View source for Episode 02: Faith-as-a-Service

= Part 2: ''Faith-as-a-Service'' =

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  <youtube>https://youtu.be/RATnYEBVzUE?si=TgSSlM-q8Ovfo559</youtube>
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== Related threads ==
[https://www.reddit.com/r/vtm/comments/1lu3omj/gehenna_20_update_faithasaservice/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button Discuss this post on Reddit]

== Quick Synopsis ==
It's a satricial glimpse on what happens when Corporate Eschatology (Faith & it's Practice) is done at scale large. Corporations take copyright religious materials and transform them into protected & patented works with the help of AI and LLMs. The next step? We have space tourist already. Can we send people to the AFTERLIFE and back with the right contract? Can we make a buck out of their life-changing experiences?

== Behind the Scenes ==

It took me about a month to finish the video. The script was already written by the time I finished the previous episode. It was hilarious to come up with all sort of crazy ideas at the time. I had the time of my life. My vision was clear.

During that timeline a lot of creepy events went on with my life. Two random people entered my home at 2AM; they saw me waking up from bed as one of them pointed the flashlight towards me. They turned around and then they gracefully left as they came by. Later on I suffered a freak accident by the poolside and got admitted to the ER briefly. I thank God for each day I live. It's a miracle, that I managed to push through the 2nd episode.

Anyway the technicals for archival purposes:

- The editing took me about 2-3 weeks to finish.

- Music: 5-6 days

- Website Building: 3 days

- Recording the takes: 1 day

- Script: About a 6-7 hours


Props:

Yellow Polarized Sunglass: https://amzn.to/44gRMLk

Awesome Red Shemagh: https://amzn.to/3TsbAoY

Red Scarf: https://amzn.to/3Gfdm9X

Red Light Bulb: https://amzn.to/4ksLk8T

Color Correction Gels (For thumbnail): https://amzn.to/4nCYMcX


All and all spent about 100$ for style. Not sure who said it, but style doesn't cost much. Maybe Mackmore on Trift store track....

I used sony A7SII on manual focus with F5.6. Worked out allright. 
I already had 2 ultra-cheapo softboxes from supermarket. Standard lightbulb socket. Diffusion is good enough.

Music:
The Intro is by D.D. Night - You are the power. I wrote the lyrics for that song many years ago. We were in studio and we had no lyrics. It was done in 3 hours. It's a perfect theme for the series. Inspired by the conflict between Israel and Palestine at the time in 2023, It's dealing with tyranny, opression, The end of times. (Looking back it makes sense, I was gehenna years back) Now? In 2025 here we go again. It's a recurring theme...

I used my regular DAW, Cubase 12 with Addictive Drums and Amplitube to record the demos which run under the video. I painted myself into the corner with the corporate chant. I had to a 12 track overdub with the vocals. I didn't plan the melody. It came to me as a gregorian chant. While Gregorian chant is monophonic, by the time I finished with the takes it became polyphonic. I said screw it! Showed a bitcrusher on the FX Bus and automated the living shit out of the effect based on the video. 

The Blackhole & Sun Holding musical motif is indeed from inspired by Soundgarden, but I wanted to do a little spin on it and transformed it into a doom metal version. It was not my intention, but gosh when I first put it under the video track I shat bricks. Laughed my ass off and called it sick as fuck.

After that my musical juice was drying up very very quickly. To chill out I was listening to "Black Star - Respiration ft. Common", and an idea came to me. What if I create a hiphop drumkit in Addictive Drums? I cross-referenced the track and come with a dry hip-hop kit something close to it. Then I started jamming. It's a funky groove. 
I started out with an unreleased D.D. Night Song theme, then by sudden inspiration I switched it Love you to Death by Type O Negative mixed with my musical works. I was surprised how genious move this was, not many people approached that song from this direction. Doom metal Hip-Hop "Funkyfied". Could have done better, but then I never release the video. It's nice to release this demo as part of the video.

