Ice Mendicants

The Ice Mendicants - full name Holy Order of Ice Mendicants - were a charitable medical organisation in orbit around Yellowstone.

They specialised in helping with the recuperation of lighthugger passengers, freshly thawed out of reefersleep. A common side-effect of reefersleep was temporary amnesia, one of the issues in addition to physiological check-ups that the Mendicants sought to help their patients and clients with.

The emblem of the Ice Mendicants was a snowflake, often worn by individual members of their order around their neck on a chain. Female members of the order wore black, wimpled vestments.

At least some of the orbital hospices of the order were built in the manner of orbital carousels.

RS Glossary entry

Ice Mendicants: The order of hospices dedicated to the care of the newly thawed.
- description from the official RS glossary

Description

Khouri could date her involvement in Shadowplay very precisely; it was the day she was revived in Yellowstone orbit in a carousel run by an order of Ice Mendicants. Although there had been no Ice Mendicants around Sky's Edge, she had heard stories of them and knew something of their function. They were a voluntary religious organisation who dedicated themselves to assisting those who had suffered some form of trauma while crossing interstellar space, such as the revival amnesia which was a common side-effect of reefersleep.
- excerpt from Chapter 2 of Revelation Space

TBA
- excerpts from Chapter 5 of Chasm City

Notable Ice Mendicants

• Sister Amelia
• Sister Duscha (neurological specialist)

Notable IM orbital hospices

• Hospice Idlewild - nicknamed "Hotel Amnesia"

Notable IM clients

• Ana Khouri
• "Tanner Mirabel"

Appearances

• Inhibitor trilogy
  • Revelation Space (2000) - mentioned
• Chasm City (2001) - major appearances

Notes

• Mendicant is a term of Latin etymology, originally meaning "beggar". It was a term commonly used in medieval and early modern Europe, particularly for Mendicant monastic orders that practiced social charity and an ascetic life while relying on voluntary donations.
• The term used for the order's orbital habitats - hospice - was used for medieval urban hospitals run by monastic orders, tending to the sick and needy. The Ice Mendicants' care for reefersleep passengers seems to reflect this more historical meaning of the term.
• Despite the monastic and religious iconography of the order (e.g. the prefix "holy", a Latin-inspired name, titles such as "sister", the wimpled vestments similar to those of nuns), it is never made clear in the series whether the Ice Mendicants developed as a particular outgrowth of Christianity (or a specific Christian church) or if they have any ties to Christianity and other established Earth religions at all.