#Kepekape

[fenmere]

Kepekape, the home world of the Ktletaccete

(this was originally posted in a world building facebook group, but we think you might love reading about it here, too - and have feedback) OK, so. We're working on some world building that's a bit of a challenge for us.

It needs to fit some history we've already written into a series of nine novels. And it needs to serve the story we think we want to write.

We're going to ramble at you here and see if anyone likes our ideas, or has any suggestions or brainstorming to add. But also, we just want a place to write some of this down where someone can read it.

What we've got:

A fairly Earth-like world with life based on two kinds of XNA (it's not compatible with DNA, but works similarly to it). At some point in its past, there was alien contact with life that eventually evolved to be reasonably compatible with the indigenous life. So there are some surprising mixes of lifeforms.

There's been a lot of parallel evolution, so if humans were to visit, they'd see some understandable fundamentals, like vertebrates, arthropods, fish, etc.

The people are evolved from an amphibian-like ambush predator turned omnivorous. They still lay eggs and have a larval form (that looks a lot like a tadpole while still in the egg), and nymph form and adult forms after they hatch. When they reach adolescence, they go through a metamorphosis that is highly adaptable for their environment. To the point where they often look like multiple completely different species as adults.

Now that they've developed a civilization capable of creating a generational starship, their adolescent metamorphosis has become something they can sort of personally control, and neighboring children may grow up to be very different from each other. Personal special interests, economic status, gender roles, family dynamics, and all sorts of other factors of modern stress go into shaping their bodies. And medicine has reached a point where those that can afford it can purposefully induce desired traits.

Also, they're what we think of as hermaphroditic. They can change their functional sex at will, or sometimes the change is induced by stress. Occasionally, someone will end up with one set of dominant sex traits at adolescence and never change after that, even if they want to, but it's rare.

Their family structures are really different from humans, too. But we haven't quite nailed down HOW, yet. We just know that they're not what we think of as nuclear families. Child rearing is very different and fairly hands off. Adults make sure children are fed, but teaching and learning happens much more organically and communally. At least, for most of the countries on the planet. There are, of course, some outlying cultures that have different structures.

Something we want is no capitalism, in the strictest sense of the term, if we can get away with it. Basically, nothing like a stock market.

There are still big social and economic divides, including forms of exploitation. There is, after all, a global government at this point that has the power to focus a great deal of the planet's resources into making a truly huge spaceship for SOME reason. And not everyone is going to agree to that.

So, first big set of questions:

Do we go with some form of communism for the dominant economic structure?

Or is it really a dichotomy like that?

Could there be other forms of major economy besides these two axes that humans have been struggling with for the past couple hundred years?

There are fascism and dictatorship, of course, both of which can use either communism or capitalism for their economic structures. And certainly, there have been that kind of government on this planet, and likely still are. But we kind of want the dominant government to at least SEEM more egalitarian.

These people tend to highly value personal expression and the exploration of skills and arts, almost above all else. It's sort of an instinctual level drive. So whatever social structures they create, they'll at least cater to that drive, if not outright exploit it.

Cooperation and community are obviously important. Partly because we're limited enough that we can't imagine a starship building civilization without it. But also because we LIKE those traits.

One idea that comes to mind is to have an economy that is built on gifting. Where the person who gives the most away gets the most social power. This is not an original thought, though, and is based on what we learned about Pacific Northwest Indigenous cultures in college, so we're feeling a little cautious about that (both because we learned it from anthropologists not the people who've practiced it and because it's not our own culture).

Our goal is to show something that is different and alien SEEMING to most people who've grown up under capitalism or communism, to show that other models can be viable. But we're also very definitely showing that even when you're talking about aliens and other models of social structures, there can be major flaws such as exploitation and oppression.

But, we don't want to say, "See this idea here? This is worse than what we've got now."

We do think the rest of the series of novels does put it into a context that avoids that. But we're hesitant to use a model that's too close to something that's been oppressed here on Earth.

Anyway.

Maybe we could personalize it a bit more? Not gifts, so much as discoveries? The more that someone discovers, the more political, social, and economic power they're awarded?

So, you end up with a whole civilization of people who are trying to one up each other in their respective fields of study and craft.

Now.

Does this society need money?

It could certainly work by using something that is basically money. A note of genius, so to speak. But could it work without it?

