Cosmoria

Cosmoria, the second age of the Cosmos, began as a single quantum fluctuation floating on an empty stage. With graceful arcs across space and time, this particle, The Monad, began its dance, a solo performance six billion years in duration. Playing the role of every particle at once, it spawned innumerable incarnations of itself. The resulting recital took on the form of a universe replete with worlds and their inhabitants.

Quite early in Cosmoria's dance, living things colonized every corner of the universe. Whether unintentionally on the backs of comets or free-floating in the void, most worlds became host to it. The evolution of intelligent life, creatures of both sarkic and ousic matter. The universe now had a way of knowing itself; it woke up. Intelligent life was at first bound by their time as simpler animals, forced to play a part in the ecosystem like any other beast. Toward the end of Cosmoria's lifespan, these beings used their dual nature to formulate better ways of being, or, in other words, they developed technology.

Civilizations across Cosmoria thrived made up of countless peoples. Unlike any force in history, they mastered the secret art of Thaumaturgy. As though the material realm was not enough, intelligent life went to the mental realm, the Noosphere, to conquer the Spirits, only for the spirits to conquer them in return. Interstellar civilization became a complicated web of alliances as spirits, civilization, and even unfeeling machines began making names for themselves. Their interaction, especially conflict, pushed them to explore Cosmoria's secrets at ever-finer resolution.

Through their efforts, they began calling on the ancient force of Amaranth. Like the Monad invited it onto the stage, Amaranth joined the final act. In a passionate duet, Cosmoria and Amaranth irrevocably changed one another. Cosmoria left a small memento with Amaranth and disappeared in a final spin. Cosmoria's inhabitants found a way to preserve themselves forever, leaving even the the next universe unsafe from their grasp, albeit indirectly.

Properties

Cosmoria has two halves, the ousic and sarkic—Noosphere and Hylisphere. Raqia is the four-dimensional space separating these halves, a firmament dividing the conceptual and quantum realms. Raqia contains the bridges called Minds or souls, allowing consciousness to exist in the Hylisphere. The oldest bridge, Chinvat, links Cosmoria's hemispheres and, as a consequence, causes their radically different laws of physics to clash.

The mouth of Chinvat appears like a sphere, within which is the entire Noosphere. From within the Noosphere, it seems as though all of Cosmoria was contained within a small sphere. As one approaches Chinvat, the universe becomes more dream-like as the laws of physics blend with the laws of concepts. This region of disturbed space is the Lux Aeterna, a tempestuous nebula. With every star orbiting Chinvat, its gravity is much too great to allow safe passage.

Hylisphere

The physical universe, the Hylisphere, is a rotating collection of matter mostly concentrated in the radioactive cores of stars. A small portion of this matter, less than five percent, orbits these stars; it forms planets, clouds of dust, and the civilizations of Cosmoria.

Safely beyond the Lux Aeterna are Cosmoria's three arms, Florathel, Aylathiya, and Zalanthium. They make up most of the mass in existence, but beyond them are a handful of other bodies—such as Azurullya and Lowiras. Beyond the most remote stars are stray planets, dust, ruins, and space-borne life. The vast majority of the Hylisphere beyond its central galaxy has not been explored; leaving it dark in the sense of being without both light and understanding.

Far beyond the stray stars and rogue planets of deep space lies void. As even stray atoms become rare, this void increases in "intensity" so to speak. At an unknown but immense distance, the Void of Creation begins, void of matter, energy, and even physical laws. It is the chaos from which Cosmoria formed, beyond the jurisdiction of The Monad.

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Particles

Cosmoria is composed of countless distinct particles, all emanations of The Monad, each with different properties. All exhibit wave-particle duality, behaving both as waves and particles depending on conditions. Particles have several properties such as "spin," "charge," "color," and "tempo" which govern their interactions. More exotic properties, such as "strangeness" and "charmness" also apply in some situations. As per convention, physicists classify particles by tempo, a description of the readiness with which thaumic energy transmutes into a given particle. It is not to be confused with wavelength, a property concerning the momentum or energy of a particle.

