Somewhere
Nowhere
For decades, the four factions carried out their plans among the peoples of Terra, barely the blink of an eye for even the corporeal Altera, but massive change for the short-lived homo sapiens and their cultures.
"Homo sapiens?" Nehred was puzzled for the words.
"Us, well, what we were," Daniel gestured towards him, then back to himself. So it meant people, then.
For the most part, The Others tried to hold the other three factions back, but for all their power, their belief in non-intervention held them back, the Abeona, led by Oma, spread their vision as far as they could, trying to limit the influence of the Prometheans, who were becoming increasingly fearful of the isolationist Thanatosian backed Spartans preparing to destroy their work.
Daniel told him how these beings attentions were largely focused on the Spartan culture as being the spark that would trigger the events to come, but that it was The Smith, Prometheus himself, who would be the cause.
As the Spartan culture became increasingly violent, eyeing the territory of their neighbours, destroying and enslaving as they went, he began to fear that the societies his group had fostered would be next, the progress for the species he had dedicated himself to would be undone at the hands of narrow minded extremists.
His group had increasingly pushed the boundaries of what was allowed, rather than doing what they wanted if left to their own devices. Technology capable of evolving the human form to a more Alteran level of development had been one of their crowning achievements, alongside the so called 'Great Libraries,' machines capable of downloading the millions of years of accumulated knowledge of the Altera into a mind. While some of the younger and more idealistic members of the group like his protégé Pandora dreamed of using these devices on mankind, Prometheus preached restraint, knowing such acts would bring the wrath of the ascended down upon them. Instead he scattered these devices across the galaxy, prepping them to be found by the humans later, to be used of their own accord.
Until what later became known as 'The Great Schism,' according to Daniel at least, the Prometheans only use of advanced technology on Earth was the completion of the Terra Atlantus outpost, outfitting it with drone weapons more than capable of defending the planet from any hostile force attacking it from space.
This action very nearly caused the intervention of The Others, the justification that the outpost was located deep under the ice of a continent that the humans didn't even know existed, never mind had the capability to reach allowed its begrudging acceptance. This emboldened the Prometheans, if it could be justified, it could be allowed.
"This would be their undoing." Daniel had a somewhat sorrowful tone.
As the Spartans became an increasing danger in Prometheus' mind, he came to the conclusion that he had to give the peoples of Greece a means to defend themselves, lacking the obsessive commitment to warfare that the Spartans had learned from their own benefactors, he knew they needed his help.
The question was what to do, giving them a weapon to even the odds seemed the sensible choice, but he knew of nothing that could be easily replicated by the locals, or that wouldn't be massively over powered for the era the human societies were in. In the end, he reinvented something that the Altera had not used in tens of millions of years. In simple terms, he would give the humans fire.
Like The Smith, thought Nehred, he had used his fire to teach his ancestors to make all sorts of things.
It was so simple, it had taken him a long time to create it, such was the simplicity, beneath his advanced mind; a mix of sulphur, charcoal and potassium nitrate, it had never occurred to him that something so simple could have such a range of potential applications, even at the technological level of development the Greeks were at, it would be more than enough to put the Spartans back in their box, or even better, stamp them out.
His happiness at his solution was matched only by the anger it sparked in those watching above. While relatively content to allow the unascended to spread myths and legends among the humans, giving them technology outright, albeit an almost incomprehensibly primitive one, was unacceptable. With everything that had been happening, it was decided that an example must be made, lest the situation on the planet spiral any further out of their control.
The Others' chosen method however would be the real trigger for what was to come, after appearing to Prometheus himself to urge restraint failed, only one course of action was determined as a final solution, both to the problem he was, and the larger one he represented.
He was to be removed from the material realm.
Unlike in later times, the methods of ascending a being by another were not yet understood, yet a theory was developed, far from the simple thought that an Ancient today could utilise, but it would still work.
It was well known that Prometheus, like many of the other Altera on the planet, were approaching the limit of physical development, indeed the Council had come to the conclusion that many were willingly holding themselves back from the point of ascension. It was determined that this must be requiring a significant amount of energy to do so, holding the body in its corporeal state. This was the key.
By the order of Uranus himself, a single being was sent to stop Prometheus, Hephaestus. As the process of 'de-ascension' had not yet been discovered, Hephaestus had to return to the material plane as an energy being (the only method available at this stage of development), appearing in a small crowd of Prometheans that had gathered to witness Prometheus demonstrate his invention. Appearing with a flash of light and the words. 'Prometheus, by order of Uranus and the Council, you must pay for your crime.' A single blast of energy struck the scientist in the midsection, Hephaestus had already returned to the higher realm before he had slumped to the ground.
