Following the Death of the Sky - in which the guardians of Siderea's climate and biosphere (including Aquari and Virginis) abandoned their posts in protest of ever-increasing, ever-unmanageable pollution and exploitation thus causing an apocalypse - the Siderean pantheon recognized something desperately needed to change. Though they tried their best to communicate with one another, they ultimately could not understand the ramifications of being born as a certain zodiac, and more importantly of all they did not understand the lived experience of mortals. They could look in from the outside, catalogue the way governments and economies worked, read published works and even walk among mortal crowds, but at the end of the day they could not understand what life was truly like for an ordinary person of the planet they were struggling to protect from itself.
The solution, they reasoned, was to find some way to live as mortals without abandoning their posts. Through these glimpses of daily mortal life - as different zodiacs from different places who would find themselves in different positions - not only would it help the gods gain an understanding of how to best effect change where needed, but also connect them to the populace and help maintain humility as the years wound on and on. Additionally, the change of pace helps stave off the fatigue of immortality and - if the life was pleasant enough, at least - serve as a sort of vacation.
Thus came about the Incarnation Program. In short, the Incarnation Program involves using Haumea - Librae's Astral Weapon - to cleave off part of each god's soul and reincarnate it into a mortal, and upon the death of the mortal reintegrate their soul into their respective god.
Process
1) A god enters Librae's domain, wherein she conducts a ritual wishing the god's soul well and reminding them of why the Incarnation Program is necessary. She then uses Haumea to slice off a fragment of their soul: large enough for it to be identifiable by approved parties, but small enough that the god won't be impaired in any way nor will their Incarnation inherit their power and identity. For Librae herself, the ritual has also been taught to Azrael, Jeremiel, and Scorpius in descending order of preference. Honestly Scorpius has probably never been called on to do it BUT he is commonly considered a god of death by mortals so might as well teach him, y'know?? Frankly Jeremiel probably hasn't either. Kinda feel like Serpentarius might be in this list also since they're the Life God:tm: so it would track. Librae could also theoretically perform it on herself or use a vessel to do so, but in the interest of fairness and safety the responsibility most often falls to Azrael.
2) There is a brief waiting period in which Librae ensures all has gone well. The ritual will typically leave the god in question disoriented or unconscious, so first she waits for them to recover. While doing so, Librae will inspect both the god's soul and the soul fragment in order to ensure everything has gone smoothly and that the soul proportions are correct. For Librae herself, Azrael or another backup will attend to her recovery, but from there she'll do everything herself as normal.
3) Once the god is fully able again, they will bear witness to Librae taking soul energy from the Greater Soulstream and combining it with their soul fragment to create a new soul. The god must then give some form of parting words to their soul, whether they are earnest wishes for their life or some form of phrase. These words are recorded by Librae and distributed as needed to be used as triggers; the sound of the god's voice speaking those words will immediately cause the incarnation to remember their origins in order to force cooperation in the event that Azrael cannot recover them easily later. As such, the god must be careful to ensure their parting words aren't something they'd end up repeating to others and potentially accidentally triggering an incarnation's memories early.
4) The new soul - now termed the incarnation - is given to Azrael or another approved party, who will subtly "mark" the soul with their own soul energy so that they can easily find it afterward. It will then be handed off to Gabriel, Raphael, Serpentarius, or Cancri in descending order of preference, all of whom have associations with childbirth and life. They will be informed of any specific restrictions in place*, then apply the soul to the first available birth**.
* Very rarely the gods will vote that their next available incarnations must be of a certain zodiac or some other such restriction. The very first two sets of incarnations, for instance, were explicitly restricted to Virgos and Aquarians (for Virginis and Aquari they simply got their non-native zodiac twice) so that the pantheon could come to understand the burdens placed on them by the rest of the planet. After the Great Cetan Invasion, the next set of incarnations was restricted to Cetans to understand their inevitable struggles in adjusting to life back on Siderea and what best practices for helping them to reintegrate would be. Finally, set incarnation into Araneans is on the table in the near future, pending continued expansion of the zodiac via natural births over conversion by Arachne.
