Editing SeventhSun:Seven Suns (section)

== The Dispute of the Suns ==

The Seven Suns are a historical system, not seven pages turned by the universe. The oldest versions of the chronology are themselves ancient, and no one knows whether the scheme began as astronomy, religious doctrine, historical convenience, or a play upon some still older phrase.

The '''Septenary Schools''' defend the conventional sevenfold division. '''Continuists''' deny that defensible boundaries exist between the Suns at all. '''Catastrophists''' recognize a new Sun only when Sol or Earth underwent a sudden physical transformation. '''Monitorial Schools''' accept transitions proclaimed—or allegedly proclaimed—by the Monitors. Other schools count every documented alteration in the radiance of Sol and arrive at twelve, nineteen, or several hundred Suns.

One notorious school maintains that Earth has passed beneath seven different stars. Another argues that Wyrm fractured history itself and that different regions of Earth have not experienced the same number of Suns. The '''Octavists''' insist that the Seventh Sun has already ended, a teaching treated as sedition or blasphemy in several cities.

Such disputes persist because the boundaries have consequences. A treaty sworn to endure throughout the Sixth Sun may or may not have expired. An office established for the Seventh may or may not remain legitimate in an Eighth. A lineage, city, or Monitorial cult may base its authority upon being the lawful heir of a civilization assigned to one Sun rather than another.

People do not always kill over the numbering of history. They kill over who inherits it.