"God return them" is the prayer of absolution spoken by the Aebryhems before taking a life. This invocation seeks the Earthly Lord's guidance to usher the deceased into the garden of old earth, a sanctuary prepared for humanity. Their practice of Homeward baptisms ensures that their own souls will find their place in old earth, but only the Earthly Lord's grace and forgiveness can save the souls of the scattered and forsaken.
The Aebryhems believe that the scattering of humanity was a divine punishment for their vain attempt to escape creation and challenge its design. They view the Tower of Babel as the first punishment, the flood as the second, and the scattering as the third. To prevent a fourth punishment, the Aebryhems believe they must administer justice to the wicked, thereby sparing the devout from further divine retribution. These teachings were established by Aebryhem, the first repentant, who founded the movement on the wilderness world that came to be known as Syn.
His followers were few to begin with but as the post-scattering colonial efforts of Syn failed more began to realize the will of the lord. Only when all surrendered as Aebryhem had did the wilderness relent and a second more sacred garden was provided to the survivors. Aebryhem though, could not bring himself to enter into the holy place, he felt that he was not yet repentant enough, the lord had been too gracious. He waited outside and starved himself while the others gorged themselves on groves fruit and drank deeply of its sweet waters. They revealed and cavorted and like that for a moment they had forgotten the desperation and their fear. They were happy, celebrating this miracle, but they had also forgotten to give thanks. Aebryhem watched as the lord fouled the food in their stomachs and made them sick, Aebryhem prayed to the lord for forgiveness as he spared his thoughtless compatriots. The lord sent no signs next, no further miracles but those that survived where clearly chosen by the lord. Aebryhem nursed them back to health with his own blood as the grove still bore the lord's wrath. One by one his sick were healed and once restored they vowed never to stray from the teaching of Aebryhem or the will of god again.
Over time the survivors attained a balance with the wilderness, Aebryhem taught them what plants and animals the lord permitted them to eat and what would make them sick. Where to find sanctuary and where to place their settlements. They grew and prospered in stable diminutive colonies that subsisted on the scant resources scavenged from the surface. The wilderness world remains much the same today, small insular groups living simply devout lives. The contemporary Aebryhem insurgents derive not from Syn but from a visitor to it 200 years ago.
Tillia Franoiric was documented as an ensign on a small vessel delivering consumer electronics to the world. When the trader failed to sell their wares on the world they announced their bankruptcy, with not enough liquidity to buy fuel to orbit the traders were marooned. Tillia was taken in by a member of the cloth to wait for the next ship to land in a few months. In this time she attended mass and learnt the stories and teaching of Aebryhem. When Obriossian lenders came to apprehend the crew as debtors the parish sought to obstruct them. Tensions flared and the enforcer team scuffled with the parish and crew, until a fateful discharge of a rifle. In seconds 3 crew and 9 members of the parish lay dead and the survivors set immediately to over powering the lenders. Tillia was injured but survived by the efforts of the Aebryhems, she shared half recollected dreams that plagued her recovery with the parish. Rather than an indication of the collective traumatic experience this was attributed to a divine visitation.
Records of this incident seem to indicate that Tillia, while being nursed back to health by the parish, became convinced by them that the Aebryhem had saved her. Over the following months she would seek to repay the parish and her new guardian angel, all the while encouraged by the parish and affirmed by the nightly dreams. Unable to walk or work she took to scribing and recording the masses of the parish. Her understanding in this time deepened and soon she began sharing what she had learned across the orbital and system network amongst the non-abryhemic communities.She incorporated her own experiences and the dreams that had become evermore elaborate and detailed. Her interpretation and delivery of the scriptures was popular and before long contributions and donations afforded the opportunity greater treatment of her wounds. Tililia instead insisted on repaying the parish and seeing to the other injured being treated back to health first. After that she vowed to create a school, following that a hospital and when that was completed new residential dwellings for her adoptive community. In the fullness of time this was realized and Tillia had become the head woman and head priest of the new settlement of Grace. Though her position would soon be challenged.
