Occultation, The

• UVG • Red Sky • Ebéteen • Mythos •

The death of the old Solar Deity of the Ebéteen is often called the Occultation. In popular Second Circle legend, it is one of the causes of that dark age known as the Grand Celestial Collapse.

Causes of the Occultation

1. The Solar Deity abused its power, and the laws of fate and nature collapsed it into a point.
2. Disgusted with humanity, the Solar Deity left in a huff, plunging the world into darkness.
3. The Solar Deity was an excellent living creation of the First Stem of Existence (the A-bét). When its age grew too great, and its aged, bloating form threatened to fall to ground and burn the Given World, the Ailings retired it. While a new light-giver grew in the void, the World was plunged into darkness.
4. Through a clerical error in the bureaucracy of the heavens, the Solar Deity was misfiled as deceased. Death then executed the Sun. The error was caught, but not in time.
5. Dust and grit gathered in the gears of the Solar Deity. When it grew too much, the gears stopped, and the sun went out.
6. The decadent Ebéteen ceased worshipping and maintaining the Solar Deity, and so it faded and disappeared.

Signs of the Occultation

1. A harsh wind began to blow, bringing sour air to taste and smell.
2. The violet sky grew dim and flickery.
3. The ground vibrated and groaned as it cooled.
4. The volcanoes ceased their lifegiving action.
5. The fast stars appeared even in the daytime.
6. The solar flowers wilted, and the time-savers stopped working.
7. The vidy orbs crackled and hissed with static. The voices of the wise-asks were snuffed out.
8. Bolides scratched at the sky with their roaring contrails.
9. Thunder filled everyone’s ears, and their blood was stirred.
10. The up-bringing implants in the lower castes failed, and many went mad, rampaging through the streets, breaking properties, burning goods, killing essential workers.

Up and down.
The silk-slippered nations go.
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Where they stop, who will know?