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.

Magvinnians

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Magvinnians are yet another of the human races. They, in fact, are virtually indistinguishable from Humans.

They have a similar range of skin, hair, and eye colors, though some of the genes are linked differently leading to green and blue eyes to be slightly more prevalent than in Terrans and several other Humans. They also are allergic to citrus, and it’s a fairly dominant trait – even many quarter Magvenians will become ill from a few slices of the fruit or a few drinks of the juice, for full blooded Magvinnians or those part-Magvenians who receive the allergy in full dose the complications can be as severe as anaphylactic shock or death.

Another notable trait of Magvinnians is their senses. They have seven. The usual sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing, but also they have empathy and telepathy.

Contrary to some popular depictions they cannot probe minds. It’s simply that they can ‘hear’ surface thoughts and sense the emotions of others. This is believed to be the genesis of the indisputable fact that Magvenians are neurologically incapable of comprehending privacy. A full Magvinnian can be taught the idea as an academic concept and observe it through learned behaviour and a certain amount of conscious effort, but she will never actually GET it. It is very rare for part Magvinnians to have the ability to comprehend privacy unless they absolutely do not possess the additional senses, even many who do not possess the senses will have difficulty if they’re fewer than four or five generations removed from the introduction of Magvinnian genetics to their family tree.

The Magvinnian society therefore can be a little odd to many who are not also of an empathic or telepathic race. Their aritecture, for example, has few interior walls or doors, and tends towards very large and expansive windows on exterior ones. Internal divisions are maintained only due to the architect doing something for a bit of style or other artistic reasons or for purely pragmatic reasons, such as bathrooms being divided from the rest of the home and well ventilated for obvious reasons. They also have a long standing tradition of directly democratic rule, though their history is dotted with despots and tyrants as are so many other races.

Their language is nigh impossible for non-Magvinnians to learn. It contains few verbal components, though their vocal range is comparable to other humans. Verbal components are used for emphasis, and to express simple concepts over distances too great or in areas too crowded to do mentally. Their written language is a complex ideographic system that seems to have been carefully constructed to, as much as possible, speak to their telepathic and empathic senses via the eyes.

Technologically they are an interesting bunch as well. They understand their ‘powers’ fully enough to actually have developed computer systems that use their telepathic sense for user interaction and some or even all output. Even recording technology includes the ability to store an imprint of mental and emotional patterns in the same way other races would record light or vocal patterns. Entire symphonies of mental and emotional ‘sound’ can be ‘listened’ to whenever someone wishes and can be, to those for whom the technology is usable, quite profound and beautiful.

Another popular misconception is that they are incapable of lying and do not get fiction. This couldn’t be further from the truth. It is fair to say that a non-telepath or non-empath does find it difficult to have the necessary control to lie convincingly to a Magvinnian it is not impossible, and a Magvinnian has no more trouble lying to another one than any other human would to another human who had to rely on body language and tone of voice to detect the lie. They also have a very deep and avid love of fiction. Magvenians, as a rule, are avid consumers of popular entertainments, but will, depending on the individual (just as with all humans), readily read or watch or listen to anything you care to name. Their own popular entertainments, when translated out of their peculiar language, seem to span the full spectrum of genres, though the past century has seen a trend toward romantic-adventure as the most popular.

There is also a genre that is peculiar to telepaths that seems to centre on situations where the protagonist must overcome specific kinds of complex intellectual puzzles and various internal and psychological obstacles. The discovery of and first non-telepathic study of this genre is often attributed to Professor Uli Karinstar of Ruvellia about seventy-five standard years before the formation of the Galfarran Union. Uli discovered, though, that only one telepathic race had ever devised a vocalised word for it and that was the Jok’iri of the planet Olimar’n, which was a distinctly avian race. Uli is quoted as saying “I’m too damned old to spend nearly a full saen caterwauling like a damned graemir (a Ruvellian spirit of near identical legend to that of the Terran banshee)” and so named the genre faernorid waernir, which for those versed in ancient Astrim (the old tongue of a small island chain in Ruvellia’s southern seas, of which Uli was both a student and where the balance of his family was from for millennia) will know it would be best translated into more modern language as “bloody pain in the ass”, Uli was also noted in academic circles as cantankerous and having a incredibly odd sense of humour.

Taredĵo Tera Evans

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Bithdate: 4 Gadmeso 260
Birthplace: Outside of Lurenci, Delthakk Province, Sweytz, Sweytzian Alliance, Milky Way
Current Residence: Outside of Lus Ville, Delthakk Province, Sweytz, Sweytizan Alliance, Milky Way
Biography: Tera is the fourth child of Maia and Lana Evans and currently Delthakk Province’s Taredĵo.

Her mothers were not exceptionally well off people by Sweytzian standards, but they did make a comfortable enough living that their daughters were able to be born (the discoveries that would allow ova-merge techniques to be both more effective and significantly cheaper did not exist until Tera was 25 years old) and the family never wanted for necessities and small luxuries.

