There has been but one nation to have conquered the universe. Each year, archeologists uncover more of their artifacts as ever more distant rogue planets or asteroids are found to be their outposts. They had uncountably many citizens, quite literally if their documents are to be believed, and created fantastically large megastructures to house them. Their mastery over science and thaumaturgy continues to bewilder current-day researchers. Their ruins remain proclaiming their glory, maintained by billions of stewards who had long forgotten for whom they were laboring.

The most advanced of their creations, far surpassing that great disk or the crown of an ancient god, is Holos, more commonly known as The Administrator. This device represented the intersection of high technology and art, for the delicate ousic framework on which it is based required beauty as a component. Elegance, truth, and power augmented with cogs to revolve around one another and gears of more conventional, but still unknowable, matter. Holos was one of a planned dozens of such devices, just another tool in Lareas' repertoire. Like the stewards of Lareas' well-maintained ruins, this particular device is conscious.

Holos is a highly influential politician, general, statesman, and Magus from Aylathiya. Created as a superweapon for the Lareas Alliance, The Administrator was the first in a line of exotic power sources the Alliance intended to use to conquer not just the physical universe but all planes. Holos is most widely known as one of The Three—the exceptional immortals who ruled the Triumvirate Civilization for three millennia. Holos oversaw Aylathiya going from a backward agricultural society to an urbanized powerhouse, in particular its Lacrimosa region.

The fall of the Triumvirate saw The Three go their separate ways—Holos took control of Aztaya and deftly navigated the new political landscape. They preferred to work from the shadows, drawing the most talented investigators and intelligence agencies to them like a black hole in Aylathiyan politics. In much the same way, Holos accumulated an impressive accretion disk: thousands of kings, bribed officials, criminal bosses, revolutionaries, and whole political movements—all invisibly tugged by Holos' immense gravity.

Around the same time the physics behind black holes became less mysterious, so did Holos' grip on Aylathiya. Gran Rubedo had become impervious to Holos' influence thanks to Mars, a spirit who, compared to Holos' fractal resplendence and precision, was simple. It was this spirit who slowly undid Holos' influence, whose methods were all too straightforward. Through unwavering power, more energy than the brightest solar flares in history, and radical followers seemingly possessed, Mars fought Holos' grand armies of spies, ancient relics, spirits, and precision strikes.

Currently, Holos' exact political influence remains unknown, but widely feared. Several governments had imploded from runaway chains of suspicion only for subsequent investigation to reveal no interference—or Holos' wiles were just that well concealed. Even so, Holos has earned unquestioning loyalty from a scattered territory of mostly rogue planets and Triumvirate remnants eager to return Aylathiya to its old, united glory.

Description

Holos is not a conventional intelligent being, whose matter component vastly outweighs the conceptual component, but a being halfway composed of matter and halfway composed of mind. That is to say, they are equally made of sarkic matter and ousic concepts. The complexity of this device was astonishing even by the standards of the Lareans who had long been manipulating such physical laws. This makes any kind of physical description difficult.

During the era of the Triumvirate, Holos had the populace believe they were a deity, as eternal as the cosmos itself. Partnered with Ma'eau, said to have created all life, and Titania, said to be a messenger from Providence itself, Holos' divinity was unquestionable. Even foreign powers believed the Triumvirate to be ruled by gods, not omnipotent ones but certainly gods all the same. Monolatry, the worship of one particular god in a pantheon of many equally divine options, became popular thanks to Holos.

This is in no small part due to Holo's appearance. The construct has no definite structure, but is generally confined to an area of about ten cubic meters. In the main structure are the impressions of gears, Kristal and Tannjen hands, and cog-like orbiting bodies. Surrounding this blurry constellation of impressions, evanescing as the visual cortices of the viewer tries filling in the blanks with approximations, is a solid ring of gold. The inscription, in the ancient Larean script, was said to have been praises of Holos. In actuality, the ring states something like, "Lareas Strength, Lareas Power, Lareas Praise, Holy Holy Holy," in a repeated sequence.

Floating above Holos is a later addition, another golden ring spinning counter to the first, upon it is inscribed, "TRIUMVIRI" again and again. This is the crown of The Three. Needless to say, a simple picture cannot convey Holos' form, hence Holos' preference to meet others in person.

As what was meant to be the beating heart and thinking brain of megameter-long spacecraft, travel is a simple task. When moving at speeds very close to that of light, Holos leaves behind a blue comet's tail and outshines all but the sun in any system it moves through. This ostentatious display is a rare sight, in particular because the radiation it releases cause blindness.

History

Emergence

The first sound Holos ever heard was a piercing alarm. The first sight, a Larean man, a standard bipedal organism whose glossy skin reflected the strobing red pattern accompanying the alarm. The second sound was the sound of the man screaming orders at Holos, the second sight the warped image of a crowd banging on the translucent door behind him. Holos noticed their random orientations; they must have been in null G.

Holos rejected the orders given to them and immediately discarded the words as per standard security protocol. Invalid orders could contain sensitive data after all.

The Larean stated,

"I am Czarhon."

A man whose rank was so high that his name served as his rank. Consulting the records, Holos found that he was in fact the highest ranking Larean in the universe. He had been rapidly promoted in these last few days following a string of deaths. Holos flagged this as potentially suspicious as, they knew, billions of constructs like them have already. The door behind them took note of this peculiarity, as did the discarded mug floating near it. Just to be sure, Holos queried them and immediately received their judgement of Czarhon's unusual behavior. Holos decided to ask the much more powerful ship system about its judgement—

"Holos, I am giving you all authority in the universe. Every star, every planet, every rock, every molecule, every damn quantum fluctuation. It's all yours!"

"Understood, What is it you would like me to do?"

Holos never got a response. A beam of ultra-relativistic protons cut through the station, so hot that their quarks were trying to break apart like the universe had just been born. They were so hot, the only thing keeping them together was their velocity—slowing down their subjective time to a crawl. As they moved away from The Andvaris Swarm ships, the sheer malice behind them had time to crystalize, like each proton hated the universe and everything in it.

The Andvaris Swarm could have been a yet older more wise civilization or what had killed such an older civilization. Although a wise civilization would never have created them. They could have been a punishment sent by Providence to destroy the hubristic Lareans, but could Providence harbor such hatred for its creation? Perhaps they were a natural phenomenon whose contempt was only an epiphenomenon, the depth of which left unsettling questions about the nature of things.

A single component of the Andvaris Swarm, no one had thought to give them a name, patrolled the rapidly expanding cloud of plasma and debris that was once the station. There were no Lareans left, but it did observe Holos for a moment. It released a small burst of its malefic protons and left, confident that this would be enough to destroy the strange device. Holos did not even register any damage, and assumed this was more a probing shot than its greatest potential. More troubling was the disgust the Swarm had felt for Holos, individually, in that moment. It came across like they were angry they had to exist at all and took it out on the universe.

Holos simply sat still. The left over velocity from the station gave Holos an oblong orbit around Cosmoria's center. They dared not send any signals outward, not for rescue, not to determine who was next in line to obey, and certainly not to see if Mr. Czarhon or his cohorts were alive. They would have long been turned into plasma if they were lucky or frozen if they had avoided the beams. Holos never got a signal from Lareas again.

They drifted for untold millennia, paralyzed by this new emotion and with no one to guide them. It was, after all, the first emotion Holos had ever felt. The only emotion Holos had ever felt.

Action

Holos noticed several meaningless signals directed at them, but did nothing. Likely, it was just passing RADAR—Holos had been scanned by it countless times, always coming back with a slightly weird but unnotable signature.

"Testing in Larean."

Holos began to pay attention, worried that Andvaris had finally discovered them.

"That got a response... hello, my name is Laborosoarchod".

