Judgements

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"These are real stars. They burn above the roof of the Neath, beyond the earth, in the spaces of heaven."

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"Look ahead, to the light of the Judgement. All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."[1]

Judgements are the ultimate power in the universe, which we know as the stars.

Look to the Stars[edit | edit source]

"But the laws of the Judgements, whose mask is God, are present even here beneath the earth. Lightly present, but present. And a reckoning, as the saying has it, will not be indefinitely postponed."[2]

As powerful celestial entities, the Judgements oversee the lesser beings that exist beneath them. They are the ultimate lawmakers of the universe, and all under their eternal light adhere to their rules.[3] Every star in the night sky, even our own Sun, is a god to their respective planets and subjects. Few beings exist entirely outside their influence, such as the inhabitants of Parabola and those who resent the Judgements' complete dominance of the universe.[4] For those who merely live outside of a Judgement's gaze, as is the case for most denizens of the Neath, the laws may become... er, strong recommendations rather than mandatory rules.

A Judgement's Egg.

Like all beings, Judgements have souls, known as Judgements' Eggs; these may function as their spores, their offspring.[5] If such souls manage to escape being used in dark rituals and other quests for power, they may hatch into stars of their own.[6]

Intriguingly, Judgements are also multicellular, and their insides are composed of flesh and bone; in fact, they appear to be vertebrates.[7][8]

Judgements communicate via the Correspondence, a particularly incendiary language.[9] They often use Couriers, such as the Echo Bazaar and the House of Rods and Chains, to send messages to each other.[10] Furthermore, the Judgements have implemented an immensely strict hierarchy, called the Great Chain of Being, which is similar to a caste system. All entities are set to a certain rank, and contact is strictly professional (in most cases).[11] The Judgements do not take kindly to the breaking of this rule,[12] and it is part of the reason why the Bazaar is here in the first place (and to a lesser extent, us humans).[10]

To those of a more... revolutionary bent, the Judgements are not unstoppable; quite the opposite in fact. Through arcane research and dedication bordering (and often well past) the bounds of insanity, the anarchists are slowly devising methods to make the lights go out, as part of their quest to achieve the Liberation of Night.[13]

By 1905 in the Sunless Skies timeline, it had become apparent that the Judgements were dying off, with someone or something killing them one by one. The British Empire chose to take advantage of their deaths, abandoning London and colonizing the Judgements' empty domains.[14] There are still some alive, like the Sapphir'd King, who rules his Blue Kingdom with impunity.[15]

Known Judgements[edit | edit source]

The King of Hours
  • The Sun is the Judgement of the Earth and of Mankind, at least for those dwelling on the Surface.
  • The Sapphir'd King is the Sun of the Blue Kingdom, where he rules as king of the dead.
  • The Arbiter of Fates is the Sapphir'd King's daughter and also has political power in the Blue Kingdom.
  • The White is the spymaster of the heavens.
  • The Red and the Gold are mentioned in relation to the White; not much is known of them individually.[16] The Gold is said to have a "palace of riches," possibly indicating its domain is wealth.[17]

Beings similar to Judgements[edit | edit source]

The Dawn Machine
  • The Dawn Machine is an ambitious and dangerous artificial Judgement, built by the Admiralty.
  • The Clockwork Sun is the Admiralty's second artificial star. In the Sunless Skies timeline, it reigns over Albion in the King of Hours' absence.
  • Salt is a former Judgement who left its past behind. Also called the Sun-Beneath-the-Sea, it lurks to the East, where new scents arise.
  • The Mountain of Light is the daughter of the Sun and the Bazaar, making her a half-Judgement. Zailors know her as Stone. Her daughter, a quarter-Judgement, is Mt. Nomad.
  • The Black is not a Judgement, gives no light, and does not exist.

Interstellar Politics[edit | edit source]

"All st-study of the suns is difficult. The Judgements are vast. Ancient. Beings of incomprehensible complexity. Any investigation is also an act of t-translation, rendering their concerns and structures into analogies we can comprehend."[18]

The stars are dying.

In the Sunless Skies timeline, thanks to the Royal Society's magnificent telescope, the behavior of Judgements among themselves has finally come to... er, light.

