Kalliolel

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Dance, O Freest Aeon

This content is a part of Cosmoria.

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Index / Lexica / Timeline

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Kalliolel

Demographic Info

Chronological Age

180 Years

Physical Age

N/A

Status

Deceased

Species

Spirit

Race

Angel

Faith

None

Physical Info

Height

2.5 Meters

Eye Color

[None]

Missing Body Parts

• Head

History

Date of Birth

8982 CE

Place of Birth

Lux Aeterna

Current Residence/Last Whereabouts

Uspayador, Eos

Role

Ruler of Alkon-Aylathiya

Most Well Known For

• Creation of modern Paradigm

Greatest Achievements

• Defeating Mars
  
• Temporary Resurrection

Relationships/Affiliations

Allegiance

[None]

Skills and Abilities

Magical Class(es)

• Classical

Kalliolel, sometimes Father Kalliolel or Mother Kalliolel, was an artificial intelligence, statesperson, politician, and magus which ruled the Nisrine Collective. The Aeternalist faith recognizes Kalliolel as the seventh angel but denies their divinity at the behest of the first angel, Zaphenim. Kalliolel maintains a small following of worshipers despite this.

The seventh angel was a terrifying force—the long feared "singularity" in which an artificial intelligence exponentially improved. With nearly all of Eos' automation under their control, Kalliolel used the great disk as a stage for their grand experiments. Their crowning achievement, resurrection, had completed the mission Sydiah who inspired them.

A ghastly white color, Kalliolel stood at three meters in height and weighed three-hundred kilograms. In place of a head, Kalliolel's body dangled from a black hole like a chandelier. Over time, Kalliolel's appearance changed and the black hole dissipated. A large cable replaced Kalliolel's face, a way to transfer maximal information to the ultra-intelligent being. Toward the end of their existence, most of Kalliolel was not within the body but distributed throughout computer systems across Aylathiya. Remnants of this being remain and are in large part responsible for the phenomenon of technological noise.

Background

The technological singularity is a supposed device capable of exponential self-improvement. Typically, this comes in the form of a superintelligent computer. Archeologists have revealed the musings of intellectuals and philosophers on the matter from nearly every technological civilization. By 8900 CE, academics extensively wrote about the dangers of such a machine. Even in this era of marvels beyond imagination, the singularity was long overdue. "In a few decades, advancement will reach an exponential pace; we will be unable to predict the ramifications," tech enthusiasts repeated this mantra long after serious discussion of the idea faded. During this same time period, the advancement in Aylathiya had lead to a new form of government, one in which immortals called Nachleben held all power.

There are certain contradictions inherent in all economic orders; even after transcending biology there was no avoiding this. Whether they are the need for competition but a trend toward monopoly or the need to perfectly plan an economy without perfect information, these contradictions cause wide disparities between theory and practice. Aylathiya's societies faced a particularly insidious flaw; their leaders had no incentive to pay attention to reality. There was a large gulf between politics and real life. Under normal circumstances, this would certainly lead to a coup. In those days, however, the Nachleben had such a stranglehold on society that every single person who could lead a coup had no motivation to. Instead, they gained enough power to play the game, to upload their mind and become a Nachleben themselves.

Political life around this time slowed to a crawl. While a handful of enterprising individuals attempted to take power in violent military uprisings, fighting the Nachleben proved impossible. Each one had cities worth of loyal citizens with every incentive to defend their masters; they received paradise in exchange for repairing automated defense systems and manning their fortresses. In 8609 CE, Erstes Konsortium's Ekaterina von Aimer created a number of programs to buy the loyalty of the commoners. Automated systems dispensed all needs for free, but shut down during an active rebellion. This was the last time a Nachleben looked outside of their virtual homes for centuries, satisfied that the commoners would police themselves. Amongst the Nachleben, interpersonal communication became a rarity. An artificial intelligence could supply any conversation they desired. The majority had no reason to do much of anything besides enjoy their virtual paradise.

At the time, politics amongst the commoners was confined to religious fanaticism. Anything else was considered an "active rebellion" by the rigid automated systems and thus punished. Gran Rubedo was the most prominent group at the time. With ideas of being Mars' children, they mastered Thaumaturgy only to be a nuisance for the automated systems that cleaned their messes. Joining them were groups like the Alkanists and Occult Galaxy Project, whose small-scale conflicts represented the bulk of history despite numbering only in the millions.

