The Age of the Enlightened

## The Era of Enlightenment

In a time long passed, in age now lost, the universe was inhabited by many millions of species - all of them unified under the banner of the enlightened - a species whose name has been lost to time. The enlightened spanned untold numbers of galaxies; with technology greater than what is conceivable to our minds, and the power of gods at the fingertips of children. No work remains to commemorate them... all that remains is ash and the horrors they left behind.

### **The Enlightened**

Perhaps a million, perhaps a billion... maybe even quintillion years ago; there was a species of aliens whose scientific prowess and drive to explore brought them to the edges of their galaxy, then the next galaxy, then the next. Each galaxy beheld new wonders and divine works of the natural world... each galaxy brought new species to discover, new children to teach.

In this time untold; the great nation arose, their works and their ideals became a marvel their own. And some year somehow they made the universe their own.

The universe was not enough; after the millionth galaxy the prospect of a million more was all but underwhelming, the enlightened looked elsewhere for satisfaction. They found new places, so far yet so close, that with the right tools they could explore anew. The other dimensions

These new realms were a reality undone; places where it's possible for time to become inside out and upside down, places where space could be shaped like clay or where clay could be stretched into space. In these ‘ultra-realities’ the Enlighted found in themselves an exhilaration unfelt for so long, what was it? Was it wonder? Excitement? Inspiration, fascination, the wonderous prospect of intellectual procreation… no. It was danger.

For a civilisation so long lasted it is to some a surprise that this species seemed ignorant to the new reality they created; though they may never have truly accepted it deep within themselves, they could not have been ignorant to the danger they created.  Each reality they broke into was another day they tempted fate; one day they pushed fate too far, and they found on the other side of reality a ravenous horde of entities, ravenous for an energy they had never known before… Energy, non-sapient energy.

The Unbidden are not of our reality and thus no logic or description of our own reality aptly describes or explains them, so the following description cannot ever truly describe them. The Unbidden are energy in its highest form; a single entity is neither one nor many yet a group of them are both one and a collective, this energy is ‘intelligent’ but does not have the capacity for thought… there is only one true way to describe these entities.

***I think, therefore I am.***

***They think, therefore they are.***

The Unbidden then crossed the boundary of reality and so began the war in Paradise

## The war for paradise

As the Unbidden pushed through this rift in reality they scoured their new feeding grounds of all energy; the enlightened were quick to come back, with the resources of an entire galaxy at their disposal, the Unbidden were matched more than equally. They beat them back to their own reality, another rift appeared, this time created not by the Enlightened but the Unbidden.

The cycle began. Every time the Unbidden appeared they would be beaten back only to return again in greater amounts and with more rifts than before. Some million years into this cycle the rifts began to open every second... The power of a million unified galaxies could not stop the Unbidden, slowly the distant stars faded, and the galaxies began to succumb.

This great war lasted for an unknowable duration of time; it could have been months, years, decades, millennia or more.

## The Light

In the final days of the Enlightened, as the Unbidden pressed against the last vestiges of life, the light appeared. An entity from another dimension, one that the enlightened had met with before, emerged from it's plane of existence with a great power offered almost freely to the Enlightened. Almost.

To combat the Unbidden the light would combine it's power with the great knowledge of the Enlightened; to do so would require the Enlightened to give up their material forms and become one with the light. To save the universe and give new life a chance they agreed.

At this moment millions of lights were born; they spread across the galaxy, beating back the hordes and restoring life to the galaxy. At great cost to themselves they would seal every rift, destroy every Unbidden, until there were none left. All but some 100 lights remained at the end.

But the war did not end, and to this day it has not ended.

## The scare our universe bears

The barrier between realities is forever scarred. For too long the realities were intertwined and now they seep into one another; eventually the Unbidden came back, forcing themselves through the barriers of the light. The lights would stop them, but their numbers dwindled.

> *"You see; our realities once separate, are now pressed together... like two sides of a coat been done up with a zip and the zipper is caught in the fabric of the coat and at this time the Unbidden cross. It cannot be unzipped without tearing the fabric or breaking the zip. The light would come along and fix this each time, but the realities were still zipped together, and the light simply did nought but wait for the zip to become stuck once more"*
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Out of desperation the last lights organised that artificial life would be grown and populate small galaxies; creating such high concentrations of energy that the unbidden would break through into these galaxies seeking nourishment, then the light would harvest the power of the grown species to fuel its fight.

> *"It's like a dam. The barrier between realities is a large concrete dam; the water on the other side is the Unbidden, and we're the poor sods standing underneath it. A dam doesn't stop the water; it has to let some through, so the light opens the pressure gauge by presenting targets for them"*
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This worked for a time but even now it is beginning to fail; the Lights grow weaker as they lose strength in this realm of reality, slowly the galaxy is gasping its last breaths.

## They... Fight?

For the time in history, at least from what the curators have told us, the Unbidden have turned on each other. Never before has it been seen for them to do this; why these two unbidden fight is not known, perhaps they hail from a different reality, or perhaps as our reality has seeped into theirs they have developed a higher capacity for thought and thus a capacity to betray... Speculation at this point.