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"Aenea and the Ousters" by jkemeny on Deviantart. [note: the Ouster Angels depicted here are an alternative interpretation as compared to canon description]
Introduction[]
Aenea is a human woman and a significant figure in galactic affairs following the Fall of the Hegemony alongside Raul Endymion. She is an architect and the product of a union between a human and a cybrid; Her human mother was Brawne Lamia, and her cybrid father was the first Cybrid John Keats, Johnny. Aenea is a messiah figure responsible for the end of the Pax Era and the dawn of a new age of mankind's history. She was described as having shoulder-length hair, brown with blond streaks.
Early life[]
Born Diana, Aenea held four names prior to settling on Aenea at age 12. The five names Aenea held in her childhood are as follows:
| Name | Namesake |
|---|---|
| Diana | Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt, moon, and childbirth |
| Cynthia | Artemis, Greek goddess of the moon, sometimes called Cynthia |
| Cate | Hecate, Greek goddess of crossroads, the moon, and magic, sometimes regarded as Savior, Mother of Angels, and the Cosmic World Soul |
| Temis | Themis, Greek titaness of divine order, law and custom |
| Aenea | Aeneas, Trojan hero, son of a human prince and the goddess Venus |
History[]
SPOILER ALERT! The section(s) below are MAJOR SPOILERS.
Aenea is, alongside Raul Endymion, a protagonist in both the Endymion novels (Endymion and The Rise of Endymion). In Endymion, Martin Silenus rescues Raul from execution by local authorities and gives him a series of tasks, one of which is to rescue Aenea as she arrives in the present at the Time Tombs from hundreds of years in the past. The date and time of her arrival had long been known by the Pax and the TechnoCore. The Pax sends troops to the Tombs to ensure that Aenea is captured, given the danger they believe she poses to the Pax and the TechnoCore's existence. The Shrike arrives with her and kills many of the troops as Aenea and Raul flee on the Hawking Mat.
The two, as well as A. Bettik, engage in world-hopping adventure via the old inactivated River Tethys farcasters as they flee the Pax who has sent Father Captan Federico de Soya in their pursuit. Then end up on Old Earth where they spent several months, with Aenea studying architecture under the cybrid Frank Lloyd Wright, the "Old Architect", and building a community of followers there.
She separates from Raul for a while as she sends him away from Old Earth to fetch the Consul's ship that had been left in a tropical uninhabited world while it repaired itself. After some time, Aenea herself, along with her followers, leave Old Earth. She spends time in many different worlds, doing construction and architecture works and spreading her message and DNA Sacrament. She is accompanied by A. Bettik, Rachel Weintraub and Theo Bernard (a descendant of Theo Lane). She ends up in T'ien Shan doing construction works for the Dalai Lama and works as a teacher. The Counsul's ship takes Raul to that planet after being recovered, where the two are reunited. Aenea, now a grown woman, becomes Raul's lover and companion. The two spend time in T'ien Shan before being found there by Rhadamanth Nemes and a Pax delegation. Rhadamanth attempts to assassinate her but is prevented from doing so by the Shrike and Raul Endymion. Aenea, Raul, and all their many companions, including the Dalai Lama and an injured Federico de Soya, flee T'ien Shan with the Consul's Ship. She freecasts the ship and its passengers to a distant Ouster and Templar system hosting a startree biosphere.
However, their stay doesn't last for long, as the Pax assaults the startree with hundreds of archangel-class starships, only a few weeks after their arrival. Aenea and Raul manage to escape the war aboard the Yggdrasill treeship with a few hundred survivors. For the following days, Aenea freecasts the treeship to hundreds of different worlds, where she disembarks her followers little by little on each visited planet, in order to spread her teachings and her DNA Sacrament. At each world that they make a stop on, they are bombarded by Pax military and are protected by the ship's many forcefield-generating Ergs.
These trips end with Aenea, Raul and Federico showing up at Pacem, the capital world of the Church. Aenea and Raul are captured by the Pax. Raul is judged, condemned, and sentenced to die in a prison orbiting a remote world, while Aenea is tortured to death by christian and TechnoCore authorities.
