Glad you like yo what I came up with, let see if we can build on it some more.


The third crusade
The third crusade is known as the False Velekii Crusade, the rival avater that appeared possed an ability never known before or since and some belive that it gained the ability from the Seiger. This belief came from the fact that the third crusade occoured during the first Seiger upwelling into Zelene space. The False Velekii was able closed the minds of the Zelene to the True Velekii and decived them into beliving that the Velekii has been killed by the Seiger. With the loss of their god, the arrival of a new god and the threat of death at the hands of the Seiger many Zelene joined the False Velekii. knowing that it could never compete with the true god, the False Velekii instead lead its followers out of the Zelene empire and into the dark unkown of space. There has never been contact with the lost Zelene, since their depature and some mark the third crusade as end of the golden era of the Zelene empire.

Government

The Zelene are not so much ruled by the Velekii as guided by it and its teachings. The actual politcal power rest with the members of the church. Members of the church can choose many paths but the most prestiges is the path of guidance which is the political force behind the Zelene empire. At its highest level is the council of high priests, below them are archbishops each in control of a section of a ring. Below them are bishops who govern whole planets and the priests who govern the diffrent towns and cities.

The is a great deal of ebb and flow in the governement structure since all the postions are essential assigned to indviduals who have proven their worth, this has lead to corruption beyond the buffer rings. There is also no fixed territory to which an archbishop governs the only constant factor is the number of archbishops as such in the fedual rings borders change frequantly and each archbishops is allowed to control their own private fleet.

I see this race as being the psioic equivalent to the Borg of Star Trek.

Crusade Idea
The Unclean Crusade:
As powerful as these beings are, there are greater forces that even they recognize. Namely these are nature and time. Their extended lifespans have allowed them to come to grips with reality and they cease to struggle against these forces, instead trying to work with them. It was not always this way.

In order to become their vision of the perfect society, they felt that they must conquer all disease within. Using psionic medicine they, conquered many diseases. Their bodies fought each incursion of viruses with such tenacity that many long time plagues and maladies ceased to exist. As each disease was eradicated one by one they became more and more arrogant. However in there arrogance they overlooked a growing problem.
A disease that was comparable to the common cold for us, refused to go away. It was possible to eradicate it in each Zelenae after they were infected, but they were always a step behind. For a while it seemed like they were winning the war against the cold. Then something strange began to occur. As always, nature began to adapt. In one of the outer ring prisons (re-charging center), groups of disenchanted Zelenae were treated for the cold. Unfortunately, due to lack of resources their treatment was not finished. They started and stopped treatment several times. Slowly the virus inside of them took on a different form. Since the viruses were being defeated by psionics, they grew resistance to psionics, and finally in that prison, the leap was made. The Zelenae had inadvertently forced nature to create a psionic virus. In the vacuum left by the other viruses, this one multiplied like never before. Each attempt made it stronger and more difficult to defeat in the next person. A plague raged across there empire, killing millions.

And And….

The Valkierie does not defeat it, so much as stop picking at the wound. The virus once again takes on its benign psionic form of the cold and the Zelenae learn not to mess with nature. Instead they now work with it.

Ok I am repeating myself. The ending needs a lot of work, but there is an idea somewhat fleshed out. Have fun!

My core question is why does the god rule this society?

You're getting lots of details about the nuts and bolts of how things happen, but why do they happen? Hope you don't mind if I explore the possibility space in a different direction for a bit...

So the god has psionic powers. One of these, clearly, is telepathy. Is this power instantaneous? It would have to be nearly so, given that it covers such a massive chunk of galactic real estate. What does this telepathy give the god that it needs? One answer, common enough, is that it gives the god an ego boost. The god takes pleasure in the very exercise of its powers, much as a youngster might enjoy ruling an anthill. Modern authors would mostly scoff at this, as any being capable of this level of power would have motives well beyond our comprehension, but there are interesting ways to play it. The god could actually BE a youngster.

