Clockworkers' Faith

"'Every day we rise, till the day we're dead;""There is nothing but the clock,""Sending us from bed to field to bed.'""-- A Clockworkers' Chant"Wake up. Rise from your bed. Get to the fields. Work. Break. Work. Break. Work. Return to your bed. Sleep. Wake up. Rise from your bed. Get to the fields. Work. Break. Work. Break. Work. Return to your bed. Sleep. Wake up. Rise from your bed. Get to the fields. Work. Break. Work. Break. Work. Return to your bed. Sleep. Wake up. Rise from your bed. Get to the fields. Work. Break. Work. Break. Work. Return to your bed. Sleep. Wake up. Rise from your bed. Get to the fields. Work. Break. Work. Break. Work. Return to your bed. Sleep. Wake up. Rise from your bed. Get to the fields. Work. Break. Work. Break. Work. Return to your bed. Sleep. Wake up. Rise from your bed. Get to the fields. Work. Break. Work. Break. Work. Return to your bed. Sleep. Wake up. Rise from your bed. Get to the fields. Work. Break. Work. Break. Work. Return to your bed. Sleep. Wake up. Rise from your bed. Get to the fields. Work. Break. Work. Break. Work. Return to your bed. Sleep.

For a thousand years, that was the Yakiyan farmers' life. A life of toil controlled by the clock, and policed by the corporation and its noble backers. In this endless cycle of inhuman gears grinding up human lives for food, many found death, some found escape, and a few found meaning. They were the Clockwyrd, the Timeseers, who saw past the gears and their chains a Clockmaker greater than any noble or corporate overlord.

They preached to their fellows: to curse the overseer, to curse the corporate, to even curse the noble and their church, but never to curse the Clockmaker. For Their design surpasses all designs of Man, and in time Their Gears of Justice will grind the noble, their church, the corporate, and the overseer into Dust. A life by the Clock, is a life by the Lord.

In time, the Clockworkers' Faith grew, spreading across the planet of Yakiyah and bringing great masses into its fold.

History
The Clockworkers' Faith extends into time immemorial. Whether tolerated or suppressed, whether practiced in the open or in secret, it has been believed and followed by Yakiyan farmers' for as long as anyone knows.

However, it used to be a highly decentralised faith, as much a collection of local farmer superstitions as a true religion. This changed markedly roughly two hundred years ago when several dozen communities met in assembly to join as one and apply to become a member of the Church of Humanity, Repentant. The farmers had suffered much, feeding the Blood Eagle's armies with both the harvest of their fields, and the harvest of their families: their conscripted sons and daughters.

These pioneer communities believed it was clear the way the world worked could not have been the Clockmaker's design. Humanity must somehow be jamming the Gears of Divine Justice with our sin. To live by the Clock was not enough, one had to Repent, and prepare for the coming of the Hour of Repentance, when the Divine Hands will point to Justice, and the Bell will toll for all oppressors and blasphemers.

Over the following centuries, and especially in the recent age of civil war and upheaval, the Repentant version of the Clockworkers' Faith has converted and absorbed most of its non-Repentant siblings and is now the dominant version of its faith.

Doctrine and Practice
The Clockworkers' Faith believes in the Divine Clock and its perfect Clockmaker. However, in the world, it asserts that the Divine Gears come in two forms: Famine and Feast, with their lessor forms of Work and Break. All life proceeds from Gears of Famine to Gears of Feast, from Gears of Work to Gears of Break, and back again. A clockworkers' prayer is to ask the Clockmaker to make their Gears of Work small, and their Gears of Break large.

The 'clergy' of the clockworkers are often little more than local elders or revered community leaders. However they do have a body of texts on practices and doctrines, known as the Clock-wisdom. Those who have read and absorbed those texts are the Clockwise, and dependent on the locale referred to as the Clockwyrd or Timeseers.

Fasts and Festivals
The most well-known practices of the clockworkers are their festivals. Every month in the Yakiyan calender is in succession associated with either Famine or Feast. During months of Famine, the clockworkers fast, rest little, and work hard. During the months of Feast, the clockworkers' break whenever possible, and organize great feasts and parties to celebrate the plenty saved up during the month before.

Obviously, the emphasis on breaks and festivals has at times been greatly disapproved by the corporate overseers. In such situations of repression, the Clockworker's faith has celebrated surreptitiously. In particular, the practice of vasting during famine months was also used to squirrel away rations which would then be used to eat extra large portions during feast months. Many dozens of pages of Clock-wisdom are dedicated to which rations last for how long, so that the Clockwise known what parts to eat immediately and what can be saved for the feasts to come.

At times certain zealous overseers have sought to seize these hoarded rations, with angry workers and riots as a common result. In response, the more common overseer response was to tolerate or ignore these weird practices and focus on keeping overal productivity and profit margins on quota.

Clockworkers' Chants
To those outside of the Faith, the most recognizable element of the clockworkers is their music. The largest, and according to many most beautiful, sections of Clock-wisdom are dedicated to work songs and field hollers.

The most common feature of Clockworkers Chants are their steady rythms. For example, one famous chant goes:"From tíck, to tóck, from úp, to dówn, you wórk and wórk.""And áll the wórk you dó they táke from mé and yóu.""From clíck, to clóck, from ríght, to léft, we wórk and wórk.""And stárve, as wé, here grów, the fóod, they bíte and chéw.""From béll, to knéll, from wómb, to tómb, we wórk and wórk.""""But wórry nót: the clóck will túrn, the féast will cóme,""the rích will stárve and jústice wíll be dóne."The first, third, and fifth line are sung by the group. Whereas the lead singer, often the Clockwyrd or Timeseer, sings the second and fourth line, and all sing together the final two lines.

Most chants end with a promise of the coming feast, though most are also more subtle about the revolutionary implications of this feast than the above example.

Synthetics
Till recently, much of the farm work on Yakiyah was done by synthetics. These synthetics were not only welcomed by the Clockworkers' Faith, many felt almost instinctively drawn to it. The simple rhythms of its chants, the regularity of its festivals and ceremonies, and the emphasis on simple structured living according to set patterns, all appealed to the synthetic side of synthetic nature.

The war against the synthetics and their removal played a large part in radicalizing the Clockworker's Faith and turning it into a bulwark of UPC support both on Yakiyah and within the Church of Humanity, Repentant.