The Church of Astley

It's 2098 and as you would expect 87% of the world now speaks Mandarin as their native language. Much more surprising may be the fact that one religion has dethroned all others. Astleism is now the single, unifying religion in the whole planet. The single, legal religion, would probably better describe the situation since 2072 when the Unrelenting, the elite group of worshipers of Rick Astley, whom they consider to be the one and only prophet, took over the government of the most powerful countries of the world and made all other religions illegal. A bloody war ensued which spread to the whole planet. But the insidious movement, which started in 2007 with a seemingly innocent Internet prank called "rickrolling", was so deeply entrenched in the fabric of society, from the poorest populations to the highest echelons of power, that it took only 26 years of war to achieve the complete submission of all national and international governing bodies. A global ruling body named The Portrait was established in the former city of Sao Paulo which was renamed City of Astley. All nations were abolished, and The Portrait ruled all regions by proxy through some very unimaginative AI. The AI ruling had two separate stages. During the first stage the AI would analyze the characteristics of the to-be-ruled region and devise the best possible adaptation of the The Portrait Green Book, the book detailing the ruling philosophy of The Portrait, to the specific characteristics of the region. On the second stage, much like the Khmer Rouge child militants, the AI would blindly force compliance with the adjusted set of rules. There was no appealing to higher instances, the AI was the sole judge and jury with its mechanical extensions being the executioners. The only possible exception was when a human representative of The Portrait, a High Priest, was visiting the region. In that situation the High Priest could choose to rule, but there was no record of any having ever taken that option. They basically went on holidays and took advantage of all the luxury and wealth the regions had to offer. As a religion, Astleism was based on the lyrics of the singer and song writer Rick Astley, either of the songs he sang or that he wrote for others. The lyrics were used as the basis for the Astleism rules and commandments and sometimes were used ipsis verbis, but most often were very much distorted and extrapolated to sustain a religion-based worldwide dictatorship. The acts of worship were obviously based on non-sung versions of the songs of Rick Astley and the rite of passage at the beginning of the adolescence consisted of swearing an oath of allegiance to Church of Astley by invoking the words of the unavoidable "Never Gonna Give You Up". Mostrar citação