Gov't | The Magisterium is best described as a theocratic absolute monarchy in theory, and a theocratic semi-feudal monarchy that still claims to be absolute in practice. Society is structured around an aristocratic hierarchy with the Authority and his or her family, the House of Stuart, sitting on top; they are considered nothing less than representatives of God's authority & power on Earth (especially by themselves), whose every decree is divinely mandated, and to defy or even question their will on any topic, from the Universal Crusade to their choice of pizza toppings, is to defy or even question God's will. (Does God have a favorite pizza topping? Better not try to mock the Stuarts with such a question, however funny it would be) One may even argue that the Authority is the state; certainly, the Stuarts very much believe this, to the point that since 5,223 the entire state treasury of the Magisterium has been decreed by an Authority to be the House of Stuart's personal wallet as well. So whenever you see the Authority's daughter buying a new space-yacht to impress her friends, or the Crown Prince buying an asteroid belt just so he can tell his buddies he has an estate of his own, you can be pretty sure that's your tax credits at work.
Aside from that, theoretically speaking the Authority can shoot down any proposal made by the Lords regardless of numerical support, unilaterally pass laws as the aforementioned divinely-mandated decrees at a whim, and can summon anyone to the Court of the Star Chamber where they will judge that individual themselves and can issue or reverse any decision they'd like, throwing all of their own laws out the window in the process; however most Authorities, having to deal with reality, don't exercise their absolute power as often or in such ridiculous ways as one would think, and in fact often act with considerable restraint. What isn't theoretical is the nature of human rights; as far as the Magisterium is concerned, there are no natural rights except for the rights to 'life, justice and order', which originate from God and can be forfeited in an instant by acting against His Authority on Earth anyway, and all other rights that aren't related in some way to those three are extended to mankind purely through the good will of the Authorities, who can taketh away whatever they giveth on a whim. Pfft, rule of law, what's that? Something wimpy two-bit dictators and even wimpier democratic pansies have to abide by, not the divinely-sanctioned and ever-righteous Stuart Authorities over all things under Heaven, who sit well above all laws but God's! (but then wouldn't they still be subject to their own laws, which by their own word carry the weight of God's justice in them anyway? Again, better not bring this up!)
In practice, as implied earlier, the Authority's power is still far from absolute. The sheer size of the Magisterium means most day-to-day responsibilities are devolved to the nobility and a vast governmental bureaucracy, the former perpetually stuck in a web of intrigue and the latter choking on red tape to this day. The aristocracy, led by the 'Great Houses' - the oldest, most prestigious and most powerful, whether in 'hard' (military prowess) or 'soft' (riches, influence) noble families - of the Magisterium, meet in the House of Lords in the Magisterial capital, and have a rigid hierarchy from the highest Princes to the lowest barons and knights. While theoretically speaking anyone should be able to advance through this hierarchy on basis of merit, the reality is that most commoners and their families are stuck in the lower rungs (few ever advancing beyond Baron, and none beyond Viscount, in at least two lifetimes) while the higher nobility try to keep them down to create opportunities for their own children's advancement and to suppress potential future competition. Even at the local level, mayors & councils are usually appointed by the local baron; nobles generous enough to allow their subjects to elect mayors and town councils democratically are rare, and such behavior is often taken as sign of weakness or sloth by other aristocrats.
Some enterprising high aristocrats do give a helping hand to lesser, newer nobles in exchange for future support, but never elevate them quickly and never beyond the rank of Earl before leaving them to their own devices.
The Roman Catholic Church, still headed by a Pope in Rome, remains the official religion of the Magisterium, and certainly the only legal faith. While the Pope is theoretically equal in stature to the Authority, and indeed is the only one supposed to crown him or her upon his or her ascension, the stark reality is that the Authority does wield veto power over Papal elections, that the Authority's the one with armies to back up his decrees, and that it has proven rather unhealthy time & time again for Popes to oppose an Authority's decisions. Beneath the Pope is the College of Cardinals, archbishops whose archdioceses encompass entire stellar systems, bishops who have jurisdiction over planets, and then the lowly priests. Monks and nuns have a separate hierarchy from the priesthood under their abbots & abbesses, but still ultimately answer to the Pope.
(one should note that while virtually all non-Catholic practices and rites have been excised from the Magisterium and the traditional, unmodified Douay-Rheims Bible readopted for use since 4,334 AD when the Authority & Pope of the time both decided it was safe to return to Catholic doctrinal purity, excising all the elements that had been subsumed from other religions; why of course this was totally peaceful and did not involve any incidents like system-wide riots, how could you possibly think that!)
