Worldbuilding Questions and Discussion

[yhlee]

Ask your questions here!

Comments

[venndaai]

My questions:
-How many years does it take to train to be a Rahal?
-Can Rahal scry the signifiers of people who aren't Hexarchate citizens? Do people outside the Hexarchate have signifiers?
-Can one Rahal scry someone on their own (not that effectively, I'd imagine), or does there need to be at least three of them to create the exotic effect?

Thanks!

[yhlee]

- Four to six years is typical (this holds in general for the faction academies), depending on how hard your specialty is and how hard you work/how smart you are.

- Rahal scrying is an exotic effect. It will work on a non-hexarchate citizen as long as they're in high calendar space. Someone [from] outside the hexarchate will manifest a signifier if they enter high calendar space. A signifier is sort of like visual shorthand for a personality quiz--scrying will "sort" anyone into what seems the most appropriate to describe their personality.

- One Rahal can definitely scry someone, but the effect is strongest with more people (up to six).

Hope this helps!

[vass]

"the explicit goal of destroying the hexarchate by going back in time and preventing its creation"

Does this mean preventing the creation of the hexarchate specifically (as distinct from the heptarchate), or the heptarchate too?

I guess what I'm really asking is, if my character was born during the heptarchate, are they preventing a dark future, or are they preventing the society they live in from coming about?

[smokedetective]

I was wondering about Andan signifiers. I think some of them were Kniferose Thorns Wild, Kniferose Pierced, Kniferose Burning Sweetly, but what do they represent and how does that play into the social/hierarchical structure of the Andan faction?

[yhlee]

I didn't determine what those specific signifiers meant because it wasn't going to come into play during the books. You could pretty much assign your own meanings (or, if you prefer, I could make something up on the spot), or devise your own. The Andan generally value social graces, high culture, beauty, wealth, and charm, and have xenophilic tendencies in general, so their signifiers will tend to reflect that. (That being said, "cold-blooded autocratic manipulative person" could definitely also be an Andan type as well.)

[pengwern]

Hi! Thank you for opening up this hexarchate sandbox for us to roll around in. I have an entirely frivolous question that probably won't connect to my application: can ghosts be anchored to anything but a human? Like an urn, a mothgrid computer, or one of Zehun's small kittens? Asking for the sake of Mikodez's green onion.

[yhlee]

Howdy!

You could try, but the less close to human it is, the more chance you have of driving the ghost crazy along with the anchor. And, uh, historically speaking, the people who have been made into ghosts weren't great on the sanity front to begin with. :p

[mercuryhatter]

Out of curiosity, does Istradez have a canon signifier? I don't remember it ever being relevant, but all the signifier talk made me wonder.

[yhlee]

No canon signifier, no--you're welcome to devise one, or you can ask me to come up with one if you'd rather, whichever you're more comfortable with. (He could plausibly have either a ninefox or kniferose signifier, I suspect.)

[lleullawgyffes]

A few more scrying questions:

- is the range of signifiers that manifest when scrying dependent on the scryer, the scryee, or the calendar in general? which is really to say: if someone from the heptarchate-era is scrying in the hexarchate-era, would Liozh signifiers ever show up?

- will a faction member always manifest only signifiers specific to their faction when being scryed? if not, how common is it for people to display a variety of signifiers? (would Cheris have some Nirai signifiers, e.g., reflecting her interest in math?)

- are all signifiers faction-affiliated? relatedly: is the Rose Chalice that's mentioned when Kujen's poking around in Jedao's revenant-brain an Andan signifier, or is it faction-neutral (or not a signifier at all but part of some presumably-related system of personality classification)? (I ask mostly because I'm trying to figure out where to put it on my list of signifiers we've encountered so far.)

[yhlee]

- Range of signifiers depends on the scryee and the version of the high calendar in effect. You wouldn't see Liozh signifiers during the hexarchate era, even if the practitioner had been trained during the heptarchate. Think of the range of possible signifiers as a deck of cards that originally had seven suits in the heptarchate, and then in the hexarchate they removed the Liozh suit so you can't draw those cards anymore.

