Author Archives: J. M. Brink

Tera

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The tera is a variety of Kitellian flower noted for its delicate beauty which grows from an umbrella-like tree having leaves much like those of the Earth tree called aspen; these leaves possess scalloped edges very much like the Yuniri shrubs from Fruglam.

The blossoms themselves are superficially similar to Earth’s rose in terms of how the bloom is arranged and the general shape and size of the petals.  The colour varies but is typically in hues of red, blue, or purple – and very, very rarely pink or fuchsia.  Regardless of the colour it is always distributed the same: a very pale, pastel shade near the centre which gradually and gracefully becomes richer, deeper and darker toward the outer petals; by the outermost it is usually a shade that is almost, but not quite, black.

The flower’s scent is reminiscent of the peach blossom of Earth or possibly the Narshri buds of Plokia.  Either way there is a subtle tone to the scent that hardly any two people asked will agree how to describe, though it is almost unanimously agreed to be a faint, vaguely spicy scent and one that is very pleasing.

This undertone aroma is the product of a type chemical compound that, so far, seems to be unique to the flora of Kitola called a tymphaor.  It has been described by many biochemists as being the bastard offspring of a benzene and a pheromone.  These compounds tend to be detected by the olfactory senses as a faint spice or musk while simultaneously registering in the hind-brain as pleasure, happiness, and/or arousal.  Many races’ brains will automatically register the smell as whatever scent the individual is already familiar with that it would find most pleasant or arousing (tera are widely sought as aphrodisiacs by some races for obvious reasons, and tymaphor containing perfumes and colognes are one of the Kitellians’ chief exports).

The tree grows primarily in rocky soils at high elevations along the banks of creeks.  It has a very specific salinity requirement — more than 2% too much or too little salt in the environment will kill the roots — limiting the tera’s viable habitat further to mountainsides near salt deposits, but not too near.  The plant is, as can be imagined, somewhat uncommon, if not exactly rare, in the wild, but a careful gardener who is willing to keep very close watch on soil compositions can grow them anywhere with a suitably cool environment.  It should be noted, though, that at lower elevations the tree is not fond of the increased air pressure and will generally not grow as tall at its mountain brethren.

Still, this ready acceptance of being cultivated has led the tera to often be a popular choice for Kitellian perfumes and incense.  The purple blossom’s flowers were traditionally used to make various dyes and pigments before synthetic means were found (the natural dye of the purple tera, while a truly remarkable colour has very poor colour fastness), and the red is often still used today to make candies as the resultant colour is a very festive and happy shade of scarlet and traces of the tymphaor compound remain to give a very subtle layer to the taste.

The leaves have seen an on/off vogue as garlands worn as a crown on the heads of, most often, adolescents, though this is not currently a popular style it can be found among some in a few of the smaller villages in the southern hemisphere and in any rural community where the wild trees are abundant.  The wood of the tera tree is used decoratively, only.  It has a density and texture that makes it a poor choice for practical purposes, but it is easily carved and sculpted as well as having a very rich golden shade that lasts for many, many years with little effort due to the wood’s natural oils.  Many fine Kitellian tabletops, and desktops have terawood inlays, figures and statues of the material abound, and beads of the wood is common in jewellery commonly worn by young boys.

Shahàyreu

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The shahàyreu is an ancient Xentoran plucked string musical instrument bearing remarkable similarities to the pipa of Earth’s Chinese culture.

The most notable difference between the two instruments is in the strings.  While the pipa is generally four single strings, the shahàyreu has five paired strings.

In both cases the origin of the instrument is lost to time.  This has led to speculation that the instrument was brought to one or the other planet by mercantile explorers or anthropological surveyors.  This is enhanced by the fact that the Chinese have pipas with more strings, and the Xentorns have at times made shahàyreau without paired strings.

Another subtle difference comes, simply, from a difference in Xentoran music: It is tuned so that the first string pairs are one third of a note between B and C.  This is typical of Xentoran music which uses a musical notation that relies on dectets of notes with several partial notes between, and thus contains many notes not commonly found in Terran music.

The body’s construction is generally of  klaireo wood, a dark, rich red wood visually like mahogany or cherry, but like ironwood in texture and hardness.  There are a few other woods that may be selected, for example some current popular Xentoran musicians swear by a maker who has taken to using haeré wood from Xentor’s southernmost tundra, but the purists and the temple music masters believe they produce weaker, duller notes.  An acceptable, if uncommon, alternative material is muealri, a kind of soft blue marble.

The strings seem to always be made of an alloy primarily of silver, irydra, and caesium.  The strings are soft enough to be plucked with human fingernails; give a rich, vibrant tone; and are quite resistant to temperature changes and stress, reducing breaks and limiting the need to adjust tuning.  Due to the rarity of irydra it is worth noting that the total mass of that precious and semi-sacred metal in the strings is slightly less than 1/100th of a percent.

Luna

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MoonLuna, officially The United Federation of Lunar Communities, is the Terran Confederation capital world and home to one of the most populous cities in the Sol system:  Tycho.

This world is the principle natural satellite of Earth, the major habitable world of Sol (it should be noted for non-Terran readers that the TC does not follow the convention of naming their systems after the major planet, instead choosing to name the star and then using that to name the system), and was initially a colony of a defunct world government known as the United Nations prior to the full onset of their World War III.

Tycho was founded by these early settlers in the very late 20th century of their old Gregorian calendar.  Due to a rapid trend by various nations to develop and eventually implement orbital offensive and defensive weaponry, the UN decided that it would be best to strengthen the treaty designating the moon as neutral ground and property of all Mankind by establishing a civilian colony.

