Synopsis / Summary / Plot
In the main series Thanos has become Prime Eternal and wily Druig is his advisor. The mad Titan is consolidating his rule. At this point he is throwing Druig's father Valkin, head of the Polarian Eternals, into a cell because he won't support him.
Thanos says he had often wondered if Earth's Eternals were better than his parents and brother Eros on Titan, and his ascended grandfather Kronos. Now he's met most of them he considers them not worthy to live. Druig says Thanos reminds him of *his* grandfather, Kronos' brother Uranos. Thanos understands that Uranos died after his heresy, and was presumably resurrected here and imprisoned. Druig confirms that's mostly right but he never died. They couldn't afford to have him die. Druig takes Thanos to his cell. The usual Great Machine voiceover thinks this is a *bad* idea.
Uranos greets Thanos but calls him as much of a disappointment as the rest. He only killed half the universe (Infinity Gauntlet event) - if something's worth doing it's worth doing completely. He's still trapped behind a barrier, and Thanos refuses to let him out, purely to deny him what he wants. Uranos turns his back dismissively. But Thanos says that when he leaves he'll ask Druig to tell him all about Uranos. That is unless Uranos wants to tell *his* version. Uranos grudgingly admits that's a good point, and begins his tale.
The Celestials created the Eternals and the Deviants 1 million years ago. The 3rd Principle they built in to the Eternals was to look out for Excess Deviation and kill such a monster (who was actually a menace to the other Deviants rather than the Eternals). About 400,000 years later Uranos got sick of this and started killing ordinary Deviants as well.
He now breaks off his story to chat with Thanos a bit. He knows that Thanos is trying to become part of the Machine like the other Eternals. (In the main series Phastos has done part of the job but couldn't complete it.) Uranos warns him that success would bring unavoidable responsibilities as well as rights. He reminds the Titan how his love for Death had made him her slave. Eternals are slaves to the Celestials' Principles. But Uranos had conceived of a final solution to the problem of the 3rd Principle. He just had to convince the other 2 of the 3 Patriarchs.
Now we get 1 of the Machine's infodumps. We are reminded that the Eternals don't really have families. All 100 Eternals were created by the Celestials from the beginning, and keep getting resurrected by the Machine if they are killed. However they have invented family structures for themselves, divided into 3 kinds. 1-Gen (Singularities) are Eternals with no families. 2-Gen (Atomic Families) are 'parents' and 'children'. 3-gen (Dynasties) are 'grandparents', 'parents' and 'children'. There are only 3 Dynasties headed by Uranos, Oceanus and Kronos who also call themselves brothers - the 3 Patriarchs.
In those early days there was no single Prime Eternal. Instead the Patriarchs ruled by dominating the Uni-Mind with the block votes of their Dynasties. The Machine finds that the file on the Matriarchs and other females has been deleted. So it can only display (a portion of) the male structure of the Uranos and Kronos Dynasties. Uranos 'begat' Virako and Valkin. Virako's son is Ikaris, and Valkin's is Druig. Kronos had Zuras and A'Lars). Zuras had Thena (the only woman who makes it into the chart). A'Lars went to Titan and became Mentor. He and his wife, unlike all other Eternals, actually *did* have children - Eros and Thanos.
Back to Uranos' tale. In those days the Eternals lived in Titanos. He met the other 2 Patriarchs there and proposed his idea. The 3rd Principal makes them kill Deviants who are afflicted with Excess Deviation. He suggested that they prevent Excess Deviation by wiping out *all* the Deviants. As Keeper of the Great Machine's arsenal of weapons he knows they can do it. Kronos protested that it would be genocide, but Uranos declared the Deviants not *people*. Oceanus tried to mediate but sided with Kronos because the Celestials must have created the Deviants for a reason.
Uranos left them to carry out his plan alone. He destroyed the Deviant city and most of its inhabitants. Rather than hunt down the remainder he moved on to the 2nd stage of his plan which he *hadn't* shared with his brothers. He contacted all his Uranites (ie members of the Uranos Dynasty) to broadcast their manifesto for omni-genocide.
Time for another infodump, the Uranite manifesto - his reinterpretation of the 3 Principle.
3) Correct Excess Deviation. As already proposed, do that by Deviant genocide.
2) Protect the Great Machine. This is normally interpreted as the whole planet. But the Machine is only the Eternals and its infrastructure that spreads *throughout* the planet. Deviants, plants and animals aren't part of the Machine so they must go. Also all other life on other worlds is not part of the Machine and might constitute a threat to it. So the whole galaxy must be purged.
1) Protect the Celestials. But not necessarily their freedom. The Eternals aren't allowed to harm them but they should find a way to subdue and cage their gods as the ultimate protection.
In conclusion after removing all other life from the Earth they should make the planet mobile and drive it round the universe killing all that lives and plundering their planets for resources to maintain and upgrade the Machine.
Back at the plot Thanos reminds Uranos that this started an Eternals civil war which his side lost. Uranos protests that he was betrayed. Druig (the betrayer) claims that he switched sides after the cause was already doomed. Then the Uranites left to live on Titan and Uranus with a clone of Uranos, where they all died (except Thanos' mother Sui-San). Druig remembers how his father Valkin (who somehow wasn't a Uranite) was disgusted with him. Uranos remembers how Druig made sure he was taken alive, but without explaining the real reason why ...
... but it became clear at his trial where he revealed that he had rigged the Machine so it would self-destruct if he died. Or if they mindwiped him. Oceanus can't understand how the 2nd Principle allowed him to do this, but Uranos points out that it would be an automatic event out of his control. This triggered a mind-war that lasted a century as all the Eternals tried to wrest the secret from his brain of how to disengage the fail-safe. Eventually they gave up and put him in the Exclusion, at the cost of losing access to the arsenal of weapons. And he's been here for 600,000 years.
Thanos lets him know that recently (at the start of the current Avengers series) it was discovered that the Celestials wanted Earth and humans protected because they would become anti-bodies to destroy a celestial plague (The Horde). Uranos says it's the Celestials fault for not making that clear in their 3 Principles. Thanos just finds it useful to know that he could destroy Earth by killing Uranos. Uranos dismisses Druig so he and Thanos can talk privately. Then he gives the Titan the access key to the armoury and therefore to the fail-safe so he can destroy the machine whenever he wishes. This is what he fought to keep from the other Eternals but now he finds Thanos a worthy (via Sui-San) descendent. Thanos thanks him by upgrading him from grand-uncle to grandfather.