Antecedent

— Ahrric about the Antecedent to Rei

The **Antecedent**, also referres to as the **First Elder**, is a "female" Umbra Elder and the very first Umbra to have existed. Having died and joined the mycelium network thousands of cycles ago, the resting place of the Antecedent is in the crystal palace buried deep in the island on the lake of lava in the Luminous Peak, far from the Eternal Garden. The Antecedent is the Elder located the furthest from Ahrric's hut in the Eternal Garden.

The Antecedent is the final Elder that Rei has to speak to in Ahrric's side questline "A Dark Pilgrimage", and speaking to her and Ahrric at the crystal palace and then leaving the place will end it.

## History

### Origin and birth of the Umbra

The Antecedent came into existence thousands of years ago, possibly inside the Ultravoid. How she came into existence is unknown, but it is possible that she came about after long periods of evolution of earlier species, either sentient or non-sentient ones.

Throughout her life, the Antecedent most likely brought about at least the first wave of her kind, most likely asexually producing spores that gree into other Umbra. The Antecedent became the first Elder of her species, which, if being an Elder meant the same back then as it does today, made her the first leader of her people.

The Antecedent died thousands of cycles ago, though the exact number is unspecified, and joined the mycelium network. It is unknown if the network predate the Antecedent and by extension the Umbra.

The Antecedent identifies as female.

### The time loop

An unspecified amount of time ago, at least aeons, the Ultravoid came to the region of the galaxy that contained a planet that was home to a team of Voidrunners. As the threat of being consumed and destroyed by the Ultravoid grew more apparent, the governments of the planet attempted to work together to come up with a solution to the problem, but failed, only leading to battle and bloodshed. The black hole explorers, who called themselves the Voidrunners, decided to take matters into their own hands and travel into the Ultravoid to attempt to use a poorly understood piece of ancient technology they called the Starseed, which they had discovered near the core of their planet and which they theorised could collapse black holes. However, their mission failed, most of the Voidrunners died in the black hole and their latest member, Rei, inadvertently created a pocket time loop only comprising the local region of space containing the planet and Ultravoid when she activated the Starseed inside the black hole. Subsequently, Rei spent aeons repeatedly reliving the same events of that day, coming to the Ultravoid with her team, finding them dead, activating the Starseed and reverting time back to the beginning of that day. The time loop was however a sort of illusion, as certain things remained the same after each reverting of time. For example, although the planet was visible in the sky, the remnants of the original planet also littered the Ultravoid in the form of greenish ashen clouds following the first activation of the Starseed. The Antecedent, and by extension most of the shared consciousnesses of the mycelium network, were aware of this, seeing through the “illusion.”

It is tradition for the gardener of the Eternal Garden to tend the next wave of Umbra and make their world a better place, as to their best ability, after which they are expected to perform a ritual in which they die and let their consciousness become part of the mycelium network. The current gardener of the Eternal Garden, Ahrric, however isn’t ready to die yet, feeling he has not lived his life yet to its fullest potential. Due to the time loop happening, Ahrric has, although unbeknownst to himself, taken the pilgrimage to the Antecedent to try and fail to perform the Ritual multiple times before. As the mycelium network sees through the loop and knows what is truly happening, most of the Elders are tired of Ahrric not having gone through with the Ritual yet.

### A Dark Pilgrimage questline

When Rei came to the crystal palace to see the Antecedent in her quest to gain more knowledge of the Ultravoid and what she had seen in it in order to find a way to save her world, Ahrric was there, having gone on the pilgrimage to perform the Ritual. Although he did not truly feel ready to die yet, the constant berating and pressure from the other Elders had lead him to travel there.

Rei found Ahrric standing atop a raised platform in the far back of the palace's chamber, in a tall and majestic pose, his hands stretched high up into the air. Because he was barely moving, Rei immediately assumed that he had gone through with the ritual and passed on, and gave her condolences, commenting that it was immoral to demand death from someone before they are ready, even in the Eternal Garden. However, shortly after, Ahrric was revealed to be alive when he gave a sob, then relaxed his pose and sat down on the edge of the platform in a defeated manner. Rei was shocked that he was still alive.

Ahrric told Rei that he had been unable to bring himself to go through with the ritual. He hadn't even awoken the Antecedent and spoken to her. Rei noticed the large figure of the first Umbra Elder sitting in one corner of the chamber to the right of the platform and asked if it was the Antecedent. Rei felt that since they had made it so far already, the Antecedent should be told of Ahrric's unwillingness to die, so they awoke her with the Spore Song blessing.

The Antecedent greeted Ahrric, welcoming him "back" to her resting place, and immediately noticed Rei as well, noting that she saw that he had brought "a visitor" with him "this time." She noted that Ahrric was depressed, mentioning that his duty and purpose in life had been unfulfilled, but that “life eludes you still.” Although what the Antecedent meant was that Ahrric was not ready to die but at the same time was not living his life in a manner that was very fulfilling to himself, Ahrric took it to mean that she was accusing him of shirking his duty to die as the other Elders had done.

The Antecedent ordered Ahrric to be silent and explained that there was no taboo in a life lived, only a life left to waste in rot. She went on to explain that this was why the Umbra offered the “cure” of the mycelium network to “lost and tortured souls, void-swept, no future”, granting the depressed and aim-less people growth through death and a new life among the mycelium, a sort of afterlife.