Her mother Maia had an interest in martial arts and was wont to watching tournaments and competitions when possible, and a very young Tera quickly took an interest in them as well. Before long she was a student of NenEG and winning many local competitions and tournaments.

When she was a young teen she married the woman with whom she’d been best friends since, literally, the cradle – the pair’s parents were very good friends and the two children were only a few days apart in age – Renata Kavaliro, a rising star in Ruvellian Fencing circles.

Tera, always seeking challenges, travelled the galaxies attending prestigious tournaments and even underworld competitions where the only rules were to win (well, she normally drew the line at one step better where it was frowned upon to actually kill the opponent on purpose, and never competed in any where the rules were that the fight was to death). This led to her first brush with the Terran Confederation.

At that time members of the T.C. were not a common sight on Sweytz, at least not in the sparsely populated northern Province of Delthakk, and even in New Junil, the thriving cultural and tourist metropolis saw so few of them that Terran Standard was on virtually none of the signs in the spaceport and when it was it was usually small. A friend had heard of a competition on one of the Centauri worlds and Tera agreed to go along as well. She was quickly and terribly irritated by the stifling piles of rules for the competition, but did well despite this and had spent the time leading to the fights carefully reading the rulebook that had been passed to a transreader (at the time the only language Tera knew was Galfarran and the rules were in English only).

There was a complaint from various of the other competitors who felt that someone so small couldn’t possibly have the speed and strength that Tera possessed. The tournament officials had already taken blood samples to test for performance enhancements, but due to the number of complaints checked again and ran more thorough tests which came back with indications that Tera’s DNA was artificially manipulated – one of the highest crimes in Confederate law as it violates several points in the very treaties that ended the third world war and founded the Confederation.

Tera was arrested and tried, being found guilty of fraud in entering a competition as a genetic construct, and of not declaring herself a genetic construct to customs entering a T.C. world. The judge was lenient as Tera’s defence asserted very strongly that, for her culture, she was not a construct by the standards of her society and that, conceding the point, her modifications were not performance enhancing. She was given a temporary ban from entering the T.C. and her passport was flagged to restrict both her activities and the duration of her stays when visiting the T.C., her file was also sent to the Bureau of Immigrations to be blacklisted – any application to become a Confederate citizen is to be automatically denied and she would have to seek dispensation of the ruling if her homeworld is ever annexed.

In 277 her wife joined Darrien’s Daggers and there met Viktor Blue, the Hero of Culs III from the recent fight with the Mugdarran Empire. Tera became instantly enraptured with his little girl, Virginia, and was fond of Viktor (who Renata was falling madly in both love and lust with very quickly) and, on 7 Feino 279, the trio was married.

Tera continued to compete so, while Renata and Tera did own a home in Delthakk, the family called home the house of Viktor’s parents because a) Renata and Tera’s home was scaled to women who are 18½ varĵé and just shy of 20, and Viktor is a korĵed and a half; b) Viktor and Renata would both be away often and for long periods for Darrien, and Tera would be gone for various frequencies and durations following the tournaments.

On 29 Makako 280 Renata had Lyndsey Katherine Kavaliro-Blue, the family’s first of many children together.

Near Spring Fest that year Tera met and began dating (and falling in love with) a vetaredi named Ruragak Tvilg’kirst Sullockalonesk, a quiet and thoughtful Kivanian man. They were married in Gadmeso 281

In 284 the family was grieving the assumed death of Viktor, who was fighting along with Renata and the rest of Darrien’s Daggers to end the Dichidian Expansion when she discovered a minor miracle had occurred: she was pregnant with Rur’s child.

It should be noted that, as a human race, Kivanians and Humans can interbreed and the successful offspring are normally fertile (fewer than 3 in 10000 such births are sterile) but due to the dramatic differences in Kivanian and Human circulatory and respiratory systems there is a very high rate of miscarriage within the early stages of the first trimester, though once past this hurdle no more children are born with significant issues than in normal Kivanian/Kivanian or Human/Human pairings. Put another way, she’d known the man for only 3 years and had already conceived a child with him, that survived to be noticed, a rather remarkable detail.

The child was born, a daughter, Rialanna Nahirim Sullockalonesk-Evans on 11 Vendredo 284 just a korva and a half after Viktor had returned to them from his captivity.

At that point Tera retired from her far flung tournament fighting and joined the Delthakk vetaredi.

The family would have more children; thirty children for her family in total not counting their various spice.

Georgia and Crystabel, Tera’s second pregnancy and first with twins was one that started out a bit troublesome. Tera had learnt with Rialanna that her morning sickness and other unpleasant early pregnancy symptoms were a bit worse than average; it was exponentially worse with twins. She made it through, and the girls were born.

In 296 Salandra Leah Sullokalonesk-Evans was born, making her second child by Rur. Later she would have yet another, Aldrick, showing a remarkable fertility with her markedly exotic husband.

