|
HISTORY
And the Earth, behold, it was corrupt. God said unto his children, the end of all flesh will come; for the Earth is filled with violence; and, behold, I will destroy the wicked upon the Earth.
I bring a great scourge, to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life; and every thing that is in the Earth shall die.
But with thee will I establish my new covenant; thou shalt go down into the sheltering ground and hide thee-go with thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee.
Of every living thing of all flesh, take them to thee by sevens, the male and his female; seven of every sort shall be taken unto thee, to keep their seed alive.
And take thou unto thee seven seeds of all food that is eaten, and gather it to thee; and it shall be food for thee, and for them whom you will save.
And take thou unto thee also the fruits of man's striving upon the earth, that all the arts he has learned in his days shall not be lost with him.
Keep this Covenant with me, and preserve the work of my hands, and I will bring forth a New Dawn for all to see."
Thus did the children of the Lord; according to all that God commanded him, so did they.
-The New Book of Genesis
Little is known of the earliest days of our Order, which was founded in the troubled years before the Sixteen Minutes' War. Although it is believed that the great majority of the Order's pre-war records survived the nuclear exchange on March 27, 2093 intact, they have been lost in the intervening centuries due to circumstances largely beyond our control. Today we know only that our founders were a small coalition of men and women of Faith, who united in common cause during the dark days of the latter 21st century. Foreseeing the coming cataclysm, these early brothers and sisters of the Order heeded the voice of God and carried out His Word, hoping that by obedience to His Will they would someday see the light of a New Dawn.
The sacrifices that our forefathers made can only be imagined by the present generation. The gifts they passed down to us include the files known as the Liber Aurorae Novae, the Book of the New Dawn: millions of digitally stored books, recordings, and images, which members of the Order chose to save from the coming holocaust. Since 2177, the works collected in the L.A.N. have been protected under the existing salvage laws of the GCC, and are no longer considered to be "in the Public Domain". Many irreplaceable classics of human art and literature are thus copyrighted to the Church in perpetuity, and it is thanks to the Order's generosity and love of education that such luminaries as Charles Dickens, William Butler Yeats and Joseph Conrad are still read by schoolchildren everywhere.
The ancient Order also passed down to us the Spicelegium Dei, "God's Gleaning," which consists of over 700,000 cryogenically preserved tissue samples of human, plant, and animal life on Earth. The S.D. has been replicated many thousands of times since 2157, and is still archived by scholars of the Order on Earth, Europa (Sol 5B), and Proxima 3. It has yet to be surpassed as a reference library of uncorrupted genetic material from before the Age of Chaos.
 | Historians estimate that the Order's underground shelters were opened in the year 2097, just 48 months after the destruction of the old world. Although radiation levels were still dangerous, the brothers and sisters of the Order quickly realized that the world above them had not been completely destroyed, and that there were many survivors in need of help. Although their shelters were not set to open for another fifteen years, the Order opened its doors and returned to the surface early, hoping to make a difference to the billions of refugees in the world above. During the last six months of a bitter nuclear winter, the Church set up way stations around the globe to provide shelter to the homeless, and share its remaining supplies with those in need.
Throughout the Age of Chaos, the Order of the New Dawn built and fortified over 130 sanctuaries world-wide. These facilities served many functions in that dangerous age: to minister to the sick and starving, to provide shelter to the weary and destitute, to educate the young, and to spread the teachings of the New Dawn Bible. The most important function of the sanctuaries, however, was to keep the peace; it was during these years that the armed forces branch of the Church, the Pax Dei, was established. Soldiers of the Order were sworn not only to defend the Faith, but also to protect those who took shelter within the walls of a Dawn Sanctuary, regardless of age, race, creed or color. For sixty years, the Pax Dei fought a constant battle to rid the countryside of raiders, rape gangs and petty tyrants, while at the same time, brothers and sisters working within the Vox Dei and Manus Dei helped to reclaim thousands of hectares of farmland, and began carefully supervised breeding programs to re-create many species of livestock.
Although the 16 Minutes' War killed millions, destroyed dozens of great cities and brought the human race very nearly to its knees, the long twilight of chaos was not enough to kill many major Corporations - or their eternal greed. By the year 2157, several of these mighty juggernauts had risen from the ashes, and were spreading their tendrils across the face of the Earth once more. When the new Global Central Command was established, the Order of the New Dawn welcomed it, hoping that these masters of industry would work together with the Order to produce the most valuable commodity of all-world peace. Instead, the greed of the GCC led them to pass a profane "law" which they styled "the Religious Constraint Agreement" - by which they hoped to disenfranchise the Faithful, dismantle the Pax Dei, and lay false claim to the Order's birthright.
Fortunately for those of us living in the present, the Order did not go meekly as lambs to a slaughter. The Pax Dei took the field to defend the Faith once more, not against hungry scavengers skulking in the ruins but against an entirely different breed of thieving jackal. For seventeen years they battled the GCC, and although a great deal was lost - including almost all records of the Order before the 16 Minutes' War - eventually the GCC was forced to acknowledge the Order of the New Dawn as a power to be reckoned with. In 2177, a cease-fire was called and the World Court announced that the Order would be allowed to incorporate its holdings...not only the lands we had cleared of poison and debris, but also the sacred books that the Church had saved from destruction. Since then, The Order of the New Dawn has been a respected member of the Terran Commodities Exchange a powerful corporation in its own right, holding many valuable copyrights and patents.
Over the past two and a half centuries, the Order has pursued its interests peacefully whenever possible, constantly seeking new worlds, new technologies, and new truths to share with the human race. However, the lesson of 2157 has never been forgotten, and the Church defends its interests with force when necessary. Although we have often been bloodied by the greedy and vainglorious, we will never bow our heads - and we will never cease reaching for a New Dawn.
 
|








|