Solarism
Soloralism: a micronational religion of Micras, particularly in the Apollo Sector. Soloralism was derived from the Neo-Jasonian culture/religion with its concepts of different forces of the universe, and also Treesian culture.
Culture
Soloralism is a faith that is based on finding your place in the world, accepting that place, and living it. Consistency, faith, and persistence towards your life's goal are considered, above all, the highest ideals of the religion.
The core of Soloralism consists of six forces named the Quintessences. Each Quintessence is a natural part of the universe, and almost every living thing and every place in the universe consists of all six Quintessences in a different balance. They are arranged in pairs based on opposition:
Good – Evil : The moral forces
Life – Death : The natural forces
Knowledge – Mischief : The mental forces
The six Quintessences are detailed as follows:
Good: represents moral goodness. Generally believed to be the strongest of the Quintessences, good is the force and belief that being kind and helpful to other beings creates a more beneficial world for everyone. Beings that dedicate themselves for good tend to stick out from society. Some believe that laws should be upheld, and others ignore laws entirely in order to accomplish the goal that would not be otherwise possible. Good has a strong connection with knowledge, believing in justice. It has a connection with life, since good and life tends to spawn positive growth. It also has a connection with death, believing that certain people are beyond salvation and must be eliminated for the betterment of all.
Evil: represents moral evil. Evil is the second oldest force in the universe and is still very strong. Evil consists of corruption, manipulation, and general maliciousness. It is angry and aggressive. Beings of evil can be very tricky, often disguising themselves as having a much different alignment until their positions are secure. Evil beings disguised as good ones or life ones are fairly common. Evil has a very strong connection with death, which is usually evil's goal, and also has a powerful connection with mischief, since evil is often caused for evil's own random sake. Evil has no solid connections with any of the other Quintessences.
Life: represents life and growth. Life can be considered the weakest and fragile of the Quintessences, but its effects can be seen everywhere where other forces cannot. Life is a powerful natural force, and in the absence of all others, life would continue. People that stand for life are stereotypically pacifists, medical workers, or construction workers, but many more possibilities are available. Life has a solid connection with good, and also knowledge, since a government becomes essential in protecting the society and people that life cares so much about. Oddly enough, life has a connection with death. The strongest life gets, the more likely death is to strike hard, and vice verse. This odd relationship is unique among the Quintessences, as no other opposite pairs have connections.
Death: represents destruction, living or otherwise. As far as sheer power goes, death is the strongest Quintessence as it always offers direct results with very little time. Individual life is fragile and can easily be smashed. Death, like life, is a natural force in the world. It is quicker to act but much less thorough then its counterpart. People that stand for death are often military units, but there are a number of more subtle disguises death can wear. Death is connected with good and evil and is connected with life as above. Death is also connected with mischief, since many people destroy with no real motive. This makes death the most connected Quintessence, saying something about its role in our universe.
Knowledge: represents order and progress. Knowledge is a mental force that exists within the minds of civilized beings and does not affect much else. Knowledge’s domain is massive, covering technology, progress, order, law, and reason. Many beings, especially humans, fall to knowledge by default. More powerful knowledge careers are judges, mathematicians, and inventors. Knowledge is connected with both good and life.
Chaos: represents disorder. Chaos is the other mental force, which represents the desire to break rules “just because.” Chaos covers entropy and randomness. It exists within the hearts of anyone that intentionally commits a crime or otherwise violates known laws, although it is much stronger in people that attempt to take down order for the thrill of it, such as anarchists and some revolutionaries. Mischief is connected with both evil and death.
Time: represents continuation. Time is not really a Quintessence, but is a force none-the-less. Time is the continual flow of the universe and the ever shifting balance of the forces. Time cannot be mastered by any, only measured or, at the very best, traveled. Time has no connections. It gives its continual judgment equally to all other forces.
The events in many religions happened many thousands of years ago, or at least many generations ago, so that no one alive today witnessed them. Events become stories, and then myths. A certain level of uncertainty is added because no one really knows exactly what happened. All they have are the records passed down to them. Soloralism has events that happened in olden times, but it regards them as history, not merely stories. These events happened just like the books say. There is no exaggeration, no uncertainty. Everything is preserved as accurately as possible. Also unique to Soloralism is that this history continues to the present day. The Soloralist gods have not forgotten their people even if the people have forgotten them. There is clear divine influence in current events, and those events are to be added to the Soloralist books of lore.
