Seven Suns Temple

Seven Suns Temple
Symbol
Organised Religion
Ideological doctrine:	Dharma, Nontheism, Millenarianism
Operation
Region(s) of operation:	Multi-system
Historical information
Predecessors:	Buddhism
Founded:	36th century
[Source]

“	Again after a vast period of time a sixth sun will appear, and it will bake the Earth even as a pot is baked by a potter. All the mountains will reek and send up clouds of smoke. After another great interval a seventh sun will appear and the Earth will blaze with fire until it becomes one mass of flame. The mountains will be consumed, a spark will be carried on the wind and go to the worlds of God....Thus, monks, all things will burn, perish and exist no more except those who have seen the path.	”
–Aṅguttara Nikāya, 7.66

The Seven Suns Temple is a doomsday cult descended from Buddhism that is intent upon leaving the Solar System before the predetermined destruction of Earth sometime after 4600. A movement that started on Earth, the Seven Suns Temple has progressively moved their cult out of the Solar System to various exoplanets, most prominently Ross 128 b, Tezuka, and Zhu Que.

History

Background

By the 4th millennium, Buddhism was no stranger to splinter sects in the past ranging from secular Buddhism to Aum Shinrikyo with many other examples. The Seven Suns Temple would emerge on Earth like many other Buddhist sects but in a unique position. In the 3500s, resentment against the IGSA was mounting while Earth chauvinists and Social Darwinists were on the rise across the world. Many Buddhists felt the stress of the times as well, but they expressed their feelings in ways differently than others. One expression of the stress was the Seven Suns Temple, who saw an apocalyptic future for the Solar System and a need to leave their lives on Earth behind for refuge in the stars. Their driving theology was based upon a passage in Aṅguttara Nikāya, the Sermon of the Seven Suns. In this passage, Buddha described the ultimate fate of the world in an apocalypse that will be characterized by the consequent appearance of seven suns in the sky, each causing progressive ruin until the Earth is destroyed. This vision of oncoming destruction and ruin caused panic for many Buddhists and non-Buddhists as the date of the so-called end approached some time after 4600.

Other Buddhists rejected the Sermon of the Seven Suns as either too far in the future to care or not of any concern to any devout Buddhist. Nevertheless, the Temple's thought leaders managed to persuade millions of their sincerity primarily in the Chinese arcologies and the Sumatran Space Elevator. The Commonwealth military junta was wary of the rise of this new religion, but since the Seven Suns Temple did not openly oppose the Commonwealth, the government tolerated it.

As the Commonwealth Wars began, the Seven Suns Temple mobilized to leave for the stars with the first few destinations for refuge from the future apocalypse. These first destinations would be Barnard's Star b and Zhu Que. The arrival of the first Seven Suns adherents would be very different in both cases. Seven Suns adherents arrived on Barnard's Star b in 3466 before the coming of the Commonwealth, and they settled down easily into the planet's disparate communities. Meanwhile, the Seven Suns adherents who arrived in Zhu Que were apprehended by Directorate forces and were imprisoned as possible spies for decades before being released.

The initial difficulties with Zhu Que did not dissuade the Seven Suns Temple from furthering their agenda to leave the Solar System, and Temple adherents continued their migration out of Earth. Most of the Temple adherents would end up in Zhu Que even throughout the Commonwealth Wars though others would go to the Trappist System and the Gliese 832 System. These new parts of the Temple would experience great hardships during the Commonwealth Wars and the following Great Interstellar War, but most would persevere through the upheavals. More mainline Buddhists would continue to criticize the Temple for its beliefs, but the religions would have a less adversarial relationship as time went on.

The Temple's most recent arrival has been on Ross 128 b where their presence has grown significantly in the last century. In the wake of deregulation and the collapse of the Commonwealth's interstellar holdings, the Seven Suns Temple settled on Ross 128 b in large numbers after being previously barred by the occupation government. Seven Suns members on Ross 128 b have met resistance from the locals but no violence so far.

Current Era

In more recent times, the Seven Suns Temple managed to successfully move many of its members on Earth to locations outside the Solar System, largely fulfilling its original goal. The Temple has largely integrated well into its new homes across the cosmos, and its adherents are comfortable in the knowledge that they avoided Armageddon.

Structure

The Seven Suns Temple is similar to Buddhism in that it is a decentralised religion with no clergy outside orders of monks though thought leaders did exist for the Temple in its earlier days. Laypeople practice similarly to other Buddhists, just with more emphasis on escaping the future entropy on Earth.

Membership

The Seven Suns Temple’s driving ideal is movement out of the Solar System has led to the religion's migration to exoplanets. The most common destinations of Seven Suns Temple are Ross 128 b, Tezuka, and Zhu Que with Ross 128 b having the highest proportion at almost one-third of the population and Zhe Que having the largest single population. Meanwhile, Barnard's Star b, Zilong, Tranquility, and some other places hold smaller Seven Sun Temple populations. The laypeople of the Temple usually prefer to immigrate to inhabited planets while monks prefer to establish monasteries in more isolated places.