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Introduction
The Shared Moment, which later became known as the Aenean Shared Moment[1], is a landmark event in the history of humanity marking the end of the Pax Era and the beginning of the Aenean Era as told in The Rise of Endymion and further explained in the Orphans of the Helix novella.
History
After Aenea shared her sacrament with many of her followers and distributed those followers on many different worlds so that her DNA virus may be further spread among humanity, she headed to Pacem alongside Raul Endymion and Father Captain Federico de Soya. There, she interrupts Pope Urban XVI while he performed mass, at which point she is captured by the Pax. Aenea is then handed over to inquisition by the Church and by the TechnoCore represented by Rhadamanth Nemes and Councillor Albedo. She is tortured and eventually murdered.
At the time of her death however, Aenea made a powerful and thorough transmission to all of humankind as her message was broadcast to all humans everywhere by all of her followers with access to the Void Which Binds after having their DNA’s altered by her sacrament.
Reach
In the Orphans of the Helix, it is explained that the Shared Moment during Aenea's torture and murder was shared by every human being in human space - a resonance through the Void Which Binds had sent her thoughts, memories and knowledge along the threads of quantum fabric of the universe that resonated empathy. The Moment briefly united all people originating from Old Earth human stock.[2]
The Shared Moment also reached alien races and cultures unknown to humankind, so distant that they would be unreachable by human travel technology or communication. The Moment was the first ever sentient human voice added to the empathic conversation that had been happening between sentient and sensitive species for close to twelve billion years.[3]
The Shared Moment went as far as reaching human cultures that had been separated from most of mankind since the early days of the Hegira, such as the Ouster and Templar inhabitants of the alien orbital ring depicted in the Orphans of the Helix novella.
Aftermath
The Shared Moment ultimately caused the Fall of the Pax by transmitting to all humans the reality behind the Pax, its relationship with TechnoCore, and the Cruciform. It let be known that the Cruciform was a parasitic mass of AI nodes generating a micro TechnoCore in real space. It used the neurological system of each host however it wanted, even to the point of killing the human host as it consired the final moments before death to be the most creative moment of brain activity. The Church would then use Core technology to bring back the human body to life, with the cruciform becoming even stronger and more interconnected every time the individual died and was resurrected.[4]
The sudden learning by the entire humanity of the Pax and the TechnoCore’s nefarious enslavement of human race brought immediate sociopolitical effects upon human space, with entire planets and cultures turning against the Church and the Pax. Rebellions ravaged many worlds. Eventually, the Catholic Church was taken over by reformers and the Pax forced into exile in the planet of St. Theresa and was eventually dismantled around 100 years after the Shared Moment.
The Moment also contributed to the dismantling of the TechnoCore as hordes of humans in all worlds converted into Aeneans, who eventually broke up the Core and left the individual AI’s as autonomous entities.[5]