The political nature of Selahktia was fluid and ever changing. The creation of the state was registered a mere one hundred, thirty years prior to the Zero Event, but it happened to be one of the most progressive states west of the Ekral Ocean. The state did not dilly-dally in the descriptors of the Normatite Race theory as harshly as its counterpart Undata, nor did it overtly worry in the amenities of profit and galore like Tornun. The state was centralized within a socialist platform, and in doing so provided infrastructure that rivaled its past component, the Tornun Republic.
What was interesting about Selahtkia’s creation was that it was a result of the secession of a province within the Tornun Republic, and it was granted independence without ever an ounce of blood shed. I was unborn during those times, and so the inner workings of the statisticians and strategists of the time in efforts to maintain the Republic’s tenacious existence perhaps saw the loss of Selahktia as unpreventable and even more costly to retain.
Nevertheless, Selahktia became a notorious state during the Old World Era, and when the New World Era began, it was to say poetic irony that Tornun’s civil war would take place here as its main theater.
After the first five years of the New World Era, the days which live on after the Zero Event, pro-Normatite regimes had taken over the broken landscape of what was once their nation. In doing so, they had arrived south towards the Selahktian borders to once again restore their hegemony. Selahktia, emboldened with a wide variety of separate cultures and people, the Executio had managed to unite them under a singular banner and protect themselves from the destruction of their cultures, which had taken too many losses thus far.
It was to no surprise that when the I.H.M.D. arrived within Selahktia, they did nothing to curb the regimes which were -- legally -- enemies of the Republic. This idle action was taken as hostility, and so the Executio pushed back against the I.H.M.D. with immediate valor, eventually acquiring not only the entire western side of Selahktia, but north past the Undatan mountains and into the Agrivide.
The Executio, in a sense, is a conglomerate of people which do not recognize the ultimate demise of their cultures through race theory. Instead, they recognize the entirety of Ciphrus as “All-Kind,” and now push back against the I.H.M.D. in a force at which it cannot rival.
This incredible sense of individualism and honor held no hopes for me at the time the One Wall was attacked, and as I was evacuated (once again) to another more secure location, I was subsequently ambushed and captured by the Executio.
The brutality of war will never leave my mind, and the screams of death and decay will always fill them after the struggles at which I had witnessed fell at my feet in the form of the croaking of men choking on their own innards.
While captured by the Executio, they had actually treated me with some moderate kindness. Many had believed I was brainwashed in the ways of race theory, and in many ways I was. Alternatively, it was likely they kept me alive for my identity alone -- I was a high value target that could be used as a bargaining chip. However, the bargains never came, and it had seemed as though the I.H.M.D. had cut their losses with me. I never saw the lights of a Wall again, and part of me is glad for that.
Additionally, however, were in the hands of Executio a man named Hre. He was a Knomnolite, like many were in Executio, although I had seldom heard his name in the past. Its familiarity reached me only when I was reminded of an expo at which he curated within the Ten Stellar Communes in 12522. I was much a student at the time, but had been granted access via my internships to learn more on Tagonic theory.
Hre’s name had left my memory so quickly, likely due to my subliminal racial tendencies, but the information which he spoke never did. I honored the information I had gained from one talk, and here I was face to face with him once more, in an effort to regain knowledge.
Hre was a humble man of no discernible, hostile features. Indeed, he spoke with great calmness that befitted a therapist, and it was (and still is) a marvelous mystery to me. The wonder of his tone and demeanor did not align with the chaos of the New World Era, and although I was far too anxious to ask, I had always contemplated how such peace could be found.
The answers he provided were not so elegant as the questions he had raised, for Hre was quite knowledgeable in both the Tagonic features of our planet, and the history behind it. Hre had mostly studied among the Yetinaph people, deep within the city of Myrddin. This city was subterranean, and many common folk believed it to be a legend. It was believed that it did once exist, but now unknown to the world for nearly two thousand years, it has since faded into contextual decay.
But, as Hre mentioned, the city lives on, deep within the restless caves of the Agrivide -- a city which never sleeps. There, he learned and studied under many Yetinaphs who, under tradition, upheld their constant scientific method in an effort to discern the great mysteries of Ciphrus and the Terrasque.
Hre had told me about the infamous Migration during the Xiqen Empire, in which the Terrasque had moved locations to regain its strength against an ever-growing imperial force. It had once thrived and tended to its domain within the Vai forests, but now resides within the Undatan Mountains, hiding from the most destructive force on the planet: all-kind. The realization was that the Terrasque was sentient: it had a sense of self, an ability to adapt to changing situations, and a concentrated effort to maintain life on Ciphrus. In many ways, it was the heart of our world. And so, it was even more distraught that all-kind had otherwise attempted to destroy it three times; a species, suicidal at heart.
The Terrasque, being a sentient entity, could not have created all-kind, however. For, an entity which sees us as a threat is therefore on a similar existential level. It may die, as well as ourselves. In that sense, Hre explained, then the Terrasque must have been created by some higher intelligent entity with intent. What had created the Terrasque, and why in turn was it employed as the caretaker of the planet? This further aligned with the theory the Humans had proposed to me, in which in Ciphrus’s early past, a civilization of extreme proportion once dominated it.
Whether the ancient civilization, or some higher entity was at play for the Terrasque’s creation, neither I, Hre, nor the Humans had any answers to such conundrum. The mystery continued for me, pushing from what I believed to be a simple miscalculation among the Terrasque’s seemingly autonomic mind during the first anomaly, to the discovery of creation as we as all-kind see it.
