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11If and when humanity ever goes out into space to establish colonies, unless we develop some sort of [[CasualInterstellarTravel super-fast]] [[FasterThanLightTravel warp drive]] surprisingly early, the first few extrasolar colonies will be rather isolated for quite a while. They will also be rather expensive to set up. What sort of people would volunteer for such an endeavor? Who would willingly cut themselves off from all other human contact, leave all their friends, neighbors, and relatives behind, and strand themselves years away from any support, rescue, or even conversation quite literally light-years from home? And who could afford to build a GenerationShip, SleeperStarship, or other large but low-tech means of journeying to another world with enough people and equipment to found a self-supporting colony on a brand new world?
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13A band of religious fanatics, that's who.
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15The sort of people who, in RealLife, build isolated compounds out in the middle of the desert. The sort who set out in leaky boats with names like ''Mayflower'' and cross vast oceans to build quaint little English villages in the middle of the wilderness on a foreign continent.
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17Even once colonization really gets going, there will still be groups of like-minded religious individuals who pool together their worldly wealth and found themselves a colony of their own, where they will be free from persecution (or perhaps just free to persecute the heck out of any of their number who aren't theologically pure enough).
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19This trope is for both colonies explicitly founded by monolithic religious organizations, whether mainstream or cult-like and for colonies which, some time after their founding, become religiously monolithic due to a sort of revival fervor or the rise of a local charismatic religious leader who converts the vast majority of the population.
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21Frequently overlaps with SpaceAmish, when the rejection of technology is religiously based. Naturally qualifies as a PlanetOfHats. If the cult develops unsavoury traditions that it hides from visitors, the result will be a TownWithADarkSecret.
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23One possible outcome when SettlingTheFrontier.
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25----
26!!Examples:
27[[foldercontrol]]
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29[[folder:Anime]]
30* The Moon-Moon colony, a WackyWaysideTribe in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamZZ''.
31[[/folder]]
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33[[folder:Comic Books]]
34* In an ''[[Franchise/{{Alien}} Aliens]]'' Special, also by Dark Horse, a company is cutting costs by having a variety of cults help terraform a planet in return for being able to practice their religions in peace. Mentioned are a cult that worships an Creator/HPLovecraft expy, [[Music/ElvisPresley Presleyans]], and the Latter-Day Satanists.
35* ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'': Mega-City One's Dark Judges-worshipping death cult has built their own holy city on the desolate planet Thanatopia where pilgrims go to meet their demise.
36* The ''Franchise/StarshipTroopers'' prequel comic by Creator/DarkHorseComics takes place in the Port Joe Smith colony founded by "Mormon Extremists."
37* In IDW's ''Franchise/StarTrek'' comic's movieverse version of "Return of the Archons", Beta III is a human colony that worships a computer created by an insane social scientist. (Not the original episode, which has a broadly similar concept, except the Betans are HumanoidAliens.)
38[[/folder]]
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40[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
41* ''Film/TheColony2016'' revolves around a young woman who goes into ''Colonia Dignidad'' (Dignity Colony), in an isolated area of the Chilean Andes during the reign of UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet. ''Colonia Dignidad'' was founded by German expatriate, Paul Schaffer, who rules over the other expats with an iron fist, insisting that men and women must be segregated from one another, because he preaches that [[SexIsEvil the love between a man and a woman is wicked and sinful]], however, [[PedophilePriest he regularly rapes little boys]], and leaving the commune is forbidden, with booby traps being set right outside the grounds. He's able to get away with this since the commune gladly accepts [[UnPerson "disappeared" political dissidents,]] and to keep a good relation, [[spoiler: the West German embassy is actively complicit in Scaffer's crimes.]]
42* In ''Film/PitchBlack'', Richard B. Riddick encounters Imam, a character determined to find the colony New Mecca, where multiple religious groups are alleged to co-exist without religious conflict. When Riddick journeys to the planet in ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick2004'', this turns out to be true, although it is soon invaded by a separate group of OmnicidalManiac crusaders.
43* ''Film/{{Prospect}}'': the protagonists are prospecting on an inhospitable alien moon where small societies of people have decided to live there full-time. We don't get many specifics on their culture, but their very odd behavior and customs suggest some weird beliefs.
