The First World
First Referenced:
'I was told that everyone I'd served with in the military died shortly after I left. Today, I saw one of my old squadmates, homeless, digging through the trash behind a convenience store. He had an unbelievable tale to tell.'
Contents
Society
As the center of the multiverse structure, The First World was largely populated by the rich and powerful, and its inhabitants were well aware of the existence of the multiverse and The Crushing Fist. Due to the advanced nature of their technology, many of the richer inhabitants had achieved clinical immortality, and over time had become highly risk averse and apathetic, to the point of self destruction. News that their world was doomed was initially met with celebration.
Early and Recent History
The First World was a universe existing at the centre of the Multiverse structure. More than a thousand years ago, the inhabitants of The First World became aware of parallel realities, and began their expansion into other parallel copies of Earth near their own reality. This included the foundation of Command, the military force that maintained order within the area of human populated realities, as well as creation of the Inner Shield, Outer Shield and Branch Worlds through an alliance with the Brownshirts. The First World and Command also took part in a war against the Yngtak, although it is unknown exactly how or when this conflict began.
The First World also constructed many Portal hub facility type sites across multiple worlds which are used for interdimensional travel, as well as other various military installations. The military of The First World (Command) maintained the Inner Shield and Outer Shield which protected the grouping of universes populated by humans.
The Inner Shield could only be penetrated through the use of specific signalling devices that look like small Metallic Chips.'
Destruction of the Regeneration Core
In the distant past, a Multiverse Titan, destroyed and dying from conflict with The Devastation sent a Regeneration Core into its future, which was the distant past of The First World. The Regeneration Core maintained a large reservoir of organic regeneration material, and also projected a psychic influence across The First World, inducing a level of bitterness and anger in susceptible people. In addition, it would regenerate injured or damaged individuals who were in close proximity to it.
After Ward Shaw (The Sword) discovered the intent of the Regeneration Core to consume and digest The First World reality in order for it to be reborn and continue fighting The Devastation, he convinced it to leave without destroying the reality it was hidden in, however the core was subsequently destroyed by local military forces.
Ward Shaw (The Sword) later joined the military, becoming a brigadier-general in Command.
The Crushing Fist
The Crushing Fist first became an issue for The First World and its surrounding human inhabited worlds during and after the Earth 44 incident with The Ink and the Shadow Sphere. Based on observations made from outside the Outer Shield by The Sword and other members of The Black-eyed Army, it was identified that a vast swathe of universes had been obliterated or otherwise ceased to exist, as well as the Outer Shield taking a heavy but glancing impact that compromised 96% of its integrity and shifted the position of many inner realities, resulting in random periodic crossovers between realities. At this point The Crushing Fist began to compress the human occupied realities, the force of which was centered on The First World.
The effects of The Crushing Fist on The First World were characterized by loud metallic screeching sounds and multiple earthquakes. Later, the increased stress on the mechanisms that generated the Inner Shield resulted in widespread global warming as the ancient machinery struggled to continue functioning.
Destruction of The First World
Due to its existence within the Inner Shield, The First World had become a focal point for the force of The Crushing Fist, as well as a refuge for people rendered homeless through the destruction of their realities. The vast mechanisms generating the two shields were under immense pressure, which would normally be distributed and dispersed to the Branch Worlds. As the force continued to rise, the compression was concentrated by the multiversal structures directly on The First World itself via the Inner Shield. This caused a significant amount of heat to be generated from the shield generator machines, disrupting normal weather conditions on the world. Eventually a White Hole formed as the Inner Shield began to fail, which also resulted in a collision with the splinter reality of Teskoy Prison, from which many dangerous entities were released on the helpless population of The First World.
In an attempt to disrupt and close the White Hole, Vasiliev Blaku volunteered to fly a helijet as close as possible to the phenomenon (an action Cristina Thompson originally intended to carry out), and detonate a Dimensional Fracture Bomb. Instead of rupturing the reality outwards, under the pressure of The Crushing Fist the reality instead ruptured inwards, shattering the Moon and sending half of it towards the Earth.
In an effort to undertake a seemingly impossible evacuation, Cristina Thompson, along with Thomas used the Soul Reader (Book) to drastically expand a portal to a nearby Farming World, forming a world-wide portal storm. The effort was largely successful, although there was still a very large loss of life due to damage to The First World from the failure of the Inner Shield, the release of the entities from Teskoy Prison and the damage done by the chaotic opening rifts of the portal storm.
The First World is now presumed destroyed through the impact of the shattered Moon with its surface, along with the ongoing compression from The Crushing Fist.