The plan was put forward and on 10 July 1997, the first supplies capsules were launched to be followed over the ensuing months by various payloads of materials the settlers would use to build their colony.  On 3 February 1998 the first of three shuttles were launched, carrying engineers and workers to augment the work already being performed by robotic means in constructing the habitats and homes, and work on the three large transports that would carry the initial 600 colonists began.  On 19 November 1998, the Moon’s first permanent residents stepped off of LT1 “Pegasus” to be greeted by, Damjana Phillips, the chief of Lunar Construction who would be returning to Earth with her crew when the LT1 headed back to earth in December.

It grew rapidly as a major stepping off point for some of the earlier solar colonisation efforts through the 21st century and even faster once the wars on Earth began reaching a crescendo, especially for various religious refugees.

When the peace treaties that would end the over century of warfare that was WW3 were to be negotiated, drafted, and signed, Tycho was chosen as the place for those government leaders and representatives to meet as Luna had taken on the role that Switzerland had in previous generations.  During these negotiations, known as the Tycho Conventions, the Terran Confederation was born and the first Confederate Congress selected.

Today Luna houses many major cities, is a central hub of Terran culture and fashion, and various of its principle cities have taken on roles that had once been held by New York City, Paris, London, and Los Angeles.  The Confederate Congress meets there in Convention Dome, and the various bureaus that maintain the confederate government are also housed here.

People from Luna are often referred to as Loonies, a term extracted from old science fiction stories, and also one used to describe the fact that many Terrans don’t see the people who live on Luna as entirely sane.  Loonies, themselves, prefer the term Lunan or Lunar with Lunan being the official term by an act of the Confederate Standards Bureau in 8.3.34@3.23, though no effort to curb the popular use of Loonie has succeeded.

Lunan culture has reminded various historians of what is known about pre-WW3 Hollywood, including their argument that the Lunan accent is similar to what was known in the 1980s as Valley.  However, unlike the Valley accent of that bygone era, there was a heavy influence from French, Indian, and Japanese members among the founding settlers so it should be noted that similarities to many other accents exist and the Valley connection is largely a matter of opinion; certainly their slang is not as much a match for that late 20th century sub-culture (it should also be noted that this is the accent favoured by all ages, classes, etc. of Lunan society rather than being a youth sub-culture as history tells the Valley group was).

Luna thrives on the modern.  Nearly all interstellar and extra-Confederate goods are processed through Sol system and Luna is the central port of call for most of this traffic (Ganymede, Mars, and the MJ-trans3 Station sharing the remainder), and so many things not found in the rest of the Confederacy can usually be found here.  Trends and fashions come and go by the month, even by the week or the day.  Certainly by the year.  It is the greatest insult a Loonie of any age can give someone to say they look ‘tyrd’, ‘out-moda’, or ‘so-yestard’ or that something they said is ‘from an hour ago’.  Lunan hair styles change more often than the weather on the blue-green marble that hangs in its skies, LunaPop is a musical genre that thrives on technological instruments and software aided vocal or audio effects and strives to break the mould with each new song, the stereo-cinemas are crowded by the latest special effects thrillers, and anyone caught reading a book, even off a datatablet, would be laughed at mercilessly to the point it is joked that being caught with an actual bound-paper book on Luna is grounds for being thrown out the nearest airlock.

Human vs human

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Human and human, or Mugdarran vs mugdarran, and so forth is a linguistic convention adopted among the English speakers and writers of Galfarran settled worlds to best maintain propriety when discussing the various races and species of the universe.

The convention itself does become confusing, and while speaking even rather useless, though some try to ‘pronounce’ the capital via emphasising the initial syllable. It is, however, very necessary as words like hominid, humanoid, and so on are considered rude, and words such as primate, canine, etc. are ghastly racist and could lead to duels over insulted honour in some circles. It goes very much against the Galfarran mind to ever speak in such a manner regardless of the language.

In Galfarran one uses a diminutive form of their own race when speaking of another race that either strongly resembles his own physically or simply if a particular trait being discussed is similar between the two. Thus a Mugdarran might be said, by a Xentorn, to be of xentorn form, or she might say that a Glophnokt has a xentorn nose, despite the Glophnokt being a semi-upright hexipodal creature most similar in form to certain flatworms found at the sites of some of the nuclear attacks after Earth’s third world war.

Now, if one is trying to discuss a race that has no notable similarity to your own you are correct in choosing another race of similar form to use as the descriptor instead. Thus a Human might refer to one of the Klifdress as being an eldraxi race, due to the Eldraxi and Klifdress both being seed eating, flight capable, avian species.

The use of scientific taxonomical terms such as avian is to be avoided except in situations where one is clearly giving a clinical evaluation of data. The same goes for saying species rather than race. Races are intelligent, species are animals. Galfarran speakers are aware that they are of their species, but it is considered rude to not make the distinction that they are evolved, the word race, and speak casually of them as a species thus indicating they are no better than animals – uncouth, or boorish. In this regard one would never say an avian race, this is insulting. As avian is a clinical taxonomy it would be used to describe bird species, and may be used to collectively include bird-like races.

It should be noted that how a race is referred by a Galfarran speaker generally denotes that speaker’s opinion of them. For example: many a Galfarran speaker who fought in the Dichidian war are known to refer to Dichidians as lizardmen, reptiles, or reptilian rather than something more polite.

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Leytgeleshi

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A simple definition that is fundamentally accurate, but does a gross injustice to the concept, would probably be a professional companion, friend, and confidant.

Ignoring nuances, a leytgelez is not a unique concept throughout the tri-galaxies. On Earth there were the geisha, the oiran, and courtesan.  On Alluria there are the Yunahra or Namredhe.  And a billion other titles throughout the myriad star systems.  Some still exist and others do not, but they all are educated individuals versed in the arts, especially conversation, erotic, and healing.

