On the Metaphysical

and

Moral Nature

of the

Antithesis of Being

---

An Introduction to the Theology of The Enemy

by

Thomas of Cantine

Perhaps the best way to begin an explanation of precisely what The Enemy is would be with a description of its exact opposite, a pantheistic notion of God implied by an extention of St. Anselm's famous ontological argument. (See Existence, Extension and the Ontological Argument). This God, far from being the personified creator being of traditional and mainstream religions, is rather more like a mathematical construct, the transcendant sum totality of all existence. As the inclusion of literally everything, this notion of God is necessarily what is denoted by Anselm's phrase, "That than which nothing greater can be conceived." Anything that can be conceived, perceived or alluded to in any way is necessarily a part of this greater whole, which for lack of a better term we shall call God.

What does that leave? Literally nothing, which is exactly what The Enemy is. Just as God represents the whole of existence, The Enemy represents the whole of non-existence. This raises a great many paradoxes, of course, which might appear problematic within the context of Being (where it is impossible for something to be simultaneously X and not X), but such paradoxes are not at all problematic within the context of That Which Is Not. When we ask the question:"What can be both green and not green at the same time?" the proper answer is "Nothing." When we ask "Who can make a rock so big he can't lift it, and can still lift it anyway?" the correct answer is "No one." This No One and Nothing is what has come to be called "The Enemy".

It is interesting to consider the relationship between these two antithetical notions, God and The Enemy, and sometimes difficult to establish a clear boundary between the two spheres. This is because both principles extend their reach to everything, to some extent or other. For example, while it might appear on the face of it that fictional beings belong firmly in the realm of non-existence, this is not entirely true. Fictional beings DO exist, but only AS fictional beings. That is, they do participate in and influence the beings of the real world, to the extent that any idea may alter the behaviour of the person having it. Yet, fictional beings, to the extent that they do NOT exist, are also denizens of the realm of non-being, which is to say they are part of The Enemy in the same way that we who exist are part of God. At the same time, our "fictional" counterparts are also part of the Enemy, and in fact infinite quantities of our virtual selves populate Nowhere. All that is impossible and incomprehensible can be found in Non-Being. The John F. Kennedy who shot Lee Harvey Oswald is there, as is his grandmother and mother the Adolf Hitler who married Jimi Hendrix and gave birth to himself.

But if these things are part of the non-realm, how is it that we beings are able to speak of them? The simple truth is that we are NOT speaking of THEM; we are only putting words together that express ideas that only hint at these non-entities. We can only think of nothings as if they were somethings. Words, when we use them, exist. There is no paradox implied by the existence of a sequence of alphanumeric characters such as "This sentence is false." The sentence exists, no problem. Its truth value, on the other hand, is unintelligible; we simply cannot decipher it. Its meaning, then, is inaccessible to us, hidden behind the curtain of The Enemy. To some extent, we may be able to understand the intension of phrases like "the John F. Kennedy who shot Lee Harvey Oswald", so that the meaning of such an expression exists, but not the thing or person to whom the meaning refers.

So, if this is what The Enemy is all about, then what possible meaning does it have for us beings, living as we do in the realm of existence? In practical terms, none whatsoever, just as one can live one's life quite happily without ever contemplating the implications of the pantheistic God. But, just as we are often liable to personify and worship our various ideas of what this God is, often making fundamental conceptual errors in the process, there have been numerous cults in the Sunfall world that worship, revile, or otherwise incorporate various (mis)conceptions of The Enemy into their mythologies. What follows are a few of the ways that people have related to The Enemy. Not all are formal sects; some, like the Perverts and Freedom Seekers, represent more of a psychological profile of the sort of person who is likely to become involved in Enemy worship; such persons may join or form any of a variety of cults.

