You have one life - and one Proving.
- Jakharan proverb
- Jakharan proverb
The Divine Jakhari Empire consider their society to be the purest of meritocracies. The only globally permitted religion on Jakh, known colloquially as The Faith, prescribes a strict system of castes. Castes are not hereditary – each individual is sorted into a caste based on their performance during the annual event known as The Proving. The Proving is a series of tests encompassing both mental, spiritual and physical abilities. Crucially, performance during the Proving determines whether or not a Jakh will receive their Citizenship upon reaching maturity.
The Early parts of the proving are dominated by theoretical and practical tests of intelligence and faith. It concludes, however, with The Proving of Battle, a highly ritualised combat tournament. In addition to being of great importance for your sorting, the Proving of Battle is a hugely popular, massively spectated event. Winning tournament during your Proving is a badge of honor to be worn for the rest of a Jakhar's life.
Those who perform sufficiently in all areas become Educated, permitted into higher education to hold future positions as skilled labour. Those who excel in either combat or mental abilities are sorted into the Warrior and Scientist Castes, respectively.
Those who excel in all areas are sorted into the Cleric Caste. The Warrior Priests of Jakhar represent the absolute elite of their military power, and are in addition tasked with directly attending the divine leader, the physical embodiment of The Faith – The Avatar. The upper three castes – Warrior, Scientist, Cleric – make up the aristocracy of the Jakhari.
Those who are deemed unsuited for other tasks are sorted into the lowest caste, the Slave Caste. The Slave Caste perform supervised agrarian and menial labour. They are always sufficiently provided for, but retain few of the rights that Citizens do.
Because of the nature of the Proving, it is not unheard of for the children of slaves to become Clerics – and the other way around. However, rumors are whispered of deep-seated corruption within the proving, making it so that even a poorly performing child of a favored Cleric or decorated general is less likely to be sorted into. The clergy violently repress these rumors, as faith in the sacrosant nature of the proving is the foundation upon which Jakhari society rests.
With the discovery of Faster-Than-Light travel, guided by the prophetic visions of The Avatar, the Jakhari immediately envisioned themselves as natural galactic overlords. They are physically adept, mentally superior, and have devised – in their eyes - a perfect, ordered society.
***
"And now", though The Avatar, "I have to break this perfect society."
There could be no mistaking her latest vision. The Jakhar standing, triumphant and alone, in a sea of stars. At their feet; chained, formless shapes. Every detail of the vision was etched into her memory, and the smallest detail could potentially be of the greatest importance. Of all the Jakhari standing in the asterian sea, not one had borne the umistakable brand of a slave.
She left the solitude of her chamber, and was immediately attended by several Clerics. "Prepare the global feeds," she said curtly. "I have an announcement to make."
[NOTES:
- I'm not playing Ironman because slavery becomes a huge problem with sectors, so I increased the core planet cap - and you can't play Ironman modded (obviously)
- I'm going to favor short, frequent updated over longer and more infrequent ones. The last time I did a narrative AAR (for CK2), the narrative mode became something of a problem because the narration takes so much time when more stuff happens.
- As the title suggests ("Stories"), I'm going to combat that problem partially by cherrypicking the bits I feel like narrating, and assume that all you intelligent and wonderful people know enough about the game to fill in the mechanical gaps about me researching stuff and building mining stations.]
Table of contents
Setup: This post
Chapter 1: The Avatar of Fury
- Our place in the Galaxy
- The Avatar of Fury
- Xenos (1)
- Xenos (2)
- Playing into our hands
- The AI Decree
Chapter 2: A Strange Reflection
- The Triangle War
- The Ancients
- A Strange Reflection
- Succession
- Gambit
- The Safest Place in The Empire
Chapter 3: War
- Pyres
- Half a Century
Last edited: