"There was no long-term, and trying to cling to one would only spoil it all."
This article contains spoilers regarding the ending of Worm and plot of the sequel.
| “ | The godling smiled. It knew, because the power she was using was the same power it had used to glimpse the future, to find that particular future where it had the world divided, drowned in conflict. As far as the godling was concerned, she was blind, as helpless as anyone else. |
” |
Eden,[4] also known as the Thinker, is an Entity, Zion's counterpart, and the source of half of the superpowers granted to mankind.
Personality[]
Not much is known of Eden's personality, and it is difficult to describe the personality of an entity given the alien and transcendent nature of their being. However, it is known that Eden is relatively more creative and constructive than her counterpart entity, The Warrior. After her exchange with Abaddon and while approaching Earth, Eden does respond to Zion's concerns about danger with confidence, possibly indicating some aspect of her personality.[9][10]
Abilities and Powers[]
Eden has similar abilities as The Warrior due to "multiple parallels" in their bodies and intelligence. Eden has the exact same Shards as the Warrior, though they were used differently.[6] A key difference was that Eden was also The Thinker. It was largely her role to understand, emulate and manipulate the lives of the Humans on the multiple versions of planet Earth. She made use of simulations of the future to set and investigate criteria in order to achieve the goals of the Cycle[11]. Part of her ability to simulate the future was given away.[12]
Avatar[]
Eden planned and had begun constructing an avatar for herself using the Balance shard,[13] similar to Scion.
Appearance[]
Unlike her silent counterpart, she would have been able to perfectly mimic a human. In her simulation of the future, she is able to speak and feign emotion in conversation.[14]
Powers[]
In her simulation of the future, she had powers that allowed her to read emotions[15]
She retained the ability to exchange small Broadcasts with the Warrior.[15] She would have had some kind of ability to create "Endbringer-lites" and direct them at targets.[16] Additionally she'd personally guide the placement of certain powers to shore up factions and extend conflict.[16] Further she'd be fully prepared to move to alternate Earths if/when Bet was no longer useful, or is actively targeting her.[16]
History[]
Background[]
The Entities first arose on a grey, silty world, which they destroyed and rode the explosion out to new worlds.[17] The early ancestor of The Warrior first landed on a world with caustic acid rain, filled with plant life, as did another Entity.[18] The two parasitized the plant life to survive and reproduce, and experimented, using their abilities to nourish and protect the plants and seeing which ones survived.[19]
The two devoured the plants and took back their shards, forming once again into two singular entities. The second entity suggested to the ancestor that the two attack each other, in small, measured ways, and then recombine their shards and attack each other again so that they might find the combinations that survived and discard the rest.[20] After experimenting like that as well for a time, they destroyed that world as well, sending out countless fragments of themselves to other worlds.
The Warrior's ancestor landed on a world with advanced technology. The entities learned of gravity-warping technology, and were studied in turn by the species. Some of them sought to rule; those they had bonded with lost the war, and the entities were rooted out. They formed three larger Entities, who destroyed the planet and fled, offspring scattering in every direction. This time, they controlled their paths with gravity and warped space.[21]
The cycle repeated over three thousand times, and they grew more powerful each time. At some point, The Warrior's ancestors divided themselves into two entities, Warrior and Thinker, who would travel in pairs together. Each had slightly different attitudes and capabilities, so that they could compare different ways of doing things.[22]
Approaching Earth[]
As Eden began to approach Earth, she drew towards Scion before they began to pick out various sub-worlds for themselves and their shards. She felt that Scion's constant communications were distracting as she was using her powers to begin mapping out their actions after their arrival. She started to reform herself for a deeper simulation when she noticed a third broadcast. Recognizing that it was a broadcast from another Entity, Eden hesitated before sending a broadcast signaling her location.
