The Church of the Unborn

Figure 1

Nilankha

Ersta 11, 234 AC

The artifacts you see in Figure 1 are called "finials," and they are architectural features from a structure built in one of the strangest passages of recent pre-Crossing history. They were placed at the point of carved and molded pinnacles which surmounted a building that was the headquarters of a cult that flourished on the racially and ethnically mixed world of Algonar. The purpose was not just decorative, but also practical and symbolic. They served as lightning rods to protect the temple's towers, and also were meant to call to mind biological necessity. As you can see, they are symbolic of male generative power, and the one on the left is meant to represent a sperm cell.

They are made of a strong but conductive metal, and over the years outdoors acquired a greenish patina. No doubt they had been struck by lightning many times in the turbulent weather of that part of Algonar. About fifty of these finials are known to exist on New Earth, having been brought through the Gateway by museum institutions or private owners. You can see one at the University of Surakosai's "Ingathering and Migration" display and research area.

Noantri and Other-humans on Algonar coexisted in a troubled relationship. Outbreaks of racial/species violence were common and the Noantri of the major cities retreated into ghettos or reservations, though their labor and talents were continually employed by the Other-humans. The cult-building was located on the border of one of the largest Noantri urban colonies, in Algonar City, the largest city on its namesake world. 

The cult's origins arose in the inequality between Noantri and Other-humans, especially that of fertility and population growth. Unlike our own reproductive systems, those of the Other-humans were almost constantly fertile. Those who wanted offspring - and those who didn't - were quickly endowed with progeny. The result was that the Noantri birth rate was much lower than that of our neighbors. The Noantri realized that they would, in time, be outbred by the Other-humans and lose their already precarious position in Algonar society. Given the difficulties of cloning and genetic engineeering, how could the Noantri increase their numbers in a natural and economically feasible way?

And so was born the cult which built the church of the bio-finials. It arose from earlier fertility cults practiced by both Noantri and Other-humans, but this new form was much more organized and persuasive. It built its power on the fear of annihilation, and perhaps the love of children. The cult quickly took root among Noantri of both sexes, and came to be called the "Church of the Unborn," although it was also called the "Church of the Holy Child" by its female followers. A well-organized funding structure emerged, directed towards financial support for mothers and children. Algonar's other-humans often aborted or abandoned their children, since they bred more than they could support, but the Noantri Church attempted to make sure that no Noantri child would suffer that fate. The social welfare aspect of the Church of the Unborn assured its success, and in a few decades they were wealthy enough to build themselves a temple. 

The temple is well documented in a number of Algonar internet planispheres, especially Planisphere 24 which compiles a database of cults and sects. A video walk-through shows us the magnificent though strange environment within the cavernous space. Within the temple, it was as if one entered a vast womb. The tall pale colonnade to either side resembled bones, supporting a vaulted space of dark gleaming textures. Red glass clerestory windows high up in the walls turned the grey daylight of Algonar into courses of blood. As you advanced towards the central ritual space on the open floor, you entered into a zone of quiet, muffled by thick hangings of red sound-absorbing fabric, undulating in the slow-moving air of the enclosure. 

Along the sides of the main nave were subsidiary chapels where one could contemplate the wonders of Noantri biology, including visual environments designed not only to inform visitors but to engage their emotions, intensifying their desire to carry on the life of the people. The central ritual space was an island of golden light in this involuted world of red, and as you approached it you heard, softly, the sound of a beating heart, the heart of the Mother. She appears above the altar, suspended in her golden swirls of tapestry, her compassionate face looking down on the worshippers, beckoning them to follow her path and attain the ideal. I have no children myself, but perhaps this vision might have changed my mind! The temple's "pilgrims" included those who had already chosen, mothers with awe-struck children, some of the mothers already pregnant with another child. It was a woman's space, above all, and very few men, even if they were fathers, dared to trespass there. 

If you did choose the path of the Mother, the church organization was there to help you. Around the plaza of the temple were establishments, supported by donations from the community, to support the women who wanted to bring more Noantri into the world. There were pre-natal clinics, pregnancy and birthing places, and residences for the new mothers and children. This was a Second Recognition society, and most males did not have much contact with the females after their impregnation, so the "sisters" of the church, as it were, also became its administrators and helpers while their children were still infants, in return for child care. The statistics of this era of the cult are hard to discover, but during its heyday, it is possible that thousands of Noantri children were brought into the world at this site and at satellite sites around the Noantri colonies on Algonar. These new Noantri were often fostered out as they grew older, so that they could receive education and support outside the oppression of the city.

As a student of the dismal social sciences might suspect, this situation could not last very long. It was the expense and upkeep of the Temple itself that set off the underlying instability of the church, but the other main influence in its ultimate destruction was the shocking new factor of the Ingathering, and the visitors who came to prophesy a new destiny for the Noantri...

Part two will follow.