Microstory 711: New Faction Martyred

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We are nearing the end of these one hundred and twenty-one taikon, and the Fostean galaxy is in a monumentally different place now than it was when these first started. We thought we had it all figured out. We had hundreds of years to perfect our economy and sociopolitical culture, so surely nothing could be better than what we had come up with. But this was foolish, for our predecessors in the Lactean galaxy had several times that many years to perfect their own way of life, and they still managed to get it wrong. But maybe they were onto something here. Maybe there are some things they can teach us, just like there is much we can teach them. Far from the leaders that once ruled our civilizations, there are those who feel this to be the truth. They are already in discussions with the Core, hoping to form some sort of amicable relationship. Lacteans have expressed a willingness to trade resources, while at the same time providing military strength against our common enemy in the Thuriamen. Throughout these changes, a faction of Lightseers have begun adopting new rituals and practices. It is still a form of Lightseed, to be sure, but they are more passionately in favor of the new taikon discovered in the Book of Anseluka. They value predominantly a community-oriented economy, believing that everyone has their own contribution to make, and that no man is more important than any other. They help each other hone their natural skills, and find their place in the universe, rather than simply encouraging each member to find their own way. The majority of those on the outside of this new faction are accepting of them, and willing to let them carry on in peace. Others, however, feel differently. They are staunch traditionalists, believing the Sacred Savior’s original words in the Book of Light to be flawless. This despite the fact that Sotiren Zahir admits within the text of the Book of Light that if change is necessary, it should not be resisted. These conservatives felt their ideals were being threatened by the presence of a rival faction, even though sects are no longer considered in competition. They misinterpreted the text of the new taikon, thinking they were the foretold martyrs of their faith. They struck first, massacring the majority of the community-based faction, which actually acted to martyr them instead. The attackers’ faction was immediately disbanded, with all violent members being sent to jail to await judgment, and likely incarceration. A memorial to the progressive martyrs is planned for construction on Lakre, not too far from the memorial already being erected in remembrance of those lost in the Hydra Support Network.

Microstory 708: Satisfaction With Little

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This was probably our greatest challenge, even against the trickier ones. We’ve spent our entire history, and then some, valuing the accumulation of wealth. To us, this has always been each and everyone of our respective goals. We believe every civilization needs some kind of metric, if not more than one, to determine who has been successful, and who hasn’t. Otherwise, how will we know who to trust in positions of leadership? How can anyone live a fulfilling life if they can have everything they need just from having been born in the first place? These are questions we’ve not had any experience asking, and in fact, haven’t so much as considered. Wealth as a metric is so ingrained in our culture that our brains never though to ask such things. Honestly, we’ve all needed time to think over our notions and behavior, and reexamine our choices. Fortunately, each taikon is not sprung upon us after the previous one is complete. We were able to read ahead, with these last ones being laid out for us in the Book of Anseluka. Ever since encountering these new taikon, we’ve been working on transitioning the galaxy towards more inclusive values. We have deepened our connection with the various of cultures of Earth, cementing our plans to become a more traditional capitalistic society. We see now that we were blinded by the Light of Ignorance, which prevented us from seeing beyond our own way, or the way of our ancient communist ancestors. We now understand that there are many ways to run an economy, rather than simply the two extremes. The dirty communists from whence we came value success just as much as we always did. Their problem is that they believe everyone should share in this success, rather than finding ways of improvement. We still think this way to be wrong, and strongly believe in the Earthan method. Life is all a balance, so why shouldn’t a civilization be the same? You still have to earn what you have, but we now recognize that there are those who are born under such poor circumstances that self-improvement is practically impossible. How foolish we had been claiming to ourselves that anyone in Fostea can have what they want if only they had a strong enough work ethic. That is not how it works now, nor was it ever. Not all men are created equal, but we’re all born with a capacity for charity and compassion. Likewise, we’re all capable of surviving on very little. The New Light teaches us that acceptance in one’s misfortunes does not preclude the perseverance against them.

