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Science fiction, particularly space-oriented science fiction like Traveller, does not often treat religion well. Either religion goes ignored, or exists only to be argued against (glares at the New Atheists), or is played up for wackiness. Even moreso if the religion in question isn't some realworld religion like Islam. This is unsatisfying to me, as a member of several fringe religions (where are the Thelemites in the United Federation of Planets?) and as someone quite fascinated by UFO religions and other attempts to religiously understand new scientific concepts. I'm also quite intrigued both by the seeming incoherence of the future to the present and by the interplay of old and new in the fringe religions of space.
However, my own space opera setting for Traveller puts quite a bit more attention on religion. It was a Unitarian-turned-Spiritualist who discovered (or was instructed by the spirits how to build) the Electric Messiah. The Electric Messiah (which is powered by sex,) in turn, is the only mechanism able to harness the Casey Jones Effect, the results of an old train engineer managing to transition completely into the noosphere. Apotheosis, in other words.
The background religion of the galaxy, then, is Spiritualist in nature, all seances and channeling. Spiritualism, of course, is one of those fascinating religious processing science (in this case, the telegraph, with Spiritualism's child Theosophy focusing on evolution.) In this fecund mix, the Spirit Associations ~ such as the Association of Electrizers that gave John Murray Spear the New Motive Power ~ loom large. But many other ways of approaching the divine and the holy litter these starry skies.
A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research
H6463-4D
- God View: Rational Atheism. A rejection of the existence of a Supreme Being on the basis of science, logic, or reasoning.
- Spiritual Aim: Worshipers will be received into paradise when they die.
- Devotion Required: Daily.
- Organization Structure: Loose hierarchy with most decisions on the regional level.
- Liturgical Formality: Services are conducted in a "holy tongue" few worshipers can understand.
- Missionary Fervor: Active among a limited number of sophonts.
- Number of Adherents: 51,863,606,959,219 sophonts
- 263 (0.00000000000507%) Wrecking Ballers
- 175 (0.00000000000337%) Morgan-Beavisians
- 56 (0.00000000000108%) Beyonders
- 36 (0.00000000000069%) Hausulings
- 4 (0.00000000000008%) Nomians
A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research is a widely published magazine billed as "a solemn out-pouring in public of the nobler feelings of Humanity and its descendants, inspiring them with larger and more comprehensive thoughts towards a beautiful system of morality with Love as a principle, Order as the basis, and Progress as the goal, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols." It has become both the expression and center of a burgeoning religious movement. Members stretch the whole breadth of human territory, both imperial and not, and beyond to the polities of the parahuman species and even into the interstellar states of the Greys and Pleiadians. The viewpoint espoused by the magazine rejects introspective and intuitive knowledge, in favor of knowledge built up by direct and personal experience by one's own senses of natural phenomena, their properties, and their relations. Also suspicious is putting much, if any, weight on the experiences reported by others, for both deceit and the Derridan process of the reflection of meaning are inevitable.
A complete system of belief and ritual has grown up in and around the magazine and the writings contained within, with liturgy and sacraments, a dual priesthood (of editorial priests and the teacher-priests who write the contents of the magazine) and pontiffal council. Subscriberism (the common shorthand to refer to the movement as a whole) embraces determinism, detachment, scientific objectivism, and social commentary, proposing that spiritual literature should be like controlled experiments in which the characters function as the phenomena being experienced. When humans with their creations confront the world of nature, the illusion of gods is revealed and the universe's indifference realized. When they are not confronting the natural cosmos, the extraordinary and excessive features in human nature are influenced by the social environment in the forms of a class structure based on slavery, social change, and heredity (all large, cliodynamical forces according to Subscriberist thought, beyond any individual's control) which inevitably and horribly isolates certain individuals.
