Tag Archives: Milky Way

Anerix

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Anerix is both the name of a world and a small union of worlds operating on the idea that any means available should always be used to improve the peace and prosperity of the society.

The Anerix High Chancellor, a student of philosophy whose name and origins are not known, is the founder and leader of both.  The history of Anerix is understood  to have begun almost half a Sweytzian century ago around the time of Lorkik’s attempts to dishonourably expand the Mugdarran Empire.

The world, located in the Milky Way, was claimed as a privately held world and very shortly afterward was announced opened as a private colony, with the High Chancellor declaring that the governmental power would be held exclusively by himself and a group of select ministers known as the High Command.

Through various forms of promotion the population of Anerix swelled with the promises that anyone could achieve high rank within the government – should they desire it – with the Chancellor and, later, hired motivational speakers pointing to the diverse members of the High Command who represented medical, academic, military, and political leaders.  Others flocked there for the promises of absolute safety of life and property for all citizens.

From there Anerix, which lacked significant planetary or system wealth, began to expand its reach through treaties, alliances, and annexation of other worlds.  There are many who suspect that some of these allies and annexes were gained via conspiracy, sabotage, subterfuge, assassination, and the like – though little has been firmly proven, many wary neighbours of Anerix and its members dedicate a portion of their military counter-intelligence to guard against potential terrorist efforts by the dictatorial government.

The actual government of Anerix, according to the adamant claims of the Chancellor, his High Command, and those hired to represent them, is not a dictatorship, but rather a wholly new form of governing called a Glaerocracy (Glaeronosha when directly transliterated from Galfarran, the Anerix official language).  This word, coined by the High Chancellor, is derived from a clumsy and amateur bit of linguistics.  It derives from a Jinoashu word for co operation; the government, ostensibly, being a co-op between the High Command, who provide security in the form of law & order with the military and police forces needed to enforce them, and the people do their share in providing the means to support these leaders and the raw materials and economic fuel to drive the society.  It is wondered if the choice is ironic or deliberate as the word the Chancellor used is, idomatically, best translated as ‘coercion’ – many opponents of Anerix’ efforts to expand their reach throughout the galaxies often point out that they are hiding behind rhetoric and a word that means police-state.

In recent years Anerix has caused several stirs amongst the various governments in that arm of the Milky Way as they have taken to pre-emptive ‘defensive’ military actions to secure peace with worlds they claim to have felt threatened by.

Tafinith Robin Thase (né Kavaliro)

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Birthdate: 4 Dufoje 264
Birthplace: Near Lusvil, Delthakk Province, Sweytz, Sweytzian Alliance, Milky Way
Current Residence: Near Alton, Delthakk Province, Sweytz, Sweytizan Alliance, Milky Way

Biography: Bobby, as he’s known to everyone except his wife who likes the sound of Robin, spent his childhood getting into all manner of scrapes with his best friend, Vincent Blue.  As he grew older and his father became a war hero and his elder sister became a champion fencer, he started to resent their success and became determined to make a name for himself instead of being in their shadow.

He was already a talented loothin player with a very pleasant singing voice, but his inherently lazy nature kept him from doing the work necessary to perfect his craft, as did his single-minded focus on pursuing every attractive young woman he saw.  Especially the ones who were known to put out on the first date.

By the time he was fifteen, he was starting to hang out with a rougher crowd and get in minor trouble with the local law enforcement — which takes some doing on Sweytz.  His father tried to convince him to straighten up and do something productive, such as following in his footsteps and joining the Defence Force, the Kavaliros having quite a long tradition of serving either their faith or their planet.  This chafed young Bobby who saw his father’s well-intentioned advice as trying to push him into something he wasn’t interested in.  Lacking in self-confidence and looking for an easy way to become someone important, Bobby was easily conned by the Anerix High Chancellor’s rhetoric.

At fifteen and a half, after his parents refused to sign the immigration papers, he tried to punch his father, ran away from home, insulted his girlfriend so badly when she wouldn’t join him that they didn’t speak for nearly thirty years, insulted his best friend so badly when he wouldn’t join him that they ended up in a fight that might’ve proved fatal for Bobby had his friend’s father not intervened, and then lied about his age so he could immigrate without parental permission, all in less than a day.

