HELIOLATRY/Sols Melodious
Sols Melodious is a sect of HELIOLATRY, the de facto religion of the Hellmouth.
Origins
The Sols Melodious sect arose when Hellmouth's internet connection drastically improved at the end of Season β4, and its three founders (Kurdle Milken, music instructor at Hellmouth Community College; Dirk Framfelter, host of the Sagebrush Almanac Radio Music Hour; and The Artist Who Is No Longer, Legally, Allowed To Call Themselves Amadeus Mozart) were searching the web for podcast topic ideas. The trio found a heliophysicist's AMA dating back to XX15. Here they learned that the Sun was, with complete disregard for the airless non-medium of space, producing the aural equivalent of "10,000 Earths covered in police sirens, all screaming[1]". The trio agreed then and there that instead venerating the sun with a podcast, they could form a band and sing the virtues of the Sun instead.
Tenets
Sols Melodious worship is primarily aural expression. Musical talent is a recommended but non-essential entry criteria. It is considered acceptable, if lacking in boldness, to share Sunbound music with less divine individuals[2] before broadcasting to the Sun itself. The most ardent worshippers will have a setlist reserved only for the Sun, and practice it in specially-carved caverns and chasms where none will be able to hear it. To the average musically-inclined Hellmouthian, Sols Melodious is a popular choice for those wanting to practice HELIOLATRY without major lifestyle changes, as one is considered a member of the cult provided one can "pop into a jam session every once in a while".
Members of Sols Melodious are, by and large, aware that the empty void of space cannot carry sound and that both hearing the Sun's song and singing one back are physically impossible. Most will claim that "nobody said it was going to be easy" and see basic laws of physics stymieing them as a sign "they're on the right track" or "when we get our miracle, then, it's gonna really be something, huh?"
The Beaming Mlan Festival
The main observance conducted by Sols Melodious adherents is Beaming Mlan, an annual pilgrimage where the entire sect departs Hellmouth and ventures deep into the desert away from prying ears. The cult spends several days constructing a transmission tower from scratch, rehearsing their songs, and finally taking turns broadcasting their performances directly to the Sun.
The transmission structures have lacked a consistent design over the years of their construction, with the earliest designs being something akin to a giant ear trumpet with a stage on the big end for performers to yell into. Subsequent designs have added further/actual transmission capacity, including the ability to pick up on exoplanetary/exoplanar radio waves[3].
After performances have concluded, the tower is decommissioned but left standing, as a "reminder".
How the group is able to bankroll such an expensive and pointless operation year after year is unknown. Unsubstantiated rumor points toward operatives from Houston as a possible sponsor. Structures seemingly incapable of ingress have, according to Beaming Mlan participants, had the sound of footsteps emanating from within[4].
Notable schisms
Sols Melodious records an anomalously high number of schisms, as "bands" separate over creative differences and declare themselves a new sect by forming a new band with different cult members. None of these "acchords" have yet met the notability criteria of this wiki.
In contrast, the schisms caused by the collapse of Sol into a black hole near the end of Season β10 (and the rising of Sun 2) were considerably less acrimonious, petty, and pointless. While the resulting sects disagreed and splintered over which celestial body was the appropriate one to worship, taking part in a "jam session" with members of an opposing sect is not considered heresy (unless you go stirring up trouble by sharing a diss track about their chosen star to worship).
The resulting Sols Melodious sub-sects formed in Season β11 of Blaseball are:
- The Urge To Dirge - for cultists who direct their "worship songs" to the black hole Sol.
- Chorus Corona - for cultists who see little point in sending messages to a celestial body completely incapable of responding, and direct their worship songs to Sun 2 instead.
- Sols Melodious Reprise - for cultists who have no strong preference about the "correct" sun to worship. Often shortened to "Sols Melodious".
- ↑ https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-would-the-sun-sound-like-if-we-could-hear-it-on-earth
- ↑ such as friends, family, and local wildlife.
- ↑ The heresy (or lack thereof) of interpreting non-sound waves to listen to and sing to the Sun remains a hotly debated topic within Sols Melodious.
- ↑ The sound would likely have gone unremarked had one Sols Melodious adherent not recorded and sampled the sounds as part of their "set".