A leytgelez is a student, ideally, of all art.  In practice few species have the life span for such and so most specialise.  All are well versed, as are/were their various analogues, in conversation and listening.  Many visit a leytgelez, or a salon of leytgeleshi just for someone to talk to who can provide witty, intelligent, well read, thoughtful converse.

Most leytgeleshi are versed in erotic arts, though it would be a radical misconception to consider them prostitutes of any sort.  If you were to come to a leytgelez purely for the physical gratification of sex, it would direct you to the nearest brothel of significant quality and even recommend individuals if they happen to be familiar enough with the place.  There can be exceptions, but this is because there are roughly as many variations on what precisely a leytgelez is as there are leytgeleshi.

Still, cultured is another cornerstone of the leytgelez.  They are familiar with all art even if they are not a strict adherent to some of them.  They will generally be a student of philosophy, possibly of the sciences.

Few leytgeleshi work alone.  Most gather at a salon run by an older leytgelez in what is generally that individual’s home.  A leytgelez does not personally charge for her services, especially not in a salon, though some do if they work alone.  However the more common is for the leytgelez working alone to be independently wealthy or to have some alternative means of income; still others live well off of gifts of money and goods offered to them from those who seek their company.  Depending on various factors the salons may charge membership fees for unlimited access, while others are open to all.  It is a mark of great shame in most Galfarran speaking worlds that have leytgeleshi to be asked to leave a salon, and an even greater social blackmark to be banned from such.

There are five salons in the galaxies that are rated among the most famous, most prestigious, and most exemplary of the craft.  Four of them are in Galfarra: Lirukari’s Salon on Junil, Thalena Lhagr’k’s on Nahrill, Lord Niltada’s on Brodillu, Maxiri Ugragk’s on Flandreau.  The fifth is Lady Salarissa’s Salon on Sweytz in the Milky Way.

In all of these examples there are counted among each one’s leytgeleshi a number of doctors, psychiatrists, spiritual healers, poets, painters, dancers, exemplary cooks, singers, philosophers, those thoroughly versed in massage, acupuncturists, literary scholars, and the most caring and loving individuals from, between them, some two-hundred odd species, and approximately eight genders.

Each of these five Salons are run purely for the love of the leytgeleshi’s friends (a leytgelez does not have clients, or patrons, he has dear friends) and fund them through carefully managed trusts invested from their own personal fortunes.  Their leytgeleshi earn very generous salaries that permit a very comfortable lifestyle.

Leytgelez salons are a place for laughter, tears, joy and sorrow, and healing.  Friends are to remember that they are invited into the home of the one who provides the salon and should behave with deep respect for all present, though beyond that there are often few other rules to follow as the rule of respect is presumed to suffice.  Some will have rules for their own salons due to the conscience of the owner, for example Thalena Lhagr’k does not allow punning in its Salon because it deems such to be horribly offensive to the spirits, but at Lady Salarissa’s there have been known to be spontaneous punning contests among leytgeleshi and friends when certain individuals get together, though it is said Her Ladyship never engages in these personally.  Others say she does on occasion but tends to avoids them out of a sense of fairness – she is easily an hundred times the age of the eldest person who visits her salon and has a remarkable store of such things.  The author would like it known that, in his own visits he has never witnessed the Lady taking part, but that he is poor witness due to a habit of fleeing to the gardens when such contests ensue.

Lemyrkûn

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Lemyrkûns are a populous species on Radthel, the principal continent of Sweytz’ northern hemisphere. The creatures are one of that planets five known proto-sentient races exhibiting a remarkable, if rather childlike, intellect.

The creature is found throughout the northern hemisphere and on the largest southern continent, though in minuscule proportions with respect to those found on Radthel. While classed proto-sentient by most xenobiologists of the tri-galaxies it should be noted that none of them believe the species will ever become the principle native intelligence. The reason for this is simply the lemyrkûn’s utter lack of interest in making tools or doing more in life than playing and gathering nuts. Though it should be noted that they would be remarkably easy to elevate as they show great thoughtfulness, keen memory, as well as a remarkable aptitude and enthusiasm for any tools they are given.

Wild lemyrkûns are very fond of people and seem to take a great pleasure in showing off for admiring audiences, and so they are found frequently near homes, villages, and cities playing in trees and among rooftops.

The creature itself is a hermaphrodite, as are so many of Sweytz’ native animal life, and is marsupial. They feed entirely on seeds and nuts, and go dormant during cold seasons, though if one is kept as a pet in a warm home or warm climate they do not seem to require hibernation, but become comparatively more lethargic and sleep longer hours during the winter korvare. They are approximately a yard long from head to tail when fully mature, and have been described by many Terrans as a mad scientist blending a flying squirrel, a raccoon, and the speaker’s choice of various monkeys or a lemur. This is a reasonable description of the creature, though those who are familiar with the Kûndthêk of Glarosd would say it is a tiny one of them, hence the name which is an Oplitti construction for “Tiny Kûn”. It should be noted, however, that the lemyrkûn is in no discernible way related to the Kûndthêk race, and utterly lacks in their ferocity or strictly piscivore diet.

Due to their fun loving, gentle, and bright nature they were quickly adopted as pets among the early Sweytzian settlers and have remained one of the top ten favourite pets of the people of that system since its founding, and is always of the top five native species pets.

The lemyrkûn evolved from a primarily nocturnal species and is still mostly so in habits, though like the cats of Earth they are found active at all points of a day, and seem to sleep in naps of myriad length as needed. They do have large eyes, and seem to posses a very finely tuned echolocative capacity, studies show them able to locate grass seeds in perfect darkness with no apparent difficulties. They do not converse in the ultrasonic, however, instead reserving communications for trills, “merps” and “meeps” in a high pitched, but firmly human audible range – for reference to approximations of their vocalisations in pitch, tone, and essential sound observe young Terran kittens, or the adult stage of the Flendessu oplkite.

