Imperial Pagans

Date: Mon, 20 Mar 1995 07:30:14 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Llaneza
To: traveller@MPGN.COM, xboat@MPGN.COM

This occurred to me last night. It may find a place in your Traveller Games

The Imperial Pagans are a religious group common throughout Diaspora and Daibei sectors of the Imperium. The founders of the Imperial Pagans took elements of traditional 'planetary deity' religions and combined them into an intricate pantheon of mythic level figures representing the populated planets and important stellar objects. This pantheon was in many ways a metaphor for known galactic civilization. The individual characters reflected in an archetypical sense the character and personality of each planet. The tensions, alliances, and enmities between the characters mirrored in the stories told of each 'god' and the lessons which should be drawn from events.

The founders of the Imperial Pagans held an informal gathering of nature worshiping religions and shamanic traditions. These religions, with their emphasis on the earth that gave their civilizations life, often had trouble with interstellar civilization. The meeting was held to find a way to explain the vast diversity of worlds and life and to integrate all of the individual naturalist religions to combine into a single ethical community.

Since 652, when the number of worlds with active IP congregations reached 16, the dispersed congregations of the IP have communicated with each other to discuss and debate the deeper meanings of current and historical figures and events. As the discussions mature over months and years (think of them as Internet collaborations with a 2 week minimum communications lag - if not months) the events are described in story format. Over time, the stories are edited and refined until with age and care, the event or person in question has become a mythological icon.

Certain characters, often Admirals or Emperors, or just as often common adventurers or ordinary folk, would begin to have cycles of stories attributed to them. Carefully recorded are the source materials from which the stories are based, but the myths are the important part.The myths are recorded and passed on in the form of a holographic projection of the teller speaking the words to the audience. Small groups listen to the recordings as part of their religious observance. Larger groups gather to listen to particularly significant myths, often in direct relation to current events. The average IP is well educated, if only through the religion, and all are active members of the discussion community. The IP's are consummate historians, anthropologists, and philosophers. They have little dogma, they keep open records of debate and source material.

In the New Era the IP are a significant civilizing influence. Their belief structure was able to accomodate the idea of a galactic armageddon and rebirth. On many worlds the IPs were lonely lights against the darkness. they preached regrowth of civilization and they remembered the old dreams.

Michael Carter Llaneza
Conceptual Design Services             The Worse it gets,
Pi Kappa Phi                           The more I get used to it.
"I am the NRA"                         Duty Now For The Future
Veteran of the Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force 1990-1951