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The Chronicles of Quelouva

An epic tapestry of tales about alien space wizards, prehistoric nanotech gods, and a virtual reality afterlife.

The Chronicles

Begin with Season 1, Episode 1.

The Chronicles of Quelouva is an epic series of stories spanning tens of thousands of years of fictional history, past and future; "epic" in the original sense of that word meaning many small independent stories that connect together into a much larger story. "Quelouva" is the name of the setting, our galaxy the Milky Way, in the language of an alien race called the Ehrban, whose saga composes one third of the stories, chronicling the rise and fall and eventual resurgence of their ancient galactic empire. The entire series takes place in a timeline alternate to our own, though this is only relevant near the contemporary parts of the Oumen saga, which composes another third of the stories, chronicling the mythological prehistory of human civilization through to the post-apocalyptic future. The remaining third of the stories constitute the Sphidi saga, chronicling the events of a virtual world that forgets that it is virtual, takes on a life of its own, and eventually heralds the end of galactic history.

The settings of each saga are thus widely different in scope. On one end of the spectrum, the Sphidi saga takes place almost entirely within the simulated world called Virtuality, exploring "inner space" themes. The Oumen saga meanwhile takes place across the entirety of the Earth, its solar system, and even briefly ventures beyond. And at the far end of the spectrum, the Ehrban saga ranges far and wide across the entire galaxy of Quelouva, with bookends reaching out to other galaxies still, exploring "outer space" themes. By the end of the series the scopes converge, however, as events within Virtuality reshape not only the whole world but the entire galaxy, and one human from Earth becomes the only hope for all of Quelouva's salvation.

These three sagas are not chronologically sequential, but rather overlap significantly. Each is divided into three parts, alternately spanning time periods of either around a single lifetime, or many thousands of years. These periods alternate between plateaus of high times, for the parts that span a single lifetime, and long periods of rebuilding, for the parts that span many thousands of years.

There are multiple orders in which the stories can be read, some of them passing over parts of the story:

The outline below contains spoilers for the entire Chronicles. To read through them in the canonical narrative order, begin with Veil of the Foundation: Part 2, Episode 2.

Chronicles timeline

  1. In Season 1, episodes from the middle of the Meij series, the Foundation series, and the Darklight series intermingle in increasingly interconnected ways:
    • First, three seemingly unrelated stories are told:
      • In Veil of the Foundation: Part 2, Episode 2, a human exploratory team called the Einherjar crash land on an alien planet, meet a variety of sapient local species, and learn that there is some past connection between these aliens and the Einherjar' superiors back at Sol, the Foundation.
      • In Darak Meij: Part 2, Episode 2, a wizard ranger arrives at a rural town where they are holding a feral young wizard child named Darak Meij, and tries to establish communication with him until disaster befalls them all.
      • In Nadir of the Darklight: Part 2, Episode 2, a reluctant soldier named John meets a camp-follower named Tamara, in whom he confides his doubts about the justice of the war he's fighting, and who turns out to actually be a famous ancient wizard named Thomas in disguise.
    • Then, each of those stories gets a prequel:
      • In Nadir of the Darklight: Part 2, Episode 1, humble farmer John is conscripted to fight in the Chalman army's war against the Orcs of the west, but begins to have doubts about the justice of that cause.
      • In Veil of the Foundation: Part 2, Episode 1, the Einherjar awaken from stasis as their ship first arrives in the alien star system, and upon investigating the system's one inhabitable planet their lander is shot down to it.
      • In Darak Meij: Part 2, Episode 1, Darak first wanders out of the wilderness to the rural town, where authorities attempt to apprehend him and, failing to overpower him, call for outside help.
    • Those are then followed up by sequels:
      • In Darak Meij: Part 2, Episode 3, the infamous terror Mav the Witch-Queen descends upon the rural town seeking to kill Darak Meij, the last Meij to slip through her fingers, but she is driven back by his surprising furious might.
      • In Veil of the Foundation: Part 2, Episode 3, the Einherjar set off across the alien planet in search of a way to escape from it, venturing through the ruins of a much more advanced alien civilization.
      • In Nadir of the Darklight: Part 2, Episode 3, Thomas introduces John to his ragtag gang of warrior-pacifists, and tells them something of the secret history of the world, before being turned mortal by an elf.
    • With the three settings on a roll but no clear connections between them, the Darak Meij, Veil of the Foundation, and Nadir of the Darklight stories finally begin to connect with a trilogy of prequels for each:
      • In Nadir of the Darklight: Part 1, the ghost of the wizard Thomas recruits supporters to free his imprisoned body by recounting the story of how he Inadvertently began this war against the Orcs.
      • In Veil of the Foundation: Part 1, the Einherjar live in a virtual world while in suspended animation en route to their destination, and have to keep one member from getting off-mission therein.
      • In Darak Meij: Part 1, newborn Darak Meij reflects on his inherited memories of how his parents Scotus Meij and Wreben Wieg met, conceived him, and then died at the hands of Mav the Witch-Queen.
    • The first season is then rounded out and the connections completed with a trilogy of sequels for each setting as well:
      • In Darak Meij: Part 3, a reluctant coalition of political powers coalesces around Darak's quest to kill Mav, leading to both of their deaths and the expulsion of wizards from the public sphere.
      • In Veil of the Foundation: Part 3, the Einherjar discover a way off the alien planet and back to Sol, and learn the surprising connection between the histories of this world and of humanity.
      • In Nadir of the Darklight: Part 3, John joins Thomas' ragtag resistance group to seek out another ancient magician, the "Pseudo-Witch", and learns the terrible truth about their world along the way.
  2. In Season 2, three prequel stories of nine episodes each flesh out the backgrounds of the three settings beginning to connect with each other in the first season:
    • In Falling of the Darklight, the surviving remnant of a virtual afterlife becomes corrupted and in time gradually forgets that it is virtual, except for two holdouts, Tom and Xiuying.
    • In Shadow of the Foundation, the secretive Foundation begins to intervene more actively in the affairs of human civilization, covertly averting multiple existential crises while subtly ushering in a bright utopian future.
    • In Lievus Meij, the child of legendary "inventor of magic" Keius Meij, named Lievus, and his half-sister, Kadia Wieg, become heads of rival factions of the "magical" survivors on the Ehrban homeworld.
  3. In Season 3, the three settings become even further connected as three sequel stories of nine episodes each expand on their futures:
    • In Meij Endaren, the secret society of "mages" oppose the technologically-advanced Nurbal's plans for space exploration, culminating in an exodus of the Nurbal and their allies to another world.
    • In Light of the Foundation, humanity rallies behind the Foundation against the aliens who lie beyond the wormhole, only to be drawn into an already-ongoing galactic war, leading to the destruction of Earth.
    • In Rising of the Darklight, Tom and Xiu are reincarnated within the virtual afterlife, and play a part in unchaining the tortured soul for whom it was first built, the "Queen of Hell", who in turn destroys all of it from inside.
  4. In Season 4, the Otherworld series, an immersive virtual reality world is constructed, and with mind-uploading becomes an artificial afterlife, which survives the collapse of civilization in the real world.
  5. In Season 5, the Pantheon series, immortal humans on prehistoric Earth inspire all ancient mythologies while trying to escape back to space, from where they guide mortal humanity into a utopian future.
  6. In Season 6, the Antiquity series, Keius Meij discovers a technological "magic" and transforms Ehrban society with it until their galactic civilization collapses in the face of an alien threat.
  7. In Season 7, the Nurbal series, Amouch leads the Nurbal exodus back out into the galaxy to reclaim the scattered remains of the ancient Ehrban galactic civilization.
  8. In Season 8, the Resurgent series, Metis is the sole surviving immortal on post-apocalyptic Earth, and gradually guides the remnants of mortal human civilization back to their previous heights.
  9. In Season 9, the Virtuality series, the only survivors of the Queen of Hell reconnect with Metis in the real world, accidentally giving the Queen access to Ehrban "magic", and the whole galaxy barely survives.