They are exceedingly clean animals who can usually be shown how to use various toilet facilities, or if one has a stubborn individual or an incompatible facility for their needs a litter-box will nearly always suffice, though most owners in this situation prefer to teach their pet how to use the door to go outside – the wiser installing a special door for the pet to use as it can be lightly difficult to convince then to remember to close the door afterwards and it makes it near impossible (even compared to normal) to get the curious little thing to stay out of (or in) a room.

As a proto-sentient they are banned for export from Sweytz, though some concession is made to allow citizens of the system not on the primary planet to keep the creatures, and family pets may be taken off-world by their owners. As a result the lemyrkûn has not spread much beyond the near region as a pet, nor are many outside the Sweytzian Alliance familiar with them.

Also their status as semi-intelligent does make the terms ‘pet’ and ‘owner’ slightly inaccurate. The creatures are adopted by families or an individual, but the lemyrkûn must also accept the family willingly. It should be noted that little direct enforcement of this ever occurs as it is seen as foolish in the extreme to try to take a lemyrkûn against its will. They are highly mischievous and playful at the best of times, they can become hellish dæmons of destruction and chaos until they escape or are set free if they’re unhappy. This also discourages ill treatment by those possessing one in their home who still wish to actually have a home. Treated well they are incredibly loyal, will assist (in their own way, which may or may not be actually helpful) with caring for small children, will defend their home from intruders by means of thrown objects – many a valuable heirloom vase has been save from theft by being hurled and shattered against the skull of a would-be burglar. Some even manage to teach their lemyrkûn household chores.

It is a rare home that has more than one, maybe two, lemyrkûns living in it. This is not because they fight. Rather it is for entirely the opposite reason: they’d PLAY. Those who raise lemyrkûns tend to have a home made of very sturdy materials that their hordes live in (horde being the best translation of the official Sweytzian word for a group of lemyrkûns, floghe, which is derived from flogkä – the word for a several of a kind of dæmonic spirit. Unofficially most Sweytzians just say group, bunch or some other generic plural) separate from the keeper’s own home.

Sweytzian Alliance

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The Sweytzian Alliance is comprised of twelve star systems in the Milky Way and four in Galfarra, all located in close proximity to the trans-galactic wormhole that permits travel between Galfarra and the Milky Way. This Alliance is a full member of the Galfarran Union and, as such, uses Galfarran Credits with authority to mint them.

The Alliance, as it is more commonly called by its members, was a natural evolution of the Sweytzian government. It began with the first Sweytzian colony of Tilthanes, when it was decided that the system would govern itself for practicality’s sake, but that the two systems could work together for mutual benefit. This was in the Sweytzian year 97. Since then there have been seven more colonies, and the remaining eight members are comprised of three colonies from Galfarra, and the rest are colonies settled by Milky Way peoples or are colonies of the Sweytzian colonies. Not all Sweytzian colony worlds (counting colonies of colonies) are Alliance members, though most are on friendly terms with it. An interesting quirk, despite being very near to and on very good terms with several nearby star systems with indigenous people the SA does not yet have any member worlds that did not originate as a colony; albeit this is by simple coincidence, not design, and some nearby indigenous worlds have considered petitioning for membership.

The Alliance’s structure and charter is based on Sweytz’ founder’s original thesis, and the Sweytzian constitution itself. Member worlds send emissaries who are granted representative powers by their homeworlds and decide on policies that affect the Alliance as a whole, and to select their representatives to the Galfarran Union parliament.

The Alliance, technically, is little more than a trade union, but does have the power to engage in a certain measure of military action as a portion of each member’s military is pledged to the Alliance Council’s use as a joint force intended for protection from piracy and to keep the intersystem patrols for deep space defense.

While, as a Galfarran Union member, the Alliance has the right to mint its own internal currencies (and by its own laws its member worlds each hold the same right and are required to honour one another’s money) this right is not exercised. The Alliance relies on Credits, though Lokjiyu does use its own traditional currency, the Triluri. Nearly all of the member worlds use Galfarran for the native language, and the Council is held in Galfarran. Though all of the worlds seem to be home to speakers of many diverse languages.

The Sweytzian Alliance holds an honoured status in the Mugdarran Empire, has full mercantile access to the Kivanian Imperium, has a shaky political if strong economic relationship with the Terran Confederation through the member world Sweytz, and is a celebrated ally of the Allurian crown, just to name a few of its influential friends. They also work and trade freely with many minor groups in all three galaxies. Noteworthy on the opposite side of things the Sweytzian Alliance is on very poor terms, at times verging on war, with Anerix; they are banned from all thirteen star systems of His Majesty the King of Glamirth who has decreed that all Alliance ships, regardless of class or purpose, are to be destroyed on sight; and Alliance merchants may trade with Klingdou, but may not step off their ships nor interact with them without covering their heads with a shroud – a potent insult, doubled in Klingoi estimation, by their refusal to accept Alliance member ambassadors or to allow private citizens to enter the star systems except to trade.

Taredĵo

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A little used Galfarran title, with origins among the Flindrosa of the Glakinod star system. Taredĵo is one of absolute legal authority. In very few circumstances has it ever been used such that it did not lead to a dictatorship, in fact the only current examples of this title in use are to be found in the law enforcement of the Sweytzian Alliance worlds: Sweytz and those worlds within its system, Talgori, Velrod, and Selinasa.

In its traditional form, the full authority of law is given to a single individual, who may then appoint at their own discretion and authority any number of vataredi to assist as deputies. Taredĵo is always a proper noun, and treated appropriately, due to tradition that has been lost in antiquity, though some guess that it was due to the Taredĵo’s very singular role, though grammarians are quick to point out that this would be utter nonsense. The Taredĵo is responsible both for enforcing laws, sentencing, judging, etc. in easily half of the cases that a society appointed a Taredĵo that individual also became the sole law maker, and in all cases but the Sweytzian Alliance’s use of it was the case within a generation.