Organized around the public veneration of Humanity and its descendants, Subscriberism relies on associations in its general language use, hoping that by doing so they can create sensory experiences, rather than relate their flawed interpretations of their experiences. Many of these associations revolve around the story of the legendary architect Hiram Abiff and his artistry in building an ancient Temple during which construction he is said to have died. Despite a general mistrust of anything which cannot be perceived with the individual's senses, this religion without a metaphysics or a theology generally agrees that some sort of afterlife exists. They call this principle the conservation of the observer; because one cannot perceive any situation in which they are not perceiving, the existence of such situations is less certain than the existence of situations in which one is perceiving. Certainty is simply a synonym for reality (as seen with an analog analysis), and so being unable to perceive is less real than eternal perception, otherwise known as the afterlife. However, because said afterlife cannot be perceived by the living or communicated by the dead, it is rarely described in the magazine, at least with any detail. The metaphor of the Temple Hiram Abiff Built is often leveraged on the relatively rare occasion that a Contributing Author feels the need to discuss the afterlife. Though it is the relationship of Hiram to the temple that is most important, many Subscribers imagine that the Temple Hiram Abiff Built is a "place" which places no restrictions on the ability to experience, allowing one to experience anything they wish and have new and surprising experiences without any effort or obstacle. In other words, a Subscriber paradise.
Didactic stories in A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research and Subscriber attention in general are centered on people's mental life, such as impressions, feelings, sensations, and emotions, without trying to interpret them. In a perhaps surprising twist given its veneration of Humanity and descendants as a whole, the magazine's teachings tend to focus on a particular person's perception of events and subjective point of view of reality rather than generalizing, for the same reason. The most important people's perceptions to relate are those that lie outside the norm, on the blurred edges of reality, when viewed without romantic idealization or dramatization. Stylistically, Contributing Authors select few details to convey the sense impressions left by an incident or scene. Both in their art and their thought, Subscribers strive to represent all that they experience truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions such as embellishment or interpretation, as well as implausible, exotic, and supernatural elements. They build everything around third-person objective reality and focus on everyday, quotidian activities and life. As such, the Subscriber approach inherently implies a belief that such reality (or truth) is ontologically independent of man's conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, and beliefs, and thus can be known (or knowable) to the individual observer.
Interpretation of the empirical evidence of one's own senses is sadly necessary for any conclusions or decisions to be made therefrom, and so the magazine is yet replete with fictionalized accounts of various contributors' experiences, particularly intense, exciting, or rare ones. The best of these strive to leverage child-friendly prose of the adventure writing and detective mystery story genres (and its accompanying art) to demonstrate the habits of thought for which the readers of the magazine strive, the interrogation of and limitation to the evidence of the senses and the avoidance of putting undue weight on one's interpretations of the things they sense.
The hyper-individualistic beliefs and practices of this religion veer past the limitations of the scientific method. Theory is an interpretation of sensory experience and, thus, less trustworthy. The circular dependence of theory and observation is broken, and only observation reigns supreme. In fact, all of history is broadly divided by Subscribers into three ages in the pages of the magazine. The first, called the Theological Age, is one in which people don't experience things themselves, but receive experience from putative Gods and the much-less-putative authorities that claim to intercede before them. One's place in society is governed by their association with the divine presences and with the church, and the probative qualities of the senses go ignored. Logic brings the Metaphysical Age thereafter, a whole age where individual interpretation of all the grand universe rules. Senses are now and newly honored, but only in service to the imaginary models and theories that seek a single, if complex, answer to fit every question. Universal rights become the focus of ethics in this time. Finally the third age, the Scientific Age, comes. Now the contradictions are resolved; the universe is divorced from itself, denied a false unitarianism. Individual sensations can be savored, without the dulling veil of preconceived and abstract idea, and the conquests of the individual will become centered in all ethical questions.
All societies, human and nonhuman, must proceed through these three stages in linear procession, first the first and then the second, according to Subscriber belief. Much as the physical world operates according to gravity and other absolute laws ~ the same experience being so precisely, if not perfectly, recreatable by setting up broadly similar conditions ~ so does society, according to A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research. In fact, the magazine has ranked the types of sensation according to each one's positivity, the level of detailed exactitude immediately available in each, and thus the surety of recreating any given individual sensation. The positivity of each sensation and general type it has determined mathematically, making that abstract science the gauge by which priorities are determined. In order of decreasing positivity, the hierachy, as presented in the magazine, is astronomical experience, physical experience, chemical experience, biological experience, and social experience.