The third Entity sent a garbled reply and Eden spent time analyzing it. She was then met by the third Entity who rammed against her in an ancient tradition meant to exchange shards. She worked to salvage key shards and give ones she could afford to lose on to the other Entity. Eden and the third Entity broke apart before Scion broadcasted his concern.[10]
Eden sent a confident response back and allowed Scion to take over some of her duties before she looked through her new shards.[10] After looking through them, she began to form a simulacrum of the host species, set out criteria for an optimal future, and then looked for a future that matched that optimal future.[11]
Scion interrupts the simulation, asking about their destination, and Eden absently agrees. She thinks on the future she had seen and starts to refine it. She reorganizes herself as she approaches their destination and sends Scion a confident reply when he expresses concern. Eden continues to work on her reorganization until she hits the ground.[9]
On the way down, Eden alters one of the third Entities' shards, replacing her own ability to find the optimal future. She realizes that she has made a mistake too late to fix it, and hits the ground hard at one world's version of Cote D'ivoire, Africa.[23][24]
Later, Eden starts to pull herself together. She starts to experiment as she works to create a humanoid avatar. After some time, she raises her head and opened her eyes to see Fortuna standing before her. She realizes that Fortuna possessed the shard she had discarded and restricts it - rendering her and others like her immune to the shard's future-seeing power.[25] Eden then dismissed Fortuna before it continued to create her avatar and bent over.
A woman would help Fortuna drive a knife into the avatar's neck, causing the entity to struggle and fail to form its body.[26] Severing this connection when Eden was most vulnerable dealt the critical blow to the entity.[27]
Legacy[]
Eden did not immediately die; she was effectively left in a coma.[27] As she was in an interim state where she had not distributed or discarded nearly enough of her powers, Cauldron could harvest her body as a source of serums to give people powers by connecting them to Eden's shards.[28] By 1982, this harvesting process truly killed Eden[29] as Cauldron took away the powers she needed to survive.[30]
Although the Thinker focused on holding its shards in reserve[31] to deploy them as needed to make the optimal future a reality, the entity did discard some shards to avoid dwarfing the planet upon arrival.[12][9] In 1982, Scion initially destroyed many of these shards on sight as they were dead and would fail to provide usable results.[32] However, he soon stopped bothering once he found out that his partner was truly dead:[33] his partner's death left him emotionally crushed and deeply depressed.[34] Thus, it is possible for the rare natural trigger to have an Eden shard, such as Vikare[35] and Leet.[36] Valkyrie notes that some of these triggers had shards with a more malicious design intended to break their hosts: an example is the man forced to create the Tower.[5]
Gold Morning[]
Scion found her body; Taylor speculated he used his precognition ability to find a world where he would find his partner, unaware that she was harvested for powers.[37] He began destroying her body; however, the PRT Strike team led by Taylor was able to use the body one more time to psychologically wound him.[38] Throughout Gold Morning, the human forces repeatedly used several other imitations of Eden's body to torment Scion.
Chapter Appearances[]
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Trivia[]
- The name "Eden" is not used anywhere in Worm to refer to the Thinker. It was proposed by a fan in the comments and subsequently used by Wildbow as a character tag for the respective interlude.
- The image of a 'flesh garden,' or mass of miscellaneous body parts, as in Eden's form at her death, occurs elsewhere in Worm, notably in Glory Girl's form after Amy forgets how to properly heal her. The resemblance between these forms has been confirmed not to be a coincidence.[39]
- Had Eden been the one who survived she would similarly be emotionally crushed and greatly depressed, though still smarter about her interventions than her mate.[16]
Fanart Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 The counterpart is supposed to be the passive figure, the thinker, the planner, while this entity is the warrior, the protector. The entity is forced to make up for the counterpart’s disability, to slow its advance through the void as they approach their destination and devote resources to analyzing, something the other should be doing instead. - Excerpt from Interlude 26
- ↑ The stairwell was buried under chunks of concrete and steel large and heavy enough to flatten trucks, but the ceiling was high, and the gap in it gave me a view of the chamber beyond, lit by the red emergency lights. My view of Scion was obstructed by the rubble on the stairs, but I saw the golden glow that he cast off.
He was so small, so far away.
The partner, so massive. - Excerpt from Venom 29.8 - ↑ The other thought was that this was the other body. It was the second entity’s body, the part he would have shown us.
