Great Bull

The Gereyet Bulle /geh-REH-yet bull-eh/ is a religious taboo against a wide range of technology seen as being dangerous to Creation, and hence contempuous of the Creator. The name is Edenic for "Great Bull," meaning a sealed (and hence unalterable) letter. Violations of the Gereyet Bulle are seen as mortal sins and capital crimes.

History

Since the Cataclysm, the people on Istedden have always maintained folk belief that machines were the cause of the destruction. Scientists were morally suspect, and anything that combined fire and gears was the work of the devil. Around 20BR, however, scientists, lead by the brilliant Smeight Ranhandall, discovered procedures to influence the growth of living things through mind awareness. Lifetech was born. Smeight and his colleagues were aware that their discovery placed their lives in danger, and, like all Istedden scientists, they strove to be quiet and discrete. But their discovery was too momentous to be secret for long. News spread like a virus among scientists, strange lifeforms were seen performing miraculous deeds, and eventually Smeight was exposed. An angry mob, led by a dissolute soldier whose name is not recorded, stormed Smeight's lab, and cast him and his creations upon a raging bonfire.

The soldier, however, was peculiarly moved by what he found.

Here, in this candyshop of perdition, where I had expected acids and oils, gears, machines, smoking and clanking and uttering blasphemies in a voice of poisonous vapor, what did I find but life. Life. Blooming, green, pink, wet and slimy, life.

Smeight's discoveries did not die with him. Scientists worked on nothing else, the trade in lifetech bloomed, and the younger generation began to think that science held promise for the world. Lifetech, and oldtech, both.

In the Year One, the unnamed soldier who killed Smeight had a revelation. He cast off his name, and called himself De Pennikutent, /duh peh-NIH-kuh-tent/ The Penitent. He preached that people should accept the lifetech as holy, and reject the oldtech as wicked. In the Year Four he released a letter describing precisely how people were to conduct themselves to live a Godly Life and respect the Creation. The letter was messianic in tone, expecting an imminent apocalypse, and the view that history was near an end. The Cataclysm had been the Creator's last warning. When He comes in judgement again, if he finds his Creation abused, He will take it away. If he finds it cared for, He will welcome his children home. Hence, humanity had a last chance in the last (latter) days of history.

This letter was covered with a sheet of transparent shell, and the shell sealed to the paper with a rope of clay pressed with De Pennikutent's seal—a bulle /BUH-leh/ or bull.

In the Year 5, The government of Istedden, fearing the popularity of De Pennikutent, rolled out their newest secret weapon: four steam-powered jitneys with gatling guns in a shielded turret. They attacked a gathering where the Penitent was preaching, and massacred over 400, including the Penitent. The effort was their undoing, however, as the people rose up in a massive rebellion. Several of his disciples used their new lifetech wing-packs to fly into the capital's fortress, where they opened the gates for the mob, and overthrew the governor.

Interpretations

The transition from a radical millennialism to an official government was a difficult one, and the Greyet Bulle, so clear as a denunciation, was difficult to administer as law. Over the next several years, a series of interpretations were made by the religious leaders, known collectively as de Argeimentez /ar-GEE-yih-MEN-tez/, the arguments. De Argeimentez spell out in more precise terms what constitutes a violation of the words of the Gereyet Bulle.

In the Year 42, the original clay bulle cracked. To preserve it, the clay belle was covered with a layer of lead, and impressed with the seals of fourteen patriarchs. Curiously, this event marked symbolically the end of the period of prophechy. The official understanding of the Bulle was now fixed. Subsequent interpretations are therefore known as Diskushiyunez /dis-KUH-shi-YUN-ez/, or discussions. Diskushiyunez can be disputed by subsequent Diskushiyunez, can be ignored by judges, and can be overruled by considerations of de Argeimentez.

Both de Argeimentez and Diskushiyunez are arguments among religious thinkers, and are applied across the Known Worlds. There are also, on the local level, political laws and judicial traditions, which use these as a foundation.

Specific rulings

Machines

Mashikunez /ma-SHI-kuh-nez/ are taboo. A mashikunez is any device "with fire or sunderbelod inside." The "fire" prohibition outlaws all steam engines, internal combustion engines, and atomic power, but it also, according to Jodenje's Lekeqr te de Far Sesitty (EF: an Argeimentez), prohibits hot air baloons, and there is a case of a Semithe Qames executed in 72 for creating a device that turned a roast by putting a windmill in the path of the hot air in his chimney. There are whole chapters in de argeimentez on whether or not a chimney, iron stove, or lamp is a mashikunez. The distinction made hinges on whether the fire is intended to do any work other than be a fire. Had Semithie put the windmill in the path of a breeze he could have enjoyed his dinner unmolested, but in the chimney it was a Mashikunez. Clockwork, similarly, is not prohibited.

Sunderbelod (EF: literally "Thunderblood," usually translated as Electricity) also defines a Mashikunez. At the time of the Bulle, the powering of a Mashikunez with Sunderbelod was limited, even in the imagination, to heat and lighting. The link between sunderbelod and magnetism had been forgotten, and hence the notion of a Sunderbelod Engine, while a part of tales, was not even a theory. This discovery, in 99, resulted in an entire volume of Diskushionez. According to the bulk of the opinion, the use of a magnetized ore is not taboo, in the same way that the use of a fire is not taboo, if it is used as a magnet. Public opinion generally holds that magnets are, if not wicked, both bad taste and bad luck. If the magnet is used for any purpose beyond simple attraction, especially if used to generate sunderbelod in a metal wire, it is a Mashikunez. The creation of sunderbelod for a thunderbolt, is, according the 17th Essa uv Qames Maretr, not a Mashinukez. In later years, however, as the possibility of thunderbolt weapons has arisen, so has a debate about whether they constitute a "weapon of destruction." A clear answer has not emerged, but seems to be heading toward resolving on the origin of the sunderbelod. If lifetech, it is not a weapon of destruction. If by some other means, such as a "Qanneh's Engine," (named after the late Qanneh Fered, who was lynched for his brilliance in creating a thunderbolt from a clockwork device employing a rubber rope on rapidly rotating wheels powered by a falling weight) it is.

Weapons

"Weapons of destruction" are a mortal sin. Determining precisely what is a weapon of destruction or not is subject to some bureaucracy. Any gun designed to make multiple shots quickly is, clearly, not a hunting tool, and so is considered a sin. This includes revolvers, but not double-barrelled guns, which are useful in the hunting of aggressive animals. Explosives are weapons of destruction, but blackpowder (which can, of course, be detonated by the barrel-load), is again a hunting tool. There is no mention, and so no prohibition, on bladed weapons. Cannon are taboo, but the Gereyet Bulle offers no discrimination of what makes a cannon. One early argeimentez defines a gun as any weapon intended to be fired in the hand, and a cannon as any weapon intended to be fired upon the ground. Later interpretations have allowed "guns" of enormous caliber, firing "bullets" the size of watermelons, equipped with handgrips, and so "intended" to be fired in the hand, even if no one is present (or indeed, has ever been born) who could actually lift it.