Q&A: Your Questions About Book 1 Answered
Introduction: The Most Common Questions
Over the past weeks, you’ve asked questions. Lots of questions. About the world, the characters, the magic, the philosophy, the ending.
This post answers the fifteen most common questions about The Gathering Eclipse. Spoiler-heavy. If you haven’t read Book 1, bookmark this for later.
Q1: Is the Forgotten One evil?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: The Forgotten One is a philosophical force. It genuinely believes oblivion is mercy. It doesn’t hate consciousness—it pities it. Sees existence as suffering and offers release.
That’s not evil. That’s a value judgment about whether existence is worth its cost. The Forgotten One says no. The Six say yes. Both positions are internally consistent.
Evil requires malice. The Forgotten One has none. Just cosmic patience and mathematical certainty.
That’s what makes it terrifying: You can’t prove it wrong.
Q2: Why didn’t The Six just fight the Forgotten One directly?
Answer: Can’t punch philosophy.
The Forgotten One isn’t a physical enemy. It’s an argument. A presence that makes surrender reasonable. You can’t kill it because it’s not alive—it’s an absence shaped like understanding.
Fighting it directly would be like fighting gravity or entropy. It’s a fundamental force.
The only “victory” possible: Remove consciousness from its presence. Hence: the Sundering. Break the world into fragments, quarantine the enemy on one piece, let the others exist free of its philosophical negation.
Not a win. A stalemate.
Q3: How did the gods not see the Eclipse coming?
Answer: They did. They chose not to intervene.
The Divine Agreement (made when creating the six races) had rules:
- Create freely
- Give everything
- Never intervene after creation
The gods knew the moons would eventually align. Knew the Eclipse would happen. Knew the Seventh Seal would break.
They let it happen anyway. Because intervention would violate the agreement—would prove their children weren’t free, just puppets.
True love means letting go. Even when it kills you to watch.
(This gets explored deeper in “The Age of Gods” prequel.)
Q4: Why did the Surrendered choose oblivion?
Answer: Exhaustion and math.
Imagine: You’ve lost your city. Your family. Your entire civilization. You’re one of 25,000 survivors out of 373,000. You’ve watched friends die for seven days straight.
Then the Forgotten One shows you the math: Suffering outweighs joy. Entropy is inevitable. Death is certain. Struggle is temporary, peace is permanent.
And offers: “You can rest now.”
Some people said yes. Not because they were weak. Because they were tired. And the math made sense.
The Surrendered aren’t villains. They’re people who chose differently. And their choice is as valid as The Six’s.
Q5: What happened to the gods after the Fall?
Answer: Grief.
The gods created the six races out of love. Gave them moons, magic, civilizations. Then watched 317,000 of them die in seven hours.
Caelan (Sky Father): Wept storms. Silent for decades. Xaanthic (Forge Master): Rage-grief. Nearly unmade herself. Au’kai (Tide Keeper): Became the ocean’s mourning. Danu (Forest Mother): Withered. Recovered slowly. Thyra (Shadow Keeper): Calculated the mathematics of loss. Couldn’t cope. Meethra (Dream Weaver): Saw every possible timeline. None where everyone survives.
They didn’t intervene. But they grieved. Still grieve.
Q6: Why didn’t they evacuate the cities before the Eclipse?
Answer: They tried. It wasn’t enough.
Zephyrion broadcast the prophecy. Gave six months’ warning. Evacuation began.
But:
- Disbelief: Many didn’t believe the prophecy.
- Logistics: Moving 373,000 people? Where? How?
- The Harbingers: Tarak’s faction saw evacuation as cowardice.
- Attachment: People didn’t want to leave their homes.
By Eclipse Day, only 56,000 had evacuated to the Nexus camp. The rest stayed. Died.
Not stupidity. Human nature. Hope that maybe the prophecy was wrong. Maybe the cities would survive.
They didn’t.
Q7: Could The Six have saved more people during the Sundering?
Answer: No.
The Sundering required precision. Break the world into exactly seventeen stable fragments. Too few: fragments too large, Forgotten One’s presence affects all. Too many: fragments too small, can’t support life.
That precision required The Six’s complete focus. They couldn’t also manage evacuation or protection.
24,875 died because reality-fragmentation is violent. The Six channeled moon-death energy to shatter a planet. There’s no safe version of that.
Could they have not done it? Yes. Everyone dies peacefully.
Could they have done it better? No. The 125 survivors are the maximum possible given physics, magic, and fragment stability.
Q8: Why did Nerai transform first?
Answer: Water adapts fastest.
Each of The Six was holding their fragment stable through elemental magic:
- Zephyrion maintaining atmosphere (air)
- Tarak regulating temperature (fire)
- Nerai holding back pressure (water)
- Ronan sustaining growth (earth)
- Nyx stabilizing reality (shadow)
- Shahrzad anchoring present (dream)
Nerai’s element—water—is the most adaptive. Flow. Change. Transform.
