Beast's original identity is James Watt, whose work on steam engines was greatly instrumental in spearheading the Industrial Revolution. Loving to tinker with machines, he dreamt of nothing more than creating devices that would help humanity and make people's lives easier. However like many young prodigies James carried a tragic destiny, cursed with frail health ever since boyhood. Every breath that left his lungs was uncertain, as if he were gasping for the right to live, and sometimes even getting out of bed was a struggle.
But he wasn't scared of death. No, the only thing he was afraid of was that his mother and father would be sad once he died. He loved his mother and father lots, and they always looked out for him whenever his ailments kept him from playing outside with the other boys. So while willing to accept his own death, he rebelled at the idea it'd leave bitter regrets in those still alive. If he was fated to die young anyways, it'd be better to not grow too close to anyone, so the people he loved could still smile afterwards.
A child's precocious logic, or perhaps merely an attempt to assert some measure of control over his cruel fate. However--- it unexpectedly lead to a great divergence from the proper human history.
Part 1: A Mysterious Vision
One day, a premonition of death came upon James, and he impulsively ran away from home wishing to protect his parents from having to see his dwindling last moments. Despite his ill health he ran until his legs gave out, finding himself amidst the mountains in the English countryside he'd loved exploring so much when he had the chance. James looked back and forth, and let out a quiet sigh, resting his head on a moss-covered rock as he closed his eyes for what he fully expected would be the final time.
"Mom. Dad. This beautiful yet cruel world. I love all of you. I just wish..." His hands clenched at his sides, images of all the machine designs he'd left unfinished flashing through the boy's mind. "That I could've shown the world all these designs I have in my heart. If I lived just a bit longer, I'm sure I could've made something really amazing. But..." James trailed off forlornly. "I guess God just isn't that kind."
"You speak of gods?" A clear feminine voice suddenly breathed in his ear.
"Gah!?" James yelped, jumping back from sheer startlement. He bonked his head on the rock and cried out, falling on the ground. Getting up James rubbed his sore head, then once he'd gathered his wits glanced back and forth to look where the voice had come from. "Where are you? Is this some kinda' prank, 'cuz I'm not in the mood!" he called out.
"I'm right here," the voice whispered again. It was soft, but even clearer than before, as if coming from directly behind him. James took all the resolve he could muster not to jump out of his skin again. Instead, he whirled around hoping to catch a glimpse of the figure behind the voice. But there was nothing there.
"I-I'm serious..." James stammered, trying to hide the trembling in his voice. He supposed having come here to die he shouldn't be scared of whatever this stranger might do to him. But some part of James couldn't help but be intimidated, as if he were being weighed and scrutinized before an invisible gaze. "I'm not afraid of you. Come out and show yourself!"
"You shouldn't be afraid of me, child," the voice went on, humming with faint amusement. "For I mean you know harm. In fact, I only wish to help you."
"What are you- woah!?" James' words stopped in their tracks, cut off by an awestruck gasp when the air in front of him began to shimmer like heathaze. Before his eyes a beautiful woman materialized out of thin air. She had long raven-black hair, pale skin and a flowing white dress that fluttered on its own accord. But what caught the boy's eyes the most wasn't her attractiveness (he was too young for that) but the pair of magnificent horns extending from her forehead! "T-those are...!"
"Yes," she replied evenly. "You can likely guess this by now, but I'm not human. You mortals know me as Cailleach, the creator goddess of Scottish mythology."
"No way, a real goddess?" James exclaimed. Then he paused, thinking about it for a second. It's true, he remembered learning about her in all the books on Scottish mythology he read whenever he was too sick to go out. James had always felt a desire to reconnect to his old culture, so part of him felt overjoyed to be meeting one of his culture's deities in the flesh. Then the skeptical side of his brain overtook him. "Wait, goddesses don't really exist!" he blurted impertinently. "My teachers told me all about that, and besides it doesn't make any scientific sense. Though..." James trailed off in thought. "If you're a real goddess, I guess you could prove it for me by doing a miracle or two..."
Cailleach just threw her head back and laughed, hair spilling in an inky waterfall over her shoulders. "My, aren't you a good little skeptic?" she said, wiping tears of laughter from her dark eyes. "Then again," the lady went on once she'd regained her calmness. "I wouldn't have chosen you if you weren't that way."
James blinked in curiosity. "What do you mean by that?"
"You said I could prove I'm a goddess by performing a miracle, right?" Cailleach said, diverting the subject. "Well, what do you have in mind?" she asked playfully.
"Hmm..." James scrunched up his face, mulling it over carefully. "Wait! he exclaimed, eyes suddenly lighting up in realization. "Any wish at all...?" James trailed off, not yet daring himself to ask the question soaring from the depths of his heart. "Does that mean... even saving someone whose about to die?"
