The Xeno Syndicate

Preface

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The Order
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What interest do we of the Order have in coming to study Xeno Syndicate?  We immortals of the Order are concerned with it because it has disturbed the natural progression of evolution in the universe; it has caused an seemingly irreparable alteration of the original manifestation of existence.  The Xeno Syndicate has corrupted destiny itself.

For those of us of the Order, whose mandate it was to protect the original time line of events of the universe, the corruption of destiny imposed upon existence by the Xeno Syndicate has shattered our beliefs, destroyed our faith, undermined our most sacred prophecies.  Our Order itself has fallen, our members scattered, wandering aimlessly throughout time and space, carrying on in mundane, purposeless, indefinite existence.

Some of our Order spend existence in the form of stars, simply churning through their mindless rage for the ages.  Others of our kind delve their consciousness into the form of vortexes, their souls quelled by the paradox of existing as nothingness.

But others of our Order have retained some measure of hope: that in studying the origins of the Xeno Syndicate, we may somehow discover the root of the Xeno Syndicate's corruption of the space-time continuum, and, by doing so, somehow find a way to correct it.

But it has been countless revolutions of the universe and the original Xeno corruptors have never been discovered.  With each passing revolution of the universe, space-time becomes exponentially, furthermore corrupted.

The following is simply an account of what I, Chanyueh, have learned thus far.

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The Revolutions of the Universe
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Before the corruption, the universal measure of time itself had been gauged according to the revolutions of the universe.  At the beginning, all matter and energy unfolded from the Xentrum.  From this, all the celestial bodies would coalesce, forming the planets upon which living beings could evolve sentient minds, and, therefore, the capability for ascension.

The galaxies would expand out into the infinite darkness to a certain, predestined extent, where, finally, gravitational forces would cause them to attract back in unto each other towards the Xentrum.  Any sentient beings who had evolved the capability to ascend would be able to join the ranks of the ascended before the collapse of the universe.  When all matter and energy in space-time had returned to its source, all would thus explode again, beginning a new revolution of the universe, and a new chance for new beings to evolve sentience and thus ascend.

The process was like a the lungs of an all-encompassing living God who would breathe a new revolution of the universe with every exhale, and, with each inhale, take in unto himself the newly evolved ascended beings. 

We the ascended worshiped this process, believing it to be a manifestation of God.  But then, the corruption of the Xeno Syndicate rendered everything we had held to be divine clearly and simply meaningless.

It is unknown by any of the ascended how it occurred exactly, but, somehow, a single action committed by the Xeno Syndicate was responsible for altering the gravitational balance of matter in the universe.  The Xeno Syndicate somehow caused the galaxies to expand beyond the gravitational threshold of the Xentrum.   The galaxies of the universe have thus expanded beyond the point of reclamation.  All matter and energy now drifts chaotically, aimlessly, without order, without purposes, in randomness for eternity.

It was as if the Xeno Syndicate somehow killed our God, with only a dying breath of an ever-meaningless universe left.

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The Human Corruption
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We had first heard of the corruption of the Xeno Syndicate many revolutions of the universe ago, while overseeing conflicts between newly evolved sentient beings in the Sagittarius Galaxy.  The Order, upon discovering the presence of the corruption in the universe, made the following decree: "A presence has appeared in space time which has not been predestined in any of the infinite revolutions.  Our task is to investigate this anomaly."

For over a thousand revolutions we oversaw the Pinwheel galaxy, sensing nothing.  The Order did not know the nature of the corruption at that time; did not know the corruption was of the Xeno Syndicate; did not know the extent of it; the ramifications of it; nor how subtly and menacingly it was hidden from us.  It was in the 1847th revolution after the corruption in the universe had been first detected that one of our Order sensed the mind of a single anomalous individual sentient. 

