The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3205

Chapter 3205: Truth and Myth

"Mythology is an amorphous beast." Shederin described as he paced around the room. "Whether people believe that myths truly occurred or not, they enrich a culture and serve as great ways to spread certain messages. Though myths had their heyday in times of antiquity, they have shown a surprising degree of resilience to this day. The rise of detailed recordkeeping and the enabling of accurate recording of facts has not stopped humanity's desire to know that their reality is a lot more fantastical than it appears."

He gazed at the various displays that were based around the symbols of the Larkinson Clan. From a relatively accurate depiction of the Golden Cat to a projection that froze the moment in time when the silhouette of the Superior Mother sent forth a wave of death that turned the Auralis into a ghost ship, the clan already built up quite a lot of exaggerated tales as well.

Ves leaned back in his chair as Lucky flew in his direction and landed on his lap.

"Meow."

"What are you trying to say?" He asked.

"No one knows who initiated the Vulcan Faith." The old man said as he continued to tour his own office. "Certainly, we know that the members of the original Dwarven Justice Movement founded the new religion, but they are quite clear about how they are merely following the directives of 'Vulcan', the supposed god who directly descended upon one of their own kind and assisted them in breaking their chains. This has resulted in a rather open-ended situation where the most authoritative source in this new church has left the stage early before he could establish any proper rules and doctrines."

Ves saw where this was going. "So the early followers just made up their own stuff to flesh out their new religion?"

Shederin nodded. "The records of those early days are patchy and inconsistent, but it is likely that the original escapees from Desala X became caught up in their own fervor and started to ascribe numerous phenomena to their new god. Now think about the nature of the initial members of the Dwarven Justice Movement. Do you think that they are idealistic students, well-educated freedom fighters or enlightened nobles?"

"No." Ves instantly answered. He knew exactly what those dwarves were like. "They were all former slaves who grew up in an underground heavy gravity settlement. Their former masters deliberately cut them off from the rest of the galaxy and only taught them the bare minimum they needed to operate all of the heavy mining equipment. I sincerely doubt their masters bothered to teach them about culture."

"Indeed. These are some of the lowest underclasses that you can find in civilized space. To be honest, their lot is still a lot better than others, but they were still far from capable of founding a proper religion. The result is that the Vulcan Faith that emerged from those chaotic days developed in an organic and uncontrolled manner. The untimely deaths of Rion Aaden and Gion Greybeard left behind a power vacuum that wasn't sorted out until much later on. In the meantime, dozens of authoritative individuals who all claim to have witnessed Vulcan's descent and heard his proclamations in person began to establish rules and customs they believe to be inspired by their god."

"And I bet that these enthusiastic dwarves didn't bother to check up on each other to make sure their instructions were compatible with each other."

"Yes. A large amount of contradictory doctrines emerged. The longer this went on, the more struggles took place. It led to an increasing amount of heated shouting and rowdy fistsfights. When the dwarves started to take up arms against their own brothers, a power struggle ensued where one faction managed to gain dominance. Gemina Greybeard emerged as the first high priestess of the Vulcan Faith and forcefully established a single canon that legitimized the best customs that had emerged from this time. Since her opinion mattered the most, she was able to dismiss every other tradition as apocrypha or invalid."

Ves never heard of Gemina Greybeard, but then again he never bothered to familiarize himself with each and every dwarf back on Desala X. With a name like hers, it shouldn't be too surprising that she managed to win the factional struggle within the group of escaped rebels by coasting on Gion Greybeard's name.

He snorted. "Why do I have the idea that it's not so simple?"

"You would be right to suspect that there was still a lot of discontent. The dwarves had very little experience in exercising proper leadership and control in those days. Several notable defeated rivals managed to escape and persist outside of the reach of what soon became known as the proper Vulcan Faith. One of them was a particularly radical dwarf who went by the name of Wikker Yellowshoe."

"Who?" Ves asked.

He certainly didn't recall a dwarf by that name either. Back when he underwent his last Mastery experience, he became too preoccupied with pursuing his own goals to pay a lot of attention to other dwarves. He had no reason to know each and every person. He thought it was completely pointless to befriend any of them when he was destined to leave them all behind and return to the present.

Minister Shederin waved his hand, activating a projection of an opulently-dressed dwarf. The angry figure's stocky form was bedecked with rich and luxurious fabric that simply looked wrong on a heavy gravity variant human.

"The self-titled Flame Herald Wikker Yellowshoe went on to found an offshoot of the Vulcan Cult that eventually became known as the Dwarven God Cult. As its name already suggests, this splinter faith rejects the notion that Vulcan is a human god and believes him to be a god instead. Wikker Yellowshoe appears to have skimmed through the galactic net to come up with this justification. He has adapted an ancient myth and translated it into a narrative that plays right into the grievances and sense of inferiority among his kind."

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