** On Siderea, the soul isn't "set" until birth. On conception a fetus has soul energy inherited from its parents and draws in more soul energy from its environment as it develops, but the soul does not coalesce into something of its own until it achieves independence from the mother*** and attains a full consciousness. In other words, Siderean babies are fucked up little soulless creatures up until they pop out/are popped out/hatch, which provides the opportunity for a drunk crab to show up and government-assign your child a god to kin and you'll never even know.
*** As a disclaimer, the word "mother" on Siderea refers specifically to the birthing parent and lacks any gendered associations. This means, canonically speaking, Virginis is a MILF send tweet
5) The incarnation proceeds to live life normally, with both they and their family being entirely unaware of their nature as an incarnation. The only people aware that they're an incarnation are Azrael* and Gabriel*, and even then neither has complete information and is forbidden from interfering with the incarnation's life any further.
* or their backups yadda yadda
6) The incarnation eventually dies. If they die a normal death, their soul will end up in the Cosmos like all Siderean souls to be judged by Librae. However, a problem lies in that some zodiacs have the capacity for immortality, and even Literal mortals may find ways to live on indefinitely. This obviously goes against the whole point of the gods being able to experience countless mortal lives, and foreseeing this they put a cap of 100* years on any given incarnation's life. Once 100 years have passed since an incarnation was sent out, Azrael is sent out to reap their soul personally and return it to Librae. If this proves to be a struggle, Azrael may bring Jeremiel along as backup or resort to using the parting words of their respective god to force them into recollection and subsequent compliance... though an incarnation of particularly stubborn or cowardly personality may still prove to be a hassle. If completely and utterly necessary Scorpius and/or even Librae herself may be called in, but honestly I dunno if that's ever even happened.
The 100 cap isn't actually a strict limit. Azrael finds it rather cruel to reap someone on their 100th birthday - not to mention they don't want to implant the idea in society that people randomly die on their 100th birthday and end up making it more likely that they'll be caught somehow (and making birthdays sad!!!) - so instead they'll wait some random number of days afterward. They will, however, go out and identify the relevant incarnation and begin more or less stalking them in preparation.
If it's clear that the incarnation is of a moral species and aging normally with no designs on attaining immortality, Azrael may elect to let them live out the rest of their life naturally (pending approval from the pantheon). Similarly, if they're clearly on their way out due to injury or illness (something that can apply to "immortal" zodiacs as well), Azrael will not interfere unless they believe they are suffering so much that ending them early would be kinder than giving them more time with their loved ones. If the incarnation is in the process of dying alone, Azrael may manifest physically to comfort them on their way out.
Lastly, Azrael is a bit of a softie and may delay an incarnation's reaping if they're in the middle of something important or if the specific timing would be more traumatic to their loved ones than usual. For instance, they're not going to reap an incarnation who's in the middle of playing with their metaphorical grandkids** and would rather wait to reap them after the visit is over and everyone's had a nice day. This can also be a bit more abstract; if an author, for instance, is in the middle of writing a book, Azrael might wait until they've finished unless it becomes apparent that the work will never be completed and there's no point in waiting any longer. Even when they're entirely on schedule Azrael will prefer the kindest timing possible for reaping, usually waiting for the incarnation to be in a situation they'd be content dying with: right after their favorite meal, while watching the sunset, in their sleep, etc.
...Well, not lastly, there is one more scenario in which an incarnation's life may be extended. In the event that there's some sort of apocalyptic event going on or Librae and all of her backups otherwise need to put their attention elsewhere, any reaping will be paused until the relevant parties are able to get back to normal work. Needless to say, this is extraordinarily rare. So rare that it's only happened once, in fact: during the initial phases of the Great Cetan Invasion when the gods didn't know what the hell was going on and death was so rampant that all of the resident psychopomps were extremely busy.
* I've established in previous posts that Sidereans tend to have longer lives than humans and some mortal species can get up to like 200 without it being unprecedented, so I might bump this up to 150 or 200 or maybe some weirdly specific number under 200. Nonetheless, you get the idea here.
** ...We'll get to this.
7) Whether the incarnation arrived before Librae naturally or through reaping, it will be judged like any other. The incarnation's soul will give off a distinct white flash when struck by Haumea, immediately making its nature clear. From there it takes little effort for Librae to identify which god the soul "belongs" to. Librae will inform Capricoris, who will make the proper arrangements for the god (assuming it isn't Librae or herself) to be called back to the Cosmos*. The god will have up to one week to mentally prep themselves, finish up any pressing tasks they're working on, and delegate near-future tasks as needed, with any extensions pending approval by Capricoris. Extensions are seldom granted, but also seldom asked for; by this point in time the gods are used to the process enough that they might just head over as soon as they're told it's Incarnation Time:tm:. Should they fail to show up by the deadline, Capricoris or one of the Principalities - most frequently Gabriel or Raguel - will forcibly haul them over.
