WIP Update – 27 Mar 25
The main task for the day was finishing that breakdown of the religious demographics of Korush V (where CoP takes place). After the initial rough figures, I went back in to do some fine-tuning. I wanted Ahorazedism and Crispinism to be neck-and-neck in terms of followers, but when I made an adjustment to some of the populations in Iona (the Europe analog), that threw the balance out of whack, so I had to make further adjustments in Kartia (ersatz Africa) and Padash (ersatz Asia) to get things back in line. As it stands now, the Ahorazedi are at 14.39% of the world population and the Crispinians at 13.54%. They actually rank behind assorted local religions (17.74%) and those without religious affiliation (14.90%). Let’s just go ahead and give you the full breakdown as it stands now.
- Local religions (usually animist) – 39.588,185 (17.74%)
- No religion (atheist, agnostic or otherwise unaffiliated) – 33,247,965 (14.90%)
- Ahorazedism (pseudo-Zoroastrianisn) – 32,111,127 (14.39%)
- Crispinism (pseudo-Christianity) – 30,221,142 (13.54%)
- Devapatha (pseudo-Hinduism) – 21,414,949 (9.60%)
- Other (often remnants of more orthodox versions of Earth religions) – 17,267,072 (7.74%)
- Sabaotism (Gnosticism with Kabbalistic influences) – 13,569,231 (6.08%)
- Razism (pseudo-Islam) – 10,162,387 (4.55%)
- Madhyapatha (pesudo-Buddhism) – 8,951,839 (4.01%)
- Wangmuism (what’s left of Confucianism after Lord Shang is done with it) – 5,104,120 (2.29%)
- Hsintaoism (vaguely Daoist) – 4,853,538 (2.17%)
- Tairism (neopagan goddess worship) – 4,150,193 (1.86%)
- Fordism (neopagan nature worship) – 2,493,292 (1.12%)
Most of these are already syncretic spinoffs of original Earth religions that then go through further syncretism with many people mixing and matching as they go. For simplicity’s sake, I’ve only listed people by their primary affiliation. For instance, there’s enough in common between Tairists and Fordists that they could basically be called a single religion and Crispin-Sabaotists are by no means rare. Why, do you ask, are the old religions not more prominently represented here? Well, first you need to bear in mind that these Cross Arc stories take place hundreds of years in the future. Also, most Lost Worlds were originally Imperial colonies and there was a period in history where the Empire cracked down rather hard on other faiths when it was trying to prop up the cult of the Emperor as the state religion. Toss in the isolation of the Lost Worlds and the devastating effect of the Skyfall Calamity on civilization and society, and things having changed quite a bit, old traditions being copies of copies of copies and such comes as little surprise. That being said, Korush V is an example of a Lost World where the Skyfall Calamity wasn’t quite so much the massive reset button as it was for most of the others.
In other news, I added three more chapters to fill that gap in the timeline and I don’t think I’ll be adding more at this point. With all these additions, this makes CoP my longest book in terms of chapter count. What the wordcount looks like in the end remains to be seen. And with all this done, maybe I can do some actual writing on the story itself before it’s time to switch over. Stay tuned.
Tags: Child of Promise, CoP, Cross Arc, Post-Apocalyptic, WIP Update
Child of Promise, Cross Arc, Post-Apocalyptic, WIP Update | James Carmack | 28 March 2025 |