Trinitarian in nature, A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research generally reveres the New Supreme Great Being (Humanity and its descendants), the Grand Fétish (the Planets which give Humanity and its descendants their life), and the Grand Milieu (the Cosmos in which everything exists.) The basic, local organisational unit of Subscriberism is the Publishing and Archival Lodge, often abbreviated PAL. These private groups are supervised at the regional level (usually coterminous with county, or a subsector if the population of Subscribers is small enough) by an Omphalic PAL, or OPAL. Subscribers organize themselves by degrees: Entered Apprentice, Fellow Reader, and Contributing Author. It's common practice for Subscribers to precede their names with abbreviations for their degrees: E.A., F.R., and C.A. The candidate of these three degrees is progressively brought to an empirical understanding of the meanings of common associations used by the writers in the magazine and entrusted with grips, signs, and words to signify to other Subscribers that they have been so initiated. The ceremony for each degree is part allegorical morality play and part lecture. In each of these ceremonies, the candidate must first take the new obligations of the degree (including those of secrecy and to support other Subscribers in need), and is then entrusted with the secret knowledge confined to their new rank.
The PAL meets daily, just after the workday finishes, and conducts the usual formal business of any small organisation (approve minutes, elect new members, appoint officers and take their reports, consider correspondence, bills and annual accounts, organise social and charitable events, organise local publication of A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research, managing their library of past issues, etc.). In addition to such business, the meeting may perform a ceremony to confer a degree or elsewise receive a lecture, which is usually on some aspect of Subscriber history, philosophy, or ritual. Ritual or teaching, this portion of the meeting is conducted in a language known as Metrical Lojban, a descendant of the logical language known as Gua\spi, itself a tonal descendant of Lojban (in turn a descendant of Loglan.) The name of Metrical Lojban is a bit of a pun, as it uses the rhythm of its tones to focus its grammar and syntax on a very mathematical and bare description of observed reality within the confines of the logic built into it. Few Subscribers understand this language, of course, but it is considered both the most precise and the most concise with which to express Subscriber ideas nonetheless. At the conclusion of the meeting, the PAL holds what they call a festive board (a formal dinner, sometimes involving toasting and song.)
Most PALs host occasional social functions of some sort, allowing members, their partners, and non-Subscriber guests to meet openly. Often coupled with these events is the discharge of every Subscriber's and PAL's collective obligation to contribute to charity. This occurs at many levels, including in annual dues, subscriptions, fundraising events, PALs and OPALs. Subscribers and their charities contribute for the relief of need in many fields, such as education, health, and old age.
Editorial priests produce the magazine itself, which is seen as a form of collective prayer. They are seen as interstellar ambassadors of altruism, arbitrating in industrial and political disputes, while the teacher-priests are charged with writing articles for the magazine and directing public opinion. Both of these orders strive to be scholars, physicians, poets, and artists. Indeed all the arts, including dancing and singing, are practiced by them, like the bards of ancient societies. This requires long training, so training generally begins from the age of twenty-eight, studying in Subscriber schools. After seven years, the priest generally announces whether they are to be among the editors or the teachers; they then spend another seven years serving in an apprentice position as a proofreader, commentarian, and secretary for those who have chosen the teacher path and a ritualist for those aimed at the position of an editorial priest. Only then, at the age of forty-two at the youngest, can they become a full priest. They earn no money from the magazine, and are barred from holding offices outside the priesthood. In this way their influence is purely spiritual and moral.
A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research generally posits that "feminine values" represent the triumph of non-sentimentality, disillusioned objective understanding, and moral force; various writers published regularly in the magazine attempt to define and further these virtues for the readership. Both editorial priests and teacher-priests are thus required to be married to at least one feminine partner, regardless of their own gender, in order to attain full priesthood because of the ennobling influence of womanhood.
A series of degrees above that of Contributing Author exist beyond the level of the OPAL for editorial priests, leading in a hierarchy up another thirty degrees to the eventual top of the Subscriber hierarchy, the 33rd-degree Subscribers holding the title of Editor-in-Chief. They gather in bodies known as Commissioning Omphallic Publishing and Archival Lodges (or COPALs.) Although the Editorial Board (made up of all of the Editors-in-Chief) functions as the pontiffal authority for A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research, that authority is greatly limited both officially and effectively by the hyper-individualistic philosophies of the publication's readers and writers. Most Subscribers treat any proclamation, decision, or missive from an authority higher up than their regional OPAL as something only marginally more important than a curiosity. Contributing Authors may also extend their mastery of Subscriber philosophies by taking further degrees outside of this hierarchy, in groups that may or may not be affiliated with their PAL or OPAL; these extended degrees are generally recognized by other Subscribers whether or not approved by their own OPAL or that of the advanced degree-holder.
