ă đ MYTHOPOEIA V. ă
TLDR: A lore/world-building headcanon that focuses on the chronology (in this case, Epochs or definitive eras) of the in-universe of Nocturneâs canon. Also has some information, vaguely, regarding the mythology of divinity and important figures.
An era is defined by the most significant factor of its time. While planets and countries may have their own eras, defined by the reigning monarch or a particular age of change, the Bright Star System, as a whole, follows the timeline of Epochs, which denote significance of a grander scale. As of Nocturneâs position in the chronology, we are in the Sixth Epoch, which would be known by her peopleâs descendants as the Age of Anarchy. In-universe scholars will argue about the true beginning of the Sixth Epoch, as they argued about the Fifth before it, and the Fourth, and so-on; it is the Epochâs nature to be debated, discussed, analysed and re-interpreted to fit whatever narrative is best to be served. Epochs are not limited by a particular stretch of timeâthere is no mandatory âlimitâ of days, months, years or centuries that permit a new Epoch being determined. Rather, it is determined by a time of significant change that alters how the denizens of Bright Star understand or adapt to their environment. For example, while the Genesis Migration was a significant cross-system event, it did not, on its own, cause enough of a cosmic upset to earn an Epoch-level importance to begin an era. Rather, it was but a mere instrument in the grander scheme of the Age of Champions, the Fifth Epoch.
This headcanon exists to give a context towards the chronology and a greater understanding of the world Nocturne is a mere part of. There will be references towards the in-universe mythology and other significant events that took place far beyond our heroâs birth, but there will be no in-depth description of those events, as I want to keep everything that could reveal too muchâor is unnecessary in understanding Nocturneâunder wraps. However, hopefully there will be enough information to provide a better grounding of the world Nocturne lives in, particularly if you are interested in combining universes or developing deeper threads with her character.
Despite the fact Nocturne exists in the Sixth Epoch, truthfully there are Seven; the first of all Epochs is known by scholars as the âZero Epochâ, a time before time, a space before space, where the original Primordial first willed itself into existence. Here is where Essences, the foundation of all life, magic and matter in the Essential Universe, first came into being. It would not be until the First Epoch that actual physical space began to take form, as the AncientsâGods comparable to the Titans of Greco-Roman mythology, who were more a physical embodiment of the things they ruled over and interpreted to be âcarriersâ of the Primordialâs divine will where it could not directly enact on its wishesâcame into being. These Ancients are also comparable to the incomprehensible deities of the Cthulhu mythos, with titanic, unbearable bodies and minds so alien to us that they evade description or empathy. They are more like machinations of cosmic law, unkillable and undestroyable, for on their shoulders rests the entire Universe.
The Second Epoch is when the Divines, Gods who created âbi-essencesâ that combined the Primordial Essences into Lesser Essences, came into being as âchildrenâ of the Ancients that possessed a sentience closer to the realm of comprehension. They are capable of whimsy, of want, of ire and of fondness. Here, they would be most comparable to most pantheons of deities, with inter-relationships both within the circle of the Divines and with their creations, the Kinetics, pseudo-mortals who co-existed with the Divines and were taught their magic in return of being subordinate with them.
The Third Epoch is the first Epoch marked by a war of tremendous proportion, that resulted in the death of Divines and the weakening of magic that is still felt to this day. Here, the Divine Nolu, the God of Secrets and Mystery, prompted the Kinetics into rebelling against their deities by telling them forbidden secrets of mortality, encouraging them to upheave the heavens and take their power by storm rather than tolerating watered down lessons that kept them under their benevolent Godsâ thumbs. Nolu would abandon the Kinetics during this war, leading to slaughter on both sides, only to return at last moment to assure the death of all Divinesâaside from themselves. The Third Epoch was solely this war, though the duration of it is unknown, and the true extent of the damage and knowledge of what the pre-Divine War world was like is knowledge lost, perhaps for eternity. All that is known is that likely it was a time of Edenic bliss, where magic flowed like wine and mortals were cared for by Divines. After the trauma of the War, the Fourth Epoch was birthed: the Age of Ruin, the Age of Loss, the Age of Abandonment.
