How do you think a society would be shaped by the presence of a living god whose powers were indesputable and manifest? One playable race for the sci-fi RPG I'm working on are masters of thought who are bound together by a living god. The Zelenae, as they are named, hold great disdain for technology because they believe that it acts as a crutch, and have instead founded their civilization on psionics and living servants as large as entire cities. Though the society numbers in the millions, the god (Velekii) is present in the lives of almost every member, in large or small ways. It could be an emotion or sense of reassurance; telepathic advice or counsel; or actively fighting alongside them in war. However, the god's presence and voice wanes with distance from the center of their 1000+ light year empire. Beyond a certain point, the god's voice and appearances are nonexistant, so Velekii has commanded his subjects to venture no further, with the exception of missionaries, merchants, and spies. People are free to disobey the god, and a small minority do (usually more on the fringes of the empire), but they always risk direct intervention. Finally, those who leave the empire experience a slow degradation of sanity over their several hundred year lifespan if they employ their psionic powers, causing them to need to return from time to time to mentally heal. How do you think this society would be organized? What interesting characteristics do you see it as having? Here are some assumptions:

• The god is immortal, but the people are not
• The god has never lost a battle
• The god gives meaning and purpose to the average Zelenae's life
• The people, limited to their empire, are parochial, arrogant and insular
• The people have free will, the god's voice isn't always constant at the same magnitude for everyone at all times, and some misinterpretation of edicts can occur
• Those without psionics are undisciplined savages
• War is by psionics; transport by living ships / teleportation; trade and goods, however, are still required and being used up over time (creating a long range resource crunch for the empire)

The Zelenae probably have no formal church because their god is manifest. They may have avatars / teachers devoted to reassuring and training the people as the god's voice waxes and wanes in their heads. The highest ideal might be to aspire to perfection. Maybe a reincarnation philosophy would work well here: Zelenae at the end of their lives return to the god's mind and are reborn. Maybe marriage is controlled and arranged in order to create perfect vessels for reincarnation. Does this suggest a caste system? Also, to keep conflict viable and the world interesting, maybe fear of consequences or personal safety as well as misinterpretation cause the god's followers to sometimes struggle until the god steps in. However, the god may not step in for generations. In reality, Velekii is probably more of a superbeing. So I imagine that heresies would populate on the outskirts of the empire, but that each would face the problem of either being psionically neutered or having to reveal their plots against the empire. Suggestions? Wild ideas? :P

Here are a few thoughts:
An indisputable god would make them faithless;
an unbeatable god would make them arrogant;
divine guidance would erode their personal ambition and original thought;
the presence of an almighty father figure would retard their emotional growth, leaving them petulant and sullen in the face of setbacks and failures.

I can imagine them acting with the appalling amorality of a young child, like the Q Continuum if you will ;), flying about the galaxy causing all sorts of disasters and only grudgingly ceasing at the prompting of Velekii.

I'm also curious about the aspect of the god never having lost a battle; are we talking about the god's avatar against mortal beings? The spirit of the god, the presence, vs. the will of mortals? Or that the people have never been defeated in battle with their god's help?

I'm very interested in the concept that the god loses his influence after a certain range; with this, and missionaries who are allowed to venture out and preach, this implies strongly that:
a) other people in this world do not worship this god;
b) it is possible that there are other gods, perhaps not as strong, who have dominion over their areas;

Are there people who may resent what they see as their racial dependence on this god? If I were a Zelenae I'd be highly resentful and angry; yes there are benefits, but at what cost? What would I have been, if truly given free will? I debate the idea that this god gives them free will because of their degradation of sanity if they leave the god's influence for a long period of time.

Interesting. What if, in actuality, these people are perfectly sane? If they end up preaching to people to turn away from Velekii, that they don't need to depend on him? That they can survive perfectly well on their own, and THIS is why the priesthood and the god himself announce that these people have gone insane? It sounds as if all you have to do is give up your psionic ability.

It'd be an neat twist if there is a strong rebellion in other cities outside the god's influence, all plotting technological ways to overcome the Zelenae's psionic abilities.

I'll go even further; what if there is some reason why the god specifically doesn't want the people to use technology? Maybe the god doesn't understand physics as we know it; that technology is something he can't control, can't grasp - it gives people an edge over him, it's something he can't understand how to work so he won't allow his people to use it at all?

