All the Power: The Sacred Declaration [background] [Str8] [fantasy] [no sex]

*We pause from our regular programming for some more background info…*

*The Sacred Declaration was promulgated several years prior to the events depicted in the stories, and codified many of the institutions, relationships and practices that are referenced in it. Many of these things first emerged in the years prior to the Declaration, as Emperor Athello IV/His Supremacy rose to ever-more-dizzying new heights of power, insisted on ever-more-elaborate forms of worship, and came to be viewed as God-like – or even just God.*

*The following is not the text of the Declaration, but a description of its contents and implications. It’s not a narrative, and some readers may find it dry, but I include it for reference and for readers interested in world-building. For some more background (including some history, and an explanation of why His Supremacy has three-minute orgasms), check out the post ‘A bit of background,’ which I will link to in a comment.*

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The Sacred Declaration held that Emperor Athello IV of Tras will henceforth add the title of Supreme God of Gods, Supreme Ruler of Men, and Supreme Being of All That is Known and Unknown. He will known as His Supremacy and addressed as Your Supremacy. He retained His title as Emperor of Tras, but the new title superceded it.

The Declaration stated that all things exist to serve and please Him, and that He is the rightful owner of all things. However, He decreed it that individuals may continue to utilize that which they already hold, even though such things are rightfully His, subject to His will and whim. When some people in the story praise Him saying “you own everything,” or “the world is yours,” this is literally true.

This situation is why the story refers to “landholders” and “monetary holdings,” because technically these things rightfully belong to His Supremacy and He can take them from you at any time, for any reason. This is also why, in part 5, the supplicants at the Changing of the Term present His Supremacy with claims and beg Him to accept them, rather than present with Him offerings or gifts – they’re not offering Him anything because technically He already owns everything. He just needs to claim it.

For example, let’s say you owned a house. After The Sacred Declaration, your house rightfully belongs to His Supremacy. But on a day-to-day basis, this likely doesn’t mean anything; you continue to use your house as you previously did, but now you “hold” it rather than “own” it. However, let’s say His Supremacy sees your house and likes it; He can now claim your house for His purposes and you can no longer live there. Moreover, you would have to thank Him for allowing your humble abode to serve its highest and fullest purpose. His Supremacy may opt to give you some monetary holding in conjuction with this, or even build you a new house. But this is technically considered a seperate transaction, and you’d have to thank Him for that, too.

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Worship

The Sacred Declaration held that His Supremacy is to be worshipped above all else.

Note the specific phrase there – “worshipped above,” not “to the exclusion of.” This does not rule out the possibility of worshipping someone or something else, it just says that worshipping His Supremacy takes precedence. In general, territories under His control continued to practice their own religions, as long as they did not interfere with the worship of His Supremacy. In the vast majority of cases, it did not; most of the world practices sort of open-ended polytheistic religions, so it wasn’t all that hard to just graft another God on top of them. Indeed, the idea of a new God suddenly appearing didn’t seem all that strange to many people, especially considering all the changes that His rule brought.

For most people, “worshipping His Supremacy” basically means bowing down before His Sacred Likeness in Ceremony once per week for an hour. His Sacred Likeness, described in the stories, as a life-sized golden statue of His Supremacy sitting on a throne. There are also many other statues of Him, some of which are utterly massive, but these are not Likenesses. Most people simply bow down silently before the Likeness during Ceremony.

There are three forms of Ceremony. The lowest, and by far the most common, is the Ceremony of Praise, which is performed by a member of the Sacred Order of Servants (more on them later). In the Ceremony of Praise, the servant bows down before His Likeness and alternates between uttering a variety of incantations and praises and simply bowing down silently. Sometimes, the servant may kiss the feet of the Likeness. The Ceremony of Praise is pretty much synonymous with Ceremony in the world outside the Sacred Estate.

The next-highest form of Ceremony is the Ceremony of Partial Worship, which is performed by a member of the Sacred Order of Blessed Servants. In it, the Blessed Servant fellates the phallus of His Sacred Likeness for twenty minutes. For the other forty minutes, she bows downa and utters incantations.

The highest form of Ceremony is the Ceremony of Full Worship, which is performed by concubines and Queen Priestesses. This is described in detail in the stories, and is where abrogations and penance come from. In it, the concubine or Queen Priestess must perform Partial Worship for twenty minutes, and Full Worship – deepthroating – for thirty minutes.

