Мастер Исандер
Verse and Dimensions: Stories
The Fracture
The Fracture is a fork of the External Hazard existing in The Barrel during an era long before The Great Occult War , designed to spread an ideology supposedly dedicated to resurrecting and summoning a long-dead god called Xaragon.
History
According to The Fracture and the sects that support it, The Fracture was created when a "gift from Xaragon" (in actuality, a Stage II seed of the External Hazard) collided with a shrine in his image, which possessed mind-affecting properties that made all who gazed upon it assimilate into following the Mad God.
The shrine was supposedly created by the Mad God towards his death, as in his paranoid stupor he "knew" it wouldn't have been long before he was somehow betrayed and killed. The shrine was an effigy created in his form, and as such it accurately captured his insane personality. It served as a last-ditch effort to garner followers and revive himself after his death with it via a reality warping technique. However, it seemed that this plan of his had initially failed, and following his death the Idea Breakers completely ravaged his empire, essentially wiping out all of Xaragon's followers in the process. However, there were a select few Idea Breakers that had never wanted to betray the Mad God in the first place, and were still loyal to him. Learning of the Mad God's posthumous plans, these renegade Idea Breakers secretly transported his totem to a secure location to prevent it from being destroyed in the rest of the Idea Breakers' riot.
…That is, that's at least from the perspective of the "loyal" Idea Breakers. What more likely happened was that all Idea Breakers had originally unanimously agreed upon the mutiny against the Mad God, but once a certain few of them gazed upon his shrine after they killed , they were brought back under his sway. There were also several Mevalkagna, who too "still remained loyal" to the Mad God, and so they also aligned themselves with the cause of these defected Idea Breakers. Together, this splinter group of Idea Breakers and Mevalkagna formed a cult, which dedicated themselves to worshipping the shrine, prostrating themselves before it with every chance they had in an effort to somehow revive their dead master. However, despite all their efforts = it seemed to be of no use. For a very long time, they never even had so much as a sign. But then, just as the cult was about to lose hope, a Stage II Hazard Seed suddenly "hurtled down from the heavens" and made contact with the shrine. Normally, a Stage II Seed would simply destroy the shrine, but in this case the seed was especially vulnerable to memetic phenomena, thus assimilating into the Idea Breaker cult's cause.
The shrine, now called The Fracture, was given life and mobility, and could reproduce. The Fracture possessed all the exact same personality traits, tendencies and mannerisms as the Mad God, except amplified and distorted by the Hazard. Upon gaining sentience, The Fracture "knew" that its purpose was to convert all it could reach into following its religion and worshipping it, so that the true Mad God may be brought back.
The Stage II seed had caught Creator and Destroyer off guard and injured them upon its entrance into the Barrel, and thus the two gods were severely weakened and unable to intervene. (It is also speculated that the absence of Creator and Destroyer was what allowed the Great Occult War to have gotten so out of hand). However, this issue was simply ignored by The Supergod Council, as they may have been too preoccupied with other matters. Or, more likely, they were fully aware and chose not to intervene, as the Barrel was still in an early experimental stage at this point in its existence. Whatever the case, there was practically nothing in the way of stopping The Fracture from spreading its influence. It first started by infecting and converting its first initial followers, before then expanding outward and "recruiting" new ones.
Life Cycle
The life cycle of a piece of the Fracture varies slightly from place to place, but it generally follows this pattern:
Stage I
Rather than creating conventional Primary Minds like a normal instance of the External Hazard would, a physical pylon is instead created from a pylon sprout, which have a diverse variety of appearances such as large floating crystals, orbs, or glowing mechanical structures, small rocks, and tall skyscrapers. These structures have a memetic, attractive effect and compel sophonts to worship the Mad God and to protect the pylon.
Stage II
At this point, the Pylon is activated, fully converting The Mad God's devout followers into servitors, part of the hivemind of The Fracture. Those assimilated into The Fracture exist solely to serve The Mad God and the Fracture, and anybody who is somehow found deviating from the ideals of The Fracture are swiftly and harshly dealt with.
Stage III
If the Fracture nearly assimilates an entire Gigaverse or more, it functionally becomes a shrine to The Mad God, and is nearly impossible to penetrate without assimilation.
Entities
The Fracture uses several entities as tools to aid its cause.
Servitors
Once normal sophonts, but are now completely assimilated into The Fracture.
Primary Minds
Much like the Primary Minds employed by the External Hazard, the Fracture employs Primary Minds to sow support for The Mad God and "answering prayers" by transforming servitors into different forms.
