Day of the Vara
Day of the Vara is a holiday celebrated in the United Empire of Earth (UEE) annually on 27 October. The holiday involves public festivals adorned with decorations in black and green and private gatherings convened to remember and honor the dead. Celebrants dress up as people who have passed away or in other costumes and swap scary stories, especially pertaining to mysterious incidents in space. It is seen by those in the UEE as a day that gives equal weight to the joy of life and the macabre.The Vara
The holiday first originated around 27 October 2557 SEY after the disappearance of the Vara, an exploration vessel orbiting the second planet in the then-recently discovered Hades system. Communications from the Vara to the Rhetor system stopped early in the morning, after captain Tisiphone Heptane sent her initial impressions of the ruined alien cities. Systems on board ceased transmitting ship status reports a few hours later. Though search and rescue teams were dispatched the next day, the Vara and her crew were nowhere to be found. No wreckage or remains were ever located.Origin and Development
In the years following this disappearance, rumors spread among haulers and travelers that something malevolent lurked in the Hades system. People began to avoid flying through it on the anniversary of the Vara's demise because on that day, the ship and her crew would supposedly return from the dead and haunt the system. Stories would vary about what would happen to those who encountered the ship but all of them touched on fears surrounding space travel: sometimes the undead crew would secretly board passing vessels to sabotage vital systems; other stories had them haunt the living until they went insane and vented their own ship; in some, scavengers would happen across an abandoned spacecraft, only for the frozen bodies aboard to come alive at the worst possible moment. Horror stories like these remain a major part of Day of the Vara.One of the lighter tales that became popular involved a protagonist who disguised themselves as a Vara crew member, which inspired others to dress as the deceased to protect themselves from bad luck in space travel. Members of Terra's (Terra III) counterculture picked up on the superstition and threw the first official Day of the Vara event on 27 October 2593. Many attendees dressed as ImperatorIvar Messer I, who had died in 2592, ostensibly to ward off evil. Songs celebrating Messer's demise that circulated among the crows that night indicated otherwise. Deacon Messer II and the UEE government spun the footage as support for the government and encouraged more Day of the Vara celebrations in 2594, describing it as a way to "fondly remember those who have been lost." The campaign was successful; today, the holiday is primarily seen as a day to dress up as and honor those who have passed. It was officially established as an annual holiday in 2595.