Rend, the Reminiscence

"Remember."

-Rend, issuing their sole command according to the harbingers who have allegedly visited them.

What is memory but the evidence of existence? Rend seeks to preserve the memory of all reality, silently watching from blinkspace while humanity repeats its mistakes over and over again. They constantly record every fact, every lie, and everything in-between that takes place on the mortal plane, collecting it all in a sea of eternal wisdom. The path of reminiscence is one that seeks to experience every moment and preserve it to memory. Some claim that Rend believes the universe is finite, and that they collect these memories so they can be preserved for the next reality. Others believe they collect memories so that humanity can be in some way preserved once they face extinction. Regardless, they will still silently watching, recording everything within their Garden.

Rend & Mortals

The Reminiscence is generally quite sparing with how they grant power upon mortals. Usually they grant their blessing upon those who possess a great deal of intelligence and seek to learn from their memories and experiences.

Rend gives her blessing to lancers who wish to explore the stars in as much a scientific fashion as an explorative one. They bless those who will serve as great chroniclers of their lives and experiences for the next generation to learn from.

Rend creates harbingers out of the most experienced and wisest people on the material, wishing to chronicle their entire lives within the Garden.

Follower Factions

The Garden of Reminiscence is a mythical location within blinkspace, where Rend stores their unending collection of memories. While there is debate about the nature of its existence, most seem to agree that it does in fact exist somewhere within the universe. A number of followers of Rend claim to have been there, exploring the memories of others and sharing their own. Regardless, almost all followers of Rend are in an unending pursuit of the Garden, hoping to come face-to-face with their Numen to learn all that has already been.

Waterwalkers of the Reminiscence are the primary members of the OmniNet Stability Authority (OSA), the creators and managers of the Omninet throughout the universe. They connect new, frontier worlds to the Omninet and ensure the network is stable and secure. They believe that the OmniNet is the ultimate manifestation of Reminiscence, the network being a massive vessel within which countless memories are stored through data.

The followers of Rend in control of the Erudition Collective believe in a more loose interpretation of their teachings, but regardless they are the largest collection of waterwalkers of the Reminiscence in the universe. The Erudition Collective is the largest academic institution in the known universe with a wealth of knowledge spanning almost all of human history. They believe that the collection of humanity's knowledge should be available to all of humanity and allows free admission for anyone willing to learn (with the sponsorship of Interplanetary Shipping, of course). This makes them a less prestigious organization than other scientific cliques, such as ev8's Solarian Society, but the wealth of humanity's scientists start in the halls of the Collective. All fields of science are taught at the Collective, and students are encouraged to share their knowledge with those studying in other departments. The Collective preaches the idea that humanity's infrastructure can only work through a network of mutual learning, where knowledge is freely shared and gained through open communication. Of course, all the research and inventions produced at the Collective are property of the Collective, and thus their primary source of funding, Interplanetary Shipping, effectively allowing the Collective to pay for itself off of their students' work.

In the current age, the Antiquital Inquiry is a faction of Rend followers that has suddenly entered the limelight after persisting in obscurity for decades. The Inquiry is a group of Apperatums who believe that the key to understanding life and sentience is to emulate human figures of the past. Members of the Inquiry devote their entire lives to “becoming” a figure from humanity’s pre-Deluge past, often taking on their name and adapting their lifestyle to suit the figure they’re attempting to emulate. The group rose to prominence following the end of the Synthesis War, since the ascension of ev8, the Enlightenment meant that the apperatums were without a leader. In the midst of the crisis, the Inquiry stepped up, proposing that they must adapt a human-oriented society in order to achieve a last in peace. The collective of apperatums agreed and elected Louis LXXXIV of the Inquiry as the emperor of the newly proclaimed Apperatic Empire (in emulation of the Bourbon line of French kings, particularly Louis XIV). Given the nature of apperatums in the current age, the inquiry places their primary faith in Rend, but also follows ev8 in pursuit of further understanding the universe.