Editing Timeline (section)

==Prehistory==
*[[Human]]ity arises from "a chance configuration of molecules".<ref name="Faysal" />
*Humanity inspires [[Angel]]s to sapience and the formation of many [[Others]].<ref name="Faysal" />
**Some [[diabolist]]s believe that [[Demon]]s are responsible for most Others, and by extension [[magic]].<ref>“My understanding of things is simple, Alister.  Every Other is, if you trace things back far enough, the fault of demons.  Every ''practitioner'' is the fault of Others, or, for a rare few, the fault of demons.  All of these things, in their way, guide all of existence slowly toward its end.  The unlucky few who get in too deep fall into ''their'' clutches.”<br>[...]<br>“Virtually ''all'' practices, Alister. Call it a diabolist’s bias, but I would posit that the only difference between Laird and I is the level of self-delusion.”<br><br>“For the record,” Laird said, “I don’t agree.”  - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/11/01 Excerpt] from [[Interlude 12]]</ref>
**The first [[gods]] are born, initially poorly-defined as the traditions that birth them vary between cultures.<ref>The background noise of internet and online communication allows for the natural emergence of accidental rituals.  Repetition, default or common responses and collective imagination allow for a kind of false worship to take place.  Much as the first gods emerged, crude and loose in form as each telling and culture that outlined them varied, the digital avatar is a force akin to a god that arises from the spirit world, often linked to a phenomenon and then crystallized by the public consciousness.  As figures of a more spiritual and divine stripe, what one often sees is often the tip of the iceberg for a larger effect. Lesser gods spawned by a public consciousness, Nex Machina stem from the digital, not from dreams, other worlds, or reality.  - [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cwFiwUBPuDm4wV5THrv_dRfM7PuPHW6mCDxnPLvffV0/edit Beastiary - Nex Machina]</ref>
*The universe is defined and given structure by [[God|gods]]. Humans begin to help to define the universe alongside the gods. [[Primeval]]s survive as beasts that escaped definition.<ref name="PrimevalDoc">Primeval Beasts (Primevals from here on out) are beasts from a time or place where spirit, god, and man were not in a position to identify or clarify them.  They are older than time and since mankind claimed the world for themselves, the Primevals have been driven to the fringes of reality and to the less habitable places of earth, with their existence in these places being secured with wards and countermeasures. [...] They prefer humans as prey, as humans are enemies to the Primeval, and the destroyers of the world the Primeval once knew - a world that was small fires in vast nighttime darkness, and numerous predators that could easily dispatch the primate intelligences. [...] Having been around since the dawn of man, the routine and manner of a Primeval has become entrenched enough to become a ritual unto itself, and that ritual has its benefits. - [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XIhTsY2xTTLjOTkd6jqb1hCDv-Di54m0gS2dyb-TjJ4/edit# Primeval Beasts] doc</ref><ref name=":8">"Durocher and her pre-human divinities..." - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/08/13/3-9-spoilers-sunnyday-logs Bonus Material: SunnyDay logs]</ref><ref name="8.1e1" /><ref name="11.11e1">“Andy said it’s hard, being a bogeyman.  You spend a while in the Abyss, or Limbo, or whatever name you want to slap onto the ''ground level'' of reality, and it chews you up and spits a monster out, right?”

“Something like that.  Haven’t heard it called the ground level before.  Doesn’t seem much like reality.”

“Yeah, I bet,” she said.  “You want Andy for that explanation.  Mayans or someone thinking that all reality was basically chaos and void before the first gods set it straight.  Humans following after, smoothing off the rough edges.  I’m getting bits wrong already.”