44* In ''Film/StarshipTroopers'', "Mormon Extremists" build themselves Port Joe Smith, a fortified human outpost on a planet considered by the Arachnids to be part of their sphere of influence. It didn't end well.
45* In ''Film/TheWickerMan1973'', there is the pagan cult that lives on the remote Scottish island of Summerisle.
46[[/folder]]
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48[[folder:Literature]]
49* In a benign example, the Fox Cluster orbital colonies from ''2081'', a futurist book published in 1981, were founded by pacifists who wanted to establish a community so far away from civilization that it could never be threatened by war. Many of its founders were dedicated Quakers, although membership wasn't mandatory and nobody makes a big deal of this in the story.
50* ''Literature/AlexisCarew'': The New London Fringe contains several, as the central government's general approach to annoying political and religious groups is to encourage them to go someplace else. The third book, ''HMS Nightingale'', deals with two such planets in particular:
51** Man's Fall is composed of neo-Luddites who eschew any technology more advanced than gunpowder firearms (they're also pacifists who only keep guns for hunting and dealing with livestock predators), only maintaining a bare minimum spaceport[[note]]a single shuttle landing pad out in the middle of nowhere[[/note]] because, like all New London planets, they're required by Crown law to resupply Royal Navy warships (for payment) or else the Navy will withdraw its protection. They justify this with a religious belief that darkspace is in fact heaven and therefore forbidden to mortals.
52** Al Jadiq is ruled by what amounts to Wahhabi Muslims. They have been known to kidnap and behead spacers for chatting up their women, and their leaders initially refuse to even acknowledge Alexis. She eventually retaliates by threatening at gunpoint to declare them to be in rebellion against the Crown unless they release two of her crew they've imprisoned. Also, the conflict of the book is set off by the Al Jadiqis insisting on trying to trade with the Man's Fallers against their wishes.
53* The worshippers of the Holy Cows living aboard the generation ship in ''[[Literature/BillTheGalacticHero Bill the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Ten Thousand Bars]]''. They venerate dairy products over all other food groups.
54* ''The Burning Bridge'', by Poul Anderson, is set a spacecraft going to establish such a colony to escape political persecution on Earth. Then a message arrives via SubspaceAnsible asking them to return home as the political situation has changed. The question then becomes, do you believe the message and return home, or go on to establish the colony, which will require years of labor on an inhospitable world?
55* In Creator/GordonRDickson's ''Literature/ChildeCycle'', the dawn of space colonization causes humanity to separate along philosophical lines (Faithholders, Warriors, Rationalists, Mystics, etc.)
56* The BigBad of the first ''Literature/DirigentMercenaryCorps'' book is a group of religious fanatics that were exiled from Earth for trying to take it over. They wound up on an existing colony. At first they pretty much kept to themselves, then they went back to their old tricks, at which point the colonists hired the DMC to protect them.
57* In Creator/FrankHerbert's ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' series, Arrakis was originally settled by members of a Zensunni sect escaping slavery and persecution. This actually fits both types of this trope, since after the original religious settlement, they ended up following a rather different religion based partly on the harsh environment of the world and partly on manipulation by the Bene Gesserit.
58** The [[Literature/LegendsOfDune prequel novels]] feature many other planets settled by Buddhislamics (mostly Zensunnis and Zenshiites). However, since the [[FeudalFuture League of Nobles]] has legalized the enslavement of Buddhislamics for refusing to aid them in their fight against the Thinking Machines, many of those worlds are raided by slavers.
59* ''Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes'': Pardal from ''Heirs of Empire''; this is the variety that didn't start out fanatical, but became so after the interstellar civilization that founded it broke down. Specifically, [[spoiler:a super-bioweapon got spread by their [[{{Teleportation}} matter-transmitters]] throughout the Empire; Pardal quarantined itself but heard the death of the rest of the empire on its "radio". Since technology had wiped out their civilization, they destroyed it all and went back to a preindustrial lifestyle, founding a church and theocracy to enforce that.]]