To deny Soloralism is not just to deny the deities: it is to deny the very past of Micras. Alternatively, those who believe in the history of Micras are Soloralists. Our gods are not vain; they do not need people to worship them as long as they are living their lives as the gods intended. Although the gods still influence the world and have sent us many gifts that spring from their own power, the gods have not sent us any clear-cut messages on how to live. Instead, they sent us the quintessences, which are essential parts of our being. This essence is made up of the influence of all six major Soloralist gods and gives us innate knowledge of good, evil, life, death, law, and chaos.
The quintessence of an individual person is always unbalanced: one of the six attributes is largest. One of the gods poured more of his or herself into us. And this is the true test of Soloralism: you must find which force is strongest within you and live your life that way. A person with a large good quintessence must live a good life. A person with a large evil quintessence must live an evil life.
We know little of the afterlife, but we believe that when we die, the gods will judge us on how well we lived our lives in accordance to the quintessences. If a person with a large good quintessence lived a good life, then they have lived a successful life and will be rewarded by Mithaniel. If a person with a large intellect quintessence lived a life based on chaos, then that person has disobeyed Clistiro's path for them and will be punished. These rewards and punishments are unknown to us, but they are not eternal. All quintessences are eventually added to the Empathi Field, a great network of magical and spiritual energy that exists between all beings that gods have created. The Field powers the gifts gods have given mortals, such as magic. When magic users cast spells, they are actually using the power of the quintessences. A great magic user is never born; rather, the quintessences converge more closely around that person in order to help them. Even within the Empathi Field, quintessences still retain some things from life.
Many quintessences will remain in the Empathi Field until the next cycle, for the gods can create new quintessences as new beings are born. However, every so often, the gods choose to send one of their most loyal quintessences back to Micras to be born again. These beings have knowledge and power beyond their mortal lives, and usually do great things on this world in the name of their god. Eventually though, they die again, and return to the Empathi Field in order to help the gods there. And such things go, and will continue to go for as long as this cycle continues.
Soloralism does not frown on the worship of other gods or other religions in general. It is not what you call your god that matters, but how you live your life on their path. However, Soloralism does frown on the distortion of the historical facts that make up its backbone, such as calling Micras by another name.
Although we have no reason to believe so, Soloralism does not rule out the existence of life on other planets. If the gods can watch over Micras, they can surely watch over other worlds too. The discovery of beings on other planets would not effect the beliefs of Soloralism.
Sects of Soloralism
Apolloism (Essential Soloralism) - The most fundamental form of Soloralism, and the first one that was created. The concept of the quintessences are in here, but not the concept of gods. The history of Micras was created by this sect. Essentials do not believe in the existence of gods. Only the Quintessences matter. Essentials attempt to find the Quintessence that suits them best and follow that Quintessence to the best of their ability. They do not pray, believing that no god exists to listen to them and that they would be better off acting on their own level. They strongly believe in the fictional history of Micras, however, and believe that their own beliefs can be global to all micronational religions.
Traditionalist Soloralism - The sect worshiped by most Soloralists, and the sect in which the fictional race of Microns had as a religion. Traditionalists believe that the Quintessences are the highest powers in the universe; but also that each Quintessence has a god or goddess that helps regulate that power in order to help mortals. Traditionalists pray often, knowing their gods hear them and have an answer one way or the other.
Menelmacari Soloralism - The most practiced sect of Soloralism, which was worshiped in Menelmacar. This variant is identical to the traditionalist sect in terms of the gods and prayer, however the Menelmacari believe in a number or lesser gods under each god that control certain more defined aspects of life. Particular importance is placed on Tunare, the Goddess of Life, who was the creator of the elves; Menelmacar was a micronation based on Tolkien's elves.
History
The basis for Soloralism started before its founder, Bill Dusch, had even heard of micronations. When he was young in the late 90's, Bill liked to create pretend strategy guides to games that he "created" as a hobby. This was because he did not know of any RPG Making programs, nor programming languages. In 1998, he created a particular game that was sort of based on his real life, called Billy's Life 5. In this game, Bill was the main character. Its basis is not important, but the significant facts was that there was a being called Pure Evil, the incarnation of all mortal evils. Pure Evil was not a being in the normal sense; he was more like a coalescence of light, or a gas, with a sickly green color. It had the ability to possess someone and control them. In this game, Pure Evil possessed and controlled a classmate of Bill's, named Doug Brown. Using his powers, he managed to wreck havoc across Bill's town and eventually rip it out of the world. The only chance Bill had was to defeat Pure Evil. The significance of this plotline was that it started the creation of the belief of the quintessences in Bill, and was later presented as a backstory for the later game, Jasonia - The Dark One.
