Talk:HELIOLATRY/Sect of the Digital Circumbinary/Archive

The Sect of the Digital Circumbinary is a sect of HELIOLATRY, the de facto religion of the Hellmouth. Their mantra is Machina ex luce et umbra est, which roughly translates to "a machine of light is also of shadow."

Tenets

The Sect of the Digital Circumbinary believes in the duality of light and shadow that comes from the Sun, specifically in the case of the digital world, where the 1s and 0s inherently mark the light and shadow in the existence of everything. This particular sect came to the forefront in Season 11, due to the creation of the Black Hole and the existence of Sun 2 in tandem with it, but may have actually been in existence for an unknown amount of time.

The DCs (as they are colloquially known) are another oddity in the hierarchy of sects, as they believe in the power of shadow as much as light. However, this belief comes from the concept that shadow would not exist without light, and thusly is a part of the light itself and just as worthy of worship. Unlike the more 'shunned' sects like the Lunar Apologists, however, the Moon does not directly enter into the purvey of the DCs. The only real mention of the Moon is around eclipses, where it is merely a shadow source, a literal 'go-between' of light and shadow.

Appearance

Their focus into the technological has an unknown root, but comes to bear powerfully in the modern day where electronics are as much of daily life as the Sun itself. DCs embrace technology fully, so much so that they have integrated it into things you would not expect: items like clothing and even body modification are on the table for DCs, but body mods are a pretty extreme form of 'worship' that are not for everyone.

Typically, one will find DCs with mini solar panels sewn into jackets, hoodies, backpacks and the like, charging batteries and powering simple things like cell phones. Odder things like digital signboards and pulsing runner lights (also sewn into clothes) are also occasionally seen. Some of the sect's lighter bod-mod work has included UV-reactive tattoos resembling circuits or binary code, and the use of UV lights in their clothes (with solar panels to charge them) to activate the tattoos when needed.

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Special thanks to Solarium members:

Morgan (overall idea)

Olivia, Sandy's Twitter (naming idea)

Dasilodavi (solar panels idea)

JCSwishMan33 (talk) 12:12, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Rituals?

Obviously I want to add something about the rituals the DC perform for light / shadow worship.

One I was thinking about was a dawn / dusk one involving voice modulators hooked to solar panels (to activate / deactivate with the rising / setting of Sun2) that make the DC's chants sound like old 56k modems during dial-up / handshake. Then (for example) as the power fades from the modulators during sun2set, the DC's actual voices come through clearer and clearer until only their voices are heard. Go the opposite direction during sun2rise.

Obviously these rituals happen twice a day, but only last maybe 30 minutes each. DCs that can't attend a full-blown gathering at these times can use personal modulators for ritual, so long as it's solar-powered and the ritual is done outdoors ('cheating' with artificial light is frowned upon). This is with the understanding that a personal modulator may not last a whole 30 minutes, but sometimes it's about the effort.

I'm also thinking about some sorts of 'idols' to mark a DC believer, other than the modifications to clothing or body. These would largely be in a digital form, like screensavers / wallpapers / other iconography with some sort of a modified yin-yang to show the light-shadow duality.

Thoughts and ideas welcome, and will be credited if used! :)

JCSwishMan33 (talk) 17:38, 22 October 2020 (UTC)