For an overview of the entire Chronicles, see the outline below:

  1. In the Chronicles of Quelouva, an apparently magical world turns out to be a virtual reality afterlife, built by the immortal humans who inspired all ancient mythologies, who were created by aliens with seemingly magical technology.
    1. In the Ehrban saga, an apparently magical world turns out to be the fallen remnant of an ancient alien empire, which eventually rises again to reclaim its lost heritage.
      1. In the Antiquity series, Keius Meij discovers a technological "magic" and transforms Ehrban society with it until their galactic civilization collapses in the face of an alien threat.
      2. In the Meij series, the descendants of Keius Meij help Ehrban civilization slowly rebuild on their ruined homeworld back to a spacefaring civilization again.
      3. In the Nurbal series, Amouch leads the Nurbal exodus back out into the galaxy to reclaim the scattered remains of the ancient Ehrban galactic civilization.
    2. In the Oumen saga, a utopian future Earth turns out to have been orchestrated by the immortals who inspired all ancient mythologies, one of whom becomes its only hope after the collapse of civilization.
      1. In the Pantheon series, immortal humans on prehistoric Earth inspire all ancient mythologies while trying to escape back to space, from where they guide mortal humanity into a utopian future.
      2. In the Foundation series, the immortals begin to intervene in mortal human affairs, ushering in a bright utopian future, until the whole thing comes crashing down upon disastrous first contact with alien life.
      3. In the Resurgent series, the sole surviving immortal on post-apocalyptic Earth gradually guides the remnants of mortal human civilization back to their previous heights.
    3. In the Sphidi saga, an apparently magical world turns out to be a virtual reality afterlife that survived the collapse of civilization, which eventually reconnects with and transforms the real world.
      1. In the Otherworld series, an immersive virtual reality world is constructed, and with mind-uploading becomes an artificial afterlife, which survives the collapse of civilization in the real world.
      2. In the Darklight series, the surviving remnant of the virtual afterlife becomes corrupted and forgets that it is virtual, growing more hellish until the prophesied Queen of Hell nearly destroys it all.
      3. In the Virtuality series, the only survivors of the Queen of Hell reconnect with Metis in the real world, accidentally giving the Queen access to Ehrban “magic”, and the whole galaxy barely survives.