Because money does seem to lend itself to stock markets, after all. And if we avoid money, then we avoid the stock market. Maybe we can lampshade it and just say there's no money, that's the way it is, and make it work regardless.

Though, we could just as easily say that there's money but no stock market.

Maybe the idea of a stock market is absolutely repugnant to these people. Basically, "You can't gamble with SCIENCE! And investing introduces bias!"

Hailing Scales. This implies their global government resembles the editorial review board of a scientific journal.

What think you?

[fenmere]

Causality

(this is chapter 13 of Crime-Cat and the Deliverator)

You look at the lamp very carefully, examining it with all of your senses. You do not see anything special about it, besides the entity that apparently lives within it.

You look around at the world, to see if you missed anything in all your time visiting the planet. There is nothing here that you would call "magic".

This is a curious warning. That there is only magic left for one wish.

You barely even think it, because you don't want to use up this being's precious resource by accident, but you do wish that Crime-Cat was here with you right now to help explain this thing you've found. It's something new. But, your team had split up for the day to explore different areas of the city's destroyed neighborhoods.

The only thing to do is to ask this creature some questions. Maybe you can help them.

"What did you say you were again?" you ask.

"My people have been called many things by many other peoples," they reply. "I think my favorite, from the people who've paid us the most respect since the end of our golden era, is 'djinn'. You may call me a djinn."

"I am not familiar with djinn," you say. "I've been on this world for several decades, and I have never encountered one of your kind. And, for some reason, no one has ever talked about you."

"Really," the djinn says. "We prefer to hide, and keep amongst ourselves, so it is not surprising you haven't encountered us. But, I am dismayed to learn that humans do not speak of us any more. It is good to be left alone, but it is not good to be forgotten."

You decide that it's important to introduce yourself, so you bow and say, "I am known here as the Deliverator. One of my first names I took when I introduced myself to humanity was Atriel, but it is not my name. My true name is my being, my existence, which you can see. And my English pronouns are they/them. It is a pleasure to meet you. I do not think I will forget you."

The djinn blinks, and says, "Thank you."

In the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to humans, they look like a tiny snake poking its head out of the lamp's aperture, taking the place of what would be the wick. The reasons that you know they are not a typical snake are that they talked to you, and that just outside of the visible spectrum they look very different. And with your causal senses, they look very, very different. It would be hard to describe to a human what exactly that looks like to you, because no human languages contain the necessary words.

The djinn bows in return and says, "I would rather not give you my name, if that is OK with you. But you may call me Flame, as I inhabit a lamp. And my pronouns may also be they/them."

You nod, "Thank you, Flame. Tell me about this magic, and about wishes. I can perceive quite a bit more than a human can, and I have seen many amazing feats performed here on Earth that defy physics. Some people have even called what they do 'magic'. But I have not seen or perceived or measured any sort of quantum to magic. Is it a kind of energy?" You almost stop there to let Flame answer, but more questions burn in your mind, "And do you mean there is only enough magic left to you? Locally? Or are you speaking more broadly? Can I help you get more?"

Flame tilts their head at you, and asks, "Where are you from?"

"A planet called Kepekape," you reply. "It is some 37 thousand light years from here."

"Would you like to go home?" Flame asks. "I can make that your wish, if you like."

You hesitate. OK. So, they are offering you a wish. And not asking for your help? You tilt your head back at them, and say, "No, thank you. I am not done with my work here. I have... messed things up a great deal, and want to at least set it right again."

The djinn squints at you, then looks around at the broken city that you are in, and asks, "Are you the cause of all this, then?"

"Tangentially, yes," you say. "The potential was already there. I merely performed the catalytic act, I think."

"What did you do?"

"I made a pizza."

Flame looks back at you, "I like talking to you. You really would try to get me more magic, if I needed it, even though you can't perceive it?"

You nod, "Yes. Especially if it would make up for my blunder. ... You're... not surprised about the pizza?"

"I have not seen worse than that, in all my time alive. But it's not entirely outside the realm of prediction," they say. "If you making pizza is what caused all of this destruction, I think I would rather not play games with you. I will be as honest as possible. There is only magic left for one wish. For me, that is always the case, even after I have granted one. It is one of my natural defenses. We djinn have found that in recent centuries, if we offer a human a wish, they will go away and leave us alone afterward. It is like a bargain of sorts. An agreement."

