“The six forces that pointed toward a seventh, and yet denied it. For a long while I considered this seeming contradiction no more than another variable. An unknown waiting to be solved.”
The six cosmic agencies consider themselves eternal and perpetual. Itself a denial that there may be an ultimate end to them. The seventh force could in some way be a form of “essence” of finality. The end. The terminal point of reality. The fundamental “stop” from which there is no afterward, no continuation. A singularity of apocalyptic conclusion to existence. Universal Armageddon to all things.
“This was not a variable to be solved. It was a solution awaiting its opportunity.”
A solution awaiting its opportunity. As if a thing inevitable to which all else progresses. An approaching “something” that approaches as an effect of existence moving forward. A resolution to existence patiently anticipating the march toward itself.
Firim even ponders later whether the First Ones’ design is intended to continue forever. That it may be meant to have an end. What if this seventh force is the impending and perhaps ultimately inevitable encroachment of that end?