Yes, I am an anarchist :)

An interesting world building excerise and I'll do my best to rise to the challange.

Zelene space and socitey is organized into a series of concentric rings with the god at the center. The closer the ring to the god the more influnce the god has over the Zelene and the more devote and pious they are. The rings also act as a social hierachy with the ring around god being home to the high priests and the outer ring being home to theives and criminals.

Since these rings represent status in society people from other rings can not inter-marry and although Zelene can travel freely through they may never call another ring home. The one exception to this is the principle of elevation and pentance. When a Zelene shows great devotion and achives beyond expectiations they can be elevated to a higher ring as a reward. Likewise those who lack proper devotion for their level can be bansished to a lower ring.

Since the farther you get from the Velekkii the less influnce the god has on everday life the more chaotic the lives of the Zelene becomes. While the first seven rings are a utopian paradise, they are followed by the three buffer rings where people where the majority of the military power resides, the next 10 rings exist in an almost fedual state where planets form coilitions and skirmishes and raids are common place. The final two rings are the outer rings which are lawless chatoic areas filled with pirates, smugglers and all manner of criminals.
According to Zelene Velekii is an avatar of the thought, a being born of the collectives minds and will of the Zelene people. The Velekii is like a conductor and Zelene an orchastra of a 100 billion diffrent insturments. It is the Velekii purpose to turn the noise of all those chatoic indvidual minds into the beautful music of unity that is the Zelene Empire. The Velekii exists in a state of living death sitting on a greate obsiden throne directing the thoughts of the entire empire and only in time of great danger does the god rise from its throne and take a physical role in affairs.

Although the Velekii is seen as god it is not considered absolute since it an avatar of thought there can a rise from time to time new avatars to challenge the current Velekii. These new avatars are those Zelene who have tranceded at birth as such they wield powers that rivial the Velekii. However there can only be one Velekii who is the chosen one of thought and when a rivial appears it creates times of disharmony know as Crusades.

The Crusades are times of great turmoil when the Zelene war amongts themselves and there empire is set a flame. Those Zelene band around the one they belive to be the true god and it as a time when the rings of zelene society cease to exist. A Crusade can end only one way when one avatar kill the other. When the dust settles after the Crusade the society undergoes restructuring and people are assigned new rings to live based on the devotion they showed to the victor.

There have been seven crusades in Zelene history and the first Velekii has emerged victorious after each. The first crusade is known as the black crusade since it came before the ban on technology. The rivial avatar thought to employ powerful technological weapons to defeat the Velekii and in the process the Zelene experince death and desturction on an unimagined scale. After the rivals defeat technology was forever banned.

feel free to carry on where I left off.

Thanks for the great, thought provoking questions, everyone!

Quote: Original post by Estok
Funny this reminds me of godfather. In some sense it is similar to any government structure that has a very strong central power, that at the same time is benevolent. Would you emphasize more on how your model different from a normal kingdom?

I'm undecided as to whether or not this should be a king / emperor model or more of a collective that the Velekii advises. Or, in keeping with some models of gods, should its presence be more subtle? I'm in favor of the later because I'd like there to still be space for doubt in the people's lives, as well as skullduggery when religious scions compete for control or exercise of edicts.

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When you say god has never lost a battle, do you mean god is invincible againstthe race Zelenae but still vulnerable to other races?

Storywise, the empire has never lost a battle within their own borders when the god was at the helm of a fleet / army. In especially dire times, the god splits into legions of avatars that overwhelm the enemy. History records armadas disappearing inside their space, which has created a sort of mythos around their space (merchants go only to the borders). In terms of the backstory, while civilizations were being overrun by hordes of monsters (Siegers), the Zelenae were able to turn them aside again and again.

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A similar model would be that of a kingdom, with a dedicated cellphone and a remote controlled self-destruct device for each member of Zelenae race. However from what you described the citizens do not feel fear but harmony in general. So it is more like a modernized bee society.

I think the rank and file feel contentment and don't question much. It's the innovators and anarchists that would be the problem.

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How often does the god return to the planet compared to the lifespan of the people of Zelenae? It seems that this would affect greatly how the people behave.

There would be hundreds of worlds and score more habitats, with the god's presence more frequent the closer you get to the center of the empire. (I really like Technogoth's idea of concentric rings).

