HOME | DD

Description
The Parable of the Builder and the Breaker

Let me tell you a story

Once upon a time, a Builder and a Breaker lived on an infinite world of black, featureless fields.

Actually, it was once before a time, because time had not yet begun.

They existed because existence said they had to. Were you to follow the path of the arrow of time to trace the bow from which it was fired, the quiver from which it was drawn, you would find yourself stranded in these fields.

The Builder saw no way of fulfilling his purpose if he could not see what he made, so he created torches, at least seventy-billion-trillion to illuminate the many patches of just one field. These torches would burn bright for a while, then their flame would die out in a whimper or a bang. It depended on how much material there was for the flame to combust.

At the start of the week, the Builder laid foundations for what would become, hammering at the nails which would anchor his creations to the soil. He insisted that these structures would come in handy for the critters he described, that they would help them find their own path to permanence. As the week dragged on, the Builder would lay bricks, binding them together with a concrete he called Magic. By the week’s end the Builder’s work would be complete, and he would rest on the seventh day.

However, also on the seventh day, the Breaker would demolish the Builder’s work, as per the allowances of his cosmic planning permission. He would use a wrecking ball the size of a gas giant and a drill named singularity which consumed rather than burrowed.

The week was longer than all of time, individual days were each the span of several eternities, and a month would be impossible for mortal beings such as yourselves to comprehend. During the week, cement, gravel and water mixed to create the concrete. Rats and mice wriggled between the imperfections, feeding on what was and what might have been, slowly degrading the integrity of the house- the first principle of existence, the first dynamic in life. But when the rain came, no matter how torrential, the buildings stood stout and tall, because the Builder had foundations, and as long as they were there, even when the Breaker’s demolition operation began, there would always be something left to rebuild from.

The Builder insisted that his makings were part of the beautiful balance in his life- his vocation was to create, from every block laid, every mortar applied, every nail hammered, and so on, created a fundamental part of the great ecosystem of his routine. Balanced with enough rest and delight in even the tiniest pleasures, it could never be boring, everyday could be different, and yet, he could do the same things. What was boring was the Breaker’s attitude. Every new house constructed was an eyesore to him- it contradicted his very purpose in life, not merely his vocation, and only created more work for him. Often, he destroyed the creations before he even had to just so he would not have to look upon them. The Builder did not like this, and wondered why there had to be this friction between them. The Breaker said that it had to be this way- the nature of their functions and their tools were antithetical, it only made sense that their attitudes to one another were too. The Builder tried to change the Breaker’s outlook by giving him his own plots of land upon which he had built for him homes as gifts, but the Breaker denied them and destroyed every last one even still.

The Question that Changed The World

The Builder wiped a thick bead of sweat from his brow, which existed purely because this is an allegory, and asked the Breaker- “Is there nothing I can do to be on better terms with you brother?” The title ‘brother’ he assigned the Breaker also a mark of this story’s allegorical nature.

“We exist to perpetuate this struggle, brother. The very concepts of Order and Chaos rely on waging an unending war against each other. Is it not part of this cosmic logic you find so fascinating, despite how hollow and meaningless it is?” The Breaker responded, tearing a brick out of one of the houses, unravelling the very pattern of the universe there in the process.

“It’s as fascinating as watching paint dry.” The Builder groaned. Although paint likely did not yet exist, at least as contemporary creatures would recognise it, and neither did the phrase The Builder quoted, it is afforded by the fact that, once again, this is an allegory.

The Builder then battered a new brick with a fresh coat of concrete from his trowel. “Allow me to take you on a tour.” He proposed.

“A what?” The Breaker questioned.

“I wish to show you around my great city. This glorious ecosystem I have created for you, for us. You have never given yourself so much as a chance to truly appreciate beauty. Maybe if you take this chance, you’ll start to see things differently.” Elaborated the Builder, now leaning on the mixer he used to keep his cement in that strange limbo between solid and fluid.

“Your city is horrendous.” The Breaker dismissed. More words were said, or at least, more ideas were communicated between two cosmic entities that adopted causal terms in order to ground their paracausality, but that may well have been the end of the conversation. However, some days later, as if finally giving up on his own stringent principles and allowing this to be his excuse, The Breaker asked the Builder if he could take some time out of his busy schedule to give him that tour.

The City

“Oh, yippee!” The Builder’s expression livened with great joy and happiness, almost knocking over his bucket of water.

“Yes, yes, don’t make me regret this.” The Breaker dismissively tried to calm him down.

“Right, yes. Sorry. We can go now if you wish?” The Builder collected himself, straightening up his high-visibility jacket and cleaning himself up.

“You should make yourself more presentable first.” The Breaker said, demonstrating how he was much better dressed- he wasn’t even wearing the same dark, moody colours he always wore. Instead, they were now brighter- he wore a nicely patterned suit the Builder tailored for him eons ago- it was beautiful, and more importantly, a symbol of the bond between them that The Breaker was finally allowing himself to appreciate.

With that, the Builder retreated to redress himself, reappearing with a nicely pressed and clean, although flannel shirt. It’s colours were more vibrant than the Breaker’s, as usual, but at least now the contrast was much less obvious. It could probably go anywhere from work to exploring the many buildings of the great city, and so naturally, it fit his all-purpose style.

For a whole day, the two just explored the city. The Builder got to show off the many great sights- from the tarmac roads he called dark matter, to the street lights he called stars, and the housing estates he called galaxies. The Breaker looked at them all in awe: “This simple, yet astounding beauty existed this whole time, and I was trying to bring it all down?” He thought to himself.

