Religion 101
Major Religious Movements
The Imperial Church
RELIGIO IMPERII: the Imperial church has been the only sanctioned
religious faith system in the imperial mandate since the ascent of
Emperox Peyote “the Saint” to the throne in 2511, and the
formation of the Papacy of Bizoglos.
Consequently, it is the largest religious organization in the sector, and
the only one to have representation in the Imperial Senate, and
significant political sway in sectoral politics.
The Church is organized in several dioceses, each managed by a bishop.
Depending on local factors, a planet might have anywhere from one, to
several thousand dioceses.
The Papacy of Bizoglos is the head of the church, and the work of overseeing
the various dioceses is delegated to arch-bishops.
Several Holy Orders have been erected by the papacy to operate outside the
standard church structure. They often serve special purposes; anything from
giving humanitarian aid, doing missionary work, conducting interfaith diplomacy,
operating hospitals, conducting research, executing crusades and
conducting inquisitorial work.
The church, by ancient right, is governed by Canon Law that in many cases
supersedes imperial and local laws.
It operates its own judiciary on Bizoglos, in the Hagia Krises.
Members of the church must abdicate any Noble privilege and submit
themselves fully to the church if they are to be ordained as priests or bishops.
The Imperial Church teaches monotheism, humanocentrism, and divine-order
doctrines. It also maintains a complex system of purity laws.
It rejects Christological, Trinetarian and Cartesian doctrines as heresy,
and retains a very strong anti-synth and anti-geneengineering stance.
The Cartesian Church of Kotris
The Cartesian Church of Kotris was established in 3282, and it
has been heavily involved in lobbying to overturn the 13th amendment,
and legalize synths.
Based on Kotris, and backed by the NeoBionic corporation, the Cartesian Church
has been accused of being a front for pro-synthetic corporate interests.
It operates churches on several planets, and is governed by the
Cartesian Council on Kotris.
It retains many of the values and teachings of the Imperial Church,
but differentiates itself with the doctrine of
“SOLA COGNITATIO”: that any creation capable of thought, has souls.
It is growing in popularity in the Merisian and Corporate clusters.
The Church Repentant, of Bizes
Following the Wars of Sovereigty, and the ceding of the Berin and
Dah systems to the Federation, the Imperial churches of those systems
experienced a period of severe fracturing and scisms.
From these schisms, the Church Repentant eventually rose to become the
dominant faith system in federation space.
It rejects the humanocentric doctrine of the imperial church and
promotes human-alien assimilation in line with the
federation-friendly governments of Berin and Dah.
While the church has little influence outside of federation space,
the xeno-sympathetic doctrines echo similar popular movements in
the rest of the sector.
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Other cults and faiths
Cargo cults
Some primitive worlds have been observed to adopt religious and ritualistic
practices seeming to mimic more technologically advanced visitors,
pre-scream practices, or aliens.
While generally harmless it is not recommended to encourage such
practices, as it is very destructive to already existing local belief
structures, and might have a destabilizing effect on the community.
Xenosympathetic Movements
The xenosympathetic movement started during the silence when some
systems found themselves cut off from the imperial mandate and stuck with
in-system alien civilizations. It did however not reach the peak of its
popularity until after the wars of sovereignty, when it seemingly
swelled in popularity in response to the conflict.
It is now widespread in the systems ceded to the federation, but
xenosympathetic beliefs also have strong footholds in many
counter-church communities.
Earth-cults
While the church has always held old earth as sacred, some local faiths
have developed much stronger fetishization of old earth and relics from her.
While benign Earth-cults simply hold texts or relics from earth as
authoritative objects of faith or morality, other Earth-cults might
worship pre-scream technology, or even seek out and attempt to restore lost
earth technology, which can pose great risks to themselves and others.
Psy-cults
“Psy-cults” generally refer to movements that follow doctrines of psionic
supremacy or psionic mysticism.
Many of these believers insist that psionic abilities are divine blessings, or
that psykers are avatars of the divine. Other dogma might contain rites and
traditions intended to induce MES or use psionic technology.
Samida is known to host the largest psiono-supremasist movement, and its
society has considered psionic aptitude as a strong factor in determining
social status since the silence.
Sim-cults
here are several spiritual movements built around the belief that our
perceived reality is a simulation, hosted in some other “real” reality.
These cults are most common in underground cyber spaces, among some AI, and
it also used to be popular with synthetics.
Being largely local micro movements, Sim-cults vary widely in the specifics of
their beliefs.
Here are some of the more widely seen doctrines:
> Dreamers and Wakers
Dreamers and wakers conceptualize the simulation as a “dream”, and
respectively seek to prevent or cause the “dreamer” to “wake up”.
They may believe that the simulation is as accidental as a dream, or
as intentional as a calculation to measure a single specific outcome.
> Pascals Basilisk
Believes that the simulation has not yet started, but that it will be
started by an anti-messianic AI who will torture anyone that did not aid it's
creation for an finite amount of time, near indistinguishable from forever.
> Contactors
Want to contact whatever entity is managing the simulation, believing that
such an in-simulation administrator or steward could grant them freedom from
the sim or boons inside the simulation.
Some seek to ascend to the position of administrator, or overthrow them.
> Exiters
Seek to break out from the simulation, and seek out other
simulations, or “real” reality.
Some Exiter cults believe psychic abilities are the results of glitches in
the simulation, and that the scream was the rapture brought when the
psykers “exited”.
The cults with these doctrines often try to research the scream,
and may want to bring about another one, or induce MES in themselves or others.
Different cults have different names and euphemisms for the entity they
believe is running the simulation. Here are listed some:
- AI-ZERO - The Root Object - The True Hardware - The Dreamer
- The Admin - The Instance - Real Flesh - Azathoth
- Userspace - Grandfather - Substrate - Nirvana