Opus Dei

Opus Dei is a techno-religious faith that claims to worship the "Great Work", examples of the Standard Build Template database, as the literal work of the divine. They venerate old technology while shunning the new. It is often disregarded as little more than a cult by most of its critics, but is growing in strength and has established branches throughout civilized space and beyond. Opus Dei's primary objective in a material sense is to obtain recover examples of advanced technology and preserve it, and the scientific knowledge behind it for an enlightened humanity of the future. Opus Dei is a powerful influence on the galactic stage, particularly towards the core of civilized space where the cult originated, even managing to establish a handful of "Library Worlds" where its members can practice freely with the cult itself serving as the state. Its interactions with major states are mixed, with some states accepting the religion with open arms, and others shunning or even persecuting Opus Dei.

Structure

Opus Dei's various sects are loosely organized with little overall galactic organization to speak of beyond vague affiliations with either the Beaconist or Censor traditions, and a Grand Vicarius that is nominally the head of all the faithful, delivering some judgments of the core tenets of the faith from the Grand Archive in the New Sverdlovsk System. Instead, the organization is divided primarily into individual Libraries or Temple Libraries, which are, mostly independent aside from information sharing that happens at a sector-wide, and galactic level. Each of these is led by a High Vicar, a High Confessor, or a High Censor, and can count anywhere from one hundred to one hundred thousand members of the Order operating under its banner. These operations are, for the most part insular, though there are always journeys seeking out databases, reaching out to the public, or in the case of the Censors, seizing technology from unworthy hands. Naturally, these operations, especially those of the Censors, are met with hostility at times, and they are most powerful in independent worlds that lack large standing militaries to chase away the order. Speaking of the Grand Vicarius themselves, they are always elected from among the high-ranking members of the organization of the Arcturus Sector, to hold the position until they step down or perish, and must practice, always being a compromise candidate between Censor and Beaconist viewpoints. Members of Opus Dei, or at least those that become inducted technocultists, tend to divide themselves into three loose organizations, depending on their daily tasks. The Scriveners, who do the work of recording and maintaining technology, the Ritualists who are the public face of the organization, and the Excubitors, the militant arm of the faith.

Scriveners

Scriveners are the heart of the faith, being persons who have dedicated their entire lives to the daily tasks of recording blueprints into hard copy, studying artifacts, and maintaining machinery. They are the largest group of Opus Dei technocultists and keep the operations of temple-libraries going. Scriveners are also tasked with the important, but difficult task of determining the nature of artifacts they find, be they human or alien, and the disposal of alien technologies. Scriveners have a hierarchy but in most matters, a higher position means little in the way of power, and much greater responsibility.
Scribes and Senior Scribes: Junior members of the order, Scribes have just been inducted, and therefore are only maintaining the libraries themselves, responsible for the recording of already studied data. Senior Scribes are given greater responsibility, being responsible for performing agriculture and routine maintenance as well as helping with the upkeep of the library, and of course, copying blueprints into physical form.
Scrivener: Those who have spent years in service of the faith and their local libraries are entrusted with yet greater responsibility, Scriveners are first and foremost comparing data from hard copy to data from databases and ensuring no corruption occurs in the preservation of knowledge, as well as being responsible for uploading new information into databases to be sent to the Grand Archive. Scriveners have also earned enough trust among their brethren to be allowed to leave libraries regularly to go on missions for the faith. For most, this will be the highest they ever ascend in within the order.
High Scriveners: The most public-facing arm of the Scriveners, High Scriveners are the scientists and researchers of the order, seeking out artifacts with members of other paths and doing most of the work of research as well as determining the nature of any technological relic they uncover.
Vicars and High Vicars: Vicars are often responsible for overseeing the duties of others, and managing groups of Scribes and Scriveners. Oftentimes Vicarship is a relatively short duration posting, as Vicars are often the protégées of High Vicars whose time is ending, and will soon take over a Temple-Library directly. High Vicars are, conversely those of the Scrivener bent that have managed to come into the leadership of a Temple-Library, and much of their daily activity is indeed running it.

Ritualists

Perhaps the most loosely organized section of Opus Dei, ritualists are those who are the public-facing arm of Opus Dei. They go out and attend to the needs of the people, preach, and convert the public into order. This can be in the form of ragged preachers on city streets or those on feral worlds who are sometimes seen as divine themselves. Their organization is loose, and their affiliation with actual Temple Libraries is somewhat distant. Still, those who serve for a long time may find themselves in charge.
Attendant: Attendants are, in brief assistants to the primary preacher, they assist the preacher, and provide the materials necessary for rituals.
Preacher and Confessor: The bulk of this order are the Preachers and Confessors who do most of the preaching, conducting rituals on artifacts, and attracting converts through their actions. Their daily actions are as varied as the worlds they preach on, from highly arcane rituals for ferals unused to advanced technology to more mundane prayer offered before regular maintenance and converting skilled persons into the faith.
High Confessor: It is a rare day for a ritualist to come into control of a Temple-Library, but sometimes through good political maneuvering, hard work, or plain experience and seniority, a Confessor rises to command a sect of Opus Dei. When this happens they become High Confessors and move away from their traditional work, to the running of Temple-Libraries.

