The Order of The Pariah

The holy warriors of the Order cover themselves in adaptive armor that makes their bodies stronger. The armor also “learns” from hits taken, adjusting itself for better protection, which means you generally only get one shot at taking down a martyr warrior. This has spawned the saying “Like the first hit on a martyr”, describing an action that had no effect.

The Order possesses a unique form of biotechnology that, among other things, enables the creation of the animate suits of armor their elite holy warriors use. The first reports of this armor came from Bulletin correspondents who smuggled information out of Zalos about the Order’s relentless hunt for religious dissidents. The technology has again become a topic of discussion on Coriolis as more and more people expect the day when the Legion will turn their weapons against the Order is fast approaching. How large a fleet the Order commands is unclear, but given the fact that the Consortium have yet to order the Legion to open the route through Zalos with force, it is thought to be of considerable size.

The Order of the Pariah is of Firstcome descent, and worships the Martyr (the icon commonly known as the Judge). They were an active party in the Portal Wars, and closed their home system, Zalos, at the end of the war, not opening it until many years later, when the Consortium dispatched the Legion to demand passage. This pattern is now repeating itself – Zalos has been closed once again since one of the Emissaries proclaimed itself the Judge incarnate, a sacrilege according to the Order. It is likely only the fact that the space station at Xene is owned by the Foundation, and thus by extension the Consortium, that has kept the Order from showing their more aggressive side in the Kua system as well. A certain amount fear always arises when their ships dock with Coriolis however, their hulls depicting cataclysmic scenes of war, and the dockworkers whispering about onboard ossuaries filled with the sacred bones of martyred warriors.

The War on Heresy

The largest conflict in Zalos is the civil war, raging across all of Zalos-B. Large portions of the planet’s population have succumbed to heresy and started worshipping false prophets. They have left the embrace of the Martyr and taken up arms against their former brothers and sisters. The war is everywhere and very bloody, with everything from small guerilla raids to full-scale military campaigns. The Order focuses much of their resources on crushing the rebels, but has so far not been successful. Both sides in the conflict possess advanced antimatter weapons, golim armors and bionics that don’t exist outside of Zalos, making them evenly matched. If it wasn’t for the total fleet blockade around Zalos-B, the rebellion might have spread to the rest of the system.

Several smaller cults within the Order have fled out into space to escape the war. One such cult is the Hymns of the End Times. They have constructed the eight so-called Choral stations that are spread across the system. All day, every day, the End Times’ choirs and flagellants are lined up in ingeniously constructed halls, singing. Grand polyphonic choir pieces blended with the wailing from the flagellants are transmitted across many frequencies to the whole system, in the Martyr’s undying praise. Visiting traders have had to shut off all incoming radio traffic to avoid the cacophony.