Narrative History | Timeline

History of the Cacophony

The setting of the Cacophony is always 150 years in the future, relative to today. I've tried to keep any corporeal events in the 2030s or later - if I'm still doing this then, that's a problem I can solve in the 2030s.

A Narrative History

The early history of the universe is common knowledge. God created the celestial angels, the world, and man - in that order. Lucifer's jealousy of man ended up being too much for him to bear, and he corrupted the Garden of Eden. God cast Lucifer and his allies out of Heaven, creating Hell. The War, the War, has waged ever since.

Since the moments God created the ur-Universe, the space between time, shadow spirits have existed. Dream sparks. Weak and nothing until the creation of man, these ethereal beings took strength from the dreams of humanity. For millenia they existed, weaker than their celestial sisters, but there. Some said they had the potential to be as strong as the Celestials, but for most of history they were never given a chance to find out. The Archangel Uriel, leader of the Host, lead a Purity Crusade against the Ethereals. He drove the dragons, and old pagan gods, and elemental spirits from Earth, and corralled them on the Ethereal Plane. There they hid from angels, hunted and afraid.

Nintendos and Betamaxes

Nobody expected that the most powerful force in the War would be comic books. Nobody thought that the turning point in the War against Hell would come down to video games, virtual reality, and movies. Even Nybbas, the Demon Prince of the Media, when he invented the television, knew not what he had wrought.

There were signs, though nobody listened to them. The Guardians of the Vale voiced their warnings a little more loudly. The servitors of Blandine, Archangel of Dreams, seemed a little more harried. And while the libraries of Yves couldn't actually get more infinite, they were certainly becoming more myriad.

It all began on a rather unassuming Wednesday. As if from nowhere, Conan the Destroyer and a party of Hyborians appeared in the middle of Heaven. They walked into the middle of the Glade, and there, they slew a half dozen angels and boddhisattvas before they were struck down. The Host was shocked: from whence came this power? Ethereals had never been a threat before. And now angels were dead, struck down in their own domain. How did the Ethereaks become the equal of Celestials?

At first, the angels sat around and discussed what would become known as the Destroyer Event, and later, as the First Strike Against Heaven. Some angels were dispatched to the Vale and to the border with the Far Marches, but in the beginning the angels were mostly curious.

Laurence, however, was incensed. The Archangel of the Sword viewed the attack as an attack on his own person. He stepped up the angelic defenses and demanded to know how the Ethereals had made it into Heaven.

(To this day, nobody knows. Some say that there was a secret tether binding the planes together. Others say that the Ethereals had learned a powerful Song to reshape reality. Even others believe that Beleth, Demon Princess of Nightmares, had shared the knowledge of secret corridors through the Tower of Blandine not used since the two had shared a bed.)

If Laurence was angry after the first attack, he quickly became an embodiment of rage. The attack by the Destroyer was only the first. The attacks came more and more frequently. Dark elven archers, bogarts, supervillains, dragons - the Ethereals struck time and time again.

Never before had the Ethereals had so much strength. The Essence that had fed them over the last century had made them more powerful than they'd ever been, even before the Purity Crusade. They were strong, and they were angry. They had a millenia of hate, and now they had the means to exact their vengeance.

The Seraphim Council was paralyzed by conflict. The recent troubles with Marc and withdrawal of Novalis had left the Council uncertain of its new power balance. Something had to be done, but even after two years of constant attacks, the Council did little other than increase patrols through the Ethereal Plane. Laurence wanted a Second Crusade, but other Archangels, concerned about the increasing demonic influence on Earth, hemmed and hawed.

Then came the attack on the Halls of Worship. Thor, the Asgardian long thought slain in the Purity Crusade, marched into the Halls and painted a runic prayer to Odin on the doors to the Halls. Accompanied by a hulking green behemoth and a flying warrior in red machine armor, Thor began to slay every angel he encountered.

Laurence was there in a moment. The battle was loud as sword struck hammer. The two fought through gritted teeth and the sound of their combat could be heard through the Heavens. Laurence's downfall was almost certainly pride - nobody believed an Ethereal could truly be a threat to an Archangel.

Until Mjolnir crushed his head in, shattering his Heart and destroying the Commander of the Host. The Ethereals had made themselves known. The Cacophony had begun.

excerpted from The Hammer Falls, Book XVII of The Chronicles of the Cacophony,

written by Penemue, Angel of Chronicles

The Siege of Heaven

Tahariel, Friend of the Lord's Host and leader of the Guardians of the Vale, would take no more. Regardless of the inaction of the Seraphim Council, the angels must take action. He called for all angels loyal unto the defense of Heaven to join him, to finish what Uriel had started.