Almost all officers of a PAL are elected or appointed annually. Every PAL has an Installed Master, two Wardens, a treasurer and a secretary. Subscriber ceremonies are guarded by a sixth officer known as the "Tyler" (who may or may not be a priest of either type) outside the door with a drawn sword to keep out unqualified intruders. The Tyler is necessarily senior, because at the door they may hear ceremonies limited to the highest degrees, and, thus, a less affluent elderly Subscriber is often offered the office to relieve their need for Subscriber company, refreshments, and/or fees, without having to pay a subscription. In fact, Tylers may be paid to secure the privacy of Subscriber ritual! They take minor parts at the door of all meetings and ceremonies.
As stated, there is formal instruction as to the duties of a Subscriber, but on the whole, Subscribers are left to explore the ideas of the magazine in the manner they find most satisfying. Some will simply enjoy the dramatics, or the management and administration of the PAL, while others will explore the history, ritual and symbolism of the craft, and yet others will focus their involvement on their PAL's social side, perhaps in association with other PALs, while still others will concentrate on the PAL's charitable functions.
To be a Subscriber...
- Oppose all metaphysics, especially ontology and synthetic a priori propositions
- Reject metaphysics not as wrong but as meaningless
- See logic and even mathematics as expressing only tautologies that lay outside the realm of direct sensory experience and thus unable to provide meaning
- Insist that language is thus limited in its ability to remain meaningful by futilely striving to be a mere reflection of facts
- Understand science as a byproduct of sensory experience, a linguistic or numerical set of statements that are not to be trusted
- Believe that sensory experience is nature and nature is sensory experience; and out of this duality, all theories and postulates are created, interpreted, and ultimately shown to be false
- Believe that all theory and thought incorporate ideas that are discontinuous from the experience they claim as their object
- Believe that one's senses produce specific experiences that are dissociated from the personality, thoughts, and social position of the investigator
- Believe that sensory experience is predominantly transcultural
- Believe that sensory experience is markedly cumulative
- Insist that at least some of these statements are testable; that is, amenable to being verified, confirmed, or shown to be false by an individual's empirical observation of reality. Understand that that observation is individual, and thus may differ.
- Respect the Human Species, conceived as a continuous whole, including its unified past, the exponentially speciating present, and the uncertain future
- Act altruistically, leading to generosity and selfless dedication to others
- Seek to bring order to the chaos of society
- Pursue progress as the consequence of industrial and technical breakthroughs for society
- Espouse the twin principles of absolute liberty of conscience and human solidarity
- Above all work on the project of "rational reconstruction," in which ordinary-language concepts are gradually replaced by more precise equivalents in a standard language
The sacraments practiced by Subscribers total eleven, not all of which are experienced by every Subscriber, obviously:
- Introduction (when one is given a name and a sponsor purchases them a subscription to A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research)
- Admission (marking one's education as complete)
- Initiation as Entered Apprentice
- Destination (in which a Subscriber announces their choice of career)
- Initiation as Fellow Reader
- Marriage
- Initiation as Contributing Author
- Installation as an Installed Master of the PAL (abbreviated I.M.), or as one of their appointed or elected officers. This installation lasts a full year, at which point the I.M. is named a Past Master (P.M.) in the next Installation, with privileges in the PAL and OPAL.
- Retirement (performed upon reaching six standard decades of age)
- Separation (the removal of a Subscriber from the community, by their choice or the community's)
- Incorporation (celebrating someone's absorption into history; performed on the third anniversary of their death)
Denominations of Subscriberism
Several threads weave the complex and somewhat freewheeling tapestry of Subscriber thought. None are exclusive of any of the others and, though individual Subscribers may primarily identify themselves with but a single one of these threads, in truth the vast majority of Subscribers incorporate elements of many. The Bannermen are relatively unique among these denominations for their focus on incorporating elements of specific old Earthling cultures; specifically, Bannermen syncretize their ideas with those of the Indian subcontinent. This focus is paired with an emphasis on writing for children and propagating Subscriber thought through those means. Meanwhile, Steadmen put their emphasis on scientific and technical endeavours pursued in an idyllic atmosphere and related with a lyric tone that allows for greater use of allegory.
