Category Archives: Social Classes

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The Cult of the Starsisters: Morality

Morality, as taught by the Cult, provides another strong and insidious element of control over the population.  It is also another outrageous self-contradiction:  it is simultaneously presented as both completely relative and absolutely binding.

In general, from my observations as I traveled through Nightfall, the Cult focuses on tearing down any and all belief in the existence of right and wrong in the young, whether inherent to their nature or taught by the remnants of older views.  They do this by gradually exposing children to more and more brutal rituals, such as the murderous feasting that always accompanies Hai’Lyn’s Night in the evening of the year.  Over time, people lose all practical sense of conscience, and will do anything the Cult dictates, even killing their own family members.  This results in “citizens” who not only accept atrocities without question, but they willingly participate in them in the hope of a reward–usually food or some other pleasure.

As people grow older, the Cult gradually begins to emphasize its own absolute form of morality to which it demands complete and immediate obedience–the first and foremost dictum of which is absolute faithfulness to the whims of the starsisters and the edicts of Nightfall.  Over time, with all vestiges of good moral sense forcibly burned out of them, young women and men move from simply accepting the atrocities of Nightfall to believing them to be completely and totally right, normal, and just.

It is brilliant really:  Whenever someone begins to feel a twinge of conscience about something she is being made to do, she is immediately “reminded” that there is no such thing as right and wrong (if that doesn’t work, torture and deprivation are usually effective). At the same time, they are to treat Nightfall’s own twisted system of morality as if it were absolute and unquestionable, keeping them away from asking questions the Cult dislikes.

From my observations as I traveled the realm of Nightfall, the teaching of morality is somewhat contingent upon social class and standing.  With anyone with a weapon and the ability to use it–the yaoban or the army, for instance–a much heavier emphasis is laid on absolute obedience.  For some of the peasants, moral teaching stops with the first stage.  The Cult generally grinds the lowest classes down into an exhausted haze:  Willing to accept anything as long as it gives them a decent chance at a full belly and a whole night’s rest.

There are of course many in the former Empire of the Sun who cling to the old ways, the truth, and a belief in actual right and wrong, but they are becoming fewer and fewer.  Some are quite adept at subverting the system, but most live in mortal terror of discovery.

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Mi’lu

The mi’lu is a wild antelope or deer that is very common in the far eastern piedmont or plains districts, outside the twilight.  They run in herds of anywhere from five to more than one hundred.  They range far and wide, grazing quickly and then moving on before the area they are in can no longer support them.  In past generations, the mi’lu were said to keep mostly to the forest, but since the farmers and other peasants are no longer allowed weapons of any kind, they are now common on the plains as well.

The zhuan and their yaoban are allowed some limited hunting privileges, and mi’lu meat is considered a regular delicacy in higher class households.  The lower classes are punished viciously if found hunting mi’lu.  At first I thought this was mainly an issue of status, but I now believe that it is one of sheer practicality–Nightfall will not tolerate a population that can care for itself.   People who can feed themselves will invariably think independent thoughts.

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Cult of the Starsisters: Epistemology

As I have mentioned in my previous, the Cult of the Starsisters is a bizarre mix of customs and ideas.  When it comes to epistemology (how they know what they know about the world), the Cult seems to embrace more contradictory premises.  On the one hand, it holds to a harsh form of naturalism–only ideas and truths pursued and “proven” through the magical and alchemical studies of its matriarchs and patriarchs (their terms for scholars) are found to be worth believing.  On the other, they arbitrarily (or are directed by said matriarchs and patriarchs) close themselves off to entire lines of reasoning that are found to be unpopular.  What results is a very effective system of practical, political epistemology–true followers believe what they are told by the “authorities” with blind, absolute certainty, while reacting violently to the mere suggestion of truly contrary points of view.

It of course is made all the more effective by the fact that any scholars who attempt to pursue unsponsored lines of reasoning are severely “disciplined” for doing so.  Asking the wrong questions or coming up with answers that might lead to someone else discovering the wrong questions* at the very least will result in a scholar being cast from his profession into a lower professional class.  (The logic seems to be that the mere existence of some questions in a person’s mind is enough to “prove” they are no scholar at all.)  At the very worst, I have heard of entire family lines being simply extinguished, either quietly in the darkness of the twilight** or publicly via some of the Cult’s murderous rituals.

Three things (at least) have resulted from this approach.  First, the Cult has succeeded in imposing a very successful system of self-censorship.  Second, they have succeeded in eliminating almost all original, contrary thought–all “scholarship” is really little more than variations on a sponsored theme.  Finally, they have extinguished all practical hope of discovering something True or Real in the matriarchs and patriarchs.  Even the most radical worshiper has, in reality, fallen below this line of despair.  With nothing to cling to but the Cult and the sisters themselves, they do so with maniacal fervency; they will to anything to please them.

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*Interestingly they are more focused on squelching questions than answers.  Questions, after all, can lead in all sorts of directions and are far less predictable in their effects than answers.

**I have heard that as many as two hundred souls have gone missing in Nightfall from a single family, almost simultaneously.  I do not know how the Cult coordinates such massive covert operations, but their effect on the population is evident.

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Names as a Symbol of Status

In the country outside Nightfall–and to a certain extent inside it as well–the people still follow the older naming customs of the Empire of the Sun.  The starsisters are slowly bleeding this practice out of succeeding generations, but they have not succeeded yet.

The naming practices in the empire were (and are) odd when compared to the rest of the cultures I’ve seen in the world of Khumkato.     Some peoples associate names with family lines, some with places, some with both.  My own nation gives names based on what an individual accomplishes in his or her life, and that leads to some impressive names for the most distinguished among us.  In the empire, it was all based on the length of the actual word–of all things!

Even there, they seemed to just do it differently just because they could:  The shorter the name, the higher the position in society.  That seems to defy all sense.  One would think that the longer, more flowery names would be for the rulers!  I had one of the zhuan of an outlying district controlled by Anhilynya explain it to me once:  The fewer the letters, the fewer possible attractive combinations that can be made of them.  At some point in their history, it became fashionable for the noble classes to reserve these for themselves, with the shortest names being reserved for the emperor himself.

Based on what I have gathered, the emperor usually took a one or two letter name–Li or Zu, for instance.  The higher nobles took three and four letter names (Lya, Maki, or Lian), with the class system unfolding from there.  Some of the peasants have absurdly long names that no one even bothers to try to pronounce completely in normal conversation (though they still have legal uses).  Apparently, there used to be a long and complex process pursued through the empire’s courts in order to shorten an individual’s name.

Of course, the irony is that in practice, the peasants use a shortened form of their name for convenience sake, and those nicknames are almost always three-to-five letters long.  They are careful, however, not to do so in front of the ruling classes.