Otori Sect

A member of the Otori Sect expresses disgust at the presence of a socialator ^{(TOS: "Saga of a Star World")}.

The Otori Sect are a religious group hailing from Gemoni.

Its adherents believe that physical contact between genders should only occur when sanctified by the priests during the High Worship of the Sunstorm, occurring every seven yahrens.

These restrictions cause the Otori Sect to react very unfavorably to Cassiopeia, due to her status as a socialator. Starbuck speculates that these restrictions are what make the Gemonese such good card players ^{(TOS: "Saga of a Star World")}.

Tie-in Material Information

• According to Encyclopedia Galactica (a non-canonical piece of merchandise published in 1979):

Aerians quickly separated into a number of hostile groups, and their Colony was torn by petty wars among them for hundreds of yahren. The Scorpios, blessed with a fertile planet and a gentle climate, devoted their lives to the pursuit of art, music and pleasure. On cold Geinon (sic), pleasure was condemned as temptation to evil; the Otori sect carried this ethic to extremes, permitting contact between the sexes only during the religious holidays of the Worship of the Sunstorm.

The Human settlers who first arrived on Gemon found before them a rocky, barren and inhospitable planet. Gemon's winters are brutally cold, so much so that half of the original group of Humans did not survive the first one. There is no season of spring on Gemon. Winter ends abruptly each yahren with the coming of the magnificent three-day sunstorm, a display of colorful atmospheric electrical discharges that lights up the heavens day and night. The sunstorm signals the start of Gemon's short growing season.

These harsh conditions shaped the Gemons' cultural evolution. Of necessity they became a spare and frugal people, given to economy of action as well as words. Their long winter nights were devoted to the study of the Book of the Word and the Books of the Lords of Kobol, whose sternest injunctions they obeyed strictly and literally. Dressed always in black, the Gemonese led a joyless existence. Perhaps responding to a need to hold down their population in the face of limited resources, or perhaps out of a peculiar interpretation of one passage of the Book of the Word, the Gemonese came to outlaw all contact between the sexes. The only exception came during the celebrations that had always accompanied the spectacular annual sunstorms. As Gemonese life during the rest of the yahren became more and more repressive, the festivities surrounding the Worship of the Sunstorm became more and more extravagant.

The celebration on the planet Gamoni (sic), during which, for the first time in a yahren, the genders are permitted to relate. Needless to say, it is a very joyous occassion (sic).