When the strain became too much, her body dissolved into her element. Not death. Transformation.
She went first because water accepts change. The others followed as their elements demanded: Tarak Day 53, Zephyrion Day 60, Ronan Day 70, Shahrzad Day 80, Nyx Day 90.
Q9: What exactly ARE the moons?
Answer: Anchors. Seals. Power sources.
The six moons served three functions:
1. Divine Power Conduits: Channeled god-energy to their races. Lunara = Caelan’s power for Aurans, etc.
2. Reality Anchors: Stabilized physics. Gravity, atmosphere, elemental balance.
3. Seventh Seal Components: Together, they formed a barrier keeping the Forgotten One outside reality.
When they aligned during the Eclipse, the gravitational stress shattered them. Not through malice. Through physics.
The moons were always temporary. The gods knew. The Forgotten One knew.
Only the mortals didn’t know.
Q10: Is there any way to restore the old world?
Answer: No. And that’s the point.
The Sundering wasn’t a setback. It was permanent transformation. You can’t un-break a world. Can’t resurrect 317,000 people. Can’t restore ten thousand years of accumulated civilization.
What’s gone is gone.
Books 2-3 aren’t about restoration. They’re about adaptation. Building something new from fragments. Creating meaning in the ruins.
The old world is dead. The question is: What do you build next?
Q11: Why is the trilogy called “Eclipsia” if the Eclipse only lasts seven hours?
Answer: Because the Eclipse defined everything.
The Sixfold Eclipse was seven hours. But its consequences last three books and a thousand years.
“Eclipsia” isn’t just the planet’s name. It’s the condition of existence after the Fall. A world eclipsed. Shadowed. Changed.
The trilogy is about living in that shadow. About what comes after everything ends. About building in the ruins.
The Eclipse was the inciting incident. The trilogy is the aftermath.
Q12: Will we ever see pre-Fall Eclipsia in detail?
Answer: Yes. “Before the Eclipse” mini novels.
I’m writing 13 mini novels showing life before the prophecy. The Golden Age. The peace-to-cataclysm arc. Characters living in the civilizations before they fell.
You’ll see:
- Aetheria in its glory
- Pyropolis forges creating legends
- Aquamarina’s tidal festivals
- Sylvandor’s Living Gardens
- Tenebris’s Shadow Markets
- Amethyst’s Crystal Spires
All the beauty. All the culture. All the life.
Then you’ll watch it burn with full context of what was lost.
Q13: Why doesn’t The Watcher reveal their identity until Book 3?
Answer: Because the revelation recontextualizes everything.
The Watcher isn’t just a narrator. They’re a character. Present for all three books. Observing. Recording. Grieving.
Revealing their identity early would spoil the emotional impact of Book 3’s conclusion.
Hint: The Watcher is one of The Six. But which one? And why are they telling this story from a thousand years later?
Read Book 3 to find out.
Q14: Is the Sundering genocide?
Answer: Legally? Yes. Morally? Complicated.
Genocide: Deliberate killing of a large group of people.
The Six deliberately broke the world knowing 99% of survivors would die. That’s calculated sacrifice, not collateral damage.
But:
- Intent wasn’t to kill—it was to save the 125.
- Alternative was 100% dead via oblivion.
- The dead had the option to Surrender peacefully.
Is killing 24,875 to save 125 justified? There’s no objective answer.
The Six made a choice. They carry the weight. Readers decide if they were right.
That moral ambiguity is intentional.
Q15: What’s the ultimate message of The Gathering Eclipse?
Answer: Choice matters. Even impossible choices.
The Forgotten One is right: Existence costs more than it gives. Entropy wins. Meaning is temporary.
And The Six choose life anyway.
Not because they disproved the Forgotten One. Because they valued existence despite its cost.
The message isn’t “hope triumphs” or “good wins.” It’s:
“You can’t prove existence is worth it. You can only choose to believe it is. And that choice—irrational, unprovable, faith-based—is the only thing entropy can’t calculate.”
That’s cosmic horror with hope. Both truths. Simultaneously.
Final Thoughts
These questions reveal what resonates: The philosophy. The impossible choices. The weight of leadership. The cost of survival.
The Gathering Eclipse isn’t a comfortable read. It’s devastating. But devastation can be meaningful.
If these answers raised more questions, good. That means you’re thinking. Questioning. Engaging with the ideas.
That’s what the trilogy is for: Not answers. Questions worth asking.
Explore The Eclipsia Trilogy
This lore entry is just the beginning. The full story of The Eclipsia Trilogy—three books chronicling the fall of six civilizations, the impossible choice to break the world, and the transformation of heroes into legends—awaits.
The Gathering Eclipse (Book 1), The Shattered Veil (Book 2), and The Breaking of Fate (Book 3) will take you deeper into Eclipsia’s cosmic horror and profound sacrifice.
Stay tuned for release announcements.
The Eclipsia Codex | Building worlds, one entry at a time.