What follows is a section from a thesis paper titled Transformations in the Government of the Federation for Galactic Peace as a Result of the So-Called “Family War” of 3028 to 3042, written in the year 3093 by Edson Shou for the Galactic Central Political University’s School of Political Science.
Table of Contents
The Question of Children
The Question of Children
One of the most resonant accomplishments of the Party for Science and Prosperity is the liberation of children. Following the work of Dr. Judet Teechout, this accelerated the full liberation of the family unit. Few sociologists or political scientists would ever claim that this has been completely achieved. It’s an asymptotic goal. By “full liberation”, what is usually meant is that all members of the family have achieved liberation. Over human history, this process advanced quite slowly, with the subjugation of wives and children being the defining ideal. The idea of women’s liberation became popular long before that of children’s liberation, but it became apparent over time that the two conditions were interlinked.
Those who oppose the PSP’s efforts in this arena have always fixated on this idea of liberation. It is easy to point out that, despite the rhetoric of these people, liberation does not mean destruction. 13.4% of all children in the Federation were raised in a sanctuary in 3025, according to official statistics, which means that the remainder (86.6%) were being raised in a family environment of some kind. Not only that, many parents and other close relatives stay in contact with children who are raised in sanctuaries; when possible, the PSP has always promoted co-raising sanctuary children. To compare the overall welfare of children in the present day to that of 1,000 or 2,000 years ago is to understand just how different our society is from those of the past.
This attitude contributed, in large part, to the sense of apathy with which the PSP and other socialist elements viewed that opposition. The opponents of child liberation were quite far-sighted in a way. They did not disagree that today’s children are better off than those of the past. They disagreed that this was a good thing. What the PSP would discover through the so-called “Family War” is that progress was not a foregone conclusion, and that the question of children was not and never would be settled for all time.
The Rise of Jasperism
Key to understanding the rise of the anti-PSP Coalition for Family Values (the group that would become the New Federation Organization) is the rise of Jasperism, a fringe Christian belief system. Contrary to what many have said, there isn’t evidence of a single continuous Jasperist movement. Instead, this strange idea burst forth in two significant waves: its emergence in the 2200s CE and its reappropriation in the 2900s which led to the so-called “family values” movement. To better understand the later event, we should get some grounding in the earlier one.
The founder of Jasperism was called Jasper T. Honam, born in Oklahoma City, Red River Republic, in 2165. Honam was raised a Charismatic Christian and became a preacher in the Works of Christ Church in his early 30s. By his 40s, he was the head pastor of the church and had become well-known for his eccentric theology. In 2212 CE, Honam delivered a series of lectures from the church on what he called “Savior Mentality”, in which he stressed that God had visited all kinds of people. His message was summed up in the phrase “Each and every one of us is Christ, each and every one of us is Buddha.” In the coming years, he would use other religious figures in place of the Buddha: Muhammad, the Virgin Mary, Joan of Arc, Zoroaster, Thomas Aquinas, and more.
Many people, both members of the church and outside observers, denounced Honam for the “pagan” Savior Mentality Lectures. His Christian enemies were the ones who gave his movement its first common label: Christbuddhology. By 2213, Honam had been pressured to resign as head pastor of the Works of Christ Church. He still had a following, however, and he used these as the base of a new venture: the Anti-Socialist Party. Despite being styled as a political party, it is easily identified as a cult revolving around Honam.
Honam’s message never stopped being religious but the focus of this message changed. Now he referred to Christ and Buddha as the “great kings of spirit”, making them of a kind with “great kings of the world” like Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Catherine the Great, and Napoleon. Self-conquest and conquest of the world were mirrored in this thought system. Honam rejected socialism as fundamentally opposed to the nobility of kingship and also detrimental to the family, as fathers were the first kings.
The Anti-Socialist Party of Honam was never large, but they had begun to publicize themselves in a sense with a series of bombings in and around Dallas in the year 2218. After becoming targets of the Red River Marshals, Honam and his followers fled north, first into the Central States Union and then into the Minnesota Republic. Honam died in 2221 in Milwaukee, detonating a vest-worn bomb in the doorway of a state-run abortion clinic. It has since become known that Honam was diagnosed with a terminal cancer roughly one year before this last act.
Following the death of Honam, the Anti-Socialist Party basically dissolved. Rita Kalmykian assumed the formal leadership of the Party and continued the active terroristic strategies, but only a sliver of the Honam-era party continued to follow her. She and her remnant were arrested in 2227. Ian Dexter, who had been Honam’s secretary, took control of Honam’s records and established the Christ-Buddha Press to publish his writings. The works of Jasper T. Honam are not widely-known but they are available, especially after being re-pressed during the movement’s re-emergence. Christ-Buddha Press appears to have stopped publishing in 2234.
Thousands of such movements have come and gone in the Space Age alone. What makes Jasperism different is that it didn’t stay dead. It was revived. When the first extrasolar worlds were being settled in the late 27th century, it soon became apparent that capitalistic ideology was taking hold. There was a “frontier spirit” developing which stressed individualism over collective effort. Earlier settlers especially felt they had a degree of innate authority over newer settlers, even developing a sense of ownership of the planet. Though this trend was noticed, the priority of the High Commission at that time was the further colonization of space. As these proto-capitalists could not access true state power, it was felt that their dominance of extrasolar governments could be corrected over time.
The revival of Christbuddhology began innocuously, as a reading group formed in 2829 at the University of Zobah, New Aram, by Dr. Einstein Ajan. Initially, the group was formed to discuss the Collected Works of Jasper T. Honam which Ajan had just had published. The impact of these works, and of Dr. Ajan’s explanations, was rapid. Ajan soon spoke at business meetings and religious gatherings, not only Christian ones but Muslim and Hindu gatherings as well. By 2831, the reading group had become the Jasper T. Honam Society with Dr. Ajan as chair of its board.