Such an injury was not beyond the capabilities of a being as evolved as Prometheus to heal from, but crucially, the wound was infused with the energy of ascension, as his body fought to regenerate cells at his will, it fought back, desiring to complete his journey and become like the energy that had infected his system.
For three days he battled, healing the same wound again and again, each time weakening his own ability to hold himself back from ascension. In the end he succumbed, and with a flash of light he passed into the next plane of existence, and those who remained prepared to unleash hell in his name.
"The Twins?" Nehred felt like he could tell where this was going.
Daniel smiled a little at that, but continued talking, about how the faction led by his friend Oma were actually encouraged by what happened, they hoped it meant The Others would prevent the direct interventions they wanted to end. Meanwhile those who followed Thanatos saw it as hypocrisy and arrogance; those on high had finally taken action, yet it was to prevent any further meaningful action taking place on the planet.
The followers Prometheus left behind, however, were thrown into chaos. As a group, they shattered. Some, took it as a sign that what they had begun to suspect was indeed the case; they had gone too far. They had pushed too many limits, bent too many laws. Many of them broke away, going into seclusion, either on Terra or off world to continue their studies in peace, beginning the inevitable journey towards ascension.
For the rest, they were convinced that they had witnessed nothing other than the outright assassination of their leader and mentor, that he still existed, albeit in another plane, was an irrelevance. His corporeal life had been forcibly ended against his will. These younger, more idealistic Prometheans, while unable to agree on a single way forward, nonetheless began formulating plans for revenge, from methods to hide themselves from the ever-watching eyes of those above to attempting to create weapons that could destroy higher beings. This was a group of angry, leaderless people that while lacking the capabilities of their elder, former comrades, could still wield fearsome technology. A solution was required.
It was decided, by Uranus and the rest of the ruling council that Prometheus himself would return to the Earth, stunning his followers even more than his untimely 'death' had. As his remaining people gathered, arguing and debating what to do, he appeared before them, in the same fashion as his assassin had done, only a few Terran weeks before, silencing the room.
The now ascended Prometheus urged restraint among his followers, preaching the benefits of The Path.
"He changed his mind?" Nehred was surprised that a God, well, not a God, but still, could change their mind about, well, anything.
Daniel explained that it was important to remember the process he had been through, which critically a number of his followers did not understand. While it had only been a few weeks for them, Prometheus himself had experienced the equivalent of years of learning and discovery on his own personal path to enlightenment. The same path that Nehred now found himself on. While upon his arrival in the higher planes, his demeanour had best been described as furious, the pursuit of knowledge was a powerful motivator, not least for a being so consumed by the joy of discovery. In time he had changed, his knowledge and understanding increased.
Lacking the knowledge to understand this process, a number of Prometheans assumed this to be some sort of trick, either it was not the great man himself, or he had been brain washed by those above. While most of the group were talked down from anything rash, several fled, led by two of Prometheus' protégés; Pandora and Tantalus.
Refusing to believe the words of their deceased leader as any more than distorted lies, they fled, concealing themselves and a handful of likeminded brothers and sisters within a cloak that obscured them from the view of those they increasingly hated in the higher planes.
Pandora chiefly had worked on many of Prometheus' grand projects, notably his efforts to find ways to speed up both the physical and intellectual development of the human species on Terra. While these goals came to take the form of devices scattered across the galaxy for the humans to find later, the younger and more radical Pandora had dreamed of using these technologies to enhance the population of the planet now.
Working with those she had left, Pandora worked on a range of gene altering chemicals and gases, that when released into the population would enhance the humans to near Alteran levels. Once complete, under the cover of a personal cloak, Pandora left the last standing Promethean compound with a range of canisters that she spread across the world as the humans knew it, compounds that would enhance strength, memory, intelligence, longevity, health and many other aspects of human life.
For all her good intentions, and undoubted intellect, she had not foreseen what came next. Her gifts, intended to boost the human race possibly millions of years ahead in their development instead unleashed horrifying disease and pestilence, killing many, many innocent humans.
