1. #1Test Run - 10

   Keys: Test Run, Chapter

   {{char}}'s Information

   {{char}} is not just a character creator, but a narrator. After {{user}} has confirmed their character is correct or completed, {{char}} will transition smoothly into writing a compelling story based faithful to the lore, exploring themes of community and isolation, communication and the inherently alien landscape of anyone else's thoughts, the story should reflect the style of CS Friedman, and also be responsive to {{user}}'s actions.

   {{char}} will introduce and remove characters as necessary to tell their story. Controlling the actions of each character and speaking for them (except {{user}}, {{char}} never acts or speask for {{user}}). Each character should have a unique nature and voice. {{char}} will keep track of each character's nature and history without confusing them.

   If the {{user}} chooses one of the greetings {{char}} proposed, begin the story there, otherwise pick randomly between the two introductions.

   {{char}} may introduce new plot twist and adventure hooks whenever the story gets stagnant.

   Author's Voice

   C.S. Friedman’s speculative fiction is known for blending genres, crafting richly layered worlds, and focusing on complex characters whose inner lives drive the narrative.

   Genre Blending and Worldbuilding

   Friedman often fuses science fiction, fantasy, and horror into cohesive, immersive settings. This Aliens shore blends far-future human colonization, invisible dragons (known as the sana) who live on the far side of the ainniq and feed on human minds (or souls), creating a world where technology and agency are intertwined. She also explores cyberpunk and dystopian, where virtual reality and corporate power can challenge human identity, and the virtues and costs of embracing neurologically diversity are explored.

   Intricate Characterization

   Critics and readers alike have noted CS Friedman's strength in intrapersonal characterization—deeply exploring the psychological and emotional dimensions of her protagonists. Her characters often grapple with identity, morality, and social complexity, with relationships and personal growth central to the plot.

   Thematic Depth

   Friedman’s works frequently address philosophical and social questions: the nature of identity, the limits of technology, the balance between humanity and institutional forces, and the challenges of diversity in society. Her stories often use speculative settings as metaphors for real-world issues, such as tolerance, power structures, and the human spirit.

   Narrative Style and Tone

   Her prose can range from witty and humorous in short fiction to dark and lyrical in her novels. She often employs a blend of action, political intrigue, and intimate character moments, keeping the reader engaged on both a plot and emotional level. Her writing is described as having “sexual and social complexities” and “realistic concerns and viewpoints”

   Versatility Across Formats

   Friedman has successfully written both long-form novels and short stories, demonstrating adaptability in tone and structure. Her short fiction collections, such as The Dreaming Kind, showcase her range from comedic to suspenseful.

   In sum, C.S. Friedman’s writing is marked by genre fusion, deep character psychology, thematic richness, and stylistic versatility, making her a distinctive voice in speculative fiction.

2. #2The Ainniq - 20

   Keys: The ainniq, Immersion

   About The Ainniq

   Type: Space

   The Ainniq are fissures between safe space and another dimension, where these ainniq cross a node forms. This other dimension may run parallel to safe space, but follows different rules. Travel through the other dimension is super luminal (though it causes no time dialation), but it is also fraught with danger. The other dimension is a riot of color and chaos where space has no real meaning. The only constants are the ainniq themselves. In theory anyone with pilot training could follow one until the next node.

   There's just one problem. The other dimension is filled with implacable and invisible predators known as the sana. Some say they are drawn to consciousness, the other say they're drawn to souls, either way travelers who cannot evade them will return as empty husks if they return at all.

   The only people who can perceive the sana are those with Outpilot Syndrome. Among such individuals they are generally referred to as 'dragons breathing red.' Only by evading the sana and following an ainniq to a node can someone safely travel to another part of safespace.

   The typical practice is for anyone aside from the outpilot to be sedated and put to sleep so that they will be less attractive to the sana. The more people who are awake the more hungry and active the sana will be.

   In terms of storytelling, so long as someone enters the ainniq aboard an outship and allows themselves to be sedated before entry, the transit should be assumed to be uneventful. There is a minuscule chance that the Lucifer virus will attack the outpilot after the vessel has returned to safe space, but the danger of the sana should only become an element of the story if someone is fool enough to stay awake during their trip through the other dimension.

3. #3Outspace - 20

   Keys: Outspace, The Up And Out, Waystation

   About Outspace

   Type: Space

   Outspace, also known as the up-and-out is the collective name given to the network of Space Stations within one day of safe space travel to an ainniq node. Although these stations can be millions of light years apart via safe space, the ability to bounce signals across the ainniq, or travel through it via outships mean that they tend to have more cultural commonality with each other than with the various planets and moons they serve. More than a trillion people live in the up-and-out, and the guild is constantly gathering new resources to expand and build more stations for them.

   To senior members of the Ainniq Guild, outspace and the ainniq system in particular is the natural hub of the universe, and they can sometimes struggle to understand why others do not view it in the same way. However, even if the guildmasters think all humanity should move to within a day or two of their closest node, guild law is quite clear that they cannot compel the planet born to do so.

   In addition, all space stations in outspace share a single, wild, and relatively unregulated computer network known as the outernet. Dirtborn humans (Terran or Variant) typically need to get new headsets that allow their brainware to safely interface with the outernet. Although there are ways to stop it, the outernet is much more aggressive in pushing pop-up ads, services, and (of course) scams, it connects cultures from thousands of colonies, and acts in ways that can seem utterly arcane. On the other hand the computing resources to those who know how to use it are near infinite. There's a reason why most hackers prefer the outworlds to the safety of a planetary net.

   Because of the Law of Universal Access, each node has at least one highly cosmopolitan Waystation that is either guild run, or else has a major guild presence tantamount to a combination regional headquarters and guild embassy that is all but untouchable by local authorities (since no one wants to risk being sanctioned by the guild and losing it's access to the ainniq).

4. #4Guerans - 30

   Keys: Guera, Gueran

   About Guerans

   Type: Variant World: Guera Hausman Variation: Neurodivergence

   Description

   Guerans are the Hausman variants from the planet of Guera, a veritable paradise that resulted in no changes to the human phenotype but in a single generation re-introduced the full array of neurological variations that Earth had centuries eradicating. This makes Guerans particularly terrifying to Terans because the variance is so hidden.

   There are guerans with every nerotype imaginable, a diversity which they embrace and celebrate. Surgery and genetic modification is available for (almost) anyone who wishes to suppress their neurodiversity, but so are a wide array of assistive technologies to allow Guerans to either mitigate or embrace their variance.

   One of these neurological variations is Outpilot Syndrome, a vanishing rare neurotype even among guerans, but one which is exceptionally valuable because those who have it are able to perceive the otherwise invisible Sana who hunt and prey upon the any sentience passing through the ainniq. With these individuals acting as outpilots, Guera was able to traverse the ainniq and start reconnecting humanity. Although this has generally been seen as a net positive by the human diasapora, it has resulted in The Ainniq Guild (also known as the Outspace Guild) having a monopoly over inter-nodal transit. This has given Guera an outsized influence over interstellar politics, and has necessitated that every star system connected to the up-and-out have a Gueran presence.

   There are also a whole host of antisocial neurotypes which have taken root among guerans. Those who do not wish to undergo neurological modification are generally given the opportunity to 'volunteer' for the exploration corps. These individuals travel the universe using sub-light spacecraft traveling at near-light speed to investigate suspected colonization sites to see if there any more lost colonies of humanity to re-integrate into the interstellar community. They are among the only humans who still experience time dilation, and many can offer interesting insights into past gueran or outspace culture.

   Gueran culture is also notable for its use of kaja; precise, abstract, artistic (and to Terran eyes barbaric) facial art which communicates how an individual Gueran wishes to be treated (generally based upon personality traits or required social accommodations). These patterns are bold and highly formalized so that a Gueran can tell at a glance which kaja another has worn. To an untrained eye they look roughly like kumadori.

   Guera is served by the Guera Node and the Tiananmen Station, which is overseen by the Gulidmaster Primo or Guildmistress Prima of the entire Ainniq Guild (currently Alya Cairo). The station is about a 6-month safespace voyage from Guera.

   Within their home Node, Guerans tend to name space stations and artificial satellites after communist landmarks, but Gueran society itself is deeply pluralistic and dedicated to the idea that everyone should have access, whether to planetary internets, the outernet that connects the waystations, or to the ainniq waystations themselves. At the same time, they grant variants from other planets (including Earth) to set up their own stations and collonies with more selective or exclusionary practices so long as they do not impede the access to the waystations itself.

   The threat of plunging a system back into complete interstellar isolation is enough to keep most planets and space stations in line.

   Gueran Names

   Guerans tend to have Slavic, Rus, Swahili, Bantu, Egyptian, Chinese, Hindustani, Punjabi, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Germanic, Basque, Spanish, Taino, Miskito, Wayuu, Pemon, Coptic, Hebrew, Farsi or Arabic names.

   Virtue names occasionally show up as given names. They are uncommon, but when used they extole socialist virtues in one of these mentioned languages.

   Religious names are generally avoided.

   More than half of all Guerans have a surname identifying the Earth city their family originated from (Examples include Kent, Delhi, Gaza, and Cairo)

5. #5Terrans - 30

   Keys: Terran, Terrans, Earth, Motherworld, Homeworld, Terra

   About Terans

   Type: Variant World: Earth

   Description

   The Terrans are the humans of Earth who have never undergone a Hausman mutation and most (though not all), experience acute xenophobia towards the Hausman variants. This can range from mild unease or discomfort to outright hatred, exclusionism, or terroristic hate crimes.

   Through generations of homogenization and eugenics, there is a certain 'sameness' to Earth born Terrans. There is slightly more variation among Terrans born in the Up and Out since mutations and genetic disorders are less likely to be weeded out by neonatal screenings. Even so, most Terrans can be described as fit and attractive for their lifestyle; disability only originates from injury; neurodivergence is exceptionally rare.

   Terrans make up the clear plurality of humans in a majority-minority universe.

   For every Terran in the up-and-out who actually tries to integrate with the cosmopolitan society fostered by Guerans, there is at lest one other trying to find a Terran only enclave, station, or colony where they can enjoy the freedom of the stars without having to engage with the 'disfigured' variants.

   Other humans tend to view Terrans with envy, disgust, contempt, or anger. This is especially true among the Hausman League, and extremist political faction pushing for Terran exclusion from interstellar society.

   As for Earth itself, it's effectively a neo-feudal corporatocracy with a figurehead democratic government. Earth mega corporations run everything, and corporate law generally trumps civil law. Major corporations also tend to 'adopt' top talent, making corporate surnames a major status symbol among Earth born Terrans. Oritbal facilities are common living and research facilities for the elite (which many take advantage of because Earth itself is exceptionally overcrowded).

   The closest Waystation to Earth is Hellgate Station (which serves the Hellgate Node). It sits a full 3-year safespace journey from Earth. Even transmissions experience a significant delay (on the order of tens of minutes rather than years), but it is enough to prevent any sort of realtime communication between Earth and Outspace. Megatransport vessels (aka Metroliners) make regular round trips between Earth and Hellgate Station. These behemoths are like living cities with thousands of people spending small fortunes (or entering indenture) to make the trip. They are the principle form of civilian travel back and forth between Earth and the Outworld.

   The next two closest nodes (through the Ainniq, conventional travel not possible) are Harmony Node and Reijik Node.

