Editing Abaddon (section)

==History==
===Deep Background===
The [[Entity|Entities]] first arose on a gray, silty world, which they destroyed and rode the explosion out to new worlds.<ref name="I26">[[Interlude 26]]</ref>

Abaddon's line had remained a singular traveler of space and it had visited fewer worlds than the [[Warrior Entity]] or the [[Thinker Entity]].<ref name="I26 e2">Its ancestors had traveled a different path, easily hundreds of cycles ago, before the entities had begun traveling in pairs.  This new arrival had encountered different worlds, less worlds, and it had developed differently. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/interlude-26/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 26]]</ref>

Before Abaddon traveled relatively close to [[Earth]], a previous cycle took place on a planet where everything was alive.<ref>“Can we go back?” I asked.  I made it declarative.  “Go back.  Uh… earlier in this thing’s history.”<br><br>“It’s a life cycle,” Five said.<br><br>“Previous life in the cycle,” I said.<br><br>The image changed.<br><br>What I saw was chaos.  A dense world, where everything was moving and alive.  There were things that resembled spiders, there were things that looked like slugs.  Some were small, some were as big as buildings. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/04/infrared-19-8/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref> [[wikipedia:Traumatic insemination|Traumatic insemination]] and [[wikipedia:Horizontal gene transfer|horizontal gene transfer]] was strongly prominent even in complex and intelligent organisms, and "every species could breed with every species".<ref>And they were using what looked like built in spears to puncture one another, fluids pouring out.<br>[...]<br>“No.  A cape,” Number Five said.  “Traumatic insemination.  Traumatic egg-laying.  It looks like natural trait across this species.”<br><br>“They’re different species,” Chris said.  “A planet where every species can breed with every species.  It looks like a good number are intelligent.” - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/04/infrared-19-8/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref> Ten years before Abaddon ended their world, the hosts appear to be fighting [[Endbringer]] or [[Titan]] equivalents.<ref>“What is the species of this life cycle fighting, near the end?  Ten rotations around their sun prior to the world ending,” I asked.<br><br>It was a similar scene.<br><br>But they were fighting something that looked like a conch shell, with holes running through it.  Tentacles flowed out and through the massed ‘warriors’, that I would have likened to animal predators on our earth.  Spider-like, wolf-like, cat-like, but streamlined down, sleek, without the key traits I would point to in a spider, wolf, or cat.  Incredibly varied, from one to the next.<br><br>“Endbringer equivalent or Titan equivalent?” Byron asked.<br><br>“Looks like,” I said. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/04/infrared-19-8/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref> In the final significant fight, the world appears to be cracked open<ref>“Looks like,” I said.  “Show us the end.  Last significant fight of that particular life cycle.”<br><br>The scene changed, and it was chaos.  The world was cracked open, and the cracks glowed. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/04/infrared-19-8/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref> and the massed hosts were webbed together so that one mob of creatures fighting were extensions of one another.<ref>The massed ''things'' were interconnected, webbed together, so that one mob of creatures fighting were extensions of one another.  Some or all had powers. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/04/infrared-19-8/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref>

The cycle before this cycle took place on a planet that, ten years before Abaddon ended their world, was shrouded in constant rain and had "poncho-wearing snakes" as hosts.<ref>“Previous cycle,” I said.  “Tenth-to-last rotation of their planet around their sun, a fight.”<br><br>The world was shrouded in constant downpour, and the things that moved through it were low to the ground, with skin coverings or something that hung off of them like drenched cloaks or ponchos, masking all features.  I saw glows here and there as they drew on powers. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/04/infrared-19-8/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref> These hosts appear to be ganging up against their [[Endbringer]] equivalents.<ref>A great beast lurched through the rain, pursuing those glows.  In the process, it scattered what I’d thought was uneven ground, and was actually a horde of the slithering life, piled atop one another.<br><br>They swarmed up the great thing.<br><br>“It’s entirely different from what we’re doing,” Sveta said.  “We all fight one another.  They’re ganging up against… Endbringers?” - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/04/infrared-19-8/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref> In the final fight, the hosts were interconnected and tied into one another, more like a net than a pile of snakes.<ref>“This cycle, final fight,” I said.<br><br>Again, they were interconnected, tied into one another, the slithering things more like a net than a pile of poncho-wearing snakes that were barely visible in the rain. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/04/infrared-19-8/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref>