And then the Breaker started to feel something he had never felt before- joy. Destruction was a hapless, soul-reaping job for someone who took no pleasure in his purpose. In the wake of his chaotic demolition operations, he found nothing left behind and called it peaceful, beautiful, even.

No. This was beauty. This was tranquillity, and all he had to do to see it was change his perspective. He now realised his purpose wasn’t to simply destroy everything the Builder made, but it was for him to contribute to their collective work that was existence through balancing creation with unmaking- to make room for the new and to shepherd the old to a higher point in reality.

They made their way up to the top of the tallest skyscraper in the city, and sat on the edge together, looking to the sun and admiring its fabulous setting.

“I have been a fool.” The Breaker let escape from his breathtaken voice. “I understand it now brother. Why you do all this. It isn’t my antithesis, it is something I must appreciate- its impermanence is part of the perfection of its existence, just as much as its conceptualisation.”

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.” The Builder replied. Of course, The Breaker did have an idea. About 7.23 billion years, give or take a couple billion.

For the next moments, the Builder and the Breaker just sat there, drinking in the sight and the simple pleasure of the moment. To see that almost every building beneath them looked so small, yet housed so many and served such grand purposes. It was....humbling, for the Breaker, and that was truly saying something.

Please Do Not Feed the Ducks

In the distance however, just below one of the city’s many bridges between bodies of water, The Breaker eyed something. Something that didn’t seem right.

“What is that?” Asked the Breaker, drawing the Builder’s concern.

“What do you see?”

The Breaker did not speak, but merely pointed in the direction he was looking in, and then set about getting there. The Breaker rushed towards the scene that he was watching unfold, and he saw for the first time in anyone but himself and his brother-conflict. He saw two citizens of the city starting to bicker with one another, The Breaker listened to them, learning that it was over a simple matter. Some territorial nonsense over whose ancestors settled where first.

Meanwhile, the Builder followed on, and The Breaker travelled down the streets, and saw sickness, saw ill health, saw poverty, pain, fighting, heartbreak, loss, lying, cheating, thieving, bullying, murder and corruption. The Breaker looked at these things and was disgusted by them, and asked "What manner of horror is all this?"

And before The Builder could explain fully, he moved on, and saw more and more of the problems he just witnessed. The Builder could not catch up with The Breaker, for he was practically sprinting through the pavements. The Builder huffed and wheezed as he desperately looked for his brother among the towers and districts of the city.

Eventually, he gave up, seating himself on a park bench positioned just at the centre of t he city- the one place in what was a grand field that The Builder had left relatively untouched, save for the walkpaths, the fountains and the benches like the ones he sat upon. Hours passed and the Builder resorted to feeding the ducks bread- some were happy to share the bread between one another, others fought savagely and bitterly, dragging the more peaceful ones in with them, almost to the point of death- over crumbs left behind. The Builder did not like this reaction, and found himself puzzled: why did these ducks fight so bitterly over the leftovers? They were crumbs and each had gotten their fair chunk of the loaf already, what made them react so savagely the moment they both had the idea to pick at what little was left?

“You now face the basic problem with your citizens.” A familiar voice called out to the Builder, though marked with a somber tone somewhat empowered by an unshakable inner rage. He looked over his shoulder, and saw The Breaker. “I figured you’d be here.”

“Thank goodness, where have you been?” The Builder replied, standing and throwing his arms round his brother.

“Around.” The Breaker said in a looming tone.

“Well, okay then, I’m sorry if that whole street thing disappointed you. Even everything I create can’t be perfect. Anyway, can you help me shoo these ducks away from each other? They’re fighting over the crumbs and I think they’ve had enough for now.” The Builder said, not expecting the response he would get.

“And what? That’ll stop them?” The Breaker asked rhetorically. “These ducks, I have seen them all over this city- doing the same things. They eat, they fill themselves, they get greedy, they realise they’re not the only ones who want more, so they fight, they hurt, they steal, they beat, they kill, and after all that, they defile one another’s graves.”

“What do you mean?” The Builder’s own tone became worrisome.

“I mean you lied to me. You told me this city was full of nothing but beauty, that all your cities were filled with it- majesty, a place of eternal pleasure and joy for all. Now I realise that was a falsehood.” The Breaker grumbled.

“That...was not the point, what I make is not eternal beauty, it is the harmony of beauty and ugliness, chaos and order...you and I, if you are so inclined. These ducks, the citizens have all the tools to make the perfection you seek, why do you think I gave them all this to begin with?” Said the Builder, attempting to calm the Breaker’s rage, which was evidently failing due to the redness building in the pores of the Breaker’s skin.

“But why not make it so yourself? You fool! Look at what you’re making them all go through? And for why?”

“Because I gave them freedom. The freedom to choose what they are in their city. I gave them a choice, how can it be up to me to decide what they do for them? To dictate how they live their lives?” The Builder argued.

“Because it is clear that they make the wrong choices! You looked me in the eye, and called this city wonderful. Fantastical. A spectacle to behold. But underneath all your luminous lights and grand skyscrapers are horrors that torture the people you have subjected to residence in this city." The Breaker fired back.

“You must understand, despite the horrors, this is what gives life meaning. What purpose would we serve, what purpose would anyone serve if they did not have challenges like this to overcome? I know it is a painful reality to accept, but you know better than anyone about such a thing. Please, do not shut down this truth, but help people learn to accept it, and find the beauty in the balance.” The Builder delegated, but The Breaker denied him once again.

"No! Look at this pigsty you have created brother! You have allowed your city to forge monsters. People who exist to feed their vanity, treading upon others in the process. You have made an awful thing. These people, they think themselves above everyone else. At the end of the day, they are nothing, a drop in the rain, a needle in the hay. They will not be remembered. All things will be destroyed, so why do they behave like this? Because you let them." The Breaker argued, and broke the Builder’s heart.