"Of course," Cailleach reassured. "But I already know your plight, so you don't need to explain everything to me. That's why I showed myself to you, after all."
"Then that means... my mom and dad won't have to cry anymore, and I can keep working on inventions?" he asked, breaking out into a grin. "H-hold on." James abruptly stopped himself. "If you can really grant ANY wish..." he went on with a more pensive expression. "Then isn't just wishing for myself pretty selfish? I don't want to be a bad person..."
Cailleach shook her head. "Don't worry about that little one. You have a powerful destiny in you, so just your survival is going to bring great reverberations to this world. And besides, though it's a little embarrassing to admit even my power isn't omnipotent. Truth is, my own power has been fading. Humans have lost faith in the old gods, and I've only hung on this long by secluding myself in the wilderness away from the lands of man."
"You know..." She gestured to the mountains all around her, a nostalgic sad smile on her face. "I once created all these, raising them from the earth myself. Yet now... I grow weak, and that power is far beyond my grasp. Granting a child's innocent wish is about all I can hope for in this state."
"But that's so sad!" James blurted out. Having admired the stories of the old gods as long as he could remember, he was grieved to hear one reduced to such a pitiful state. "A super cool goddess like you should be able to do much more than that!"
Cailleach looked distant. James couldn't imagine what emotions were flickering behind those eyes, that had surveyed the passing of countless eras. "Perhaps, but the humans of this era no longer feel that way. As Divine Spirits, our power comes from the worship of people. Now that humans have begun forging their own path with science and technology, our purpose is becoming obsolete," she finished with a bitter sigh. "But enough talk. I shall grant your wish, child, but in doing so you must contract with me."
"Contract?" James repeated uncomprehendingly.
"Yes," Cailleach explained. 'As is now I lack the power to heal even a single person from the edge of death. So you must forge a contract with me, binding your own destiny to mine so that I may leverage our shared power."
"You're saying I have power?" James asked, still uncertain.
"There's no time," she spoke, looking at him with a sudden intensity- almost desperation- flashing across her face. "Both our strengths wither with each moment that passes. Come, take my hand child." Cailleach held out her hand towards him.
James hesitated, but then he reached out and took it. The goddess' hand was cool, like the kiss of snow. "You can really heal me?"
"Yes. But someday, I will return to you, and then you must offer me a favor in turn. That is the terms of our contract."
For just a single moment, a dark smirk ghosted across her face, but the boy surely didn't see it.
"Wait, what do you mea-?" James' question cut off by a dramatic whooshing of air in front of him. He was hurled backwards, rolling to a stop on the grassy hill. When James got up, there was no trace of the mysterious woman in front of him. Only a faint thrumming of energy in the air.
He looked around, then down at himself. He felt different somehow. Each breath wasn't a burden, and a newfound vitality surged through his veins.
"Was it real...?" James asked himself, holding up his palm and studying it as if looking for any hint of the goddess' touch. "I can't believe I really talked to a goddess, plus I was under a lot of stress at the time. It might've been just a dream, or a hallucination. That's what Mama would say, and she's a smart person. But then again, I do feel a lot better now... Oh well." The boy shrugged off that thought. After all, for the maturity that belied his tender years, James was still but a child, and right now he was simply excited to be in good health again. Thoughts of the woman calling herself a goddess, or the strange contract he'd engaged in, quickly faded from his mind, like a dream upon waking.
"I can't wait to see how happy Mama will be now that I've recovered!" he exclaimed, and took off skipping back down the mountain path.
Part 2: Pioneer Of Industry
From there, events progressed more or less according to the proper history. Young James, cured of his baffling ailment, went to take on an apprenticeship in London as an instrument-maker. But he continued to tinker with machines in his spare time, and before long that humble career wasn't enough to satisfy him. He didn't just want reproduce things that already existed, but design something entirely new.
So one day James returned to his native Scotland, founding his own workshop to support himself until he could profit off his inventions. Then the breakthrough came when he was given a model Newcomen engine to repair. While studying the engine, James realized it was terribly inefficient, for far too much heat-energy was wasted converting water from liquid to steam state. This could be rectified by designing a separate cylinder to store the excess heat.
This innovation propelled the Industrial Revolution, catapulting James from a mere tinkerer to one of the most famous engineers in all England. He lived to see the advent of new mines and factories made possible by his discovery, supplying resources to those who needed them. But still James was not satisfied. He dreamed of uplifting all mankind through the power of steam, to grant prosperity to all and banish the shadows of poverty and ignorance that long haunted their race.
It wasn't enough. Progress was happening too slowly, too falteringly. Millions starved across a bloated and overstretched empire, not for lack of food but the resources needed to deliver it to them. And all of that could be solved if only he had more, if only it could be done faster.
