Godbound In Space: The Arcem Sector, Part 5

More Space Godbound weirdness for the Arcem Sector or beyond.

The Ascended Masters - Not-So-Omniscient Smugness

"Ooh aren't I mysterious?"

The people of the Arcem sector (and beyond) know that the soul is real. The soul, combined with the mind and body, form the multi-dimensional 'data' which compose a being. It can be changed by soul-alterations and graft, additions of soul-genes and deliberate cultivation of psionic powers. The soul-data can far exceed in volume it's original size. There are those who grow in spiritual power so much that when they die the sheer mass of their souls does not dissipate and/or isn't gobbled up by the datastream of the Celestial Network to be take elsewhere.

The Ascended Masters have transcended life and death, becoming soul and mind singularities. Each time they die their minds reincarnate into a new body of a near-human xenotypes (often of the same type/species but this is hardly an unbreakable rule). As they age they reawaken to past lives, becoming ever more potent. The Ascended Masters have reached such a level of enlightenment and power that they mechanically are Godbound. They have escaped beyond the wheel of life, death and causality. They are statted as Undestined. Their reincarnation ability is not a Gift simply because it take so long that it merely is a plot device with a payoff within the next few decades.

There is no central agenda to the Ascended Masters: they can go entire incarnations without meeting back with their allies or enemies. Most are incomprehensible: they call this transcendental wisdom but saner beings just call this 'bullshit': most of what comes out of an Ascended Master is complete bullshit. It isn't that they're pathological liar it's just they've become more often than not incredibly detached from mortals or even other transhuman gods who are limited to existing in mostly three dimension and a single, linear existence. Trying to explain to an Ascended Master that one need answer about a currently ongoing situation can be a headache because they've set in motions plan they think will only pay off in the next thousand years. Of course there is also a good chance this otherworldly goofyness is also a ploy on their part to hide a real agenda.

The Techno-Liches - Immortality At All Cost

Lich Cyborg by Jaro313

Death sucks, hat much is obvious. Nobody wants to die yet we all eventually do. Or, at least, that would be how it is but technological and theurgical means have long allowed individuals to far exceed their extended lifespan through gene therapies, organ replacement, synthetic enhancements and even full body cybernetic replacement. There is also cloning and memory copying as forms of immortality if one see it that way. For some people that's not enough, however.

The Techno-Liches are not a unified group in origin nor purpose, they're merely a category of similar beings. There is only so much genetic and synthetic enhancements can take someone and quite a few powerful individuals came to dread their own death: at best they could hope for a lineage of clones and genetically-engineered descendants maybe overseen by an AI copy. All these things are obviously of questionable legality in the Arcem Sector so ambitious people must turn elsewhere. Becoming an Arrayed is an option but there are limits to the process and many ambitious, rich individuals find themselves turned down by all experts as being unsuitable to the process. Some pay anyway and die doing so. And some...find other means.

These beings use the Lich Lord Concept Word from Lexicon of the Throne. When money, ambition, madness and resourcefulness meet the end result might sometime enable one to finally ascend to the form of immortality they always wanted. Of course, its all a sham. These beings are biologically dead and twisted. What one need to do, to become a Techno-Lich, is essentially put their bodies and souls in some kind of messed up quantum state. They are not alive and they aren't dead either. Most of them look horrible and disgusting, rotting corpses, cyber-skeletons, twisted mass of necrotechnical life support or worse.  None of these process are safe. None of them are suitable but the important thing is that they work. The question worth asking is: was it worth it to 'bug' oneself out of the cycle of life and death?

Despite what one might think, the Techno-Liches don't really need to rely on the Word of Death. Nothing in their creation and existence mean they need to be able to influence Death itself, as they are the result of forbidden and twisted science that doesn't necessarily have to include necromancy or even spellcasting (via Sorcery) in their power suite. While some absolutely are necromancers others are byproduct of more technological means.