User Guide

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critics are quick to point out that this treasure was not saved merely for the
benefit of humanity. Since 2177, the works collected in the L.A.N. have been
protected under the existing salvage laws of the GCC, and are no longer consid-
ered to be “in the Public Domain”. Many irreplaceable classics of human art
and literature are thus copyrighted to the Church in perpetuity, and every read-
er of Charles Dickens, William Butler Yeats and Joseph Conrad must pay royal-
ties to the church.
The ancient Order also preserved the Spicelegium Dei, “God’s Gleaning”, which
consists of over 700,000 cryogenically preserved tissue samples of human,
plant, and animal life on Earth. The S.D. has been replicated many thousands
of times since 2157, and is still archived by scholars of the Order on Earth,
Europa (Sol 5B), and Proxima 3. It has yet to be surpassed as a reference
library of uncorrupted genetic material from before the Age of Chaos.
Historians estimate that the Order’s underground shelters were opened in the
year 2097, just 48 months after the destruction of the Old World. Although
radiation levels were still dangerous, the brothers and sisters of the Order
quickly realized that the world above them had not been completely destroyed,
and that there were many survivors in need of help. Although their shelters
were not set to open for another fifteen years, the Order opened its doors and
returned to the surface early, hoping to make a difference to the billions of
refugees and convert them to the cause in the process. During the last six
months of a bitter nuclear winter, the Church set up way stations around the
globe to provide shelter to the homeless, and share its remaining supplies with
those in need.
Throughout the Age of Chaos, the Order of the New Dawn built and fortified
over 130 Sanctuaries world-wide. These facilities served many functions in
that dangerous age: to minister to the sick and starving, to provide shelter to
the weary and destitute, to educate the young, and to spread the teachings of
the New Dawn Bible. The most important function of the Sanctuaries, howev-
er, was to keep the peace; it was during these years that the armed forces
branch of the Church, the Pax Dei, was established. During this time the Vox
Dei and Manus Dei helped to reclaim thousands of hectares of farmland, and
began carefully supervised breeding programs to re-create many species of
livestock. By luck, faith, or just cold, shrewd sense, the Order came out of the
second Dark Age as the pre-eminent political and spiritual power on Earth.
Unfortunately for the long-term plans of the Order, although the 16 Minutes’
War killed hundreds of millions, destroyed dozens of great cities and brought
the human race very nearly to its knees, the long twilight of chaos was not
enough to kill many major Corporations. By the year 2157, several of these
mighty juggernauts had risen from the ashes, and were once again uniting vast
sections of the Earth under the terms of peace and profit. When the new
Global Central Command was established, the Order of the New Dawn consid-
ered it more of a Free Trade organization than an actual powerful ruling body.
This changed when the GCC passed the “Religious Constraint Agreement”-a
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The second branch of the Order is much smaller than the Manus Dei, but with-
out them, no branch of the Order could exist. The Pax Dei, as they are
known—the “Peace of God”, in common tongue-is a standing security force of
over 90 million men and women. These soldiers form the colonial armies of
the New Dawn and see themselves as the Holy Defenders of the Faith, dedicat-
ed to protecting the Order and its interests on Earth and throughout the
galaxy. Members of the Pax Dei provide policing and security for the Order’s
settlements on no fewer than fourteen worlds, and they are also called to pro-
vide pilots and crew for any and all vessels belonging to the Church. Given
their grounding in the faith of the New Dawn, Pax Dei troops have a very high
morale factor under fire and will often fight to the last soldier unless directly
ordered to retreat.
The third and final branch of the Order is the Vox Dei, “the Voice of God”, and
functions as the spiritual arm of the church. Members of the Vox include
Ministers, Astronomers and Inquisitors. The Order only allows men to join the
ranks of the Vox Dei, and only after many months of continuous indoctrination.
The Ministers effectively rule the Order and make all strategic decisions, both
economic and military. The Sacred Astronomers are the priest-scientists of the
Order, and guide both the exploration of new worlds and research into new
technologies. The Inquisition is the Order’s internal police force and intelligence
division, and their task is to examine threats to the spiritual purity of the Order
from without and within. A sub-branch of the Inquisition trains the Battle-
Priests; these men accompany most military units to observe behavior in com-
bat, and make sure field commanders are issuing orders that are “spiritually
correct”. The Vox Dei is the smallest of the 3 Order branches, and numbers
slightly over 10 million personnel.
History
Little is known of the earliest days of the Order, which was founded in the trou-
bled years before the Sixteen Minutes’ War. Although it is believed that the
great majority of the Order’s pre-war records survived the nuclear exchange on
March 27, 2093 intact, they are believed to have been lost in the intervening
centuries. Today we know only that The Order of the New Dawn was founded
by a small coalition of men and women of Faith, who united in common cause
during the dark days of the latter 21st century. Foreseeing the coming cata-
clysm, these early cultists dedicated themselves to preserving as much tech-
nology and knowledge as possible, in order to bring about a New Dawn after
the inevitable holocaust. Many analysts have observed that without the Sixteen
Minutes’ War, the Order would have been just another apocalyptic cult.
But the End of the Civilized World did indeed come, and the proto-Order was
ready for it—and even the corporations, no matter what they may think of the
Order in the present day, do not deny the dept all of humanity owes them. The
greatest prize saved by the Order was the Liber Aurorae Novae, the Book of
the New Dawn: millions of digitally stored books, recordings, and images, which
members of the Order chose to save from the coming holocaust. Of course,
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