Angels

Angels are, in their most basic understanding, human psychics. Angels have existed through most of human history and even after the end of the First War continued to exist in some capacity amid the human population. Angels existed in their greatest numbers during the time of the proeathans where they were kept in similar ways herders keep sheep or cow dogs. Angels existed for proeathans to keep their slaves in line.

Before Proeathans
Before proeathans humans lived in fairy small, tight knit groups of several families ranging from 5-30 individuals. In this time period humans had little to no verbal communication and communicated mostly through body language. This gave rise to the E’dn and the ability humans developed, as children of Drivers, to empathetically project their thoughts and feelings. These early angels were often great warriors and leaders of their tribes. The E’dn was used mainly as a way of hunting where groups of hunters would go out and be able to communicate without words over great distances. This allowed them to stalk their pray better and have more successful hunts.

As humans evolved so did their control over the E’dn which showed itself as being more than just empathy. Humans learned to create illusions, to truth see, to predict, to change probability, to light bend and use telepathy. They grew as a people and began to explore their world and powers. They met other humans through their dream sharing and wished to meet them, to learn from them.

It should be noted now that before meeting the proeathans humans were a very selfless species. They lived for each other, not for the self. Selfishness was not a trait humans had until they met proeathans. Before proeathans humans shared everything and were surprisingly non violent. This, unfortunately, led to enslavement. As creatures able to feel the emotions and (sort of) their thoughts it was abhorrent for one human to hurt another. They trusted explicitly and only used their weapons for hunting and protecting themselves.

Then a group of humans were drawn out to the ocean. They could feel a great pull from there like there were many humans out there. Wanting to know these peoples and make new friends the humans went out there. It was there they found Atlantis, the city of the proeathans and the first time the proeathans met the humans.

Under the Rule of the Proeathans
The bad relations between humans and proeathans didn’t start right away. For several years humans were allowed to, sort of, coexist with proeathans. Proeathans found them fascinating and tested them and ran noninvasive experiments on the humans. Humans, totally trusting that they were, allowed the proeathans to do so as they felt that the proeathans were pleased and curious about them and wanted to know more of them.

Proeathans took fifty years to begin to take advantage of the gentle and helpful nature of humans. They began asking humans for favors, or to work for ‘the good of everyone’. Within a century proeathans had started to enslave humans on the island of Atlantis. But there were only so many humans, so they went out looking for more.

This is when the first, rudimentary, vessel was created. It was not a device unto itself but rather had to be connected to a living human to be powered. With it proeathans could easily locate other, small, human populations and use the E’dn, which had always been a tool for learning or keeping onesself alive, or being together, to force the other humans to follow. They were subsequently enslaved.

The enslavement of the human race was then swift and efficient.

Angels in Populations
Angels are the byproduct of their environment and the need to survive. Humans share a quasi global consciousness that is the E’dn. The E’dn reacts to what humans need at the time and changes the state of them depending on what is needed from them at the time based on what the global mind desires. With the proeathans now caring for them survival was no longer a problem. The need for the E’dn’s abilities for most of the population was, for the most part, lost and angelic abilities receded. Angelic humans stopped being born amid enslaved populations, though they still popped up amid free human populations with 99% of all free humans born psychic.

This made any angel born in the enslaved population extremely rare and special. This gave rise to the Gardens. Originally created by faceless, Gardens were places where angels could be brought and trained to keep the enslaved population calm, complacent, and the consciousness from thinking it was in danger and needed to survive, thus producing more angels to defend it. Angels were originally religious attack dogs but were quickly taken over by each nation-state’s government to become highly trained, and skilled, warriors.

Gardens
In Gardens angels were taught how to use the sikaz. As proeathans thought that no natural human psyhic ability could ever be as great as their own it was thought that training them in the E’dn was a useless skill. E’dn and hotai do not exactly line up though and angels had great difficulty learning proeathan sikaz they were forced to learn. Most did learn very basic sikaz that further compounded the idea that humans weren’t as great, psionically, as proeathans. They were also taught physical fighting mainly as self defense and how to subdue as well as to kill with both their hands, and with guns.

Angels within Gardens were part of a choir, and lived within garrisons which were part of each Garden. At the top of the choirs were the archangels. Each archangel looked after a team of angels called a flock which was fifteen angels strong. Above the archangels were the seraphim, old, and powerful, angels who led the entire Garden, each to a single garrison, which could hold 3-8 flocks. Above the seraphim were the Overseers, proeathan military or government officials who oversaw the Gardens. Otherwise Gardens were completely self regulating and had little to no interaction with their proeathan masters except when they were sent on missions.