The Sweytzian Taredĵo is afforded the autonomy and authority that the title implies, but the founders of the worlds believed to have found a balance and so far have proven correct as the oldest society in the group to use the title is over three hundred of its years old, and easily an hundred generations have been protected by its Taredĵo without any signs of tyranny.

This difference is from the laws containing a prescribed punishment, the law making authority being firmly in the hands of the populous as a whole, the Taredĵo and her vataredi not being the only ones allowed to enforce local law, the Taredĵo’s authority extends only over a province with the Taredĵo of other provinces able to bring aid to a province whose Taredĵo goes rogue, as well as the populous having control of the military which can bring down a rogue Taredĵo.

Taredĵo are always appointed for life by the government in control, be it a king, or in the SA’s case by popular vote. They are tasked with keeping the peace and upholding law and order, and then given full authority to do this as they see fit. The Sweytzian Alliance worlds are not the first to think of giving law making powers to a separate group thinking that in so doing they would stop the power hungry, or in some cases well meaning, Taredĵo from usurping all power, but all of these tasked the individual with the world’s peace. The SA is the only example of limited geographical authority with an army independent of the vataredi.

In the case of the Sweytzian Alliance’s use of the title, there is a codified selection processes. When a former Taredĵo dies or steps down, or in the one dozen incidences throughout the multiple centuries as well as planets and provinces, is overthrown a number of eligible vataredi announce their willingness to take the position to their provincial council. The vataredi then select those they feel do not have the leadership ability for the position and those candidates applications are rejected. After this initial culling of those the vataredi are unwilling to answer to, the full provincial council considers the candidates remaining via full access to all records of their time as a vetaredi, as well as consideration of their general character – suffice to say the title nearly always goes to the one best known among the people by being most active and outspoken in council as well as being more public and visible in general – then the matter goes to vote. In the case of a tie, the candidates themselves are asked to make the tie breaking decision, which curiously does not often lead to a second tie, but when it does then the Taredĵo of all the other provinces of that world vote not from those who tied but all those initially considered by the voting council.

Restrictions on the Sweytzian Alliance Taredĵo are that they are not judges in cases where guilt is questionable, they instead become the prosecution in a council trial. They may not perform executions, a criminal’s only right by Sweytzian constitution and those based on it is the right to life; they are not given absolute autonomy in sentencing, laws include what punishments are deemed justified, though most give the Taredĵo choices with regards to details and thus it can still go very badly to annoy a Taredĵo during sentencing; and they are not given free access to the provincial coffers, and are granted a budget that they may request increases in and present their reasons to the council and must manage their equipment and vataredi force based on that budget.

Xentorns

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Xentorns are a human race very similar in many respects to Humans.

In regards to what organs and their arrangement, external anatomy, and basic biochemical matters they can be treated as Humans. There are, of course some exceptions, for example the stimulant hidroklin is a highly dangerous depressant to them, and they can safely inhale nearly four times as much jilorthi vapour as many humans.

They are, though, a distinct and separate species. Most notable is their pigmentation which is of a lilac hue and in sufficient concentration is a deep lavender shade. Their hair colour tends toward shades of pink, purple, and black.

Eyes have no fixed shade among Xentorns. The reason for this and the exact stimuli that trigger the process is largely uncertain, but the process itself is well studied wherein the Xentorn iris will, several times in a short period or less than twice in a korva, shift colour notably. These shades range through various colours of brown, green, hazel, blue, purple, and in some rare individuals there has been witnessed a very vivid red. Within these colours shade can very from one expression of the trait to the next.

Another profound difference is the Xentoran empathic sense. This sense seems to work from receptors located in the skin and is carried to the usual human brain structures as would be expected, though it should be noted the brain structures are smaller in Xentorn anatomy due (it is suspected) to their only needing that lobe for processing rather than for both reception and processing as it is in most other races. This tactile empathic sense is assumed by both xenopsychologists and xenosociologist alike to be the originating impetus for Xentorns being a notoriously sensualist race with an attitude and etiquette that skews to the physically expressive.

Another notable biological difference is the Xentorn circulatory system. First there is the heart, on average some ten percent or more larger than a Human’s in mass and total size, though the four chambers themselves are not significantly larger. The heart also beats much slower than many human species, averaging between twenty and forty-five beats per minute at rest. This slower, larger muscle beats much harder, though, giving a healthy, relaxed Xentorn a blood pressure somewhere in the neighbourhood of 260/175.

Finally Xentorns age somewhat unusually for a human. They mature at three different rates throughout their life. From birth to puberty they age at a rate comparable to Humans. Puberty for the Xentorn youth begins between the ages of six and nine (it should be noted that for purposes of this article the Terran year is assumed). This puberty is very rapid and generally only takes between two and five years from onset. Thus a Xentorn is quite grown up between the ages of eight and fourteen. The median for onset is eight with the median completion being around twelve. After this their ageing slows and one can expect a Xentorn to be ⅞ their age compared to a Human, though this ratio only begins to be a practical gauge after the Xentorn and Human being compared have reached somewhere between nineteen and twenty-five. Prior to this, obviously, the Xentorn is markedly older, biologically, than their Human chronological peers.

Psychologically Xentorns are quite interesting. They are one of only five races so little different from Humans who do not and have never colonised a world beyond their own star system, not counting those not yet capable of interstellar travel. They also build no hyperships except pleasure and trade craft. All Xentoran military vessels are entirely incapable of leaving the Xentoran star system, and would not survive FTL travel using even the most basic hyperdrive₁ engines of a primitive hyperbarge.