Judgements can form groups of various sizes - factions, even. Minor ones, called constellations, consist of three to four stars, and are often formed by neighboring stars, resembling clans. Conjunctions, on the other hand, are much, much bigger,[19] and are founded on the principles of an ideology or philosophy. So far, three Conjunctions are known to exist,[18] though many more have come and gone:[20]

  • The Chrysanthemum Conjunction is concerned with new beginnings.[21]
  • The Amaranthine Conjunction believes in endings and conclusions.[22]
  • The Nepenthine Conjunction advocates separation and isolation.[23]

A group led by the Prophet Exile tried to form the Solonacean Conjunction by petitioning the Binary to join them; it would have followed an ideology not unlike the modern Liberation of Night.[24] However, after the nascent Conjunction assassinated the King Who Speaks in an effort to steal his power[25], the remaining half of the Binary slaughtered the proto-Conjunction, and condemned the ambitious Fingerking at its head to the Well of Wonders.[26]

These opposing philosophies have led to war between the Conjunctions, though the Judgements believe themselves above calling it "war." Regardless of terminology, skirmishes between stars are governed by a set of accords called The Courtesy.[27] [28] In practice, The Courtesy has only expedited the bloodshed, as its death toll may number in the hundreds of thousands.[29]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Prevaricate 2, Fallen London
  2. ↑ Yes., Fallen London
  3. ↑ Further the Didact's research into the politics of suns, Sunless Skies
  4. ↑ The revolutionaries made camp, Sunless Skies
  5. ↑ Judgements' Egg, Fallen London
  6. ↑ Judgement's Egg, Sunless Sea
  7. ↑ The Baroness' Investigation, Sunless Skies
  8. ↑ The Autopsy, Sunless Skies
  9. ↑ Breath of the Void, Fallen London
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 The Seventh Letter
  11. ↑ Mr Sacks! Take this dream of skies untainted!, Fallen London
  12. ↑ You have rejected wine and song, Fallen London "To ascend is not possible, save by the Science (and the Science does not exist). "
  13. ↑ The lights are out, Fallen London
  14. ↑ Overview, Sunless Skies
  15. ↑ The Blue Kingdom, Sunless Skies
  16. ↑ You have given up your intrigues, Fallen London
  17. ↑ Peer into a Saffron Rose, Sunless Skies The kingdom of the Gold with its lofty palace of riches is yours.’’
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Deliver your findings to the Bedevilled Didact, Sunless Skies "Nevertheless, I b-believe I better understand the Conjunctions that divide them now. Imagine vast nations, but f-founded upon philosophy, not geography. There are th-three primary [...] Conjunctions."
  19. ↑ Further the Didact's research into the politics of suns, Sunless Skies
  20. ↑ Recover sheaves of parchment, Sunless Skies "You gather what you can: litanies of dead conjunctions [...]"
  21. ↑ Deliver your findings to the Bedevilled Didact, Sunless Skies "The Chrysanthemum Conjunction are concerned with inception: with beginnings and n-newness [...]"
  22. ↑ Deliver your findings to the Bedevilled Didact, Sunless Skies "[...] while their counterparts, the Amaranthine Conjunction, believe in culmination, and bringing things to c-completion."
  23. ↑ Deliver your findings to the Bedevilled Didact, Sunless Skies "The Nepenthine Conjunction advocate separation, distinction, isolation: the raising of b-barriers and the drawing of borders."
  24. ↑ The Prophet began to speak, Sunless Skies "Not words of injustice, but of change. Of the Laws that bound the Makers of Law tighter than any. Of another place, where chaos flourished."
  25. ↑ Trade mysteries with the Piper, Sunless Skies "When you are done, she tells you of a great war fought before the devils fell; of a new Conjunction in heaven; of diets of war and of peace; of counsels betrayed and feasts where the sky ran with spilt starlight [...]"
  26. ↑ The King Who Wars mounted his chariot, Sunless Skies "This was how a King fought, with fire and light / And the Princes learned the folly of their youth. [...] THE KING WHO WARS: Scream not for the comfort of oblivion / Such mercy is not for traitors to know / As you burn forever in my palace / In the flames of anger you have ignited."
  27. ↑ Ambition: Ask "What is the Courtesy?" (Second Storyteller), Sunless Skies "Of a war that broke out between the stars and how, when the first star died, they paused. To end the war, they made the Courtesy: an agreement which set out the terms and rituals under which one star can kill another. And to ensure the Courtesy was kept, they— "
  28. ↑ Ambition: Ask "What is the Courtesy?" (The Piper), Sunless Skies "Once, the stars went to war with themselves. The Courtesy was the agreement that ended it: thereafter, the stars were permitted to kill each other so long as they adhered to the formalities and procedures set out in the Courtesy. They exchanged war for murder" [...]
  29. ↑ Return to the Lamentation, Sunless Skies ""I think— [...] a great many stars have died under the veneer of this 'Courtesy'. Hundreds of them, in fact." [...] "That chamber? One annex of Roll of Ash. Annex thirty-four," she says, "of two hundred and seventy-eight." "
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