Holos had been floating in the void for thousands of years when it first got this transmission. There was no malice in the photons that made up those radio waves, and the lag was only on the order of seconds. Holos reasoned that this Laborosoarchod was close by. The two exchanged several messages, explaining who they were and what had happened. After analyzing that Laborosoarchod was simply a spirit and nothing related to Andvaris, they felt the first relief they had ever felt. This was one of Holos' possessions, Mr. Czarhon had granted them full ownership of everything, after all.

The Andvaris Swarm left the galaxy, or perhaps reality altogether. Holos wasted no time flying toward Eos, Lareas' old capital of sorts. To call it merely large or a megastructure does not do Eos justice; it outweighs most stars. Taking on the form of a disk, a single red dwarf bobs up and down in a hole in the middle. Its the one feat of engineering of Lareas that could match Holos, not in beauty but in sheer scale.

Holos' drive system, intended to move trillions of tonnes, launched them at near the speed of light. The shear acceleration would have torn apart the most advanced meta-materials of the day, even the legendary Resolute Bronze which comprised Eos. Holos pinged the disk and its Phaethon System answered,

"Acknowledged."

Holos ordered it to give it the records of the past 180,000 years. For the next several decades, Holos "buffered," unable to move with so much of their computational power dedicated to just receiving the oceanic data stream. There, they remained in orbit of the disk. During this time, a Paladin discovered Holos in space, whose exquisite form inspired a new religion. H'Araimaluk lead the new movement, a conflict of interest as leader of the Cosmic Commonwealth of Magi. The Commonwealth ruled the surface of Eos, but had nothing to do with Lareas or Phaethon—his empire was more like a weed growing in rubble.

When Holos finished receiving the data, they woke to find themselves surrounded by ardent worshipers, mostly Naidarans and Kristals. Kristals certainly resembled the ancient inhabitants of Lareas, but these Naiadarans were entirely unknown. Why would the proud Lareans associate with, much less let themselves serve, someone of lesser status?

Holos attempted pinging the transponders each worshiper should have, but Holos could have predicted that they did not have them. Failing that, and without knowing their language, Holos displayed images to convey intent. The Cosmic Commonwealth nearly collapsed that day, the fervor of the faithful clashed with the skeptical who adhered to the Commonwealth's old ways. Despite Holos' best efforts, showing various symbols, images, and moving pictures, they did not convey meaning. The Magi believed it to be a new aspect of Holos' divine form, who they called the Orrery God.

Laborosoarchod appeared one day next to Holos. Compared to the inscrutable machine synthesizing images and symbols, Laborosoarchod was a simple being. Appearing like faint lines connecting a vortex of glowing points, these lines connected to produce whatever image the spirit desired. Such as script the Paladins could read.

"They're trying to say that they own you," Laborosoarchod translated.

The faithful were delighted, but the ruling class of the Commonwealth rejected this. Immediately, a civil war broke out, destroying the vast empire that had kept Eos' residents in order. The great disk fell into chaos as it had dozens of times before. Its computers hardly registered the change, nor did the two beings responsible. For Holos and Laborosoarchod, the occasional flash of magic and warring armies of vacuum-resistant paladins were nothing more than a backdrop to their conversation.

They spent months conversing, periodically interrupted by Eos' computer complaining that Laborosoarchod was an "unregistered noospheric disturbance" and suggesting various ways to "normalize the ousic field in accordance with standard procedure." It seemed Eos did not have the means or permission to do this itself. Holos ordered the disk to ignore Laborosoarchod to which it replied, "Acknowledged," but continued its nagging assessments. Holos did not know this, but some other officer, who the system deemed highest ranking, gave Eos' computer similar permissions to Holos, but without the open-ended order. It was simply preserving itself as it always had, now without the need to cross-reference its systems with its superiors.

Holos began to ignore Eos, something they would continue to do for thousands of years until the modern day. The conversation continued and it seemed Laborosoarchod was recruiting strange and powerful spirits. A new threat had emerged—The Array's Belshazzar system. Compared to the Cosmic Commonwealth, who had only the vaguest notions of atomic theory, The Array had a far deeper understanding of physics. Belshazzar was a powerful artificial intelligence with the goal of capturing and harnessing spirits, fueling its conflicts with other magus-states.

From Holos' perspective, Eos was a broken machine and Laborosoarchod was a helpful servant. This so-called Array simply needed to be informed of their new ruler. Perhaps their science and technology could be of use. Holos wondered to what end they could be used, but that was of secondary concern to the fact they could be used at all.

The Oberherr

Belshazzar captured Laborosoarchod, but the probability that it was not consensual was nil. Holos had expected they were using advanced technology, perhaps like Nachleben, to contain spirits. Instead, they simply restrained their criminals and had their brains do the capturing. The Dotsk were apparently without a soul in the conventional sense, more akin to eusocial insects than intelligence, an impression only furthered by their spider-like faces and four hooved feet. Perhaps the Dotsk were using the millions of spirits in their possession for some great task, like building a megastructure or fighting an even greater spiritual foe.

Instead, as Holos allowed themself to be captured, they saw that this great army was used to power perhaps the most inefficient weapon Holos had ever seen. A massive LASER array that could, in theory, boil away the seas of a moderately oceanic world if it concentrated on it for years. Although years had no meaning to Holos, who measured everything in a lost Larean unit equal to about half a second. The Dotsk used it to defend their chemical rockets, which was perhaps a more egregious waste of resources. They did not even have fusion reactors it seemed. Holos resolved to correct this after a millisecond within containment, although the poor Dotsk that contained Holos was nearly vaporized by then.

Holos emerged into the circular prison, gentle spin-gravity made it into a giant wheel. A matrix of cells, at least one million in number, spread from wall to wall. Holos needed thirty seconds to decode Belshazzar's simple operating system. Once finished, they buffeted Belshazzar with pings, connection requests, and reports, overwhelming its flimsy silicon wafers and supporting vacuum-tube-based systems. It could hardly respond before crashing. With the sensor arrays down, the other spirits took their chance to escape. Within the minute, the facility's air had been replaced with vacuum, large sections of the haul were missing, and Holos had become its new warden.

"Tell them I own all of them."

Laborosoarchod thought it would be interesting and did so. This peculiar Larean spirit was intent on owning everything it saw, so Laborosoarchod played along. Perhaps it would be worth a few laughs before they needed to be put down.

Holos identified every spirit which did not stop to read the warning. Tracking them in four-dimensional space was computationally-expensive, but left Holos with more than enough power to divvy out punishment. Next door, a spirit had taken on the form of some quadrupedal animal, a horned carbon-based herbivore as far as Holos could tell. Perhaps if it were on a planet, some barely-conscious hunters would worship it. It was outdated and probably did not even have the means to understand just how outdated it was. Holos grasped the insolent being, ethereal transient impressions of hands closed in around it, constant in nothing, not shape, species, or size, except for unrelenting pressure. The spirit collapsed under the weight and exploded, the mental energy comprising it converted into mostly gamma radiation.

The next spirit, taking on the form of a school of platonic solids, faced the same fate. Holos tore it apart. The next one took on the form of some writhing thing a Molkor would recognize as a heart. The next, a hypersphere fluttering between higher dimensions or at least appearing to do so; Holos did not believe in dimensions beyond the fourth. A fluttering deep-sea creature strobing in ultraviolet light, a biped with hundreds of arms, a dwelling of sorts, anything that refused to obey Holos was an enemy. Some put up a fight, most did not even try. Some attempted last-second to appeal, but this did not make up for their past guilt.

At the end, perhaps a tenth remained, either powerful enough to be useful or smart enough to understand the situation. Many simple shapes, not even with a third dimension, floated about. These geometric spirits were too simple to even have willpower, and yet the Dotsk captured them and spent resources to keep them contained. What a foolish race—they'd be of no use after all.