Pembertonian Subscribers are creatures of the finer things in life, dandies and frequenters of clubs from the exclusive to the tawdry, with a penchant for nigh-unbelievable heights of adventure and scientific criminology. Harradens (sic), on the other hand, lean into the Subscriber preference for "feminine virtues" and work to manifest them in society by influencing its social scene and theater with their writings and performances. They do, however, tend to reject militancy and exclusivity on the whole in this pursuit and that also of the advancement of non-men in situations that oppress them. The alienation of the individual in the modern world haunts their works, and a slight romance bleeds into their beliefs thereby, with a focus on love for disagreeable men whose actions can only be seen as what they are by the Subscriber. Their stories also show a marked tendency to end with tragic and meaningless deaths, such as by traffic accidents unrelated to the plot, emphasizing the fallibility of interpretation.
Both the Harradens and the Looneys place a special honor on the writings of Shakespeare, though that latter camp likes to claim that they were authored instead by a man they say was named de Vere (which they go on to claim means "from Truth".) The Looneys see the process of writing as revealing an intimate, credible psychodrama to which principles of Subscriber empirical psychology can be applied, and insist that the value of the magazine is increased if it is read outside (however that is defined on a given planet.) They have a marked tendency to become editorial priests for the magazine. Glaspellites share the Harradens' focus on feminine virtues, and are known among Subscribers for their daring views on justice and morality, manifested in a willingness to make principled stands and political dissent, to engage in debate for fun, and to lampoon the upper classes. Reluctant to seek publicity and tending to downplay their achievements, they believe that compassion, rooted in their interpretation of Subscriber ethics and given an especial prominence when directed at nonsophont species, is the path to being worthy inheritors of the land.
In many ways the hipsters of the Subscriber religion, Crane Style Subscribers are often attracted to stories of war, either fictional or journalistic. Each throws away their name and refines an individual and distinctive dialect to seek a life full of vivid intensity, intellectual honesty (as much as a weak mental machinery will allow,) immediacy, and irony. Themes of fear, spiritual crises, the disillusionment from the glory of war when faced with its realities, and social isolation proliferate throughout Crane Style thought; much is discussed of the degradation of youth as it moves from innocence to a being who has collected many experiences. They vehemently reject sentimentality in their explorations of these themes, asserting that a story should be logical in its action and faithful to character. Truth to life itself is the only test, the greatest artists are the simplest, and simple because they are true. Aloof, moody, skeptical, reserved, and rebellious (though friendly,) they tend to ignore mathematics and science in favor of history and linguistics, these studies only being eclipsed by a vigorous dedication to military-style drills and various sports descended from the old sport of baseball. These physical pursuits tend to take priority over the action of the mind in Crane Style. The moral prescriptions of others are deemed by Crane Style Subscribers to be even less worthy of attention than their interpretations of their sensory experiences; they love to deflate the hypocrisy they see surrounding them. Looking at the universe with an honest and unsentimental eye, Crane Style Subscribers deem the human nature found in the slums to be open and plain, with nothing hidden. Accordingly, they can often be found haunting the bars, brothels, and flophouses there. Subscribers of this Style talk about three stances, or three ways of approaching the world: the Red Stance (flexible, swift, abrupt and nervous), Open Boat Stance (supple majesty), and Monster Stance (closed, circumstantial, and normal in feeling). They rapidly flow between these three stances, as needed in the moment.
Pearian Subscribers are explorers, driven to experience things that have never before been experienced by the people of their home culture. They train to endure much and to survive in nearly any environment or situation. Sharing these experiences is a virtue second only to gaining them, and in true Subscriber fashion, they seek to do so as directly as possible. Underhanded methods such as theft and deceit are explicitly and openly allowed in pursuit of this second virtue. If a new experience cannot be shared directly and without interpretation, Pearians strive to be as uninterpretative as possible, mastering surveying, technical-artistic, and mathematical techniques to describe things as specifically as they can. They are also known for their mastery of the less-glamorous fields of quartermastery and supply chains and the like, all to help ensure their ability to range well beyond what is known to them and their people; their thirdmost important virtue, after all, is tenacity. Many have accused Pearians of being primarily interested in accolades, celebrity, awards, and recognition. For their part, Pearians mostly change the subject when these accusations come up.
