So! Its been a long time
since my last effort-post, so lets talk Alchemicals! Or specifically, the barely-touched upon role of faith and belief in the everyday lives of Autochthonia, with a tad more editorializing on my part.
"Dogma" existing within one of Autochthon's themes has always been something of a dull note for White Wolf writers. Because unlike the typical "all authority is overbearing, corrupt and exists to be overthrown! Fight the power!" standpoint which gets pushed within the mainline, Autochthonia has to create a sense that for all its myriad faults, the Octet is something
worthy enough to be upheld by its heroes. Something more than a temporary reprieve until everyone packs up and files back off into Creation once more. It must be a place that people can believably wish to
stay because it is Home and the only life they have ever understood, and the majority of its problems arise from hard but well-meaning choices made by impartial forces attempting to make the best of terrible circumstances.
So with that in mind, just some personal ruminations on the nature of how the spiritual culture and mindset of Autochthonia plays out:
A Matter of Faith
Worship runs though all facets of life in Autochthonia, though it takes on an entirely different cast than cults found in Creation. Among the Terrestrial courts and Celestial bureaus, the gods and spirits of Creation primarily exploit petitioners through strong-arm tactics, using that prayer to fuel ambitious plans for wider domains and influence. By contrast, only the most powerful divine subprocesses of the ex machina hold broader goals than the programmed tasks instinctively embedded into the supernatural upkeep of the Reaches and beyond. Every lesser spirit is locked into this orderly network, meaning the primary hub of faith and worship in Autochthonia is the primordial himself.
But it is not possible to worship an entire world, the colossal designs and industries that stretch beyond the Great Maker's vast habitable areas are too much for the mortal mind to contain. Instead the roles of worship figures fall to the Divine Ministers, Autochthon's soul hierarchy. Each one is inherently purpose-made for a distinct objective, displaying the varied systems of Autochthon, expressing his undergirding logic and how each must be operated and obeyed. Through the ritual practices of individual cults the Divine Ministers present an instruction manual for life within the primordial craftsman's bounds, shown plainly through the rigid domains each embodies.
As 'adopted mechanisms' foreign to Autochthon, mortals do not need gods to know how to love, nurture, lie, be selfless, live virtuously or to die gloriously, and a well-regulated machine would neither require those tasks to function or provide useful metrics on how those acts are performed. Those things exist and perpetuate by the nature of the mortal condition and the ties which bind such brief lives together. Lacking those hallmarks, the Ministers have adapted mechanistic domains to guide the populace in harmonious, if impersonal, coexistence with a truly titanic and unknowable patron.
As a teaching tool, the gaunt visage of Ku is fearsome not purely in that he is the closest thing to death all things within the Great Maker's systems will ever know. Workers swear prayers against Ku's influence because his domain of wastefulness, decline and decay represents something more long-lasting in the mind of the Populat; Failure of duty.
Accidents and inaction have a tendency to cascade within Autochthonia. Sometimes in the immediate, by shutting down several interconnected processes in rolling blackout, or across whole generations if a major local water supply risks becoming contaminated by chemical runoff. The aftermath assuredly touches more lives than the inevitable death of any single worker, and negligent behavior can and will resonate against other unknowable factors to compound already trying tasks into impossible ones. To fear Ku is to fear becoming the weakest link in a chain of preventable disasters, grasping the importance of the mortal burden and the discipline necessary to undertake it.
Where these practices falls lax, the fire and brimstone reputation of Mog looms overhead to deliver divine retribution and controlled destruction as displays of strength and stability. The Maker does not abide malfunction and weakness, despite the need for mortals to co-exist within him. If his needs cannot be fulfilled, the wasteful population must be removed and existing infrastructure rerouted somewhere which can.
But human beings are not organic machines fueled by fear, no matter the circumstances surrounding the need for consistent and efficient labor. So as the mass-coordinators of uncountable numbers of autonomous spirits, Autochthon's Ministers also educate on management of large-scale workforces effectively, and the natural desire for satisfaction in the accomplishments made by the whole. Though his primary role is the Minister of Discovery and Exploration, the trickster Noi also embodies the Great Maker's love of whimsy and desire for rest and recreation from his endless labors. Inspiration during repose has equal merit to any innovation created in urgency of the moment on the factory floor. So as even Autochthon indulges in his sleep of eons, so to must the common worker be given ample room to relax and think creatively outside the duties imposed by her station.