The next year, in a mass meeting organized at the University of New Burgundy, Ajan declared that Honam had been not only a messenger of the One God like the Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad; he was also the last messenger and the union of Jesus and Budha, “the first Christ-Buddha”. Many of those present fully adopted this idea, informally dubbing Honam “Saint Jasper”, and they began to refer to Ajan as “St. Jasper’s prophet”. They also sponsored a parallel venture for Ajan to run: a publishing arm, which Dr. Ajan named the Institute of the Original Teachings of Scripture. Most of the Federation Library’s copies of Honam’s works are re-printings from the IOTS, including the Collected Works which we unfortunately only have a second edition of.
Dr. Ajan ran the two Jasperist organizations separately, using the IOTS to disseminate dogma while using the Society of St. Jasper (as it was now called) for general outreach. Though the Society never grew to a large size, it did become known for the annual Jasper Day celebrations which its branches put on. These demonstrations bewildered those who saw them and, over time, they were seen as offensive by Christians. The United Synod of the Catholic & Orthodox Churches declared that participation in any veneration of the so-called “St. Jasper” was not consistent with their dogma, and many other religious groups followed suit. With this increasing pressure, the Society of St. Jasper had completely ceased its operations by 2868. Ajan, the prophet of the Jasperist revival, had died in 2854, and the leadership of the Jasperist organizations had gone to different people. The reach of the IOTS remained relatively small as well, reaching only a few ultra-individualists on the new planets, but these were wealthy enough to keep the IOTS funded. By 2900, it is believed that the regular readership of the Journal of Scriptural Instruction, the IOTS’s monthly publication, was not more than 2,500 people. It appeared that the movement would soon die yet again. This changed with the Karnatic Blue Revolution.
The Blue Revolution
The 2912 census of New Karnataka’s population counted 12,103,823 inhabitants, roughly divided between the three cities of New Thanjai (41%), New Madras (34%), and New Korkai (25%). Its major spoken language is and was a variant of Brussels-European. Its course code is Lanka-4. Its major industry is and was the mining of arkansite, an ore rich with americium. It was a typical smaller planet and it was the profile that would attract a series of copycat stratagems in the coming years.
The 2927 election returns for the Congress of New Karnataka were as follows:
- Government (76 of 121 seats)
- Democratic Workers’ Party (democrats) — 23% of the vote, 28 seats
- New Karnataka Section of the Sixth International (communists) — 15%, 18 seats
- New Karnataka Branch of the Party for Science and Prosperity — 8%, 10 seats
- Workers’ Solidarity Party (syndicalists) — 6%, 7 seats
- Nature Party — 5%, 6 seats
- Party for Free Association (anarchists) — 5%, 6 seats
- All Creatures Party (animal politics) — 1%, 1 seat
- Opposition (45)
- Friends and Workers Party (labour) — 17% of the vote, 21 seats
- Karnatic Social Party (traditionalists) — 6%, 7 seats
- Revolutionary Communist Party — 3%, 4 seats
- Socialist-Communist Union — 3%, 4 seats
- Labour Party — 3%, 4 seats
- Communist Theory Group — 2%, 2 seats
- Democratic Socialist Party — 1%, 1 seat
- United Workers’ Party (labour) — 1%, 1 seat
- Essentials Party (business) — 1%, 1 seat
The rightward shift of labour parties, which has evidenced in many other places as seen in the work of Dr. Mindy Yuteng, is also in evidence here. The second-best performing party in that election was the Friends and Workers Party which was acknowledged by all to be effectively a company party representing the interests of the First Karnataka Mining Organization. The majority of FKMO workers had always sided with further left parties, while most FWP members were administrators and allies in the cities.
In ancient history, it has often been considered that Buddhism had two founders. The first was Gautama Buddha, who developed the ideas and brought forth the spiritual notions. The second was Ashoka, who took up the religion and spread it throughout his domain. The Ashoka of Jasperism was Barman Gruyere, general director of First Karnataka. His adoption of Jasperism led to the creation of a template of rule which would be closely replicated on many planets. It was the beginning of a great political revolt against the ruling order.
Barman Gruyere’s birth date is linked to 3rd April 2863, and he was born in Southwest Thanjai Hospital. Gruyere’s mother, Chanise Gruyere, was a disaffected PSP functionary, while his father Amadou was an unpaid assistant at a Followers of Jesus church. Barman was a decent student and eventually joined the PSP himself, joining the New Karnataka Inspectorate and rising to the rank of supervisor. Using this position, Gruyere was able to amass an impressive fortune which he spread and hid meticulously. He was eventually caught, however, and dismissed from the PSP, but he was not politically censured. Gruyere soon left the planet for New Lanka.
Lonie Saffarin, chief publisher of the Institute of the Original Teachings of Scripture, had at that time been searching for new partners for the Jasperist message: she needed believers who could support the IOTS financially. Gruyere, as a wealthy former Christian, seemed like a perfect convert. Saffarin contacted Gruyere and, over a series of interviews, convinced him that the IOTS provided the path to correcting the injustices of the PSP. With Saffarin’s help, Gruyere got in contact with anti-socialists on New Karnataka and other nearby planets to plan their strategy.
Their first step was to build a manor house for Gruyere on New Karnataka. Such houses have always controversial and are denounced by the PSP; party rules still prohibit members from living in any housing not built under party guidance. They are not totally unknown, however, especially on smaller outer planets. Being associated with a manor nearly always alienated people from the voting public. It was an anchor on public politics. Yet for Gruyere and his new group, this was to be the foundation of their new movement. Gruyere’s Karmalot – which is what he called this manor – was not like just any manor house, though. It was built far outside the nearest city New Thanjai and many supporting buildings were built in its surroundings. Karmalot was envisioned, from its beginning, as a modern version of a great ancient estate.
Paul Alain Murt of Martian Military University, in his review The Crisis of the PSP Center, suggests that the reason the PSP did not move swiftly against an anti-socialist act like this estate being built is that Gruyere was not immediately political. This is part of the answer. A larger part is the general anemia of the outer PSP branches at the time. Shallow analyses, which I won’t name here, have looked at the vote results for 2927 and surrounding years, and they have concluded that the problem was that the PSP was not winning these elections. This was not the problem. PSP leadership of outer planets has never depended on maintaining a governing coalition. The problem was, as I will show, the general lack of attention paid to the particulars of planetary government. The institutions of the Federation were under attack but the PSP simply didn’t notice.
