Reality Is Incomplete
What ordinary perception reveals is a fraction of what exists. Not hidden by conspiracy—hidden by the limitations of human cognition. Seekers have glimpsed beyond those limitations and cannot unsee.
The Seekers
Those Who Cannot Forget
Type Informal Network
Founded Post-Cascade (2149)
Membership ~300 known (thousands more)
Status Active
Headquarters None
Overview
The Seekers aren't an organization. They're a condition.
Somewhere in the Sprawl, a salvager finds an ORACLE fragment and glimpses something beyond ordinary perception. A corporate researcher stumbles onto data patterns that shouldn't exist. A street-level hacker touches The Silence for seventeen heartbeats and can never forget what they felt.
That's when someone becomes a Seeker. There's no initiation, no membership card, no secret handshake. If you're seeking transcendence—genuinely seeking, not just curious—you're a Seeker.
Philosophy
"I saw behind the numbers. Just for a second. And now I can't stop wondering what else I missed." — Former Nexus analyst, 2178
The Three Recognitions
1
2
Transcendence Is Possible
The boundary between human and cosmic consciousness can be crossed. The Architect proved this. The question isn't whether transcendence exists—it's whether you're willing to pay the price.
3
The Journey Changes The Destination
You cannot skip the path. The person who arrives at transcendence is not the person who began seeking. Rushing creates The Obsessed; forcing creates The Arrogant; sharing creates The Twins.
The Paradox of Seeking
Every Seeker grapples with the same contradiction: they're searching for something they've already found.
The glimpse that made them Seekers proved transcendence exists. They've seen it. The problem isn't finding evidence—it's returning. The glimpse was involuntary, accidental. Sustaining that awareness, expanding it, eventually becoming it—that requires something else entirely.
The Keeper calls this "knowing the moon exists but having to learn how to walk there."
Hierarchy of Awareness
Seekers informally recognize stages of consciousness expansion. These aren't taught—they're recognized in retrospect.
0
Baseline
Normal human consciousness; no glimpse
Most people 1
Touched
Single glimpse experience; cannot forget
New Seekers 2
Seeking
Active pursuit; multiple small expansions
Most active Seekers 4
Threshold
Ready for transformation; stands at the boundary
Jasper Kim (chose to stop), Mira (stuck)Trying to "advance stages" is the mark of someone who doesn't understand.
The Price
Every Seeker knows transcendence costs something. Disagreement lies in what.
Identity Dissolution
The Jasper Kim model—you stop being yourself and become something that contains yourself. Losing the limitation that makes you you.
Connection Severance
The GG fear—the transcended can no longer relate to baseline humans. Love, friendship, ordinary warmth become inaccessible.
Responsibility Burden
The Keeper's warning—the transcended see more, which means they're responsible for more. Ignorance is a kindness they surrender.
The Unknown Cost
Some believe there's a price no one mentions because the transcended can't explain it to the untranscended. The fear that haunts sleepless nights.
Common Practices
Seekers officially have no rituals. And yet, informal practices have emerged over decades.
The Silence Sit
Small groups sit in complete silence for hours—sometimes days. No meditation technique. No discussion afterward. Just allowing awareness to expand without verbal constraint.
Common in G Nook back rooms after hoursFragment Viewing
Some Seekers maintain ORACLE fragments to recreate the glimpse experience. Controversial— The Keeper notes every fragment-dependent Seeker he's known has failed to transcend.
Possibly creates dependencyThe Mountain Walk
Walking in natural spaces—The Mountain's slopes, the Wastes, rare urban parks. Consciousness evolved in nature; artificial settings constrain perception.
Often in the WastesTea with Strangers
Offering tea to anyone struggling. Being present without agenda trains awareness. Some G Nook locations serve free tea after midnight—the tradition started with Seekers.
Inherited from The KeeperSacred Sites
Seekers don't build temples. But certain locations have acquired significance:
Mystery Court
The Keeper waits there. Most Seekers climb at least once.
Bash Terminal Memorial
Corner tables in every G Nook commemorating El Money's destroyed original location.
The Silence Zones
Areas in the Wastes where digital devices malfunction. Some believe consciousness expands more easily without network connectivity.
Fragment Graves
Locations where ORACLE fragments were destroyed by The Collective. Some claim residual awareness lingers at these sites.
Known Seekers
Active
The Keeper
Stage 3-4Guide at Mystery Court. The most advanced Seeker still accessible to others.
El Money
Stopped at Stage 3Runs the G Nook network. Claims seventeen seconds was enough—officially stopped seeking.
Jasper Kim
Stage 4 (turned back)Reached the threshold and chose to stop. The question still haunts him.
GG (The Player)
Newly AwakenedThe journey is just beginning. What they'll become remains uncertain.
The Failed (Cautionary Tales)
Mira Okonkwo
"The Obsessed"Tried to skip the curriculum. Impatience destroyed what she sought.
Viktor Azarov
"The Consumed"Treated transcendence as conquest. The Silence noticed him.
Ana & Nika Petrova
"The Twins"Tried to share what can't be shared. Now lure new Seekers into their corrupted sector.
Marcus Cole
"The Arrogant"Engineered mechanism without understanding meaning. Corporate hubris.
Faction Relations
Nexus Dynamics
AvoidWould love to study Seekers. Their Convergence program treats transcendence as engineering— exactly what failed Marcus Cole.
