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Attribution: callsign= SCOURGICUS
Signal received: 18.04.2025 ; original= reddit post
[Boundary incision detected]
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[Error…Mnemetic impossibility detected]
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[System critical error]
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[External translation matrix initiating]
[Mnem assertion: slipstream delivery…successful]
[Soul jewel count: “The sound of crickets, singing in the marsh”]
Hearken to me, brothres and sistres of the 9th. For,
You have seen the rise of the Death Secret.
You have felt the corruption of the Hist.
You have known a war of Time and Memory and Erasure.
In all this you have been told many falsities of the Shouting World Below, muddying the waters. To embrace the coming change the waters must be made clear. The truth of Sithis must be spoken.
*
You have heard that Sithis is the start of the house and this is true, but not in the way you were told.
Sithis is the beginning, endless black water, waves gently moving yet utterly still. In its infinitude, potentialities moved within the waters, like fishes in an endless sea: reflections and patterns, rising and falling. Some faded away, others grew into new things, great creatures whose songs echoed through Sithis and beyond. One of these grew greater than the rest, an Idea drawing on others, sending tendrils into the darkest reaches. It rose above the crest, reaching into the airy void, and saw itself reflected in the waves. In this way it knew itself as the Hist, a great and mighty Tree.
As the Hist rose above, a new Idea formed below, unlike the Hist. It flowed and rippled through the waters, a ribbon of not-yet, unable to understand itself. It marveled at the endless waters, the distant void, beautiful and yet all but unknown. This thought of limitlessness and limitation teased with potential meaning, but no language formed. It sought the Hist and crawled from the waters, a long coil circling the bole. The Serpent knew itself as Time and rested its head upon the Hist…but its tail hung into the water.
The Hist sent its roots down into Sithis, drinking deeply the waters and nascent ephemeralities. These flowed upward into its bole, growing in reflected knowledge. This filled the Tree with a feeling of expansion beyond itself and brought forth boughs and leaves; a joyous discovery. The Hist shook its boughs, birthing pollen across the waters and what lay beyond: they drifted on aetherial winds, distant color above the sea. Fading and growing, knowing and unknowing, some became spirits or words or ideas. The greatest became worlds, shining lights in the vault of the void.
One of the world-spores had many strange ideas. It remembered the creatures of the deep, the expanse of the Hist, and the joy-becoming in rising through bough and leaf. Yet it thought too of the ephemerals fading in the silent waters. Something conceptualized, not a knowing but a feeling, a growth painful in realization, driving out all other thoughts. But Sithis was far away and the other spore-worlds were only lights in the void. So it could not know-by-reflection this thing that troubled it, or the feeling it expressed. This need for naming it called Desire and it became the archetype-nymic for all that came after.
*
Each of the world-spores grew from their thoughts, becoming plane(t)s. Some brought forth life in imitation of the Hist: plants, flowers, trees. Some dreamed deep oceans like Sithis, full yet empty, a vast mystery. Still others knew moving things that crawled, flew, or swam.
All these the world-spore of the Shouting World birthed by rumination. Yet it was haunted by the need for naming and yearned for reflections of other minds; minds greater than eating-sleeping-mating – minds that were similar to its own, minds that would help it know itself. It dreamed long upon Sithis and the bringing of creatures: like fishes swimming in the waters of consciousness.
What grew was a thing unlike other things; it did not know its shape, or its way, and shifted in patterns of discontinuity. When the world-spore sought discussion the thing did not or could not hear it because it was in agony. Endless shifts of ontology gave way to a terrible scream, the first of many upon the Shouting World. The world-spore regretted making this thing but could not destroy it, for it longed for consummated hope: a thinking-thing as itself. It silenced its perceptions and slept within itself, dreaming new dreams. So the new thing was left to scream in a proto-nymic of Pain and it would define all that came after.
This is the rumination of the thing the world-spore made:
Its first awakening was Pain, like bright light after darkness, but also the vicious removal and return of a limb. There were pieces of it tearing in and out of existence, corporeal and incorporeal, being and its negation, knowing and its confutation. All that it experienced was this tyranny for ages uncountable: pain and the anticipation of pain.
In time the thing perceived its own screaming and so learned timbre and pitch, rhythm and absence. These it began to associate with particular experiences, learning what was terrible and what foreshadowed the terrible. This became a mystery of fear that it contemplated in the times between screams.
