Anathemus

Anathemus (also known by the titles "The Great One" or "The Dark One") is an ancient, supreme diety, and the central figure of the Mythos that bears His name. Though He has barely made any appearances within the Mythos, His influence is constantly felt, always playing some role in many of SDM's works.

As an ancient being, Anathemus has existed since the dawn of all time, and His power reflects that. He is one of the very few beings to achieve Omniverse-level influence.

Though He was originally nameless and existed just to fill the role of the final boss for Hellgate 2, SDM has since expanded on the being's role in his stories, turning Him into a much more prevalent force with His own lore and backstory.

History
Information about Anathemus is scarce, and little is currently known about His origins. It is known that He is the most powerful deity in the Omniverse (described by SDM as "the theoretically most powerful being"), and that He has existed since the beginning of everything. He currently exists in a time and a place known only as "The End of Everything," where He has been sleeping since He came to be. As He slumbers, His power steadily grows, until the one day He will ultimately awaken, and destroy the Omniverse, and every single dimension within it; This is His goal. His reasons for desiring this are as of yet unknown, but SDM has claimed that the Dark One takes the phrase "Nothing is perfect" to its extreme conclusion.

Despite spending the majority of the stories within the Mythos asleep, Anathemus' influence is consistently felt throughout, either tied through a villain's belief or motivations, or occassionally even appearing as himself.

The Hellgate Saga
Anathemus' physical appearances within The Hellgate Saga remain minimal; however, with the Saga being the central story of the Anathemus Mythos, it should come as no surprise that his presence is noted very strongly throughout.

Hellgate 1
Though Anathemus never appeared directly during the original story, he was later retconned to be involved through the God Aura and the revelation of Hellgate's Dark Spore.

DEPTHS
Being a remake of the original Hellgate 1 storylines, Hellgate's Dark Spore also carries over into it. Additionally, the Vessel plays a role in the remake, which is directly fueled by Anathemus Himself (though it is not willingly).

Hellgate 2
As SDM planned the sequel to Hellgate, he decided that he needed a final boss to appropriately carry the roleplay's theme of persistence. Anathemus was originally a nameless super-transformation, but as the story evolved and became more complex, so too did Anathemus. Anathemus was named and His origin story completely re-written, becoming something more akin to a maleovlent force of nature that is felt throughout all entries of the sequel.

Part I
Much like Hellgate 1, Hellgate 2 Part I featured little of the Dark One, only "appearing" yet again through Hellgate's Dark Spore and the incomplete God Aura.

Part II
In Hellgate 2 Part II, Anathemus' influence becomes more conspicuous, through an apparent connection to the world-devouring entity known as the Black Spawn, though the nature of this relation is still unknown.

A series of retcons also led to Anathemus manifesting His malevolence through the Nihilius Clan. Though they were originally a generic cult, by the time Part III began SDM had retconned them to be Anathemus-centric. The next retcon came with the continuing development of the Xat RP (see below). The concept of Anathemus' "Dream" was introduced, and the Clan was shown to be motivated by the fear of the end of that dream. Subsequently, SDM applied that belief to the H2P2 incarnation of the Clan.

The climax featured SDM utilizing the God Aura once again as well, ironically against the Black Spawn.

Part III
Anathemus was properly introduced in Hellgate 2 Part III, where it is revealed that The General intends to use the Great One to reset the Omniverse, because he believes that it has become, in his own words, "filthy."

Part IV
Anathemus is confirmed to play a much larger role in the upcoming Hellgate 2 Part IV, though the exact nature of this remains to be seen.

Finale
Anathemus is planned to make a true debut as the final boss of Hellgate 2, taking place after the IV Final.

The Hellgate Gaiden
Like in the Hellgate Saga proper, Anathemus shadows the events of its prequel through the appearance of the Black Spawn, its Spores, and The General, however it should be noted that in the latter's case, Project Anathema had already been forcibly ended because of SDM's interference.

Anathemus' theme also plays during the seemingly out-of-story segments which details an unknown person or thing's torture. The meaning of this is unclear.

Xat RP
In the unnamed Xat RP, Anathemus is shown having arguably his strongest influence yet. It was here that the exact nature of the Clan's worship was made clear, with the End of the Dream being their primary motivation for killing. The concept of the Dream itself was also introduced, establishing the fact that a secondary, "fake" Omniverse exists as part of Anathemus' Dream, and that when He wakes, it is erased completely.

The main characters have also "met" Him on numerous occassions (though if it was Anathemus Himself or his "dream self" has yet to be explained), and after their first encounter they became Anathemites, apparent manifestations of Nihility proving the deadly nature of the Dark One even in small doses. The RP also introduced two other Anathemites, one of whom (Nihilius) claimed to answer directly to Anathemus Himself.

Anathemus' Dream
Due to His vast and incomprehensible power, Anathemus is able to dream of entire multiverses in His eon-long sleep. If He were to wake up, those multiverses would fade into unexistance, because they never existed in the first place. This is consistently described as a fate worse than death and is the primary motivation of the Nihilius Clan.