“What will you do, then?” Asked the Builder, tears welling in his eyes.

The First Feud

The Breaker responded by tearing apart the beautiful suit he wore- the very suit that symbolised the bond between the two, the bond between order and chaos, life and death, creation and destruction. They were now no longer intertwined concepts. Unshackled from one another’s limits, and the cities of the nation named the Multiverse would feel that cosmic change in full force.

“Until you accept that you have made a dark, eternal hell, I renounce you, disown you. You are NOT my brother!” The Breaker affirmed.

And thus, the two became separate parts, and the laws the two were bound by, such as the need for planning permission, were repealed. They existed in cosmic anarchy.

The Breaker had for almost his entire existence, felt he had only one purpose and one principle in the fields. He was proven right by this new revelation: He could do nothing but continue to enact that purpose, because it was all that he was and ever would be.

The Builder and The Breaker looked at each other.

They looked at their hands.

They had their first feud.

The Fight

After a long stalemate, The Breaker sprung to action, mercilessly killing the ducks as they fought, skinning and de-feathering them before he tore at the meat on their bones and devoured it whole. When the rest ran and attempted to fly away, The Breaker slung his newly-acquired hunting rifle from his back into his hands, and pulled the trigger, ending the lives of the remainder. He stomped the life out of those those who failed to draw their last breaths, and when some even attempted to attack alongside their more aggressive inhabitants- the geese, the Breaker fought each and every one of them, snapping their necks and bashing their bodies against the ground to unite them with the sweet embrace of the end. All the while, the Builder watched in total disbelief. His lip quivered, his legs shook, and his heart sank. That was, until his shock and horror turned to righteous and stalwart resolve, and he thrust himself against the Breaker, challenging him on his path of chaos.

The Builder and The Breaker wrestled in the park, in the garden of possibility from where anything and everything that expanded out into the city could be birthed. Their boots and shoes trampled the petals of the flowers, the grass on the ground set ablaze when the Breaker let a lit matchstick fall to the floor, and the roots of newly planted seeds were choked out of the nutrients needed to grow new plants. As their brawl expanded into the city streets, they caused massive jams in traffic, cutting up the tarmac of the roads into fine daggers too dangerous to cross. In the pathetic fallacy that was the wet downpour of the rain, they smashed the citizens’ vehicles into wrecks, tossed each other through buildings, and turned neighbourhoods into paracausal battlegrounds. They brought down the skyscrapers with their quakes of cosmic eruption, and left the ground floors tattered with fallen pillars, broken pipelines and buried bodies. Their many exchanged punches and parries and counterattacks were the premature detonations of a great many stars in the multiverse. Each one spawning the material and bounty of resources which would cool and find themselves clumping together in the form of new worlds assembled by gravitational physics.

And still they fought, leaving prints of their bloodied fingers and their clenched fists in the clay that was dark matter. The inertia of their blows and numerous plots against one another were the fluctuations around which infant galaxies coalesced and even dissociated their first solar systems. Drops of their sweat and blood and tired breaths were adopted and inhaled by citizens who used them to kindle their first understandings of cosmic power.

On the few occasions when they separated from one another, falling back into their respective necks of the woods to prepare for counterattacks, they would both consider the possibility of enlisting help. Eventually, the Breaker recognised how valuable an idea this was- his struggle against the Builder would undoubtedly last forever if he did not have some backup. Cities had gangs did they not? Surely he could find one or two mad enough to make a deal with him, even if he hated them. And so he did, he found those who could support his path of devastation, forging Faustian pacts with them, teaching them how to break like he. When the time came, they unveiled themselves as the first Heralds when they strode together with The Breaker into the street with the Builder opposite them. The Builder had realised that he was now no longer locked in a brawl, but a war. Fighting alone against them all was difficult- being beaten like that, coughing up blood which spattered between his teeth which were attached to a broken jaw was by no means fair. It was clear that The Breaker was willing to do anything to win, and these citizens he had somehow managed to bring under his sway would follow him until an inevitable betrayal.

The Builder then decided to enlist the same kind of help. There stood a great tower filled with people who understood the city better than anyone else, from the concrete to the bricks, the cement to the tarmac, to the point where they themselves had contributed very much themselves to construction works all across the city, and had even found the time to explore other cities constructed on other fields, the small towns and villages adjacent to their own city, and back. They agreed to lend their support to the Builder, but the street war with the Breaker would still end in failure. For every tower dweller The Builder lost, The Breaker gained a hollow, reanimated husk with which he could use against his brother, one totally driven by one impulse- to break.

And break they did. The roads were torn up even more, the tower suffering and enduring a constant siege from the Breaker and his mob. Their clawing, biting and smashing made for a mere matter of time before the tower’s integrity collapsed, and the girder frame skeleton was at a critical point.

Outsourcing Options

But there was one option neither The Builder or The Breaker had tried yet. Their help came from the citizens, those who had already lived and become accustomed to the city and their roles in its grand balance. In truth, none of them were suited to the paracausal scale of this battle. The Builder then found a new tactic- he rushed to an empty space in the tower, constructing a laboratory from where he took samples of himself- his skin, his hair, his saliva, it did not matter. They all helped to grow and synthesise a new kind of ally, one directly tied to the Builder’s genome, one that could not only provide the support he needed, but understand how to provide that support, how to build like he. There were Thirteen. They were The Builder’s subcontractors. They were the first of a new ethnicity in the city which was directly tied to him, made by him without the shackles of the long process of growing from infancy to maturity. They were mature upon birth. One might have said they were superior, that they were above all others because it was the city’s great founder, The Builder, who spawned them. But The Builder did not want them to think of it that way. This was supremacism, a horrible and nasty ideology which was undoubtedly one of many that set the Breaker on his path of destruction. To prevent such a thing seeping into the skulls of his newborn, he had them live among the tower’s residents, living as though they were them. Each and their own rooms, their own routines, common rules to follow and values to uphold, no different to the tower’s other dwellers. They lived in as much fear of the Breaker’s cosmic demolition crew as anyone, but they knew the time would come to set those fears to rest.

