Mondites

Mondites are a fanatical quasi-religious terrorist movement/cult founded by the Prime Paragon. Mondites seek and illegally provide to themselves freer scientific pursuit outside the rigid structure of the Reticulum. For this they resolve to piracy, assaulting, abducting and subverting to meet their ends. As such they are the masters of a new generation of technology, including cybernetics, genetics and nanites and were experimenting on downloading someone's intellect into a computer.

Most people see the Mondites as a loosely connected group of fanatics with a politically correct disdain for the establishment and an obsession with rapidly ever-changing fads and fashions, which are directed by the whims of the Prime Paragon (and mostly misinterpreted by the high echelons). Dilettantes are casual camp followers and are not fully aware of the non-apparent philosophies of the movement, focusing mostly on the superficial aspects of Mondite fashion. Almost all governments see them as harmless cults, like other movements that appear with each generation, and then phase out.

However the Mondites have thrived for over a century, and some perceive them as a threat, being the primary political opponents of the Reticulum. Few people know that they have an enormous base of power and a strong internal hierarchy but not be sure about their ultimate motives. These individuals have made their suspicions known to the Reticulum.

By d1890, 5813 Mondites have been arrested and charged with criminal activity throughout the Reticulum and 975 of them were convicted.

## Philosophy

The Prime Paragon considers the Mondites a "new beginning" of the Evolution in order to help and accelerate it, as fast as a computer, and as sure and a machine; not blind as before, but conscious, directed and controlled according to their own decisions.

Their goal is to accelerate humanity; both culturally (by changing their fads and fashions) and technologically, by genetic and cybernetic experimentation. According to the Paragon, fashion exposes us to culture.

Flesh is corrupt and limited, brings misery, and is liable to death. Humanity's ultimate achievment should be to transcend itself into a race of perpetualy optimized machine life. Nanites would allow an individual to change their body and environment according to one's mood or emotions, and become the exterior manifestations of their inner selves.

Generally they advocate superiority of technology over nature. They attempt to commence research that will ultimately culminate in restoring and maintaining world security goals concerning the Reticulum. Εvery Mondite's goal is to evolve out of the state of primitive flesh and download their memories and thought-processes into a computer.

The ten days prior to time of whispering is dedicated to speaking only in shouts as the Paragon said that truth must be told loudly. Immediately after that follows a month when, Believers speak only in whispers enabling them to feel a feeling of togetherness, knowing that everyone united in this show of faith throughout the galaxy because the truth need not be loud to be truth. Wisdom softly spoken was no less wise.

## Structure

* To the top is the founder, the Prime Paragon, a figure worshipped and adored; his every word and gesture is under careful observation and interpretation by the "high command". He and his immediate circle see all non-Mondite beings of the universe as nothing more than potential experimental test subjects to perfect their techniques.
* Under him is the "high command" of the movement whose purpose is scientific development and observe their leader. They are the arbiters of all the impermanent and disposable culture.
* Below them are those who hate the flesh so intensely that resolve into self-hatred and extreme self-mutilation; also a total lack of empathy especially for non-Mondites.
* Mondites high up the hierarchy have intense and overt hatred for the flesh, to the point of desiring to abandon their body, if only they could download their memory into an android.
* Devout fringe Mondites manifest their hatred to several fads, like collecting cell samples (from themselves, friends, enemies, strangers, celebrities), in order to create and grow brainless clones, and cannibalising them.
* A newcomeer who delves deeper into the philosophy looks at things differently than before; some have just a subconscious disdain for all things of flesh.
* Dilettantes are just casual camp followers who are intrested in their fashion, ignorant of the philosophy. Someone fresh to the movement feels productive simply from following the changing dictates of the Paragon in order to more deeply understand the true way.

## Control

They have several powers mostly outside the Reticulum (like Kieyok) but also more than a dozen Reticulum worlds, even highly prized trading partners.

Mondite worlds change their fashion also, along with the hairstyles, weaponry and spacecraft. Worlds more closely attuned to the Paragone change firest, while others can be a year behind. Thanks to nanotechnology, the structures of on an entire Mondite planet can change in a few days, and vast areas are perpetually in a state of reconstruction.

While most outsiders dismiss the Mondites as a harmless social movement, at their core there is a tight network of allied and inter-related secret societies, through which Mondites have at least minimal influence in all the worlds both within and outside the Reticulum.

The Education Opportunities, Inc. diseminates recruiting propaganda to universities. In such way some worlds, like Kieyok, joined Mondite culture.

Often they align with the Brigands.

## Symbols

The symbol of the movement comes from a vision seen many years ago by the Paragon, that as he said "was clear and so real that its power obliterated everything else before" his eyes: the lower ring represents human life; the upper ring represents the permanent, absolute, and ever-improving, evolving and expanding perfection of machinery, always modified, upgraded and perfected; the bigger central circle, representing the Movement, entwines and connects the two.

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