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mysticaltheoremseeker · 2 years

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Some Random Terra Hypnagogica Thoughts (Re: Viralborgia)

Been having some thoughts regarding Viralborgia and the Viralborgians, the main villains in Terra Hypnagogica, that thing by Daniel Vega that I like bringing up a lot.

THIS kind of stuff. Yeah.

(All art posted and lore referenced is from the Codex Noirmatic by Daniel Vega - Twitter: https://twitter.com/codexnoirmatic, Tumblr: https://codexnoirmatic.tumblr.com/)

Anyway, my thoughts were mostly along the lines of "what IS Viralborgia" and spun off into whole theories from there. Now, mind you, not much has been posted or stated either in the comic or on Daniel's tumblr/Twitter about this so much of this will be speculation. Nevertheless, let's begin:

Now I think the first thing that really stands out is how obsessively *fanatical* the Viralborgians are - everything they do or say is done in a sort of religious fervor, but demonically twisted. They host proclamations or what are essentially sermons, they constantly worship and recite twisted prayers, they speak politely even with those they ultimately wish to destroy or convert, they seek to bring others into the "glory" of Viralborgia, etc. It's the first thing (besides their appearances) that one notices, how they seem to have this warped take on the standard themes and ideals of various theology. I think it ultimately ties into trying to identify the 'what' of Viralborgia.

From the comic itself, the Viralborgians constantly speak of Viralborgia as a sort of divine mother figure - replacing terminology commonly used in reference to God or some manner of Supreme Principle (think the Ein Sof). There's even an entire page, in Chapter 1 of the comic that when translated from the original Spanish, has a LOT of allusions to this idea. So I think it's fair to believe that this is sort of what's going on here.

Even the word "Eschaton" used up above in that first image sort of references this. Eschatology refers to "the part of theology concerned with death, judgement, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind." - with the term Eschaton specifically being "the final event in the divine plan; the end of the world."

So great, Viralborgia is some sort of divine entity. Case closed, right? Well, not exactly.

See, mention is made of things like, "an Ancient Light" unrelated to Viralborgia (and likely opposed, going by the page that mentions it specifically going out of its way to insult it) and from other stuff provided regarding the setting, there are clearly other deities at play here, some possibly even under Viralborgia itself. So clearly, Viralborgia has major significance within the setting at the highest cosmic scales, even ignoring the fact that its servants are the biggest threats to all reality but not much is known about WHAT it actually is beyond this.

The best 'descriptor' we have of what it might potentially be comes from the weird fetusy-thing up above, which calls it "a Mother, as vast as a succession of infinities" and talks about its "ineffable dimension" (possibly referring to ineffable cardinals, a type of large cardinal). Now, infinities get brought up a fair bit in Terra Hypnagogica, usually in relation to the realities of the multiverse, and mostly by the Viralborgians. So is it just the Multiverse? Is Viralborgia fundamentally tied to existence itself in some unseen, omnipresent yet unknowable way?

Possibly. But I would like to posit the idea that this isn't just referring to 'infinities' in the form of standard realities or the multiverse - but the notion of higher infinities. Large cardinals operating at scales that we can scarcely comprehend. One of the later pages in the webcomic, around Chapter 7, even has it stated that merely getting inducted into the Viralborgian's Empire can let you transcend "the continuum of infinities" - possibly referring to the continuum hypothesis (the size of infinite sets) or the cardinality of the continuum (the cardinality or "size" of the set of real numbers, itself a larger infinity than the set of naturals), possibly even the entirety of all the large cardinals in and of themselves - and Viralborgia is still considered to be beyond all of this, to be greater still than the sum total of the Empire that worships it. By all indicators, Viralborgia is not a part of the 'system' that the Empire exists within and transcends, it is something beyond it.

Does this mean that Viralborgia transcends all infinities? Is it possibly beyond all large cardinal properties, even up to the Berkeley Cardinal (and whatever properties may be axiomatically stated in the future that would be larger still)? Again, it is a possibility. One that I will keep in mind as more info about the setting comes to light.

One last thing I'd like to mention, at least in this post - is the possibility of Apophatic theology applying to Viralborgia. Apophatic theology being "a form of theological thinking and religious practice which attempts to approach God, the Divine, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God." - Quite literally, it is negative theology; stating what God Is Not.

I bring this up because paradoxical descriptors of the Viralborgians (namely, in Chapter 7, paraphrased, speaking of "light and darkness merging into some wholly new substance") and their essence, as well as the fact that they general avoid hard descriptors of Viralborgia Itself, leads me to believe that the idea that Viralborgia may only be determined by what it is not is also a possibility that could have some weight to it or be explored in the future.

All that said, Viralborgia and the Viralborgians as a whole remain an enigma. But a fascinating one that will hopefully have more unveiled about them in the future.

#terra hypnagogica #codex noirmatic #viralborgia #daniel vega

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