Morningstar Rebellion

### Appearances by

The Presence, Michael Demiurgos, Gabriel Demiurgos, Metatron, Sandalphon, Amenadiel, Hanael, Balthazar, Castiel, Jophiel, Raziel, Azrael

## Background

### Souls and Free Wiil

Archangel Saraquael created the concept of life, at least the more precious and finite existence than had existed before. When she began her experiments, there was a movement among the Host that did not understand what she was trying to do. When the basic lifeforms she was working with began to exhibit souls, her kind objected to this as they saw it as something offensive. Saraquael lied to them, saying souls were only found in those born from biological origins. Therefore, only the archangels had such things.

This eased the tensions, but not all they bought it. Samael quickly saw through it and realized with souls came free will. So, among those closest to him, he would assure them they had a soul. He would prove this to them by demonstrating they had their own agency of choice. This debate went on for a while. Eventually, Michael and other archangels saw through the propaganda, but kept their silence. They saw the value in exploiting the lie. They could control the Host easier if they believed they didn't have to wrestle with choices and it kept them from questioning authority.

### Morningstar

Samael was arguably the most favored among the seven archangels. Yet, when a foothold was established and named the Kingdom of Heaven, Samael wished to rest and did not care to continue the crusade.

Sandalphon feared the Presence planned to abandon Heaven for the love of His wife and should that happen, Sandalphon hoped Michael would be heir and not his older brother Samael. Convincing Metatron to help him, Sandalphon began to convince the other Principalities to support a political movement to have Michael declared the Heir of Heaven. The Chief Accuser of Heaven became their fierce opponent. He tried to have new laws enacted to prevent such from happening. Metatron used their status as the Vox Dei to stall the proceedings of the court to buy the twins more time to build their movement opposing Samael.

When Samael saw the size of the political movement against him, he opted to denounce his claim to the throne and asked to be given a small portion of Heaven to rule as his own. Chief Accuser helped Samael secure the thirteen votes needed to grant Samael his request, which included the support of the likes of the Empyrean Champion Apollyon and the Voice of the Masses. Samael and the Accuser also approached Amenadiel with an offer of being the new kingdom's architect. Samael reasoned that if he could show that Amenadiel supported his endeavor, the Presence would agree to sign off on Samael's plan. However, when presenting this plan to the Presence, Amenadiel had a change of heart when he recognized that the Presence did not seem inclined to grant Samael's request. When Samael called for Amenadiel to take his turn at speaking, Amenadiel apologized to Samael and told him that he believed the Presence was right: Samael's place was with his family and not on his own. For the perceived betrayal, Samael attacked Amenadiel but was kept from killing the Firstborn by the archangel Michael. Samael broke free, told everyone that they would regret this, and flew off. Samael then started the war in Heaven.

### War

Three Princialities became his closest generals, the Lightbringers of the Morningstar Movement. The Chief Accuser became his right hand. Apollyon became Samael's second lieutenant, champion, and general. The Voice of the Masses became Samael's third lieutenant, a chief recruiter to the cause, and a master of propaganda.

Saraquael tried to stop the fighting by addressing Samael and his top generals. During this meeting she and Apollyon fell in love. She asked him to sit out the conflict, but also to follow his heart.

Michael, who had always loved his brother more than anything up to that point, eagerly seized the opportunity to side with the Presence and rallied the remainder of the archangels in support of the Presence. Though securing his own family (other than Samael) and the Principalities was relatively easy for the charismatic Michael, the majority of the Heavenly Host's virtues, seraphim, ariels, and cherubim who had less to lose than the Principalities and Archangels sided with Samael. Some of the angels decided not to take any side and ran away to Earth. Calling themselves the Fomóri, they settled in Ireland.

Amenadiel was kept from the front by the Presence. Amenadiel suspected the constant denial of his request for a new role was punishment for having started such a conflict.

Sandalphon engineered the Rite of Rebirth and taught it to his Principality peers and the officers within the ranks of the Pax Dei. This turned the tide of the Rebellion as it made it nearly impossible to kill the most capable of the loyalists. Faced with this, Samael was tempted to surrender but one of his lieutenants urged him to fight on. At the next battle, the same officer targeted Sandalphon's twin on the battlefield and proved definitively that killing angels was still possible in spite of Rebirth.

During the war archangel Raguel committed many atrocities. He was defeated by Apollyon.

Having witnessed the deaths of her Azrael and Metatron, as well as the defeat of Raguel, Raziel ran onto the battlefield. Throwing herself into the fray, Raziel placed herself between Michael and Samael, begging them to stop beore any more lives had to be lost. Michael grabbed Raziel and threw her aside as he prepated to continue the fight. However, Samael took one more look at Raziel and surrendered. After his Surrender the Rebellion stopped.

