By Maurice Lane

First off, it's not a Revolution. They already had the Revolution. Lucifer won.

Much good it did him.

The Lightbringer managed to convince much of Heaven that his killing of Michael demonstrated the Truth of his position. Propaganda to the contrary (in whatever cosmos you prefer), there were quite a few celestials that simply weren't certain that humanity was worth the favor God was apparently showing them. There were more angels sitting on the sidelines than fighting on the field. When Lucifer emerged, and Michael did not, it seemed obvious to most that the Archangel of Light had been right all along.

However, certain Archangels and their followers remained stubbornly true to their beliefs. This presented the victors with a problem: heat of battle aside, killing these dissidents would prove ultimately self-defeating. The silent majority of Heaven hardly wanted to see more bloodshed, after all. Convincing the dissidents quickly proved futile, in the main: while a few of the more ambivalent were swayed, the rest held firm. And, of course, simply letting them roam free would merely start the Revolution all over again ... and there were forces - led by Ogiel, the fallen Michael's chief lieutenant - crouched outside of Heaven now, eager to begin the fight anew.

The only realistic solution was Exile. The Loyalist angels were banished forever, locked in a place where they could never see the Light of Heaven. Yves went with them willingly, although not even Lucifer himself could bear to lay hands on him. Indeed, it is said that he and others tried to convince the Exiles to truly surrender up to the last second. Lucifer's only reward for this effort was a sad shaking of the head from Yves ... and the spittle of Novalis in his eye. The others fared no better as their former brothers and sisters were locked away. In the end, the only thing that Heaven could do was to adjust to the new order of things (admittedly, some better than others).

And, at first so quietly that no one could hear it, the Symphony began to slowly unravel…

By the time an increasingly desperate Lilith broke the Exiles out of Hades, the situation was grave. The Symphony had degraded over time: already it was impossible for anyone to reach the Higher Heavens, and many the Host had begun to go mad from their inability to stop the corruption of reality itself. With the help of Ogiel (now a Superior in fact, if not in name), she was able to warp time and space itself and prove her own worthiness for her eventual Word.

She found the Exiles ... changed. Of the great ones, Blandine had become silent, David had visibly given up, Dominique had blinded herself, Novalis was cold and Uriel was colder. Only Eli, Janus, Oannes and Raphael seemed still stable. And Yves was dead. A motley bunch to challenge the reconstituted Seraphim Council, the Heavenly Host and Lucifer, Regent of Heaven ... but they were ready to try. They're still trying, despite their losses - and despite the fact that the hidden insanity of Janus was revealed in a way that threatens to make the entire matter moot. The Symphony is still degrading, you see ... and nobody's sure about how to stop it. Nobody's even sure if it's possible to stop it.

Welcome to the world of the Tattered Symphony. There are no known demons, no Undead, no awkward Grigori to explain away and almost no ethereal blood on angelic hands.

It looks like everyone's doomed, anyway.