Microstory 705: Avail Immortality

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This is a surprising entry in the new list of taikon found in the Book of Anseluka, but we have no choice but to accept it. Immortality, in many forms, has been available for as long as many of us can remember, but not everyone is successful enough to obtain it. Many techniques are prohibitively expensive for the more impoverished in our civilization. Up until now, this has been okay with us. Our whole economy and culture is built on the idea of working hard for what you want. If you’ve not found a way to afford immortality, then you must not be good enough for it. Only recently are we doubting this sentiment, which is something we never thought we would. The Book of Anseluka includes more than just the directions for the new taikon. It also presents new ideas about how we should run Fostea, and some changes the unknown author believes we should implement. He does not suggest we return to the ways of the dirty communists of our past, but we should continue to follow the model of Earth. How an ancient writer could have any idea that we would begin modeling Earthans out of necessity, or what that model would end up being, we may never known. We still don’t know who Anseluka was, or whether he’s still alive today. He does not write about himself at all, and most haven’t had time to seriously question this. We have to trust the leadership of our true savior, Sotiren Zahir, who has made it clear that the Book of Anseluka is just as divine as our previous books. In the Core of Lactea, immortality is available to all who want it. Few of them reject immortality, because most of those have already left to strike new worlds on far away orbitals. Since immortality doesn’t exist on Earth, the Core Lacteans are the only ones we can look to when figuring out how to avail it to every denizen of our galaxy. As much as it pains us, this is what we have done. Now that it is open to all, we will have to adjust our plans for a future with unlimited population.

Microstory 687: Book of Marsali

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Marsali Porra was not a Lightseer, nor did she ascribe to any religious beliefs. She was a completely unbiased historian, and she was not human. Some believe Peter Fireblood to have built the Marsali model himself, but most of that conjecture is based solely on how close they were. They were associates and contemporaries, but no historical record suggests that he had anything to do with her creation. She was a Class MI-9 artificial intelligence, which means that she was purported to have a soul. Salometers are one of the few technologies that are illegal in Fostea, so we’ve not been able to prove this one way or the other. Marsali, whatever her condition, dedicated herself to—or, to the skeptic, was programmed to—observing and recording history, particularly the events in our galaxy. She is capable of transferring her consciousness to multiple substrates, and can in fact, exist within our interstellar data network. There have been no confirmed sightings of her since the Sacred Savior was revising the Book of Light, and starting to work on his memoirs. There are those who believe her to have not avatared herself to an android body in centuries, instead choosing to remain without our datawork. This would certainly make sense, as it would allow her to monitor everything we lowly humans are doing simultaneously. She is one of few independent automated systems in the galaxy. They’ve not been banned, but we value human ingenuity and hard work above all else. Though full automation on par with the dirty communists in Lactea is possible, we choose to do everything ourselves. Regardless, we have no cause to prevent someone like Marsali from existing, and most Fosteans seem to be okay with it. Over time, Marsali has released volumes upon volumes of our collective history, which is a service she apparently provides completely free of charge. She has now changed tactics, however, in order to align with taikon predictions. She has released the Book of Marsali, which reexamines the events surrounding Sotiren Zahir’s birth, life, and death; reportedly giving the audience a fresh new look on how his teachings impacted the shape of things to come, through the lens of hindsight. It will be released later today.