60* In ''Literature/TheExpanse'', the Church of Latter-Day Saints (AKA Mormons) are financing the construction of a massive GenerationShip - the first of its kind - destined for approximately 100 years of travel to a nearby star. When it is shown in [[Series/TheExpanse the TV series]], it's larger than a city and the only ship to have CentrifugalGravity.
61* ''Literature/FactionParadox'' has the Remote, a group of colonists indoctrinated by corrupt Time Lords in an effort to convert them into effective shocktroopers. However, there were rather interesting effects when instead of being indoctrinated into a religion of any kind, said gentlemen used TV programs to control the colonists...
62* "Founding Fathers", a short story by Creator/StephenDedman, mentions several planets of this type and is set on one settled by a bunch of people who were prepared to go to the trouble in order to live and raise their families on a planet with no black people.
63* Several Creator/RobertAHeinlein stories mention such colonies, such as that one planet mentioned in ''Literature/{{Friday}}'' where the Pope-in-Exile is allowed to openly celebrate mass.
64* Creator/JohnVarley's ''Literature/GaeaTrilogy'' has another unisex colony, only with neopagan lesbian separatists and frozen sperm.
65* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/{{Genome}}'', the entire population of the Ebon colony consists of the devout followers of the Church of the Angered Christ, which mandates that all aliens must be exterminated to make way for the "true children of God." To this end, they start breeding experts in torturing and killing aliens and building devastating weapons and ships (including StarKilling bombs). By the time TheEmpire decides to shut this nuthouse down in order to appease its alien neighbors, the military strength of Ebon rivals the combined might of TheEmpire. However, no Ebonite will willingly kill a human, and their entire fleet is destroyed with only a few shots fired in response (mostly by nervous captains who immediately commit suicide). When humanity is threatened with an all-out war with their alien neighbors, the Emperor seriously considers letting the Ebonites loose in order to save TheEmpire. Thankfully, it never gets to that.
66* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'':
67** Grayson was founded by the Church of Humanity Unchained, a sort of SpaceAmish cult that wanted to escape from the corrosive effects of technology. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to them, the planet they landed on had such high concentrations of heavy metals that they needed a very high level of technology to simply survive. They later went through a civil war and schism and sent out their own colony of religious dissenters to exile, who formed their own Cult Colony on the nearby (and much more friendly to human habitation) planet of Masada.
68** It crops up several times in the side stories. One is a relatively new colony formed from religious dissidents off Haven, in the novella ''The Service of the Sword'' in the anthology of the same name. Another crops up as part of the Tallbot Sector in much the same position as Grayson, though in this case it's a local bug killing their crops and they were able to relocate to another habitable planet in the other half of their binary star system very early on. Unlike Grayson, the current population is solidly atheist and rather bitter about their ancestors' fanaticism. The Haven-controlled world of Prague was settled by white supremacists who were out to create an Aryan paradise but only ended up with a dirt-poor backwater planet known best for the natural good looks of its prostitutes. Thandi Palane's homeworld was settled by black supremacists who, due to an unintentional side effect of genetic engineering, ended up with descendants who were practically albino. Weber also likes having ironic things happen to this type of colony.
69* This is the origin for the Archduchy of Crius in ''Literature/LucifersStar'' which was founded by Prophet Stephen Allenway. Allenway had some strange views about religion (specifically that Jesus was actually a redeemed Lucifer among other quasi-Gnostic beliefs) which made him unwelcome on the PREVIOUS Cult Colony his followers lived on. Eventually, the Crius cultists took in a bunch of refugees with laws that made them nobility above them and turned their home planet into a FeudalFuture state.
70* The interstellar arks in Creator/CharlesSheffield's ''[=McAndrew=]'' stories include the "Amish Ark" of people seeking a low-tech life and the "Cyber Ark" of people dedicated to the development of AI [[spoiler:yes, they found out the hard way that AIIsACrapshoot]].
71* Played for laughs in the Creator/RobertSheckley short story "The Native Problem"; a man travels to a distant tropical planet via an FTL ship and stakes a solitary claim, only to have a [[LightspeedLeapfrog sublight colony ship]] full of xenophobic (and rather incompetent) religious fundamentalists show up. He eventually marries into the new colony as the "last" member of his tribe of "extinct" natives.
