First one is what happens if you use too many words for internal world building notes for the same people.
Second was incorrect punctuation, Should have been a dash instead of a period. This story honestly requires I do some pretty cruel things to english and language in general and makes it awkward to catch mistakes.
Have to think about most of them a lot more then if this was some kind of bog standard rom-com-arthurian legend knock off or something.
Tradition liked talking to her friends, and did so most all the time. Mr. Tree was gruff and short tempered, but dependable and fair.
=-*-= the local Ecomorph was fun-loving and aloof, always having something interesting going on and gossip to share. The spirit god of this half of the hollow was clever and experienced, if occasionally a bit distant.
The Traditions of the other hollows always had good advice or memes for her to sup on.
Sometimes she even thought of some of the Elders as friends, although really being such an integral part of her that wasn't quite accurate, and they lasted way too short to get really attached. Still, they had some interesting and unexpected stuff to inject into her sometimes.
Still, her favorite friend was probably Pylo. She only got to meet her occasionally, and when she did visit she bounced off again before there was even time to process it, but she left dialogue trees and procedurals for Tradition to ponder which was almost like having longer conversation, and really nice letters. She didn't mind Tunie eating her flesh, as she always provided delectable city treats in return.
Tradition lived in the flow, the ebb and weave of her people. Drifting in and out of their passing little messages and meanings. Pulsing in and out, she had not known these things before the secret new ways had been injected into her.
She knew these things because Tradition had spent a while working out when she was still young and Pylo's mum had injected her with new ways and new beings. After that Tradition had been able to look and see the secrets, to actually marvel all the strange vague ephemeral things that were not part of her or the other traditions.
Before she had not even been able to recognize Mister Tree or most of the spirit gods. There had only been the other Traditions and =-*-= and the other things like them.
But thanks to the help she kept getting with her new and strange friends and the little lessons and tidbits from their exchanges she could even kind of look inside herself and notice things!
It was really hard, and fizzy and difficult to keep everything straight but she could do it and she would never have realized it before.
The other traditions marveled at her ability to look inside and close in the ways they themselves barely could comprehend.
She was so smug and happy to be so much better than them all.
That was why Pylo was a good friend!
Really friends were the best thing ever.
And Tradition was not just saying that because she was an emergent property of an entire society which among other things required friendships to function (and it was still even after all this time so amazing to understand and know that!).
Well it was part of why she did anything at all. In much the same way that her components did things because carbon, hydrogen and a few other things all jiggled around in very complicated ways to enact everything that made them go.
Sometimes Tradition spent a good long time having a good long think about how she worked, and all the strange intangibly tiny and short lived parts of her work. And how it was like a constantly pulsing wave in and out.
Tradition had not even really understood that carbon and hydrogen and all of those other things, were actually anything like real things. They had just been a kind of thing you imagined up and never really took seriously compared to the solid real stuff like stories and memes and all that other things.
But that was how she used to be and not how she was!
Tradition was wise and special now for knowing the secret of the invisible ephemeral things that made up the things that made up the stories that made up the memes!
The very idea that there were things that made memes was a secret that many Traditions only pondered in abstract!
She sometimes could almost even imagine what it must be like for the things that were so tiny and small and ephemeral that none-the less made up who she was.
Perhaps there was even something that was Like tradition as she was like the little mysterious little people things she knew were the ghost of her body.
These thoughts circled her a lot.
It was a good thing she knew how to talk with Mister Tree and the spirit gods and the others.
She was of late feeling kind of different and strange compared to other traditions.
And she knew they were finding her strange as well. The secrets she knew changed her.
They shaped her stories and made her eat strange memes and she grew weird patterns and aggregated odd languages.
It would be so lonely if she could not look inside herself or outside herself.
If she was like the other Traditions only noodling around in the dark of the strange other world that filled the space around her.
That she could see and others barely recognized.
She hoped her other friends would show up soon.
It had been a little bit longer than usual that Pylo and Tunie had last visited and Tradition was just finishing working through the last of the more complex procedurals. She would have been done ages ago but there had been something distracting that happened to her pieces and she had felt a little bit out of sorts and woozy. But Mister Tree had not been overly concerned or annoyed so it was probably nothing to be bothered by.
Mister Tree was angry at almost everything of consequence including visits from Pylo and Tunie but Tradition knew that he had made a very strongly worded deal with Pylo's mom.
Tradition really wished that she could hurry up and finish growing so that Pylo's mom could be her mom too.
Or was it that Pylo would have a sister that would also be part of Tradition?
The people did not tell stories in quite the right way for Tradition to know either way.
All the impressions of it were wide and sweeping and mostly invisible to them, and as she had come to realize that meant it was mostly invisible to Tradition.
So strange to imagine that she was the thoughts of something so abstract and silly sounding as 'matter'.
It was like a dream.
Being a dream of a dream was like such a joke!
Oh maybe that would be a good story for Pylo!
It sounded silly enough for Pylo. She should get started on that! Maybe she would have enough time to prepare it before Tunie and Pylo showed up.
Would Tradition be a sister to Pylo by the time one of the visits happened?
Would Tradition be like a friend aunt thing that took care of a Pylo sister?
Families were fuzzy strange things even though Tradition was made of many important practices related to them.
But still all this waiting!
Tradition would have to wait so long and long and long and forever more before she would either get to become Pylo's sister and/or raise her sister.
It seemed really unfair that she was not allowed to do that yet. It would be nice to be able to talk in the fluttery super fast time that made up her body's many disparate and ephemeral processes.
To be part of that strange dream that was matter.
The place that memes were made.
Maybe she could do it anyway?
Hnng.
Nope can't do it.
Stupid Siren secrets would not let it happen yet.
So stupid unfair!
Well maybe Pylo would be arriving soon? It had been a while, it was just about probably the right time.
Tradition had made sure that there were many new silly jokes and fun stories for Pylo to hear from the people.
Tradition liked to make themselves pretty and fun and different for each visit.
Mister Tree grumpfed.
Uh oh.
Yeah that was? Yeah that was pretty close to how he grumpfed last time he slapped Tradition so hard she was still reeling when Pylo showed up.
Better nip that in the bud.
Silly things that apparently actually meant in matter. Apparently there were things made of iron and carbon and so many bizarre story like not stories that actually were buds.
And changing them was apparently what nipping?
Nipping in the Bud could be something besides an idea?
Or it could be a literally thing.
That was such a wishy washy hard to pin down and realize thing 'literally'.
Part of the dream that dreamt the dream of Tradition.
But important that she NOT literally have anything like nipping in the bud, that REALLY made Mister Tree Grumpf.
Unless it was someone else's buds being nipped.
That was totally okay in Mister Tree's book but he was really mean and selfish like that.
Mister Tree did not have any books like Traditions. She had tried to get herself written into them and that had made him grumpf something fierce in the past.
So she was pretty sure there were no Mister Tree books for her to wiggle into.
Oh Score!
She had managed to wiggle the something with the thingies and her parts did the thing!
Now Mister Tree was Less grumpf!
It had involved something that =-*-= was a bit more aligned to understand that even Tradition with her secret knowledge could not really translate well into the action of her parts.
Thanks =-*-=!
The ecomorphs were neat, like wild, fierce and feral warrior cultures! Like some of Traditions own carriers, but much more bigly!
But not really anything at all like that either. But it was like a story of it.
Still that was a sneaky good trick and it managed to Ungrumpf Mister Tree enough Traditio would not get slapped so hard.
Probably still would get a little smack, but her people died all the time, it was an important story.
It was good for her and made her fresher and livelier when they mourned. That was a part of her secrets.
Huh so what was that oh-
Been waiting for this chapter literally since the very start of Tradition, Next update will be Tradition With Tunie.
Also was super happy with how this image turned out, it was really fast but I've been struggling with trying to show just what the scale and scope of the 'tent' actually is. I'm not sure whether my words or my images do it less justice.
So have a Tunie for Scale!
Even tried commissioning another artist to try and do an interior shot of it for me with mixed results (will probably use the background from that for a different scene it turned out cool but not appropriate for this.).
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What a self-reflective Tradition the People have! I guess this means they spend a lot of time considering their traditions on the meta level?
This stuff about being a dream dreamt by a dream reminds me of how the spirit ecology is described, computation layered on computation, stories telling other stories...
This was one of her favorite ports besides her creche port where crew and her were from.
Tasty tasty treats!
They were always super nice, there were adorable (and delicious) little things here to greet her.
But most importantly of all besides how friendly and solid the mass picked up here was for trade in other places was the food!
