Editing Traveler/OpposingFactions (section)

==Kharybdis==

"...All of our history...Our art and science...All to meet the needs of that...beast..." - Chrono Trigger

Imagine a hunger. Imagine something that wants to eat and eat and grow fat in the eating, and eat more than can ever be. Imagine a mouth a million light-years long, a mouth that can - with time and effort - encompass all of existence. This is the force which Travelers have named Kharybdis.

Kharybdis is more properly classified as a chronophage - a creature entirely subsisting on Aion. Other than this, its nature is almost totally unknown. Some people say it's some sort of Traveler, ancient and hungry for Aion. Others say that Kharybdis is simply a natural phenomenon, an intended counterpart to the Stream. But it manifests itself in a few obvious ways - firstly, the Mouths that it opens in the Stream, which consume excess timelines and purge them of Aion, creating Divergences. Only very few timelines are strong enough to exist after their Aion is consumed, and even after that, they only appear as vestiges and scraps, waiting for Aion to revive them and make them true places again. The people tossed into the Mouth become the servants of Kharybdis - its arms and eyes in the physical world, snapping up every remaining fragment of loose Aion that it can find. Its power is not unlimited, however - the mass quantities it consumes from alternate timelines presumably go to feeding it. And a good stock of its consumed Aion must be purged to allow any significant capacity of real-world operation. But, to find a particularly powerful Traveler or to get its hands on an Ovum, it will gladly do so.

And what is the goal of Kharybdis? Simple: to gather as much stray Aion as it can. To feed off the scraps that Travelers break from the normal flux of the timeline, and to slowly gather strength. And, presumably, one day it will finally eat all that is. After all, Travelers crack the timeline, constantly feed Aion to the Stream or to their own devices. And when that Aion is lost or broken, Kharybdis eats it.

And, presumably, one day, Kharybdis will have its fill.