The Church is responsible for handling all healthcare, education and welfare, maintaining and staffing the Magisterium's elementary & secondary schools, hospitals, shelters and the issuing of welfare checks, food stamps and the like. With the own Inquisition watching them just as thoroughly as it watches itself and countless credits flowing into their coffers for this express purpose (tithes don't count, since they're used to maintain Church property & pay the salaries of the clergy) as part of the state budget, this is one thing they're actually fairly competent at. The Church also administers vaccinations, though it doesn't administer mandatory genetic treatments for every newly-conceived infant (which is done in Church hospitals by secular doctors instead, and justified as 'an act to save divinely-created souls from infernal corruption'; the basic, mandatory treatment targets only genetic diseases such as multiple sclerosis, problematic birth conditions such as anencephaly and future threats to society such as sociopathy/psychopathy, with the more advanced treatments needed to create actual Supremes requiring great discretion & private doctors).
The Inquisition exists as the supreme law-enforcement and domestic intelligence body of the Magisterium, wielding authority over the regular police services & maintaining electronic surveillance in the form of hidden cameras & recorders on every street, in every office and in every home on top of a massive DNA database with samples collected from every citizen upon their tenth birthday, though in the model of the Spanish Inquisition they are more beholden to the monarch than to the Church; the start of their oaths always reads 'I swear to God, to His Authority, and to His Church' in that specific order for a reason. For all of its invasive surveillance and wanton brutality, the Inquisition actually cracks down on its own the harshest; the Internal Security Service of Chapter I Allen, responsible for keeping other Inquisitors on the right & narrow, is notorious for the zeal with which they prosecute their duties.
Aside from the nobility, the Church and the Inquisition, a fourth, secular arm of government exists in the massive civil bureaucracy. However choked in red tape, it cannot be denied that the bureaucrats deserve most of the credit for keeping the Magisterium running. The fire service, countless regulatory boards, even road safety & the taxation system all owe their continued existence to the bureaucracy that keeps them functioning and regularly paid. |
The Economy | The Magisterial economy is best described as 'aristocratic fascistic state-capitalist tripartism'. The noble houses of the Magisterium not-so-coincidentally run its vast businesses, with the Great Houses predictably leading the pack; while not always de jure guaranteed a monopoly by the government, de facto wield it through sheer economics of scale ('mom-and-pop' stores & small businesses can't exactly be expected to compete with a noble's corporation backed with resources from six different star systems or more, after all). These massive corporations (referred to as 'aristocorps' by the masses) can be either conglomerates, consisting of a core 'parent company' often directly operated by the house ma/patriarch or at least someone from their immediate family & attached subsidiary companies branching out into other fields (ex. robotics, nanotech, agribusiness) headed by less important family members, vassals & other associates, or focused purely on a few fields; most houses, figuring they can probably make more money by sticking a thumb into every pie on the market instead of monopolizing one field, have taken the former course, though some that have taken the latter instead still exist and indeed have come to dominate whatever market it was they chose to concentrate their resources on. Nobles in charge of a corporation's subsidiaries at the behest of their ma/patriarch or overlord are colloquially referred to as 'corporistocrats'.
The Stuarts have no aversion to spending their (which is to say, the taxpayers') money within their own economy. Houses favored by the Authority & the Stuarts can expect generous subsidies and tax breaks every business quarter (the tax breaks, while technically good for only one year, can actually be extended at the Authority's leisure, so particularly favored Houses can keep them going indefinitely as long as they remain in the Stuarts' good graces). On the other hand, houses that annoy the Stuarts too much can expect their businesses nationalized and their assets directly dumped into the Stuarts' personal wallet national treasury. Other breaks (such as first dibs on a newly conquered planet's resources, temporary relaxation of the Magisterium's surprisingly strict Church-mandated safety laws) are routinely issued in exchange for generous kickbacks, while the biggest aristocorps regularly hire the slickest speakers they can find to act as lobbyists in the Grand Court & convince the Authority to steer the Magisterium into conflicts they're most likely to profit from. The Stuarts do directly run essential services such as firefighting, the police, national infrastructure and so on through the government proper & run their own aristocorps (which inevitably soak up the biggest subsidies), while healthcare is operated exclusively by the Church.