On 21 Kvara 298 Tera would become Delthakk’s Taredĵo and has been serving in this capacity since.

303 saw the last children Tera would ever have with any Human man with the birth of yet another pair of twins, Yvonne and Daphne. She has become convinced that she can only have single births with Rur especially as Renata has had twins with both Lance and Viktor (as well as quadruplets). While Renata’s multiples have all been fraternal, and Tera while fully aware the difference she points out that hyperemesis is perfect justification for illogical paranoia.

Most recently she has conceived two more daughters, one by long time best friend and lover, Renata, and one to her. Arianna Hashrad Evans-Kavaliro and Arcielle Viona Kavaliro-Evans.

Complete list of children:

  • Virginia Lily Bishop-Cedaris ❦ 18 Vendredo 274†‡
  • Lyndsey Katherine Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 29 Makako 280
  • Seán Garbhán Julian Ó Neill ❦ 30 Gadmeso 280†
  • Tomás Finnén Ó Neill ❦ 24 Okona 282†
  • Ráichéal Ciara Muire Canadien-Ó Neill ❦ 16 Dekdua 284†‡
  • Rialanna Nahirim Sullockalonesk-Evans ❦ 11 Vendredo 284
  • Sarah Anvi Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 7 Ĵaudo 287
  • Sven Matthias Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 15 Kvina 288
  • Merideth Cynthia Feldhaus-Kavaliro ❦ 5 Kvina 289‡
  • Richard Samuel Kavaliro Reddige ❦ 5 Kvina 289
  • Georgia Ellen Blue-Evans ❦ 26 Gadmeso 290
  • Crystabel Darlene Evans-Blue ❦ 26 Gadmeso 290
  • Krisverin Elias Sullockalonesk-Kavaliro ❦ 10 Kvina 292
  • Catrina Lillian Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 4 Unua 294
  • Kayden Lonari Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 4 Unua 294
  • Drucilla Allison Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 4 Unua 294
  • Veronica Juliet Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 4 Unua 294
  • Salandra Leah Sullokalonesk-Evans ❦ 12 Ĵaudo 296
  • Courtney Evelyn Reddige ❦ 13 Feino 300
  • Aldrick Kavhain Sullockalonesk-Evans ❦ 22 Makako 301
  • James Dorian Reddige ❦ 13 Mirtelo 303
  • Yvonne Salena Evans-Blue ❦ 28 Vendredo 303
  • Daphne Sylvia Evans-Blue ❦ 28 Vendredo 303
  • Arthur Lawrence Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 8 Kvara 304
  • Elizabeth Danielle Kavaliro-Blue ❦ 8 Kvara 304
  • Amelia Marissa Reddige ❦ 20 Vendredo 305
  • Kylan Diaséim-Blue ❦ 1 Feino 305
  • Arianna Hashrad Evans-Kavaliro ❦ 9 Unua 309
  • Arcielle Viona Kavaliro-Evans ❦ 19 Ĵaudo 309
  • Rysia Diaséim-Blue ❦ 6 Dekdua 309

† Child by a relationship that precedes meeting Tera.
‡ Married name.

Tylanians

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For biology see Kivanians

The Tylanians are a historical curiosity. The species originates on Kivan, and is in fact Kivanian, though neither race will agree with this assessment for certain sociological reasons.

Before Kivanians developed faster than light travel there was a major social and political schism. Due to the pack nature of the race certain disagreements involve ejection from the pack. In this instance the Tylanians were ejected from the species and exiled from the homeworld. Due to the long separation, first by logistics of distance and later due to a mutual distrust and tendency to avoid one another the Tylanians and Kivanians have evolved sufficiently different society, governemnt, language, and the very earliest signs of genetic divergence such that they are accepted by many as a distinct race if not as a distinct species. As it is debated even among their own scholars if it was within their ability to actually eject someone from the species no serious effort is made to classify them, biologically, as separate, but a popular practice in deference to the two races’ wish to be counted apart unofficial subspecies nomenclature and denotion is often used.

The Tylanian story is lost to full fledged history. Though tradition and legend remain to give an idea.

The schism, according to both races’ legends dates back in the time that the Imperium was first trying to form. It is known that this would place the time of the event well after the species had developed space flight, and had achieved a level of refinement that it was a reasonably cost effective, and not inconvenient investment of time to travel the worlds of the Kivanian home star system.

The exacts of the argument seem to be lost even to legend, but it seems that the Tylanians were opposed to, either the formation of the Imperium and its entire setup or to the first selected Patriarch and Matriarch and were exiled from the race. Tradition and legend among both races differs if it was self imposed exile or not as there are provisions for exile from the Imperium that, in essence, excommunicates one from the Kivanian race since you are stripped of both family and clan name and not allowed back into the dominion of the Kivanians. The Tylanian schism, if it was such an event, was the only time such was done on any scale larger than a dozen individuals.

