Unfathomed

The world is a frightening place. A vast ball of rock and liquid fire, before which humanity is nothing more than a squirming horde, lesser to the planet than insects are to they. But the world dances around the sun, before which it is only a speck of dust. And the sun is not even an ember, the merest spark, dancing amidst the true conflagrations, and the maws of their all-consuming corpses, which shall linger into the abyss of time where all else has crumbled away.   But. For all that we are outmatched, humankind has persisted. We have made unities of ourselves, systems of people working in concert to defend against harm, marshal resources to our mutual benefit, and banish chaos. Indeed, we came together before we were even truly were human, and our social instincts are among the foundations of our minds, engraved upon our very souls.   Humanity has come a long way, since the early days of burgeoning order. Vast mechanisms of thought and labor sprawl over all the earth, and though they do not always work in concert, they are utterly and inextricably linked. Gone are the little unities, and in their place is Society, a god as vast and unknowable as the sun, but one which serves the ends of humanity, more or less.   But it must always be remembered that Society is made from people, and so people have the capacity to change it. Alone, no one person could shift it beyond a twitch, and even that with only herculean effort. True change required a new unity, a lesser god to change the great one.   Something changed. The universe moves slowly, for its spine is time and time is long, but it has seen Society, the god of humanity, built upon humanity, the collective apotheosis, and it has proven as eager as it is inscrutable; the universe has seen Society, humanity's aspiration to compete with the dangers of the world, and laughed. It would seem all we had to do was ask.   Once only collective action could hope to shift Society, let alone the world. No longer. A new people have been born, touched by forces beyond the ken of man, blessed with the strength to change the world, if only they have the will to do so. Humanity feared them once, but when it became clear this change could not be reversed, the Society shifted around these new people, and they were split. Those who would defend Society were embraced, called Heroes. Those who would cast it down, usurp it, decried as Villains.   And the world dances.       We reached into the heart of matter, and we broke it.   The Sun saw us, pretenders to its glory,   And the Sun, it sighed   And the others saw us too.   "Let us see," said the Sun,   Its burning heart filled with a great and terrible love,   "Let us see."