Excubitors

Some sects of Censors adopted a more militant bent to their operations, indeed becoming outright hostile to those they deem inferior. Those who seek to protect the faith, or engage directly in the seizure of technology join the Excubitors. This order often draws from military personnel, and indeed maintains a strict military hierarchy, with much of their duties consisting of the seizure and destruction of artifacts, often in the face of violent enemy resistance.
Zealots, Excubitors, and Senior Excubitors: The lower ranks of the order, those who are trainees, the lowest rank of a fully inducted member, and lastly those entrusted with any powered armor that their particular Temple might have.
Palatines: Equivalent to sergeants within the order Palatines lead small groups of Excubitors into battle.
Athanatos: Roughly equivalent to a Lieutenant or a Captain Athanatoi are responsible for leading company-sized forces of Excubitors into battle. For most Temple-Libraries, this is the highest rank of Excubitor that will ever be present. In smaller Libraries with a High Censor as a Leader, their aide de camp will be an Athanatos.
Censor: A Censor is, in larger temples dedicated to the efforts of the Excubitors, the commander of a larger force of Excubitors. In these temples, a Censor will be the second in command to the High Censor.
High Censor: High Censors have reached the highest rank of their order, achieving control of an entire Temple Library. Often this broader set of responsibilities softens their attitude, and as a result, High Censors tend to be more politically minded.

Temple-Libraries

Temple-Libraries are the core of Opus Dei's operations and are largely independent organizations. These groups can number from roughly one hundred to one hundred thousand souls. Temple-Libraries are part farm, part scientific lab, part factory, and part library all in one, with almost all being self-sufficient, as well as centers of research and stores of data. Rarely, a Temple-Library will be established on an unoccupied world, planting the new colony completely under the control of Opus Dei Completely, such colonies are referred to as "Library Worlds" and are often sites of great importance, as they are the safest places in the galaxy for the faith, and become quickly the greatest stores of knowledge.

Culture

In most cases, Opus Dei fosters a very particular set of cultural values and expressions among its practitioners. Though all members of the faith are expected to body these ideals to a certain extent, it is for the most part left to the active techno-cultists to uphold the traditions of the faith. In Opus Dei, it is most important to be diligent in one's duties, and respectful of technology, indeed there are more than a few unneeded rituals put in place regarding advanced technology. The other key element that most temple-libraries and sects favor is an emphasis on simple living, ironically refraining from using advanced technology. Those who join the faith often come from feral worlds, and those who have seen the suffering caused by technology that has gone haywire, and as a result seek to best be stewards of technology, while the operation of advanced technology is allowed, sometimes necessary, dependency is not if for no other reason than to avoid resource wastage.

Public Agenda

Opus Dei's primary purpose in public is to acquire and preserve the knowledge of the Standard Build Template, the largest database of blueprints in explored space, and known within their religious doctrine as the "Great Work". They do this not only to correct the age of Technobarbarism that came after the Great Cataclysm but to safeguard knowledge for a future day when humanity has need of the Great Work once more and depending on Sect, the humanity of today. Most Beaconists and a few Censors will also seek to safeguard cultural works, and preserve them within their databases such that no element of human knowledge or human achievement is lost in the same way that some of humanity's greatest advances were lost.

Assets

Opus Dei is a strange organization. In some ways, it is extraordinarily wealthy, in possession of some of the most advanced technology in the world, with a special emphasis on computer systems. In others, however, it is struggling, Temple-Libraries rarely trade with outsiders, and indeed Beaconists expend a lot of resources helping the outside world. As a result material goods, especially those not to be preserved are few in number, most notably of all Opus Dei maintains no proper fleet of ships on its own, instead relying on the lay faithful to move them across the galaxy, or else make use of merchant's vessels to travel across space.