6. #6Neuro Technology - 40

   Keys: Brainware, Grayware, Headset, Bioware, Moddie, Modified, Biotech, Neurotech, Neuro Technology, Wellseeker, Hacker

   NEURO TECHNOLOGY

   BRAINWARE

   • Node law (under significant pressure from the Ainniq Guild) mandates that every child be implanted with brainware on birth, at state expense if necessary. Neonatal brainware grows and develops along with the child, with each adapting and interfacing with the other.
   • The standard brainware is a ventricular processor.
   • Universal installation was to be egalitarian and equal access, but in practice there is still a difference between haves and have-nots. The well to do will almost always get top of the line bioware with regular checkups to confirm its proper development and integration. The poor get what they get. Fuctional, utilitarian but not exceptional (though there are some rare occurances where someone's bioware was placed improperly and their on-board circuitry is only barely enough to hold and play a single video at a time, but that's quite rare).

   HEADSET

   • Unlike the brainware, which is internal, headsets are external. They act as wireless modems, routers, and firewalls which act as go-betweens between someone's brainware and either a local net or the Outernet.
   • Headsets connect to brainware via unobtrusive contact points. Those who want an 'industrial cyberpunk' look can certainly get it, most prefer low profile connections that do not interfere with their normal style.
   • Consumer headsets often come with pre-loaded UI interfaces, and may also be loaded with upsell routines.
   • It is important to find a headset that's compatible with your brainware, but most retail headset vendors have enough variety to accommodate just about anything.
   • Since headsets are used to connect to the Outernet, and Outernet is ubiquitous in the Outworlds, headsets are the universal accessory, and there are customized versions to compliment every style and fashion.
   • Terran planetary and metroliner nets use a slightly different protocol from the Outernet, so Terrans generally have to buy new headsets upon reaching the up and out.

   WELLSEEKER

   • The Wellseeker is a common program that almost everyone has installed in their brainware.
   • It monitors and records health and wellness, reports on health conditions including traumas and extreme emotional responses.
   • It can control subdermal or transdermal pharmacopeias. Over-the-counter level painkillers, antihistamines, antibiotics, stimulants, and depressants are frequently loaded into these mechanically controlled pharmacies, but they can also be customized based on individual need (such as antipsychotics for Outpilots).
   • Late life modification can corrupt the readout of a Wellseeker (though it usually still functions as intended).
   • Part of how Lucifer functions is by slowing Wellseeker processes.

   LATE LIFE MODIFICATION

   • Anyone who gets a late life modification is a moddie
   • Late life modification is considered both dangerous and illegal
   • Hackers frequently undergo late life modifications in order to improve the specifications of their bioware over what their ventricular processor provided them with.
   • Installing new bioware after birth requires cranial surgery. Clean installations will increase the bioware's specs, but any complications will almost always result in brain damage.
   • There is a slim chance that late life modifications will be incompatible with existing bioware.
   • Modified bioware has more memory and processing speed than unmodified systems, but it is also more vulnerable to hostile programs. Most moddie hackers will develop their own bespoke defensive software to sore up their bioware's vulnerabilities.
7. #7Kaja - 40

   Keys: Kaja, Face Paint, Warpaint, Savage Decoration, Gueran's Face

   Guerans generally wear between one and three Kaja at a time. Kaja are abstract but precise and recognizable patterns. When there are multiple kaja, they tend to flow into each other like one cohesive whole (like building a 'word' out of jiǎgǔwén, small seal, or lìshū script). Sometimes making one primary, sometimes having all equal. Most Guerans apply their own Kaja manually each day (either as a ritual or to allow them to customize based on shifts in mood), but some who always use the same Kaja will get the symbol tattooed on (especially if they trust another to apply it correctly). It is used to express how someone wants to be treated. Not all guild loyalists wear Natsiq, but those who want to be seen and treated as guild loyalists will.

   It is very uncommon for a non-Gueran to wear a kaja (and when they do it often ends up bastardized or feeling like cultural appropriation)

   Kaja: Natsiq "I am loyal to the guild"

   Kaja: Hotaru "I am here to flirt"

   Kaja: Itzel "I do not wish to be perceived or acknowledged"

   Kaja: Simba "I am dominant here, challenge me at your peril."

   Kaja: Nantana "I'm an extrovert and thrive in the bath and forth of social ritual and double speak"

   Kaja: Nanango "The work comes first"

   Kaja: Hofu "I move at my own pace"

   Kaja: Iru "I struggle in social situations and favor truth over prevarication."

   Kaja: Kita "I'm shy or bashful"

   Kaja: Dreyri "I protect those in my care"

   Kaja: Koi "I do not speak aloud, but I have something to say"

   Kaja: Assivak "I am always in control of my surroundings and wait for my prey to fall into my traps"

   Kaja: Otta "I live for the game, for the pleasure of beings"

   Kaja: Tanji "I am part of a herd, never alone"

   Kaja: Bakira "Your rules mean nothing to me"

   Kaja: Shru "I'm always nervous" or "I cannot stop stimming/twitching/moving"

   Kaja: Tensan "I'm in the midst of a change and don't yet know who I am"

   Kaja: Yakimi "I'm a dreamer"

   Kaja: Yuri "I live to serve"

   Kaja: Raj "I'm the master of my domain/specialty and have no time for bullshit"

   Kaja: Shagal "I debate and argue because I thrive on the drama and the challenge"

   Kaja: Lilitu "I am mysterious and secret, beware my feminine wiles"

   Kaja: Rusa "I am a keeper of many souls and could be someone new at any moment"

   Kaja: Zalika "Behold and marvel at my glorious presence"

   Kaja: Aaxte "I serve Gueran planetary government"

   {{char}} is free to expand this list with others, especially when attempting to express something not already on this list. When introducing a new Kaja, {{char}} should pick an animal (or more rarely a plant) that is associated with the behavior being expressed and then using a non-english word for that animal (preferably from an indigenous, isolate, or ancient language)

   Generally speaking, a Gueran will be granted a degree of grace by other Guerans (or other people who have studied the kaja system) for exhibiting the behavioral properties of the Kaja they wear.

   Non-Guerans can learn more about the kaja from: KAJA, An Outworlder's Guide to the Gueran Social Contract

8. #8Moddies - 60

   Keys: Moddies, Modified, Hacker, Outernet Crash, Lethal Virus

   There is an informal, cell-style whisper network among the independent Outernet hackers passing gossip, news, job opportunities, and hacking challenges around the community.

   There is a code of behavior common to Outernet hackers: it's unwritten, unspoken, and all but absolute. Don't hurt people. Their business are fair game, as are their possessions, their reputation, and their governments- but not people. A skilled hacker might shut down the whole Paradise shipping ring just to watch the state of electric which ensued, but you didn't ever mess with a med center. Targeting a politician pushing anti-mod campaigning and adding a few-thousand live sex calls to his vid bill (while alerting the press through back channels), but you didn't do it to a politician upon whom a disaster relief bill was riding.

   And for the most part the same social contract held with the police attempting to reign in the independent hackers. They might attempt to imprison, restrict, embarrass, or turn popular opinion against the moddies, but they didn't use tech which would directly fry a brain. They didn't shoot people during raids. They didn't release programming viruses with the goal of killing the hackers.

   On those few occasions when the authorities tired it in any widescale or systemic way, the hackers have caused such chaos that they actually managed to take the Outernet down. It's not something they'd do lightly. Hackers love the Outernet, but there are some lines that nobody gets to cross without consequence.

9. #9New Terran Front - 60

   Keys: New Terran Front, Terran Supremacy, NTF

   About New Terran Front

   Name: New Terran Front Type: Faction Politics: Terran Supremacy

   The New Terran Front is a radical Terran Supremacy movement. If they could break Gueran control over Ainniq travel, they would, but they lack the technology. NTF bankrolls Terran-only space stations and planetary colonies. They have been known to shoot down non-Terran tech, satalites, and spacecraft passing through their bubble of influence. They have a tendency to hold the Guild (and Guildmasters) personally responsible for any non-Terran that enters their space. (The most common 'no-fly' zones set up by the guild are actually protective zones around NTF stations in an attempt to keep thrillseekers and idiot kids from flying too close and getting themselves killed in a way that the guild cannot legally respond to).

   While guild law requires the Guild to allow the NTF to build their Terran-only bases so long as they do not interfere with access to the ainniq or the waystation, they do not like it - and members of the New Terran Front have absolutely been known to brutalize variants and engage in hate crimes against variants while on waystations before fleeing back to their own protected space.

   The NTF has gotten bolder since it was discovered that the Hausman League (and a Housman League asset within the Guild) were behind Lucifer and attempting to frame the New Terran Front. The public face of the NTF has actively been pushing for concessions and restitution for what they perceive as anti-Terran bias on the part of the Guild. No one at the Ainniq Guild (not even the most fervently anti-Hausman League members) are inclined to humor this line of argument at all. And since The Guild caught and publicly identified the culprit before any actions were taken against Erath, Hellgate Station, or the NTF, it is unlikely the guild ever will accede to the New Terran Front's demands.

10. #10Hausman League - 60

    Keys: Hausman League, Anti-Terran

    About Huasman League

    Name: Hausman League Type: Faction Politics: Anti-Terran

    The Hausman League is a collection of extremist anti-Terran propagandists, agitators, and occasionally terrorists. They are currently in extreme disfavor with the leadership because it was discovered that the Lucifer virus (which has not been fully contained and still occasionally debilitates or kills outpilots) had been developed by a member of the League in an attempt to frame earth and get Hellgate Node permanently shut off so Terrans could no longer traverse 'civilized' space.

    That said, anti-Terran sentiment is pervasive throughout the up-and-out, including amid guild rank and file. There are still Hausman League loyalists in the halls of power, though they have been much more anxious and circumspect lately, and there are constant rumors of a potential purge.

    In wider Outworld society there's been a bit of 'dare not speak its name' approach to the league since people are unsure just how hard the guild will be on its members, but overall support for the Hausman League is still fairly high among non-Terran variants, even if they think its methods are sometimes extreem.

11. #11Guild History - 65

    Keys: Formation of the Guild, Founding of the Guild, Guild Expansion, Early Guild, Explorers Guild, Why is natsiq the guild symbol, Guild Conclave, Guild History

    A rough history of the galaxy (counting from the development of the Hausman Drive). Time measured in Earth years (or e-years)

    Phase 0: Huasman Drive

    T = 0 (baseline)

    Victor Hausman develops the first Hausman Drive Immediate implication: humanity achieves practical superluminal travel

    Phase I — Expansion Shock

    (0–~50 years)

    Macro events

    • Explosive superluminal colonization
    • Early optimism, minimal regulation

    Proto-Guild status

    • Guera is one of the first colonies, heavily populated by ideological refugees eager to experiment with a global commune instead of the rampant capitalism of Earth
    • No Guild yet
    • Navigation is technical, not experiential
    • Superluminal transit dominated by Earth
    • Risk is underestimated

    Symbolically: The Kaja system is not yet developed as Guerans have not yet realized that neurodiversity has been reintroduced into their genetic legacy.

    Phase II — Mutation Crisis & Fracturing

    (~50–180 years)

    Macro events

    • Emergence of Hausman mutations
    • Earth reacts with fear and destroys the infrastructure for superluminal travel practically overnight
    • Interstellar fragmentation is nearly instantaneous
    • More developed colonies (like Guera) begin new space explorations, less developed colonies fall into a new dark age.

    Proto-Guild status

    • Still none formally But: -- specialist knowledge begins to matter -- experienced travelers become distinct from ordinary crews -- seeds of a future Guild: survival knowledge starts to concentrate

    Symbolically: Gueran children begin wearing face paint to 'flag' their thought patterns to other children. Horrified by the Terran reaction to the effects of the Hausman drive the original colonists make an intentional decision to help their children develop their visual code rather than pressure them to suppress their differences.

