Eden

{{#if:FortunaInterlude 29|

“	The godling smiled. It knew, because the power she was using was the same power it had used to glimpse the future, to find that particular future where it had the world divided, drowned in conflict. As far as the godling was concerned, she was blind, as helpless as anyone else.	”
{{#if:Fortuna| —Fortuna{{#if:Interlude 29|, Interlude 29}} }} }}

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Eden</default></title>

<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>

<label>Status</label><format>

Deceased

</format>

<label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox> Eden,<ref name="II19.7 e1"/> also known as the Thinker, is an Entity, Zion's counterpart, and the source of half of the superpowers granted to mankind.

Personality

Not much is known of Eden's personality, and it is difficult to describe the personality of an entity given the alien and transcendent nature of their being. However, it is known that Eden is relatively more creative and constructive than her counterpart entity, The Warrior. After her exchange with Abaddon and while approaching Earth, Eden does respond to Zion's concerns about danger with confidence, possibly indicating some aspect of her personality.<ref name="I29 2"/><ref name="I26 1"/>

Abilities and Powers

Eden has similar abilities as The Warrior due to "multiple parallels" in their bodies and intelligence. Eden has the exact same Shards as the Warrior, though they were used differently.<ref name="Reddit eHero">Eden was the scholar, Scion the soldier. They had the same tools, but emphasized different ones. So picture Eden taking the primary tools that Scion had and giving them to a tinker so the human could use human ingenuity to explore those tools. Naturally it would be paced out by needing to design and tinker and find materials, using those materials in a sorta kludgy way (ie. have to carry the items, pull triggers, type stuff in), and would have some limitations she tacked on. Except she broke down before she could tailor the restriction part, leading to a vial giving some Scion Lite tools to an otherwise unrestricted tinker, who then joined/helped form an organization that gave him endless materials. That's Hero. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit</ref> A key difference was that Eden was also The Thinker. It was largely her role to understand, emulate and manipulate the lives of the Humans on the multiple versions of planet Earth. She made use of simulations of the future to set and investigate criteria in order to achieve the goals of the Cycle.<ref name="I29 1">It can use its strengths, the Warrior's strengths, and the host's natures to explore new ideas and tactics for approaching the endpoint.

Already, this entity is forming a model, a simulacrum of the host species, mapping out how things might unfold. While the Warrior is preparing to shed its shards and litter the world, this entity is plotting a strategic approach.

It cannot make out what form it or the other entity will take, but it can still view the situation in part. It sets the criteria for an optimal future, for optimal study, and then it looks to a future that matches this criteria. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref> Part of her ability to simulate the future was given away.<ref name="29.x eOptimalDeploy">An optimal future. It is an unwieldy future because it gave up a part of its ability to see the future to the other being. There are holes, because this entity does not fully understand the details of what happened, and because this entity's future-sight power is damaged. Above all else, it is an incomplete future because this entity has only the most minimal role in things, and the shards it saw were all the Warrior's.

The fact that it did not is a part of that future. This entity will arrive at the destination, and it will deploy shards to complicate a situation and break stalemates. Losing sides will be granted reinforcements through maturing shards. A different sort of engagement, a different way of testing the shards. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref>

Avatar

Eden planned and had begun constructing an avatar for herself using the Balance shard,<ref>Oliver got more of the Balance formula; the formula that helped to avoid the Case 53 situation, the part of Eden that, had things gone according to plan, would have shaped Eden's humanity. - Wildbow on SV</ref> similar to Scion.

Appearance

Unlike her silent counterpart, she would have been able to perfectly mimic a human. In her simulation of the future, she is able to speak and feign emotion in conversation.<ref>"You have your hands full," Clarent said.

The entity nodded. It feigned a moment of weariness, assuring these individuals it was merely human.

"Thank you," Partisan said. He extended a hand.

The entity roused itself from the mock-exhaustion, straightening, and shook the hand.

"We need to go," the entity said. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref>

Powers

In her simulation of the future, she had powers that allowed her to read emotions<ref name=":12">A power the entity held in reserve identified something wrong. The entity turned and looked at its partner, standing slightly behind it, taciturn and silent. They exchanged the smallest of broadcasts.