If this is the case, the outermost edges of its control are likely newly-coopted civilizations, less stable and more resistant to Mr Badass's powers. This leads to an alternate theory of the ring structure: Those who are LEAST subject to control by the god slip to the outermost reaches of its power. Conversely, under this theory the high priests are then the weak-minded who cannot resist the god's powers, and so slide inexorably closer to its all-consuming presence. Once they reach the innermost circles, they might be held until the god is ready to process them for its own dire purposes.

This, of course, doesn't answer the question of what it's doing with all these folks. What does a god need with hundreds of billions of lesser sentients? Well, perhaps it consumes them. It might be a growing god, after all, and mass and energy have to come from somewhere. All the same, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to develop a ramscoop and shovel up the intergalactic equivalent mass in free hydrogen. Why wouldn't it?

Perhaps it can't sense the universe that way? What if its psionic powers specifically and crucially depend on its model of the universe, which is in turn tied directly to the primary reality of sentiences? Physics wouldn't mean as much to such a being, it's just that sentiences farther from it would have fewer ways to sense it, and hence fewer connections to it, intellectually speaking. Perhaps the original unfortunates were simply a brave band of explorers who brought their ship too close to a newborn god, and became entrapped by its deep, enthralling powers. This theory meshes with several points - the Metalmind crusades, obviously, would have initially devastated the god specifically because it relies on secondhand information to work on and against them. The Stronglogic crusades mark the beginning of the natural migration process of stronger minds to the outer worlds. Naturally, as the empire becomes more dispersed, the degrees of separation between connected sentiences (the god's bread and butter, remember) grow, and so it begins to lose knowledge of the universe. As any thinking being might, it acts radically to counter this oncoming lobotomy, hence the NIC.

Ok, so what does a sentience whose only link to the physical cosmos relies on other, less powerful sentiences, want out of life? If it is a lifeform of any even distantly recognizable form, then it will want to procreate. As TechnoGoth suggests, this could possibly happen by emancipating some of its subjects. They would have to relinquish their own minds in order to reach transcendance, and they would probably reemerge no stronger than the initial, puny incarnation of the god itself. Of course, with far more minds to feed on right off the bat, the new entity would be able to grow far more rapidly than the first down the trail. However, it wouldn't have the same store of knowledge and power to which its predecessor is privy, and hence would be at a disadvantage. These might be the "false avatars" mentioned in the thread. There is also the matter of the starting material - if only the weak-minded fall prey to the god in the first place, then only the weak-minded transcend, and hence even tho the enemies are big boys, they're pretty dumb and weak in the ways that count.

The first thing that occurs to me out of the above alternate scenario is that it would be interesting to see what would happen if the fringe-dwellers, resistant and strong-minded, came of their own accord to the centre of the action. Could they be accepted for transcendence? Could they challenge the being? Would they instead be able to catalyze its growth into an adult form, shattering the empire into thousands of independently growing tiny pieces (such is the power of a lynchpin society, that it can break and change in an instant!)? All of these might be worthy quests, either to embark on or to provide tangential assistance to another.

The other question is, what does all that power lend itself to? Does the abyss also look into you, that is, does the combined power of mind fundamentally change the nature of the god? It can touch the universe only at a distance, but it can give its gift to its people, who would almost certainly be more introspective for it - also more empathetic, and more sympathetic. They might even hurt for their god, who wouldn't initially know to block out its own astonishment at the universe in all its glory (this, of course, feeds back into the vulnerable-god mythos). Meanwhile, every great question can be answered in a blink if so desired, making technology almost a secondary novelty - the universe would be understood quite thoroughly, although no one sentient might contain that knowledge.

Perhaps the "music" of the Zelenae is their evolving Jungian dream-mind, which holds an ever-deeper model of the universe and its inhabitants. I can think only that this eventually runs into the Godelian paradox of the thought-which-cannot-be-thunk by this collective, which then brings organically a need for borgian assimilation of additional rules and principles via other sentiences unlucky enough to enter the trap. Meanwhile, the combined psionic ability of these people, if it has any consequence whatsoever, must be channeled through the desperately limited senses and bodies of the inhabitants who actually perceive a physical universe. They've got power to spare, of course, but it's never even a fraction of what it could be.

So maybe that is what the conductor is looking for - one big-ass pipe down which to funnel all of that energy. It would keep hoping and working to find or make such a creature, but its efforts, for the moment, are doomed to frustration.

