GEMONI SOCIETY AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
BY SOLEDAD

The tribe of the Gemons had a specific genetic aberration that set them aside from the people of the other Colonies: a small mutation of the Y chromosome that resulted in the birth of identical twins, whenever the foetus was male. Well, in ninety-nine times out of a hundred. This statistical fact led to the practice of polyandry – as such twins usually had a weak telepathic bond from birth on and thus got attracted to the same women – as well as to incestual homosexual bonds between the two brothers. Both versions were sanctioned by the state and the religion, although any other form of incest was strictly prohibited and punished.

Girl children were nearly always single births, and due to the rarity of women (compared with the numbers of men) they were highly valued. Gemini was the only colony ruled by a female-dominated theocracy – even if it didn’t look that way from the outside. The politicians and ambassadors and councillors were always male, but the real power lay in the hands of the women, exercised through their religion.

Gemoni religion was basically dualistic. The two opposite principles it was based on – interpreted as light and darkness, good and bad, truth and lies, soul and body, and in many other ways – were anthropomorphised in the symbolic figures of the twin goddesses, Pallas and Hecate. The twin goddesses were incorporated by the Potnia, the high priestess, who – contrary to common belief – was not one person but two. As rare as female twins were, a few could be found in every generation, and they were unexceptionally brought to the temple – the Labyrinth, as it was called – to be taught and raised in very specific ways, in case they were to become the next Potnia.

The two aspects of the Potnia mirrored Gemoni religious dualism very clearly. One of them, always called the Pallas, was the head of the state and the curator of the Temple, served by virgin priestesses and untouched herself. The other one, the Hecate, was the leader and teacher of the socialators, and the dean of their Academy. She was also the secret ruler of the Labyrinth who performed ritual couplings with the King – or, in modern times, the Councillor of the colony – to reinstate him in his office on a regular basis, which meant seven local years, as a rule. She also took visiting dignitaries to her bed to seal important contracts that way – such as meant war or peace, flourish or decay.

Young Gemoni males were always initiated in the Labyrinth by highly skilled socialators (called haeteras in Gemonese) before allowed to become intimate with their chosen partner. Male socialators, albeit rare, also existed, but they were restricted to the Labyrinth, and their services could only be requested through the Hecate herself, as they were crucial for the training of socialators. The Academy for socialators was also situated within the Labyrinth.

Most outsiders thought that the Otori sect followed a different religion than the rest of the Gemons, as they seemed to oppose just about every official practice. In fact, however, the Otori were closed-minded fanatics, only willing to accept one of the goddesses: Pallas, who stood for light, virginity, reason, truth, and so on. They declared Hecate and her followers dirty whores, agents of the darkness and death, perverted criminals. They had only rejected polyandry and the incestuous bond of identical twins at first, but later they had come to reject every kind of sexual contact, unless it was sanctioned by their own priests during the sun storm, at which time they believed Pallas could not see them.

The original founders of the sect had been single-born men who thought they were something better than the other males because there was only one of them. This self-declared superiority then led to the rejection of the twin principle on a religious basis. They went so far that they only allowed twin-born males among them when their twin brother had died previously. And they considered female twins as the absolute abomination.

The settling of the refugees in the Kobol-sector caused great upheaval within the Otori-sect, as New Gemini had no sun storms. Consequently, the sect leaders forbade the members any sexual activity, which led to the serious diminishing of their numbers. The old patricians tired to use the Otori-sect for their own purposes (mostly to move into positions of power again) but the Otori were too narrow-minded, even for them, and not particularly useful.

Note: The cultural aspects of the daily life of the Gemoni – as shown in my stories – were based on what little we know about Minoan Crete and the Etrusks.