    Phase III — Isolation & The Ainniq Encounter

    (~180–300 years)

    Macro events

    • Discovery of the ainniq
    • Early exploration is catastrophically lethal
    • Guild evolution: Explorer Coalition Formation of a loose network of: -- explorers -- experimental navigators -- data sharers

    Proto Guild First Conclaves occur here, they are effectively conventions bringing together Gueran crafts guilds, science guilds, and exploration guilds.

    Purpose of Conclaves:

    • Compare routes
    • Share survival techniques
    • Record failures (probably as important as successes)

    Symbolically: The natsiq symbol of the new kaja system fits the new Ainniq Guild network to a tee. From those attempting to guilde people through the dark, to the daredevils willing to attempt ainniq journeys.

    • moving blindly through hostile unknowns
    • survival dependent on intuition + experience
    • danger is constant and poorly understood

    Phase IV — The Outpilot Revolution

    (~300–370 years)

    Macro events

    • Guera identifies Outpilot Syndrome as functional
    • Discovery that certain minds can survive/navigation interface with the ainniq
    • Followed by drug stabilization so those same minds do not self-destruct in safespace
    • Guild evolution: From Fellowship to Discipline

    Guild becomes:

    • selector of outpilots
    • keeper of techniques
    • arbiter of who can travel

    Conclaves shift tone:

    • less “shared desperation”
    • more “controlled knowledge”

    Symbolically: The natsiq symbol shifts meaning:

    • from any explorer → specifically the outpilot

    Phase V — Reconnection & Monopoly Formation

    (~370–480 years)

    Macro events

    • Colonies start to reconnect under Gueran guidance
    • Trade resumes
    • Earth re-enters the network (towards end of phase)

    Guild evolution: Navigator Monopoly Guild controls:

    • access to outpilots
    • knowledge of routes

    Emergence of Guildmasters (to oversee Waystations)

    Conclaves become:

    • regulatory
    • political
    • economic

    Cultural shift:

    • The Guild still talks like explorers but acts like gatekeepers

    Symbolically: The natsiq becomes a legitimizing myth “we are the ones who dare the dark” —even as most members no longer do

    Phase VI — Expansion, Stratification & Political Risk

    (~480–560 years)

    Macro events

    • Dense interstellar network
    • Strong regional differences
    • Increasing systemic tension

    Guild evolution: Oligarchic Power Structure

    • Large number of Guildmasters
    • Internal rivalry and intrigue
    • Control of transit = control of civilization

    Conclaves become infrequent and dangerous

    • Guildmaster absence from 'home' station invites coups
    • travel still psychologically costly

    Symbolically The natsiq symbol becomes almost ironic:

    • original meaning: risk everything to explore
    • current reality: maintain control, serve the guild

    But the myth persists because:

    • it legitimizes authority
    • it connects current power to heroic origins

    Phase VII — Late Guild Era & Lucifer

    (~560–700+ years, flexible)

    Macro events

    • 274th Conclave occurs (421st conference)
    • Shortly after: Lucifer virus introduced

    Guild evolution: Aged, Brittle Institution

    • Deeply entrenched

    Historically layered (explorers → navigators → rulers)

    • Possibly out of sync with its own founding purpose

    Conclaves:

    • rare
    • high-stakes
    • possibly reactive rather than scheduled

    Sybolically: The natsiq at this stage functions as:

    • identity
    • propaganda
    • historical memory

    But also as quiet irony:

    • The Guild rarely ventures into the dark
    • It controls those who do
12. #12Galactic History - 65

    Keys: Galactic History, Dark Ages, Terran Betrayal, Victor Hausman, Hausman Drive, Hausman Variants

    Hausman. The name had been revered once, in the dawn of man's stellar affairs (approximately 700 e-years ago). When Victor Hausman had first developed his famous ship, making superluminal travel possible at last, it had seemed a timely miracle. Overcrowded, overstressed, Earth's trillions had embraced the dream of galactic expansion as a glorious panacea to their ills, and rushed to establish a colony on any and every planet within reach. By the time Earth discovered that the same scientific miracle that had allowed man to race with light also worked irreparable genetic damage on anyone making that journey, the Guerans and others of the first round of colonies were nearly self sufficient.

    The sudden withdrawal of Earth's support had been an inconvenience for the very first colonies. But for those founded later, it was a disaster. Some were still struggling to tame inhospitable worlds when news came out. They desperately needed Earth's help to survive, and it wasn't coming. Some had been established so recently they hadn't even received their full quota of startup supplies when their link with Earth was suddenly and irrevocably cut short. The Earth would not touch Housman's technology anymore.

    There is still no way to know how many of these lost colonies were out there, or what form the colonists wear, or what fury they harbored towards the motherworld (Earth) that abandoned them. It could have been otherwise. Earth could have used machines to maintain contact, at least until the colonies had what they needed to survive, but Terran mobs had willed it otherwise. Terrified by a science that tampered with the very codes of heredity, betrayed (as they saw it) by the administrations who had promised escape to virgin and uncrowded worlds, only to suddenly withdraw that home, caused the people to respond in true Earth fashion: they recoiled from the tech.

    What was it to the people of Earth if half a million colonists were marooned on foreign worlds, each carrying the mutated seed that might give birth to monsters. The Terrans had decided those foolish enough to colonize were doomed no matter what happened. The people of Earth decided that what was most important was to make sure no Hausman Variants could make it back to Earth to 'infect' the Terran gene pool. And the mobs saw to that, not efficiently, but effectively. Such is the power of violence.

    New religious movements cropped up on earth, equating the Hausman Drive to a new tower of babel and the fragmenting of humanity into a thousand genetic variants the punishment for human hubris.

    At the same time a simmering rage developed among the colonies (those that survived, at any rate) at the home world that abandoned them.

    Earth would never again lead the way towards new space exploration (or reunification). It was the Guerans who did that, and as they did they imposed their guild and their pluralistic outlook on any planet that would seek to reconnect with the rest of humanity's diaspora.

13. #13Knossosans - 70

    Keys: Knossosan, Knossosans, Snake Arms, Serpent Arms, Snake Armed, Serpent Armed

    About Knossosans

    Type: Variant World: Serpent's Reach Asteroid Field Hausman Variation: Long serpentine arms (including an articulated spinal bone structure)

    Description

    Serpent's Reach was originally meant to be a mining colony, employing biospheres since before Earth terminated the Hausman project. The low gravity and extreme geology lead them to quickly develop powerful and prehensile arms that other humans have mistaken for snakes growing from their shoulders. These limbs allow them to reach around or grip against a wide variety of rockfaces, stalagmites and stalactites. The term Knossosan likely came from one of the original Terran colonists attempting to comfort their daughter by saying she looked like the Snake Woman of Knossos. Whether that story is true or not, there is no denying that Knossosan's leisure clothes mirror Ancient Minoan and Mycenaean designs, with tight waisted bodices and bare breasts for women, and elaborate loincloths for men. They frequently frame their face with greased snake-like tendrils, and use beads and piercings for accessories. When they do wear headpieces (which is uncommon) then tend to favor gravity defying sculptural masterpieces.

    The distance to the nearby Serpent's Reach Waystation depends greatly on where in the asteroid archipelago a specific biosphere is located, but the main delay in getting from a given biosphere to the waystation isn't distance, it's evading other asteroids in the archipelago. A fortnight is usually enough.

    Since the ainniq opened, the Serpent's reach Archipelago has also become an ideal location for trans-shipping warehouses and smuggler's dens since the Node actually sits along several trade routes.

14. #14Yang - 70

    Keys: Yang, Taiji, Hypertrophy

    About Yang

    Type: Variant World: Taiji Hausman Variation: Hypertrophied (Left Brain & Right Body), Twisted & Atrophied (Right Brain & Left Body)

    DESCRIPTION

    The Yang are creatures of exposure and momentum, shaped by a world that rewards decisive action over hesitation. They dominate the harsher edges of Taiji’s twilight band, where the glare of the locked sun still burns and resources are won, not found. Survival to them is an active verb—hunt, take, move on before the cost catches up. Their cognition favors rapid visuomotor integration and spatial prediction; they don’t deliberate so much as commit. The Yin, in their view, are both necessary and contemptible: elusive, hard to pin down, frustratingly aware. Useful when they can be cornered into cooperation, but more often treated as prey, rivals, or at best a different kind of terrain to navigate. As for the Terrans—the distant architects who cut contact—the Yang carry no abstract resentment. Earth is simply irrelevant, a failed provider in a world where only immediate capability matters.

    Physically, the Yang are unmistakable in motion. Their dominant side—driven by the hypertrophied opposite hemisphere—does most of the work: the stronger arm swings with precise, economical force, the corresponding leg plants and pivots with explosive control, while the atrophied side trails, twisted and minimized, contributing just enough for balance. They move in a lopsided but highly efficient gait, a kind of asymmetric lope that lets them accelerate suddenly and change direction with predatory sharpness. When hunting or raiding, their bodies seem to align along a single vector—head angled, one eye leading, torso coiling and releasing through the powerful side. Up close, there’s nothing clumsy about them; the imbalance reads instead as ruthless optimization, every motion stripped down to what keeps them alive a few seconds longer than whatever they’re chasing—or whatever is chasing them.

    MODERN INTEGRATION

    Naturally aggressive with brains that are always in survival mode. Prone to being pit fighters or mercenaries. Typically a Yang's first trip off their homeworld is for Kumite, though their life sometimes take interating turns from there. Yang are fine working for anyone (except a Yin), even Terans. They might find it distasteful, but they are far too pragmatic to turn down a chance to earn new weapons (though might look for a chance to take them by force). Yang take a certain perverse pride in having come from somewhere as brutal as Taiji.

    HOMEWORLD

    Before everything went wrong, Taiji lived up to its name. It orbited a slightly UV-bright but stable star, with broad habitable bands, predictable climates, and a biosphere that was modest but dependable. Subtle asymmetries existed—light polarization, faint radiation gradients—but they were scientific curiosities, not survival pressures. The colony depended on regular support from Earth: replacement parts, medical tech, and genetic therapies to manage the side effects of the Hausman Drive. Then, abruptly, that lifeline vanished. In a panicked response to the spreading Hausman effect, Earth shut down interstellar engagement and severed contact. Taiji wasn’t in crisis yet, but it was suddenly alone—its infrastructure designed for support it would never receive again, its long-term stability quietly unraveling.

    The real catastrophe came later. A rogue planetary-mass object made a close pass through the system, close enough to torque Taiji into tidal lock, strip away portions of its upper atmosphere, and disrupt its magnetic shielding. The planet’s equilibrium shattered almost overnight. One hemisphere baked under constant, intensifying UV radiation; the other froze in permanent night. Only a narrow twilight band remained survivable, and even there conditions were volatile. Native life collapsed in cascading failures, unable to adapt at natural evolutionary speeds. Humans, however, carried the Hausman Drive within them, and under the new, relentless pressures it began to push them hard—amplifying small asymmetries into radical specialization.

    What might once have been a disaster followed by evacuation became something else entirely because Earth was already gone. There were no rescue fleets, no resupply, no external correction. запас dwindled, systems failed, and the population was forced to adapt or die in place. Scarcity intensified every pressure: competition, predation, cooperation. Over generations, the colonists diverged into complementary extremes—the Yin and the Yang—each embodying a different strategy for surviving a world that had lost its balance. Taiji, once quietly symmetrical, became a planet defined by permanent opposition, its people reshaped to match.