Weavers
These entities are created during the middle of Stage I and weave stringshard around the pylon to protect it. Weavers are sentient and are considered as "Angels", sent by The Mad God to teach sophonts of advanced technologies that will help the unwitting civilizations become more powerful and dangerous.
Flows
If the civilization the pylon is inhabiting doesn't create technologies that can move through gigaverses, flows – which are related to sinkhole worms – open portals to other gigaverses and spread pylon sprouts during Stage II.
The Beliefs of the Fracture
Those who follow The Fracture or The Mad God, believe that the only way to revive him and reincarnate him into an even far more powerful form than the one he had in life is through the zealous worship of him.
However, this is at most wishful thinking, as logically speaking, the only kind of "god" that would be summoned by The Fracture as a result of the incident with the seed colliding with the shrine, would be a compound of the dangerous mentally volatile environment of the insides of Najha-Tebah's mind, and a conglomerate of the concept-eating Idea Breakers, drastically more powerful than Creator. The insanity of Xaragon himself would pale in comparison to this utter monstrosity.
If the god were summoned, there would be virtually no way to stop its destruction of the Omniverse without the intervention of the Supergods, which even then would only destroy The Fracture when the Omniverse is completely controlled by it.
The Mevalkagna (singular: Mevalkagnus) are a race of savage but loyal creatures who were created by The Mad God to protect his empire. After his death, the species scattered all across The Omniverse with a goal of ensuring that no entity/group gains too much power, to honor their late creator's legacy. The Mevalkagna will usually spare groups or entities if unprovoked, but will most definitely attempt to annihilate any they encounter whose power and/or influence reached a point where they could accomplish any of the following:
Controlling a significant number of top-level Archverses.
Growing powerful enough to easily defeat most or all entities and/or civilizations within the Omniverse, starting at the level of The Mad God's empire as the minimum.
Being capable of exiting The Omniverse.
In some cases, nullifying these threats requires as little as destroying the leaders of a civilization, along with their most advanced technology.
The Mevalkagna (Pre-Great Occult War)
The Mevalkagna are primitive and instinctive, and thus follow a one-track mentality of completely annihilating any remotely powerful civilizations on sight, without regard for any innocents who could be caught in the crossfire.
Origin
The basis for The Mevalkagna were originally a naturally occurring herd species which wandered the Omniverse, peacefully grazing on its resources. They were simple-minded and led simple lives. They were docile and peaceful, fleeing from threats rather than fighting, and primarily stayed out of the way of other races and civilizations. Many others looked down on these creatures, merely thinking them to be "dumb" and having no practical uses to greater beings.
However, that would all soon change. The leader of a Gigaversal empire named Xaragon was having difficulty in overseeing his entire domain, and he was in need of beings who could help protect his empire. He at first tried to create beings himself, but many of his attempts were unsatisfactory. The races either weren't powerful enough, or smart enough, or lacking some other such quality. Finally, Xaragon realized that he needed some already-existing species as a base to work off of. He needed creatures that were relatively lacking in instinctual directive and physiological detail, and it was these herd creatures who perfectly fit this criteria. Xaragon captured a small herd of the creatures and began experimenting in them. After several numerous procedures involving things such as genetic engineering, mutation, alchemy, magic and reality warping, he created The Mevalkagna.
The Mevalkagna were "programmed" to follow and enforce a set of basic simple rules: Protecting and defending Xaragon's empire, and eliminating any and all potential threats. The first major accomplishment of the Mevalkagna was the construction of The Wall, an enormous structure lining the border of Xaragon's empire. The size of The Wall and the speed of its completion is largely due to the resources the Mevalkagna used to build it. Any would-be invaders and conquerors who tried approaching The Wall during its construction were "bricked" by the Mevalkagna. Essentially, the beings were used as building material and were embedded within the wall like how a spider would weave its prey into silk. The beings remained alive the entire time during this terrifying process, even as the wall was sealed around them and they were trapped in blackness.
Soon, however, the Mevalkagna would fall out of their master's favor. With the arrival of the Idea Breakers, the Mevalkagna were not as much needed, especially after Xaragon, now referred to as the Mad God, began abusing the Idea Breakers and using them to silence those who opposed him. The Mevalkagna and the Idea Breakers did not get along at all, and if any two of them were placed together, they were bound to try to tear each-other apart in a manner akin to cats and dogs. Thus, the rivalry between Mevalkagna and Idea Breakers began.
After the death of the Mad God, who was killed in a mutiny by the Idea Breakers, the Mevalkagna retaliated against them and they went to war. But the Idea Breakers were able to overpower the Mevalkagna, forcing them to flee as the Idea Breakers completely ransacked and wiped out the Mad God's empire.