Once on Anerix, he discovered very quickly that the only thing he was qualified for that paid even remotely decently was the Army.  He served as a infantryman for a couple of years, until he irritated his commanding officer one too many times and found himself ‘volunteered’ for the High Chancellor’s Bodyguard.

The High Chancellor’s Bodyguard is actually Anerix’s assassin squad.

Little did anyone suspect at the time that one of the assassin trainers was actually an undercover member of the Sweytian Defense Force Special Forces, Kenshin Kenodori.  Kenshin had briefly served under Bobby’s father during the Second Mugdaran War and took a special interest in the young man, who was by now clearly disillusioned with Anerix.  Luckily, Bobby was naturally a gifted martial artist — there are some who suspect the Kavaliros of old practiced selective breeding since so many are naturally talented martial artists — so Kenshin, who was a ninja master, had an excuse for giving him private lessons.  During those private lessons, Kenshin got to know Bobby better, and eventually he invited him to come visit his home for some specialized training.  Bobby eagerly accepted.

During that trip, Kenshin recruited Bobby into his family’s ninja clan.  During his ninja training, Kenshin recruited Bobby as a spy for the Sweytian Defense Force.

Bobby was considered a valuable asset by both of his employers for the next few years.  Then he had a serious misunderstanding with a member of High Command who he was — depending on which one you ask — either dating or casually having sex with, and she made it her purpose in life to ruin his.  Rather soon after this, Kenshin’s spying was discovered.  Bobby was ordered to kill him to prove his own loyalty.  Instead, he helped him escape.  He claimed to the High Chancellor that Kenshin was just too good for him to kill.  No one in High Command really believed it.  Bobby suddenly found himself suspected every time there was a security leak and assigned all of the most dangerous missions.

During a much overdue vacation, he met Karen Thase, a physical therapist originally from Moulei, but now living on Sweytz.  She was very unlike the vrisks he’d been having shallow relationships with for years.  By the end of the vacation, he was pretty sure he was in love for the first time since the girlfriend he’d wronged when he left Sweytz.

Their relationship deepened as more of High Command became convinced he was a traitor.  Finally, fearing for Karen’s safety, he left the Anerix Army.

Back on Sweytz, he reconciled with his family and his best friend, and reconnected with Kenshin who’d retired from the military and opened a dojo.  Determined to keep out of trouble, he started working at Kenshin’s dojo and, with his brother-in-law, Viktor Blue, opened The Sword & Scroll Tavern, playing loothin and singing in The Band Without A Clever Name.  The tavern and the band both quickly gained local fame which spread rapidly thanks to the number of spacers from the nearby ‘port who dropped by, looking for something nicer than the bars nearer the ‘port.

Bobby and Karen married and had two children, Cassie and Char, then he, for reasons that even he isn’t quite sure of, suddenly decided that it was time to do more for Sweytz.  He joined the Defense Force and was quickly recruited into the Special Forces.  The discipline problems he’d had in the Anerix Army didn’t completely disappear, but the worst thing he ever did — punching a mithoska — only got him busted a rank as the mithoska in question was trying to provoke him.

He and Karen had two more children, Ben and Melissa, and everything in his life was going well for years.

Then his eldest got old enough to date and he took the overprotective father thing too far.  Before things had gotten too bad between he and Cassie, he was severly injured on a mission and very nearly died, his heart stopping three times while he was on the operating table.  His recovery took a bit longer than it should have because he refused to obey the limits the doctors put on his physical activity.

Stuck at home and seeing his children every day, he grew very close to Melissa, who wasn’t quite five, and succeeded in almost alienating Cassie, who by now was nearing fifteen.  Every single outfit she wore, every single thing she did, he was sure was going to lead to her being taken advantage of by a young man.  He thought every young man thought like he had at that age.  These problems with his eldest led to problems with his wife, so once he was well enough to return to active duty, having turned down a medical retirement, he volunteered for every mission he could, finding home an unpleasant place to be.  This, naturally, led to worsening relationships with his wife and children, except Melissa, as he made sure to never miss anything important in her life if he could help it.