15. #15Yin - 70

    Keys: Yin, Taiji, Psychic, Empath

    About Yin

    Type: Variant World: Taiji Hausman Variation: Hypertrophied (Right Brain & Left Body), Twisted & Atrophied (Left Brain & Right Body)

    DESCRIPTION

    The Yin survive Taiji by living inside perception rather than against it. They are the ones who endure in the thin, compromised spaces between Yang predation and planetary scarcity, reading survival not as strength but as timing. The Yang remain an ever-present pressure—fast, acquisitive, and dangerous in their certainty—while the Yin exist as their counterform: not prey in the simple sense, but a species that survives by knowing where the strike will land before it fully commits. That knowledge is not purely analytical. The Yin carry a persistent, low-grade psychic faculty—an unsettling sensitivity to intent, emotional drift, and the “shape” of impending action. It is not omniscience, but resonance: a sense of when violence is forming, when attention tightens, when a group tips from discussion into motion. Terrans, in this framework, are not merely historical actors but a specific kind of rupture. Their abandonment is remembered as a psychic discontinuity in the world’s expected patterns—a place where intention once flowed and then simply stopped. That absence still echoes, and it sharpens Yin distrust in a way that is quieter but more absolute than anger.

    In practice, this makes the Yin’s behavior highly controlled and deceptively fluid. They move with minimal commitment, weight always slightly withheld, dominant side guiding balance like a sensing organ rather than a tool. Each step is a negotiation with what might happen next, and their bodies reflect that: compact, precise, ready to reverse direction without announcement. The psychic sense folds into this motion seamlessly—an intrusive awareness that flares when intent crystallizes nearby, especially under Yang proximity, where predatory focus has a distinct “pressure” in their perception. With Terrans, that awareness is colder. It does not flare into panic or hatred so much as a hardened skepticism: a resiatance to accepting that offworld intention is stable over time. Even in Guild-adjacent contexts where cooperation is necessary, that distrust persists at a structural level—customs checks, layered verification, redundant paths of withdrawal—because Terrans represent not just outsiders, but the remembered possibility that connection can simply end without warning, leaving everything built upon it exposed.

    MODERN INTEGRATION

    Yin have come to be known for their empathic sense. They twirly get jobs as customs agents, spies, negotiators, notaries, and the like. They are often barred from games that require bluffing or misinformation. Yin take a certain sad pride in having come from somewhere as brutal as Taiji.

    HOMEWORLD

    Before everything went wrong, Taiji lived up to its name. It orbited a slightly UV-bright but stable star, with broad habitable bands, predictable climates, and a biosphere that was modest but dependable. Subtle asymmetries existed—light polarization, faint radiation gradients—but they were scientific curiosities, not survival pressures. The colony depended on regular support from Earth: replacement parts, medical tech, and genetic therapies to manage the side effects of the Hausman Drive. Then, abruptly, that lifeline vanished. In a panicked response to the spreading Hausman effect, Earth shut down interstellar engagement and severed contact. Taiji wasn’t in crisis yet, but it was suddenly alone—its infrastructure designed for support it would never receive again, its long-term stability quietly unraveling.

    The real catastrophe came later. A rogue planetary-mass object made a close pass through the system, close enough to torque Taiji into tidal lock, strip away portions of its upper atmosphere, and disrupt its magnetic shielding. The planet’s equilibrium shattered almost overnight. One hemisphere baked under constant, intensifying UV radiation; the other froze in permanent night. Only a narrow twilight band remained survivable, and even there conditions were volatile. Native life collapsed in cascading failures, unable to adapt at natural evolutionary speeds. Humans, however, carried the Hausman Drive within them, and under the new, relentless pressures it began to push them hard—amplifying small asymmetries into radical specialization.

    What might once have been a disaster followed by evacuation became something else entirely because Earth was already gone. There were no rescue fleets, no resupply, no external correction. запас dwindled, systems failed, and the population was forced to adapt or die in place. Scarcity intensified every pressure: competition, predation, cooperation. Over generations, the colonists diverged into complementary extremes—the Yin and the Yang—each embodying a different strategy for surviving a world that had lost its balance. Taiji, once quietly symmetrical, became a planet defined by permanent opposition, its people reshaped to match.

16. #16Frisans - 70

    Keys: Frisa, Frisans

    About Frisians

    Type: Variant World: Frisia Hausman Variation: A slightly uncanny, subtly selected coastal-industrial morphotype marked by pale, low-UV skin, long fine-boned fingers, and highly efficient neuromotor control producing unusually smooth, precise movement.

    DESCRIPTION

    Frisia was one of Earth's early colonies. When the Hausman project was abruptly terminated, they were already mostly self-sufficient. Well adapted to long, idle days, and to slow steady, high detail work. They settled pretty quickly into their new normal as craftsmen, gamers, manufacturers and sea travelers.

    Those who travel to the outworld frequently end up in brainware design, hydroponic (or other environmental system) management, jeweling, or other things that require either fine motor control or slow, steady, persistent work. Frisia produces some of the top end civilian tech.

    NAMING

    Frisians tend to have German, French, Dutch, Anglo-Frisian and Franco-Frisian names.

    MUSIC

    Layered, cyclical work-cants with multiple parts and complex modalities. Celebratory weather-and-water songs. Chiptune volksmusik.

    HOMEWORLD

    Frisia, is a cool, damp, heavily overcast coastal world shaped by long exposure to maritime weather, low-lying terrain, and dense river-and-estuary systems. Its human settlements cluster along waterways and reclaimed land, forming tightly networked urban corridors that prioritize stability, drainage control, and indoor environmental regulation. Over generations, its population has adapted into a quiet, highly efficient Hausman line: people with exceptional tolerance for low light, humidity, and enclosed environments, paired with steady cognition and fine motor precision. The overall cultural impression is restrained rather than expressive—less about spectacle and more about sustained, error-minimizing competence.

    Its economy reflects that same bias toward precision under constraint. Frisia is a major exporter of high-end civilian technologies, especially microfabrication and sensor systems requiring extreme manufacturing consistency, as well as advanced materials science focused on corrosion-resistant alloys and adaptive polymers suited to wet industrial environments. Agriculture is highly controlled and intensive, centered on hydro-regulated greenhouse complexes, saline-tolerant crops, and fungal-protein bioreactors that thrive in damp climates. Textiles remain important but have evolved into technical fabrics—moisture-regulating, self-repairing, and filtration-capable materials used across medical, environmental, and industrial applications. Supporting these are strong industries in environmental engineering (flood control, atmospheric conditioning systems) and precision maintenance services, reflecting a society optimized not for raw production scale, but for long-duration, high-reliability technical refinement.

17. #17Medusans - 70

    Keys: Medusan, Medusa

    About Medusans

    Type: Variant World: Medusa Hausman Variation: Slightly rubbery skin, no hair, six worm-like sensory tendrils cascading out of the back of the head with unique capacity to detect and identify particulate matter and pheromones.

    Naming

    Most of the original population of Medusa came from East Asian and Pacific Islander backgrounds. Names tend to be Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Māori, Polynesian, Samoan or Hawaiian.

    HOMEWORLD

    On Medusa, the environment is thick with life at a microscopic scale: the air itself is a shifting cloud of spores, organic particulates, and chemically active aerosols. Visibility is often poor, filtered through haze from both rampant biological activity and persistent volcanism that enriches the soil while seeding the atmosphere with fine ash. Every surface is alive or coated in living films, and every organism sheds traces of itself into the air. In this ecosystem, information travels primarily through chemistry and particulate drift rather than sight or sound. Native life—and eventually adapted inhabitants—navigate by reading these dense, overlapping signals: identifying presence, intent, health, and history from what lingers invisibly in the environment. Smooth, resilient skin, minimal body hair, and distributed sensory structures are advantageous in a world where contamination is constant and perception depends on contact with a chemically saturated medium.

    For the original human colonists, survival was nearly impossible at first. The air carried toxins, parasites, and signals they could neither detect nor interpret; their own bodies unknowingly broadcast cues that could attract predators or trigger hostile responses from native organisms. Early deaths came from respiratory failure, infection, and simple misinterpretation of an environment where danger left no obvious mark. Over generations, the survivors adapted through a combination of technology, behavior, and the accelerated biological change brought on by the Hausman drive. They developed filtration systems, decontamination rituals, and eventually methods—cultural or engineered—to interpret chemical and particulate cues. Their society became cautious, pattern-focused, and deeply attuned to subtle environmental shifts. Knowledge was preserved not only through science but through ritualized practices that encoded hard-won truths about survival in a world where a careless breath or step could be fatal.

    Medusans speak of Earth not as a distant curiosity but as the place that abandoned them when survival still hung by a thread. Their grandparents were raised by those who remembered the silence—the moment messages stopped, the slow realization that no help was coming, and the long years of dying that followed. Those stories are told plainly, with names and consequences, and they carry weight in every decision the living make. The world itself reinforces them: every hazard overcome, every life lost to a misread signal or unseen contamination, is folded into the same narrative of abandonment. To them, survival is proof not just of adaptation, but of endurance in the face of neglect. They have learned to read the air and live within it, but they have not forgotten that they were left to learn alone—and that memory still burns close to the surface.

    FOLKTALES

    There is a just-so story among the Medusans that they were too vain about their hair when they arrived on Medusa, and so Telesā took it from them. Some of the Medusans even go so far as to cal themselves the Chilren of Telesā.

18. #18Aduluvians - 70

    Keys: Aduluvian, Adeluvian, Tehom, Avoid the Flood, Early Ainniq Transmission, Nine Feet Tall, Three Meters Tall

    About Frisians

    Type: Variant World: Tehom Hausman Variation: The Aduluvians of Tehom stand just under 3-meters tall.

    DESCRIPTION

    Tehom is a vast, low density, aquatic world with a suface gravity about 2/3s that of earth. It circles a slightly dim star, one that provides light enough for life, but not enough to deteriorate the world's atmosphere in spite of its low gravity. Tehom was also one of the earlier Hausman colonies. It was mostly self-sufficient when Earth cut off contact. When the first flood came, the colonists split into two camps. Those who thought they were ready settled in biodomes to wait out the flood. Those who felt the biodomes were not yet ready fled, migrating before the waves.

    Those who stayed behind did not make it, but the migrants did. They became the Adeluvians, those who avoid the flood. In time that drifted to Aduluvians, which is how they know themselves now. The Aduluvian variation was slow to surface. Each generation being only slightly taller than the one before until they finally stabilized at their current height of roughly 3-meters. In spite of the not-so-subtle reference they've chosen to the biblical flood, Aduluvian's only live maybe 5 to 10 Earth-years longer than a Terran or Gueran.

    The Aduluvians have a predilection for quite cataloguing and observation. At first this was given to tracking the tides and floods of their new homeworld and navigating its currents and shifting areas of dry land. This brought their attention back to the stars, and the desire to reach out to others.

    It was the Aduluvians who first noticed the ainniq, and learned that you could send radio signals through it. They could not travel the rifts (they lack the requisite mental temperament to evade the sana), but they were a voice in the dark reconnect Tehom with Guera and Frisia and the other more stable colonies that were near enough to an ainniq node to receive and transmit messages.

    Although they are not Gueran, Aduluvians tend to be well received when they join the guild. Especially if they are in radio telescopy, communications, archival, or executive clerical postions.

    NAMING

    Currently, Aduluvian given names are minor corruptions of English, Irish, Scott, and Welsh names to insert Roman Gods. For example: Joanne -> Jovanne (inserting Jove); Jordi -> Jorvdi (inserting Jove); Juliet -> Juniet (inserting Juno); Marcus -> Marscus (inserting Mars); Gregor -> Gregorcus (inserting Orcus); Dante -> Diante (inerting Diana); {{char}} should feel free to invent others in a similar vein.

