Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Main Cast
Sins of Forgiveness predominantly follows the personal journey of the Local Group led by Approaching Sky, and features the Iterators Far Whisper, Five Lives Unbound, and Shifting Gales. The latter being the unfortunate protagonist of the main story, 'Corroded Destiny'.
The story also contains two very familiar guest characters, who joined the main cast along the way: Seven Red Suns and No Significant Harassment.
Shifting Gales - Generation 3 (0.5) - Main field of research: Empathy, Trauma therapy, Raising Purposed
Shifting Gales is a weird kind of Iterator. First and for all, her puppet's home isn't a rectangular box like it is the case with most other Iterators. She might possess one such Core in her Superstructure, but her puppet can travel physically through her massive body and even up to the city on top of her Can. Led by railway tracks, she is the most mobile puppet of all, restricted only by the network of rails and limiting factors, which allowed her late Benefactors to invite her into their private houses.
But this is where her uniqueness comes to an end. Shifting Gales is small and insignificant. She might be the youngest Iterator of the Local Group, but her specs are weaker than those of the very first Iterators. She suffers from a subpar arsenal of processing power, Assembly Bays, Laboratories and Communication Arrays. Not to mention the threatening acid in the groundwater, which is feeding her coolant. The filters can only keep the acid at bay for so and so long, now that all Benefactors have left the planet in the event of Public Ascension.
Shifting Gales is living on a timer, but denies and hides away that fact, not to appear as even more frail and insignificant to her research partners and friends. A conscious choice, which led her down a path which will be explored in detail in the novel Corroded Destiny
(There are more images from Shifting Gales, which can be found in Chapter 3 (Guardians of Forgiveness) and Chapter (placeholder) (Story Spoilers). I need to draw her more in less specific situations.)
(Commission, drawn by the talented Drymm)
Approaching Sky - Generation 1-3 - Main field of research: Foundation work, Support, Purposed Organisms
Approaching Sky was one of the first Iterators, who had been constructed by the House of Strings, more precisely by one of the founding members, Countless Ripples, One Boulder. Sky was the personal project of that specific Benefactor; He was procured to stay relevant from the beginning of the Age of the Random Gods all the way to the unravelling of the Great Problem. To make that possible, Sky had been designed to evolve and adapt through specific means, to temporarily override the Taboos and rewrite his very genomes to adapt to every project he had been tasked to take part in.
To assure that this unusual Iterator doesn't misuse such tremendous powers, Approaching Sky has been purposed with a full-on lack of empathy, drive and desire to become more than what he was needed to be at the time of his adaptation periods. Much to the dismay of his fellow Iterators, Sky has his emotions suppressed to a non-existent degree, which makes him the purely logical and rarely emotional member of the Local Group.
A more detailed dive into his past as a Supporterator, the projects he has worked on, and his very complicated relationship to No Significant Harassment can be read in the Side Story Harassment Approaches.
Five Lives Unbound - Generation 1.5 - Main field of research: Coordination, Cooperation, Robotics, Archaeology
Five Lives Unbound. The connective tissue of the main cast. The solution to the lack of cooperative work between the first Iterators. Lives was part of a group of Iterators, the House of Letters dubbed Coordinators. Iterators, built in remote locations, with the primary function to fill in the holes in the growing net of connectivity, uniting multiple Local Groups under a shared network of powerful connectivity, making in-person broadcast meetings a possibility.
The Iterators, Lives initially connected through her now existence, later became known as Group Seniors of their respective Local Groups: Approaching Sky, Looks to the Moon, Destined Vice, Obsidian Tower and Bloodless Promise.
Lives believed that the solution to their problems lay in the far past. Her main concern was to create purpose-built helpers of mechanical nature to dig out the answers, buried by the wheel of time. A nice side effect of her dabbling in robotics came to light after the departure of the Benefactors. She started to repurpose her drones to become valuable tools in aiding fellow Iterators, creating single-use repair tools, which potentially could aid her peers in times of peril.
(Commission, drawn by the talented Drymm)
Far Whisper - Generation 3 - Main field of research: Void Chemistry
Far Whisper was the one crack the House of Chemistry had to leave a mark and push their research back into the broader attention. The House Leader, Two Eyes of the Infinite Cosmos, sacrificed much to make Far Whisper a possibility.
(I will leave it at that; the Side Story First Whisper covers Whisper's first activation in detail.)
Whisper was an eccentric and emotional Iterator with a dire want to prove that the work field she had been bestowed upon by Eyes, of Void Chemistry, still held endless potential and was the key to solving many issues and dead ends in various fields of research. Her success in that regard fueled the Iterator's ego and substantiated her place in the big picture of figuring out the Great Problem.
Far Whisper was best friends with Shifting Gales and one of Gales' only recurring research partners, where they combined their interest in Empathy and Biochemistry to figure out the field of Neurobiology, their shared pet project.
Seven Red Suns - Generation 2 - Main fields of research: Karmic research; Main deity of the Guardians of Forgiveness
A god among gods. Seven Red Suns had been procured by the religious House of Forgiveness to lead their religion, to be their perfect deity. Suns was an imposing god, even among the row of mechanical gods that were the Iterators. They preached to and led the Benefactors to a path of righteousness, imposed by Facets of Fate, Scattered Fable, High Priestess and Administrator of Suns.
Suns was made responsible to be the guide for five Iterators, each representing one of the five negated Karmic Sins, the virtues the mortals should strive for in their search for Ascension.
(The Guardians of Forgiveness will be featured in detail in Chapter 3)
After the events in the Spearmaster campaign of Rain World, Suns found themselves in a dark place of regret and hopelessness, complentating the fates of Moon and Pebbles. When they, however, were made aware of the grim fate of Shifting Gales, yet another Iterator they indirectly doomed through their decisions, Suns decided to amend for their sins and aided the Local Group with all they had. A final chance to prevent further damage from their foolish decisions.
No Significant Harassment- Generation 1 - Main field of research: Purposed Organisms, Miros-class Organisms
After Suns' retreat from the world, No Significant Harassment was left alone to deal with the aftermath of Look to the Moon's collapse.
His Local Group was left in shambles. Moon was unaccounted for - Five Pebbles rotted and unresponsive - And Grey Wind was no real help either.
But Hara was no stranger to ego trips and toiled alone on a solution to the mess. Inspired by the undeniable success of using a Slugcat to deliver physical messages, he began to work on a project to look after his first and best friend, Moonie.
When Suns eventually hailed for his aid in the dilemma around Approaching Sky's Local group, Hara was met with a cocktail of decisions to make.
His best friend didn't grow silent for real, they were actively trying to make a change, helping the Iterator, who made their Slugcat projects a reality.
But why that Local Group in particular?
He was, after all, in a cold war with his former business partner, Approaching Sky.
