Greatmind

Concept art of a greatmind

> When I gazed into the light, I witnessed three vast, shimmering forms. I knew at once that these were no Kahpé, nor were they any Tyrus. I knew that I was beheld by our true gods.
>
> Priest Rot'inovon, The Tristarimog

Greatminds are immense consciousnesses formed through aeons of passing untime within paradox space

## Biology

Greatminds commonly take on the appearance of enormous ethereal brains, floating freely through paradox space - as though the brain itself were to be invisible, and the crevices and nerves within shimmered with ora. They are formed through the constant storm within unreality making random concepts collide and fuse before being torn apart again. The chance of a greatmind being born is unfathomably small, however eventually, enough concepts will collide in such a way that the result is a fully sentient idea that can have other ideas itself.

Their appearance as a brain is no coincidence, as their main bodies are designed to process information and concepts, whilst their "stem" acts as a limb of sorts, allowing for the programs created by the brain to be put into use. These tendrils can absorb and emit conceptual clusters, and are the method by which the greatminds interface with their world, eat, move, and shed waste.

Smaller greatminds are almost immediately torn apart, as the storm around them is too powerful for their forms to be sustained. Larger ones, however, can control the storm to a limited degree, offering some measure of protection. This is not perfect, however, and the lifeform inevitably decays over time. This means that all greatminds must find some method by which to sustain themselves and replace lost concepts. On their own, this is a night impossible feat, and thus most merely die after a time period. However, some encounter others and link themselves together, improving their chances of survival. These bonded greatminds are known as baroliths. It is also possible for a barolith to manifest naturally, with the greatminds never having been separate. Baroliths consisting of more than three or four greatminds are not receptive to newcomers, on account of the increased risk of instability above this (especially in the case of naturally occurring baroliths, and not synthetically formed ones). As a result, it is not uncommon for invading greatminds to attempt to kill off one of those already in the cluster, encountering resistance from those within until integration occurs, at which point the new entity is fused fully.

Greatminds exhibit an animalistic social structure, akin to that of a pack of dogs, however this does not extend to their intelligence - capable of producing massive conceptual constructs with relative ease. It is possible for a single greatmind, on its own, to produce a thought or conceptual construct consisting of a complete logical web - essentially engineering a basic reality. Multiple greatminds can do this to great effect, and use this as a method by which they can harvest replenishing conceptual constructs which they can specialise to heal themselves, akin to stem cells. This is the reason that baroliths often live longer than greatminds.

## Lore

In the Divine Origins project, all of what we refer to as "reality" was engineered within a barolith by the three greatminds Arvahl, Awkatt, and Rhotsu. Originally, reality consisted of three primordial matters named autria, constallite, and xavei, which made up an enormous ever expanding machine named "Expanse". By growing a marachol web within their barolith, the greatminds had defined the laws of physics to a reality, and the reality containing the machine existed as a program that was executed by the motion of ora through the web. This is similar to how a computer could be made of wires, and a program can be executed through electrical current in those wires. The result of this is that the web presented a series of variables, and the machine within it created an ever shifting equation. Due to the nature of paradox space, this mixture of input ora and a process would result in the manifestation of new concepts growing from the web itself, similar to how defining variables in an equation results in an answer. In this case, the answer would be a new state of the web, with growths across it that the greatminds may feed on to replenish lost mass.

As the machine expanded, a fourth greatmind known as Arkateth attempted to bond with the barolith by destroying one of those already integrated. It did this by forcing various new concepts into the web that would eat away at those that the barolith produced, and would slowly integrate into the network. The barolith managed to prevent this via use of their projections within the Expanse. They engineered what was essentially a bomb within the heart of their machine that would send potent viral concepts careening through it, causing the primordial matter it was built from to detonate. This was not a detonation in the traditional sense, as when the constallite within the veins of xavei exploded into life, it brought into reality the concepts of both matter and energy. Matter was built as a magnet for primordial matter, shaped with a series of islands in the centre, followed by a bottomless void, and then an infinite range of matter outwards from there. The outer land would lock down the approaching counter concepts and drag them into the void below, whilst the central islands would bind to the remnants of the machine, and hurl the constallite upwards and away.

