Girtabelilu Civilization

The **Girtabelilu Civilization** is the homogeneous society of the Girtabelilu race. The Girtabelilu are a collectivist and superstitious race of insect-like beings ruled most recently by the Girtabelilu State. More than most societies, the basic structure and government of the Girtabelilu is instantiated by the biological capabilities and roles of its members, which differ based on reproductive ability, caste, and physical dimorphism and mental temperament.

The Girtabelilu civilization is remarkably unique for its asexual reproduction (meaning it has no direct equivalent to family, marriage, or sexuality); its extremely insular nature; and its religious beliefs. The uniqueness of the Girtabelilu civilization sets it at stark odds with most of the rest of the universe, and it was only through near-total defeat in the West Selten War and the reform of its political institutions that it was forced to interact with the rest of the universe on a semi-normal basis.

### Girtabelilu State (22 NAC-Present)

The aftermath of the West Selten War utterly destroyed the totalitarian but ultimately fragile ideology of the Realm of the Girtabelilu, and with it the entire worldview of the Girtabelilu people. Girtabelilu teetered on the brink of total disintegration as for the first time in their history enemy fleets entered Realm space and violated the eternal order the Girtabelilu people were sworn to protect. Suicide, looting, violence, and iconoclasm would see the Realm's major cities burn into ruins and become battlefields in a wave of hysteria and despair. The scale of the destruction would be made even more remarkable by the fact that no Rosokovan ship nor any Rosokovan troops would ever come into orbit or land on any of the Realm's major worlds during the war.

It was this rapid degeneration of society which would ultimately demonstrate the need of the Girtabelilu people to have a strong, unified state. This would overrule the desires of some of the belligerents to balkanise Girtabelilu territory so as to reduce the race to military impotence. Appan-Il would be recognised as the new ruler, or, *Ensi*, of the Realm, and after the peace deal work would begin immediately to stablise the burning worlds of Girtabelilu people.

A mixed task force of Illarian and Girtabelilu soldiers would be responsible for the peacekeeping and policing of Girtabelilu worlds. Armed soldiers and their vehicles would restore order in the ruined streets after weeks of panic and destruction, and aid in the form of food and medicine would be distributed. After the panic had been repressed, the traumatised Girtabelilu people would sit, as a whole, in stunned unbelieving silence.

Within the ruined Divine Ziggurat on Enuma-Elish a new constitution would be drawn up by Appan-Il and his assistants with the help of Illarian advisors. On the Eighth of Helvetion 22 NAC Appan-Il and his cabinet would proclaim the Girtabelilu State, an autocratic regime built on the principles and practice of Illarian ultranationalism. Under this new regime, Appan-Il sought an ambitious program of international economic integration, international cooperation, and the "de-Realm-ifying" of the Girtabelilu society, including the removal of its symbols, the purging of dissidents and agitators, and undoing of its damage to the historical record, the ideological deprogramming of the Girtabelilu people, and the revision of the Girtabelilu religion away from its current fundamentalism. This ambitious agenda would be the work of years, and would require the heretofore unprecedented step on the part of the Girtabelilu to accept cooperation with the outside world and absorb some of its principles; a difficult thing for such a profoundly isolated people to do.

## Religion

The Girtabelilu state religion is a faith which combines elements of theology and totalitarian ideology. The Girtabelilu religion holds that the universe began as an eternal void, comprised of undifferentiated chaos. After countless trillions of years, the first differentiated, discrete entities would appear in this void unprompted and would be the first instances of order in amid the existential chaos, and through their existence would be the unmoved movers which would set in motion the gradual and unsteady imposition of successive waves of order over the chaos in a differentiating, de-equalising, distinguishing, intelligiblising process. First would be the laws of physics themselves, then fundamental particles, then astronomical bodies, then life, then civilization, and so on in an accelerating process of increasing complexity, intelligibility, structured-ness, and intelligence.

While outside observers originally saw these movers as a pantheon of gods representing order, this is not quite the case; the Girtabelilu instead see these original entities as forces of nature, discrete exponents of order-itself, and name them as separate facets of order and intelligibility.

The Girtabelilu believe that the last wave of ordering is imminent, and that the Girtabelilu species is the culmination of billions of years of the evolutionary process of increasing complexity in the universe, making it their divine mission to be the vanguard of the Final Ordering. This semi-apocalyptic message of the ushering-in of divine and final order in the universe was the ideological justification for the byzantine and unequal nature of the old Realm and for its extreme militarism. It also undergirded the immense conservativism of the Girtabelilu state, as they had believed themselves to be the perfect state and the perfect society that needed only to be expanded elsewhere.

The state religion of the Girtabelilu represents a serious ideological roadblock for the Girtabelilu State. The totalising and extremist nature of the faith, combined with an entrenched priesthood that occupies most middle-management positions of power in the state and comprises many of its skilled bureaucrats, has retarded the process of "de-realmification" significantly. Efforts to de-radicalise the faith, or even replace it with a reconstruction of the original Girtabelilu religion since expunged from records, have been attempted, but only carefully. Risk of civil unrest and even outright civil war between the State and its priestly class is believed by most analysts to be extremely high should change come too quickly or too boldly.