Oro Convent

> This Article uses human time spans and human terminology
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## Basic Information

**Government** **Type**: Ecclesiocracy

**Faction** **Location**: Not actually charted, but a portion of the Milky Way, as well as all satellite galaxies.

**Region** **size**: Unknown

**Military** **Type**: Defensive only

**Demographics**: Tens of thousands of alien species

**Economics**: All trade is internal, though the occasional bit of art or handcrafted melee weapon might make it’s way to outside space.

**Citizen** **Denomination**: N/A

**Currency**: N/A

**Religion**: The Way

**Language**: Orot

### Rise of the Convent

A Lord of Ships, the old Oro term for the captain of a ship, awoke in a cold sweat one night, with the revelation that the black hole that destroyed the Oro Homeworld was not a natural occurrence, but the work of the God of Destruction, who was hungry, but still asleep. To keep further catastrophes from happening, it was determined that the God of Destruction needed to be fed with ritual sacrifice, voluntarily feeding it life energy, as should the God awaken, all of creation will be eaten. So, the Oro Convent was formed, with the Natah as founding members, for it was the Natah that helped spread the idea, though they added the idea of balance. That more life needed to exist than death. The spread of the Way was slow, as was the settling of the Convent, for the religion would not work with a nomadic lifestyle. After ten million years, their specialized reconnaissance scouts, volunteers that explored and charted areas ahead of the fleet before the settling, made contact with the Fegni and the Erita, a pair of races who’d also been victim of horrible calamities, and were interested in hearing the Convent’s reasoning for the events. The Fegni joined soon after hearing, while the Erita nearly came to a civil war, before finally joining, at the advice of one of the Natah that had dedicated his life to understanding the Way. He was named the first Herald, the mortal being that was the heart and soul of the faith. To keep them from being too powerful, the powers of national governance were given to another, an Oro, who was declared Grand Cleric, for it was decided that the leader should also be faithful.

The Fegni, being highly resistant to poisons and diseases, as well as skilled trackers and hunters, formed an organization of enforcement, soon becoming the Temple Guards. While the Temple Guards were open to all, the overwhelming majority of members were Fegni. The Erita brought with them better cloning technology, allowing the Oro to improve their cloning to avoid some of the genetic defects plaguing their kind. This was, in hindsight, what saved the Convent from destruction, as ten million years later, the ship of pure dark energy was discovered again, this time attacking the Recon scouts, resulting in almost complete destruction when the scout attempted contact. This marked the galaxy's first introduction to the overwhelming power of the Dom’Kavosh.

### Supremacy War

The attack by the Dom’Kavosh was brutal and swift, entire systems falling silent in days. It took entire fleets being sacrificed to slow them down long enough to evacuate a single planet. They made no demands, they took no prisoners, and they showed no mercy. The Convent preferred evacuations to fortification, as it was less lives lost. But, due to the nature of the Convent, no one was expendable, so everyone had to be saved. The Gnoi, a race that had never been encountered, and had no knowledge of the Convent religion, joined them anyway, to protect themselves against the Dom’Kavosh, as they were squarely in their path. The Gnoi only lost 2% of their population in the resulting evacuation, due to their technological prowess assisting Convent efforts. The war had lasted for 15 million years, with the Convent retreating constantly, slowing them where they could to evacuate civilians. However, the Herald, an Erita, after deliberation with the Grand Cleric and representatives of each member race, determined that, if the clones the Convent produced where not designed to be fully fledged beings, but instead just weapons of warfare, and genetically programmed to only care about warfare, then they were not carrying life energy and could be expendable.

The process of mass production began, though it was still slow, as they had to mature. This stopped being an issue when they were able to engineer the cloning vats to produce the clones as mature from the start, dropping the lifespan to only ten years. However, it allowed them to be fully completed in three days. Using genetic alteration, they were able to create a genetic memory of warfare and combat, meaning the clones were fully ready for combat the moment they stepped out of the vat. The results were incredible. In space, ships were more readily able to fight off the Dom’Kavosh, due to hard light technology developed by the Gnoi and Erita cooperating. On the ground, the Dom’Kavosh used to have no issues. But now that the Convent had an innumerable amount of expendable troops, just like the Dom’Kavosh, the tides had altered. 75 million years after the start of the Supremacy War, the Dom’Kavosh were finally being slowed down,l almost to the point of stopping, due to the constant slog of having to deal with Convent clones. Evacuations were almost guaranteed and the Dom’Kavosh had to resort to destruction of entire planets. However, after just over a million years of a slog, which allowed the Convent to build better ships, the Dom’Kavosh attacks ceased. The aliens could be detected, but the attacks were no longer coming. The Grand Cleric decided the entire Convent civilization was to uproot and move while they still could, reverting, temporarily, to their nomadic roots. Their goal was the Large Magellanic Cloud.

### Golden Age of the Convent

It took a long time for the entire civilization to be moved, almost five million years. During that time, the Recon scouts discovered the Echobi Horde, a race that had suffered from, but survived, the Dom’Kavosh. They were grandmaster engineers, who had promise, but held zero desire to join the Convent. However, a trade was made. The Echobi lacked the technology to perform genetic manipulation. In exchange for said technology, the Echobi took a look at the idea the leadership of the Convent had, and in the span of a single generation, presented them with the result: A working, stable, Dyson Shell. The Convent accepted it and left the Echobi to their own devices. The Grand Temple of the Oro was immediately started, while whole systems being stripped to nothing for resources. The goal was to be able to house every single person on the Temple, as well as act as a final bastion, should the Dom’Kavosh, or anyone else, come to destroy them. After 14 million years, the entire LMC had been claimed and was under full Convent control, which resulted in the Recon scouts heading into the Small Magellanic Cloud. There, they made contact with the Fumagari and the Naelth, who were quickly and easily converted, as the Recon scouts had, by this point, been trained as clergy and authorized to proselytize. Both were relatively primitive, but were on the verge of FTL technology.