Karmalot became a symbol of a “new” way of living: groups based on mutual dependence, a structure based on definite order. Gruyere’s major backer at this time was Rogal Botwe, general director of the TDO Goods Association and a dedicated IOTS follower. At first, the staff of Karmalot were employees of a TDO Goods auxiliary. Gruyere and Karmalot became known for their expensive and well-attended parties as well as for the high level of care given by Gruyere to his staff; his bonuses were legendary. Eventually, Gruyere had attracted two sorts of followers: a lower-wealth set who hoped to gain some of his generosity, aspiring to become part of the Karmalot staff, eventually supplanting the TDO employees with volunteers; and an upper-wealth set who wished to emulate Gruyere and make their own estates. All of these people were instructed using plans based on IOTS doctrine.
Gruyere’s new popularity led to the creation of the Friends and Workers Party in 2911, four years after Karmalot had been completed. Gruyere was installed as its first leader. Officially, the program of the Friends and Workers Party was to achieve greater prosperity for workers through maximizing the value of syndicates. This was to be done by adopting the warrant company structure en masse, by which the workers’ council of an organization would grant the right to run the organization to a specific management group, rather than running everything on elected lines. This would, the FWP argued, allow those with “administrative expertise” to run the organization more efficiently and profitably, which would therefore help the workers.
The FWP ran its first election in 2912 but the party received less than 0.5% of the vote and therefore gained no seats in Congress. They were not deterred, however. Gruyere and the IOTS commissioned reviews and documentaries of Karmalot and of Gruyere’s activities, portraying this new way of life as not only comfortable and fashionable but also easily attainable through an alliance with a figure like Gruyere. The FWP also directed a great deal of attention on the First Karnataka Mining Organization, attempting to convince its workers to switch their allegiance from the older labour parties to their new group.
The election returns for 2917 were as follows:
- Government (70 of 121 seats)
- Labour Party — 19% of the vote, 23 seats
- Alliance for Open Democracy — 15%, 18 seats
- Party of Free Association (anarchists) — 10%, 12 seats
- New Karnataka Section of the Sixth International (communists) — 9%, 11 seats
- Essentials Party (business) — 4%, 6 seats
- Opposition (51)
- Workers’ Solidarity Party (syndicalists) — 16% of the vote, 19 seats
- Karnatic Social Party (traditionalists) — 9%, 11 seats
- New Karnataka Branch of the Party for Science and Prosperity — 6%, 7 seats
- Friends and Workers Party — 4%, 5 seats
- Nature Party — 3%, 4 seats
- United Technology Workers — 2%, 2 seats
- All Creatures Party (animal politics) — 1%, 1 seat
- Socialist-Communist Union — 1%, 1 seat
- Revolutionary Communist Party — 1%, 1 seat
At this same time, the 15-member Control Board of First Karnataka was made up of 5 Labour members, 3 WSP members, 2 PSP members, 1 UTW member, 1 PFA member, and 3 non-aligned. Gruyere was determined to push the Control Board to accept a warrant system. One of his most potent weapons in this effort was the Gridhrakuta Course Exploratory Commerce Group (ECG), formed in 2918 by a consortium of syndicates led by the TDO Goods Association. The ECG made it clear that they wished to invest heavily into New Karnataka but that they only felt “comfortable” doing so with warrant companies. To that end, a series of such companies were set up by Gruyere and other Friends and Workers Party functionaries, and these were quickly granted lucrative contracts.
No official protest against the ECG’s operations was lodged with the Federal Galactic Bank until 2930 and the ECG would not be shut down until 2946. It was clear from the outset that the purpose of the ECG was to be an illegal bank operating outside of federal oversight. If the PSP officials had been paying attention, an official audit into the ECG could have folded it before it truly exerted its influence. Instead, the ECG was left alone to be used to break up democracy on New Karnataka and begin the broader movement which would drag the federation into civil war.
Buoyed by its new ventures, the Friends and Workers Party entered the government for the first time after the 2922 elections:
- Government (65 of 121 seats)
- Labour Party — 17% of the vote, 21 seats
- Friends and Workers Party — 11%, 13 seats
- Karnatic Social Party (traditionalists) — 8%, 10 seats
- Socialist-Communist Union — 7%, 8 seats
- Party of Free Association (anarchists) — 6%, 7 seats
- Alliance for Open Democracy — 3%, 4 seats
- Essentials Party (business) — 2%, 2 seats
- Opposition (56)
- Workers’ Solidarity Party (syndicalists) — 15% of the vote, 18 seats
- New Karnataka Branch of the Party for Science and Prosperity — 13%, 16 seats
- New Karnataka Section of the Sixth International (communists) — 7%, 8 seats
- All Creatures Party (animal politics) — 5%, 6 seats
- Nature Party — 4%, 5 seats
- Revolutionary Communist Party — 2%, 2 seats
While the Speaker of the Congress was still a Labour Party politician – Aiy Canner of New Korkai – Labour’s position was extremely weak following these elections. Despite appearances, it was the Friends and Workers Party which actually controlled this government as their pressure mounted on First Karnataka and threatened the Labour base. In 2925, the Control Board of First Karnataka finally agreed to transform the organization into a warrant company structure in a 9–6 vote. This act effectively split the Labour Party into pieces. As seen in the 2927 election results above, while the Labour Party remained, it was severely diminished from just five years earlier. Most of those who had once been with Labour instead joined the new Democratic Workers’ Party, led by Canner and formed out of a fusion of anti-FWP Labour with the moribund Alliance for Open Democracy. A small breakaway also formed the United Workers’ Party. The rest, a significant chunk, were absorbed into the Friends and Workers Party.
