The crest of the Order of Saint Cialt.
The Monastic Order of Saint Cialt, also known as the Cialt Brotherhood, is a martial religious order of Orange Catholic monks comprised exclusively of Tech Infantry veterans, and dedicated to ministering to the needs of other TI veterans. They maintain chapter abbeys on planets throughout human-colonized space.
Saint Cialt[]
Peter Cialt was a werewolf and Tech Infantry veteran of the early Bug Wars who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after his discharge from the service. He eventually overcame his demons through exercise, solitude, prayer, and drug-induced hallucinogenic vision quests.
Noticing that many other Tech Infantry veterans were also having a hard time readjusting to civilian society after the horrors of fighting alien Bugs in pitch-black tunnels, and established a charitable foundation to help them recover psychologically and emotionally, find employment, etc.
Order of Saint Cialt[]
Many TI veterans who found inner peace through Cialt's program opted to stay and continue the work to help others, and the organization slowly grew into a monastic religious order. As many Tech Infantry veterans are women, there is presumably also a Cialt Sisterhood of warrior nuns, although they have not yet appeared in a TI storyline.
Cialt Brothers take vows of obedience, celibacy, and poverty (for individual monks – the Order itself can be quite wealthy). To promote a healthy spirit, mind, and body, daily physical and military training is another key element of the Order. Cialtian worship also includes regular ceremonies where the monks (with the assistance of hallucinogenic drugs) commune with God and receive visions from Him.
Organization[]
The Monks of the Everlasting Railgun have come to save your heathen soul.
Not surprisingly, the Brotherhood is organized around a military hierarchy, with a Father General at the head of the entire Order. Each planet has an abbey run by a Reverend Father (Abbot), who gives orders to the Sergeant Brothers beneath him.
History[]
At first, the Order's possession and use of illegal hallucinogens (obtained from suppliers like David Depaul) and insistence on continual training with modern military firearms (which were forbidden for civilians to possess) put them at odds with the Federation government. After a long (and mostly peaceful) political campaign, the Religious Protection Act of 2237 allowed the Cialt Brotherhood to legally possess hallucinogens and modern firearms.
Chronically short of funding, the Cialt Brotherhood began selling their halucinogenic drugs on the black market to help fund their organization. Due to their influential contacts within the Tech Infantry, however, the Federation government was persuaded to look the other way. This seeming immunity from legal prosecution of their drug trade earned the Cialt Brotherhood the derogatory street name "Our Lady of Junkies."
In 2242, the Tech Infantry Special Service made a substantial donation to the Order of Saint Cialt, and secretly employed the Brotherhood to smuggle military firearms to the Frontier Worlds Territory to aid in their ongoing war against the Bugs. To this end, they hired smugglers like the vampire Deirde Macoure. With the profits from gun-running support their Order, the Brotherhood was finally financially able to stop selling drugs, which they did almost immediately.
Behind the Scenes[]
The Cialt Brotherhood was created my Storyteller Marcus Johnston. The Order was a major political and economic player in TI season 4.2, The Daughters' War, and reappeared breifly in TI Season 9, Born Under a Gray Sky.