While workers' unions are technically legal, the few that haven't been busted already are uniformly in the pockets of the aristocratic corporations. Only the Church, as an organization operating largely by its own laws and certainly the only structure with the wealth to match the biggest aristocorps, can reliably stand up for the common worker's rights, from his right to earn a living wage to his right to not get beaten into a coma by corporate guards or to slip into a vat of industrial acid. Which it does with surprising frequency; besides maintaining popular goodwill, the Church has estates and other aristocorp friends of its own to safeguard. Many Popes throughout history have made at least one speech on corporate responsibility, only for the aristocorps to nod politely & then forget about it entirely - it usually takes at least one high-stakes, highly publicized battle of corporate & Papal lawyers to get them thinking otherwise.
One would expect the nature of the Magisterial economy to render competition nonexistent, while making the formation of business cartels between the various aristocorps a frequent occurrence. And guess what, it is! Aristocorps enter cartels to engage in dubious practices such as price fixing, bid rigging and the like to drive up their own profits while driving down competition, usually screwing over the consumers in the process. Paradoxically however, the aristocratic side to the corporations - the side responsible for providing them with the credits to remain operational & with new planets to exploit - is also the side that renders such agreements rarely more than a short-term profiteering move; rivalries between family heads, or acts of sabotage & murder between families, can completely wreck a perfectly operational and profitable cartel - 'rational self-interest nothing, those sick bastards shot my cousin/blew up my cat/stole the hand of the Authority's daughter/pissed on my lawn, dammit!' is naturally the single most common sentiment behind the generation of new competition between aristocorps.
When aristocorps do compete, boy does it ever get ugly. While they aren't allowed to have any armies of their own, no aristocorp hoping to survive will be beneath buying up ad space on the Universal Broadcasting Corporation just to unload venomous attack ads, deploying trustworthy family members and hired agents to sabotage their opposition, extract blackmail material & steal corporate secrets, or just straight up murdering the competition. (coincidentally, a lot of aristocorps traditionally deal with 'dem peasants' who dare set up successful small businesses of their own by having a corporate rep pay them a visit, offer them a relatively generous monetary settlement & a mid-to-high level management opportunity at their soon-to-be old business is presented alongside not-so-subtle insinuations of 'nice sister/house/puppy you have here, it'd be a shame if something happened to her/it', followed by actually carrying out the threat if the businessman fails to comply) Players can take on these dubious missions if offered, or actively seek them out, but neither failure not betrayal will be tolerable; forget the state of mankind's souls or family honor, money is at stake here, and the aristocorps will not look kindly upon a loss of face and/or income, at all.
(for the record: the Magisterium's official currency, the Universal Credit, is purely electronic, meaning the Inquisition is able to monitor every single transaction and every spot of economic activity at their leisure, making acts of economic terrorism or financial support for dissidents that much harder to pull off) |
The Law & Prisons | The Magisterium's code of laws, being a compilation of every passed legal bill in the Lords and every legal decree of the Stuarts, is so long and extensive that nobody, barring law students and the Inquisition, often bothers to actually sit down & seriously read through it. Suffice to say that while similar to the laws of the 'Early Modern Era' (1900-2262), outlawing the expected business from petty theft and jaywalking to arson and robbery to rape and murder, the Great Book of Laws does mandate far harsher punishments than one may consider necessary for numerous crimes, and explicitly rejects the notions of 'free speech', 'freedom of expression' and 'freedom of religion' in its opening pages. Among other things:
- Lèse majesté or 'injured majesty', the act of offending the majesty of the Authority or his immediate family in any way from defacing posters to insulting them over the Uninet, has been punishable by death by burning, impalement and sawing (not in that order, but simultaneously) followed by the state seizure of the individual's property and financial assets since 6,553. More recent Authorities have been increasingly generous with the application of this law, usually downgrading the punishment to flogging, ten thousand electric shocks or solitary Level 3 confinement for up to 20 years. Indeed, that death punishment outlined above was itself a product of Stuart sanity; it replaced an older law governing injured majesty in effect 2,490-6,553 that called for such a punishment to be levied on the offender's entire family before the offender himself.
- Insulting a government official in any way and over any medium of communication, from plain face-to-face speech to Uninet posts, carries the penalty of a 10 years' imprisonment with parole.
- Insulting a church official in any way and over any medium of communication, from plain face-to-face speech to Uninet posts, is punishable by 20 years' imprisonment without parole.