Now, without a master, the Mevalkagna now had no further directives, no more orders. This caused them to become less structured, regressing into pack mentalities. Essentially, they were now more dangerous and savage versions of the mindless creatures they had been previously, making them incredibly formidable. After dispersing throughout the Omniverse and reintegrating themselves into the "wild", they absorbed the rest of the race they had once come from by interbreeding with them, thus producing offspring that favored the more savage characteristics and breeding all the docile Mevalkagna out of existence. Still, even with the Mad God dead, the Mevalkagna refused to allow anyone else to become as powerful as he. And so with no other goals or aspirations, they now existed solely to maintain Omniversal "balance", or rather nobody being as the Mad God was. There were of course the odd few Mevalkagna who went their own way, such as those who joined the cult of The Fracture. But those instances were few and far between.
The Mevalkagna's greatest enemies were the Eternal Imperium and Idea Breakers, who they fought against in The Great Occult War.
Appearance
The Mevalkagna are designed to travel across the entire Omniverse, in which the very fundamental basics of reality will vary based on location, and so the Mevalkagna are bred to be able to exist in many different forms of time, space, reality and beyond. Their true forms do not hold any properties of dimensional space, quantum physics or any other properties that may not exist in some parts of the Omniverse, allowing them to travel freely, even between different Paraverses. Their Appearance will vary based on the laws of reality within their current -verse, adapting their true appearance to the laws of reality around them. The images used in this article are artistic representations of their actual appearances translated into the laws of our universe.
Standard Mevalkagna are often perceived, at least within Megaverses, to be a bit large, roughly six or seven times the size of an average human. Higher ranking Mevalkagna, however, are often seen as far larger, varying from the size of large buildings to planets to even multiple Hubble Volumes. Some have even been perceived as infinitely large. Mevalkagna usually appear in forms not dissimilar to eldritch horrors, with higher ranking Mevalkagna appearing to be far more terrifying than lower-ranking ones.
Hierarchy
The Mevalkagna are a herd race which are organized amongst various individual packs. Of course, with packs there is a pecking order, and it is no different with the Mevalkagna.
Basic Mevalkagnus
The basic Mevalkagnus is the most common form of Mevalkagnus. They come in infinite numbers and exist solely to carry out the basic orders of the pack, such as attacking, defending, and so on. This is the most common form of Mevalkagnus and the one which the vast majority of the Omniverse is most familiar with.
Grand Mevalkagnus
A Grand Mevalkagnus is a far more powerful and far less common form of Mevalkagnus that leads huge swarms of Basic Mevalkagna. They are the second in command of the pack, usually the mate of the leader. Grand Mevalkagna vary in power and while weaker ones command only finite numbers of Basic Mevalkagna, more powerful Grand Mevalkagna can control infinite numbers. Some can even command armies of weaker Grand Mevalkagna, which each have their own army of Basic Mevalkagna. Grand Mevalkagna are responsible for the creation of Basic Mevalkagna, through breeding with the pack leader. Occasionally, this process can potentially result in a Grand Mevalkagnus offspring. These tend to grow up to become leaders of their own groups, unless they die challenging the current leaders of their groups, usually their parent, in an attempt to overthrow them.
A single Supreme Mevalkagnus in its s-3-dimensional form, annihilating an Eternal Imperium fleet.
A Supreme Mevalkagnus is the most powerful form of Mevalkagnus, and always is the leader of a Pack. Their task is primarily to direct all Grand Mevalkagna, and breed with them to produce offspring. They rarely, if ever, actively engage in the battles being undertaken by the Mevalkagna. Rather, they remain on the sidelines or at the pack's home base, and organize the different divisions of the Mevlkagna. Usually, when something goes wrong, the Supreme Mevalkagna will simply create large numbers of incredibly powerful Grand Mevalkagna to deal with the issue. However, if the situation is dire enough, the Supreme Mevalkagna will enter battle to take care of things themselves.
Powers and Abilities
Unsurprisingly, the power of a certain Mevalkagnus varies greatly depending on its rank, as higher-ranking Mevalkagna were far more powerful than lower-ranking ones. Generally, a Mevalkagnus is capable of using every ability known by its parents at the time of its creation. This knowledge is passed down through a lineage, with each new Mevalkagnus being even more powerful than its parents since it possesses greater knowledge. Likewise, the Mevalkagnus' own offspring will also be more powerful than it, due to all that it had witnessed in its own lifetime. This does not make Mevalkagna Omnipotent, as there are many abilities throughout the Omniverse which are not yet known or discovered. Nevertheless, it is still an incredible arsenal.