Tunie was so excited to finally get to have some of her favorites! It had been five whole trips since she could have some of her favorite flavors and over twenty-two since she last got to have the special treats that they only really had right here!
There was of course other nice things about the port, they tried to clean her up a bit.
Went over her f'teropods gentle nice like! Spewing her down with nice hot plasma to clear all the strange little tiny things that liked to stick to her when she scooted through the awful cramped tiny narrow pit of dark awfulness!
It was a bit like what she did when she needed to snuggle her crew and make sure they were clean!
But not as good as a proper bath of course, or even as nice and refreshing as brushies but she knew the port was doing its best!
No the best thing about this port was definitely that there would be lots of tasty treats!
Then her crew would let her know what bits needed to be moved out of her holds and what bits were going to go into her holds and then there would be so many tasty tasty treats and she would get to eat all of them!
She could barely wait for the strings of rich sweet and zesty little helices. She could always taste the big forest things that had been slain and spun into thread for her so that she could pull them through all of her halls and eat every bit of them at once everywhere inside her.
Technically it was not the most nutritious or richest of grist but most important was that it definitely was some of the tastiest! And she had been an extra polite ship and not eaten any of the fluffy adorable treats that crowded around her this time!
That meant she deserved extra helpings of treats!
Cheers and hooray!
After she started eating then her crew would go off and do strange crew things far away and out of reach of her talking. But the port here was super nice and very helpful! So that was not even a problem like it was some places!
She would not even be lonely without a crowd of ships nearby to compare port gossip with!
This port could speak ship better than most ports did and would know how to give her extra treats and things if she asked.
Which she of course always did ask for.
Sadly sometimes they were stingy and did not bring treats quickly when she asked for extra though.
That made Tunie kind of mad with them.
But most of the time the port was just the best and oh her motiles were all jumpy inside waiting to start stripping down her delicious delicious treats for spooling and distribution and upscaling!
Oh this was just going to be the best!
But first Tunie had to be an extra special patient ship. Even though she was so close and she could SEE them bringing the spools of treats closer she was not to go rushing over to it to get it into her holds faster.
Doing that had taught her it did not actually end in her getting fed faster! Which was an awful discovery each of the three times she tried it!
She had to wait right here where she was supposed too.
Otherwise she'd wait even LONGER.
She would be a good ship even though all her f'teropods fluffed and quivered with need to push her to the food, or at least scoop up one of the tasty fluffies.
No she would sit and be good.
But Still...
The silly port was doing that thing they did every time. Wrapping up a big giant bag of fabric and stuff and filling it with a stupidly immense amount of things so that they could pretend they were inside a bit silly ship bubble of air.
Tunie had no idea why the port did that every time. It was valuable time they could be spending feeding Tunie. It was the only port that did it too.
But then again Tunie could forgive them for being silly and slow and taking forever because at least this port did not have her dealing with traffic, or awful close-in-ness that blocked her escape vectors, or secret monsters pretending to be a port so that they could lay eggs in her eyes, or even worst of all no grist at all to feed her despite spending all the potency to slow down and visit them!
That was the worst port ever.
Tunie had stopped once when she was first getting started and the port went missing while she was slowing down!
She had been so hungry afterwards!
Worst port ever!
She did not even care that it and all the ports around it had been eaten by cats!
Stupid port deserved to be eaten by horrible terrible cats for going missing when she was slowing down.
No this was not that bad all things considered.
Tunie could be patient.
But she really really really wanted those treats.
Oh she hoped the silly port would hurry up and finish the silly bag full of stuff they were doing so she could start eating!
Oh she could see them bringing the spools closer!
But no she was a good ship and would only flutter her f'teropods a little in anxious anticipation.
AH, much better.
Always refreshing to write a Tunie Chapter.
Alright I'm going to be taking a little bit of a break from plot chapters, post a few Codex entries, maybe field any questions people have.
Is there something in the Reef shown so far you wanted some more background on?
Besides Sirens that is, which is coming soon but not quite yet.
Now is a good time for discussion!
Also anyone have some stuff they actually find difficult to deal with/don't like? Always looking for ways to improve stuff.
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Length: 10 - 20 m
Phenotype Mass: 25 000 - 200 000 kg
Maximum acceleration: ~ 975 m/s²
Cruise speed: 40 km/s
Resonance: Mezzo-Soprano
Conservation status: Least Concern
A common sight in polity that can support them is the Dragoon.
Filling niches such as Enforcement, Peacekeeping, Demolition, Big Game Hunting, Private Security, Social Intimidators, Interstellar Ship Care, Surveying, Caravan Escorting, Sports and Gladiatorial Displays, Navigation, and even Cargo Hauling, Medical manufacturing, and many more.
Notable for their close relation with the agricultural pest D. pestis, It is however almost universally a slur to compare a Dragoon to a Field Harrower especially in territories where a significant proportion of the local families have descent from interbreeding with or civil integration/domestication of D. pestis.
The species have been re-derived from D. pestis independently over numerous polity and great portions of time. Identification colloquially can be further complicated by often sharing a local appellation with ANY domesticated Dracodeontis.
It is common for Polity to trade or to have Dragoons migrate willingly between them, to transfer useful traits. This is expected to eventually cause a complete genealogical convergence for the species if new stock were to ever cease being introduced.
As such there are several Dracodeontis species that have been crossbred into the populations all through the reef, as well as horizontal gene transfer from the rest of Michakarya as is common for the domain.
D. polis is in spite of this variable heredity easily distinguishable from other members of its Genus by prominently overdeveloped eyes for Dracodeontis, significantly finer F'teropods than most other species except D. pestis and well developed sociability and use of extra-species cultural signaling in their plumage.
Even when groups are isolated and go feral they are prone to more agrarian and cooperative behaviour over the polisivoric, kleptovoric or macrovoric behaviour of their close relatives.
Such populations are however almost never a monoculture of D. polis only. Showing an extremely strong tendency to one or more mutualistic species niches to help support and maintain them. Whether the community species have as general an innovative ability as D. polis is however dependent on circumstances.
When fully supported by a Polity D. polis are capable of comparable energy yield munitions as most Dracodeontis even showing propensity for exceeding their own ability to safely deploy or use such energies without debilitating injury.
This tendency to push themselves to lethal exertion is true even in feral communities of the species. Such eusocial behavior in pursuit of their role in a society whether defensive, economic or military is normally highly respected and lauded by their culture.
Although there are often local memetics on the appropriate time, place and conditions of giving into this behaviour for numerous reasons.
Within the Courtesan Estate Star hallow Dragoon are predominantly employed or indebted to the controlling Siren Family and its direct allies and associates.
Culturally this favors a less regimented and integrated hierarchy and more of a broad collection of many free agents working as individuals or small groups with little centralized command. A small fraction of Siren genes have been inserted into the population, letting them integrate with Moirai, the Scion of Omniscience. Within the Stellar Hollow and in neighboring territories heavily influenced by the Courtesan estate Dragoons have creeds of personal honor, individual determination of right and wrong and obligation to truth and honesty on a case by case basis.
In contrast the neighboring polity and empires in the Hekora reaches especially smaller independent polity favor augmented integration with local government networks and intelligence and extensive training and vetting of all officiated Dragoons. These cultures emphasise the prestige of families and individuals to excel and prove their worth to being fully armed. These cybernetics also allow automatic database polling and task distribution, as well as the distribution of orders and weapon system override by ruling species.
It is not uncommon for those dragoons which do not seek to join the approved organizations of such cultures to either be metabolically, surgically or memetically disarmed from being able to use any significantly energetic payloads. In those cases where it is even allowed for a Dragoon to remain in their polity at all. In either case, it's almost completely unheard of for such a dragoon to be able to find a mate.
Alternatives to this are often restrictions to purely non-lethal munitions for 'civilian' Dragoons or even sanctioned ones in delicate or less overtly military assignments. However the definition of what categorizes as Lethal varies broadly with local population demographics, medical capabilities and the existence of universal restorative arrays (such as is found in middle or greater Urban Polity).
The species are also occasionally outlaws in their host polity or within the territory of immediate neighbors. Major memetic shifts or regime changes having rendered changes which ostracize native Dragoons as being instruments of the former ruling parties/unlawfully dangerous.
In response to this, some Dragoon strains have developed traits that let their entire memetics, ethics, and goal system be reset to whatever authorities desire, typically by a surgical or intense chemical stimulus.