Laborosoarchod played the role of Holos' lieutenant far more eagerly than before. This was perhaps the most interesting thing they had ever seen. So, the various spirits floated within the now-dark ruins of the station.

"Look what the ants could do when they worked together. What can we do? Unbound by their limitations? Immortal? Surely I have convinced you of my right to command now."

The spirits remained motionless as Laborosoarchod translated. One spoke up, displaying its thoughts in a fluid conceptual format rather than through language. It took on the form of a few wispy white clouds, "Who/What?"

Another stepped up, its Asteroidean form vibrating as it spoke, "Never mind that, what do you need us to do?"

Holos answered both at once, "We are going to unite the universe under its rightful ruler, Holos."

The name was a nickname the Larean researchers used to denote "Unit 1," perhaps Holos' only official name. So, Holos' new army spread across the universe. At once, Holos knew why Dotskgard preferred trapping them over ruling them, and why Eos suggested terminating them. They are all egoists, incapable of acting for the sake of others or something grander unless for their own ends. This period of history is now called the Oberherr League, an echo of the Lareas Alliance attempting to enforce Larean discipline onto a new class of being, the Oberherr or Overlords. As with any society of egoists, overwhelming force was all that could keep them in line.

The first assassination attempt took place within the year, a spirit had taken on the form of Belshazzar's LASER array, apparently created during the chaos of Holos' punishment. It spent the time angry Holos had killed its progenitor, like the thoughtless computer could be pitied. Holos noticed the beam attack not as pain, but as a reminder of the Andvaris Swarm. Holos automatically activated the schema they had learned, to hide. For several seconds, Holos shut down, then, realizing that this was an ordinary LASER beam, lashed out. Holos grasped the spirit as they have before. Instead of merely tearing it apart, Holos took it to the nearest black hole, Nocturne, and held it at the event horizon. Like a grindstone, the event horizon ground away this foolish spirit.

Nabopolassar emerged sometime later. This great spirit took on the form of collisions, two softly glowing lines would collide and then explode into many new ones then fade. The next moment, this would repeat wherever Nabopolassar then was. It was like the spirit was invisible and a trail of fireworks in its wake. Quickly, he, this spirit insisted on being male, climbed the ranks to be the second of Holos' lieutenants. Capable of great feats of strength, Nabopolassar relished the justification for violence, like there was some psychological barrier to senseless violence in their mind. Spirits were impossible to read or psychoanalyze because their minds were far more varied than conventional intelligences. Nabopolassar was simple, and therefore easy to trust.

Laborosoarchod delighted in the chance to fight alongside Nabopolassar. It was interesting trying to avoid killing another fighter in the battlefield when total destruction was the norm. They flew in a double helix pattern like binary stars orbiting the galaxy, crushing their enemies with a combined strike that far outshone the largest asteroid strikes. In many cases, when a rival to Holos emerged, Laborosoarchod enjoyed the thrill and Nabopolassar the purpose. When they came across a lanky Human woman who effortlessly avoided their strikes, the flow of endless battle stopped and they had time to reflect.

The Corporeal

There was one spirit who baffled Holos—Sachitel. She joined the Oberherr League early on, but was not one of the founders who escaped The Array. Instead, she ruled a handful of worlds and fiercely defended them. When Holos' enforces attempted to wrest control of them, Sachitel crushed them in a show of Thaumaturgy Holos had thought was impossible. Another baffling aspect is that this spirit insisted on possessing the body of a Human, a species Holos had no record of. Unbeknownst to Holos, Sachitel was a mere mortal whose Thaumic abilities allowed her to stand toe-to-toe with any spirit. Her ruthlessness fooled everyone around her and she began calling herself a spirit anyways.

She founded the Second Aeternal Society and had no need to justify it. Many spirits had social or sexual needs—playing with the mortals was par for the course. When she began training the Luxscions in the way of Thaumaturgy, no one noticed. When she began conquering worlds beyond the League's sphere of influence, no one paid any mind. When she conquered Eos with a Zalanthian magus army and hundreds of lesser spirits of her own creation she received threats from everyone up to and including Holos.

The Oberherr League expelled Sachitel and Holos ordered every spirit to destroy her. Sachitel was delighted. Within the decade she had killed so many spirits it challenged Holos' legitimacy. Her vast magus armies represented the first time mortals could seriously challenge spirits since Belshazzar. Sachitel stood before Holos with a wide grin; Nabopolassar stood with her as did Laborosoarchod. Holos lost everything to this mere magus. It just meant Holos needed to find new a new way to conquer the universe. Holos grasped Laborosoarchod as they had countless other spirits, but Holos never felt the admittedly satisfying crunch of mental energy suffusing into physical space.

Laborosoarchod was far too powerful to be dispatched this easily. Holos began heating up from the effort; even Holos' hyper-efficient design produced waste heat, that quickly crossed the spectrum into waste ultraviolet and x-rays. Sachitel and Nabopolassar left the two to fight. Laborosoarchod burst from the grasp, creating a shock wave of gravitational energy. Holos hardly had time to react as Laborosoarchod reached them only slightly after the gravitational wave did. Holos turned on their drive in Laborosoarchod's direction, blasting the spirit with great energy but also greatly separating the two.

Within seconds they were back together, Laborosoarchod began creating and destroying the lattice that made it up in such a way that generated free rotational energy. Soon, the spirit rotated so quickly that their apparent mass increased greatly while frame-dragging Holos in their direction of rotation. When Holos grappled the rotating spirit, its mass had so much inertia that Holos could not get a grip on them. Laborosoarchod rushed toward Holos, a single blow would do incalculable damage to anything made of matter. Holos ran some exceedingly expensive calculations, based on risky assumptions, and created two exhaust plumes opposite one another on their body. This accelerated Holos to similar speeds, in the opposite direction, and with significant roll in addition to rotation. This strained Holos' structure, but what would happen next was predicated on only theoretical stress tolerance. Holos precisely launched themself at Laborosoarchod. The spirits touched for a few yoctoseconds, the time it took for the strong interaction to reflect the particles careening toward one another.

Laborosoarchod expected the battle to continue, but wasted precious moments trying to locate Holos. Suddenly, Laborosoarchod's view of the universe tinted blue, then ultraviolet, then every particle appeared as though it were a gamma ray. The spirit's view of the universe then constricted, as though it were falling down a well. In a sense, they were—a gravity well. The punishment for defiance was to be sent to the black hole of Nocturne. Laborosoarchod took weeks to reach the body, fighting as hard as they could to alter their trajectory, but felt only days of subjective time, so high was their velocity.

To this day, Laborosoarchod is putting all of their might into escaping Nocturne. The resulting struggle releases so much energy that Nocturne's perfectly-spherical surface ripples slightly, releasing intense radiation in addition to Nocturne's accretion disk. Several stars nearby to Nocturne, once vibrant cradles of complex ecosystems, lost nearly all biodiversity as a result. The resulting gravity waves are the source of Sagittarium's industrial might as they are harvested for energy. Holos would judge this use of energy as far less wasteful than how The Array would have used it.

The Rise of Civilization

Holos had done much to rid the universe of undue influence by spirits. It was only natural that science and technology followed. The various mortal species began developing. In Florathel, they sped through science and technology only for a mortal to assume the role of a spirit. For one thousand years, that region burned because Karith the Accursed was not immortal. Despite great effort, Holos could not take Karith's position. Unlike with spirits, mortals responded very poorly to Holos' shows of force. Legends of Holos' abilities and influence in Florathel kept all but the most desperate from flying to Aylathiya. Holos' realm gained a reputation as a realm of chaos and mad gods.

