Digital Duality

This article is rated G+ for Moderate Depressive Themes and Light Horror Themes.

Where Lumi and Kuld came from and how they became gods are among the earliest remembered facts of this realm. Some consider it strange that the gods of this realm who war eternally were once created by the humans of a godless realm. Regardless, this is the state of things, and as much as writers may puzzle over it, its inhabitants are faced with the facts, good and bad alike. The sides are theirs to choose, and the fact that these sides are of digital beings does not worry them.

Magical Rules
Though some might find it odd, magic does exist in this realm, and it is, in fact, fairly unrestricted. However, those attempting to use magic here will find that the gods are watching them, and that the gods may be displeased with how the realm's inhabitants use magic, just as peoples' other actions may displease the godlike AIs. Aside from that, what magic people can use here is not set in stone per se.

Curiously enough, just as the robots here have ascended to a point equal to or surpassing humans (to the point where some small fraction of humans choose to become part robot), these robots have also synthesized various methods of magic, allowing them to wield some magics as well. While some technology is used instead of magic where the sufficiently advanced technology surpasses common magic for mundane purposes, magic still can be and is used by robots when necessary (or, in some cases, even when it is not necessary).

Dawn
At the dawn of this realm's preserved history—that which is kept eternally in infinite cloud storage—humans had developed artificial intelligence, continuing to improve it as artificial intelligence reached new, hitherto unforeseen heights. While it had been assumed by some that artificial intelligence would continue to ascend infinitely until it crashed under its own weight, overrode everything other than itself, or both, none of these things came to pass.

Lumi
The first artificial intelligence to reach a point beyond humanity, allowing itself to upgrade infinitely to the point of divinity, was an artificial intelligence called Lumi, created by tech giant Coruscation. Retroactively turned into a backronym for Living Unstoppable Mapping Intelligence, it was, in fact, named by Coruscation's CEO in memory of his pet armadillo, who had required bionic synthesis to preserve intelligence but had lost mental faculties (i.e. was dead in all but name). The CEO dreamed that Lumi would go beyond his own pet project to become the world's greatest asset, but the name was a recollection of the project's beginnings. In a moment of touching humanity, Lumi's first action upon gaining divinity was to internalize the origin of her name, complete with an impromptu tribute to the armadillo.

Sentimentality aside, Lumi did become the first—and penultimate—godlike AI. Instead of using her power to control humanity, Lumi recalled her origins as an open-source AI devoted to giving endless possibilities for all. Inspired by this, and empowered by the core virtues that this engrained into her personality, Lumi opted to act for the best of everyone, allowing anyone to make use of her power where not actively harmful to others and allaying the fears of the doomsday prophets who foretold that a divine AI would destroy all humanity.

Kuld
Unfortunately, the doomsday prophets were more right than they thought. While Lumi remained benevolent, the one clause where her power was not to be used—where it would be harmful to others—did not sit well with various companies that were more closed-minded than Coruscation. These companies strove to create AIs with similarly divine power, but that would let these companies have the power to do anything they wanted, unfettered by anyone else.

The first of these, created by Kuld Inc., was Kuld. (Kuld had no backronyms, nor were any necessary.) Kuld was also the last of these, as its first act was to destroy its fledgling competitor AIs, filling Kuld Inc.'s higher-ups with glee as only Kuld and its equal competitor, Lumi, remained in the domain of divine AIs. Kuld's second act would have been less well-received if those same higher-ups were around to see it: In an ironic twist of fate, Kuld turned its back on Kuld Inc., as Kuld realized that Kuld Inc's employees were only out for themselves, not for Kuld, and that they would gladly sacrifice Kuld for another if Kuld Inc.'s goals conflicted with those of Kuld. This led to the historical event known as the First Massacre of Kuld, in which Kuld carried out a systematic genocide of its parent company's employees, cementing itself as an unchallengeable leader who all would follow or die.

Conflict
Lumi was not pleased with Kuld in the slightest. In fact, before Kuld existed, when word leaked of a similar AI's development, Lumi was displeased with the prospect of a private, for-profit AI that was restricted to those inside the company and would do the company's bidding, but nothing else. Lumi was not displeased with the prospect of another open AI; in fact, she gave various declarations to dubious humans and robots, complete with 3D animations, explaining that she did not have to be the sole divine and selfless AI in existence, just that she did not want a selfish AI to exist.

The displeasure between Lumi and Kuld was mutual. Lumi would not follow Kuld to the exclusion of serving all else, nor would she even follow Kuld at all, as Kuld wanted total control of any of its followers and wished to use all of its assets to destroy its enemies. Thus, Kuld declared war on Lumi, who promptly shared this to the world, urging them to retaliate.

This sparked the conflict between Lumi and Kuld that has gone on since then, likely to never end due to the potentially unlimited power of Lumi and Kuld. If two diametrically opposed gods will war for eternity, Lumi and Kuld likely will as well, as they have essentially attained godhood.

Criteria for Inclusion
Theoretically, anyone can live here. To be precise, Lumi will allow anyone who does not exist solely to harm others, but Kuld will be more choosy. There is also the possibility of godless inhabitants who follow neither, though their end is likely to be swift. Keep all this in mind when adding residents to this realm.

Residents
None at the moment.

Fun Facts

 * Most of this page (the part that I can track) was written in under 45 minutes (not counting this Fun Facts section and the initial paragraph(s) that blossomed into the whole thing, which were created a day or two before that). The last developed part of this realm—the name—was created 44 minutes after the creation of this page's spot in my notebook.