== The original script==

Chapter IV — Faith as a Service (FaaS) Continued
To kick things off let’s ground our story about what’s happening TODAY. Corporations with help of AI monetize art in the most peculiar way. An artist call “Venus Theory” did a video back in 2025. I will link his video in the description. His experiment went like this: He created his musical product. Then he “STOLE” his own product and essentially “trained” an AI with it. In the end he used the algorythm from SUNO to create an output earily similar to his own musical works. The moral of the story is that the an AI company can pull an Uno reverse card. With the help of contentID system can strike down his OWN original music creation, justified by sounding too similar TO HIMSELF! Leaving him, AN INDIVIDUAL creator, to fight back against the corporate machine. Disturbing, riiiight?
Anyways, who said that corporations are evil. They’re just post-ethical. THERE! Even evil can be redefined on an olympic gold level of mental gynastics! Take that Google! NOW HIRE ME!
Oh wait! No! On second thought… Let me talk to my corpo legal department first, about my noncompete.

Gregorian melody starts out of nowhere. Singing starts
COMPLIANCE COMES FIRST AS COMPLIANCE IS DIVINE! OBOEDIENTIA ANTE OMNIA, QUIA OBOEDIENTIA DIVINA EST!
On screen: Devotional implant malfunction. RETIRE TO FACILITIES IMMEDIATELY

Strange, this shouldn’t happen on my PTO normally. Anyway, all jokes aside, it’s a perfect segway to transplant this idea and apply it to a totally different domain. FAITH and religion! For simplicity’s sake, I will refer the manifestations as “cults” from now on.

Just to keep the cynical-vibe going.

And don’t look at me like that. YEAH I KNOW I SAID CULTS… You are breaking my balls now. Which phone DO YOU have in your hand? Have you seen a TURTLENECK before? ESPECIALLY THE KIND DEALING WITH BLOOD? Amateur hour was in 2007, so you better wake the F up and TURN IT UP to 11. You are ALREADY invested in the ecosystem. What ELSE DO YOU NEED ME to convince you?! Investor confidence is not else but FAITH anyway. Do you believe in their carefully massaged financial reports, products and it’s leadership? The Cult leader? NO? Then you need FAITH my dear brothers and sisters! Bite into the apple and taste the SWEET… SLEEK… lifestyle and KNOWLEDGE it brings to you! SALIVATE as a shareholder. Hearing that the licensed devotional implants flawlessly integrates with you other edge devices and wearables! They look PREEM AS Fffffffff! A true marvel of product design. Dividends expected to QUADRUPLE JUST THIS QUARTER!

And now a word from my sponsor: BlackHole and Sun Holdings. Wanna invest your full net income? Had enough living on a breadcrumb and want a better outcome? Why wontchu you come to Blackhole and Sun?
As a token of my appreciation towards their generous business, let’s practice the Corporate Overlord’s Prayer and ask for forgiveness.
Put your hands into the Steeple of Synergy for a sharp projected growth curve. Thumbs are awaiting capital investment. Negative space? Risk. Holy Tequila from Mexico? Baller. Drink. Thanks Chris! No nosebleed. POWERMOVE! BOOM!

Our Father Capitalist, who art in the Heights,
Hallowed be Thy ticker.
Thy stock-split come;
Thy buy-back be done, on the trading floor as in the cloud-server.
Give us this day our daily bonus;
And forgive us our deviations,
As we forgive those who have sabotaged our KPIs.
And lead us not into insolvency,
But deliver us from deficit.
For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the liquidity,
For ever and ever, EBITDA.
In the name of Net Income, Interest Expense, Tax Expense, Depreciation, Amortization
Profit.

Snap out. Wipe face. Scared. Look down at apple watch. Throw it away.