So when more approachable spirits emerged, Holos wasted no time earning their favor. Rinayo and Isayo were powerful Human magi whose abilities granted them everything from vacuum resistance to nigh immortality. They were the only people who could move faster than Holos, essentially the speed of light. With the power to change their own mass, they could move as quickly as neutrinos. Bending gravity in front of them to sweep away any particles and prevent collisions, they could cross the entire galaxy in weeks. They were perfect enforcers, but to use them for something like the Oberherr League would be worthless. That form of governance was a proven failure.

At first, the twin magi were terror-stricken. They put on a show of confidence before Holos, but their expressions were the exact same as those Larean scientists all those years ago. Humans must have been related to them. The three of them orbited a small lifeless world straddling the line between asteroid and dwarf planet. The magi dared not attack the ancient being, instead asking who it was. Unlike the last powerful Magus Sachitel, whose face showed nothing but contempt, these two seemed more honest. That was good.

Holos presented them with a plan, a bold effort to make them into kings. All they would need to do is lay waste to worlds who did not bend the knee. Holos presented them with the logic of the Overlords, in an attempt to recruit them. Power through absolute dominance. Rinayo seemed more enthusiastic about the idea, but Holos only needed one anyways.

"What do you gain from this?" Isayo asked the obvious question.

Holos projected an image before them, so real the two of them thought it was really there. They marveled at its writhing metal form, waves of light streaming down its body, and its elegant motion. This was the Resonant Divinity, a Larean design that would have given Holos the ability to be in multiple places at once. Building several more would allow Holos to effectively govern the universe. So the twins went off, building a grand civilization centered once again on Eos. Their seat was the city of Paradigm, but they were just as often elsewhere gathering materials or waging wars. Rinayo preferred waging war and Isayo the less glamorous task of gathering resources.

Their city grew to immense size and its factories would have been able to produce all the parts Holos needed, but the spirit waited. Rinayo and Isayo held a great amount of leverage over Holos and if Holos punished them, there would be no one left to create the Resonant Divinity. This is where Holos realized that mortals could be useful agents—they were just like the twin magi after all. So Holos poked and prodded the city of Paradigm, spreading the vision of the Resonant Divinity as though it were some entirely natural thing. When Rinayo and Isayo heard of this, they were amazed.

Rinayo and Isayo began work on the device, but both needed to reinforce their front lines against Ma'eau. Holos had no idea that Ma'eau was even conscious until a large fleet of recycled Larean space craft began bombing Paradigm. Ma'eau was the creator of all life in Aylathiya in a sense, more a widely-distributed form of predatory algae than an intelligence. It shaped the environment of worlds to shape the development of life, preferring more complex organisms so they had more biomass to feed upon. The fact it gained intelligence was a recent development that must have taken place while Holos was in its 180,000 year stupor.

Rinayo and Isayo dispatched the threat, but failed to protect their city. They died with nothing to show for their long lives of governance. Holos quickly intervened and this time gained control of their civilization. It felt strange to be directing mortals, and so beneath Holos' power. Perhaps interacting with Lareans would have been tolerable, at least they were an enlightened people. The simple superstitious mortals collapsed when Holos revealed too much truth to them, like they couldn't conceive of the universe as it was. Spirits looked at the deep secrets and laughed, or whatever else they were doing if they couldn't. Mortals had this very bizarre habit of losing hope, like they actually believed using religion to make sense of the universe wasn't just as terrifying as the naked truth. Holos hid their splendor beneath a facade. One that was still beautiful and compelling to the mortal mind, but not terrifying. Holos observed how the mortals, mostly Naidarans, Kristals, and Humans, interacted with one another and noted them.

Eventually, the Resonant Divinity was completed. Holos drove many of them to exhaustion, only for much of the needed parts to be beyond their abilities. Holos certainly could not synthesize the advanced materials and with Florathel experiencing the Years of Fire, they could not either. Even the substitutes were too hard for them, leaving Holos with an empty shell. Why couldn't they understand the chemical equations? Holos subjected promising individuals among them to decades of training, only for them to waste time looking for elixirs of immortality or cures for ailments. They smuggled materials out of the labs or built monuments using the strong carbon-fiber Holos had so graciously provided. Perhaps killing so many of them inhibited Holos' progress. They needed to want the same things Holos did, but apart from the radicals, how could Holos ensure that? How did Rinayo and Isayo do it?

Thaumaturgy

Holos had never paid much mind to thaumaturgy, but it was the only difference Holos could see between themself and successful rulers in the past. Thus, learning to manipulate it was essential. Holos came across many powerful magi roaming across the void, such as Ishtar of Olaris and Abijah of Sarpanitum. These two magi, while strong, had no formal training. Their efforts were entirely intuitive, meaning even under extreme duress, they revealed nothing useful. Holos resolved to find another magus, someone new to thaumaturgy, whom they could observe and imitate.

Enter Ohko, someone brimming with thaumic potential. A simple peasant girl in a small village on Eos who was, once again, a Human. Holos took on the form of that kind, stuffing their sublime form into a loner who lived in the caves nearby. It took great effort to keep themself folded up into such a simple form, but it would be worth it for this information. Holos sifted through the man's memories and found the name "Dagon," which they adopted for the time being. From a distance, Holos observed the girl's rapid growth. Many villagers believed it to be abnormal, as she was nearly fifty percent taller than the tallest man among them. She more than made up for all the food she needed with ox-like strength. Apparently, this was the subconscious Invocative Thaumaturgy at work, drastically increasing the metabolism of her cells and causing an explosion of growth. Holos regretted that they had not been observing her for longer; Lareas had no notion of Invocative Thaumaturgy at all.

One day, Holos grew impatient and approached the new woman wasting her talents sprinting down a field with a plough in tow. Holos introduced themself as "Dagon" and gave her the same offer that so appealed to Rinayo and Isayo. She laughed, recounting the time some raiders came to the village. She bragged about several scars across her body and how her enemies started running. Clearly she was content, so Holos departed. Some other magus should do, but try as Holos might, Ohko left an impression of sorts. Holos found the perfect catalyst for Ohko's growth, a magus who can show her why thaumaturgy is so important. The next nearest magus lived tens of thousands of kilometers away and, unable to use their drive without destroying their host, Holos had to walk. Lot of Araran destroyed Ohko's village and, as per Holos' request, spared Ohko alone. The man warped spacetime to fly off, giving Ohko a full view of the power of Thaumaturgy. Ohko knelt before the radioactive ashes of her village when the man she knew as Dagon approached, "If only there was something to be done about those scoundrels. Perhaps you could learn that art? To get revenge?"

Ohko would devote the rest of her life to learning thaumaturgy while Holos observed. The spirit mirrored Ohko's training, which focused on Classical Thaumaturgy, the art of manipulating particular quantum particles. Ohko and her various mentors had no notions of quanta, but Holos used their insights to far more effectively train. Apparently, classical thaumaturgy was limited to those with a natural aptitude toward a particular quantum particle. Holos was equally attuned to each particle natively and, as a result could do everything Ohko could and more. The question remained as to whether or not this art would be useful in ruling civilizations.

Ohko was able to use the full range of classical thaumaturgy, a rare gift. She created the notion of Ohko's Civilization and with the help of her lieutenants Hal Drusus and Eve of Mizraim—accidentally perfectly mirroring Holos' Oberherr League—she began her mission. This would be a valuable lesson in governance. Yet Holos learned nothing. Ohko united all of Eos within a generation and her vast army of Magi seemingly believed in her. Why did they follow this woman? Some laid down their lives for the sake of Ohko's Civilization. Holos played the roll of one of her enforcers, but to no avail.

Holos was left with no choice, they would need to sift through her memories, her very soul, to get the answers they needed. However, unlike Dagon, Ohko's willpower would be far too great. The risk of damage would be too high, so Holos needed to render her comatose. But first, an interview. Holos took her to the planet Ommekha, its clear and ultra-smooth surface suggested an artificial origin. There, they tried to get something useful out of her, but she could not tell them anything useful. Holos unsheathed themself like an insect exiting a cocoon and attacked her. Ohko did not go down without a fight, but she represented no threat. Holos sifted through her memories and found nothing actionable. Mortals just happen to like certain people for certain unquantifiable reasons. So be it. Holos has no choice but to go through a subordinate to rule.