- Holding to any creed other than the Catholic Church means an indefinite stay in the Magisterium's prisons, starting at Level 3 and downgrading by one level every decade, until such beliefs have been cast aside and the criminal converts.
- Possessing an unlicensed firearm is punishable by a fine of up to 30 million credits and two years' house arrest. Actually carrying a weapon in public, openly or concealed, merits a summary execution on the spot, preferably with whatever firearm you were carrying. (before you ask, no, the Magisterium does not allow for the public carrying of weapons except in frontier settlements)
- Failing to immediately comply with police or the Inquisition is punishable by a non-fatal beating and/or shooting on the spot, followed by up to 50,000 credits in fines.
- Actively resisting the police or the Inquisition is grounds for a summary execution by whatever officers are on the scene. Partaking in a riot is punishable by a fine approximate to the damages caused and the number of rioters, however the police and the Inquisition may kill you anyway without repercussions.
- The existence of homosexuality has not been considered a factor since 5,523. As far as the Stuarts are concerned (despite few having done research into the topic), if it is genuinely genetic then it can and already has been excised from the population through the basic mandatory genetic engineering for all newly-conceived Magisterial citizens, and if it isn't well that's what the Inquisition's for.
- Drugs are illegal, possession of drugs is punishable by up to 100 billion credit fines and up to 50 years in Levels 3-5 in the nearest Magisterial prison, and the sale of drugs is punishable by death. Robert I-A, the drug used by the Inquisition's Jehuites, are officially not drugs, but 'vital medical supplies' (which, owing to its fatal withdrawal symptoms, is technically true).
- Divorce is officially illegal, though the Catholic Church offers annulment as an alternative.
- Smoking outside of a designated smoking area & public drunkenness are both punishable by 5 years' imprisonment.
Magisterial prisons, staffed by an assortment of ordinary guards and Inquisitorial personnel, always follow the same format: seven levels, five of which are used to actually hold the prisoners, with the uppermost and only above-ground level being a reception & detention area and the lowest level...well, see below. (note that the lighting gradually becomes weaker & sparser the further one delves into a prison, until Levels 5 & 6 are left completely pitch-black)
- Level 0: The topmost and only above-ground floor. Reception and detention areas.
- Level 1: Criminals convicted of misdemeanors (public drunkenness, vandalism, petty theft, etc.) are held here in reasonably spacious, four-man cells. High-power white lights are kept on at all times in every part of the floor, which combined with the white floors & walls, has led to this level being called the 'place where there is no darkness'. Food (consisting of porridge & toast for breakfast, a simple stew for lunch & dinner) is issued three times a day, with flavored paste snacks and certain privileges given out for good behavior. TVs are provided in the lounge areas. 10/20 chance to escape.
- Level 2: Men and women convicted of more serious crimes, such as assault, are held here in two-man cells. Other than that, identical to the above, with lower-powered lights. 8/20 chance to escape.
- Level 3: Those convicted of thought-crimes ranging from apostasy to disloyalty towards the House of Stuart are held here alongside more serious criminals such as first-time murderers, arsonists and grand thieves. Criminals are held in isolated rubber-padded cells. Food always consists only of a thin gruel at breakfast, and tasteless paste at all other times, though flavored paste may be issued for good behavior. Reeducation is enforced more stringently, this time (and on all floors below this) on a daily rather than weekly basis and by clergy directly affiliated with the Inquisition. Inquisitorial guards start appearing on this level. 5/20 chance to escape.
- Level 4: As above, except holding even more serious criminals and with smaller cells, less lighting and no TVs whatsoever. This level is guarded entirely by Inquisitors, mostly Amalricians but also a small number of Jehuites. 2/20 chance to escape.
- Level 5: Holding only the most serious criminals, from serial killers and rapists to the treasonous and recalcitrant heretics, this level is patrolled entirely by Jehuite Inquisitors and lethally-armed robots, and is completely devoid of light. Cells are barely big enough for the average adult male to uncomfortably crawl into. Only one meal, a thin tasteless gruel, is issued every day. If your character gets sent here, it's game over for them: nobody ever escapes this level.