“Scion’s counterpart?” I asked. “It was putting together a human body.” - Excerpt from Venom 29.8 - ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 “My instinct is to think back to the second entity. Scion’s partner. Alternately called Gaea or Eden, depending on who you ask. We raided the Cauldron base during Gold Morning, hoping to do something very similar to what you’re doing now, hoping to get answers, and trying to deal with some ongoing obstacles. For us, it was the person controlling the portals who was out of action. Anyway, before we got to Gaea-Eden, there was an area with a ton of Cauldron’s vials. The chemicals they were handing out to give people powers and establish a power base that wasn’t connected to Scion.” - Infrared 19.7
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 The entire body tensed. The man’s body arched, belly reaching toward the ceiling, and then he gagged. With choking coughs and a smell of burned flesh, he deposited white hot metal onto the floor of his lab. Mechanical hands slid it across the floor.
The Scholar, Valkyrie thought, before she even properly looked. Scion had been the warrior, but he hadn’t been alone.
The Scholar was long gone, but the fragments that had made her her were still out there. There were some with a more malicious design, intent on breaking their hosts. Specific, dangerous hosts. - Interlude 9 II - ↑ 6.0 6.1 Eden was the scholar, Scion the soldier. They had the same tools, but emphasized different ones. So picture Eden taking the primary tools that Scion had and giving them to a tinker so the human could use human ingenuity to explore those tools. Naturally it would be paced out by needing to design and tinker and find materials, using those materials in a sorta kludgy way (ie. have to carry the items, pull triggers, type stuff in), and would have some limitations she tacked on. Except she broke down before she could tailor the restriction part, leading to a vial giving some Scion Lite tools to an otherwise unrestricted tinker, who then joined/helped form an organization that gave him endless materials. That's Hero. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
- ↑ This isn't a controlled, everything-in-isolation 'fair' experiment. This is very much a hot mess, everything-playing-off-of-everything type experiment. They're looking for interplay, interactions, invention in response to specific stimuli, and to pit unreasonable forces against others. If you have something as important as executive function and communication, or your best version of invincibility, or a 'perfect' set of powers that should be unbeatable? You can throw it out there into the wild, with a species given strong incentive to hack, test, or break your best, and find the holes that need to be patched (or the tools/combination of factors that can unravel something you thought was decided/perfect). Push comes to shove, you've got a Scholar and a Warrior ready to step in to fine-tune or wipe the slate clean, so to speak.
So it's fine to have a Jack out there, as a chaotic pollutant, especially when his cape kill count isn't that high, all considered. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles - ↑ “You don’t have a name for it?” Cuff asked.
“I was only recently made aware it existed,” the Number Man said. “The Doctor played things close to the vest. I’d be open to suggestions.”
“Fuckster,” Imp offered. - Excerpt from Venom 29.8 - ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 The gravity of the planetary bodies pull at it. It loses great clumps of shards.
It loses more. Its focus is now on holding on to the shards critical to making this future it has seen a reality. A world perpetually in conflict, the groups and factions kept small enough that none can challenge it.
All energy it can spare goes towards the reorganization. Shards must be discarded, or it will dwarf the destination planet. It casts shards off, and it retains shards that will allow it to draw power from those shards.
Danger, the Warrior broadcasts.
Confident, this entity responds.
It picks a reality. Up until the moment it hits ground, it works to reorganize itself. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 The lesser one crossed paths with the entity’s counterpart. For a duration, they intertwined, meeting through multiple realities, their bodies rubbing and crushing against one another.
A sharing of details, a wealth of knowledge, from hundreds of cycles. A sacrifice of the same.
The lesser one moves on, bloated with new shards and knowledge, but the counterpart flounders.
It sacrificed too much.
Concern.
Confident.
The counterpart is not worried. The signal carries notes of hope for the future. The counterpart will replenish its shards, its stores of knowledge, memories and abilities at the conclusion of this cycle, reuniting with the entity. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 - ↑ 11.0 11.1 It can use its strengths, the Warrior’s strengths, and the host’s natures to explore new ideas and tactics for approaching the endpoint.