They left in a generational ship that had a very good sublight drive and the theories that led to the first Kivanian FTL had been concieved. Tylanian history suggests and legend plainly states that within three generations of leaving their home they successfully made use of those theories and so converted their colony ship to such which is how the Tylanians are so far from their planet of origin with an old and established society, and rich, vibrant cities instead of still being a number of years from reaching it (they, in fact had been exiled to a different star, much closer to Kivan but liked neither the proximity to the Imperium, nor the need to kivaform the only remotely habitable planet in that system while continuing to live on the generational ship during that process which was estimated to need three hundred years to complete).

Today the Tylanians are a race that has been, historically, a kind of democratic monarchy electing a king and queen that rules with the aid of a group loosely translatable as a parliament (please note that this is only loose translation and ignores certain nuances of powers and responsibilities). They still seem to follow a form of the Kivanian traditions of ancestor worship if less varied, and The First ancestor seems to have a role as closer to a full deity and bringer of all life and death.

Their diet differs little from Kivanian since their ship was sent to a world known to need kivaformed to live on and as such had brought much Kivanian livestock and seed with them both for use on the ship as well as on their new home. Some took to the new world better than others and a few cross pollenated with native plants so their Kivanian foodstuffs are not all perfectly parallel and too the diet takes into account many native plants, animals and insects. Of interesting note is the Tylanian habit to prefer mollusks, land and sea, as well as crustaceans in dishes where Kivanians typically would use fish or poultry.

It should also be noted that either the sacredness of Kivanian passions was not a typcial or even existent belief at the time of the schism (a common interpretation as it took place before the species had met other sentient races) or they abandoned this philosophy at some point. A Tylanian makes a far greater effort to manage the extremities of their emotional state than many Kivanians are likely to ever consider healthy, or sane.

Tylassia, the Tylanian homeworld, is significantly closer to Terran controlled territories than the Imperium’s worlds and, between this and the ‘greater emotional stability’ of the race, the Tylanians have a better relationship with the Terran Confederation.

Kivanians

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Kivanians are a race exclusive to, as far as can be determined, the Milky Way. They are also a single homeworld race, originally, although these days their Imperium spans many hundred star systems.

They are bipedal and primarily omnivorous. They are counted among the human races, though only just barely due to substantial biochemical and anatomical differences that lead to a near infertility with several other human species.

Superficially they are nearly hairless, even for a human species. Many Kivanians, male and female have no hair below their eyelashes, and there are some that do not even possess these. Two other superficial differences are their pointed ears. Not unique among human species by any measure it is not terribly common either. The second feature is the presence of a third semi-voluntarily controlled eyelid.

Below the skin the Kivanian is rather alien. Their blood utilises hemocyanin in complex molecular groups and carried by corpuscles. Next of note is their respiratory system which does not use a diaphragm, but rather a very avian style system involving air sacs to alter pressures and circulate oxygen over the blood. Finally of obvious note is the presence of two small hearts, one behind each breast. These hearts are sized such that each alone can fulfill a full two-thirds of their body’s circulatory needs. Typically they beat at a rate to share the load on a fifty-fifty average, though at any moment one heart can, as needed , slow or even stop while the other picks up the slack … the latter condition, clearly, cannot be sustained long without risking further damage, this allows them to more easily heal from certain kinds of heart disease and damage. The paired hearts can also beat in full throttle parallel to provide their bodies with a sudden powerful surge of blood throughout the body that, thanks to the avian nature of their lungs is kept well oxygenated and thus giving the species a remarkable boost of stamina.

The third eyelid, is semitransparent. Closing it obscures but does not completely block their vision and is an adaptation for the rich, dense jungles of the species homeworld where it helped to guard their eyes from pollen clouds (there is even a rare phenomena called a pollen storm, not unlike a dust storm of an Earth desert) as well as from some of the world’s various insect species without actually blinding them. It also helps in wiping things that do manage to get into their eyes away, those that left the jungles and started to settle Kivan’s few deserts, or that took to the stars and have settled on more arid planets find it somewhat useful in dealing with the glare from exceedingly bright light.

The Kivanian diet, traditionally involves various exceedingly hot peppers, the mildest of which are comparable in potency to the habeñero, and the typical, medium level examples of, have been known to kill more than a few Humans, and the hottest of which has been reported by some to be useful for cleaning engine parts and removal of paint. The juices of some of these peppers are used as a cooking method for certain foods. A popular fish dish is ‘cooked’ by marinating the fillets in dil’krthplr juice from sunrise to dinner, and served drizzled with a sweet wine mixed with salt and what is essentially peppermint. On the species home world and home continent the normal diet consists of various large insects, mostly ones of a mantis-esque form, and some not dissimilar to the cricket; various fishes; some small lizards; and several birds. Oddly there are few dietary mammals and those are for special ceremonial or celebratory dishes. All their native jungle amphibian life is highly toxic to anything that isn’t a few very specially evolved lizards and birds. Outside this cradle of their race and civilisation the diet varies only by local availability. The species has an instinctive aversion to amphibian based dishes, but some Kivanian recipes for a temperate zone creature resembling an eight legged salamander exist, and in colder climes mammals begin to make up more of the diet, but mostly fish becomes a more important item.

