The Pilgrims

If a book were made detailing the origins of the great clans, that of the Pilgrims would surely form the most inspiring and dramatic chapter. From a peasant mob they rose to form a huge and powerful nation occupying dozens of star systems. They are the only human force ever to have defeated the Spartans in a war, and their discipline and devotion to their beliefs are legendary.

History

The story of the Pilgrims begins on ancient Earth, in the years after the cataclysm of Sentinel. Crucian fleets ransacked bases, moons and whole planets as they flooded into the Terran Sphere. Refugees fled ahead of them, spreading a wave of terror as they went. On Earth, panicking governments strained themselves to their limits in a frenzy of production and then collapsed. Starving and enraged citizens rebelled, mounting protests against the growing corruption and nepotism that inevitably accompanied the impossibility of saving more than a few people. The protests were answered with military force which led to civil war and soon the last vestiges of states on Earth disappeared, dissolving into a brew of warlords and private armies.

In the midst of this general decay appeared the prophet Xarus. Born in Herat, Xarus was raised a Zoroastrian but at a young age claimed to have been given five visions by god decrying the numerous sins of humanity and exhorting him to follow the path of truth. Xarus's teaching claimed to complete Zoroastrianism, extending the concepts of flame and truth and prophecy into a broad vision of destiny, worthiness and completion.

From the first, Xarus accompanied his spiritual teaching with practical steps to organize and assist his followers. In an age where seemingly all leaders were looking only to protect and enrich themselves, he presented an alternative where any man who wished to live right would be made welcome and prosper. As such, it is hardly surprising that the ranks of his followers grew and grew.

By the time governments began to collapse, the Pilgrim movement had spread from its heartland in Central Asia to encompass devotees around the world. In a wide swathe of territory from Budapest through Karachi to Kampala, the Pilgrims numbered enough to be a force in local politics. When those local governments fell, the Pilgrims filled the void, providing basic government while organizing and training armies. Smaller warlords joined them, seeing in the movement their only hope for survival. Within a decade they had amassed a disciplined and well-equipped army numbering in the millions, and had begun to assert themselves. Concentrating on facilities rather than territories, they gained control over factories and shipyards, equipping themselves with the means to build spaceships and starships. Sympathizers seized control of orbital stations and Federation navy commanders joined the cause, deciding they were the best hope to organize the defence of Earth. When the Crucians reached striking distance of Sol, the Pilgrims were the dominant force resisting them.

If history had repeated itself at this point, many things might have happened. Earth, despite the chaos and distraction of civil war, was still heavily defended. They could have put all its resources into defence and endured for years, although its end would then have been total. The Pilgrims might have seized control of the whole planet, then fallen apart from corruption and infighting. Their leadership might have left with Earth's wealth, abandoning their followers to their doom. They might even have tried to make a deal with the Crucians, although nobody had managed this previously. In fact, though, they did none of these things. Instead they took a dual-pronged approach of defending Earth while simultaneously mounting an escape fleet in case ultimate calamity befell. Non-believers were not persecuted but neither were they assisted. The Pilgrims simply left them to manage as best they could. Nobody who asked for help was left unanswered, but neither would the Pilgrims waste themselves in impossible battles. All who joined their cause had to follow prophecy in the best way they could.

When the other planets of Sol had all fallen and Earth stood alone against the Crucians, Xarus decreed that the time had come to leave, and the Pilgrims transformed themselves. All their organization and planning could still not solve Earth's basic problem; there were far too many people to be rescued. The Pilgrims had built a fleet of dozens of starships, strong and fast enough to carry tens of thousands of them to safety, yet that was still a small fraction of their numbers. The end of the world loomed for most, and they knew it. However, even if Xarus could not save their lives, he had given them an answer to their fears. Those who joined the fleet would be those who could best carry out their mission. The rest of them would find the best possible meaning of their lives by doing what they could for Earth. None of them would die feeling their lives had been wasted.

