Religion

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Devotion to God is a force to be reckoned with. Traditional religions still exist in the 22nd Century, and are represented on the Frontier in one form or another. Due to the economic depression and rigors of life in space, extreme offshoots and sects are more commonplace. Apocalypse cults, fundamentalist missionaries, and spiritual gurus travel the Frontier, recruiting colonists and strengthening their flock.

In fact, the one egg that corporations seem to have been unable to crack is religion. Even small cults can be fanatical enough to evoke change, and companies want employees with that kind of fervor working for them. Corporate execs have even attempted—so far without success—to create a cult or two of their own. Some have come to the conclusion that beliefs can’t be manufactured, only sponsored. To that end, corporate reps have begun approaching existing religious groups in the hopes of aligning goals in the name of the almighty profit margin.

Millenarian Doomsayers - Fundamentalist groups that believe the end times are near, millenarian doomsayers await their final judgment and the coming of God. Vowing celibacy, members of these apocalyptic brotherhoods seek to atone for their past sins through hard labor and devout penance. Unsurprisingly, the largest fanatical followings are on prison colonies, where the population has nothing to do but await apocalyptic redemption. As such, doomsayer groups often attract reformed murderers and rapists. Punishment for those who stray is often severe, ranging from isolation to starvation, severe beatings, and even mutilation.

Monastic Order of Arceon - An anti-technology movement that started on Earth, the Order of Arceon grew exponentially when a computer virus wiped out a huge portion of the world’s data. After it was exposed that a member of the Order was responsible for the virus, the movement was deemed a global threat by the Three World Empire. Those directly responsible were arrested and Weyland-Yutani was contracted to contain and move the rest of the Order’s members to an offworld location. The movement was squashed and he Order was transplanted to the artificial satellite world of Arceon (more on Arceon in the space station section). There they live a monastic and mostly technologically free existence on a space station that ironically could not exist without technology.

Practitioners of the Holy Immolation - A quasi-religious pacifist group in direct opposition to the corporate domination of the colonies, the Practitioners of the Holy Immolation first emerged during the Tientsin Campaign. Since then, these fanatics have become known for staging protests where one or more of their members will immolate themselves in the name of a free Frontier. Mostly a threat to themselves, they sometimes endanger others when their fires grow out of control in sensitive areas, such as in a biodome or on a space station.

Church of the Immaculate Incubation - Not much is known about this fledgling group. Some authorities suspect they might be a splinter faction of the infamous Earthsavers cult. A century-old group originally formed by dreamer and self-proclaimed prophet Duncan Fields, the Earthsavers believed that humanity's sojourn to the stars would herald the apocalypse. Like that long dead organization, the Church of Immaculate Incubation places heavy emphasis on the apocalyptic dreams of its fanatical seers. They believe the end times are fast approaching, but their spin is that the only survivors will be those who have sought out and achieved transformation to a higher form. This metamorphosis is attained by accepting what they call the Seed of God into their hearts. With few members and nothing to back up their claims, the Church of Immaculate Incubation is essentially harmless. Believing the alien creature in Robert Morse’s banned book to have messianic significance to the imminent apocalypse, the Church readily distributes illegal copies of Space Beast throughout the colonies. As they seek to share the dreams of their prophets with their flock, they also actively recruit professional dreamers to their cause. Their enigmatic leader is rumored to be a wealthy man who has forsaken the good life and poured his resources into the Church.