Cicigean genocide

The Cicigean genocide refers to the ongoing mass ritual human sacrifice conducted by the various factions of Cicex since 4607 CY. It stemmed from the disastrous ramifications of Cicex's entry into the Copper War, which led to the fracturing of the centralized Cicigean state into rival warring factions. Each faction sought to earn the favour of Quei through increased mass human sacrifices through industrialized methods. By 4627, it is estimated that over 3.4 million individuals have been killed as part of this event.

Methods

The methods used during the Cicigean genocide reflected the transformation of older sacrificial traditions into an industrialized system of mass killing. While traditional temple rites continued in some regions, the major factions increasingly replaced small ceremonial sacrifices with standardized, mechanized, and administratively scheduled killing operations. These methods were designed to process large numbers of victims quickly, maintain ritual legitimacy, and reduce the burden on individual temples or military units.

Victims were commonly gathered through battlefield capture, village roundups, prison transfers, refugee screenings, forced registration, and denunciation campaigns. Once selected, they were moved through a network of holding camps, rail depots, fortified temple compounds, military prisons, river ports, and provincial sacrificial centers. The use of railways, armored trains, steam-powered equipment, telegraph orders, and military bureaucracy allowed factions to coordinate killings across large territories.

In the largest factional territories, killing became part of a wider administrative process. Prisoners were registered, counted, transported, categorized, marked, and assigned to sacrifice quotas. Some factions maintained elaborate ledgers, while others used simplified tally boards, stamped transfer papers, or colored tags attached to prisoner groups.

The industrialization of the methods was intertwined with ritual. Priests blessed trains before departures, marked execution devices with sacred inscriptions and talismans, recited abbreviated liturgies over mass groups rather than individuals, and interpreted smoke, ashes, blood flow, weather changes, mechanical failures, or 'miraculous' survivors as omens from Quei. In some regions, factory whistles, rail bells, temple gongs, and steam horns were incorporated into the sacrificial liturgy.

The most notorious killing centers, exemplified by the pruported Site 47, operated as hybrid institutions: part temple, part prison, part railway depot, part military installation, and part industrial disposal site. These complexes were usually located near major transport routes so that prisoners could be brought from battlefronts and occupied districts. They were heavily guarded by temple-funded paramilitaries and factional soldiers.

Justification by Cicigean factions

Cicigean factions rarely deny sacrifice itself, since it is a recognized religious practice. Instead, they deny that it constitutes genocide. Common justifications include:

• the victims were legitimate prisoners of war;
• the sacrifices were required by Quei;
• the deaths prevented greater catastrophe;
• foreigners cannot understand Cicigean ritual law;
• rival factions conduct invalid or excessive sacrifices;
• the numbers are exaggerated;
• those killed were traitors, deserters, criminals, or ritually polluted;
• sacrifice is an internal religious matter.