The Annihilants

Probably the most logically consistent, if not entirely sane, the Annihilants are also one of the smallest groups of Enemy-worshippers, and also the group with the truest understanding of what The Enemy really represents. Their primary ethic is based on a rejection of the dominant assumption of most other ethics. General moral pronouncements such as "Thou Shalt Not Kill" are founded on an implicit assumption that people are better off existing than not existing, something just about everyone takes for granted as true. The Annihilants argue that there is no reason to accept this premise and, perhaps just to be perverse, have devised an ethical framework based on its negation, i.e. that it is invariably better not to exist than to exist.

It seems natural to doubt the sincerity of any Annihilant who fails to commit suicide immediately upon accepting this tenet, but in fact they generally tend to view suicide as a selfish and short-sighted act, just as we might condemn as a coward one who saves himself without regard to others. The Annihilants claim that one's moral obligation is not simply to seek one's own eradication, but that of everyone and everything else, as well. Thus the virtuous Annihilant is willing to suffer existence now in the hopes of achieving greater non-existence for himself and others in the future.

The main schism within the Annihilant movement is over how far to extend the right not to exist to non-sentient beings. One sect believes that only sentient beings have the right not to exist, and since the laws of conservation of matter and energy seem insurmountable, we ought to devote our efforts simply to killing everyone we can, and not worry about destroying the matter and energy left over. This does NOT mean that Annihilants are crazed killers; they recognise that wanton slaughter is rarely a sustainable practice, since foolish people who actually want to exist tend to intervene in what they think is self-defense. Rather, these Annihilants are really after extinction, not just lots of death. What good does it do to kill off 95% of the population, when that 5% will just have more babies to compensate?

The other sect believes that utter and complete non-existence is a feasible goal, and they devote their time to trying to find the ritual to bring this about. Curiously, these crackpots tend to avoid destroying ANYTHING, since it may later turn out to be useful for destroying the universe.

The Annihilants are responsible for much of the philosophical literature about The Enemy.

Freedom Seekers

An offshoot of Annihilism, the Freedom Seekers don't fully understand or accept the concept of non-being. They, like many religious groups, pick and choose the bits of theology they like, and ignore whatever they find inconvenient. The Freedom Seekers are radically opposed to being constrained in any way whatsoever, whether by civil law, tradition or even the laws of physics and logic. They take great offense at the fact that they live in a universe where, for example, the sum of two and two cannot equal two. "Why CAN'T it?" they cry; "What if I WANT it to be?"

Freedom Seekers often tend not to be evil at all in their general inclination. Some of them are selfish about this freedom, of course, but most are profoundly naive anarchists, who want total freedom for everyone. To them, The Enemy represents the blessed realm where everyone can do absolutely anything they want, and nobody can tell anyone what to do or not to do. They seem to think that by helping to bring The Enemy into this world, they will somehow be rewarded with this complete and total freedom to do the impossible. They don't care to consider that actually (a) bringing The Enemy into being is by definition impossible and (b) even if it were possible, succeeding would mean ceasing to be, and thus NOT being able to do all those neat things. As a rule, they don't understand the scope of the "freedom" they seek; it would not only allow them all the things they want, but would also force on them all the things they DON'T want, even if one of all the things they want is that nothing bad happen. Yes, it's a paradox, but remember this is The Enemy we're talking about. The Freedom Seekers just don't get it.

Perverts

Anyone who's been involved with live roleplaying for a while will know, especially if they remember Dreamquest, that there is a certain breed of person who thinks it's more fun to be evil than good. And, since it is widely believed that The Enemy is the ultimate in evil, such persons often call themselves Enemy-worshippers, mostly to prove to other people how bad they are. What they worship is in fact not The Enemy, but some sort of avatar of pure evil that they (wrongly) think is The Enemy. It's a sort of fad.