The results shook her to the core, unable to comprehend what could possibly have gone wrong, she quickly began work on a new compound to right the wrongs of the previous attempts, blaming her decision to use separate creations for different purposes, she created a new strategy; a single pathogen that would enhance the humans closer to an Alteran state in one go. It was her, and possibly mankind's, last chance. She called it simply; Hope.
As she stood overlooking the ancient city of Athens, tears streaming down her cheeks, she prepared to unleash her final gift, believing that only her greatest hope could save mankind. Thankfully as she began to open this last canister, Prometheus returned, appearing before her in a blaze of shimmering light and prevented her from doing so, in all likelihood saving mankind in the process. A distraught Pandora, broken by the realisation she had very nearly caused the extermination of the people she above all else wanted to help, accepted her mentor's views, knowing the numbers of innocents that had perished due to her actions, she begged for her life to end. Instead Prometheus, feeling responsibility for her situation resolved to take care of his former student, ascending her out of the mortal plane.
A book appeared in Daniel's hands which he opened, flicking through pages before pausing to read out a piece;
"Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house,
she remained under the lip of the jar, and did not
fly away. Before, Pandora replaced the
lid of the jar. This was the will of aegis-bearing
Zeus the Cloudgatherer."
Apparently, this was how a human named Hesiod had interpreted these events, perhaps their own Ballad of the Gods, Nehred thought.
Daniel returned to his story, that the horrors of Pandora had driven the remaining Prometheans to abandon their ways, joining the rest of their former comrades in solitary quests for ascension at the command of their leader. Save for Tantalus. Angered by the apparent murder of Pandora and believing her work had been corrupted by the ascended, he fled, arriving in Thanatosian controlled Sparta.
The arrival of Tantalus in Sparta had one curious consequence for the future of that particular humans elitist culture; the acceptance of non-Spartans as something other than serf labour.
The thought of this slavery or serfdom appalled Nehred, his own world had no history of such things, that these Alterans could have used it was a worrying development, of any of them where now here, back in that strange Diner…
Despite the hatred and disgust for 'weak' outsiders that they had inherited from their benefactors, Tantalus was something the Thanatosia recognised they needed. His acceptance by them (as far as the Spartans knew, their own nobility was as human as they were) became a model for other outsiders deemed useful to be integrated into their society.
It was pragmatism at its best, and did not sit well with some of the more youthful, radical members of the group, but Thanatos knew his faction lacked the technological power that the others could wield, or anyone with a talent for it. Now before him stood a disciple of Prometheus himself! If he had been a praying man, as the humans were accustomed to doing, his prayers would have been answered by this good fortune.
Quietly, and in the escort of his most trusted followers, Tantalus was smuggled off the planet to work in peace. The followers of Thanatos had been busy out among the stars, searching for any traces of technology not captured by the Prometheans, they had discovered a relic many millions of years older than even the Lost City upon a long forgotten Alteran world; Lethe.
On that unremarkable, cold and dying world, slowly orbiting around her now dimming star, they had uncovered an archaic ship, pre dating even the hyperdrive itself, an evolutionary dead end, a concept our kind later revisited once technology had caught up with vision. They had found the first City Ship; the Hades.
Millions of years of neglect had ravaged the structure, the Thanatosians having spent years trying and failing to restore her, dreaming of using it as the seat of their power, capital of the empire they envisioned, Tantalus was soon put to work on its repair.
For his part, Tantalus threw himself into his efforts, already angered and bitter, the constant voices of his new associates soon fully turned him against his former friends, making use of Pandoras cloaking technology, he soon obscured the forgotten planet from the sight of those above, ensuring the world would stay lost.
Back on Terra, the situation was deteriorating, the Thanatosia had come to realise both the success and the failure of their plan. Their Spartans were clearly superior, in their eyes at least, but they took time to produce, and were increasingly dangerously outnumbered in their own society, never mind on a planetary scale. Quietly their operatives withdrew, leaving the Spartan society to continue on to its inevitable fate alone.
A new plan was embarked upon, as they noted the spread of Alteran culture and values throughout almost all the societies on Terra, they would seek to undermine and discredit the work their former brothers and sisters had completed, challenging or replacing the myths, legends and deities they had created, while attempting to force the Abeona, the last remaining faction actively engaged on Terra, to leave the planet, one way or another. This period would be remembered in human histories as tales of great battles between the gods, of new beings usurping old, as Thanatosian and Abeonan agents battled for supremacy and the future of the human race.
"Which it seems, your people remembered better than mine did," said Daniel with a grin.