They believe in a deep unity of all life, but especially the unity of all Xentorns to one another. They all count both their homeworld and Xentor as their homelands and all Xentorns consider themselves subjects of The Seven Crowns. They are of one culture and Xentoran temples exist throughout the tri-galaxies to assist in the spiritual, linguistic, and cultural education of young Xentorns, or to help adults who begin to feel they are losing touch with The People and with Xentor (Xentor, it should be noted, is the name of their world and the spirit of that world who is said to have brought forth the Xentorn people).

To fully understand Xentoran psychology one must understand their spirituality. While, as with any race, there are varying degrees of devotion and faith, it is safe to assume any Xentorn you meet will fit the following description to some degree. The rare Xentorn who does not adhere to these philosophies will not take offence if you make such assumption as she will be well aware of how very odd she is.

The Xentoran religion is not unlike the faeshild faith, though it is lost to history if this has always been the case, meaning parallel development, or if one group influenced the other. Still there are a number of spirits that represent various aspects of life and creation to whom prayers are offered according to their powers and governance. Xentorns also believe that all life contains a spirit that is the essence of each being, a soul. This soul is immortal, though certain abhorrent breaches of very specific sacred vows will forfeit the soul and at that point the individual is counted among the dead regardless the health of the body. The Xentorns believe that the flesh is merely a shell the soul encases itself with to Experience. They believe the soul herself is only capable of experiencing memory and emotion. The soul selects a form to experience life through other senses and to gather new memories, and the body has no access to the memory of the soul, thus it is impossible for one to recall her prior lives while incarnate. When asked about this the priests point out that it would spoil the experience of living if one remembers already experiencing life, so the soul stores her memories away from the brain and memories of the body.  They consider their empathy to be a capacity to hear the voice of the soul.

Xentorns have only an aesthetic regard toward gender. Fashion between the sexes varies little save in regards to cuts that better flatter the feminine form versus the masculine or vice versa. Xentoran itself has no gender specific pronouns, though it does have words (thought by most linguists to be for purely pragmatic purposes) for male and female, and they do not follow the usual Galfarran convention of translating this gender neuter pronoun into the gender neutral form, choosing “she” instead.  Creative forces, like the soul, which they believe to be the origin of emotion, are feminine.

While their religion and its festivals, holidays, spirits, and their gods may hold little importance among some of the race, the spiritual beliefs with regards to the soul, emotions, and the Xentorn place in the universe is what is central to this people. Thus it is nigh impossible to meet a Xentorn who is not a strict vegetarian. They will eat animal products, and unfertilised eggs, but no flesh at all. There is debate regarding consumption of plants that must be killed to consume, but it is argued that all such plants are root vegetables and that it is exceedingly rare not to harvest these in a way that does not leave some behind for the plant to regrow. They are, biologically, omnivorous and in dire straits will eat meat and can be rather adept hunters since they have the remarkable ability to sense the emotional state of even remarkably alien species and so have an easier time locating prey.

The Xentorns, as has been stated, are a very sensual race. While they prefer pleasures, some will actively seek out any sensation, both pain and pleasure. In fact some Xentoran holy days are celebrated in ways that deliberately involve discomfort or pain. By and large, though, Xentorns revere the emotions of love and the feelings of pleasure above all else. They seem genuinely incapable of feeling jealousy themselves, though they are able to sense it, the closest racial feeling being envy. Thus monogamy did not develop in the Xentoran culture, though on rare occasion it does get practiced, and those who fall deeply enough in love with a monogamous partner of another race will agree to exclusivity, though the non-Xentorn partner usually needs to be aware that sexual exclusivity is a separate concept and is less likely to be agreed to as certain holy celebrations are quite sexual in nature and it might deeply hurt and offend the Xentorn partner to ask her to sexual exclusivity that also precludes those celebrations. This leads to their language having an estimated seventeen different words for parents, and nearly twenty words for siblings each denoting different permutations of relation, though some of these are archaic and not commonly used today leaving about a dozen of the former and around fifteen of the latter in day-to-day Xentoran. Many a derogatory word, phrase, or attitude about or for the race involves this sexual promiscuity and the very early age in which the Xentorn is likely to have her first sexual experience; most amount to various ways of calling them whores or sluts, and a few insinuate the race to be inbred and to engage in bestiality.

Xentorns do not posses last names. While the race and their family are important, the notion that the soul moves on, and may not even be the same species next lifetime, or even sentient, means they hold no special regard for ancestry. They concern themselves only with the living. This lack of regard to history has frustrated many people trying to study the Xentorns as they keep records only of those events they felt were really interesting and little else. The Xentorn’s single name is assumed to be unique. This, especially now with so many spread through the accessible universe, is at times not actually the case and in the fullness of time assumed to be impossible, but it is simply not done to name a child after someone, though as a show of great affection for someone you might base the child’s name on that person’s name. The name is constructed by her parents and is chosen simply on aesthetics. It is also not done, one should note, to name a child a word, though again a word with an enjoyable sound might become the basis for a name. When in situations where a surname must be offered all Xentorns have the family name Xentor, though at times one who feels a desire to stand out a little may choose the world they were born on or currently reside on instead. This is thought to be part of the belief that the race is highly inbred, along with their willingness to engage in non-procreative sex with even very close family, and to include certain sexual acts as mere expressions of affection.  They are known to find even procreative sex between second cousins or similarly distant relation perfectly okay, and close cousins are only thought to be a little odd. The only taboo pairings are direct ancestor and descendants (parent/child, or grandparent/grandchild, etc.) or full blood siblings. Though it should be noted that with the exception of those rare violations of spiritual propriety that results in keau’li (souldeath) that “taboo” means “discouraged as not an exceptionally wise decision”.