Elements

The Periodic Table
Hydrogen H 1																	Helium He 2
Lithium Li 3	Beryllium Be 4											Boron B 5	Carbon C 6	Nitrogen N 7	Oxygen O 8	Fluorine F 9	Neon Ne 10
Sodium Na 11	Magnesium Mg 12											Aluminum Al 13	Silicon Si 14	Phosphorous P 15	Sulfur S 16	Chlorine Cl 17	Argon Ar 18
Potassium K 19	Calcium Ca 20	Rylelium Ry 21	Titanium Ti 22	Vanadium V 23	Chromium Cr 24	Manganese Mn 25	Iron Fe 26	Cobalt Co 27	Nickel Ni 28	Copper Cu 29	Zinc Zn 30	Gallium Ga 31	Lusterine Ls 32	Arsenic As 33	Selenium Se 34	Bromine Br 35	Krypton Kr 36
Rubidium Rb 37	Strontium Sr 38	Yosserenum Ys 39	Zirconium Zr 40	Niobium No 41	Molebdynum Mo 42	Technetium Tc 43	Ruthenium Ru 44	Rhodium Rh 45	Palladium Pa 46	Silver Ag 47	Cadmium Ca 48	Indium In 49	Tin Sn 50	Antimony Sb 51	Tellurium Te 52	Iodine I 53	Xenon Xe 54
Ignium Ig 55	Barium Ba 56	Lanthanides 57-71	Lughgon Lg 72	Tantalum Ta 73	Tungsten W 74	Yaoium Ya 75	Osmium Os 76	Iridium Ir 77	Platinum Pt 78	Gold Au 79	Mercury Hg 80	Thallium Tl 81	Lead Pb 82	Bismuth Bi 83	Paradigl Pg 84	Astartine At 85	Radon Ra 86
Azurullyum Az 87	Radium Ra 88	Actinides 89-103	Chulainnide Ch 104	Ellium L 105	Sobekkum Sk 106	Yurium Yu 107	Martium Mr 108	Draconium Dc 109	Albedium Ab 110	Quintium Q 111	Hydrargyrum Hy 112	Tenebrium Tn 113	Civestadtium Ci 114	Beckerium Bk 115	Aylathogen Aa 116	Pixiline Px 117	Xanthron Xa 118
Sydium Sy 119	Eossium Eo 120	Mythrides 121-131

		Lanthanum La 57	Cerium Ce 58	Praseodymium Pr 59	Neodymium Nd 60	Promethium Pm 61	Kaslarium Ka 62	Olaride Ol 63	Erkamarium Gd 64	Darvikium Da 65	Dysprosium Dy 66	Carleum Ho 67	Erebium Er 68	Thulium Tm 69	Arvikium Ar 70	Arnenum An 71
		Actinium Ac 89	Thorium Th 90	Protactinium Pa 91	Uranium U 92	Neptunium Np 93	Plutonium Pu 94	Aegynium Ay 95	Deimium De 96	Bechdelium Bd 97	Caelaryum Cy 98	Yakubium Yk 99	Phobium Ph 100	Triunitum Tr 101	Noctuer Nc 102	Zalanthanum Zl 103
		Mythril My 121	Aelkium Ae 122	Adamythril Ad 123	Eitr Er 124	Orichalcum Or 125	Drusium Dr 126	Ousium Ou 127	Tarainium Tm 128	Hypertryptine Ht 129	Eestium Ee 130	Perditium Pe 131

Metaphysical Properties

Noosphere

The Noosphere is the realm of forms as well as the realm responsible for free will. In the dualist Cosmoria, intelligent life is made up of two substances, physical atoms and non-physical mind. In other words, intelligent life has a soul. This soul is non-spatial and fundamentally separate from the rest of the organism. The mind is something like a bridge between the Noosphere and the Hylisphere. Unlike the physical atoms of Cosmoria, whose interactions are governed by a simple set of rules, the forms of Cosmoria are governed by "Axioms." Axioms are the infinitely complex fractal guidelines, not laws, of concepts.

Energy can permeate through the Noosphere in the form of "Noospheric Radiation." This form of radiation, better described as a local increase in the instability of the Noosphere, always moves towards a lower energy state. In nearly all cases, this lower energy state would be a physical manifestation in the physical plane. The energy, through an interaction with the Thaumic Force, manifests in any number of ways, but usually in the form of radiation.