The wide and varied domains of Kadmek show the masses the visual and musical grandeur of Autochthon which make him worthy of due veneration, while welcoming any and all workers to take part in constructing similar wonder to enrich her fellows. Minister Runel fosters the celebration of communal health and growth, so the mortal populations take pride in the domestic feats and quality control underlying every great work. Through tightly-knit bonds of mutual empathy and support, the Octet becomes increasingly well-equipped to use them in meeting the challenges imposed by the Great Maker's ofttimes hellish industrial landscape.
The other Minsters hold comparable patterns in the shape and scope of dogma, illuminating what might otherwise be the cryptic and arbitrary will of the industrial titan. But even within these precepts there still remains a great deal of complex mystery, and it requires extensive work by the theomachracy to insure all aspects of the Great Maker are treated with due respect.
The Human Factor
It is not an ideal partnership, being so reliant on the Divine Ministers and the Tome of the Great Maker to grasp the unspoken understandings and fundamentals necessary to conduct life inside the body of a primordial, but neither is Autochthonia an ideal world. However, this complicated relationship does give the Octet a measure of certainty and unity with these worship figures that is not found in Creation. Though the mortal and supernatural worlds stand apart from one another by the starkest of margins, both share the same goal, and while each may work at cross-purposes, the Ministers have never been deceitful in dealings with Autochthon's chosen people. There is simply too much at stake with the Great Maker's continued health to compromise this history.
Beneath it all, there is a genuine and childlike sense of trust in Autochthonia towards the Divine Ministers. No doubt lies in how the primordial does have his dark and alien elements, like Debok Moom who withholds loyalty or mercy to all but the strongest, even as the nations raid each other to fulfill failing quotas, or Domadamod which promises no higher reward save that all things which
can eventually
will be reborn to resume eternal service. But above everything else, these elements remain facets of the Great Maker's compartmentalized being.
Divine commands are bound to his needs, and if any among his subgods were not essential to his life and to those within him, that Minister would not exist. In a world where one will rules, there is a strident belief among the Populat that the Ministers uniformly support that rule, even if the exact methods wildly differ. If changes must be made to execute the Maker's Design, it will be delivered by beings whose sole function is unbridled intelligence and resources devoted towards analyzing how the changes are necessary, and devising exactly how each change must be performed to maximum benefit for all.
It is this reliable nature that brings peace to the minds of the Populat and sureness to the mandates of the Tripartite, how the reach and routine of the Ministers is never decided by pure whim alone. Even a moderately disliked ministerial subroutine like Espinoquae and his many spying eyes has a place within this scheme. Providing the eight nations with the reassuring knowledge that all mortals and spirits within Autochthonia exist under the All-Seeing Eye of Mog, carefully monitored (and judged) against organized and destructive crime or undue risk. Like Creation's cycles of sun, moon and seasons, the consistency of the supernatural world means the ever-shifting systems that the Octet resides within operates by rules that can be taught and understood. Learning and abiding by these rules brings with it comfort and safety.
The cultural drive to willingly obey the greatest and most authoritative intelligence this way, out of trust in this unified cause, is ingrained into every Octet citizen from the lowliest gauge attendant to highest manufactory shift chief. So long as the daily routine stays uninterrupted, everything obviously must be upholding the Great Maker's plan to the best that available options allow. When planning and efficiency are curtailed by the unexpected, this is sign for alarm, that some piece is under-performing and must be fixed or replaced before disaster strikes. If no response comes quickly enough, simmering resentment forms among the workers as increasingly precarious workarounds are put into place, calling into question the true authority of merely-human superiors.
With the advanced processes of state management obscured to the average worker, it is far easier to blame mortal failings for not meeting unseen but impossible demands than it is to question whether the Ministers may be issuing orders incompatible with a nation's circumstances. Freedoms and frivolities provided to the Tripartite even as the Populat toil under regular shortages and resource cuts can inevitably begin eroding the unity of the people, contesting whether those at the helm even have the kind of intelligence needed to execute the proper safeguards and protocol. Discontent with this state of affairs can even bubble over into riots and staged protest, based purely on the perceived betrayal of public trust, disrespect towards upholding the rules of ordinary life, and flagrantly defying the Divine Ministers and the needs of Autochthon.
But while consistency and status quo means everything in Autochthonia, rules which decide the shape of that status quo still demand efficiency, revision and streamlining. Intrepid souls with an understanding of the mechanistic world, and the status of mortal-kind within it, continually fight to avoid stagnation and inflexibility that a complacent society can bring. This relentless drive towards innovation is the primary source of tension within and between the eight nations, felt through every strata of Autochthonian civilization. The Tripartite seeks ever more elaborate ways to mollify a Populat who desire perfect peace to live and worship, while securing dwindling resources necessary to perpetuate itself and its goals, underneath the dictates of the Divine Ministers who each have their own exclusive ideals as to how the will of Autochthon should be made manifest.
