Prologue Part 2: The History of the Creation of the Templar Order continued...
As the First Keeper of Light and his compatriots travelled to the other planets and reconnected with the changed peoples they had no inkling of the arrival of the Nictus and the Rikti. Through some fortuitous luck the Nictus and Rikti did not discover the other four worlds for several hundred years.
When the Keeper of the Light managed to reunite the four planets and the changed groups of their people they came to the conclusion that they could no longer refer to themselves as a whole as one race, due to the significant changes wrought by the supernova. It was then that the Prophets suggested that the people take the name of the philosophical/spiritual Order of the Templar which the Keeper of Light himself had founded.
When all this had occured the Prophets at last sensed the intrusion of the Nictus and the Rikti into that region of the galaxy. They brought together the great leaders of the Order from the four worlds and warned them of the dangerous enemy that was approaching ominously close. They determined that there would be no way to send all of the Order, as space travel had almost been lost completely, save for the efforts of the Keeper of the Light and his founding group of followers. The great leaders of the four worlds declared that a select few would be chosen, a mere forty-thousand, to represent and continue the traditions of the four remaining worlds. They spent over a century constructing the four 'Worldseekers' as they called the large city-sized craft that would scatter across the stars, searching for some new world, or allies against the coming threat.
When at last the four Worldseekers left, carrying along with them five of the Prophets the remaining peoples prepared for a final assault by the Nictus and the Rikti. The last knowledge of the end for the four worlds is a carefulyl guarded secret, as the final communications sent to the Worldseekers were forbidden to be looked upon without the counsel and approval of the Five Prophets.
So it was for yet many more centuries that the Remnant of the Templar Order journeyed, in search of a new home or allies. All they seemed to find was the ruin left in the Rikti and the Nictus' wake.
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Ok, That is the Prologue. If you wish to comment, criticize or offer thoughts please do. I will begin posting the 'in character' Journals of the Templar very soon.
Last Knight of the Blade
Entry:1
I am Warpblade
Due to my training and station in the Order of the Templar I am by default cynical-especially after what happened to our people. However, it was decided that I would come to this world to learn why and how these humans and their heroes were able to stop the invasion by the Nictus and their one-time allies the Rikti. When I am able to, I discuss my thoughts with the Last of the High Templar, who is among the few who also came to Earth. He has always tempered my cynicism with hope and an outlook of buoyancy and it was his decision to try and work alongside the heroes that crystalized my purpose for me.
When I entered Atlas Park it was quiet. A few heroes were talking quietly underneath the large statue of a man carrying the world on his back which I learned was to commemorate a great hero who fell in battle. I spoke to Ms. Liberty briefly and she directed me to the registrar to choose a name. I corrected her and told her that my people do not take names, but recieve titles, or ranks. It is our belief that words have inherent power, and therefore a name has even more. If we have no name then no one has power over us.
As I stood silently regarding the statue of Atlas, a name filled with power, strength and devotion I had something of an epiphany. While we of the Order of the Templar did not choose names, but were given titles-so as to not give our enemies the power over us I realized part of the truth of why we failed to drive the darkness back. By giving up our names we not only took away others' power over us, we took away our power over our selves. I resolved then and there to lead and teach my people by example. I took the name Warpblade, my own personal choice-not a title or a rank- but a name, an expression of self. I settled upon that name for personal reasons tied to my one-time rank as a Knight of the Blade.
I knew that when I next sought out the High Templar he would have something to say about this. He told me that if I went through with this the Order would most likely cast me out, and forget that I existed. I replied that they would have no choice but to remember me. I am the first to have a name, an identity of self, in a longer history then any records or memory of our people. I encouraged him to follow my choice and become the second. When I left him he was deep in brooding thought.
Now I have taken on the appointed task of continuing the tradition of the Knights of the Blade in the Templar Order. I have not yet informed the Prophets or the Council of my choice to take a name and become myself. The title of my apprentice is Knight of the Blade Apprentice. To participate in the herowork of Paragon City he must choose a unique moniker and has managed to come up with a vague enough name to hold true to our teachings. The Templar Alchemist is his heroic title, and was selected with the aid of the leadership of the group known as the Path of the Alchemist, as well as the Council. When the time comes they will all know that my heroic appelation is not merely for the purpose of becoming a hero, but is my chosen expression of self.
I am Warpblade. For me the name courses with single-minded determination, the power to change, and the power to attack the dark powers that attempt to corrupt, enslave, and destroy the Liberty of Life. I am a weapon, but I am also a shield.
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(Located on Liberty Server)
Last Knight of the Blade
Entry: 2
It's not easy being Green
This strange new world has changed me in some unusual ways. Those who have seen me in action may have never noticed but despite all of my 'superhuman' ability I have one failing. I wear darkened glasses. It has been discovered that some forms of radiation have amplified my ocular light sensitivity. These forms of radiation were known to the Templar Order, but for some reason or other my genetic line is alone in this malleable state. Even with the mixing of lines that has come into acceptability for my people in the last three hundred years (a century before I came to be) it seems as though only those sharing my direct genetic descent carry the mutating gene. I know of only one other living blood relation-whose identity I can not divulge, for their safety and my own.