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The Sacred Orders

The Declaration established The Sacred Orders of His Supremacy, which are chaged with carrying out His Supremacy’s will throughout the world. There are six Sacred Orders, and most are divided into guilds.

The Sacred Order of Producers: Includes the Guild of Miners and the Guild of Artisans.

The Guild of Miners, well, mines. Of note is that under the declaration all mining activity is undertaken by the Guild of Miners, and no one else. This includes valuable materials such as gold, diamonds and supermagnets (more on them later); it also includes common commodities such as sand or salt. Materials that are not used for His Supremacy’s purposes – including the Sacred Orders – are auctoined off to the general public. Consideirng that it’s a monopoly, prices can be quite high. This is the largest single source of revenue for His Supremacy. Miners are all men.

The Guild of Artisans is the smallest of any guild. It produces fine objects for the personal use of His Supremacy and, on a very limited basis, the Queen Priestesses. They are among the finest artisans and craftsmen in the world, and nobody else has access to them. Artisans may be men or women.

The Sacred Order of Builders: Guld of Construction and Guild of Maintenance

The Guild of Construction, not shockingly, builds stuff. This includes palaces and temples and magneto-roads. It also includes military installations, and more prosaic things like ordinary roads, sewage systems, and administrative facilities. All male.

The Guild of Maintenance maintains structures that are not maintained by some other Sacred Order. For example, military installations will be maintained by the Sacred Order of Arms. Their biggest job – by far – is to maintain the magneto-road network. All male.

A magneto-road is a road lined with supermagnets, a rare form of magnet found in a handful of deposits in a mountainous region on the outskirts of the Trasian Empire. Positive and negative supermagnets are attracted to each other with an exceptionally strong and precise magnetic force. The roads themselves are lined with positive supermagnets; the cars that ply them have negative supermagents. When the cars need to brake, the negative supermagents are covered (in the universe of the story, by the way, this technology was lost to history). The speed is determined by the road, not the car, with faster roads having positive supermagnets spaced closer together along them. In some ways, magneto-roads operate like miniature trains, although they are much less sophisticated operationally.

The technology for magneto-roads was known for decades prior to Athello/His Supremacy’s reign, but it was only used on a very small scale. He initially built out the roads to facilitate troop movements; people thought He was crazy at first but it was wildly successful. The roads require massive amounts of labor and money to both construct and maintain. The network at first followed routes of conquest, but newer roads are built mostly to serve His Supremacy’s palaces. Private individuals and organizations can and do use them to move goods, so they’ve been a big boost to trade. However, usage fees, for both the roads and the cars, are set by the Sacred Orders; this is the second-largest source of revenue after the mineral auctons. The fees are generally high, so the roads are seldom used by private individuals for passenger transport. So it’s just traffic related to His Supremacy’s prerogatives, plus some freight, with the former of course taking precedence.

The Guild of Maintenance also maintains more quotitian structures, such as regular roads and sanitation systems. The Sacred Order of Builders has undertaken major projects to improve or install these things, and has made it known throughout the world that these improvements are the result of His Supremacy’s benevolence.

The Sacred Order of the Treasury: Guild of Revenue, Guild of the Mint and Guild of Managers

The Guild of Revenue does what it says on the tin – collects revenue. It also handles budgetingg. It runs the public auctions for minerals. It does not collect the fees for magneto-road usage (the Guild of Maintenance does that), but the fees are immediately turned over to them for budgeting and distribution. The Guild of Revenue also collects tax and tribute, the other big source of money. May be male or female.

Of note is that all revenue collected by the Sacred Orders is split by the 51/49 rule: 51% of it is placed into His Supremacy’s discretionary holding – essentially His personal account – while 49% goes towards funding the general operations of the Sacred Orders. This is somewhat ironic because His Supremacy has little-to-no need for money. Most of His projects (palaces, etc) are funded out of the general operating budget, the Estate has its own dedicate food source, He can obviously just take whatever He wants. Yet, He gets more money personally than the tens of millions of people in The Sacred Orders.

The Guild of the Mint issues the currency of His Supremacy’s realms, called tracens. Tracens were the currency of Tras for over 1,000 years prior to His rise; the Sacred Declaration held that tracens must be adopted by all (though this process started before that, during His conquests). May be male or female.