A consensus was reached between them. Arsenal knew something about the superweapons, or he suspected strongly enough for it to matter.

"What is it?" Clarent asked.

The entity responded, feigning emotion, "...There are eleven more."

It could see the reaction among the gathered heroes of the Wardens. Fear, alarm, a kind of dawning horror.

For Arsenal, though, there was another reaction. He was upset, yes, but was a little relieved at the same time. He knew about the others, and he had been testing them, to see if they would lie.

But suspicions remained.
[...]
The entity trailed off. It could see Arsenal's suspicions growing deeper. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref>

She retained the ability to exchange small Broadcasts with the Warrior.<ref name=":12"/> She would have had some kind of ability to create "Endbringer-lites" and direct them at targets.<ref name="E!E"/> Additionally she'd personally guide the placement of certain powers to shore up factions and extend conflict.<ref name="E!E"/> Further she'd be fully prepared to move to alternate Earths if/when Bet was no longer useful, or is actively targeting her.<ref name="E!E"/>

History

Background

The Entities first arose on a grey, silty world, which they destroyed and rode the explosion out to new worlds.<ref>In the beginning, a species chokes their gray planet. Here and there, landmasses appear, created by inhabitants to trap or uncover the scarce food that exists, but the landscape is largely liquid, water thick with silt and other particles. The creatures worm in and around one another, and the planet has as much space taken up by the creatures as there is space left for other things. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> The early ancestor of The Warrior first landed on a world with caustic acid rain, filled with plant life, as did another Entity.<ref>But others made contact with other worlds.

A world with life rooted in landmasses, weathering brutal storms of caustic acid. The one who arrives on that world struggles to find a means of survival.

It finds refuge in one of the dying plant structures, provides ambient heat to nourish it, so that the openings might close up and the shelter be made more secure. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> The two parasitized the plant life to survive and reproduce, and experimented, using their abilities to nourish and protect the plants and seeing which ones survived.<ref>It encounters another. A later arrival to the same planet, a member of its own species, another that is multiplying and consuming and growing. This new arrival chose a different means of survival, but it too chose a kind of parasitism.

They exchange shards where they meet. In these shards are codified memories, as well as the most effective techniques they have observed.

The planetoid is small, the range of options limited. A message is broadcast. Mutual agreement. They will move on.

Migration. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref>

The two devoured the plants and took back their shards, forming once again into two singular entities. The second entity suggested to the ancestor that the two attack each other, in small, measured ways, and then recombine their shards and attack each other again so that they might find the combinations that survived and discard the rest.<ref>But something else occurs. A broadcast from the other, followed by an attack.

A carefully measured attack. The two creatures ruin one another with friction and pressure, burning hot, and shards are destroyed. Many are partially destroyed.

The other creature joins shards together into combinations, discards and destroys. Repeats the process.

New shards are created. Different functions. Forced mutation. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> After experimenting like that as well for a time, they destroyed that world as well, sending out countless fragments of themselves to other worlds.

The Warrior's ancestor landed on a world with advanced technology. The entities learned of gravity-warping technology, and were studied in turn by the species. Some of them sought to rule; those they had bonded with lost the war, and the entities were rooted out. They formed three larger Entities, who destroyed the planet and fled, offspring scattering in every direction. This time, they controlled their paths with gravity and warped space.<ref>The next world encountered has sentient life, civilization. A complicated, rich world.

It is a symbiosis, this time, more than parasitism. The two species learn from one another. The shards code the 'technology' of this new species into their memories. They learn of warping space and gravity.

[...]

The cycle is cut short by a forced exit, as the shards are rooted out and destroyed by the natives of this civilized world. They meet, they bind and again they share ideas. Richer perceptions, complex technologies and more are fashioned in the unity of three larger creatures. It is through differences in the greater entities that a richness is created, new derivations, new connections that none would be capable of on their own.

The planet is expended, the offspring are cast off in every direction once again.

This time, they are capable of moving, of controlling their course. Gravity, warping space. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref>

The cycle repeated over three thousand times, and they grew more powerful each time. At some point, The Warrior's ancestors divided themselves into two entities, Warrior and Thinker, who would travel in pairs together. Each had slightly different attitudes and capabilities, so that they could compare different ways of doing things.<ref>After more than three thousand cycles, there are safeguards, there are protections. The arsenal of abilities, powers and protections the creature possesses have been built up. The entity remembers past failures and has adapted so they will not happen again.