Already, this entity is forming a model, a simulacrum of the host species, mapping out how things might unfold. While the Warrior is preparing to shed its shards and litter the world, this entity is plotting a strategic approach.
It cannot make out what form it or the other entity will take, but it can still view the situation in part. It sets the criteria for an optimal future, for optimal study, and then it looks to a future that matches this criteria. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ 12.0 12.1 An optimal future. It is an unwieldy future because it gave up a part of its ability to see the future to the other being. There are holes, because this entity does not fully understand the details of what happened, and because this entity’s future-sight power is damaged. Above all else, it is an incomplete future because this entity has only the most minimal role in things, and the shards it saw were all the Warrior’s.
The fact that it did not is a part of that future. This entity will arrive at the destination, and it will deploy shards to complicate a situation and break stalemates. Losing sides will be granted reinforcements through maturing shards. A different sort of engagement, a different way of testing the shards. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ Oliver got more of the Balance formula; the formula that helped to avoid the Case 53 situation, the part of Eden that, had things gone according to plan, would have shaped Eden's humanity. - Wildbow on SV
- ↑ “You have your hands full,” Clarent said.
The entity nodded. It feigned a moment of weariness, assuring these individuals it was merely human.
“Thank you,” Partisan said. He extended a hand.
The entity roused itself from the mock-exhaustion, straightening, and shook the hand.
“We need to go,” the entity said. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ 15.0 15.1 A power the entity held in reserve identified something wrong. The entity turned and looked at its partner, standing slightly behind it, taciturn and silent. They exchanged the smallest of broadcasts.
A consensus was reached between them. Arsenal knew something about the superweapons, or he suspected strongly enough for it to matter.
“What is it?” Clarent asked.
The entity responded, feigning emotion, “…There are eleven more.”
It could see the reaction among the gathered heroes of the Wardens. Fear, alarm, a kind of dawning horror.
For Arsenal, though, there was another reaction. He was upset, yes, but was a little relieved at the same time. He knew about the others, and he had been testing them, to see if they would lie.
But suspicions remained.
[...]
The entity trailed off. It could see Arsenal’s suspicions growing deeper. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 Eden would be smarter about it, if still lost and indiscriminate. For her methodology, I'll refer you to this blurb:
- Eden!Earth is broken up into xenophobic groups, any alliance with outside groups turns out disastrous. For the most part, ethnic groups and countries are independent, defending their own borders, but there's often further divisions within said group, with villains and/or civilians against totalitarian states, or some such. Major countries with high population are often divided further (as we see in the interlude). If people start forming alliances/peace and Eden sees it as too much trouble to sabotage, then she sics an Endbringer Lite on them, and then works with the remains.
- Eden's tinkers aren't so limited in mass production and often outfit armies, which helps to spur things on. In key places, shards for cloning, plant and population growth, and resource production shards are deposited, to help crushed areas revive. Eden might liken it to pruning a tree - except she's pruning humanity to produce maximum conflict without utterly destroying it.
- If Eden!Earth falls, she moves on to another, with a different tactic, or she sets things up for one earth to fight another - with seeds already planted here and there. - Scion vs Eden (Wildbow, Reddit.com, 2015-08-26)
- Eden!Earth is broken up into xenophobic groups, any alliance with outside groups turns out disastrous. For the most part, ethnic groups and countries are independent, defending their own borders, but there's often further divisions within said group, with villains and/or civilians against totalitarian states, or some such. Major countries with high population are often divided further (as we see in the interlude). If people start forming alliances/peace and Eden sees it as too much trouble to sabotage, then she sics an Endbringer Lite on them, and then works with the remains.
- ↑ In the beginning, a species chokes their gray planet. Here and there, landmasses appear, created by inhabitants to trap or uncover the scarce food that exists, but the landscape is largely liquid, water thick with silt and other particles. The creatures worm in and around one another, and the planet has as much space taken up by the creatures as there is space left for other things. - Excerpt from Interlude 26
- ↑ But others made contact with other worlds.
