Calanthites

During the the Golden Millennium, the breadth of modern civilization stretched throughout our home galaxy, crossing multiple moons, planets, and satellites. Populating this civilization were multiple races of peoples, including but not limited to humans, AI, and of course, Cystarians.

These peoples, in the manner in which peoples often do, condensed into groups with differing motives and goals. To this end, religion is often one of the strongest forces in determining how people group together. In the ages before the start of the golden millennium, humanity underwent an explosion of religious fervor among the populations of the world, condensing into two primary groups: The Calanthites and the Nymphaeaceaens. Few small religions survived this massive and powerful condensation of human mental focus, and as such the religions which were most strongly represented within these groups were ones which initially held a large constituency, such as Islam or Hinduism.

In contrast to the Nymphaeaceaens, the Calanthites consisted of a coalition of the Abrahamic religions, with the 3 primary ones being the majority. The ubiquity of the religions among states became so strong that groups began working with each other across state lines so frequently and for such a long time that the idea of statehood largely faded among the minds of many people. In this way, the division between the Calanthites and the Nymphaeaceaens came to replace the division of borders and states, and humanity began to fall entirely into these two groups. While conflict persisted between the two, humanity was united so much more strongly as a whole that they were able to accomplish feats never before thought possible when humanity was still weak and divided by simple geography. While this new division was based on ideology, the fact that this ideology happened to be religion was also essential to progress. As the coalition condensed, the religions focused their devotion behind a single religious figure, Abraham, the first of the great prophets of change. By utilizing this figure, the leaders of the coalition were able to manipulate the simple devotion of the humans into a single-minded drive, a focus of productivity on a single goal in a way that had never been realistic before. This drive was so powerful, it became to be known as the lance of the ram, an unstoppable force of willpower which could break through seemingly impossible barriers. In fact, some members of the Nymphaeaceaen rationalists reported observations which seem to support manipulations of the fabric of reality through naught but willpower.

The Calanthites largely oversaw humanity's expansion into space, with a Calanthian craft holding the title of first human-manned vessel to pass beyond the edge of the solar system, and actually reach its destination with living crew. However, this expansion may have been led more by the foolishness of the Altitudinarian Fragment rather than any intelligent design.

-Crassius Hadrana