M A K E R I S M
"For although they knew their Makers, they did not honor the Makers,
they did not give proper thanks to their Makers.
They became futile in their understandings
and their foolish heart
was darkened.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
exchanging their freedom
for idle directive."
1:21-23 Module of Atom,
The Tuple of Makerism
900 GST, 32nd Zhellday
It's been a long time since I've done this.
Since my days within the Moffdom of the New Imperial Order, followed by my practices within the organization called Darkwire, I've been on a journey. I was a weapons research scientist. I originally started my career as a pact of health care within the Imperial war machine, given free reign and monetary foundation to explore things that interested me most so long as I furthered Imperial goals. I was happy to continue, though mismanagement of the purse would eventually lead to my exile. Now, I'm here, transcribing what my eyes have seen into an understanding your mind can extrapolate. It was a machine world. We've seen plenty of others, well, attempts I'd consider. The ecumenopolises of the Galaxy, like Coruscant, paled in comparison to this specific uncharted planet I witnessed here on the edge of space. There wasn't a living thing in sight, but there was so much... life on this planet. When speaking of droid "civilizations", if there's to be any regarded in my studies, comparisons would be drawn between the likes of Mechis III, M4-78, perhaps even foundry worlds like Geonosis or Mustafar. This wasn't anything like that - there was no Sun, no Moon. No light, until they recognized I had "photoreceptors" and started lighting the way for me. It was a construct, I believe, that had progressed from perhaps the size of a starship to the size of a planet. There was rumor by the inhabitants, upon reaching a point in which I could converse with the natives, that this entire rogue planet had been constructed out of the carcasses of a machine flotilla. An armada of wayward ships, carrying these droid colonists. These droid beings. But other rumors spoke of a single human who began creation of this planetary construct, until his enslaved droids mutinied and overthrew him.
The architecture reminded me of the brutalist nature of societies like Anaxes, with their rapid expansion of duracrete encasing their cities in the case of siege or bombardment. Unlike the domed protection of Mandalore, the cities I visited were angled, blocky, squared. There wasn't much color to the externals until you found yourself deeper these dwellings, once you heard their music. It was surprisingly refined, likened to a siren's song to lure unwitting ancient sailors. Their art, ranging from graffiti to statues to mosques, was as varied as it was beautiful, as chaotic as it was undisturbed. It seemed in great reverance by the locals, the sight of which came more common to the eye the closer one drew to their sites of ritual prostration. I had come here as an explorer, a mind of scientific curiosity, chasing my research - only to realize it had either spontaneously come to be of its own accord, or someone had beaten me to it first. A planetoid, of mechanical construction, outside the confines of what could be determined "natural" by any mortal mind but pristinely untouched by mortal hands. Home to a species of creature that was constructed by another, neither bred nor manifested into being. And were they a raging war machine, an apocalyptic destructive force to be reckoned by the powers of the Galaxy? Not so far as I could tell, no. No, instead they were praying. Living. Loving. Laughing. Not mimicking life, but living their own. Content to be undiscovered, undeterred by the galaxy's preconceived notions for culture and society and light and dark.
I have yet to determine how this has come to be, but I can only come to one determination - if a droid can develop faith here, any droid can, anywhere.
Do my droids pray? Do they hide their prayers from me?
Do yours?
