The Order of The Terrible Glare
"Wherever there is hate, violence, depravity... the darkside will always be found."
The process of which the force users within the Firebirds go through. It is not something for the faint of heart, it is not something made to be taken lightly in terms of what the being go through. Being broken down until they are open and prepared to do anything they are told. Retrained in service to the darkside and slowly built up with the mentality of their own skills. Loyal to the Firebirds and the Darkside but without the illusion that one is meant to be above the others. The work that they do and establish themselves with the other government groups around the galaxy. The Firebirds uncertain about a few of the different things, they have established themselves within the rift working to protect and become the strongest order of darksiders.
All add to the greater whole of the order and follow the united vision. Of a galaxy free from freedom, where the rulers are ruling those who seek to be ruled. Where the ones who will bow in the end and follow their betters will take the knee and serve. The Firebirds seeking the strengthening of the females within the galaxy and hwile not as human centric as some they will focus more on having those in the high ranks female while the males who serve take their places. They are not enslaved or discouraged but they are also not given the full extent. in many ways they work while the order itself becomes bigger and more powerful. Working with the Death Witches so that they can have all of the information about the order, so that they can become more powerful.
"Temptation is illusion. But the time for trickery is past. In this game, we show ourselves as we really are."
Forgoing the normal temptations of the darkside, the illusion of power that can be brought and how you can use it to defeat your enemies if you become a servant of the darkside. The failure of this is the promise of it, the jedi have not been defeated, the false logic that serving those who haven't beaten them because they are more powerful is a failure and shows more that the other wanted to be led and corrupted. As they train the darksiders they are developed to become loyal followers who will not be a threat to the order. using her experience with the sith empire, the one sith, training under Kaine himself and a number of groups Balaya's has been the danger of disloyal members who are allowed the freedom to arrive and sample then can betray much like with the black rose.
Conversion and mental reconditioning is not something done easily though, drugs... mental techniques and breaking the will of another can take time and is easier to mold children and ones who they capture from a young age. Taking ideas from the jedi of training since birth with education that has been twisted with propaganda. Disloyalty is not unheard of but the mental conditioning is made to be harder to break and few survive intact enough in their minds to fight it. The Firebirds and the Terrible glare have been brought back because of the commitment to what they stand for and that has been dialed up to the highest degree.
The Firebirds take them and all go upon the rack, a rack where pain and everything becomes hazy. Made an offer each day after being tortured, their flesh subjected to
The burning ritual to sear flesh down to the bone. Slowly torture and corruption to ensure their emotional state succumbs to despair and darkness. Each day for the first one hundred days they are offered a chance to give into the darkness. The continued assault of their senses, the force itself to make sure that all methods of information gathering are done and that all of their nerves are able to feel the pain that comes from it. The rack is merely one of the first steps and the most visible where they can't show all of the mental conditioning and torture that will go into the initiates.
"Unbearable, isn't it? The suffering of strangers, the agony of friends. There is a secret song at the center of the world and its sound is like razors through flesh."
To ensure they can preform the ritual proper there are other methods, with advances in infiltration and observation. The order uses any and all information that they are able to gather about them. To torment and torture them into a state of being crazed and almost rabid animals that know only pain and suffering. That respond to the will of those who are holding their whips. With adults it is one thing, with children they are taught from birth to be loyal and all of the memories of their parents can be stripped away. Their personalities, their pain or even their joy to make them into perfect vessels for the darkside of the force that serve the will of the order and the leader of the Firebirds themselves. With the adults they need to be broken far more and stripped mentally.
With the torture increased and aided by
Skirtopanol a drug that makes the body more sensitive. After the one hundred days ends, the new initiates are allowed off the rack. Taken and given the most basic of dignities once again as more are brought in. A continuous stream of victims that are on the racks for others. For those who are being brought before the Firebirds to become servants of the darkside. They are given a choice. The mental strain and pain that goes into it so that they would be ready and willing with it. They are still meant to be given the choice but the work done to them is to make them more open to it and ingratiate them to the Order itself so they will want to please them by making the proper choice in the end.
"A lesson, Work with us and turn those on the rack or for us as meat..."
The choice given allows them to inflict each and every lash, each pain and violation of their flesh upon those who are on the rack. The chambers that have been developed designed to deprive the senses of being able to tell time so minutes can feel like hours and hours can feel like years. The passage of time within something to continue to assault their minds. The lessons of pain that they learned, the lessons carved into the flesh of the initiates. All of the pain, all fo the violations and all of the torture they had gone through is allowed to boil over, to be released upon those who are put before them. To continue to break and press their minds, to make them accept day by day that this is how it works and each day a little more evil comes into their life.