In that moment--- James remembered.
The promise he'd made to the goddess, back in his boyhood days. He'd discarded that memory like a dream, but now it returned fully to his mind.
"Alright then," James said to himself, filling his words with newfound resolve. He would return to the goddess and plead her for the power he needed. If there was a price he would gladly pay it in his own blood, anything to ensure mankind's golden future. James closed his eyes, willing himself to go back to the scene from that day. All at once the cozy office around him faded, replaced by a vast pastoral wilderness.
But it was different now. Forests lay in kindling, plumes of industrial smog choked the horizon and rivers of black tar flowed in place of water. A horrified gasp tore its way from James' throat. "What is this?"
"This is what humanity will do," a voice whispered back. He recognized it as the goddess from before but her tone was harsher this time, crueler. Cailleach appeared before him, just as beautiful as ever even amidst the ravaged landscape. "Humans desecrate this planet and abandon the old gods, bringing ruin to themselves and others in their endless thirst for 'prosperity'," Cailleach practically spat out the word like a curse.
"But..." She gazed at James with a look of crazed desperation in her eyes. "We can change that. You've seen what humanity can do, the sins they'll condone in the name of progress. Join with me. With your ingenuity and my power we can reject all that, restore the world to the way it should be."
"..." James fell silent, refusing to meet her gaze. Finally the boy turned man's hands clenched resolutely into fists at his sides. "That's wrong. I know humans can be greedy and fall on the wrong path sometimes. But I believe that technology has the power to improve this world, to make people's lives better." He paused, steeling his will for what came next. "I don't know what's this vision you show me, but I can't accept that it's inevitable. Mankind isn't that foolish."
An almost mournful look came over Cailleach's face. "You're a brave child, standing up to a goddess in the flesh. To be honest, I admired your pure heart from back then. However... your mistake was thinking your choice in this was ever more than an indulgence on my part. Your power is already bound to mine boy. So, I'll simply take my half of the contract by force!" With those words the woman's beatific features suddenly twisted into a monstrous visage. Her fingernails lengthened into claws and she flung herself at James snarling.
James narrowly rolled out of the way as her claws raked the ground beside him. He willed himself to find some way to fight back, and before he knew it gears condensed into his hand, forming the shape of a sword. James swung it clumsily at the goddess, parrying her next swipe at his throat.
"What is this power... no, is this a 'pioneer of the stars'?" Cailleach roared in disbelief.
"Lady... I don't know all of your situation, or what drove you to this point. If you'd lost things you held precious, you have my earnest pity. But..." James' words built into a shout as he charged at the goddess 'sword' held high. "No matter what... If you stand in the way of humanity's future, I won't forgive you!"
"You... shut your mouth you damned whelp!" Cailleach yelled, clashing with the man again. James' steampunk blade burned at her divine essence, drawing it into his own with each strike. 'So this is the power of humanity... consuming even the gods to grow. It'd be poetic if it weren't such a nuisance,' she thought in a mix of admiration and disgust.
The two fought mightily within Cailleach's dream-world, but finally James proved victorious. He dealt a mortal blow on the fallen goddess, running through her chest with his sword. But... "I... curse... you..." she rasped with bloodied lips. When her heart was pierced, magical energy spilled out in an explosive backlash engulfing James. And dying that Mana was a powerful curse, Cailleach's final act of spite on the man who killed her.
That "curse" seared into James' mind visions of all the destruction humanity would wreak on itself and the natural world through the Industrial Revolution. He saw everything. Forests razed, whole species extinguished, men forced to toil in factories their whole miserable lives while the rich enjoyed opulence. All of it the opposite of what he wished for. A revenge-type mental attack intended to crush James' spirit entirely, ensuring his victory would be a pyrrhic one.
However---
"Heh... hahahaha... hahahahaaaha...!!"
A broken gurgle escaped his throat, that slowly built up into manaical laughter.
For the goddess, underestimating her opponent's mental fortitude proved to be a crucial mistake. Instead of shattering, James' psyche simply warped under the strain of her final curse, tempering into something harder and sharper than steel.
"I see... this evil, this sin, that too is a genuine aspect of one who embodies the Industrial Revolution! However... I shall not reject it! Nay, I exalt in it even! If that innocent wish to build new machines for humanity makes me a fiend, than I shall become the foulest fiend of all! I will kill, plunder and despoil without end, all for the sake of the 'ideal' that burns within my own heart!! Just watch me, oh goddess, I'll drag mankind towards the shining future even if it means becoming the greatest 'evil' of this world!!!" His self-indulgent soliloquy reached a crescendo as James threw back his head, peals of unhinged cackling echoing all throughout the illusory world.