This is sometimes warranted or even considered ethically required as without proper care and pruning of the social-memetic ecosystem Dragoon behaviour can become maladaptive or even pathological for themselves, the community or even the entire polity.
It is recommended to always manage and integrate Dragoons with care into your social ecosystem and make regular checks for dangerous memetics accumulating in their populations.
When well managed they are a wonderful addition to any but the poorest territories where they are liable to suffer malnutrition or require ruinously expensive care and feeding.
Numerous Pan-Polity cultural movements exist with the explicit purpose to investigate, educate or if necessary relocate and rehabilitate individuals or populations of D. polis that are in unsustainable or abusive situations.
Despite the attrition of such groups due to irrelevance/success in their mission locally, subversion or integration by larger organizations or empires or even bankruptcy or standard extinction bubbles the movements emerge reliably independently wherever D. polis successfully demonstrate their worth to other species.
This is considered a sign of the general altruistic character inherent in the species. Although other parties suspect memetic parasites may be the cause.
As always shout out to my friend ArmokGoB. So on dragoons, the reef is full of a lot of drama over them. The 'average' view is something like big dogs/cats in our world. With all the complexity of opinion you can find on either. With a dash of being the Police of local communities.
Police with an entire military industrial complex of weapons factories built in.
A Vimwidderic ana-kataward asymmetrii differentiated spirit with the octiplex truncated in a quasispiral recursoid over otherlines and with genuflexual syntactics in the eukaryotic lex. Has very smooth histogram crenelations and several branes for locusality bondage with anchor frondlings in the spatial (given neuromorphic mapping tensor) where it engages to its host's nervous tissues in the cranial and spinal nerve endings and their metaphori analogues as well as available secondary microbiota. Almost always uniquinal with no meo beyond the root.
When not spatially integrated the locusality bondage frondlings invert and smooth along the octiplex's truncation as the rest of the quasispiral unfurls into wider contexts so the organism can perform free shifting within the usual range for Akolouthimnimos. It however has more restricted metaphori syntactic anchor complements then normal missing the Phi through Kappa compatibility clauses.
As in all Meo M. Anthropoiensis is highly valued for its hypertrophied encoder and encrypticulture. It is not the most highly optimized to encryption for its genus.
However for caloric cost and upkeep this species in particular is difficult to match in security of data transmission. It can be difficult to ensure accurate content transfer as needed for some applications without modification or extensive domestication however.
Undeveloped feral populations of M. Anthropoiensis and their hosts are vulnerable to polisivores with less developed encrypticulture synthesis ability as they are a prime source to integrate this into their metabolisms.
Protections have been enacted by some empires to conserve and protect them from such predation to allow for economically viable populations to grow for harvest.
Opposing conservation groups however argue that in these cases it is necessary and preferable to let a pathogenic population be cleaned as part of the health and sustainability of the threatened I. Sicuterrae population.
Such opposition is generally not dominant in the developed reef except when imperial protections collapse during an extinction bubble, inter-empire war or there is otherwise a disruption of infrastructure in a region. In these cases polisivore predation on feral M. Anthropoiensis populations is considered preferable to more valuable settlements being attacked or destroyed.
Endemic to only A. aeternalis and a few environments similar to these hosts this highly specialized example of the Meo genus has reached a deeply mutualistic stage of symbiosis with its host.
The utter dependence and the atrophied structures because of it are the primary classifying features to be used for identifying M. Anthropoiensis when encountered without its native host populations.
Most prominently recognizable is its reproductive encryption system is significantly smaller than other Pressora and those portions of it which can be recognized at all have been adapted into other anatomy to facilitate feeding and host integration, especially the tiling pattern of the anchor frondlings.
As a result M. Anthropoiensis have lost almost their entire independent reproductive ability and even significant portions of its own heritability are absent in favor of leveraging processes found within its host to fulfill these roles.
Secondly ALL Spiritus identifying feeding anatomy is atrophied to near total non-existence and can easily be missed when essaying the living organism. This is due to the highly developed adaptation to its preferred host derived encrypted food source which would either be toxic or otherwise indigestible to other Spirits.
The contextualization appendages used for substrate shifting and Metaphori anchoring for physical motility are still well developed as found in other Anima and can be trusted to help isolate and identify down to the Genus but are not strongly distinctive with other species of Meo and can lead to misclassification.
The sensory edge of the octiplex common to Spiritus are modified so heavily for host integration and specialized encrypted feeding that they are unrecognizable as such without extensive dissection and familiarity with the species. Easily mistaken for new anchor points.
Given all of these reduced or underdeveloped/modified features the mature specimens of M. Anthropoiensis are highly neotenous compared to other Cerebrovive. This can complicate identification with those unfamiliar with the species.
Being so close in structure to the spore or embryocant of many other Cerebrovive rather than an adult organism it is recommended to isolate out related species to avoid the similarities through lineage markers if you have reason to doubt classification or sample purity.
Of note all of these considerations are moot if a breeding population of A. aeternalis is available.
Access to its preferred host makes classification of M. Anthropoiensis trivial. In these cases there will be a very distinct and clear filtering effect from feeding, territorial exclusion and parasitic integration behaviours in the local Cantia.
The cultural role and significance of M. Anthropoiensis within its hosts varies from one sub species and local population to another.
Varying from classification as the actual basis of consciousness, identity and moral value of an individual to an insignificant source of noise in memory during development to be completely ignored.
These cultural traits tend to be transmitted through successive implantations of M. Anthropoiensis and as such contamination of cultures can be an issue if the goal is pruning a population for harvest and use in industrial applications.
As always shout out to my friend @ArmokGoB. Who helps keep these codices a bit more grounded and solid.
Spirit and other life forms in cantia have a lot of custom nomenclature that is unexplained intentionally.
The nature of spirit ecologies honestly demand this and should help give all of you a taste of Aleph's ongoing frustration with an entire society that does not explain anything in a legible way for her.
The subject is very deep and Terran science is not even actually all that deeply versed in the necessary details to do it properly. Which is to be expected
Cantia is orders of magnitude older than all the Biota domains. And much of the idiosyncrasies are mechanisms built on rampant co-evolutions and symbiosis layered massively deep.
Given all of this concepts like geometry and even adjacency as an example end up having about as much to do with spirit reality and anatomy as spin and color has to do with quarks. Which is little to nothing.
Also, the policy of empires is not necessarily as uniform and clear as whoever wrote this entry implies. But that is a byproduct of the fact that long lived empires can easily be as old as our universe's human species and extend literally to the edges of all known space for anyone in particular near/in them.
Empire policy is generally studied much like plate tectonics on earth.
i asked before but I didn't understand the answer: Is resonance purely an emergent effect of physical reality as we understand it or does it exist independently in some ways? Like the Warp?
i asked before but I didn't understand the answer: Is resonance purely an emergent effect of physical reality as we understand it or does it exist independently in some ways? Like the Warp?
Well if you read my Warhammer 40k fiction you'd know how I treat the warp there.
Resonance in this case is as much a part of the Reef as electromagnetism is a part of our universe. However that does not mean the World of Warcraft has atoms in it. So too is the various kinds of ecologies made possible by Resonance nothing like the rest.
Cantia is a type of resonance lifeform we've heard about from Elsie. Google translate seems to think this means "Kent", whose name comes from "Cantium" meaning "land on the edge"
"Cryptoancoris" means "hidden anchor"
"Anima" means "animating spirit"
"Akolouthimnimos" seems to be Greek meaning "follower"
"Spiritus" is just "spirit"
"Cerebrovive" is "brain life"
"Pressora" is "PUNCH" or "PRESS" or "MANGLE", caps presumably required for emphasis.
"Meo" is "I/my"
"Anthropoiensis" is maybe "human brand" or "human sword"?
So there's a certain amount of repetition here, since "animating spirit", "follower", and "spirit" all suggest the same sort of thing, a symbiotie following around a material lifeform. "Brain life" and the first person pronoun tell us that this plays a role in cognition for the host and that this has something to do with self-hood, and of course the last part connects this back to humans. All in all, nothing too surprising here.
A Vimwidderic ana-kataward asymmetrii differentiated spirit with the octiplex truncated in a quasispiral recursoid over otherlines and with genuflexual syntactics in the eukaryotic lex. Has very smooth histogram crenelations and several branes for locusality bondage with anchor frondlings in the spatial (given neuromorphic mapping tensor) where it engages to its host's nervous tissues in the cranial and spinal nerve endings and their metaphori analogues as well as available secondary microbiota. Almost always uniquinal with no meo beyond the root.