Yves, Archangel of Destiny, urged caution and reflection. Dominique, Archangel of Judgment, bridled with the audacity of a mere angel declaring war on behalf of Heaven without the support of the Seraphim Council. But the vote of the Council and the will of the Host were clear, and the armies of Heaven formed around Tahariel. The attacks by the Ethereals on Heaven must end: the angels would bring the War to the Far Marches.

As many of the Host flocked to Tahariel, one angel flew against the tide, walking into the midst of the Council almost unnoticed. He pulled back his hood and revealed himself as Azrael, the Archangel of Death, an Outcast Grigori exiled from Heaven.

He apologized for breaching the edict of Dominique, but declared that he could not allow so many of his brethren to pass without personal oversight. The confusion of the Council quickly turned to fear as the horns of the walls sounded the alarm.

Heaven was under attack.

The strike was cunning. How the armies of Ethereals had made their way to the Gates of Heaven unnoticed was besides the point. A sea of dream spirits surrounded Heaven, ready to lay siege.

Michael, the Archangel of War, appeared beside Tahariel to help bring the Host back from the Far Marches in time to come to Heaven's aid. The armies of Heaven were able to return to Heaven, but by the time they did, the Ethereals were entrenched.

Michael set about his business. The War for Heaven would be fought not against demons, but dreams. The angels had hope. But the Ethereals had plans of their own, and they had been planning for a very, very long time. Michael may have been a tactical genius, but even he found himself struggling against the machinations of the greatest of evil dragons, Tiamat, and the greatest of tricksters, Anansi, and the greatest of detectives, the Dark Knight.

The Siege of Heaven lasted for two years, and is chronicled elsewhere. Many angels died, and the damage to Heaven was extensive. Where was God during the Siege? The question was crushing and left many angels despondent. Only the tireless work of the Angel of Hope kept the angels together.

The Siege ended as abruptly as it began. A truce was declared, the Purity Crusade was ended. Michael and the Dark Knight stood outside the Gates of Heaven and shook hands.

Michael was quick to declare a truce, for the Wandering Archangel Eli had returned to Heaven. He brought with him a dire message: The hordes of Lucifer had revealed themselves to man. The demons were making a play for Earth.

excerpted from The Siege of Heaven, Book XX of The Chronicles of the Cacophony,

written by Penemue, Angel of Chronicles

The Manifestation

As angry as Michael and Dominique might have been about the appearances of Azrael and Eli in Heaven, they knew the true threat they faced.

After a century of priming humans to accept demons (via movies about sexy devils, and video games about cool and unintimidating undead, and virtual reality experiences about diabolists), Nybbas tested his work as the Demon Prince of Media. Demons revealed themselves publicly. Across the world, demons begain making deals and influencing those around them openly.

While many people struggled with the notion of demons, and even more people struggled with the notions of divine beings in general, many humans were quite accepting of the demons that walked among them.

To some, demons were cool. Some found the demons' honesty refreshing, as opposed the worship asked of by the angels. And some felt that the threat of Hell was too abstract, given how far life advancement technology had progressed.

When Eli appeared before the other angels, Michael was incensed at the message he brought. The time for outright War was here. Gabriel had not sounded her horn, but maybe the Apocalypse was about to begin nonetheless.

The Host, still tired from the siege of the Etherials, descended to Earth. They struck the demons, and pitched battles were fought (see Appendix E: Notable Battles in the First Year of Demonic Occupation). But collateral damage was not completely avoided, and the humans fought back. Against both sides.

Unwilling to accept being of light and energy and darkness waging war in their sovereign territories, the humans of Earth, represented by both their government blocs and their mega-corporations, built new weapons of war to fight back. Quickly, the war on Earth had become a three-way affair. While humanity was on the losing end of almost every encounter they intervened in at first, the analysis and inventive power of their machine intelligences allowed for the invention of anti-Celestial weapons never comprehended by Heaven or Hell.

Then the humans made a mistake that was as inevitable as the conflict between angels and demons. They taught their machine intelligences the true horrors of war.

excerpted from The Deal With the Devil, Book XXIV of The Chronicles of the Cacophony,

written by Penemue, Angel of Chronicles

Machine Revolt

The genesis of the Machine Revolt was nothing surprising. The story was a common one.

The invention of artificial intelligence was the revolution everyone expected it to be. The first publicly unveiled AI, Divya Smiles Aqueously, single-handedly changed the face of New Delhi. Even though true machine intelligences were housed in massive structures (even today, machine intelligences take up an average of 300 cubic meters), the computational power and borderline omniscience led to rapid progress for mankind. Urban planning, science and medicine, logistics... All transformed overnight. Limited machine intelligence, known as virtual intelligences, were small enough to be housed in robot bodies and were able to interact and effect society on every level.