Planes

Planes, also known as Esoteria, are complex regions of the Noosphere each representing a single, arbitrary, concept. They exist suspended in the Raqia and orbiting the Chinvat, therefore making them the only part of the Noosphere accessible by minds, who also exist in the Raqia.

Esoteric Thaumaturgy is the art of aligning one's mind with a plane. It is the most accessible form of thamaturgy as all intelligent species can understand the concepts related to each plane. Some define intelligence as the ability to learn about, understand, and expand upon these 10,000 or so concepts. Of course, there are an infinite number of ideas that do not have planes, but none of those are universal.

The number of theorized planes is far higher than the number of discovered planes. Many of their concepts cannot be represented by only one word and are often seemingly random (This list is incomplete):

Primordial Plane

Philotes (Attraction, Gravity, Love, Also includes magnetic attraction)
Neikos (Repulsion, Anti-gravity, strife, also includes flying or levitating)

Daegami Planes

Dreamhaze (Memory and related ideas)
Viritacloud (Physical strength)
Nullheart (Apathy, Curses of Apathy)
Nightmarelunen (Sacrifice for its own sake, Bloodsport)
Wondertsuki (Opposition, Resistance to the Nightmarelunen, Blessing)
Auramest (Knowledge for its own sake)
Ravenfogg (Preservation, Inertia)

Other Esoteria

Siebenelle (The Enemy, Doublethink, Weakness in Strength, Strength in Weakness)
Antafice (Extravagance, Excess)
Quillation (Sculpture, Statues, Models, Capturing Depictions)
Feltlein (Tetraflouroethane)
Bakke (Bakke Fusion Reactors)
Blicu (Accumulation, Gathering)
Shinja (Noxiousness, Degradation)
Synapse (Connections, links, binds)
Heistag (Reckless speed, speeding)
Elfliebe (Accomplishment, relaxing after work)
Actfurcht (Ancient predator, fear of predation, dragons)
Anjingra (Combustion in a hearth or fireplace, warmth)
Ualvakhass (Acceleration, sudden motions)
Zosimos (Hardening, Increase in Density, Increase in Strength)
Yam Suf (Fission, Parting, Severing)

Hypothesized Esoteria (No current evidence of existence)

Kalkoblast (Resolute Bronze)

Minds

A Mind is the non-physical aspect of an intelligent organism. Minds directly influence the brain and body through the Thaumic Force and vice versa. The stronger the mind, the more powerful the force it can exert over the body. Minds exist halfway between the physical and conceptual realms, embedded in the Raqia.

Minds are made up of several parts. One notable part is the Pylon which is responsible for channeling energy between the mind and the body. The Nous is the mind's eye responsible for one's awareness of oneself. The Nous can also detect things such as planes. The Anti-Nous sends information from the mind to the physical universe. The Para-Nous sends information between minds that are directly linked.

History

The Stage

The state of affairs preceding Cosmoria and, in truth, still permeating it, is difficult to comprehend. Limited by no rules, not even reason, reality had a fundamentally random nature. The best word to describe it is "Noise." It was brought about upon Imagindarium's collapse; the first universe lost what held it together. Imagindarium's meticulously ordered components broke down, shedding all rules that bound them. Without the director, the play that was Ambrosia rapidly degraded. Like a curtain closing, noise diffused through all of reality. What remained was similar to an empty stage, devoid of all but the potential for another story.

Within the noise was every arrangement of energy, conceivable and inconceivable. Like an audition, an infinite number of potential directors attempted to use the stage, emerging from the noise by coincidence. These directors told their stories in mere instants, simple affairs such as two subatomic particles interacting or the concept of "goodness" existing in a vacuum for mere moments. As the last immutable concepts of Ambrosia, space and time, began degrading, the "rate" at which these directors formed only increased. None of these directors, or "Providences," as they are now known, could create a self-sustaining reality.