72* In ''Literature/{{Neuromancer}}'' a group of semi-Rastafarians live in a colony in Earth orbit; they are descended from the workers who built the orbiting pleasure stations.
73* The novel ''The Nineteenth Wife'' features the First Latter-Day Saints, a fictional fundamentalist Mormon cult located in the (likewise fictional) town of Mesadale, Utah. The Firsts and Mesadale are closely modeled on the very real Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also called the United Effort Plan or UEP) and Colorado City (formerly Short Creek), Utah.
74* At the end of Octavia Butler's ''[[Literature/ParableOfTheSower Parable of the Talents]]'', the second book in the "Parable" series, the followers of the new religion known as Earthseed (created by the main character, Lauren) go up in space to fulfill their "destiny", which is to establish a colony and "take root among the stars". One wonders how this would have progressed [[DiedDuringProduction if she had gotten to write the scheduled third book]].
75* Creator/LEModesittJr's science fiction duology ''The Parafaith War'' and ''The Ethos Effect'' uses this along with divisions along racial lines, to the point where some characters begin confusing race with ideology. The predominantly Caucasian "Revenants of the Prophet" evolved out of a merging of Mormons and a white Muslim offshoot sect. The protagonist of ''The Parafaith War'' has to deal with strong suspicion about his motives and loyalties because he [[PhenotypeStereotype looks a lot like a generic Rev]] in a society whose population was mostly derived from south/east Asia.
76* In the ''Literature/PrinceRoger'' series, one of the major characters is from a colony that was originally this. It was originally strict Roman Catholic, but then the witch hunts started and in the present day the main religion of the planet is Satanism of the SatanIsGood variety.
77* ''Literature/{{Refugees}}'': The characters live on a compound and engage in Communion, a religious meditation in which they travel to distant places. They also hold ceremonies and Big Sings. No one is allowed to question the Benefactors.
78* In Creator/CJCherryh's ''Rider'' series, a group of fundamentalist Christians colonized what turned out to be a DeathWorld due to the telepathic carnivores which use {{Jedi Mind Trick}}s to hunt humans. The colony can only survive due to some humans having a [[BondCreature symbiotic relationship]] with the alien night horses, even though most of the colony regards the night horses as demonic and their human riders as a barely tolerated necessary evil.
79* Sharon Shinn's ''Literature/{{Samaria}}''' series features a planet founded by Christians. There are genetically engineered humans with wings called angels, whose voices call out to a spaceship in the sky that runs the planet.
80* The ''Literature/{{Safehold}}'' series is similar to Pardal, but the anti-technology religion was artificially created to prevent the planet from being visible (due to radio emissions) to the [[AbsoluteXenophobe genocidal]] alien Gbaba. And also because its creators were a bunch of megalomaniacs that wanted to be worshipped. And may have ended up BelievingTheirOwnLies in the end.
81* There are a few examples in ''Literature/TheShipWho Sang''. In the first story fanatics were attracted to the icy planet Chloe to live in ascetic contemplation, and when the star destabilizes they're quite reluctant to accept help evacuating them as they've come to regard outsiders, and the outside, as impure.
82** In ''The Ship Who Killed'' Helva visits Alioth, a miserable colony ringed by active volcanoes and a crashed [[SapientShip brainship]] turned into a kind of temple. Volcanic activity regularly floods the colony with hallucinogenic vapors, and the brainship, Lia, is a DeathSeeker [[AndIMustScream trapped in place]] and [[ICannotSelfTerminate unable to die]]. Between Lia's maddened babblings and the gas, the Aliothans have formed a ReligionOfEvil that is very into HumanSacrifice.
83* Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''Literature/SongsOfDistantEarth'' mentions different religions, namely Mormons, Neo-Christians, and Muslims, sending seedships in the generations before the End. It's implied that they may very well have succeeded.
84* Mostly averted in the ''Literature/StarCarrier'' series due to the fact that most nations were forced to sign the White Covenant severely limiting religious expression in order to join the Confederation. Most Muslim states refused, though. The series starts with the Confederation fleet arriving to help evacuate a Muslim colony that has been attacked by the Turusch. Well, technically, the mission is to evacuate the SpaceMarine contingent on the planet, but Admiral Koenig decides to save as many colonists as possible, focusing mainly on [[MenAreTheExpendableGender women and children]]. The conflict comes from the Muslim men being horrified that their women would be among infidels without their husbands. Koenig has to threaten the colony with DeathFromAbove for the colonists to finally allow their women to board the transports.
