[Setting Post] The Invisible Congress

The first thing that the All-and-Nothing created was the Mirror, so that It could examine Itself. It knew what Good was, you see, but It knew not Itself, nor whether Itself was Good. It set to examining Itself and then to interrogating and then as the Mirror became a Prism, to dividing Itself out into the three score and twelve Archons which exist today. Each of the Archons are said to embody an element of the Good and to be charged with confirming the rest also conform equally to the Good.

Politics ensued. Debates. Quorums. Decorum. And worst of all, hypotheticals. The Archons of the Invisible Congress (for that is what they came to call themselves) found themselves constantly returning to the same question: is it better to start from Nothing and add to it only that which can be confirmed beyond all doubt to be Good, or better to start from All and subtract away that which is shown not to be Good? Empty or Full? Dark or Bright? Silence or Sound? Around the debate went.

The two great Celestial Coalitions, the Temperances (who thought it wise to refrain from accidentally permitting Evil) and the Benevolences (who said it wiser to not overlook any opportunity for Good) voted that this question merited a Test Case. 

They would build a World within the Mirror and in that World, half would be drawn from the All and half left as Nothing. The Temperances would be empowered to choose what would be included, for they wished to add no Evil and the Benevolences would be empowered to choose what would be omitted, for they wished to overlook no Good. And the third of the Archons who held to more nuanced positions would be set within the Mirror, experiencing it as merely mortal beings and report back how it truly was.

The Temperances immediately set to the Creation of every wicked thing that might prove their doctrine true, while the Benevolences set to employing their due of Destruction with all the skill of a sculptor smiting the marble around the statue. One score and four were the Archons of Nuance, now passed through the Prism and splintered into three hundred and forty three shades of distinction. From this the lineages of man, beast and blossom until the End of Days and the Nuanced Report.