History

This history of Opus Dei can trace its origins back to the creation of the original Standard Build Template, by an academic group from the Cadi Ayyad University, seeking to create a sum of human knowledge, and blueprints that would allow colonial societies to develop along similar lines. This was a necessity in the early days of space travel as the first human colonies were placed on sleeper ships, incapable of jump travel and would take years, decades even to cross the interstellar void, and as a result contact between worlds has difficult at best, meaning they would have to become self-sufficient from the outset. The Standard Build Template was installed on every ship leaving Earth in those early years, and for centuries after, with only a handful of later colonies not relying on it.
For two millennia the SBT became increasingly the primary source of engineering knowledge, and the database steadily expanded. The assistance of jump travel and the dramatically increased speed of communication enabled the SBT to grow rapidly. However, it also allowed more and more colonies to be formed, dependent on other worlds. As a result, in the later days of colonization, the SBT started to fall out of use. Additionally, political maneuvers at the behest of the Stellar league left much of the most advanced technologies out of colonial copies of the SBT to be the sole preserve of the Sol Sector. As a result, some of the colonies further afield in the frontier sectors began to go without. Problems would arise with the Great Cataclysm which utterly devastated the stock of advanced technology.
It was in the second century after the Cataclysm that Opus Dei first formed. The first Grand Vicarius, Anton Ivanovich, started the cult on New Petrograd, which suffered greatly from the Cataclysm. As a frontier world, the New Petrograd's access to information was relatively limited, and the world found itself locked to a level of technology roughly analogous to the broadcasting age. Advanced artifacts and the Standard Build Template became increasingly seen as venerable, perhaps even divine objects, a trend that was elevated by the engineers who needed to protect their artifacts, and secure their livelihoods. By the time of Anton Ivanovich, there was cult-like veneration of the original creators of the Standard Build Template, of whom the members whose names survived include Fard Said, Zara Kanaan, Ismail Ahmad, and Samer Karam, as divine beings. As the original members of the faith were a handful of engineers mission of Opus Dei was simple, to help rebuild the world after the Fall. The original tenets of the faith were established, and the first libraries were established in New Petrograd.
The faith would spread slowly at first, to neighboring systems, and began suffering growing pains. As the organization expanded, its mandate needed to change, finding worlds of differing levels of technology, and public opinion of differing levels. Its emphasis shifted towards the preservation of technologies that were increasingly decaying as the Io Sector struggled away at the edge of settled space. It was during this time that the Censor faction would arise, becoming the primary alternative to the Beaconist faction of the organization. After the Sector was reconnected to the wider galaxy via the Jump Gate Network, Opus Dei spread much more rapidly throughout the rest of charted space. Though it spread, it encountered hostility from a number of states, including outright persecution in some. This hardened the organization and required the creation of the Excubitors. However, Opus Dei also found friends, and through those friends, became an established religion in much of space, and indeed was able to establish Library Worlds in some sectors of space.

Tenets of Faith

The tenets of the faith are expressed in four simple statements. Known as the Great Pillars, the tenets are as follows;
Venerate the Great Work - The Standard Build Template is the greatest achievement of humanity, indeed it is evidence of the divine made manifest. The database and its products are to be shown proper respect.
Preserve Knowledge - Like the Great Work itself, it is the responsibility of the faithful to preserve knowledge. The Great Cataclysm destroyed much and it is a moral imperative to prevent another such event from happening ever again.
Preserve Humanity - The Great Work is to be safeguarded for the day when it is time for it to be spread among the people again. Humanity too must be saved as humanity alone are the only vessel for the Great Work.
Scorn the Alien - All mainstream sects of Opus Dei are opposed to using, maintaining, and even studying alien technology, especially anything pertaining to the Jred, and even Beaconists will destroy alien artifacts if they find them.

Worship

The practice of lay worshippers is relatively simple in that they are required simply to venerate the products of the Great Work wherever they are found. The exact interpretation of this tenet is one of those matters that does lead to the spawning of minor sects. However, those seeking to become more involved with the faith and become full technocultists are generally expected to partake in certain activities. Technocultists are expected to live in a library, and the religious edifices of Opus Dei, and assist in the preservation of the Great Work. To that end most are expected to spend their daily lives organizing libraries, copying the contents of SBT databases into a physical medium ad nauseam, learning how to, and repairing and old machines, and working to spread the faith if they don't live on a library world, and accomplish the mission of Opus Dei in the wider galaxy, though the exact details of this last act of worship depend on the sect one follows.

Political Influence & Intrigue

Opus Dei's political influence is inconsistent. In some areas of the galaxy, it has become a dominant eminence, often being adopted as an official religion by certain worlds and interstellar states where the veneration of, or control of, technology is a valuable asset politically or at least allowed to spread unchecked. In other areas, there is much more hostility to the Great Technocult, with their missionaries shunned, arrested, and occasionally killed. This particular behavior has fueled the growth of the Censor faction of the faith, which in turn has provided teeth to the organization, as Censors are broadly known to be much more heavily militarized than the Beaconists, and much more willing to use that militaristic force against outsiders.

Sects

Despite the relatively young age of the religion, it is no stranger to factionalism within the ranks of the faith. There are currently two major sects of Opus Dei. The first, and currently dominant sect, are the Beaconists who believe that the preservation of knowledge and technology is for the benefit of humankind of today as much as tomorrow, and lend their technical expertise to outsiders as much as they can. The Beaconists are frequently found providing technical aid to those they deem worthy of assistance. The other, and a school of thought which is rapidly growing are the Censors, who believe that the humanity of today is unworthy, indeed incapable of responsibly using the creations of the Great Work, and only they should possess knowledge of it. To that end the Censors frequently confiscate working examples of the Standard Build Template's databases, and sometimes even the creations of it, often by force, rarely even destroying those examples. Censors are also known to abhor deviant technology and will destroy it with alarming frequency. A wider array of splinter sects have also come into existence, deriving their lineage from one of the major two schools of thought.

In machina dei, In machina hominem

UOP - Opus Dei 09596

Founding Date

AC127

Type

Religious, Organised Religion

Alternative Names

The Great Technocult

Demonym

Technocultist/Technocultists

Permeated Organizations

• State of Pariah

Related Professions

• Technocultist