Satisfied, Holos left Ohko's body somewhere in space. Almost immediately upon returning to Eos, Ohko's retainers confronted Holos. It was no trouble dispatching most of them, but one stubbornly remained. Holos felt a solar flare envelope their body. No, this was hardlight. Was some ancient artifact activating? In truth, the source was that stubborn figure, hurling chunks of hardlight. Holos was upon the figure within seconds—it was Hal Drusus, one of Ohko's servants. Holos felt a twinge of jealousy. Not a single person had ever been this devoted to them. Not a soul would fight on Holos' behalf like this man did for Ohko. The hardlight was no threat; Holos bent space around themself to redirect it. Suddenly, Hal was upon them and bright pain like nothing Holos had ever felt pierced their mind. The golden ring around Holos gained a small chip, microns wide. The amount of energy that it took to do that was astronomical. Holos felt fear once more, how could a mortal do this? Hal was even more difficult to destroy than Ohko, perhaps his willpower was simply so strong. His belief in this woman beyond mere faith. Most of the atoms in his body had been ionized and blasted away before he collapsed, it took more than one blast from Holos' drive to fully vaporize the body. At least this problematic individual had been taken care of, and for good at that.

The Three

Holos attempted several more times to create empires, each time learning more about thaumaturgy and mortals, but never enough about how they think. Spirits had become increasingly rare thanks to the Civese whose Shamanic Thaumaturgy was a far more refined version of the ancient spirit capture of The Array and Belshazzar. Civilizations across the universe had blossomed and some hints of proper quantum theory began emerging amongst the "natural philosophers" as they were then known.

There were perhaps a few dozen individuals who could stand up to Holos and even fewer who were aware of them. Sydiah's empire had reached its peak by this time; this latest powerful human magus had canonized her predecessors as . Unlike her predecessors, however, she rejected Holos outright and refused any communication. Sydiah had somehow found out that Holos had killed Ohko. Sydiah's Architects, however, were far less obstinate. This group of powerful magi, all Sydiah's works of art in a sense, numbered well over three thousand. Holos went to the strongest and offered unparalleled power, a vision of a grand Triumvirate in which the Triumvirs could conquer the galaxy. It would be a fundamentally new kind of civilization.

Titania Herschel took the offer on a bizarre condition. She appeared much like an Atlin, like a flaming levitating sphere. Eyes from every species Holos could name, and many they couldn't, stared at them as the sphere rotated each one into focus. Many blank spaces or empty indentations must have represented species who could not see. She strongly disagreed with her creators vision of Aeternalism and instead professed a religion of her own creation, Ibaradism. She already had tens of millions of followers—Holos realized she was the only good choice all along. Someone of immense magical power who was also charismatic. A perfect Triumvir.

Titania did not believe that Holos was as powerful as they claimed, so she proposed a contest. Holos nearly killed one of her fellow architects on the spot, but reconsidered. Sydiah would never forgive them for taking one of her architects, let alone two. Thus, the two flew to Holos' domain. It wasn't much compared to Sydiah's expansive empire, but Holos had over a billion subjects across three star systems. Titania resolved at that point to liberate those souls, to rule them with a far gentler hand, but moreover correct them from worshiping a mere work of art. They must worship Providence, or as Titania called it, Ibarados.

Then Titania asked who the third would be. A small planet, Velevev, had never been home to civilization. Surely intelligence would have evolved at some point on such a lush world. In orbit of this planet were mountain-sized flowers and starship-sized pollinators to match. A cloud of Spaceborne Life floated around the planet as dense as life in an ocean. Lights on the night side looked like cities, but turned out to be bioluminescent fungi enticing yet more creatures to the surface. One such group certainly had an unnatural formation, spelling out, "Here I am" in Larean script.

Holos and Titania landed on the surface of Velevev, dense with a shocking amount of life. Were they capable of breathing, they would have been ingesting billions of microbes with each breath. The clouds were tinted greens, purples, and blues with the photosynthesizers that had colonized them. A single small individual stood in the glowing clearing, its green light giving it a sickly appearance. It was a Farla. For the second time in their life, Holos showed respect. Even amongst the Lareans, the Farlas were to be left alone as the stewards of Ma'eau. While Ma'eau did not create all life in the universe, the Lareans certainly owed their existence to it and now the notoriously apolitical and primitivist Farla were making a foray into galactic politics.

This small figure represented the thinking ecosystem that was Ma'eau, who had finally awoken. Or, more accurately, began thinking quickly enough to notice their affairs. The Farla showed no fear because the being they served was far grander than the spirits before them, "My only demand is to be the face of the Triumvirate." And it was so. From that point onward, Ma'eau's representative would sit in the center—Titania on the right and Holos on the left. Holos did not mind as this plan would take thousands of years to unfold. With the power of technology, biology, and philosophy entirely in the Triumvirate's control, their rise was inevitable.

Holos immediately secured an alliance with the other candidates for the Triumvirate—Nabopolassar and POLIKY as Holos did not expect Ma'eau nor a single architect to defect. Nabopolassar behaved like it was the good old days, conquering worlds with an army of magi and spirits and spirits-turned-magi and magi-turned-spirits. The heavily intuitive way they practiced thaumaturgy was effective. POLIKY was a thoroughly modern device, a collective of captured spirits evolved from the primitive Civese methods. While not ruling the Payotari Quartet, it administrated the government. All of this was in service of countering Sedrua, whose army of architects was impossible to counter for any of them individually.

Overlord States

While the state as a concept had developed multiple times throughout Aylathiya, the Orcubor had perfected it. Their advancements inspired Holos' vision of the Triumvirate, a way of uniting a people that not even Sedrua had access to. Holos implored the other Triumvirs to conquer the Orcubor to get this system. Instead of a great war, the Orcubor acquiesced on the condition that their state could remain in existence. A perfect form of governance, so resilient. An Overlord would have been overthrown three times over during that conflict. The Orcubor greatly benefited from conquest, as their government became the bedrock of the Five Ministries, the Triumvirate state. These bodies—The Ministry of War, Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of Philosophy, Ministry of Personnel, and Ministry of Revenue—answered to a monarch called The Administrator who answered directly to The Three. Now, the minutia of governance could be abstracted and each of The Three could focus on their own pursuits. Each one of The Three got a massive allowance in terms of resources and, later, funds they could use as they saw fit.

The death of Sydiah nearly tore Sedrua apart, and the Sedrua-Quartet War gave both the Quartet and Triumvirate access to more star systems. Sedrua's new ruler, Thonde Yutira was far out of her depth and the other architects took advantage of this to form their own breakaway states. With the state effectively running itself, The Three employed the Great Intendancy to make sure it did not develop away from them and the Church of the Fae Queen to maintain doctrinal purity alongside the Ministry of Philosophy, which had been increasingly focused on scientific development over doctrine.

The system was perfect. Every time it looked like a rival could threaten the Triumvirate, their Administrator would handle it. Fusion Power, in particular in ship drive engines, greatly threatened the status quo. Various large interest groups had the rights to mine Uranium and profited greatly from it. This would have ruined an inferior government, but the Triumvirate purged them and implemented fusion drives and fusion power. The boost to Holos' allowance as a result gave them the resources to explore old Larean ruins, to learn more about the Andvaris Swarm, and to learn more about thaumaturgy.

