79Chapter One: Time and Place
It was a place above time and space. Above the universe. But not quite near the throne of heaven. Here they could look down upon the universe and know much. But not everything. They knew fully who they were, and at any time they could access all of it.
Yet they were, for now, willfully ignorant of their full glory.
Washu opened her eyes and saw Tokimi and Tsunami coming toward them. Tsunami was beautiful beyond mortal worlds. No one on lowers planes could look on her and live. Yet if Washu were to describe it to them, she would be a tall and magnificent woman with long blue hair. Washu had taken the form of a spikey red-haired goddess, and Tokimi had strange eyes with gray hair.
"Sisters, I'm glad you both could make it." said Washu.
"Why have you called this meeting, Washu?" asked Tokimi.
"Yes." said Tsunami. "My trees need tending."
"Sorry to take you ladies away from your work." said Washu. "But I've had an idea that could speed the progress on our work up by millennia."
"Really?" asked Tsunami. "What is it?"
Washu smiled. "All right, so we sewed life across the entire universe and allowed it to evolve at its own pace. We hope to create an even greater being than ourselves."
Tokimi closed her eyes in frustration. "We know, Washu."
"I'm just refreshing everyone's memory." said Washu.
"We are omnipotent goddesses of unfathomable power, limited only by each other." said Tokimi. "We do not forget. Far from it, everything is known to us. Everything that is. Everything that can be. Everything that was."
"Alright, alright fine, Tokimi." said Washu. She should have known Tokimi would kill the mood. "So this meeting isn't even strictly necessary. But if we did everything in the most efficient way, there wouldn't be any room for individual personality.
"You don't disagree with me, or you wouldn't be here. Besides, how else are we supposed to inform any hypothetical omnipresent forces? They might be looking in on us right now."
"Washu is right, Tokimi." said Tsunami. "Let let her finish, please."
"Anyway, so we seeded life across the universe." said Washu. "And generally we've left it to lesser extradimensional beings to take care of the details.
"But I had an idea.
"What if, instead of waiting for life to evolve, we induce evolution in the races." She smiled. Tokimi and Tsunami looked at her suspiciously.
For a moment that stretched into eternity, nobody said anything. Finally, Tokimi looked down to the universe. "Forcing evolution is a dangerous tactic, Washu. It usually only hurts their growth in the long run. When you force them to evolve, you have to pick a particular direction. That tends to lead to oversight."
"Besides, it isn't fair on the races." said Tsunami.
She'd known this was going to be a hard sell from the beginning. "Right, obviously. There are two major parts to races which I've chosen to call form, and essence. Form represents their mental capacity, abilities, the soul, so to speak. Then there is essence, which is their DNA, their bone structure. The part of their body that exists on the temporal plane."
"These two qualities have a lot of overlap. What you eat affects your brain, which affects how your soul is filtered through. So drinking too much caffeine, for instance, will cause you to become hyper."
"Washu, was know all of this." said Tokimi.
"Tokimi I'm trying to provide exposition for the audience." said Washu in irritation. "Now stop interrupting.
"Anyway, both form and essence have their unique qualities. And the majority of races have more of one quality than the other. Evolution increases one quality, but leaves others weak."
She created the image of a sabre tooth tiger and two humans. "So a sabre tooth tiger has better essence than a normal human." The tiger eat one of the humans, then went after the other. "But the human has a better form."
The human created fire with a stick and drove off the tiger. Washu zoned out for a moment.
"Where was I?" asked Washu.
"Form and essence." said Tsunami.
"Right. So here is my idea." said Washu. "What if we created two different species who focused totally on one quality. One on essence. One on form."
"Would not such a creature be unsustainable?" asked Tokimi.
"Obviously." said Washu. "We'll give them enough of the other quality for them to survive. Then we can use their specialization to compensate."
"This sounds like a first step." noted Tsunami. "Wouldn't it be better to gradually improve the races we already have planned, Washu?"
"Of course not!" said Washu. "Efficiency is a great virtue!"
Why did Tsunami insist on letting everything develop naturally? It irritated Washu to no end. Tsunami sighed. "So what is the next step?"
