The Institution of Order
The Institution of Order is a traditionalist organization from Sidusimpere which invokes the god of law, Themis, and is strongly against the practise of magic and modern wizardry. The group's belief is that the act of magic by mortals disrupts the natural laws of the world and is sacrilegeous to the gods that created it.
Sidusimpere not only has its social, economic, and physical infrastructure all but built entirely around magic, but also has its government structured around the arcane sciences. It is a magimeritocracy, even referred to by people from other nations as 'the mage republic'. So naturally, the Institution of Order is not a popular organization. The average citizen of Sidusimpere has certainly heard of them, and would probably be under the impression that the group is small, without much power. This impression is false. Members of the organization are of many thousands in number, and their populations are much denser in more rural areas of the country. Many of the country's very wealthy, especially those from very old, established families, of noble ancestry, are either supporters or members themselves of the Institution. They engage in intense lobbying and campaigning to promote more conservative values within the various levels of government, and especially in the educational system. They just do it subtly-- after all, of course the Institution of Order doesn't like to kick up a big fuss.
Origins
The Institution of Order was established in response to the Mage's Revolution that overthrew Sidusimpere's monarchy and transformed the country into a republic about a century ago. It was founded by the shunned nobility and crown loyalists, who saw the court wizards who rebelled against their royal masters as traitors, enemies of the balance of natural order and agents of chaos. Chaos, they believed, was destruction. Chaos was base and primitive and evidence of an inferior mind.
Seventy years ago, the Institution of Order became recognized as an official organization by the state. Fifty years ago it was added to the national census as a religion, separate from the Old Order of Themis, which it had initially been assumed to be a branch of. Many of its original leaders were previously of the Order, but left the church over their differences in ideology. The Orders of Themis, both New and Old sects, do not view arcane practises as antithetical to Law or the practitioners as blasphemers, rather as agents of it. Themis is the god of all Law, which includes the natural laws of the world, understood in the modern day as the laws of physics. Magic is seen as an extension of that, intersected with the domains of other high gods, such as power and, yes, chaos. Magic is a science with laws of its own which can be harnessed and controlled. The Institution of Order rejected this more favourable view and its teachings leave no room for nuance-- either something is Lawful, or it is not, and according to their view, magic and arcanics is definitively not.
Really, their definition of 'order' has a lot less to do with the natural way of the world and more so with control, and a lot less to do with faith and more so their own political agendas.
Mission of Educational Reform
Though education in magic and arcanics is run by private institutions and facilities, public education in Sidusimpere (where some kind of recognized form of education is mandatory for all citizens from the ages of five to seventeen) still involves much study of magic, from theory to history. The Institution of Order is strongly against the 'indoctrination' of children into the sacrilegious lies of the mages, and accuse public educators of brainwashing future generations. They believe the content of children's education should be impartial, logical, truthful. Which is why they are constantly petitioning for bans on teaching about magic in public schools, and for the addition of more subject matter on the truth of Law and the natural order. In reality, the Institution of Order is actually very anti-education, given that the only kind of education they actually approve of is the kind that aligns with their own conservative beliefs.
A lot of children within the Institution of Order are homeschooled by their families for this reason. There are also a few schools throughout Sidusimpere run by the Institution, but those are private schools funded by wealthy leaders of the organization and donors, not publicly accessible.
Class Dissonance
A majority of members of the Institution of Order are lower class. Mages and Wizards and their industries and institutions have a reputation of elitism, and education from public facilities is seen as being of much lower quality than a mage's private education. Many people closer to, at or below the poverty line are embittered by their exclusion from these systems, especially since the main government body of Sidusimpere is comprised almost entirely of mages. It is extremely easy for recruiters of the Institution of Order to take advantage of this systemic grudge, promoting the idea that their organization's goals are a solution to that elitism, that they are proponents of equality and opportunity.
All the higher ranking members and leaders within the Institution of Order, however, are extremely wealthy. Given the history of the organization and its roots in the old ruling class, this makes sense. They have their own form of extreme elitism. Even certain leaders who are not from old noble families accrue wealth by pocketing large portions of profit from various fundraising campaigns and donations.
In order, there is peace
Sidusimpere
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