For drinks they like much the same as any human species. Milks of select mammals, juices from fruits, berries, and a few vegetables and ferns, a nectar secretion by a kind of luminous mushroom found at the bases of several species of trees, and of course alcohol. It should be noted that while Kivanians like tea and coffee it does not affect them as profoundly as Humans. This said one still does not wish to give a Kivanian toddler a triple espresso, and may regret a double. A single is safe for the most part if it isn’t too strong. Alcohol too is another interesting item in Kivanian blood streams. They seem almost immune to grain alcohol, and drink wood alcohols for the same effects and purposes we would consume the afore mentioned grain items. Curiously it is safe for humans to drink a small handful of these products, either due to the extremely low concentration of the alcohol combined with a few mitigating ingredients, and the others being made from woods that seem to, if kept under 10% by volume may be safely drunk in careful moderation.

Final biological items of note: Kivanian women are on a menstrual cycle averages 39 Earth days. Females reabsorb uterine lining if implantation does not occur. They have more complex vocal cords than several human species giving them a exceptional range of phonemes. They are more tolerant of heat, but less of cold than a Human counterpart, average is to assume they will die of heat or cold at 20°F higher temperatures than we would. They are also somewhat stronger by mass than the average human. Finally their endocrine system averages on the hyperactive side when compared to most species in general, this gives them a reputation as an exceedingly emotional and passionate people.

Psychologically they are a pack animal. They are extremely loyal to and protective of family. They are also largely law abiding by nature. This is not to say that they will blindly follow laws regardless of their fairness or justification, nor that Kivanians do not have criminals, just that the typical nature of a crime that a Kivanian is liable to commit is centred along different statistical lines than Humans.

This psychology has imprinted itself in their social structure. The family is headed by a patriarch and males hand down their family name to their children. The families are grouped into clans which are headed by females and the clan name is passed down by the mothers. A Kivanian’s name will always follow the format of Given Name, Secondary Name, Family Name, Clan Name. In the event of a halfbreed the name becomes hyphenated and convention follows as: if male father family name is dropped in favour of clan name but clan name will go before the maternal surname if there is one. Thus Clanname-Maternalsurname. If mother is Kivanian then tradition is, effectively held except the addition of hyphenation to denote that the family name is not a Kivanian one. This Paternalsurname-Clanname. It is exceedingly rare for this not to be the case, as few Kivanians will not be very adamant with their lover that this tradition must be followed.

The ruling structure involves a kind of hierarchy of families and clans up to the Imperial
patriarch and matriarch. They are almost never a wedded couple, and only occasionally closely related. For more information see entry on Imperium.

Kivanian religious practices vary, but largely centre around various forms of ancestor worship. A semi-deity among nearly the whole species is The First Ancestor, who is depending on the traditions of a family could be anything from the progenitor of the race, to all life on Kivan, to all life in the universe, some even saying of the universe itself.

Also typical is varying degrees of consideration that their passions and emotions are divine, sacred, and other similar attributes. As a result most embrace their passions, which gives the species a reputation, partially deserved, of being short tempered, rash, violent, vengeful. Among another sort the same partially deserved reputation is as steadfast companion, deeply Romantic, fast to cry, easy to laughter, and exceptionally intense lovers.

Technologically the race is less advanced than the standards of Glafarran or Vortonian culture, largely, but more so than much of Terrans. They have had faster than light travel since around the time of the founding of the early Yellow River Valley civilisation on Earth. And while not all is known about this early drive it is surmised from what is known that it, like their current drives, was a rudimentary form of hyperdrive. Current technologies tend to achieve sustained, safe velocities of up to an hundred lightyears in little under a day in the most advanced models. Their power systems have always been based on photonic reactions within certain crystaline structures not unlike the ‘ambient radiation’ power supplies of Galfarra and is believed by xenoarcheologists and other similar academics to be a likely glimpse into how the now ubiquitous technology may have been born in that galaxy’s antuquity. Their computers are based on optomolecular processing and are utterly incompatible with anything but the Vortonian computer systems and the better calibre galfarran ones, as well as the fifteen dozen other technologies found throughout the Milky Way that are similar (and in four cases so nearly identical that one xenotechnology Professor was quoted as caling it ‘eerie’).

See also Tylanians.

Nento Exaoni Gach (NenEG)

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The phrase comes from ancient Helbrennian and means, loosely, “Nothingness from everything” or “Nothing out of everything”. It is not a martial art at all, only a martial philosophy.

