#doesn’t follow their doctrine and I think that word is loosely applied down there and if you want to frame someone with no repercussions

[swordmaid]

think cannibalism should be a thing in menzoberranzan actually, or maybe it is and I haven’t known about it, but it should be a thing amongst the nobles where they eat rival lolth priestesses since they’re lolth’s fave sacrifices anyway. like if we’re all constantly vying for lolth’s approval, and you have these people who actually has her blessing (which is rare) why not….eat them….😳. like eating the priestess of a rival house would be a ritual after you’ve succeeded in bringing their house down as a way to consume lolth’s blessing, and its def an intimidation tactic and def one of the plenty weird shit nobles have done for the sake of playing their power games. maybe they eat males who are in power too if they’ve overstepped their position to remind them of their place in the hierarchy, or maybe matriarchs/nobles eat their favourite bed mate/partner so no one else can have them, kind of like actual spiders. anyway. if menzoberranzan is this immoral lethal and ruthless place cannibalism should def be a thing lol

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

@robot-lolo

oh god Krennic WHAT DID YOU DO.  haha.  crazy is good.  canon deviation is accepted.  it’s going to be fucking glorious.  i’m very dim-witted and currently have no theory on how exactly Joachim of Fiore ties into this.  also, can Krennic’s dad have his own show on the holonet.

--

He was jumping from a building that he rigged to explode. Life’s been intense over the last little while for him. 

And remember the Fiorites? They were mentioned a few times in PS. They’re going to show up. 

On Lexrul there is a group of people who follow certain precepts to their life. They revere asceticism, go about in thin robes, live simply within their communes and avoid communicating with those they deem as Other. Which, in Krennic’s experience, is everyone who is not them. Reviling sexual-based reproduction the only way they gain followers is to convert new members which is at odds to their avoidance of those without of their community. Fiorites is the term he had grown up hearing them called for they do have a name for themselves but they rarely divulge it to others.

‘It’s supposed to bring death,’ Adkin replies.

They’re reviewing plans for the armoury bay above the MEP and a discussion of refracted light play made its way into a conversation on faith. Adkin had asked if Krennic believed in anything outside of himself and the empire and he had replied that he might be eccentric by some measures but he’s hardly foolish.

‘What is?’

‘If you hear their name. It’s a very morbid sort of group.’

‘Cult, Lieutenant.’

‘Are they? I suppose. Then would the Jedi be a cult?’

‘Certainly.’

‘I think that you are applying a very loose understanding of the word “cult” to these people, sir. They have a set of beliefs, they follow them in their quiet way and hardly bother anyone else.’

Krennic pulls up the schematics for the armoury and flips through them. ‘They’re keen on that, though. Death. Wasn’t it a group of Fiorites who killed themselves thirty-odd years ago? Drank the wrong blue milk.’

‘Fringe group, sir. They were lead by some extremist of their sect and believed that the universe was ending and the only way to avoid obliteration in the ultimate End was to pre-date that ultimate End. Has to do with how they understand time and space and materiality.’

‘But you’re dead either way. Does it matter if you’re killing yourself in a desert or if you die with the Universe? Death is the end result.’

‘Yes, sir. But they have a lot of complicated beliefs around what happens after death. There are three ages and according to most Fiorites, including the um, “mainstream” ones, we’re at the end of the second age and we have to do something to precipitate the third.’

‘Like what?’

‘Varies. Some say we must begin a massive, universe-wide war, others say that we all must become Fiorites and follow the Light. I’m a bit dodgy on the details.’

Krennic hums. Thinks that it’s all ridiculous and while he doesn’t subscribe to the religion of the Jedi at least he’s seen the power of the force. This sounds like all of that bullocks but without the political power and what’s the point in believing in something if you don’t get anything out of it? This he posits to Adkin who shrugs.

‘I think that’s the point of faith, sir. It’s supposed to be like falling.’

‘Absolute rubbish. How do you know all of this?’

She shrugs, ‘I had a brief flirtation with turning to ethnographic studies, sir. Particularly removal-extremism. How people break from broader society in an extreme measure, what precipitates it, what are the outcomes, group dynamics and so on. And particularly the role of isolationist doctrine and, naturally, personality cults.'

‘So you turned from that to...architecture?’

‘Architecture is an extension of the human condition, sir. It’s representative of the broad strokes of any given society.’

‘You know, Lieutenant, you’re possibly too smart for your own good.’

‘Yes, sir, I’ve heard that before.’

He collapses the schematics and unplugs the data-key. ‘But don’t let that stop you.’

Krennic puts the madness of the Fiorites and others like them down to the desert. Lexrul is a contradictory planet with harsh desert clashing against lush rain-forest which dips down to warm oceans and all of it filled with things that do their best to kill you. Cities generally hug that coastline and keep to the exterior of the three main continents because everyone knows that the interior can kill a man. Drive him to insanity. A desert is not silent in the way that mountains are not silent in the way that any landscape on any planet is not silent. There is wind and trees and creatures clattering in their own spheres, making noise, living, even if there is no human present to provide them with true existence through hearing and knowing and seeing.

But the desert is not a world for mankind. The perception of emptiness, although not true, invades thoughts and clings to your mind and your bones so you ache with loneliness. There is a claustrophobia to the desert. To that sky and the land around you harsh and red which work as well as any wall to close in and compound down upon a mind. Men go to the desert to die or to go mad in the belief that the madness is enlightenment. Krennic wonders if there is not already the seeds of their eventual descent already growing in their minds before they leave civilization for the wilderness.

Nial had spoken of the call. That he had been a young man and had once wanted to venture out to the desert in a vain attempt at conquering but mankind cannot conquer what made it. Krennic thought that the conclusion was faulty but did not push the point. He had then asked his father what he imagined desert-induced madness to be like and Nial had replied, ‘oh, rather like falling I shouldn’t wonder.’

The sigil of the Fiorites is a red circle with a line ascending upwards that loops around and goes to the right a little. The circle is usually coloured in. It’s supposed to be the desert sun with mankind on top. In the way that mankind likes to be on top of everything from mountains to one another. Falling, Krennic thinks with disgust, it’s a terrible position to be in.

All that said, Krennic’s dad needs a show on the holonet more than anything else in the multiverse. HE’D BE SO GOOD. 

‘Look at that one, she’s a beaut.’  ‘Dad that’s a fifteen foot long monster.’  ‘Absolute beaut, Orson. I’m goin’ ta wrassle her. Watch me back.’