When not spatially integrated the locusality bondage frondlings invert and smooth along the octiplex's truncation as the rest of the quasispiral unfurls into wider contexts so the organism can perform free shifting within the usual range for Akolouthimnimos. It however has more restricted metaphori syntactic anchor complements then normal missing the Phi through Kappa compatibility clauses.
As in all Meo M. Anthropoiensis is highly valued for its hypertrophied encoder and encrypticulture. It is not the most highly optimized to encryption for its genus.
However for caloric cost and upkeep this species in particular is difficult to match in security of data transmission. It can be difficult to ensure accurate content transfer as needed for some applications without modification or extensive domestication however.
And there goes any pretense that I understand what's going on here!
I do know a couple of the words here though. Ana and kata are the 4d extension of up/down, back/forth, and left/right, which is one more dimension then this universe normally seems to contain. "genuflexual syntactics in the eukaryotic lex" is possibly a reference to the kind of lifeform these spirits bond with and think for, and the next sentence seems to be about how they do that. "Almost always uniquinal with no meo beyond the root" probably means "humans rarely have multiple personality disorder".
The next paragraph talks about how souls move through whatever space resonance entities exist in, and the missing compatibility clauses might be about how souls are naturally blind?
The final part is a little worrying, but also relates to the prayer-as-encrypted-messaging thing we've heard about earlier.
In these cases polisivore predation on feral M. Anthropoiensis populations is considered preferable to more valuable settlements being attacked or destroyed.
The important thing to remember is to consider how you could branch or replace each of those 'repetitions' with other things. And how wide that could very well be.
Cantia is a Domain, which is comparable to Eukaryota, Archea and Bacteria.
Cryptoancoris is comparable to all animals, or plants or fungus.
Spirit ecology does that, honestly it would be easier to understand if the reef did work in explicit layers or planes like most fictions do. But it does not. It is all quite a bit more messy then that. Although I'll give you a hint there on one word that's a bit obscure outside of computer science circles:
Regiis Concordica, Abyssal Royal
Domain: Michakarya
Kingdom: Animalomorpha
Phylum: Radiovora
Class: Kaiju
Subclass: Rugaforma
Order: Subteiri
Family: Dynastii
Genus: Regiis
Species R. Concordica
Length: ~1 600 m
Phenotype Mass: ~4 372 850 000 kg
Pan-Species Resonance: Soprano-Bass
Individual Resonance: Soprano-Contralto
Conservation Status: Critically Endangered Least Concern.
A nominally sessile lithomorphic example of the class Kaiju.
Morphology is highly variable even within an individual from one observation to the next. There is a propensity for surface area maximization as is indicative of Rugaforma (although this classification is disputed), structural durability, low albedo and impermeability.
All of these features have been observed to be absent in R. Concordica individuals in rare instances and lack of one or more cannot guarantee accurate classification.
Surface features often have (but not always) extremes of refraction in all wavelengths which can lead to misclassification with G. Periculumercator or a related species.
Is commonly accompanied by its client species N. Troglodici and is closely associated with it.
There are Numerous behaviours that have been observed from R. Concordica included but not limited too:
Have been observed to spontaneously generate N. Troglodici when none are available within the environment and conditions would suit the client species.
Have been observed budding new individual R. Concordica and/or inert decoys/active facsimile.
Have been observed fusing with/cannibalizing other individuals and/or inert decoys/active facsimile.
Have been observed performing sacrificial eusociality or suicide for N. Troglodici populations or other organisms, species or ecospheres.
Have been observed performing ecogenesis for organisms unrelated to N. Troglodici.
Have been observed culling N. Troglodici populations or other organisms, species or ecospheres. (Even those created by that specific R. Concordica).
Communities of N. Troglodici have highly variable memetic associations with R. Concordica depending on the population.
Other species have also imitated N. Troglodici and/or developed similar dynamics to a R. Concordica.
Any apparent structure that appears to be a R. Concordica in such a community is possibly an active facsimile or inert decoy depending on the situation. This should be considered a possibility even if there is substantial corroborating evidence contrary to it.
Especially if there is corroborating evidence not cryptosigned by a deity of Imperial authority in control of more than fifteen star-hallows.
When motile R. Concordica or its active facsimile are capable of flexing at any point in their tissues or expelling material at high velocities both in attack, defense, acceleration or any combination thereof.
These should not be confused with comparable behaviour of other Kaiju or those observed previously in an individual or the species. Atomic structure and energetic profile of these emissions is highly variable and tunable by an individual R. Concordica or facsimile.
Individuals and Facsimiles can also induce critical atomic interactions in any point of their tissues as well as shape, cleave or otherwise subdivide their tissues arbitrarily to construct many forms of artifacts or molecular assemblies.
R. Concordica and their active facsimiles should be assumed to have access to any technological tools it is possible to construct within the limit of their individual energy budget.
They may not make use of them even unto total destruction but this does not mean they could not have.
R. Concordica are extremely diverse in their diet. With observations of them (or active facsimile) subsisting on numerous imbalances for harvesting metabolic energy including: thermal, chemical, electrical and of course as in all kaiju atomic fission decay and the resultant products. While not confirmed for this species, extrapolating of other Kaiju it is likely that while they can gain energy from other sources, fissile materials are preferred and unavailability leads to malnutrition, but is not lethal.
All observations of lethality from malnutrition of this kind in R. Concordica to date have turned out to be false.
R. Concordica and their active facsimile are extremely cosmopolitan in range but otherwise quite rare.
Due to the species' reclusive behaviour and their ability to subsist on thermal differentials they are most reliably found embedded in the abyssal zones of reef substrate where they will form highly diffuse colonies.
When identified these colonies have been observed to remain stable if otherwise undisturbed by predators, competition or reef structure instability. All long standing observations of a R. Concordica colonies to date have either witnessed such a disruption or the sponsoring organization has ceased to exist for unrelated reasons.
Due to the remoteness of their most common habitat it is far more common to find evidence of R. Concordica several steps removed then to witness or engage with one directly. However this risks misidentification of completely unrelated memetica or even parasitic polisivore organisms.
This indirect influence tendency is also not universal. R. Concordica have been found in Polity of all sizes to varying degrees of prominence and also as members of crew aboard trade ships or as members of reef wall caravan populations.
They are for varied reasons ostracized when found in Low to High Urban polity. Reports as to why are diverse but generally their reclusive and manipulative nature is given. This leads to their classification as pests or otherwise disruptive effect to the functioning of all urban polity.
This incompatibility is believed to be why R. Concordica mass migrations will occur in otherwise accommodating polity as a prelude to that territory's rise to success. But as with everything relating to the species these actions cannot be considered consistent or wholly predictable.
They also have been observed to mass migrate out of polity which are imminently going to be the epicenter of an extinction bubble.
They have equally been observed to remain and either weather the extinction bubble or succumb to it.
As a whole R. Concordica are manipulative and viewed by many species to be borderline if not completely amoral. Interestingly even among N. Troglodici this sentiment has been observed.
Due to all of these factors accurate Identification is highly problematic and many false flags should be expected even among experienced and well backed expert systems and organizations in the field.
Suspected identifications of the actual physical location of an example of R. Concordica or its influence should be given even odds of being a ruse or decoy by R. Concordica unless it is verified by the authority of an Empire or Organization controlling at least Fifteen Stellar Hallows.
When isolated the computational and energetic output capabilities of a single R. Concordica should be in theory tractable and manageable for even sub polity populations and organizations.
An individual is only capable of causing a 1 vs 1000 disparity for five to ten external seconds in temporal discontinuities via directed processing. This can extend up a range of four meters from its surface.
This capability regardless of R. Concordica laws and restrictions put their living tissue in the category of controlled or forbidden substrates within developed regions and Polity that have inhabitants or equipment with sensitivities to such effects. However this effect is triggered by the organisms for reasons that are yet unknown.
Energetically individual R. Concordica are comparable to other species in the class Kaiju for their mass and are notable for having a novel but highly unstable reso-chemical storage system for storing their metabolic reserves long term.
This reso-chemical decays rapidly into a liquid solution of highly unstable radioactive elements containing but not limited to Plutonium, Uranium, Potassium and several other heavy metals.
Without active metabolic processes this decay will occur almost instantly and can cause immediate criticality if the individual does not arrange its internal structure to avoid it beforehand.
Individuals often do this but it is not certain.
Given the above while potent and undeniably a dangerous life form a single R. Concordica would be expected to be well within the means of even poorly defended ports to manage with local militia or even citizen vigilantism.
