“Where others see extinction, we see ascension. Helix is not the end. It is the voice of the cosmos, calling us home.”
— Vox Prime Atraxia Vesh, First Psalm of the Hollow Choir
🦠 WHO ARE THEY?
The Hollow Choir is a radical doomsday cult that worships Project Helix, the bioweapon that nearly ended the cosmos during the Collapse.
Where others saw mass death and societal ruin, the Choir saw a divine message – a moment of apotheosis that most civilizations rejected out of fear.
To the Choir, infection is transcendence, mutation is truth, and Helix is the sacred language of the dying universe.
🏛 WHERE DO THEY DWELL?
Driven from every habitable world, the Hollow Choir survives in sealed habitat domes on Mars, fixating on Earth like penitents at the gates of Eden.
Earth is the source of Helix, now sealed off by ancient quarantine tech, automated defense networks, and legacy orbital kill-sats. It remains unreachable, but not unholy.
🚀 THE PILGRIMAGE
Each Earth-year, the Choir launches a Choirship – a vessel of zealots, bone-priests, and engineered carriers – in a ceremonial Sacrament of Return.
Every year, the ship is destroyed by planetary defenses.
Every year, a new one is built.
The Choir believes salvation lies in the attempt. “Only by dying in the shadow of Eden can we be reborn.”
🧫 BELIEFS & STRUCTURE
- Helix is not a virus – it is a cosmic scripture, written in gene-code.
- Infection is not death – it is communion with the divine will of the universe.
- The Choir is guided by the Cantors, mutated prophets who receive visions through their Helix-changed biology.
- Their leader is Vox Prime, currently Atraxia Vesh, a transcendent being kept alive by ritual, mutation, and machine.
- New converts undergo Helix Baptism – most die. Those who survive are “Chosen by the Song.”
🕯️ The Hierarchy of the Hollow Choir
1. Vox Prime
The Living Hymn, Voice of Helix
The supreme leader and spiritual conduit of the Choir. There is only ever one Vox, chosen by mutation, vision, or violent schism. Currently: Atraxia Vesh.
2. The Cantors
Helix-touched Prophets and Seers
A council of mutated high-priests whose minds are directly shaped by the Helix strain. They chant the “genetic psalms” and interpret the will of Helix. Each Cantor’s body is uniquely altered – eyes replaced by nerve clusters, vocal cords fused with symbiotic organ-pipes, etc.
Often speak in riddles or in ancient genetic code patterns, believed to be “choral fragments” from the original signal.
3. Bone-Priests
Keepers of Flesh-Scripture
Clerics and geneticists who tattoo and implant sacred Helix sequences into flesh. They preserve scripture via mutation – their bodies are living libraries of the Choir’s doctrine. They lead most public rites and Baptisms.
4. Choir Mothers / Fathers
Cell Leaders & Cult Recruiters
Organizers of smaller Choir enclaves, both in Martian domes and scattered cells across the system. They manage indoctrination, logistics, and Helix exposure events. They may once have been normal – now they are anything but.
5. The Hollowed
Fanatics & Enforcers
These are the Choir’s shock troops – fully infected and physically transformed by Helix, often losing speech and individuality. Controlled through pheromonal chants or neurohymns broadcast by Bone-Priests or Cantors. Feared even within the Choir.
6. Initiates
The Unblessed, Awaiting the Song
Fresh converts or abductees. Most do not survive the initial Helix Baptism. Those who do begin ascending the ranks – or devolve into Hollowed if their minds fracture.
☣️ ENEMY OF ALL
No known polity, corp, or species tolerates the Choir.
To harbor them is to risk planetary lockdown.
To sympathize is to be watched.
To join them is to never come back the same.
Still, their signal slips through the cracks of failing firewalls, darknets, and abandoned relay stations.
And somewhere in the static… the Choir sings.
🕸 FACTION RELATIONSHIPS
- The Ashen Pact 🏴: “Smugglers of ashes, blind to the fire within.” The Choir sees them as spiritually vacant scavengers. The Pact wants nothing to do with the Choir – not out of moral opposition, but sheer survival instinct. Contact risks exposure, contamination, or worse: theological conversation.
- The Rustborn ⚙️: “Children of entropy, deaf to the choir.” The Rustborn and the Choir both emerged from collapse, but chose opposite paths: steel vs. spirit, survival vs. surrender. Rustborn view the Choir as a viral threat; the Choir sees in them latent potential. As Vox Prime once said: “All rust is just unpolished divinity.”