The Trials of the Super-Ancients are the tasks assigned by the Super-Ancients Beings to test the worthiness of humanity as a whole and allow them the opportunity to survive through the Omega Event.
History[]
Early History[]
Following the creation of the universe by the mysterious Super-Ancient Beings, seven planets - including Earth - were seeded with life using the Lifestone. The Ancients' intentions were to ensure the continuation of this universe by ensuring that the life they had created to occupy it were able to advance to a sufficient degree of intelligence and then be tested on their worthiness to continue existing by putting them through a series of tasks that would end with them preventing the end of the universe and its rebirth in the cycle known as the Omega Event.
As part of these trials (and assuming that the trials on the other worlds were the same as the ones humanity would face) the Super-Ancients chose to implement the celestial phenomena involving the Tartarus sunspot's rotational event, the Dark Star's enclosing orbit to Earth, and the approach of the Hydra galaxy to the Milky Way; thus creating the tasks that involved the restoration of the Golden Capstone, the rebuilding of the Machine, and the diverting of the Hydra galaxy. These "preliminary tasks" would be a prelude to the final trials humanity would need to overcome and prove their worthiness of existing and delaying the Omega Event. The two trials would become the Trial of the Cities and the Trial of the Mountains, while the final task to prevent Omega involved navigating the Supreme Labyrinth to release a quantum pulse.
To make the completion of these tasks all the more appealing, the Super-Ancients decided to offer rewards for those who completed them, notably knowledge and power-based rewards, and for the one who reached the Throne of Life or Throne of Death at the Supreme Labyrinth and activated the quantum pulse to prevent the Omega Event, they would be rewarded with the ability to command others with absolute authority.
While the circumstances are unknown, the other six worlds bequeathed with life by the Super-Ancients all developed sentient races that would also undertake their trials up until the modern day.
Some time after the rise of Homo Sapiens on Earth, the Super-Ancients gave the bulk of the tools and knowledge needed for the trials to a group of these early humans so that their descendants could be prepared for when the trials began. These humans, later coming to call themselves the the Four Legendary Kingdoms vowed to maintain the Super-Ancients' knowledge and tools for completing the trials. Over the millennia, however, some information and components for the trials, such as the Golden Capstone, the Pillars and Guidestones of the Machine, and the Mace of the Immortal Weapons, would become lost over the years. The Kingdom of Underworld, however, kept its word to maintain the necessary knowledge for the third trial.
The Four Kingdoms were also gifted with the Immortal Weapons of the Trial of the Cities, which they shared among three of their Kingdoms, and discovered the locations of the Three Secret Cities. The Four Kingdoms assigned three men to watch over each one, who would come to be called the Trismagi, to ensure they were not disturbed before the trial. However, only the Kings of each Kingdom (and few of their closet advisers) became privy to the knowledge that a sacrifice was needed for the trial's overall success, and it was decided that it was the Oracle of Siwa's responsibility to be the "Supreme Initiate" who sacrificed their life.
A few years prior to 2570 BC, before the Golden Capstone was divided and scattered, the the Old Kingdom of Egypt used it during the Tartarus rotation that occurred before the one scheduled for the Age of Trials. Similarly, since 10,000 BC, the Four Kingdoms held the Great Games of the Hydra three times during preliminary passes of the Hydra galaxy. Upon the completion of the three Games, the Mysteries, information for the two trials preceding the Omega Event, would be imparted upon the one who stood in the obelisk of the mountain-antenna, even though Kings who received the Mysteries would not need them in their eras. The last of these Kings, Zeus, made some notes regarding the two Trials on a papyrus in the Word of Thoth, including the prerequisites for the former Trial's completion and the punishment for failing. Zeus then proceeded to undertake the Trial of the Cities and the Trial of the Mountains before heading to the Supreme Labyrinth to avert the Omega Event of his era.
Meanwhile, the information regarding the Omega Event was primarily maintained through the ages by the Catholic Church's Omega Group.