Rei asked the Antecedent if the “cure” worked on Remnants. The Antecedent directed her attention at Rei, calling her a “wanderer” and a “lost soul”, and, in a way similar to the other Elders remained cryptic and passive aggressive, seemingly knowing more about her nature than she let on. She noted that though Rei was seeking hope, she was pursuing despair with the trajectory she was on, questioning whether she would truly be able to succeed in her quest “in such dark and desperate desolation”, alluding to the fact that Rei’s planet was already gone.

Rei said that she did not understand. The Antecedent told Rei that “obsession is a poison that leaches into the roots of the world itself” and asked her to leave and not taint the Eternal Garden any more then she already had.

Directing her attention back to Ahrric, the Antecedent told him that although the other Elders found growth through the Ritual and believed Ahrric to be stunted, “the mycelium network sees all.” Ahrric desperately told her that he could not bear being looked down upon by all Umbra who came before him for having lived a life so small and unfulfilled and insisted that he could still achieve so much more than he had.

The Antecedent, knowing of the time loop and having experienced these events several times before, told him that no matter how many times Ahrric went on this pilgrimage, he was not ready to perform the Ritual yet, understanding that he was not finished with his life. Ahrric, confused, told the Antecedent she was mistaken and that he had never even been to the Antecedent’s palace before.

The Antecedent told him that the mycelium network sees through the "illusion" that Ahrric is trapped in and she feared that his reality had become fragile. She then told Ahrric to go.

Rei tried to talk to Ahrric, but he told her to leave him and the First Elder alone as they had to “draw energies for the road ahead.” Rei tried to help him understand that it didn’t seem like the Elders wanted him to join them, and that the Ultravoid didn’t seem to be a good place to live, even for Umbra like him. Ahrric told her that she would never understand their way and that it was his sacred duty to perform the Ritual, then told her to leave him alone.

Rei informed him that his groveling for the Elders was selfish and didn’t help anyone and implored him to meet her at the Starseed and that they could find a way out of the black hole, trying to instill hope in him by saying informing him that there were planets outside the Void fhat he could grow gardens on.

Ahrric told Rei that while it is the fate of biotic lifeforms like Rei to live and die, that of Umbra like him was to ensure the fate of all living things that came before him and those that will come after him, and said that he has no other home than the Ultravoid. Again, he told her to leave, saying that he must "keep trying." Rei, growing impatient, told him that she was planning to destroy the Ultravoid and thus there would be no Cycle left to tend to. Ahrric told Rei that even the most powerful biotic is but a flicker in the Cycle and that it cannot be destroyed at all.

Rei spoke to the Antecedent again, asking her if Ahrric will be okay, noting that he seemed shaken. The Antecedent revealed to Rei that the Ritual is not sacred because of the Cycle itself and that life and death alone have no meaning. Rather, “growth” and living lives better than the last one are sacred, and informed the Voidrunner that the Umbra have always known this. She noted that the world of the Umbra had indeed changed, but at the same time Ahrric was still drawn to his gardening, poetry-crafting, and to his life, so as long as he continued to “grow and better” their world, he would remain alive.

The Antecdent’s final words to Rei were “Be on your way heretic. You will find your path, or your path will find you.”

When Rei left the crystal palace, she wondered aloud about what the Antecedent had meant by “illusion” and questioned whether Ahrric had been on this pilgrimage before, as the Antecedent had seemingly implied.

## Physical appearance

The body of the Antecedent is violet, with her head being a slightly darker violet than the rest of her body, safe for the middle part of her face. Her emancipated abdomen is tinted with a sickly, pale bony yellowish-white hue, though why is unknown. Like the other Umbra who had come after her, the Antecedent is very tall and lanky.

Like other Umbra, the Antecedent is very tall and lanky. In addition, like the other Elders, she is far larger than normal Umbra.

She has a tall pointy head. The bottom half of her face protrudes down in a way that somewhat resembles a long full beard. She has some smaller extra growths coming out of the sides of the tall point of her head.

The Antecedent has a big, dark violet robe which is ripped and covered in holes in several places, and which covers all of her body safe for her head, part of her arms and her torso. It hangs off of her back and covers her shoulder.

The Antecedent’s eyes, which are rather large, are dark, pitch black, and glassy.

When the consciousness of the Antecedent’s is awoken by the Spore Song, her head is surrounded by floating, moving orange-golden particles of light and her eyes light up brightly with a sharp golden-white glow.

The body of the Antecedent, being immobile since it is dead, sits in a constant meditation-like pose, her body hunched over with her arms reached out in front of her, the hands supporting her body on the ground in front of her palms down. This is the pose the Antecedent took before she died and let her mind join the mycelium network in the Eternal Cycle.

## Personality

The Antecedent was, like the other Elders, impatient with Ahrric, but not truly for the same reason as the others. For as they believed that Ahrric was shedding his duty by not performing the Ritual and joining them in the Eternal Cycle, she, being as wise as she is, was able to understand that Ahrric was depressed by the fact that he felt he was not ready to die yet and hadn’t lived a life that he deemed very fulfilling yet. The Antecedent emphasised with this sentiment, deeming “growth” to be a sacred thing, and allowed Ahrric to remain alive until he was ready to perform the Ritual.

## Location

The Antecedent can be reached only at the end of the questline A Dark Pilgrimage. She is located inside a cavernous chamber inside of a crystal palace-like structure that is embedded in an island in the center of a lake of lava in the Luminous Peak. The chamber is deep beneath the island, with the crystal palace essentially being a long downward tunnel ending in said chamber. The First Elder is located in the far right corner of the chamber immediately from the entrance of the chamber. All around her, the chamber is littered with various texts, some containing cheeky references to real life pop culture and some containing lore information that shed some light on the more mysterious things in the game’s story, including the Starseed.