Here on the planet Earth I try to blend in somewhat with the civilians which for some part my wearing glasses does, I also have a formal suit that I wear mostly for special occasions and I am metabolicly able to consume many of the foods humans do. However, there are some things that do not seem like they will change. Despite the accepting attitude of most heroes and their allies many of the citizens of Paragon City have feelings ranging from fear and resentment to outright hatred towards those not of this world. Some even dislike heroes generally, not considering the persistence they have in putting their lives in harm's way to protect the innocent. Coming from a long tradition of self-discipline and a lifelong pledge to protect the Templar Order these feelings towards 'aliens' almost disgust me. I can see how an invasion of one's home by some unknown and all-hating enemy like the Rikti, or the dread of an implacable predator stalking one as the Nictus are bent on can polarize one's view of those different than them. All the same, one of the first lessons learned by any Knight of the Blade is that fear is an instinct designed to protect one life or many, just as rage is one to defend one or many. Fear is also easily manipulated by those who know how and can use it to their advantage, as anger may be as well. Both are able to become so powerful as to blind a being to all reason and logic at times. I pity the hate-mongers of Paragon City who do not realize that they are not only stooping to the level of the virulent xenophobia that the invaders justify their actions with-whe they bother with justification at all-but are playing right into the trap laid for them.
The Last of the High Templar has made sure to tell me on more than one occasion that I be cautious about what I say, the tonality of my voice, and how I stand. Someone may unconciously read intentions, possibly projected, and react to my presence without thinking or knowing. I know the truth in his warnings through the training Knights of the Blade recieve-however he is better at knowing such things through his own training. Being aware of one's physical surroundings is necessary for a trained warrior. Being aware of the climate of emotion takes much more work. That is the lesson I am learning here. For every action there is an equally opposite reaction, sometimes even equal and opposite.
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(Located on Liberty Server)
Prologue Part 1: The History of the Creation of the Templar Order
To begin let us explain the Templar Order. Ages and Ages ago there was a race of beings, alien to Earth. They existed similarly to the way we humans do, just beginning to explore their local region of space. They had begun to colonize several planets when disaster struck. The chief governing body of their worlds was destroyed in an unexpected supernova. The unimaginable radiation storms from the star's explosion traveled for several lightyears, coming close enough to the rest of their inhabited worlds that it made leaving the shielding magnetic field of their planets all but impossible.
For millenia the people of the five worlds were stranded, and continued to progress in different ways. On one planet they learned to commune with each other through their minds, and through exploring their innermost being began to learn the mastery of what we call telepathic kinesis. On another they became fierce warrior-hunters who learned to track the terrible mutated predators that began to ravage them after the storms came. On a third planet, what was once their homeworld, they gained the ability to absorb radiation and redirect it.
The two worlds farthest from the stormfront changed in a less physical manner. They began to create two schools of thought that would be integral to their race. One was the concept that words have a power unto themselves, as thoughts and ideas. The continuation from this was that if words (and therefore names) had power then by changing the name their race called itself in the presence of others so that no one who was not of them would really have true power over them. This came about separately but simultaneously on these two worlds and from different sources.
On one of them a different, but intelligent and self-aware race was discovered. The only names given for them historically are The Prophets and Bringers of Light. These beings appeared to the stranded civilization as demi-gods. They were believed to exist on a higher plane and merely cast a shadow on ours. As it turned out they had always been aware of the race that was separated across five worlds, even before they had begun colonizing new worlds.
On the last planet these changes came about differently. A fued had begun between two factions on the planet. One believed they were the only survivors and that they were chosen by an all-powerful deity who had no name. The other believed it was possible that not only had others of their race continued but that there were even other sentient beings in the universe. As the infighting became worse they approached self-annihilation when one of the most important figures in the history of the Order of the Templar proposed that the only way to know for certain would be to search for the survivors (if any existed). They had to research the locations of the other four worlds and journey to them.
Part of the difficulty with this was that two-thousand of our years had passed since the storm. Space travel had actually devolved to nearly the point we ourselves have reached. In this way it came to be that a religious group formed around the historic figure who christened himself as the First Keeper of Light. As the two sides continued to argue and discuss the issue this group pioneered scientific research. When the people of this world had determined they were able to send out a ship on a century long journey (their lifetimes last as long as 1,000 years, sometimes longer) to the other four worlds it was determined that the First Keeper of Light would choose the travelers personally and would lead the flight.
However, only twenty years after they had departed a darkness fell on the world. The two factions began to lash out not only with words but violence as well. They had nearly reached a self-induced apocalypse when the true source revealed itself. A race known to us as the Nictus had been manipulating the politics of this world and when they were ready they and their allies the Rikti conquered the world. The Nictus for the living energy and the durability of the race that became known as the Templar Order, while the Rikti assimilated some of their technology and processed the raw materials of that world for to prolong their continuing conquest of the galaxy. Very few of the remaining inhabitants of that world survived the inital sweep of the Nictus and Rikti. Those that did became slave laborers and lived out the last thousand years of their lives in unimagineable agony.