Excerpts from The Ages of Halcyon: A Training Manual (third edition),
revised by Cain, Circle Chieftain,year 1038 of the New Era
Before proceeding further, it is vital that one understands the nature of the Circle’s decision following the events of the Great War. The war with Chaos had come to a violent and decisive close when forty-five Elders sacrificed themselves to rid Halcyon of the Dark Champion. Shortly thereafter, the Circle was formed and its primary function was made known: the dedication to the discovery and training of the Savior of Order. However, clerics at the time voiced objections to this platform, claiming that the Harbingers had already made an allowance for the Savior's arrival and thus any preparation for the event would prove unwarranted. Since the Circle had proclaimed its autonomy from the Commonwealth, the matter was dropped and we continued operating as we had without further interruptions. But the clerics were correct. Searching for the Savior was deemed a fruitless endeavor by the Inner Members as well. The public declaration was a ruse employed to respond to demands from the Commonwealth’s territories for the Circle to account for its actions. To this day there are those in all levels of government — particularly in the Federated States — who yet doubt the sincerity of our claim, and they, too, are correct in their assumption. The Circle was never designed to spend its time awaiting the Savior. Its sole function is to manipulate the Commonwealth to serve the needs of the Savior. We accomplish this by controlling information…During the Golden Age, the people of Halcyon possessed knowledge of medicine, alchemy, astronomy, physics, and every other science to a degree which we can only dream of today. Their intellectual wealth and command of nature would have made them demagogic in our eyes. The destruction wrought by the Age of Ruin obliterated all physical remains of this golden period save two: the Temple of Assize and its environs, and a Library set up by the Elders containing every scrap of knowledge our ancestors possessed. The Library’s whereabouts are known only to the Circle’s higher echelons.
To our great loss, most of the material is indecipherable to us. We have identified eight languages within it, and they all share syntactical and grammatical features with our own dialects of Hansic and Ghaultic, but not Teivan. Teivan is a distinct language that is spoken only by members of that cultural group, and it bears no similarities to the other two modern tongues. It has been postulated that Teivan may be an ancient language, but since it has no written form, there is no way to verify this theory. Our best studies indicate that Hansic and Ghaultic appear to be syntheses of the ancient tongues, but that is as far as we can go. A more detailed study of the old forms of our dialects is pending. If we can trace the development of our own speech back far enough, we might be able to develop a kind of rudimentary lexicon. The best examples of Old Ghaultic are found within extant copies of the holy texts of Ahenak’s Codices, which themselves are copies of an older form. However, there are no reliable extant examples of Old Hansic. In addition to all this, entire wings of the Library are inaccessible to us — it is thought that since the Elders constructed the complex, only one of their own can access all of it. But the Elders have long since vanished, and whatever secrets they hid in the Library died with them…
They did, however, translate several thousand volumes of material and bequeath them to us. These books contain extensive knowledge on a diversity of topics ranging from History and Philosophy to Mathematics and the Physical Sciences (it is from these historical writings of the Elders that we are aware of the sophistication of the Golden Age as well as the abundance of other works we cannot reach.) The Circle has kept the information flow from the Library severely restricted, and we have maintained meticulous records of what has been allowed to trickle out. We have carefully followed the progress of the Commonwealth as it grapples with new material that seeps into its societies by working our Members into positions of influence in each country. We have been granted leave to travel where we choose to identify new psychics and train them, but we use our status to assess the extent to which various countries use the information we provide…
After three hundred years, our stores of translated material have been all but used up. There is little that we know that some countries do not, save the most detailed books on Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. But our skills have stagnated. The Elders were as selective in their translations as the Circle is in its distribution — we lack the instruments and machines we need for further research, and I fear that our natural resources are bereft of many of the necessary components we require to improve ourselves. Simply put, our level of technology has not yet caught up to our knowledge.
Knowing this, we geared ourselves toward a tighter control of the Commonwealth. We have rationed the information to create gaping technological and economic imbalances. Thus, the Circle has attempted to maintain its control over what people think…
Do not suppose that this translates into absolute power for us. To the contrary, the Commonwealth has evolved in directions we never anticipated. It can truthfully be said that the Circle has lost control in many ways as the countries developed in increasingly unpredictable ways…
As stated, the Inner Membership has made and still makes a conscious effort to maintain Halcyon’s technological imbalance. At calculated times during the year, Ghaultian “researchers” will “invent” something new or “improve” on something that already existed. Because of these advances, we expected the Republic to become the heart of the realm. Contrarily, not only did Ghault become wary of the innovations of the remaining countries, but its own citizens became wary of each other. Over centuries, this caution swelled into paranoia, thus transforming what we expected to be the most politically influential country into the most unstable…
It is apparent that the Federate and Ghault exchanged the roles the Circle would have had them play out. Because of the unending conflict with the indigenous grimal tribes, we chose the Federated States as targets for information regarding warfare and combat. We expected the them to be a group of conquerors much like the city-states of the Age of Disquiet that preceded them. Yet instead of becoming the seat of power for a military dictatorship, Gath heads a loose federation of provinces which all have partial self-rule yet recognize the premier’s overall authority. Where we anticipated autocracy there developed a social democracy.
The Hansic Alliance was a question from the beginning. With two powerful nations as its neighbors, how were we to prevent it from being overrun? As it turned out, the answer came without any prodding from the Circle when all four countries agreed to form the Commonwealth. The regions were free to evolve as they chose, or, as the case may be, as we chose…
Of them all, the Dominion of Khadash has been our greatest success. Ahenak’s Assault on Technology during the Age of Ruin forced the scientific community to flee what was then the city of Halcyon. They took what was left of the wonders from the Golden Age and established Khadash as a temporary settlement, moving later to the Fingers of Khorshim. It was during this time of persecution when they formed a close association with the Teivans, and this relationship was one of the chief factors that later gave rise to the Circle. Khadash, and the Fingers of Khorshim especially, are critical to our overall defense against the inevitable return of the Champion of Chaos. The triangular connection between the Circle, the Teivans and Khadash will be clarified as you continue your studies…
The rationing of knowledge has proceeded secretly and successfully. Despite our miscalculations regarding the development of the Commonwealth, the Circle still maintains its secret domination over the countries. If they become aware of the extent of our hold on them, their reactions could plunge Halcyon into another era of uncertainty — this at a time when clerics are scouring the world for signs of the Time of Meeting…
The triumph of the Savior of Order at the end of the Time of Meeting may depend on the Circle’s control over Halcyon. I say this because the burden will be upon us to train this person in the use of his or her abilities, and to do this we need as much advanced notice as possible regarding the Savior's identity and whereabouts. Such notice is attainable only if we exert as much influence over the Commonwealth as we can (there are those among us who believe that the term “savior” is a euphemism for the Circle, but this is contrary to the literal sense of the Harbingers.) In this way, the Circle can ensure that all of Halcyon will be in a position to combat the Champion of Chaos when the time comes.