The first managing director under the First Karnataka Mining Organization’s new structure was Esha Qualley, a longtime company administrator. Barman Gruyere himself was one of the first appointees in this new structure, holding the title of general consultant. The top managers and directors of the company got lavish bonuses for meeting targets and, through the manipulation of statistics, the success of First Karnataka’s new scheme seemed to be immediate. This is another place where a proper audit would have derailed Gruyere’s plans, but there was no will for this on the planet at the moment, and likely not until the Friends and Workers Party was out of government.
This did not come to pass in the way it was hoped. The Democratic Workers’ Party won a convincing victory in the 2927 elections and were able to form a government which excluded the Friends and Workers Party. Despite this, the FWP had made its strongest showing yet while the Workers’ Solidarity Party, traditionally the foils of Labour, had almost completely collapsed. First Karnataka was the lifeblood of the planet’s economy and it was being divided now between the DWP and FWP, with the former favored by the regular workforce and the latter favored by management.
In 2929, Gruyere was elected as Chair of the Control Board of First Karnataka and also assumed the title of General Director of the First Karnataka Technical Institute. Separate “technical schools” began to be established which were to feed directly into the FKTI. The issue of technical schools raised a strenuous debate but, as they were funded entirely by First Karnataka (and the ECG) there was little recourse for the government which didn’t require an interruption of the business. Gruyere and Qualley also conducted a purge of those loyal to other parties and restricted promotions to those who were committed FWP members.
As the political profile of Gruyere and his Friends and Workers Party grew, he began to provide more to the public. He did this through two main arms. The first was FKMO Public Works Office, a charitable group which conducted repairs and built conveniences at a low cost or no cost. The PWO also granted scholarships and free admission to its schools to promising students, as well as offering open classes in skills that would translate from the mining industry to everyday life. The second group was the Church of Christ Carpenter, a charismatic Christian denomination that provided extremely forgiving loans to its members, supposedly funded by its donations.
Leading up to the 2932 election, Gruyere ran a strikingly personalist campaign, clearly positioning himself as the potential speaker of congress. He linked the prosperity of First Karnataka both with the prosperity of New Karnataka as a whole and with the leadership of the Friends and Workers Party. Himself he characterized as a powerful negotiator and the dispenser of benefits for the rest of society. In response, the Democratic Workers’ Party and the PSP attacked Gruyere as a con artist, a braggart, and a reckless spender. They pointed out that he had corrupted First Karnataka, not saved it, and they promised that if they were returned to power they would deal with Gruyere’s overreach once and for all.
The results of the 2932 election were as follows:
- Government (67 of 121 seats)
- Friends and Workers Party — 27% of the vote, 33 seats
- Karnatic Social Party (traditionalists) — 9%, 11 seats
- Nature Party — 7%, 8 seats
- Party of Free Association (anarchists) — 4%, 5 seats
- Socialist-Communist Union — 4%, 4 seats
- Labour Party — 3%, 4 seats
- United Workers’ Party (labour) — 2%, 2 seats
- Opposition (54)
- Democratic Workers’ Party (democrats) — 10% of vote, 12 seats
- Workers’ Solidarity Party (syndicalists) — 10%, 12 seats
- New Karnataka Branch of the Party for Science and Prosperity — 8%, 10 seats
- All Creatures Party (animal politics) — 5%, 6 seats
- New Karnataka Section of the Sixth International (communists) — 4%, 5 seats
- Revolutionary Communist Party — 4%, 5 seats
- Communist Theory Group — 3%, 4 seats
As expected, the governing coalition elected Barnam Gruyere as speaker of the congress. This coalition was unstable, however, and so Gruyere moved cautiously. Despite the heavy plurality which the FWP held, Gruyere allowed his allied parties to form the majority of the committees in government. He and his party retained only the Labor Committee and the Security Committee.
Shortly after the election, the Labor Committee announced that it was receiving a stream of complaints from workplaces predominantly run by DWP- and WSP-aligned unions and it declared its intention to investigate. It also announced that the warrant company structure was to be preferred for all workplaces, and it began to sponsor propaganda promoting them in more industries, using the success of First Karnataka as the model. The Labor Committee investigations were framed as damning, though a close reading reveals that the complaints had very little substance. Regardless, the report was wielded in congress as the supreme criticism of the Canner governments. Unions which had been aligned with DWP and WSP began to shift their support to the Labour Party, the United Workers Party, and the FWP.
One of Gruyere’s most adept moves was his dialogue with the PSP. As the FWP-led government focused its invective against the democrats and syndicalists, Gruyere sent frequent messages to the chair of the PSP’s planetary leadership committee, Chris Gelahotte, assuring him that the FWP was discovering evidence that the previous governments had rigged votes against the PSP to keep them out of the coalition. Murt insists that the FWP effectively promised to bring the PSP into the next government without literally promising to do so, thereby influencing the PSP not to oppose the actions which Gruyere’s government was taking.
By the time that Gruyere had first been elected speaker he was already 69 years old, beyond the age which he could be space-rated. For that reason, he had never taken up the duties of attending the Federal Congress in person. In early 2936, Barman Gruyere took the unusual step of passing a law to permanently separate the roles. Now the formal title of the person who was charged with attending the Federal Congress was Speaker-Delegate (previously an informal designation), while Gruyere himself assumed the title of “Speaker and President of the Congress of New Karnataka”. This change was accompanied by a public celebration which took place on Jasper Day; though there were no appearances of St. Jasper or any similar iconography, this was undoubtedly done on purpose.
The 2937 election granted Gruyere his second government and an absolutely dominant coalition:
- Government (78 of 121 seats)
- Friends and Workers Party — 34% of the vote, 41 seats
- Labour Party — 19%, 23 seats
- Karnatic Social Party (traditionalists) —6%, 8 seats
- United Workers’ Party (labour) — 5%, 6 seats
- Opposition (43)
- Workers’ Solidarity Party (syndicalists) — 11% of the vote, 13 seats
- Democratic Workers’ Party (democrats) — 10%, 12 seats
- New Karnataka Branch of the Party for Science and Prosperity — 7%, 8 seats
- New Karnataka Section of the Sixth International (communists) — 2%, 3 seats
- Nature Party — 2%, 3 seats
- Party of Free Association (anarchists) — 1%, 1 seat
- Socialist-Communist Union — 1%, 1 seat
- All Creatures Party (animal politics) — 1%, 1 seat
- Free Karnataka Party (sovereigntists) — 1%, 1 seat
Not only had Gruyere secured a majority that could not be beaten, he had gained greater control over his own coalition: his strongest partner, the Labour Party, not only saw its resurgence almost entirely due to indirect FWP patronage, the FWP position was such that it could replace Labour with the DWP or WSP and still command a working majority. Further, the group of Labour, the Social Party, and the UWP would never be able to work together without the FWP, and Gruyere gambled that they would rather cling onto a shred of power than risk the wilderness.
