Edicts of Restriction
"People are good. Too damn good. Thus, to protect humanity, I must protect humanity from itself. From the hearts that start dripping red at the latest token underdog... Tolerance is extinction. But even worse is empathy."In Afallon there is a clear divide between the Enlightened and the "Un-Enlightened". If one cannot or does not want to hold a position with the government, the Cabal of the Night Sky, or an education institution, then they are considered one of the latter unless they have a direct family member as part of the former. This fact, combined with the difficulty of admission to any such program for the people of the desert or those from other nations leads to a superiority complex in many among the enlightened. But the Edicts of Restriction were not made just from superiority. They were made from paranoia, hatred, sheer bigotry, and an unhealthy dosage of pure madness. Bigotry is always used as a tool, to destroy, to seperate a community, to delude and shfit blame, to make a quick buck, the list goes on. The Edicts were no different, being started out of spite and paranoia and being utilized not just in the metaphysical way by a vengeful god of madness, but also to give justification and outlet to many equally bigoted people. It is no wonder such a thing was branded as heresy, and stamped out as quick as the authorities could. Those in their right mind know to keep their bigotry under covers, and the Edicts were far too loud. But, while stopped for now, the root cause has not died nor has the information found within the manifesto itself, and so it's only an unfortunate matter of time.
Purpose
The purpose of the document was to whip frenzy and division within the Cabal of the Night Sky, especially among the oft-jingoistic Mawrth Seers, a ploy by Gibbering Madness to lessen their forces for the war to come and to plant the seeds of further madness yet to grow. As far as Sa'ida was concerned, she was merely the mouthpiece for the gods, and wanted her fellow Mawrth Seers to stop allowing what she saw as weakness and sin into their nation.
Sa'ida did not succeed. The Madness did.
Document Structure
Publication Status
While it is illegal to print and disperse banned knowledge, it isn't illegal to merely have it, with some jingoistic minds taking the ideas and running with them in hidden circles to this day.
Legal status
Almost immediatley after mass spreading, the Edicts were classified as amoral heresy and banned. Any known copies were found and destroyed and anyone parroting or swayed by the rhetoric were subject to penalties and re-education.
Historical Details
Background
In the years before the border wars national tensions were at an all time high. Not only was it a touch over 100 years since The Exiles Din changed a lot in a relatively short timeframe for the long-lived leaders of Edda, but even the 'Oki Islands had recently split from Boncly under threat of revolution. The other nations were panicking, wanting to clamp down on their own people and land because the precedent had been set, and they didn't want to lose more.
The Kaguyan Islands feared the Yueyue and Dalsup who were routinely ignored in their mixing pot. The Hippolytans were rather secure in the annihilation they thrust upon the Orcs, but even they felt paranoid. Agarthans feared the most as they had already lost two large pieces of territory in Boncly and the 'Oki Islands alike, but their relationship with the halflings of the grass plains was always more positive, so they weren't as worried. For Afallon, their fear was held two fold, in the snow plains to the northwest and in the lower class of citizens known as the "un-enlightened".
So, in fear, many political heads and thinkers of the time were just thinking about what to do, and whether their options would ruin the soul of their nations, for whatever that means.
History
In the early months of 950, Mawrth Seer Sa'ida Priddy was attacked with a hand-sized rock at a protest that turned violent when the Seers got involved. The seers obtained minor injuries only, much better off than the protestors, but Seer Priddy was still seemingly left shaken after this incident, with her squadmates reporting that she started to become paranoid to worrying degrees.
"She had always been neurotic, the over-prepared type," one of her fellow Seers said. "But she started to get jumpy, skittish I suppose, and real...presumptive." In the months that followed, Seer Priddy had an increased amount of aggression in the line of duty, especially in arrests, leading to several reprimands, forced medical examinations, and psychologist sessions. All of them reinforced what was happening, fear turning to aggression, but nothing was able to treat it.
This all reached a violent head when she attempted to fine two "un-enlightened" youths, members of Afallonion society who are not involved with the Cabal of the Night Sky or have any acredation from educational facilities, for the crime of disrespecting an institution of enlightenment. Their disrespect? Standing outside a library while waiting for a friend. They obviously took offense to this nonsense, and in response Seer Priddy made the claim that they were resisting arrest, and responded with aggressive force.