When it did come, the rain stopped, puddles in the cracked and cratered roads ceased to fill. Smoke from fires burning across the city finally stopped rising, and The Breaker’s crew stopped. Waited. Something had changed, a balance that had toppled over a previous balance had just been threatened, and soon, it too would be toppled over.

The Birth of the Synchron

Bursting out from the barricaded entrance to the tower was a combined group- the Builder, his cosmic entourage of Subcontractors, and the tower’s many residents and refugees all charged on the Breaker and his own. There could be no mistake in this grand show of unity: the First Synchron had just taken place.

The battle which poured out in the rest of the streets was unlike any other. Skyscrapers on opposing sides of the cities sniped and tossed stones at one another, sewage lines conveyed lit boxes of gunpowder to their recipients on the surface, and the Builder, the Subcontractors, and the people of the tower were immortalised in the fables other citizens would evangelise to their children eons later, in ways not so different to this Parable you are reading right now.

The Breaker’s path of demolition came to an end- his Heralds and his labourers defeated and his own body battered and bruised. After all the thrashing, the disordered violence, The Builder had won, and the Breaker was banished.

But by then, it didn't matter. The concept of harmony between order and chaos was over. The damage had been done. This city, no city, would ever be the same again.

Seven is God, Six is the Devil

The Builder too was weak from the long struggle. His bones ached, his muscles strained every time he moved, and his drive to build was no longer present. He had no energy for it. So he retired, and left the task of building to his Thirteen subcontractors and the people of the city. So he could always be drawn on as a source of advice, The Builder wrote a journal which he gave to the people along with his toolkit- the finest instruments of construction the world had ever seen. The people of the tower took care of the journal and the toolkit, whilst the subcontractors would become role models to the newborn children of their unique ethnicity. These children would grow from infancy like anyone else, but would one day reach adulthood much like the Thirteen.

The last possession The Builder left the city with were a set of blueprints. Upon reading over these blueprints, one of the subcontractors, the leader of which, asked The Builder: “What is it?” He said. Confused by the odd shape and unsure of its purpose.

“I call it Halo.” The Builder replied. He pointed to the seven ring-shaped antennae on the blueprints. “If The Breaker ever comes back, I want one of these placed at every corner of the city.”

“Why?” Asked the subcontractor.

“Because even the Breaker has weaknesses, and I have studied his unique allergies. These antennae will be able to release pathogens so poisonous they will kill him immediately.” Said the Builder.

“Wouldn’t it kill us all too?”

“No, if followed to my instruction, and if this specific battery is used, the Breaker’s biology alone will react to these pathogens negatively, that and anything of his blood.” Assured the Builder, presenting a tetradecahedron-shaped battery to him which would be used to power the antennae.

“Let us hope he never has an innocent child who moves to the city, and let us hope if he does, he never comes to reclaim them.” The Builder explained. “But, I do not want this to be the first resort. Please, if the people of the city come under threat from the Breaker again, only use Halo as a final port of call- if there is no other way to stop him. I still believe there is good in my brother, and frankly, as evidenced by our names, we can’t truly live without one another.”

“I understand...father.” The subcontractor said. It then occurred to the Builder that the subcontractors were, for all intents and purposes, his children, and this one in particular his Firstborn.

“Thank you, son.” The Builder replied, a smile illuminating his wrinkled, bearded face. He turned on his heel, and strode out of the park. His Firstborn accompanied him to the far edges of the city, and they shared an embrace before the Builder would take his leave and embark on his Great Journey. After parting ways, the Builder turned to leave, but forgot one last important thing- he turned around and called to the Firstborn, and upon reconvening, he took off his hard hat which he had worn for so long that it may as well have been an extension of the Builder’s very own mind, and placed the hat on the Firstborn’s head. “Now the real work begins.” He said. “You’re the builders now- all of you. Remember that.” Another smile appeared over his chapped lips, and he turned to leave once again.

The Pax Maethrillia

The Firstborn took a liking to how the hat fit, it felt like it could fit anyone’s head. “The city has no name.” He thought aloud. Realising he said that and the Builder heard him, he decided to ask him one final question. “What should we name it?”

“Look at the company name printed on the front.” The Builder said as he packed his final sack upon his horse and mounted it.

The Firstborn took off the hard hat, staring at it for a moment until he found the word printed on it. “Maethrillian?” He asked, and the Builder merely smiled and waved before giddying up his horse and riding it away into the sunset.

The cosmos would never be the same.

(What's all this? You wonder? What in the universe have I just read? You also might be thinking. Well, think of this as an allegorical quasi-religious story explaining the earliest origins of my Halo Fanverse. As you may be able to piece together, the story above is laden with metaphor and open to interpretation, but I felt that this was an interesting project to work on as part of my new initiative which I've been working at since December to trot out a full timeline of my Halo Fanverse's lore and origins. Think whatever you like about the actual meaning behind The Parable of The Builder and The Breaker, think whatever you like about who's narrating this story, but I have a feeling that sooner or later, you'll get some clarification on all the details behind who and what The Builder and The Breaker are, what the 'city' is and who the 'subcontractors' may be. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this!)