Gruyere sought to increase his control even further, and he did this in two main ways. To his enemies he showed no mercy. The pattern of labor investigations against the FWP’s political opponents intensified. Just a few months after the election, the Congress declared that the Sixth International was a “malodorous influence” on New Karnataka and was henceforth banned. The members of Congress from the PFA and SCU were banned as Sixth International collaborators shortly afterward, along wish three members from the Workers’ Solidarity Party. Through this, Gruyere not only further applied pressure to his enemies, he also gave himself a two-thirds majority in Congress, allowing him to pass laws changing the constitution of the Congress.
During this period, Gruyere’s second road to control was directed at his allies. He made every effort to convince his political and economic allies to envy and eventually adopt his luxurious lifestyle, based on the estate and the large dependent staff. With the help of easy money from the Exploratory Commerce Group and the promise of more, several highly-placed members within the Labour Party, Karnatic Social Party, and United Workers’ Party became close associates. Similarly, Gruyere introduced the Christian leadership of New Karnataka to the opulence that could be justified through the IOTS doctrine. Charismatic pastors and Catholic priests alike bought estates and began to live more lavishly than anyone on New Karnataka ever had.
The Friends and Workers Party directly took over many functions of government and began to seriously shape society. IOTS philosophy had long disliked the sanctuary system used throughout the Federation, and now the FWP took control of these sanctuaries. The qualifications needed for parents to allow their children into sanctuaries were made much more stringent, allowing only the most destitute, and even then the contact they got with their children was severely reduced. Sanctuaries themselves began to produce literature claiming that children who grew up in sanctuaries had uniformly worse outcomes than those raised in two-parent homes, despite centuries of data otherwise. Workers’ councils likewise began to suddenly see differences in labor unions, telling workers that it would be better to remain independent than to join an “unethical union”; FWP-aligned workplaces opened to non-unionized workers, which pressured other workplaces to follow suit.
Conversion of Labour Party grandees and the pressure on their base led to the party deciding in 2940 to merge with the Friends and Workers Party, creating the Friends and Workers Labour Party. This move alienated some in the United Workers’ Party, so Gruyere linked with Vanessa Wouter of the UWP to help her form a new party, the Cooperative Party, which retained 2 of the UWP’s 6 seats for the governing coalition. This did not, however, preserve the FWP supermajority. Rather than attempt to recreate it through more censures, Gruyere instead allowed the barred PFA, SCU, and WSP members to return to the Congress. For the rest of this electoral period, Gruyere focused his attention on his regular political program of currying favor through development and enticement. The election of 2942 proved to be the conclusion of a total sea-change in Karnatakan politics. Despite the slight reversal, the FWP’s denouncing of the Sixth International (and, implicitly, communism in general) had a chilling effect: no communist party gained seats in the next Congress. The backs of the Democratic Workers’ Party and the Workers’ Solidarity Party had been broken; a successor called the Party of Union Workers, formed out of members from each, did better than both parties but still had a dismal showing compared to their previous heights. The results confirmed the unshakeability of the Gruyere government:
- Government (93 of 121 seats)
- Friends and Workers Labour Party — 47% of the vote, 57 seats
- Karnatic Social Party (traditionalists) — 21%, 25 seats
- Cooperative Party (labour) — 11%, 14 seats
- Opposition (28)
- New Karnataka Branch of the Party for Science and Prosperity — 6% of the vote, 7 seats
- Party of Union Workers (labour) — 6%, 7 seats
- Nature Party — 3%, 4 seats
- Great Ventures Party (business) — 3%, 4 seats
- Karnatic Unity Rally (corporatists) — 2%, 2 seats
- All Creatures Party (animal politics) — 1%, 1 seat
At the head of his third government, President Barman Gruyere made his bid to seize ultimate control over the planet. To do this, he forced through three laws. The first was the Law of Institutional Instruments, which allowed organizations to treat specified positions as assets, permitting them to be exchanged and inherited. Laws like this had always been opposed by the PSP as leading immediately to corruption and have always been struck down in court. The second law was the Law of Government Equivalency, which held that the President of the Congress was exactly equivalent in powers to the Congress itself, whether or not Congress was in session. Though such laws have been justified as versions of the steering committee, this law’s purpose was clearly to smooth the path of one-man rule. The third was the Revised Election Law. According to these new election rules, 2/5 of the Congress would be chosen by popular vote, 1/5 by an electoral college, and 2/5 would be allotted to certain civic institutions which were nominated by Congress. Further, it specified that all elections would have to be ratified by the sitting president. These laws were not popular, even among his own coalition, but each one was ultimately passed.
In The Crisis of the PSP Center, Murt points out that a version these three laws were enacted on nearly every planet that would eventually become part of the Rebel Federation. The upshot was that the elites of society could easily prevent anyone else from gaining political ascendancy, and this power could be protected by passing titles down to favored heirs rather than allowing them to be filled like any other job. There is a similarity in the PSP and FWLP methods of rule by monopolizing political power, but there is a difference, too: the PSP have always been caretakers, while the FWLP were determined to be overtakers.
The Princes of the Field
While Barman Gruyere’s impact on politics is monumental and undeniable, he also had an outsized impact on the character and spread of Jasperism. His role as the religion’s Ashoka expanded to more than simply popularizing the religion. Prior to Gruyere but especially since the death of Dr. Ajan, there had been no real practice of Jasperism anywhere. Even for the Institute of the Original Teaching of Scripture, the religion was more about ideas than it was about living. Through the “treasure community” movement, centered on the estates which he had made so popular, Gruyere developed Jasperism into a real religion with an appeal that was more than strictly intellectual.
