Battlefield: Ilshenar
Conclusion to the Machine of Discord
WarderDragon

It’s over.

A week has passed since the Machine God – Exodus – was vanquished. A week since legions of the Emperor’s Faithful – marching with the blessings of the Time Lord and the Virtues – charged into the Fortress of True Light and reconquered it in the name of Britannia. The threat is over, once and for all.

Or is it?

The battle was not without its costs. Hundreds were killed and committed to the Void, and even more were injured, crippled beyond the means to cure through magic. Our resources were taxed to their limits, and the alliance that brought the cities of our former Kingdom together has crumbled as soon as it was erected. The moongate, an ancient arcane achievement of the Protoculture, which we have no means to replicate, has collapsed upon itself. And Ver Lor Reg has been corrupted, forever, the taint of the Warp staining each brick and stone, a breeding ground for daemons and other corrupt hellspawn.

And, for all that was achieved, we are left with more questions than answers.

Is Exodus dead? It seems strange that an Elder God, a being of such immense power, one who managed to manipulate and change the course of Serpent Isle, and who has held countless civilizations under his puppet strings since time immemorial, would throw a cosmic temper tantrum, and could be drawn out, only to die for what is otherwise an inconsequential piece of real estate.

Exodus, who was created through a combination of Black Magic and alien technologies, was described in earlier reports as being a daemonic machine, an immense and powerful creature miles wide, and as large as Castle Britannia. This chamber, known as the Dark Core, matches the description of the giant complex located beneath Ilshenar. If that is true, then what was the daemonic being we faced in Ver Lor Reg, and was he the true Exodus, or just an extension of his will?

And there are other questions to be answered.

What role did Exodus play in the famine, droughts and chaos that has recently erupted across Britannia, causing starving serfs to turn against their feudal masters and demand the end of the Kingdom.

What was his relationship to the Technomancers discovered beneath Mont’Or?

What will happen to the Machine Legions now that there is no longer a central mind to direct their actions?

What happened to Blackthorne? How was he corrupted from a servant of Britannia, into the Machine Lord we witnessed during the Third War?

What will become of the Cult of the Machine?

For what reason did Exodus awake? Why did he risk revealing himself, and for what reason did he choose to destroy Castle Blackthorne and the last monuments to the Philosopher of Chaos?

Where is Ebon? What was his role in all this?

What will happen to Britannia now? Will our fallen kingdom, it’s feudal cities band together again under a common banner, or will new Kingdoms spring up to replace Britannia and fill the void?

* * *

Credit goes to Bryelle Vaughn of Baja and Faeryl of Atlantic for the screenshots. You can view her rendition of events here.

UO in Action has compiled video of the event. Click here to view the Baja version.

There has been a great deal of speculation of late concerning the final defeat of Exodus with regards to previous Ultima and UO2 Lore. You can view some of that discussion here.

I have also copied the first chapter of the Technocrat War – a major influence on the Exodus arc in UO – to the BRPA archives here.