Towards the end of the 20th century, some of the Four Kingdoms, knowing that the Age of Trials would begin with the next Tartarus Rotation in 2006, began preparations to undertake the trials, not only out of desire to see humanity through the Omega Event, but to gain the rewards that the Super-Ancients had offered for completing them. People such as Max Epper would deduce the importance of the first two tasks, even coming to theorise the existence of the Super-Ancients, but were unaware of the full scope of the trials.
Seven Ancient Wonders[]
In the week leading up to the day of the Tartarus sunspot's next alignment with Earth on March 20th 2006, several rivaling parties began seeking out the pieces of the Golden Capstone in order to restore and then use to prevent the polar ice caps from melting and causing sea levels to rise.
Once the Commander-in-Chief's In Extremis Force claimed the last piece of the Capstone, Marshall Judah led them to the Great Pyramid of Giza to re-erect the Capstone and perform the ritual of power. Before the ritual began, the Coalition of Minnows team began fighting back, and during the conflict the Tartarus sunspot aligned perfectly with the Pyramid, causing a concentrated beam of the sunspot's energy to strike the Capstone. Judah's performance of the ritual of power was upset by Alexander escaping from the Capstone's recess before it was completed, but Mustapha Zaeed soon began performing the ritual with Lily as his sacrifice. As the ritual was completed, the Tartarus sunspot's energy was concentrated further through the Capstone's crystal array as it pierced Lily's heart, and thus Tartarus's excess heat was nullified and the first trial was completed.
With Jack West Jr having switched Zaeed's Saudi Arabian soil for Australian soil beforehand, the reward for completing the trial, 1,000 years of power, was granted to Australia, while Lily survived as she had willingly gone along with the ritual.
Between Seven Ancient Wonders and The Six Sacred Stones[]
After the completion of the restoring of the Golden Capstone, Epper gave his full attention back the Dark Sun project he had pursued his whole life, and began working with Yobu "Tank" Tanaka and 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 task of rebuilding the Machine to repel the returning Dark Star, if only to obtain the Pillars' rewards. Wolf and the CIEF allied themselves 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, meanwhile, decided his efforts would be better suited to piggybacking on the efforts of his rivals, and had his cousin Iolanthe Compton-Jones inserted into the CIEF-China-Saudi alliance.
The Six Sacred Stones[]
On December 1st 2007, Wizard and Tank entered a chamber beneath Witch Mountain, where they found several carvings relating to the Machine, including 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 and the Coalition of Minnows team to discovering the return of the Dark Star and the necessity of restoring the Machine.
The mission to 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 restore the Machine taking 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 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.
Between The Five Greatest Warriors and The Four Legendary Kingdoms[]
During the eight-year interim that took place following the second task, the Four Kingdoms began their preparations for the next task, diverting the Hydra galaxy, selecting and grooming candidates who would take part in the fourth Great Games of the Hydra.
Around September 2016, the observatory in the Underworld which tracked the movements of the Hydra galaxy detected that it was close enough to Earth, and unlocked the Star Chamber vault with the Golden Spheres locked inside, signaling to the Four Kingdoms that the trial was upon them. By November, each King of the Four Kingdoms and some members of their houses brought their Champions to the Underworld, who had fitted in their necks a gold gemstone that marked whether said Champion would earn the Spheres in accordance to the ancient rituals, ready to begin the third task.
The Four Legendary Kingdoms[]
As the Great Games were underway, during the banquet hosted by Hades between the Fourth and Fifth Challenges, Ricardo Mendoza explained to Jack how the re-erecting of the Golden Capstone, the rebuilding of the Machine and the diverting of the Hydra galaxy were the first, preliminary tasks set by the Super-Ancient Beings to test life on Earth. Furthermore, Mendoza noted that upon humanity's completion of the trials, the Ancients would share with them the knowledge of how to prevent the next Omega Event.
Following the Fifth Challenge, the first five Golden Spheres were set in place within the Summit Temple atop the antenna-mountain, raising the obelisk and completing the first phase of the trial. After Jack won the Great Games, the remaining four Spheres were set into place, thus initiating the obelisk to send out the signal to divert the Hydra galaxy and provide Orlando Compton-Jones the opportunity to receive the Mysteries.
