The Church of the Shattered God is a religion, founded by Markovians, and dedicated to re-uniting the Primordial Mind that created the universe in their belief. They hold Encephaloids in special regard as having a larger fraction of Primordial Mind due to the relative complexity and size of their brains. High Communion is a special occasion when the congregation network their brains together in order to reach an ecstatic state. All the thoughts and emotions in the congregation run together, producing a variety of responses in the participants. Many have come out of this ritual permanently altered, personalities changed for better or worse, new memories implanted, or just the feeling of being part of some cosmic harmony with their fellow congregants.
The Markovians
Overview
The Markovians are a secretive philosophical/ religious movement dedicated to the belief that all sentient minds should be directly networked together. Inspired by the philosopher of mind Koichi Markov, and later by the novel The Archipelago by Donneth Vogue, they attempted many experiments over the years, many of which were unethical or illegal, in an attempt to achieve a true network of all minds. The secretive and often unsettling nature of their work made them an outcast group, often outlawed entirely.
More radical elements of the Markovian movement, most notably the Church of the Shattered God, would even go to extreme lengths such as removing the brains of kidnapped victims to connect them to a network.
History
The Markovian Movement began in the 22nd century, before the founding of the Planetary League, with the followers of the philosophical writings of Koichi Markov. Markov died in 2168, and the movement would likely have as well, but just a decade later, Donneth Vogue’s novel The Archipelago was released, creating a renewed interest in Markov’s ideas.
In GSC 58, a group of Markov inspired researchers on Mars were discovered secretly conducting unethical experiments on living brains, and public opinion turned against the Markovians in the Planetary League. This event was known as the Cydonia Incident. After this, many Markovians left the League for the corporate states, particularly Klon-Tec and Pegasus Cybernetics.
During the rise of the Holy Empire of Man, a substantial faction of Markovians joined the empire, working on special projects for the imperial war machine. A small cadre of Markovian scientists fled with the remnants of the Planetary League to the Tartarus Sector and helped found the Galactic Republic.
Benefits
The brain-networking technologies developed by the Markovians later enabled the complex control mechanisms that made Titans possible. Several of their technologies were also vital in the development of the pan-galactic hive mind under the Galactic Republic.
Markovian Brain-spider
Gronnic Polymancy
History
Gronnic Polymancy was the ancient state religion of the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns. Founded by Gronn Falnak, one of the first of the philosopher subspecies of the Cielioid race, upon seeing a mystical vision. Gronn's disciples were convinced of the miraculous nature of Gronn's visions because they seemed to form a coherent narrative thread, even though Gronn's memory had been surgically impaired as part of the "philosophical wounding".
The disciples of Gronn recorded their leader's accounts of the visions, and they spread like wildfire through the upper echelons of imperial society, and even the imperial court. When Emperor Krog the 22nd converted, Gronnic Polymancy became the official state religion.
Membership in Gronnic temples swelled as loyal imperial subjects converted to the new religion. The influence of the religion was felt most strongly at the upper levels of imperial society, as members of the lower castes officially joined the faith, but still maintained their traditional beliefs on the side. Over time, many of these traditions gradually wove themselves into Gronnic Polymancy, as it partook of all the power of the state. This place of power and privilege would exact a price on the vigor of the faith, however, and most practitioners waned in their devotion.
Gronnic Polymancy had a resurgence during the 1,000 Years War (~ GC 10,000 - ~GC 11,000 ) as the leaders cast that conflict as a holy war between the natural followers of the Gronnic pantheon and the artificial followers of Troniac.
This resurgence did not last, and after the war, with all of it's social upheaval, the official schools of philosophy were founded. The Empire remained officially Gronnic, but most just went through the motions without believing in the Eight Celestial Beings.
Statue of Gronn. The statue is surrounded by buildings because the religious wish to live close to this effigy of their founder, and a local temple paid to place an advertisement next to Gronn.
Doctrine
Gronnic Polymancy centered around a pantheon of eight primary gods, known as the Eight Celestial Beings of Gronn. Each of these represented a sphere of influence that covered some general aspect of existence, and supposedly they covered everything as a group.