Ok, I'm out of gas. This is probably idiotic rambling, but I hope you find something of interest here.

Quote: Original post by falkone
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.

Thanks for the question. Whether this is true in terms of the universe or not, I think it would make a great basis for belief among these people. Faith is such a nebulous concept that it's impossible to test whether or not a person has enough faith. Those who were more powerful and trained (like the monks) might have a smug attitude that (of course) their powers were a result of their faith.

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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.

I like the idea of group mind focus, sort of a concert of the thoughts that bring about a single objective. You could also have rebels on the fringe doing the opposite, combining their powers to manifest avatars to create havock and chaoes. (The border sounds alot more interesting all of a sudden).

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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.

The only thing I'm not so sure of is whether or not I want to make the power strictly location based or not (centered around the god). What is tens of thousands of Zelenae migrated? They would be close to each other, and have their faith. As a form of universal balance, because they're so powerful I actually don't think I want them to spread like this without great cost.

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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..

I think I like the idea that the power is somehow amplified by their faith, but I also like the proximity idea as well because it can create some very intriguing challenges if you play one of these people. Perhaps there is also an inner conflict with those who want a rigid caste society and those who feel that power comes from faith, not from birth. This might suggest a kind of Protestant Church schizm like Martin Luther started when he proposed that faith, not works, was what got a person into heaven.

Quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
Glad you like yo what I came up with, let see if we can build on it some more.

:) Again, great work. Thanks, I feel that with the help I've gotten here on this board these people are more fleshed out than they've ever been!

Quote:

The third crusade
...

Wow, I REALLY like the potential that there's some colony out there. It's perfect because it 1) helps introduce the Siegers and show that (should you uncover this history) that the mighty Zelenae are not immune to them; 2) hints that there might be this lost spinoff society out there somewhere (if they made it)

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The Zelene are not so much ruled by the Velekii as guided by it and its teachings. The actual politcal power rest with the members of the church. Members of the church can choose many paths but the most prestiges is the path of guidance which is the political force behind the Zelene empire. At its highest level is the council of high priests, below them are archbishops each in control of a section of a ring. Below them are bishops who govern whole planets and the priests who govern the diffrent towns and cities.

I'm going to figure out different terminologies for the names of the priests just to get away from a Catholic Church comparison, but other than that, I think this structure is great because it leaves alot of room for schemes and machinations among this governing church.

What I'm thinking of, also, is to make the churche a bit more unusual, is to have the "bishops" elected by influential family members, and to structure the society among allied dynasties who specialize in some sphere of production, development or commerce.

Quote:
The is a great deal of ebb and flow in the governement structure since all the postions are essential assigned to indviduals who have proven their worth, this has lead to corruption beyond the buffer rings. There is also no fixed territory to which an archbishop governs the only constant factor is the number of archbishops as such in the fedual rings borders change frequantly and each archbishops is allowed to control their own private fleet.

Yes, I like this idea. Maybe the delineation is that the archbishops get war fleets but the family dynasties get the trade fleets. You can then have a further tradeoff of power with the tension between combat and supply, embargo and war.

Quote: Original post by Thermodynamics
I see this race as being the psioic equivalent to the Borg of Star Trek.

Haha, I thought about that, but the main difference would be between hearing the Borg communications constantly and being able to ignore them. The Zelenae can choose to disconnect themselves by living outside of the Velekii's sphere of influence.

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Crusade Idea
The Unclean Crusade:
As powerful as these beings are, there are greater forces that even they recognize. Namely these are nature and time. Their extended lifespans have allowed them to come to grips with reality and they cease to struggle against these forces, instead trying to work with them. It was not always this way.

