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Sirian Philosophical Enlightenment

Origins

Dr. Liam Carter was originally a well-respected, perhaps even renowned professor of Philosophy at one of the Cambridge Research Institute's planetside campuses. In addition to teaching, he toured all of Sirius giving lectures on various philosophical schools of thought. One of the most popular, and one that Dr. Carter was both personally and professionally passionate about, was the idea of existentialism, a concept borrowed and preserved from Sol.

Dr. Carter himself was a fanatic existential nihilist, and as he saw more and more of Sirius he became more and more convinced of the necessity of a crusade to "wake up" its inhabitants. In the spring of 817 A.S., Dr. Carter hosted a summit on Planet Cambridge, with invitation open to any resident of Sirius, at which he announced the formation of the Sirian Philosophical Enlightenment, an organization headed by himself with the purpose of spreading "The Truth" to the people of Sirius. Although dedicated to philosophy in general, the movement drew heavy influence from existential nihilism, no doubt due to the beliefs of its leader.

Development

Dr. Carter had hoped that, given the good reception of his lecture series, people would flock to join and support his movement, financially and otherwise. This, however, was far from the case. For the average Sirian, packing up and leaving home to join a philosophical revolution was altogether impractical. A man had to make a living, after all. Instead, the Enlightenment drew out only the wealthy intelligentsia.

While some would consider this a success, Carter viewed it as an utter failure. In light of the goal to awaken the people of Sirius, he had accomplished next to nothing. It was the frustration associated with this failure that began the Enlightenment's descent, almost entirely at the hands of Dr. Carter himself. He became fixated on spreading "The Truth," and was quick to label any obstacles to the people's enlightenment - namely house law and corporations.

The movement soon radicalized. Carter resigned from his position at the Research Institute, and fled to more remote parts of Sirius, doing his best to maintain the secrecy of his current location. The Enlightenment began to launch propaganda bombs onto the surfaces of Sirian planets, and to engage in small-time piracy, usually demanding nothing more than the destruction of cargo in an attempt to disrupt house entities. It was almost entirely a nonviolent affair.

This changed in the summer of 819 A.S. Again, driven by the frustration of the failure of his movement, Carter hatched a plan that would forever chance the face of the Enlightenment.

The Pembroke Incident

Under the guise of an attempt to sue for peace with the Sirian houses, Carter came out of hiding to invite officials from all 4 central houses to come aboard a personal passenger liner of his, The Pembroke, in order to discuss the disbandment of the Enlightenment and their reintegration into society. Despite the aforementioned illegal activity of the movement, most houses were quick to comply, having to date considered the Enlightenment to hardly be any threat, and all dispatched lower level advisers to attend the event.

Two days into the proposed talks, while the Pembroke was travelling through the Sigma-17 system, Dr. Carter managed to hack into the Sirius-wide communication network and delivered a simple message to any Sirian who happened to be watching.

"There is no good, nor bad. What happens, happens. It is time for you to open your eyes to The Truth, and forget what they have made you."

He then displayed an image of the Pembroke Passenger Liner on a course directly into one of Sigma-17's suns. Within minutes, nothing remained of the liner. The transmission abruptly terminated.



Today, the Enlightenment has devolved into a vagrant, almost religious organization, pursuing the spread of "The Truth" and the enlightenment of the people with great zeal. Its leader, Dr. Carter, again went in to hiding, and while most now question his sanity, his word is law. Members of the Enlightenment are quick to deal with anyone he deems an obstacle to their cause. Their activities include piracy, encouragement of civil unrest through riots, the spread of propaganda, and on occasion assassination of those Carter designates as Supreme Obstacles of the cause.

Strangely enough, however, most members of the Enlightenment are still, in principle, opposed to violence, and will generally avoid confrontation and use it only as a last resort. Their piracy more often threatens the cargo or the ship than the pilot's life. As such, their fighting skill is far from renowned and they would much sooner flee from hostile presence than stand their ground.


ID: Pirate ID
IFF: None
Callsign (snubs): SRE~Firstname.Lastname
Callsign (big stuff): SRE~Existentialist philosopher / character from Existentialist literature
Examples: SRE~Liam.Carter, SRE~Sartre, SRE~Mersault

• Civilian
  
• Border World
  

Naturally, as an unlawful entity which has clearly committed multiple crimes, they would be hostile to the usual good guys.
Beyond that, I expect the relationships to be rather emergent from role-play.
I know a lot of unlawful factions disapprove of independent pirates because of the whole idea of "turf," so I won't be surprised to encounter hostility there, but this is very much still a WIP and input regarding reputation would be very much appreciated.



tl;dr - Pirates of above-average intelligence, lead by someone who most would consider maniacal, who spend as much time in philosophical debate as they do religiously pursuing the spread of "The Truth"

So yeah this is kinda just a vague idea so far with some mediocre lore supporting it, so any input from the community would be extremely helpful in order to develop it further.

I mostly want to be a snide guy that talks down to lawfuls about how unenlightened they are and has weird pirate encounters where instead of demanding cargo/credits I ask them about the nature of the universe. So if I'm alone in that and you don't think it'll fly too well as a group, that's a fair opinion.

And don't feel the need to beat around a bush, if you want to say it's a garbage idea go ahead and do so, as long as you can support your position. Constructive criticism is more than welcome.

How exactly you will treat people? I am not exactly knowledgeable enough to see how nihilism connects to piracy.

Some relevant quotes from a thread I made discussing whether or not such actions would be permissible.

Quote:Something like disrupting a trade lane and threatening the caught ship's life if he doesn't engage in deep, meaningful conversation with you, or listen to you and your partner's absurd stichomythia (think Waiting for Godot or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead).
The whole disrupting-the-tradelane nature of the thought would obviously lend itself to an unlawful ID, and as not many unlawful groups seem to be great thinkers (except maybe the Bundschuh), the closest match I could think of was the generic Pirate ID.

Quote:An example:
I pew pew a trade lane and a fat ol' transport pops out. I demand that he describe to me the nature of the universe in 3 or fewer sentences, or else I will destroy him and his cargo. He answers, and I give a 1-2 sentence retort explaining how wrong he is and how pointless everything is. We then each go on our way.

Basically I want to add a little absurdity to pirate encounters, a departure form the normal "give me your cargo/credits or your life," on a snobby character that speaks from an I'm-Better-Than-You point of view, and while I could just go off and do it myself I thought it might be more fun if there are like-minded people interested in something similar.

So I took a stab at writing up some lore for it, but I'll be the first to admit I'm not as experienced at this type of thing as many around here, so manly looking for interest/advice in/for such a faction. C:

That would be positively unique and entertaining from the looks of it. It's not too unrealistic unlike some others who make absurd joker-like situations.