But Enemy cults have the potential to become quite dangerous and powerful, because like any cult, through coordinated effort and shared beliefs, they can in a sense create their own gods, entities of concentrated faith and will which behave exactly as their "worshippers" expect them to because they are the projected beliefs of the worshippers. If a cult believes that what it worships is The Enemy, then, and if they ascribe to their idol all the attributes of The Enemy, it will to a certain extent express those attributes. However, since this entity will in fact exist within the world of Being, it will still be constrained by the laws of Nature and Logic. Exactly what effect this has on the newly created god depends on how much of the Enemy paradox the worshippers have understood (which, by virtue of their mode of worship, is usually not much at all). But in general, the most commonly ascribed attribute of The Enemy is its omniliberty, its complete freedom from restraint, which makes existence in the world of Being an extraordinarily frustrating experience, since some (most) things are just plain impossible. Thus, most such avatars are seething maelstroms of rage and frustration, seeking to destroy everyone and everything they encounter (See Naras Tholak, below.) This is not by any means the only possible outcome; some seek only to destroy themselves, while others are simply amazed and delighted at the novelty of a world where there is such a thing as impossibility.

Naras Tholak

The Chakari nomads who inhabit the Sundown prairie believe that the Northern Lights are the visible manifestation of The Enemy (whom they call Naras Tholak), imprisoned in the sky beyond the stars by the gods (many of whom themselves died in the struggle) countless aeons ago. Every star in the sky is the soul of a now dead person; the Milky Way was formed during the ravages of The Enemy, to give you some idea of the magnitude of the destruction. All that stands between us and The Enemy now are the souls of the dead.

When Naras Tholak is visible, the Chakari believe it is extremely unwise to utter your name, lest The Enemy hear it and use it to call you. To a certain extent, this is superstition, but from time to time, people who flout this belief do appear to be possessed by a deranged and destructive entity, running amok and killing as many people as they can before being subdued. Some Chakari claim that Sunfall itself happened because a powerful shaman was tricked into speaking his name during a display of Northern Lights.

Belechthuzar

An insane demon, also called Buzbug, somehow convinced that he was a worldly manifestation of The Enemy, is a fairly typical example of another sort of entity that can be mistaken for The Enemy. Buzbug had been a soulless goblin of indeterminate species, dead for a century or so when four or five years ago, someone happened to cast a Reveal spell on his skull. A chance confluence of the stars interfered with the spell and brought some of Buzbug's mind back into existence as a discorporate entity, thus creating the demon Belechthuzar. What relates this to The Enemy is that somehow Belechthuzar was able to remember (or believed he was able to remember) what it was like not to exist, and decided he preferred not existing. Apparently he eventually succeeded in eradicating himself, because nothing has been heard about him since. (Note:this was a character I played on a dayquest, and I reserve the right to play him again...)

Mortalists

The Mortalists are rather like agnostics, so far as the debate between the annihilants and the rest of us is concerned. They really don't know whether it's better to exist or not, but they firmly believe that everything and everyone eventually comes to an end. In theological terms, this means that they ultimately belong to The Enemy, and so they see it as simply dishonest to pledge one's soul to anyone else after death. Sure, you can devote your life to a god, and even die for your god, but what happens after that is not up to you or anyone else but The Enemy.

The Mortalists do not believe we owe The Enemy any sort of obedience, nor do they worship The Enemy in any meaningful way. They do not hold it to be especially holy or unholy; it just IS (or isn't, depending on how you look at it). They tend to think that people who worship The Enemy are pretty silly, and they feel the same way about people who think The Enemy is evil, too. In fact, they have a problem with using the word "Enemy" at all, but since that's what everyone else calls it, they haven't much choice if they want anyone else to know what they're talking about.

The Inscrutable Tenchi Mystics

These people like to point out that when you analyze what The Enemy is and what Being is, it's actually impossible to tell them apart. In fact, you simply cannot begin to understand the one without some sort of reference to the other. In purely logical terms, The Enemy is just Not Being, and Being is just Not The Enemy. They form a sort of yin-yang circle; neither has any meaning whatsoever in isolation. Moreover, what we often worship as one of them turns out to be the other in disguise, and vice versa. That we call one of them Being and the other anti-Being is as arbitrary as calling the charge of the electron negative instead of positive.

Nobody seems to understand what such people say, and usually end up dismissing it with, "Oh, it's that mysterious zen stuff. Just hit them with your sandal, and they'll think you're wise."