In order to become their vision of the perfect society, they felt that they must conquer all disease within. Using psionic medicine they, conquered many diseases. Their bodies fought each incursion of viruses with such tenacity that many long time plagues and maladies ceased to exist. As each disease was eradicated one by one they became more and more arrogant. However in there arrogance they overlooked a growing problem.
A disease that was comparable to the common cold for us, refused to go away. It was possible to eradicate it in each Zelenae after they were infected, but they were always a step behind. For a while it seemed like they were winning the war against the cold. Then something strange began to occur. As always, nature began to adapt. In one of the outer ring prisons (re-charging center), groups of disenchanted Zelenae were treated for the cold. Unfortunately, due to lack of resources their treatment was not finished. They started and stopped treatment several times. Slowly the virus inside of them took on a different form. Since the viruses were being defeated by psionics, they grew resistance to psionics, and finally in that prison, the leap was made. The Zelenae had inadvertently forced nature to create a psionic virus. In the vacuum left by the other viruses, this one multiplied like never before. Each attempt made it stronger and more difficult to defeat in the next person. A plague raged across there empire, killing millions.

And And….

The Valkierie does not defeat it, so much as stop picking at the wound. The virus once again takes on its benign psionic form of the cold and the Zelenae learn not to mess with nature. Instead they now work with it.

The idea of a psionic virus is just wicked. What if it were not completely eradicated? What if it was out there waiting to infect other races in masoleum-like plague ships filled with exiled Zelenae? It's such a far out idea that I think it would create a great sense of wonder juxtaposed with paranoia on the part of the player if this virus could be encountered and fought.

Now I've become partial to the idea of crusades involving a false avatar, so maybe this psionic virus is something that the avatar uses.

I also like the idea of godly beings having to accept limits, and these limits being in the form of evolving nature. Maybe this event is what accelerates the Zelenae use of bioengineering?

Quote: Original post by liquiddark
My core question is why does the god rule this society?

You're getting lots of details about the nuts and bolts of how things happen, but why do they happen? Hope you don't mind if I explore the possibility space in a different direction for a bit...

Thank you for the awesome observational analysis. I think your perspective should be represented by some expert NPC (Terran scientist, likely) who is studying this culture from afar and making logical deductions.

Quote:
So the god has psionic powers. One of these, clearly, is telepathy. Is this power instantaneous? It would have to be nearly so, given that it covers such a massive chunk of galactic real estate. What does this telepathy give the god that it needs? One answer, common enough, is that it gives the god an ego boost. The god takes pleasure in the very exercise of its powers, much as a youngster might enjoy ruling an anthill. Modern authors would mostly scoff at this, as any being capable of this level of power would have motives well beyond our comprehension, but there are interesting ways to play it. The god could actually BE a youngster.

Or, who says that with such power you lose pettiness? Either / or could be right.

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If this is the case, the outermost edges of its control are likely newly-coopted civilizations, less stable and more resistant to Mr Badass's powers.

Coopted civilizations on the periphery, as well as client states elsewhere in the galaxy actually would REALLY work for these people.

Interestingly enough, a central aspect of this society I forgot to mention is the use of psionically controlled bioservants (for the heavy lifting) and a slave-disciple concept where multiple alien species will travel with some Zelenae and act as psionic amplifiers. (I want to set up a contrast and some confusion over whether or not the entourage is truly free, as well as set up slaves as a trade item, which calls into question Zelenae morality).

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This leads to an alternate theory of the ring structure: Those who are LEAST subject to control by the god slip to the outermost reaches of its power. Conversely, under this theory the high priests are then the weak-minded who cannot resist the god's powers, and so slide inexorably closer to its all-consuming presence. Once they reach the innermost circles, they might be held until the god is ready to process them for its own dire purposes.

Yet funny enough, a reasonable tolerant Zelenae's rebuttal might observe all the effort, construction, finance and attention that goes into getting humans closer to a god (or gods) who they can only witness at death. But I like the contrary perspective anyway. If the player encountered both, but the game really didn't supply the answer, I think it would create a strong desire to know among those who were interested in the world.

Quote:
This, of course, doesn't answer the question of what it's doing with all these folks. What does a god need with hundreds of billions of lesser sentients? Well, perhaps it consumes them. It might be a growing god, after all, and mass and energy have to come from somewhere. All the same, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to develop a ramscoop and shovel up the intergalactic equivalent mass in free hydrogen. Why wouldn't it?

Only if the proper energy conversion could be done. Psionics is in the story world SOME kind of energy, but questions of configurations, magnitude and patterns come into play.

