Interlude: The Second Schism.
First of all, tell me – and without any questioning me – what do you know about the Second Schism, and about that which caused it? Just tell me what you have already heard, child, before you have been sent to me; what you have read and what the others, adults and children alike, have told you on this matter.
…
I see. So this is what you know, then, child. After the First Schism, the Nine High Godar went down to Destination, with their hammes and their hammes’ vassals. They founded the nine kuppelborgs and decided that there they may live unlike they did on the Fleet. They spread and expanded across the ribbon. They forced the other smaller hammes to yield to them completely and to join their networks. And they went back on the solemnity and austery of their ancestors, letting their discipline grow lax, founding ostentatious large temples and engaging in work unfit for warriors.
And then came the rebellion…
I see.
Yes, yes. The electronic, cerebral network that, since the early days of the Migration – if not sooner – bound together all the members of one hamme and made them all adhere to its laws and obey its godar as judge and warleader, was extended far beyond its earlier means, leading to abuses, malfunctions and dilution of authority. Order in the newly-made “greater hammes” broke down, and in the confusion, some of us managed to rebel, breaking our connections to them and reforming our old hammes together with those who would join us.
Thus were born the Free Hamme. Thus was born hamme Oswig.
This is false.
No, child, it did happen! But to explain it like that, like it is commonly explained among us, is to misunderstand the causes and effects involved. The story as it is usually told is this: that the Nine High Godar were insane with hubris, that after they broke the first laws by leaving the Fleet and settling on Destination, nothing else was sacred to them – not the boundaries between the hammes and not anything else. That they immediately set to arranging their own doom.
But that was not so, or rather, not exactly so.
It was simply that the laws we followed while in space were different both from the laws of the nine great kuppelborgs and from the laws of the Free Hamme. They applied well on the fleets, when we were locked into our ships, bound together by needs of travel and survival, yet separated clearly by space. It was much easier to remain disciplined and orderly when the most immediately apparent necessities of life demanded it. And the networks, as they were back then, worked much better in those traditional and enclosed environments.
The Nine High Godar sought power and fame. They did not seek to bring the social order down around them. No, on the contrary; when they came down to Destination and constructed their domed cities, they wanted to preserve as much of the old order as was feasible.
Did you know that the first thing they did was reform the Logsogumadur? Did you know that to this day, they – their successors, anyway – still have the Leidangr, however weakened and diluted, hard at work trying to police their overgrown, half-abandoned cities that were to be the monuments to their glory and piety? It isn’t just a higher inquisition now, of course. They are what was once called a police force; something that never existed on the Fleet and never existed among us. But this is what the Leidangr had to become in those circumstances.
They do not have a Lagting – a supreme war council – but not for lack of trying. It’s just that none of them would ever trust the other enough to follow their command. In a common campaign, the godar involved would still have to share authority, of course. But the nine cities have not fought together since the Second Schism... They do still have an Allthing, greatly lessened in size though it still is, of course. They know they cannot afford to fight each other. Certainly not with how many weapons they have stocked.
And that is why they are a dead end. But more on that later.
So how did their intentions falter, then, you ask? It was not such a quick thing. The High Godar did not seek to expand the network to their vassal hammes as long as they were mindful of their status; in fact, they anticipated some of the problems it might cause. Nor did they even try to make the hamme interact among each other more than was standard while in space. Quite on the contrary; the kuppelborgs were divided into central and outer quarters; the nine great hamme, the ruling hamme, occupied the larger central area, for they were more numerous and they were in charge; the others settled outwards and were largely left to their own devices. The great repositories of knowledge were copied from the ships to the libraries. The virtual remnants of our documented ancestors were moved to new necropoleis. Great habitats were constructed, and gardens grown. Robotic factories were constructed. Production rates and population growth were both enhanced, for it all could be afforded, and the cities themselves grew.
And this state of peace and growth steadily caused all to despair, for it became apparent – whether it was admitted or not – that coming here was a mistake. For our purpose was lost, and there was no end to work towards. They say that the people in those kuppelborgs were hedonists and that their civil and martial discipline grew lax – and there were instances of that, it is true. But that wasn’t so important as the actions of their kin, who had despaired in a different direction. When godar and jerls despaired, they spent weeks in prayer and conversations with their ancestors, and could not find what they ought to do, now that (as they believed) their journey was over. It was in their panic that they erected those huge temples, hoping to prove themselves more worthy and their faith more pure than that of their opponents – and of those who moved beyond them, whom they secretly envied. And they added new laws to their hamme, and their vassals, forbidding a great many things that had been common sources of entertainment on the ships. This only caused resentment and lack of understanding, and was difficult to enforce.