Kinetics, now scorned by the Ancients whose children they had revolted against and punished by the Primordial who hosted them, suffered the punishment of agelessness. They were removed from the life-death cycle that promised reincarnation and forgiveness of the soul, forcing them to live an eternity of repentance and grief as they watched the world they knew rot into a mere husk of its former self. Magic weakened with nobody there to teach them, and without Divines to create Kinetics with such innate skill, they were condemned to physically reproduce until there were only Mortals.
Mortals lacked the intimate tutelage that gave Kinetics their mastery over the Primordial Essences, or the Divine Essences, and so their powers weakened too. Magical knowledge was not lost completely, but it would take lifetimes to achieve a level that most Kinetics had earned in adolescence. Over time, the era of bliss and magic that had once been an undeniable reality would fade to myth across the Cosmos, with the division of the New Way (the belief that all of this was purely mythology) and the Old Way (the belief that all of this was fact) separating mortals across the Universe, severing some from their magical heritage entirely to make way for man-made scientific advancement devoid of spiritual attunement.
The Spider Star System was a System that followed the New Way, forcing the less-magically repressed mortalsâknown as Undanesâinto hiding lest they be rejected or destroyed for their absurdities. This System would also become the grounds for one of the greatest calamities recorded, with the Genesis Collapse marking a potentially unrepairable wound in the very fabric of reality whose effects are still present today, giving way to the Paroxysms that blight the Bright Star System in the Sixth Epoch. The Bright Star System followed the Old Way, however, and magic is still understood and studied with varying levels of skill and mastery across the System. It was the Genesis Migration that introduced the Genesse people, Undane and Mundane alike, to the cohabitation of magic-repressed and magic-expressive people, though not without duress. It was this discovery for the Mundanes that contributed to the genesis of the Ametsuchi, forged out of hardship, exile and sacrifice brought on by a primal rejection of this magical nature.
The Genesis Collapse was the locus of the Fifth Epoch, the Age of Champions, where it became apparent that Divinity could be reached by mortalkind should the Primordial bestow upon them the capability. The nature of Champions is debated among scholars; some argue that Champions, of which there is only one certainty and one other heavily contested, are the Divines reborn, returned from their celestial graves, while others argue that the Champions are entirely new in spirit as it would be disrespectful to the Divines to ignore the devastation they had suffered at the hands of men. Unfortunately, the effects of the loss of Divines is still felt to this day, as the sole Champion of the people, Genevieve (the sacred figure of the Holy Order), is absent. Whether she perished after the Genesis Collapse or otherwise went to another System or was killed by the Goliath in some unseen battle of tremendous proportion, is completely unknown. Mortals can only emulate what they think she would have done, such as the Divine Right of Kings applied to the Boucher imperial line on Neo, or the Holy Orderâs fight against Paroxysms.
The Fifth Epoch is potentially the shortest of all Epochs, having spanned only several generations, perhaps not even a millennium.
The Sixth Epoch, then, is the playground for the plot of this blog and its attached extended canon. It is the Age of Anarchy, the Age of Monsters, of all things Eldritch. It is uncertain when the Sixth Epoch came into play, for some argue it was with the formation of Spiderâs Eye as it tried to awaken the Spider-God Goliath, the destroyer of Genesis and the foe of the Champion Genevieve, or with their first use of Chaos manipulation and Paroxysm invocation as a weapon in the assassination of the Green-King Eoin of Namana. It is potentially even incited by the Ametsuchi Massacre, which was tied to the actions of Spiderâs Eye and the High King Kazumi Ametsuchi, resulting in Chaotic manipulations and mutilations of all remaining Ametsuchi. The onus of the Sixth Epoch may be debated, but the end of the Sixth Epoch is entirely unknown: some fear that it may never end, others fear that it is the end, but hopefuls pray for a better, kinder Seventh Epoch, just on the horizon of what may be the most horrifying Epoch to exist in.