The act of saving themselves put a lot of strain on the greatminds, who would now all die off if no action was taken, and thus they divided elements of themselves amongst their new realities. Their memories were bound to a series of islands that became hidden from the rest of reality; the constallite that made up their bodies merged to become an orbiting sun that would change shape to expose each greatmind's influence over the land for a short period of time before trading places, so as to retain strength; and their consciousnesses were divided amongst an array of eight avatars on that land. In this way, the greatminds could still live, though unconscious. Their bodies in paradox space still maintained reality, though their newly divided minds would have no idea it was happening beyond a few retained memories. Through this, they created life on the landscape, taking on many forms, and they could still maintain their new machine through their new forms, known as Kahpé.

The invading greatmind was thought to be destroyed by the explosion, however too much of it's influence had reached into the web for this to be the case. The body of Arkateth was blown away, with much of it's mass being violently torn apart, though fragments of its consciousness still lingered amongst it's invasive concepts used to attack the Expanse. As a result of this, and feeding on the marachol web, Arkateth survived.

After many years had passed, Tharinam arrived in the outer lands, now known as the Glimpse. By this point, Arkateth had amassed enough of it's old mind to take control of the primordial matter representing the remnants of its attack, newly named glithrix. Through this, it continued its assault on the creation of the barolith, seeking still to live as part of it. Using the design of the Tharinam against them, Arkateth manifested a series of polarised forms of glithrix that would lure the Tharinam in and weaponise them against the central isles of constallite - Leethuria. This tore Arkateth apart again, however. During the events of the Glithrix defection, the Tharinam built many arcane creatures out of glithrix, with these monsters being in part made of fragments of Arkateth. Unknowingly, they had given it a form of life again. Arkateth also orchestrated the awakening of Mutavor in order to cause a war with Leethuria. Should Mutavor succeed, nothing would stand in the way of Arkateth reawakening. This was (just barely) averted by the original Eriphmac.

When the Tharinam lost the war against Leethuria, they were placed within the mythic Void, and placed the creatures that they had manufactured within a central verdus space known as the Bleak. This was fortunate for Arkateth, as it meant that all of the creatures would be placed in a location far from the sight of the three healing Greatminds, wherein it could begin to bring the fragments together. Were it not for this, it would have taken it much longer to recuperate. It also, however, meant that it was trapped. When enough fragments merged to give it influence, Arkateth corrupted the Bleak into a realm of its own devising, enhancing its ability to grow and influence Leethuria. Though trapped in it's projected avatar and caught in what was essentially a prison realm, it was no less dangerous. After waking up, Arkateth began to attempt to lure verdus spaces into the Adrasil Typhoon to consume them and spread out from its prison. If it were to infest enough verdus spaces, it would be able to forge a path out of the mythic Void and manifest in Leethuria. To prepare for this, Arkateth used its limited influence to increase the magnetism of Mutavor's corpse, which the Leethurians had placed back within the Glimpse as a result of it poisoning their land, in order to attract a high quantity of Glithrix. This would trigger his reanimation after aeons, allowing him to discover what became of the Tharinam. He would then restart the war between the Glimpse and Leethuria, believing himself able to free the Tharinam from the mythic Void. Should he have succeeded, he would have inadvertently released Arkateth as well, meaning the end of all life within the Expanse.

Through the technological advances of the Io, a way to safely navigate paradox space (or at least the region of paradox space within a barolith) was developed. By result of this, should Arkateth ever leave the mythic Void, it would no longer need the other greatminds to survive, meaning it would likely destroy and restructure the entire marachol web, using the lobotomised corpses of the other greatminds as processors to maintain the barolith for it to live within parasitically.

## Trivia

* Greatminds are similar in concept to that of the Boltzmann brain - a fully formed brain, complete with memories, forming in space due to thermodynamical fluctuations, though in this case it's a result of colliding conceptual microconstructs