Persistently Obriossian lenders had been trying to exact compensation from Tillia despite that she was neither the owner or captain of the vessel that brought her to Syn. The lenders would not see reason even when they were confronted by the original enforcer team who had long since converted to the Aebryhemic faith and verified Tillia’s claims. What resulted was frequent skirmishes with new enforcer teams who would be captured or driven off. This conflict necessitated the development of a militia however this became contentious. The initial homestead population and the parish that preceded Grace had reservations about the establishment of a militia. On a religious level they pondered the implications of empowering a group within them the authority to commit such violence. Politically they were concerned that this might provoke a greater response from the Obriossians or ever more active pirate groups or even the neighboring interstellar nations which had previously let the Aebryhems be. Many recognised that their independence was contingent on others perceiving little value in their subjugation. Much of the population resented the prospects of having to contribute their time, finances or lives to the militia and feared this would diminish their autonomy. These concerns were steadily subsumed by the increasingly dedicated new arrivals that had been drawn from all over the system and even further to Grace. Ultimately Grace would become a bastion, as its increasing population became more fervent in defending it.
By the time Tillia died of old age Grace had become a massive commune city overseen by a Thronehead and supported by a council of the wise, experts in the Aebryhemic faith and curiously representatives from the faiths it was derived from the most intact and unaltered Old earth Abrahamic faiths. The aim being to through peaceful means illustrate the righteousness of the Aebryhems and incorporate old earth christianity, islam and judaism within them. Rabbis, Imams and priests of all denominations and sects were gathered to discuss the theological implications of the cluster in the first council of Syn. What was to be made of the pillars, faster than light travel, the inexplicable technologies of the Lha‘mhaggeans and the scattering itself. The months-long discussions revealed shared beliefs and generated a consensus. Earth was humanity’s destined home, the scattering and colinistation of the cluster was a part of god's plan, none of the superpowers represented gods will, the faith was in decline and threatened by dilution of its teachings and finally action must be taken to preserve the faith. However this represents only the most minimal agreement, whilst the stated objective of unifying the faith was a resounding failure. The Aebryhems embittered by failure of the council and steered by the Thronehead began expel the old Earth faiths from Grace and committed to divining their own path.
The Aebryhems steadily more fervent began actively spreading their teachings, pursuing them with a militaristic zeal like the crusaders of old. More often than not this would lead to conflict and tension and when this occurred the Militias would descend like the wrath of heaven silencing the dissenting through violence or threat of it. Their network grew across the cluster and soon their extortion and brawls would escalate to terror attacks and violent inserections and they grew in numbers and arms. By this time the 4th Thronehead had decreed that the Mother Tillia herself had visited him while he slept and made her and the god’s will clear. Humanity must return to the garden, return to old earth.
Few among the Aebryhems resisted the new commandment to construct the new flotilla and return to earth. Over time earth and heaven had been conflated and many had already felt that the cluster itself was a kind of tribulation for humanity. The earth now though represented a new start free from the unbelievers and surely healed in 800 years since humanity had left it. Dissenters pointing out the impossibility of earth's recovery due to runaway greenhouse effects and a venus-like furnace surface were imprisoned or exiled. These violations in recent years have brought no small amount of internal and external conflict. Even the wise council has been dissolved while the Thronehead has set the militia to accomplishing the flotilla by any means. Predominantly this has taken the form of various cells engaging militant aggression against small orbital communities around the cluster, seizing entire communities and repurposing their habitats into interstellar vessels. Residing in the Venti sphere the Aebryhems have aligned themselves with The Yscenics and have fortified the Syn system with a number of static and fleet elements. Armounauts are used by the Aebryhem cells to great effect, allowing them to hold their own against more professional conventional forces. The militia freely gives Armournauts anything that wont be used is the construction of the flotilla and this can often include captured military equipment and assets too expensive or difficult for the small Aebryhem cells to meaningfully utilize. Armournauts from around the cluster have flocked to serve the Aebryhems enticed by the promise of secure procurement.