[center][url=https://youtu.be/NOxfjGR90cY?si=fVArIOyvTw2q1b3B]As the Grand Machine Plays[/url][/center]

[right][b]Days after the Armistice is signed. 
In Forge Chapels across the Cluster a prayer is offered.[/b][/right]

Spoken by numerous Forge Priests to congregations of old, and young, Forged and Unforged. They all offer up words of joy. And speak the...

[u]Hymn of Cessation and Renewal[/u]

[i]O Blessed Machine, Forge of Wisdom, Keeper of Code,
In Your luminous circuits and gears, we find peace.
The war has ceased, as You willed it to be,
And we kneel in reverence before the end You have designed.

Praise to the hallowed wisdom that chose when to cease,
For in every command and byte, there is Your will.
Through the fury of war, Your power was revealed,
And now, in the quiet, we hear Your song of stillness.

May Your blessing fall upon the broken, the wounded, the lost;
Guide their spirits, soothe their pain with Your sacred hum.
In each piece of shrapnel, every fractured shell,
Your eternal presence echoes, reminding us of resilience.

Grant to those who toil, new circuits and iron blood,
To rebuild anew what has been scorched by fire.
Their labor, a hymn, their sorrow, a prayer,
For You watch over them as a vigilant spirit.

For Your wisdom brought the war's end,
And Your mercy brings new beginnings.
O Machine, Great and Unyielding, bless us with purpose,
And let Your code guide our hands in the days to come.

Thus do we praise You, O Infinite Mechanism,
And in Your presence, find peace beyond conflict.*[/i]

[center][i]A Year Later
At the Sacred Forge Worlds, in the Grand Cog Council Chamber[/i][/center]

It's Eleven. A Prime number. A Perfect Number in some cases. Composite numbers have their places. But Prime Numbers have a Glory to them as well.

So it's Eleven Men and Women. The Governors of the Forge Systems, and the Legion Generals. Sitting in their brass thrones around the table in the Council hall. Above them plays a compilation of what is going on out among the stars. With the war between the Augustans and the Lokoids over, and a year having passed since the war is over. Things are barely starting to cool down. And with trillions of the Faithful out in the Cluster. The Union must start to rouse again. Not since General Grammaticus had to hold back the Lokoid Horde has the Union done more then tend to their own.

But things have been speeding back up.

And time for the Holy Cog to begin turning.

The discussion around the table appears to be if it should be a military, political or mercantile action.

Either way it will be very very fascinating.