“Sure,” I said.  ''The entire world was essentially like the Drains, in another time?'' - [excerpt https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/10/04/malfeasance-11-11/] from [[Malfeasance 11.11]]</ref>
* Early Others assume that humanity will soon die out, resulting in unwise promises.<ref name=":1a">We did not think humanity would last nearly as long as it did. [...] The Others that came before did not think humanity would spread as it did.  Many of the predatory Others promised protections and sanctuaries, thinking your civilization would be pockets of light in vast darkness. Now the light from your world is so bright you must often travel a distance to properly see the stars in the night sky.  Some suffered more than others.  Many have died out or become beggars instead of predators.  - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/10/24 Excerpt] from [[Back Away 5.d]]</ref>
*According to the gospel of [[Ulysse Miraz]]'s nameless god, many deities attempt to give [[fire]] to mankind. All are defeated and harshly punished, but the one later known as Prometheus was minor enough that he is overlooked and succeeds before he is captured. Had another god succeeded, humanity might have learned to wield fire very differently.<ref name="champ">“Only one I won’t tell you the name of.  By his gospel, the one we came to name Prometheus had peers, and it was not the one who tried to seize the original Fire, but many.  All who tried, succeed or fail, were punished.  I found my deity nine miles beneath the surface of the earth, thoroughly protected so none might disturb his eternal punishment.  Had he succeeded, our campfires might not be wood we’ve set alight, but something else entirely.”<br><br>“Your god’s a loser?” Kevin asked, sneering a bit to drive the question home.<br><br>It ''did'' seem to nettle Ulysse.  “He was the greatest of them.  So they placed the most obstacles in his way.  Now he is my god and I am his sole worshiper, his champion.”<br><br>“It’s my understanding that if you pick this fight and lose, your god’s power will dwindle.”<br><br>Ulysse nodded. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/12/22 Excerpt] from [[Gone Ahead 7.a]]</ref>
* [[Practitioner]]s of a sort begin, primarily [[Wild Practitioner]]s.<ref>There are ways of being inducted into the practices, those esoteric traditions that predate computers, cell phones, the engines industry, and even paper and bronze. [...] One of the common ways is to be born to it. [...] The second way is to stumble onto it.  To find a book hidden in a library, or an object both strange and powerful at a crime scene where the deceased was killed by something not human nor animal. [...] The last way, the ''old'' way?  The road ''we’re'' going down? To make that deal directly.  Find or be found by the fey things, the goblin things, the things that used to be ghosts and became something more, the things that used to be human and became something less. Strike those deals.  Make those compacts. Those strange Others can give up shares of their power and teach their secret knowledge. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/about/ Pale: About]</ref> [[Wild Practitioner]]s serving Other patrons were the norm.<ref name=":5a">“Alexander,” Mrs. Durocher said.  “You ''do'' know where they come from?  I’m not the only one who’s put it together?”<br>[...]<br>“They’re wild practitioners. [...] Patron Others and practitioners who are tied to them.  The way things were done before Solomon, when they were formalized.  Which leads to questions about who and what spearheaded the organization of this little triad of practitioners.”<br>[...]<br>Alexander smiled.  “Knowing that you’re wild practitioners with multiple patrons helps me to make sense of you.  It tells me you’re probably strong, with a wide base of power.  It means I can expect you to be… interesting students.”<br><br>“Unruly and interesting,” Mrs. Durocher amended. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/08/29 Excerpt] from [[Leaving a Mark 4.4]]</ref><ref name=":6a">“To try to formalize deals.  To hitch their wagons to that of humanity, by striking deals that would establish them as Patrons.  They teach their secret knowledge and ways of manipulating the world, in exchange for servitude… until mankind begins sharing that knowledge in ways few Others can stay ahead of, on paper and in tomes.  Knowledge, instead of being taught from patron Other to Practitioner, becomes something kept in families.  Others try to formalize a kind of equality, such as the familiar bond, and to make firm agreements about oaths, lies, and declarations, out of fear of being tricked again.  But these things become their own weapon that humans wield.  Humans sprawl, they work with concerted effort, and they establish and mutate patterns.  [...] The Seal of Solomon, as it exists now, was essentially intended as one last concession.  Or it was meant to be the last.  A binding that would not be mutated further, that would be universal enough that it could be trusted by the Other, instead of having hooks and more traps attached to it.  And as part of it, there was a deal that practitioners would manage the affairs of Others but select, powerful Others would have some say over the movements and dealings of Practitioners.  Lords and judges.  Roles above all other things.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/10/24 Excerpt] from [[Back Away 5.d]]</ref>
* Humanity breeds [[cat]]s and [[dog]]s, in part to protect them from Others.<ref>“Once upon a time, when humans weren’t much more than animals, we relied on our dogs to scare off the Others who wanted to prey on us and do mischief. Cats hunted and fought with the lesser Goblins, returning to owners with torn ears or small injuries. They still have those instincts. To destroy things of darkness, foulness and blight, before rot can set in.” - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/02/18 Excerpt] from [[Breach 3.2]]</ref>

===Over 25,000 years ago===
* [[Mara Angnakak]] comes to [[North America]] as an infant on a reed raft.<ref name="Mara"/>
* Many [[Others]] are stirred to existence by the first human colonists, joining those that were already there.<ref name="Mara">“The town will fall, just as it rose, two hundred and fifteen years ago.  Before that, I was here.  I watched people come and go. Settlements rose and fell. Not many, not large, but a number.  Before that, I was here.”<br><br>“Been here a while,” I said.<br><br>Her eyes narrowed. “The man and woman who brought me into this world came to this place on a raft of reeds, and I was so small I had to be carried. We traveled from the west to here over my lifetime, following the deer and the hunt.  When my parents passed, I stayed. I was one of the ''first'' to lay claim here, and I have never given it up.”<br><br>“Over the water to the west?” Peter murmured.  “The lake?”<br><br>“Ocean,” Tiff said, her voice almost a whisper.<br><br>“I nurtured those who followed after me or passed through, offered them my hand and my amassed knowledge, so they could be communities, a ''people''.  Many are ''mine''.  Hundreds of years of work.  I saw things follow in our wake, things stirred into existence by our ''being''.  Your Others, echoing our intelligence, echoing our pride and fear and pain, to join those Others that were here before the first people.  I am familiar with them all.  I know what ''man'' is, and I know that your love and law and fairness are ''invention''. Invention younger than I am." <br>[...]<br>“You know the power of your repetition.  Three times, you do something.  Three times you bind it to make it so.  Agreed?”<br><br>“That’s the gist of it.”<br><br>“Invention.  But at the core, there is truth.  I have not counted, but I can still be utterly confident in saying that I have woken up in the same place for more than nine million of your days.  I have gathered, hunted, cooked and eaten the same foods on those same days.  I have been born, bled for the first time, and been reborn on more than one thousand occasions.  The wheel of life and death turns forward and I am an indelible part of it, especially here.  This is a pattern, this is my ritual.  Now tell me, what is the truth of this.  What does it make me?” - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/12/16 Excerpt] from [[Sine Die 14.6]]</ref>