- Faction members usually but not always manifest faction-specific signifiers. I have a fragment of a short story on my hard drive somewhere involving Shuos Zehun working with a Shuos assassin who has a massive chip on their shoulder because they have an ashhawk signifier and people keep making fun of them about it. (Kind of dangerous around an assassin if you ask me, but, Shuos.)

Some people have what are called variable signifiers reflecting different aspects of their personality (Shuos Mikodez is one of these), and a percentage of those people can change their signifier at will (Shuos Jedao is one of these). Cheris was pretty consistent signifier-wise in Ninefox Gambit, but honestly given the amount of ?!?! in her head after the end of that book, she could plausibly be running around with a LOT of different signifiers.

- All signifiers are faction-affiliated. The Rose Chalice is an Andan signifier, and it generally means amiableness/docility with a side of "I'm a bit of a doormat" (which explains why Kujen was mucking around with it).

Hope this helps!

(BTW, Mabinogion fan? :D)

[smokedetective]

A few Andan questions:

-How does Andan enthrallment work? I'm assuming it's based on the high calendar, and I think it has to do with social status, but is it percieved status or status somehow tied to the calendar? For example, could an Andan enthrall someone higher than them if they tricked that person into thinking they were above them in status?

-How far can body mods go? For example, could someone cover themselves entirely in fur feathers or add functional wings?

[yhlee]

- It's high calendar, yes. Think of it as social bullying hypnotism on steroids--so it's perceived status, and you could definitely use enthrallment on someone normally of higher status if you used trickery. Have fun! :)

- Fur or feathers, sure. Functional wings might require additional exotic effects just because of aerodynamics, but, I mean, the servitors levitate so I'm sure something could be arranged if you wanted it. Really the limit is not so much body mod tech but fashion and good taste--the Kel, Rahal, and Vidona in the hexarchate are pretty conservative about this stuff, while the Andan don't mind pushing the limits and the Shuos tend to be pretty open-minded about it too.

[venndaai]

Lleu and I were wondering more about the Rahal, and the legal system. Are inquisitors used in legal trials? Are they used in most trials throughout the Hexarchate, and would there be a lot of them then? In Hexarchate courts, are you innocent until proven guilty or guilty until proven innocent?

[yhlee]

I haven't determined most of this because the Rahal are not a focus of the existing books, but my thoughts are that inquisitors may testify, and there are probably a fair number of them, yes. If you have something in particular in mind, we can certainly talk about it!

For heresy, you're guilty until proven innocent. For civil offenses like space traffic tickets, you're innocent until proven guilty. Which is probably not very reassuring, given the number of things that are considered heretical in this society.

[pengwern]

Please disregard this if it gets to spoiler territory or future story stuff, but I wanted to ask if there were any tidbits you might share about the Vauhan family/young twins, or Shuos Academy in general - we know there are tracks (like majors) that cadets declare for, from assassination, bomb disposal, to Mikodez's admin/analysis. Five years of training in Jedao's time, with a centuries old game competition each year, and cute squirrels and carp on campus.
What would a second year have learnt already, and was Zehun an instructor for long?

[yhlee]

Note that you're welcome to edit a lot of these details since this is AU and I managed to leave a ton of this stuff out of the books. (I had to cut stuff for space reasons.)

- The Vauhans are a fairly close-knit extended family. Mikodez and Istradez had multiple parents (number unspecified, up to you). The Vauhans tend to breed really good-looking men even without genetic tinkering but most of them can't hold a tune in a bucket. There is an older sister, Avradez, who is the one who sent Mikodez the handmade soap, and who is probably the one Mikodez got his crafting tendencies from. Mikodez lives in terror of Avradez.

Andan Niath won't have been born yet if Mikodez is still a cadet, although he may have other nieces/nephews/sib-children. (I do not know of a non-awkward way to say "alt/nonbinary kids of a sibling" so if anyone has suggestions I'm listening.)

Mikodez attended Shuos Academy Prime, which is planetside near the Citadel of Eyes. (Basically, the Citadel is a space station in geosynchronous orbit over the Academy.) Because the hexarchate is a big place, there is also Shuos Academy Secondary and Shuos Academy Tertiary, as well as a ton of minor affiliated academies that churn out the lower-level Shuos. (The other faction academies operate similarly.)