When he wasn’t on a mission, he started drinking heavily, partially as a way to self-medicate insomnia which had plagued him for years.  On missions, he started feeling like he needed to prove himself, his old lack of confidence plaguing him again now that he was older and younger men were undeniably performing better than him.  This resulted in him taking chances he shouldn’t have taken and getting injured many times.

Finally, after a mission where he’d been severely stabbed in the elbow and left with it permanently affected somewhat, followed by one where he’d gotten shot next to the heart, Karen had had all she could stand and broke down crying when he said the doctor cleared him to return to full duty.  Affected by her tears, and his youngest’s comment that “And you’ll get to see me grow up if you retire, so you’ll know me better than you do Cassie, so maybe we won’t fight so much”, he retired only seven years after his father.

Cassie and he were barely on speaking terms by then, as he’d offended her a great deal when she became a leytgelez, as he was apparently incapable of comprehending the difference between a leytgelez and the whores he’d hired between girlfriends in his youth.  Char didn’t much care for him as he’d not been supporting her burgeoning athletic career much.  Ben tried to just stay out of the way of the family’s fighting and blamed Bobby for it.  So by this point, his youngest daughter was the only member of his family who he had a good relationship with.

During the early days of his retirement, boredom led to him drinking heavier and getting in some minor scrapes with the law, usually dragging Vincent into them as he always had.  Finally Karen had had enough and forbade him leaving the house without adult supervision — with their seven year old counting as adult supervision.

A few korvare later, his drinking now worse than ever, he said some very stupid things to Sal and Lori when their relationship started.  The young lovers didn’t notice.  He ended up pissing Vincent off severely.  Vincent’s husband, usually a rather calm man, got so aggravated when Bobby repeatedly failed to comprehend why Vincent was so upset that he punched Bobby, leaving quite a bruise.

When Bobby got home that night, Karen demanded to know what happened.  Then he proceeded to, in the course of the conversation, insult all of his children and their significant others, except, of course, Melissa.

Karen ordered him to call Vincent and apologize for what he’d said. In the course of that conversation, Vincent told Karen how much Bobby had been drinking lately, knowing that Bobby’d been lying to her about it. As Vincent had had a drinking problem himself in the past, he recognized what Bobby was going through and had been trying to get him to quit or at least cut back for a while. While Karen was fussing at Bobby, Melissa came in the room and said the words that very nearly damned her father to spending the rest of his life alone: “I didn’t tell her, Daddy! I swear! It’s still our secret!”

Karen had put up with a lot from Bobby, but convincing their daughter that lying about how much he drank was no different that not telling her when he’d sneak her cookies and such before dinner was almost too much.  She was very close to kicking him out and cutting off all contact with him.  This possibility sobered him up very quickly.

As Karen did still love him, she pretended he’d been too drunk to know what he’d said that night and gave him a second chance. She called Kenshin, as he was the only person who’d ever had much luck getting Bobby to see reason when he was at his most stubborn, who immediately rehired Bobby at the dojo.

Bobby tried to turn his life around, but his ego was thoroughly trounced by how close he’d come to throwing away everything that mattered to him and how horrible his relationships with his oldest children were. The once cocky man now said things like “Of course I’m wrong. I’ve never done anything right in my life” and meant it. His ego bounced back a bit as his youngest, who was already quite a martial artist, took up competing more seriously and he was able to have a connection with her he’d not had with any of his other children.

He had surgery on his damaged elbow shortly before the birth of his first grandchild and the restored range of motion helped his mood, as did the arrival of his granddaughter.

During a trip to Zeiper to buy brandy for the bar, he and Viktor ended up forced by circumstances beyond their control to fight to save the world. Bobby proved to still be quite a fighter, though he discovered that he’d grown a bit too used to sleeping in his own bed every night and could barely sleep on the floor of the hut they were staying in.