85* In the ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' ExpandedUniverse novel ''Speed of Darkness'', Ardo Melnikov was raised on Bountiful, a benevolent version of this trope. [[MindScrew Or was he?]] The trope appeared in other works, such as A Ghost Story, where a wrecked colony was raided for data [[spoiler: the colony wasn't dead]] and is briefly mentioned in Uprising, where the main character was raised on a planet that had a number of radical religions that fled the central government to get there, although he himself wasn't a member.
86* ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'': In ''Ethan of Athos'', the planet Athos was settled by a misogynistic religious order as an all-male colony. They used frozen eggs and artificial wombs to keep the population up. [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome The inherent practical problems]] of maintaining a stable population on a planet where importing so much as a ''photograph'' of a woman involves considerable paperwork is the focus of the plot, and the Athosians are treated quite sympathetically by the standards of this trope.
87* In ''Literature/TheWorthingSaga'' by Creator/OrsonScottCard, protagonist Jason Worthing establishes one of these largely by accident. His SleeperShip is hit by a missile and survives with SubsystemDamage to the colonists. It destroys their memories and leaves each of them a BlankSlate. When they awake, in a regressed childlike state, they see Jason as a parental figure. From there it is a short step to revere him as a god, especially since Jason Worthing has {{Telepathy}}. Out of pragmatism, Jason permits this.
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90[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
91* Sanctum from ''Series/The100''. It wasn't ''intended'' to be this, but when the original colonists (called "Primes") discovered a form of immortality by uploading their [[BrainUploading Mind Drives]] into [[BodyBackupDrive host bodies]], they ensured all future generations were raised in a cult that worshipped the Primes, [[RaisedAsAHost and would willingly surrender their bodies for the Primes' use]].
92* The prison colony of "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS1E3CygnusAlpha Cygnus Alpha]]" in the first season of ''Series/BlakesSeven'' was ruled by a corrupt cult leader who enforced his control by controlling access to a "medicine" that protected against a divinely-sent plague. The disease was actually a mild poison the cult was dosing itself and new arrivals with, but only the leader/s knew this. The episode served to show that you don't need advanced sci-fi technology to maintain a dictatorship.
93* A preacher in ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' episode "A New Life" led a group of followers to the woods to form a colony. [[spoiler: It turns out that the preacher is an alien who wanted to enslave the followers' descendants.]]
94* Several planets in various ''Franchise/StarTrek'' series:
95** Chakotay hailed from one set up by Native Americans trying to preserve their heritage.
96** Nimbus III in ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier'' might qualify once Sybok takes over.
97** The colony in "[[{{Recap/StarTrekS3E20TheWayToEden}} The Way to Eden]]", if it had lasted long enough to properly be called a colony.
98** The Luddite colony from ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E15Paradise}} Paradise]]" is a dark and unwilling variation: rather than recruit like-minded potential colonists, the leader instead intentionally stranded her fellow shipmates/passengers and used a secret anti-technology energy field to ''force'' them to live according to her Luddite philosophy. When this is eventually revealed, most of the surviving colonists decide to remain and figure out for themselves whether to maintain their way of life, but she herself is arrested for the crimes she committed stranding them there and for the ''murder'' of those colonists who died since because of her enforcing the anti-technology (including medicine) lifestyle.
99** The social experiment from "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E13TheMasterpieceSociety The Masterpiece Society]]", which follows a secular philosophy to a degree where it is basically a religion.
100** The colony from "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E18UpTheLongLadder}} Up The Long Ladder]]" was said to have been founded by runaway "Neo-transcendentalists", which seems to amount to their being SpaceAmish with a heavy dose of {{Oireland}} flavor.
101** [[Characters/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineGulDukat Dukat]] sets one up for Pah-wraith followers on Empok Nor in "[[{{Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E09Covenant}} Covenant]]".