It is a philosophy devised by the Helbrennian Faeshir Lokirtha Pokjara. She had been watching several other Faeshir sparring, and later that korva been to a tournament and realised that she could just about predict the moves of each combatant. She meditated on the matter and realised that the reason was that styles were predictable. If she had seen one Ruvellian fencer, she surmised, she had in essence seen them all. If two of them faced off the winner was, inevitably, either the more experienced or the faster and nothing more. They would move into positions just mere moments before the opponent’s attack out of the sure knowledge that, having just done thus, then this would be the next move. Pokjara found this abhorrent, even though she had great respect for the power and fluidity of the Ruvellian sword forms.

She set out to find the key to true martial superiority. A pure art that could not be predicted that levelled the field by allowing speed or skill to be equally useful. Experience and knowledge to be tools and aids, not advantages – that an apprentice could defeat the master because they could know only themselves and fought purely within the moment of the battle. Skills, speed and experience would come together and the fighter with the most of all three would be the victor.

Pokjara meditated long on the matter and came up with Nento Exaoni Gach. She felt that to become a pure warrior, and unbeatable then one must be able to fight their own shadow and win. NenEG, she would explain to her students, first means to look at yourself and see your weaknesses. Then you must see that your weaknesses are strengths. She would teach that, for example, if you are slow then an opponent will try to use speed against you, if you are already aware that you are slow then you will be prepared to counter speed – and if your opponent is slow too then it is neither weakness nor strength, but that is no matter that which is neutral is that which can do no harm. In short a NenEG practitioner learns first to fight themselves and then use what they learn to defend themselves.

After learning to beat their shadows her students would learn to use their minds. Pokjara would say that an Ilzwokie could beat an Urslich if the Ilzwokie can out think the Urslich – size matters for nothing. The Ilzwokie’s weaknesses of size and lesser strength of arm can be turned against the Urslich if the Ilzwokie learns to See the opponent in the moment of the fight and instantly know the weaknesses of the other fighter and then attack them without mercy and without thought.

The latter, she would say, is the greatest importance. Instinct, and the random chaos of the moment. Do not plan. Use your mind to See, but then let your body and your senses fight the battle. The opponent may do something unpredictable by design or accident, if you are thinking of the future you cannot know the present.

Because of this NenEG practitioners are known to be avid students, both formally and informally, of all martial arts styles. It is not unheard of for one to hold an Aslith blade in a Ruvellian stance while engaging in a distinctly Junillian feint. The NenEG philosopher revels in fluidity and chaos.

Between origins among the Faeshir, popular entertainment depictions, and some truly remarkable practitioners throughout its two Standard Centuries of existence there are many legends and expectations about NenEG. That its philosophers learn to fly, or to stand back casually as their opponents beat themselves senseless and numerous other mystical powers gained from their martial introspection. While they do make for exciting tales there have been no confirmed reports of any such (except the flying, technically, but as the practitioner in question was a Vriltorin this clearly had nothing to do with NenEG and everything to do with her possession of a stout pair of wings along with the balance of her race).

Time (Galfarran)

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Glafarran culture has existed, in some form or other, for many tens or even hundreds of thousands of years by the measure of most any means you care to name, save ones working off of the movements of whole galaxies. And while it is not entirely inaccurate to think of it as a single mode of thought and behaviour across the majority of a large galaxy and portions of some of its nearest sub-galaxy satellites one must remember that it has always been a very vast, far flung, and above all diverse place. Most of what is thought of as Galfarran cultural items grew out of a need for interstellar merchants and governments to meaningfully communicate, thus was born the Galfarran clock and calendar.

The precise origin of the Galfarran clock is partially lost to antiquity, but it is known that it was somehow standardised against some kind of phenomenon found near one of the oldest member worlds. As for which group invented the calendar there have been presented at least several thousand possible origins that are of equal likelihood.

As the Galfarran number system use a base12 count, the most accepted and likely answer for the origin of the clock is either that it was born of the same people and world as devised the trade tongue’s number system, or simply was devised after the Galfarran language had taken strong hold in the old Federation; this detail is wont to cause very heated debate among historians.

The smallest common unit is the piclano (plural plicanid) which has a duration very close to that of the Gregorian second of Earth. While there is a difference, and anything that is trying to measure such times over centuries may find the discrepancy enough to cause loss of accuracy, an assumption of 1:1 translation is generally sufficient. There are sixty piclanid to a single saen (plural saenead), and there are sixy of those to a nulair (plural nulaire). This is the only standardised measure of time found among Galfarran speaking peoples. Few worlds in that galaxy, nor among many that hold any close ties to it use any alternative clocks, though a few worlds do hold onto their own time keeping units for day to day and use Galfarran time only for off-world purposes.

The Galfarran calendar seems to have begun life as an arbitrary calendar exclusively for interstellar use. This is the Galactic Standard Year. It is comprised of 600 days each 30 nulaire long. It was subdivided into 12 korvare (singular korva) of 50 days each. An apparent later addition was the sulid (plural sulida) which was defined as ¼ of a korva, and the convention is to drop the fraction. Thus a Standard sulid is 14 Standard days.

