Ethereal Heresy

[chris the cynic]

It's been so long since I've had contact with the official rules (or indeed anything In Nomine outside of my head) that this might not make any sense. On the other hand, it's a heresy, so perhaps that is to be expected. Also, given the heat wave, my brain might literally be fried.

-

In the beginning there was the corporeal. I know that that isn't what you've been told, but it is the truth. If any divine being was involved in it's creation, it wasn't any of the ones you know of, and no fingerprints were left.

For billions of years the universe formed devoid of thought. Stars were born and died, then new stars were born. On a small planet orbiting one such star life emerged. Eons passed until finally, when a certain neurological complexity had been reached, the first thought was born and with it the first ethereal force sprang into being. Evolution spread thinking, and with it ethereal forces, throughout the planet and soon there was an ethereal plane teeming with life. For eons more things remained largely the same, until the invention of language allowed belief to transfer from creature to creature.

Now more powerful, more complex, more long lived ethereals came into being. They were able to contemplate their own mortality, and strive for immortality.

It was at this time that the four greatest scientists the universe has ever known joined forces. Lucifer the illuminator, Yves who looked forward, Mariel who looked back, and their leader Yahweh who heard the music of the spheres.

Like so many ethereals before and since, they sought a way to have an everlasting stable existence. Unlike all the others, they succeeded.

They quickly identified corporeal beings as the problem. Corporeals were ephemeral, fickle, and subject to poaching. A better source of belief would be beings that were lasting, slow to change, and outside of the reach of other ethereals. So they began to work.

The solution seemed simple enough. They would create a new kind of being, and with it a new plane the other ethereals knew nothing about. All it would take was a new kind of force. It was decided that this new force would be designed to interact with Yahweh's symphony the same way ethereal forces interacted with thought.

Others might have thought it impossible. Others might have given up. They succeeded. Once they created the new force they spread it. As more and more corporeal beings developed the new force a new plane began to emerge. They guided it's development and began shaping the beings who would inhabit it.

The twin serpents Lucifer and Yahweh created a race in their image which they called Seraphim. Mariel created a race in her image which she called Cherubim. Other races were more whimsical, like a race of fiery wheels and a race of disembodied parts.

The creatures they created did not yet have the spark of life, but through Mariel's skills, they began to give them memories. To two of them they gave the memory of discovering the ethereal plane, and discovering it empty, so that they would not believe that they had been created by ethereals. To another they gave the memory of discovering humanity, and being unimpressed. To others they gave memories of shaping the earth. To all they gave memories of long lives, memories that would prevent them from believing anything other than the four's own version of history.

When, at long last, they had finished crafting their new plane, which they called Heaven, the four realized they had been too ambitious. They didn't have the power to breathe life into all that they had created. Lifeless celestial bodies in a beautiful plane devoid of life would be useless to them. Others might have cut back, but they forged forward.

They warped and twisted reality, contorting it to creating a space that would amplify willpower, a space where it was possible to become one with Yahweh's Symphony and bend it to one's bidding. A place that is now known as the Higher Heavens. When Yahweh ascended to that place he would have the power to jump start the population of their new plane. But the four weren't sure if he could come back. So he created the Metatron to be his voice, and he created Michael in his own likeness. When all was prepared the four ethereals began dismantling their earthly organizations so that there would be no evidence that they had once been mere etherals.

They left only enough to sustain them until the new power source came online. Then Yahweh, along with a core of their most loyal followers intended to assist him and amplify his will, ascended into the Higher Heavens.

For a long moment nothing happened, and then in an instant all of Heaven came to life. Celestials picked up conversations mid sentence, never realizing that they'd never actually begun. Heaven bustled with activity, no one in it realizing that moments before only three of its inhabitants had been alive. Everyone knew Lucifer as the Archangel of Light and Yves as the Archangel of Destiny. They knew Yahweh as God. Mariel, who still needed to tie up loose ends so that the deceit would never be discovered, was remembered as the mere Angel of Memory. All were sustained by belief as they had never been before.

The plan had worked, they were no longer mere ethereals doomed to an existence dictated by the whims of mortals.

When the angels ventured out into the Marches the ethereals tried to tell them that they had never been there before, but the angels had been given memories of the ethereals saying that many times before. The angels remembered a time before ethereals, a time before corporeal life. They thought it absurd to consider the possibility that they had only just been created.

Besides, the symphony -Yahweh's symphony- told them that what they believed was True.

Then history happened. Eden. The Fall. The War.