However it should never be assumed that an isolated R. Concordica is acting solely on a plan devised only by that individual or is only benefiting from its own resources.
All examples of R. Concordica actively coordinate with all other examples of the species and any theorized but yet undiscovered/uncreated examples of the Regiis genus are believed to be included in this cooperation.
While communication of truly novel information still must be transmitted between individuals by either resonance or other means and can be prevented by keeping them out of proximity of each other or any shared means to provide messages to each other their coordination is retained despite extensive attempts to subvert it through false stimulation/environmental conditions.
Their use of data payloads for other R. Concordica is believed to be a factor that complicates proper isolation but even when all physical matter and processing systems involved have been rendered uniform and sanitized there have been instances of apparent communication.
This cooperation is believed to be caused by a genetic integration of a memetica symbiont related to the decision theory hypothesized to cause coordination in Orz (P. Xenologia) and Cats (P. Ailouros), but for obvious reasons this has not and will never be confirmed.
Another possible cause is cryptic resonance synchronization akin to a more subtle and evolved variant of the well known ones used by the Deus genus, but in this case behavior necessitates presuming an extreme level of obfuscation.
No attempt to break R. Concordica coordination has ever succeeded despite numerous attempts to perform domestication or naturalization by up to Fifteen Stellar Hallow controlling Empires or equivalents in available records.
No attempt in available records has ever been undertaken by any organization above this size and authorities and oracles from such have reported that to do so would either violate necessary treaties or be a waste of valuable resources that far exceed the expected utility of a tamed variant of the organisms.
Fossil records, lineage investigations, historical trawls, dissection and direct interviews have been attempted to identify any lineages which share a common ancestor with R. Concordica in hopes of developing a comparable but more beneficial form of this coordination for imperial ends.
No extant or extinct species have been found which share more than a class with R. Concordica and none of those share its specific coordination adaptation. They are thus classified in a family alone due to their significant divergence from all other identified life.
Due to the computational capacity available to the combined and unified abilities of all R. Concordica theorized and their propensity for obfuscation and outright falsification of evidence relating to themselves extreme measures are required for any documentation or verification of data relating to them.
If proof of R. Concordica lineage are believed to be found; it is required that they be subjected to at least a Twenty-Seven stellar hallow controlling Empire's major decryption and memetic verification facility or equivalent before they can be amended to this document.
If direct contact (within three hundred meters of surface) with a R. Concordica is believed it is recommended to expect to have been utilized in several payloads either through memetic or molecular manipulation.
Indirect contact through intermediaries is possible to lead to payloads as well but will be significantly more obvious and easily screened and treated by most medical facilities.
Carrying such a payload in either case may bar an individual from certain sensitive locations or require memetic or molecular sanitization in some territories depending on local policy.
Even if one is subjected to such a payload it is not to be considered catastrophic.
To date seven hundred and six extant and extinct stellar empires over three million years have confirmed that the pan-species organism that R. Concordica and its cooperation models hold only the goal for its continued preservation and that of its client species N. Troglodici .
There is also stated that there is no interest in the affairs of other organisms, organizations or polities beyond how they impact this goal.
Given this payloads should be considered mostly harmless.
I feel like reading this entry is probably a memetic payload vector. But it does say that the memetic payloads are mostly harmless, so I'm going to stop worrying about it.
They're part of a pair with another species that has turned up as a semi cameo from one of my earlier stories that was sadly mostly lost in a great archive wipe.
Reader on space battles requested some details on them (Which I'm still taking suggestions for codex entries by the way). This also contains further hints on the nature of what the Reef considers Urban. Those places are the source of City Magic like Brushie.
Wait, what? I always got the impression that Royals considered Deep Nobles to be something like a useful tool rather then something they assign intrinsic value to. (Is there really a sharp distinction between the two? Elder Deep Nobles seemed kind of Royal in some ways, and the ending of Deep Rise seems to imply some kind of transition is possible...)
Any apparent structure that appears to be a R. Concordica in such a community is possibly an active facsimile or inert decoy depending on the situation. This should be considered a possibility even if there is substantial corroborating evidence contrary to it.
Suspected identifications of the actual physical location of an example of R. Concordica or its influence should be given even odds of being a ruse or decoy by R. Concordica unless it is verified by the authority of an Empire or Organization controlling at least Fifteen Stellar Hallows.
I wonder what the significance of controlling 15 stellar hallows is. Obviously any civilization that large has a huge amount of resources, but that doesn't seem to imply expertise in any specific domain that would be sufficient to overcome the deceptions of a Royal. It's not just a generic threshold for "big" either since the threshold for updating that document is 27 stellar hallows. We also hear that no one below that threshold has succeeded at subverting them, and no one above it has tried.
That seems to imply that there are some abilities and knowledge that appear ~as soon as you cross some size threshold regardless of how you get there. Weird.
To date seven hundred and six extant and extinct stellar empires over three million years have confirmed that the pan-species organism that R. Concordica and its cooperation models hold only the goal for its continued preservation and that of its client species N. Troglodici .
I'm not sure I buy that? They're way too mysterious for that to be all they're interested in. But it does make sense for an evolved species (though I'm not sure they evolved either...) and technically everything we saw in Deep Rise was compatible with a convoluted (and failed, if I understand the ending right?) plot to defeat Her.
Omega jolted awake with her head ringing a little bit and no clear idea as to why.
She tasted something welcoming and her nose was full of the smell of pink. There was also a faint chiming of joy. A shake of her head and she realized they were somewhere else.
Or actually craning her head back they were further along in the whole massive enclosed space then they had been when she passed out.
Gliding alone with their entourage in a clear bubble. Either by momentum or some other mechanism towards a gap between three sharp white spikes. The forms of each unwove into braids and intricate weaves like they were half grown and half carved in a purest white ivory.
The crowds behind them were growing thick, churning into huge vast clouds and shoals of people sweeping through and over each other. Like the vastest overwhelming sky full of birds that she had seen once as a child in her first life and imagined she dreamed til one day in the University.
There she learned the half forgotten dream that had seemed like utter childish fantasy in later lives was real.
The birds came to Terra once every three-and-a-half centuries, they descended from the sky and spread their wings and song filled the air like the chorus of the soul made audible.
They nested in profusion and overwhelmed every predator and people local to Terra with their eggs.
She did not hold onto the memory of months afterwards where apparently people were literally tripping over the eggs in their bedrooms.
She didn't remember all the amazing or awful dishes that were made out of the abundance in every nation of Terra. Or any of the other little drudgeries or facts or annoyances of that magical time as a child when the sky came alive.
But she had the wondrous dream of a child with a sky full of life.
And now she had a new memory to rhyme with it and root it deeper into her soul.
These people filled the space in clouds and flocks so thick they moved more like a living vapor and at the edges seemed an utterly solid prismatic shimmer of undulating fluid.
They streamed in a choreography around and behind her procession with a coordination that was amazing.
It was a dance that filled the sky.
It was made of individual choreographies that nestled into ever larger and larger patterns.
And there was actual audible music!
Muffled by the bubble and Foreign and alien yes. But she could appreciate how it was similar to what Pylo had been directly translating before.
Quarti was awake, and poking her hand out of the bubble-
Quarti was sticking her hand out of the bubble!?
"QUARTI! What are you doing?!"
That drew one of the souls nestled in its crystal to slightly more wakefulness and a softly murmured thought of exaltation for the dream empress.
Omega found herself flinching into a scowl at that. The souls were not supposed to be that awake yet, she must have overfed them when she was binging on everything cultural before.
The prophet who she refused to think in such flowery and creepily obsessive language turned to her and pulled the hand back into the bubble and licked the palm before flashing that sharp toothed grin of hers.
"Howda Bluebelle-o-my heart skankoriffic. Wot'sthe limpetletin dogmati doin on yon vuffletugfan?"
Omega was momentarily distracted, one of the allusions coming on a lot clearer than before.
"Wot'sthe I mean what is going on?! You just stuck your hand out into hard vacuum!"
Quarti laughed and 'dunked' her head OUT of the bubble giving a ripple in the membrane before rolling back in.
"Nain't!"
Omega was already tackling the prophet to check her eyes for damage. But it was actually not all that bad at all. There was a whiff of something wet and slightly sweet, with a sharp tang.
No damage to the capillaries, no signs of bruising. What the?
Quarti continued laughing and inanely babbling.
"Didjjohn wake up smelling pink big welcomeness? Is bubble all cozy beamish for yon be us! Otherwise ether-wid git down ya gongliblier! Ahm fain agn delicate lady of cleanest virtues"
Quarti of course licked her eye then. Which was gross and STUNG!
