The early colonial years
The
first of the ancient colleges which eventually became the Academic
culture on Corona
were established
while the terraforming process was still under way, and the majority
of the
population still lived in vast domes on the major continents of Quark
and
Baryon. When the atmosphere was finally declared breathable in 1829
the
domedwellers were joined by a diverse influx of colonists from Solsys
and other
locations in the Inner Sphere. A few of the colleges (Os Universidad in
Coronese)
continued to
specialise in philosophy, the others becoming agritech
laboratories,
media studios or corporate indoctrination centres. The period of the
great
Expansion into the wildernesses of Corona
was a remarkable time to be alive, but there was, for a while, less
time for
contemplation or abstract thought.
The
Northwestern fringe of Baryon, facing Quark across the Dirac
Sea
developed a Low Superior
culture, nearbaseline humans with mild tweaks
or
cybernetic enhancements raising their effective intelligence to a
certain
degree. The Department known as Su Glara which developed in this region
was
fast-moving and competitive, sometimes bewildering to the outsider, and
regarded with suspicion by the mostly unaugmented Quarkians in their
island
continent. However
the Glarans were not generally contemplative, rather they favoured
cynicism,
materialism and novelty over philosophy or spiritual development.
By
2000 the population of Corona
was already three billion, and Glara had half a billion of these. Glara
was
developing a distinctive culture, as noted above, but the influence of
the
global culture was also important, and also the interstellar network
known as
the Federation (the First
Federation of Hu and Ai, as it is now known). At
this time, before the advent of wormhole technology, the Federation was
bound
together almost entirely by the exchange of information via message
laser, with
the occasional slower than light ship arriving from one or another of
the
colonies.
One
technology which was spreading from world to world at this time was
improved
gerontology, a field which had been quite advanced in the Old Solar
system
before the Nanoswarms but had been thrown into disarray by the collapse
of
medical infrastructure on Earth; a series of tailored diseases also
effectively
reduced the average life expectancy of the general population in the
ensuing
Dark Ages. But now life expectancy was on the rise again, and an
individual on Corona
at the beginning of
the third Millennium a.t. could expect to live four hundred years or
more. To
avoid overpopulation, the death rate would have to match the birth
rate within
a close margin, but the death rate had fallen to a remarkable extent.
However
the inhabitants of this new, underpopulated world were accustomed to
having
large families, a desirable trait on a world where every new town and
city
required new citizens. Such a high birth rate was no problem while Corona
was still largely
wilderness, often simply bare rock and sand which needed to be seeded
with new
biomes. But two hundred years later many parts of Corona
were densely populated, and the
long-lived citizens found it necessary to change their breeding habits.
This
particular problem has been faced on countless worlds throughout the
Terragen
Sphere, and many solutions have been found. But the solution found by
the
Glaran community is particularly notable.
The
Glarans quickly filled their territory in
the northwest of Baryon, and bright crowded cities dotted the land. It
was now
regarded a rare privilege to have children. Although there were no laws
passed
to restrict family size, powerful memetic pressure was brought to bear
on the
citizens to limit their families, with varying results. A number of
competing
political movements had developed in Glara during the era of population
growth,
and each had a different take on the issue of population control. The
various
Altruist parties considered
that the welfare of the nation was more
important
than the freedom of action of individuals, and praised above all else
any
individual who resisted eir own desire for children, also encouraging
modest
consumption and compact housing.
The
Situationists were dedicated to
provoking change by favouring action
over consensus,
expecting that the interplay of events following a challenging action
would
lead to a new synthesis and equilibrium. Radical Situationist, known as
Conflictionists, actively desired upheaval and continuous discord,
believing
this would lead to a vibrant and dynamic culture with an ever-shifting
balance.
Another political movement, Pragmatism,
was becoming very strong and
consistent
in this period, but often the followers of this party were unable to
prevail
against the idealistic Altruists or capricious and arbitrary
Situationists.
The Empire period and the rise of Alto
Stisboi
By
the time Corona
was
connected to the wormhole system and had become the effective
capital of
the Taurus Nexus, Glara was wracked with a number of low-intensity
conflicts
and brushfire wars, cyborg against cyborg, su against su. While the
rest of the world of Corona was experiencing the flowering of High
Academic Coronese culture, the
once-vibrant
subcontinent had become a dangerous and uncomfortable place to live,
with most
of the conflicts having population pressure and methods of population
control at
their
heart. In 2101 a charismatic Altruist leader, Sventik Opek, committed
ritual
suicide in front of an enthusiastic audience, leading to a score of
copycat
immolations. Opek’s second in command, the equally
charismatic Ellat Virumaa,
declared that these suicides were martyrs who had died so that new life
could
enter the world, but that such self sacrifice need not be a solitary
act of altruism.
Instead she established a form of institutional killing, a ritual
voluntary
human sacrifice which quickly became the centre of a secular religion.
The
Religion of Sacrifice, or Alto Stisboi (literally ‘Death for
the good of All')
as it became known, became widely adopted in the cities and arcologies
of the
Glaran subcontinent. Several different sects arose, leading to a
certain amount
of sectarian strife in the region; and all forms of Alto were
suppressed or
persecuted in other parts of Corona at different times, especially on
the
mostly baseline continent of Quark (where the population generally had
a much
lower life expectancy anyway). Several wars were fought during the
course of Corona’s
history between
the followers of this religion and non-believers.
Mainstream
Alto Stisboi human sacrifice occurs in public at intervals decided by
the High
Synod; in this form of the ritual the volunteers (who may have been
waiting for
several years for this event) do not upload their memories beforehand,
so that
they die completely without prospect of retrieval. The ceremony is
watched by a
live audience of thousands, but not televised or otherwise recorded.
The
volunteer’s heart is quickly removed, cooked and eaten.
Several dozen
volunteers may be sacrificed at such an event, and many of the
congregation are
permitted to eat a small part of the flesh, prepared in a traditional
manner
(cannibalistic funerals were already accepted on Corona before the
emergence of
Alto Stisboi, a tradition that seems to have originated during the
earliest
days of the colony). The earliest volunteers were sacrificed
exclusively by
Ellat Virumaa herself, who is said to have carried out her duties with
compassion and efficiency until her own sacrifice in 2255.
Other
variants of Alto Stisboi include sects which permit uploading
beforehand, or
insist on this action. Uploading technology in the early third
millennium was
relatively rudimentary, and the uploaded personality may have had most
or all
of the memories and character traits of the original but few citizens
at that
time believed that there was a continuity of identity between the
original and
the upload. In most sects of this nature the uploaded personality was
stored or
exported, never to be reactivated in, or to enter, the Corona
system again. Some reactivated
uploaded personalities have been stored for millennia, and may be
reactivated
far out in the Periphery; sometimes these reactivated personalities are
responsible for a new occurrence of the religion of Alto Stisboi in the
Outer
Volumes. Another variant of this belief allows direct neural
interfacing
between the congregation and the participants, the experiences of the
volunteer
and priest or priestess being transmitted to each and every person
present
(sometimes recorded for later use).
Over
time Alto Stisboi spread to other worlds in the Taurus Nexus, despite
being
regarded as barbaric by most other religious and secular groups. The
existence
of numerous and varied sects of Alto Stisboi adherents throughout the
Taurus
Nexus was an important factor in the great civil
war which eventually
tore
apart the Taurus Nexus in 3262.
