Five Banners, part 2
The Free Pilgrims have held onto the religious zeal of Earth that one was. The irony of that being that many of those that were left behind were of a similar nature. But here in the Forge the Pilgrims are the first to claim divine providence and that some almighty creator spared us, saved us from the horrors and delivered to us a new home. History disks and records indicate that we might not have treated our last home with much reverence so handing us a new one seems like a bad idea but here we are. The Free Pilgrims are the most cloistered of the Five Banners, taking in and accepting only certain folk and with little to no tolerance for others. Xenophobic, racist, and chauvinistic. They are found spread across the worlds of the Forge, opening settlements, colonizing, spreading their influence as far as they can. They preach open arms and tolerance but practice a very different philosophy.
Just as bad though more honest about it are the Crucible. One of the ships that carried us from Earth was overthrown, the officers and staff on the ship lost control and a populous uprising occurred, this was about halfway to the Forge. The Vaultship never waivered in course but communication cut off for a few generations. What came out of it was a loose organization of bandits, outlaws, and thugs. They don't have central leadership, don’t communicate or cooperate even with each other, believing that each little band is the one in charge, the one that the others should answer to. Their numbers house terrorists, murderers, thieves and smugglers. Each out for their own, none caring about the fate of the other or the rest of the banners. Hey at least they are honest about it
Last of the Banners would be the Drift. It could be argued that they are not much of a group and more of a way of thinking. They also have no central leadership but they also don't usually group up much. It is rare to find more than a handful of Drift in the same spot, they tend to make their homes on remote planets, or inside of other settlements. Many a Free Pilgrim site have a few Drift living in the cracks, in the steam tunnels , abandoned warehouses or the engine room. You can always tell a Drift ship at a distance, looks like it was pieced together in a junkyard, ten different ships parts barely held together and flying on a prayer. The overarching Drift philosophy is that the Forge is not the end of the journey, that the Vaultships were not meant to stop here. There is more out there. That’s probably why so many of them are deep spacers, explorers, vagabonds.