Basic Mevalkagnus
On a grand, Omniversal scale, a single Basic Mevalkagnus would be considered extremely powerful. However, this must be put in the context of the purpose of the Mevalkagna: To destroy entities or organizations which may be able to gain control over large portions of the Omniverse. From this perspective, the power of a single Mevalkagnus is almost insignificant. With the sheer strength of the technology held by such groups or civilizations, or the sheer strength of the entity itself if it is a single entity, a single Mevalkagnus would be considered nothing more than a small pest which could be eliminated with little to no effort. On the scale of an Omniversal civilization such as the Eternal Imperium, a single Mevalkagnus would be similar to a savage lion on Earth: Capable of killing large groups of civilians, but insignificant to the safety of the nation overall. This is because the Mevalkagna attack as singular entities in packs, primarily employing guerilla warfare tactics. The basic Mevalkagna are the lowest of the hierarchy, and so individual Basic Mevalkagna are treated as completely disposable. Often, millions of Basic Mevalkagna will even sacrifice themselves as battering rams of sort, throwing and killing millions off to overwhelm defenses and allow a select few through which the security measures would not be able to prevent due to the overwhelming number of creatures which are attacking. Large hoards of Basic Mevalkagna can be a truly terrifying threat to even the most advanced civilizations and most powerful entities.
Unique Abilities
Basic Mevalkagna do not have very many unique abilities due to their disposable nature. But that does not make them any less dangerous or formidable. Unlike the Mevalkagna who exist after the Great Occult War, these Mevalkagna do not adapt themselves to fit within the reality of whatever Archverse they may enter. Rather, they intentionally remain in the same form when entering lower level verse, and thus distort reality to the point of even potentially destroying the verses themselves. The process leaves quite a mess behind, but it helps the Mevalkagna to reap quite a bit of food from the process. This is primarily due to the fact that Basic Mevalkagna are capable of moving in strange and incredible ways which are often not compatible within the laws of reality within the -verse they are moving through.
Basic Mevalkagna can embed themselves within Grand Mevalkagna for protection from more dangerous beasts that they can't fight. Once the Grand Mevalkagnus finish dealing with the threat, they can assume their own forms once again.
Grand Mevalkagnus
Grand Mevalkagna are usually considered equal in power to the combined power of all the Mevalkagna they control. Grand Mevalkagna which control only finite numbers of Basic Mevalkagna are only finitely more powerful than a single Basic Mevalkagna, but those who control infinite numbers are usually infinitely more powerful. This principle also applies to Grand Mevalkagna who control legions of weaker Grand Mevalkagna. As such, some Grand Mevalkagna may be fairly weak, while others will be terrifyingly powerful.
Unique Abilities
One area where Grand Mevalkagna are more substantial than the Basic Mevalkagna they command is their unique abilities. A Grand Mevalkagnus is capable of manipulating the minds of entities, many forms of technology and many basic constants of reality such as dimensionality, quantum physics, and others. Stronger Grand Mevalkagna can affect more resilient minds, more complex technology, and more fundamental Omniversal constants compared to weaker ones. They also retain the powers of the Basic Mevalkagna, improved to be more powerful of course.
As previously mentioned, sometimes groups of basic mevalkagna may had within grand mevalkagna for protection. The only problem, is that some Grand Mevalkagna might decide to abuse their control over the basic mevalkagna that hide inside them. While embedded they don't have any control over their own abilities and the Grand Mevalkagnus can simply decide to destroy their minds and dissolve their power into the Grand Mevalkagnus's body, making them stronger and even slightly changing their physical appearance a bit. If a Grand Mevalkagnus can trick enough Basic Mevalkagna into doing this, they can absorb so much power they will evolve into a different type of creature called a "Supreme Mevalkagnus".
Alternatively, however, if the combined strength of the Basic Mevalkagna is greater than that of the Grand Mevalkagnus, they can easily work together to tear apart the Grand Mevalkagnus from the inside, giving them extra food. This of course requires a very gullible Grand Mevalkagnus absorbing way more basics at once than they should, and it also requires all those basics to work together without a leader (since a leader is the thing they're trying to tear apart) so it doesn't work out often but it definitely can happen, and Grand Mevalkagna have to be careful of who they let in.
Supreme Mevalkagna
Supreme Mevalkagna are absurdly powerful. They are capable of destroying multitudes of even the largest top-tier Archverses and are stronger than almost all individual groups of Basic and Grand Mevalkagna. Even a single Supreme Mevalkagnus could wipe out the majority of entities and organizations the Mevalkagna target should it wish.