* The god in question, if it wasn't clear, has been living completely normally for the duration of the incarnation's life, with the splitting itself having been kind of like having to go to the doctor and getting a covid booster and Damn that shit fucks you up for a day or two.
8) Once the god has arrived, Librae will engage in another ritual with Haumea to recombine the incarnation's soul into the god's. Due the the nature of the gods's souls, they will inexorably consume the incarnation's soul and it is impossible for the incarnation's soul to accidentally overpower the god's. Nonetheless, it's critical to get the rite right (heh) due to the risk of scattering the incarnation's soul or failing to impart its memories to the god. Librae therefore will have a vessel of herself perform the rite when it's her turn to be recombined to ensure everything goes off without a hitch. In extreme circumstances, however, the usual backups are trained as well, especially Azrael who almost always oversees recombinations for this purpose.
Though from an outside perspective the recombining is more or less instantaneous, from the perspective of the god things go considerably differently. Piscium has noted that the process isn't quite like transference of information between dreamself and wakeself, and Librae has noted it isn't exactly like recalling vessels - albeit closer to that than to Piscean shenanigans. The gods universally describe it as being like falling into a deep sleep and having a vivid dream wherein they relive their incarnation's life in full. Upon awakening the god's identity isn't interfered with in any way; they inherit the lived experiences and memories of the incarnation, but these do not overtake their own personality nor push out any memories the god had before. Needless to say, though, it can still be a considerable shock to the system.
9) This is where the whole aspect of making prior arrangements come in: the gods are given a week in which the rest of the pantheon are expected to more or less expect nothing from them to allow them to mentally (and physically to some extent bc getting a soul stabbed into your soul can leave you a bit sore) recover. They will, after all, likely be grieving the life they just lost and may need to deal with any traumas their incarnation struggled with. There is no formal process for requesting an extension for this "vacation time" and so far there hasn't been any real need to cut anyone off early.
More often than not, the gods won't take the whole time off. As time goes on and they become ever more used to the Incarnation Program, they take each incarnation's life less "personally", so speak, and find it easier to adjust to their own lives afterward. Likewise, some are just intrinsically more eager to get back to work than others even if they do need the time off, so the pantheon tries to enforce that they take a full day off afterward at absolute minimum unless some sort of emergency gets in the way. At times the emergency is self-imposed; it isn't unheard of for a god to get recombined and immediately stumble out of the Cosmos to try and help others who were caught up in a disaster that killed them, or to stop their killer who is about to get away with it and/or kill again. The others don't intervene in these occurrences as they are ultimately to the benefit of mortals, and frankly they understand.
Regardless of whether or not the god uses their full grace period, they are expected to report to Leonis and his cadre of fellow nerds to record the major points of their incarnation's life once they are mentally able. Leonis keeps records of all incarnations in as fine of detail as the god he's interviewing (or other approved personnel in the event of his own) will allow, which are made public to the other gods in interest of transparency. Any non-god who wishes to check out a book from the Incarnation Library:tm: requires approval from both Leonis and the god tied to the incarnation in question.
In the event that a god refuses to cooperate or cannot bear to speak of their incarnation's life, Librae (and Azrael, if the problem is Librae) will turn over the identity of the incarnation in question to be researched through traditional methods. This part of the process is done either way just to double check information, ensuring that records are accurate and complete. Even if Leonis and others aren't worried about lies, there are always plenty of things one forgets over the course of a life or misremembers.
Keeping records has other purposes beyond research and transparency. Noting which zodiacs everyone wound up as can, among other factors, can determine if a god's next incarnation ought to be locked. For instance, if it's coincidentally been thousands of years since the last time a god was a certain zodiac then Librae will be instructed to ensure their soul is distributed to that specific zodiac next time. Likewise, if a god has never lived in a certain region or something along those lines then distribution to that region might be enforced. Furthermore, recording the events of the lives of incarnations ensures that information isn't lost. While the gods have memories expanded far beyond what mortals can comprehend, they are still capable of forgetting things that were uninteresting or "unnecessary". It is thus possible for them to forget some of their more uneventful incarnations entirely over time.
