Historical Revision and Ideological Drift
Across the Endless Unity's millennium-long existence, extensive historical revision became an open secret. The annals were rewritten repeatedly, yet the precise nature and motivations behind these revisions remain fiercely contested. The Sunder Years following Halon Aximor's death saw the Reformations of Aximor transform not only governance but the very ideological fabric of the Unity. What emerged was a consensus that the original Visionary-Materialist framework had been altered, but the details—who changed what, and why—plunged into the fog of institutional memory. The Authority of Information's role in shaping official histories is acknowledged even by loyalists, though the extent of their manipulation is debated across successor states.
The Mandate's Religious Reinterpretation
The @Mandate of Light stands as the most radical revisionist, rejecting modern Visionary-Materialism as the ultimate sin against humanity's true purpose. Great Prophet @Antarof Gorseon—the last Supreme Overseer of the Endless Unity—claims to be an avatar; a mortal vessel holding the power and wisdom of an impossibly powerful spiritual entity; the Evenlord. He proclaims that this same Evenlord had only one other mortal champion before him; that Indomir Siolon was spoken to directly by the Evenlord, and that it is this divine entity that is directly responsible for the Unity's founding, and all seemingly miraculous phenomena that occurred around it. Needless to say, no independent confirmation exists of such a claim.
The Mandate of Light claims that it is this deity, not technological determinism, is credited with the Unity's impossible achievements: advancing from the iron age to atomic power in four decades, reaching the first exoplanets eighty years later, and surpassing Elder Civilizations' multi-aeon technological development within a single millennium. The @Mandate of Light frames these leaps not as human ingenuity but as divine interventions—direct manipulations of reality's substrates by the Evenlord's will.
From Theocracy to Materialism
According to Mandate doctrine, the early Unity was an open theocracy worshipping the Evenlord until the Traphon War's conclusion. The Reformations of Aximor marked a deliberate, comprehensive annihilation of Evenlord worshippers, replacing divine guidance with pure, unadulterated materialism. Historical archives were systematically revised to redact any mention of the Unity's spiritual origins—a transformation akin to replacing devotional symbols with purely secular ideology. This abandonment of the Evenlord's wisdom, the Mandate claims, fundamentally corrupted the Unity's purpose and shattered the divine covenant that made its infinite ambition possible.
Theological Schism and Political Collapse
This interpretation—that Visionary-Materialism was a heretical deviation from the Evenlord's vision—directly precipitated the Great Schism. When @Antarof Gorseon announced the @Mandate of Light in 1000.001 AF, he framed it as a restoration of the unremembered old order, not as a revolution. The @Sagetton Contingency's and @Ioth Contingency's refusal to accept this religious framework made war inevitable. The @Mandate of Light's narrative insists that the Schism was divine punishment for materialist apostasy, while the Contingencies maintains it was a power grab by a fanatical theocrat. Almost no faction outside the @Mandate of Light fully accepts this religious interpretation, though many pay lip service to direct away the ire of the post-Unity superpower that is the @Mandate of Light.
Adherence and Deviation Among Successors
The @Sagetton Contingency and @Ioth Contingency represent the staunchest defenders of classical Visionary-Materialism, adhering to pre-Schism ideology with minimal modification. They view the Mandate's religious reinterpretation as superstitious regression and maintain that the original post-human project was correct in abandoning spiritual trappings for pure material progress. Their governance structures, economic systems, and social engineering all reflect the original Endless model, updated only for contemporary military necessity.
Partial Adherents and Unique Interpretations
The @Eternal Alliance, @Outer Territories Initiative, @Matrix Regions Commonwealth, and @Endomaran Autonomy maintain partial adherence to Visionary-Materialist principles while adapting them to frontier pragmatism. They preserve the Unity's bureaucratic structures, merit-based distribution systems, and technological priorities, but soften the harsher absolutist elements for stability's sake. The @Paradin Imperium represents a unique reinterpretation—explicitly rejecting the "decadent" bureaucracy of the Prime Council while embracing the original expansionist vision, styling itself as a purified restoration of pre-Reformation ideals. These states treat Visionary-Materialism as a flexible framework rather than dogma.
Outright Renunciation
The @Coalition of Free Ragonia and @Altarisian Freehold represent the most complete rejection of Visionary-Materialist ideology. Though the Coalition paradoxically maintains Unity-derived technology and culture while claiming liberation from it, their official stance renounces the post-human project entirely. The Freehold, emerging from conquered Providence territory, champions radical individualism as direct opposition to Unity collectivism, treating Visionary-Materialism as a totalitarian nightmare from which they have awakened.
Indifference and Lip Service
Most successor states—particularly minor regional powers and warlord territories—remain fundamentally indifferent to ideological purity. They maintain Requisitions Offices and pay nominal tribute to "the old materialist ways" to placate traditionalist populations, but their governance is pragmatic survivalism rather than principled adherence. For them, Visionary-Materialism is a cultural artifact to be referenced when useful, ignored when inconvenient, and reinterpreted as local conditions demand.