White Order

The White Order (Stanatan: spaēta ratu) is the historiographical term for the universal organization and hierarchy of Pastism most prominent during the Reign of Trials from the 8th century BCE to the 5th century CE. The White Order typified the Reign of Trials' ascendancy of an independent juridical arm of society over the earlier 'official' states and ruling classes of the Reign of Lamps, as the parallel structures of Experts and Dams were able to override the latter and hold them to the account of a universal Pastic law. Pastic ideas, networks, and hierarchies also created a form of political unification across large parts of the Confluent Seas the White Order is most distinguished for, and which played a substantial role in the era's affairs.

Minakek period
Pastism originated in Carsa as an attempt at stabilizing Isnarian society torn by the Paraphernic Wars, and its dam network centred on the Vispasar Court emerged during the 9th-century BCE crisis, which by the 8th century could lay claim to substantial power over Carsa. But the emergence of Omitipal, a successor to the Matolli Empire, in Hypocos as the new metropolis of the post-Isnarian world pulled Pastism in its direction, especially with the Matollis' reliance on Pastic law and order and the Omitipalli monarchy's patronage of the religion. The dam network and Omitipalli power formed a symbiosis in expanding their influence through the Confluent Seas.

By the 660s a Minakan Court had been established as a second hub for Pastic organization, which soon surpassed the Vispasar Court in laying claim to an absolute and universal jurisdiction. From the 580s BCE the Minakan Court undertook drastic reforms to establish a clear dam hierarchy governing the entire Pastic world, with the prestige of Minakek dams and schools making for the credentialing and networking of high-ranking Experts. By the 510s this had been leveraged into usurping political power in Omitipal itself, and with Minakek learning and connections at their disposal, Experts assumed considerable power in other parts of the Confluent world, diminuting post-Lamp Age rulers to mere patrons, officials, and enforcers. Authority (albeit a strictly legal one, which did not make claims to direct administration) in the most ideal Pastic communities flowed from the dam and Experts became the class held in highest regard.

The actual extent of centralization under this system never made for real universal rule from the Minakan Court. Instead it was service to the abstract ideal of universal law and order or Arta, that all were thought to inhabit as a given, that propelled common goals and actions in the name of the White Order. Minakek laws and practices served as a general model, diffusing by their prestige and the training of senior Experts at Minakek schools. In power struggles, Experts chiefly received outside or public support for normative reasons rooted in the status of Pastism as an ideal.

Schismatic period
By the late 5th century BCE, though, several Pastic states under Expert leadership had grown so powerful that ideological interventions could no longer be interpreted so favorably, and from the renewed competition of consolidated powers came the threat of schism. Rival Courts and legal blocs were established centred on Tarsia and Sarian Essegia respectively. The pretenses of interventions correspondingly grew forceful, with Omitipalli, Tarsian, or Essegian power and hegemony being put to the service of Arta in the Game of Courts. In internal terms a power struggle between dams and official rulers over new powers and ambitions resumed, figuring in strategic intrigues in all sorts of convoluted manners.

The Game of Courts was ended by the 310s BCE with the triumph of Omitipal as hegemon and the affirmation of the Minakan Court's supremacy. However, this was built on centralization of the juristry in Minakek hands to a degree now thought unacceptable, and Minakan's attempts to consolidate a formal hierarchy over the Pastic world was met with denunciation. Also in more immediate terms the short-lived post-Game arrangement relied on Essegia's destruction in the Gesnote migration, which soon began continuing its ravages in Varasan, and by 266 BCE had crossed into Hypocos and destroyed Omitipal itself. While ecumenical anarchy followed, at the level of everyday life the dams were not seriously threatened at all.

Black Tarsian period
Pastic society continued to proceed on the trajectory of a greater role for official institutions now ingratiated and reconciled with the dam hierarchy, a movement most powerfully expressed by the Databara movement in Tarsia which emerged from the relocation of Minakek learning. In the 1st century BCE Tarsia under the Artaphernids gained the support of a new Databara-led Vispasar Court within and rapidly attained regional primacy without, thus positioning itself as the unambiguous foremost patron of Pastism. Even with this and spectacular acts such as the Voyage of Camathines, the universal polity constructed still remained within the limits of law, amounting essentially to (often loose) vassalage to Tarsia and observance of Pastic norms designated by Vispasar.

Agency and authority primarily remained with local dams, which remained generally recognized as the center of society, but in more developed countries they lost many of their additional enterprises and responsibilities to better-defined government bodies, a contract conditional on a relationship with the officials as good as that in Tarsia. Much of this was a result of the bargaining and alliance-building that occurred during the schismatic era of the 3rd–2nd centuries BCE. However this exact arrangement may have worked in reality, the dams exchanged the direct possession of powers for wider society's full adherence to the ideas and doctrines they served to formulate. Pastism's potency now came more from the all-reaching presence and importance it was assumed to have.

The independence and increased importance of varshtanitans, adventurers acting in the name of Arta, were the second major evolution of the Tarsian period. The whims of these warbands were a layer of the Pastic ecumene which remained beyond the control of the newly sophisticating governments, though Artaphernid Tarsia was generally able to leverage its prestige into deriving advantages from their victories, and on some occasions these energies could be directed through Vispasar declaring druggan holy wars. The varshtanitans thus established states following Tarsian hegemony only out of their idealistic commitment to Pastism. To subordinate them more fully was a goal of the legate system, which commissioned vigilantes and friendly rulers as governors and emissaries of the Tarsian throne, though in many aspects this was only a clarification of legal language.

The legations eventually emerged to be even more independent and powerful than ordinary varshtanitans, consolidating themselves at the expense of dams, and as they were mostly dispatched to regions whose observance of Pastism had grown uncertain, the practice of Pastism and adherence to the White Order itself. Combined with shifts in military and administrative technology, by the 6th century even the everyday elements of the White Order had been eroded by stronger official rulers able to establish themselves as the direct bearers of Arta, whose omnipresence was now carried to its seemingly logical conclusion for politics &mdash; even in Tarsia itself turmoil led to the rise of sayas as new social units. It was only coincidential that in lands like Pytarus that officials moved to adopt new religions such as Aravatta responding to more specific requirements or interpretations of order, but all layers of the White Order were rapidly unravelling either way, and the Black Tarsian empire disintegrated in lockstep with the kind of life and society it first championed.

Afterlife
The Cavapatids founded by Perozgar interpreted its own claim to power and legitimacy as clear deeds in service of Pastism, and its power over Tarsia and Carsa the natural exercise of Arta as the region demanded. In this respect, concepts typical of the White Order at its height had survived into the Reign of Urges, although they remained mostly symbolic and ideological appeals. The druggans of the Jangearean Missions did prove more impressive than any varshtanitan effort in the Reign of Trials, but this was due to them being carried out by forces entirely different from their spiritual predecessors.