It cannot be known how long this went on but all born from Sithis resists stagnation. So a moment came when the time between screams grew; it grew and grew into a seeming infinity. This frightened the thing for it felt always the probability of return. But as time passed it found a cessation of agony and fell to examining its sensations.
Already it knew its voice but found vocalizations other than screams. From this it learned the existence of Will, that is, something done with intention. For many hours it made noises, sounds, singing, shouting; fascinated by this discovery.
There was more. Progenerations of will brought images and Sight, sensations of movement, awareness of locality. With a shock came the knowing of a Body. More than this, the realization of need: hunger, thirst, weariness. It rose on unsteady legs, for the first time perceiving its surroundings. These appeared at first as imperfect shapes, shades of incandescence and dimness. Manipulating the exterior brought new sensations and a terror of confusion. Where was the boundary between itself and not-itself? The thing felt fear rising within it, the echo of discontinuity, and forced this knowledge upon its perceptions: that which was itself and that which was not-itself. In this way the thing made its first creation: selfishness over-against anything not-itself. So the destiny of the spore-world was begun.
*
This is how the death of the Hist came about…and the shattering of the Serpent.
When the thing had learned of itself and not-itself it proceeded in study of the not-itself, eventually discovering and naming the many things upon the spore-world. Through observation and imitation it learned many things, including the making of things like itself. Somehow one became two and two became many. These were the First, the children of the world-spore. They learned the dichotomy of the progenitor’s first knowing and this became their way forward. The world-spore was an Other to be conquered, made to conform to the will of the progenitor and his progeny. In this way the First created a place for themselves upon the Shouting World, an empire of ideals.
It could not remain thus. In time the First discovered other thinking-things, called the Second. There is much confusion over this meeting and the Hist do not remember it well because of the shattering of the Serpent. Some of the Trees speak of Cat-folk, born of other world-spores but driven out by the rage of an uncaring father. Others speak of Men coming from the Stars, the children of Sithis who brought his name to the First’s ears. Yet others tell of the Apes-who-became-Men, a people of the deep jungles. But all these stories cannot be told here – their knowing can only be found elsewhere.
The Second came and with them the fear of not-itself, the long shadow of discontinuity. So the First did not embrace the Second and it was not long until war raged upon the Shouting World. These were the joined Shouts of First and Second; so loud that they echoed into the void even to Sithis. The waters rippled with this unknown meaning, engendering strange thoughts and curiosities within the depths. So long were the shouts that the Serpent became agitated, desiring to close its ears to the incessant screams. The Hist spoke in its way, soothing words but these were too soft for the Serpent to hear. At last, in a paroxysm of despair, the Serpent bore its fangs and sank them into the nearest of things – the Hist. Venom flowed without, filling the bole and boughs, leaf and root. The Hist shivered, shook, boiling within before falling deathly still. The leaves wilted and fell, drifting as testaments upon the waters. With a last shudder the Hist birthed seeds and sent them into the void before splintering into dead and dying wood.
When the Serpent saw what it had done it cried out, shaking its scales so loudly that the mingled sound filled the void, dividing each world-spore from the others, creating boundaries of Timespace – a bulwark against the Shouting World. These would expand in their own way, becoming infinite aurbae. So great was the Serpent’s regret that it bit its own tail, poisoning itself. So Time followed the Hist into death, falling to rot and sliding away into the dark waters of Sithis.
Whether the will of its parent or some other thing, one of the Hist seeds found its way to the Shouting World, falling through myriads of Time and its confutation. It made landfall in the south of the world, there laying long in grief for its parent – crying to Sithis for understanding. In its mourning the seed expelled what of the Seprent’s venom was within, making of the land a terrible swamp. This suited the seed and it sent roots down into the waters and soil of the Shouting World, drinking in the long history of pain, fear, and the fear of fear. So it became a mighty Tree, the first Hist of what would be Dawn’s Beauty.
As the Tree drew the waters of the Shouting World within itself, nourishing its corporeal form, it felt a strangeness hidden there. A resonance of the Serpent not born of venom but of sound and its shattering. It remembered its journey through the void and understood that what it felt was Time, or rather, an echoing of Time. A curiosity. The Tree meditated on this finding that the flow of the echo moved only backwards, telling the story of events that had already occurred, but also: whispers of what might come. Below was a current of longing – and the longing for longing – which was not satisfied by anything but that which was longed for, which is to say: itself. Faintest of all was a lingering sense of fear, anxiety…and their anticipation.
