Existential Crisis
An Existential Crisis is a class of emergency situation that may be declared by a command or authority during a mission or within a governing body overseen by the Lucidus mission or its descendants or successors. An Existential Crisis is one of the most serious situational assertions that can be declared upon a space-bound mission. The declaration of an Existential Crisis can only happen if certain specific observed criteria are met. An Existential Crisis requires certain mandated responses to ensure the survival of humanity and the long-term stability and continuity of the space-time continuum.
The most prominent example of an Existential Crisis in Illuminatian history was The Anomaly, an event that occurred upon the Lucidus mission and resulted in the mission's termination. This circumstance is what ultimately resulted in the subsequent settlement of the surface of the planet of Neonisi and the establishing of human civilization in Illuminatia.
An Existential Crisis is declared if and only if a situation is observed that is inconsistent with the continuation of normal human habitation within the presently-understood confines of conventional physics. The most quintessential example of a situation befitting an Existential Crisis declaration is one involving some sort of sustained multiversal interaction such as what occurred with The Anomaly, or any other event that bends the dimensions of time beyond the limits understood to be possible. Certain irregularities regarding the balance of certain types of subatomic particles and antimatter may also trigger an Existential Crisis.
According to Lucidus protocol, authorities declaring an Existential Crisis must immediately initiate and oversee the immediate and rapid evacuation of all human persons from the area or region of space experiencing the Existential Crisis followed by the absolute destruction and obliteration of the immediate vicinity of the zone in which the observations were observed, with priority given to obliteration. Persons removed from the situation must be sent to a location distant enough as to have no ability to directly observe the locality experiencing the Existential Crisis.
Although an Existential Crisis may be declared and the indicated actions may be executed as deemed necessary, this reaction may not necessarily prevent permanent irregularities in the space-time continuum or the balance of time, energy, and matter in the observable universe. Therefore, an Existential Crisis declaration is considered a preemptive or defensive exercise and may not be relied upon as an absolute protection of the existence of humanity within presently-understood or theorized bounds of the universe currently occupied by any specific branch of humankind.
The current Illuminatian government denies there is any similar procedure or plan in place to declare or respond to an Existential Crisis on Neonisi today. It is understood an Existential Crisis level event is only likely aboard a spacecraft on a space-bound mission due to the unknown locations a spaceship might travel and the relativity-pushing speeds at which these spacecraft might travel.
The Anomaly
- See article: The Anomaly
Preceding the Existential Crisis event known as The Anomaly aboard the Lucidus mission, engineering systems on the spacecraft concurrently reported extraordinary observations such as travel at 100 times the speed of light, bearings in multiple directions simultaneously, ships on collision courses with themselves, and other extraordinary and impossible observations relative to current theoretical understandings of physics and astronomy.
Consistent with predetermined protocol, Lucidus systems automatically responded to the Existential Crisis by evacuating the Lucidus ships and initiating a self-destruction of the three Lucidus spacecraft.
Other than The Anomaly, no further known Existential Crises have been declared in the history of the Lucidus mission or the resulting Illuminatian civilization, although it is understood that certain protocols associated with the declaration of and recovery from an Existential Crisis may involve enforcement of the administration of disremembering treatments upon the human witnesses of such an event, and certain anomalies causing an Existential Crisis may result in the persons within the crisis area being jettisoned from the bounds of either the observable universe or the currently occupied strain of the multiverse.