Five years to graduate is average but it depends on how smart you are, how ambitious you are (triple-major?), and how hard you work. Think of it as a combination of generalized undergrad and fairly practical vocational training.

Things a second-year would know already:
- Basic firearms and self-defense. That being said, a cryptographer or an administrator is not going to be expected to be Rambo and/or James Bond. Mikodez is canonically a good shot at the firing range, but would probably have issues if he went up against someone with actual combat experience in a real-world violent situation.
- Introduction to Seduction is an optional first-year course but most cadets opt to take it. It's up to you whether you think Mikodez would have done so.
- Security/social engineering. Cadets are usually encouraged to practice on each other. Again, canonically Mikodez is really good at persuading even paranoid fellow cadets to go along with him. If you ever hit a point in the game where Mikodez should be able to do this but you're stuck for ideas on how to pull it off, ask me or your fellow players and we can brainstorm ways for him to pull it off--the more eyes the better two heads are better than one, etc.
- Introductory courses for their major.
- A general introduction to game design so that all the other instructors can wallop them with it over and over for the rest of their academy careers. You can downplay this if you want, or if you need game design stuff for Mikodez I'm happy to advise. (I might read a little too much game design theory for my own good.)
- Basic P.E. An analyst/administrator isn't going to be held to the same standards as someone planning to become an assassin! But they gamify basic fitness just to make sure that people are moderately healthy. Mikodez probably took up eating candy as an allergic reaction to this.

- Zehun had been an instructor for several years when they were sent in with a team of assassins to assess and possibly terminate Mikodez. Later in canon they ended up abandoning their teaching post to become Mikodez's personal person who nags them to eat real food assistant, in a "power behind the throne" way--they had a lot of contacts in the Shuos bureaucracy and ended up being crucial to Mikodez's takeover.

I hope this helps! Again, if some details don't work for your character conception, we can change them. Let me know.

[vass]

What was the Liozh signifier (in the heptarchate, I mean)? I know their emblem's the mirrorweb, but for Iawa's signifier back then should I be thinking something to do with mirrors/glass, or with webs/spiders?

[yhlee]

You can go either way. :) Pick whatever appeals the most to you!

Regarding Kel training

[after_almsivi]

Since people have been asking about skills in Move 1, I wondered whether Kel training involved some basic engineering and piloting.

Re: Regarding Kel training

[yhlee]

For most moth Kel, yes, those are reasonable things to gave.

[pengwern]

I have two rpg related questions, and two that I was just wondering about and don't need to be answered at all -
1) How common are signifier shifts, and what type of life event/change might prompt them?
2) How deeply garish are the official uniforms for Shuos assassins (bright red :|||)?
and
3) What kind of shift occurred to the Shuos during the wake of Hellspin Fortress?
4) What persuaded Zehun to make that call about Mikodez? (Mikodez in game is not going to know, but I've been trying to figure out what about Brezan reminded Zehun of Mikodez/why they decided to mess with him during Purple Paranoia, or if it's just the sight of a novice Kel coming up with this kind of solution.)

[yhlee]

1) Signifier shifts happen occasionally through early adulthood (around mid-twenties). Bio/psych people feel free to correct me but basically the brain is still maturing through that time, at least according to the Adolescent Development course I had to take for teacher ed forever ago. They're not terribly common after that, especially radical shifts, although not unknown either. For example, if you saw a personality shift due to trauma or dementia, that could be a thing, but the later hexarchate also has better medicine available, so...

2) Official Shuos uniforms are blood red, more or less military in style, with gold trim. In the field, when actually at work, Shuos assassins are generally avoid being caught in actual uniforms at all costs and wear sensible things to fit in.

3) The only reasons the Shuos didn't take an even more massive prestige hit (and the one they took was pretty big regardless) were: a) Heptarch Khiaz essentially kicked Jedao out and gave him to the Kel as fish food (hawk food?) pretty much at the first opportunity, which was considered a pretty big deal, and b) Khiaz, while one of the more despicable people in the heptarchate, was a really top-notch propagandist and she PR'd her heart out.