Description
The Parable of the Builder and the Breaker

Let me tell you a story

Once upon a time, a Builder and a Breaker lived on an infinite world of black, featureless fields.

Actually, it was once before a time, because time had not yet begun.

They existed because existence said they had to. Were you to follow the path of the arrow of time to trace the bow from which it was fired, the quiver from which it was drawn, you would find yourself stranded in these fields.

The Builder saw no way of fulfilling his purpose if he could not see what he made, so he created torches, at least seventy-billion-trillion to illuminate the many patches of just one field. These torches would burn bright for a while, then their flame would die out in a whimper or a bang. It depended on how much material there was for the flame to combust.

At the start of the week, the Builder laid foundations for what would become, hammering at the nails which would anchor his creations to the soil. He insisted that these structures would come in handy for the critters he described, that they would help them find their own path to permanence. As the week dragged on, the Builder would lay bricks, binding them together with a concrete he called Magic. By the week’s end the Builder’s work would be complete, and he would rest on the seventh day.

However, also on the seventh day, the Breaker would demolish the Builder’s work, as per the allowances of his cosmic planning permission. He would use a wrecking ball the size of a gas giant and a drill named singularity which consumed rather than burrowed.

The week was longer than all of time, individual days were each the span of several eternities, and a month would be impossible for mortal beings such as yourselves to comprehend. During the week, cement, gravel and water mixed to create the concrete. Rats and mice wriggled between the imperfections, feeding on what was and what might have been, slowly degrading the integrity of the house- the first principle of existence, the first dynamic in life. But when the rain came, no matter how torrential, the buildings stood stout and tall, because the Builder had foundations, and as long as they were there, even when the Breaker’s demolition operation began, there would always be something left to rebuild from.

The Builder insisted that his makings were part of the beautiful balance in his life- his vocation was to create, from every block laid, every mortar applied, every nail hammered, and so on, created a fundamental part of the great ecosystem of his routine. Balanced with enough rest and delight in even the tiniest pleasures, it could never be boring, everyday could be different, and yet, he could do the same things. What was boring was the Breaker’s attitude. Every new house constructed was an eyesore to him- it contradicted his very purpose in life, not merely his vocation, and only created more work for him. Often, he destroyed the creations before he even had to just so he would not have to look upon them. The Builder did not like this, and wondered why there had to be this friction between them. The Breaker said that it had to be this way- the nature of their functions and their tools were antithetical, it only made sense that their attitudes to one another were too. The Builder tried to change the Breaker’s outlook by giving him his own plots of land upon which he had built for him homes as gifts, but the Breaker denied them and destroyed every last one even still.

The Question that Changed The World

The Builder wiped a thick bead of sweat from his brow, which existed purely because this is an allegory, and asked the Breaker- “Is there nothing I can do to be on better terms with you brother?” The title ‘brother’ he assigned the Breaker also a mark of this story’s allegorical nature.

“We exist to perpetuate this struggle, brother. The very concepts of Order and Chaos rely on waging an unending war against each other. Is it not part of this cosmic logic you find so fascinating, despite how hollow and meaningless it is?” The Breaker responded, tearing a brick out of one of the houses, unravelling the very pattern of the universe there in the process.

“It’s as fascinating as watching paint dry.” The Builder groaned. Although paint likely did not yet exist, at least as contemporary creatures would recognise it, and neither did the phrase The Builder quoted, it is afforded by the fact that, once again, this is an allegory.

The Builder then battered a new brick with a fresh coat of concrete from his trowel. “Allow me to take you on a tour.” He proposed.

“A what?” The Breaker questioned.

“I wish to show you around my great city. This glorious ecosystem I have created for you, for us. You have never given yourself so much as a chance to truly appreciate beauty. Maybe if you take this chance, you’ll start to see things differently.” Elaborated the Builder, now leaning on the mixer he used to keep his cement in that strange limbo between solid and fluid.

“Your city is horrendous.” The Breaker dismissed. More words were said, or at least, more ideas were communicated between two cosmic entities that adopted causal terms in order to ground their paracausality, but that may well have been the end of the conversation. However, some days later, as if finally giving up on his own stringent principles and allowing this to be his excuse, The Breaker asked the Builder if he could take some time out of his busy schedule to give him that tour.

The City

“Oh, yippee!” The Builder’s expression livened with great joy and happiness, almost knocking over his bucket of water.

“Yes, yes, don’t make me regret this.” The Breaker dismissively tried to calm him down.

“Right, yes. Sorry. We can go now if you wish?” The Builder collected himself, straightening up his high-visibility jacket and cleaning himself up.

“You should make yourself more presentable first.” The Breaker said, demonstrating how he was much better dressed- he wasn’t even wearing the same dark, moody colours he always wore. Instead, they were now brighter- he wore a nicely patterned suit the Builder tailored for him eons ago- it was beautiful, and more importantly, a symbol of the bond between them that The Breaker was finally allowing himself to appreciate.

With that, the Builder retreated to redress himself, reappearing with a nicely pressed and clean, although flannel shirt. It’s colours were more vibrant than the Breaker’s, as usual, but at least now the contrast was much less obvious. It could probably go anywhere from work to exploring the many buildings of the great city, and so naturally, it fit his all-purpose style.

For a whole day, the two just explored the city. The Builder got to show off the many great sights- from the tarmac roads he called dark matter, to the street lights he called stars, and the housing estates he called galaxies. The Breaker looked at them all in awe: “This simple, yet astounding beauty existed this whole time, and I was trying to bring it all down?” He thought to himself.

