Religion in Space

Religion of some form or another has been a part of humanity for as long as there has been humanity. Venturing out among the stars has not changed this simple fact, this essential need. If anything, it has only reinforced it. People in high stress, uncertain environments seek out meaning, answers, and spiritual comfort in order to ground themselves. And early space travel was nothing if not uncertain and highly stressful. Early spacers and colonists brought religion into space with them, oftentimes multiple conflicting religions. But many Terrestrial religions do not mesh cleanly with space travel. They originated in an Earth-centric context, and the answers they provide are very Earth-focused. Early colonists had very important questions that they needed answers to, like "How does reincarnation work in space, is it planet specific or universal in scope?", "Do aliens have souls, and if so do they need salvation?", "What happens to my soul if I die in space?" and so on. For the people asking these questions, the answers were deadly serious.  

Terrestrial Religions

  Some terrestrial religions adapted better than others. Others came with new rules, such as Islam finding it acceptable to pray to a peice of Mecca since the direction of Earth could be difficult to discern (although certainly many pieces of Mecca survived its destruction and became holy relics, most 'peices of Mecca' in space are fakes. This is especially true post-Succession).   In general, Terrestrial religions splintered significantly in space, different colonies adapting the dogma in different ways when communication was cut off, and not being happy with each other when communication became faster and easier many years later. While versions of Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity can be found among the colonies, they are typically in small pockets and without much larger influence. This is due not only to the splintering dogmas, but also by the design of the UCH. Terrestrial religions were deemed a source of concern in the cultural management efforts of the UCH, and efforts have been made to marginalize them so as to better cut ties with Earth and disentangle it from the faith-based organizations of the colonies.  

The New Faiths

  Two new religions have the UCH's seal of approval, and can be reasonably expected to be encountered.  

Neocatharism

In the early days of the extrasolar colonies, theological concerns were high and it wasn't uncommon for for colonists of multiple, very different, faiths to be going through crises at the same time. Looking for answers, the colonists turned to each other. The result was an ecclectic mix of theology from very different faiths filling in for each other to try and come to satisfying answers, a spread of local religious offshoots and mergings particular to each planet or station. As travel became faster and the flow of information and ideas began to link humanity again, these local religions became exposed to each other for the first time. They were often very different from each other in the particulars, but built on similar foundations. And so the process began again. The end result was the Neocatharite religions, a diverse spread of religious branches that are ever so slowly merging into a roughly common canon. The quick beats that have floated to the top are that there are actually two gods: a god of the physical world, and a god of the spiritual. The god of the physical world controls the cycle of reincarnation and has designed the world to tempt you with sin so that he can keep ahold of you in this life and the next. The god of the spiritual, however, offers a path of purity and enlightenment to escape the physical god's control and instead join the spiritual god in a realm of paradise. The specific names of the gods, or the criteria they judge by, vary from place to place but the common themes are gaining traction.  

Aspirants of The Divine Act of Creation

The Aspirants of the Divine Act of Creation feel artificial, and thats because they are. The faith is real, but the origins of the religion are state-sponsored. Beginning as a spiritual movement on Mars with some success, both Gloria and Rhineland missions intentionally brought and tailored their own versions of the spiritual movement with them due to its core central tenant: it makes the act of terraforming into a religious act. Aspirants of the Divine Act of Creations, better known as Gardeners, believe that it as man matures and grows into his full potential as a species he must seek to understand the mind of God, his creator. And to better understand the mind of God, they imitate his works. While there is a far stretch between the centuries long process of terraforming and making the world in seven days, every person who partakes in the effort gets just that little bit closer to the divine. The powers that be, for understandble reasons, are strongly motivated to promote Gardener beliefs. Terraforming takes a long time, and most of the people working on it will not live long enough to see the benefits of their work themselves. Faiths like the Gardeners help keep the populace on track, much in the same way that religion previous motivated people to build Cathedrals that took decades or longer to finish. Gardener imagery focuses a lot on plants, trees, and bees. In fact, a place of worship for the Aspirants is called an Orchard. In large part because the Aspirants grow fruit trees, a precious commodity in space, and share of that fruit during religious gatherings. A cynic might say that being the only people with oranges and apples is a great way for a religion to keep worshipers coming back, but the metaphor of a planet taking a long time to grow before it bears fruit is simple enough for even a child to understand. These days, the Gardeners are a state-sponsored religion with the backing of the UCH, and Orchards big and small can be found almost anywhere. Orchards service as community hubs, a source of fresh fruit, and a place that typically offers free beds for travelers passing through as a kind of sacred right. And all the Orchard typically asks for in return is news.  