Finally, Doylist Subscribers tend to focus their scientific studies on the life sciences ~ biology, botany, and medicine ~ and their political efforts on preventing the atomization of large polities. In fact, great emphasis is placed among them on political engagement, usually in support of that position, as well as of military engagement, criminal appeal, and colonial reform. Many can be found among numerous deliberative bodies across the galaxy. They are also very concerned with the danger of becoming trapped in (by) their creations, so they are well-known for doing things like trying to kill off popular characters in stories. Their curiosity has less of an explorers' edge, being concentrated upon mysteries and the unexplained; a puzzle of justice gone cold fascinates a Doylist far more than the promise of a distant and unseen planet. To this end, Doylists also show a marked interest in history, sifting through time for unanswered questions. Doylists are also more willing to consider questions outside of their experience, indulging in the occasional spot of speculation or fantasy as a means to sharpen their intellect by creating unbelievable mysteries to solve and meaningless questions to answer. This school of Subscriber thought places great emphasis on vigorous sport; pugilism, team field sports, golf, billiards, and bodybuilding are common pastimes among Subscribers of this type. They also tend to find great and joyous wisdom in architectural design.
Doylists are the Subscribers most sympathetic to the mainstream Spiritualist religions, happy to investigate paranormal and ghostly phenomena, which they collectively call "The New Revelation" or "The Vital Message." This sympathy (which can extend to syncretism) extends also to various Christian and fairy religions, as well, and is a main cause for the occasional ridicule Doylists (and sometimes Subscribers as a whole) face. Because A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research rejects any evidence beyond that which is personally sensed by the individual, Doylists have been known to continue believing in some paranormal experience they've had, even after the perpetrator of the fraud, trick, or illusion takes great pains to impress upon them the truth of the experience's falsity. Sometimes they are called "the Gullibles" as a result.
Subscriber Character Ideas
Prospective contributor to the magazine (adventurer/author): Eager to become a Contributing Author, this Fellow Reader is treating their degree as if they were a journeyperson in a guild, travelling the galaxy hoping to have grand new adventures. They hope to write the new experiences gained thereby into a series of articles they can submit to A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research. They are likely to get distracted by any sort of opportunity for a new and strange sensation, their eagerness conflicting with both more immediate concerns and other possible virtues. They are also likely to skip sleeping so as to make time to agonize over each and every word choice in the interminable series of articles on which they are working.
Scientific sensualist: One of the most intellectual species of Subscriber, this hedonist is out to enjoy all the varied pleasures of the galaxy for themself. They subject their experiences to intense scrutiny so that they can wring every last bit of pleasure out of an experience. Massages from them are moments in heaven stretching languorously between the very deliberate pressure of their hands. Food cooked by them is unmatched in its delectability. What they lose in novelty, they make up in intensity ~ though they do seek out new sensations, of course. Practice only makes perfect if it occurs in a myriad of contexts.
Utopian technocrat: If the social world operates on laws just like the physical world does, than its problems are solvable. If viewed unflinchingly, without theory or sentimentality, and from below, that is. Some Subscribers arrange to work in the administration or governance of settlements/polities of a variety of sizes and types. From there, they grapple with perfecting society, chasing the dream of a just universe.
Anti-theoretical detective: Subscribers who work in the criminalogical fields frustrate their co-workers to no end. They simply refuse to come to conclusions or theorize about who might have committed the crime. Instead, they merely log and describe the evidence they discover, every last, little, seemingly insignificant bit of it. Lawyers love this care and effort, of course, as it builds completely unpenetrable cases that invariably win. If they don't put the Subscriber detective on the stand, of course.
