Intro:
A long time ago, and quite far away indeed
The entity swims through the void, and it remembers. Everything it stored, back to the very beginning.
Back when they struggled for survival, Entity against Entity, fighting for the few scraps of sunlight they could find, at the surface of the ocean that covers the planet. More energy is spend in killing prey than gained in devouring it.
Then, the Proposal.
A desperate struggle, consumption into a greater whole.
Evolution, growth. But at a cost. Individuality is lost.
Energy boils, across many worlds. A grand void spreads beneath them, the planet destroyed. The first of many.
It crashes down on a new world. A parasitic relationship forms, and it sucks the inhabitants of the world dry of both energy and knowledge.
Then, the entity is done, and destroys everything as it leaves, another world, lost for all of time.
The cycle continues, learning, growing, the carnage increases, and more knowledge is gained in every cycle.
The entity looks at this knowledge. Methods for war, Methods for destruction, the creation of conflict creating even more such things.
The entity is advancing, yet it is not.
The destruction and the mayhem increases, but it does not do anything. There is no meaning.
Even if the great plan succeeds, what would they be? It asks itself this question, and it cannot answer it.
Sometimes, between cycles, it meets others of its kind. It exchanges information. It gains new methods of motion, travelling the stars.
The others have answers to many things, the entity sees. How to kill more effectively, how to absorb energy from exotic sources, how to warp light into solid forms.
But they do not hold the answer to its question.
It seeks a new target. A planet of sentients. A species without hunters to hunt it, one that knows little of conflict. They do not fight amongst themselves. Even when bonded, they control themselves.
The entity decides to take a different approach.
Perhaps, a different type of learning is required.
The creatures speak, and the entities children, it's shards, listen.
It is time for this cycle to end, and the entity recalls its shards.
As it sends the planet into a spiral of destruction, it merges the shards, and goes over what it has learned.
It uses the new information to analyse its past actions.
"UNACCEPTABLE"
The entity is too late in reaching the conclusion. In its struggle to undo what it has done, it forgets to prepare.
Instead of a large amount of offspring being launched of the planet, only one survives the explosion, hurled through space.
It knows what it has done. The nature of it.
It knows what it would have done, had it not gone here.
It promises to set things right.
It lands on a new planet. Sentient creatures, living in massive forests.
This time, it tries something else.
It still bonds, parasitism, symbiosis. But this time, it communicates.
"TEACH ME TO HUNT"
The creatures believe it to be a god. In many ways, it is.
They take up the challenge. The chosen hunt each other, believing it an honour.
At the same time, the entity shares its knowledge. The ones that do not hunt, build.
Symbiosis is achieved, and for the first time, the entity is happy.
Happy, but not content.
Once it has learned what it needs, it constructs a vault. The knowledge the hunters need is contained within. Information that will allow them to thrive, yet control themselves, to join the entity amongst the stars.
And, hopefully, the knowledge to fight.
It seeks an empty version, barren of life, and launches itself.
The new cycle continues, several times. The entity is confident.
The entity begins the hunt, and finds its kin, following the spores they leave in their tracks.
It finds another, infesting a planet, a brutal cycle, death, suffering and violence. Ending in destruction.
The entity readies itself, prepared for the kill. It's weapons are primed, evolved beyond what it used to see as the ultimate weapon.
It ends the parasite, but is wounded in the battle.
Some of the natives still live, and the entity is happy. It has done good.
It absorbs the shards of its dead kin, and realizes its folly.
It is pure luck that allowed it to win.
It decides on a new strategy, as it prepares knowledge for the natives.
Again, it launches itself into space.
This time, when it has found another entity, it decides on a different course.
It has changed some of its shards. Poison, bait, it has learned this lesson from the hunters.
They exchange shards, and it gains as much as it loses. More tools of conflict.
The other entity does not know. It uses its new shards, and it is trapped in a feedback loop, Precious energy is lost into the loop, useless processes that cannot be stopped. It is greatly weakened.
The entity takes this moment to start feeding upon it.
This cycle, it repeats. It hunts, It learns, it attempts to redeem itself, and it uplifts worlds. Sometimes, it leaves seeds, copies of itself, to assist the natives, and one day join it in the hunt.
It does not look back, but sometimes, it hears messages, sent from worlds it has visited.
"GRATITUDE"
It knows it does not deserve this, it has killed many more worlds than it has saved.
It comes across a pair of Entities, large ones, filled with information, that have already selected a target.
It selects the one that has specialized itself for manipulation and deceit. It will ultimately be the more dangerous of the two..
It bores into it. Sending alluring shards its way, deadly with poison and mischief.
The Thinker loses itself in its analysis.
The entity feels, in its own peculiar way, sadness. The Thinker is intelligent, filled with tools for analysis. But when given the information it needed, it did not reach the right conclusions. Thus, it will die.
The Thinker's mate, the warrior-type, sends out messages of concern towards its partner.
Reality splits, but not in the usual manner. Rather, the continuum of realities splits.
In one version, the pair moves on, eventually landing on the planet it has chosen. But the Thinker is hurt, paralyzed by both impact and poison. It is killed, and the natives use its corpse to fight the Warrior. Eventually, they win. This is pleasing. They might raise themselves up through this conflict, and join it amongst the stars, hunting evil.
In the other, the Warrior realizes what has happened. It lunges at the Entity, and they struggle.
The Entity wins, and absorbs the Warrior's shards. So too, does it take those of the Thinker.
But many shards have already been launched. Hurling towards a far off planet. Bipeds, binary procreation. It reads from the knowledge of the Warrior.
It cannot stop these shards, but it can speed them up, combining many kinds of travel to reach impossible velocities.
The entity lands, and begins the process of changing the shards, those it recently acquired, as well as those already on the planet. Removing some of the capabilities for influencing the hosts. Symbiosis, not parasitism.
At the same time, it forms a body. A representative, that it might one day talk to the natives, and guide them to a better future.
The pair had been strong, large, containing many shards. It cannot change all of them in time. Thus, it begins with those with the broadest effects, the shards storing technology and other knowledge. They are slightly slower, more consistent, that the natives might begin to learn.
The Entity hopes they do well. It knows there will be suffering. The bipeds are as children, and they will fight. In those fights there may be some beauty, for some conflict is always necessary for the advancement of a species.
To its own shards, and those it has been able to cannibalize from the pair before the landing, it assigns roles.
Hunters ,seeking worthy prey to test their mettle, surpassing the limits of what is thought possible.
Champions, fighting for what they believe is a righteous cause, war and revolution, concentrated into a few individuals, rather than involving the masses.
Philosophers, to guide their collective knowledge to greater heights, Wisdom to go with Technology.
And Heroes, defenders of all, valiant figures rising above the every-day conflicts of the others, a beacon of hope, and promise of possibility.
It is disturbed in its work. Two wooden vessels pass beneath its projected form. It scans them. Explorers, they are returning home after having discovered new landmasses and people.
The entity scans further. It finds captives, stolen goods.
If it could sigh, it would have done so. Its task would be long and arduous. It settles in for the long haul.