<div class="floatleft">(https://wiki.rpg.net/images/3/32/GoodDrBalthazar.jpg)</div><strong>Character:</strong>Dr. Nicholas Balthazar<br/><strong>Who:</strong>Ken, Maddy, Maple, William<br/><strong>Where:</strong>Rev. Foley's classroom/office<br/><strong>When:</strong>study time<br/><strong>Wearing:</strong>As pictured<br/><hr/>"So. Beginning at the beginning, insofar as I can.<br/><br/>"The world we know began in 2006 CE. Everything before that is a lie, including what you remember of your earliest childhood. Everything you have ever seen or even heard of is part of a computer simulation, a construct. You six, and the other three students in Rev. Foley's Assembly, are the reason the construct exists.<br/><br/>"Outside the construct, there is a civilization called the Hive. As I understand it, though they are of many species, they are all ruled by a single Queen, who exerts unquestionable dominance through a telepathic network. The Hive built the construct as a brainwashing device for the nine of you, to turn you into Hive members obedient to the Queen.<br/><br/>"From an origin and by a means I do not understand, the Queen obtained nine souls of a special nature, souls capable of growing into power beyond anything I can comprehend. The power to travel between alternate realities, even create new ones to match anything you imagine. Even more than that, I'm told, with time and practice.<br/><br/>"The Hive Queen, though she is ancient beyond years and immensely knowledgeable and strong-willed, does not possess such powers. She wished to have such beings at her bidding. In order to make sure that your growing powers would not threaten her personal safety, and to prevent you from escaping should you prove difficult to dominate, she inserted you into the construct, along with Hive members to raise and indoctrinate you. You were physically incarnated as eggs, which then hatched into larvae, and so on, based on the genetic material of your Hive parents.<br/><br/>"Yes, Bugs. The Hive is populated entirely by arthropods, mostly insectoid, some arachnid. This is why the Bugs are what they are. I'll get to that again in a moment.<br/><br/>"You were all inserted at the same time, and hatched shortly thereafter, in what we now think of as the year 2000, though the time flow then may not have been what it is now. Your early lives were whatever they were. Perhaps someday, if you want, you'll find a way to remember. I can't help you with that. I didn't exist then.<br/><br/>"In 2006, two non-Hive beings entered the construct. I call them 'angels,' though I'm sure Rev. Foley would chide me for it. They're not spiritual emanations of the Infinite and Lovingkind, but at first I thought they were, and I still think of them by that label since they haven't given me another. William, I'm sorry if my referring to them in that manner led to confusion.<br/><br/>"For personal reasons, one of the angels, the one named Martin, objected strongly to your being manipulated, and rewrote the construct to become the world we know. In the process, he imported—possibly<em>created</em>—seven billion additional souls. The Hive members who had already been part of the construct became human as well; their memories were altered and woven into the fabric of simulated history. I don't have any idea how he did this except that he is very, very good with computers and has some of the reality-altering power I mentioned a moment ago.<br/><br/>"So. In 2006, you went from juvenile Bugs, to young humans, and the entire rest of the human species appeared from nothing. That's what the angels tell me, at least. They've demonstrated abilities that I can't explain, even given everything I know about metaphysics and the paranormal and supernatural—which is possibly more than anyone else on Earth. For that and various other reasons that I won't go into, I am inclined to take them at their word about all of this.<br/><br/>"The other angel, Vialle, recruited me in 2006 as an agent on Earth. Apparently they can't materialize inside the construct without attracting the destructive attention of the Hive, but also can't escape back to their reality of origin without help. They believe you nine can provide that help, if you have time to learn what you can do. They believe it is within your power to save the entire world, prevent it from being deleted by the Hive—which would lead to the death of every human being except<em>possibly</em>the nine of you, Martin and Vialle.<br/><br/>"In any case, we determined that the best chance for human survival began with gathering the nine of you and raising you with minimal interference from the Hive. I spent two years arranging to become Headmaster of this school to provide you with a superior education, an opportunity to train your more unusual talents, and ultimately, a logistical base from which to operate once you knew the truth. Vialle and I worked hard to get you all here.<br/><br/>"I have regular conversations with Vialle. She is, among other things, the chief security agent for this school. Penn, the reason you haven't been able to access the campus security network—and I know you've tried—is that there isn't one; the cameras aren't physically connected to anything. They're actually scrying foci for Vialle. They are magically programmed to alert her under circumstances that might require immediate intervention, such as violence or signs of monster incursion, and she randomly reviews the footage herself as well.<br/><br/>"She also tracks what the monsters are doing on a local and global level, as much as she can. She and Martin walk a very fine line; they are of the opinion that the Hive Queen might risk your destruction in order to reset the construct and start over if it becomes more trouble than it's worth for her to try to regain control of it as it is.<br/><br/>"That's why the monsters exist. They are an attempt by the Hive's operators to subvert the human species and turn it into an extension of the Hive within the simulation. The Bugs are actual Hive members inserted into the construct to coordinate the activity of the other monsters.<br/><br/>"I don't know whether you're aware, but when large groups of monsters gather, they alter the laws of physics, making their home turf safer and more comfortable for the Hive. If enough humans are converted to monsters, Martin theorizes there may be a tipping point where the changes he made to the construct start to unravel, possibly killing non-monster humans other than those who were originally part of the construct, and certainly leaving everyone at the Hive Queen's mercy. He thinks we may be approaching that point.<br/><br/>"I have tried to give the nine of you as much time as you could to be human, to have something like normal lives. I haven't been successful in all cases." He doesn't glance at William, but William has the distinct impression that Dr. Balthazar means him. "In any case, the situation with Park Min-joon demonstrates that we're not as secure here as I thought, and the time for revelations has arrived.<br/><br/>"I don't know what happened to Min-joon. Martin says it had nothing to do with the Hive—he was infected or dominated by some other force from outside the construct. Apparently the physical location of the Hive, and therefore of the computer on which the construct runs, is precariously close to a sort of metaphysical singularity called the Abyss. Martin thinks Min-joon learned how to project astrally through computer systems into the underlying reality of the construct, and brushed up against the Abyss somehow in the process. Whatever the cause may have been, Min-joon became a dangerous point of instability. Had he been free to infect more people, the construct as a whole might have been threatened. It is…possibly for the best that he is no longer with us in mind or spirit.<br/><br/>"Hmm, what else did you ask that I haven't touched on? Ah. Charlene knows none of this except that I told her the nine of you needed special care and spiritual development and asked her to take you on as an Assembly group. She has asked why, repeatedly. I have not answered. I don't know what her theories might be. As far as I know, most of what I have just told you is known only to the seven of us in this room, and to the angels.<br/><br/>"Now. I'm sure that raised at least as many questions as it answered, so fire away." He looks around at the six of you, eyebrows raised.