And then the Breaker started to feel something he had never felt before- joy. Destruction was a hapless, soul-reaping job for someone who took no pleasure in his purpose. In the wake of his chaotic demolition operations, he found nothing left behind and called it peaceful, beautiful, even.

No. This was beauty. This was tranquillity, and all he had to do to see it was change his perspective. He now realised his purpose wasn’t to simply destroy everything the Builder made, but it was for him to contribute to their collective work that was existence through balancing creation with unmaking- to make room for the new and to shepherd the old to a higher point in reality.

They made their way up to the top of the tallest skyscraper in the city, and sat on the edge together, looking to the sun and admiring its fabulous setting.

“I have been a fool.” The Breaker let escape from his breathtaken voice. “I understand it now brother. Why you do all this. It isn’t my antithesis, it is something I must appreciate- its impermanence is part of the perfection of its existence, just as much as its conceptualisation.”

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.” The Builder replied. Of course, The Breaker did have an idea. About 7.23 billion years, give or take a couple billion.

For the next moments, the Builder and the Breaker just sat there, drinking in the sight and the simple pleasure of the moment. To see that almost every building beneath them looked so small, yet housed so many and served such grand purposes. It was....humbling, for the Breaker, and that was truly saying something.

Please Do Not Feed the Ducks

In the distance however, just below one of the city’s many bridges between bodies of water, The Breaker eyed something. Something that didn’t seem right.

“What is that?” Asked the Breaker, drawing the Builder’s concern.

“What do you see?”

The Breaker did not speak, but merely pointed in the direction he was looking in, and then set about getting there. The Breaker rushed towards the scene that he was watching unfold, and he saw for the first time in anyone but himself and his brother-conflict. He saw two citizens of the city starting to bicker with one another, The Breaker listened to them, learning that it was over a simple matter. Some territorial nonsense over whose ancestors settled where first.

Meanwhile, the Builder followed on, and The Breaker travelled down the streets, and saw sickness, saw ill health, saw poverty, pain, fighting, heartbreak, loss, lying, cheating, thieving, bullying, murder and corruption. The Breaker looked at these things and was disgusted by them, and asked "What manner of horror is all this?"

And before The Builder could explain fully, he moved on, and saw more and more of the problems he just witnessed. The Builder could not catch up with The Breaker, for he was practically sprinting through the pavements. The Builder huffed and wheezed as he desperately looked for his brother among the towers and districts of the city.

Eventually, he gave up, seating himself on a park bench positioned just at the centre of t he city- the one place in what was a grand field that The Builder had left relatively untouched, save for the walkpaths, the fountains and the benches like the ones he sat upon. Hours passed and the Builder resorted to feeding the ducks bread- some were happy to share the bread between one another, others fought savagely and bitterly, dragging the more peaceful ones in with them, almost to the point of death- over crumbs left behind. The Builder did not like this reaction, and found himself puzzled: why did these ducks fight so bitterly over the leftovers? They were crumbs and each had gotten their fair chunk of the loaf already, what made them react so savagely the moment they both had the idea to pick at what little was left?

“You now face the basic problem with your citizens.” A familiar voice called out to the Builder, though marked with a somber tone somewhat empowered by an unshakable inner rage. He looked over his shoulder, and saw The Breaker. “I figured you’d be here.”

“Thank goodness, where have you been?” The Builder replied, standing and throwing his arms round his brother.

“Around.” The Breaker said in a looming tone.

“Well, okay then, I’m sorry if that whole street thing disappointed you. Even everything I create can’t be perfect. Anyway, can you help me shoo these ducks away from each other? They’re fighting over the crumbs and I think they’ve had enough for now.” The Builder said, not expecting the response he would get.

“And what? That’ll stop them?” The Breaker asked rhetorically. “These ducks, I have seen them all over this city- doing the same things. They eat, they fill themselves, they get greedy, they realise they’re not the only ones who want more, so they fight, they hurt, they steal, they beat, they kill, and after all that, they defile one another’s graves.”

“What do you mean?” The Builder’s own tone became worrisome.

“I mean you lied to me. You told me this city was full of nothing but beauty, that all your cities were filled with it- majesty, a place of eternal pleasure and joy for all. Now I realise that was a falsehood.” The Breaker grumbled.

“That...was not the point, what I make is not eternal beauty, it is the harmony of beauty and ugliness, chaos and order...you and I, if you are so inclined. These ducks, the citizens have all the tools to make the perfection you seek, why do you think I gave them all this to begin with?” Said the Builder, attempting to calm the Breaker’s rage, which was evidently failing due to the redness building in the pores of the Breaker’s skin.

“But why not make it so yourself? You fool! Look at what you’re making them all go through? And for why?”

“Because I gave them freedom. The freedom to choose what they are in their city. I gave them a choice, how can it be up to me to decide what they do for them? To dictate how they live their lives?” The Builder argued.

“Because it is clear that they make the wrong choices! You looked me in the eye, and called this city wonderful. Fantastical. A spectacle to behold. But underneath all your luminous lights and grand skyscrapers are horrors that torture the people you have subjected to residence in this city." The Breaker fired back.

“You must understand, despite the horrors, this is what gives life meaning. What purpose would we serve, what purpose would anyone serve if they did not have challenges like this to overcome? I know it is a painful reality to accept, but you know better than anyone about such a thing. Please, do not shut down this truth, but help people learn to accept it, and find the beauty in the balance.” The Builder delegated, but The Breaker denied him once again.

"No! Look at this pigsty you have created brother! You have allowed your city to forge monsters. People who exist to feed their vanity, treading upon others in the process. You have made an awful thing. These people, they think themselves above everyone else. At the end of the day, they are nothing, a drop in the rain, a needle in the hay. They will not be remembered. All things will be destroyed, so why do they behave like this? Because you let them." The Breaker argued, and broke the Builder’s heart.