While the signal to instruct the Hydra galaxy to change its course was successfully sent out, Jack kept Orlando from receiving the Mysteries that would make completing the trials easier. Anthony "Hades" DeSaxe feared that completing the trials would be far more difficult, but Jack assured him that they could find the necessary knowledge to complete the trials together and thus save humanity from the Omega Event. Orlando and Mendoza, however, set out to begin preparations to complete the next trial on their own.
The Three Secret Cities[]
A few days after the conclusion of the Great Games, the mission to begin the Trial of the Cities began. As he joined Jack's team in heading to his New York apartment to obtain the tablet of the Altar of the Cosmos and the Helmet, Hades explained what he knew regarding the Three Secret Cities and showed them the Zeus papyrus. However, Orlando, Mendoza and Sunil Malik retrieved the artifacts first, and, already in possession of the Sword, Orlando set Malik the assignment of locating the long-long Mace before setting out for the Cities.
Later Jack and Lily viewed a full rubbing copy of the tablet, discovering that allies were needed at all of the Cities since activating the first City, Thule would activate the Guardians of all of the Cities. As Orlando was unaware of this and in a hurry to complete the trial, Jack's team set about trying to locate all of the Cities and the Trident so that they could help to ensure the Trial of the Cities wasn't failed. Indeed, Orlando prematurely initiated the trial at Thule, which left Mendoza and his Swiss Guards caught between the Bronze and Silver Guardians.
Meanwhile, the Trismagi Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster and Dion DeSaxe had the Knights of the Golden Eight capture Lily for the Oracle of Siwa's role of sacrifice on the Altar of the Cosmos. After Jack's team uncovered the locations of the Cities and recovered the Mace, they made their way to Thule, Ra and Atlas to help empower the Weapons. After Jack and his people used the Weapons to get past the Guardians, they reached the inner vaults of the Cities and empowered the Weapons, only for Sphinx and Orlando's people to take them and make their way to the Altar of the Cosmos.
As the Kings of the Four Kingdoms gathered at the Rock of Gibraltar for the sacrificial ceremony to finish the Trial of the Cities, Sphinx arrived with Lily and initiated a coup by stabbing Orlando with the Sword while Mendoza killed the Kings of Sea and Sky. Setting the stone tablet in the sacrificial pool and closing Lily inside with the empowered Mace and Helmet, Sphinx proceeded to complete the Trial by stabbing Lily in the heart with the Sword. With the Oracle's death, the Trial of the Cities was successfully completed.
The Two Lost Mountains[]
As Sphinx was about to deliver the fatal blow to Lily, her twin brother Alexander, who had also been held captive by the Trismagi, appeared and shot Sphinx in the shoulder, only to be gunned down himself. Furious, Sphinx decided to have the mortally wounded Alexander take Lily's place in the sacrificial pool. Once the dying Oracle was in place, Sphinx successfully performed the ritual, killing Alexander with the Sword of the Rock and fulfilling the Trial of the Cities. As the ceremony concluded, a crimson light revealed writing in the Word of Thoth on one of the chamber's walls related to the Trial of the Mountains. Additionally, five rings were revealed as a reward for the Trial's completion, which Sphinx empowered with the Mace of Poseidon's gem, giving him complete control over the armies of Bronzemen.
Over the next few weeks, Sphinx and his entourage began consolidating his forces and resources, including the armies of bronzemen and silvermen from the Secret Cities, as Sphinx began preparing for the Trial of the Mountains. Eventually, after acquiring the Siren bells, Sphinx finally moved to perform the Fall at the first iron mountain, and upon completing his race from the upper altar to the lowest level, Sphinx received the burning key to allow him entrance into the Supreme Labyrinth.
Other contenders to enter the Labyrinth and reach the ultimate throne, including Jack and his team, the Order of the Omega, and General Garthon Rastor and his forces, made attempts at other iron mountains to acquire the burning key and earn passage into the Labyrinth, so that they could avert the Omega Event and obtain the world order they desired (though for Rastor, his goal was to keep anyone from sitting on the throne and allowing the Omega Event to occur). The Omega monk Ezekiel was the first to succeed in this endeavor, earning his burning key at the third mountain before it was destroyed.
