Chapter 1: Darkseid Is
Ancient Greece
From the writing of Plato:
The idea that there might be things that exist more than we do can be frightening or confusing. Simply put, one doesn't have to believe in the gods to believe in such things. One has to believe in the idea itself.
When I gaze at an apple, I know that it is physical. It is subject to time and forces, just as I am. We would agree that the apple exists, but does the color red exist? I ask not about the red peel but the color itself. Do such abstract concepts of mathematics and emotions exist?
I will refer to these ideas as abstracta. In the common rooms, the other scholars debate whether or not any of them are real. Some believe they are and some don't.
Does burning every story book mean that the story no longer exists? You could say no copies exist, but the story itself?
I would argue numbers exist independently. They aren't arbitrary constructs we invented. They're part of how the world works, and that exists whether we discover them or not. I would go as far to say that they exist more than we do.
These ideas. I consider these abstracta timeless, acausal, and immaterial. These concepts must exist beyond time and space, where nothing in our plane of existence can truly affect it.
When a large number of the same stone sculptures are to be made, the master sculptor carves a single perfect version of the sculpture. They call it a form. The other stonemasons copy the design across many iterations, but they are still imperfect compared to the original.
Similarly, I posit that abstracta exist beyond our plane with infinite imperfect copies scattered throughout our physical world. I posit this realm of ideas as the realm of the forms.
Egypt
From the writing of Plotinus:
In the same way, the Sun radiates small fragments of itself down to earth. As Plato referred to them, the forms project imperfect copies and emanations onto our physical world.
To depict such a relationship, I drew my own map of the cosmos.
The physical world is at the bottom. This is the limit to matter.
The realm above houses souls, personifications, forms, and abstracts.
At the top, the entirety of creation is imposed upon one vast, all-encompassing unity, containing everything and nothing, similarities and contradictions, infinite sets of infinities—something unknowable—the Root... the source of all existence.
Our layer of existence and everything in it had emanated downward as a less perfect copy of the realm of the forms. We are like a shadow beneath true reality.
We attribute many gods to the abstracta in our daily lives. Do these Abstracta act as gods to our mortal realm? To this... Realm of Gods, are we but just lesser copies of them? Do these abstract Gods control our world just by existing?
Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa
400 AD
From the Writings of Augustine of Hippo:
And it was made clear unto me that those things are good which yet are corrupted, which, neither were they supremely good, nor unless they were good, could be corrupted; because if supremely good, they were incorruptible, and if not good at all, there was nothing in them to be corrupted. For corruption harms, but less it could diminish goodness, it could not harm. Either corruption harms not, which cannot be, or, what is most certain, all that is corrupted is deprived of good. But if they are deprived of all good, they will cease to be. For if they be and cannot be at all corrupted, they will become better because they shall remain incorruptibly. And what more monstrous than to assert that those things which have lost all their goodness are made better? Therefore, if they shall be deprived of all good, they shall no longer be. So long, therefore, as they are, they are good; whatever is, is good. That evil, which I sought whence it was, is not any substance, for were it a substance, it would be good. For either it would be an incorruptible substance, and so a chief good, or a corruptible substance, which, unless it were good it could not be corrupted. I perceived, therefore, and it was made clear to me, that Thou made all things good, nor is there any substance at all that you did not make; and because all that You have made are not equal, therefore all things are; because individually they are good, and altogether very good, because our God made all things very good.
Where is evil, and whence, and how crept it in hither? What is its root, and what is its seed? Or hath it no being? For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? Evil has no positive nature, but the loss of good has received the name 'evil.'
Evil always injures, and such injury is a deprivation of good. If there were no deprivation, there would be no injury. Since all things were made with goodness, evil must be the privation of goodness. All that is corrupted is deprived of good.
Evil is the diminution of goodness's property. Good has a substantial being; evil does not. It is like a moral hole, a nothingness that results when goodness is removed. Just as a shadow is no more than a "hole" in light, evil is a hole in goodness.
Evil doesn't exist. It's a nonentity like darkness or cold. It represents a lack of something else. In their natural states, everything in the universe is good, and evil is just a word we invented for failing to live up to that nature. It's the absence of good, the hole in your life where God should be. So evil in its purest form is the hole.
Sphere of the Gods
Apokolips
On his throne sat the God of Evil, Darkseid. Or, at least, this is what the moral mind can comprehend.
In this archetypal world outside time and space, everything had a thousand extra layers of meaning.
For a long time, he had a singular goal: to find the Anti-Life Equation. It implants the mathematical certainty that all life is hopeless and freedom and hope are futile concepts.
From his research, the Anti-Life Equation can dominate the will of any being and all reality. He could twist and distort freedom over life, death as well as all existence. After all, if someone possesses absolute control over you, you're not really alive. In doing so, he would rule the entire multiverse and all creation and remake it in his image.
What would anyone do when their friends, enemies, and lovers are all Darkseid? When there is one body, one mind, one will, and one life that is Darkseid, who will be the enemy of all existence, then?