After 130 years, the Convent sends Recon scouts back to the Milky Way, to determine the best locations for new Convent settlements and temples. Temples were established as places of sanctuary, where anyone, Convent or otherwise, could stay, safe from harm. Convent policies of care brought more races into their fold. 20 million years later, after a thriving Milky Way sector of the Convent Civilization had been established, the Recon scouts were finally recognized and honored, becoming the Order of Seekers, the elite scouts, hunters, warriors, and assassins of the Convent. They were led by the High Seeker, the third member of the Convent leadership and only obeyed the High Seeker, as the purpose was also to keep the balance. This came about because of the discovery of Orovium and it’s declaration as a sacred material. That, and the creation of the Biological Artificial Intelligence, or Bio-AI, which was installed in each new Seeker. And it was the Seekers and the Temple Guards who, three million years later, warned the Convent Triumvirate that the Way was going to cause issues. Caring for everyone, including non-members, was going to bring about famine. At first, the Grand Cleric and the Herald ignored it as fearmongering, but as time went on, the truth became too obvious to ignore, causing the Grand Cleric to try and implement new policies. And though no one knew then, the addition of the short-lived, hyper-intelligent Corti to the Convent would spark a massive change in the galaxy.

### The Bloody Age

25 million years after the Corti arrived, they presented a plan they’d been slowly building. It was a massive change to the nation and the religion, that would allow the Convent to continue to flourish, so long as tweaks were made to the religion. The leadership accepted the proposal and implemented the changes. The Way changed to say that the voluntary sacrifices were no longer acceptable. Instead, the sacrifices must be non-believers. And that, to increase the strength of the offering, the sacrifice must also be eaten by the revelers. An elaborate series of rituals were crafted, as well as information control, to remove all signs of dissent. Due to their assistance, and the fact that they provided a service, a declaration was made that the Echobi would be spared, to be named a Vassal. This provided them with protection from both culling and from the Dom’Kavosh. Everyone else, however, were either offered membership, or if they weren’t deemed worthy, would become a Cattle race. It took almost 45 million years, plus the annihilation of every Cattle race in the Magellanic Clouds, for a harvesting system to be put in place. Every few cycles, essentially once a generation, the Convent would send troops, led by a Seeker, to cull the population, per strict religious instructions. Children were never culled and those of breeding stock were only harvested once every 20 generations, for the Ritual of the New Moon. As time went on, the rituals and the traditions grew more bloody and more complex, to the point that some rituals involved eating the sacrifice before they had died, sometimes desecrating the corpse.

Eventually, the Convent made contact with the Ossion. The Ossion had technology that allowed the Convent to alter the genetics of a being well after their birth, and had been practicing genetic engineering for generations. They became the second Vassal race, as well as responsible for taking alien races on the verge of sapience and speeding up the process, while simultaneously making them perfect for consumption. However, the Convent’s focus on their religion, their spread, and using cloning for their labor and troops, meant the technology stagnated, eventually leading to the extinction of the Oro race, who’d long since relied on cloning to keep themselves alive. To honor their founding race, the genetic code of the Oro was inserted into the flash clones genetic material, allowing every clone to essentially be part Oro. However, it caused degradation to the material, requiring every clone to receive cybernetic augmentation to fill in where the organic material could not.

30 million years later, the Convent discovered a highly contagious macroscopic viral organism that genetically altered it’s hosts, to make it easier to spread itself. This terrified the Convent, who resorted to destroying entire stars to eradicate the disease. Though it violated certain aspects of the Convent faith, the containment of this disease became paramount. It took 30 million years of the Seekers scouring the Milky Way and the satellite galaxies, but the source of the disease, now called Macrovirus, was discovered in the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy. The Convent unleashed a massive amount of ships and troops to eradicate it, more than they had with the Dom’Kavosh. They saved a small sample, which exists to this day, carefully contained in deep space. The Convent has multiple failsafes in place to destroy it, should it break containment. 20 million years later, with no recorded explanation, the Convent contacted the Eosapians, and with the help of a now extinct race, created a psychic barrier around the Milky Way and her satellite galaxies, preventing anyone from entering or exiting the galaxy. However, according to the Eosapians, this meant two of their ships were forever trapped outside.

During further exploration, a pair of Seekers discovered a small Macrovirus infection on a small backwater planet. The native species, sapient but still using stone tools, had yet to encounter it. However, per protocol, the Seekers destroyed the virus and made sure to ruin the planet’s environment, making it uninhabitable, a ball of superhot and highly pressurized gas. Humanity would later name this planet Venus.

### Age of Terror

The Corti, against Convent law about exploration, begin doing their own scouting, justifying it as speeding up the process the Seekers are slow at doing. During this time, a Dom’Kavosh hunting party attempts to enter the Large Magellanic Cloud, but are destroyed. This causes the Convent to send ships to Metius Nebula to protect the Ossion, which later proves fruitful, as the Dom’Kavosh attempt to attack the Ossion. The Convent forces manage to stop the attack, though all hands are lost. The Vanir join the Convent, though aren’t fully believers. During this time period, the Corti are ordered to halt their exploration, as it was discovered they were kidnapping sapient, non-spacefaring aliens, to examine them. One group of aliens, called Humans, were kept and monitored as potential new members or a cattle race.

### Age of Promise

After an attempt to subjugate humanity as a Cattle race, and the subsequent Convent Civil War, the Convent has reverted to their old religious ways and become more isolationist, though they still operate their Temples.