The Monad

The only lasting order in pre-existence was a particle known as "The Monad." Its behavior was simple; the particle was an automaton that would follow the rules that bound it, in this case, the laws of reason and mathematics. Thus, the particle moved through six billion years of subjective time. Being the only particle of its kind, The Monad did nothing during this time. Like a ghost, it passed through the countless other particles that failed to form order.

After six billion years, it did not simply fade away as other particles did. The Monad "turned around," to move backward in time. It interacted with its past self, but the encounter was a gentle gravitational pull, the space between the two iterations too great for anything meaningful. Once the second particle reached the beginning of time, it reversed course once more, moving forward again and spawning another copy. Back and forth The Monad would go, interacting with other incarnations of itself as they moved through space.

The final loop, one in which The Monad is once again moving forward in time, represents modern Cosmoria. However, unlike the deterministic story of Imagindarium, there is no plan or direction; the infinite complexity of its laws leaves no room for determinism.

The First Moments

The ferocious fire of Cosmoria embodied not just extreme temperature but the conceptual notion of "absolute heat," as the universe had not yet understood the difference between its body and soul. The countless Monad particles manifested in much the same place, an environment now called the Khorogenesis. Before any time could pass, these particles each displayed the full range of behavior afforded to them. In a sense, they were both physical and metaphysical, equally bound by the laws of physics and the laws of concepts. In the first 10^-50 seconds, the particles "chose" whether or not to become sarkic or ousic.

The "temperature" of early Cosmoria had to decrease by the smallest fraction below "absolute heat," more a concept than an actual quantity, for cooling to begin. At 10^-42 seconds, the Noosphere emerged as the realm of forms, ideals, and thought. Next to split off was the Thaumic Force. Shortly thereafter, gravity solidified, separating itself from the strong force.

Similar to the physical part of Cosmoria, the Noosphere started made up only of simple elements, called "Ideals." As it consolidated, more complex structures formed, yielding the first concepts. These oldest concepts, however, were not products of minds but effectively a part of reality themselves. Containing large amounts of energy, these concepts split off to form Planes, or small partitions of the wider Noosphere.

The First Quadrillionth of a Second

The strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces split into their modern forms after the universe cooled off to reasonable temperatures. The two "primordial planes" so named for their seeming precedence over the others, were Philotes and Neikos, the planes of attraction and repulsion. They began a dance, a spiral, as Philotes endlessly pursued and Neikos endlessly evaded.

After a quadrillionth of a second, Philotes merged with its physical counterpart, the force of gravity. Unlike the other forces, gravity and Philotes were perfect matches. In the shortest possible time frame, a time frame indistinguishable from instant, gravity and Philotes leaped across the raqia to meet one another, forming the bridge called Chinvat. Another time frame passed, and the combined force of gravity-Philotes threatened to merge the entire cosmos. After a third instant, Neikos merged with gravity-Philotes, taking gravity's place. The current Neikos-Philotes plane exists in equilibrium, never allowing Chinvat to expand to wider than a meter.

First Microsecond

The first particles began forming as the first microsecond elapsed, taking on the form of quarks. After temperatures dipped below one billion degrees, quarks and antiquarks began assembling into protons, neutrons, and their antimatter counterparts. After they began to annihilate one another, temperatures increased and the quarks broke down. This process repeated several times, growing less and less energetic as the particles spread out. The first microsecond ended with a universe full of protons and a handful of neutrons.

The Universe Gets More Familiar

After several hundred thousand years, nucleosynthesis began and hydrogen, helium, and trace amounts of lithium formed. Colossal stars greedily burned this early hydrogen, forming black holes such as Nocturne and the Heart of Providence. Upon their deaths, they filled the universe with heavier elements. A neutron star collision, of which only one was known to happen, created Cosmoria's ultra-heavy elements—Tungsten, Gold, Lead, Uranium, and the like. Some of Cosmoria's oldest stars, all red dwarfs, formed during this period.

Planets began forming a few million years after the dawn of the universe, but these early worlds were barren. It took millions of years to accumulate the first seas and nearly a billion for anything that could host any sort of life.

Formation of Life

Before the formation of galactic arms, life had already sprung up on worlds across Cosmoria. Lifeless amino acids, dead bits of charged aluminum, inorganic silicates, and other substances formed themselves into the most primitive forms of life. Everything from plasma to cryogenic hydrocarbons became the media for this phenomenon that had sprung up around the majority of Cosmoria's stars.