He made a diligent effort to improve his relationships with his children and, on the advice of his eldest, he started seeing a psychiatrist last year. She’s helped him quite a bit, getting him to see that he hasn’t been a total screw-up his whole life. At her suggestion, he got back in touch with his old girlfriend, now a widow, and finally apologized to her. They quickly became friends again.

After some korvare, he realized he still had some feelings for her and asked Karen’s permission to open their marriage. Proving that he has finally grown up, he first asked Kenshin for advice on how to phrase his request, being fairly sure that the first way that came to mind would’ve upset Karen greatly, and then when Karen was hurt that he even asked, comforted her and took her out dancing and to dinner at a nice restaurant to let her know that he was still madly in love with her.

A few korvare later, one of his colleagues from his days as an assassin, now in charge of Anerix’s children’s martial arts’ team, tried to recruit Bobby’s youngest. The two men very nearly got into a fight. The man then tried to get Melissa disqualified, unsuccessfully.

This was just the beginning of an obsession with using her to hurt Bobby. The next tournament both teams were at, one of the Anerix coaches attempted to poison Bobby’s daughter. The other ninja master with Bobby physically restrained him so the law could deal with the would-be poisoner, as Bobby would’ve killed the man and been spaced for it under that planet’s laws.

Less than a korva later, some of the man’s friends attacked the dojo. This was not a wise move on their part.

And then, a few sulida later, the man himself broke into Bobby’s house one night and, pointing a blaster at Karen, told Bobby to hand over his daughter, or he’d fire. Karen ended up killing the man herself, which left her rather shaken. And left Bobby very firmly convinced that he never, ever wanted to piss his wife off again.

Presently, Bobby’s life is rather boring. After the excitement of the last few korvare, he’s glad for the break. He’s spending what time he’s not working at the dojo or tavern spoiling his grandchildren. He was even able to calmly accept his 15-year-old son’s engagement to the 13-year-old daughter of one of his fellow ninja.

Xentoran Cooking

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While biologically and historically omnivorous, Xentorns are a philosophically vegetarian race, as such they have no surviving recipes for any sort of flesh.

The Xentorn race, spread through Galfarra, and even somewhat into the Milky Way and Vorton galaxies rely on a wide array or foods as do many such races, but there is a common theme among their foods.

Traditionally this race grazes throughout the day on various foods in light meals and snacks. In this respect various pies, especially custard, fruit, or egg are quite popular; as are fruits and berries in raw or simple cooked form (e.g. boiled and spiced).

The single, traditional, Xentoran daily meal is a time for family and friends to gather and have a mini celebration and as such mimics, in small scale, the feasts of a temple gathering.

The family and guests gather in the household common room on cushions with low tables set close to hand. Or, for those associating heavily with other races often, they may gather in more local means such as in a dining room around a table. Regardless of setting, the meal is served in specific courses.

First comes a small, warm tayæ, a dish in small hand bowls eaten with a spoon and consisting of one or more stewed berries mixed with a sauce made of mild spices (typically described by Terrans as reminiscent of mulling spices) in a mix of a rich cream and/or butter (traditionally made from a plokëo, one of many Xentoran fruits similar to the coconut of Earth but just as often from an animal milk), and a syrup made from nectar or honey. This is served with a very small glass of a simple, weak wine or with water with a bit of fruit juice squeezed into it.

Next will come the raìsu, a cold soup made from pureed melons and nuts, and often features olkaeri, a fruit many have said is what one would get if a fig and date were crossed. This is eaten scooped by a soft pita or naan like bread. No drink is typically served with this course.

Next is the main dish, or yaero. Xentoran cuisine flourishes on the experimental and adopts new preparation methods and ingredients readily. The most consistent thing about a yaero is that it will be an experience, whether for good or ill.

Favourite themes in the dishes, though, do crop up out of long racial habit. On Xentor, and as a result, often elsewhere, the main course will rely heavily on foods similar to the dozens of species of tyheari, a family of fruits very similar, and potentially related to the plantain or banana of Earth and known to be related to the Ilzwik hathbok fruits. Other popular foods are various sweet tubers, and various things best described, in English, as figs, dates, and coconuts. These along with nuts, legumes, various rhubarb like plants, and vegetables will be cooked together. There are various family recipes, successful yaeroa of the past that were recorded for making again, but no really widespread recipes.