### Aftermath

Samael was tried and convicted by a tribunal of the other archangels for starting the rebellion. Michael asked for his father's blessing to be given the honor to carve Samael's grace out himself to spare the Presence the misery, but he was denied. The Presence could not strip the favored son of his grace. Instead, Samael was exiled and left to settle in an area rich with infernal essence. Samael changed his name to Lucifer, learned to tame the infernal qualities of the area around him and named this place Hell.

Soon enough Lucifer was joined by his closest conspirators, who were punished much more harshly than their insurgency's leader. Stripped of their grace and original form, they were now beings known as demons. The demons were vindictive and eager to sow chaos. Lucifer realized this for what it was: opportunity. Using his cunning charisma, Lucifer rallied his followers and forged his own anchor to Earth, countering the Presence's efforts and enacting his own deals to lay claim to the souls of mankind.

Though most angels remained loyal to the Presence, even after the Fall, a small number of angels left Heaven to settle in Hell and swear fealty to Lucifer. Some of these angels were truly impressive, Lucifer remained the only archangel in Hell. This meant the others lacked the power to tame the energies in the same way and slowly began to change. Proudly, they took on one of Lucifer's epithets as a name for their race, calling themselves the devils.

Eventually, a ceasefire of sorts was declared between Heaven and Hell. News of this infuriated the demons who still sought revenge against the Presence for their punishment. Of course, Lucifer knew the demons would escape from Hell and unleash chaos in their wake; and if Lucifer made a token effort to contain them, he did not incur the wrath of Heaven. This was the way it worked for thousands of years.

When Samael lost his name, title, and place in Heaven, Amenadiel was finally given a new role. He became the Warden of Hell. That is when Amenadiel realized the Presence had delayed his punishment.

## Trivia and Notes

### Trivia

* Lucifer theorizes the whole rebellion might have been part of the Presence's plan.
* After witnessing the horrific torment inflicted by Sandalphon on Lucifer's lieutenants (one of them being their brother's killer), He chose to forbid that particular practice - much to Sandalphon and Michael's protests that it was justified.
* While the Heaven was recovering from the rebellion it was attacked by Gozer who was narrowly defeated.
* Among the angels stripped of their names, grace, and even physical forms were a Principality and a Virtue. They took the names Zuul and Vinz Clortho. They allied themselves with Gozer and now work with him so they can lay siege to Heaven again.
* Balthazar considered joining the ranks of the Luciferians, but chose to remain true to his good friend and fought at Castiel's side valiantly. Proving himself a capable soldier, he received a Virtue promotion during the course of the Rebellion, but the added endowment to his grace only caused his tortured spirit to remind him of his true feelings. Unable to continue to fight for Heaven and not willing to join the Luciferians as it would betray a promise he made to Castiel, Balthazar instead chose to fall to Earth with other like minded angels who called themselves the Fomóri.
* Hanael suffered a severe mental breakdown after one of her lieutenants Balthazar disappeared and she witnessed countless atrocities perpetuated by Raguel. Following the war, Hanael resigned her position among the Pax Dei, promoting Castiel to her position
* When the Rebellion broke out, Jophiel had a falling out with Gabriel. She chose to return to the Pax Dei to fight against the rebellious Samael. In battle, when Raguel was defeated by Samael's champion Apollyon, Jophiel and Azrael swept in to defend the downed archangel. Apollyon defeated both quickly and warned them to stay down as he did not wish to kill any angel held in great esteem by his lover Saraquael. However, as Apollyon turned away, Azrael attacked again. Apollyon's scythe cleaved Azrael in two with Jophiel in horrified shock. Moments later, as Apollyon looked upon Jophiel, the order came from Samael to surrender. Apollyon dropped his scythe and Jophiel picked it up, ready to slay the angel for what he had done to her friend. But Raziel dropped in and wrestled the weapon from Jophiel before chastising her into submission.
* Banished angels landed in the Middle East in a place now called the Desert of Glass.

## Links and References

* Event Gallery: Morningstar Rebellion

1. ↑ RepCap: First of the Fallen
2. ↑ RepCap: Raziel
3. ↑ Network Files: Lucifer Morningstar
4. ↑ Network Files: Amenadiel
5. ↑ VOX Box: The Devil and his Dream
6. ↑ Network Files: Sandalphon
7. ↑ Network Files: Gozer
8. ↑ Network Files: Balthazar
9. ↑ Network Files: Anna Milton
10. ↑ Network Files: Jophiel
11. ↑ VOX Box: Dream a Little Dream 24