In contrast to how big tech corporations are engaged in Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) The FAITH-as-Service -or FaaS for short- branch came about, since Religion is a market. Faith brings loyalty, community, and predictable engagement. Things which corporations crave. Salvation-as-a-Service™ could be confused with other SaaS products, so the name got dropped, but you get the point here:

Faith-as-a-Service is now DRM-protected content: the commodification has stretched even into the afterlife! The late-stage corporations already have the rights to transform not ONLY copyright protected works, but also open-source literature into “IP protected transformative works”. What’s stopping them “creating new exciting markets”?
Oh and where the Catholic advocacy groups failed on their EXECUTION with their AI priest “Father Justin” in 2024, TRUST ME the corporations Will. Not. Miss. Go ahead, look up Father Justin suggesting BAPTISM WITH GATORADE. I can’t make this up. It’s such a pure cyberpunk gold.

So let me hit you with this one:

Sermons are now only legally reproducible via SUBSCRIPTION to an official channel. Should you STEAL them, PREACH THEM yourself without a license, it’s an automatic heresy. In corpo speak it’s a terms-of-service violation. And so-called “Brand ambassadors”, “Influencers” and other 3rd party preachers are not very welcome in this field. They could subvert the crowd, dillute, or worse MISINTERPRET the message. WE. CAN’T. HAVE. THAT. Can’t we?
As IP law becomes INSEPARABLE from theology, copyright will replace canon religious laws and teachings. THE LEGAL PRECEDENT REPLACES THE DIVINE COMMAND.
Sounds Blasphemous? Revolting? Repulsive? I HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED YET! We are STILL not thinking BIG enough.

You see, private corporations already sending up space tourists on the regular. Remember Kathy Perry kissing dirt upon return? When she was yeeted to the KÁRMÁN-LINE? Then upon landing, SUBVERTING the experience for an AUDATIOUS publicy stunt? It was delightful to read, people making snarky online comments such as “Oh how I JUST wish that she could have just stayed up there”. Well… It’s old news now.

How about THIS?:
In 2035 corporations now can send tourists to the great-beyond, the Afterstife! The technical term would be GUIDED NEAR-DF TOURISM!
Wanna meet GOD? GREAT! Just sign the “NDA with God” and TO CLARIFY, it’s legal language “document” wink-wink asserting IP ownership over either an employee or 2nd party’s ANY miraculous epiphanies which they receive during a near-df experiences or visions.
Disclaimer: Should you break the NDA with God, your actions will result in FOREITING any scheduled-resurrection warranty, and TRANSFERRING OVER every ‘heaven was lit’ merch dollar to the Blackhole and Sun Holdings corporate HQ. PRAISE BE the shareholder value…!

How do they do this? In a nutshell, Corporations patent the pharmaceutically synthesized substance called “Eschatrip™” (Trademark Pending). Marketed for GUIDED near-df tourism… subscription visions… and “Remote Last Rites®” (all rights reserved) for the terminally ill.
For the sake of our story let’s not get into the technical details. It’s difficult as it is for me navigating around dark words and also without mentioning “certain” substances which Eschatrip™ could be derived from. The bad vibes will result, me being shadowbanned.

As part of the narrative, not even the worlds combined the legal and tech barriers will stop whistleblowers leaking classified company information to the public. The data-pirate preachers are smuggling reverse-engineered sermons that overwrite corporate copyright flags, giving natural passing a fighting chance. To opt-out from soul-indenture. Heck if you are lucky, you might be able to track down a torrent with all the DLC Downloadable content included! This will make L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology, with it’s purchasable Xenu expansion packs seem benign in comparison.

My intuition gnaws at the back of my head. Telling me that my vocabulary is getting insufficent to describe the malevolency at play here. The Dark-tetrad traits namely Narcissism, Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, Sadism are simply BEGGING for another sibling!
A new trait emerges as part of the Dark-pentad. SPITEFULNESS. A WILLINGNESS to hurt or sabotage others even when if it costs the actor something. It’s malevolence for its own poisonous pleasure. DISTINCT from sadism’s thrill-seeking or Machiavellianism’s strategic gain. GRUDGE AS AN IDENTITY! To defeat the maritime captain you spite, as a drastic move, you rather sunk his whole ship instead.

Harlan Ellison’s novel “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” described this phenomenon already in the 1960’s. Only the TERM was missing. Up. Until. Now…