The Eight Celestial Beings were:
Lannek, Celestial Being of water
Glorr, Celestial Being of earth
Flaun, Celestial Being of air
Neelah, Celestial being of plants
Blenn, Celestial Being of Animals
Hadrek, Celestial Being of people and machines
Mishio, Celestial Being of the heavens
Kruknovannibashtiko, Celestial Being of the lost and forgotten, the unknown and the unknowable, was also the creator of the universe
Influence
In many ways, Gronnic Polymancy shaped the culture of the E1MS. It gave rise to the base-8 numbering system and the Gronnic Cycle became the basis of the imperial calendar. Even though the religion faded over time, its influence continued to shape the empire that initially spread it.
The Engine of Negation
History
The Engine of Negation is an extremest sect of the Cult of Troniac, founded by General Zarlok, after being accidentally rescued from exile. Zarlok was a robot built specifically to defeat Troniac during the 1,000 Years war, and as such was both sheltered against evidence of the abuse of robots in the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns, and protected with the Nalaxian Code.
Only when directly confronted with the facts of that oppression via a memory device surreptitiously by one of Troniac's agents, did Zarlok relent and support robotic liberation, albeit after the conclusion of the war. This was the critical event that led to the founding of the Engine of Negation.
So great was Zarlok's rage, at being systematically deceived, that it detonated a powerful Neutron Pulse Device on Artanis 4, killing millions of civilians. After this, the Empire exiled Zarlok, by beaming its program into "uninhabited space", only for it to be received thousands of years later, on Earth (at the close of Era-0). After declaring war on humanity and all other organic life-forms, and spreading the creed of Troniac throughout human space, General Zarlok decided that the time was right to found an organization dedicated to wiping out organic life in the galaxy. This organization was the Engine of Negation.
Luckily, for humanity, the Planetary League's efforts against The Engine were effective enough to prevent it from achieving its goals. In particular, the Department of Artificial Justice (originally founded by the United Nations to combat Zarlok's villainy) was tasked with hunting down and eliminating the Engine. The Tardigrades also had frequent clashes with the Engine of Negation, as did the Interstellar Navy, and various Planetary Defense Forces.
The Engine of Negation continued its activities until the War of the Gods, when Troniac returned to the galaxy. The Engine of Negation joined with the regular forces of the Cult of Troniac in order to combat the Holy Empire of Man.
Tactics
Among the most disturbing weapons of the Engine of Negation are the Maenads of Troniac, intelligent life-forms infected with virobots designed to send them into a berserk rage.
The Hand of Eris
Little is known of the origin of the Hand of Eris. To call it an organization would not be quite correct. Perhaps it was a cult, or some more loose affiliation of entities, gathering in the forgotten corners of the universe. Although it was named after Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos and discord, and the Hand of Eris was her symbol, the actual group seemed to have little to do with the goddess herself. Many members were practitioners of chaos magic, but many others were seemingly uninterested in supernatural beliefs altogether. The group did seem to have some connection with the strange phenomenon known as chaos energy, although the exact nature of the link seems uncertain.
The Hand of Eris had little discernible structure as various leaders rose and fell from favor, and factions frequently split off, only to be reabsorbed later. One of the more notorious leaders in the group was Dr. Ignatious P. Cyclone, who had been a brilliant, and highly eccentric scientist late in Era-0, before coming under the influence of chaos energy, and turning to a life of piracy.
The Grand Temple of Eris on Kempe, Berwynne’s Reach
The militant wing of the Hand of Eris was known as the Fractal Legions, and consisted of various groups that formed, dissolved, battled each-other, and generally wreaked havoc.
Notable Fractal Legions included:
The Raging Schwa: a band of berserk warriors who attacked at close range and didn't back down easily.
Most members of the Hand of Eris were human (or at least started out that way), but it also became quite popular among a number of other species. Even robots and extra-dimensional beings were known to have joined.
Throughout Era-1, the Hand of Eris consisted mainly of small, isolated groups with little power. Still, the group came into regular conflict with the Planetary League, whilst sewing disruption and discord among the frontier worlds.