4) I'm going to defer answering this question on the grounds that it is a possible story for the hexarchate collection. (It might or might not happen. I make no promises.)

Calendrical Swords

[talifabian]

Question on what exactly a calendrical sword, you know, is: what I envisioned reading Ninefox Gambit is something like a lightsaber with glowy numbers instead of a solid beam of light, which extends and contracts to hit additional opponents as one fights with it. Is this more-or-less accurate, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Re: Calendrical Swords

[yhlee]

You've basically got it. The additional thing is that they specifically damage living tissue and don't harm other things, because magic.

T-shirts

[zuhrovet]

Are T-shirts with slogans a thing in the hexarchate?

(This frivolous question is brought to you by Alaric's fashion choices, and the fact that if Sasha were a twenty-first century American she would want to dress entirely in free conference T-shirts & jeans, but be thwarted by the fact that free conference T-shirts never come in her size.)

Re: T-shirts

[yhlee]

If you want T-shirts with slogans, y'all are welcome to them for the RPG. =)

Naxorian worldbuilding

[zuhrovet]

Starting a thread over here to avoid clutter. Feel free to contradict me on things (or just inform me that Sasha's understanding is incomplete).

Houses

The Naxar have Houses. I'm thinking they are like privately held corporations with hereditary membership. So for example Sasha has 5/8 of a share in Fountain House, which specializes in shipping and logistics, averaging her father's half-share and her mother's 3/4-share. (Sasha's mother votes Sasha's share, as a proxy.) In Sasha's day you could also buy into a House, if you had the equivalent of a couple of million dollars lying around and weren't Kirrish.

A certain portion of Sasha's childhood social difficulties were caused by the fact that a partial share in Fountain House was worth a lot more money than a full share in Mulberry House, which controlled the local mines.

Language

The Naxorian language has at least four grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, animate neuter, inanimate neuter) and no definite or indefinite articles. The 'x' is really more like a chi (High Language speakers never get this right).

Atrocities

I've been assuming the way the mines worked was fundamentally horrifying, but it took a while for me to figure out why that should be so, assuming a largely mechanized system. One possibility is that Kirrish people were trapped within the mining machines. When the heptarchate liberated the Kirrish, it presumably retained knowledge of the relevant technology for its own ends (like moth harnesses??)

The heptarchate's conquest may also have involved Naxorian mecha turning on their officers.

Re: Naxorian worldbuilding

[yhlee]

This is fascinating and I have no problem with it. I am all for Naxorian mecha turning on their officers!

[pengwern]

I don't know what it's called, but have the rifts made it into hexarchate history? (like would Mikodez remember/know about responses to the rifts in the past)

[rift history]

[yhlee]

[Let's say there are fragmentary and ambiguous references to things that might be the rifts that suggest, in Mikodez's time/line, that there was a great inter-faction war necessary to close them. He wouldn't have had the security clearance for a lot of detail, though.]

unfocused musing on faction critters

[pengwern]

I don't know if I should have assumed that all the faction animals are mythical. Uh. Or Mikodez was lying to Alaric/the air? But if they only achieved mothdrives three hundred years /after/ the hexarchate's founding, that suggests the Nirai emblem isn't a reference to the starship propelling moths.
(...Although Kujen could have revamped the logos.)

Also, after thinking about numerical slang some more, that's probably verboten by Mikodez's time, and possibly even by year 361. I don't really know how to conceptualize a society where numbers are freighted with every kind of restriction.

Re: unfocused musing on faction critters

[yhlee]

The Nirai faction emblem used to be something else before the mothdrive's invention/discovery. I'd have to dig in the manuscript of Revenant Gun for it but it was like a ringed planet or something. I'll get back to you in a bit?

Also, the numerological aspect is ridiculous. Think about companies and release dates--everything has to be scheduled around the high calendar, which is often not great from a business/economic standpoint.

Enthrallment

[pengwern]

Verging on medical grue, but it seems like enthrallment begins with eye contact. Is that a requirement? Could someone - do something to remove sight, from blindfolds on, and would that be an effective way to counter enthrallment, given that damage should be reversible (like Brezan had an eye regrown)?
(Nobody's been blinded anywhere and I'm SO suspicious :O )

Re: Enthrallment

[yhlee]

I'm not going to promise this is a canon answer but yes, enthrallment begins with visual contact, so if you removed sight (including artificial vision) that would protect you from enthrallment. Of course, blinding yourself is as good as admitting that you're susceptible to J. Random Andan, since half the power is Advanced Bullying (TM) and knowledge of the target.