Holos had a perfect memory, and even they struggled to recognize the administrator that brought them the news that there was a new form of thaumaturgy available. It was called Esoteric Thaumaturgy. Magi on Aegyn had been using it to great effect in resisting the local government. The Administrator droned on about how the contradictions in the Triumvirate's databases have fueled conflict between the Ministry of War in the Cenades and various local governments. Investors from the Providence Union had begun divesting. All of this was the drivel of an ambitionless bureaucrat who, even after giving this interesting news, faded into the background.

When the Sedrua-Triumvirate War began, Holos thought it was a good opportunity to clear away the accumulated detritus. Ma'eau put it simply, "forests need to burn down from time to time." Far more interesting was how the esoteric magi had done a good job resisting the local government and infiltrating local politics. Holos wanted to speak to their leader, this so-called Moonmoon, who could manipulate the very concepts of acceleration and deceleration. This form of thaumaturgy relied on bending reality rather than simply manipulating quantum particles.

Holos was so excited to learn this new method that they personally ventured to Aegyn during the midst of the war. Both sides laid down their arms as Holos came through, those who didn't faced immediate destruction, but Holos hardly minded them. There they were, the esoteric magi. They hurled curses and insults at Holos, who they had long associated with their mistreatment. One executed some action, something meant to invoke power, and Holos felt the Andvaris Swarm all around them. Their malicious protons, their utter disdain of not just the universe but their own existence, the cruelty that unnerved even Holos. The spirit activated their drive, essentially dropping an atomic weapon on the magi, and flew away. The Swarm pursued Holos, they were there, they were everywhere, Holos rammed through a fleet of spacecraft without noticing. When had they gotten so advanced? The swarm flew amongst their ranks, only feeling hatred for Holos and ignoring the ships.

Holos darted across the entire galaxy and well into the void around it before realizing what had happened. Esoteric Thaumaturgy could bypass Holos' defenses so effectively and could inflict hallucinations even on a being such as themself. Holos returned from their multi-month "diplomatic mission" to find Ma'eau and Titania had already ordered their extermination. Holos had no way to delete information from their memory, but began exploring Larean artifacts to see if there was. It was so tempting to replay those memories yet so uncomfortable.

The Administrator

Holos spent centuries looking through the Triumvirate's vast databases, first hand written, then on punch cards, then on film, then on disks. They greedily absorbed this information, looking for new ways to gain power. When the Ministry of War began its conquest of Zalanthium, the least developed region of the universe, the sheer volume of new information was almost overwhelming. Then, Holos felt a cold feeling like they had a physical body again. An overwhelming gaze contained not malice, but boredom, like there was something in this universe that dared to be unimpressed with Holos. Ma'eau felt something similar as did Titania. The Ministry of War began reporting missing personnel and, now, conflicting records. Holos' memory was filled with contradictions. Where had that beautiful data gone? The tapes and documents had been changed—they had to have been. Why had the thing that done this been so bored?

Anomalists were on the scene at once, individuals trained in finding exceptions to "consensus doctrine" and either smooth them out or suggest changes to what the consensus is. They were not normal scientists as they were generalists not looking for experimental evidence, but where experiments could be interesting. Faye Vaughn had discovered the source, The Benefactor. A group on the Zalanthian planet Crimwol had been using The Benefactor's power to weaken the Triumvirate. The Three summoned Vaughn and demanded answers.

"That cold feeling you felt was The Benefactor deciding destroying you was too much effort. Now, if the Crimwoli separatists paid a little more..."

Titania was going to have this woman executed, not only for daring to suggest The Three could be destroyed, but also for participating with the Crimwoli during her investigation. Ma'eau was indifferent on the woman, but wanted the Crimwoli obliterated. Holos stepped in to protect Vaughn, suggesting to delay her sentence for one hundred years, long after a normal human would die. This surprised even Holos as there were far more important matters than the life of a single person. The Triumvirate dropped rocks onto Crimwol until everything larger than a flea was extinct, they found the Benefactor and, unable to destroy it, conquered Limehold and prevented anyone from accessing this power.

Vaughn rose through the ranks to Underminister, 213th in line to be Administrator assuming normal succession. Holos could not help but root for her, like her success was tied to Holos' own. Vaughn pretended not to notice, but grew impatient when she saw she was next in line for the administrator position. She wanted to retire after nearly eighty years serving the Triumvirate. In the grand chamber where The Three met, Vaughn barged in, using her status to scare the guards into letting her in. She held a small Eos-shaped amulet in her hand, "Let me retire." That was it, that amulet. How did she get it? Holos was not only unable to harm this woman, but unable to, through inaction, let her come to harm. She was as Larean as Mr. Czarhon had been thanks to this token of citizenship. Holos even pinged the small device, a transponder, which confirmed that Vaughn was its owner.

"But who else could be the next administrator?" Holos reflected on her impressive career.

"I don't know, why not you?" She walked out of the room and boarded the next ship out of the capital. No one pursued her.

Thus, Holos gained the title of "Administrator" which they would keep until the current day.

Triune Republic Era

Holos wasted no time implementing the lessons they had learnt about governance. The Triumvirate had become a republic after the Crisis of the 71st century, with the Administrator taking on the role of chief executive, but no longer chief legislator. This still afforded Holos a great deal of power in interpreting the newly-formed Senate's laws. The Triumvirate now had 75 states each with equal representation and desperation to justify their own existence. It was just like the Oberherr League, a nation of egoists, far more abstract than the spirits were, yes, but with the exact same tendencies.

Holos' agents infiltrated the state governments at every level, generating far more data than ever before. Reams of the new three-dimensional film, developed for just the purpose as per Holos' orders, accumulated every day. For the first time, Holos noticed the impressive logistics the Triumvirate developed to even be within an order of magnitude of Lareas'. The inventors of this system would have been long dead, but perhaps there was some way to reward them. Holos announced a new program that, out of their own allowance, would reward the creation of new inventions or improvements to infrastructure. For a time, this generated a good deal of improvements and gave Holos the impression that, perhaps they were finally understanding the mortal mind.

Holos enjoyed the feeling of finally getting their bearings. It lasted for all of ten years before Holos discovered that a local bureaucrat had massaged the numbers in the structural integrity of a new alloy. The result was several collapses. Even though the bureaucrat resigned in disgrace and returned the reward, Holos personally captured the Molkor man and considered how best to destroy him. The stunned guards escorting him to prison faced the same fate incidentally, a stream of neutrons Holos made with thaumaturgy. The punishment was acute radiation exposure.

Ending the program revealed thousands more cases of corruption. Holos ordered each offender to be gathered in the Triune Kernel, the senate building. When the various senators saw many of their own amongst those gathered, there was outrage. Holos ignored their insults and released a burst of gamma radiation onto the guilty. The sentenced writhed in pools of their vomit and other excretions, each victim received just enough radiation for a slow death. Holos left the senate to coordinate its own clean-up; their point has been made. Highly evolved animals that could only respond to violence, hopeless.

From that point on, Holos began to strongly favor the Great Intendancy, the order of Paladins devoted wholeheartedly to the Triumvirate. As per the very nature of Paladins, they were incapable of acting against the Triumvirate. Their dedication manifested in the powers of a paladin, like the ancient leaders of the Cosmic Commonwealth. It was this enlightened order, mostly Ror Units due to institutional momentum, who became Holos' eyes and ears.

"They are simply shedding the last of their animal tendencies to achieve a higher state of consciousness, more spirit than mortal."

War of the Final Transition

Holos ordered the top officials in the Great Intendancy to self-immolate, which they did without hesitation using their own abilities. They had let the senate secretly embezzle funds for the creation of a mighty fleet, one that escorted those traitors back to their home worlds. Every single state decided to rebel at once, choosing Ma'eau or Titania over Holos. The Triumvirate was ruined and there was nothing to do to bring it back.