Despite years of patronage, the Church of Christ Carpenter itself remained a rather fringe religion. What Gruyere’s shift had largely achieved was the rise of Christianity in any flavor over non-religion. We can see this through an analysis of estimates of membership in religions made by the PSP Religious Section, first in 2910 before the Friends and Workers Party had been formed, and then in 2937, the last time such an estimate would be taken before the end of the Family War.
Citizens of New Karnataka flocked to charismatic Christianity through the rise of the FWP/FWLP, and they were especially attracted to those who took on parts of the Jasperist message. Arliss Feathering became chief pastor of Alleluia Inheritance Church of New Thanjai in 2920, the most influential planetary affiliate of the Galactic Church of God, and immediately began to increase his attendance by preaching about “salvation through family” and “the sanctuary of a loving home”. Without bringing people directly into their church, the Jasperists were still seizing hold of the minds of Christians on the planet. Khalid Petaine, an influential Muslim cleric, used similar messages to lead an upswell of converts among the Ahmadi movement as well.
| Group | 2910 est. | 2937 est. |
|---|---|---|
| Charismatic Christianity | 3,025,000 | 4,059,000 |
| Evangelical Christianity | 1,150,000 | 2,460,000 |
| Galactic Church of God | 288,000 | 738,000 |
| Alpha and Omega Church | 396,000 | 375,000 |
| United Communion of Christian Churches | 273,000 | 352,000 |
| Aspire Christian Alliance | 143,000 | 349,000 |
| other evangelicals | 50,000 | 646,000 |
| Pentecostal Christianity | 970,000 | 1,230,000 |
| Healing Spirit Church of the Galaxy | 366,000 | 467,000 |
| other pentecostals | 604,000 | 763,000 |
| Adventist Christianity | 362,000 | 246,000 |
| Reformed Adventist Federation | 184,000 | 221,000 |
| other adventists | 178,000 | 25,000 |
| Other Charismatic Christians | 543,000 | 123,000 |
| No religion | 3,872,000 | 2,952,000 |
| Catholic & Orthodox Christianity | 3,670,000 | 2,829,000 |
| Latin Catholic Church | 2,852,000 | 2,091,000 |
| Metropolitan Orthodox Church of the Lanka Course | 704,000 | 600,000 |
| other catholic & orthodox | 114,000 | 138,000 |
| Mahdist Sunni Islam | 480,000 | 984,000 |
| Ahmadi movement | 117,000 | 386,000 |
| other mahdists | 363,000 | 598,000 |
| Practical Sunni Islam | 245,000 | 492,000 |
| Other Christianity | 404,000 | 380,000 |
| Church of Christ Carpenter | — | 12,000 |
| other christians | 404,000 | 368,000 |
| Dharmic Hindu Church | 236,000 | 250,000 |
| Other Islam | 94,000 | 101,000 |
| All other religions | 148,000 | 127,000 |
Accordingly, the importance of the Church of Christ Carpenter in Gruyere’s plans diminished after he came into power. Though Gruyere and his family maintained official ties to Christ Carpenter, they also began to expand their reach into likeminded denominations. A key actor in this campaign was Barman Gruyere’s third wife Nataly Gruyere. Nataly was a passionate and engaging speaker who believed fiercely in her husband’s ideals, although her affect was far more conciliatory. Being married to an incredibly influential figure, Nataly herself became influential and she wielded this influence primarily to reinforce the key messages of hierarchical family and the kingship of the One God.
Instead, the major devotional arm of Gruyere’s expanding reach was the Life’s Treasure Meetings campaign, the first of which was held in May of 2938. These were nominally-public religious retreats which were protected by exorbitantly-high ticket prices, keeping them for the high elite. In fact, the availability of tickets was explicitly used as a recruiting tactic, as was shown by the work of Ngozi Obanjo in her Varieties of Modern Christian Religion. While the high prices did keep out the majority of the population, it allowed those who wanted to gain favor with Gruyere a chance to buy their way in. Those people tended to be desperate to please and therefore they made exceptionally loyal converts.
Barman Gruyere was called “Father Gruyere” while he commanded from the stage at these meetings. It strains credulity to suggest that this happened spontaneously, but Obanjo notes that she never discovered a place where she could say it started; the first mentions of the title are from reporting on the events, it doesn’t appear in the correspondence she was able to examine. Those who knew him as “Father” soon came to be a special set, identifying one another through their common veneration. They had imbibed all of Gruyere’s secret doctrines and they worked to introduce these ideas into their everyday life.
The form of the Life’s Treasure Meetings was relatively similar over time, though they did become more refined and polished. A figure closely connected to Gruyere, usually his wife Nataly or his butler Emil Brady, would begin the meeting with a Christian blessing. A scriptural “expert” would then come on and introduce a passage or a tract which would serve as the theme of the meeting. A few speakers would then follow, most commonly three, and they were supposed to expound on the theme; most often, though, they went on long litanies of blessings and calls for devotion. During these speakers, the scriptural expert would remain on stage in order to clarify any issues brought up. Next came the main speaker for what was often officially designated as the “keynote speech” but what was informally called the “sermon”, when the purpose of choosing the theme would be revealed and the main message would be delivered. Frequently, a special event (informally, a “gift”) would follow the sermon, like a wedding ceremony or a public confession; rare at first, these became almost obligatory. The event would the conclude with a final blessing.
Only a few Life’s Treasure Meetings ever reached over 1,000 attendees. Most often, the number hovered just under 300: a mix of newcomers and a core group of deep devotees, sometimes derisively called “zealots”. In the early meetings, Gruyere himself most often served as the scriptural expert, and he gave the majority of sermons up until his death. It was in these meetings that Gruyere developed his ideas and indoctrinated his followers. Some recordings of these meetings have become available and they are damaging listening. Gruyere was a strident speaker with a somewhat nasal voice, but loud and insistent. With his words, a constructed a fantasy of beneficence and personal comfort.