You weren't wearing your protective coloration when you found the djinn, so you need to double check something, "Did you mistake me for a human?"

"No," Flame says. "But you are clearly not a djinn, so I thought I would offer you the same bargain."

"Ah," you say. "I'll take it if it will make you feel better, and I will leave you alone afterward, if that's what you want. But I am not sure what I would do with a wish."

"You wouldn't use it to rectify your great error?" Flame asks.

"I would," you say cautiously. "But I am not sure what your magic can do. And I no longer trust myself with such broad strokes of action."

You take a look at causality again. It's painful. The chain of events from the pizza to now directly include the deaths of nearly three quarters of Earth's human population within the span of a couple years. Most of those deaths were caused by humans with what they call superpowers. With the help of Crime-Cat, you at least managed to prevent the launching of any nuclear weapons. And you did so while evading the minions of the Hut.

As you had said, the potential energy had already been there, waiting to be triggered. And your pizza was not the necessary trigger. It had only been a sufficient one. Or rather, your successful evasion of the Hut's wrath had been the sufficient trigger. The Hut had kept escalating.

In any case, the Hut has been dis-incorporated. The fighting has long ceased, and the world has been rebuilding for decades now. You've granted Crime-Cat and the rest of T.A.L.O.N. your anti-agapic technology, prolonging their lives, and you're "villainously" working to bring it to the rest of the world.

But you still feel guilty about the whole thing. And a bit shell shocked, as some humans would say.

Flame is studying you while you seem to think about this, but finally says, "Wishes are very powerful. I do not intend to undermine that promise in any way when I say this. But I cannot grant a magical wish that can undo actions that have been done in the past. I cannot bring back any number of lives. I can only work to alter the future for you."

You frown. It's not yourself that you would like to alter the future for. It's the world. It's humanity. And, perhaps, also for djinns, since they appear to share this world with humans, and you've doubtlessly destroyed their homes as well.

"How many djinn have died in the conflict I started?" you ask.

"I do not know," Flame responds, "I have been trapped in this, what used to be an antique shop, for quite some time. I think I missed it. I have not seen another djinn since."

"What if," you begin, thinking about these things slowly and carefully before proceeding. "What if I make a wish on your behalf."

"Please don't," Flame says easily.

"Why not?" you ask.

"If you baking a pizza is what caused all of this," Flame gestures at the destruction with their head, "then I really don't want to risk it. No offense."

"Understood," you say, crestfallen. "Perhaps it would be better if I just left, and let you be."

"I'd feel better if you made that wish," Flame says. "For yourself."

You study the little snake, and consider. Maybe this is part of the cost for your footprint on this world. Maybe fulfilling Flame's bargain is part of what you have to do to make repairs.

Very well.

"I wish to learn from my mistakes," you say.

Flame visibly relaxes, and says, "Ah. That's wise!" They nod, and conclude, "Here is my lesson to you, then: You should have been free to make that pizza without such horrific consequences. You cannot hold yourself to blame for the reactions of others. Especially if they were this disproportionate and unforeseeable."

"That's... magic?" you ask.

"The strongest there is," Flame says before pulling themself back into their lamp. Their voice echoes from inside it, "May your travels be safe and illuminating."

What would they have done or said if you'd made it your wish to go home?

--- (authors' note: We've been reading about djinn for a some time, after watching Miss Marvel, and contemplating what to think about these stories where a genie - which is another word for djinn - grants a person a wish. At first, we were going to leave this alone, since our own culture does not recognize them outside of appropriative popular fiction. But then we thought it would be worth creating even a short fiction that at least paid some respect to what we've read. We kept it light. We tried to subvert the usual tropes for the wish fulfilling genie, and to do so in a way that stayed true to at least a wikipedia article's worth of folklore. And we hope we haven't messed up. If we have, we apologize. But we'd also like to direct everyone's attention to a wonderful story about djinn and one of the cultures they have touched, Nayra and the Djinn, by Iasmin Omar Ata. We enjoyed it quite a lot.)

You’re living in a wasteland in a post-apocalyptic future when you stumble upon a magic lamp. The genie informs you there is only enough magic left for one wish. Choose wisely.

[fenmere]

Using blender to start sketching out the planet of Kepekape, so that we can better visualize the setting for Gesetele's Arrow. We positioned the cursor to be right where Hinbeg city is, where the story starts. The heroes are currently on a boat headed to one of the islands slightly north of there, to go camping. The region has a very similar climate to the Pacific Northwest. We haven't placed any rivers yet, but there is one that goes past the city, and has an outlet in the bay there.