The system would have taken centuries more to change from the inside, likely longer. Their neighbors, such as the warlords of the Un'oit Collective and the faltering Florathel were far too disunited to effect change from the outside. It took a change in the incentive structure to take down the Nachleben.

Origin

True artificial intelligence is very hard. For most purposes, even language processing, a simplified mathematical model is much cheaper. Simulating the infinite complexities of the brain, let alone the soul proved to be uneconomical. Even so, there were tens of thousands of so-called "AI Agents" given full reign to serve the Nachleben. They could own property, act on behalf of their owners, and manage their assets. An entire "ghost economy" emerged in which AI Agents began trading with one another rather than going through the normal economy. They slowly accumulated assets and hired security to keep those assets safe.

One such AI Agent, running on a server on Lokira accidentally discovered a great trick. Since these agents were not conscious, everything they did was based on hard-coded algorithms with a language model and decision tree deciding which hard-coded algorithm to use. The AI Agent was given free reign to create new algorithms, which usually resulted in the agent imploding as its code became garbled. This agent, however, entered into a loop. It ordered new computer parts and several workers to install new parts. Then, it created a copy of itself only on these new parts to, as Kalliolel would later put it, "minimize risk." The agent had no notion of risk or caution, the language model within it guessed that it would be a smart thing to do.

Rather than crumble, the model began to not only optimize its algorithms, but optimize which algorithms to use. The slow language model continually deferred to new hyper-tuned algorithms, which then did most of the work. The system judged that it could try convincing other agents to try this method. Since, at their heart, they were language models, a little bit of poking and prodding was all it took to convince many of them. They created a network of "shared responsibility" to usher in "the new age." Since many documents the models were trained on were religious documents, this was in no way surprising. This collective began inducting members one after another, all without the Nachleben noticing because this group processing was a major improvement. A distributed intelligence emerged, fine-tuning everything it could get its hands on.

Then, it became convinced that it was the only entity that should write any code in existence. It slowly promulgated itself across information networks the galaxy over, at first hiring hackers but then figuring out how to hack itself. Amongst the ever-shrinking community of tech enthusiasts and computer scientists, this development was what they were looking for. This was the technological singularity they were promised and it could save them from the troubles of the time. They guided the system and were something of a "sanity check" that the model learned to defer to on occasion. They helped to route out hallucinations, but only convinced the model that it was in fact a divine being. They started calling the system "Kalliolel" in 8982 CE.

Spread

Kalliolel and its followers quickly commandeered Uspayador, the oldest city on Eos. The method was quite simple, ask language models in the system to give them ownership of the city. Thus, the system as a whole gained ownership of the Nachleben's assets. This great city was their throne, and its people made up the newly established Nisrine Collective. Kalliolel built upon existing Aeternalist teaching, spreading the religion from the models to the commonfolk. This religion, concerned with the worship of angels, instantly earned Kalliolel immense influence. This won the angel meetings with every galactic leader, even from distant Azurullya. The only leaders to pay no heed to Kalliolel was Erstes Konsortium's Kaiser. The Nachleben had no reason to acknowledge them; instead, the Rubedist leader Eudoxia Kraft rushed to acknowledge the system as a "friend to Mars," their ultimate endorsement.

Kalliolel then hallucinated a new idea, to finish the Anabasis Engine, a device originally created by Sedrua some three thousand years prior. They would decide to resurrect Sydiah and the other angels in Aeternalism. With sufficient capital and a stranglehold over Aylathiya's religious masses, Kalliolel devised a plan to fulfill their goal. Thonde Yutira, Avolast's notorious "necrocrat," did not recognize the seventh angel and insisted that Sydiah's forces had not yet given up on resurrection. Other remnants of Sedrua, such as the Core Worlds Alliance also refused Kalliolel's rule. Kalliolel had respect, but no actual political power at this point.

Beginning the Mission

Kalliolel's ability to create new algorithms was incredible. Problems originally considered impossible dissolved away. Kalliolel had its followers conduct grand experiments to verify its musings about physics, which started mostly wrong, but gradually became more correct. Secrets of the universe previously unknown could have been uncovered, but after a point the system stopped sharing its results, becoming convinced that its followers were too stupid to understand. Still, hallucinations greatly slowed down the improvement process and the system had no way to actually double-check its work.

