The Rebuilding of the Machine, an event concurrently known as the Return of the Dark Sun, is a trial set for humankind by the Super-Ancient Beings, wherein an approaching zero-point energy field towards Earth must be repelled.
History[]
Early History[]
At a currently unknown point in Earth's history, a race of Super-Ancient Beings discovered the Dark Sun and through their research learned that it comes closer to the central Sun every few million years, but its deadly radiation was blocked from hitting Earth by Jupiter and Saturn. However, they predicted that on rare occasions the gaseous planets would not protect Earth, and that any life on the planet at that stage would be wiped out.
Already in the process of devising a series of trials to determine if a sentient species was worthy of existing, the Super-Ancients decided to make repelling the Dark Star one of their preliminary tasks, and so set about constructing a machine to accomplish this. This machine was comprised of six vertices containing an inverted pyramid, which would work in conjunction with six oblong diamonds the Ancients also manufactured, referred to as Pillars. Through these, on any day that the Dark Star breached the safe distance between itself and Earth, each inverted pyramid would fire a concentrated laser at the Earth's very core, which would then send out a sonic vibration that was powerful enough to keep the Dark Sun at its safe distance.
In order to provide aid for any species that did arise to learn all that they needed about the Machine, the Super-Ancients built tools that would work in unison with the Firestone of the Golden Capstone to cleanse the Pillars, reveal the locations of each Vertex, the dates each Pillar had to be laid, view the Dark Star and reveal the incantation that would activate the Machine.
At some point during the rise of human culture, the Super-Ancient Beings provided a collective group with knowledge of the Dark Star, as well as the tools needed to allow them to find the Vertices of the Machine, as well as the six Pillars. Eventually these Machine components came to be kept in Egypt under the Pharoh Khufu's keep (himself apparently being a King of Land). However, the priest Thuthmosis stole the Pillars and the Sacred Stones, unwittingly putting the Earth at greater risk of being destroyed by the Dark Star as they were scattered around the world.
Before The Six Sacred Stones[]
During the late 20th century, the archaeologist Max "Wizard" Epper was researching the Machine when he deduced its purpose to repel the Dark Sun whenever it drew too close into the solar system. He would consult with astronomers, who could only verify that something was out there since things were being blocked from being viewed from Earth, and thus Wizard became convinced of the Dark Star's existence and the need to rebuild the Machine.
While this became Wizard's primary focus throughout his career, he became side-tracked for several years with the Golden Capstone and upcoming Tartarus sunspot event. Only after the sunspot was dealt with in March 2006 with the restoration of the Golden Capstone did he return his full attention to his Dark Sun project. In his endeavors over the next year, he recruited his anthropologist friend Yobu "Tank" Tanaka and two of his former students, Lachlan and Julius Adamson, to try and predict the approach of the Dark Star and prepare a mission to restore the Machine.
At the same time, other parties began making their own preparations to complete the completion of the Machine trial, if only to obtain the Pillars' rewards. Wolf and the Commander-in-Chief's In Extremis Force (operating on behalf of the Caldwell Group which served the Kingdom of Sea) allied with China's Mao Gongli and the Saudi spy Vulture to find the Machine components and divide/share the rewards. The King of the Kingdom of Land, Vladimir "Carnivore" Romanov, having watched the events involving the Tartarus Rotation, decided his efforts would be better suited to piggybacking on the efforts of his rivals, and his cousin Iolanthe Compton-Jones inserted into the CIEF-China-Saudi alliance.
Conversely, the Japanese Blood Brotherhood, a radical group who felt their homeland's humiliation at the end of World War II deeply, learned of the looming threat of the Dark Star thanks to Tank, and decided that preventing the Machine from being rebuilt to let the world be destroyed would restore their honour.
The Six Sacred Stones[]
On December 1st 2007, Wizard and Tank entered a chamber beneath Witch Mountain, where they believed the Philosopher's Stone was kept. Finding several carvings relating to the Machine, soon Wizard found one that noted that the first Pillar had to be set in its Vertex 100 days before the Dark Star's return, which was a little over a week from then. Their subsequent capture by Mao and his men set off a chain of events that led Jack West Jr and the Coalition of Minnows team to discovering the return of the Dark Sun and the necessity of restoring the Machine.
The mission to rebuild the Machine and repel the Dark Star began in earnest as the Coalition team ventured to the first Vertex beneath Abu Simbel with the cleansed first Pillar and set it in place atop the inverted pyramid. However, as soon as the Pillar was placed, their rivals' various attempts to claim the Pillar or destroy the Firestone resulted in the mission to take on a darker turn.
Indeed the Japanese Blood Brotherhood's mole in the CIEF, Switchblade, very nearly derailed the success of the trial when he attempted to drop the second Pillar into the abyss below the inverted pyramid. It was only Jack's last-ditch effort to catch and place the Pillar that allowed for further opportunity to continue the mission to restore the Machine.
The Five Greatest Warriors[]
With nearly three months until the time to place the third Pillar, the Coalition team and the CIEF and its allies took the time to research the location of the outstanding Machine components, with the former focusing on the Five Greatest Warriors.
During the mission to place the third Pillar in the Hokkaido Vertex, Jack's team and Wolf's CIEF force reluctantly agreed to a truce to place the Pillar due to the opposition the Japanese presented them. Once the Pillar was set, they went their separate ways, only to all end up captured by Carnivore's forces, the Russian royal having decided to make his move.
To the imprisoned players in the trial, Carnivore announced his plan to manipulate all of them into working for him and providing him with the Pillars and their rewards. With their reluctant compliance, the Coalition team laid the fourth and fifth Pillars at their respective Vertices, while Mao, Vulture and Scimitar were sent to uncover the sixth Pillar.
With only one Pillar needing to be set in place to complete the Machine's restoration, Carnivore made his own play to claim the final Pillar from Jack and his team (who had retrieved it instead of Vulture's group), and proceeded on to the sixth Vertex on Easter Island. During the confrontation there, Jack killed the Russian royal and placed the Pillar with Lily, performing the final ritual that successfully repelled the Dark Star and completed the trial of the Machine.
After The Five Greatest Warriors[]
Years later, Cardinal Ricardo Mendoza explained to Jack how the rebuilding of the Machine was but one of the first, preliminary tasks set by the Super-Ancient Beings to test life on Earth. (The Four Legendary Kingdoms)
Trivia[]
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