The Sacred Order of the Doctrine of Oth

So, out of curiosity, has anyone written anything involving the Othimites? I intended them to figure into the next Ibrahim story, but before I get too much further into writing it, I want to make sure I'm not too heavily contradicting anything that may have been established.

I'll quote a segment of the story in which one of the Othimites explains what they believe... or, more specifically, why they fly dangerous missions into jungle. Keep in mind that I'm trying to develop them from a point of view where Ibrahim will sympathize with them at first.

Quote :

“Cleric Martus,” one of the men in the circle said after the priest fell quiet for a moment. “Perhaps you could tell our story from its beginning. That would be the best way for Brother Ibrahim to understand why we serve Great Oth.”

Martus clapped his hands together, looking to the man who spoke up with a broad smile on his face. “Of course! A very wise idea.”

He turned back to Ibrahim and cleared his throat. He raised his hands slowly, arms extended to either side of his head. “All, in all the universes, was darkness. Except for the Great Source of All Light, Oth. His light was bounded on all sides by the dark of wickedness, a darkness He found repulsive.”

“Within the darkness were the shadows of souls that the dark fed upon. They were withered creatures, blind and cold. Oth shone His light upon them, beckoning them to His source. Many were frightened, their eyes overwhelmed by the brilliance of His light. But a few, a brave few, drew closer.”

He slowly brought his hands together, closing them in a sphere in front of the sun pendant that hung around his neck. “Those that He called, and who heeded His call, were filled to bursting with light, and sent outwards. They traveled far into the darkness, and where they went, they radiated Oth's light. The darkness was pushed back, and those whom once were frightened by the light were awed to see their kin so radiant, and traveled back with them to be filled by this source.”

Martus laid his hands on his lap. “This began on one world, Ibrahim, ages upon ages ago. So many have been brought to Oth's light in that time, extending its reach from a tiny corner of a tiny world, across thousands of universes. Though it seems like so much has been done, there are still so many worlds where the darkness remains.”

“Such as Felarya,” said Ibrahim.

“Precisely. The more souls we teach to see this light, the further the darkness will be driven back, until it has been removed from this world entirely.”

“You think it can be done? Felarya seems so vast...” The eyes of the group quickly turned to him. The attention felt like spears prodding his chest; he raised his hands, palms out, as a shield in front of him. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't doubt that you might find success, insha'Allah, insha'Allah. God-willing.”

“No offense taken, my friend.” Martus waved Ibrahim's doubt aside, and shook his head. Slowly, each of the Othimites that sat around the cleric drew back the hoods and sleeves of their roads. Many of them bore the scars of teeth and claws, wounds both fresh and long-since healed, but each still leaving a reminder of the struggles which created them.

He looked past Martus, at a woman who pulled her sleeve just past her wrist. Ibrahim only caught a glimpse of the metal structure that had once been her arm before looking away, unwilling to stare at what was left of the limb. “Each of us understand the difficulty and danger of our task,” Martus said, more quietly than when he told his story. “We understand that some of us may never return home. I would have been lying to them to say that our mission would be safe, or easy.”

“It is never easy to combat darkness. If it were, Oth's light would easily overwhelm and flood all of Creation. But we are needed to do His work precisely because it is difficult. We will do no less than that, no matter what the cost.”

They have been very litle used so far ^^

I think what you wrote here is totally ok. It's exactly the kind of narrative they would expose, and one that doesn't suffer any kind of contradiction. Ater all, if you oppose the cult, then you are aiding darkness forces !

I sort of figured-- I didn't think most people would be inclined to use them as characters, or as a plot device.

The difficulty thing is that I don't want them to sound like any particular religion-- I don't want them to be too obvious a parallel to anything we have on Earth, because I don't want it to come off as a specific criticism of one religion over another. I intend for it to be more of a point about people heeding the "letter of the law" with little thought to the spirit or heart of that law. A very exclusivist attitude towards faith, which tends to be dangerous and breeds contempt for the "other."

As I wrote Martus' story, part of me wondered if-- once upon a time-- the Othimites were less militant in regard to their faith, and it was only as they expanded outwards and ran into people who were much more opposed to conversion that they became more aggressive.

Part of me wants to write up notes and elaborate more on Othimite scriptures and doctrine, which just makes me groan and facepalm, as that's a little too Tolkein-eque for me. Or maybe not. I don't know. Do they have a particular perspective on the End Times, if they believe in such? Their interpretation of the afterlife... and so on.

I understand well your concern about not making parallels and that also a thing I try to avoid ^^

Mhh I think like many things, the founding principle was good and in the beginning the cult was perhaps one of wisdom and tolerance, but if so it was really long ago.
As I see it, it has now rotten away and othemites are little more than a formidable political force using the blind following of their countless followers to expand, spread the cult, and capture new worlds. They use plenty of coercion in the process and many people embrace the faith out of fear.
They have many planets under their control as well as a solid fleet of space ships of military grade.

Having said that, there is also several currents in the main religion, with some much more radical than others. I can imagine wolrds ruled by othemites where the life wouldn't be so bad. As opposed to some where it would be absolutely hellish.
Baiscally Othemites are obsessed with order against chaos and see the universe in pure black and white. They excuse their actions by the fact that, in order to defeat darkness, you must make some sacrifices. Something like that

I figured. That was the impression I had of you when I first asked you questions when writing the first story.

That's the way most religions start, at least historically and at least with the Abrahamic religions of the Middle East. So I can agree and easily see different sects of Othism. The sect we see in Felarya though seems to be... I guess a good comparison would be with the Wahabi interpretation of Islam: exclusivist to the point of declaring event alternative interpretations of the root faith heretical, literalist in their interpretation of scripture and spiritual wisdom, and legalistic in its application of morality. Which fits with how you imagine them: it is their way as the right way, and there can be no other.

I also got the impression that they are very advanced, but the technology is more... mechanical? It's easier to imagine them not having discovered quantum mechanics, relativity and such forth until they obtained the knowledge from another civilization that had studied it on their original world. As orderly as they are, the uncertainty and fuzziness of quantum mechanics and the means to jump from world to world would strain at their religious doctrine-- they probably simply tell the people that the knowledge is a miracle, and only a few within the Order actually understand the science behind it.

For that matter, I imagine most books, including Othimite scriptures, are very heavily guarded and kept from the common believer. Think of, say, the early Catholic Church, pre-Reformation. Before the Bible existed in a language aside from Latin or Greek, commoners had to rely on the clergy for spiritual knowledge. This seems like a very easy way for a transuniversal theocratic empire to control a massive population-- only the people at the top really understand what it is they truly believe. Which helps keep the faith from fragmenting too much. Although this probably wasn't always the case, and that's why the dominant sect had to limit access to books, religious and secular, in order to maintain control and their leadership of the faith.