Most Pilgrims spread themselves thin across the world to prepare for the possibility of resistance on the ground. Some worked feverishly to prepare the "Renewal Fleet", and to fight the Crucians in orbit with every spaceship not fast enough to join it. When ready they struck, mounting what appeared to be a last stand with the Renewal Fleet and every other ship they could find. As they engaged in battle, the Renewal Fleet made a quick feint at a relatively weak section of the Crucian front. \ It passed through and accelerated onwards into uncharted space, never to return to Earth.

The story of the Pilgrims on Earth ends here. Those who remained were very effective in their defence of Earth, but at near-total cost to themselves as they fought till their weapons ran out and then sought suicide in the most destructive ways they could find. Xarus chose to stay and die on Earth, along with a surprising number of the warlords who had joined the Pilgrims in their early days. He died in the first wave they launched against the Crucians, ramming his small frigate into the cargo hold of a battleship and then destroying it and himself with a fusion warhead. His end came, suitably, in the burst of flame he had prophecied for himself decades earlier. Despite this effort, the Crucians won the battle. Crucian forces landed on Earth and Pilgrim guerillas put their plans into effect, denying them a foothold. The Battle of Earth ended with mass bombings which destroyed any visible civilization, leaving behind ruins and diehards on a planet that was nearly impossible for the Crucians to occupy.

The real story of the Pilgrims continued in space, acting out the second vision of Xarus. They drove on at near-light speed beyond the reaches of the Human Federation, avoiding other human settlement and missing the war as hundreds of years flew by due to time dilation. They eventually arrived quadrants away at a barren world not suitable for colonization, but which provided a place for their fleet to gather and resupply.

A few years later, they continued on to a second world which was also unsuitable for colonization due to its close orbit around its sun and resulting high surface temperature. The Pilgrims split into two factions here, in a peaceful but serious internal struggle. The fine details depended on interpretation of the exact words of Xarus; it suffices for us to know that the two sides wanted to follow two different paths.

Both sides continued together to a third system, which turned out to be entirely water-covered and also not suitable for settlement. At this point the minority faction decided it would split and follow its own path. The fleet redistributed itself into two main groups, and a small contingent also established an underground base on a moon of the world (which they had naturally named Pool by this time).

The main body of the fleet continued on to another world, of marginal settlement value but which was habitable and provided raw materials for manufacturing. The Pilgrims built bases and factories here, rebuilding their fleet and surveying other systems to better gauge their next step. Living conditions were extremely harsh and many of them died. Internal dissension arose again and splinter groups split, believing this to be the crucible of the second vision. Cynics point out that this splitting made the crucible a self-fulfilling prophecy. In stark Darwinian fashion the less capable groups died off, leaving the survivors with all their equipment and more capable leaders.

While the path of the main body could be handily predicted to be the fourth of the seven steps, the Pilgrims' story took a twist when the minor body of them, who had split off at Pool, continued surveying and stumbled upon a destroyed Crucian base. They had inadvertently rejoined the rest of humanity, in the last stages of the Great War. In the ruins of the Crucian base was a Founder garrison and listening station, there to provide early warning if the Crucians should return in numbers. The Founders had quite good intelligence on Crucian positions within nearby quadrants, and since the story of the Pilgrims' last stand on Earth had been legend for thousands of years at that point, they passed on their maps to them without a qualm. The Pilgrims quickly realized that their main group was spreading directly into Crucian territory, and that the Pool group had nowhere at hand to spread - all nearby inhabitable planets had already been settled or occupied by humans.

So, the split at Pool brought about the fifth of the seven steps. The Pool group made a long-term deal to buy spacefold ships from the Founders and Spacers, and began surveying for a spacefold route to Crucible while simultaneously beaming tight radio signals to spread the news. Within a few decades they had found a workable route and re-united, and the Pilgrims took the war to the Crucians, with a fury for vengeance long lost to most humans. Resistance was light and quickly dispatched. Relatively quickly, the Pilgrims were victorious.

As the news spread about them, it sparked an even greater surge of enthusiasm for the war, which humans were now clearly winning. This is often credited with changing the last-stage direction of the war from strategic conquests to total extermination of the Crucians. With living reminders at hand of the way humanity had suffered from the Crucians, almost no humans had any mercy to spare them. The Great War splashed to an end in Crucian gore.