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Does the god listen to the people? If the god has its own objective, does it make it known to the people?

Good and critical question. People have often asked for divine intervention over the elements and nature, or over the course of their fortunes as a result of society. But given they possess psionic talents naturally (though at varying levels), I'd think there would be more of a personal responsiblity mentality for controlling the world or accepting that which is beyond control. It might be like a society of programmers dealing with the matter as code: You change what you don't like, live with it, or ask for help from your community.

In terms of the god's wishes, I think that Velekii should be a little bit more contradictory and confusing for the people. Clearly the empire must be maintained, and people should be moral (whatever that means). One part of morality might be to always stay open to the god's guidance and execute its edicts.

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Does god have a job itself, does the god have any personal conflicts to deal with? Or is it just an overseer and judge?

I'm sketchy about this. Velekii has been around for almost 1,500 Zelenae generations (roughly 1.5 million of the 3 million years the Zelenae have been "civilized"). In their mythology, avatars of the god saved the Zelenae from extinction due to an ice age in their pre-psionic days. The mythology says that Velekii commanded "divine spirits" to tear holes in their fading sun in order to free its rays. These angels were really sentient bioships that dove into the star's corona and caused massive thermonuclear changes. Those that survived settled on the planet to form symbiotic cities for the people, and enhanced their latent psionic powers.

Given this, I'd think the god wants the survival of its people above all. It would be far more interesting to give it some personal conflicts, maybe in the form of competing lesser gods, so I may do this.

Quote: Original post by Muse
Here are a few thoughts:
An indisputable god would make them faithless;

I thought about this, but it brings up the question of what faith is. True they would have no need of faith that the god exists. But is it going to help them? Is it going to give them what they want? Will everything work out in the end? What will become of them, ultimately, when they die?

I'm wondering if they'd have more of an issue of faith with themselves and their own rightness, rather than the gods?

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an unbeatable god would make them arrogant;

Perfect! That's exactly how I've seen them.

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divine guidance would erode their personal ambition and original thought;

Agreed again, and this is in keeping with their society. In its place might be a kind of hero worship, depending on how the media in the society did its job of spreading the image of the god. It could be a utopia in some places where you walk around and constantly get memes that cheer you up and inspire you to your personal best. Using Technogoth's idea of concentric rings, this would make the rest of the galaxy a kind of comparitive hell.

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the presence of an almighty father figure would retard their emotional growth, leaving them petulant and sullen in the face of setbacks and failures.

Yes, I agree this would be one possibility, but I'm not sure it's complete. Rather than an almighty father, what must it be like to keep getting reminders that everything's going to be okay? Everything depends on how overbearing this prescence is. If it's like a stage mother telling them what to do, they'll be stunted. But what if it encourages them?

Part of the reason why the people think the god's presence isn't constant is in order to allow them to experience failure and sorrow. I imagine there would be multiple explanations, but this could be one school of thought.

I'd like to blend your idea with this, though, and create sects in their faith. There would be those that would be petulant and agressive in the face of loss, and those who would be in the "c'este la vie" camp.

Quote: Original post by EricTrickster
I'm also curious about the aspect of the god never having lost a battle; are we talking about the god's avatar against mortal beings? The spirit of the god, the presence, vs. the will of mortals? Or that the people have never been defeated in battle with their god's help?

I answered Estok on this, but your question raises an interesting spin: Can the god sort of win the battle but lose the war, in terms of never being physically defeated but being morally defeated? I think the most interesting answer would be yes, and this would create heretics on the fringes of the empire. Perhaps in major upheavals there would be those who would have a different moral ideology (no slavery, for example); the god could intercede in insurrections, but in putting it down allow the embers of resistance to spread further.

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I'm very interested in the concept that the god loses his influence after a certain range; with this, and missionaries who are allowed to venture out and preach, this implies strongly that:
a) other people in this world do not worship this god;

Yes, very true, even among the god's own people. There would be those in the galaxy that haven't even heard of Velekii (although the Zelenae are somewhat legendary).

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b) it is possible that there are other gods, perhaps not as strong, who have dominion over their areas;

Yes. Whether these are gods proper or advanced beings, this would be the case outside of Velekii's territory (even in to a smaller degree, I'm thinking)

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Are there people who may resent what they see as their racial dependence on this god? If I were a Zelenae I'd be highly resentful and angry; yes there are benefits, but at what cost?