10) Once the god gets back to normal work, they will be called back in again between 6 months to 1 year later to begin the cycle anew. This initially served the purpose of making sure everyone's incarnation were spaced out a bit, but now is there mostly for the purposes of further mental recovery.
Incarnations
Despite having a fragment of a god's soul, Incarnations are distinct entities. They're more of an identifier than anything, and even then even a god who isn't Librae cannot identify an incarnation as such unless they're straining so hard to do so that Capricoris will be able to tell and kick down your door immediately. It's a big no-no. Given the power of the Siderean pantheon this means no one else would be able to identify an incarnation no matter how hard they try, aside from like Superior Beings.
That being said, having part of a god's soul does lead to some inevitabilities. The first is that incarnations have greater magical potential than most, but on a planet like Siderea this isn't very conspicuous. The second is that incarnations tend to feel drawn toward their respective god. While all gods are revered, the common Siderean will tend to find a few they find the most relevant to their life (like a mariner revering Aquari) or that they resonate with most (such as gods who align with their zodiac, element, or modality). This therefore also isn't conspicuous, but it can make for some repetitive data. The gods do not consider this something to try and figure out how to tamp out, however, as they do find it important to understand what life is like for their active devotees.
Incarnations are not only drawn to "themselves". Gods with a close connection often find their incarnations having a close connection as well. Leonis and Virginis, for instance, have a habit of finding each other and falling in love all over again. Scorpius and Piscium commonly have this occur as well, as do Cancri and Capricoris which they insist is JUST A COINCIDENCE and they are JUST CO-WORKERS and their relationship is VERY PROFESSIONAL THANK YOU
Another difference of note between incarnations and normal mortals is that they cannot reproduce. The gods themselves don't allow for reproduction because of concerns over bias and what kind of power god-spawn might have; there were already enough issues that arose with Leonis and Virginis's extant children at the time of their catasterism, so god kids actually having god blood would likely be a disaster. When examining and prepping a soul for incarnation, Librae specifically "engraves" it with the desire not to reproduce. As conception among Sidereans requires the explicit desire of all parties, this prevents reproduction more effectively, less intrusively, and frankly lessfuckuppedly than physical intervention would - not to mention rendering any incarnation physically infertile could theoretically be undone.
Incarnations are also "engraved" with the desire not to endanger their soul. They will have a primal aversion to anything that might do so, such as automatically getting a bad feeling and urge to avoid an area even if they are completely unaware a soul-devouring monster is hiding there. One should note this only applies to situations in which the modus operandi of the incarnated soul - to live without giving away its divine nature until it can transmit information to the rest of its soul - is threatened. In other words, the incarnation will avoid any situation in which their soul might be consumed, destroyed, spliced, etc.
This does not prevent against things like filigrees/caging, contracts, being used as a power source, having one's soul ripped out and put out as a tasteful decoration, etc. So long as the soul is intact there is nothing that can hope to keep it from being reaped, and thus any "trapped" soul will be stuck with their lot in life until either their 100 year limit is up or they're liberated by some source or another - whichever comes first. Typically the latter, though, considering Scorpius does his job.
It should be noted that if an incarnation's soul is used as a power source and someone manages to tap into the god bits, the resulting power spike would be high enough for the connected god to instantly sense it. Should this occur, they are immediately to report to Librae, who will have the incarnation identified and located. Assuming the nefarious villain(s) in question didn't get destroyed by their own greed as a result of their actions, Scorpius will be quickly called in to... handle the situation. Subsequently the affected god will be allowed to choose what happens next: they can cancel the whole thing and have the poor incarnation's life end there or allow them to continue living and be closely observed to ensure that they don't intervene in their incarnation's life.
If the incarnation doesn't act on the primal urges of avoidance their soul sends out, those primal urges will get even more primal and the incarnation may act against their will to flee the premises. If all else fails and destruction of the soul is imminent, the incarnation's soul will eject itself from its body, returning to the Cosmos and killing the incarnation instantly. To observers, this essentially looks like someone panicking so hard that they just drop dead.