Quote:
Perhaps it can't sense the universe that way? What if its psionic powers specifically and crucially depend on its model of the universe, which is in turn tied directly to the primary reality of sentiences? Physics wouldn't mean as much to such a being, it's just that sentiences farther from it would have fewer ways to sense it, and hence fewer connections to it, intellectually speaking.

Hmmm... again, very good speculation. What it might suggest, too, is a relationship with another part fo the story universe, the monsters (Siegers) who devour psionic energy. In the game's story and gameplay, Siegers clearly depend (feed) upon emotions, and emotions are known to generate different pattens of psionic energy; furthermore, proximity plays a role with Siegers, with the game's backstory stating that safe geographical (cosmographical?? *shrug*) havens were created throughout the galaxy into which Siegers cannot come.

Quote:
Perhaps the original unfortunates were simply a brave band of explorers who brought their ship too close to a newborn god, and became entrapped by its deep, enthralling powers. This theory meshes with several points - the Metalmind crusades, obviously, would have initially devastated the god specifically because it relies on secondhand information to work on and against them. The Stronglogic crusades mark the beginning of the natural migration process of stronger minds to the outer worlds.

Here's an interesting speculation: A scholarly NPC (whose initials may just end up being LD [grin]) would have to wonder why the pre-psionic Zelenae still remain within the territory of the god, and why the god influenced culture still tolerates them. (Maybe tradition?)

Quote:
Naturally, as the empire becomes more dispersed, the degrees of separation between connected sentiences (the god's bread and butter, remember) grow, and so it begins to lose knowledge of the universe. As any thinking being might, it acts radically to counter this oncoming lobotomy, hence the NIC.

I like this. Whereas the people would have seen this as a powerful manifestation of the righteousness of the god (mixed with zealous ethnocentricism because it was a campaign against aliens), this theory would hold that the nobles were the good guys trying to get other races to help liberate them from this presence.

I think one way to keep the seeds of doubt going is for Zelenae to not know what happens to them after they die. I was thinking of some sort of active reincarnation, but now I think that along with what Thermodynamics wrote, these people should still have some very "human" fears ("what will become of me? where will I go after I die?")

In the absence of direct answers from the god, as well, there could be many theories and cults that got weirder the further from the god you got.

Quote:
Ok, so what does a sentience whose only link to the physical cosmos relies on other, less powerful sentiences, want out of life? If it is a lifeform of any even distantly recognizable form, then it will want to procreate. As TechnoGoth suggests, this could possibly happen by emancipating some of its subjects. They would have to relinquish their own minds in order to reach transcendance, and they would probably reemerge no stronger than the initial, puny incarnation of the god itself. Of course, with far more minds to feed on right off the bat, the new entity would be able to grow far more rapidly than the first down the trail. However, it wouldn't have the same store of knowledge and power to which its predecessor is privy, and hence would be at a disadvantage. These might be the "false avatars" mentioned in the thread. There is also the matter of the starting material - if only the weak-minded fall prey to the god in the first place, then only the weak-minded transcend, and hence even tho the enemies are big boys, they're pretty dumb and weak in the ways that count.

Man, this is such weighty and careful speculation! It really helps!

So what you'd have to be proposing is that this living god naturally expands, but that it destroys its competition (young). Normally, this would be an untenable form of evolution, but sense the god is unique in all the galaxy, it suggests that its not a natural, self-sustaining process. Or is it creating and destroying "false avatars" (as the people call them) because they're not perfect (another theme of the people)?

Why would it destroy its own offspring?

Quote:
The first thing that occurs to me out of the above alternate scenario is that it would be interesting to see what would happen if the fringe-dwellers, resistant and strong-minded, came of their own accord to the centre of the action. Could they be accepted for transcendence? Could they challenge the being? Would they instead be able to catalyze its growth into an adult form, shattering the empire into thousands of independently growing tiny pieces (such is the power of a lynchpin society, that it can break and change in an instant!)? All of these might be worthy quests, either to embark on or to provide tangential assistance to another.

And again, you've provided me with seeds for alternate quests and factions, each of which may want to pursue one of these goals.