This proved to be just the first act to a bigger struggle for the Pilgrims, however. In the years before rejoining the war, the Pilgrims had discovered a type A planet and sent a mission to it. It turned out to be uninhabited and not on any spacefold route known at the time, so they staked claim to it and began settling. Only after the Great War had ended did they learn that the Spartans had discovered a spacefold route to the system and that they had been granted it by the first Emperor as part of Spartan Hold. The Pilgrims had been travelling in space for over two hundred years of their time, and almost unanimously they decided to stay and fight.

By this time the story of the returning Pilgrims was well known across the Empire, and nobody wanted to fight them, but the Spartans had to defend their claims, so they gradually mounted an expedition to seize and hold the settlement. Their slow reaction doomed the Spartan war effort; the Pilgrims had seen the sixth of the seven steps at hand and reacted as nearly instantly as a large body of people could, recalling their fleet and calling in every favour they could from their allies. Unknown sympathizers among the Founders and Spacers leaked Spartan plans and spacefold routes, and the Pilgrims were able to strike first, encircling the incoming spacefold to block access.

When the Spartans arrived they were ambushed and destroyed; warnings had already come and gone and the Spartans had been advised to expect no further warnings. The Spartans returned in greater numbers and battled on, while behind the front the Pilgrims commited the full power of their manufacturing facilities on Crucible to the war effort. For years the war dragged on at a near stalemate. Ocasionally the Spartans would seem to gain control of the spacefold, only to be met by surprise force on the other side and destroyed. The Pilgrims too took heavy losses, but because of their strategic position they were able to inflict casualties on the Spartans many times greater than their own, and it became clear they would continue to do so for as long as they could fight. The Spartans began to consider a direct-drive attack, which would have meant a much larger and more sustained war effort. This was not a popular idea among Spartan leaders, as they were busy at the time consolidating their hold on the newly conquered Crucian worlds. Moreover, opinion in the Imperial court was gradually turning against the Spartans. Pragmatic as always, the Spartans came to realize that they could not win this battle at any cost acceptable to them, and they arranged a face-saving treaty giving the Pilgrims total control of Xarus (as they named the new system), in return for a few minor moons around Pool and Crucible.

The Pilgrims had passed the Test of Fire, the sixth of the seven steps in the second prophecy. At peace for the first time in their existence, they began to build and spread, changing the direction of their efforts to the search for Starholm. Xarus had described this quite specifically as "a paradise orbitted by a single moon of fire". This rare combination of conditions was not known anywhere at the end of the war, but the Pilgrims were not deterred by this — the second prophecy had also said the road was long. For hundreds more years they spread and settled further worlds, till finally they discovered their new home, a type A planet with a single moon that had unusual tectonic activity giving it a high temperature and active volcanism.

The Pilgrims settled and built Starholm from the planet, and on its moon they built a temple. Then they reorganized themselves yet again. The second prophecy was now complete and the Pilgrims both powerful and prosperous. They looked ahead to the third prophecy and saw an even bigger doom ahead at some point in the future. The focus of Pilgrim belief changed to mission, and along with that they mounted trade and survey expeditions to help spread themselves among the galaxy. In most cases the Pilgrims built temples on isolated moons, asteroids or orbital platforms. Rarely did they settle actual systems themselves.

When the Human Psi Institute began to spread the teachings of psi, the Pilgrims were adamantly opposed. They saw the third prophecy coming true, and the Disappearance only confirmed their beliefs. After it they found themselves in a unique position yet again; they are also the only group ofhumans not to have lost anybody in the Disappearance, and with their mission network intact they led the backlash against psi.

The Pilgrims Today

Pilgrim history is littered with such dramatic events that it often seems implausible, yet the most unlikely have all been confirmed true by numerous independent sources. The question is often asked how they have mainteined their strict discipline over such a long span of time, with a large population. No serious historian believes naive notions that people were simply inspired by Xarus and joined the side of good. Ambition and corruption were surely as prevalent in history as now, and yet the Pilgrims seem to have largely overcome them somehow. The most common theory is a sort of evolutionary one, and there are numerous other factors. All peoples are products of their environments, and as the Pilgrims arose in extreme and harsh times their nature has been extreme to match. In their earliest origins, they had the right answers when the wrong answers were fatal. Their doctrine of worthiness co-opted the ambitious and left little space for corruption; anybody who wanted to prove himself could join and the path was laid clear for him to become as powerful as he could. For a long time, the pressures of war and prophecy made complacency impossible so they never grew stagnant or degenerated. Their relativistic path at light speed means they bypassed the era of human history where many peoples grew apart because of the sheer difficulty of communication between star systems. Also, Pilgrim beliefs are very strictly limited in scope so there is little cause for disagreement in the first place. When disagreements have occurred, those outside the main body of opinion have been left to themselves in line with their ancient traditions; while not shunned, they are declared to be no longer Pilgrims. With endless opportunities for expansion there is little reason for such disaffected to stay and cause trouble. Pilgrim traditions also actively bring them together regularly to renew connections and ties, a vital element which has helped them maintain consistent views. In short, the conditions of their forming have led to a peculiar self-sustaining social pattern which keeps the Pilgrims focused even after many thousands of years.

This is not to say the Pilgrims have never had political problems. In fact, numerous groups of them have split off many times in the course of their history. The causes of these splits are many; some believed they saw the later prophecies coming true. Others interpreted the prophecy differently, and a few have split when people claimed to be the prophet of the fifth prophcy, or a new prophet with more prophecies. Some of these groups survive as independent factions, but most have long since dissolved and merged with other peoples. In Pilgrim eyes this is seen as proof of their unworthiness and inherent wrong thinking.

Pilgrim culture is very flexible and dynamic. All Pilgrims adhere to a central core of laws and rituals which is strictly limited in its effects upon the individual. Outside of that, they consider people should choose their own paths and the universe will judge their worthiness with practical results. Outsiders who visit Pilgrim worlds are often surprised to discover that the Pilgrims are not the fanatics suggested by their image, but rather practical and quite accommodating.

Politically, Pilgrims are organized along feudalistic lines, with each system electing wardens who in turn elect a council and a high prophet. These officials see their job as maintenance and vigilance; they watch and prepare for signs that the last prophecies are coming true. There are sects within the Pilgrims as well, emphasizing particular spiritual disciplines or tasks that they feel are needed. Some are warriors, some explorers, some teachers, others build. Rumours persist of a secret cult of Pilgrim assassins, but these are rarely taken seriously.

Pilgrim festivals for the most part observe the anniversaries of important events in Pilgrim history. They are celebrated in a myriad of ways, with community feasts, family gatherings, and single events. There are different cycles of festivals, some occurring once every Earth year, others occurring at longer intervals. About once every hundred years the Pilgrims organize a Great Gathering of all their leaders, deciding their collective path until the next such meeting. As well as being festive occasions, these gatherings are where almost all major decisions are made for the whole clan — expulsion of dissidents, interpretations of prophecy and events, treaties with other clans and species. At all Pilgrim festivals, there will be some dance or theatre performance. The most famous of these is the sword dance, a mime-like routine in which a single central dancer relates the story of the Pilgrims, dancing with a special flaming sword while other dancers perform background roles accompanied by a blazing light show.

Relations with other Clans and Species

Despite the past war with the Spartans, there is great respect between the two clans. Pilgrims see Spartans as cynical and divisive while Spartans see Pilgrims as idealists who will inevitably grow corrupt, but they share the same Darwinian views and co-operate freely with each other. With other clans their relations are mostly neutral and varying according to current events. They are philosophically and practically opposed to the Masons, however, seeing their secret and manipulative ways as attempts to gain advantage without being worthy. Pilgrims and Inlookers usually get along well, sharing similar histories and having the same drive to self-improvement. Their relations with Clones and Empaths are complex and political, due to beliefs on all sides which intersect in various ways harmonious and conflicting.