Microstory 627: A Day of No Business

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The concept of a holiday set aside to observe the Sacred Savior’s rest after his journeys has been considered for the better part of the last few centuries. It’s been through a few different iterations, with the most recent being known as a Day of No Business. The idea is to halt all business transactions for the duration of a standard twenty-hour day. Every time it has been proposed, it has been shut down by all major faction leaders, and their constituents. Only a few minor and irrelevant cultures in the galaxy make use of this practice to any degree. One of the biggest problems with the realization of these taikon, is that many of them are difficult to achieve in a galaxy full of nonbelievers. The reason the holiday observance has never been accepted before is because our religion, though the most dominant, is not the only one here. Too many people reject the Book of Light’s teachings, making it nearly impossible to get everyone on board with something as far-reaching as this. It’s even difficult for devout Lightseers to accept the possibility of spending one day with no transactions. The economy is the source of this galaxy’s power. Without it, we might as well become dirty communists, just like our enemies. There is just no telling what kind of impact a break from labor, even for one day, would have on civilization. According to the taikon, however, this would have to happen...whether people wanted it or not. Yet, scholars have always been baffled as to how it could ever happen. Even now that it has, scientists are unsure exactly what allowed the holiday to work this year, but Lightseers are grateful. On the anniversary of Sotiren Zahir’s return to Earth—when he revealed to his followers that he had found our home galaxy—the first annual Day of No Business came to pass. But it was not what anyone had expected. An unseen force—as of now, being referred to as The Freus—not only prevented people from working, but from doing anything. For a full twenty hours, every single person in the entire galaxy of Fostea was frozen in place, unable to do anything more than blink, as if frozen in ice. Since no one was able to move at the time, no reliable research has been done on the matter, so no one knows that the Freus is, where it came from, or whether invoking the Day of No Business was its intention. The pangalactic suspended animation phenomenon seemed to have no ill effects on anyone, leaving everyone to rejoice in the fulfillment of yet another taikon.

Microstory 618: Revive the Vector Tournament

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When our ancestors first left the old worlds, they wanted to also divorce themselves from the old ways. Some traditions had to be kept for practicality’s sake—like speaking the preexisting language, or many scientific advancements—but we wanted to rid ourselves of anything unnecessary. One of the hardest things for people to give up, believe it or not, was a sports competition. Vector is played with multiple balls, and multiple goals, and has been a staple of Lactean civilization since humans were still living on just the one planet. Each player on each team has a job to do, and in order to carry out their responsibility, they don’t always have to even interact with their own teammates. A well-played Vector game is like a well-oiled machine. If everyone plays their part with proficiency, it should all go according to plan. Carefully executed plans are valued in our galaxy, so it may seem relevant to us, yet it is still technically a team sport. Our founders had trouble reconciling the idea of people helping one another despite a lack of reward. Most of the players aren’t even in any position to score goals at all. Their job requires they protect the scorer, and defend the advantage over the opponent, while only that scorer gains actual points for them. In the end, it was decided that the game of Vector be banned in Fostea. It is one of the few central laws that govern our system, but it has not gone without pushback. The eighteenth taikon predicted a revival of a Vector tournament, but said nothing of how this would come about. It seemed to be contradictory to the law, and original mandates by Sotiren Zahir himself that Vector is an unacceptable pastime. And as we all know, the Book of Light is a perfect specimen, and there are absolutely zero self-contradictions. Fortunately, nature has found a way to maintain the sanctity of both the passage, and the law. Another isolated solar system has handled the taikon for us.

The star system Anter carries within it the record for the highest number of naturally habitable planets orbiting a single star. A total of seven planets orbit Anter within what’s known as the habitability zone. As a gift of peace to one of our rival religions called Fathers of the Undisturbed, the Fostean founders donated the entire system, and promised to leave them alone. The Fathers of the Undisturbed do not value the same things normal Fosteans do, but they were as unwelcome by the dirty communists from which we came as we were. We escaped together, and instead of fighting over the galaxy, they agreed to isolate themselves from us by remaining in Anter. They were free to advance as much as they wanted, but never venture beyond their territory. Fathers of the Undisturbed have a set of beliefs that is difficult to understand, and even from as little we know of its secrets, it is terribly inconsistent. The basic tenet of their faith is to create life, and study it from above without interfering. They are based in a hollowed out asteroid, but maintain other secret bases on the planets themselves to keep a better eye on their children. These children on each respective planet know nothing of each other, let alone the universe as a whole. Some of them even believe stars are merely drops of paint splattered on some giant cosmic ceiling above them. Why exactly the Fathers of the Undisturbed are doing this to their inferiors is something no Lightseer can claim to understand, nor should we make an attempt. Again, they leave us alone, and we do the same. We do, however, from time to time, visit the star system to make sure they’re not planning some attack. This last audit revealed something interesting. On two Anterian planets—who are, again, completely unaware of each other—Vector was somehow reinvented. This phenomenon cannot be explained, but there has been no evidence that the Fathers broke their own religious law, or would have any interest in doing so. The Undisturbed Children just managed to do it on their own, with no provocation from any outside force. And this is lucky for us, for it fulfills the requirements for the eighteenth taikon. It also happened to provide for us with the means of discovering the nineteenth taikon.