Gardens existed for thousands of years. Then the First War happened. During the time of the Decline proeathans worried about the number of angels born and did everything they could to force the numbers to stay. It only worked so well and Gardens dropped in size by nearly half. While before Gardens could be several hundred before the Rise of Saturn during the Decline they dropped to a few dozen at best. Gardens were usually run by a single seraphim and only a handful of archangels during the Decline.

During the Rise of Saturn and the Fall angel numbers skyrocketed. Humans were fighting back and had a reason for angels. The angel children born during the Rise of Saturn were kept safe and protected by proeathans after angels tried to kill them, knowing what fate would befall them within Gardens. After the initial boom of the Rise of Saturn the birth rates fell again. After the Fall angelic numbers sustained for some time. It is also during these two times that many angels learn of the true potential of the E’dn for the first time and learn E’dn abilities. After finding sikaz so difficult to learn most angels take to their E’dn abilities instantly and with great ease.

After Proeathans
After the fall of the proeathans humans had to fend for themselves. Angels stuck around for a good few generations before they became other. They could use the abilities of their former jailers. Many communities lashed out against angels born generations after the fall of the proeathans and strung them up as witches. Angel populations dwindled, but never fully faded. Different parts of the world needed angels at different times and some places would see angel numbers rebound, but never at the level they had once been.

Angels born in this time period are weak and unskilled but are all marked different from normal humans. Truth seeing was one of the most common and basic E’dn abilities of any angel and it was the one most learned on their own. In modern times we call this Eagle Vision or the Sight. All humans with Eagle Vision are angelic but not all angels are created equal. They are less angelic than ancient angels because of the proeathan blood in them. But they are considered angels and over thousands of years the proeathan in them has dwindled and modern humans bare little genetic resemblance to their ancient angel ancestors.

Despite this all modern angels are capable of learning to use the E’dn, though like proeathans they are drawn to a form of it over other forms. It usually relates to temperament or how well they respond to others. People with loud personalities will have E’dn calling that reflect that while quiet people will have completely different callings. Because of the nature of the E’dn and its use as a sharing and bonding evolution most angels do not reach their full potential alone. Most angels reach the height of their strength when they’re with other angels, or even just around other humans. Otherwise they are considerably weaker. Its why humans in groups are so dangerous. They feed off each other and angels in a crowd are the most dangerous.

Renegade Angels
An interesting note about angels is that they are the exact predecessors to both Assassin and Templar orders. Back when humans were slaves their names were similar to ‘templarini’ or ‘teimplari’ or ‘tamplinar’ and were the name most proeathans called them, angel and etc being a rank rather than what they were actually called by proeathans though human psychics referred to themselves as angels. Angels founded both the order of Assassins and Templars behind the different ideologies of how humans should be. Both ways of thought had a lot of merit by human populations. Neither side was wrong in how they wanted to approach the E’dn. Assassins simply wanted to get rid of it, for psychic abilities had caused their species nothing but pain, while the Templars wanted to fully embrace it. Many Assassins feared Templar ideals would lead them down the same path as the proeathans while the Templars claimed that the Assassins wanted to turn humans into animals without power as they had been before they’d first met the proeathan.
 * Assassins originally wanted humans to be individuals and not use the E’dn, thus keeping them apart and separated and actually not use the E’dn to be free of it and its control over them. To them the E’dn too closely resembled the hotai that the proeathans used to bend their own E’dn. They believed that if they could dispel the E’dn from their entire population then it could not be used to control them any more.
 * Templars originally wanted humans to become to keenly aware of the E’dn and join together and follow the collective consciousness and use the E’dn like they did during the First War. Templars wanted to unify the scattered human populations and bring them together. Through this togetherness they could bind their minds together and become more than they’d ever been.

Over time these ideals have mutated and become skewed to be interpreted as free will vs lack of free will.

Both sides have had their share of angels who have gone completely off the rails too. Angels who came into contact with vessels and was shown things any untrained angel would struggle to rationalize. Vessels are objects of hatred and rage. They scream at modern angels to destroy them, and to destroy themselves, for they have what the vessel does not. They also desire to have connection. When an angel comes into contract with a vessel the angel within will often drive the modern angel mad because they’re not used to the connection.