Should even this fail, it is something disappointing but not overtly dangerous. The whole point of the waiting period between splicing and incarnating is to ensure the god is stable and hasn't lost anything with the severing of their soul, so it isn't as though losing that chunk permanently would impair the god in any way. Likewise, it can be something of a bummer to lose out on the life that the incarnation had, but it isn't something that hampers the pantheon's duties or way of life. It just means you don't get your big nap and vacation time for the century, so what? Their soul being consumed could possibly be an issue depending on how the god fragment incorporate, but the consumer would still always end up being weaker than even an archangel or Facet and thus easily disposed of before they could become a problem.
However, certain people are unwilling to entertain any risks with the Incarnation Program, and thus any timelines in which a failed soul ejection occurred will be instantly rendered non-canonical.
The final and decidedly less dramatic restriction placed on the souls of incarnations is that they are "engraved" with a sort of record of their past lives over the past thousand years or so. This instills them with a primal urge to, for instance, not end up boning someone who was their sibling in their past incarnation. That, uh... that's pretty much it. For an engraving of such flair it just exists as an incest prevention tactic.
Other than these traits, incarnations are just ordinary people permitted to live ordinary lives without interference. Those in the know don't really check up on them, and even if they did are prohibited from interfering with their lives. Incarnations can become great heroes, vile criminals, prominent political figures, and even adoptive parents. There is no rule keeping them from interacting with the gods or their aides should they meet, and would there be? Not only would this lead to frequent unwitting outing of incarnations, but it also allows for useful information to be gathered about how well they're all doing their jobs and the careful distance they keep from mortals.
This can lead to some pretty interesting scenarios, needless to say. Tauri's courting of mortals has led to her marrying herself more than once, plenty of Geminorum incarnations have wound up in Nepsis, one time this HILARIOUS thing happened where a Scorpius incarnation wound up serving in the court of Serpentarius and they fell in love and Serpentarius bared their soul to them only to find out it was Scorpius all along and this revelation devastated them beyond words and they became more closed-off and resentful of Scorpius than ever haha anyway
Those with some knowledge of an incarnation's identity - like Azrael, Gabriel, and a god who chose to let their incarnation keep living after An Incident:tm: - are also not forbidden from interacting with incarnations for the same reason: active avoidance could end up being conspicuous. Gods are carefully observed to ensure they don't end up overly influencing their incarnation, but the archangels are permitted to get as close as they'd like so long as it's clearly natural interaction - in other words, directly caused by the incarnation and not initiated by the archangel - and not someone really wanting to get into Scorpius's pants or whatever (just call him?).
Okay now for some stuff that prolly should've been at the beginning AHEM incarnations can end up as anything and aren't constrained by their god's nature. However, due to containing part of their soul there's usually a bit of the respective god in every incarnation. In other words, an incarnation does not have to have the same gender, sexuality, race, appearance, personality, or interests of their original self, though they will often share some traits. Never enough for one to be like "okay this person is absolutely x's incarnation", but enough to where when the reveal is made everyone can be like "ah yeah I can see that". While the vivid nature of a god's soul makes "nature" part of the equation for who an incarnation becomes, "nurture" matters much more in the end.
How much varies from incarnation to incarnation varies depending on the god and hinges on what they consider to be the more important parts of them. A god's sense identity is encapsulated in their soul, after all; that's why the Incarnation Program even works in the first place, since the two identities can "recognize" each other as the same during recombination. Tauri, for instance, is the sort who likes consistency and has a very strong sense of core identity. She, however, is a little more interested in experimenting when it comes to appearance. Her incarnations thus tend to not share many traits physically, but are very similar in terms of personality. Virtually all of them are lesbians as she considers being a woman who loves women to be quite important to her; the few times she hasn't been a lesbian have occurred during periods of times where she idly wondered what it might be like to experiment a bit, and even then most of those lives were either still women or still into women. Arietis, meanwhile, is pretty consistent about her identity as it is but is far less concerned about her incarnations still being "her", so to speak. She is actively excited about her incarnations being totally different people, and thus totally different people they end up being.
(...They do all tend to be empty-headed, though. Can you imagine an Arietis with a brain? Terrifying.)