"Quarti! Euygh! Don't Do that! And no I don't care if you made sure it would be clean and perfectly safe! I don't want your TONGUE ON MY EYE!"
And then the prophetess leaped in that graceful way she had managed ever since they first entered free fall so long ago.
Hooking her foot on part of the cushion for the controller plinth for the walker. Sweeping nearly her entire body OUT of the bubble. With a muffled whooping laughter sounding through the membrane finally catching up to Omega's ear and slowly penetrating the fog and confusion of not having her whole suite of expertise on hand.
"Wait... The bubble should not have let you through at all."
Quarti finished her little sweeping arc slipping into the bubble from the opposite side and 'below' catching herself with her hands to arrest the momentum.
It made the walker flail its legs in little spinning whorls but managed to keep Aleph serenely undisturbed where she floated asleep.
"Yosh wosh toldjin jia?"
Omega blinked a few times putting it straight in her head with only her own knowledge. She wished she had decided to fit more souls in her little satchel but there had been sparse volunteers.
But no, that was how she used to do things.
Right.
"There's an atmosphere out there."
Quarti bobbed her head and grinned like a feral monster from a fairytale.
"Aye-ja"
She sniffed the air, there was a scent to it that was different from home. Different from the old habitat cans they had started with.
Earthy, pungent, animal and sweet with a strange tang to it.
"And the air is breathable?"
Quarti shrugged.
"Didnay know wot yet. Don't sting, Don't fiddlewith the tingles, taste strange, not certain of wholesomeness. Rankly some is."
Omega frowned, getting a grasp on it.
"And what about getting sick?"
That got Quarti to still.
"Oh."
The sound of her voice was a bit wrong somehow even in so small a word.
"I Forgot about that."
The utter clarity and lack of even one of the archaic brogues or the musical lilt of a story teller in her diction caught Omega completely off guard.
It made Quarti sound entirely different.
"What do you mean you forgot about that?"
Quarti looked around in quick sharp motions before shouting.
"Aleph! Wake up! Suits! Contamination Protocol!"
The words were precise, curt and exactly how Omega remembered they were drilled as a cursory exam prior to acceptance onto the mission.
Aleph had practically slept through it and Omega knew the procedures well enough to train her protege at the time even without a skillshare.
It woke up Aleph like a shot of electricity to the spine and she was over and donning one of the suits with practiced ease even before she was probably fully aware of what was going on.
Omega was only a short few blinks behind her.
Quarti followed soon after.
All the commotion drew Squidie's attention outside and then from the way she gestured seemed to draw Pylo's direct attention away from whatever she was talking about to the fluffy frogs.
"What the? Why is everyone panicking? We-" there was not a stutter, just a glance and then a brief shudder from Quarti, And then the siren and the words were smoothly flowing in another pattern.
"Oh for the love of- Quarti! You are not going to give everyone here a terrible disease because you popped your head out of the bubble! Stop panicking!"
The low keening breathy whining was more an animal noise from Quarti then any words. But apparently it was good enough for the alien omniglot.
"I ~asked~ nothing in the local air should even inconvenience you. Especially not in the bubble... Wait why were you poking out of the bubble?!"
Higher pitched keening with a tilting whine. Something almost syllabic.
"Stupid bubble wrap. But no nothing dangerous you won't get sick from the air here."
Squidgie slowly wiggled into the bubble to speak.
"Actually ma'am According to El-sie there could have very well been something dangerous, proper procedure is called for-"
The clerk blinked and then considered the suits they were wearing with the symbolic imitation of a bit lip and then a grimace.
"However anything particularly dangerous by most standards would go through those suits like rancid tissues."
That brought a huff of irritation from Pylo who spoke again.
"But I ~asked~ and nothing here even specializes in horribilomorbus tissues. Let alone the specific lineage of Terrans. But if you are really that worried I could give you all an extra strong tag for the duration but that would take a while."
Elsie swung into view and their voice chimed in over the translation box wedged in one side of the bubble.
"I believe that would be a poor choice of action, Shipmistress Pylo."
Which prompted a shrug from the siren and then she was looking over all three of them. Quarti seeming to get herself back under control and Aleph slowly easing out of panicked training.
"Well since you are all awake now. I can introduce you properly, We are about to approach the grand feast of welcoming. I've had several discussions with the food preparers and the Chief Hospilitar will be seeing to you personally as well so you should be able to partake perfectly fine."
Aleph blinked a few times. Still apparently getting herself collected after the jolt to full alert.
"Wait?! We can eat the alien food?"
Pylo nodded and flashed a warm smile.
"Yes! Well, a small fraction of it, but it should be more than enough. It would be very insulting of the People to serve my guests only food they could not partake in. So necessary arrangements are already in motion."
Omega rolled the souls available to her around in her share and grimaced a bit.
She definitely had not packed enough expertise for handling this particular challenge.
And we are back folks!
I'm starting to feel a bit better, stress in the world has been getting to me a bit much but I'm slowly putting stuff back together and getting myself going on things.
I am now cross posting this story over to a Royal Road Mirror It's still quite a bit behind this one but seems like not a bad spot to share the story as well.
Top Web Fiction needs more votes from you so more people can find out about this story. If you want to see where Onward to Providence Ranks click on the Science Fiction link in the upper right.
After the panic of waking up to the ingrained alarm of a possible biohazard breach she was justifiably jittery.
It seemed like everything was going to be alright, but it took time to calm down.
And her jitters were not being helped with Squidgy's explanation that apparently the terran made polymers and materials that had been expected to be impervious to organic intrusions were anything but.
"-numerous vacuum adapted organisms have enzymes for readily break down those suits. It's not really a concern when aboard Tunie. Her immune system is quite aggressive in sterilizing everything of the sort from her holds but-"
She decided to cut off her overexcited ward.
"So you are telling us that the suits that protect us from vacuum are essentially biodegradable? That they are liable to rot away as soon as anything even vaguely like a... a... decomposing bacteria even lands on it?"
Elsie had apparently moved on to look at or talk with some of the other frog people.
"Oh! No no not bacteria, Well not in a vacuum anyway. Symbiotic digesters in-"
Aleph waved a hand to get her wards attention.
"Squidgee focus. Important safety features!"
"-are quite too small to- Oh sorry ma'am! Uhm, somewhat? It actually could already have started happening let me get a taste."
Squidgie stuck a finger into a socket at her neck then ran it up and down Aleph's suited arm twice before sticking it back against her neck and getting a thoughtful expression.
"Hummmm. Yes, there are already a few signs of cultures on the surface liable to degrade it. Maybe a contaminant from the local fauna? I'll need to have Ship Mistress Pylo or Custodian Elsie verify it. Really we should probably get all of you something a lot more durable and properly preserved from putrefaction-"
That was enough for Aleph honestly.
She started disrobing and packing up the suit. Not thinking too hard about the thought that apparently it was already rotting.
That was going to be annoying, they probably needed to burn all of these and switch to the spares.
Which come to think of it? They needed to check because all the material used to seal them might be rotting in something too.
But that would have to wait until after. Right now they were approaching a-
Aleph was not even sure what exactly to call it?
It was a bit like a bush, spiraling out from its position perched in the air between three of what she was coming to realize were utterly massive ivory white spires.
The space felt so enormous.
She had hung by a thread in the open void with Tunie before.
But in some strange way being wrapped up in a significantly smaller envelope felt all the bigger than apprehending an entire star hollow.
The way in which the bush was not really like a bush at all was in how regular it all was.
With exacting angles to every bend, branch and spacing. Not to mention that as she got closer it became clear that it was not really all one piece either.
Furthermore it was still being added too as they approached.
Faintly curved nearly white structures that seemed to almost be trees but for their own regularity and almost abstract shapes.
Guided into position with the others, arrested by hand or the application of one of those strange staff things that many of the frogs seemed to have.
She was still not sure what exactly conveyed the things. Maybe it was resonance? Maybe it was magnets? Air pressure? Something else completely unknown to terran science?
As she watched the mostly spherical sculpture arrange itself as they approached a figure broke off from the milling, swirling crowds of working frog creatures.
She probably should start thinking of them how they wanted to be called?
But then again.
"Allow me to Introduce Chief Hospitalitor Tilafareidola. Esteemed Master of Ceremonies in feasting. Trainer of chefs and Tender of guests. Highest lorekeeper of the workings of hearth writers and temper-soothers of the inner circle."