The names of those 12 korvare and the terminology was quickly adopted among various colony worlds and even began to work itself into the cultural consciousness that was emerging among the worlds that had begun to speak Galfarran as much or more than whatever native tongue their forefathers had used. The Standard year itself, though has apparently always been seen as cumbersome and arbitrary to use for anything day to day and no historical evidence of its use outside of interstellar commerce and politics has ever been found. Thus was born loser definitions for the terms.

Korva now means 1/12 of a planet’s orbital period. There are conventions for arranging the days left over when this is done to planets whose orbits do not divide easily by 12, but these conventions are very loose and could be discussed at length in many long volumes of text (and have, in fact been. See The Changing Face of the Korva by Professor Glikreth Li Mothrilli Lothbri a historian at University of Loribrig from 1209 to 1456 Kilirian a 900 volume series on the various means employed to distribute the days of the year), but some common themes do seem to arise. E.g. it is quite common to put the fewest extra days in Dufoĵe.

A day is always the measure of a planet’s rotational period.

The names of the korvare are:
Unua
Dufoĵe
Ĵaudo
Kvara
Kvina
Dekdua
Okona
Makkako
Gadmeso
Mirtello
Vendredo
Feino

These names are always in this order. The common convention for starting the year is, for colonies, to start it with the landing of the founders. For older worlds it’s typically the start of the old calendar that was replaced.

Time (Terran)

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While, as with any civilisation, the Terran people have used any number of calendars and measures of time through their history, there are two that can be specifically thought of as specifically Terran rather than simply one of its cultural or religious groups.

These would be the old, defunct Gregorian system, and the modern Universal Standard system.

Gregorian: Before the Tycho Convention gathered to found the Terran Confederation most nations and planets used, to varying degrees, the Gregorian system. Some worlds did attempt to adapt the clock and/or calendar to their own planet’s orbital and rotational periods, but based these very heavily on this Earth system.

At the smallest common unit was the second. Colloquially it was 1/86400 of the day, but officially was:

the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.

Either way 60 of them was the next sized unit, the minute. 60 of those to an hour, and 24 to an Earth day.

The notation for time had two varieties called the 12hour or 24hour clocks.
The 12hour clock used a denotion of AM or PM for morning or evening respectively and noted the hour using 1 through 12. Thus 1:30pm for one and a half hours after midday.
The 24hour clock dropped the AM/PM electing to count the hours as 00 though 23. So 13:30 for the above example. Minutes in either system were 00 through 59, and while either system had a preceding 0 for a single digit hour as optional, minutes and seconds were always 2-digit, and units below seconds were denoted decimally so 1:30:45.123456 might be seen.

The calendar was based on a solar/lunar cycle system and counted the time before or after the estimated birth of the Christian deity Jesus. Events after this event were left merely as a numeric year, or might be specified with A.D. From the Latin Anno Domini, The Year of Our Lord being the common translation. After Christianity fell out of major political influence during the century of the first two world wars C.E. was used instead and meant Common Era. Events preceding the birth were B.C. or B.C.E. for Before Christ or Before the Common Era.
The year, as with the Universal Calendar is based on the Terrestrial orbit of Sol.

This was achieved through estimation, however. The year was measured as 365.2525 days, and was tracked as 3 years of 365 days followed by one of 366, called a Leap Year except on centennial years that weren’t a multiple of 400.

The lunar element was in the subdivision of the year into 12 months as the approximate number of lunar cycles from full moon to full moon in one year. These twelve months had either 30 or 31 days, except the second which had 28 or during leap year 29.

The notation had virtually no standardisation. But the methods involved spelling out or abbreviating the month’s name, and giving the day and year as numerals, or by giving the month a numeral value and listing it all that way using various symbols for seperation. Often the first two digits of the year were omitted, and what order the numerals were placed was very regional.

Some examples:
1 February 2134
Feb. 1, 2134
01-2-34
2/1/2134

The system is no longer used for any official purposes but some religious groups do still use it to track holy days.

Universal Standard: Also called simply Standard or decimal it was first proposed some 43 years before the Tycho Convention founded the Confederation by Dr. Otto Smith of Universidad de Amazonis Planitia on Mars as a new calendar system that left behind the religious trappings that had led to the horrible wars that were still ravaging parts of the cradle of Mankind, and as a compliment to the decimal clock that had been gaining momentum for the previous fifty years as a result of the numbers of people who had had to adapt to it for military purposes.

The Universal Clock is, essentially, the same one proposed during the French Revolution centuries before even the first of the Big Three. It proposes the day be divided into tenths, and the accepted form used a division of those tenths by hundredths, then those to be further divided by an hundred. Lacking any proposals for an alternate name, and in the interests of tradition they were called hours, minutes, and seconds.

The length of a day, thanks to modern astrometric capabilities and the creation of the major time servers at each major System Hub means all clocks can adjust themselves to accurately subdivide the Terrestrial rotational period accurately into the required pieces.

