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The Cycle is a process undergone by the Entities, whereby they visit different planets and grant superpowers to the inhabitants. The cycle has been repeated over three thousand times.[1]

Prelude[]

As the Entities approach new planets, they look into the future to observe how the Shards they shed from their mass will interact with the local life-forms. Modifications are then made to the Shards in response to the observed future, in order to make them compatible with their soon-to-be hosts. Modifications are also made to prevent some Shards from being used against the Entities.[1][2]

The Shards are cast off across alternate realities, sometimes targeted towards specific individuals. Once the Shards are cast off from the Entity they are largely independent, although the Entities retain the ability to connect to and modify their Shards. Once a host is chosen the Shard is sequestered in an alternate, barren, world where it processes the complexities of the power and serves as an energy source. By doing so the Shard remains safe from damage, with its only connection to the host existing through the Corona Pollentia.[1] These cast-offs create the Shardspace the shards use to communicate.

Events[]

Beginning[]

At the beginning of the cycle, the Entities create artificial avatars in the shape of the host species. Scion is one such avatar. They are designed with the psychology and societies of the host species in mind. These avatars retain a small fraction of the Entity's power and a few particularly powerful and flexible Shards, enough to overwhelm the entire host species and all their powers if need be, adopting complementary roles.[1]

Middle[]

The cast-off Shards connect to hosts, raining down steadily over the course of three hundred years. When hosts die, they reconnect to a new host. In addition, once they have accumulated enough information, they fragment and send off the bud to connect to a new host.

Each host the Shards connect to is granted powers, a small fraction of the Shard's true potential. Some Shards are specifically targeted to individuals who will cause conflict or prop up a collapsing host species if need be. Other possible hosts are noticed by shard which alerts the larger shard network of their 'finds'.

All the various powers interacting with each other is meant to be a managed, though not outright controlled, chaos.[3]

The avatars watch over the cycle, posing as particularly powerful hosts and intervening in society to prevent events that could disrupt the cycle. They act to shape the host society to maximize the information gathered. Events they act to prevent include:

  • Mass emigration into space.
  • Large-scale loss of life.
  • Realization of the Entities' role in things.

On at least one occasion, the Entities intended to prevent long-distance communication on the target planet, divide them into factions engaged in endless war, and place powerful "superweapons" in key locations.

If the hosts end up wiping out all life on their planet, the Entities move on to another reality.[4] In fact the Entities themselves might do so if things become too unruly.[3]

End[]

Toward the end of the cycle, most of the host species have powers and multitriggers are much more common, stress-testing subtle variations in the powers granted.[5]

Once the cycle is complete, the Entities take back their powers and exterminate the host species. This requires both Entities.

There then follows a period where they stress test the powers they have gathered, and incorporate information gathered from the host species.[6] The information will be used in later cycles.[7]

They then channel all the energy from every reality they exist in into a single reality, obliterating the planet. This explosion echoes through the connections between realities they've formed and destroys every possible version of that planet. The Entities separate into hundreds of armored Shards, which ride the shock wave in pairs toward new destinations. The energy of this explosion is absorbed and stored, and will form their power source for the next cycle.

The Entities then travel in pairs through space toward new destinations, looping in double-helix patterns through space by manipulating gravity.

Past Examples[]

Fanart Gallery[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Interlude 26
  2. The entity altered each power he granted to give them certain restrictions. No power would be able to truly affect him, no power would cross the boundaries he set in dimension, or in affecting other powers. - Excerpt from Venom 29.7
  3. 3.0 3.1 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. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  4. Some of the others departed early. Others were readied to depart soon after arrival. Still others, this one included, were to wait.

    They were one, they were all. A collective, a single entity, a trillion times a trillion entities. Each with a function in the whole, each with a role in the cycles, each with an individual identity.

    As one, they traveled. The distance was immeasurable, the passage of time impossible to convey. There was no standard, for there were realms they had traveled where time and space operated on different levels.

    For all, their own kind was the only standard, the only thing that remained relatively static through the cycles. When they met their own kind they shared with each other. When a new cycle was carried out, everything of the parent was borne by their spawn.

    And the collective moved toward their destination. They operated as a whole to decipher it, to pick apart the permutations, see the futures and the possibilities.

    But for this one entity, which existed as part of the whole, there was a target within that destination. When it came time for this one to depart, it would seek out a particular individual, and it would bond with that individual. This one would fragment itself if others met the criteria; if there was time and opportunity enough then it would move to better candidates, younger or more able ones with a greater ability to affect the cycle. This one would wait until the time was right, and then it would activate, come into the identity and role that had been ingrained into its being.

    All to serve this cycle.

    With the help of the collective, this one could see its objective. A single living being. This one encoded that being, the time and place in its very makeup. It would be ready. - Excerpt from Interlude 18
  5. Multiple triggers are actually the endgame of the cycle, prior to the reabsorption and collapse. When virtually all individuals in the setting are parahumans, connected to shards, the introduction of multiple-triggers serves to stress-test powers and compare and contrast the smaller powers. - Weaver Dice Rulebook
  6. Panda: I think he means, since the Entities have shards related to former societies/races they've encountered
    What would they get from humans

    Wildbow: Less about developing new shards and more about finding creative ways to use the powers they do have. But more knowledge about the brain might point more toward telepathy
    Assuming there's a relative lack of super intelligent life, it'd help crack all brains or brain-like structures they ran into in the future. - IRC chat archived on Spacebattles.
  7. Think about stuff shards are bad at handling. Dreams are a big one. Probably get into mind reading for better simulations. Social behaviors. - Wildbow on Reddit
  8. Interlude 12.all
  9. From Within 16.9
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