Lightbearer Empire and their systematic erasure of history
So by now, it is probably no surprise to see yet another lore-related post on my page. And it’s probably even less of a surprise that we’re talking about yet another unethical terrible thing connected to the Lightbearers. But this piece of lore, I think, is very important because it is very common in irl societies as well and it is something to take into account when you read history books or learn about the past from a singular source. I will be mostly drawing information from the lore compilation in the AFK Arena art book. If you have any questions or want me to take pictures of specific parts of the book and lore, please let me know.
At first, I didn’t understand why we needed about half of the faction information in this book. It opens with an overview of the whole history of Esperia as well as the brief history of the multiverse Esperia is a part of. And yet, every faction also opens with a short historical overview. At a glance, they are very similar – the same general events, the same general timeline – but if you look closer, you will be able to spot a couple very important differences. The objective historical overview tells you how things happened while not taking sides and without bias. But faction-specific historical lore will tell you how each specific faction views its own history, what they see as their greatest triumph and what are the worst slights done to them. Obviously, all of these are extremely biased, but this time, I want to talk about the Lightbearers and their interpretation of their history.
We already knew, from the game, about the erasure of Zaphrael’s name. Despite him being a literal god, and despite him reaching divinity by saving the life of another god, Zaphrael was effectively deleted from history because his wife became a demon, and because Zaphrael never managed to truly kill her. This is especially jarring when you consider that the demons whose souls fused with Lucretia’s are the Twin Terrors – two demons of legendary power, bolstered by the faith of countless cults spread around the land. Lucretia, in the lore, is a demon who can fall armies all on her own. Yet, Zaphrael got mistreated and erased for not being able to kill her on his own. All of this because the church refuses to accept a god who failed to “control” his own wife.
But there is another, perhaps even worse, instance of the Lightbearer history being changed for the sake of an agenda. During the Era of Man-Gods, Annih proposed to the other gods to introduce humans to alchemical practices that would certainly lead to their doom. This lead to the creation of the Ya, people with animalistic features who would later go on to split into Maulers and Wilders... Except that’s not how the Lightbearer history goes. According to the Lightbearers, the Ya never existed. Instead, the transformed humans who went through so much pain because of the alchemical experiments, were simply all Maulers. Now, I know what you may be thinking, that’s not that big a difference, right? And what agenda would this even be pushing? Well...
Lightbearers originally founded the Astral Academy to be a place to study the arcane. But back when it was founded, it was an institute that was human-only. It wasn’t until much much later that the humans realized how powerful the Wilder magic is and how they could use it to their advantage. In the current timeline, Lightbearers as a whole strive to forge good relationships with the Wilders because they are extremely useful. Do you see the issue now?
By erasing the term Ya from their history and swapping it up for just Maulers, Lightbearers get to act as though they have never caused the Wilders any harm. And Wilders, while they do have some orally passed records of their history, have very little in terms of written records, so there is little more than anecdotal evicence of the violence, discrimination, and horrible mistreatment that their ancestors were subjected to from Lightbearer hands. Not only that, but this also works to drive further vedge between the Wilders and the Maulers since the Maulers already see the Wilders as cowards who would rather forget their past than fight to avenge it. And going even further, since Graveborn do actively use the term Ya, by erasing it from Lightbearer books, they shift all the responsibility for the violence on the common ancestors of the Maulers and Wilders, to Bantus. And since every other faction already kind of hates the Graveborn, it again only serves to fuel the fires of hatred more and more.
This is probably far from the last time something like this will happen but it is an interesting bit of information. I thought this was a mistake at first but after checking again, the text from the objective historical overview is practically copy-pasted into the Lightbearer history EXCEPT the mention of Ya, which is changed to specifically say Maulers, so I have a feeling it was done on purpose. It is really not too different from how many authoritative regimes will erase events from their history to try and look better in the public eye, we see it everywhere. But it really makes me happy to know that so much thought went into this book and how well it fleshed out the world of Esperia.
We really need an extensive lore write-up because dear Dura this is fucked up.
Like, imagine being a Ya, right? You came to be because the literal gods couldn't handle human ambition and sent the personification of death itself to solve their shit and death itself couldn't come up with anything better than "mix human and animal DNA" and the humans fucking trusted it. There are essentially two superpowers, one being the Leto empire and the other being Bantus and NEITHER of them likes you.
Then the gods boot death from their club because even the gods hate you and think you're an abomination, and death doesn't even claim you either but instead goes to create a new race of demons. But he is partially responsible for you so now everyone hates you even more.
You have three options:
Live among the Leto and be a slave, a pet, or a circus animal, and hope the eventual genocide avoids you
Live in Bantus and most likely get brutally tortured, skinned alive, and hope they at least kill you
Go out in the wilderness among actual wild animals, traverse the literal fucking desert, and hope there's something better behind it
And after possibly decades of this, the goddess of life FINALLY decides that maybe killing you is kinda fucked up, and she offers you to stay in that fucking desert with a "but I'll make you more resilient and buff" or you can go to uncharted magical forest with a "I'll give you some magic if you never take up violence unless I call for it"
