Space Gods of the Timescape

The nature and origin of the gods of the timescape is not well understood. Unlike the gods of Orden, the Space Gods are corporeal beings, usually of immense—even planetary—size. Some are humanoid, others, like Nebular the Star Mother and XXAXX, decidedly not so.

They have godlike power—greater it seems than the Innumerable Younger Gods. But there is no evidence that they can create whole realities like the Elder Gods. They are not, as far as sages can make out, the authors of the worlds or people of the timescape. They may represent the last survivors of previous realities, High Science experiments run amok, or ascended beings from ancient civilizations who outlasted the fall of their people.

Rather than moral principles, the Space Gods represent abstract concepts and often alien points of view. They are more inscrutable than the gods of Orden, more capricious in their dealings with mortals. In some ways more accessible. In others, more dangerous.

Only a handful of those who dwell on Orden have ever heard of these figures, or know that the stars are anything other than pinholes in the curtain of night.

Lords of Law and Chaos

The Space Gods do not concern themselves overmuch with what humans call "ethics." They embody older principles—order, chaos, balance. Each faction thinks their fundamental principles are morality. The universe needs stability, predictability, say the Lords of Law. The only constant is change, say the Lords of Chaos. The truth lies between, say the Lords of Balance.

Heralds of the Space Gods

Whether it is a tradition or some real limitation, each Space God has, instead of saints, a single herald—a mortal chosen to be the voice of the Space God and communicate with their worshippers where the god themself cannot due to their alien mind.

These heralds function much the same way as saints. They grant conduits and censors power in battle, but without the moral expectations of Orden's gods. The Space Gods themselves are more capricious, but their heralds often arrive in person to aid their followers and take an active interest in the mortal affairs of the timescape.

Religion in the Timescape

The people of the timescape know and believe in their gods just like the people of Orden do. There are churches throughout the worlds to Quasax the Ultra Nova, temples to Mynoth the Way. Even XXAXX the Anti-God has his worshippers: the Cult of Undoing.

But most citizens of the timescape do not carry the gods with them in their daily lives the way the people of Orden do. The gods of the timescape are powerful and reward their worshippers, but they are remote and unknowable. Most denizens of the upper worlds view a church as just another kind of shop. A place to go to renew your soul and speak the rites that your parents spoke. For many denizens of the upper worlds, religion is more of a cultural phenomenon than a way of life.

The closest analog to worship in Orden to be found in the upper worlds would be in Alloy, the City at the Center of the Timescape. The great port city where civilizations across the timescape come to trade is also a city of temples. Temples to every god and saint and hero and herald in the timescape—some dead, some forgotten—can be found somewhere in the ancient city's limits. Folk from Orden arriving in Alloy (an incredibly rare event, as it takes enormous energies to lift one's ship up out of the slow-time of the lower words) remark at how familiar Alloy seems to them. It is a city where the upper and lower worlds mingle and steel sabers sometimes cross with swords made of hard light.

Nebular the Star Mother

Domains: Creation, Life, Love, Sun

The Queen of Suns. A living nebula. Desperate ships in need sometimes find themselves enveloped within Nebular, their systems repairing, their injuries healing.

She is a stellar nursery leaving a trail of infant stars in her wake. Hers is the Engine of Law transforming darkness into light, chaos into order. She is the most popular god among the memonek and the senior god among the Lords of Law insofar as their hierarchy can be discerned by mortal minds.

She is the goddess of creation and for some of her followers, life itself, as her children's energies feed all life on all worlds. Her priests teach that life is the opposite of entropy, and the natural byproduct of her solar incubator.

The Calling of Lady Magnetar

Domains: Life, Sun

Captain Kalisdrossa was the leader of Sword Squadron an elite cadre of legendary UNISOL fighter pilots. Her crew believed unwaveringly that with Kalisdrossa as their leader, though one or two may perish in battle, the squadron would always come home.

In the legendary Battle of Cassiar IV against Grotenhulk the Evolver, flagship of the protean fleet, the protean mutate-commander Oruth-phor intended to break Sword Squadron's winning streak, and from the body of PCS Grotenhulk, a giant swam of living drone-sprites, each specially evolved to seek and destroy UNISOL Arrestor-class ships, spawned.