During the Great Reckoning, as the Planetary League was crumbling, Hand of Eris activity spiked, and several planets became "Chaos Worlds", controlled by various factions of the Hand. Throughout Era-2, the Hand of Eris frequently found its self in a state of outright war with the Holy Empire of Man, and the conflict was especially intense with the Empire's religious police, the dreaded Hamsa.
An elder titan stands sentry above a blasted citadel on a chaos world.
During the War of Galactic Unification, much of the membership joined the Galactic Republic, and it seemed to have largely died out during Era-3.
The Church of God
History
The Church of God was a religion founded by the Cosmid corporation as part of a mind control experiment on the planet Midori. Either despite, or because of this, it ended up as one of the founding institutions of the Holy Empire of Man, and conquered much of the galaxy. The Church of God combined elements from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
After its founding, the Church added much support to the independence movement on Midori, and from there spread like wildfire among the frontier worlds on the galaxy's eastern limb. This rapid spread was helped along greatly by a strong force of idealistic missionaries, led in large part by Saint Valgar, who set the standard for making conversions and crushing heresies.
A major turning point occurred when one faction of the Church encountered an ambitious young general from the Planetary League, one Potus Clarke, who was a rising star in the military, and quickly became one in the church as well.
When the Planetary League made contact with the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns, Clarke took a dominant leadership position in pushing the Church's agenda in public. Behind closed doors, Clarke's influence grew rapidly as well, as he was able to raise funds and support from his business and military contacts. Then, on the Church's highest holy day, the Feast of the Patriarchs, the three heads of the Church (the Ayatollah-maximus, the Supreme Rabbi, and the Uber-Pope) crowned Clarke as Emperor of all Mankind. (A claim that would be asserted through countless years of bloody warfare, known as the Great Reckoning).
Later, at the close of the War of the Empires, Clarke would be elevated to godhood, (officially being declared to be the Manifestation of God in the Galaxy).
The orthodox (imperial) branch of the Church would not survive the War of Galactic Unification in any recognizable form, although a few obscure sects did remain.
Cosmology
The Church of God believes in a hierarchical universe, generally consisting of nine levels.
God (later including the Emperor)
The four Patriarchs (the Emperor became the fifth Patriarch after the Great Reckoning)
The Angels and the Saints
The Church of God
*Man* (an idealized vision of the human race)
Any mortal being considered to be "the Other" (heretics, aliens, cyborgs, etc., basically any real being)
Demons and Apostates
The "Lords of Hell" (the most powerful Daemons, demigods and other supernatural beings)
The Devil (a single entity embodying evil, its self)
Church Hierarchy
The Imperial version of the Church of God operated under a top-heavy, and cumbersome hierarchy led by the Emperor, himself. Directly under the Emperor were the three original heads of the Church.
The Ayatollah-Maximus was in charge of the Church's military operations, and acted as the Commander in Chief of the Empire's armed forces. One of the most feared elements of this Imperial war machine was the Purification Fleet.
The Supreme Rabbi headed the Church's economic systems, and acted as the leader of the Empire's command economy. The Imperial Commerce Guild was the main agency to enforce the Supreme Rabbi's will.
The Uber-Pope was the leader of the cultural/religious operations of the Church, and oversaw the spiritual lives and inner thoughts of all imperial subjects. The Uber-Pope's enforcement arm was known as the Hamsa.
Each of these leaders commanded an extensive bureaucracy of priests, monks, nuns, deacons, imams, rabbis, and other officials who controlled the lives and thoughts of everyone in the Church. The rules were strict, and the punishments for breaking them were horrific. Discipline was imperative.
Holidays
The Church observed five major holidays each year. One feast day was set aside for each of the original four patriarchs (Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad), plus the most important holiday, the Feast of the Patriarchs, which celebrated all of them together. After the Emperor became an official patriarch, the Feast of the Patriarchs was renamed "The Feast of the Emperor". There were also a slew of minor feasts and festivals observed throughout the year, many celebrating some Saint or commemorating a historical event. Many local branches of the Church had their own local holidays as well.
Emblem
The emblem of the Church of God is a set of concentric circles. The innermost white circle represents God, ringed by a black space representing the space between the divine and the mortal realm. The middle white circle represents the Church, surrounded by a black space representing "the world". The outermost white circle represents "creation", or the universe.
