The Great Religion is the state religion of the Symphonate, and is also an established religion in the League, though those clerics willingly collaborating with the secular government of the League are considered to be in schism by the College of Priests.

In the distant past, the Great Religion was more of what one might normally consider a religion, teaching about morality, the afterlife, theology, and so forth, with its ceremonies marking lifecycle events and various holidays. It focused on the wormhole Builders, and attempting to discern their will. For many centuries, however, the main concern of the Great Religion is the study and adjudication of their law of technological strictures, the Greater Pale, and their laws of civilized warfare, the Lesser Pale. The Great Religion also has had, historically a fair bit to say about other topics, such as trade and lifestyle, but these teachings have largely become inoperative as the Symphonate focused the efforts of the priesthood at maintaining the Pale above all else.

The Great Religion is often seen in highly syncretic local forms, or practiced alongside other religions. As long as the priesthood is free to monitor a society for violations of the Pale and to educate people on the topic, the Symphonate rarely attempts to impose any kind of religious orthodoxy.

The so-called outer priesthood of the Great Religion is composed of a vast technical staff who build, operate and maintain stardrives throughout the Symphonate.

Any sophont can become a cleric of the Great Religion. The hierarchy attempts to recruit diverse species and cultures, and often focuses on attempting to recruit from planets newly added to the Symphonate, to help them assimilate and learn the Pale.

There are various sacred writings accorded honor in the Great Religion, though nowadays the Greater and Lesser Pales and their continuously-revised official commentaries and case law are the texts most associated with its practice.

Greater Pale

The Greater Pale sets the standards of allowable technological development within the Symphonate. Priests control committees that decide what research may be conducted and how in an oppressively formal and lengthy review process; mostly they approve highly theoretical and abstract research or else methodical and extremely incremental work in uncontroversial fields. Within the Symphonate, the experimental scientific enterprise is accordingly dominated by "stamp collecting" with the strictures of the Greater Pale only very rarely allowing research that could affect the military, economy, or culture.

Besides its control over the process of research and development, the Greater Pale also has extensive regulations on what technology is, or is not, allowed to be used. Some of the laws of the Greater Pale appear intended to protect alien concepts of honor or prevent technological unemployment, but the majority are about preventing the use or development of any technology that is thought to be offensive to the Builders. Chief among these technologies are advanced or self-improving artificial intelligence that are thought to threaten a singularity. Of the thirty-seven tractates of the Greater Pale, nineteen concern allowable vs forbidden artificial intelligence, symbolic computing and machine learning facilities.

Lesser Pale

The Lesser Pale sets the standards of allowable warfare within the Symphonate. In general, warfare is a ceremonial (though still deadly for the participants) affair fought between feudal houses; apart from the occasional accident, it is allowed to affect unaffiliated civilians mainly though its economic costs. Civilian populations are protected and countervalue attacks strictly forbidden. Acceptable tactics and locations for space battles are defined. Weapons and defenses are restricted by the Lesser Pale as well, with many weapons that would otherwise be permitted under the strictures of the Greater Pale being forbidden by the Lesser for use in civilized warfare (though they may be allowed for fighting outlaws or external enemies of the Symphonate.)