Читать книгу Verse and Dimensions: Stories - - Страница 17

The Broken SuperGods are a group of damaged and abnormal Supergods struggling to survive in a small Beyond Bubble located in a Logical Desert near the local Beyond Bubble Cohort. The five (debatably six) currently surviving Broken Supergods are known as Schematus, Abnull, Monopolum (technically a Pygmy Supergod), Binauris and Peralitus, along with a now deceased Supergod known as Barelitil.

When they were discovered, the Broken Supergods' Beyond Bubble was completely drained of energy, which it could not reacquire due to its location in a Logical Desert. It contained a minuscule number of Monocosms and very little life of any kind. The horribly malformed Broken Supergods survive by collecting small amounts of energy from any Transcendent Ecosystem creatures they could find, along with what little Alom was present in the few Monocosms. Monopolum and Binauris are in such a degraded state that they are unable to fend for themselves and must be cared for by Abnull.

However, this was not always the case. All Broken Supergods besides Monopolum have hazy memories of a time (for lack of a better term) in which their lives were much more comparable to the lives of an average group of Supergods in full health. This is until an unknown event which the Broken Supergods call "The Calamity" in which their Beyond Bubble was heavily damaged, a Supergod known as Barelitil was killed and all other Supergods besides Peralitus were greatly altered in mostly negative ways. Strangely, the Broken Supergods have no episodic memories (memories of concrete events or actions) from their life before the Calamity, nor any memories of the events of the Calamity. Their only recollection of life before the event is through semantic memories. (Facts about life and their place in it, along with their relationships with each-other and Barelitil.)

Schematus is obsessed with regaining his lost memories and figuring out what occurred during the Calamity, conducting an absurd number of experiments and investigations, effectively dedicating his life to researching it. Abnull, meanwhile, considers this to be a waste of metatime. She believes the past is irrelevant now and believes what's more important is to survive. Abnull dedicates much of her life to gathering energy for the Broken Supergods and their Beyond Bubble, along with protecting Monopolum and Binauris, who are in constant need of help and care.

Monopolum has a horrible mental condition known as 'Omniscience^0' which makes it completely impossible for Monopolum to comprehend anything besides his own existence. Binauris, meanwhile, is a combination of two Supergods who have had their Godsmoke spliced together into one being. The two Supergods, named Positev and Negatil, are constantly on the verge of collapsing their shared body, which would result in the violent death of both beings.

Peralitus is the only Broken Supergod who was unharmed by the Calamity, however uses none of his energy to help the other Broken Supergods. Peralitus believes the late Barelitil intended him to become a great leader in his name and dedicates most of his life to fantasizing about the incredible feats he will accomplish once he escapes the Logical Desert and reaches the local Cohort.

Discovery

Logical Deserts are inherently inhospitable places, as they are devoid of many valuable logical liquids which are necessary for life to progress beyond simple mortal forms. As such, few would willingly choose to enter one or search for life within. Because of this, the Broken Supergods remained almost completely isolated from all outside Omniscient^2 life prior to the arrival of a Fourth Wall named [O].

[O] was a Fourth Wall living in a Fourth House near the local Cohort and adjacent Logical Desert. Along with two other Fourth Walls known as [R] and [H], [O] created a device known as a Beyond Scanner, the purpose of which was to collect information about the interior of Beyond Bubbles, areas usually inaccessible to Fourth Walls. The first few Beyond Scanners were incredible poorly optimized however, and could only scan exceedingly unstable Beyond Bubbles. One such Beyond Bubble was isolated in the middle of the Logical Desert.

The strange results from the Beyond Scanner, showing the horribly malformed Supergods clinging to life, shocked [O]. Immediately, he directed many more Beyond Scanners at this Bubble to examine it more thoroughly and see if there was some way he could reach out to these Supergods. [R] had absolutely no interest in the Beyond Bubble whatsoever and considered [O]'s sympathy for these backwards creatures ridiculous, however [H] was curious about them and aided [O] in creating an Elastic-based device that allowed him to transmit messages into the Beyond Bubble.

By transmitting instructions on basic Elastic manipulation, [O] was able to speak to a Supergod named Abnull. Abnull appeared to be the closest thing the group had to a 'leader', though she seemingly didn't consider her own role to be particularly valuable. Abnull explained their unique situation and after hearing about what had happened, [O] quickly began attempting to come up with solutions to their issues. Abnull, however, denied his suggestions, claiming their situation was already hopeless. In contrast to this, Schematus and Peralitus were quick to seek [O]'s help. Schematus thought his incredible technology could help unlock his lost memories, while Peralitus believed they might be able to help him escape and make it to the Cohort. After much discussion, [O] and [H] both agreed they were going to attempt to help these Broken Supergods escape and safely reach the Cohort.

The Broken SuperGods short stories