The calendar elected to divide the year into ten, again for tradition’s sake the word month was chosen. These were declared to be 37 days on the odd months, and 36 on the even. The exact length of the calendar is automatically adjusted by the System Hubs throughout the year to keep 365 days precisely the span of that years Terrestrial orbital period.

The name Universal Standard is, naturally, because it is intended to be the standard time for all of the Confederation. Due to the exceedingly variable duration of extraterrestrial worlds, as well as spaceships and starships, space stations, etc. it was decided that the Terrestrial orbits and rotations would be the measure of time throughout Mankind and that no timezones need exist. The hour was calculated as 1.0 when The Constitution was ratified as and the date as 1.1.1.

The Universal months were given names for purposes of making saying the date easier, though numerals are to always be used when writing, and were given the Latin for First through Tenth. The clock and calendar were declared to be one and the same so correct notation should always be date, numerically, separated as year.month.day@hour.minutes or if greater accuracy is required .seconds or even further.

Colloquially the date is left out of the time in spoken conversations, but this is inappropriate usage when speaking in official or formal capacities.

The single time unit to be absolutely unchanged between either calendar is the week, a unit if 7 days. The week held more importance in the Gregorian eras, but even under modern circumstances a middle measure between day and month is useful and while it has been suggested that six might be a better choice the proposal always lacks support so the old measure remains.

Fabbers

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The fabber is not a new technology in the same way that the compact disc of the last decades of the twentieth century hadn’t been new when they’d become popular. It was invented as a form of field ration to simplify care for soldiers in the Franco-Portugese army in the fifth decade of the third world war. The technology was simplified and refined and an organic recycler was added making them further popular among many of the pre-warp starships, and when warp was developed found a niche there as well due to the extremely limited capacity of those ships.

The basic concept started out as an edible form of the plastic soup used in the rapid prototypers and 3D printers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. These used a mix of edible gels comprised amino acids, vitamins, minerals, or carbohydrates in balanced proportions; it would produce hot rapid meals by combining these according to information provided to ensure each soldier got no more than they needed. The next revision could recycle certain amounts and types of organic waste, but was not popular on the battlefield, nor is it currently common in the home due to the space that component takes up. This was not, however, a limitation on starships where it still takes up less space than foodstuffs and makes the food supply very nearly limited only to the availability of power.

Modern units can be given additional gels that can allow recreation of flavours and have assemblers that allow them to build what looks like a normal food, even reproducing textures and densities. Some claim that the fabber food is indistinguishable from the real thing except to be guaranteed healthful, others say that the end product is a crime against cuisine. Most, though, hold a position somewhere in between — it might not be perfect, but it’s edible. The fabber is, on many Confederate colony worlds, the only food available to Terrans. These would be worlds incapable of supporting Human consumable foods, and the cost ineffectiveness of hydroponics on such large scales, or shipping in food on warp freighters. A waste recycling center is established and colonists purchase food gelpacks from it. The fabber is also becoming a fad among the old worlds which can grow food out of the novelty of not having to worry about perishables, or even grocery shopping. Most packs are good for a month of meals for the average family of three.

The fabber has little popularity outside the Terran Confederation for various reasons. One is the lack of popularity of electrical power or the Terran’s habit of using digital computer systems making them difficult to integrate. Another is how few are willing to tolerate the taste (or even to understand how to convince the things of the dietary needs of anything that isn’t Human). Some of the techniques used for the food prep was adapted for the original prototypers that inspired these devices and a line of fabbers exists that can make clothes, simple household goods, and so forth do exist as well. These use oils and produce polyester type fabrics, hairbrushes, a passable toothpaste, etc. This particular form of fabber has gained a small following outside the Confederation,but still not much due to the afore mentioned electricity, and due to a view of its products being of quality inferior to the goods more conventionally produced.

Humans

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Humans are a bipedal, omnivorous, mammalian race of mostly hairless primates. The origin of this species is unknown as it shows every appearance of having multiple planets of origin and seems native to all three known major galaxies.

The Human race is not unique in not having a single known homeworld, and even going so far as to seemingly have evolved on multiple planets, but it is one of only a few dozen that can lay that claim on at least one world in all three major galaxies, and at least one minor one. Many theories exist, the most popular being that certain worlds were seeded with similar DNA chains by another, older race and this led to parallel evolution of the species. This is popular in it’s explanation of minor genetic discrepencies leading to certain quirks particular to the humans of different galaxies or planets. Notably handedness, which in Galfarra is nearly always left, but in the Milky Way, and Earth especially, right is the dominant hand. Also, the genetic chain for red hair is closely linked to the gene for skin pigment in the people of Lorithen in the Vorton Galaxy resulting in its dark skinned members being nearly all copper or orange haired. Another one is subtle differences in organ placement. Terran Humans being mirrored in a few respects, like the appendix, compared to all Galfarran Humans, and nearly completely when compared to the only other native humans of the Milky Way on the small moon of Plindreth near the galactic core.

As is often the case Humans can breed with varying degrees of dificulty and success with many other species of similar biology, anatomy, etc.