"Ahem." A selfconscious cough as he straightened his posture. "Forgive me. It won't do for a scientist to conduct himself in such an unsightly fashion. In fact, I thank you goddess. You showed me the truth, letting me steel my mind for what needs to be done. If not for your final 'gift', I may still have been blinded by the illusions of the Romantics and lacked the will to take progress to its logical conclusion." The corners of his lips twisted in a smirk. "As gratitude, I'll be sure to use you skillfully." He reached into Cailleach's chest-cavity- eliciting a final hateful groan- and extracted her Divine Core, still gleaming gold like ichor. "After all, it'd a sin to let resources go to waste."
With those parting words James swallowed the core, absorbing its essence into his own. Suddenly golden light began to erupt from his flesh, and the world around James shattered like glass. When he came to, he was back in his study, as if his battle with the goddess had been nothing more than a fleeting daydream.
Yet this time James knew it was real. The godly power coursing through him was far beyond anything he could've written off as the work of his imagination. The man grinned, an expression less fitting of an eager inventor than a beast savoring its fresh kill.
Yes, now at last he'd obtained the power to bring his long-cherished dream into reality. This world would be forced to change, whether it wished to or not. And any smallminded fools who stood in the way of progress would be ground to dust and made into grist for his perpetual machine. He had both the power and prerogative to do so.
Part 3: Perpetual Steam Empire
Upon returning to reality, James immediately thrust himself back into his work. He was even more dedicated than before, hastening the designs of new machines and new factories to take the Industrial Revolution to ever greater heights. Yet those who knew him personally described James as a changed man, cold and indifferent unlike his once passionate self. He cast off his former hobbies and barely seemed to live outside of work. Indeed, he seemed at times less like a human than an impersonal incarnation of Progress itself.
And over time, surreal occurrences began to take place around James. His factories seemed to grow subtly bigger with each day that passed, encroaching on the surrounding landscape. Workers there often reported hearing eerie wails and unearthly groans from deep within the engine-room, as if the furnace itself were crying out like a hungry beast. Occasionally people in neighboring towns mysteriously disappeared, and the engine seemed to run unusually vigorously those days.
At first people ignored these disturbances, too blinded by excitement for all the innovations James was providing. With his technological might Britain quickly became even more of a powerhouse than it was in the proper history, growing to conquer much of the world. Before long James' factories were set up on every nation in the world, endlessly pumping out steam and producing invention after invention. All the while the man himself secluded himself in his workshop, growing paler by the day and seldom seeming to eat or sleep.
Britain had conquered the world, yet still James was not satisfied. He yearned for more, endless growth to the point of even colonizing the stars themselves. So one day his factories turned against Britain itself. They swelled up like tumors to consume the land itself, no longer producing but simply swallowing up everything to feed the ravenous engines. Those who weren't crushed under sprouting machinery or choked on industrial smog were converted into partially mechanized beings to labor in Beast's factories.
The upper class weren't turned right away since they were farther away from the industrial district itself. James felt it was better to keep some original humans around in case he encountered threats that required a dynamic mind to deal with rather than mere machines, so he spared them from the initial purge. In this new Britain the nobles and middle class live in domed tower-cities above the sea of smog and pollution, while the lower classes are modified and forced to have short lives toiling to maintain the vast machinery.
Eventually James' world was declared a Lostbelt and marked for pruning by the greater awareness of man, as the vast majority of humans becoming mechanized was deemed an outcome tantamount to "mankind's extinction". However, James was unable to accept the world he'd poured so much blood and sweat into advancing could come to an end just like that. Not when he had so much more left to undertake. In that moment, a "miracle" occurred.
No one knows whether it came through his own breakthrough or the intervention of another mysterious individual. But somehow, James gained the ability to cross between worlds. Using this power he brought himself and his steam empire to neighboring worldlines, escaping deletion by plundering the energy of other successful histories. As his empire continued to expand, assimilating countless other timelines like a cancer, James' horizons only broadened. Conquering the stars was far too shortsighted. Having discovered the existence of other worlds, he'd stop at nothing short of bringing the entire Tree of Time under his dominion.
Perhaps--- only then would his perpetual thirst for "more" be satiated.
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Grow. Devour. Reach the stars.
There needs no reason, there needs no justification.
Merely endless advancement for the sake of itself, heedless of what has to be trampled underfoot along the way.
Indeed, the titles "Father of Industry" and "Creator Goddess" are alike merely falsities. This is Beast VI, the great disaster of human history that embodies the devastation wrought to both mankind and the natural world by the Industrial Revolution. One of the seven human evils, the Beast presiding over the principle of "Progress" (the perfectionism of humans sacrificing everything for the sake of a nonexistent future). Such is his merciless ideology.