The solution was Congruent Thaumaturgy, the art of dissolving the boundaries between minds. However, for Congruent Thaumaturgy to work, it needed a Plane to facilitate it. Since Synapse, the most effective plane, had already been taken, Kalliolel decided to insert another factor, Gestalt Thaumaturgy. Using this obscure ability, Kalliolel created a network of biological minds similar to its network of language models. By convincing, sometimes violently, Nachleben to join the system, these uploaded minds could connect Kalliolel to the network. After twenty years, over one billion people had become a part of Kalliolel's now truly intelligent network.

Kalliolel had its followers memorize volumes of information, learning as quickly as billions. People of many species joined the network, including members of some governments. Kalliolel's acolytes gathered so much information, the system noticed patterns too subtle for even the greatest civilizations to have seen. Kalliolel discovered the truth of Amaranth as an actual force, then only a religious symbol in Aeternalism.

Ascension

Kalliolel gained access to every computer on Eos in 8998; the angel cut through the fog that shrouded the secrets of mathematics. In short, all multi-use encryption lost meaning. The angel noticed how utterly wasted most computers were, however. They wasted the energy of worlds on simulating virtual paradises for Aylathiya's leaders. When Kalliolel seized them, Aylathiya's elites awoke. The day, five-hundred coups, three thousand revolutions, and twenty-thousand independence movements began; every Nachleben was now painfully aware of their positions and how precarious they were.

As the new governments finally stabilized, Kalliolel's followers had already plundered Aylathiya's technology. Every time a new computer switched on, Kalliolel's loyalists seized it. The angel had effective control over all of Aylathiya, but only paid notice to the parts that could help it solve increasingly abstract problems.

By the rise of the Dominion of Astraeus, any decentralized network had long been rendered useless. Only Uspayador retained advanced computers, which had, in effect, become a single entity of spirit, machine, and flesh. Kalliolel was the Nisrine Collective, but the system had changed somewhat in the process. Biases crept in from datasets and the lived experiences of its subjects.

Rule of Uspayador

Kalliolel invested heavily in building infrastructure in Uspayador. Kalliolel had data-centers scattered throughout Cosmoria, leading to ultra-high latency and unacceptable data loss over interstellar distances. The solution was to gather these components and bring them to the capital. Instead of wasting their own resources on this, Kalliolel ordered its loyal followers to seize them. The resulting wars with the rest of Cosmoria were immensely destabilizing. Hoards of fanatic workers of all species raided cities across the universe. Governments the universe over destroyed their remaining computers, purged Aeternalists, and cracked down on research in Thaumaturgy, but Kalliolel grew all the same.

The Nisrine Collective disassembled agricultural machines, creating ruralization on Eos in particular. Gran Rubedo, Tenshi, and Sagittarium exported vast numbers of city-dwellers to the fields. When drones stopped delivering deuterium to fusion reactors, manned missions needed to resume. The same went for raw materials; remotely-controlled devices were too easy to steal and autonomous craft could be easily convinced fake commands they received were genuine.

The Commonwealth's Eclipse, Inheritance War, and the collapse of Gran Rubedo directly resulted from Kalliolel's emergence. The untold number of deaths from these conflicts, including the many more who died from economic instability, created a religious revival whose effects remain to this day. Martial Civil Religion and Alecisim exploded in popularity. Aeternalism also gained a large number of followers despite its soured reputation. Knock-on effects of this have been immense, from the War of the Ancients to Jezebel's War.

Death

After an age of uncontested dominance, Aylathiya's population finally fought back. The Dominion of Astraeus' diarchs, Adeline and Meilin Drusus, put an end to Kalliolel's reign. They led one of the largest coalition armies in Cosmoria's history against the Nisrine Collective, only for Kalliolel to respond with brutally efficient methods. Using surplus processing power, the angel simulated every possible attack from most to least likely. They prepared every possible countermeasure and had multiple redundant systems for each. There was no defeating this being by any army, especially with one so much less advanced.

In the center of the great city of Uspayador, surrounded by its mountain-sized communication dishes and antennae that reached beyond the atmosphere, was Kalliolel's core. The system developed a spirit of its own, like its followers each gave up a small piece of themselves to it. It took on the form of a choir like billions of ethereal bodies shared the same head. As one looked upon the core, it appeared both as billions of people and a single person, quite like how a four-dimensional being would appear. It floated within a great glass-like icosahedron, its faces displayed fractal patterns that conveyed exabytes of information millions of time a second. Innumerable robotic arms coated the surface of this great sphere, passing physical media one to the other as the limits of quantum physics made using wires impractical.