It is what they bring to others, teaching them, learning how to become just like their masters and inflicting upon them. The process of conversion until they have become the tormentors of the others. Offering the same deal to the others, giving them a chance to climb off of the rack and continue to make the cycle stronger and stronger. Once they have spent their time within the rooms and eventually they are allowed out.The sensory deprivation of the rooms is made to disorient all of them to make it so two days can feel like two years and years will be centuries. Agonizingly painful to the mind so all that they know is this hellish methods of the ORder itself and what they will bring for them. The small amounts of recovery from the burning trials continue to scar and torment their bodies.
"Two minutes. Two centuries. It all ticks by so quickly. You are so very like your predecessors, did you know that? I have the distinct sense of déjà vu. The same defiance, the same faithless hope in the light."
While the methods are cruel and designed to strip the humanity from them there is more. The chance they their minds and motivations might become something else. The initiation rites ensure who they are. A permanent mark upon them that cannot be taken away from just tearing at the flesh. Sith runes are carved using medical pressor fields into the bones of the acolytes that serve the order. The dark crystalline like ink
branding them. The brands are laced with sith poison and darkside alchemy, ensuring that those who have taken them know how serious the situation is. With their service to the dark lords of the Firebirds they begin planning their next part.
As the servants of the darkside, as the followers of the Firebirds and the sith, the acolytes are finally taken under the apprenticeship of a master. THeir service to them in all things is one to better progress the causes of the Firebirds and they work as enforcers of their will, generally paired with another acolyte as the two hands of their master. The master serving as the mouth of a lord to oversee the training itself. Their training involves creation of their armor much like the
Jensaarai armor and
swords like the je'daii of old. The two groups influencing as their equipment could serve and the armor is able to be customized to their needs. Perverting the practices of the groups to the darkside.
Their training continues, stripping fear and doubt from their mind. THe firebirds are a unit, they are a force of nature, they are not single beings... they are sisters ina fight and purpose and such it is pressed to them to have bond sisters. Perverting more teachings like the clan and unity of the mandalorians, Single mindedness, individuals are punished harshly until they are gone and not a part of the mind set. THe younger this can be learned the better as they will serve their masters and the purpose of renewing the galaxy with flames.
"We have such sights to show you!"
The training methods of those who are masters and knights within the order. They are their own, the individuality and personality that was beaten and stripped raw before allowed to come forth as they have shown their loyalty to the cause. Able to receive the amenities that is befitting of their station itself. The followers of the darkside are trained in its many uses themselves, they do not normally fight jedi, they do not encounter them unless they appear. Early on they are marked, shaped and twisted with a
pouch within their sternum that is used to house
rozzum who can be spread and taken to overtake others.
The goal of the order is not to outright attack the jedi be it with martial forces or with attempted subversion by claiming they are oppressive of these people who want to be something else. They are followers of the darkside and work to increase their power using it. Subjugating worlds and people who prove weaker then them to expand their numbers and become something far stronger that can be a tide under the cover of the light side. There are more to the rituals of the Firebirds, two tasks that are required and were added later on.
The first is to sneak out of their chambers, out of the places they are housed and taught. To find a slave and dispose of them... without getting caught, without alerting others to their presence while takingthe body to an alchemist. The blood is usedin the creation of their symbol of authority and power along with the blood of another. A babytaken from the nursery slave houses within. Again they cannot be caught or would face harsh punishments. The blood of the one theirhate, the blood of the innocent and their own blood is used to fashion their lightsabers hilt and bleed the crystal.
"Glorious, is it not? The creatures who walk its surface, always looking to the light, never seeing the untold oceans of darkness beyond."
As their training continues the servants are introduced into the other half of it. What gives the power to the ships, to the weapons and to their equipment. The amenities like power that they like. The Entechment that has been used, machines designed to use people to power the machines and give a place to dispose of that which is left behind afterwards. The Firebirds use it and let themselves become something far stronger to gather more non-converts. Those captured they don't take to serve are taken for this process.
With the entechment for themselves the followers of the Firebirds order work to serve on all of the other fronts. Improving and spreading the darkside to worlds where they can kidnap and take the ones who are strongest in the force. Making deals with others who show that when it becomes you or them they will always pick to be selfish and protect themselves. Condemning and giving to the order itself new recruits themselves. While the Firebirds rely on the selfish nature and self serving motives of others they constantly see themselves as a united front.
"We'll tear your soul apart!"