Minted currency is also subject to the 51/49 rule: that is, 51% of it is placed into His Supremacy’s disretionary holding, while 49% goes into general circulation. If you’re thinking that’s a lot, you’re right. To get a sense of the order of magnitude, imagine that someone existed in the real world who was worth tens of trillions of dollars. But he didn’t really need any money. He could literally take whatever he wanted, and controlled all armies, and so on…

The Guild of Managers handles miscellaneous administrative and other tasks. It’s kind of a catch-all. Their main task is to operate agricultural lands run by the Sacred Orders for the benefit of His Supremacy. These lands supply food for the Estate, as well as the military and some others. May be male or female.

The Sacred Order of Arms: Guild of Defenders, Guild of Rangers, Guild of the Constable

The Guild of Defenders operates forts, defends cities, His palaces, roads, and other important places. They may be called upon to fight battles when needed, but considering that there’s not much left to conquer, their main posture is defensive. All male.

The Guild of Rangers takes the lead on offensive military operations. If there’s some sort of rebellion somewhere, they’ll snuff it out. If there’s a territory to be conquered, they’ll lead the charge. The Guild of Defenders may back them up at times, and visa versa. All male.

The Guild of the Constable is a police force. Some places continue to operate local police forces, which the Guild may work alongside, but many places simply didn’t have them and so they’ve been a boon to public order. They’ll do some spy-type stuff, too, but there isn’t much of a secret police in this world. All male.

The Sacred Order of Servants: Guild of Common Servants

The Sacred Order of Servants staffs His Supremacy’s palaces, temples and shrines, and performs the Ceremony of Praise. Not that this Sacred Order has only one Guild (we’ll get to why in a moment). All members of the Sacred Order of Servants are also members of the Guild of Common Servants. They must bow down in Ceremony for one hour per day, not one hour per week, as others must. They can be men or women.

The highest Sacred Order is the Sacred Order of Blessed Servants, which occupies a special role somewhere in-between the other Sacred Orders and the concubines. Blessed Servants are all-female, and all of them work on the Sacred Estate. They chiefly perform light maintenance tasks, such as cooking, cleaning and gardening. They also have some special ceremmonial roles, and can perform the Ceremony of Partial Worship. Like other Servants, they must bow down in Ceremony for one hour per day. There are about 2,200 of them.

Unlike the other Sacred Orders, the Blessed Servants have no organization or heirarchy. Rather, they are folded into the overall organization of the Servants on the Estate (of which there are many others). In some sense they’re a guild, but they are officially their own Sacred Order.

This is where the distinction “common” and “Blessed,” referenced in the stories, comes from. All who work on the Estate, in any function, must be Servants of some sort. Colloquially, members of the Sacred Order of Blessed Servants are called “Blessed Servants”; while members of the Sacred Order of Servants are called “common Servants” to distinguish them. This distinction is essentially meaningless outside the Estate, where all Servants would be “common.” And as all Blessed Servants are women, all male Servants on the Estate are common – though there are some female common Servants there, too.

Blessed Servants are, in fact, women who have had an encounter with His Supremacy whom he enjoyed, but not enough to take into concubinage. Most of have only had one or two encounters with Him. Unlike concubines and Queen Priestesses, they are allowed to have sexual relations with people other than His Supremacy; their day-to-day lives very similar to day-to-day lives of other Servants on the Estate.

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Concubines and Queen Priestesses

Concubines and Queen Priestesses are members of His Supremacy’s harem, and are his prized possessions. They have a number of important ceremmonial roles, and are not permitted sexual contact with anyone other than His Supremacy, unless given permission by Him (this includes masturbation; permission is generally given only in the service of His pleasure, not theirs). There are currently 245 concubines. The number of Queen Priestesses is fixed at ten.

Of note is that Trasian Emperors did traditionally have concubines. But the role of the concubine was traditionally far different than what it is under His Supremacy – it lacked ceremmonial significance, and was less focused on public display of their bodies as possessions. Also, no emperor had ever had anywhere remotely close to 245 concubines; they averaged about 7 or 8, 20 was an unusually high number. The role of the Queen Priestess was largely made up in the Declaration, although Tras did traditionally have a queen.

All concubines and Queen Priestesses live on the Sacred Estate. The concubines live at the concubines’ quarters, which are essentially apartments. Each concubine has four servants, two male and two female; each Queen Priestess has 100 servants, 50 male and 50 female.