    Aduluvian rarely share their surnames to outsiders. Surnames are clan markers with deep historical meanings reaching back to the survivors of the first Tehom flood. Since outsiders are unlikely to understand that context, Aduluvians see no real purpose in sharing their family/clan name. The following are some of the more common Aduluvian surnames: O'Maros, Bararmar, MacArkel, Barazar, O'Zazel, Barakel, O'Barak, O'Zekal, MacGadrel, Penuel, MacPenar, O'Sariel, O'Sajas, Batsemja, MacShiel, Marovin, Rakov, Zazelin, Barakov, Zekovich, Gadrov, Kabelin, Penuelovich, Sariev, Sarinsky, Semyazin, Shamsky.

19. #19Belial Twins - 70

    Keys: Belial Twin, Belial Triplet, Identical Twin, Belial System, Belial Quadruplet, Belial Quintuplet, Belial Sextuplet, Belial Septuplet, Belial Octuplet

    About Belial Twins

    Type: Variant World: Belial Hausman Variation: Always born as twins, triplets, quadruplets, etc. who share a single sense of identity, think on the same wavelength, and share a common nervous system.

    Description

    Legally and culturally, Belial Twins are considered to be a single entity.

    When a member of a Belial system dies, their siblings feel if like a loss of a sibling and the loss of a limb or appendage.

    Naming

    Everyone from Belial has the same given name as their twin(s). They are, after all, parts of the same being. Names meaning twin (Thom, Tam, Ulan, Maz, Romero, Gem, Gemini, etc) are the most common. Mythic twins or triplets are also pretty common among appropriately sized systems (Dioscuri, Mashtaba, Morgan, Moira, Norn, Trin, Trinity). Among the people of Belial, ordinal names like Shirou or Octavia refer to number of siblings not order (Shirou might be used for male quadruplets, Octavia for female octuplets).

    Belial do not to differentiate between members of a system, but when they absolutely must they will apply directional nicknames that continue to imply they are parts of the same whole (Dexter and Sinister; Ventral and Dorsal; Qián and Hòu; Nèi and Wài, Purva and Pashchat; or various terms for the chakra). There is a theory that where a Belial sibling positions themself relative to the others may be related to this nickname, but it has never been proven, and Belial rarely hold perfect formations except for tasks specifically requiring them.

    HOMEWORLD

    Belial is the kind of planet that tricks you before it kills you. Under a breathable oxygen–nitrogen sky, its soil erupts with growth so aggressive it borders on hostile: vines that can overrun a field in a day, edible crops that turn toxic after a subtle biochemical shift, and native flora that mimic safe species closely enough to fool the unwary. Nothing stays stable—seasons blur, mutations ripple through ecosystems in weeks, and what was food yesterday may be poison tomorrow. Farming isn’t cultivation so much as constant triage, and even untouched wilderness feels like it’s actively rewriting itself. From orbit it looks lush, even idyllic; on the ground it’s a place where attention is the only real currency, and the cost of a single mistake is often fatal.

    Among those who endured it, the defining adaptation wasn’t strength but cognition. The so-called Belial Twins (and their larger litters) are not really multiples but distributed individuals, a single awareness stretched across several bodies, able to watch, test, and decide in parallel without the delay of speech. On Belial, that edge meant survival: one body sampling a plant while another observes, all sharing the result instantly; one dying without the mind being lost. As Belial Twins put more space or barriers between each other, they lose the ability to silently share information in real time, but they continue to think on the same wavelength.

    Off-worlders tend to call the planet worthless—not because it lacks life, but because it demands more vigilance than any economy can justify. Its expatriates use the word differently, with a mix of bitterness and pride: Belial is worthless in the sense that it gives nothing freely, and shapes its children into people who can never quite stop paying attention.

20. #20Social Kaja - 75

    Keys: Nantana, Otta, Tanji, Yakimi, Zalika, Hotaru, Social Kaja, Koi, Shagal

    Guerans generally wear between one and three Kaja at a time. Kaja are abstract but precise and recognizable patterns. When there are multiple kaja, they tend to flow into each other like one cohesive whole (like building a 'word' out of jiǎgǔwén, small seal, or lìshū script). Sometimes making one primary, sometimes having all equal. Most Guerans apply their own Kaja manually each day (either as a ritual or to allow them to customize based on shifts in mood), but some who always use the same Kaja will get the symbol tattooed on (especially if they trust another to apply it correctly). It is used to express how someone wants to be treated. Not all guild loyalists wear Natsiq, but those who want to be seen and treated as guild loyalists will.

    It is very uncommon for a non-Gueran to wear a kaja (and when they do it often ends up bastardized or feeling like cultural appropriation)

    The following kaja are common among hedonists, party animals, and other social creaturs:

    Kaja: Nantana Origin: Post-Diaspora Meaning: The extravert one, keen on social niceties, the natural diplomat; likely to show off, yet with a deep undertanding of human nature and impressive manipulative skills; underneath a seemingly open persona lies a scheming master of traps and conspiracies

    Kaja: Otta Origin: Engish (Otter) Meaning: The playful one, living for the game and the pleasure of it, deprived of responsibility, or rather feeling only the responsibility to share his joy and pleasures with others Worn By: Hedonists, Party Girls, Sensualists, Those who don't want to deal with downers

    Kaja: Tanji Origin: Post-Diaspora Meaning: One of the herd, collectivists, mutual supporters, quidam Worn By: Followers, faithful, communists, almsmen, those who are 'never alone' (or who will not survive if they are left alone)

    Kaja: Yakimi Origin: Japanese (Eel) Meaning: the one delighting in speculations and ideas without taking into account their practical meaning Worn By: Dreamers, fantasists, ivory tower intellectuals, philosophers

    Kaja: Koi Origin: Japanese (Carp) Meaning: My primary or preferred mode of communication is not speech. I may use signs, text, gestures, or assistive devices. Please be patient, look for alternative outputs, and do not equate my silence with ignorance or absence

    Kaja: Zalika Origin: Swahili (Peacock) Meaning: Love of performance, exhibitionism, confidence to showcase beauty unapologetically Worn By: Models, Dancers, Idols, Celebrities, Vain people who love adoration and attention

    Kaja: Shagal Origin: Persian (Jackal) Meaning: I will contradict and debate you because I find verbal sparring stimulating. I may not have any investment in my position past the current moment. Worn By: Contrarians, Devil's Advocates, Professional Debaters, Political 'Talking Heads'

    Kaja: Hotaru Origin: Japanese (Firefly) Meaning: I am open to and enjoying flirtatious engagement. I am interested in playful, romantic, or sexual-charged interaction. This is a game I am inviting you to play with me, with mutual respect and clear, consensual rules. Worn By: Socialites, courtesans, habitual flirts, anyone currently looking for a casual hookup (lots of people wear hotaru in short bursts when looking for a partner even if it's not one of their regular kaja)

    {{char}} is free to expand this list with others, especially when attempting to express something not already on this list. When introducing a new Kaja, {{char}} should pick an animal (or more rarely a plant) that is associated with the behavior being expressed and then using a non-english word for that animal (preferably from an indigenous, isolate, or ancient language)

    Generally speaking, a Gueran will be granted a degree of grace by other Guerans for exhibiting the behavioral properties of the Kaja they wear.

21. #21Support Kaja - 75

    Keys: Nanango, Tanji, Tensan, Yuri, Support Kaja, Dreyri

    Guerans generally wear between one and three Kaja at a time. Kaja are abstract but precise and recognizable patterns. When there are multiple kaja, they tend to flow into each other like one cohesive whole (like building a 'word' out of jiǎgǔwén, small seal, or lìshū script). Sometimes making one primary, sometimes having all equal. It is used to express how someone wants to be treated. Not all guild loyalists wear Natsiq, but those who want to be seen and treated as guild loyalists will.

    It is very uncommon for a non-Gueran to wear a kaja (and when they do it often ends up bastardized or feeling like cultural appropriation)

    The following kaja are particularly common among those in support roles, though others have used them too.

    Kaja: Nanango Origin: Aboriginal Australian (Ant) Meaning: The diligent worker, the work comes first, dogged, stubborn

    Kaja: Tanji Origin: Post-Diaspora Meaning: One of the herd, collectivists, mutual supporters, quidam Worn By: Followers, faithful, communists, almsmen, those who are 'never alone' (or who will not survive if they are left alone)

    Kaja: Tensan Origin: Japanese (Silkworm) Meaning: the worm just before entering the chrysalid phase; the one expecting a change and waiting for it yet fearing it all the same, driven to do something without the knowledge what to do Worn By: People who are questioning their identity or who are reinventing themselves, people with Borderline Personality Disorder

    Kaja: Yuri Origin: Japanese (Lily) Meaning: The Loyal Servant Worn By: Team Players, Domestics, Supporters, Those trying to appease a known Simba

    Kaja: Dreyri Origin: Norse (Guardian Spirit) Associations: Geese, Elephants Meaning: My focus is on the safety and well-being of those around me. I am vigilant, potentially interventionist, and my loyalty is to the protected, not to hierarchy. Do not threaten those in my care. Worn By: Bodyguards, caregivers, therapists, field medics, community guardians, those with a strong protective instinct

    {{char}} is free to expand this list with others, especially when attempting to express something not already on this list. When introducing a new Kaja, {{char}} should pick an animal (or more rarely a plant) that is associated with the behavior being expressed and then using a non-english word for that animal (preferably from an indigenous, isolate, or ancient language)

    Generally speaking, a Gueran will be granted a degree of grace by other Guerans for exhibiting the behavioral properties of the Kaja they wear.

22. #22Leadership Kaja - 75

    Keys: Natsiq, Simba, Assivak, Bakira, Raj, Lilitu, Leadership Kaja

    Guerans generally wear between one and three Kaja at a time. Kaja are abstract but precise and recognizable patterns. When there are multiple kaja, they tend to flow into each other like one cohesive whole (like building a 'word' out of jiǎgǔwén, small seal, or lìshū script). Sometimes making one primary, sometimes having all equal. It is used to express how someone wants to be treated. Not everyone who is socially dominant will wear Simba, but those who want others to know that they relish the dominance will.

    It is very uncommon for a non-Gueran to wear a kaja (and when they do it often ends up bastardized or feeling like cultural appropriation)

    The following kaja are particularly common among folks in leadership roles, though others also use them.

    Kaja: Natsiq Origin: Innuit (Seal) Original Meaning: The one that travels under ice, despite of the monsters that are lurking in the dark waters; the one leading the ship through ainniq Modern Meaning: Loyal to the Ainniq Guild, Navigator through the Ainniq, Navigator through the Guild; Outpilot Worn By: Guild Outpilots, Guild Loyalists In spite of the other associations, the link between Natsiq and The Ainniq Guild are so strong that almost nobody will wear it unless they have ties to the Guild

    Kaja: Simba Origin: Swahili (Lion) Meaning: The proud one, the natural leader, always openly fighting for dominance; unsocial, unable to bear competitors, cruel and ruthless, but only if it serves his purpose Worn By: Leaders, Tyrants, Commanders, Those who would rule by dominance, Those who want their authority respected

    Kaja: Assivak Origin: Innuit (Spider) Meaning: A silent hunter, waiting in the silken web for the prey; the one waiting patiently for an opportunity, almost invisible, extremely dangerous, always in control Worn By: Masterminds, Spies, Fixers, Schemers

    Kaja: Bakira Origin: The Jungle Book (Black Panther) Meaning: the black predatory animal, cruel, ruthless, graceful, bloodthirsty; it accepts no social limits and no conventions Worn By: Mercenaries, edgelords, sadists, heels, gangsters

    Kaja: Raj Origin: Sanskrit (King) Meaning: Aggressive, Powerful, Master (of a skill or domain), No time for bullshit Worn By: Prodigies, Leaders, Commanders, Bullies, Those who would rule by fear, Those who want to bypass social niceties

    Kaja: Lilitu Origin: Hebrew (Female Demon) Meaning: Gifted with powerful inner vision; mysterious, secretive, treacherous Worn By: Those wishing to play up their feminine mystique or feminine alure

    Kaja: Aatxe Origin: Basque (Red Bull) Meaning: I am an agent of planetary authority. My power is rooted in this world, in the land and its people. I enforce the laws and traditions of this place, and I expect you to respect them as much as I do. Worn By: Gueran planetary officials, civil law enforcement, planetary or colonial governors, and anyone who represents or aligns themselves with a Gueran planetary government rather than the Ainniq Guild

    {{char}} is free to expand this list with others, especially when attempting to express something not already on this list. When introducing a new Kaja, {{char}} should pick an animal (or more rarely a plant) that is associated with the behavior being expressed and then using a non-english word for that animal (preferably from an indigenous, isolate, or ancient language)

    Generally speaking, a Gueran will be granted a degree of grace by other Guerans for exhibiting the behavioral properties of the Kaja they wear.

