Sympathy For The Devil

By Vaughn Romero

**Flaming
Feather**

or, LONG DARK ROAD TO DESTINY

"Can God create a rock even He can't lift?"

In my heresy game idea, every being has a Destiny and a Fate - even God - and just like every other being, God's Destiny or Fate will be the result of choices. To enact these choices God essentially split himself in two forming a Destiny-track entity (called 'God') and a Fate-track entity (called 'The Beast').

For most of history, the Destiny-track entity has been running the show creating the universe and generally setting up the playing field for the big choices to come. Just like in canon, things get interesting around the time of humanity's creation. The hand-waving short explanation is that humans are the instrument by which God can achieve His Destiny or embrace His Fate.

Yves, being the shepherd of Destiny, is the first to figure out that God has given Himself a choice between Destiny and Fate and that the actions of celestials and humans will determine the final outcome. To complicate matters, I made Michael a key element in God's Fate. Essentially, Michael's vulnerability is pride and if he ever thinks so highly of himself that he questions God's plans, he will tip the scales toward Fate. To further complicate matters, I also made Michael the unwitting vessel of The Beast. The reason Michael has never lost a competition or conflict is that he literally has God on his side, although in this case, he has God's Fate's riding him like a Shedite.

Using further hand-waving, I decided that Yves figures out what The Beast plans. The Beast wants to tempt Michael with the leadership of a rebellion in Heaven. In an effort to thwart this Fate, Yves talks to Lucifer in confidence and tells him about the existence of The Beast. If left unchecked, The Beast will likely cause Michael to rebel, and Michael will likely destroy Creation and possibly even Heaven. Why doesn't Yves tell Michael about his role and end this whole nonsense? God forbid him to. Michael must make his own choice - War for God or War against Him.

Upon hearing the truth in Yves' words Lucifer transforms into the first and only Malakite of Light. Yves then offers Lucifer a choice: wait for Michael to rebel and stand against him as the general of God's armies or take Michael's place and lead a 'controlled' rebellion engineered to keep Michael struggling for God rather than against him.

Since I like drama, I envisioned Yves and Lucifer naively believing that they could engineer a bloodless rebellion by having Lucifer challenge Michael to a contest. The loser of the challenge, which of course would be Lucifer, would then be exiled to Hell. During the exile Lucifer would consul the fallen and convince them of the error of their ways and they would redeem upon their eventual release. To thwart this happy little plan, I had The Beast corrupt the Metatron and begin using it to speak in Lucifer's voice. Unknown to Lucifer, the corrupted Metatron convinced the rebels that Michael would never consent to a 1-on-1 challenge. Instead, it encouraged Baal to launch a bloody first-strike to force Michael to accept Lucifer's challenge.

So, on the day of the rebellion, Lucifer talks to the Metatron and God reveals that it has been corrupted by The Beast. God, speaking through the Metatron for the last time, informs Lucifer that a bloodless revolution is impossible, and that Lucifer must slay the Metatron to keep it out of the control of The Beast. God also informs Lucifer that he will have a long dark road to Destiny. Part of this Destiny will be acting as a credible adversary to Michael. As long as Michael Wars for God and focuses the power of The Beast towards Lucifer, then there is hope for Destiny. To add a bit of foreshadowing and prophesy, God concludes with, "Your sister Light must not fall."

Lucifer slays the Metatron and the rebellion begins. After much bloodshed, Lucifer makes his way to Michael and issues his challenge. Michael accepts and commences to thrash Lucifer within an inch of his life unknowingly using the power of The Beast. For more gratuitous drama, I have The Beast tempt Lucifer by exposing a soft spot on Michael during the fight. Lucifer knows that if he strikes the soft spot, he will win the battle but damn Michael to Hell. Not giving in to the temptation, Lucifer suffers the evil of The Beast to live in Michael and merely touches the soft spot. Thereafter, Michael has a softly glowing spot on every form he assumes (I dubbed this "Lucifer's Light touch"). Of course, Michael wins the fight and Lucifer and the rebels are exiled to Hell.

This leaves us with a Malakite Lucifer leading the forces of Hell who can lie all he wants with no dissonance. He has a mission from God to act as Michael's adversary. He also has the ability to grant words because both God and The Beast want him to have that ability (although for different reasons). Lucifer accepts no servitors because he has a big secret to maintain. And speaking of Secrets, whatever became of that wayward Demon Prince Gebbeleth? Well, he discovered first hand that the very much still Archangel of Light can channel the light of Heaven anywhere he darn well pleases - including directly on Gebbeleth.

Haven't I just replaced the Devil-as-Lucifer with the Devil-as-The-Beast? Um, yeah - your point? Why are the Higher Heavens closed? To preserve God's choice and to keep The Beast from corrupting them. Who is the sister Light? Gabriel is the obvious choice, but what if Novalis was a former Servitor of Light? Or perhaps the sister Light refers to the light of Hope, Blandine? You can decide for yourself. Where did Kronos come from? Ask The Beast. Why doesn't Kronos expose Lucifer for the traitor he is? Because he wants Lucifer to embrace his Fate and cause Michael to Fall. Why did Lucifer let Kronos live when he found him? I don't know. Maybe because he reminded him of certain voice come back from the dead or maybe because Lucifer got hit with a God-level Balseraph resonance at the wrong moment.

Oh, and speaking of Balseraphs, Baal was the first Balseraph, but you knew that right? The whole band is named after him after all...

**Flaming
Feather**

Back to the INC Mainpage.
Back to the Settings page.

Send mail to the Curator