Crystal of the Sun God

Tathlum: Thera: The Cathedral of the Sun

Solar Rebirth 4, 16,747 Theran Calendar

On the world of Tathlum, Thera could only be considered an island on the smaller side, but in reality, it was fully a third of the size of the Earth continent of Australia. It was an island with a population of more than seven billion people, and to support that huge of a population, not a square meter of usable land was allowed to go to waste.

For 16,747 years, Thera had been ruled by the Church of the Sun, which was directly controlled by "players" from the Earth's Church of the Resurrection. Before there was ever a Primacy Online game made available to the populace of Earth, the Church had been active on the world of Tathlum. Through the use of alien technology of unknown providence, the Church opened a dimensional rift to the world of Tathlum.

Despite having opened a rift to Tathlum, the Church found that they could not physically pass through the rift. The most that they could do was to watch the event taking place near the rift on the island of Thera.

The Church learned how to open a dimensional rift from technology that was recovered from the wreckage of alien spaceships on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, but that was not all they found on the alien spaceships. The Church had recovered a piece of alien equipment that could use energy constructs to create an artificial body and transmit a quantified consciousness into that artificial body. Those energy constructs could be sent through the dimensional rift to the world of Tathlum, and for the first time in recorded Earth history, human consciousness set foot on an alien world, albeit in an artificial body.

The Church found that the inhabitants of the new world did not use technology beyond the level of the Greeks and Romans, but they had the ability to use magic. They called it Power and controlled it through what they called Disciplines and Callings, but to the people of Earth, it was magic by another name. Without the weapons technology from Earth, the Church's explorers could not compete with the natives. They needed something to level the playing field, and the technology from the alien spaceships might have the answers.

Using what they found, the Church created another energy construct, the Quantum Control Program. It was able to interact with the Power in the new world, and it was far more adept at manipulating and controlling it than the natives of the island of Thera. The QCP (Quantum Control Program) was an expert system that bordered on true artificial intelligence. It was capable of creating an artificial system that allowed the people from Earth, who were inhabiting artificial bodies on Tathlum, to use and control Power in a manner similar to the natives.

Initially, the QCP was only able to exert its influence in a small area of several miles, but after a Church explorer found a mottled white and gold crystal that had an incalculable amount of Power within it, the QCP was able to use that Power to become stronger. The white and gold crystal was over ten meters in diameter, and the Therans called it the Crystal of the Sun God. As legend had it, the crystal was the heart of the dead God El.

In less than a year, the QCP's area of control covered the entirety of Thera and much of the surrounding oceans and islands. The number of Church explorers was expanded and they became conquerors. The Church of the Resurrection established the Church of the Sun, and its "God" was the QCP, which was called El, the Sun God, in their newly written scriptures. The QCP provided divine spells and Abilities to the Priest Classes among its worshipers, which were similar to but also superior to the ones that the Old Gods gave to the natives that worshiped them.

Among the benefits provided to the faithful, the QCP would reincarnate the faithful in new bodies at the time of their deaths. Between the Church of the Resurrection players and native with the potential to be reborn in a new body every time they died, the Church of the Sun had a near infinite supply of soldiers, and they waged a military campaign based on the total suppression of any and all resistance. The Therans that did not submit were exterminated to the last child. Once the war began, it took the Church of the Sun less than a decade to stamp all opposition and all dissidence and the Church became the sole ruler of Thera.

From the subjugated natives of Thera, the Church of the Resurrection learned a bit about Tathlum. Through the use of simple navigational tools like the sextant and their newfound magic, the Church explorers verified that the world of Tathlum was huge. Tathlum's surface area was roughly twenty times the size of the Earth's, but the gravity only a fraction of a G higher.

Since they could not pass through the dimensional rift physically, the original plan of the Patriarch of the Church of the Resurrection, to use Tathlum as a second home for man, would not work, but the Patriarch had another idea. Even if they could not travel to the new world, it did not mean that they could not use the new world.

Like many of his followers, before World War III, he had extensive experience with Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games. He could force the people of Earth to settle their conflicts in a "game" on the new world and put an end to war on Earth. From the wreckage of the alien spaceships, the Patriarch had acquired the technology to build orbital particle cannons, with pinpoint accuracy. With enough particle cannons to cover the Earth, no one would dare to defy him. The idea for Primacy Online was born, and the Church began their preparations to use the world of Tathlum as a surrogate battleground.

Thera was never used as a stage for Primacy Online . It was retained as the main base of operations for the Church of the Resurrection. At the base of the highest mountain on Thera, they built the City of the Sun. After they leveled-off the peak of the mountain, the Cathedral of the Sun was built, and the white and gold Crystal of the Sun God, which had become the core of the QCP, was mounted on the peak of the highest tower.

The Cathedral of the Sun was completed in the New Theran Year 21, and after years, it still stood upon the highest mountain of Thera. On Day 4 of the Solar Rebirth, 16,747, an unprecedented phenomenon appeared around the Crystal of the Sun God. A sphere of halo or golden flames engulfed the crystal, and every player with the classification of "Church Hierarchy" received a status update.

SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT:

Quantum Control Program is entering system evolution.

Quantum Control Program will be fusing with the Remnant Soul of El.

System functionality will be limited during this period.

System Evolution estimated completion: 5 years, 4 months, 10 days

Please, enjoy the game.

The Theran Year 16,747 was five Tathlum years before the launch of the Primacy Online VI .

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