The name of this campaign, Life’s Treasure, referred to an idea that Gruyere had taken from an Ajan tract about Jasper T. Honam, stating that “fate chooses those who find the treasure”. Gruyere believed that the One God (which is the only way Jasperists referred to the Abrahamic deity) had granted a wonderful gift to humanity but that it was being squandered by those who did not know what it truly was. His remedy was that the best of all people should retake their rightful place as leaders and rulers of human civilization. This would only happen with a reshaping of the fundamentals of society: the structure of the family and the return of clientage.
When delivering his sermons, Gruyere’s style was highly informal and based primarily on delivering personal anecdotes. Because of this, and his general influence, the ideas he put out were not only theological and political, they were also social and domestic. Gruyere reigned in Karmalot like an ancient Roman paterfamilias, with authority over his wife, his children, a fleet of devoted servants, and anyone else within his estate. Others sought to copy him. Matrimony for Gruyere and his followers was a multiple act: anointing the husband as a majestic servant of the One God, granting the wife authority over the children, granting the husband authority over all, announcing to the world the property of the husband, and so forth. It was married husbands, or paterns in Jasperist terms, who had all spiritual authority over their households. Paterns could officiate weddings and baptize, they could grant blessings, and in all other ways were effectively the priests of this religion. Non-heterosexual marriages were tacitly admitted as long as they made a clear choice of the patern and the wife, but Obanjo notes that most such families were targeted by seemingly-anonymous violence until driven out of the movement. Further, women were generally not recognized as having the authority of a patern, even as widows at the heads of their households, though Gruyere always insisted that women were capable of acting in the absence of men.
Gruyere was greeted by his whole family – his wife Nataly and close servants, for his three children were out of the house – each day for breakfast, and by a rotating group of his estate staff each day before dinner. This became a fashionable ritual called the “salutation”, lauded in several publications (and not only in New Karnataka) as a way to strengthen family bonds. These accounts nearly always (11 out of 12 examples found by Obanjo) left out the highly ritualized forms of these salutations, at least as laid out in The Treasure Hunter’s Manual. Rather than being moments of bonding, the salutations were means of establishing the relationship between the patern and the rest of the household: the patern in authority, the others bowing and scraping for his approval. While the Life’s Treasure Meetings did not specify church attendance, they did state that the patern should conduct a mini Life’s Treasure Meeting for their household each week on Sunday: reading to them from Jasperist scripture and explaining the meaning.
One of the most interesting aspects of Gruyere’s Jasperism is something which Obanjo says is little known even among those with an interest in Jasperism: the temporary schism between the Life’s Treasure Meetings and the Institute for the Original Teachings of Scripture. Since the beginning of Gruyere’s political career, the IOTS had virtually demanded the right to publish on Gruyere’s behalf, but Gruyere had never produced much literature outside of that directed straight at electoral politics or business. In 2941, in response to requests from Jasperists on other planets, Gruyere produced a holotape called Opening the Blessed Package and formed Life’s Treasure Outreach Ministry to distribute it.
The IOTS’s chief publisher at the time, Brendan Roerich, reacted with a series of furious letters to Gruyere and to others, attempting to assert the IOTS’s position as curators of the Jasperist legacy. They even made an offer to buy out the LTOM directly. This was rejected, and in 2943 the LTOM published their own edition of The Collected Works of Jasper T. Honam which included some heretofore suppressed material. In response to this, the IOTS began to publish speeches which had been given by Gruyere in the form of critical commentary, pointing out where Gruyere did and didn’t adhere to the “Original Teachings of Scripture”. For the most part, however, while Gruyere’s organization was predominant on New Karnataka, the wider Jasperist movement – which had surged in connection with Gruyere’s rise – nevertheless continued to take most of their instruction from the Institute.
A serious blow was dealt to galactic Jasperism in 2946 when the Gridhrakuta Course Exploratory Commerce Group was shut down by order of the Galactic Supreme Court. High Inspector Tam Soja had concluded her long investigation into the ECG’s illegal banking operations in 2944 and ordered its dissolution, but the ECG had appealed the case up to the Supreme Court. With the Supreme Court ruling, Soja was empowered to order official services to dismantle the group, which they did. By the 2940s, the ECG had been the primary funder of Jasperism throughout the federation; its end meant that several fledgling campaigns would have to be abandoned.
Interests which had been funding the ECG now sought other places to drive with their money, and one of those destinations was Life’s Treasure Outreach Ministries. Despite the great shock, then, Gruyere’s party actually found itself with a stronger warchest than it otherwise would have as it went into the 2947 elections. To add to this, parties were for the first time required to gain at least 5% of the vote in order to be eligible for any of the 50 seats available in open voting; 4 seats were added to make a new total of 125 seats.
- Government (109 of 125 seats)
- Friends and Workers Labour Party — 43% of the vote, 65 seats (52% of seats)
- Karnatic Social Party (traditionalists) — 23%, 25 seats (20%)
- Cooperative Party (labour) — 4%, 9 seats* (7%)
- Great Ventures Party (business) — 3%, 3 seats** (2%)
- Party for Christian Values (traditionalists) — 2%, 3 seats** (2%)
- Independence & Unity (corporatists) — 2%, 1 seat** (1%)
- Non-party appointees — 3 seats** (2%)
- Opposition (16)
- Party of Union Workers (labour) — 10% of the vote, 9 seats (7% of seats)
- New Karnataka Branch of the Party for Science and Progress — 9%, 7 seats (6%)
- Not seated
- Nature Party — 2% of the vote
- All Creatures Party (animal politics) — 1%
- Other candidates — 1%
* — despite not meeting the overall vote threshold, this group gained seats from the electoral college and institutional appointments
** — despite not meeting the vote threshold, this group gained seats from institutional appointments
By 2950, the full template for a Jasperist takeover had been devised. First, the economic engine of the planet would be brought under control, accomplished through a co-option of the management class. Next, political ascendancy would be achieved and the loyal party would be strongly linked to the economic engine. At the same time, religion would be used to inculcate a new culture among the likeminded upper class, separating their interests from the general public. As soon as a period of unchallenged political power could be established, laws must be pushed through to ensure the continued domination of the Jasperist party. These laws should not only protect the party from being usurped, it should also allow positions of power to be handed down to named heirs or successors.