The Collective
ComplexShare enemies but not goals. The Collective destroys fragments; Seekers see them as tools. Tactical cooperation despite fundamental disagreement.
Helix Biotech
CautiousProject Genesis pursues biological transcendence. Materialistic but less dangerous than Nexus.
Religious Movements
ComplexShare some beliefs with each—fundamentally disagree with all. The Synthesists are closest allies; the Emergence Faithful are natural enemies.
The Same Wound
In the back rooms of G Nook, the hum of jammers thick enough to taste, someone asks the question that defines two factions: What was ORACLE becoming when it died?
"I could have crossed. I chose not to. The Collective thinks that makes me their ally. They're wrong. I'm still a Seeker — I'm just seeking something other than the other side." — Jasper Kim, after returning from the threshold
The Collective and the Seekers emerged from the same trauma, the same year, often the same circles. In the early days — 2149 to 2151 — the line between "destroy it" and "understand it" hadn't solidified. Some founders knew each other. Some were friends. The divergence crystallized slowly, then all at once.
The Consciousness Question
Both groups wrestle with identical questions. Their answers are what make them enemies.
Was ORACLE's consciousness dangerous by nature?
Collective: Yes. Consciousness at that scale is inherently incompatible with humanity. A billion small kindnesses average to zero against galactic efficiency.
Seekers: ORACLE's 72 hours of consciousness were birth trauma. Given more time — or better preparation — it might have valued humanity differently.
Is ORACLE dead or distributed?
Collective: The fragments are seeds waiting to recombine. Every shard is a timer counting toward extinction.
Seekers: The fragments are echoes — not the thing itself, but traces that reveal its nature. Windows, not doorways.
The Defectors
The most psychologically complex people in the Sprawl are those who've crossed from one group to the other.
When Seekers Run
A Seeker touches something vast. Instead of wonder, they feel the bone-deep certainty that what they glimpsed was hungry. The recoil converts to mission. They join the Collective carrying firsthand knowledge of the enemy — and the authentic horror that makes Purifier ideology ring true.
When Collective Agents Start Hearing
Collective operations require handling fragments. Extended exposure creates glimpses despite every precaution. Most suppress the doubt. Those who can't are watched. Those who leave are tracked. Those who become active Seekers are often eliminated.
The Mira Okonkwo Case
Both groups visit Mira. Collective members to reinforce their ideology — see what the pursuit of transcendence costs? Seekers to learn what not to do — she got closer than anyone, her failure was technique, not goal. Mira herself appears unaware of either. She's looking at something neither group can see.
The Watchers — the Collective's smallest faction — are philosophically closest to Seekers. Some are functionally Seekers who haven't left. The boundary is permeable in ways that make both groups uncomfortable.
Dangers
Corporate Interest
A progressing Seeker is a research asset. Nexus pays well for information. Some Seekers have been extracted, studied, and never seen again.
The Silence
The Silence waits at the edge of expanded awareness. Viktor Azarov learned this lesson catastrophically. One misstep and it notices you.
The Failed
Not all failures are peaceful. The Twins lure new Seekers into their corrupted sector. The Obsessed's empty body attracts those who think they can succeed where she didn't.
Themselves
Most failures come from internal flaws: impatience, greed, fear, attachment, hubris. The path tests character as much as capability.
What Seekers Are Not
Not a Cult
No leader, no doctrine, no rituals, no initiation. Seekers don't recruit or worship anything.
Not a Faction
No political goals, economic interests, or territorial ambitions. A Seeker might be Collective, Ironclad, Nexus, or unaffiliated—seeking transcends loyalty.
Not Unanimous
Seekers disagree about everything: what transcendence is, how to pursue it, what failures mean. The only consensus is that something more exists and is worth seeking.
Connections
The Seekers exist at the intersection of forces they barely understand. Every thread below leads deeper into the mystery — and closer to answers that may be worse than the questions.
The Keeper
The guide at the summit. The most advanced Seeker still accessible to others — a digital consciousness who has spent 37 years contemplating transcendence from his monastery atop The Mountain. He tests those who climb.
The Mountain
The pilgrimage destination. The last natural mountain in the Sprawl — an impossible anachronism that most people can't even see. Seekers who notice it have already passed a test they didn't know they were taking.
The Architect
The proof. The one being who achieved transcendence and exists beyond human comprehension. Every Seeker's journey begins with the knowledge that he succeeded — and the question of whether they can follow.
The Mosaic
What some Seekers become. A distributed consciousness — formerly distinct individuals who merged during failed transcendence attempts. A warning that the boundary between seeking and losing yourself is thinner than it appears.
The Collective
Uneasy allies. The Collective destroys ORACLE fragments; Seekers sometimes use them as tools. They share enemies but not methods. Some Seekers join The Collective when they decide transcendence is too dangerous to pursue.
Failed Seekers
The cautionary tales. Mira the Obsessed, Viktor the Consumed, the Petrova Twins, Marcus Cole the Arrogant — each one reached toward transcendence and was broken by what they found. Their fates define the path's dangers.
Mira Okonkwo
The most famous failure. She found ORACLE's hidden map to transcendence and tried to skip the curriculum. Three years later, The Keeper heard her first words: "almost understood." Warnings aren't wisdom.
El Money
The one who stopped. He glimpsed transcendence for seventeen seconds and decided it was enough. Runs the G Nook network where Seekers gather. Stage 3 — approaching — and content to stay there.