Epicyclism

Epicyclism is less a religion in and of itself than a strain of religious philosophy which can be found in the context of other religions. In brief, Epicyclists are proponents of the notion that all things - from the physical world, to the forces of nature, to the very course of history itself - are governed by endless 'cycles within cycles.'

Divine Origins

The earliest strains of Epicyclist thought in The Human Arc began some time in the early 4,000s AC, predating the Unexpector faith. Sokalyx the Learned challenged contemporary proto-Epicyclist apologia in the Incunabula of the House of the Unexpected, noting that the drastic societal changes of his time suggested that history did, indeed, have a direction to it. Sokalyx further noted that the then-nascent Unexpector religion was incompatible with Epicyclist thought. This was because the whole reason the House of the Unexpected had imprisoned people within the Manifold (then understood only as a single, inescapable cube) was to reform Humanity from its sinful, degenerate state. Such reformation would be impossible if one were to accept that, despite divine intention, every living being moved only within the preordained cycles of fate. The unnamed Ovinex religion always held to the notion that at least nature followed recognizeable cycles, and Rostran Esotericism also had early Epicyclist currents due to its ideas involving the importance of one's place in the grand cosmological order. The Way of the Biocosm, similarly, possesses a large demographic of Epicyclists. In contrast, Forgism has always resisted Epicyclist ideals, noting that the presence of a 'beginning' of creation presupposes that there is a set beginning (and likely end) to the line of time; Epicyclism as a strain of religious thought only began to gain a relevant number of adherents in Petalcap Vale territory with the advent of airships capable of visiting them from the Medial Tesseract.

Cosmological Views

Epicyclists observe that, even in the Cube-based universe of the Manifold Sky, it is always possible to travel in a single direction and eventually come back to where one started. Within a cube, one might traverse the surface until, cossing at least four faces, one returns to one's starting place. Within a Tesseract, traversing only commissures, one can cross through at least four cubes and eventually return to one's starting location. Finally, though it remains to be proven, Epicyclists believe that, by traversing a certain set of lnflection layers without turning, one might even be able to traverse the entire Manifold in a single, unidirectional journey.

by BCGR_Wurth

With this in mind, Epicyclists posit that everything, including time and space, must thus be bent into closed loops. As a corollary, Epicyclists reject the notion of a 'direction' to time in general and the arc of living history in particular. Instead, the whole multiverse that is the Manifold has experienced all events and will experience all events once more, an iterative process known as a 'cycle.' Seemingly disconnected events instead are conceptualized as operating within localized 'epicycles' (i.e. the natural cycle of a cube's biosphere, the rise and fall of civilizations, etc), with all epicycles still inexorably tied to the 'grand cycle.'

Ethics

Because Epicyclists believe that everything will inevitably carry on without them, Epicyclist philosophy centers around determinism and the notion that it is futile to resist the inevitable. Because of this, Epicyclism values living and acting in the present; the past is gone, the future cannot be avoided, and all of it will come around again eventually. Temperance is not a virtue in Epicyclist philosophy, as any consequences which might befall a believer were as preordained as the believer's excesses. Rather, Epicyclists are encouraged to observe the world around them and make rational decisions for themselves based on the percieved 'flow' of things; impartiality, patience, and minimal interference in the lives of others are Epicyclist virtues.