The First Family

While not officially recognized as a religion, and vehemently claiming that it is not one, it would be remiss not to mention the cult-like faith and reverence that the people of Capital have for their ruling class, the First Family, made up of the descendants of the command staff of the original colony mission to Tian. The narrative is that the First Family was chosen to lead from the start, the best of the best that Earth could offer, and thus is inherently better suited to lead and possessed of superior wisdom and judgement to the common man. While this belief does not extend beyond Tian, within Capital it is nearly omnipresent.  

The Ruskinites

The Ruskinites are a cult-like group, small in number but well known for their skills and the curiousities they produce. Tam Ruskin was an Earth-era, Martian born architect who believed that it was vitally important for fostering of the human spirit that people grew up in an environment filled with beauty. On Earth, natural beauty in all its forms was abundant, but in space man only can survive in artificial habitats, thus it was up to man to prioritize the construction of beauty, lest man himself be diminished over time. To this end, Ruskin pondered the nature and definition of beauty, his experiments in form giving rise to an eclectic series of famous structures on Mars (many of which, sadly, no longer exist). However aesthetic alone ultimately failed to give him the answers he sought. Eventually he concluded that what makes an object beautiful is not just how it looks when completed, but how it is made. That the shaping hand of a maker, and the personal touch that provides, makes something unique and beautiful in a way that no factory-made object can ever replicate. The Ruskinites, as an organization, believe that it is their mission to provide wonder and beauty to mankind though the act of creation, specifically making things by hand. Different groups have different standards, some allow the inclusion of machined parts that cannot be made by hand by any known process, others eschew them and thus limit what it is possible to make. Ruskinites do not believe in standardization, but nevertheless strive for quality. Everything they make is unique, its imperfections balanced as part of its design, and thus a work of art. Ruskinites make their own tools, perfectly suited to themselves, and with them make the things that only they can make. While obviously outcompeted by large scale production, Ruskinites are known for being craftsmen and artisans without peer, and while the work they do is expensive they build things to last. There are no Ruskinite space stations (yet) though there are a small number of Ruskinite ships, each one designed and assembled by hand. The most famous of which is the Ada Lovelace, known for its incredible clockwork airlocks and a revolutionary pressure-sealing system that has since been adapted for all starships that came after. Aside from commissions of the wealthy and novelty projects, Ruskinites serve an additional role in that they often bridge the gap between differing technologies. Each colony has branched its technologies in different ways, compatibility between them often being lost in the process. While many important technologies have been forced to unify back into a common standard, there are countless smaller ways that things don't match up and for which no official conversion part exists. Ruskinites often make unique solutions to bridge the disparate platforms and technologies so that far-flung stations with inconsistent supplies of parts can survive. A skill that also comes in handy when attempting to join together human and alien technologies.  

Aliens and Religion

Put simply, no known alien civilization possesses what we would recognize as religion. They have certain behaviors or cultural traits that humans have attempted to apply religious meaning to int he past, but when brought up in conversation aliens regularly have trouble understanding the concept.   The Oolo! have a very strong oral history tradition, which venerates great deeds and great Oolo! of the past, in what might be considered a mythology. However, most of these stories have verifiably historical basis, and those without such evidence are simply so old that evidence is no longer available. The Oolo! are very strict about the retellings of these stories, and suffer no embellishments, to the point that mistelling a story or being caught lying about one's deeds can lead to savage beatings, even resulting in death.   We are given to understand that the Y'tug have a complex spiritual framework for their cycle of birth from death, and past generations empowering the current generation through self-sacrifice. However, diplomatic relations with the Y'tug have never been good enough for this topic to be explored in depth in conversation, so the exact nature of this belief and how it is practiced remains elusive.   The Frogs, as far as we know, have no religion. There is reverence for their Matrons, but that appears to be nothing beyond instinctive familial bonding or personal ambition.