- Level 6: The torture level. This level must always have only 16 rooms, fifteen to be filled with any torture devices & methods the prison warden can think of, increasing in intensity from Room 601 to 615. Absolutely no instantly-killing devices like guillotines are permitted in these rooms. The last room, always marked Room 616, is where a criminal is to be subjected to his worst recorded fears, no matter how ridiculous they may be. Most criminals are only tortured until they recant; medical technology is advanced enough to keep even someone who has 'only' been mostly sawn apart alive and indeed regenerate their injuries within days, after which they can be subject to the exact same torture all over again (light amnesiac drugs may be injected to make sure nobody gets used to any punishment). These chambers are also used for the summary execution of criminals judged 'irredeemable' after an extended stay in prison with little to no improvement.
Pipes connect every cell from Level 3 and below to the torture chambers on Level 6, allowing inmates to hear the screams of those beneath them. The lower the level, the worse the noises; level 3 inmates will usually hear only indistinct murmurs, Level 5 inmates will hear the agonized howls in all their glory. |
Society | Fashion | Since the end of the 'Neo-Puritan Era' in the mid-9th millennium, fashion has been liberalizing in the Magisterium. Knee-length dresses were permitted and headwear no longer mandatory for women since 8,944; full-length pants were no longer mandatory for men above 14 since 8,985; one-piece swimsuits have been allowed for women, replacing the much-reviled full body 'burkini', since 9,102 (though speedos for men remain banned); socks no longer had to be knee-length since 9,202; women have been allowed to wear shorts since 9,319; and most recently, the late Authority Elimelech issued a decree permitting women to wear bikinis in 10,000 after deciding his wife, current Regent Holy Mother Elizabeth Stuart-Stoneman, looked good in one. (this was also reportedly Authority Emmanuel LXV's reasoning behind the legalization of one-piece suits & Authority Camael LXII's legalization of shorts for women before him)
As the fashion-related decrees established by Authority James CIV in 6,102 (actually solidifying earlier public decency laws, except for the last part, which is...well, read on) have not yet been struck down, publicly going topless, without a bra or only in underpants remains punishable by a fine of up to 10 billion credits, public nudity remains punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment without parole, and public nudity while morbidly obese remains punishable by death, as does asking why such a specific distinction was made. It is said that that the reasoning behind that part of James's decree is a secret buried deep in the Stuart's personal archives in Samaria, meant only for the eyes of the Authorities...though it is also said that every Authority after him who was exposed to that particular truth wishes they'd never had the misfortune of seeing it.
Today's male fashion revolves around classic black or white dress coats, ties or bowties, and pants for formal wear, and weather-dependent casual wear ranging from sweaters and jeans to simple t-shirts and shorts. Female casual wear remains limited to knee-length dresses at the most and conservatively-cut blouses (preferably with shirts underneath), though shorts have been permitted in some cases (ex. private residences, sports, exercises), while full-length dresses in any color remain fashionable formal wear.
More recently, a certain rare, flexible sparkling coral, often fashioned into jewelry, found on formerly Squid-dominated planets have become a luxury item among the nobility since Authority Eliezer CXIV presented his wife with such a necklace for her 119th birthday in 8,996. |
Music | Like fashion, Magisterial music had remained stagnant for millennia, only to experience a surge in new styles under the more recent, saner and more liberal Stuarts' reigns. Older generations still listen fondly to classical, jazz and swing music, but among the younger generations new styles have been taking hold; 'rock' has been increasingly considered 'cool' across the board, 'metal' with its brutal lyrics and thick sound has become the music stereotypically associated with the 'uncivilized' younger grunt soldiers as opposed to their classical-minded 'gentleman officers', and the 'pop' genre with its classically idol singers, first jointly sponsored by the Gardener-Hojo and Stoneman families, has been permanently embedded in the public consciousness for good or ill.
All songs must first be approved by the Inquisition, and financial bonuses thrown in for the promotion of Catholicism and/or the Universal Crusade in music. The use of inappropriate lyrics bears a 100,000-credit penalty, actually singing a song with such lyrics merits 10 years' imprisonment without parole. |
Cuisine | Suffice to say, Magisterial cuisine has become so varied that to list all the foods humans have come up with since 2262 AD would be a Sisyphean task. However, bread, corn, rice and potatoes, with all of their planetary variations, remain staples; meat remains a big part of almost everyone's diets; Earth-grown food & wine are the absolute peak of luxury foods; and vegetarians still exist.
Any aristocrat worth his or her salt will always have some Earthling dishes, and certainly at least one bottle of fine wine from Earth, prepared for his/her guests at parties. Wealthier nobles present gourmet dishes (ex. foie gras, Beef Bourguignon) & fine wines made solely from Earth imports.