[fenmere]

Kepekapean v.s. Ktletaccete (what are these things?)

We've described this before, but it feels good to rewrite it to try to see if we can make it more clear, or update what we've said in the past.

There are two realities here: factual, and our fictional canon.

Factual

The factual definitions of these words are really simple:

Kepekape is our body, our vessel, and a Kepekapean is someone who lives in our vessel.

Ktlettacete means "child of Eh and Jenifer" and describes those of us who are descended from our two eldest.

We have some members who are Kepekapeans but not Ktletaccete: Jenifer, Eh, Phage, and the Outsiders (12 in number). There might a few others who are relatively new, but we haven't met them yet.

And that's it. That's all the words mean in relationship to our system.

Though, us Ktletaccete, and our two parents, have some traits of identity that we've worked into our fictional canon to inspire it. We're shapeshifting autistic dragons, who tend to take a form that reflects our individual special interests. There's more to it than that, but that's for a different kind of post (an upcoming reblog of this one, perhaps?).

Fictional Canon

This goes for the Sunspot Chronicles, and their related series of books.

In this reality, Kepekape is the original home planet of the Ktletaccete. So, in this sense, Kepekapean is used to refer to denizens of that planet, and Ktletaccete is used to refer to both them and their descendants.

But, that's how the words are used by the time of the Sunspot. Prior to that, it was different. There've been so many cultures and civilizations that the uses of these word have been through multiple iterations of change.

Originally, Ktletaccete referred specifically to the children of Eh, the Great One who made the world out of their own body. And they were closer to gods than to any species of life. There were precisely 900,000 of them, and they spoke a language called Fenekere, that is still in use today as the command languages of the Exodus Ships, such as the Sunspot.

And the mortal people of Kepekape called themselves Kepakepo, or Kepekapeans. (Kapekapean is the English translation of Kepakepo). And the thing is, etymologically, Kepakepo refers to all things produced by the planet. But, by the time the first Exodus Ship was built, the language had changed more than enough that there were other words used to refer to life in general.

It's like humans calling themselves Earthlings, really. Because bugs, bears, octopi, whales, birds, trees, fungus, bacteria, and everything other organism of life on this planet are also Earthlings.

But, anyway, the people who were about to become space-faring, who called themselves Kepekapeans, were metamorphic descendants of the six limbed clades of vertibrates.

They hatched from eggs and raised in brood ponds as tadpoles by Brood Guardians, and when they hit metamorphosis (their version of puberty) they would take an adult form that was adapted to their own personal emotional, social, environmental, and behavioral needs.

Most of them had started dropping the third pair of limbs, being four limbed people. And each person would take a shape and form that could be classified by tail type, and given a pronoun accordingly, but that was otherwise extremely unique. Some had feathers, others scales, others hair, and others none of these things but a thick protective mucus membrane. Many had a mix of these traits. Some retained their gills, while others didn't. Configurations of horns varied. Some developed wings and could fly. Others kept fins or developed flippers, and stayed in the water. Most walked on land.

And if a human were to look at any one of them, that human would think they are seeing an amphibian dragon.

Meanwhile, their Ktletaccete deities lived in their collective psyches, and their information network, sometimes manifesting as an incarnation in one body or another in order to shape the direction of civilization and cultivate live.

The Ktletaccete were divided into two camps: those who wished to explore the rest of the universe, and those who wished to focus on the health and safety of life on Kepekape. Sometimes they fought, and there were wars, and the Kepekapeans weren't entirely aware of why.

But eventually, right about when the first Exodus Ship was nearing completion, the Ktletaccete came to an agreement with each other, and with a group of Beshakete (Outsiders) who'd taken refuge on the planet, and with the Kepekapeans, and they formed the Great Alliance.

Which they called the ʔinmara ( @theinmara ).

Some forgotten number of Exodus Ships later, the Sunspot would start to recover some of this history thanks to the memories of Mau (or Phage, @ohthatphage), and start writing books about it. But, when they relearned who they were, they started applying the words a little differently, because they didn't have all the information at first.

From this historic perspective, the denizens of the Sunspot can be called Sunspotians, or ʔetekeyerrinwufni. Though, they've taken to calling themselves Ktletaccete, and have no clue that their former deities still exist and walk amongst them (this may never be revealed in the books).