The entities travel with partners now, moving in spirals while maintaining a measured distance from one another. Each is slightly different from the other, taking on a different role. Attacker and defender, warrior and thinker, builder and destroyer.

This divide is so they are able to take a different stance, shape their shards in subtle ways and clarify the results when their shards are compared and joined once again – some shall be kept, others discarded. Some will turn up interesting possibilities that can be explored when new shards are invented at the cycle's end. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref>

Approaching Earth

As Eden began to approach Earth, she drew towards Scion before they began to pick out various sub-worlds for themselves and their shards. She felt that Scion's constant communications were distracting as she was using her powers to begin mapping out their actions after their arrival. She started to reform herself for a deeper simulation when she noticed a third broadcast. Recognizing that it was a broadcast from another Entity, Eden hesitated before sending a broadcast signaling her location.

The third Entity sent a garbled reply and Eden spent time analyzing it. She was then met by the third Entity who rammed against her in an ancient tradition meant to exchange shards. She worked to salvage key shards and give ones she could afford to lose on to the other Entity. Eden and the third Entity broke apart before Scion broadcasted his concern.<ref name="I26 1">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.

A sharing of details, a wealth of knowledge, from hundreds of cycles. A sacrifice of the same.

The lesser one moves on, bloated with new shards and knowledge, but the counterpart flounders.

It sacrificed too much.

Concern.

Confident.

The counterpart is not worried. The signal carries notes of hope for the future. The counterpart will replenish its shards, its stores of knowledge, memories and abilities at the conclusion of this cycle, reuniting with the entity. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref>

Eden sent a confident response back and allowed Scion to take over some of her duties before she looked through her new shards.<ref name="I26 1"/> After looking through them, she began to form a simulacrum of the host species, set out criteria for an optimal future, and then looked for a future that matched that optimal future.<ref name="I29 1"/>

Scion interrupts the simulation, asking about their destination, and Eden absently agrees. She thinks on the future she had seen and starts to refine it. She reorganizes herself as she approaches their destination and sends Scion a confident reply when he expresses concern. Eden continues to work on her reorganization until she hits the ground.<ref name="I29 2">The gravity of the planetary bodies pull at it. It loses great clumps of shards.

It loses more. Its focus is now on holding on to the shards critical to making this future it has seen a reality. A world perpetually in conflict, the groups and factions kept small enough that none can challenge it.

All energy it can spare goes towards the reorganization. Shards must be discarded, or it will dwarf the destination planet. It casts shards off, and it retains shards that will allow it to draw power from those shards.

Danger, the Warrior broadcasts.

Confident, this entity responds.

It picks a reality. Up until the moment it hits ground, it works to reorganize itself. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref>

On the way down, Eden alters one of the third Entities' shards, replacing her own ability to find the optimal future. She realizes that she has made a mistake too late to fix it, and hits the ground hard at one world's version of Cote D'ivoire, Africa.<ref>In the doing, it alters one of the third entity's powers, replacing its own ability to find the optimal future.

In that very instant, it recognizes that it has made a grave error. The simulated world and the glimpse of the optimal future are already gone from its grasp. Too late.

The perspective changes, breaking away, distant, confused, detached. The impact was too hard. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref><ref>Cote D'ivoire, early 1980s, alternate earth with doors to Contessa's world and to Doctor Mother's. They limited access to the doors and later built the complex around her. - Wildbow's comment on Reddit</ref>

Later, Eden starts to pull herself together. She starts to experiment as she works to create a humanoid avatar. After some time, she raises her head and opened her eyes to see Fortuna standing before her. She realizes that Fortuna possessed the shard she had discarded and restricts it - rendering her and others like her immune to the shard's future-seeing power.<ref>And the gray fog descended on her mind, blinding her. A barrier, a blind spot, a future she could no longer see. Had it set the limitation more firmly in place?

The godling smiled. It knew, because the power she was using was the same power it had used to glimpse the future, to find that particular future where it had the world divided, drowned in conflict.