Sword Squadron's meson repeaters were too imprecise to target the tiny drone-sprites. Not only were the pilots unable to carry out their orders, they were being picked off one by one. Many privately believed this was the final flight of Sword Squadron.

When one of her pilots dropped his countermeasures and temporarily distracted the swarm, Captain Kalisdrossa had a flash of insight. Seeing an opportunity to destroy the swarm, save her crew, and give them a fighting chance to complete their mission, she ordered Sword Squadron to ignore the drone and proceed with their attack on the protean flagship.

Her wingman sent back, "The drones will kill us before we're halfway there!"

"No they won't," she responded—and then sent her last message. "Squad, you have your orders. First lieutenant Vachsimnatta is in command. Kalisdrossa out."

As her squad peeled away to begin their final run at the protean capital ship, Kalisdrossa dropped all her countermeasures and flipped on her turbothrusters, believing the overheating engines would ignite the metal sensor-chaff she had jettisoned.

Her instincts were precise and correct. The resulting chemonuclear reaction generated so much light and heat—the entire swarm of drone sprites turned to pursue Sword-1.

There was only one place to lead them. The surface of Cassiar Prime was a boiling sea of plasma condensate powerful enough to rip planets apart. "It should make short work of these drones," Captain Kalisdrossa thought.

Sword-1 plunged into the fermionic sea, the hull boiling away moments before impact. A million drone-sprites followed into oblivion. Commander Oruth-phor howled his fury into empty space and ordered his ship to envelop the UNISOL capital ship, literally swallow it whole. Grotenhulk the Evolver understood the command and knew it was suicide, but the ship was compelled to obey.

Watching the great maw of the living changeship open to swallow an entire flagship struck terror into every memonek in the fleet.

Then, crackling across every signal unit, a voice. "COME FORTH LADY MAGNETAR, CHOSEN OF THE MOTHER OF STARS." And out of the blue plasma sea that was the surface of the star Cassiar Prime arose a figure, humanoid, made of solid boiling plasma.

It was Kalisdrossa, still wearing the helmet that marked her captain of Sword Squadron, holding in her hand the blue-topaz Fusion Rod—a powerful artifact that would serve as her weapon, and the symbol of her office as Herald of Nebular.

Lady Magnetar flew across the void of space at lightning speed, evaporating protean fighters as she went. Until finally she faced Grotenhulk the Evolver, his maw poised to envelop the UNISOL capital ship.

She punched a hole right through the hullskin of the changeship and battled her way, deck by deck, toward the heart of the beast. Though a thousand protean soldiers stood in her way, none could touch her or slow her relentless progress.

The memonek officers and soldiers of UNISOL watched the bleeding changeship convulse, then explode as brilliant shafts of blue light tore the ship apart. Ending the Battle of Cassiar IV.

Lady Magnetar is the Herald of Nebulon the Star Mother aiding those who fight in the cause of light and life and order. She is invoked whenever a great sacrifice must be made. "Lady Magnetar, let my sacrifice not be in vain."

OV the Wave Pilot

Domains: Fate, Knowledge, Storm, Sun

OV the Wave Pilot, the Navigator, an enigmatic humanoid figure described as masculine, appears to live inside the pilot-wave. In those rare instances where a mortal is directly exposed to the energies that propel ships across the sea of stars, they occasionally report seeing a figure that matches the description of OV.

Lost ships sometimes find their navigation systems lighting up, a clear path home suddenly visible where no such path was possible before. OV aids those who are lost regardless of their affiliation with law or chaos, and is one of the Lords of Balance. His herald works to stop conflicts by guiding ships around and past routes that might cause them to intercept hostile entities.

OV is the god of navigators and those who seek safe passage through treacherous scenarios. Because he cares little for the politics of the timescape, he is respected by the time raiders, though none would call him or any other being their "god."

When a time raider swears, "OV guide me," the meaning is not, "Show me the right thing to do." But: "Show me a way out of this mess."

The Calling of Cho'kassa the Time Rider

Domains: Storm, Sun

"Take the helm and damn them all!!"