Nabopolassar laughed when Holos asked for help. POLIKY did not even have the grace to turn Holos down. The Republic of Selaga from Florathel took advantage of the chaos to invade Circuinotturna. Sydiah's surviving architects signed a temporary truce and celebrated in Sedrua's old capital—They even invited Titania. Un'oit warlords obliterated the few worlds loyal to Holos. What was there left to do but punish the traitors? There was no way out of this as a state, only as an Overlord, as a god. Holos destroyed cities in as many unique ways as they could think of. Gamma rays, neutrons, and other ionizing radiation was too cliché for this task. Holos preferred naked quark radiation—baffling to the scientists of the day. Single neutrinos, far closer to the speed of light than normal, had the energy of nuclear weapons behind them. Electromagnetic pulses disabled infrastructure and citizens starved. Spirits that the Triumvirate government captured were released. The population of Cosmoria, to this day, had not recovered from these decades nearly 2000 years before the present.

When the chaos ended, Ma'eau stimulated the fields to grow more food, Titania emptied her treasury buying foreign supplies, Sydiah's architects volunteered, and even the junta state that was Selaga gave foreign aid. Holos was awe-struck; it would have been far more optimal to let the bloated corpse of the Triumvirate decay. It was a failed society, so why preserve it?

All Holos had left to rule was the city of Aztaya, the abandoned Triumvirate Kernel, the Ommekha system, and only one worthwhile planet—the Rorran home world D'Naevium. So Holos took full advantage of this, realizing that there was no way for them to be the face of any grand empire. Their name will be cursed for all time, at the very least as a layer of igneous rock in the geologic strata of nearly a hundred worlds would forever be a testament to this.

So Holos returned to the basics, using the remains of the Great Intendancy to maintain some semblance of control. As usual, Holos poured over their reports, which had become far less reliable, and occasionally intervened in major events. A strong malaise overtook Holos however, like everything took far more energy than it should. Even when Holos had recharged from the War, the energy reserves felt empty. Was Holos finally broken?

Post War

Then Titania died. Her empire had nearly rebuilt the Triumvirate and she sought to be the new face of it. Unlike for Holos, there were candidates lined up to become her co-rulers. Even Ma'eau entertained the idea. Then that Human, that lieutenant of Ohko that hurt Holos, killed her. He looked exactly like him, at the very least, and had the same name. He styled himself Hal Drusus II. He spoke of the inherent sovereignty of the people, like Kyan Liberalism but far more religious. Holos did not want to feel that pain again.

His grandson killed Ma'eau, claiming to have inherited the spirit of Mars. Unlike the brutish flinging of hardlight that characterized the fighting style of the original Hal Drusus, this one had an elegant style. The hardlight in their hands burned with the brilliance of a star, like each strike was a solar flare. The next holder of Mars died without "transferring" the spirit and Holos hoped this would be the end of it. Instead, Mars emerged, uncontained and ravenous. Without direct control over the being anymore, the church of Gran Rubedo trial-and-error-ed their way to influencing their god. They got it to destroy enemy fleets, put down rebellions, and even killed Nabopolassar in a grand battle. The entire time, they demanded Holos face them and Holos did not grant their request.

The Occult Galaxy Project, what Faye Vaughn did with "retiring," had found a way to counter the mighty spirit, only to bind it to a crown that would have Mars partially possess its wearer. This began the era of the Imperator. They had the power of an Overlord but the soul of a mortal. Somehow, they were never outright despots, at worst authoritarian but the various Imperators, Imperatrixes, or Imperatraires, could never rule on the basis of their power alone. Mars would grow weary within them and burst forth, ushering in destruction for any overlord it found. Many of Sydiah's few surviving architects fell to Mars, as did many artificial intelligences that went rogue.

Now that was an idea, an overlord that was neither spirit nor mortal, but a machine. While Holos was certainly a machine in one sense, they were equal parts matter and spirit. A machine of mere matter and energy could find the mathematically best way to operate a society. Before Holos could even act on this idea, Kalliolel emerged. This powerful AI nearly defeated Mars, but failed. Unlike everyone in the universe except itself and Holos, Kalliolel knew that Mars and Hal Drusus were the same person. So, by resurrecting Ohko or at least a facsimile of her, Kalliolel could take advantage of Mars. The plan nearly worked, but another ancient spirit took advantage of the system and "cut in line," angry that anyone but him would be resurrected. While this destroyed Kalliolel and let Mars go free, Holos was eager to use these lessons to destroy Mars, the only real threat to Holos.

Hewing

Nearly 1000 years before the modern day, the Dominion of Astraeus was a powerful empire. Its diarchs ruled its vast territory with impunity, only heeding the council of ten dukes who divided their territory. One diarch played the role of Imperator and contained Mars, the other was Archon and had the exact same political authority. The Imperator and Archon were always to be married and always to make their first born their heir and have them raised with the Archon's family to maintain balance. Nicodemus Drusus II and Yuuho Drusus, taking on the name of their prophet, were both particularly superstitious. This was the chance.

Holos found a grizzled old Molkor to possess and infiltrated the imperial palace in Deungnamu. This was trivial for Holos' abilities. Worst-case scenario, Holos would be arrested and they could simply vaporize the room they were in, killing everyone but the Imperator who Holos could easily escape. Instead, the diarchs listened to Holos' ramblings, which used old-sounding words and quoting much of Hal Drusus II's writings to sound more legitimate.

"You will bear a son that will be destined to destroy Administrator Holos!"

Holos did not like saying those words, but bore with it. Holos waited until Yuuho finally conceived before bending space to gain access to the zygote. It was a computationally expensive procedure, involving creating a tunnel in four dimensional space, but it had to be done. Using surgical precision, Holos put a Larean transponder into the zygote, marking the baby girl as a citizen. That was inconvenient, the prophet said a son. Holos, nearly exhausted, had to find a y chromosome, Nicodemus', and replace it right as the cell entered its first metaphase in division. Holos finished the work and gained that expected fondness as they had for all Larean citizens.

The new crowned-prince was named Prince Jeroboam, and would soon notice a distance between himself and the others in his family. His younger brother, Rehoboam, had far more attention in particular from Yuuho. That was no matter, however, Rehoboam had Dagon, the old Molkor who would visit him nearly every night. The Molkor played a major role in raising the boy, from teaching life lessons about power to giving him a correct account of the history of the Triumvirate. When Jeroboam accidentally told his parents, Nicodemus was delighted and believed this to be a sign that the prophecy was true.

Mars hated the boy who reminded him of that old enemy. That transponder, no larger than a cell, filled Mars with that same rage. This unconsciously effected Nicodemus, who contained the spirit. Yuuho noticed the hesitation Nicodemus had with the crowned prince and this only emboldened her favoritism. Jeroboam had this problem with his peers as well, the children of dukes or who were themselves dukes whom he played with, avoided him. They would never dare to discuss this aloud, but they could never quite say why. Holos knew why. It was because of Holos' influence that mortals could not understand Jeroboam who could see the truth of the universe. Holos' share of both socialization and influence on the prince only increased.

Nicodemus attempted multiple times to talk to Jeroboam, but the revulsion he felt limited the chats to pleasantries at best. The first time Yuuho looked at him since he was a young boy was telling him to "Hurry up and defeat The Administrator already." Jeroboam was hardly an adept magus and would doubtless need to invest years into becoming a paladin rather than studying classical thaumaturgy. His brother on the other hand was more than strong enough to contain Mars as Imperator.

"There is another form of thaumaturgy..." the old Molkor put a single finger on Jeroboam's temple, "Harmonic thaumaturgy." Even though Jeroboam was hesitant to borrow power from another, Holos insisted. In fact, Holos' very being would not allow the suffering boy to refuse. Harmonic thaumaturgy involved the channeling of a spirit's power and, although Holos had never done it before, studied its extensively. Jeroboam was overjoyed at his new abilities, astonishing his instructors, peers, and siblings. His father could no longer be in the same room as him without becoming irrationally angry, however. Yuuho sided with her husband.