The first youth was struck in the head and rendered unconcious after three repeated hits, and when the other attempted to throw Seer Priddy off of their friend, the Seer put him in a hold forceful enough to break his arm. Luckily, another patrol of Seers were nearby and stopped Seer Priddy while applying medical care to the two youths before calling upon emergency healers. Both victims survived and recieved swift compensation. The real kicker in all of this? Sa'ida wasn't on patrol during this incident. This was her actions while off duty.
In all but exact terms, she was released from duty, but the door was left open for re-evaluation if she got her act together. She would do anything but, however, as her prejudice and paranoia had mutated themselves into sheer hateful madness.
And Madness is a state that is easily taken advantage of.
In a state of fervor, she wrote a hateful manifesto which she called The Edicts of Rightful Restriction for the Preservation of Our Noble and Most Glorious Nation, often just shortened to the Edicts of Restriction. It was an insanely long mess of hateful rhetoric, thinly veiled prejudices and stereotypes, false conclusions, and extreme methods to "corrall the ungrateful and undeserving masses that would see us crippled and mocked, and to offer them the honor of enlightenment by force, or equally by force grant them their final peace." All of this, no matter how cruel or brutal, she felt was a gift of divine knowledge from the gods, and therefore felt no shame. Or perhaps, she invented a reason after already feeling unashamed.
If any other era, it would've been called for what it was right away and disregarded, even if some people would secretly pick apart the pieces they agreed with. But, at this time in Afallon there was enough social disdain and agression paired with fear of the outside world and the rising tensions, that it struck hot with a relatively small but ferverous group, and begun to be passed around in meeting halls and with like-minded fellows.
Fear mongering, propoganda, and a memetic madness began to worm through Afallon.
Public Reaction
After the Edicts were released, those on the same path of paranoia, aggression, and bigotry as Sa'ida were whipped into a fervor. All around the bars, cafes, and barracks of the city "lessons" about the threats foreigners, the un-enlightened, and even other species were ranted about as if gospel and just as indisputable. This already was raising eyebrows, as the story of Sa'ida's actions had already spread throughout many barracks. Then, the rioting began.
It was small at first, a group getting too rowdy at a bar and getting kicked out, then a street corner, then a block, then an entire temple being used to host one of these festering nests of hatred. This was the point that the authorities were starting to catch on and attempted to find an example of the Edicts in order to judge it heretical. It was hard to track down however, as these cultists of bigotry were being sneaky despite the damages and vandalism they'd call with each meeting.
All attempts at stealth failed, however, when one such riot turned into a near-lynching of a travelling desert family who asked the wrong man for directions, only stopped by a wandering mercenary who happened to be in the right place. The family got away with severe yet recoverable injuries, and one of them even snatched a copy of the Edicts out of the hands of the ringleader of this attempted murder.
This incident resulted in said copy getting in the hands of the authorities, finally, and therefore judged and exposed to the public. The general populace found it horrendous, at least out loud, and it was judged as heretical and a work of madness. This act allowed the authorities to crack down on the spreading of the Edicts, the meeting places and riots, and the members themselves as heretics of Erudition. But for all this squashed their growth, in emboldened their resolve, especially Sa'ida who painted those compliant or silent as collaborators of the scheme to undermine their nation.
Only a year after the Edicts were shared at large, every vocal believer, Sa'ida included, was imprissoned or recovered from the cultish ideology.
Legacy
Four years after she was sentenced to prison for heretical indoctrination, Sa'ida Priddy was found dead in her cell, after her cellmates reported her unresponsive following a night of panicked mumbling. Unfortunatley, this was not long before the start of the Border Wars, which made the xenophobic rhetoric found in the Edicts spike up again, especially since many found the state silenceing as oppression itself, with many theorizing that Sai'da's death was an inside job.
Following the war, most of these ideologies have faded into the history books, but in many places they still linger smoldering, unspoken yet very much acted upon.
It doesn't hurt that this Edict was in part spurred on by a divine source, the enemy of all under the Cabal of the Night Sky, the Anti-Theos known as Gibbering Madness. The Anti-Theos all feed on fear, and so when Sa'ida had felt such potent paranoia for no other reason than a mild scare and prejudice, it found a source to sup upon and spur forward to greater fear and greater madness. While we, I mean It, does not hold any particular allegiance to the ailment of bigotry or the virtue of peace, anything when applied to a certain level of fervor reaches the heights of Madness, and that madness will continue like an inferno, even if it sleeps for now.
Type
Statement, Political (Manifesto)
Medium
Paper
Authoring Date
6/22/950 EE
Authors
Signatories (Characters)
Comments