Microstory 614: Annihilation of Pagan Statues

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Eido Seamus’ first order of business was to kick the rest of the taikon into high gear. Any and all that could be achieved arbitrarily were to be planned and executed as fast as possible. As mentioned before, there are other religions in this galaxy that contradict Lightseed teachings. And though no law prevents these faiths from existing, much of the text in the Book of Light warns Lightseers of the possible threat. Every belief that goes against ours has the potential to become a menace to our way of life. Most of them are rooted in the old beliefs, which means they could theoretically lead us down a path of returning to our tainted history. One dangerous religion is known as honshin. It is an unremarkable faith, noted for its plethora of gods. The problem with it is that it preaches community over individuality, under certain conditions. In the last half-century, honshin has risen in popularity by seven percent, and has even taken believers from Lightseed. The fourteenth taikon states that following the annihilation of pagan statues, an entire world will experience an infestation of amphibious animals. In order to arrive at the fifteenth taikon, Eido Seamus ordered a group of his followers to destroy a garden built by the motherhouse of the honshin movement. He could have chosen any other pagan religion, but honshin has proven itself to be a formidable enough of an enemy to warrant attack. Unfortunately, the fifteenth taikon did not arrive as predicted, leading some to lose trust in the words of the Book of Light. But as it has turned out, the faithful cannot be rewarded if they take action that does not belong to them. The wording of the taikon said nothing about how the pagan statues were to be destroyed, but it has become clear now that this could only happen through natural causes. While those closest to the taikon events were awaiting the fifteenth taikon to arrive, growing less and less confident by the minute, their patience was rewarded. A lightning storm on an entirely different planet established itself over an entirely different garden for an entirely different pagan religion. Just as the last lightning bolt flew from the sky and struck one final statue, the first amphibian climbed out of the swamp, marking the beginning of the fifteenth taikon. We were now assured that all taikon would play out in unexpected ways, and whether anyone had anything to say about it, or not. Most traitors returned to the light after realizing their mistake, and remembering that there is only one true God.

Microstory 608: Replace Eido Andrea

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The Sacred Savior, Sotiren knew that he would not be able to manage the entirety of the galaxy himself. For he was humble, wise, and aware of his own limitations. There were five star systems he deemed to be the most important, and would be central to galactic activity. He chose these because each carried with them exactly three habitable planets. Though they are referred to as the “central” worlds, they are actually nowhere near each other. And so he took from his followers, and appointed eleven eidos to protect his interests distantly. Over the course of the taikon, these will all need to be replaced by new eidos. Though the central planets have been under the rule of one person, group, or another since the beginning, there has been no singular vision since the time of the eidos. This is not a mistake; it is by design. The whole purpose of moving to this galaxy was so that our people could live their lives without being interfered with by some sort of unifying government. The only reason the eidos existed in the first place was so that we would not lose sight of what we wanted, and didn’t fall into the same traps that earlier cultures have. We sprouted from a dirty communist society, and many of us fear every day that we will ultimately turn back to this. It was foretold that a small group of irritants would arrive in Fostea one day and attempt to revert us back to a time when all men were equal; when we just lived in the dirt, like animals. We have so far been unable to hold them back, for their silver tongues are thick and convincing. What we need now are a new set of eidos to protect us from these foreigners. The new Eido Andrea was chosen from the House of Ulaire to fulfill this purpose.