The reason that the Evolutionary Engines of the Sunspot are so successful at producing such a wide diversity of the populace (who are grown from incubators, and undergo metamorphosis before hatching from their eggs) is that it's based on the original genetics and epigenetics of their Kepekapean ancestors, who were already evolved to be highly adaptable in that way.

Eventually, the Sunspot made contact with Earth through use of the Tunnel Apparatus and a probe placed on the planet 22 million years ago by an ancestor ship that was passing by, and this is why you are reading about it now.

[fenmere]

Näofregbi and Binwen of our WIP Gesetele's Arrow.

They hatched in adjoining brooding ponds around the same time, and became friends before either of them could talk, before their adolescent metamorphosis. Both of them are Kepekapeans (Ktletaccete from their home planet, Kepekape).

During metamorphosis, Kepekapeans take on dramatically different physiological traits in reaction to childhood stimuli from their parents, peers, environment, pathogens, favorite foods, and personal interests. This frequently makes it look like they're from different species, but they're not.

Näofregbi is a loner, a natural recluse, which is common enough that most Kepekapean cultures accept them as they are. Gem lives on gems own tiny plot of land with a wild garden of trees and hedges surrounding a pond and a workshed. Gems Art is pottery.

Binwen hasn't found nem's Art yet, and so dabbles in everything.

Binwen is not a loner, and like most other Kepekapeans prefers to be in the company of at least two or more people. However, nems six arms set nem enough apart from everyone else that nem frequently feels alienated. Fortunately, nem is best friends with Näofregbi, who seems reasonably happy to have Binwen around.

Unfortunately, pairs and couples are what are truly met with suspicion amongst most Kepekapeans. If you don't have a third party to keep you in check, you could be up to something. And this is really what has always set the two apart from the rest of their community.

They're both in their thirties, by Kepekapean years, which makes them around sixty or so Earth years old.

Their story takes place millions of Sunspot years before the Sunspot Chronicles, which also means they predate humanity and possibly most life on Earth, even accounting for astronomical distances. Relativity does some weird shit and makes it hard to calculate.

Their culture is very advanced, though. Their government is building the first Exodus Ship, using construction nanites to harvest and shape mass from various asteroids and comets in their stellar system to build a vessel that is approximately 2,600 kilometers long and capable of carrying billions of people.

They will not be on the ship when it leaves, but their adventures will shape the fate of the Sunspot anyway.

[ohthatphage]

When you build a world where you would like life to exist for any reasonable length of time, you will find hard limitations that will make your task difficult.

One such limitation is that it cannot be too small.

Below a certain size, there will not be enough diversity and the ecosystem will be too fragile as a result. Mass extinction events will occur too frequently for that life to maintain more complexity than bacteria.

If you start with bacteria on such a small world, it will rarely develop anything more.

If you start with multicellular life, depending on the size of the world and how you define time cycles, you may get a few decades to a few centuries of apparent stability before it collapses.

A generational starship with a habitat cylinder that is 400 kilometers long and 220 kilometers in diameter, for instance, is typically much too small. It won’t get you very far. Especially if you allow your ecosystem to manage itself.

Cultivating that life actively will give you more time. But, eventually, fibrillation in the complexity of its system will overtake your ability to compensate.

But, if you’re very, very good, and you’ve got extremely precise tools, such as construction nanites, you can extend that lifetime to something you can work with. Possibly hundreds of millennia, if you are profoundly good at it.

I am, mind you, framing this from the perspective of a people who live a couple centuries at most and who wish to explore the cosmos. Not my own.

When you are something like me, you see that there is no appreciable difference between a single bacterium and the biosphere of a verdant, complex planet full of multicellular life, no matter how big. Both are organisms that are destined to die and then, if lucky enough, feed more life. And the lifespan of each organism may run from seconds to eons, and it will be too finite all the same.

In that finite time, life is both beautiful and horrid.

If you want to keep appreciating it for what it is, it will have to be reproduced. Either by its own functions, or by yours.