One person of a race of beings known as a human, originating from a planet called Earth, was deemed to be existing out of its natural space-time.  He was of a race of beings that had never, in all the revolutions of the universe, elevated their society beyond that of a pre-space-faring civilization.  It was a race always destined for extinction; a race who in all revolutions of the universe had committed self-annihilation, and had never extended itself beyond its home-planet's star-system; a race deemed by the Order to be wholly incapable of ascension.

And yet, here was one human, not only set apart from its home star-system, but situated in an entirely different galaxy and entirely different revolution of the universe.

However, just as he was sensed, his presence vanished, his existence suddenly masked from us.  It was then that the Order, believing there to be a contrived corruption of space-time, dispatched many to the Pinwheel galaxy to conduct a search for the corruption.

He was found.  His mind was human, but his genes altered to that of the wardancer race.  He was employed by what we later discovered to be the Xeno Syndicate, an overlord race of semi-ascended sentient beings that in all previous revolutions had refrained from sponsoring corruptions of space-time.  Yet in this revolution the Xeno Syndicate had for some reason taken this human from Earth, out of its natural revolution, and placed it on a path of un-prophesied destiny.

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Indeterminable Destiny
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When first detecting him, he seemed in no way unlike other elderly wardancers: fit, but old; muscles taut, facial features gaunt.  If it were not for the most subtle corruptions of space-time surrounding his actions, we would not have noticed him.  Exiting from a 4-story apartment complex in the poorer suburban areas of a typical wardancer city, he walked down a lane to a central square in the neighbourhood where a group of elderly wardancers were performing their daily morning charal exercises.  The atoms around his body as he walked were displaced out of the revolution's pre-destiny; as he performed his charal exercises a shadow followed his movements; a distortion trailed him, as if another ghostly presence should have been performing in his place.  Reverberating from him, all the other charal dancers were out of destiny's accordance, but, of course, less severely than he was. 

It was then that we delved into his mind and discovered his thought patterns were other than wardancer - something that we did not yet comprehend; something with which had never before come into contact.  His elderly wardancer appearance was clearly a disguise. 

When we melded our awareness to his, he lapsed into a momentary trance, disturbing his charal routine slightly.  But it was only for a moment, and he did not notice my infiltration.  He simply corrected his movement, and, with him being only subconsciously aware of it, we became fully attuned with him.

His charal movements were deceptively unpracticed, as if he were making a concerted effort to hide his expertise from the other practitioners of the charal.  The robes he wore were unclean, with a faint yellowness to them, purposefully left so.  The bones of this being, although seeming old, moved with a kind of age-drunken gracefulness of more than a hundred thousand years of practice.  We perceived then that this being was clearly an immortal.

The morning sun shone upon his face, and, closing his eyes, he envisioned alpine fields, living blossoms, intricate patterns of grasses swept by winds of mountain passes, noble trees clutching for survival in the harshest of planetary climates. And thus we perceived his vision of himself as he meditated: a branch of cedar growing out of pure, cold stone.

Upon detecting the source of the corruption of space-time, we should have annihilated his existence immediately.  But we hadn't.  And we then discovered why.  There was something intangibly uncertain about this one, as if he himself had always been, somehow, beyond destiny.  It was absurd to us, initially, but, he, in and of himself, was not of the source of the corruption.  He was but a symptom of it.  This became clear as we perceived his being.  He was but a simple, pure-hearted mortal sentient, having been immortalized by overlord beings for some yet indeterminable purpose.

We simply could not cease his existence.  We could not betray this purity we sensed in him.  Instead of merely neutralizing him as the symptom, we would free him, and follow the course of his corrupt manifestations in the universe, so that we could determine the true and pressing root of the disease.

The Order selected me to be his guardian, as I, Chanyueh, had been the one to have discovered him.  I alone would become his Watcher, and, in doing so, I was to discover the source of the anomalous corruption: the Xeno Syndicate.

I was mandated by the council of our Order to protect his identity within the space time continuum, allow his un-predestined manifestations to continue without interference, and guard his existence with utmost secrecy, even from the Order itself, for among the eldest of us were dogmatists of the doctrine of the revolutions who might conspire his annihilation.