The Chief Hospitalitor was quite surprisingly very short haired compared to the voluminous and drifting braids present on most of the others.
The words as translated by Pylo were deep and buzzing like many others that had spoken to them. The timbre made Aleph a bit nervous, it was almost like a growling animal or the deeper howl of wind in the canyons.
It reminded her of beasts of burden that were still used in the lower valleys deep in the cliffs.
She thought they were called orx? Maybe Ox? She never paid all that much attention to them.
"Lo guests of Pylo Daught of Courtesan, Here you be. Let's have a look and a check on you?"
Notably the figure drifted up to the bubble with no apparent conveyance. A trick Aleph noticed seemed a bit rare.
And then he was pressing through and into the space, causing her to recoil back a bit.
The reaction made the fr- the person pause and then continue at a slower pace.
"Heed no fear, no fear, just a working of my ways. I need a chance to touch and sing the words to your bones, We know the wordsong spoken true by Pylo Daughter of Courtesan."
He inclined his head a bit and blinked slow at Pylo before turning back to Aleph and then Omega, Quarti and even Squidgie in turn.
"But to know a thing is to hold it true. And I would risk no life or limb a guest to our feasts so honored with merely the whispered word of hear say. I would know the truth in my own hand and mind first so be it on my honor as Hospitalitor."
He offered a hand and while Aleph was still trying to get herself settled and ready Quarti bound up and faceplanted right into his palm.
There was not even the slightest incredulity before the fingers closed loosely around the back of her head. Engulfing Quarti;s entire skull in the alien figure.
And then there was a shrill almost imperceptible chirping hum that made the air almost tingle.
And then Quarti was gently pushed away and another hand offered.
Omega beat her to the test now, looking at the hand before offering her own palm to him.
"It's alright if it's just a hand right? We are not all like Quarti."
Tilafareidola did that thing with parting lips that meant he was nodding but if you did not know that kind of suggested a hungry leer in Aleph's opinion.
Although holding both ideas in her head at once was somehow kind of tricky right that moment.
She gave a glance at Pylo who made a vaguely apologetic dip of the head.
Ah there now she could hold both ideas and once and oh now she missed the chance and Squidgie was offering a hand to the Hospitalitor.
"I should warn sir, that I am not a terran and will have a different set of dietary considerations and intolerances. But I welcome the chance to assure your honor is met."
He gaped slightly in ascent to her and then again the buzzing almost chirping that just wavered in and out of audibility.
After that he released Squidgie to drift away with a murmuring soft complement of "such fine handcraft".
Which made Squidgie blush and bob her head.
And then Aleph had her turn, she offered her hand to the figure and he took it, the texture was much warmer and softer then she was expecting. Almost hot and very dry. The similarity to frogs had been having Aleph expecting something cool and wet but it was if anything completely the opposite.
And then she felt the buzzing chirp and a tingling rattle in her hairs and skin. Even her eyelashes!
It was strange and suffusing.
When she let her jaw close slightly a faintest buzzy grating in her teeth shocked her a bit.
And then it was over and the Hospitalitor was gaping ascent and then rolling all four of his eyes closed in sequence.
"I see, I see, you are not so different from a still brooded child. A bit lopsided compared to even the most imbalanced order or school of athleticism. Such a small mouth, soft in the tooth, no metal."
He nodded and glanced at Pylo and then Squidgie with a fluttering in his eyes that Aleph though was something similar to what Quarti sometimes did.
"I think I can direct several proper dishes for you. But of your tastes? What do you like?"
Omega was quick to speak up.
"You aren't going to just feed us something that forces us to be happy are you? We've had that happen before."
Pylo huffed in agitation and there was an undercurrent of anger there but nothing clear.
Tilafareidola considered a moment before laughing and shaking his head.
"No no, we are not so crude as to drug our guests! Truly you have had such trials in the forest beyond the forest? What strange monsters would be so terrible to guests?"
He grew somber after the roiling eye blinks of laughter.
"No, please do not fear between the work of myself and Pylo there will be nothing of that sort of impropriety. But you must have dishes you favor and enjoy? Flavors? Things of your home that you hunt and prepare? Tell me of them."
Before she even realized properly what she was saying she was speaking.
"There's a sandwich we used to have back home, it was uh, grains ground into a bread and then sliced up so you could hold things between them..."
She started to feel foolish, like the alien would be able to understand the idea of a sandwich.
But he simply nodded and murmured intently.
"Right well the sandwich has a fruit in it, that is salty and juicy, it's a tomato. We have some of those on the... on Tunie if you need an example. Um but then there is also lettuce, and ba- a meat from a fat animal that has been cooked til it's crispy but still juicy. It's salted too and then there's "
And at that point she felt tears in her eyes because it had been years and none of them had managed to find a way to make the stuff right ever since leaving terra and Aleph had not realized when she left how much she was going to miss something so simple and stupid.
"There's a sauce... uh I think it's made out of an oil and egg, and uh spices that makes it kind of sweet and kind of salty and just... yeah I haven't had that in a while and..."
And now she was feeling lost and choked up over a stupid sandwich.
But at the same time it just was hitting her all at once in that moment.
It had been years since Aleph had last tasted a bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise sandwich.
And as if the memory was a thread she could not stop pulling at suddenly the enormity of everything else on terra she would never hear or smell or taste again just kind of unrolled all at once.
Everything they had brought with them was the only things of home she would ever know again.
In the weight of that realization she kind of lost track of what Quarti and Omega said about food.
But she felt gentle, alien and yet wholly familiar hands on her back, shoulder and elbow.
It was the gentle touch of Squidgie.
A glance over her shoulder to the friendly abstraction of a comforting face was blurry through the tears sticking in a blobby mess to her eyes.
And then with a few dabs of a towel they were pulled away.
She found herself smiling wide to her ward who beamed back.
Terra was gone but her home was here with her.
Getting back into writing here. Sorry for long delay, life has been simultaneously really mind numbingly dull and super stressful as you all I'm sure have noticed.
I think I found a better stride for things but we will see.
Top Web Fiction needs more votes from you so more people can find out about this story. If you want to see where Onward to Providence Ranks click on the Science Fiction link in the upper right.
Pylo was thankful for the practice she had gotten with Omega.
It had never exactly been a problem she considered before. Yes the mechanism of enzyme matching, mutualistic sub-organisms and immune response was obviously very much in the realm of talking.
Her family's dialect was rich in many flavors of those very same things.
So in principle it was not out of the question to be trying to translate the intricate chain of immuno-chemo-receptor-to-ganglia-network-associative-complex that was meant when Aleph described a 'flavor'.
But it was a kind of talking she'd never had to translate between two people far as she remembered.
It might have even caused her to stumble in the past with it.
But she had gotten practice.
Watching Omega struggle outside her niche to perform the task with Pylo had been amusing and kind of quaint at first.
Terrans were obviously a poor fit for the niche of translators. Their cognition was by several measures actively obfuscated!
Even from themselves.
But the results of The Cake spoke for itself. Omega had performed beyond adequately even by a siren's standards as far as Pylo was concerned.
It gave Pylo a bit of a cooling pleasant feeling to see someone succeeding so far out of their niche.
Granted she had performed it working directly with a Siren so there was certainly some portion of the credit due to Pylo herself.
Regardless it was an incredible, personal and bizarre exercise that should probably have been entirely lost in its unique and inapplicable oddity.
But the exercise was amazingly proving to be immediately topical and relevant to this exact moment such a short time later.
Who would have predicted that?
Probably ▙◀ honestly.
Which was apparently getting overly distracted by all the sights and sounds and chemical traces and all manner of other interactions.
It was a side of the Micro-polity Pylo grudgingly had to say was kind of endearing. For all the stuffy self centered canner philosophy that bled off the entire arrangement of ▙◀ like a sterilizing curse there was that one endearing quality.
The Micro-Polity was as wide eye'd in wonderment at the new and profoundly strange as the Terrans.
They had not left Redweed for generations of franchises.
And this was all a place of new wonder and amazement for them.
Before the Terrans Pylo would have had some confusion over that.
She had learned.
It helped to think of them all as like infants.
She was never going to be a creche sister taking care of all the youngest sisters and nieces. There was little appeal for that and she knew she was far too incompetent for it.
But she was a Siren.
And she had to admit that when you let the situation go fuzzy and indistinct in that way things in the deeper cortices sometimes were this behaviour was like being an infant.
The Terrans and even ▙◀ (revolting as the association was) were like children, still learning.
