Keepers of the Long Breath
Monastic, philosophical, stewardship order.
The transformation of Ione was not meant to be completed in a single civilizational lifetime. Its running on a timescale longer than cultures, and periods of stalling are part of the process.
The world is said to be in its “First Breath” after its unknown benefactors “breathed life” into it.
They believe the terraforming systems are still fully operational, albeit at imperceptible rates. Visible processes like ashfall and water cycling are signs of ongoing processes. Their purposes are impossible to comprehend at mortal proportions.
Practices: Long-term environmental monitoring. Maintaining ancient systems without modification or enhancement. Recording changes across generations. Resistance to initiatives that promise rapid environmental improvements.
Believers serve as advisors to governance and mediators in ecological disputes. Sometimes accused of stagnation or luddism.
The Verdant Promise
Optimistic, populist movement of expansionism.
They believe Ione’s inhabitants must prepare for and usher in the future rather than merely surviving in the present. Their teachings say that the terraforming project stalled because its completion has been left up to Ione’s people.
The Second Skin: Teachings of the creation of “true soil” rather than the ash-based mixture necessary at the present.
The Opening Sky: Teachings of the creation of a stable, globe-spanning atmosphere.
The Unsealed Waters: Teachings of a day when the seas of Ione fill permanently from waters hidden beneath the world’s crust.
Practices: Aggressive agricultural experiments. Seed banks. Proto-forestry in otherwise unused lands. Engineering projects meant to “encourage” the terraforming systems.
Followers of the Verdant Promise may destabilize systems that aren’t fully understood, or they many be the reason Ione ever finishes growing.
The Oracles of the Pause
They teach that the terraforming project is “waiting for input”. They believe the terraforming processes need continual interpretation and alignment to continue functioning. Ione’s growth was designed to be guided by its successive caretakers who could read its signs and adjust its behavior.
“This world is not broken; it is asking questions.”
Mystic texts speak of hidden “listening stations” in the crust, “silent intervals” where action is discouraged, and “false progress” as a foolish sin.
Practices: Ritualized diagnostic procedures on arcane tech. Reading technical and environmental anomalies as deliberate “responses” to input. Declaring machines and regions temporarily off-limits, granting or denying access to arcane tech. Often accused of hoarding or inventing knowledge.