Cho'kassa and her family-clan were prisoners of UNISOL being taken to Ordos, the capital of Axiom for trial on charges of piracy and insurgency. UNISOL, she deemed, made arrests first and invented whichever laws were convenient afterward.

Halfway through their journey, the UNISOL corvette was attacked by a protean heavy patrol vessel. The smaller protean ship latched itself onto the hull of the UNISOL corvette, lamprey-like, and its digestive acids quickly burned a hole in the plasteel, allowing the protean boarding party to invade.

Though the rest of her captured clan believed the proteans had, for some reason, come to free them, Cho'kassa was not so optimistic. Eventually, the boarding party made it to the prison deck and opened the cells. They were evidently as surprised to find the imprisoned kuran'zoi as the time raiders were to be rescued by proteans!

"You were prisoners, now you are our thralls. Obey and earn your freedom."

The rest of her clan were unsure of their options, but Cho'kassa grabbed the protean captain's hardlight pistol out of his hand and shot him in the chest. Her clan were now sure.

With that pistol shot, the fight for the UNISOL corvette became a running battle between three factions. The time raiders stole weapons from the bodies their enemies left behind, and the small band fought their way to the bridge, none knowing what they would do once they got there.

On gaining the bridge, messages blared from every signal receiver. Each side demanding the time raiders join them and defeat their enemies. Many promises and threats were made. The kuran'zoi looked to Cho'kassa.

"Take the helm and damn them all!" she called out. "There must be a way home!" And in that instant, the navigation screens sprung to life. "Look!" her brother said. A route had already been plotted. One that made no literal sense. Was the ship's logic system malfunctioning?

Was there a way out? Could the impossible course on the star chart be trusted? It was a moot point, as the ship was still caught in the grip of the protean's ship's sucker-mouth.

"There is a way" her brother said, but pulling away from the protean ship would require disabling all the safety circuits preventing the star-engine from going into overload. It might damn them all, but for at least a moment, the ship would have enough power to rip itself away from its parasitic attacker.

Cho'kassa ordered her clan to hold the bridge and seal the door behind her, and she fled alone to the engine room. She picked up a protean rifle as she ran, and though she could hear the battle between the memonek and proteans raging, her path was mercifully clear of enemies.

Finally facing the great star-engine of the UNISOL ship, Cho'kassa punched in the override codes, and used her recovered rifle to blast the shielding off the star core. Bathed in brilliant yellow light that was killing her second by second, Cho'kassa leapt off the gangplank across the safety gap, and into the star core itself.

Others thought this a strange way to end one's life. But Cho'kassa had seen the sign of the Wave Pilot when the navigation screens on the bridge came to life, and instinct compelled her. Some insight said that only if she joined with the ship could she save her clan. When her consciousness continued even after the engine disintegrated her body, she knew her faith proved correct.

Now part of the ship itself, Cho'kassa could see the relationship between time and space. The Wave Pilot appeared before her, an enigmatic figure made of gold-green light, and conveyed without words the secret. The dark star, Procellon Beta, warped space and time around it, and that was why the plotted chart that appeared on the bridge could not be understood.

The energies of the wounded star-engine ripped through the ship killing the memonek and proteans onboard, but did not breach the door to the bridge. Cho'kassa piloted her new body with her family nestled safely inside through the course the wave pilot had set.

The harrowing, twisting path brought the ship close to the horizon of the dark star, through an inverted waveform, and they emerged weeks before they set out. Cho'kassa followed the course until it brought them to the UNISOL ship well before the events that led to the capture of her people.

With her clan manning the blaster turrets, Cho'kassa destroyed the memonek ship. Erasing the timeline in which they had originally been captured.

"What just happened?" one kuran'zoi asked. "How can we be here, now?"

The ship returned to manual control. Cho'kassa was no longer the ship. Her brother looked through the viewscreen at the starry sea outside, and said, "Only the stars know."

Cho'kassa the Time Rider is the herald of OV the Wave Pilot invoked by those who are lost and yearn for home. She sometimes appears riding her single-seat metal star bike, the Wavebreaker which she employs as a tug, pulling ships that ventured too close to a dark star out of danger.