The Stewards do not have a base in traditional religious faiths and aren’t particularly syncretic with other established religions. During the years of Terran Unification a series of documents, doctrines, arguments and stories were assembled and disseminated as part of the push towards Unification. These books were considered cornerstone historical and philosophical texts, integral to the project, an international meeting of the minds and efforts. Officially and internally it’s referred to as “Pax In Terra”: Peace on Earth. Unofficially and to the greater faith, they are the Steward Movement.
Post-Unification Terra would eventually move towards the adoption of the Terran Expeditionary Force Initiative. The surviving minds behind pre-Unification technology and theory came up with the notion of taking Pax In Terra and expanding its importance to the project to allow for the construction of a new civil religion. They went from being a series of books and theories written to argue political ideology to becoming holy texts assembled by a wise council with the mandate of the cosmos behind them. The adherents of the religion would be given places of importance within the Force to ensure it stayed on task, act as spiritual guidance and document its path through the universe. In execution, it ended up splintering into three main ideological factions whose squabbling keeps the movement a useful series of tools and levers to work when anyone needs to nudge them.
Structure
The Steward Movement takes its name from an argument in chapter six of the second book (In Support Of) of Pax In Terra that is colloquially referred to as “The Steward’s Creed”:
Your gun is not your gun. It is a promise. Your sword is not your sword. It is a tool. Your shield is not your shield. It is a lie. Your land is not your land. It is a taste. Your hand is not your hand. Your hand is your bullet, the edge of your blade, the turn of your shield, your next meal.
Become a steward of what you are owed and what you own.
On a logistical level, the Stewards essentially are a series of decentralized social clubs with leaders elected by popular vote with allowances for impeachment or overthrow if needed ingrained in the bylaws. Membership is limited to those who are able to articulately argue for the cause and impress the local leaders, and groups themselves follow a standardized charter with room for variability and special allowance. Not every congregation is the same, they can be similar to cliques, but they tend to march to the beat of the same when it comes to belief and structure; gatherings have particular protocols that involve affirmations of belief, airing of grievances, public discussion and forums, check-ins on members and their needs and an element of entertainment or social activity.
Fundamentally all Steward congregations believe in the two central tenets to the cause:
Everything in the universe is given unto you.
It is your duty to care for it.
The devil is in the details of the schisms and the third tenet each one believes in. There is no greater ideology in the church that holds to only those two unless you’re someone outside of the greater movement (AKA people like Sixty-Nine).
The Archivists
Everything in the universe is given unto you.
It is your duty to care for it.
Record it all and cherish the information.
The Archivists believe that, due to the order’s beginning as Pax In Terra, keeping track of everything is the most important thing. Slow to act but most likely to pay attention to all the moving pieces and strategize in the bigger picture.
The Vanguard
Everything in the universe is given unto you.
It is your duty to care for it.
Above all else, defend the faithful, defend Terra.
The Vanguard are the militant defense wing of the Stewards. The Stewards are not a civil religion of peace, and yet even by their standards the Vanguard are heavily armed. Informed predominantly by the practical military history within their books, the Vanguard believe in overwhelming decisive action and asserting authority over the universe.
The Resolute
Everything in the universe is given unto you.
It is your duty to care for it.
Why would it exist if it shouldn’t be used?
Far from a path of moderation between the others, the Resolute are most informed by the philosophical aspects of their books. There are myriad things to experience beyond Terra and if this is all meant to be ours, then one ought to take advantage of that, often to the point of hedonistic overindulgence. The Resolute temper the trigger finger urge and the strategist’s impulse by focusing on known facts and practical realities of any given situation.
The Coffin Club Presents 
Leave a comment