During this long sojourn away from the Diaspora, Penelope also overheard the clamor of battle in the radio messages from the far stars. From the terrifying Oecumene at Lalande 21185, came the challenge from the military Warmind of the Golden Peers, or, rather, from their deadly once-human servant Atkins, daring the Lords of the Silent Oecumene to face them in battle.
Atkins! The name still echoed in the legends and histories of the Chrysopoeians. He was their devil, their croquemitaine. During the long period of peace and justice of the Golden Age, he had been the sole warrior kept in readiness against any violence offered by rebellion or social tumult, and equipped with such weapons as to make hostility unthinkable.
When the hidden acts of war by the Swans finally erupted into the open, all the minds and mental systems gathered into one grand and supernal Transcendence at Sol; and the College of Hortators was replaced by a College of War; and interstellar ships, never before needed or designed, were wrought and armed with terrible weapons and crewed and captained by the single soldier template.
A thousand, nay, ten thousand versions of Atkins were embodied in every form of military monster, from tanks larger than cities, nanomachines smaller than viruses, and scattered to every theater of combat, both real and virtual.
Rumor said he fought himself and k**ed himself in desperate training exercises, that he might learn what could overcome him; myth reported how he drove himself insane, so that variations of his mind might come within psychological congruence with his foes, and military intelligence profiles be erected in the Warmind sophotechs.
Part of his mind, memes and routines and habits of discipline, were sent into the hands of millions of civilians, so that they might have the spirit and the patriotism needed to support him in his dreadful, irrational, perpetual war.
It was in rebellion against this necessity, and outrage against the violations of their pristine mental state, that a school called the Renunciation gathered funds and subscriptions to send partial versions or complete cop ies of themselves and their libraries across the years of time and light-years of space, away from the war and d**h and deceits of Sol. By design, so that they could not be followed or found, they decided on no destination until after they were under way.