The focus on physical blood has been probably the worse thing I have seen from Sani Sabik players (and, honestly, CCP too. Ugh, CCP). It completely misses the point of what a religion is. Blood is a symbolic element that represents, among other things, the life force. Sani Sabik wouldn't go around using blood just because edgy. Is Christianity about worshiping crosses? No. The cross is just a symbol of a very important religious event and takes prominence in the religion
because of that. Sanism would use blood because it has an important symbolic place in their spirituality. To make Sani Sabik rp interesting and viable, in my eyes, you need to approach it as someone actually religious. Ignore the blood
completely and instead focus on the ideology of what Sanism is about. Despite the name, despite the imagery, blood is subsidiary. As Veik said, ritual follows dogma, not the other way around.
At its core, Sanism is about egotism and self-improvement. Self-realization. It's a religion focused on the idea that the strong rise while the weak fall. This is inspired by orthodox Amarrian religion, of course, but with one key difference: In orthodox Amarrian the idea of what is strong and weak are stagnant. They are defined, among other things, by bloodline. A person is at the top of the hierarchy because they are True Amarr, because they were born into the noble class, because their parents or their parents' parents performed deeds of honor and remembrance. Sanism, by contrast, treats this idea more fluidly. A strong person is a person who is able to seize their destiny. A weak person is someone who lacks the strength to do that. In both orthodox Amarr and in Sanism, the idea stands that the person at the top is given greater rights and privileges, though Amarr give while the Sani Sabik take. The Amarr still fall under a hierarchy of 'always serving one higher' (thus making holders, heirs, and emperors still inferior to angels and god), while the Sanists believe in breaking the hierarchy.
This is why commoners often fall into Sanist faiths, because it is a religion that teaches that you are not stuck to the position you were born in. This is also why, according to Source, Amarr believe that Minmatar who meld Amarrian faith with traditional Minmatar beliefs looks awfully similar to Sanism. Minmatar beliefs have a lot of that 'be yourself' mentality that Sanists preach.
And this is why hedonism has always played a central role in Sanist faiths. Because the strong have earned the power to accomplish all of their wishes and desires. Your emotions, your wants, your lusts, all of these things are
you and should not be hidden or restrained. A Sanist is, to borrow a certain Sith line, a "breaker of chains".
So what is the blood about, then? It's hard to say exactly, but my thought would be it stems from the Amarrian idea of certain bloodlines having more power than others. Sanists believe that consuming or otherwise taking this blood confers that power unto themselves, or otherwise proves that their own blood is stronger. The strength in the blood isn't about what you are born with, it is what you are able to take. Kind of vampiric, in a way -
diablarie.
Here are things I would expect from a Sanist believer:
1) Catiz, Khanid, the Minmatar, and the Caldari, are likely all held with very high esteem by the blooders, because they represent people who, at least in part, took charge of their own destinies, against the will of those who ruled them. Everyone was trying to keep them down, but they fought against these pressures and came out the victors.
2) Clones are considered pure because capsuleers are some of the most free people in all of New Eden. Capsuleers are a class of people who tick many of the boxes for being 'savants' to the blood raiders. Ergo, a blooder wishing to prove themselves a savant would consider the blooding of a capsuleer clone to be among the highest of honors. It represents having power over
capsuleers. Why were children considered the purest before that? Probably relating to the idea that most children are "free" at birth, and rules and restraints are imposed on them during their upbringing. The younger the child, the less of those restraints have been drilled into them, and thus the 'more free', and thus pure, they are.
3) Blooders treat their slaves abysmally because A) the blooder has risen to a level of power over others, and B) because those slaves have demonstrated to lack the power to break themselves out of slavery, and are thus worth no care or love. If, however, a blooder slave were to fight their masters and achieve freedom, the blooders would probably look on that former slave with great respect. The fact that most don't is, to the blooder mindset, a sign of weakness and submission that proves they deserve their fate.
4) Sanists to me have a sort of
Mormon-like relation to God. The idea that you can elevate yourself to God's level, to become a god yourself in equal standing with him. "As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be." This is also another strong correlation between Sanists and Khanid - the Khanid symbol could very much be interpreted this way, with the arrow pointing up representing mankind ascending to apotheosis. I'm pretty much convinced Khanid society is not only aligned with blooders but outright inspired by blooder theology, with Khanid himself seeking apotheosis in the Sanist sense. Khanid society is still heavily Amarrian orthodox in style, it's not quite as 'free' or 'equal' as a true Sanist society, but it absolutely has elements of Sanist belief.
5) As mentioned already in this thread, gene-modding, cybernetic advancement, capsuleering, exploration, learning and research, even just basic exercise, any kind of means of advancing human potential fit very well in with Sanist beliefs. It is defined by ambition, pushing ever forwards into becoming the perfect being above all others. There is no lazy, content Sanist.
(disclaimer: don't take that literally. Of course there's lazy, content Sanists. But passiveness, inactivity, submission, and refusing to stand up for yourself would be looked upon very, very poorly among Sanists)
How does this all translate to RP? Well, simply, as in everything, build a character who actually understands and believes in this. Don't be an edgy teenagers with a blood fetish. Try to understand what the belief actually entails and act in a way that lives up to that belief. It would be very possible, in my eyes, to create a Sanist character that is actually widely respected and appreciated, a character whose religious beliefs would be viewed more favorably than Amarrian ones.
That's not to say you can't do a proper evil Sanist/blooder too, keeping in line with the same beliefs, using tactics as described by several people already in this thread (infiltration, deception, etc).
In conclusion, I don't consider Sanism, by its nature, to be 'religious space bad dudes'. It, of course, has plenty of potentiality of being religious space bad dudes, but it also has a lot of potential for being religious space good dudes, depending on how a character interprets the beliefs, spinning the desire for personal freedom positively or negatively. The problem is, most people don't do either angle well, because religion is one of those things that a lot of people in our modern, growingly areligious culture don't really understand. There's always too much focus on the window dressing, not the substance of the religion. It's a common problem in RP in general - putting the aesthetics before the character. Religion is a core belief system that colors your entire perspective on the rest of the world. It does not, by its nature, make you good or evil, or force you to act in any particular way, excepting in how you read into its teachings and in what ways you choose to act on those teachings. Focus on what the teachings say, not on a set of tropes you think represent them.
Good RL references to use, IMO, for playing Sanism, would be any Left-Hand religious system, that focuses on self-realization and the personal will in antagonism against submission and normal social conventions. Things like Thelema, or Luciferian Satanism. Important note here: I'm not trying to state any of these systems are bad by comparing them to Sanism. Rather, I view it that Sanism is not evil at its core, but rather that it is a legitimate religious belief system capable of being a positive force that has been taken to evil extremes by certain groups of radicals like the blood raiders. In this way do I see Sanist RP capable of being an interesting and viable thing, when it is actually taken seriously as a religion instead of just lolevil.
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Topic: Ways to make Sani Sabik rp interesting and viable (Read 9160 times)