===Background===
Sensing [[Eden]] and [[Zion]] on their way to earth, Abaddon asked to exchange information, in the form of [[shards]], with them.<ref name="I29 e1">''Agreement'', this entity is distracted in responding.  It is receiving another broadcast.<br/><br/>A third.<br/><br/>The communication is almost alien, a member of their species, but long distant, from countless cycles ago.<br/><br/>It hesitates, then signals its own location.<br/><br/>''Exchange.  Meet.''<br/><br/>The response is garbled.  Takes time to analyze. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/interlude-29/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 29]]</ref> Eden accepted engaging in an exchange of shards.<ref name="I26 e3">The lesser one crossed paths with the entity’s counterpart.  For a duration, they intertwined, meeting through multiple realities, their bodies rubbing and crushing against one another.<br/><br/>A sharing of details, a wealth of knowledge, from hundreds of cycles.  A sacrifice of the same.<br/><br/>The lesser one moves on, bloated with new shards and knowledge, but the counterpart flounders. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/interlude-26/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 26]]</ref> The Loner exchanged several shards, notably its [[Contessa|eye]], wings, teeth, and ability to step between worlds.<ref name="II18.z eExchange">Before any of this, all of this, she had been the forward-looking eye of something greater and grander, a lonely being in and of itself.  That great and grand thing had crossed paths with a pair of others.<br><br>''Take my eye'', it had said.  ''Take my wings''.  ''Take my teeth''.  ''Take my ability to step between worlds''.<br><br>The pair, in turn, had made their own offerings, as much as they were in a hurry.<br><br>For they were the most distant of cousins, the most distant of things.  If they did not share their stories and resources now then stars might be born and die before their individual family lines crossed paths and had opportunity to share again.  And they were scholars, all of them, trying to answer an unanswerable riddle. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2019/12/21/interlude-18-z-radiation/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 18.z II]]</ref> Because of this, Eden became distracted and crashed into several [[Earths]].<ref name="crash">The pair continued to flow in and out of reality, swimming through space like a fish slipping in and out of air at the water’s surface.  They met with the black thing, which mashed itself into one of the two.<br/><br/>For lack of a better way of putting it, I would have said they limped away from the interaction, black bleeding into red and vice-versa.<br/>[...]<br/>The ‘view’ stayed with the red one that had absorbed some of the black.<br/><br/>Followed it to Earth, and it was obvious from the motion of planets that the scene was being sped up.<br/><br/>We watched as it tumbled into a rough crash landing on a barren version of our Earth.  Everything went black. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/04/infrared-19-8/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref>

Abaddon then continued on to its path<ref name="I29 e4">They break apart.  The third entity continues its path, moving to a distant star, its path perpendicular to the pair’s. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/interlude-29/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 29]]</ref> towards the Andromeda Galaxy.<ref name="II19.8 eGalaxy">“There, did you see?” Number Five asked.<br/><br/>“I didn’t,” I said, not taking my eyes off of things.<br/><br/>“One of those pulses- it was the Andromeda Galaxy.  You can look at the stars and see which way the third one is on.”<br/><br/>“Maybe you can,” Chris said.<br/><br/>“He’s going to the Andromeda galaxy.  Passing through.  I wonder why.  A rendezvous with others of his kind?” Number Five asked.<br/><br/>“You’re asking us like we know,” Chris said, frowning.<br/><br/>“If you’re scared it will come back, you don’t need to be.  That thing’s not coming back for a long, long time, at its current course.” - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/04/infrared-19-8/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref>

===Impact===
[[Contessa]]'s shard has a unique ability to maintain some degree of autonomy while not being explicitly linked to any entity, which is probably a residual effect of the unfinished transfer.<ref>It looked at the female, and it saw a shard that wasn’t its own, but wasn’t dead. - Excerpt from [[Interlude 26]]</ref><!--
    outdated by 18.z
    ref>They can alter the shards they put out there, before the shards hae[sic] mature, because a connection is maintained. No connection = 'dead' shard. - [https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/14727588 Wildbow on Spacebattles]</ref
--><ref>She stood utterly alone and completely still.  For all intents and purposes, she was the only one of her kind. [...] Every other gift lay dead and disconnected, fruit on the branches of a dead tree, with little in the way of parting words or guidance.  Every other connection to the Loner was gone.  The Pair too distant to reach. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2019/12/21/interlude-18-z-radiation/ Excerpt] from [[Radiation 18.z]]</ref>

[[Doctor Mother]] mentions that the shards Eden obtained during the exchange, a "foreign element", tended to yield powers without standard restrictions when administered to [[Cauldron]] subjects.<ref>“There is a foreign agent in them.  The entity altered each power he granted to give them certain restrictions.  No power would be able to truly affect him, no power would cross the boundaries he set in dimension, or in affecting other powers.  There are no alterations to the elements in ''these, ''only to the accompanying abilities, or complimentary powers.  The powers granted from ''these'' vials don’t cause the recipients to forget the visions they see.  Eidolon was one such case.  The extreme deviant cases on the special containment floor make up much of the remainder.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/venom-29-7/ Excerpt] from [[Venom 29.7]]</ref> These may have been unincorporated shards from Abaddon. According to [[Harbinger V]] none of them were "viable".<ref>“She’s not a part of the rest of us?” I asked.<br/><br/>“There were a few like that, that stood out,” Number Five said.  “None were viable.” - [https://www.parahumans.net/2020/02/04/infrared-19-8/ Excerpt] from [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref>