Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

The Heart of the Creed

Maverick had aways that that the typical monotheistic earth religions were basically all the same, but now they were almost indistinguishable.

Then you had Naktan and the Drev. Once upon a time their religion, which was a form of Animism, had suggested everything had an anima of some sort. To the Drev their planet was their god, so everything on that planet was alive with some sort of spirit.

So they had learned that really only makers have anima, but at least their creed of war could be kept how it was. The forever war between the void and the makers was enough to prove to the Drev right. Tesraki religious leaders were disappointed to learn that wealth could not be taken to the afterlife. Tesraki were similar in many ways to the Egyptians in that they believed life continued after death and that material gained in this life could be carried onto the next. High ranking Tesraki were often buried with those things that they believed would help them in the afterlife hence why economics was so important in their culture.

It was a religious thing.

Still life after death had proven correct, and the paradigm shift was turning Tesraki towards the acquisition of knowledge, which was the one piece of wealth that could be taken with you. It was interesting as it did align with a few of the earth religions who had believed the same for a long time.

Sitting next to her was Emperor Avez and Lord Celex both of which, she was surprised to find where very deeply religious men, in a way. Power itself was their religion, and t one point they had believed that the greater the power you held the greater standing you would have in the afterlife. Based on their religion, the two emperors would have become gods, their guards would have become spiritual warriors in service to the gods, and everyone else would fall into some lower pecking order.

Well

Now lord Celex was dead and he hadn't even seen revelation yet, so that was kind of awkward. Still, he had been able to flex his godlike powers on occasion. The lower classes of Celzex generally tended to follow whatever the emperor did. Lord Avex had made a few doctrinal changes which shifted the religion more towards the Drev view of glory in eternal war.

The Rundi had a few religious leaders, but they all generally revolved around the improvement of the self for participation in THIS life, which meant they didn't really have to change anything except maybe tack on something about life after death.

And still others came with their pantheons , and their creeds and what have you until the entire amphitheater was almost full up.

"Is this seat taken."

Maverick turned and paused surprised to find Zaran standing next to her. The old Burg was looking better than he had looked when Maverick last saw him, though it hadn't been in almost two years. He had been busy trying to rebuild the burg home world after the human invasion and the overthrow of their previous queen tyrant. It had been his task to act as surrogate king until the new queen was old enough to rule her own kingdom.

"Zaran, you're looking well." And that was indeed the case. The Burg were a species with a society not unlike that of a beehive. They had learned, rather late, that most of the burg they had seen around the galaxy, and all of the burg that had invaded earth, had been female. They were like the worker bees that you see in a beehive, and they worked to do the queen's bidding. The Males of the species are more decorative, soft, and originally only served as mates to the queen.

Overtime this had translated into burg males receiving softer jobs like artist, religious leader and so on, while the female workers built things and fought in war. This was all until the previous queen and locked all the males away and squashed the burg religion. While burg females tended to be ugly centipede looking bastards, the burg males were some sort of cross between a praying mantis and a butterfly. Zaran's wings were like stained glass, bright blue with veins of black running through them speckled here and there with vibrant orange.