Iron Hearts, Minds and Hands
Operating inside the restrictions of station, it is easy for Champions and the Tripartite to generalize the common workforce as simply "the teeming masses." But the Populat is the proud and spiritual core that allows day to day functions within the eight nations to follow predictable paths. Multitudes of tiny conveniences regulated by these unsung efforts grease the wheels of Octet projects great and small, and the Populat are aware of the significant place the average worker holds as the glue binding the myriad factions of the Autochthonian civilization together.
Thanks to sermons on the importance of seemingly menial labors, strictures on workplace satisfaction as paramount, and the deep faith held in communities which have been constructed, serviced and inhabited by the Populat, circumstance has given rise to a universally driven people. An aspirant worker is eager to assist in upholding what has come before and aid in creating the new, because both acts honor past and current fellows. She enriches herself while investing in a better, more efficient foundation for future generations to build from.
Or so theomachacy doctrine holds, anyway. In practice, falling short of these lofty ideals is frequent, but there are no lasting repercussions for expressing mortal flaws and frailty in the attempts, just at the refusal to try. Stumbles and missteps are to be expected from humans standing on the shoulders of mechanical giants.
For these reasons, barring the occasional voidbringer cult tapping into a wellspring of unresolved antipathy, the Populat does not view itself as slave to the state or a dupe of uncaring supernatural forces. The implication of producing slipshod work out of spite or devaluing peers for ambitious gains is a slanderous and unforgivable insult. To be among the Populat is to hold all productive life sacred, a vital resource cultivated by the Great Maker for a grander purpose than unseemly self-perpetuation and consumption. Blithely wasting that resource in pursuit of lesser, selfish goals simply beggars belief, and brings lasting shame to any accomplice in such matters.
The tunnel people and exile communities of the Reaches are vilified for this reason as weak, shortsighted parasites to Autochthon's design. Treated as those who are so far gone that viciously preying on one another in cannibalistic frenzies to survive is more preferable than seek out and receive what the Great Maker gives of himself so freely through agents of the state. Anyone who would break ranks from a shared kinship and empathy could bring only suffering and disorder in a system like Autochthonia, so known opportunists are shunned accordingly.
It is no surprise then how, despite holding honorary but prestigious positions within the Tripartite, a great many Champions choose to regularly become immersed in Populat daily life. The honest and optimistic pride and faith of her people is often a sobering reminder of an Exalt's origins. These people are the reason she lives and fights, and a heavy contrast to the learned cynicism and fractious nature of the state's higher echelons. Dealing with the ambiguous mandates required of authority figures, and a supernatural landscape which exists always in flux, rapidly teaches junior Tripartite members and young Alchemicals that the pursuit of optimal standards require circuitous courses rather than logical and drastic improvements. Not all progress applies on a linar scale.
Alliances sometimes must be made to be broken, then rebuilt once more to accomplish even the most straightforward tasks between machine gods and branches of government alike. Insurance comes in the form of temporary blessings and fixes, paid for by intrigue or courting supernatural favors to repurpose raw materials from slow-cycle, long term projects. Holding out just enough for those haphazard retrofits is always a risk, but one neccessary to sustain til completion the very projects which were first cannibalized to fuel it, among other similarly contradictory objectives.
Roundabout methods for playing off agents of both the state and the Divine Ministers against each other, combined with the distance enforced by class-determined responsibilities and more, can blind a Champion to the real and visible impact of her actions on the people she stands for. The grounding support of the Populat is necessary to chase away lingering frustrations and pessimism towards altering the seemingly tangled and unchanging systems every Autochthonian works inside.
Sometimes all it takes after weeks of harrowing survey within the Reaches and dispassionate shuffling of construction reports is to mingle with a shift crew, enjoying the first new meal from previously untapped conduits from her discovery. To witness the reopening ceremony of a communal creche nearly gutted by runaway fuel venting and gas fire, narrowly prevented with quick-thinking on her part as the emergency response deployment. By detaching her mission objectives away from dispassionate statistics and connecting with those effected by the results, the Champion integrates herself into that community and kinship as more than a delivery mechanism for industrial miracles and heroic feats. The faith of the Populat extends to her as an institutional fixture, a guiding hand between the Ministers and the Tripartite, and that shared unity is pivotal for fulfilling her role in society.
Each element with its own burden, the Divine Ministers, the Tripartite, the Populat and the Champions, are interconnected by bonds of faith and service. Because ultimately each one relies on the others for sufficiency, with no other alternatives to be found inside the primordial's dark and cavernous spaces.