Personality and Traits
Due to His lack of physical presence within the Mythos, Anathemus' appearance is currently unknown, if He even has one at all. Likewise, most of His personality remains unknown because of how little He actually appears. The few times He has spoken (if it was even Him) has revealed Him to be a somewhat disjointed being, possibly even unaware of the thoughts of those below Him. When He spoke to His so-called "Gifts," He seemed to show nothing but scorn for them, tossing them out of His sight. He has also shown Himself to be wrathful, such as when He subjugated O-Hellgate to a life of eternal agony for using His power.

One could also infer that He despises existence, being a reason He wishes to see it all undone.

The Eye of the Dreamer
A handful of times, a large "eye" comrpised of thousands of galaxies in an otherwise empty void has been shown to represent Anathemus. According to Nihilius, it is the "core" of Anathemus' "dream self," the point from which He observes all the events in His dream world.

Skills and Abilities
Anathemus is the strongest being in the entire Omniverse, sitting above even the strongest of Gods. As such it can be safely assumed that He wields tremendous divine power, able to destroy any world He pleases. It is also hinted that He could just as easily create worlds, however His seeming utter disdain for light and life prevent Him from doing so.

Additionally, Anathemus is and utilizes a "force" known as Nihility. Nihility can be described as the complete and absolute absence of anything (even the fabric of reality). When something ceases to be altogether (e.g., a soul is destroyed), it becomes one with Nihility and Nihility leaves its mark where the object once stood. Nihility is also known to be extremely caustic, able to swallow most of anything, reducing it to a state of nothing. It could be called an "Anti-substance" because of the way it takes from a universe. Furthermore, it is understood to most likely be the strongest force in any reality. Even a being armed with an infinitesimal fraction of the power of Anathemus can be easily compared to a high-level God.

Nihility and Anathemus have been described with the following phrase: "When you enter a room, you turn on the light, you don't turn on the dark". This should be taken to mean that nothingness - Nihility, the "dark" - is the true, base state of the omniverse, while existence - the "light" - by nature has a disadvantage against it. Existence can be destroyed, snuffed out, while nothingness is by nature indestructible.

Although Nihility is by nature nothing, it can be used to create constructs and even entire beings known as the Anathemites. These entities can physically interact with the world, though many instruments will not register their existence.

Weaknesses and Flaws
Though He is tremendously powerful and easily trumps any God who dares to oppose Him, SDM has said that He is no more a "perfect being" than anyone else. He has asserted that Anathemus will be defeated, but he has not released any details on the matter.

Relationships
Hellgate - Though unclear, there is an undeniably strong connection between Anathemus and Hellgate. Even disregarding the Spore that continually corrupts SDM, Hellgate is the only known being to return from Nihility, and has an extensive knowledge of it, along with Anathemus himself. On numerous occassions Hellgate has also alluded to Anathemus, implying a sort of cooperation between them.

Nihilius - Nihilius has claimed to be a loyal servant of Anathemus, created to destroy all the worlds within the Dream. He confesses that he does not understand the reasoning, but as a servant he follows his given purpose without question.

Valis Ail - Valis is an Anathemite, putting him in the same category as Nihilius, but while Nihilius' goals are clear, Valis' are less so. Valis seems to have total knowledge of the Dream, and uses it to scare potential members into joining the Nihilius Clan. He claims to use the Clan to spare everyone from the End of the Dream, but recent revelations about the way he runs the Clan have cast some doubt on this.

The General - The General is a disillusioned man, believing the entire Omniverse to be "filthy" and beyond repair. As such, he believes the only way to fix it is to destroy it altogether and rebuild it from the ground-up. To this end he seeks to awaken Anathemus, and use Him to completely destroy everything, so that it may begin anew.

Interestingly, a log in H2P3 implies that he only began Project Anathema after encountering a bizarre black object in the depths of space, perhaps implying that The General was led onto that path by something else.

The Black Spawns - SDM has confirmed that there exists a connection between the Black Spawns and Anathemus, but has not elaborated further.

Executor, O-Lynna, Terminos, and Oneiros - Anathemus seems to hold nothing but complete hate for the four original Anathemites, supposedly for disturbing Him. Strangely, after their encounter with Him, they were each granted immeasurable strength granted from Him directly.

Design and Influence
Anathemus, and in effect the Anathemus Mythos, were originally designed to carry the two most prominent themes of the Hellgate Saga, those being persistence and the questioning of authority. Anathemus represents both in how he is presented within the Mythos.

Firstly, he was designed to be the strongest theoretical being solely so that he could be defeated. SDM has used Him to encourage the notion of never giving up, even in the face of completely overwhelming odds. SDM believes that, even when things are completely hopeless, it's important to keep fighting regardless. At the very least, he claims, it's better to go out "giving your enemy the bird than whimpering in a corner. Who knows, you might just poke out their eye on the way down."