The central location of the god is known. What I have in mind is an abandoned living palace centered inside of the Zelenae home planet. In their backstory, the "angels" that rescued them were living starships wander from star to star grazing on superheated plasma. These creatures came down / were called down by the Velekii when it took the form of a mortal Zelenae, and now they've formed cities on the surface of the home planet, and feed off of the planet's core.

I think that what happens when you approach the palace (which maybe wasn't always abandoned) is that you get increasingly intense waves of psionic blasts which trigger memories, euphoria and trauma with each step. The priesthood might travel the root system only so far down into the planet to hear the word of their god, but could only stay for limited amounts of time.

The other question is, what does all that power lend itself to? Does the abyss also look into you, that is, does the combined power of mind fundamentally change the nature of the god? It can touch the universe only at a distance, but it can give its gift to its people, who would almost certainly be more introspective for it - also more empathetic, and more sympathetic. They might even hurt for their god, who wouldn't initially know to block out its own astonishment at the universe in all its glory (this, of course, feeds back into the vulnerable-god mythos). Meanwhile, every great question can be answered in a blink if so desired, making technology almost a secondary novelty - the universe would be understood quite thoroughly, although no one sentient might contain that knowledge.

Perhaps the "music" of the Zelenae is their evolving Jungian dream-mind, which holds an ever-deeper model of the universe and its inhabitants. I can think only that this eventually runs into the Godelian paradox of the thought-which-cannot-be-thunk by this collective, which then brings organically a need for borgian assimilation of additional rules and principles via other sentiences unlucky enough to enter the trap. Meanwhile, the combined psionic ability of these people, if it has any consequence whatsoever, must be channeled through the desperately limited senses and bodies of the inhabitants who actually perceive a physical universe. They've got power to spare, of course, but it's never even a fraction of what it could be.

So maybe that is what the conductor is looking for - one big-ass pipe down which to funnel all of that energy. It would keep hoping and working to find or make such a creature, but its efforts, for the moment, are doomed to frustration.

Quote:
This is probably idiotic rambling...

Alright, enough of that, mister! [smile] You've helped improve this my orders of magnitude, and I thank you for the questions and speculation!

I want to keep this short.
Another crusade idea could be the rouge war party. The god wanted to try taking the battle to the enemy instead of the other way around. Since leaving the people or moving the entire race was not a valid solution he created a reduced image of himself to accompany the war party so they could survive the time and distance away from him.

Unfortunately something went wrong and the party had turned against him when they returned victorious (or defeated). The war party was put down by the superior numbers of the true gods followers. They put up a very tough fight because they were battle hardened veteran. Imagine this as similar to the US Civil War.


OOOOOhhhhhh.... one other quick idea. All Zelenae children learn that there were 7 Crusades, but only 6 are taught in school. The 7th is the Unspoken Crusade. The god only reveals the details of this Crusade to those who he deems worthy of the knowledge. Any information is not to be shared. It is sacred knowledge. I could write about it here, but I would then have to kill you all.

Quote:
Man, this is such weighty and careful speculation! It really helps!

So what you'd have to be proposing is that this living god naturally expands, but that it destroys its competition (young). Normally, this would be an untenable form of evolution, but sense the god is unique in all the galaxy, it suggests that its not a natural, self-sustaining process. Or is it creating and destroying "false avatars" (as the people call them) because they're not perfect (another theme of the people)?

Why would it destroy its own offspring?

Perhaps this is a throw back to a custom practiced by the pre-psionic zelene. It may have been customary at that time for children to only beconsidered worthy of carrying on the family line if they where able to uspur their parents postion when they came of age. In essence a society with an adversial family relationship as opposed to a nurturing one.

Quote: Original post by Thermodynamics
OOOOOhhhhhh.... one other quick idea. All Zelenae children learn that there were 7 Crusades, but only 6 are taught in school. The 7th is the Unspoken Crusade. The god only reveals the details of this Crusade to those who he deems worthy of the knowledge. Any information is not to be shared. It is sacred knowledge. I could write about it here, but I would then have to kill you all.

Haha. What about combining these two ideas? What if the civil war was the Unspoken Crusade. If there was a civil war, or if the god made an avatar that came back to attack him, this would make him seem fallible. Maybe this knowledge if suppressed?