Atenism

Atenism
Symbol
Organised Religion
Ideological doctrine:	Cult of Personality, Messianism, Solar Deity
Operation
Region(s) of operation:	Multi-system
Based in:	Aten-1 (formerly) Saturn (currently)
Historical information
Founded:	30th century
Founded by:	Rey Sol
Notable splinter factions:	Starlight Church
[Source]

“	How manifold it is, what thou hast made! They are hidden from the face (of man). O sole god, like whom there is no other! Thou didst create the world according to thy desire, Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts, Whatever is on earth, going upon (its) feet, And what is on high, flying with its wings.''	”
–Great Hymn to the Aten

Atenism is a cult of personality originally built up around the Saturnian Rey Sol who held himself to be the human embodiment and emissary of a greater solar deity, Aten. Most prevalent during Rey Sol's lifetime, Atenism has declined after its founder's death but has retained followers due to the survival of the religion's larger organizational structure.

History

Background

The origins of Atenism lie with its founder, Rey Sol. Born Russ Kemp, the young Saturnian made his fortune due to his successful abuse of time dilation to accumulate interest. Kemp invested billions of dollars into countless accounts across the Solar System, caught rides off several of the first Kimber Drive-fitted racing vessels and experimental yachts, and withdrew his earnings decades later, with his last withdrawal occurring in 2901. This scheme made Kemp a trillionaire and made him a household name across known space. After Kemp's scheme was revealed, banks instituting countermeasures against "time dilation fraud", an effect which he saw sought heavy personal involvement in.

After becoming wealthy, Kemp's narcissism and megalomania took hold. He settled down on Titan, started a university for working class Saturnians, and became a common fixture within Saturn's media. In the first decade of the 2900s, Kemp mostly rested on his laurels. However, his life took a dramatic turn in the 2910s with the founding of Atenism.

Without any real warning, Kemp changed his name to Rey Sol and announced his new beliefs involving the solar deity, Aten. This caused a great deal of media hubbub with many interviews between Rey Sol and skeptics that attracted the attention of many Saturnians. The accusations of stealing wholesale from Egyptian mythology and being a rampant narcissist had little to no effect on Rey Sol, as he was able to skillfully counter skeptics’ arguments through skilled sophistry. Rey Sol would often end these debates by inviting others to join his new religion.

This led to the earliest Atenists on Saturn who flocked to Rey Sol's new religion, mostly connecting using the Net. In those early days, Rey Sol struggled to maintain control over this new cult of personality while trying to lay the foundations for the Interstellar Solar Temple. Early Atenists had differing ideas for what Atenism exactly was, as the idea of praying to Rey Sol as the human embodiment and emissary of Aten was not set in stone yet. It was in this environment that the heretical Starlight Church formed as some early Atenists felt that Sirius and other brighter stars better represented Aten, rather than Sol. This heresy was condemned by Rey Sol himself, saying that Sol was most important star with all others inferior. He supported this argument by saying that humans came to be under the light of Sol with no intelligent extrasolar life, demonstrating the inferiority of other stars. This led to a break with the Starlight Church who subsequently separated from early Atenism.

The establishment of the Interstellar Solar Temple, the codification of Atenism's religious texts, and Rey Sol's several weddings in the late 2910s and throughout the 2920s solidified the religion. The Interstellar Solar Temple established Atenist communities across Saturn and even sent missions to Jupiter. The religion spread slowly over the next two decades until Rey Sol felt that the time was right to unveil his final plan: the Aten-1, a state of the art station in solar orbit. Rey Sol did this so that he could, in his words, "claim dominion of the sun". That led to conflict with the newly-established Interstellar Governed Space Authority, who disputed his claim upon the Sun and the area around it. However, the escalation of the climate crisis led to the IGSA averting most of its focus from Rey Sol, and he was allowed to commission Aten-1 in peace with it being built over the next decade while the IGSA mostly humored his claims.

Aten-1 was modeled off of the early Island Three design, consisting of two counter-rotating cylinders, each eight kilometers in diameter, and capable of scaling up to thirty two kilometers long. Each cylinder has six equal-area stripes that run the length of the cylinder; three are transparent windows, three are habitable "land" surfaces. Furthermore, an outer agricultural ring, thirty two kilometers in diameter, rotated at a different speed to support farming. The habitat's industrial manufacturing block is located in the middle, to allow for minimized gravity for some manufacturing processes. It rotated so as to provide artificial gravity via centrifugal force on its inner surfaces. The station was built to house Rey Sol and the leadership of the Interstellar Solar Temple along with Atenism's most devout followers.

