Covenant of Spacers

"Ants! You are all ants! Surrender and be purged!"
~Final transmission received by the Terrica Station, Proxima Centauri
"Space is a vast nothingness punctuated by little colorful clouds of also nothing deluded into thinking that it actually exists."

Spacer Madness

Spacers, those who have seen the Beast, often go mad. This madness manifests any number of ways, but violence and cultlike behavior is common. Officially, the medical professionals of the PSC regard this idea as reversed; madness from spending too long in the stars or from being inundated memetically with stories of the Beast lead fragile minds to breaking, with the initial sighting of the creature marking a hallucination at the beginning of the psychotic break. Even those who do not entirely succumb to the madness find themselves degenerating, and Spacer cells slowly devolve into madhouses.

Structure

Spacers operate largely in cells, or as individuals. In the case of cells, these are typically led by charismatics. While these little cells, most of which operate as crews of starships, don't really coordinate, they communicate in veiled terms on SolarNet posting boards and through lengthy comm chatter over encrypted channels when they meet by chance.

Mythology & Lore

Spacers believe that true existence exists in four, five, perhaps as many as seven dimensions. They believe that beings exist in those dimensions that we in our petty three dimensional awareness can only glimpse. They believe that we are at best food for these beings, but more likely just insects or harmless bacterium.

Tenets of Faith

We are nothing to the cosmos.
We are alone and unloved.
We are surrounded by truer, higher beings, unimportant to them in every way.
Life is meaningless.

Worship

Worship of the Beast is strange, and individual to each cell. Some cells pass as normal crews for years at a time, transporting cargo or surveying the edges of known space. Others are worse than pirates, raiding ships and holding human sacrifices. Most are hedonistic in nature.

Priesthood

Individual charismatics lead small cells of adherents over which they maintain total and paternalistic control.

Sects

Reverence for the Beast believes that the Beast of Grayspace is a genuine, Old Earth style God and Grayspace is His realm. These are the most like other, Old Earth religions.
Fourth-Dimensional Animists believe that our perceivable space is surrounded and permeated by higher beings who detect us as little more than a chill or odd smell. These Spacers tend to be hedonistic and self serving and regularly turn to piracy.
Cosmicists believe that it's possible to manipulate extradimensional entities, perhaps appease or control them. They are the most terrifying, conducting all manner of violence and depravity to attract what they believe are their masters.
Fodderists believe that humans are food for these entities. They hold little to no value for human life and conduct ritual sacrifices whenever possible hoping to sate the Beast or other entities.

The Universe is Ambivalent

Type

Religious, Cult

Alternative Names

Spacers, CoS

Demonym

Spacer

Deities

• Beast of Grayspace

Divines

• Beast of Grayspace

Related Species

• A United Mankind

Related Ethnicities

• Voidster