The Legend of King Maryumana
An epic tale of science fiction
A long, long time ago, on a faraway planet somewhere in the Sombrero Galaxy, there was a lush country called Itubawite which was inhabited by many tribes, among them the Erumdiba people. The Erumdiba were successful and prosperous, but like their neighbors who inhabited the land, worshipped many gods. At some point, there arose a movement of holy men among the Erumdiba who argued that this worship of many other gods angered Karil, the Lord of Light, the Ultimate God, and that all worship should directed only to him. They instructed the Erumdiba to compel all the people in the land to worship only Karil, to fight wars against their many-gods-worshipping neighbors and conquer them, and to destroy the many idolatrous temples. Eventually this movement became popular, the Erumdiba were successful in their conquest, and the worship of other gods in Itubawite declined precipitously.
However, as is typical for primitive populations, this history wasn't exciting enough for them. Time passed, the true history was forgotten, and many myths developed about the Erumdiba history and religion. These myths were spread near and far by poets and bards, and some gained widespread popularity. Chief among them was the epic of King Maryumana, summarized in the introduction to the Book of Life
A thousands years ago, Karil sent His servant and prophet King Maryumana to deliver the Erumdiba people from the hands of the mythical many-horned demons, griffins, serpents, and various other monsters who lived in Itubawite, who ate people, and were worshipped as gods by the population. Karil told King Maryumana to lead the Erumdiba people in battle against the monsters and destroy them, and instructed them on how to worship Karil. Karil then instructed Maryumana to build a small marble temple on the peak Mount Azuit, one hundred miles high, and worship him there. After King Maryumana died, the temple was lost and nobody remembered where the mountain was.
These myths continued spreading among Erumdiba and the Karil religion continued evolving.
However, since King Maryumana never actually existed, he never gave any set of instructions for how to serve Karil. After hundreds of years of the development of the Erumdiba religion, it was still not centralized and there were many temples to Karil all over the country, and many different ways of worshiping him. For example, in one temple only cattle were sacrificed, in another, only sheep. In one there were special ceremonies at the beginning of every month, another in the middle of the month, and another only at the beginning of summer solstice. In one, the priests played flutes and harps, and in another, only poetry was recited. In some of the temples there was even “worship” through prostitution, which many holy men felt vexed Karil greatly. This lack of unity led to much conflict and was very troubling to the nobles of the kingdom.
Eventually, a new king named Silet arose. He became very powerful and unified the Erumdiba people, built a gigantic temple of onyx to Karil in his capital city, Adumdayba, and demolished all the other temples in the kingdom. This was a very controversial move, but the king had the backing of most of the nobles in the kingdom who felt that this would promote national unity. Along the same lines, he also enacted many laws and rituals for how to worship Karil, so that men would no longer worship him in many diverse ways. For example, he decided that only cattle should be sacrificed, and only poetry should be recited without musical accompaniment, and certainly no prostitution would be allowed in his beautiful new temple, or anywhere else.
Shortly thereafter, the King commissioned his holy men to create a new Scroll of Law with his many enactments, so that it could be published and that all men might learn from it how to worship the Lord of Light in the new temple in Adumdayba. When they completed the scroll, the Holy Committee came back and presented it to the king in a grand ceremony. He stood on the podium in front of the sages and the entire royal court, bedecked in his finest royal raiment, and flipped it open to one of the pages that read:
King Maryumana instructed the Erumdiba, in the name of Karil: You shall ascend Mount Azuit, one hundred miles high, and you shall build my temple. This is how it shall be built. With 60 logs of timber and 700 bricks of marble. The north will be 20 meters wide, the south 30 meters.…This is how you shall worship me in my marble mountaintop temple on Mount Azuit, one hundred miles high. You shall slaughter only cattle on the altar, and you shall bring no musical instruments into my temple. No women shall be permitted to enter my holy sanctum. Anybody who violates these commandments is to thrown off one of Mount Azuit’s many cliffs or stoned to death, whichever is quicker. You must observe my laws forever.
A look of bewilderment passed over King Silet’s face and he turned to another section of the scroll.
Karil told his prophet King Maryumana to instruct the Erumdiba: Only I you will worship. You shall keep all my teachings so that you shall live… You must eliminate all other gods. I command you to destroy the Great Serpent of Stone Hill. With 100 spearmen you shall advance upon it, hack off its scales, and then dump its sorry carcass into the river…. I also command you to destroy the Great Dragon in the cave of Kalipapaka. With 50 bowmen you shall pierce it like a sieve, and then fling its corpse off the side of Mount Azuit…. This is what you must do to the horse-headed people inhabiting Supgerati. You shall smite them with swords and hack off their manes and burn them in a great bonfire.
The king put down the scroll slowly, looked at the sages, cleared his throat, and in front of the entire royal court, said "Very funny…not. Guess what? You’re all fired. Go home, losers.”
At that very moment, a certain spacefaring race from the Pinwheel Galaxy passed by the planet with the Erumdiba and decided that it would be good target practice for their new planet-destroying warhead. Unfortunately, they never thought to check if the planet contained life. The unleashed their missiles and that was