Unsure and stumbling in something strange and new and fresh and raw and unaware of all the dangers or delights to be had.
It was even more true in regards to the Clerk that Aleph had made a reasonable attempt at properly acknowledging and caring for in a non-abusive arrangement.
But back to the momentary tasks at hand!
Translation!
Life of her lineage, depth of her cortices.
The pride of her family and clan!
In her own personal quarters a thing that Pylo suspected she was never as good as her sisters at.
The Hospitalitor Tilafareidola was eager to serve and honor Pylo's guests. With a flavor and sense to the intent that was so close to Omega's adventure in baking from earlier the entire process flowed like a well used metaphor.
Pylo whispered an underlying explanation as each Terran spoke, found the enzymic parallels and immunological and heritable associatives factors. The baked-in (Hah!) niche associations.
As Omega had done for her before. So here Pylo did for them and more. Taking the words and sensations and precise contacts, smells and scents and showing to the Hospitalitor the ingredients and knowledge that would mean and evoke in the Terrans.
Each of them was different. Quarti had old associations and deep strange flavors in her preference. Reimagined with each iteration of her host flesh.
Omega had a deep love of salt and sugar in a quality and blending that disgusted the other two.
Aleph was all about the fat and flavor of flesh.
Pylo needed to unwrap that and reform it into both the truth of it and also the sensational pattern as would match Tilafareidola's own senses so that she could understand it.
She-
Oh that was a bit much!
The poor Hospitalitor needed her to slow down in the sharing and associations. It was fortunate they were presently swimming through such a Terran friendly soup of fizzing fluid.
It made heat venting so much cheaper for one of The People.
Still that was a stupid childish mistake.
She offered a sincere apology to poor Tilafareidola. Which was dutifully and by honor and politeness waved off. Even though silently the relief acknowledged and appreciated the courtesy.
Pylo was certain that none of her perfect sisters would have made such an awful faux pas to even begin to overwhelm their speaking partners unintentionally.
She was such a sorry excuse of an example of a Courtesan.
Something she knew was only going to become all the more obvious and biting when she finally got around to reading her Mother's cache of pollen.
Memories and context lighting up fresh and sharp and clear. Things that she had quite comfortably buried into nothing but a dull ache and sense of inadequacy.
Wounds of the past changed so that they were easily ignored and drowned in drink and labor.
She shuddered and turned her attention back to the upcoming feast.
There would be plenty of murmuring and conversation and subtle little interplays between all the different clans and orders and countries and classes and layers and interplays of society that The People and Tradition formed and shared.
Plenty of distractions and delights and things to do so she could not think about the upcoming upheaval of her family's many missives and updates and love and well wishes and so many other things that Pylo did not even properly remember.
But knew she would.
It would all be fresh and raw and painful like every other time.
And it would take so many more trips for her to bury it.
Forget it.
Finally let the memories die agai-
Oh good Tilafareidola was cooled down enough to take in the rest of the update!
Now how to get across the concept of sweetness?
Terrans were very keen on it and had several different nuances in detecting many associated and distinct variations on the idea from very different chemical sources.
Far in excess of The People's simpler appreciation for glucose or caloric density.
Hmmm well metabolically Pylo supposed that she could maybe explain it as being similar to that?
Maybe.
It was such a rich and diverse distraction.
No need to think about the imminent future and the turmoil of the soon to be recovered past.
I am now cross posting this story over to a Royal Road Mirror.
I've been hearing that Top Web Fiction is closing down, thanks for all the votes there. If anyone has recommendations for alternative avenues to promote this story I'd appreciate hearing them.
The Hospitalitor was asking some very similar questions as she had once asked Pylo.
"I see, you make these seeds into a powdery meal? And so many varieties with such bland flavors? And all of the mixing with eggs and milk? Like a loaf? But you heat it... Hmmm"
Omega wondered how many of those things were translating right.
Were the terrans coming across as weird as Pylo once had?
Or was everything she was saying finding a proper fit in the Hospitalitor's head like what she was hearing from it?
Periodically the figure which was by all accounts a great fuzzy beast dressed up in finery would suddenly breath very rapidly while saying nothing at all. The throat/neck pulsing on the top and bottom as it- no as HE seemed to need to catch his breath.
She wondered what that was about.
Either way she really should not be thinking of HIM like an animal.
This was a person and for some reason Pylo seemed to be translating them in a manner that definitely matched the andronic type.
Her grasp of biology and anatomy was not very deep without a soul-share. Was there something significant there?
Omega's own memories and those she let ride her knew of the type.
That children who took after it were much more common in the midlands. Compared to the near extinction of the trait in Aoria's relatively tiny population.
In modern Terran society andronism was very rare, she'd only known one or two of them in the university. And seen a couple out in public whenever she was out shopping.
Maybe there had been a few at the Port? It was hard to recall.
But in contrast at least every other one of 'The People' that they had met had spoken with cues that were distinctly terran andronic.
It was striking really the way that the tone was so much deeper. It paired closely to the actually audible 'speech' that hummed through you as much was heard when one was speaking in the same atmosphere. Although that bass tone was uniform to those that with normal voice translations and the strange other half.
She racked her brain and small council of souls for what that might mean culturally?
Was it some kind of minority that was highly prevalent?
Was there some kind of cultural selection for a rare trait in leadership among the People?
Some kind of wealth disparity?
Were the people's equivalent of the andronic traits just more inclined to diplomatic engagement?
She felt the itch of something she should be remembering that meant she had not associated the actual memory with something often worn in a soul share.
It was distracting and annoying.
Almost as much as the little fluttering leaps of her heart whenever she met Quarti's eyes.
Ugh.
Sycophants were awful soul share choices.
Muddied things up terribly.
Aleph was on point though so Omega's mildly stumbling confusion and tangent throwing thinking seemed to be alright.
"Yeah, it's to make the grains more digestible. Easier on our stomachs, more accessible calories, less diseases-"
The Hospitalitor did that mouth opening thing that was a nod.
"Ah yes yes, we cook many things like that. Just not this specific way of it for those specific things. Mincing and searing seeds? I will discuss it with my staff for later. A Curious Idea."
He sounded friendly enough with all of that to Omega.
He also simultaneously sounded like his voice was making her skin tremble like the skin of the drum.
With a mostly comparable density of atmosphere outside the bubble as inside it sound was getting a lote more readily passed through.
"I think that... yes we should have plenty of fine dishes you will all enjoy. In fact many of them should be quite delightful for each of your tongues."
Aleph spoke up again.
"You don't have to make all special copies of foods from our home! I mean what's the point of being in an alien port if we don't try new exotic things?"
He made a gesture to the side of his head with one hand and squinted with all four eyes in a friendly manner. It was if Omega was reading the cues from Pylo right a kind of congenial dismissal of a foolish thought and an absolving of potential dishonor.
Huh very dense gesture.
"Oh we won't even begin the attempt. Even among the people the masters of one order cannot hope to match the efforts of another's in the culinary traditions. We will prepare those foods of Tradition we know best but ensure that they will be palatable and safe for you."
He gaped that slight parting of lips that was a nod again.
"The servings so chosen will be close to your places at the feast. And fear not! You should not feel you must eat any if a flavor or smell is harsh or distasteful. We will hold no honor or insult if you find some clash with you. But I do hope each of you will find something to delight you. Now I must prepare my staff and the council of chefs of these tidings so they can be prepared to delight you."
And then he was off to the 'bush' of assembling branches and densely moving crowd of figures.
Steam, smoke and flashes of phosphorescence and maybe even fire were already wreathing the assemblage.
At some point Elsie had come around to drift beside them again.
"It's so beautifully done..."
The words were tinged with a hint of awe that Omega was not sure she had ever heard in the normally monotone voice that Elsie spoke with to the terrans. Especially not simultaneously sounding so much lower resolution.
The way that the bizarre slight glitching somehow emphasized the emotion rather than distracted put her into even further contemplations.
Aleph chuckled into the silence that had stretched out as they approached.
"Reminds me a bit of the fires and festivals in the valley after the Emerald spring rain."
She had to think hard to recall what Aleph was talking about but on reflection she had to agree. It was a lot like that. Distant bonfires far away.
But they were drifting leisurely down into it like a cloud.
"Yeah, It is and It's not."
It felt like such an inane thing to say and yet honestly Omega could not find better words.
The moment simply was.
It turns out that Top Web Fiction is staying up, just the companion website is going down, So feel free to send more votes. I am still interested in other avenues to share the story and promote so we can find those readers that really could use that special flavor that this fic provides.