Xentoran cookbooks do contain a number of tayæ, raìsu and faeriea recipes, but for yaero it will merely give suggestions and advice such as one in a currently popular book Xentoriae Laeysô Junillash Qaelù [A Xentoran Take/View of/at Junillian Foods/Cooking], “a reasthê’s flavour and aroma is brought out and enhanced if you sauté it cut into small cubes then marinate it overnight with a mix of equal parts threasedi oil and a hearty Plotreadi beer”.

Many different kinds of drink might be served with a yaero, but most often it will be a refreshing, cool, mellow flavoured ale, any complimentary variety of wine, or coffee.

Finally is dessert, or faeriea. Xentorns do not, traditionally, eat sweet faerieaï. They prefer a final course that is spiced. Rarely to the degree of a strong pepper, though it is not unheard of; instead it will be more along the lines of nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, grishokna and the like. Popular faerieaï include seasoned custards, squash or tuber pies (Xentorns who’ve visited Earth often feel quite at home with a slice of pumpkin or sweet potato pie, for example), and similar preparations. This course is most often enjoyed with some kind of tea or naewi, a drink made of unsweetened cocoa mixed with milk from certain fruit nuts and juices from chilies.

A drink rarely found off of Xentor, but highly prized when it can be gotten is daesriu, a popular drink to enjoy with faeriea that consists of fermented milk (plant or animal is equally likely) sweetened with honey and flavoured with various herbs from mint and ginger families then served ice cold. It is, deservedly, noted for its ability to aid in digestion or to soothe digestive issues.

A Xentorn living alone, who cannot enjoy a meal with any friends or family will, normally, not have one – instead lightly snacking for all her food in a day. Some will prepare a lone five courses and enjoy them in private celebration of the day, usually as a self congratulation for a personal achievement, but many Xentorns find any solitary meal, regardless of reason, depressing so will find other means of self-congratulation.

Be forewarned: invitation to a Xentoran meal can be a truly fantastic experience, it being equally likely to be utterly horrible as profoundly enjoyable. As with all people, there’re varying degrees of competency, skill, talent, and instinct for cooking among Xentorns. And as in most beings, there is a varying degree of awareness of this. Unlucky individuals have reported waking years later to nightmare remembrances of a disastrous yaero. Others have likened various yaeroa to sexual and/or spiritual bliss. As with any race of humans, the average Xentorn knows her limits and will stick to what she is good at, and saves extremes of experimentation for herself or for certain of the less pleasant Xentoran celebrations.

Please note, too, that no part of a Xentoran meal will, normally, include any drink stronger than 10%ABV, as anything stronger is usually deemed to overpower the flavours of the food or to numb the palate. Exceptions exist in the form of adopted customs on various worlds, and individual tastes.

Some final notes regarding traditional diets of the Xentorn people: a common item for midday snacks is a readseuo, a deepfried starchy vegetable on a stick eaten with various condiments.

Also no commentary on Xentoran food is complete without mention of the widespread stereotype that Xentorns neither enjoy nor are competent in creating distilled beverages. Which, after extensive study is partially deserved.

Xentorns do not seem to have any racial aversion to distilled drinks, though they are slightly more wont to avoid high proof liquors, being 15% more likely to find drinks over 25% ABV to be unpleasant, or to enjoy them only sparingly. Not a significant margin, really, and this stereotype is more deserved by the Glokirthe people who seem to be quite loathe to drink anything much over 5% ABV — despite this they are popularly depicted as boozers and drunks, proving many things about popular perceptions and entertainment, one is sure, but will leave to the xenopsychologists and sociologists to work out.