102* ''Series/{{Waco}}'' depicts a real-life example. Mount Carmel is a ranch in the middle of nowhere; its owner and the Branch Dravidians' leader David Koresh has "taken on the duties of the flesh" for the group. Married men remain celibate while Koresh has sex with their wives and fathers children on them.
103* ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' had one in “Safe” that kidnapped Simon and River because Simon was a doctor and they wanted his skills. Then River started using her psychic abilities and they tried to BurnTheWitch, leading to the TropeNamer BigDamnHeroes moment.
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106[[folder:Music]]
107* "Jonestown" from ''Music/ThePerfectStranger'' by Music/FrankZappa is a haunting classical composition written about [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown the Jonestown Massacre]] in 1978 where cult leader Jim Jones ordered his followers to drink a cyanide cocktail. The end result was 900 deaths, including women and children.
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110[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
111* Any world with the "theocracy" government type in ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' might be one of these, and several of them are in canon. It's a fairly typical explanation for why a colony might have been established on an inhospitable world.
112* Averted for the most part in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', as most Imperial cults end up different due to centuries of isolation rather than being different at the start ([[KillItWithFire those are usually eliminated quite quickly]]). When these isolated planets rejoin the Imperium the more pragmatic Inquisitors and Ecclesiarchs just check that there's no real heresy and let them get on with life instead of purging them from orbit because the stained-glass window shows the God Emperor's eyes in the wrong color. In fact, they're willing to let quite a lot go, do you want to worship the Emperor in the belief that he was a simple farmer before being the Emperor, go ahead. Do you believe that the stars are the Emperor's eyes and that he is always watching you, that's fine too. Both of those are canon examples, the big point is that it is clearly the Emperor you worship and not chaos or something else.
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115[[folder:Video Games]]
116* ''VideoGame/{{Bioshock}}'':
117** Andrew Ryan, a CorruptCorporateExecutive with money (and forests) to burn and serious beef with anything resembling communism, built an underwater city where he could build a cult of personality that didn't require inventing some kind of ridiculous, communist-inspiring god. And then they accidentally found evidence of a god, and it was a slug. And most of the city realized (A)they missed the sun and the surface of the earth, (B)they had evidence that it was partially shaped instead of naturally evolved, and (C) they could take it all by the balls if they used the bioaugmentations of the slug to become superhuman conquerors and be worshiped as gods. Ryan forced them all to stay inside and play with their toys. Insanity ensued.
118** ''VideoGame/BioshockInfinite'' has it even worse with Columbia. In that case, they built a flying city so they could become All-American Nazis.
119* In the ''Videogame/{{Elite}}'' series of space-exploration games, there's a small colony in the van Maanen's star system, not far from Earth, which is home to an extremist cult of religious types. Rather than the usual pastoral approach, they live in underground caverns and mine for gemstones by hand, exporting the gems to buy the bare necessities for survival on the hostile planet. A very popular stop, both due to the gemstone exports (albeit at very low ammounts) and the HUUUGE ammount of 'Illegal Goods' you can smuggle in there from nearby star-systems at a healthy profit.
120* In ''VideoGame/EveOnline'', the Amarr Empire is descended from a colony established by a fringe Catholic sect called the Conformists. Later on, the [[ReligionOfEvil Blood Raiders]] flee the Amarr empire and into deep space in order to practice their religion in relative peace.
121* In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', the Bright Brotherhood wants to use rockets to blast their way to space to find a place where they won't be persecuted. The player can either help them or sabotage their flight so that the rockets blow up. The DistantFinale shows [[spoiler: they end up landing back in the Mojave anyways, wander back in the direction they came from, and end up [[BigDamnHeroes helping to evacuate Novac during the Legion invasion]]]].
122** Earlier, in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'', the [[ChurchOfHappyology Hubologists]] also plotted to launch a space mission from San Francisco to found one of these. This (doomed) effort ties into several end-game quests.
123* ''VideoGame/InfiniteSpace'' has the Holy Nation of Adis, which forbids people from traveling to space.
124* ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' has a mission where Shepard has to infiltrate a colony controlled by the cultists and abduct their leader. Said "colony" is two buildings with a combined population of fewer than 20. Three years later in-game, another of these is found in a cluster near Earth thought to be abandoned. A group of Asari explorers accidentally stumbled across a human colony established and forgotten about before Earth had its own FTL, and after some initial terror at the Asari's [[HumanAliens appearance,]] the colony was slowly integrated into the greater galactic whole. [[ShaggyDogStory Then the Reapers flattened it.]]
125* In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' and its [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil4Remake remake]], the very rural, very secluded village of Valdelobos has become a stronghold of the Los Illuminados cult. The remake further delves into the cult having once been run out of the village hundreds of years prior, only to take refuge on a nearby island to bide its time until it could take back over.
126* In ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'', the [[PathOfInspiration Morninglight]] have built one of these in South Africa called New Jerusalem.
127* The Lord's Believers in ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' seek to turn Planet into one of these.
128** The Cult of Planet in the ExpansionPack also seeks to do this.
129** The SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/PandoraFirstContact'' has the Divine Ascension, led by Lady Lilith Vermillion. Originally founded by Lilith to gather blackmail information on her followers via social media, it has grown by leaps and bounds. At some point, a [[TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain failed assassination attempt]] results in Lilith believing herself to be a genuine prophet.
130--> “God has finally shown us the path to a new paradise, so do not fear my brothers and sisters – for I am destined to be the shepherd leading you to salvation.”\
131 -– Lady Lilith Vermillion, ''The Path to Salvation''
132* ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' has the Protoss Tal'darim faction, a splinter of their society that split off so long ago that the mainstream Protoss seem to have forgotten they ever existed. Their culture is radically different, focused around KlingonPromotion, dominating leadership, and huffing Terrazine gas. Oh, and they worship a being called Amon, [[spoiler:who happens to be a fallen Xel'Naga and the BigBad of the entire franchise.]]
133* In ''VideoGame/SurvivingMars'', one of the available sponsors you can select for your Martian colony is called the Church of the New Ark. Their birthrate is doubled and all colonists get the Religious trait (higher base morale, low sanity never leads to suicide), but they start out with only one rocket, they don't generate research on their own, and hydroponic farms produce 50% less food.
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137* The planet of New Tau Ceti in ''Literature/AssociatedSpace'' was founded as a "pastoral enclave" by a religious movement that decided only humans could sin, so if humans became animals again, they could live without sin. So the cult members turned themselves into sheep. But the sheep still sometimes did stuff that would otherwise be considered sin, so the solution was that the sheep were blameless, but the shepherd had to pay the price for the actions of the sheep under their protection. Random visitors to the planet are thus conscripted as shepherds and forced to fight for their lives in an arena against a genetically-engineered super wolf. If they do well enough, they have defeated sin and may depart in peace. If they die, well, they've paid the price for sin, as is only proper.
138* The ''Literature/ParaImperium'' intentionally creates these through its memetic quarantine policies. Ideological groups deemed a threat to interstellar civilization are rounded up and exiled en masse to frontier planets with no advanced technology.
139* ''Literature/PiecingTogetherTheAshesReconstructingTheOldWorldOrder'' notes that a few of these popped up in the [[FallenStatesOfAmerica former United States]] in the generations following [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the Deluge]], though most have collapsed before the present day. For those that have gotten specific focus:
140** The Ryke of Aryan, founded by a collective of RightWingMilitiaFanatic types who set up a cult worshipping Qeq (an amalgam of Pepe the Frog and Q Anon's Q) that practiced ethnic cleansing and human sacrifice. Eventually their followers got tired of this and turned against the culture, with many of their descendants now [[BecameTheirOwnAntithesis worshipping the demon meant to represent the globalist boogeyman]].
141** Cheyenne Mountain fell victim to this, as descendants of the remnants of [[PresidentEvil the Beast's]] government established supremacy over civilians and acted cruelly towards them. Eventually they rebelled and left the complex, with their descendants now treating the mountain as a ForbiddenZone.
142* ''TabletopGame/TechInfantry'' has the Christian Federation, who turn themselves into this as part of their rebellion against the Earth Federation. Eventually they are crushed with the help of a force of volunteer Jewish mercenaries, who build themselves a CultColony called New Israel on the ruins of the former Christian Federation planets.
143* The aptly named Colony from ''AudioPlay/WereAlive''.