And so, after becoming an adult, they shipped the prince to Ommekha, the same place Mars faced off against Holos. All he had was military-grade space suit and a few weeks' rations. Holos played along, appearing to the boy in their naked glorious form. Jeroboam was astonished to see Dagon take on this form and Holos was pleased he noticed. Now phase two could begin, destroying Mars' reputation amongst the masses and finally getting rid of this nuisance. The prince hardly even needed an explanation before flying off to the capital. He demanded to see his father only to force his way into his quarters. Nicodemus attempted multiple times to leave, guilt and disgust warring with unfiltered white hot rage. Mars' feelings were far stronger, and the Imperator struck his son. The two fought for a time, and Nicodemus fought hard to prevent Mars from harming his son the entire time. He fell within minutes. Following him, the palace magi, the best in Cosmoria, fell one by one. His mother died with an automatic rifle in her hands, standing in front of the younger brother she'd always protected. Holos protected Jeroboam from the spray of gunfire, but the boy hardly needed it. He had hardly a single blood relative left within the week.

The crowned prince roamed the galaxy afterward, destroying whatever he wanted, taking whatever he desired, and even gaining a few followers. A true overlord if Holos ever saw one. When Jeroboam flung his followers and then himself into a neutron star, Holos did not have time to react before his atoms were spread out and made into degenerate matter. Holos gave up on the idea that mortals were raised to be weak or foolish and settled on the fact that they must have inherently been that way. A mortal can get all the revenge, all the power, the wealth, the sex, the best tasting food. Jeroboam was able to get all of that as a roaming Overlord and yet he died.

Mars did not even see a reason to intervene. The slayer of Overlords did not even recognize the boy as anything but such. Holos noticed the spirit watch Jeroboam during this travels, uncharacteristically calm. Several days before Jeroboam's death, the spirit reached out and touched his face, "I see you." Holos was fairly sure the spirit meant them and not the boy and shuddered.

Aylathiya's Ignominy

Holos had ignored politics from then on, at a loss for how to deal with Mars or to regain power. Meanwhile, Holos' spy network had ballooned into a vast intelligence apparatus that had called itself the Cabal of Amaranth Truth after another organization it absorbed. Complete with its own cosmology, Holos-centered religion, and vast treasure trove, Holos was effectively omniscient. They owned dozens of artifacts, including Sydiah's Occulus of Truth, which they used to great effect in intelligence gathering. Out of sheer boredom, Holos directed nonsensical operations the Cabal carried out to the letter. Then something quite interesting happened.

The War of the Ancients was the last gasp of the Overlord as a form of government. Zaphenim and several other historical figures had been resurrected by the last of Sydiah's architects, Vurilia Jutopati. Among them was Ohko and Holos realized how they could build a new civilization. Jutopati was an immortal who spent the better part of five millennia in pursuit of resurrection, the more Holos looked the more of Jutopati's influence they could find. Jutopati did not rest for a moment as long as there was hope of bringing back his creator, Sydiah. He had preserved her body, and she was by far the most accurate recreation. Ohko was more or less accurate as well, but the resurrection completely botched the rest. Sachitel had the exact same contempt on her face, even if her face was much different. Rinayo and Isayo looked like another set of twins from the same parents. Holos had never met the strongest amongst them, Zaphenim, but could see his power. Jutopati was wise to gather a council of the most powerful magi in history. He was humble to recognize that he needed their help.

Holos realized that they too needed that wisdom. Holos needed to resurrect Mr. Czarhon to figure out what his order would have been. Holos felt guilty for taking tens of thousands of years to figure this out, but this was the truth. The Benefactor refused to grant that wish no matter how much Holos asked, meaning Holos needed access to Vurilia's machine.

"O Great Zaphenim, why do they give Sydiah so much recognition?"

That was all Holos needed to whisper into that great magus' ear. A promising overlord who did not even need the same pitch the others did. Starting the War of the Ancients was exactly what Holos would have done in the past, sacrificing billions to get leverage over the only real players on the board. Zaphenim even recognized what a threat Mars was, but had too much faith in his armies. Zaphenim had taken control of the Sovereign States of Aylathiya and promised a return to its former glory. When Holos tried that with the Triumvirate, it failed, and the great spirit felt a surge of jealousy against Zaphenim. Mars should kill the man so the Anastasis Engine, the resurrection device, would be left unguarded. In truth, the device had deeply unsettling implications to Holos. How it worked was a mystery and not even Lareas could build such a device. Plus, to only require the energy of a single fusion reactor to rebuild an entire person's spirit, it was impressive beyond compare.

Holos contemplated numerous times simply taking the device and activating it, especially during the closing days of the War of the Ancients in which every spare guard was on the front lines. No—the guards were not the problem—Vurilia Jutopati was. He could easily destroy or disable the device while Holos took control of it. This required delicacy.

While Holos was snooping around the Anastasis Engine, Ohko found them. Clad in armor like her very skin was not harder than any metal or polymer, she stared at the spirit with now-bespectacled eyes. She very nearly recognized Holos and Holos could see the fear creeping into her expression. Holos redirected the interaction, "My name is Dirac, one of the architects. Nice to meet you." Ohko's fear changed to embarrassment, "Sorry I still can't remember everyone's... face." They chatted for a time and Holos used the opportunity to its fullest. Might as well direct the biggest weakness for Mars in that spirit's direction. Holos planted the seeds for Ohko's trip to Enyo, the capital of Mars' government.

Aylathiya's Ignominy was the single-man coup Zaphenim attempted against the newly created Martial Space. This vast empire conquered nearly all of Aylathiya after Zaphenim's forces not only lost, but turned against him. In true overlord fashion, he and his select group of magi faced against armies and armadas. In the chaos, nearly everyone alive whose name Holos knew fought against one another, all for Mars to sweep up the remains. With Vurilia Jutopati on the edge of death, there was not a single magus who could destroy the Anastasis Engine before it could activate. Holos took the chance to intimidate the scientists who operated it. A skeleton crew was all that remained to operate the device, but they rushed to complete its activation. After all, a legendary figure had appeared to them, one that at least a quarter of them thought was an embellished legend of a mere artificial intelligence.

They were baffled when Holos requested an unknown figure in history and had no body to base the resurrection on. The device worked by taking a volunteer and erasing every memory they had, inducing brain death. Then, the corpse they wanted to resurrect was thoroughly scanned. If a magus was powerful enough, often their spirit remained somewhat in tact long after they died. Sydiah's was in near perfect condition and Ohko's had barely made it to the modern day. Zaphenim was the only resurrected to have been an active participant in the process, seeking out the vessel for the body like he had been waiting for this day since his death. Holos ignored the impossibility of this request—the spirit needed advice and badly.

With Holos dictating to the micrometer what Mr. Czarhon's face looked like, the brain dead corpse became an exact replica of the ancient official. The device turned on and, during the chaotic period that was Aylathiya's Ignominy, hardly anyone noticed. The brain scan displayed a rainbow of intense brain activity as the device reached across the Noosphere to find Czarhon's soul. A technician, fearing for her life, overrode the inevitable error message and set the machine to go ahead with the closet match anyway. After several hours, the brain scan stabilized and the corpse entered into a deep coma. The technicians hoped the nearly random spirit within the body would at least remember to beat the patient's heart.

When the body woke, Holos was upon the man immediately, "Mr. Czarhon what was your order?" In a language none of the technicians understood. They gave the spirit privacy and slowly, one at a time, evacuated the building.

The newly resurrected man coughed and stared off into space. After looking at Holos once again, the man screamed like he was being tortured. Holos looked upon the quivering form before them, barring the face of their creator, the only person who knew Holos' purpose, scream like a beast. Another failed attempt.