"There was no long-term, and trying to cling to one would only spoil it all."
This article contains spoilers regarding the ending of Worm and plot of the sequel.
| “ | Take my eye. Take my wings. Take my teeth. Take my ability to step between worlds. | ” |
—The Loner to the Thinker, Radiation 18.z | ||
The Loner or Abaddon is an Entity that offered more cooperative path to its hosts.
Personality[]
The Loner preferred to unify hosts against his variant of Endbringers during a cycle, instead of artificially splintering them into multitude of competing tribes, as the Thinker and the Warrior preferred to do.[8]
He exchanged shards with the Thinker in good faith and with no malicious intent because they had the same end goal.[5] The Loner then left behind a breadcrumb trail to ensure he and the other Entities would not come even remotely close to Earth: the Entities believed backtracking was pointless and would waste energy.[3][9]
Appearance[]
Abaddon was smaller than the Thinker or the Warrior, and had a different form.[10] It still held a vast amount of information.[11] His shards have predominantly black surface, while the entity as a whole is heavily optically distorted by its space warping movement.[12]
Abilities[]
Abaddon traveled using a different means to the Thinker and the Warrior,[10] mainly through propulsion rather than the spatial warping that the others did.[2]
Its divergent evolution was such that communication was initially difficult between itself and the Thinker entity.[6] The creatures have almost incalculable processing power.
Thanks to Abaddon's contribution Eden was able to understand concepts more intricate than simple conflict.[13]
History[]
Deep Background[]
The Entities first arose on a gray, silty world, which they destroyed and rode the explosion out to new worlds.[14]
Abaddon's line had remained a singular traveler of space and it had visited fewer worlds than the Warrior Entity or the Thinker Entity.[4]
Before Abaddon traveled relatively close to Earth, a previous cycle took place on a planet where everything was alive.[15] Traumatic insemination and horizontal gene transfer was strongly prominent even in complex and intelligent organisms, and "every species could breed with every species".[16] Ten years before Abaddon ended their world, the hosts appear to be fighting Endbringer or Titan equivalents.[17] In the final significant fight, the world appears to be cracked open[18] and the massed hosts were webbed together so that one mob of creatures fighting were extensions of one another.[19]
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.[20] These hosts appear to be ganging up against their Endbringer equivalents.[21] In the final fight, the hosts were interconnected and tied into one another, more like a net than a pile of snakes.[22]
Background[]
Sensing Eden and Zion on their way to earth, Abaddon asked to exchange information, in the form of shards, with them.[6] Eden accepted engaging in an exchange of shards.[1] The Loner exchanged several shards, notably its eye, wings, teeth, and ability to step between worlds.[5] Because of this, Eden became distracted and crashed into several Earths.[23]
Abaddon then continued on to its path[24] towards the Andromeda Galaxy.[7]
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.[25][26]
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.[27] These may have been unincorporated shards from Abaddon. According to Harbinger V none of them were "viable".[28]
Chapter Appearances[]
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Trivia[]
- Although Wildbow confirms another Parahuman series will most likely not happen,[29][30] he did speculate earlier that Abaddon would not appear in a hypothetical sequel to Ward because of the breadcrumb trail.[31][32]
- Abaddon is a place[33] mentioned in scripture where things are destroyed in the underworld.
- In a "what-if" scenario mentioned by Wildbow, Abaddon was replaced in the encounter with the Thinker and the Warrior by Apollyon, a hypothetical entity acting in the apex-predator role.
- The name "Abaddon" is not used in the text or chapter tags, but has been used by Wildbow.[34]
- Abaddon would have made an appearance in another quest after PRT Quest had concluded.[34]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 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. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 - ↑ 2.0 2.1 The third entity travels more through momentum than by insinuation. It expends vast quantities of power to change course. - Excerpt from Interlude 29
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The pair took the Loner’s eye, among millions of other parts and graces and favors. The Loner traveled away, taking care to leave a breadcrumb trail that would ensure he and his kind would not return back this way until galaxies had been born anew. They searched for answers and backtracking was of little merit. - Excerpt from Interlude 18.z II
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 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. - Excerpt from Interlude 26
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 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.
Take my eye, it had said. Take my wings. Take my teeth. Take my ability to step between worlds.
The pair, in turn, had made their own offerings, as much as they were in a hurry.
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. - Excerpt from Interlude 18.z II - ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Agreement, this entity is distracted in responding. It is receiving another broadcast.
A third.
The communication is almost alien, a member of their species, but long distant, from countless cycles ago.
It hesitates, then signals its own location.
Exchange. Meet.
The response is garbled. Takes time to analyze. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ 7.0 7.1 “There, did you see?” Number Five asked.
“I didn’t,” I said, not taking my eyes off of things.
“One of those pulses- it was the Andromeda Galaxy. You can look at the stars and see which way the third one is on.”
“Maybe you can,” Chris said.
“He’s going to the Andromeda galaxy. Passing through. I wonder why. A rendezvous with others of his kind?” Number Five asked.
“You’re asking us like we know,” Chris said, frowning.
“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.” - Excerpt from Infrared 19.8 - ↑ Infrared 19.8
- ↑ “Fortuitous arrival,” she said. She smiled a little. “Not very likely. They litter breadcrumbs in their wake, not to be followed, but so their kin don’t waste time and effort traveling the same paths. For another to arrive here, they would need to avoid touching a single crumb, like you or me swimming the length of a river without touching a wave.” - Speck 30.2
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 A member of their own species, approaching. It was smaller, took a different form. It used different means to travel. - Excerpt from Interlude 26
- ↑ They meet violently. As their ancestors did, they share with one another in a violent fashion, crashing together, breaking shard from shard.