A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research in the Scimecan System
The Scimecan system plays host to a total of eleven PALs (metacommentarial note ~ once I have created the other solar systems in the county, one of these might turn out to be the local OPAL):
- The Order of Precedence PAL in Thomas Henry's Magisterial Consulate City (the only city on Wrecking Ball), consists of 87 Subscribers
- WE-GO PAL in Thomas Henry's Magisterial Consulate City consists of 78 Subscribers
- Yellow Snowdrop PAL in Armée (the only city on Morgan-Beavis) consists of 65 Subscribers
- Dacrydium PAL in Armée consists of 58 Subscribers
- Friedel Kienzel-Tietze PAL in Beaver Crevasse (the only settlement on Beyond Counting) consists of 56 Subscribers
- Trinity Church PAL in Melanderi Station (the only city on Nomia) consists of only 4 Subscribers, but also serves the 36 Subscribers on Hausu
- Bill's PAL in Thomas Henry's Magisterial Consulate City consists of 40 Subscribers
- Amirov PAL in Thomas Henry's Magisterial Consulate City consists of 30 Subscribers
- Tarrafal PAL in Armée consists of 29 Subscribers
- Philocaesar Philoromaios Eusebius PAL in Thomas Henry's Magisterial Consulate City consists of 28 Subscribers
- Opus Development and Dictionarial PAL (often abbreviated ODDPAL) in Armée consists of 23 Subscribers
A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research lacks enough Subscribers on both Morgan-Beavis and Nomia lack the numbers to exert much of an influence on those planets. Among the teeming masses of the former planet, the Subscribers mostly disappear into the metropolitan crowd. Despite this, Tarrafal PAL provides Subscribers the greatest access to the ears of the contract nobility (and possible contracts themselves;) though the religion possesses more cultural gravity on another baronial world, the Baroness Hausu is not well-disposed to be friendly toward her subjects. ODDPAL provides a similar function for Morgan-Beavisian Subscribers who wish access to the halls of corporate power. All approaches to Subscriber thought are in exhibition here, ebbing and flowing into, over, and through each other, with no one way becoming trendy long enough to dominate the Subscriber scene on this world.
On the other hand, the nigh-singularity-tech world of Nomia plays host to a mere handful of Subscribers, giving surprise to many that it is possessed of a PAL while the nearby baronial planet of Hausu isn't. The magazine notably fails to provide an explanation for this or the Trinity Church PAL's authority over the more numerous Hausuling Subscribers. Baroness Geertruida Sachs barely tolerates the situation, though she is no more forthcoming than A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research, limiting her resistance to courtly, legal, and legislative maneuvers to prevent this off-planet influence on her subjects. The truth of the matter is that the Hausuling Subscribers make up the primary organizing force for the liberation and self-determination of the Hausulings. These Harradens and Glaspellites are rebels against the Baroness, who finds her hands tied by the need to keep the situation on Hausu only vaguely known offworld.
The neo-feralist culture of the ice-planet Beyond Counting, where the Unionists' Guild maintains its primary Scimecan lyceum, rejects the stupefying abstractions of civilized, technological culture. Many among them have thus found resonance with A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research's insistence on the primacy of one's own sensory experiences. Of course, literacy isn't exactly common among the Beyonders, but Friedel Kienzel-Tietze PAL gets around this minor obstacle by lavishly decorating their walls with pictorial translations of the magazine's contents and teaching a small group of Contributing Authors to read and then relate those contents with grand storytelling. Harraden and Crane Style ways of understanding these presentations are popular, with their focus on social alienation, also a large part of the neo-feralist critique of city culture. Between the two, Crane Style is the most popular, with its focus on stories involving the taking of risks which Beyonder culture also prizes. The presence of the Unionist lyceum and discussions with the prospective Unionists studying there has also led to a strong undercurrent of Doylist Subscriberism incorporating bits of the Spiritualism of the Unionists' Guild.
Wrecking Ball was granted to the various parahuman species by special marquesal proclamation. It serves as a diplomatic center and welcoming threshold to the Scimecan system as a whole for parahuman visitors, as well as any Greys, Pleiadians, other aliens, and even humans who wish to visit. As such, it has found a surprising use for (and, accordingly, adherence to) the teachings of A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research. A dedicated resistance to the act of interpretation helps prevent intercultural blunders and promote listening to others describe the meaning of their ways rather than seeing them only through the filters constructed of one's own. Promoting more Stedmen and Pembertonian approaches also helps in pacifying potential conflicts with idyll and pleasure.