Another curious quirk of the race is that they generally do not wear shoes or any other footwear. It seems that the race never really invented them. Not as a fashion or daily use item, at any rate. Protective footwear for various situations, yes, but these are merely the podiatric equivocal of a hardhat, radiation suit, or coat. This is not to say the race cannot understand wearing shoes, and on worlds where going barefoot is either impractical or is taboo they will readily adopt local fashion and public custom, though once they arrive home the footwear is, typically, removed immediately and on worlds where bare feet is acceptable most will elect to remain so rather than go shod. This is mostly, in these days, a conscious cultural decision relating to cultural identity, though some xenopsychiatrists and xenopsychologists do note that many of the race seem to find shoes distinctly uncomfortable regardless of situation or style and thus argue that there might be some inborn aversion.

Xentor is not a hot world, but it is warm and as such Xentorns tend to prefer subtropic to tropical climes. While they are biologically adapted well enough that they do not have an appreciable difference in tolerance to heat or cold from a Human, they do tend to be more comfortable approximately five to ten degrees Fahrenheit higher than a Human of similar mass and dress. This preference is sometimes attributed to the fact that Xentorns consider clothing to be little more than a fun decoration of their forms. They will readily go nude when they can, but just as often will wear clothing that either flatters and enhances their form, or traditional Xentorn fashions which mostly involve very loose garments, robes, or drapings of very light and gausy materials which clearly show the body beneath.

Milky Way

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The Milky Way is the youngest of the three major Galaxies, though it is the second largest.

The importance of this Galaxy is, relatively, recent as it was not at first realised it housed two intergalactic wormholes, and in close proximity to one another at that.

The Galaxy is home to Earth, Kivan, Mugdar, Tylassia, Magvin, Ilzwik, and many, many more major worlds, though an important note is that exceedingly few of its known native peoples have achieved anywhere near the technological advancements of Glafarra or Vorton.

Little is ultimately known about the peoples and worlds of this Galaxy, in the wider scope of things. This is due to no large scale galactic government or galaxy wide recognised power. The Terran Confederation, and Mugdarran Empire probably span the most distance but only a few hundred parsecs between their furthest flung outposts, the Mugdarrans and Kivanians by most measure control the most systems numbering some five hundred stars or so, and those three combined with the Sweytzian Alliance make up some of the strongest economic powers, but only just.  All of these even combined are not nearly as large and influential in the broader Milky Way as Alluria in Vorton; their power, control and influence mattering very little beyond, at most, their side of the galactic core.

Historically the Milky Way has been a harvesting zone for the traders of the more advanced races of the Vorton and Galfarran galaxies out looking for cheap or free goods, though some did deal directly with the Milky Way worlds and at honest rates.

The only scientific survey of species, races, and worlds was done by the old Federation in Galfarra approximately fifty thousand Earth years ago and was cancelled after only about one century. At that time it would seem that easily half the known inhabited worlds had sentient or proto-sentient life, and most of them were still working out things like fire and bronze. An exceedingly small number had reached any form of industry or space flight, and perhaps a dozen with faster than light capacity were met.  Various unofficial ones have been done by the worlds that would later become the Sweytzian Alliance in the past hundred to two hundred Earth years, and due to the greater speed and range of their ships they represent the most complete modern survey compared to any other races’ attempts in the Milky Way, notably the Terrans and Gargorna.  In recent decades professors at various universities have been striving to compile astrographical, botanical, biological, sociological, etc. knowledge from all the starfaring races and attempt to cross reference, reconcile and collate it all.  The several dozen powerful computers and gifted members of two rather extraodinary races, the Haderwo and Bv’ktra, expect that they should finish the data they started with in about an hundred-fifty Sweytzian years (three Sweytzian universities house the heart of the project due to proximity to the Galfarran wormhole as the Haderwo and Bv’ktra feel that to set foot on an alien world would endanger their spirits’ purity and deny them a place at their gods’ side in the Great Beyond).  Given the rate new data is coming in, but thanks to a second half dozen groupings of bots, computers, and dedicated individuals that data should only add fifty more years to the project and then afterwards be near instantly incorporated as all systems related to the project could work together on only that new information.

Merchants continued to travel into the system routinely after the original survey ended, but they did not engage in much research or record keeping beyond what goods were most easily got where, and what races were liable to kill strangers.  An interesting note from several chocolate traders is that Earth (known by several different names at the time) contrary to the norm was quite friendly to traders of all sorts in various regions but became progressively more hostile as they reached greater technological growth, it is also worth mentioning that approximately ⅓ of the human races found within that part of that spiral arm of the galaxy followed a similar trend.  This has puzzled xenopsychologists and xenosociologists alike for millennia and will likely earn the first one to present a viable theory an immediate professorship.

The Milky Way, namely its planet Earth, is know to be the original source of coffee and chocolate; early Aslith traders frequented more than a few planets for their fish; and Ilzwik was then, as today, prized for its cazax, that amazing plant ivory which is so heavily used in industry for being twice as hard as diatanium alloy and a tenth the weight of diamond, which is proof against most dangerous radiations.

Today only a quarter of the known sentient races (known sentient races is up to nearly three times that ancient survey’s count, by the way, and new ones are periodically discovered) do not have space flight of some kind and most of those who do, also have some form of interstellar capability of their own devising.  If one factors in races that have gained space flight and interstellar travel through trade the number who do not possess these abilities dwindles to between ten and fifteen percent.

Some of those remaining races vary in advancement from early stone to some form of industrial stage. Some of these are openly traded with and others are only visited to harvest trade goods depending on their disposition toward strangers and aliens.