Notable Incarnations
Previous:
- aforementioned unnamed scorpy incarnation that pissed serpentarius off so fuckin bad
Current:
- [REDACTED]
- Antares (Scorpius)
...That uh. That's it.
So I'm going to use this section to talk about Antares a bit, who is a bit of a... situation. The Incarnation Program is a big part of why anamnesis - the forbidden art of dredging up memories of past lives - is forbidden; the gods have intentionally pushed mortal culture into finding it, like, super cringe and stuff. Nonetheless Antares - a member of the Siderean Council - wound up digging deep enough to find someone capable of it and promptly recalled her life as Scorpius.
Understanding she'd fucked up, she - knowing exactly where Scorpius lived and how to get there now - immediately consulted Scorpius to see what they should do. In the end they elected to just tell Capricoris and have a meeting held on what to do, wherein Scorpius successfully argued that the unprecedented nature of the situation meant it was one they should study.
...Something thus far unspoken of is that incarnations are also seen as backups. In the event that a god is somehow killed, the lingering soul fragment within their current incarnation will be all the remains of them. It, thus, will become recognized as the god's primary soul and "regenerate", restoring the incarnation's memories and powers. From there they would be able to get back to their duties as normal. However, given how recombination goes, current fear is that they would end up just being their incarnation with their "true self's" memories, rather than their "true self" with their incarnation's memories and body.
Antares, so it seems, is proof that their fears are realized, and thus is valuable to keep around until her time is up to see if perhaps she becomes more like Scorpius over time, or if they can discern from her life if anamnesis works significantly differently from death-triggered recombination. She is permitted to communicate with the gods and their aides if she can justify it and is allowed to commune with Scorpius (especially as he is the prime experiments guy) with some supervision: Antares, being part of the world's governing force, has quite a bit of influence and thus she must be monitored carefully to ensure she isn't utilized to advance any agendas Scorpius might have. Not that anyone really suspects that of him at this point (besides perhaps Serpentarius), but it's all in the interest of fairness.
With all that being said, Librae is still looking into how to engrave an unwillingness to partake in anamnesis, which is mostly complicated because it's hard to figure out how to block that desire without blocking the desire to recombine and, you know. Remember past lives.
Other Notes
- In Ent1rety, what do to about offworlders is a current subject of debate. Currently the metaphorical storks are instructed not to implant souls into anyone of offworld blood, but they understand that Siderea is bound to become more and more blended over time. However, it isn't clear how offworld species - including hybrids with Siderean species - might interact with incarnated souls, and no one really wants to take the chance. Likewise, normal incarnations heading offworld might prove to be a problem, and thus archangels and facets - especially the latter due to death having little to no consequence for them - have been cleared to traverse other worlds freely. The gods have also been approved to use vessels to check out other worlds and have permission to aid in the recovery of incarnations if necessary.
- In En2rety nothing is really different aside from the extra ~50 years having confirmed that Antares has more or less remained herself. As she partook in anamnesis in her late 20s or early 30s or something, she has about 20 years left before her soul is reclaimed. [REDACTED] has a similar amount of time left probably.
- In Al2rety Siderea is lowkey in a state of emergency given their sudden induction into the ol' Entirety-saving war. Current incarnations will be permitted to live out their lives as normal, but the gods are currently debating whether they should continue the Incarnation Program for the time being from there. They aren't sure how their additional power will affect things, and there's less of a need for backups due to the involvement of 2milialt and 2senalt. However, with Siderea having something of a rude awakening about the outside world they obviously want to understand how mortals are being affected. No incarnations have been reaped since the whole mess began, so they haven't yet felt the pressure to finalize a decision.
- In Altirety the timeline branched long, long before the Incarnation Program was even suggested. Given what a mess Siderealt is it's... hard to tell if that's a good or a bad thing.
- Cetia and Arachne are both pretty new to the Incarnation Program, though funnily Arachne's been taking part of it for longer. They are thus given more wiggle room with prep time and vacation time, though the latter at least hasn't really needed it. Cetia, what with her big heart and big emotions, is very much still in the phase where she can't help but be very sad about each "death". Both of them, like the others, first had to experience life as a Virgo and Aquarius, and in Arachne's case then a Cetus. As the gods didn't make Cetia incarnate the second she came back, depending on whenever i fuckin cement whenever the hell the Great Cetan Invasion was she very well might still just be on her second incarnation or so.