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146[[folder:Real Life]]
147* The Pilgrims, best remembered for inspiring the tradition of UsefulNotes/ThanksgivingDay, largely belonged to a separatist Puritan faction aiming to cut all ties with the Church of England (as opposed to other Puritans who wanted to reform the Church from within). They left UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} for UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands, which had [[FreestateAmsterdam much the same reputation]] then as now, but at least didn't have the Archbishop of Canterbury as part of the state. In 1620, some of the separatists, afraid that their children were GoingNative and losing their English identity, booked the freighter ''Mayflower'' to found Plymouth in what is today Massachusetts. They were originally planning to settle in the existing colony of Jamestown, Virginia, but were blown off course. Some of the settlers took that opportunity to create a brand new settlement instead of trying to go back to Virginia, partly so that no one would hold power over them, as documented in the Mayflower Compact.
148* In 1630, another Puritan sect founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony forty miles north of Plymouth, establishing the city of UsefulNotes/{{Boston}}. They promptly made it illegal to be anything but a Puritan, and soon were expelling large numbers of their own members for not being sufficiently Puritan, which is how the nearby colonies of Rhode Island and Connecticut got started. That Boston today is associated with Catholic immigrant populations (Irish, Italian, Portuguese, Caribbean, etc.) and liberal ideology is a supreme irony that probably has the founding Puritans rolling in their graves.
149** One of the groups expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony settled down in Rhode Island, where they promptly began expelling each other over disagreements. Eventually, everyone was gone except the preacher and his wife, who then had an argument, declared each other heretics, and excommunicated each other. Just in case you were wondering why the Puritans kicked them out...
150* Gloriavale is an isolated Christian cult community in New Zealand that was founded in 1969 and exists to this day. One of the defectors, Lilia Tarawa, describes her experiences witnessing abuse in the cult and her eventual escape [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7mBbXxJYA here]].
151* The UsefulNotes/{{Mormon|ism}}s fled persecution in Illinois and Missouri by packing up and heading to Utah, then part of Mexico and inhabited only by Natives. In 1890, the Mormon leadership agreed to ban polygamy, opening a path for statehood and an end to official persecution. A few refused to accept this and splintered off to found their own towns in other nearby states, territories, and countries where they could practice their polygamous lifestyle in relative peace. Some of these towns are still going strong today (most famously the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-Day_Saints FLDS cult]]), with polygamy still going on, even if there is a high-profile raid every several years or so.
152* On a darker note, charismatic preacher UsefulNotes/JimJones founded his own colony, Film/{{Jonestown}}, with around a thousand followers, in Guyana. [[DrinkingTheKoolAid It ended badly.]]
153* The modern nation of UsefulNotes/{{Israel}} was established so that [[UsefulNotes/{{Judaism}} Jews]] could have their own state again. The area they picked out was also their ancient ancestral homeland, subverting this trope to a degree. Also partially averted in that they welcome people who don't follow their beliefs to the extent that there have been periodic worries that the majority will someday be non-Jewish, though there are ''some'' restrictions on that for "the legal code was written by {{shell shocked|Veteran}} Holocaust survivors" reasons.
154* People like the Branch Davidians (of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege the infamous Waco siege]]) count as this. If it weren't for the fact that they have their own homes and the only place that they've walled up is their place of worship, the Westboro Baptist Church might also count as this.
155* Russian Old Believers (members of various ultra-conservative schismatic sects of UsefulNotes/OrthodoxChristianity) founded many Siberian towns and villages during the 17th century. There still are Old Believer villages in Siberia. Their remoteness let them survive both the Tsarist era proselytism by canonical Orthodox preachers and the Communist era anti-religious policies.
156* Speaking of Christian movements that arose in UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia, another sect called the Skoptsy -- infamous for anti-sexual self-mutilation, specifically men removing their genitals and women removing their breasts -- founded a few isolated communities, though some Skoptsy lived among other people in the Russian Empire and in neighbouring countries. They were gradually stamped out during the UsefulNotes/{{Soviet|RussiaUkraineAndSoOn}} era, but UsefulNotes/TheCaucasus still has "spiritual Skoptsy" who practise asceticism without mutilation.
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