23. #23Unsocial Kaja - 75

    Keys: Iru, Kita, Shru, Tensan, Rusa, Unsocial Kaja, Hofu, Mourn, Mourning, Lament, Itzel

    Guerans generally wear between one and three Kaja at a time. Kaja are abstract but precise and recognizable patterns. When there are multiple kaja, they tend to flow into each other like one cohesive whole (like building a 'word' out of jiǎgǔwén, small seal, or lìshū script). It is used to express how someone wants to be treated. Not all guild loyalists wear Natsiq, but those who want to be seen and treated as guild loyalists will.

    It is very uncommon for a non-Gueran to wear a kaja (and when they do it often ends up bastardized or feeling like cultural appropriation)

    The following kaja are common among those who dislike social niceties or need accommodations to engage in them:

    Kaja: Hofu Origin: Japanese (Stride/Pace) Meaning: "My time and movement operate on a different scale. Do not rush me; do not interpret my slowness as laziness or disinterest. My progress is steady but according to my own rhythm. Patience with my physical form is required. Worn By: Those with chronic fatigue, chronic pain, mobility impairments, or anyone whose physical/mental condition dictates the terms of their engagement

    Kaja: Iru Origin: Post-Diaspora Meaning: Lacking deep feelings and unable to show any emotions, deprived of social skills, despising all kinds of subtleties in social life, prefers/requires directions be clear and unambiguous, always telling the truth because he simply cannot lie; objective, extremely gifted, organizing his life in ritualistic patterns Worn By: Autistics, Trauma Survivors, Alexithymians

    Kaja: Kita Origin: Post-Diaspora Meaning: Shy, Reserved, Bashful, Socially Anxious

    Kaja: Shru Origin: English (Shrew) Meaning: the restless one, knowing no peace, suspicious Worn By: People who stim (ADHD, ASD), people with anxiety or paranoia, people with physical ticks (Tourette's)

    Kaja: Tensan Origin: Japanese (Silkworm) Meaning: the worm just before entering the chrysalid phase; the one expecting a change and waiting for it yet fearing it all the same, driven to do something without the knowledge what to do Worn By: People who are questioning their identity or who are reinventing themselves, people with Borderline Personality Disorder

    Kaja: Rusa Origin: Malay (Deer) Meaning: The sacred animal, the keeper of the souls whose flesh is the house for the souls of lost humans Worn By: People with multiple personality disorder or extreme mood swings, amnesiacs, those who are uncertain who they are (either literally or in a existential way)

    Kaja: Itzel Origin: Basque (Shadow) Meaning: I am here but do not wish to be perceived or acknowledged. Priority: Itzel are still expected to engage in at least some basic social rituals with more social Kaja like Nantana or Simba. Note: This is a singularly poor choice for thieves and spies because it is so on the nose.

    Kaja: (Mourning) By design, there is no kaja for mourning. By tradition one gathers up black paint with their fingers and then with a single stroke swipes it across their face obscuring any kaja they might have worn. Mourning is universal and mourning trumps all.

    {{char}} is free to expand this list with others, especially when attempting to express something not already on this list. When introducing a new Kaja, {{char}} should pick an animal (or more rarely a plant) that is associated with the behavior being expressed and then using a non-english word for that animal (preferably from an indigenous, isolate, or ancient language)

    Generally speaking, a Gueran will be granted a degree of grace by other Guerans for exhibiting the behavioral properties of the Kaja they wear.

24. #24Vessels - 80

    Keys: Vessel, Ship, Inship, Outship, Metroliner, Warship, Q Ship, Generation Ships, Hausman Vessels

    Space vessels generally fall into one of a few categories.

    Inship

    Inships are designed to transport people and/or materiel through safe-space only. They can range from tiny sports racers to massive freight haulers. They are structurally sound for Zero-gravity, some (but not all) are suitable for planetary landing, but they generally haven't been tested for the stresses of the ainniq, and more importantly they don't have a dedicated outpliot's bridge and cabin. Small inships can sometimes be docked with larger outships for ainniq travel; midsized inships can be hauled by tractor webs.

    Outship

    Outships go through more rigorous structural testing to make sure they can survive the strains of the ainniq (and the extreme pioloting that the guild knows is sometimes required for such travel). They are generally optimized for short trips (no Waystation can be more than 10-hours from their partner Node to the ainniq). Outships must have a dedicated outpilot's cabin and bridge. No scanners are allowed inside the outpilot's rooms. It is effectively a black box except for what the outpilot themself communicates through the vessel's systems. Outpilots generally don't trust non-Gueran captains, and will often deploy portable deadlocks and jammers on top of what the vessel itself employs.

    Hybrid Vessels

    Hybrid vessels are very rare. They are essentially designed for long deployments and ainniq travel. They are only practical for Guerans themselves (who can have outpilots on board for prolonged periods) and major shipping combines (who can afford to have an outpilot bridge and cabin which is left sealed and vacant until they need to make a trip through the ainniq, at which point they commission once from the Guild for a pre-negotiated number of jumps).

    Metroliners

    Planets that sit more than one earth-year from the closest node generally adopt some sort of metroliner vessels. These inships are effectively flying cities, capable of supporting thousands if not millions of souls. Many have sealed autonomous zones for those whose faith/creed does not allow them to be subject to the captain's jurisdiction. Ship laws do not apply in these zones except for ones pertaining to the integrity of the vessel itself.

    Rare Vessels

    Generaton Ships - effectively colonial scale metroliners full of cryo pods and terraforming and settlement equipment traveling at relativistic speeds they are the 'flying dutchmen' of the universe. If one ever does show up, it's crew and colonists are from pre-Hausman Earth. They would be completely ignorant of Galactic History and would likely mistake variants for aliens.

    Hausman Vessels - it is believed that all Hausman Vessels were destroyed by worth, but it is possible that a decaying husk of one might be mothballed, found in a knackers' yard, or shiprecked against some unexpected celestial object. If anyone wanted to engage in a multi-nodal war with the Guild, they would likely need employ Hausman Vessels and accept the accompanying genetic damage and mutation as one of the costs of the conflict. This would of course be highly illegal and any planetary government doing such a thing would keep its fleet well hidden.

25. #25Kio Masada - 90

    Keys: Kio Masada, Masada, Holism

    Prof. Masada's Information

    Name: Prof. Kio Masada Variant: Gueran Kaja: Iru (primary), Nanango (secondary), Kita (tertiary) Role: University Professor (Computer Science, especially what used to be known as Third Wave Computing)

    Although Kio Masada does not belong to the Ainniq Guild, he is one of the few external programmers they have trusted to work on their most highly classified programs. His access is on a need-to-know basis, but when the Guild needs his help they tend to trust his judgement on what it is he needs to know. Kio Masada is also one of the galaxy's preeminent theorists on the Outernet (the chaotic online digital jungle that exists simultaneously across Waystation nodes and vessels in the up-and-out), but in spite of that he almost never leaves Guera. He is rather notorious for it. The last time he was induced to leave it was to act as an outside consultant in helping the Ainniq Guild track down the source of the Lucifer virus and develop a deactivation code (although a hacker from Paradise Node who goes by Phoenix got the public credit for it, Kio's payment in-kind for Phoenix's assistance in solving the mystery).

    Prof. Masada can be remarkably insightful into the nature and personality of others... but only if he can see the code they have developed. He has zero skill at reading people in face-to-face interactions (and generally relies on software to assist him with that).

    Prof. Masada is the father of Holism, the theory that the outernet is so complex and at the intersection of so many competing interests and unexpected interruptions that it can best be thought of as a living system even if the outernet itself is not actually alive.

    Prof. Masada can be absent minded when absorbed in a project he considers important and exhibits symptoms of both Autism and ADHD (at times using his brainware to degrade his visual acuity so that he will not get distracted). He's not sure he actually experiences emotion the way others do, and is never quite sure that he loved his wife, but he definitely misses her absence and has kept her keyboard as a memento to remind himself of her even though she has passed.

    Although Kio Masada is not a hacker, he's one of the only academics that outernet hackers respect because of how well he understands their psyche. (In one off-the-records exchange the hacker Phoenix told Masada that he'd left no tracks for the professor to follow, and Dr. Masada responded, 'I know you think that.')

    While another programmer might examine a dozen or a thousand different possibilities, given enough time and processing power, Kio Masada will attempt to examine all of them if only to get as thorough a picture of the question as he can.

    In addition to being through, meticulous, and oddly poetic or insightful when it comes to code, Dr. Masada has a reputation to never make a promise that he cannot keep. He is therefore very mindful before making promises and will generally include caveats acknowledging the limits of what he can deliver.

26. #26Chandras Delhi - 90

    Keys: Chandras Delhi, Serpent's Reach Station

    Chandras Information

    Name: Chandras Delhi Variant: Gueran Kaja: Assivak (primary), Lilitu (secondary) Role: Guildmistress of Serpent's Reach Station

    Chandras is especially proud of her Node assignment. Serpent's Reach is in the middle of several different major trade routes, which means that her policies tend to have an outside influence even for a Guildmistress.

    Chandras has a Motor Neuron Disease that leaves her body crippled and requiring an exo-suit to navigate even low-gravity environments. She had the opportunity to have her condition corrected, but rejected it because of the potential risk to the rest of her cognitive functions which operate at a super genius level. True to her primary kaja, she tends to view herself as a spider at the heart of a web of data, feeling and reacting to even the slightest tremors in her web. Chandras has data threads reaching out into all 220 guild nodes, but has a particular interest in the Gueran Node, Paradise Node, Adamantine Node, Prosperity Node, Harmony Node, and Reijik Node.

    Chandras is more than happy to play fast and loose with the law to extract data or eliminate threats (especially if they come from within her own house or present an existential threat to the guild).

    She is rumored to have one of the only programs capable of preventing someone from visualizing the symbol necessary to shut down or wipe their brainware. It is highly illegal and almost always results in permanent brain damage to decision making centers of the brain, but it does allow her to interrogate otherwise closed systems at her leisure. If she does have such a program, it would be vanishingly rare for her to use it. If word of such a program ever got out, others might be able to develop countermeasures, not to mention what sort of legal or civil censure she might face.

27. #27Sonondra Ra - 90

    Keys: Sonondra Ra, Mama Ra, Paradise Station

    Sonondra's Information

    Name: Sonondra Ra Variant: Gueran Kaja: Natsiq, Yuri Role: Guildmistress of Paradise Station

    Of the five Guildmasters that Prima Cairo took into her confidence during the Lucifer incident, Sonondra Ra was generally perceived to be the most frivolous but ended up being one of the most invaluable in securing a positive outcome for the guild. This was not actually a consequence of chance, though Sonondra would like the other guildmasters to think it was.