“What will you do, then?” Asked the Builder, tears welling in his eyes.

The First Feud

The Breaker responded by tearing apart the beautiful suit he wore- the very suit that symbolised the bond between the two, the bond between order and chaos, life and death, creation and destruction. They were now no longer intertwined concepts. Unshackled from one another’s limits, and the cities of the nation named the Multiverse would feel that cosmic change in full force.

“Until you accept that you have made a dark, eternal hell, I renounce you, disown you. You are NOT my brother!” The Breaker affirmed.

And thus, the two became separate parts, and the laws the two were bound by, such as the need for planning permission, were repealed. They existed in cosmic anarchy.

The Breaker had for almost his entire existence, felt he had only one purpose and one principle in the fields. He was proven right by this new revelation: He could do nothing but continue to enact that purpose, because it was all that he was and ever would be.

The Builder and The Breaker looked at each other.

They looked at their hands.

They had their first feud.

The Fight

After a long stalemate, The Breaker sprung to action, mercilessly killing the ducks as they fought, skinning and de-feathering them before he tore at the meat on their bones and devoured it whole. When the rest ran and attempted to fly away, The Breaker slung his newly-acquired hunting rifle from his back into his hands, and pulled the trigger, ending the lives of the remainder. He stomped the life out of those those who failed to draw their last breaths, and when some even attempted to attack alongside their more aggressive inhabitants- the geese, the Breaker fought each and every one of them, snapping their necks and bashing their bodies against the ground to unite them with the sweet embrace of the end. All the while, the Builder watched in total disbelief. His lip quivered, his legs shook, and his heart sank. That was, until his shock and horror turned to righteous and stalwart resolve, and he thrust himself against the Breaker, challenging him on his path of chaos.

The Builder and The Breaker wrestled in the park, in the garden of possibility from where anything and everything that expanded out into the city could be birthed. Their boots and shoes trampled the petals of the flowers, the grass on the ground set ablaze when the Breaker let a lit matchstick fall to the floor, and the roots of newly planted seeds were choked out of the nutrients needed to grow new plants. As their brawl expanded into the city streets, they caused massive jams in traffic, cutting up the tarmac of the roads into fine daggers too dangerous to cross. In the pathetic fallacy that was the wet downpour of the rain, they smashed the citizens’ vehicles into wrecks, tossed each other through buildings, and turned neighbourhoods into paracausal battlegrounds. They brought down the skyscrapers with their quakes of cosmic eruption, and left the ground floors tattered with fallen pillars, broken pipelines and buried bodies. Their many exchanged punches and parries and counterattacks were the premature detonations of a great many stars in the multiverse. Each one spawning the material and bounty of resources which would cool and find themselves clumping together in the form of new worlds assembled by gravitational physics.

And still they fought, leaving prints of their bloodied fingers and their clenched fists in the clay that was dark matter. The inertia of their blows and numerous plots against one another were the fluctuations around which infant galaxies coalesced and even dissociated their first solar systems. Drops of their sweat and blood and tired breaths were adopted and inhaled by citizens who used them to kindle their first understandings of cosmic power.

On the few occasions when they separated from one another, falling back into their respective necks of the woods to prepare for counterattacks, they would both consider the possibility of enlisting help. Eventually, the Breaker recognised how valuable an idea this was- his struggle against the Builder would undoubtedly last forever if he did not have some backup. Cities had gangs did they not? Surely he could find one or two mad enough to make a deal with him, even if he hated them. And so he did, he found those who could support his path of devastation, forging Faustian pacts with them, teaching them how to break like he. When the time came, they unveiled themselves as the first Heralds when they strode together with The Breaker into the street with the Builder opposite them. The Builder had realised that he was now no longer locked in a brawl, but a war. Fighting alone against them all was difficult- being beaten like that, coughing up blood which spattered between his teeth which were attached to a broken jaw was by no means fair. It was clear that The Breaker was willing to do anything to win, and these citizens he had somehow managed to bring under his sway would follow him until an inevitable betrayal.

The Builder then decided to enlist the same kind of help. There stood a great tower filled with people who understood the city better than anyone else, from the concrete to the bricks, the cement to the tarmac, to the point where they themselves had contributed very much themselves to construction works all across the city, and had even found the time to explore other cities constructed on other fields, the small towns and villages adjacent to their own city, and back. They agreed to lend their support to the Builder, but the street war with the Breaker would still end in failure. For every tower dweller The Builder lost, The Breaker gained a hollow, reanimated husk with which he could use against his brother, one totally driven by one impulse- to break.

And break they did. The roads were torn up even more, the tower suffering and enduring a constant siege from the Breaker and his mob. Their clawing, biting and smashing made for a mere matter of time before the tower’s integrity collapsed, and the girder frame skeleton was at a critical point.

Outsourcing Options

But there was one option neither The Builder or The Breaker had tried yet. Their help came from the citizens, those who had already lived and become accustomed to the city and their roles in its grand balance. In truth, none of them were suited to the paracausal scale of this battle. The Builder then found a new tactic- he rushed to an empty space in the tower, constructing a laboratory from where he took samples of himself- his skin, his hair, his saliva, it did not matter. They all helped to grow and synthesise a new kind of ally, one directly tied to the Builder’s genome, one that could not only provide the support he needed, but understand how to provide that support, how to build like he. There were Thirteen. They were The Builder’s subcontractors. They were the first of a new ethnicity in the city which was directly tied to him, made by him without the shackles of the long process of growing from infancy to maturity. They were mature upon birth. One might have said they were superior, that they were above all others because it was the city’s great founder, The Builder, who spawned them. But The Builder did not want them to think of it that way. This was supremacism, a horrible and nasty ideology which was undoubtedly one of many that set the Breaker on his path of destruction. To prevent such a thing seeping into the skulls of his newborn, he had them live among the tower’s residents, living as though they were them. Each and their own rooms, their own routines, common rules to follow and values to uphold, no different to the tower’s other dwellers. They lived in as much fear of the Breaker’s cosmic demolition crew as anyone, but they knew the time would come to set those fears to rest.