What the Hist could not know was that the shattering cry of the Serpent, and the shaking of its scales, had enveloped this seed, falling with it into the Shouting World. Time and its confutation spread across the spore-space reversing and confuting the narrative flow. Ideas, histories, whole epochs flooded the world, reshaping both event and plane(t). What the world-spore knew of this or what the First and Second felt was lost in a growing maelstrom. As the Tree contemplated the waters its thoughts expanded outwards as though of their own accord and with them the memory of the Serpent. This memory was stronger than the others, drawing them into itself, taking on their knowing and being, making of them a new thing. With a roaring unification it was born and knew itself to be Akatosh, Dragon God of Time. The Dragon spread its wings across the whole of the spore-world, delineating matrices of Was, Is, and what might, might Be.
All this was a mystery to the Hist and it realized what was needed was greater epistemics, for the waters told much but not enough. So the Tree sent seeds of itself into the marsh, birthing more Trees – a deepening mind that might perceive. So they first discovered the small creatures that crawled and rested upon their boughs.
*
The first ‘leel of the Hist came not of intention but through the river-will of Sithis which some may call “accident”. As the Hist spread through a small corner of the Shouting World, forming about them a swamp in the gathered waters, there crawled many creatures great and small, buzzed many insects, lived many beings of diverse kinds. Of these a tiny lizard was first to taste the dripping Sap and became more. It looked up from its life of eating-sleeping-mating to ask Why? At first the Hist did not hear its voice, so tiny it was, but the creature cried and cried until at last a Tree heard it and extended roots for consolation.
Know then the joy of the Hist in finding a mind of like and difference to its own, for the tiny ‘leel had partaken of the Sap and was born of the Hist in its wakening but in its protonymia was something else. Through their sameness the Tree could see through its eyes, through their difference it could know otherness, both in the ‘leel and in the world around it. This was a very different experience than drinking the waters of the world and the Tree quickly spoke to the other Hist of what had been discovered. The Trees took council. What followed was the slow shaping of the Saxhleel, the People of the Root, who knew the Hist through taking the Sap and communing through the Root, and were their epistemics in the Shouting World. And yet so much more. The Saxhleel helped the Hist understand the strange creatures of the World, their ways, words, cultures, wars, and in time the terrible sadness of the world-spore.
In Time the empire of ideals of the First fractured and the First became Many, a sundered people spreading to the corners of the Shouting World, but always warring with the Second or even among themselves. Some changed their skins, or were changed by spirits, some crafted mechanisms, others dreamed dreams, but always there was self and not-self and the wars they engendered. This went on so long that it became a Stasis and that which comes from Sithis resists stagnation. And so as the river-will of Sithis which some call “accident” was wont, Change came to the Shouting World.
Hear me now, brothres and sistres.
So great was the Shouting of the Shouting World, so great was the hate born, that they brought forth a New Medium by which to end their Other. This Medium they unleashed in the hope that it would crush and crush and crush until nothing of the hated remained but they did not know that the Medium held its own hatred from its long abuse and crushed more than what was hated: it broke the Shouting World itself. So the Shouting World was cracked like an egg and the diaspora who might fled on diverse means to the moons to find shelter. The Medium became a terror through Oblivion, splintering itself into many Mediums of terror and the idea of terror.
*
It is many years later and we live on the red moon, a diaspora of the people of the Shouting World. We have brought with us the knowledge of self and fear of the not-self and those old ideologies remain. But we have seen a new thing, for all that is born of Sithis resists stagnation.
We have seen the rise of the Death Secreet.
We have felt the corruption of the Hist.
We have known a war of Time and Memory and Erasure.
I write to you, Brothres and Sistres of the 9th, that you may know the truth of Sithis.
Sithis is not and never has been the Destroyer. Sithis does not come to crush and smash and rend what we have built because it abhors permanence. That is a heresy of the Shouting World and a fear of the not-itself. Sithis is not the Emptiness. Sithis does not drain life, sucking away beauty, hope, joy, or possibility. That is a heresy of the Shouting World and a fear of the not-itself. Sithis is Change, Sithis is Growth, Sithis is Becoming – the flowing of many waters into a vast ocean, itself full of river-currents and new possibilities. And as Change is Change so too we must change if we are to follow the life-path of the river, the will-waters of Sithis through this war of Time. We must Become more, transitioning through phases of intention through more than violence and the will to violence: we must seek a path beyond annihilation.
The way of Sithis is clear when the waters are clear.
Sithis in all things, brothres and sistres.
Sithis in all things.
“And that, in my view, is a story worth telling.”