As far as the godling was concerned, she was blind, as helpless as anyone else. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref> Eden then dismissed Fortuna before it continued to create her avatar and bent over.

A woman would help Fortuna drive a knife into the avatar's neck, causing the entity to struggle and fail to form its body.<ref>The woman behind her took hold of the fist that held the knife. She stepped forward, driving the knife down, as if she were an extension of Fortuna.

Plunging into the spot where the spine met the skull.

They fell from the hand, dangled for a moment by their grip on the knife. It cut free, and they dropped to the ground.

Fortuna let one leg fold, pushing at the ground with the other. She rolled, breaking the fall. The woman fell a little harder.

The entity moved, and everything around them stirred. A thousand hands, a thousand arms, not all attached to the hands, legs, feet, ears, eyes, faces without features, expanses of skin, they twitched and writhed.

The noise around them faded, the heartbeats going still, the breathing quieting. The movements all around them stopped. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref> Severing this connection when Eden was most vulnerable dealt the critical blow to the entity.<ref name="29.x eConnectionCut"/>

Legacy

Eden did not immediately die; she was effectively left in a coma.<ref name="29.x eConnectionCut">There was only the thing, hanging in mid-air, struggling to form itself and failing. It breathed in rapid huffs, in obvious pain.

It wasn't dead, but it wasn't alive. A connection had been severed in a moment where the godling was most vulnerable.

The woman spoke.

"Again? The heart?"

But Fortuna was sure this was it. They'd carried out the last step. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref> As she was in an interim state where she had not distributed or discarded nearly enough of her powers, Cauldron could harvest her body as a source of serums to give people powers by connecting them to Eden's shards.<ref>Ten vials, to start. Five hours to prepare each vial. To saw off the body part, to find a way to break it down, then to package it. Each vial correlated with a specific map coordinate and they took photos to record every step of the way, to ensure no clue was missed.

Then they'd found ten patients, who had downed vials in separate rooms. People who'd been terminally ill.

Six made it out.

Contessa watched them, saw the beaming smiles on five faces. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref> By 1982, this harvesting process truly killed Eden<ref>"I can. I've been thinking about it. What is the key thing about the one we killed?"
[...]
"I felt the hostility. I felt how the one we killed, in the vision it had of the future, it almost enjoyed doing what it was doing. If the golden one is similar at all, then all it takes is an accident."
[...]
"So our solution... it's going to take one of two forms. Either we break him, somehow, or we find something we can use in the broken parts of the one we killed."

"Feeding it to people." - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref> as Cauldron took away the powers she needed to survive.<ref>"He's killing it."

"It's already dead," the Number Man said.

"He's killing it deader," I said.

"Granted," the Number Man said. He sighed. "There's nothing left in it. She took powers it had probably planned to give to others, distilled them. Then she dug in other places, and she took powers it needed to subsist. It died and went still." - Excerpt from Venom 29.8</ref>

Although the Thinker focused on holding its shards in reserve<ref>They are more engaged now, as they close the distance. They negotiate who can place shards where, and this entity now holds its shards in reserve.

The Warrior is focusing on refining the shards, and this entity is, in turn, focused on refining the future. A set goal, a reality.

Too complex to convey to the other. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref> to deploy them as needed to make the optimal future a reality, the entity did discard some shards to avoid dwarfing the planet upon arrival.<ref name="29.x eOptimalDeploy"/><ref name="I29 2"/> In 1982, Scion initially destroyed many of these shards on sight as they were dead and would fail to provide usable results.<ref>It can see its shards showering down from above like meteors traveling the void. The first to arrive.

It can see the shards of the counterpart.

Not all are intact.

Dead shards. Damaged ones. Vital shards, even, going to hosts.

The entity destroys these on sight. They are corrupt, ruined. They will fail to provide usable results. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> However, he soon stopped bothering once he found out that his partner was truly dead;<ref>Extending its perception over the world and other realities, the entity can sense everything at once. It can sense conflict. Wars.

It remains aware of its limited lifespan. Three thousand and six hundred revolutions. To search like this costs a tenth of one revolution's time. There is more than enough remaining before the cycle concludes.

Or there should be.

The entity abandons the search. Enough information has been obtained for it to know.