After an attempt on his life in 2931 by a deranged member of the Starlight Church, Rey Sol became increasingly paranoid and decided that he was in need of a personal bodyguard loyal only to him. Thusly, Aten’s Chosen was established as Rey Sol’s golden-armored personal bodyguard and his strong right hand in enforcing order among his flock. Aten’s Chosen, particularly his confidante Horus (originally Blake Fairsdale), would be a constant feature alongside Rey Sol for the rest of his life.

Aten-1 would be completed and occupied in 2932 with Rey Sol inviting the upper leadership of his religion and many other prominent fixtures of Solar society such as celebrities and media to witness his crowning achievement. Aten-1 did indeed impress many people. The interior was a lush verdant paradise dotted with ivory pyramids lined with gold and other gaudy displays of wealth primarily inspired by ancient Egypt. Aten-1's opening celebration lasted an entire week and is remembered through the ages as one of the most decadent and debauched events in recorded history, surpassing even the rapacious tastes of Saturn with the Ivory Hunt, Sun Dancing, and Extended Psychedelia. Rey Sol and his flock were Atenists now after all, not Saturnians, and they intended to make their mark in a big way.

For the next century, Aten-1 would be party central for the Solar System with Rey Sol rarely leaving his new home. The station was home to Atenists from all over the Solar System, especially from the Outer Planets. However, Atenism began to earn more and more adherents from Earth as Earthers looked for salvation from the developing Climate Crisis. However, these desperate Earthers were held in low repute by other Atenists, with the Interstellar Solar Temple exploiting them for illicit activities on Saturn. At the same time, Rey Sol continued to accumulate wealth not only from the tithes of his generous followers but also many other businesses affiliated with IST and himself.

A solar flare would hit Aten-1 in 3037 as many others had, with Rey Sol, the majority of IST, and the many other Atenists trusting in the station’s heat shields to protect them. However, a statistical anomaly led to the complete failure of Aten-1’s heat shield, and the station was bathed in deadly solar radiation, transforming a once lively station into a tomb.

Rey Sol and the highest echelons of the Atenist religion died on Aten-1, along with millions of the faithful. This led to a period of intense mourning for Atenists across known space, a power vacuum in leadership, and eventually the wholesale splintering of the religion into smaller groups centered around Rey Sol's children or remaining parts of IST. Legal battles over the status of Rey Sol's physical and intellectual property are still ongoing on some parts of Saturn. Atenism would slowly wane over the next millennium but would retain followers through a strong sense of community and the strength of several of the individual Atenist personality cults.

Current Era

In current times, Atenism continues to be on a slow decline. Atenist communities on Saturn and Jupiter remain the largest while those further away from the Atenist “heartlands” are more vulnerable to converting out of the religion. Also, the clashes between various figures and groups within Atenism has done little to assuage adherents of doubts. If this trend continues, Atenism may cease to exist in the next few centuries even as their leader remains eternally entombed in his station, slowly orbiting around his object of worship.

Structure

Atenism was once highly centralized underneath Rey Sol with a vast organizational structure, known as the Interstellar Solar Temple (IST). The Interstellar Solar Temple operated as a corporation with Rey Sol also as the head with numerous priests or "executives" underneath him. When Rey Sol and Aten-1 were lost, vast numbers of the Interstellar Solar Temple were also lost. However, parts of the Interstellar Solar Temple survived on Saturn and Jupiter and persist to this day in fractured form. Today, remnants of the Interstellar Solar Temple have organized into different smaller Atenist organizations that survive on the local level but have little contact with one another.

Atenism also survived through Rey Sol's numerous descendants, many of whom run their own Atenist organizations which function as individual cults of personality. However, Rey Sol never designated an official successor to his role as emissary to the Sun and disinherited all his biological children, so the question of legitimacy for his descendants is up for debate. Because of this ambiguity, there are multiple different Atenist organizations, often competing with one another.

Membership

There are significant Atenist minorities on Saturn and Jupiter, the traditional heartland of the faith in the Outer Planets. Also, Atenist missionaries have made their way to the Gliese 832 System and the Trappist System with small Atenist minorities there. The question of worshipping outside the Solar System was a controversial one in Atenism’s early history, but now most Atenists on exoplanets simply acknowledge their stars are inferior and continue to worship Sol. An exception to this is the Starlight Church, a heretical sect who have centered their worship on brighter objects than Sol, mainly Sirius with many of them living in stations in the Sirius System to be close to their god.