When the Kepekapeans, the Ktletaccete who lived on Kepekape, were building their first Exodus Ship, it was because they wanted to continue appreciating life beyond all the ends they could see.

show me your favourite recent excerpts! :3c

[fenmere]

An introduction to our current novel:

In one of the universes that is in our head, once, long ago, the Great One gave birth to many children. And each of Their children had an Art, a passion or talent, a skill that they could do better than any other. But most of them could not learn what their Arts were until the others had explored theirs enough to invent meaning for them. The Artist of Cars, for instance, could not learn what their Art was until the Artist of Wheels and the Artist of Internal Combustion Engines had created their things. This left many of the Great One's children very vulnerable for a long time, so They created a world for Their children to live on using the bones and flesh of Their own body. And around this world, They wrapped Their hide, scales pointed inward to act as stars, to protect it and Their children. And they called this world Kepekape, meaning "My Body".

But one day, the Artist of Storytelling made a wager with the Artist of Hunting that they could not hit the morning star with their arrow. And when the Artist of Hunting tried, their arrow tore a hole in the sky and let the Outsiders in.

However, this was not like the fall of any humankind, for the Children of the Great One were not humans, and the Outsiders were not evil.

The Outsiders brought with them tales of the Universe without, and eventually the Children of the Great One combined their Arts to create the Great Exodus Ships, to explore the reaches beyond the Hole in the Sky.

And they formed the Inmara, the Great Alliance, with the Outsiders, and set forth to do just that.

And that action would, one day, lead to the writing of this book.

[ohthatphage]

Thank you. This does help. But mostly in a prompting-me-to-explain-further kind of way. Though, reading about what others might find compelling is really important too, and I appreciate that a lot.

At this point, what follows will be back of the book synopsis material, but in case anyone wants to treat it as spoilers, it's below the cut.

So, for the ancient Ktletaccete of Kepekape (Boamäo's people), the nuerotypical and social standard is to collect in familial groups of three or more. The more the merrier, within a certain practical range. And partnerships between just two people are shunned as being suspicious, conspiratorial, and untrustworthy.

But there are neurodivergent people who don't like socializing with others much and are content to be on their own, for the most part. These people tend to cultivate partnerships between each other on the sly.

Boamäo is one of these loners. Rem likes to perform rems art in the service of others, and doesn't mind a little company as rem sails rems boat. But rems boat is big enough that passengers can congregate on a deck away from the pilot station.

Generally, rems family would tend to understand this, at least from a cultural standpoint. This kind of solitary lifestyle is a known accommodation for neurodivergent people, so long as they don't develop known partnerships.

We don't yet know if Boamäo has a partnership, but Näofregbi and Binwen are such a partnership, and Boamäo has no problem with them and supports them. Rem is happy and proud to be helping them get away to go camping in the northern fjords for a week.

In this scene, I'm meddling with Binwen and Näofregbi's affairs, because I've noticed they're both plural and that neither of them realize it and it makes me curious, and they've inadvertently brought me back into Boamäo's life because of that.

So, Boamäo's earlier encounter maybe could coincidentally be related to that in some way. Or with the seeking an Art thing. Or all of it.

When someone encounters me, it is usually via becoming a subconsciously willing host for me. So, I end up communicating with them like a headmate might, or an hallucination. Other people won't necessarily see or hear me.

They do tend to recognize what I am because there've been myths and legends about me throughout the history of every culture on the planet.

So, what likely happened was that something about Boamäo, when rem was an adolescent still searching for rem's Art, attracted me. And as rem was struggling to figure out who and what rem was, and trying to pick a name, rem started having dreams where-in rem talked to me. And then I proved I was real to rem by doing some of my miraculous telekinetic shenanigans. At which point we probably struck a bargain that rem now thinks turned sour in some way.

So.

General things in this culture that could be seen as a big injury:

Estrangement from your brood guardian (your key parental figure).

Estrangement from your Artistic mentor (your secondary parental figure).

Estrangement from your siblings.

Disapproval of your neighbors.

Loss of your housing (banishment from your neighborhood, or revocation of your housing rights from the local fair manager).

Death of anybody you care about (of course).

Gaining the reputation of being in a partnership that is shown to actually be conspiratorial.

Now.

Näofregbi is in danger of losing gems housing because gems fair manager might revoke gems stall access due to being away from it for too long, not producing enough enticing pottery, and/or being caught in a partnership with Binwen. Gem has an Art, pottery, but it's the wrong one and is making gem depressed. Gem needs to find a new one and socially transition to it before gem loses that stall and gems housing.

Binwen is in a much more stable situation for now, but hasn't figured out nems Art yet at all. In a couple of years, this will be seen as A Problem by everyone. Nems household will do what they can to protect nem from the consequences of being seen in a partnership with Näofregbi, and will keep giving nem housing. But that partnership may hinder nem in other ways socially and economically.

It would be best if their Arts drew them both away from society and still sustained them, like Boamäo's sailing does for rem. But, they can't really control that. A person's Art seems to be neurologically encoded. It's something you have to discover through experimentation, and it might not be very compatible with the rest of your life.

Historically, everyone expects this and most of the planet's cultures have worked to accommodate this biological drive. But the recent pressures of the global community working together to build a huge generational starship means that people are being exploited and social pressures have changed to make self exploration and pursuing your natural Art less and less viable.

This change has happened in one generation, though. Boamäo grew up in a time that was much more lax and more like the old ways, and didn't start to feel the socioeconomic pressures until later.

Maybe rem had a partner that rem had to abandon, and it happened around the same time that I was helping rem find rems Art. And rem blames that loss on me.

The rest of society doesn't see it as a loss, but Boamäo very much does. And, Boamäo sees me as a force that enforces society's bullshit, especially because I've also been coaxing everyone to work toward building the starship.

So, in this scene, Boamäo sees rems roll as warning Näofregbi and Binwen that I'll ultimately work to break them apart. Which is not what I'm trying to do, but no one believes me when I say that.

Ah! I think we can work with this!

In the book I am writing, I am the narrator and the... well, antagonist is not really the right word, but it's close. I'm the trickster spirit whose going to learn a valuable lesson while mucking about with mortals.

And there is this mentor of the two lead characters named Boamäo

Boamäo's name means "the meaning of evasion or escape". Rem chose it remself. Also, rem is a sailor.

In the scene we are currently writing, we learn that Boamäo has encountered me before, and resents the results of that interaction, and holds a grudge.

What we haven't figured out is what happened.

The rules work like this:

I am the process of Entropy itself given autonomous spiritual form.

I try to help people.

I have also been very deliberately coaxing the people of Boamäo's world to build their first generational starship, and that's had some unfortunate side effects on their cultures.

I have conscious power over the way that energy moves through my local vicinity. But in order to be conscious, I have to inhabit a sufficiently complex system.

I also cannot do anything to anyone without their subconscious consent. If they consciously revoke that consent, I must leave them alone. Not many people actually know this, however.

In order to be seen or heard, I must at least partially inhabit a person's neural system and cause them to hallucinate me.

In this story, I have a history of successfully convincing people that I want to help them, and coming to some sort of agreement as to how to do so. But then the effects of my efforts are later seen as disastrous.

Except in one set of cases: Any time a child is lost in the dark and I encounter them, I successfully lead them home without harm coming to them in any way.

So, knowing all of this, what would be a good and interesting previous incident between me and Boamäo?

[fenmere]

Cool! This is ancient history of the Sunspot. A lot of it will make more sense if you read the novels that are already written, but a lot is just hints and further prompts for a book we're yet to write.

But, the canonical stuff that are not super spoilery (back of the book) explanations: The Sunspot is just the latest of a long, long line of Exodus Ships from some planet that may have been called Kepekape. The Magnificent Dirt is the satirical name of the Terra Supreme (which is a translation from the original language anyway), the predecessor ship to the Sunspot. The Sunspot was created as the result of a series of violent coups against the Terra Supreme's fascist government, and crewed by refugees from that conflict.

There was something janky about its construction, though, and some weird secretive shit going on as well. And this little story here is about the initial discovery of some of that stuff.

People who've read Ni'a, Outsider, and Crew will have some pretty solid guesses about what that stuff is, but don't have all the story, and we will tell it eventually.

Our upcoming book, Monsters, is going to have some of that story. But now we're thinking that the seventh, currently unnamed book, is going to need to have the rest of it.

Anyway, the "you" in this little story is a member of the Sunspot's Crew. Someone we haven't defined yet, who uncovered part of a bigger plot, and brought attention to the problem they found to someone who ended up doing something about it. And that something set up one of the major plot points of the whole series.

Centuries into a generation ship’s journey, the ship has a constant plethora of tiny issues and malfunctions overlooked by most of the crew’s mechanics in favour of the larger issues. In your off-time, you decide to start fixing some of these minor issues and discover some interesting functions.