Secondly, Anathemus is used to criticize what SDM sees as a problem with authority figures (both political and religious) seemingly not caring about those under them. Likewise, he has a problem with people following these figures "just because they say they're good without offering proof," and finding the notion of "because they have all the power" completely ridiculous. According to him, Anathemus was inspired when he asked the question "What if God was an asshole and didn't hide it?"

As the Hellgate Saga wore on, however, SDM decided to add to the lore, to reflect the Saga's growth. The first major development in Anathemus' design cycle was when he decided to make him a proper god rather than a last-minute transformation. His story was re-worked to fit that, placing Anathemus at the beginning of Everything, and making him something of a consistent baleful influence on the Saga.

Later on, SDM decided to add to Anathemus himself, changing from just one being to "a group of many individuals with the power of everyone else." He describes it as "each 'facet' of Anathemus is no less Anathemus than another, nor is the whole more than an individual." He adamantly refuses to liken Him to Legion, saying that Legion is one being made of many, while Anathemus is closer to the reverse. Essentially, Anathemus is a single entity with myriads of "faces", which is too vast in scope to be contained in any single universe, which means that every universe gets only a "facet" of the full unfathomable being. To simplify this idea, picture a man trying to fit into a bunch of cardboard boxes (universes) too small for him, so every one of his limbs ("facets") ends up in a separate box.

The next major development came while SDM was plotting out Nihilius, introducing the concept of the Dream along with the titular villain into the Mythos. He claims he was inspired by the Lovecraftian notion of being little more than an ant to cosmic forces, along with the concept of the "Dream Apocalypse," fusing them together. He added an entire secondary dream group of multiverses to the Mythos, believing that the mere idea of already being nothing, and then being reduced to even less than that in a mere instant would carry the horror concept by itself. An entire "brand" was established to take advantadge of that, and at the same time he was able to connect it with the Nihilius Clan and give them an actual reason for their until-then senseless slaughter.

Unfortunately, due to Nihilius' troubled development, these concepts wouldn't make their debut until the Xat RP, where both Nihilius and the Nihilius Clan played prominent roles.

Appearances

 * The Hellgate Saga
 * Hellgate 1 (Mentioned Only) (via Retcon)
 * DEPTHS (Mentioned Only)
 * Hellgate 2 (Final Boss)
 * Hellgate 2 Part I (Mentioned Only)
 * Hellgate 2 Part II (Mentioned Only)
 * Hellgate 2 Part III (Mentioned Only)
 * The Hellgate Gaiden
 * Birth (Mentioned Only)
 * Black Heaven (Possible Appearance)
 * Red Earth (Possible Appearance)
 * Xat RP (Possible Appearance)
 * Solo: Doubt (Mentioned Only)
 * Solo: Vengeance - Remorse (Mentioned Only)
 * Solo: Pawn (via Flashback)
 * Solo: Ambitions (Mentioned Only)
 * Solo: Revenge (Mentioned Only)

Quotes

 * "....BEGONE..."
 * "I.....SAID........BE........GONE........"

Music
Anathemus' leitmotif throughout the Mythos is The Last Judgement, from Super Robot Wars 3.

Trivia

 * Being the strongest entity in the omniverse, Anathemus can be considered as the most powerful villain, or indeed character, to ever exist in any work of fiction.
 * Our universe is also considered as part of the Omniverse and due to this Anathemus breaks the fourth wall, as He could potentially destroy "the real world".
 * Most if not all of SDM's villains are in some way connected to Anathemus.
 * Unlike most other entities and characters within the continuities of Shifting Worlds, there is only one being to carry the name Anathemus, making Him a "multiversal (and ultimately, omniversal) singularity."
 * When referring to Anathemus using personal pronouns, "it" and "He" both apply, but when using the masucline version it is to be written with a capital H, much like the Christian God.
 * SDM is a firm believer in the finity of everything. As such, Anathemus will inevitably win. Though he will be defeated in each of His appearances, according to SDM, eventually someone will screw up. Some day, perhaps quadrillions of years down the line, Anathemus will claim victory. Even if Anathemus is continually defeated, SDM believes that the Omniverse will eventually die out anyway of its own accord, as he believes things are wont to do.
 * Anathemus was originally nameless during the earliest design phases. It was Arachnos who suggested the name "Anathemus".
 * The name was given at SDM's request for a name with some dark relationship to religion. It is derived from "anathema", signifying both "a formal ecclesiastical ban, curse, or excommunication" and "a person or thing detested or loathed".
 * Anathemus is also the name of an unremarkable rare stone giant in World of Warcraft, which is where Arachnos got the name from. He later commented that if he had known the massive role Anathemus would go on to play, he would have taken greater care in coming up with a name for him.
 * The name of Anathemus' theme music, as well as the fact that it's Anathemus' theme at all, had been kept a secret for a long time. The intention was to keep the identity of the mysterious entity featured at some points in the Hellgate Gaiden a mystery. However, when Anathemus became prominent in the Xat RP, the theme was used liberally in relation to him and became widely associated with the dark God. Due to that, it has since been confirmed that the mysterious entity is, in fact, an awakening Anathemus.