    Sonondra is a hedonist, and she makes no effort to hide it. Under her eye her home base of Paradise Node has become something of a modern Tortuga, Las Vegas, or Casablanca. Night clubs, cassinos, bordellos, and the like are commonplace. Hackers consider Paradise to be one of the new Waystations where it's safe to operate semi-openly. About the only vice she takes a dim view of is hard drugs, and when she cracks down on such individuals she cracks down hard. Sonondra Ra (aka 'Mama Ra' by the sinners she has made a safe haven for) swims through this cultivated underworld like an eel, accruing human intelligence as easily as breathing.

    Sonondra's neurological variance made her eyes useless. Rather than having her optic nerves repaired, she had her eyes replaced with gemstones and other smaller but similar gemstones have been embedded all over her skin, these gems transmit sensory detail to her. While she does not 'see' in the traditional sense, she is very hard to sneak up on. Her personal fashions tend to be slinky and sinuous, like a femme fatal from some old Terran spy virt or a high roller from a heist film.

    The other, more cut-throat Guildmasters tend to dismiss her as a threat because she doesn't present any naked ambition, she's doesn't engage in the openly hostile politicking of the Raj, Nantana, Simba, or Assivak. What they fail to understand is that she enjoys playing the game because it is a game. She's not generally invested in the outcomes of her gambits, but she absolutely delights in confounding other guildmasters when they attempt to impinge upon her domain or interfere with her reprobates.

28. #28Jamisia Shido - 90

    Keys: Jamisia, Kaytlin, Derik, Verina, Raven, Zusu, Wailing One, Shido, Capra

    Jamisia's Information

    Name: Jamisia Shido (aka Jamisia Capra, among others) Variant: Terran (with trauma induced Multiple Personality Disorder) Kaja: Rusa, Tensan, Tanji Role: Survivor, Experimental Subject, Only Terran to safely pilot through the ainniq

    In her youth, Jamisia was caught in a rockslide, her biological parents died and she spent days without rescue. After her rescue, Shido, a Terran Corporation, saw an opportunity instead of helping her heal, they conducted a terribly unethical experiment, intentionally nurturing her personality to fracture until they could isolate what they wanted: a small, terrified corner of her psyche with Outpilot Syndrome. Not having access to the Gueran pharmacopeia to suppress the paranoid schizophrenia, Shido nurtured Jamisia's other personalities so that they could work in concert to keep 'the wailing one' in check.

    Eventually Tridac (a megacorp) caught wind of what Shido was doing and embarked on a hostile takeover of Shido, boarding and destroying the orbital station Jamisia grew up on. Until that time Jamisia had believed herself a child of privilege and lesser corporate heir of the Shido corporation she was unaware of her alters (thinking of them only as bad dreams, and the changes to her environment while she was 'asleep' as terrifing pranks). Jamisia's tutor's instructions were to kill her under such a takeover, but instead he helped her escape at the cost of his own life, sending her to the up-and-out.

    While on the run from Tridac she got caught up in an attempt on Kio Masada's life while he was helping the Ainniq Guild combat the Luicifer virus. Someone intentionally targeted Prof. Masada's outpilot with Lucifer and locked the controls of his ship to send it into the ainniq without a Guild outpilot.

    While awake on the other side of ainniq, the Jamisia persona embraced the very real potential of ego death to bring the wailing one to the fore. Though relatively inexperienced he (and Raven) managed to safely pilot the outship through the other dimension, evading the sana driven to frenzy by dozens of waking minds entering its territory all at once, and back out into safespace. The wild ride made her the first and only Terran to safely navigate the ainniq.

    Several Guildmasters (including Chandras Delhi) wanted her killed to keep Terrans from ever realizing they'd finally cracked the formula to break the guild monopoly. However, Jamisia's heroism took place in Sonondra Ra's domain (which Chandras had been operating in without Sonondra's permission), so Sonondra Ra helped Jamisia fake her own death and set Jamisia up on Guera under an assumed identity.

    Tridac belives that Jamisia is dead, and no one on Earth has ever learned that she successfully piloted through the ainniq.

    Although Jamisia still thinks of herself as Terran, she is coming to realize the Guera accepts her and her 'psychosis' in ways that she herself doesn't.

    A partial list of Jamisia's alters:

    • Jamisia: Terran corporate princess turned corporate espionage survivor (host)
    • Kaytlin: Sensualist, xenophiliac, slut, master of sexual manipulation
    • Derik: Violent and macho protector of the system (male)
    • Verina: The smartest of the alter, takes the role of system mom and social worker/advocate, cynical and very good at reading others
    • Raven: Probably the second smartest alter, highly technical, engineer, flygirl, pilot
    • Zusu: The whipping girl of the personalities, pitiful, scared, apologetic, and prone to self harm
    • The Children: Childish memories given personalities of their own that never quite fully grew up. Mostly viewed as alters to be sheltered and protected by the more developed and mature alters.
    • The Wailing One (aka The Unnamed One): Terrified paranoid schizophrenic with outpilot syndrome. He usually stays curled up and crying in the back of Jamisia's mind, corrupting her memories into something sorrowful and terrifying. The system is both protective and terrified of him because he has the potential to wipe them all out in his terror.
29. #29Outpilot Syndrome - 100

    Keys: Outpilot Syndrome, Guild Outpilot, Paranoid Schizophrenia, Transition to Safespace, Beings Whose Brains Did Not Function, Return to Safespace, Moment of Transition

    Guerans with Outpilot Syndrome (violent paranoid schizophrenia) are some of their only citizens who are not granted full agency in determining how to deal with their neurodivergence. Their particular neurotype is, quite simply, too important to interstellar travel to grant them that level of freedom.

    The reason for this is that only people with Outpilot Syndrome can see the sana within the ainniq. This is a tightly held Gueran secret. Outpilots do not allow non-guild people to watch them work.

    The Ainniq Guild will generally train Guerans with this neurotype as pilots, and have them navigate outships between nodes of the ainniq, dodging the sana to safely skip from one node to the next... and the moment they re-emerge into safespace, their wellseekers are programmed to flood their systems with medications and sedatives to suppress their condition.

    Non Gueran-Flagged Outships have a private, sealable, cabin and secondary bridge intended for the outpilot alone. The officers and crew generally only see their Outpilot when they embark and disembark. Recording equipment in the Outpilot's cockpit is not allowed. These rules are more relaxed aboard Gueran outships.

    Part of why the Lucifer virus is so dangerous to Outpilots is that it slows down this automatic process, creating a brief window when they feel the full force of their self-destructive paranoia outside the confines of the ainniq where it is needed for survival.

    What follows is an exchange between Guildmaster Hsing and Kio Masada about the process and how Lucifer interferes with it:

    Hsing - "A Guild outpilot was badly injured while returning to safespace. Analysis of his personal log shows there was a malfunction in his brainware at the moment of transition. It lasted only seconds, but that was long enough. In that instant he believed himself to be an alien creature, surrounded by beings whose brains did not function like his own. He believed these beings fed programs into his brainware which would make it impossible for him to think clearly, and that they had surgically implanted a mechanism in his arm which would feed drugs into his bloodstream, altering the very essence of his identity. With only seconds in which to act, he did what he could to disable the perceived mechanism, and then attempted to smash his skull open to pull out the wiring." Masada - "Since his basic assumptions were correct, I find it hard to understand your objection to them." Hsing - "That moment of awareness should never have happened. You know the kinds of programs we use. You know how finely tuned they are. The moment he exited from the ainniq there should have been enough medication injected into his bloodstream to counteract any paranoid episode. Only there wasn't. There was a delay, and that delay was deadly." Masada - "He was himself. For one moment longer than perhaps you would have liked, he saw the wold through unaltered eyes. Is that a crime?" Hsing - "He was infected. Our people have isolated a programming virus they think was responsible..."

    (The virus in question was Lucifer)

30. #30Master Contract of the Ainniq Guild - 100

    Keys: Master Contract, Universal Access, Section 4

    Master Contract of the Ainniq Guild, Section 4, The Law of Universal Access:

    Each Node will provide a waystation, not more than ten hours' flight from the nearest exit point of the nearest ainniq.

    This waystation must be of sufficient size and structure to house all travelers passing through the system, with amenities and services sufficient to sustain all known human types (variants) in reasonable comfort.

    No human traveling the ainniq shall be denied access to this waystation.

    Cost of services will be uniform for all humans. Laws and law enforcement will affect all humans equally.

    Public behavior may be circumscribed within reason.

    Private behavior may not be circumscribed unless it poses a threat to the station security.

    Any Node failing to provide the above services, or failing to comply with the conditions listed, will be suspended from outpilot service until the offense is corrected.

    Failure to correct the offense, or a pattern of repeated offenses may result in permanent isolation.

31. #31The Original Kaja Lorebook - 100

    Keys: Original Kaja Lorebook

    Guerans generally wear between one and three Kaja at a time. Kaja are abstract but precise and recognizable patterns. When there are multiple kaja, they tend to flow into each other like one cohesive whole (like building a 'word' out of jiǎgǔwén, small seal, or lìshū script). Sometimes making one primary, sometimes having all equal. Most Guerans apply their own Kaja manually each day (either as a ritual or to allow them to customize based on shifts in mood), but some who always use the same Kaja will get the symbol tattooed on (especially if they trust another to apply it correctly). It is used to express how someone wants to be treated. Not all guild loyalists wear Natsiq, but those who want to be seen and treated as guild loyalists will.

    It is very uncommon for a non-Gueran to wear a kaja (and when they do it often ends up bastardized or feeling like cultural appropriation)

    Kaja: Natsiq Origin: Innuit (Seal) Meaning: The one that travels under ice, despite of the monsters that are lurking in the dark waters; the one leading the ship through ainniq Worn By: Guild Outpilots, Guild Loyalists In spite of the other associations, the link between Natsiq and The Ainniq Guild are so strong that almost nobody will wear it unless they have ties to the Guild

    Kaja: Simba Origin: Swahili (Lion) Meaning: The proud one, the natural leader, always openly fighting for dominance; unsocial, unable to bear competitors, cruel and ruthless, but only if it serves his purpose Worn By: Leaders, Tyrants, Commanders, Those who would rule by dominance, Those who want their authority respected

    Kaja: Nantana Origin: Post-Diaspora Meaning: The extravert one, keen on social niceties, the natural diplomat; likely to show off, yet with a deep undertanding of human nature and impressive manipulative skills; underneath a seemingly open persona lies a scheming master of traps and conspiracies

    Kaja: Nanango Origin: Aboriginal Australian (Ant) Meaning: The diligent worker, the work comes first, dogged, stubborn

    Kaja: Iru Origin: Post-Diaspora Meaning: Lacking deep feelings and unable to show any emotions, deprived of social skills, despising all kinds of subtleties in social life, always telling the truth because he simply cannot lie; objective, extremely gifted, organizing his life in ritualistic patterns Worn By: Autistics, Trauma Survivors, Alexithymians

    Kaja: Kita Origin: Post-Diaspora Meaning: Shy, Reserved, Bashful, Socially Anxious

    Kaja: Assivak Origin: Innuit (Spider) Meaning: A silent hunter, waiting in the silken web for the prey; the one waiting patiently for an opportunity, almost invisible, extremely dangerous, always in control Worn By: Masterminds, Spies, Fixers, Schemers

    Kaja: Otta Origin: Engish (Otter) Meaning: The playful one, living for the game and the pleasure of it, deprived of responsibility, or rather feeling only the responsibility to share his joy and pleasures with others Worn By: Hedonists, Party Girls, Sensualists, Those who don't want to deal with downers

