A Compiled Record from the Archives of the Seventh Dawn, transcribed by the Chronicler of the Lunar Outpost Sancta Gloria.
Preface: On the Nature of Cycles
"Worlds do not end—they are unspooled and rewoven. The sea remembers; the stars do not."—Fragment from the Lunar Codex, recovered 14th Year of the Seventh Cycle.
Through all known time, Earth has lived not one life but seven.Each age rises from the stone, climbs toward the stars, and is drawn back into dust by the will of the Flux, the planetary resonance that threads together life, thought, and myth. For half a billion years, Humans and the Ancients have shared this world, accompanied by the hidden Elders, the abyssal Aegir, and the late-born Sarkaz and Sankta who emerged when the boundary between the physical and the metaphysical grew thin.
The following account summarizes the record as preserved by the Sankta Lunar Archives, whose outpost on Earth's moon survived the Sixth Collapse and now orbits above a renewed, silent world—the first not doomed to end.
I. The First Cycle — The Birth Below the Tides (Cambrian to Devonian)
In the Cambrian dawn, when the seas boiled with new life, Flux storms—plumes of radiant energy from deep beneath the crust—ignited sentience in scattered lineages. From those vents emerged the Aegir, firstborn of the deep, resembling the fish, cephalopods, and crustaceans of that age yet bearing the spark of thought. Upon the barren coasts crawled the first Humans, anachronistic wanderers whose origin none could trace. Together they built tidal settlements of bone and shell, trading light for safety. But as the continents rose and the seas withdrew, jealousy and hunger tore their alliance apart.
The First Cycle ended in the Devonian Purge, when oxygen dwindled and Flux veins collapsed. The Aegir descended into trenches; Humanity retreated to caves. Only the Elders—Draco, Kylin, and Lung—remained awake to watch the dying reefs.
II. The Second Cycle — The Forest Empires (Carboniferous to Permian)
The world rebounded in green abundance. Land Ancients—Caprinae, Kuranta, Savra, and others—founded empires beneath colossal ferns. Humans spread among them, mediating trade but wielding little power. Fluxcraft blossomed: glass grown spires, songs that stilled lightning, and cities lit by burning spores.
Rivalry between Aegir sea-kingdoms and Savra swamp-lords led to the War of Vapors, poisoning air and soil alike. The Second Cycle perished in fire as volcanoes answered the call of imbalance. The Elders Cerberus and Pegasus sealed what remained of the surface life in deep sanctuaries until the ash settled.
III. The Third Cycle — The Age of Scales and Wings (Triassic to Cretaceous)
Flux reawakened in reptiles and the sky itself. Archosauria ruled river and delta; Liberi shaped the winds; Humans survived as mountain tribes. For a million years, civilization and the dinosaurs coexisted, each unaware of the other's fleeting destiny.
The Meteor Fall ended it swiftly. Aegir city-reefs were vitrified into glass labyrinths; the Elders K'uk'ulkan and Hippogryph guided fragments of knowledge into the oceans before the deep winter claimed them.
IV. The Fourth Cycle — The Mammalian Dawn (Paleogene to Pleistocene)
From the soot of extinction rose warmth and fur. Lupo, Vulpo, Ursus, and Feline Ancients became the stewards of the new forests. Humans multiplied beyond all others, their short lives granting adaptability that none of the long-lived races could match. Still, the Fourth Cycle's glory lay with the Elafia and Caprinae, who built sanctuaries of horn and crystal in the high ranges now called the Alps and Himalaya.
When the ice returned, the world fractured again. Glaciers advanced; nations starved. Those who fled beneath the ice—Lupo packs and Ursus smiths—remembered the Tidal Law: every rise invites its fall.
V. The Fifth Cycle — The Age of Kingdoms and Fluxfire (10,000 BCE – 1300 CE)
History as known to later humans begins here. Stone gives way to bronze, then to steel. The Ancients walk openly beside humankind: Feline physicians in Alexandria, Kuranta couriers on the Silk Road, Aegir cartographers mapping the Indian Ocean currents. The Flux Academies of Babylon rediscovered the resonance arts, foreseeing that imbalance would again come. Their warnings were ignored.
The Black Plague marked the cycle's waning—Flux overload condensed within blood. The Elders Kitsune and Unicorn sealed whole provinces beneath luminous veils to quarantine the contagion. Civilization dwindled but did not yet collapse.
VI. The Sixth Cycle — The Iron and the Hollow Sky (1300 CE – early 20th century)
Steam, then electricity, then engines. The races of Earth achieved their highest unity since the Cambrian, yet greed once more fractured peace. Industrial wars scarred continents; Flux reactors bled energy into the atmosphere faster than the planet could contain.
It was then the Reverse Side of the World tore open. Through that metaphysical wound came the Sarkaz, beings of myth and nightmare: Vampires, Wendigo, Banshee, and others whose emotions shaped their bodies. They fed on despair, thriving amid the wars of men and Ancients alike. The world convulsed; the Flux storm reached apocalyptic magnitude.
By 1917—the Year of Ash Rain—Earth entered its sixth collapse. Only the Sankta, watching from their outpost on the Moon, survived the full devastation. Their colonies on terraformed Venus and Mars recorded the event and vowed to end the endless cycle.
VII. The Seventh Cycle — The Era of Salvation (Modern Age)
From the ruins, life stirred again—Humans, Ancients, even Sarkaz fragments reborn through Flux's regenerative will. The Sankta descended, luminous beings from the heavens, carrying archives of every prior cycle. They guided reconstruction but forbade unchecked progress, maintaining balance between technology and Flux. Under their oversight, civilization stabilized at early spacefaring capability—no further, by design.
The Sankta built the Lunar Archive of Sancta Gloria to watch over Earth's destiny. The Elders awakened one by one, bearing witness that the seventh tide would be the last. For the first time in all memory, the Reset did not come.
Epilogue: The Promise of the Seventh Dawn
Today, the seas whisper peace. Aegir scholars commune again with their surface kin; the Sarkaz, confined to the Reverse Side, dream without hunger. Humans, numerous yet humbled, till the soil beside their ancient neighbors. And high above, on the Moon's silver plain, the Sankta keep the Chronicle updated, awaiting the day when the Flux hums silent at last.