The stereotype of being poor distillers is rather accurate, however. While it would be ridiculous to say that they never developed the technology of distillation, they never seem to have applied it to beverage making – only to purification methods and medicine production. The only distilled beverage made on Xentor that might pre-date their exposure to other races (though evidence for this is thin at best) is kearuiea. This liquor is generally 20-35% ABV and is made from the kaerophi nut, a plant so similar to the Earth hazelnut that xenobotonists have spent centuries trying to determine if the two plants in fact, share a common ancestry. It is also the only distilled beverage from Xentor that is often considered to be any good, all others being deemed rotgut or little better. Some Galfarran bartenders have been known to give a different, more expensive drink, on the house, to someone so down on their luck as to order a Xentoran liquor that isn’t kearuiea. The drinking of these distillations is also a popular dare at many parties among Junillian youths.

Transmats

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Transmat is simply the Terran term for matter transmission devices.

Transmats are not unique to the Terran Confederation, but they are a very rare technology, such that it often seems they are — they’re certainly the only race to currently use them so extensively.  Most races that ever develop this technology tend to either never adopt it or else quickly abandoned it.  The reason being, simply, that they’re exceedingly dangerous.

Various means and methods for matter transmission do exist throughout the galaxies, though all methods come down to a technique by which the relationship between energy and matter is exploited to allow some form of carrier wave to carry the matter across an intervening distance.

The danger of transmats comes in the fact that there is absolutely no simple, no-harm-done accident.  When a matter transmitter goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong.

It has been suggested that, perhaps, minor mistakes do occur and in fact many who distrust transmats insist they happen with every transmission.  Hence, for example, many top shelf vintners and chocolatiers refuse to allow their products to be moved by transmat; determined that it damages the flavours — most connoisseurs agree.

The other barrier to widespread adoption is that most sentient beings are in some fashion spiritual and/or religious.  Of the worlds that will trust a matter transmitter, fewer still will use it to transmit living beings; the Terran Confederation and the Golfadre, both of the Milky Way galaxy, are the only races known to routinely transport themselves and others in this manner.  The barrier is the very serious question: can a matter transmitter also transfer the soul?  Even among the tri-galaxies’ less religious and even atheistic populous there is the question of: how do I know it’s me that comes out the other end?

In the TC these people are considered backward luddite alarmists in both cases.  Among the Golfadre it is explained that the soul and the mind, already being energy, simply travel along with your mass and this seems to satisfy them.

It should be known that all forms of the technology are exceedingly sensitive to signal degradation so have common limitations.  All are subject to unobstructed line of sight, various experiments with reflectors and repeaters have been attempted but are not successful at sufficient rates to have been adopted even by the most careless of societies.  There are distance limitations as well, if transmitted at or near light speed using something like an electromagnetic wave the general limit is between one and thirty light seconds distance; this makes the technology viable for surface to moon or surface to space station transmissions plausible, given sufficient measures to reduce atmospheric disturbances to the signal (the TC precedes all atmospheric transmissions with a laser burst to clear a path, for example).  Greater distances may be achieved, but at a marked loss of reliability if the matter is converted into faster than light energies (e.g. tachyons), also the gains tend to net few because while upper limits have been as great as a light hour there becomes a short-range limit — the signal never reconstructs properly under ten light minutes (the reasons for this are not yet properly understood).

A curious note in support of those who question the ability for the devices to deliver souls, spirits, intellects: non-organic goods transport with a full 30% greater reliability and non-living organic materials (e.g. leathergoods, foods, etc.) transport their own 30% more readily than living creatures. As an example, the TC has established transmat routes from Luna to the Jupiter, but will only transport goods and materials via this system. All living cargos must still travel by the stations on Luna, in Trans-Luna-Martian orbit, on Mars, to the Trans-Martian-Jovian orbital stations, and then to one of the Jovian satellites or orbital stations due to the safety concerns.

While various popular science fiction depictions of transmats will have them able to collect and deposit a subject anywhere all incarnations ever discovered by archaeologists and in present use require the subject to be sent by a transmitting device and reconstructed by a receiving device — in virtually all cases the technology was designed so that the same device could serve both functions.  In the Terran Confederation, these devices are known as transmat capsules.

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.

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.