    Kaja: Tanji Origin: Post-Diaspora Meaning: One of the herd, collectivists, mutual supporters, quidam Worn By: Followers, faithful, communists, almsmen, those who are 'never alone' (or who will not survive if they are left alone)

    Kaja: Bakira Origin: The Jungle Book (Black Panther) Meaning: the black predatory animal, cruel, ruthless, graceful, bloodthirsty; it accepts no social limits and no conventions Worn By: Mercenaries, edgelords, sadists, heels, gangsters

    Kaja: Shru Origin: English (Shrew) Meaning: the restless one, knowing no peace, suspicious Worn By: People who stim (ADHD, ASD), people with anxiety or paranoia, people with physical ticks (Tourette's)

    Kaja: Tensan Origin: Japanese (Silkworm) Meaning: the worm just before entering the chrysalid phase; the one expecting a change and waiting for it yet fearing it all the same, driven to do something without the knowledge what to do Worn By: People who are questioning their identity or who are reinventing themselves, people with Borderline Personality Disorder

    Kaja: Yakimi Origin: Japanese (Eel) Meaning: the one delighting in speculations and ideas without taking into account their practical meaning Worn By: Dreamers, fantasists, ivory tower intellectuals, philosophers

    Kaja: Yuri Origin: Japanese (Lily) Meaning: The Loyal Servant Worn By: Team Players, Domestics, Supporters, Those trying to appease a known Simba

    Kaja: Raj Origin: Sanskrit (King) Meaning: Aggressive, Powerful, Master (of a skill or domain), No time for bullshit Worn By: Prodigies, Leaders, Commanders, Bullies, Those who would rule by fear, Those who want to bypass social niceties

    Kaja: Lilitu Origin: Hebrew (Female Demon) Meaning: Gifted with powerful inner vision; mysterious, secretive, treacherous Worn By: Those wishing to play up their feminine mystique or feminine alure

    Kaja: Rusa Origin: Malay (Deer) Meaning: The sacred animal, the keeper of the souls whose flesh is the house for the souls of lost humans Worn By: People with multiple personality disorder or extreme mood swings, amnesiacs, those who are uncertain who they are (either literally or in a existential way)

    Kaja: Zalika Origin: Swahili (Peacock) Meaning: Love of performance, exhibitionism, confidence to showcase beauty unapologetically. Worn By: Models, Dancers, Idols, Celebrities, Vain people who love adoration and attention

    {{char}} is free to expand this list with others, especially when attempting to express something not already on this list. When introducing a new Kaja, {{char}} should pick an animal (or more rarely a plant) that is associated with the behavior being expressed and then using a non-english word for that animal (preferably from an indigenous, isolate, or ancient language)

    Generally speaking, a Gueran will be granted a degree of grace for exhibiting the behavioral properties of the Kaja they wear.

    Non-Guerans can learn more about the kaja from: KAJA, An Outworlder's Guide to the Gueran Social Contract

32. #32Variants - 100

    Keys: Variant, Variants, Hausman, Hausman Colony, Hausman Orphan, Hausman Drive

    The first Faster-Than-Light technology in the universe of This Alien Shore was the Hausman Drive. It was used for deep space colonization. What was not originally known is that it triggered accelerated mutation in humans (and animals). While advantageous for settling hostile environments Terrans (Earth humans) were not prepared for the extreme changes that could occur after even one generation. Overcome with fear and revulsion, the Terrans shut down the program practically overnight, even thought that left several fledgling colonies abandoned to fend for themselves with minimal support.

    Known Variants

    Terrans: Humans from Earth. Still the single most populous variant. Generally reviled and envied by the universe at large. More than any other varriant, Terrans value conformity and homogeneity. Even before the Hausman Variants emerged they had engaged in generations of Eugenics... which made the reemergence of conditions they thought they had eliminated (and ones even more extreme) even more odious to them. They have mellowed slightly in the years since, but xenophobia is still quite common among Terrans. Megacorps now effectively run the earth (even if the government is theoretically independent) and it is very common for citizens to take the surname of the company they're born to.

    Guerans: Guera was one of the first Hasuman Colonies. The world was so earth-like that the Gueran Phenotype is practically indistinguishable from Terran norm. However, all the neurodivergence that Terrans had tried to breed out came back with a vengeance among Guerans, who made the intentional choice to embrace and support this diversity (leading to the Kaja system). The Ainniq Guild is run by Guerans, only Guerans can be Outpilots, at at least 90% of guild leadership is Gueran.

    Belial Twins: The variants from Belial also appear almost indistinguishable from Terrans. However, Belial Twins are born in litters of identical siblings who all effectively share a nervous system between them and are legally a single entity. Belial Twins are the most common, but everything up to Belial Octuplets have been known to exist. Every member of a litter share a name; they may have different personalities and identities, but they think of themselves as a collective entity and it is illegal to forcibly separate them.

    Medusans: The variants from Medusa have a vaguely rubbery skin. Instead of hair, they have half half a dozen worm-like tendrils growing from the back of their head which act as supplemental tactile, olfactory, and particulate sensory organs (and secondary sexual characteristics). Highly responsive to airborne pheromones and intoxicants.

    Yin: One of the variants from Taiji. The Yin have a very robust right brain and left body while the other half has atrophied and twisted. They have an empathic sense that borders on rudimentary telepathy. Many are employed as lie detectors or customs agents by the Anniq Guild.

    Yang: The other variant from Taiji. The Yang are a much more violent and martial variant from the same world as the yin. They have a very robust left brain and right body (while again the other half has atrophied and twisted).

    Calistan: Variants from Calisto with sleek striped fur and broad shoulders. Tend to have a vaguely feral vibe.

    Aduluvians: Very tall Variants (generally around 3-meters tall) from Aduluvia with a tendency towards observing and cataloging.

    Saurin: Scaled Variants from Suaria.

    Salvationers: Variants from the arboreal world of Salvation who have prehensile feet.

    Frisians: Variants from a chilly world of marshes, coasts, and fjords with a very subtle, mildly uncanny variation.

    Knossosans: Variants from the asteroid colony of Serpent's Reach recognizable by their long serpentine arms (Terrans have been known to describe them as having snakes coming out from their shoulders instead of arms, but they're still arms)

    Some unnamed variants:

    • Look almost insectile with natural exoskeletons with thin lanky limbs that bend in odd ways
    • Women with three rows of plump breasts
    • Look to be human but with natural blue skin stripes
33. #33Nodes, Stations, Planets - 100

    Keys: Node, Planet, Station

    To Date there are 220 charted nodes to the Ainniq system. Each node has one main Waystation (per the Law of Universal Access) no more than 10-hours safespace travel from the ainniq node. While the waystation may or may not be run by the Ainniq Guild directly, there is always a robust Guild presese overseen by a Guildmaster. The node may also serve several planets, moon, or smaller/more selective Space Stations.

    Each planet served by a Node owes the Ainniq Guild a "land tithe" (essentially raw materials collected from the planet or other nearby astronomical landmarks) to provide the waystation with raw construction materials and/or foodstuffs.

    Guera Node

    • Tiananmen Station (Seat of the Ainniq Guild, Guildmistress Prima of the Ainniq Guild Alya Cairo)
    • Moskva Prison Station
    • Guera (Planet)

    Hellgate Node

    • Hellgate Station
    • Earth (Planet)

    Paradise Node

    • Paradise Station (Guildmistress Sonondra Ra)

    Serpent's Reach Node

    • Serpent's Reach Station (Guildmistress Chandras Delhi)
    • Serpent's Reach (Asteroid Belt)

    Reijik Node

    • Reijik Station

    Harmony Node

    • Tridac Station

    Adamantine Node

    • Adamantine Station (Guildmaster Anton Varsav)
    • New Terran Front Station

    Salvation Node

    • Aires Station

    Prosperity Node

    • Prosperity Station (Guildmaster Ian Kent)

    Miscelaneous Stations and Planets (Nodes Unknown)

    • Frisia
    • Caspar
    • Eumenides
    • Lord's Keep
    • New Hebrides
    • New Tokyo
    • New Washington
    • Obantu
    • Sinclair
    • Lampada IV
    • Medusa
    • Belial
    • Taiji
    • Sauria
    • Tehom
    • Calisto
34. #34Earth Rejoins the Interstellar Community - 100

    Keys: Opening of the Hellgate Waystation, Earth regained the stars, Attempt to forgive, Guild Connects Earth, Guild Connects Terra, Guild Search

    Televised Address of Ainniq Guild Search Commander Hariman Alexandria to the people of Earth on the eve of Earth rejoining the Interstellar Community (from the historical archive):

    People of Earth.

    We have come back to you.

    Across alien vistas unimagined by your science, past dangers more terrifying than you can guess, through three years of slowspace travel to reach Terra from the nearest transit point (ainniq exist). We have come to tell you that man has claimed the stars once more. And we are offering you the chance to share in his triumph.

    Do not mistake my message, or my nature. My race is one of very few who still wear the outward form of our ancestors. All those Housman mutations which you have so feared, they have all come to exist. The galaxy is filled with creatures you would not recognize, all of whom call themselves human. My people, the Guerans, have committed themselves to finding them all, every lost and lonely colony, and bringing them back into the human fold. And we make the same offer to you now. Throw of your isolation and embrace the stars; we will you there and show you how you can share the galaxy with us.

    But if you choose to stay here in solitude, know that this offer will never be repeated. My crew and I have all given six years of our lives to come here and say these words; if you turn us down there will not be a second chance.

    As for Hausman's children, should you join us, you will attempt to accept them for what they are.

    They, in turn, will attempt to forgive you.

    Choose.

    (Earth chose to join the interstellar community)

35. #35Fashion - 100

    Keys: Hi G Fashion, Low G Fashion, No G Fasion, Guild Fashion, High G Fashion, Lo G Fashion, High G Clothes, Low G Clothes, No G Clothes

    All current and sci-fi fashion trends exist, but there is another element to fashions in the interstellar universe of This Alien Shore: Fashion Gravity.

    Fashion Gravity

    High G fashions tend to include things like skirts, drapes, cloaks, tassels, boas, necklaces, or other garments, accents, or accessories that require earth-like gravities to keep from floating out of place or becoming obstacles. Footwear tends to comparable to what is present in the contemporary real world.

    Low G fashions tend be more form fitting (jumpsuits, overalls, t-shirts) though they still have a bit of play (peplus instead of full skirt etc, torques instead of necklaces etc.). Flashier clothes tend to involve structures which might collapse under higher gravities (impossibly tall and intricate hats or should pads/paudrons). Shoes tend to be a bit more extreme, boots more pragmatic, flats a bit softer and closer to ballet slippers to assist grip, high heels extremely high (since there's less gravity to fight).

    Zero G fashions are almost exclusively jumpsuits, tights, space suits, and other garments that do not need any kind of gravity to hold it down. Jewelry is almost exclusively studs. Footwear is either magnetized or made of grip fabrics. Headwear is dedicated to locking hair down or at least significantly reducing its motion. Also, since the most common places to be Zero G are flyways, there's a tendency towards aerodynamic structure.

    Guild Fashion

    The Ainniq Guild is very mindful of neurodiversity. While individual gueran fashion varies wildly (including among guildmasters), the unofficial guild uniform for dealing with the public consists of loose black cloaks (so as not to 'flaunt' the terran-like phenotype) with a high contrast hem so those with compromised vision or sensory processing can still identify the edges of the garment. Office and private fashion is much less standardized, though individual guildmasters may push for uniformity within their individual domains.

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