Unfortunately, the Source has a destiny for him. The time will come when he and his son Orion face each other in the final battle. Not even the Right Hand of God is able to remove him from existence. Until that time, he will plan and prepare. He will have dominion over the lower worlds, Anti-Life Equation or not. Sadly, his endeavors in the mortal realms have slowed due to Ahl's influence in creating these 'Heroes.'
Darkseid waved a hand, and several holograms appeared.
The first was an emerald sphere, the Orb of Orthanax.
The second was a golden sword with a blue hilt, Excalibur, the Sword of Promised Victory.
The last was a green wand, the Mentachem Wand.
Should the need come, he would collect these items and absorb their innate powers to sustain his emanation in the physical world. His other hand waved, bringing up images of two individuals.
The first was a large bearded man in a green hat and purple robes. This was the most prominent Lord of Chaos who is fated to survive even after the end of the universe. This energy being is said to exist before the universe was created and will exist after its end.
The other was a bandaged being obscured by a purple hood and cloak. All around him, reality was fading away. This is the end of time, the final nanosecond of every timeline.
They were the proverbial Plan B. Even then. He doubted that their combined power could sustain his prime physical form. His very existence taints and distorts time and space.
An option would be to tap into the All and Beyond the All. The Source!
To see the mortals attempt even to touch The Source was laughable. Even the New Gods are subject to the will of The Source! The Source contains within it life and anti-life, good and evil, up and down, in and out, black and white, all at once, it must be regarded as an ultimate concept which cannot be halved or divided or contained. If one was not careful, they would be taken in by The Source, dissolved into the Non-Dual Oneness of Everything Everywhere All at Once.
To be taken in by The Source or the Source Wall to outlive Orion would be a last resort. His 'slumber' would be uncertain.
Pushing those holograms aside, he called his servant. "Desaad. Bring me my latest project."
The sadistic chief torturer quickly pulled a hover cart into the throne room. On its flatbed was an entity suspended in Apokolips-forged chains. It was a humanoid of black canvas, one of the purest forms of 'nothingness' the mortal world can produce. It's metaphysical form was on it's passage through the Sphere from the mortal world where it was intercepted.
Darkseid got up from his seat, approached his new 'pet', and grabbed it by the head. For Darkseid, he was literally feeling the piece of himself within it. He could read the history as easily he did himself. A being tortured to insanity. Captured. Beaten. Every word that cursed mankind was carved into its body, forcing every sin imaginable upon it. They took out bits and pieces slowly and defiled its mind with evil. It was responsible for all of it in that world. It bore the six billion curses of that world. Seeing this entity, however, inspired Darkseid. Perhaps a new hyperfauna, a living curse machine to unleash, a "Death-idea" that never tires.
It was a rare occasion that Darkseid smiled. "Mortals are a confused species. The vast majority perceive reality as physical. Truth is a local phenomenon. I am the hole in all things. The hole that remains when everything else is gone—the emptiness shaped like God. The fire that consumes your heart. I have been there with you from the moment they understood anguish, pride, victory, retribution, as delectable a morsel as I had ever grown fat on. Each time you were led to the burning desire for satisfaction that only I can provide, you served Darkseid. The ecstasy you feel in the heat of subtle manipulation is my own. When they lash out at your loved ones, bystanders, and enemies, they are a mere fraction of my will."
The very concept of evil emanates from Darkseid to the lower realities on an infinite spectrum. All the World's Evil was but an infinitesimal spec to the true 'form' of evil.
Every act of cruelty ever committed is based on Darkseid. Every being to ever hurt anyone was, for that moment, possessed by Darkseid. Being evil is just being Darkseid-like. When you ask how evil someone is, what you're really asking is how close they are to being Darkseid.
In the end, it was a fruitless endeavor for the mortals who tried this. Contain the evil all you like, the hole will remain. It was one of the closest things to a physical body he could ask for. He would eagerly do the same on Apokolips had it not been for his conceptual nature as a self-aware idea.
Once more, the God of Evil smirked, new plans forming. Darkseid gripped the entity's head harder. "Surrender and submit. You have further use. Die for Darkseid." He forced it to the ground. "Speak the One Truth!"
For a fleeting moment, the remnant of humanity within Angra Mainyu turned its head to the true master of evil and kneeled. For the first time ever in this state, it spoke. "Darkseid Is…"
AN: After watching Imaginary Axis's videos on Darkseid and the nature of Platonic Gods, it inspired me to incorporate it and weave it into the lore of All the World's Evil withing a DC/Fate Crossover. What do you guys think?
Special thanks to Jebest4781, Charles, and Seana!
I hope you enjoyed the chapter. If you did, please follow or review/comment. See you guys in the next chapter.
Discord Server: discord . com (slash) invite (slash) 2uP8ka2
Like my work? Please consider supporting me, so I can keep writing as often as possible. Even a little means a lot and helps me dedicate more time and resources to my work.
P a treon . com (slash) Firestorm808
buy me a coffee . com (slash) Firestorm808