Ripheus23

So trying to convey what Apollyon "is" to a not-me person haha, I would probably tend towards one of the following two descriptions: like the Platonic Form of Destruction, or if I wanted to convey a little bit more like something between the Christian concept of God, and a Platonic Form of Destruction. But the technical definition in the moral theory of the story is that the phenomenal economies are reflections of the twenty-four orders of amendment, which have a musical representation, and Apollyon is the incarnation of the order represented by the exaltation of retribution. [All the Songs together are known generally as the Songs of Grace and in concert as the Concert of Proof.] The correct form of the Song of the Order is the Threnody of Redemption. Apollyon's form is the Dirge of Apollyon, metaphysically the Threnody of Retribution. But the Songs are actually interpretations of Plato's concept of the Forms in the first place, so this is the Form of Retribution. Since the Songs can be allegorically mapped to a city skyline and, hence, a City, Apollyon physically manifests as a city made of/setting itself on fire (how this appears environmentally remains to be imagined; I'm leaning towards the possibility of the fire-city riding an overturned floating mountain, but the climax of the story would involve a more infinite-seeming image).

[The City, by the way, I long ago knew as the City of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. And for this I thought of the Song of the City and the Song of the Spirit, and the Spirit of the City... When I read that title in Elantris later, well... you know?]

So, Apollyon is the City of the Song of Destruction. At least after Armirex cedes His share in the Final Power to Apollyon, then definitely this entity ranks close to the Christian concept of God: a concept of God from the power of destruction more than from the concept of creation.

The Final Power is a unique function of the Keyscape. Like the Second Coming of Jesus Christ in the real world, its advent cannot be directly predicted. This, however, is because, as an expression of aws Erev Halaeon, the Ultimate Choice or the greatest exercise of free will, it is mathematically randomized as to its occurrence. It is not lucky in itself that the Final Power's advent accompanies the awakening of Apollyon, as the Destroyer would not have been able to bring about the desecration of all possible existence without Vyrian Armirex ceding His share in the Final Power, to Apollyon. However, it is only through the Final Power that the question of Apollyon can be answered perfectly.

Since the Septatheon come from the infinite plenum of deontometric metafinity, in each of their universes, they satisfy a theorem of the system known IRL as the "logically necessary obligation puzzle." The idea of the problem is that deontic logic entails an eternal obligation, that is the obligation is given as a principle of the abstract system. But this seems to require that there be at least one agent in existence at all times, to fulfill the obligation; which is a puzzling thing for an abstract principle to imply. But in the Riphean world, this implication becomes an ontological algebra function, so that there are living beings who exist to satisfy the requirement of the abstraction. Since 1, n, and n + 1 are all possible solutions to the function, there are beings who are metaphysically defined in terms of these possibilities. So, there is one noumenal person in itself, there is no less than one Noumenal Artificer at any given time (and there is an indefinite multitude more than one, historically), and there are infinite number of proto-Theos. Or, this is believed to be so in general, and the consequences of its degree of truth pan out in these classes.

But the emergence of the Septatheon from the Keyscape and the pleroma, was not at the same time as the end of the Last War.

Another later event was the establishment of the Veldaithemyr, the Memorial or City of Memory. Besides being a sort of cosmic grave-marker for all who died in the Last War, it became the place of all residual evil in existence due to an event known as the Penance. This was an episode millions of years after the Last War when a magical principle developed according to which those who did evil would all be mystically teleported into a single universe, that in which the Memorial had been raised. They would not be tormented or killed or even, technically, absolutely trapped, but it would take a little time at least to leave and the power of the Penance would likely draw them back quickly. In any event, when Apollyon awakens through the form of the Memorial (converting the entire universe-city into its physical presence), all people who have done evil, who are alive at the time, die. Others might do evil later and the Penance would have nothing to do with them, but at that moment, it is a massacre of all given sinners, which plays into the theme of the transdestruction of the Forms of Evil and Nothingness themselves.

So, there are 12,000,000 years, roughly, between the end of the Last War and the cataclysm of Apollyon's final descension. Let's say the Veldaithemyr was completed a million years after the war (I mean it is a city that is legit the size of an entire finite universe!), the Penance was accomplished millions of years after that, and the Septatheon appeared several million more years later. I feel like having this vague chronology could allow me to come up with some other historical plot-points...