ZIVISEL
It all started when King Zebdar wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t listen to any of the needs of the people. He was authoritative, cold, and mean. He liked the look of black, and red. Red was the color of power. People feared red. But they didn’t fear it enough. The White Knights began to form. They plotted to have him gently removed, but it wouldn’t suffice. They needed something the people could hold on to. The best they could come up with was “the High One.”
Zebdar mysteriously disappeared and the High One descended upon Zivisel to guide them through this difficult time. He sent out his White Knights to establish order in the remains of what used to be a flourishing solar system. Under Zebdar, it had all collapsed. Learning stopped, agriculture died, art was nonexistent. The White Knights each had one of the 47 planets in this little cosmos under their wing. The intention was to set up a new system that would bring Zivisel and its planets back up to snuff.
Each planet elected a Mayoral Judge, who met to elect 5 Royals to represent each of the 5 stellar regions. These Royals selected 3 Arch Rules to oversee the other officers of the system, as well as serve as the voice for the High One, as he did not appear to the public under new laws. In fact the public only had access to Mayoral Judges. But the bureaucracy was set up to be effective at turning the planets around, not necessarily efficient at making needs heard.
For the most part, all the officers got along. There were a few Royals who had issues with each other, mostly over whose regions were best or had more planets or some other silly thing. This was fortunate, as dissenters of the new system and people who couldn’t really adapt that well, including obstinate officers often mysteriously disappeared like Zebdar did.
Zebdar had been a political figure. Religion was mostly eliminated under his 53 year rule. The intent for the new system was to bring religion back and make the High One and the religious leader one in the same. It seemed that logically, setting it up that way would save everyone a lot of trouble. Besides, it gave them a reason to disallow the general public to be witness to the High One. He was holy, and only the very important could be in his presence, obviously.
Certain rituals came into play as a result of the new system. Prayers emerged as a daily routine, as did ensuring that your house was white. White, the same color as the Knights, was the color of peace and rebirth. It seemed only fitting. Religious holidays were essentially made-up and the effectively celebrated several times a month. The official thought was that if the government gave them sanctioned time to party and have fun, that they would be more productive at other times.
The
favorite of these holidays was Revelation.
It was a three day long festival where citizens typically gathered at
There were always things to celebrate though. After so much time in a miserable state of affairs, citizens welcomed the chance to celebrate life. The government allotted time for celebration just wanted enough. Generally they were small celebrations; birthdays, weddings, births, getting over a cold, basically anything to be happy about. But on the rare occasion enough people were involved that people had to be “chemically punished” and sent home.
On a daily basis, everyone was given a variety of vitamins and other chemicals to “help revitalize their bodies and minds” according to official mandate. It arrived on each doorstep every morning, or was waiting for you on your desk at work if you preferred. Chemical punishment involved, depending on the seriousness of the offense, the either lack of vitamins for however many days, or replacing them with something that tasted fine, but could make one sick for days. It was a way of keeping the order. By the time a generation had been shuffled through, those vitamins meant life or death to the citizens. It also resulted in an entire solar system of hypochondriacs. If one didn’t receive their vitamins that day, he or she was sure death was imminent.
Business
was business. People worked to
live. Business hours were typically
What people did enjoy was life. They lived to live. People greeted friends and coworkers with as much energy as one would expect for a spouse. Affection however, was taboo. Kissing was equivalent to stripping naked and running around in citizen’s minds. Probably it was a jealousy thing. Typically people only had one serious, loving relationship in their life, and if one had found their life partner, there was no need to rub it in other’s faces that they didn’t have theirs.
Politeness was standard. Doors were held, chairs pulled out, and women walked ahead of males accompanying them. This was because women were divine. In the Zivisel solar system, it was good to be a lady. Life sprung forth from women, citizens needed no more reason than that to respect and nurture their females. Birthdays entailed both the person’s whose birthday it was and their mother being free from responsibility for the day. Thus, women liked to have children. The more children a mother had, the more days she got off work, and the more respect she carried.
Getting married was the first step in becoming a respectable lady. Younger, unmarried women, though still revered, had little influence compared to a mother. Children out of wedlock were simply inappropriate, so one had to get married in order to have children.
Marriage was a very sacred ritual. It had three important parts; an anointment, a celebration, and an operation. The anointment was a very holy ceremony whereby the Mayoral Judge performed a symbolic bath for the couple per the High One’s orders. Approval for the marriage had to come from the High One, and his decree of marriage served as a contract for the couples union until death.
The celebration lasted about two days and involved lots of festivities. Stories were told about the couple, everyone ate and drank until they couldn’t anymore, and gifts of fertility and happiness abounded for the couple. The operation, though, was the scary part. The couple underwent a simple procedure where they each gave up a small part of themselves to the other. Commonly, the two traded a pint or so of blood, but more dangerous operations had been known to occur. Largely this was symbolic of the two joining together as one, but the effect it created was a very emotional bond for the couple.
Zivisel had little prejudice and ostracizing, which the fact that people were raised to be polite and tolerant had much to do with. People regarded others as equals, unless someone caused personal harm to another. If this occurred regularly (once was typically tolerable – mistakes do happen) the person causing harm, intentionally or not, would fall out of society’s favor. They would essentially stop existing to the other citizens; no one would do business with them, speak to them, or provide any services for them. Many of these persons would find a way to relocate themselves to a commune of the hated. Others who had been cast out would gather together and support each other. The hated persons became their own little colony on a distant planet of the solar system.
The rest of the citizens of the Zivisel system were required by the officials to produce 45 monetary units per week during business hours. Of course, they were compensated for their efforts, and more units offered more compensation, but since few people enjoyed work, 45 or 46 was a common production level. A monetary unit was measured in value of whatever a worker did that day. Farmers would produce food for the planets, service persons did a variety of things for the good of the people, and educators taught young persons to behave. As long as value was being created, no one really cared that much what anyone did.
The main industry of the solar system was difficult to pinpoint. Since the solar system traded very little outside itself, the entirety of the system was self-sufficient. Two of the stellar regions were much more efficient at agriculture, since their planets had much more temperate weather. One region was known for its industry. For some reason the planets in the westernmost region were heavy because of the mass amount of metals they were endowed with. One other region was known for its services and education. It made it quite easy to get by through barter with the industries being divided so cleanly. The agriculturalists would trade food with the producers for machinery to help cultivate. It worked nicely. Under the High One’s rule, a listing of the value of one unit of every good and service was put out, making wages, barter, and the economy as a whole much more stable.
The last region was primarily barren. There were a few new colonies, but it was still yet to be seen what would come of them.