Certain aspects of the lives of concubines and Queen Priestesses are tightly proscribed. For example, each one is issued seven two-piece sets of underwear (bras and panties), usually referred to as a “set.” They must wear these sets at all times – and nothing else, unless it is exceptionally cold (a rarity on the Estate). They are not allowed to travel outside of the Sacred Isle (the island on which the Estate is located), unless they are accompanying His Supremacy somewhere. They are subject to one-hour summons rules, meaning that if His Supremacy summons them, they must appear in His Sacred presence within an hour or risk punishment.

The one exception to the rule about sets, by the way, comes if they are summoned by His Supremacy. Then, they must remove the set immediately and travel to and from His Sacred Presence fully nude, unless instructed otherwise.

They do not receive any stipends, as servants do, but His Supremacy does grant them (usually large, sometimes massive) monetary gifts from time to time. So most have more money than they know what to do with. And while they are not allowed to travel, they can send letters freely, and can have guests after the first two years.

Concubines and Queen Priestesses must perform the Ceremony of Full Worship for twice per day, although time in His Sacred Presence counts against this requirement. Each Ceremony itself takes one hour, thirty minutes of which must be spent in Full Worship, or deepthroating. During this time, they can accumulate abrogations, which require penance – this is detailed in the stories, so I won’t go into it here.

Note that the requirement is for concubines and Queen Priestesses to perform the Ceremony of Full Worship twice per day. This stands in contrast to Blessed Servants and common Servants, who must bow down in Ceremony for once per day, for an hour. The Servants are not required to perform the Ceremony, although they must perform the highest level of Ceremony that can be performed.

Queen Priestesses are in some ways like glorified conbuines – however, they are the highest-status people in the world, aside from His Supremacy Himself. There are ten Queen Priestesses, and the number is set. His Supremacy can, of course, change that at any time, but He has opted not to. He has, a handful of times, ‘demoted’ or ‘promoted’ women between concubine and Queen Priestess status. There is no objective hurdle to clear to become or remain a Queen Priestess; He just declares you one, if you please Him enough, and if someone comes along who pleases Him more, that may change.

Aside from living in palaces and having 100 servants, a key distinction is that Queen Priestesses are mostly only focused on worshipping His Supremacy and servicing Him sexually. For example, concubines will serve His Supremacy food, while Queen Priestesses will dine with Him. Also, the Queen Priestesses have special roles during rites and rituals. For example, during the Changing of the Term, the Queen Priestesses bowed down directly in front of His throne, and called the delegations to Him.

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Governance and borders

The world is divided into the 12 Imperial Provinces of the Trasian Empire and the 48 Subject Kingdoms of His Supremacy.

The Sacred Declaration adjusted the borders of many places to fit this structure. Also, there are some differences between the Empire’s provinces under His Supremacy, and the traditional provinces. While most of His conquests became Subject Kingdoms, some areas were incorporated into the Empire.

Tras actually had had Subject Kingdoms for centuries, but they were quite different. There were only seven of them; they were allowed to keep armies; emperors mostly interfered with them less than He does. Some of the boundaries of the traditional Subject Kingdoms (Nordland is among them) have changed, and a few have become part of the empire.

After the Declaration, Subject Kingdoms were not longer subject to Tras, but subject to His Supremacy personally. The boundaries were adjusted, and their number set at 48. Subject Kingdoms are not allowed to raise or maintain any military presence whatsoever; they must accept the prerogatives of the Sacred Orders as bearers of His Supremacy’s will; and their populations must worship His Supremacy above all else. The same holds true of the Trasian Empire, of which His Supremacy remains emperor.

These days, the leaders of the Subject Kingdoms generally spend a lot of time vying for scraps of power and fretting about pleasing His Supremacy. As we’ve seen in the stories, His Supremacy can remove any king or official of any Subject Kingdom (or Imperial Province, for that matter) at any time, for any reason. He can wipe whole Subject Kingdoms off the map, and create new ones. He can raze a whole city to build a palace, and possibly relocate it. His dominance is pretty thorough.

Each Subject Kingdom and Imperial Province is required to send 12 elite citizens to perform the Term of Sacred Service for one month per year. Term servants, who have come up many times in the stories, are essentially errand-runners for His Supremacy. They’ll also perform other tasks around the Estate, along with the other servants. The term is performed in a rotation: each month, four Subject Kingdoms and one Imperial Province send 12 individuals, so there are 60 term servants at any given time. The Changing of the Term, described in the stories, occurs when the rotation changes.

Source: reddit.com/r/sexystories/comments/6ovfru/all_the_power_the_sacred_declaration_background