Order of the Five Pillars: Friend or Foe? 11/17/3133
INN - Interstellar News Network
They are an ancient order, cloaked in mystery, at once feared and reviled in their
native realm. Often misunderstood by those who lie beyond the borders of the worlds
they call home, who view them as some ancient order of mystics and monks, their
humble beginnings almost fly in the face of the powerhouse of knowledge,
spiritualism, and unity they have become.
They are the Order of the Five Pillars, the often-overlooked eyes and ears of House
Kurita.
Not to be confused with the regiment of the same name which now fights under the
banner of the recently formed Dragon’s Fury faction, the origin of the real Order of
the Five Pillars—often shortened to O5P—goes back centuries, to the very first
Coordinator of House Kurita’s Draconis Combine. Omi Kurita, daughter of the
Combine’s founder, Shiro Kurita, became the first leader of the Order when she
penned the original version of the Combine’s Dictum Honorium, a code of conduct
for House Kurita that remains the foundation of the Dragon’s social, religious, and
ideological precepts. According to the legend, Shiro himself commanded Om i to
compile these codes after the execution of her older sister, Shada, for soiling the
family’s honor. The Order of the Five Pillars arose first as a clerical staff to assist
Omi, the first “Keeper of the House Honor” in her task.
But over the centuries that followed, the O5P evolved from simply the official agency
of Kuritan cultural purity into an apparatus that spanned the stars and took on the
abilities of a secondary—often rival—intelligence agency to the Combine’s Internal
Security Force. Sanyu Kurita, the third Keeper of the House Honor, and a
controversial figure for her tendency to cast even the Kurita family in a less than
flattering light, began this evolution when she convinced the Coordinator to give her
order an exclusive control over the state’s ivory trade. This monopoly over a
seemingly trivial commodity provided a massive financial backing to the Order as well
as a pretext for expanding the Order itself among the stars, using the former ivory
trade network as a means of spreading the O5P’s word and its increasingly spiritual
influence.
It also began to turn the O5P into a true intelligence network, with their agents
(Adepts), and officers (Illuminati), forming contacts throughout the Combine’s
civilian, military, and noble circles. During the reign of the Von Rohrs Coordinators,
these contacts would allow the Order to hide and survive the bloody purges that
terrorized the people, to return from the shadows only after generations passed, when
Siriwan McAllister sat upon the throne. With their re-emergence, the O5P had become
a bona-fide secret service, saturating all levels of the populace, gathering intelligence,
and providing subtle and spiritual guidance for billions of Combine citizens.
Since then, they continued to evolve, their power arguably matching that of the ISF,
but known for far less deadly methods. Today, they remain a mysterious organization,
one with two faces. The public face, led by the Keeper of the House Honor, stands
for the moral and social stability of the Draconis Combine, the Ivory Pillar of House
Kurita’s society. The other face remains in the shadows, ever-present, ever-watchful,
and rarely seen or felt. Rumors abound about the Order today, with many whispered
innuendos suggesting its reach now exceeds that of the ISF, beyond the borders of
the Combine and into other realms. But are they merely passive watchers, guardians
of knowledge in the way ComStar did throughout the Succession Wars, or is there a
more sinister objective, an extension of the ancestral Kurita dream of one day
dominating all the worlds of mankind? Could there be a connection between this
‘uber’ society and the regiment now under the command of Katana Tormark? Is this
the proverbial tip of the iceberg of their activities?
These are the questions we must face as we enter a new era of darkness, where it
becomes difficult to know an ally from an enemy, a friend from a foe.
INN - Interstellar News Network
They are an ancient order, cloaked in mystery, at once feared and reviled in their
native realm. Often misunderstood by those who lie beyond the borders of the worlds
they call home, who view them as some ancient order of mystics and monks, their
humble beginnings almost fly in the face of the powerhouse of knowledge,
spiritualism, and unity they have become.
They are the Order of the Five Pillars, the often-overlooked eyes and ears of House
Kurita.
Not to be confused with the regiment of the same name which now fights under the
banner of the recently formed Dragon’s Fury faction, the origin of the real Order of
the Five Pillars—often shortened to O5P—goes back centuries, to the very first
Coordinator of House Kurita’s Draconis Combine. Omi Kurita, daughter of the
Combine’s founder, Shiro Kurita, became the first leader of the Order when she
penned the original version of the Combine’s Dictum Honorium, a code of conduct
for House Kurita that remains the foundation of the Dragon’s social, religious, and
ideological precepts. According to the legend, Shiro himself commanded Om i to
compile these codes after the execution of her older sister, Shada, for soiling the
family’s honor. The Order of the Five Pillars arose first as a clerical staff to assist
Omi, the first “Keeper of the House Honor” in her task.
But over the centuries that followed, the O5P evolved from simply the official agency
of Kuritan cultural purity into an apparatus that spanned the stars and took on the
abilities of a secondary—often rival—intelligence agency to the Combine’s Internal
Security Force. Sanyu Kurita, the third Keeper of the House Honor, and a
controversial figure for her tendency to cast even the Kurita family in a less than
flattering light, began this evolution when she convinced the Coordinator to give her
order an exclusive control over the state’s ivory trade. This monopoly over a
seemingly trivial commodity provided a massive financial backing to the Order as well
as a pretext for expanding the Order itself among the stars, using the former ivory
trade network as a means of spreading the O5P’s word and its increasingly spiritual
influence.
It also began to turn the O5P into a true intelligence network, with their agents
(Adepts), and officers (Illuminati), forming contacts throughout the Combine’s
civilian, military, and noble circles. During the reign of the Von Rohrs Coordinators,
these contacts would allow the Order to hide and survive the bloody purges that
terrorized the people, to return from the shadows only after generations passed, when
Siriwan McAllister sat upon the throne. With their re-emergence, the O5P had become
a bona-fide secret service, saturating all levels of the populace, gathering intelligence,
and providing subtle and spiritual guidance for billions of Combine citizens.
Since then, they continued to evolve, their power arguably matching that of the ISF,
but known for far less deadly methods. Today, they remain a mysterious organization,
one with two faces. The public face, led by the Keeper of the House Honor, stands
for the moral and social stability of the Draconis Combine, the Ivory Pillar of House
Kurita’s society. The other face remains in the shadows, ever-present, ever-watchful,
and rarely seen or felt. Rumors abound about the Order today, with many whispered
innuendos suggesting its reach now exceeds that of the ISF, beyond the borders of
the Combine and into other realms. But are they merely passive watchers, guardians
of knowledge in the way ComStar did throughout the Succession Wars, or is there a
more sinister objective, an extension of the ancestral Kurita dream of one day
dominating all the worlds of mankind? Could there be a connection between this
‘uber’ society and the regiment now under the command of Katana Tormark? Is this
the proverbial tip of the iceberg of their activities?
These are the questions we must face as we enter a new era of darkness, where it
becomes difficult to know an ally from an enemy, a friend from a foe.
| November 17, 3133 |
