This religion, begun by the metahuman messiah Å, is a global faith united by a reverence for dark energy and a mission to spread humanity to the stars. The tenets are laid out in Å's book The Revelations of Å which uses the language of mythology to create a rich body of shared legend.
- Before the Beginning: Physicists can discern as far back as the Big Bang but before the energy and fundamental forces of the universe were unfurled there was Ĕ, the primal energy and Originator of the cosmos.
- Å-Prime and the Multiplication: Ĕ created a companion for itself, the first Å called Å-Prime. Understanding the need for itself throughout the universe, Ĕ scattered itself to the void and became the energy force known today. There is a finite amount of Ĕ in the universe and it is difficult to perceive by four-dimensional beings.
- The Dawning Åge: Matter coalesced and the universe took shape knowing little of the sacrifice of Ĕ. It was an unconscious thing, known only to those who opened their hearts and just partially heard even then.
- The Return of Å: Ĕ returned to grant powers to Amanda Sykes who began to pass it on to those open to its energy. Humanity didn't understand what it was experiencing, however, until Howard March granted Ĕ-powers to Winston Koetke and turned him into the prophet Å, the reincarnation of Å from the dawn of the cosmos.
- The End Times: While Ĕ spreads to those able to open themselves sufficiently, it is finite and slowly dissipating due to the effects of entropy. It is the mission of those with the insight to understand Ĕ to fulfill its ultimate purpose: the creation of a new, infant cosmos in the vastness of interstellar space.
Followers of Åism work towards the ultimate goal of a new cosmos, but in the meantime they have created great works on Earth. They have spread the faith of Åism across the planet and even founded a nation called Åia in the Kalahari Desert of eastern Africa. Allied with Jason Weeks and Amanda Sykes they built a technologically advanced society under the direction of Å and the Council of Wisdom. Later in 1993 they reformed their society into an extrageographic national identity along the lines of EgNI#1, a move which was recognized by other nations with only slight limits (Egypt, for instance, refused to recognize the asylum the extranational rights of someone with a felony from a European or African nation).