Soloralism's first physical creation was during the Golden Age of The Flying Islands of Jasonia, an Apollonian micronation, roughly around August 2000. Bill, a citizen of Jasonia at this time, and the President of Jasonia, Jason Steffke, were talking about how interesting it would be if there was a game based on micronations. An idea clicked; since both Bill and Jason liked the game Chrono Trigger, what if they created the plot of a game based on Chrono Trigger, but with influences from micronations? Characters of the game could be from micronations and people would like it because they would be in the game.
This game was called Control of Destiny, the first game in the Control of Destiny Series. The story was similar to Chrono Trigger. An alien race called the UEC (United Empire Consortium) would take over the Microworld in the year 2100, and a party of heroes would stop them through a time traveling adventure. The main characters include Jason Steffke, Bill Dusch, and Bill's younger brother (Who was not in micronations), Matt Dusch, Scott Alexander, LightEning (Ari Rahikkala), LordStone, and some other people who were posters in Apolyton, not micronationalists - AI (Provost Harrison), and Empress. Matt Dusch, an inventor and engineer in the game, created a time machine and presented it during the Hyperborean Fair, a celebration based on the at-the-time recent annexation of Hyperborea into Jasonia. The machine accidentally brought Matt into five months in the past, when things were much different in the Apollo Sector. An adventure continued from there, as Jason and Bill saved Matt, but the portable time-traveling device (TimeTravel1000) accidentally sent them to the future instead of the present on the way back.
Later additions to the plot of the first Control of Destiny game include the addition of another character, Amy Leonarkos, the change of the name of the UEC to the Imperials to not instigate Erik Mortis, whose handle was UEC, and the town of Micronia in the future as a safe haven from the bleak world controlled by the Imperials. In order for a time-traveling game to work, there has to be lore and history for the Apollo Sector; but, the Apollo Sector had only existed since August 6, 1999 with the founding of Apolyton Nation, the precursor to Audentior. So, Bill created the History of the Microworld, the first fictional document created in the Apollo Sector that made reference to the Microns. At this particular time, Microns were almost gods - they came from the world of Micron (Which was a different planet at the time) and created the Microworld. The planet of Micron would then be invaded and destroyed by the Imperials at the time of roughly 1 AD, and the Micron colonies on the Microworld would become extinct by a plague. Some parts of this lore is kept in Soloralist doctrine today in Soloralist doctrine; particularly, the plague which wiped out the Microns, and the fact that the Imperials had come once before to destroy the Microns.
The true founding of Soloralism started after the game, Jasonia - The Dark One, was created, around November 2000. The concepts of Pure Good and Pure Evil from this game, as well as other parts of the game, inspired Bill to wish to act out the games on the Microworld. As well, the creation of Dark Bill (The possessed form of Bill by Pure Evil in Jasonia - The Dark One) was used as an excuse for the first riots of the UAS. After the fall of the UAS, Bill worked further on the lore of the Microworld. In a compromise with JASO, the world's name was changed to Micron - which would seriously effect the CoD lore. The microns were demoted to simply an extinct race, rather than gods. The Microns were also placed on the same planet; the age before their extinction was a time when they dominated the world over other races, like the humans. It was around this time that the other quintessences - Life, Death, Intellect, and Chaos - were created, signifying the creation of the first incarnation of the religion, Apolloism. At this time, the concept of gods were created as well; with one god per quintessence. The names of the gods were directly stolen from EverQuest, the game in which Bill was playing at this time, near the end of Jasonia.
The religion did not go much further until the foundation of Tymaria. Bill was named the Minister of Culture, which inspired Bill to further work on Apolloism. The other races were given more importance (Though not as much importance as later on), to allow people to be flexible in their own whims. Apolloism became popular in the Tymarian province of Tapfer.