This entity knows right away that there is a wealth of information here. But there must be cooperation, information given for information. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ It was something I’d heard about but hadn’t seen. Not seen and remembered. People had made attempts at illustrating it, but it did nothing to convey the effect of actually seeing it.
A creature that moved like Cradle’s agent had, slithering in and out of space, parts of it distorting and seeming to exist apart from the broader entity, until it slithered further in our world. Like a great snake crossed with a whale, crossed with an optical illusion, writ in black crystal, and shedding a constant trail of dust behind it. It was only visible as it passed by a sun, and the edges of it caught the light of that sun. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.8 - ↑ This entity sees new possibilities, now. Not simply conflict, but philosophy and psychology. Imagination. It is in these new patterns of thought that it can see a possibility for the future. - Excerpt from Interlude 29
- ↑ Interlude 26
- ↑ “Can we go back?” I asked. I made it declarative. “Go back. Uh… earlier in this thing’s history.”
“It’s a life cycle,” Five said.
“Previous life in the cycle,” I said.
The image changed.
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. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.8 - ↑ And they were using what looked like built in spears to puncture one another, fluids pouring out.
[...]
“No. A cape,” Number Five said. “Traumatic insemination. Traumatic egg-laying. It looks like natural trait across this species.”
“They’re different species,” Chris said. “A planet where every species can breed with every species. It looks like a good number are intelligent.” - Excerpt from Infrared 19.8 - ↑ “What is the species of this life cycle fighting, near the end? Ten rotations around their sun prior to the world ending,” I asked.
It was a similar scene.
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.
“Endbringer equivalent or Titan equivalent?” Byron asked.
“Looks like,” I said. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.8 - ↑ “Looks like,” I said. “Show us the end. Last significant fight of that particular life cycle.”
The scene changed, and it was chaos. The world was cracked open, and the cracks glowed. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.8 - ↑ The massed things were interconnected, webbed together, so that one mob of creatures fighting were extensions of one another. Some or all had powers. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.8
- ↑ “Previous cycle,” I said. “Tenth-to-last rotation of their planet around their sun, a fight.”
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. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.8 - ↑ 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.
They swarmed up the great thing.
“It’s entirely different from what we’re doing,” Sveta said. “We all fight one another. They’re ganging up against… Endbringers?” - Excerpt from Infrared 19.8 - ↑ “This cycle, final fight,” I said.
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. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.8 - ↑ 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.
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.
[...]
The ‘view’ stayed with the red one that had absorbed some of the black.
Followed it to Earth, and it was obvious from the motion of planets that the scene was being sped up.
We watched as it tumbled into a rough crash landing on a barren version of our Earth. Everything went black. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.8 - ↑ They break apart. The third entity continues its path, moving to a distant star, its path perpendicular to the pair’s. - Excerpt from Interlude 29
- ↑ It looked at the female, and it saw a shard that wasn’t its own, but wasn’t dead. - Excerpt from Interlude 26
- ↑ 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. - Excerpt from Radiation 18.z
- ↑ “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.” - Excerpt from Venom 29.7
- ↑ “She’s not a part of the rest of us?” I asked.
“There were a few like that, that stood out,” Number Five said. “None were viable.” - Excerpt from Infrared 19.8 - ↑ There most-likely won't be a full-length parahumans 3.
[...]
If Ward is where the Wormverse ends, I think the epilogues set a good tone for the setting to 'wrap up', so to speak. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit - ↑ xemns4: Just finished ward and rushed in excited to search whether there's another parahuman story in the work, and after reading your comment im very and truly heartbroken. Your much appreciated and cherished in my circle of friends and i know there are many more. I wish that you will continue writing but more so i perfer your mind and spirit to be in good shape. Thank you and i hope this comment makes your day a bit better.
Wildbow: Sorry for the heartbreak. I'm not super happy with it myself, but I don't really see a way forward to another proper Parahumans series.
I hope you can find something in my other works to enjoy. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit - ↑ OwlishOwl: The fact that Abbadon won't shop up in ward makes me optimistic about a 3rd parahumans serial in the distant future
Ward^
Wildbow: If I did have a third serial Abbadon wouldn't show up in it. Rules of how the entities work.
[...]
:arrow_up: The third entity, according to the habits of entities, would not even come remotely close to Earth. - Conversation with Wildbow on Parahumans Discord - ↑ Bonemaster: Mostly because Abaddon is still around, and there is time for Wild bow to pull an FU and have another Entity find Earth and finish the Gold Morning.
Wildbow: Abbadon isn't around.
[...]
It's stated that the entities lay breadcrumb trails so they don't waste the energy to travel to the same places twice. It doesn't have any literary value to bring him in.
[...]
It would feel asspully.
[...]
They laid a breadcrumb trail saying "we're going here", bone. For him to go there would require that he work against the mechanisms the entities have set in place. - Conversation with Wildbow on Cauldron Discord - ↑ “It’s not even a living thing anymore,” Golem said. “It’s more like a place, a garden or something.”
“Amusing you say that,” the Number Man said. “We had a discussion with Lisette, the woman who proposed she could control him, and she said that the original name was Zion. He named himself after a place as well. We have theories on why-” - Excerpt from Venom 29.8 - ↑ 34.0 34.1 7. or the last continent, Antartica, well, imagine staring out at the Aurora Borealis, a shadow passes over a star. Abbadon, heading to a non-Earth planet. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
[]
| Entities | Abaddon • Eden † • Scion † |
|---|---|
| Shards | Anguished Heart • Fragile One • Grasping Self |