When it did come, the rain stopped, puddles in the cracked and cratered roads ceased to fill. Smoke from fires burning across the city finally stopped rising, and The Breaker’s crew stopped. Waited. Something had changed, a balance that had toppled over a previous balance had just been threatened, and soon, it too would be toppled over.

The Birth of the Synchron

Bursting out from the barricaded entrance to the tower was a combined group- the Builder, his cosmic entourage of Subcontractors, and the tower’s many residents and refugees all charged on the Breaker and his own. There could be no mistake in this grand show of unity: the First Synchron had just taken place.

The battle which poured out in the rest of the streets was unlike any other. Skyscrapers on opposing sides of the cities sniped and tossed stones at one another, sewage lines conveyed lit boxes of gunpowder to their recipients on the surface, and the Builder, the Subcontractors, and the people of the tower were immortalised in the fables other citizens would evangelise to their children eons later, in ways not so different to this Parable you are reading right now.

The Breaker’s path of demolition came to an end- his Heralds and his labourers defeated and his own body battered and bruised. After all the thrashing, the disordered violence, The Builder had won, and the Breaker was banished.

But by then, it didn't matter. The concept of harmony between order and chaos was over. The damage had been done. This city, no city, would ever be the same again.

Seven is God, Six is the Devil

The Builder too was weak from the long struggle. His bones ached, his muscles strained every time he moved, and his drive to build was no longer present. He had no energy for it. So he retired, and left the task of building to his Thirteen subcontractors and the people of the city. So he could always be drawn on as a source of advice, The Builder wrote a journal which he gave to the people along with his toolkit- the finest instruments of construction the world had ever seen. The people of the tower took care of the journal and the toolkit, whilst the subcontractors would become role models to the newborn children of their unique ethnicity. These children would grow from infancy like anyone else, but would one day reach adulthood much like the Thirteen.

The last possession The Builder left the city with were a set of blueprints. Upon reading over these blueprints, one of the subcontractors, the leader of which, asked The Builder: “What is it?” He said. Confused by the odd shape and unsure of its purpose.

“I call it Halo.” The Builder replied. He pointed to the seven ring-shaped antennae on the blueprints. “If The Breaker ever comes back, I want one of these placed at every corner of the city.”

“Why?” Asked the subcontractor.

“Because even the Breaker has weaknesses, and I have studied his unique allergies. These antennae will be able to release pathogens so poisonous they will kill him immediately.” Said the Builder.

“Wouldn’t it kill us all too?”

“No, if followed to my instruction, and if this specific battery is used, the Breaker’s biology alone will react to these pathogens negatively, that and anything of his blood.” Assured the Builder, presenting a tetradecahedron-shaped battery to him which would be used to power the antennae.

“Let us hope he never has an innocent child who moves to the city, and let us hope if he does, he never comes to reclaim them.” The Builder explained. “But, I do not want this to be the first resort. Please, if the people of the city come under threat from the Breaker again, only use Halo as a final port of call- if there is no other way to stop him. I still believe there is good in my brother, and frankly, as evidenced by our names, we can’t truly live without one another.”

“I understand...father.” The subcontractor said. It then occurred to the Builder that the subcontractors were, for all intents and purposes, his children, and this one in particular his Firstborn.

“Thank you, son.” The Builder replied, a smile illuminating his wrinkled, bearded face. He turned on his heel, and strode out of the park. His Firstborn accompanied him to the far edges of the city, and they shared an embrace before the Builder would take his leave and embark on his Great Journey. After parting ways, the Builder turned to leave, but forgot one last important thing- he turned around and called to the Firstborn, and upon reconvening, he took off his hard hat which he had worn for so long that it may as well have been an extension of the Builder’s very own mind, and placed the hat on the Firstborn’s head. “Now the real work begins.” He said. “You’re the builders now- all of you. Remember that.” Another smile appeared over his chapped lips, and he turned to leave once again.

The Pax Maethrillia

The Firstborn took a liking to how the hat fit, it felt like it could fit anyone’s head. “The city has no name.” He thought aloud. Realising he said that and the Builder heard him, he decided to ask him one final question. “What should we name it?”

“Look at the company name printed on the front.” The Builder said as he packed his final sack upon his horse and mounted it.

The Firstborn took off the hard hat, staring at it for a moment until he found the word printed on it. “Maethrillian?” He asked, and the Builder merely smiled and waved before giddying up his horse and riding it away into the sunset.

The cosmos would never be the same.

(What's all this? You wonder? What in the universe have I just read? You also might be thinking. Well, think of this as an allegorical quasi-religious story explaining the earliest origins of my Halo Fanverse. As you may be able to piece together, the story above is laden with metaphor and open to interpretation, but I felt that this was an interesting project to work on as part of my new initiative which I've been working at since December to trot out a full timeline of my Halo Fanverse's lore and origins. Think whatever you like about the actual meaning behind The Parable of The Builder and The Breaker, think whatever you like about who's narrating this story, but I have a feeling that sooner or later, you'll get some clarification on all the details behind who and what The Builder and The Breaker are, what the 'city' is and who the 'subcontractors' may be. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this!)