify any of it.
Those quirks aside, her insight into life is surprisingly deep for a woman I'd guess to be not a day over thirty-five. Again, I'd feel uncomfortable prying, but she clearly has a deep understanding of loss and grief; she's one of the few people who's truly understood my own losses, or with whom I've even felt comfortable discussing them. She's obviously experienced some massive personal tragedies. I don't know who hurt that poor woman, but they're lucky I wasn't there; I'm not sure I could've restrained myself from acts of violence against them, though she'd undoubtedly have insisted I refrain from doing so on her behalf, and I'm sure she's plenty capable of taking care of herself. It doesn't matter, though - I feel extremely protective of her, in a way I usually don't. All of this contributes to me feeling like we've been lifelong friends, or even lifelong lovers, even though we've only known each other a few weeks[...].
interlevel teleports