Ma'eau was the first organic intelligent being to emerge. Forming 500 million years ago, the ecosystem-turned-intelligence brought life to most worlds in Aylathiya. This force of creation made dozens of worlds habitable, terraforming them by introducing specially-created bacteria. To this day, Ma'eau remains an important force that continues spreading life throughout Aylathiya. It often does this at the expense of the civilization its creations built.

Accompanying Cosmoria's flourishing ecosystem were several conscious but inorganic entities called Spirits. Forming randomly as disturbances in the Noosphere, the spirits represent beings of immense power. Without the restrictions of a physical body, their abilities are directly proportional to their willpower. These anomalies take on unhallowed forms only vaguely imitating real ideas. Incomprehensible constellations of gears, shades only barely visible, ghastly approximations of whole armies, or even corrupted facsimiles of the dead are possible forms. The simplest spirits manifest as simple solids, or even two-dimensional shapes, as they aimlessly float about through the cosmos. With motivations as diverse as their physical forms, the interaction between spirits and Cosmoria's civilizations has driven much of history.

Dawn of Civilization

While there are "civilizations" much older than about 10 million years ago, most are either unconfirmed or hardly fit the definition. The oldest confirmed civilization to have much of a presence in space was the Moridian High Command. It was followed by numerous smaller states such as Erlas, Yarla, and the Rukelian Empire. Eventually the truly enormous Lareas Alliance explosively entered the galactic scene, expanding across most of Cosmoria before falling to The Andvaris Swarm. The Swarm wiped the alliance clean and temporarily expunged civilization from Cosmoria. This is the only time in history in which the flame of civilization went extinct once ignited.

Ever since the reemergence of civilization in 1 CE in the form of Ectabana. Whether it was Spirits emerging from chaos or omnicidal superintelligences bent on sterilizing the universe, there was no stopping the tenacious inhabitants of Cosmoria. Civilization never died out again.

Thaumic Revolution

Zaphenim emerged in 301 BCE. With his entrance into the universe came the gift of Classical Thaumaturgy, the ability for the mind to interface with the Lux Aeterna. It was this gift that would define the galactic landscape for the rest of history. Dozens of civilizations, mostly within Aylathiya, devoted themselves to this art and exploited its potential. While Thaumaturgy existed before then in a limited capacity, it was Zaphenim who first divorced it from ritual. He crafted a secular science whose power, much like civilization, never disappeared once extant.

Soon after, other forms of Thaumaturgy became art forms. First, was Invocative Thaumaturgy, the practice of increasing one's strength via devotion. Following this was Harmonic Thaumaturgy, the practice of gaining thaumic power by simply requesting it from a potent source. Lastly, Esoteric Thaumaturgy graced the universe, introducing far more diversity into the practice than any other variant.

The Curtains Close Again

Joining The Monad on the empty stage was Amaranth. Mostly dormant throughout The Monad's performance, it entered the stage only during the particle's last emanation. The result was the Penultimate End, which manifested in the physical universe as a battle between the Amaranth Knight and the Antiwraith. These two forces, representing the good and evil halves of Amaranth respectively, released energies comparable to Cosmoria's formation in the span of moments. The now-liberated Amaranth threatened to destroy The Monad. At this time, the spirit Azurade absorbed Amaranth, sacrificing herself as it slammed into Cosmoria. Instead of dying, she merged with Amaranth to form Amaranth-Azurade.

As The Monad finished its dance, now a collaborative affair with Amaranth-Azurade, it flew apart in one final spin. The fluctuation in the universal field finally disappeared. It returned to the nothing that it always was, leaving Amaranth-Azurade by herself. As the last emanations of the monad faded into oblivion, annihilating their reverse counterpart, the area around Amaranth-Azurade darkened. She felt the concepts that made her up disappear, taking from her anything not preserved in her transcendent Amaranth sheath.

After an impossibly long time, the twin forces of Aeter and Hviyam emerged. These two forces conspired with Amaranth-Azurade to usher in the next age, Galvyria.