Clergy (yes, even the higher-ups) generally restrain themselves to more basic diets of staple foods, a limited selection of meats and vegetables, and water. However, they (especially the higher-ups) have a reputation, undeserved or not, for really 'letting go' of their appetites on days where it is permissible, ex. Mardi Gras, and eating like aristocrats.
Soldiers are uniformly supplied MREs, which always consist of an entree (ranging from spaghetti to pizza to butter chicken), a candy bar, a loaf of bread, a flavored beverage mix, and an assortment of condiments. Aristocratic officers often do their damndest to get out of munching on MREs by calling for food from home whenever possible. |
Movies | Full-color, high-definition 3d movies are bog standard in the Magisterium of 10,007 AD. They range from light-hearted children's films, mostly rehashed classics and fairy tales made into film with strong themes (exaggerated from the original or otherwise wholly invented) of friendship, love, unity, obedience to authority and the inevitable triumph of good (doubtlessly connected to light & the color white) over evil (always connected to darkness & the color black). Historical movies also remain popular, and cover a wide variety of topics from the English Civil War to the stormy but ultimately loving (if, by the end, one-sided) relationship between the Saint-Emperor Robert I and his wife. Most recently, director Zack Orson Wood has been working on a series of films spanning the entirety of the tumultuous 20th century, from the First Great American War to the Russian Civil War (coinciding with the 11th & Twenty-Four Hour Crusades), and is presently directing the filming of Ivanovich, the story of early-Second Great War Ukrainian Cossack leader Alexei Ivanovich as he sets out on a doomed quest to win a homeland for his people from the Holy Roman Empire. |
Cults & the Great Satanic Conspiracy | Cults. Well, they do exist, and those still in existence are generally every bit as vile and reprehensible as the Inquisition responsible for their annihilation actually say they are. The passage of time, the dilution of ancient knowledge & the brutality of the Inquisition have led to the destruction of most of the more 'friendly' cults, with only the genuinely diabolical or otherwise overtly malevolent (and thus heavily armed) still surviving to this day. However, contrary to popular belief, their influence is often local, their numbers in the dozens or low hundreds at best, and their crimes more along the lines of vandalizing churches & desecrating the Eucharist at worst (well, generally) than kidnapping babies for human sacrifices or violating virgins in Satanic orgies.
Heresies (mostly underground Protestant or pseudo-Protestant faiths, from simple Lutheranism to the 'New Church of Christ' circa 7500 AD that simultaneously holds Arian conceptions of Christ's nature and a Pelagian disregard for faith's role in salvation) also survive, albeit in smaller and even more marginalized pockets, and are generally extremely inclusive and distrustful of new converts; they rightly fear that far too many would-be 'followers' are just Inquisitorial agents provocateur working to infiltrate them & bring them down from inside.
None of this has stopped the Inquisition from overplaying the threat level of cults & heresies, linking them all to the Great Satanic Conspiracy, as a boogeyman with which to scare people into accepting the brutality of the Inquisition and the general oppressiveness of the Magisterium. What IS the Great Satanic Conspiracy (which shall be abbreviated as the GSC from now on)? Well, to put it simply, an association of diabolical sages who directly take orders from Satan and are responsible for literally every negative thing in human history, from the prehistoric Ice Age to the Great Schism to wars & economic disasters to even personal problems (ex. your wife is cheating on you? No doubt, Satanic agents are amusing themselves by messing up your home life!), for whom every single organization opposed to the Stuarts are a front of, and for whom every such rebellious individual is an agent. While the Stuarts insist that they were purged on Earth in the Great Cleansing of 2262, they also insist that some of these 'monsters in human skin' escaped aboard the Ark II that, also through the work of the GSC itself, escaped Earth's orbit without being blown up, and now still work to undermine the Magisterium internally (preying on the all-too-human nature of its citizens) while also driving alien species into war against it to destroy it from the outside.
If that was too long for you, well:
The role of the GSC in society, according to the Magisterium | |
Even the Stuarts, despite having practically singlehandedly invented the GSC, now believe it as thoroughly as the random fellow on the street, that is to say, with absolute certainty, and are practically waiting for a chance to meet the descendants of those ancient Exiles just so they can finally destroy this conspiracy of devil-worshiping magic-practicing baby-eating orgy organizers. |
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