Old Brethren

An Old Brethren from the Timeless Eternities

The Old brethren are a species of reality warping acausal entities originating from the Timeless Eternities. Noted for the terraforming field they emit, the Old Brethren are among the three main categories of being within the Weave Remnant.

## Physical Description

The original Old Brethren possessed many variable forms, but all of them shared several characteristics; a central gem-like orb containing the consciousness of a Brethren, surrounded by an extremely hard, yet flexible metallic carapace. Most beings converted into Old Brethren however, retain their old physical forms, with the addition of orbs in their bodies. All Old Brethren lack the concept of Death, allowing them to survive anything short of the most powerful esoteric methods for killing immortals, often requiring the usage of the Silence or the Death Concept to permanently end them. Like most completely acausal beings in the multiverse, a mature Old Brethren perceives time and space in a universe in its entirety, and can freely travel up and down the timelines and hop from timeline to timeline. In a similar way to Transcends, Old Brethren see events within the timeline as fluid landmarks, able to be changed and edited at will by those with the ability to do so.

## Terraforming Field

By far the best known part of the Old Brethren are the terraforming fields they emit. A terraforming field is a more active power that Old Brethren can consciously expand, contract and shape. In a less active state, the terraforming field is maintained around a Brethren's central orb and throughout their body. Their terraforming fields transforms and permanently changes the locals laws of existence to the ones surrounding that of the Old Brethren. An active Old Brethren terraforming field also acts as a reality anchor, suppressing most forms of reality warping within its area of effect. The physical laws surrounding each Old Brethren vary, with the most similarities in physical laws being between those of a progenitor and its progeny. An Old Brethren can manipulate the inside of its terraforming field to produce a variety of effects possible within the physical laws of the field.

The terraforming field of an Old Brethren grows in strength as it matures, with a matured Old Brethren possessing fields several light years in diameter. Outside of brute force reality warping through the field using the abilities at the magnitude of Outer Gods and Godminds, or bypassing them entirely with Void Ichor augments or the Death Concept and other similar effects, an Old Brethren can often only be harmed in a temporary manner in accordance to the physical laws within its terraforming field. A terraforming field can be selective in the reality warping effects that it lets through, should the Old Brethren in possession of it allow it so. Terraforming fields can also be focused into their specific laws in order to more strongly counter specific reality warping effects in the form of Counter Arcana.

## Reproduction and Maturation

Old Brethren have notable trouble reproducing by themselves. As a result, most enter a symbiotic relationship with other species and civilisations. Some choose to enter a mutually beneficial relationship with their charges, granting immortality and security in exchange for converting the population into their kind. Others may be more forceful, uncaring for the beings that they forcibly convert. Most will use a mixture of these methods in their life, with varying results between each one.

To convert an individual from another species into an Old Brethren larva, the Old Brethren removes a part of the organism (such as blood or other parts) and replaces them with a Brethren Orb. The newly created Brethren larva will mature over the course of tens of thousands of years, while expanding its terraforming field. Most Old Brethren jealously guard their newly converted charges until they mature, ensuring that they survive to maturation. Interestingly, Old Brethren have extreme difficulty in converting Transcends at any stage of the process, and have great difficulty in Transcending themselves, owing to the suppressive nature of their terraforming field on reality warping effects.

A newly converted Brethren Larva will project a field several hundred kilometres across, though they are not able to truly manipulate its inside with any finesse. With intense practice, however, they can solidify something known as a Law, a concept or physical law a Brethren has a strong affinity for and thus is able to control more freely. A Brethren has full awareness of anything that happens inside of its field. If they were not able to previously, a Brethren Larva becomes capable of thinking and acting on sub-microsecond scales.

When an Old Brethren larva has matured sufficiently, they become capable of manifesting multiple Orbs, like those carried by the original brethren. These orbs can be shed by the Brethren in question to leave behind an Orb that still projects the terraforming field, if at a vastly reduced range compared to the original. An Old Brethren at this stage of development are capable of controlling the qualities of the Orbs they shed; shed Orbs can pass their properties on to other objects, have an activation switch of some sort for their fields kind etc. The terraforming field will have reached dozens of AU by this stage, and they become capable of fully manipulating the inside of their fields. This stage is also roughly analogous to a Transcend's second stage of development, as their senses are extended to a universal scale and they become able to perceive and move up, down and across timelines. Moving between realities is also possible at this stage, though like Transcends, it takes technological assistance for them to see where they may end up. Cognition speed once again scales up, as the Brethren becomes capable of acting and thinking on sub-picosecond time scales.

The third part of maturation entails the Brethren becoming a fully fledged acausal being. Like full Transcends, the Old Brethren are able to more easily cross between different realities and become capable of viewing nearby and adjacent universes. Limits on cognition speed and processing ability is removed, as a part of being able to process the much larger intakes of information that such senses bring. A Brethren's terraforming field reaches the range of several dozen light years at this stage of development. A matured Old Brethren also becomes capable of converting others into Old Brethren.

## Relationships

The Old Brethren have no species wide polity, instead being divided into several powers within the Weave and Weave Remnant. Several non-Weave Transcended civilisations are hostile to the species as a whole, however, and frequently send extermination teams to eliminate any such Brethren they may find. Others are more ambivalent, with a few coexisting with the Brethren and having friendly relations with such individuals.

Those hostile to the Old Brethren as a whole often send Shardbearer mercenaries to target them, as they are both more effective than Transcended at dealing with such entities and have ways to permanently eliminate them.

## Laws

A Law is a physical law or concept within an Old Brethren's terraforming field that the entity has great mastery over. Laws are created in the formative years of a Brethren's larval stage, in relation to how intensively they practiced with their field. A Law is enforced very strongly within a Brethren's terrafoming field, more so than the other physical laws within. This Law can be manipulated for a variety of conceptual and physical effects; a Law of Entropy, for example, can be manipulated to degrade concepts and physical entities within the field. A Law of Stasis, as another example, can be used to stall or freeze entities and activity within the field. A Law's conceptual exists at the same potency as Exaltations, and as such is governed by the absolute non-interaction principle; where opposing absolute conceptual effects will not interact with each other nor objects under each other's power.