Why? For a simple reason, which I may digress to explain right now. The networks did not fail simply because there were more Ysir than ever before included in them. No, even before the annexations and the population boom had started, it became apparent that it was far harder for the network to function as it once did on the ships, guaranteeing a clear hierarchy and total obedience on command. The planet was not well-studied enough; it often simply disrupted the signals, and even when this was accounted for, it was entirely easy to wander out of the network’s reach. Trying to reinforce the network by making laws and controls stricter only made it work worse. Indeed, before long…
Before too long, people have found that they could often resist it. Of course, the lawbreaking of the godar caught up with them as well. Having once gone against tradition, they now found it difficult to appeal to it to regain respect. And the network alone can only do so much, in the end. Especially as it was then.
So long before the annexations and the rise of the Free Hamme, the kuppelborgs were already breaking down. And here another thing may be refuted, that the people had grown lax. No. They were tempted to grow lax, but for the most part, this temptation had only led to more despair. Some, true, found escape in secret hedonism and intemperance. But others, and they were more numerous, instead took to trying to retain their fighting spirit by taking up arms and starting to fight. They fought each other and they fought other Ysir, saying they did this to keep them all in shape for the Naggarok, and before long they ended up fighting the godar and the jerls as well. Except for those of the jerls who took charge themselves.
That was when the Leidangr became a police force, trying to keep down this unexpected and confusing heresy. But how did you think they went about it? Exactly. The kuppelborgs sank into a state of undeclared civil war, kept from exploding further only by the knowledge that then, either side will have to destroy the kuppelborgs altogether – and neither one was quite ready for it yet.
And as for the lesser hamme, they weren’t as affected by all of this directly. But they, too, increasingly ended up in the crossfires, and became increasingly aware of the wrongness of this Destination – at least, some of them did. And then a few tried to escape back into space.
It was a desperate and ill-considered decision. And though some still regret that it has failed, I, truly, do not. It was God’s hand that kept us here. Remember this!
So the conspiracy to escape was revealed by the Leidangr and crushed as a heresy at the Planetary Allthing. And then the hamme were annexed. Autonomous in name and somewhat free in deed, they were subordinated and added to the networks of their overlords. But… yes. The networks were already not as they were in the past, despite the best efforts of the rulers’ engineers. We were kept on the planet, but we were not to be contained in those domed cities.
What happened then, you do know. The networks failed worse and worse, until we managed to break them entirely. There was confusion, anarchy and terror, and some of the old hammes did cease to exist back then. But hamme Oswig – and those from hamme Irkner and its other vassal hamme who joined us – left, as did several others world-wide. And then the Nine Great Godar restored order in their battered and reduced cities.
Yet it was never the same, in the cities or on the planet. The old big cities themselves really did become more united (each one is now a hamme for all intents and purposes, even if old divisions still pretend that they exist) and more diluted than ever before, and really did succumb to hedonism. The networks were patched up, but uncertainty reigned; strict laws were in place and seldom enforced. The despair subsided somewhat, and I hear that some in the old kuppelborgs do believe that they are to enter an era of change and become unlike they were before. But even if they do… what of it? They would simply cease to be Ysir, or cease to be at all. This does not matter to us either way.
The Free Hamme have spread all over the unsettled parts of the ribbons. We founded our own, smaller yet more orderly and viable borg. We rebuilt our networks and made them sturdier, yet more versatile and less strict. We revised our customs to better fit our new existence. We made new laws, and have decreed that we shall never settle for good, but will guard our borgs and lands until we’re ready to move on. We will train and we will raid and skirmish, and we will prepare until the time is right.
A time will come – perhaps quite soon – when the decadence of the nine kuppelborgs will reach its utmost limits, and the Free Hamme will fall upon them and seize their resources and factories. And the Free Hamme will reform Lagting and abolish the Leidangr, and under joint leadership – yet still with distinct kinship – we will raise old ships of war and build new ones. We shall leave this planet, and go forth to make war upon the universe as is our calling, and wait for the signs that will point us to our true destiny. Destination and Naggarok await us – in good time, not in space.
What? How will it be different from before? …Be silent, Helgi. Sometimes it is better to be silent than to be right.
This segment is done, though, but I'm starting to get closer to the story I actually wanted to tell.
If you want to ask me a few questions, I'll be on #nes for the next 8 hours or so.