As a precautionary measure to assist Sphinx in the Labyrinth should another entrant make it inside, Dion performed the Fall at the second mountain and set off to the Supreme Labyrinth's gates with the expectation that he would remain on standby after Sphinx ventured inside. However, Ezekiel and the Omega monks made it through the second gate shortly after Sphinx's group began navigating the Labyrinth, necessitating Dion to lead a team inside as well.
Meanwhile, with the first three iron mountains and their Falling Temples destroyed, both Rastor and Jack's team determined that their only chance to complete the Trial of the Mountains and earn a burning key lay in finding one of the two lost mountains. Rastor was the first to do so at the fourth mountain, and Jack, Lily and Zoe soon followed suit at the final iron mountain. With the Trial of the Mountains now well and truly over, both groups headed to the gates of the Supreme Labyrinth and forced their way past Sphinx's defences to enter the Labyrinth just before the gates closed, with that, a five-team race to navigate the way to the ultimate throne began.
The One Impossible Labyrinth[]
Having taken a lead of almost 24 hours over Rastor and Jack's teams, Sphinx's team and the Omega monks were the first to reach the City-Maze, with Sphinx and Mendoza spending several hours beginning the climb up the Castle of the Tree of Life while their Golden Knights did what they could to hold the monks off. Meanwhile, having entered the Labyrinth with a significant lack of knowledge in navigating it, Dion and his squires ventured into the wrong path of the Endless Tunnel, where they came under attack from a goldman; the automaton killed off Dion's squires as they attempted to flee, while Dion ended up being beaten and killed by Lily after arriving back at the Six Choices junction.
Upon arriving at the City-Maze, Rastor's team attempted to use RPGs to destroy the Throne of Life, but instead the mad General broke a section of the seawall surrounding the city, which started to flood and drag in unsecured naval vessels. After realising that they would not be able to beat Sphinx to the Throne, the Omega monks set about preparing to destroy the castle to bring down the Throne and provide them with an opportunity to race on to the Throne of Death instead. When Jack realised the monks' plan, he took the initiative and used a destroyer's cannon to destroy the Throne of Life, thwarting Sphinx and forcing all parties to begin racing into the second half of the Labyrinth to reach the Death Throne instead.
Both Rastor's team and Sphinx and Mendoza hurried into the rotating Four-Sided Maze upon reaching it, while Ezekiel and his remaining monk were killed by Zoe when she, Lily and Alby arrived to aid Jack. Thus the three remaining teams raced to navigate the Four-Sided Maze safely, with Rastor's team coming out ahead of Jack's, who was delayed by the General's ambush, allowing Sphinx and Mendoza to get ahead of them. Rastor and Sphinx each proceeded up through the Chamber of Judgment to be judged by the Gold Colossus on the purity of their desires. Jack followed next, and after being deemed pure in his desire as well, the colossus briefly answered Jack's questions about what it was and what the trials of the ancients were about, pointing out that the other six sentient worlds had already completed their trials to prevent Omega before ending the discussion by noting that it was all a test of worth.
Rastor used a rifle to hold Sphinx and Jack back on the final bridge as the Omega Event neared, however, Jack was able to use his Warbler to deflect the General's rounds and begin fighting him hand-to-hand. When Rastor was thrown off the bridge, Jack and Sphinx began racing to reach the Throne of Death first, and though Rastor briefly returned to harass Jack, the Australian was ultimately the one to sit upon the throne. As the quantum pulse that kept the Omega Event from collapsing the universe took place, Jack was granted the ultimate reward for completing the trial; the ability to command others without fail.
In the aftermath, the world learned of the events that had been taking place over the last 20 years, including the trials. Jack's team were praised for their efforts, and it was soon decided that the various locations such as the secret cities, iron mountains and vertices and the tools for the trials would need to be preserved for use in future runs of the Ancients' trials.
The Preliminary Tasks and Trials[]
Restoration of the Golden Capstone[]
The first of the "preliminary" task/trials of the Super-Ancients' Age of Trials, where the Golden Capstone must be restored atop the Great Pyramid of Giza during the alignment of the Tartarus sunspot on the Sun with the Earth.