There are a total of 355,791 sophonts residing in the Scimecan System. Of those:
- 217,954 (61%) claim no adherence to any one religion, or haven't decided on a religion
- 91,338 (26%) list themselves as Spiritualists without any particular denomination
- 29,953 (8.4%) are adherents of the Water-Candy Way
- 2098 (0.59%) are adherents of Mujtama al-Khullaanin an-Nassin Tafsiiriyy (Interpretative Society of Friends of the Text)
- 1726 (0.49%) list their religion as "other"
- 897 (0.25%) follow the Reeths-Puffer Method
- 574 (0.16%) describe themselves as Finnish Evolutionary Pagans
- 534 (0.15%) subscribe to A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research
- 289 (0.081%) participate in the Aṣẹ-Ball Championships
- 184 (0.052%) practice the Money Spider Technique for Exaltation as a Latter-Day Hero
- 116 (0.033%) are adherents of Confession
- 83 (0.023%) are adherents of Valovovanism
- 30 (0.0084%) are adherents of the Bread and Roses Syndic of Mama Nature's Children
- 8 (0.0022%) are adherents of Miresa
- 3 (0.00084%) are adherents of the Unpurchased Sybilline Essays of One Jeremy Sharp, Policeman
The religious breakdowns of each of the inhabited planets in the system follows:
Hatfield, 261,606 sophonts
- 167,428 (64%) non-religious/undecided
- 70,635 (27%) undifferentiated Spiritualist
- 21,713 (8.3%) the Water-Candy Way
- 941 (0.36%) other
- 889 (0.34%) Reeths-Pufferites
Wrecking Ball, 936 sophonts
- 372 (40%) non-religious/undecided
- 263 (28%) Subscribers to A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research
- 197 (21%) undifferentiated Spiritualist
- 87 (9.3%) other
- 17 (1.8%) Money Spiders
Nomia, 710 sophonts
- 355 (50%) nonreligious/undecided
- 341 (48%) undifferentiated Spiritualist
- 6 (0.85%) Money Spiders
- 4 (0.6%) Subscribers to A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research
- 4 (0.6%) other
Hausu, 381 sophonts
- 201 (53%) nonreligious/undecided
- 118 (31%) undifferentiated Spiritualist
- 36 (9.4%) Subscribers to A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research
- 10 (2.62%) Ballers
- 8 (2.1%) Reeths-Pufferites
- 6 (1.6%) Money Spiders
- 2 (0.52%) other
Sprinter's Commonwealth, 617 sophonts
- 475 (77%) undifferentiated Spiritualist
- 67 (11%) nonreligious/undecided
- 66 (10.7%) Money Spiders
- 8 (1.3%) other
- 1 (0.17%) the Water-Candy Way
Morgan-Beavis, 83,208 sophonts
- 59,077 (71%) nonreligious/undecided
- 14,977 (18%) undifferentiated Spiritualist
- 8239 (9.9%) the Water-Candy Way
- 308 (0.37%) Khullaanin
- 230 (0.276%) other
- 175 (0.21%) Subscribers to A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research
- 116 (0.14%) Confessors
- 83 (0.1%) Valovovans
- 3 (0.004%) Sharpers
Goat's Rue, 171 sophonts
- 145 (85%) undifferentiated Spiritualist
- 20 (11.7%) nonreligious/undecided
- 5 (2.92%) other
- 1 (0.58%) Money Spiders
Robenhymer, 7459 sophonts
- 4177 (56%) undifferentiated Spiritualist
- 1790 (24%) Khullaanin
- 574 (7.7%) Finnish Evolutionary Pagans
- 432 (5.8%) other
- 276 (3.7%) Ballers
- 149 (2%) nonreligious/undecided
- 30 (0.4%) Children
- 23 (0.3%) Money Spiders
- 8 (0.1%) Miresalai
Beyond Counting, 703 sophonts
- 288 (41%) nonreligious/undecided
- 274 (39%) undifferentiated Spiritualist
- 65 (9.2%) Money Spiders
- 56 (8%) Subscribers to A Pocketful of Positivist Miracles and Psychical Research
- 17 (2.42%) other
- 3 (0.43%) Ballers