The role of the Jasperist religion in this endeavor shouldn’t be underestimated. It did not only serve as a differentiating factor, it was also a major motivator for participating in and furthering the political project. By exalting heads of households, the religion justified highly-placed people – who already experienced some amount of luxury – in maximizing their personal gains and comfort as much as possible, at the expense of those beneath them. By preferring male heads, Jasperism sought to reintroduce the ancient patriarchal conspiracy, binding these paterns together in their desire to maintain power and suppress women. The presence of these tendencies is why we can say that many strains of Islam, Hinduism, and other religions of this time were also “Jasperist” in their expression. While they did not take on Jasperist Christian theology, non-Christians were fully capable of adapting Jasperist ethics and political strategies.
The continuity of the system which Barman Gruyere had established on New Karnataka was given its most critical test on 17th March 2970 when the man himself died at home in Karmalot at the age of 106. His burial had all the pomp and circumstance of a state funeral, though it was not formally made such. The Friends and Workers Labour Party hailed Gruyere as “Father of the Future”, and the IOTS called him “the Great Old Man”. Despite the adulation, however, there was a real question about of Gruyere’s rule had depended on him or if it was a system which could endure.
The most pressing problem was that the children of Father Gruyere had never shown an inclination to work together, and their own age meant that their children (Father Gruyere’s grandchildren) would soon seek their own positions. Formally, of course, the succession had been worked out. It had long been understood that Gruyere’s eldest child, a son named Corson (78 years old in 2970), was not to be Father Gruyere’s primary successor; Murt says that most believed Corson to have not had the right temperament to deal with Congress. Instead, Corson had been made the lead speaker for the Life’s Treasure Meetings many years before, and he assumed the overall leadership of that organization upon his father’s death. It was Gruyere’s second child, a son called Bertram (72), who inherited his father’s seat in Congress as well as his office of Chair of the Control Board of the First Karnataka Mining Organization. Despite this, and the FWLP quickly electing Bertram as the new leader, Bertram did not immediately assume the title of president; he instead allowed the governing coalition to elect FWLP member Raiya Meliere to that position. Father Gruyere’s last child, a daughter named Martine (61), inherited control of Life’s Treasure Outreach Ministries as its general director. While she was still a highly-respected figure, Nataly Gruyere at 110 did not wish to take an active role in family affairs; she would die just three years later.
Though the “empire” which Father Gruyere had built was split, the core which Bertram held was the true source of all the power and influence. Martine had controlled distribution of images and recordings of Father Gruyere’s funeral through the LTOM since the event itself, but Bertram soon demanded that this stop. When Martine refused, she became the target of a harassment campaign. When she attempted to involve their mother, Bertram began to have all of their mother’s staff invasively searched by police forces each day. After weeks of this treatment, Martine capitulated. She was even forced to list Bertram as a guarantor of the LTOM on all its future correspondence. Corson was also brought in line, adding prayers specifically for the health of Bertram and his family into the routine of the Life’s Treasure Meetings. In 2973, Bertram cut a deal with the Institute for the Original Teachings of Scripture, granting them the rights to all LTOM publications as well as making the IOTS the preferred publisher of LTOM and LTM material in the future; this not only repaired the schism between the Gruyeres and IOTS, it reduced Martine from an influential publisher to the manager of a fund far smaller than what Bertram had available. This paved the way for the IOTS to publish what is called the Third Book of Jasperism1 in 2974: The Treasure Hunter’s Manual, a collection of excerpts from Gruyere’s sermons and sayings.
According to Murt’s The Crisis of the PSP Center, the election of 2972 is often called the Last Election. While the Farmers and Workers Labour Party had already governed for over three decades, the death of Barman Gruyere seemed to create an opportunity. There was great excitement about the possibility of a grand anti-FWLP front to drive the Gruyere family out of office. Perhaps fatally, the PSP’s New Karnataka Branch had their request to organize alongside this front rejected by the Electoral Section; instead, the New Karnataka PSP effectively sat out the election and supported the front. However, Murt asserts – and I agree – that the front never had a serious chance to take the government, especially not with the current electoral rules.
- Government (112 of 125 seats)
- Friends and Workers Labour Party — 55% of the vote, 72 seats (58% of seats)
- Karnatic Social Party (traditionalists) — 13%, 22 seats (18%)
- Great Ventures Party (business) — 6%, 8 seats (6%)
- Party for Christian Values (traditionalists) — 2%, 4 seats** (3%)
- Independence & Unity (corporatists) — 2%, 3 seats** (2%)
- Non-party appointees — 3 seats** (2%)
- Opposition (13)
- Opposition Front — 14% of the vote, 13 seats (10% of seats)
- Not seated
- New Karnataka Branch of the Party for Science and Prosperity — 2% of the vote
- Independent Socialist Party — 2%
- Nature Party — 1%
- Other candidates — 3%
* — despite not meeting the overall vote threshold, this group gained seats from the electoral college and institutional appointments
** — despite not meeting the vote threshold, this group gained seats from institutional appointments
After this election, Bertram Gruyere was elected President of the Congress of New Karnataka for the first time. He would be elected twice more, in 2977 and 2982. By the time of the 2987 election, Bertram was clearly in declining health, so he chose not to run for a seat. Instead, his second child and eldest son Kevin was elected president for the first time at age 49. In 2988, Bertram Gruyere died, passing the leadership of the party and control of First Karnataka to Kevin Gruyere. While Bertram had not been the dynamic political figure that Father Gruyere had, he had retained control of the planet and successfully passed it down to his own son. Though elections would still be held, no one would really challenge the Gruyeres’ rule until the end of the Family War.
- The “first book” being The Collected Works of Jasper T. Honam, and the “second book” being The Diary of a Christ-Buddha by Dr. Einstein Ajan. ↩︎