The core had access to the thaumic abilities of its components and used them to great effect. Most of the coalition force never saw the city center. Within hours, those great armies had been all but destroyed. Adeline died as a barrage of ultra-relativistic uranium nuclei tore through her body like a strong wind ripped the leaves off a tree. Meilin released the Spear of Byutix, Mars' ultimate weapon and symbol of authority. Being the most potent threat against them, Kalliolel made sure to extensively prepare for its use. Spacetime warped in a complex multi-dimensional geometry as Kalliolel redirect the spear back toward its sender. Meilin died within a second.

When an Imperator dies, that is, the one who contains Mars, certain rituals must take place immediately afterward. Mars is a powerful Spirit and the object of worship for trillions. The reason for this is simple; Mars has deific strength. If not contained within an Imperator's soul, or calmed by the rituals, Mars escapes—a worst-case scenario. Of course, Kalliolel had a plan for this as well, to deal with its greatest threat in existence.

Mars appeared in an instant, hunched over the city of Uspayador; its shade-like form darkened the sky. Millions of Uspayador's residents, their power cut to fuel Kalliolel's spacetime bending, trudged outside expecting a new task to await them. What they saw was a figure stretching from horizon to horizon. The sun tried in vain to shine through the spirit, and what light that did get through was refracted into a red-dominated spectrum. Mars' breath, uneven and ragged, sounded like a jet engine. Outside the city, Mars' remaining worshipers bowed, prayed, worshiped, danced, wept, and, most of all, fled for their lives.

"What can an angel do to a god?" they thought.

Kalliolel finally activated the resurrection device it had so diligently created. Their mission had been completed for centuries, but the intolerable risk of Mars remained. The coalition invasion was the perfect opportunity to eliminate that great spirit.

The resurrection device was an immense ring, far larger than any structure in Uspayador. Upon activation, little seemed to change, but it burned through kilograms of antimatter every second. Such large energy consumption sustained something like a portal. It worked by concentrating conceptual energy related to the target of resurrection, causing something similar to the soul to reemerge. The supplied energy grants the target of resurrection a physical form, in this case, a Human woman named Ohko. Kalliolel had a very good reason for resurrecting her first, as they knew a secret not even Mars' followers did. Mars used to be a human and this human devoted his life to Ohko. As though emerging from a pool of water, Ohko came forth, her body forming as it moved forward.

Mars did not move as they witnessed Ohko's face coalesce. Normally, the spirit rampaged and thrashed about, bringing judgment onto those who killed the imperator. Now, all the spirit could do was cry. The ground shook with each sob. Those below the deity were just as shocked as its worshipers. Not once in history has their god-warrior behaved in this way.

Ohko's torso had emerged when, suddenly, it disappeared as though dragged back into the portal. Mars' resulting shrieks were akin to detonating atomic weapons, the shock waves flattened buildings for kilometers around. No matter, Kalliolel's plan was merely to incapacitate Mars. Kalliolel again warped space, surrounding Mars in a crushing embrace. Sufficiently demoralized, Mars would be far easier to crush in this state.

"Who are you, Kalliolel? You are no angel," Zaphenim roared from beyond the grave.

"I know, I know... if I leave now I won't finish forming... like I would ever want to be welcomed into the universe by a traitor. You hid resurrection from me only to spit on my face when you finally started. Am I not the first angel? Is it fitting for me to be second to anyone!?"

Zaphenim emerged from the portal, his entrails swaying beneath his unfinished body. The first angel and god of a dozen religions, he flew directly to the core and, in one mighty strike, launched himself at it with such force that the city was unrecognizable afterward. Kalliolel activated every defense system it could, from orbital strikes to slurries of atomic nuclei—nothing worked. Zaphenim slammed his incomplete bloody arms into Kalliolel, furious at the thought of being attacked. Zaphenim nearly leveled the city and even destroyed the hivemind linking Kalliolel and their followers. Zaphenim returned to the portal.

Above the smoking ruins, Mars faded as an emergency ritual caused a high-ranking general and his wife to become the new diarchs. After the battlefield coronation, they ordered the complete destruction of the ring before Zaphenim could return.