A world with life rooted in landmasses, weathering brutal storms of caustic acid. The one who arrives on that world struggles to find a means of survival.
It finds refuge in one of the dying plant structures, provides ambient heat to nourish it, so that the openings might close up and the shelter be made more secure. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 - ↑ It encounters another. A later arrival to the same planet, a member of its own species, another that is multiplying and consuming and growing. This new arrival chose a different means of survival, but it too chose a kind of parasitism.
They exchange shards where they meet. In these shards are codified memories, as well as the most effective techniques they have observed.
The planetoid is small, the range of options limited. A message is broadcast. Mutual agreement. They will move on.
Migration. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 - ↑ But something else occurs. A broadcast from the other, followed by an attack.
A carefully measured attack. The two creatures ruin one another with friction and pressure, burning hot, and shards are destroyed. Many are partially destroyed.
The other creature joins shards together into combinations, discards and destroys. Repeats the process.
New shards are created. Different functions. Forced mutation. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 - ↑ The next world encountered has sentient life, civilization. A complicated, rich world.
It is a symbiosis, this time, more than parasitism. The two species learn from one another. The shards code the ‘technology’ of this new species into their memories. They learn of warping space and gravity.
[...]
The cycle is cut short by a forced exit, as the shards are rooted out and destroyed by the natives of this civilized world. They meet, they bind and again they share ideas. Richer perceptions, complex technologies and more are fashioned in the unity of three larger creatures. It is through differences in the greater entities that a richness is created, new derivations, new connections that none would be capable of on their own.
The planet is expended, the offspring are cast off in every direction once again.
This time, they are capable of moving, of controlling their course. Gravity, warping space. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 - ↑ After more than three thousand cycles, there are safeguards, there are protections. The arsenal of abilities, powers and protections the creature possesses have been built up. The entity remembers past failures and has adapted so they will not happen again.
The entities travel with partners now, moving in spirals while maintaining a measured distance from one another. Each is slightly different from the other, taking on a different role. Attacker and defender, warrior and thinker, builder and destroyer.
This divide is so they are able to take a different stance, shape their shards in subtle ways and clarify the results when their shards are compared and joined once again – some shall be kept, others discarded. Some will turn up interesting possibilities that can be explored when new shards are invented at the cycle’s end. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 - ↑ In the doing, it alters one of the third entity’s powers, replacing its own ability to find the optimal future.
In that very instant, it recognizes that it has made a grave error. The simulated world and the glimpse of the optimal future are already gone from its grasp. Too late.
The perspective changes, breaking away, distant, confused, detached. The impact was too hard. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ Cote D'ivoire, early 1980s, alternate earth with doors to Contessa's world and to Doctor Mother's. They limited access to the doors and later built the complex around her. - Wildbow's comment on Reddit
- ↑ And the gray fog descended on her mind, blinding her. A barrier, a blind spot, a future she could no longer see. Had it set the limitation more firmly in place?
The godling smiled. It knew, because the power she was using was the same power it had used to glimpse the future, to find that particular future where it had the world divided, drowned in conflict.
As far as the godling was concerned, she was blind, as helpless as anyone else. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ The woman behind her took hold of the fist that held the knife. She stepped forward, driving the knife down, as if she were an extension of Fortuna.
Plunging into the spot where the spine met the skull.
They fell from the hand, dangled for a moment by their grip on the knife. It cut free, and they dropped to the ground.
Fortuna let one leg fold, pushing at the ground with the other. She rolled, breaking the fall. The woman fell a little harder.
The entity moved, and everything around them stirred. A thousand hands, a thousand arms, not all attached to the hands, legs, feet, ears, eyes, faces without features, expanses of skin, they twitched and writhed.
The noise around them faded, the heartbeats going still, the breathing quieting. The movements all around them stopped. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ 27.0 27.1 There was only the thing, hanging in mid-air, struggling to form itself and failing. It breathed in rapid huffs, in obvious pain.
It wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t alive. A connection had been severed in a moment where the godling was most vulnerable.
The woman spoke.
“Again? The heart?”
But Fortuna was sure this was it. They’d carried out the last step. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ Ten vials, to start. Five hours to prepare each vial. To saw off the body part, to find a way to break it down, then to package it. Each vial correlated with a specific map coordinate and they took photos to record every step of the way, to ensure no clue was missed.
Then they’d found ten patients, who had downed vials in separate rooms. People who’d been terminally ill.
Six made it out.
Contessa watched them, saw the beaming smiles on five faces. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ “I can. I’ve been thinking about it. What is the key thing about the one we killed?”
[...]
“I felt the hostility. I felt how the one we killed, in the vision it had of the future, it almost enjoyed doing what it was doing. If the golden one is similar at all, then all it takes is an accident.”
[...]
“So our solution… it’s going to take one of two forms. Either we break him, somehow, or we find something we can use in the broken parts of the one we killed.”
“Feeding it to people.” - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ “He’s killing it.”
“It’s already dead,” the Number Man said.
“He’s killing it deader,” I said.
“Granted,” the Number Man said. He sighed. “There’s nothing left in it. She took powers it had probably planned to give to others, distilled them. Then she dug in other places, and she took powers it needed to subsist. It died and went still.” - Excerpt from Venom 29.8 - ↑ They are more engaged now, as they close the distance. They negotiate who can place shards where, and this entity now holds its shards in reserve.
The Warrior is focusing on refining the shards, and this entity is, in turn, focused on refining the future. A set goal, a reality.
Too complex to convey to the other. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ It can see its shards showering down from above like meteors traveling the void. The first to arrive.
It can see the shards of the counterpart.
Not all are intact.
Dead shards. Damaged ones. Vital shards, even, going to hosts.
The entity destroys these on sight. They are corrupt, ruined. They will fail to provide usable results. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 - ↑ Extending its perception over the world and other realities, the entity can sense everything at once. It can sense conflict. Wars.
It remains aware of its limited lifespan. Three thousand and six hundred revolutions. To search like this costs a tenth of one revolution’s time. There is more than enough remaining before the cycle concludes.
Or there should be.
The entity abandons the search. Enough information has been obtained for it to know.
The counterpart is dead. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 - ↑ In seeking to understand the host creatures, the entity had coded shards to emulate them. It is those same shards that experience the entity’s first ever emotion.
Crushed.
The entity comes to experience a deep, profound sadness, for the very first time. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 - ↑ The entity sees a shard already taking root in one of the vehicle’s passengers. One of the dead shards, damaged. The entity’s vision allows it to see the man’s inside, the damage. He is dying of a systemic issue in his body, producing the wrong type of cells in the wrong places.
The entity reaches out, feels others touch his hand before the male finally makes contact. A simple wavelength serves to kill specific cells.
The shard will grow now, damaged as it is. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 - ↑ Wildbow: Some shards are damaged. Or 'dead'. Which isn't saying he's Cauldron.
But I've digressed/derailed enough. Bob's thread. No more on that subject. - Wildbow on Spacebattles - ↑ “And Scion?”
“Scion’s occupied,” I said.
Scion was cupping the face of his counterpart. The figure, no doubt grey skinned as the body parts that made up this area, was slack jawed.
He looked for futures where he’d find his counterpart, I thought. This was one of them… just not what he wanted or expected. Probably not even something he thought was possible. - Excerpt from Venom 29.8 - ↑ “Sveta,” I said. “Now.”
She anchored herself on three different areas. Then she grabbed the burning corpse.
She flung it at Scion.
Can’t hurt him physically.
Maybe emotionally.
He reeled, perhaps a little stunned. - Excerpt from Venom 29.8 - ↑ Funny how parallels appear. Almost as if Panacea had been recreating something from something she saw in a trigger event. - Comment from Wildbow
[]
| Entities | Abaddon • Eden † • Scion † |
|---|---|
| Shards | Anguished Heart • Fragile One • Grasping Self |