Rebuilding of the Machine[]
The second task/trial of the Ancients, where a machine built within the Earth's very core must be rebuilt with six pillars at their corresponding vertices before an approaching zero-point energy field comes too close to the Earth.
Diverting of the Hydra Galaxy[]
The third "preliminary" task/trial of the Ancients' trials, in which a series of ritualistic challenges must be completed in order to properly earn the Golden Spheres that need to be placed with an ancient antennae which will redirect the Hydra galaxy away from a collision with the Milky Way.
The Trial of the Cities[]
The first official trial of the Ancients, and the fourth in the Age of Trials, wherein the three Immortal Weapons must be empowered at the Three Secret Cities for a ceremony at the Altar of the Cosmos.
The Trial of the Mountains[]
The second official trial of the Ancients, and the fifth in the Age of Trials, wherein one must endure the task known as the Fall at one of the five iron mountains in order to prove their worthiness to enter and navigate the Supreme Labyrinth.
[]
The final task of the Super-Ancient Beings, in which any who succeeded in the Trial of the Mountains must navigate their way through the Supreme Labyrinth and sit atop one of the two thrones within, which will both cause the Omega Event to be averted and allow whomever is sitting on the throne at that time to become the world's undisputed ruler.
Trivia[]
- Though no specific time was apparently set for the Diverting of the Hydra galaxy to be completed by, the next trial, the Trial of the Cities, was set to be completed on December 1st of 2016. As the Star Chamber is implied to have opened around mid-September of the same year, and with Abrahamson's implication that the Hydra galaxy would not destroy Earth until two months from November (January 2017), it suggests that the Super-Ancients intended for the task to be completed almost as soon as the Star Chamber opened.
- This brings into question why the Four Kingdoms left initiating the Great Games for nearly two months, though with few pieces of information regarding the trials, it may be that they were unaware.
- Incidentally, the implied time of impact of the Hydra galaxy with Earth (estimated January 2017) is suggested to occur after the due times for the Trial of the Cities, the Trial of the Mountains and the arrival of the Omega Event. Therefore, even if those trials were completed successfully, failing to divert the Hydra galaxy in time would have resulted in the Earth's destruction soon afterwards anyway.
- Additionally, the date for the Trial of the Mountains and the arrival of the Omega Event are set for December 29th 2016, thus the expectation must have been that all life of Earth would die of lack of water within the four weeks before the Omega Event.
- However, it is noted that the Sagittarius A-star's radio waves passing along the Hydra galaxy's path was necessary for the confirmation of the former trial's completion, thus explaining why the Diverting of the Hydra Galaxy needed to be completed first.
- Although the Trial of the Cities and the Trial of the Mountains are referred to as the First Trial and Second Trial respectively throughout The Three Secret Cities and The Two Lost Mountains, they are in fact the fourth and fifth tasks in the Super-Ancients' Age of Trials.
- The first three "preliminary" tasks/trials (the Restoration of the Golden Capstone, the Rebuilding of the Machine and the Diverting of the Hydra Galaxy) are never referred to with proper titles, nor are they ever noted to be the first, second and third trials respectively.
- Unlike the preceding trials, the Trial of the Mountains is unique in that it can be undertaken multiple times (at any of the five iron mountains) by any challengers to the primary claimant, even though it is expected that the trial be done once.
- There is confirmation that most of the trials have been undertaken before the modern era, as there has been at least one additional use of the Capstone to nullify Tartarus's rotation; three previous runnings of the Great Games of the Hydra to divert the Hydra Galaxy; and at least one undertaking of the Trials of the Cities and Mountains and navigation the Supreme Labyrinth to prevent the Omega Event during the age of Zeus.
- Of all of the tasks of the Super-Ancients, the use of the Machine to repel the Dark Star is the only one that seems to have never been done prior to the present day, as the Dark Star only makes its rare close approach to Earth every few million years, with Jupiter and Saturn usually being a position to block its deadly radiation from hitting Earth.