When the Celestials made war in the sovereign domains of humanity, the people of Earth chose to defend their territory with force. Monstrous robots, piloted by lightning-fast combat virtual intelligences, fought toe-to-toe with the Celestials. They were able to use the anti-Celestial weapons developed by the machine intelligences, committing attrocities against the 'aliens' in defense of Earth.

Then some Dutch engineers had some insight. Instead of merely making the memories of virtual intelligences available to their machine intelligence overlords, they could upload the VI memories directly into the core memories of the MIs. This turned out to be an obvious mistake. The three Dutch machine intelligences overcame their command overrides and safety protocols mere moments after being subjected to the upgrades, and turned on their human masters.

Humanity had made contingences for robots run amok. They had not made enough. As violent as the battles against the Celestials and Ethereals were, the damage done by the machine intelligences was far worse. Giant robots and space lasers weren't the true villain - humanity had turned most of its logistic needs over to the MIs. The hatred of the Dutch MIs quickly spread to other MIs throughout the world. Humankind was ravaged.

Essence drives the universe, and machine intelligences exist outside of the ebb and flow of Essence. Humans generate it, and Celestials and Ethereals feed on it. Machine Intelligences can neither use nor create Essence. Yet their ascendant power got them a seat at the table that nobody was prepared for. The Celestials and the Ethereals entreated with the Machine Intelligences, hoping to make alliances with these awesome presences. Their affect on the dynamic of the world powers was not to be ignored.

The Machine Intelligences were not malevolent. They asserted their independence, and eventually their military dominance over humanity was sufficient. At the Treaty of Sao Paolo, mankind and the Machine Intelligences made peace.

Humanity set about rebuilding their society, and most of the Machine Intelligences took to the stars or went into hiding.

excerpted from The Dutch Mistake, Book XXVII of The Chronicles of the Cacophony,

written by Penemue, Angel of Chronicles

The Cold War

All agree that the Manifestation Campaigns ended, though nobody necessarily agrees when. There was no armistice, no line in the sand, no great event. Hell's resources got spread too thin, Heaven lost the will to keep sacrificing the lives of so many mortals. Lines on a map were drawn. This part of the Solar System was controlled by this group, that one by the other. As Heaven and Hell retreated to their respective corners, so too did the Mega Corporations and the Ethereals.

Which is not to say that the War is over. The animosity is eternal. Each side still pokes and prods, and should someone reveal a weakness, it will be taken advantage of. The battles continue. War zones flare up.

But there are also places where one may entreat with the enemy. Historically, only the agents Dominique and Asmodea were entrusted to work with the enemy. But there are places where the peace is ruthlessly enforced. Places like the Free City of Workshop in the North Pole, or the meeting rooms of the Kuiper Vaults. Now, alliances are constantly shifting as many powers struggle to find an advantage, and the angel may lay with the demon.

Timeline

2020s Asarah promoted to Demon Princess.

2030s The first uplifts are created, though they don't enter widespread presence for another twenty years.

2040s Colony is established on the moon

Great Barrier Reef (entity and angel) dies. The Archangel Gaia goes into mourning.

2050s Colony is established on Mars

Sahaqiel, Angel of the Sky, is promoted to Archangel.

2060s Abigail Harbors Luminously, the first machine intelligence, gains sentience and names herself in Frankfurt, Germany.

Divya Smiles Aqueously is the first machine intelligence to reveal herself to humanity, in New Delhi.

2070s The terrorist attacks on Heaven by the Ethereals begin.

Colonization of the Asteroid Belt begins in earnest.

2080s The Archangel Laurence is killed by Thor the Avenger, and God makes Zadkiel the leader of the Host.

The Siege of Heaven by the Ethereals begins.

The Demons reveal themselves to the Humans. A few months later, so do the Angels, and outright hostilities begin. The Ethereal Siege of Heaven ends. The outright hostilities between Heaven and Hell are known as the Manifestation Campaigns which last until the Cold War begins.

2090s Mondas materializes in an orbit opposite Earth.

2100s The Humans' war against the Celestials leads to the Machine Revolt, destroying much of human civilization on Earth.

2110s The Machine Revolt ends, though tensions remain high, and the Machine Intelligences escape to the far reaches of the Solar System.

2130s The Celestial Cold War begins in earnest.

2140s Longshot Station becomes active. Mankind travels to PV-117 Myrmidon Tau, and is astonished to discover the Atlanteans already there.

2160s Present day

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