The counterpart is dead. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> his partner's death left him emotionally crushed and deeply depressed.<ref>In seeking to understand the host creatures, the entity had coded shards to emulate them. It is those same shards that experience the entity's first ever emotion.

Crushed.

The entity comes to experience a deep, profound sadness, for the very first time. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> Thus, it is possible for the rare natural trigger to have an Eden shard, such as Vikare<ref>The entity sees a shard already taking root in one of the vehicle's passengers. One of the dead shards, damaged. The entity's vision allows it to see the man's inside, the damage. He is dying of a systemic issue in his body, producing the wrong type of cells in the wrong places.

The entity reaches out, feels others touch his hand before the male finally makes contact. A simple wavelength serves to kill specific cells.

The shard will grow now, damaged as it is. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> and Leet.<ref>Wildbow: Some shards are damaged. Or 'dead'. Which isn't saying he's Cauldron.

But I've digressed/derailed enough. Bob's thread. No more on that subject. - Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref> Valkyrie notes that some of these triggers had shards with a more malicious design intended to break their hosts; an example is the man forced to create the Tower.<ref name="II9.i eScholar"/>

Gold Morning

Scion found her body; Taylor speculated he used his precognition ability to find a world where he would find his partner, unaware that she was harvested for powers.<ref>"And Scion?"

"Scion's occupied," I said.

Scion was cupping the face of his counterpart. The figure, no doubt grey skinned as the body parts that made up this area, was slack jawed.

He looked for futures where he'd find his counterpart, I thought. This was one of them... just not what he wanted or expected. Probably not even something he thought was possible. - Excerpt from Venom 29.8</ref> He began destroying her body; however, the PRT Strike team led by Taylor was able to use the body one more time to psychologically wound him.<ref name="29.8">"Sveta," I said. "Now."

She anchored herself on three different areas. Then she grabbed the burning corpse.

She flung it at Scion.

Can't hurt him physically.

Maybe emotionally.

He reeled, perhaps a little stunned. - Excerpt from Venom 29.8</ref> Throughout Gold Morning, the human forces repeatedly used several other imitations of Eden's body to torment Scion.

Trivia

• The name "Eden" is not used anywhere in Worm to refer to the Thinker. It was proposed by a fan in the comments and subsequently used by Wildbow as a character tag for the respective interlude.
• The image of a 'flesh garden', or mass of miscellaneous body parts, as in Eden's form at her death, occurs elsewhere in Worm, notably in Glory Girl's form after Amy forgets how to properly heal her. The resemblance between these forms has been confirmed not to be a coincidence.<ref>Funny how parallels appear. Almost as if Panacea had been recreating something from something she saw in a trigger event. - Comment from Wildbow</ref>
• Had Eden been the one who survived she would similarly be emotionally crushed and greatly depressed, though still smarter about her interventions than her mate.<ref name="E!E">Eden would be smarter about it, if still lost and indiscriminate. For her methodology, I'll refer you to this blurb:
  

Eden!Earth is broken up into xenophobic groups, any alliance with outside groups turns out disastrous. For the most part, ethnic groups and countries are independent, defending their own borders, but there's often further divisions within said group, with villains and/or civilians against totalitarian states, or some such. Major countries with high population are often divided further (as we see in the interlude). If people start forming alliances/peace and Eden sees it as too much trouble to sabotage, then she sics an Endbringer Lite on them, and then works with the remains.

Eden's tinkers aren't so limited in mass production and often outfit armies, which helps to spur things on. In key places, shards for cloning, plant and population growth, and resource production shards are deposited, to help crushed areas revive. Eden might liken it to pruning a tree - except she's pruning humanity to produce maximum conflict without utterly destroying it.

If Eden!Earth falls, she moves on to another, with a different tactic, or she sets things up for one earth to fight another - with seeds already planted here and there. - Scion vs Eden (Wildbow, Reddit.com, 2015-08-26)</ref>

Fanart Gallery

• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Contessa sees a vision of the Cycle.
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Browbeat stands in the remains of Eden. Above, two Entities weave their way to a new destination.
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  The two Entities travel through space.

References

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Site Navigation

Entities and Shards
Entities	Abaddon • Eden {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Scion {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }}
Shards	Anguished Heart • Fragile One • Grasping Self