I guess this really depends on what your goal in life is, and what I love about this discussion is that it brings out some of the wonderful cultural perspectives that are possible. Some historians might say that we're constantly engaged in a search for stability, and will even accept the yoke of autocracy if it means that we can be well fed and entertained. Heretics and liberal thinkers would be concerned or opposed to this dependence.

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What would I have been, if truly given free will?

Conservatives would counter: "What's the purpose of life?" They might ask you why you want to be so unhappy, or why you'd turn away from a tradition that has sheltered society for millions of years. But the more free willed in the society might argue to support your case by saying that you can only truly be free when you are independent and left to make of yourself what you will.

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I debate the idea that this god gives them free will because of their degradation of sanity if they leave the god's influence for a long period of time.

I think this is the most interesting place for resistance and even conspiracy theories. Do the powers of the people flow from the god? Or is this a trick to keep them contained?

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Interesting. What if, in actuality, these people are perfectly sane? If they end up preaching to people to turn away from Velekii, that they don't need to depend on him? That they can survive perfectly well on their own, and THIS is why the priesthood and the god himself announce that these people have gone insane? It sounds as if all you have to do is give up your psionic ability.

Yes, this is perfect character development material. But you'd have to understand that giving up psionics would be as extreme as choosing to live in a society without technology. People DO do this, but they hold cultural views decidedly alien to modern
Westernized societies. (Maybe an epithet for these types of "hippies" would simply be "workers" because they'd have to do work with their hands)

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It'd be an neat twist if there is a strong rebellion in other cities outside the god's influence, all plotting technological ways to overcome the Zelenae's psionic abilities.

Totally agreed. This should be so. And countering it might be psionic monks that police the borders and destroy the "unclean" devices.

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I'll go even further; what if there is some reason why the god specifically doesn't want the people to use technology? Maybe the god doesn't understand physics as we know it; that technology is something he can't control, can't grasp - it gives people an edge over him, it's something he can't understand how to work so he won't allow his people to use it at all?

Thinking the same thing. Storywise, psionics mostly affect the mind (only high level psionics can manipulate matter). So this makes the prevalence of machine cultures a serious threat to them in a way that most sentients are not. I can imagine that Velekii could counter a robot armada, but if something like self-replicating von Neuman machines came to dominate the galaxy those with psionics would be in trouble.

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Yes, I am an anarchist :)

With a very helpful perspective. Thanks! :)

Quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
An interesting world building excerise and I'll do my best to rise to the challange.

WOW! Nice job, I really like it! [smile]

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Zelene space and socitey is organized into a series of concentric rings with the god at the center. The closer the ring to the god the more influnce the god has over the Zelene and the more devote and pious they are. The rings also act as a social hierachy with the ring around god being home to the high priests and the outer ring being home to theives and criminals.

This is alot more textured than I saw their society, so I'll definitely use it. It makes perfect sense. I have the idea that these powerful inquisitor monks in living armor walk around like psionic shaolin priests enforcing the peace and stopping the spread of technology; they would walk alone among the outer ring because they'd be more fit than others to keep faithful in this "purgatory" of criminals and lost souls.

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Since these rings represent status in society people from other rings can not inter-marry and although Zelene can travel freely through they may never call another ring home. The one exception to this is the principle of elevation and pentance. When a Zelene shows great devotion and achives beyond expectiations they can be elevated to a higher ring as a reward. Likewise those who lack proper devotion for their level can be bansished to a lower ring.

A distance based, flexible caste system. Perfect. Maybe with the exception of the psionicist monks I mentioned above, players would only be able to start in the outer rings so that they have an interesting goal and see more conflict.

I'm wondering, though, if the caste system shouldn't be assigned, but rather ascribed over time. Maybe it is won, which provides motivation for the people to improve themselves in a society that is largely static.

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Since the farther you get from the Velekkii the less influnce the god has on everday life the more chaotic the lives of the Zelene becomes. While the first seven rings are a utopian paradise, they are followed by the three buffer rings where people where the majority of the military power resides, the next 10 rings exist in an almost fedual state where planets form coilitions and skirmishes and raids are common place. The final two rings are the outer rings which are lawless chatoic areas filled with pirates, smugglers and all manner of criminals.