Her death, however, is not in vain. In the moment of her death, the nefarious truth regarding the Pax, the TechnoCore and the Cruciform is broadcast by her many followers to all mankind in what becomes known as the Aenean Shared Moment. The Shared Moment causes the downfall of the Pax, the end of the Pax Era, and a new era in mankind's history known as the Aenean Era in which her DNA Sacrament allows mankind the ability to freecast and to tap into The Void Which Binds.
Purpose and Mission[]
Aenea's creation was planned by the Lions and Tigers and Bears, the mighty entities which populate The Void Which Binds. The purpose of her creation was to enable humans to enter and manipulate the Void, and thus become part of the community that resides within it. This ability is spread like a virus; whoever inserts Aenea's genes into his or her metabolism will gain the ability to freecast, and become a vector of the virus to other people. Any vector of the virus, Aenea herself included, is able to tap into the infinite dimension of The Void Which Binds, and this is the gift of the Lions and Tigers and Bears to humanity.
The union between human and cybrid, which is regarded as unholy by the church, is what enabled Aenea to develop as a vector of the virus. In fact, the source of the virus is second Cybrid John Keats' blood, which was splashed upon Lamia's body as Keats died. Keats was created by the Lions and Tigers and Bears in such a way that he was a vector of the virus, and therefore, after Lamia was touched by it, she became a vector of the virus as well. Of course, she delivered it by genes to her offspring, Aenea. The reason why Aenea is regarded as a "prophet" is that while an embryo in Lamia's womb, Keat's personality was being carried on a Schrön loop in Lamia's body. Thus Keats was able to communicate with the yet-to-be-borne Aenea. He led her through the Void and introduced her the heritage of the human race, to the residents of the Void, and of course to her own future. So, Aenea was born with "memories" from the past and the future, as well as the ability to harness the potential of the Void.
The Lions and Tigers and Bears thought to grant humanity with such a gift because they optimistically believed humanity had a real chance to ascend into an empathic and loving race of beings, one which lives in harmony with the natural universe. This ascension included inevitably the downfall of the TechnoCore, since the AI entities of the TechnoCore are devoid of the traits required to take part in the life in the Void. AIs, being parasites by nature, consume each other in order to prosper, and they act with carelessness towards the other species in the universe. They cannot feel love, and hence they were to be excluded from the process of ascending humanity. And since the TechnoCore was vastly harmful regarding the Lions and Tigers and Bears, the later wished to cease the former's activity.
And so it happened that the TechnoCore, knowing of Aenea's destiny, attempted to stop her from bringing their destruction. With the assistance of her Lions and Tigers and Bears supporters, Raul Endymion and A. Bettik , and eventually the Ousters, she managed to evade the church's grasp. She spread the virus within the Pax, then popped up right in Pacem, the home-world of her enemies. She did it deliberately, knowing (by her memories from the future) that she would be captured and tortured to death. She did it because in the very last moments of her life, every human being witnessed her suffering. The Void was like a mirror that reflected the end of her existence to humanity. And by that act, she opened a window for humanity to step into the Void Which Binds. Her death was followed by a rebellion against the Pax which ended its reign as well as the fourth and last book.
Progeny[]
SPOILER ALERT! The section(s) below are MAJOR SPOILERS.
The novella Orphans of the Helix reveals that Aenea and Raul Endymion had a son named Petyr.
Trivia[]
Age of death[]
Aenea is described twice at the end of the book to have died at 23-years old.[1][2] This is in fact a mistake from the writer himself, as Aenea was 21-years old when Raul met her again on T'ien Shan after he traveled for five years (Aenea was 16-years old when she left Old Earth).[3][4][5] Her execution occurred only three or four months later. Aenea was actually 21-years old when she died, and aged 18 when she reappeared to Raul on Old Earth.
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ The Rise of Endymion, 1997, Chapter 32. "Aenea had just turned twenty-three standard years old when she died."
- ↑ The Rise of Endymion, 1997, end of Chapter 34. "She was twenty, four years older than when I had left her in Hannibal but almost three years younger than when I saw her last."
- ↑ The Rise of Endymion, 1997, Chapters 2 & 4. Aenea left Old Earth aged 16 (the Old Architect died the day before her birthday). Five years later she is 21-years old.
- ↑ The Rise of Endymion, 1997, Chapter 16. When Aenea and Raul are reunited, she details Raul's total travel time of about five years. Then, they stayed three more months on T'ien Shan before the arrival of the Pax on the planet.
- ↑ The Rise of Endymion, Chapter 18.