IN> Celestials Unchained

[Moe Lane]

http://moeticae.typepad.com/weblog_licentiae_moeticae/2008/01/celestials-unch.html

Celestials Unchained

For a secret society that recruits equally (and pretty much
exclusively) from Outcasts and Renegades, Celestials Unchained is
surprisingly active; and for a group deemed by both Heaven and Hell to
be collectively and profoundly insane, it is surprisingly effective.
It is generally assumed that the latter is despite the society's core
beliefs, not because of them; Celestials Unchained has a worldview
that draws from conspiracy theory, clinical paranoia and profound
nihilism, and it shows.  It's very difficult for a non-Remnant
celestial to degrade to the level of a homeless human ranting about
mind control rays, but the members of CU are up to the challenge.
Indeed, they often surpass it.

And yet, the group persists.

Purpose and Goals

Survival.

Beliefs

Some would say that there are as many different conspiracy theories as
there are members of CU; this is not precisely untrue, but there seem
to be three main themes.

The War is a Lie
The Rebellion was all of Heaven against God... which succeeded; the
leaders of the Rebellion defeated their Creator and subsequently
divided up the universe.  New Superiors are made by carving off a
piece of the still-captive Almighty and incorporating it into the new
Archangel or Demon Prince; in other words, everybody important on both
sides is in on it.  Everybody.  And there's no Higher Heavens, either:
go up Jacob's Ladder and you end up in the Lower Hells, where you'll
be quickly harvested as God-food.  Not that they care about the
Creator as such, but no God, no new Superiors.

Frighteningly enough, this is the mild version; the really paranoid
believers in this theory think that becoming a Word-Bound entails
having a Superior eat your soul and use your husk as a sock puppet.

Heaven and Hell are Lies
There are no angels.  There are no demons.  There are no ethereals.
There's just a conspiracy to make you believe that.

It's all about the psionic abilities, you see.  They knew that people
unlocking the secrets of the mind would result in the loss of Their
cozy little hold on the world, so they went looking for the gifted.
When They found them: chips in the head, sub-dermal time-release
psychoactive drug dispensers, MK-ULTRA mind-rape techniques... all the
latest tricks of the trade.  Couple that with the neural induction net
reverse-engineered from the crashed saucers in Area 51, and voila!
They had your candidates to be 'angels' and 'demons'.  All that's left
is to condition them to not use their powers too openly and to obey
whatever marching orders come from their so-called 'Superiors' (a
little too cute of Them).  It's really quite clever, in a deeply
depraved sort of way.

Reality itself is a lie
Look, just think about it for a moment, OK?  Roman Catholic and Muslim
"Archangels" who don't know whether Jesus and Mohammed were what they
said they were.  "Demon Princes" drawing their power from the mystical
potential in heroin and television sets.  Every convoluted trope
involving Heaven, Hell, God, religion: all thrown into a blender and
the puree button hit.  The Archangel of Creation just happens to be
this stoner-type guy - with dreadlocks, forsooth! - that gets away
from breaking all the rules; and the Princess of Freedom just happens
to be this really, really hot human chick who gets away with breaking
all the rules, despite their nominal keepers... who are themselves
caricatures of parodies of distortions of the Law.

Does this sound like a natural sort of reality?  Or does it sound more
like a constructed one - and one not that well-planned out, at that?

Maybe The Matrix was some sort of subconscious projection from the
collective unconscious, or maybe it's a sign of contempt from the
Hidden Masters, or maybe it's even an Easter Egg to a really cool
power-up, but any way you look at it, it's a clue to what's really
going on.  We're all in a collective, artificial hallucination; the
only thing to do is work out whether it's a prison or a game.  Oh,
yeah, and to find out whether we're players or just ghosts in the
machine.

Organization and Resources

The centerpiece of a Celestials Unchained cell is the notebook that
one of them always keeps.   In it is everything that the CU cell has
discovered about What's Really Going On, whether personally or by
communicating with other CU cells. Other cell members are expected to
keep a copy of the notebook for their own reference, as well as a
backup in case something goes badly for a particular cell.

Those notebooks are pretty much all the organization that CU has above
the local level.  There are no guarantees for accuracy: the Seraphim
members of the group typically do not trust their own resonance (which
is pretty much a working definition for 'mad' right there) and the
protean nature of most CU cells makes it impossible for all of their
members to stay equally informed inside the cell, let alone outside of
it.  On the other hand, an abandoned notebook in the right hands can
spontaneously generate a new cell overnight - this has actually
happened on several occasions.

As for resources... well, each cell has a notebook.

Celestial Relations

Heaven and Hell

Servitors on both sides of the War look upon Celestials Unchained with
the same mixture of horror, revulsion, pity, and disquiet: the only
real difference is that angels won't automatically call in a strike
team afterwards unless they encounter a confirmed demon.  Then again,
they might call in one anyway, if they find an excuse... and
certifiably insane celestials are good at generating excuses for a
direct action response.  Even servants of the least violent Superiors
react very badly to CU.  They might not attack, but they will go out
of their way afterwards to either avoid or get rid of whatever cell
they encounter.

Soldiers and even Saints are often slightly confused by this
apparently universal attitude, as it seems disproportionate to the
actual situation.  It seems that the condition that CU cell members
suffer from oddly resonates with their saner colleagues.  A normal
angel or demon will find the ravings of a member of CU almost
understandable; there is always just the slightest hint that there
really is a point to the ravings and the digressions and the
ramblings.  Listen too long, and the mere act of trying to winnow
sense out of the nonsense itself becomes somewhat disturbing.  While
there is no indication that whatever it is that afflicts CU is
contagious, celestials find it sensible to keep a certain distance.

Others

Ethereals and Sorcerers will sometimes use CU cells for their own
purposes: members have a variety of intrinsic esoteric abilities at
hand, and never underestimate the attraction of being able to actually
manipulate an angel or a demon (even a quite mad one).  Ethereals are
usually capable enough to be able to maintain a relationship for an
extended period of time; Sorcerers generally are not.

History

Actual madness among angels and demons has always been rare (Habbalah
are a special case; interestingly, they are under-represented in CU),
and those who do demonstrate insanity usually get either cured or
killed off quickly.  It's not entirely surprising, then, that
Celestials Unchained only really became organized some time in the
18th Century AD.  It took a burgeoning human population to provide
them the conditions under which they could hide unnoticed long enough
to find each other, and organize.  Why the group survives, even in its
particularly fragmented fashion, is another question.    Presumably,
no Superior has ever cared enough about CU to do something about it.
Alternatively, there may very little that a Superior can do about it;
if the group is the reflection of a particular form of madness unique
to celestials, merely eliminating or curing the current members of it
will not keep something very much like the current group from arising
later.

It would be about now that the usual quasi-mysterious statement along
the lines of "Besides, they might be actually right" would be uttered
- except that no celestial who encounters this group without being
seduced into it right away really believes that.  Insane?  Yes.
Dangerous?  Possibly.  Correct?  Not a chance.


-- 
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