The others they will work with are smugglers, bounty hunters, slavers, corsairs and others throughout the galaxy itself. Ensuring there is a supply of those who will feed to their grinders, to their racks and the chambers to power the ships. All of the servants themselves that will be torn apart by new recruits themselves is an important thing. The other major symbols of growth for the acolytes is that they will eventually need to face the trials to progress.
The trials are not unobtainable but they are designed to test the being, witht he Order of the Terrible Glare evolving from jedi and the Krath being taught by dark jedi teachings. The trials meet the standards and can become their own twisted version of the jedi trials. The trial of flesh is something all of them face, on the rack. Showing their power and ability to survive when faced with pain and lose. The burning searing the strength as a lesson onto their flesh.
"It's all a puzzle, isn't it, Jedi? Like a game of dajarek, perhaps. The pieces move, apparently aimlessly, but always towards one single objective: to kill the king. But who is the king in this game, Jedi? That is the question you must ask yourself."
The trial for their insight is to look into themselves and find what they were. If they still can, the weak being that went on the rack and sever that part of themselves. To search out and find any memories of those who could shackle them, of their past that might still exist and show their power and resolve. Delivering the names to the others so that they can be brought before the order and broken, their flesh and their spirit taken and violated.
The trial of wisdom is to see this within themselves, the possible weakness and pull of the light. The greatest trial they might face is confronting their old life. Their family, their friends who may have survived and still be around. The danger's of slipping are real and those who face the trial and strike down their weakness can free themselves from the chain of their old lives. Can finally say that there is nothing left for them to return to.
"Ah, the eternal refrain of humanity. Pleading ignorance, begging for mercy. "Please, help me. I don't understand."
Their trial of courage takes them to confront their enemy, the lightside of the force where it is strongest. Facing a jedi or one of the other servants of the lightside of the force itself in single combat without the need of support from others and without doing everything to take the advantage. They have the ability to use what they can, to confront them where they want but having others weaken them first or fighting them when they are at their weakest is considered cowardly.
Their trial of skill is the final test, given once all the others have been met and it will be with what they have done. During their trials, during their apprenticeship it will prove a danger. The Firebirds Order will give the acolytes the chance to construct and make their saber. Formed from the crystallized blood of their victims and themselves into an alchemical nexus of darkside energy that will empower and ensnare them to further come into the darkside.
"Dreams are fleeting. Only nightmares last forever!"
Once their trials are complete the acolytes are given the
tattoo's of the order to mark them as force users and complete with their visage. Using the same ink that is on their ribs itself. The darkside is infused into their skin and very being allowing them to draw upon it and the runes to concentrate and dark upon the darkside easier. Their anger and power strengthening all of the energies. It is a small thing in comparison but marks they have reached a level to have their own hands.
As knights within the order they are given command of soldiers, of acolytes and a chance to really explore the Rift. To see the ancient powers that drew the Order itno the rift and why they function and work with the Firebirds. Their ability to protect the secrets of the darkside and the force and the orders ability to use it. Once they are prepared for more they can also learn about the dangers and be sent to enact the Shen-Shu.
"Your suffering will be legendary, even in the depths of chaos."
The Shen-Shu order, given for those who have betrayed the Order, betrayed the Firebirdsa nd are marked as traitors. THey are hunted down, something that cannot be allowed to live to reveal the secrets of the order nor can they be allowed to live. Once caught their time on the rack is considered childs play to the real pain that they are to be made to endure. The pain used as a warning to all and their screams echoing loud through the facility.
When they have progressed and become strong enough to be considered for the rank of master the others are brought forward. Displaying a ritual circle where they judge and test the skills of the knight. Anything goes and if they survive the trials of this new initiation then they are shown the heart of the force there in the rift. Given the chance to understand the real meaning itself as Balaya meets them and will reveal what the plan it.
"You have a darkness that rivals my own, Human. It will be a very special pleasure to rip you apart."
Once they are initiated into the highest echelons of the order and among the Firebirds their power and training is considered completed. They are at the zenith but there is always ore, always more mysteries of the force and more power to attain. They might not be stronger then an entire order on their own but they are part of a sisterhood that knows how to attain a goal. The individual self and purpose working to improve the goals of the whole group.
The heart of the force and the darkside within the Rift offers the ultimate power of the darkside. Understanding and power at the cost of your mind and soul being torn apart but it is something that can be chosen should the master wish it. Their power and title granting the the rite to try and contain the power, to learn it and see it without losing themselves to the power and what monsters it can unleash upon their bodies.