EDIT: If this helps, enthrallment is a shortcut. It requires that you research the target (which is why Tseya trying to enthrall Cheris failed--she'd only researched Jedao and wasn't at all calibrated for Cheris) and socially outrank the target. It's like bullying on steroids, or blackmail. If you blind yourself, you'll rob any Andan of the shortcut, but they can still blackmail you the old-fashioned way.

Similarly, Kel formation instinct is a stronger version of ordinary social cohesion, and Vidona deathtouch may sound temporarily impressive but in all honesty, a loaded gun is deadlier in most circumstances because you don't have to get up close.

sibling words

[zuhrovet]

Does the high language have different words for siblings of different genders?

Re: sibling words

[yhlee]

Yes; brother, sister, alt-sib.

On the topic of Kel Gloves

[kese_seyli]

So I'm curious what the general feeling on Kel gloves is, obviously they are extremely important. Is it a matter of ritual purity or another reason they wear them? With Seyli no longer considering themselves truly Kel, I'm trying to figure out if they'd miss their gloves or not.

Also, if lace gloves were acceptable, are sheer gloves? As long as your hands are covered it's okay or are there more rules involved.

Re: On the topic of Kel Gloves

[yhlee]

The old-fashioned take is that a Kel's gloves represent their honor, and that taking them off is a form of symbolic nakedness (hence something only for lovers or in extremis, e.g. suicide missions). In real life, if you need to wash your hands, you wash your hands, but it would be rude to stare. And ca. Cheris's era, they're made of that weird self-cleaning fabric that means in theory they don't need as much washing. (Cat hairs are another problem.)

Lace and sheer gloves are both acceptable, but depending on the era/etc., considered more daring in terms of fashion. You'd really only see lace or sheer gloves during fancy dress-up occasions (like a formal dance, or a remembrance).

I never worked out the rules beyond that. If, for game purposes, you want to have particular game-specific rules for Seyli's benefit, you're welcome to invent them. :)

[zuhrovet]

Do space stations ever use virtual layout, or is the technology related to moths in a more direct way?

[yhlee]

Space stations absolutely (often) do use variable layout. I think it's in "Gamer's End" that it's made explicit that the Citadel of Eyes, which is a space station in geosynchronous orbit over a planet I don't think I ever named, uses variable layout. And I can't remember where, but parts of Kel Academy Prime, which is on a planet, also use variable layout. Handwave handwave it requires a power generator of some sort plus whatever programming to keep the whole thing sorted; so it's an exotic technology, but it's not moth-dependent.

If you have other questions about specifics I will do my best to answer them. :)

augments and subvocals

[kese_seyli]

with the augment, when you're sending a subvocal or written message to someone, is it visible/audible to anyone else?

I'm actually fairly new to sci-fi genre (only two years reading sci-fi, tbh) and don't have a lot of examples for how this kind of tech would work.

Re: augments and subvocals

[yhlee]

I first saw the basic idea in some L. E. Modesitt, Jr. sf novel but I think it's been around for a while. It should not be visible/audible to anyone else unless you're deliberately making a production of it.

important pseudo-dragon questions

[zuhrovet]

hoardingpearls asked this, and I realized I'm not sure we had settled on the answer: can pseudo-dragons actually fly, or do they just glide?

Re: important pseudo-dragon questions

[yhlee]

OF COURSE THEY CAN FLY

sorry, I just got out of two hours of meetings and am a bit punchy XD

calendrical detection

[zuhrovet]

How hard is it to use technology to determine what calendar you're in? In particular, could a sensor dropped through a rift identify what year it was (assuming it ended up under the high calendar)?

Re: calendrical detection

[yhlee]

Let's say normally, in the absence of a friendly Nirai, you could jury-rig some kind of sensor to do the job but it would require on the order of an hour to take its readings, rather than being instant-read.