"The next step is simple." said Washu. "We will evolve the essence species to assimilate other creatures. When both species have reached the peak of their power, we will arrange for them to merge into one.
"We will be able to gain a perfect species in half the time. From there we can easily evolve both into the ultimate creature and advance our plans!"
"I don't think this is a good idea, Washu." said Tsunami. "You aren't taking into account natural growth. Life does not subscribe to timetables and three step plans. Life breaks free, changes. The kind of control you are suggesting is simply not possible."
"You say that about every plan I have which involves speeding up evolution." noted Washu. "When are you going to say something else?"
"Tsunami may have a point." noted Tokimi.
"Oh come on!" said Washu. "It's going to be eons before any of the species we've seeded will start even beginning to understand technology. I have to do something to pass the time."
"I did not say the plan was a bad plan." said Tokimi. "However, it will require a great deal more oversight than our other strategies. It would also be best for us to create these races in an isolated area where they will not encounter other races."
"Fine, we can make a new galaxy." said Washu.
She motioned with one hand. There was a flare of light and into being came thousands upon thousands of suns. Clouds of dust appeared as tendrils of light were woven into the shape of a galaxy. And into that galaxy went innumerable planets upon which one day there would be life of some kind.
"We can call it the Milky Way." said Washu.
"Isn't that name a bit weak?" asked Tsunami.
"Future generations chose it." said Washu with a shrug.
"Tokimi I don't like this." said Tokimi. "We've never tried directly controlling a races evolution like this before. It could be disastrous."
"That is why we are taking precautions." said Tokimi. "So long as we are careful we should be able to avoid any unforeseen destruction. And if things do get out of control, we can easily learn from our failure.
"In so doing we may speed up our plans even if this one is a complete wash."
"See, Tokimi knows what she is talking about." said Washu, beaming.
"There is one other thing." said Tokimi. "At present, we are in our limited goddess forms, so we are not omnipotent. We do not know how this will turn out.
"However, if we are going to conduct direct oversight of these species we will have to go a step lower."
"I guess." said Washu. "It's been a while since I took the form of a demigod. Are you going to help us, Tsunami?"
Tsunami remained silent for a long time. "I will. But I still think that rushing things is a bad idea."
"Duly noted." said Washu. "Now let's create the firstborn of this new galaxy. I'm thinking we can call them the protoss."
Author's Note:
So a very, very, long time ago someone challenged me to write a Starcraft Tenchi Muyo crossover. This is my shot at that.
The thought process I went through when writing this was somewhat complex.
The fundamental problem is that the two series take opposite views of the cosmic nature. Tenchi Muyo is a lighthearted storyline. It is a universe where the gods conspire to give a featureless protagonist a harem. Tenchi does not have to do anything to earn the beautiful women throwing themselves at him. He does not even have to choose them. It is shallow wish fulfillment.
In contrast, Starcraft is a cosmic horror story. It isn't even a power fantasy. Your character is a lone commander. You are trapped in an elaborate game of chess between eldritch abominations. The only thing standing between your destruction are vicious tyrants. Your every victory is temporary.
Moreover, Tokimi, Washu and Tsunami cannot be transplanted into the Starcraft Universe. For one thing, Earth in Tenchi Muyo is different from in Starcraft. And the Jurai Emperor is far too broken, being able to wipe out all the factions.
Then I came up with the idea of having Tenchi be an officer in the UED. But the problem with that is that the main plot of Starcraft takes place in the Koprolu Sector. So there is very little content to make.
No. The nature of Tenchi Muyo's cosmology is completely different from Starcrafts. At first, I despaired. Until I realized that they did share one thing in common.
Both their gods are trying to create the ultimate being. The Xel'naga want to create their next generation. The Goddesses want to create something stronger than them. The only difference was their motive. That was my in.
I hope I got the goddessses personalities down. To be honest Tokimi and Tsunami never left much of an impact on me.
Do you want me to continue this? If so, leave a review.
Also I think I've just written the first Starcraft/Tenchi Muyo crossover. We've made history folks.