This is cool. It feeds into the idea of slavers that I wanted, and would create problems with the neighbors of this culture. I imagine that there would also be huge commerce and defense nodes scattered around the periphery, and that those posted there would be regularly rotated out. Maybe this is a high posting filled with the chance to gain status.

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According to Zelene Velekii is an avatar of the thought, a being born of the collectives minds and will of the Zelene people. The Velekii is like a conductor and Zelene an orchastra of a 100 billion diffrent insturments. It is the Velekii purpose to turn the noise of all those chatoic indvidual minds into the beautful music of unity that is the Zelene Empire. The Velekii exists in a state of living death sitting on a greate obsiden throne directing the thoughts of the entire empire and only in time of great danger does the god rise from its throne and take a physical role in affairs.

I really like this. Actually, one aspect of the society that wasn't worth mentioning at the time is ancestor veneration and the idea that they post the skeletons of powerful dead at places in the home as guardians. So maybe there is an obsidian palace somewhere guarded by psionically charged skeletons and a ghostly glowing figure sitting in perfect meditative repose. Though very D&Dish, it would be interesting if their "White House" was a tomb filled with psionic creatures that was never visited, state business being conducted telepathically instead.

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Although the Velekii is seen as god it is not considered absolute since it an avatar of thought there can a rise from time to time new avatars to challenge the current Velekii. These new avatars are those Zelene who have tranceded at birth as such they wield powers that rivial the Velekii. However there can only be one Velekii who is the chosen one of thought and when a rivial appears it creates times of disharmony know as Crusades.

I really like this idea. I had in mind a society of clones guided by a strong war church that would have periodic schisms, but I'll have to come up with something else for them.

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There have been seven crusades in Zelene history and the first Velekii has emerged victorious after each. The first crusade is known as the black crusade since it came before the ban on technology. The rivial avatar thought to employ powerful technological weapons to defeat the Velekii and in the process the Zelene experince death and desturction on an unimagined scale. After the rivals defeat technology was forever banned.

feel free to carry on where I left off.

[grin] Sure!



Let's say that the first crusade / schism was the Metalmind Crusade, which employed thinking machines imported from offworld. The empire was limited to just the home system, and the machines multiplied to such a level that they strip-mined much of the metal rich inner system before attacking the palace and loyal clans of the first Velekii on the homeworld. Nuclear strikes and nanotech storm clouds left the homeworld devastated but alive, and after the false avatar was killed tech was declared "unclean."

Centuries later, the second became the Stronglogic Crusade (crusade sounds better), which was a struggle between the growing number of psionic Zelenae and pre-psionic Zelenae who were becoming second class citizens. The pre-psionics developed and employed meditative strategies that gave them resistance to psionics (Stronglogic). The struggle resulted in a compromise whereby pre-psionics agreed to migrate to the farthest dozen or so new colony worlds of the empire.

A thousand years after that came the Noble Immortal Crusade. Elites among the expanding colonists learned that they could be more free of the Velekii's presence the further they got. With the help of foreign governments, they used illegal cloning technology to create several false avatars whom they installed as puppet rulers. In the ensuing battle, backed by foreign fleets in orbit, Velekii divided itself up into tens of thousands of avatars on dzones of worlds and pulled their ships down from the heavens.

... running out of steam here :P will continue later

Is it possible that the psionic ability of the Zelenae comes from faith in their god? As a gift from their god, the special abilities are given to those followers of the god that are most faithful. The monks and priests that give up their life in the service of and the enforcement of the rules of their god are then given the greatest ability. Through this, groups of powerful Zelenae priests would actually be able to combine their power to manifest physical avatars of the god for use in combat or during great natural disaster. Velekii has then given the Zelenae people all the power they need, while not appearing to them and thereby removing the need for faith. This power would of course taper off as the distance from the center of their empire. This would not be because they were farther from their god, but because they are farther from each other. The closer they are to the center, the greater the amount of psionic ability can be pooled from the Zelenae people. This also creates a conflict in that if the people as a whole lose faith in Velekii, much of the people's power to defend themselves would be removed.

I would imagine that in this society, there are recognizeable classes (most probably divided by psionic power in more religious regions). In this case, no person is limited to his or her class. They can gain faith and lose faith.. becoming stronger or weaker and changing their already loose class associations. Some may even find a sort of strength in having distrust for Velekii and may find power through groups of Zelenae who hold their faith in something or someone else..