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Once upon a timeless space, entities with unlimited power entertained themselves by playing games. Some played with physics, surfing in and out of black holes and wormholes. Some competed to create the best or prettiest or some other criteria of something. Some made planets so that they could play with the weather. Some played with time, turning out dainty twists and knots and loops.
One group approached one of the winning creators. "We," they said, "would like to play at being limited for a while. Would you set up a game-space for us?"
She considered that with interest. "You realise that the limitations will mean that you won't remember or comprehend anything outside of the game for the duration?"
"Oh yes, that's part of the pleasure. But it means we need someone else to run it for us. Would you?"
"Very well." She created a set of disclosures and disclaimers and passed them round so that the players could choose their preferred setup conditions and sign to prove that they acknowleged and were content with said conditions, and that they took full responsibility for the consequences.
When the forms came back to Her, She perused them. War, Pestilence, Famine, Pollution, Death: all ticked as wanted. The same with both Player vs Environment and Player vs Player struggles. Disasters - On. All the bad things. All the good things. A moderate number of limitations for the players, but still some powers. No permanent damage to their true selves however much it seemed to be the case within the game.
All seemed clear, and all signatures were in place, so She spun off a universe for the game and placed protective barriers around it so that none of the other entities could interfere with the game. A starting location for them, and a host of currently blank avatars. Then She summoned the players. "Your Game awaits."
They expressed delight, then each personalised their avatar with name and appearance, and downloaded themselves into it. The limitations they had requested closed around them, and all they remembered was the events of the game. She smiled as they looked up at Her, the first sight they had seen, unable to really comprehend Her but awed nonetheless. Some had questions for her, trying to understand (in their now limited minds) what was happening. She smiled at them too, a secretive smile of joy at being proved right, for they couldn't understand the answers.
"It's ineffable," She reminded them gently. "Beyond your ability to describe or comprehend." Then She told them to run along and play, so they did, too newly limited to consider doing anything else. Limited versions of all the games they were used to broke out, the making and creating, the dancing with physics, and the twisting of time. The latter kept tangling though, their containers too limited to allow accurate manipulation. She had to keep helping them out of their tangles, until She decreed straight lines only. Stop and start only, no knots.
That solved the issue, and it wasn't as if there weren't plenty of other things to play with. Indeed, the makers and creators of plants and creatures and stars were so productive about it, that She decided that She had better make somewhere where all the creations could be displayed.
She spun up a planet, added light and darkness for backgrounds, hung up the sun and the moon and the stars where they could be admired, and then amused Herself by making as many different environments for their creations as she could fit into the limited area.
She was just finishing the sea when another handful of entities peered over her shoulder at the initial players.
"That looks like fun," one said. "Can we play in your universe too? We'd like to be really limited!"
She handed them a set of setup documentation to read while She considered, and was unsurprised when they enthusiastically signed up to it as well. Their version was the same as the initial players, except that they had added massive limitations to their own player experience, effectively removing all their powers and folding their understanding and their senses down to a level where they would have trouble fully comprehending the initial players, let alone Her.
She hesitated to force that on anyone, but. But they had chosen it, freely and willingly, in their current full-powered, clear-willed state, with full understanding of what they were inflicting on themselves.
It was, in the end, their desire and their choice. She just reserved the right to say "I told you so." after the game was over.
For now She smiled. "If you're sure."
"We're sure!"
"Very well, you can play on the planet." She began to set up the new avatars, then paused. The new limitations would make them so very frail and vulnerable and so utterly, desperately, innocent. A trial run was only fair. She placed a small tutorial area to the game in an out of the way spot (in truth, it was more of a baby-pen) and placed the blank avatars inside it. "This," She informed the new players, "is Eden. It's for you to get your bearings in your new situation. When you're ready to leave, eat this fruit. That will expel you to the main world where you can experience all the death and other problems you requested. Once you leave, you can't come back. I'll check in every 6,000 years or so to see if you want to keep playing. Don't eat it until you're ready. Do you understand?"
They cheerfully assured Her that they understood, but She imprinted the knowledge on the avatars anyway, and left them to download themselves and explore the tutorial. The initial players were calling for Her.
Those initial players had split into two groups.
"It isn't fair!" one group protested, their senses shaded as if She hurt their comprehension. She probably did, She admitted, since they had signed up for that limitation, but for now She softened Her presence. The group continued regardless, "Why would you do this? We were here first, we should be the only ones! We did all the work, and these new ones can't even understand it!"
The other group raised protesting hands. "If She wants them here, they can be here. Anyone can play - She is ineffable and all knowing, whatever She wills will be."
Neither group really needed Her there, so She smiled and said nothing. This was as good a start to the struggles and war they had signed up for as any, so She let them get on with it. It was only likely to be for 6,000 years, after all - merely a pleasant afternoon for one unlimited, though longer seeming to those in the game. She didn't really expect them to want to go on into a second cycle.
The argument ended with the first group storming out of the starting area to go and make their own playspace. (That playspace would, inevitably, be flawed and faulty due to the limitations of its makers, but it remained within the designated universe, so that was not Her problem.)
The second group, looking shaken, decided among themselves that they would use their greater powers and fewer limitations to protect the new players from the first group, christening themselves 'angels' and the others 'demons'. They shaped new bodies for themselves that the new players could comprehend, and invented weapons and fighting.
Meanwhile, in Eden, one of the new players had just been coaxed into eating the fruit that ended the tutorial.
She nestled her head on her hand and settled down to watch with a smile on Her face. For a game that She wasn't actually playing, it was proving to be extremely entertaining.