Also of note would be that some races of pre-stellar advancement or pre-space advancement also gained these technologies by becoming incorporated into a larger society. The biggest examples being the Mugdarran Empire’s nearly two dozen worlds containing primitive Honorable Protectorates, which is a translation of their term for a race that faced them with honour but proved too weak by their standards to properly defend themselves and were granted inclusion into the Emperor’s domain (for further information see entry on Mugdarran Empire). The other notable example would be the Terran Confederation, but theirs is a unique case as theirs is exclusively comprised of annexing Terran colonies that left Earth in their pre-warp era, many of them had lost communication with Earth and so are referred to as lost colonies. To date there are still forty five generational colony craft’s fates unknown and twenty three early warp (denoted by both Terran and non-Terran historians not as the end of warp being a markedly bigger gamble than it still is, but rather as the invention of interstellar communications technology by Terrans so as to know the fates of those ships) colony vessels. An interesting curiosity is the adamant belief among most Confederates not living on worlds on the immediate border of the Sweytzian Alliance that Sweytz is one of these lost colonies.

Of the interstellar races known at the time of the long ago survey none still exist. Two’s fates, the Unlzwano and Goldasti were witnessed going extinct by a merchant scout who saw their star (it was a system where two habitable worlds evolved sentient life) go nova and there have never been signs that they utilised their interstellar capacities to colonise other worlds and apparently no ships equipped to found a colony remained, and the race is in no discovered record having sought asylum among any other peoples.

Six show signs of having died out in various wars. One of these, the Ottops, were wiped out by a wholly unknown foe. Depictions of their destroyers in the archaeological finds indicate a race never seen in the Milky Way except in exceedingly scattered legends. A superficial resemblance has lead some fringe groups to be convinced that they were Dichidians, but this is deemed exceedingly unlikely given what is known and understood of Dichidian behaviour – they neither kept the world, nor show any signs of touching any of the million worlds they would have passed along the way.  A likelier theory, until outraged members of that race point out they had barely reached beyond their own twelfth moon at that time, is that it was the Chardosi of Galfarra whose home is the third closest to the Galfarran side of the ‘hole.  As it is known that their world had been openly traded with off and on at various points in their history it is deemed plausible that some ancient warlord had traded for some ships that might have been used in the campaign, though the Chardosi insist that, even were this true, there were at least five hundred more interesting targets they would have hit too, or instead and this is presented as proof of the invalidity of that theory.

Among the rest there are many that seem to have simply died out.  One, the Jah’ari whose world was dying and their star growing cold who claim to have found a way of leaving their galaxy. Though it is uncertain if they did so through one of the wormholes, recent examinations of the worlds of the Dead Zone (the several hundred parsec region around the Vortonian end of that ‘hole where lies thousands of dead systems and stars) give inconclusive evidence of this.   A few quite simply vanished. Of these only two, the Pollithri and Marstre, left the slightest clue to what happened to them and those hints are even more mysterious than the rest who vanished without trace. The Pollithri’s nearest neighbours, the Yitresti traded with them though, apparently only for goods and never for technology as they still do not even have space flight and refuse offers to trade it for their highly prized Illutrex fruits which refuse to cultivate properly off of that world for reasons suspected to do with peculiarities in the radiation emissions of their stars.  According to Yiresti legend the Pollithri brought a strange device to the Yiresti’s third moon and in a magical ritual that reached climax during The Loozad (a sacred alignment of all three moons, the binary planet pair, and both stars in a perfectly straight line) which opened a door to a new universe they had built for themselves which the race entire all walked through and vanished and the machine with them. The fate of the Marstre is even odder, as the only clues to their fate are in what they left behind which seems to involve a detailed plan for the race entire to descend into an unknown hole in their world. Careful study has found no subterranean civilisation past or present and no cave, borehole, or sinkhole in that world’s crust match the description of the one in the plan. And the record was clearly left behind due to no longer being needed, and not as a final record as it is very vague about things and refers only to “our new paradise” in what is admitted to be a translation that is nearly half guesswork but still proves it was meant for people who already understood its meaning and purpose.

Of other notes, it appears that, save for the very rare pirate or smuggler, Vorton lost track of the Milky Way around the time of whatever disaster befell the Dead Zone, which is quite believable as astrographical evidence suggests that event was a centuries long death of an entire star cluster … the Dead Zone being littered with black holes, various late stage stars, and as many shattered remains of worlds and systems as it has corpses of such. During that period it would have, likely, been impossible to reach the wormhole in any safety. This loss of contact and falling of all things related to The Milky Way and Galfarra to distant legend is gauged to have been within the era when the Earth was first developing river valley civilisations, and the Kivanians were beginning to make forays into space.

It is also worth noting that several worlds on the opposite side of the galaxy from Sweytz, and Earth seem to bear legends of striking similarity that there was a great race of strange beings or gods depicted varingly as purple skinned, purple furred, or purple scaled, but always purple, standing (depending on legend) between one and four metres tall, and which were vengeful, dangerous and ‘came from beyond the stars’ via some kind of celestial vortex. Oddly the legends vary on one detail most shockingly, while all do indicate that another race of gods, these pink, benevolent and helpful stopped the purple from destroying, apparently, everything, here the similarity immediately stops.  Some say the pink race destroyed the purple and vowed that the universe was now safe; others that the purple were driven out and banished, supposedly forever, though they often seem to doubt this and suspect the purple ones of plotting a return; and finally those who believe the purple ones were only foiled in that single attempt and are destined to return one day. Many xenoanthropologists suspect that this is a legend born from cultural contamination from one of the earlier interstellar races, or is a strange twisting of the historical meeting of some of the older lost ones who are known to have mutually destroyed each other and could have fit the description.  There are also a few races that yet live who are younger but also could serve the legend, and as ever there abound theories that this was a transuniversal or extragalactic race and their vortexes were the means by which they travelled those boundaries and periodically makes a short lived fad among holocinemetographers, holoserialists, comic book authors, science fiction writers, and their analogues on the nearly seven thousand million worlds that have ever heard of that legend to any degree.