Origins

In the beginning, were the Divine.

Well, not quite in the beginning.  In the thirty odd systems the Divine would eventually populate and influence, there already existed intelligent beings, at various stages of their development.  Two had already begun to explore the confines of their respective solar systems; a handful had gotten a little further beyond banging the rocks together, and yet others were in the water, eyeing land and thinking how much easier it would be to get something interesting going, if they could only crawl out.

It would thus be more accurate to say that a lot of things began with the arrival of the Divine.  No-one has the faintest idea where they came from, no-one knows why they came, but they brought three important things with them : their quarrels; their existential and physical negative, known as chaos; and an annoying but ultimately useful inclination to meddle with other relatively intelligent life as a means to further their own, obscure goals.

The latter fairly propulsed such intelligent life as existed in all thirty systems into the realms of civilisation.  In those where life had been in more primitive form, evolved a bipedal species that was commonly known as humans, and who very arrogantly presumed that the Divine had made them in their own image. The truth was much more embarrassing, but the Divine never saw any need to utter it.  In those systems where natural evolution had already done the trick, lived other species.  Humans rather arrogantly referred to them as "non-humans", which was a particularly ridiculous viewpoint that might have cast more light on the origins of humans themselves, if they had ever stopped to think about it.

No matter.  The practical upshot is that by no less than three hundred million years after the arrival of the Divine, thirty-odd systems in one particular corner of the galaxy were populated by intelligent species that had reached out into space.  Their own, at first, that of the various planets, moons and asteroids circling their own sun or suns.  Eventually, that of others; for interstellar space travel, whose science no-one seriously claims to understand, is possible; it is however very difficult, exceptionally painful and dramatically perilous.  Any individual in their right mind would avoid it altogether, but it is exceptionally profitable, and so they frequently do not.

It is difficult, painful and perilous, because every where that the reach of the Divine might extend, but where intelligent life cannot thrive, Chaos reigns.  It thrives where neutron stars crush everything that is within their grasp, where pulsars irradiate every celestial body in proximity with deadly radiation, where giants expand and engulf everything they once nurtured; and it thrives in the space between stars, both visible and invisible, the medium through which interstellar travel tunnels.  Chaos does not sleep, and those who which to travel through it can only pray that it is currently looking elsewhere.  

 

They are unique, each one of the thirty-odd systems in which the Divine hold Chaos at bay.  They do, however, have certain things in common.

Each system houses a group of the Divine, ensconced in an artificial planet around which the system's sun quickly bent to orbit.  Their numbers vary wildly : in the Brahman System, there appear to be thousands of them; in the Eden System, there are only three, two, one, or about fifty thousand, depending on who you ask.

What the Divine look like, nobody can agree upon, and it is widely thought they have no true physical existence in our plane, and can hence appear as they would like.  What their goals are, nobody knows.   The different groups of the Divine definitely do not mix well together, and some conjecture that this is why they came to this part of the galaxy in the first place : each to their own, so to speak.  If that was their reasoning, they didn't completely work it through, since within any one system the Divine do not seem to get on too well either.  There generally appears to be one father figure - in the human systems, at least, in those populated by other species, there is less need for such biased gender characterisation - and a whole lot of turbulent spouses and offspring.  Or perhaps it is all just a couple of beings with serious and untreated schizophrenia, who knows ?

Nobody knows anything.  All that they can do is believe.  Belief as a means to try to make sense of what is the foundation of the order of their particular universe.  Some civilisations, in some systems, even believe that they can bend the Divine to their will by speaking to them, directly or through appropriately identified intermediaries, with or without various props sacralised by lost traditions, but always with eyes raised or hands pointed to where the Divines' artificial planet drags their sun(s) and all their attendant celestial bodies about it.

There are some things that are absolutely certain, because they can be definitely measured.  The first is that the Divine have the ability to more or less bend the forces of the universe to their will, and it is generally believed, and there is good evidence, for the fact that not all Divine are equal in this respect, and that not all are as proficient in every field.  Some, for example, like to manipulate electromagnetic fields, creating anything ranging from solar flares to devastating lightning storms : like the Divine that the inhabitants of the Hellas System call Zeus, or those of the Enuma Elish System label Adad.  Others like to mess with gravity waves, creating ripples of space time as easily as they create whirlpools in the middle of otherwise calm oceans.  Zeus' comrade Poseidon is of such a bent.  Yet others seem to be able to manipulate life at a molecular level, causing all kinds of sudden and unexpected effects.  Remaining within the Hellas System for the sake of coherency, that would be Aphrodite.  

Why they do this ?  Nobody knows.

The aim of it, however, is almost certainly to push key or random individuals, or entire groups of intelligent beings, in one direction or another.  The practical consequences of it all, for the intelligent species that try to get on with their lives in the thirty-odd star systems, range from the entirely unnoticeable to the absolutely earth-shakingly dramatic.  People, whomever they are, generally prefer to live through the former periods than the latter, because there is literally nothing they can do about it once it starts.  They can only hang on to the proverbial cliff-edge with their metaphorically slipping fingers, and hope not to be among the millions to perish.

Worshipping the Divine has universally proven to be something that intelligent peoples can actually do to stop the unstoppable from actually starting.  There have been various theories put forward as to why this works.  These range from attributing compassion to the Divine, to suggesting that they in some way benefit from eating or inhaling the offerings made to them, to notions that they like to judge dead people, and welcome the worthy into their home in the sky.  I would say don't tell anybody it is baloney, but a lot of them are already quite enlightened and have already figured it out.  That said, making weird noises in architecturally impressive buildings is not as useless as some cynical societies suggest.  It actually has the same effect on the Divine as the bright and harmonious colours and cute shape of a butterfly has on intelligent observers.  They reminds us that it is there, and that there are perceived moral consequences for stepping on it.

A certain number of intelligent beings would go ahead and step on the butterfly anyway, especially if it was in the way of some material advantage, and that, at least, the mortal inhabitants of this corner of the galaxy and the Divine, have in common.

Welcome to this particular corner of the galaxy and I do pray that have a pleasant stay.