After the TYSOG incident, in a fit of anger, Bill added Tymaria to the plot of the newest game, Control of Destiny 3. The game was based on the decay of the universe through its corruption, and Tymaria was the (Bad pun inc) quintessence of this. This timeline, called in Control of Destiny 3 as the Subgame, Mistress of Time, would show how Tymaria would appear as the Non-Apollonians of Tymaria took control of Tymaria, as it seemed to be at the time, in 2110 AD. Apollonian culture would be purged; the entire nation would be polluted and just grim, the cities full with slums of many people, with an elite people named the Erudites ruling in the Skyscrapers. For the ultimate irony, Tymaria would rule from the grounded islands of Jasonia in their city of Jasonia, now a bastion of the shadows, rather than the skies. Behind the corruption of the leading Erudites of Tymaria, there was one man named Diga, who was the Ingredient of Fate. Fate was a being that would be created when the corruption of the universe reached a critical point, in which Fate would then destroy the universe in order for there to be another one; out of its own corruption. In Soloralist lore today, corruption could be defined as deviating from the quintessences; a more fundamental evil than the quintessence of evil due to the Relativity of Ideology; the antithesis of the quintessence of Time.
Bill and Jason eventually turned to Treesia, in which they developed their religion further, despite the active religion of Treesian Unorthodox there. The Elpiferno Archipelio manifested as actual lands of Micras as the Treesians claimed both it and Tapfer. Apolloism's name was changed. This was because people confused Apolloism with the Apollo Sector, even though Apolloism was just one particular culture of the Apollo Sector. The name was changed to Soloralism, coming from the Micron word for magic.
After Tymaria became defunct, Sirithil nos Feanor founded the Imperium of Menelmacar, which Bill soon joined. Menelmacar was a nation who fictionally was filled with elves. (Sirithil was a roleplayer in the MUSH Elendor) Bill realized that this was his chance to sprout Soloralism in a nation. A culture was then created in Menelmacar that seemed to be a merge of the Tolkien elvish culture and the Soloralist culture; the Menelmacari sect was created. Soloralism became a major driving force for culture in Menelmacar. However, when Archetype joined, another culture became popular as he brought friends from PsiPog, named Yellowism, a religion that was based on the worship of a telepathic banana. Tensions eventually ensued because of Archetype's paranoia and stubbornness. A true rift of the nation happened after Menelmacar's elections in December - Bill, the Vice-Elenaran under the Elentari Sirithil nos Feanor, in an fit that Sirithil was losing the elections, declared that the nation would die. However, the Yellowists would not allow this, and through micronational pressure, eventually made Sirithil to open the nation and declare Archetype the election leader. Soloralism slowly seeped out of the nation as Archetype made the nation more secular, and later on, more biased towards Yellowism instead of Menelmacari Soloralism.
However, Soloralism's life would not be in vain. A citizen of Menelmacar that joined after the elections, named Mari Greenwood, converted herself to Soloralism in order to preserve the elvish culture, and became a lead promoter in the Soloralist culture. Soloralism tried to make a rise, but Archetype would not allow it. It became certain to the Soloralist faction of Menelmacar that nothing short of a revolution would allow Soloralism to reign supreme again. So, on Jasonia Day, February 19, 2003, Sirithil used her EZOp powers to ban Archetype and other Yellowists as the start of the Revolution. Unfortunately, the plan backfired; Archetype and the Yellowists continued as another form of Menelmacar. The nation was split between two factions; the Soloralists severely underestimated the support the Yellowists had obtained.
After the schism, Oira Arnanorë Menelmacariva became a haven for Soloralists, as the religion made its first marriage and a working hierarchy. Bill became the Archon of Soloralism. However, as the OAM started to lose activity, Soloralism started to lose appeal as well. Eventually, by the time OAM died, almost all of the Soloralists had either left micronations or not cared about it anymore. The death of the OAM marked the death of Soloralism as a functional micronational religion. However, Soloralism still exists in the hearts and minds of Bill Dusch and Harvey Steffke; a mark of creativity still exists on Micras because of it, even as people continue to attempt to remove both its legacy, and that of the Apollo Sector.
Legacy
The most significant legacy of Soloralism on Micras, is the name Micras name itself. Micras was created as a compromise between the Soloralist name of Micron, and the Yellowist name of Fnord, in a debate of the MCS. Despite the fact that Menelmacar and Soloralism does not exist today, the name of Micras continues to exist as micronationalists continue to refer to it as such.
Other legacies of Soloralism include the Elpiferno Archipelio; the islands of Ptia, Micronia, and Ferien, which were first referenced to Soloralist lore. Some inside jokes, such as the phrase, "Bill, you are STILL young and stupid," and random babbling from Bill Dusch regarding erudites and the ultimate corruption of the universe, come from the old Control of Destiny games, rather than actual micronational experiences.