#altamai

[starsailorstories]

not to be early fortefemen dynastyposting again but bc of superstitions among the old Faellran tribal colonies regarding the bodily sacredness of noble- and royal-born matriarchs, there was for a few generations a booming trade in stolen articles of clothing, locks of hair, and more rarely digits lost in duels that were purported to have belonged to one of those matriarchs, at least in the northwestern hemisphere of Altamai and on the Shali Line.

The thinking among practitioners of the prevailing folk magic in these areas was that these relics provided the bearer with a shred of Orellistia’s blessing while traveling, especially in space, although this ran directly counter to the eventually more popular eastern Altamaian concept that Orellistian symbols drew the ire of the Void. Precedent for it was probably drawn from the myths of Sol Jenya--who defeats the void-serpents with spears pulled from under a matriarch’s skirts in a weird birth metaphor that probably made more sense if you were a first-cycle nomadic warrior on Tarega--and Odelfa, who is given a princess’s glove to ensure victory in her final battle (Sir Gawain style yes) although that does not go well for her.

The nobility of the era reasonably enough found this practice creepy and invasive and imposed harsh penalties for it, but it was a fine line to walk because their subjects were really just taking their claims of divine right to their logical conclusion, so it wouldn’t have gone over well to be like “yes we have the favor and special attention of the goddesses, no you can’t have any of that.” Queens and Maximatas giving gloves and slippers and things to their favorite anvelani was also one of everybody’s favorite bits of military pageantry and celebrity gossip fuel so they didn’t want to make that look untoward. They tried to get the Sitherian Praeceptorate to issue a dogmatic ruling stating that the Orellistian-symbols-are-bad-luck-in-space thing was the gospel truth (because what really got their collective goats was not even that the peasants wanted Souvenirs but that the peasants were *selling* their souvenirs to ne’er do well spacefarers who were one step up from pirates in their minds) or at least that the power of such talismans was cancelled out if they weren’t freely given and the Praeceptorate was like “what are you guys fucking talking about?” because it wasn’t really a thing outside of this one specific corner of the Seven Suns.

Anyway, at the time of the story the empress trades her sock garters away to local captains of industry for public charity every fifth avi-fora and it’s been happening so long that now nobody knows why or questions how weird it is.

[boloorsportsmania]

#823 RCB outclass RR in all 3 departments to move to top 2 in IPL 2020 table; Chahal, Padikkal and Kohli starred; CSK fall short again; Priyam Garg shined for SRH; Shreyas Iyer and Nortje help DC beat KKR in a high scoring thriller; Nadal, Thiem, Tsitsipas, Zverev, Halep and Kenin cruise to 4th round of French open and more..:-)

CSK had pull their socks and get some rhythm into IPL 2020. They started off well when 69-4 by 11th over. Just when it looked like CSK had complete control on the match, Abhishek-Priyam turned the match on its. They had 77 run stand in 7 overs to unsettle CSK. 2 drops of Abhishek hurt them too. Some later hitting took SRH to 164-5. Priyam Garg showed lot of composure to hit 26 ball 50. CSK were complacent after reducing SRH to 69-4. It was still a gettable score byt CSK have started with no intensity. That continued. Just 4 runs came of first 14 balls before Bhuvi castled Watson. He looks completely rusty, a touch slow to react as well. Reflexes seem to have gone. Faf and Rayadu fell soon after. Jadhav’s poor run continued as well. CSK 42-4. Jadeja and MSD played very cautiously. There was hardly any urgency. They needed 86 runs of last 5 overs and u78 of last 4. That’s when they showed some urgency. Jadeja tried his best with 35 ball 50. They attacked an over too late. 44 was needed of last 2 and 28 of last over. Bhuvi’s injury and Khaleel completed his over. That put pressure on Abdul for final over. He started with 5 wides. MS dhoni then hit a boundary to make it 17 from last 4 balls. MS dhoni was dehydrated. SRH won eventually by 7 runs. CSK have lost their 3rd consecutive match for the first time since 2014. Problem with CSK has been lack of energy. They have not given enough chances to youngsters in last few years . Now when some old players have lost few steps, They don’t have courage to replace them with youngsters. When Baba Aparajith was at his peak in Ranji few years back, he was made to sit in bench for 3 consecutive years. It has started pinching hard now for CSK. If CSK do not make to playoff, they would be forced to make wholesale changes. Raina’s exit was unfortunate but not asking for his replacement and not pushing any youngsters with some confidence showed that they took it for granted that CSK will find a way. This is a real test for MS dhoni. His captaincy skills is known to all but captain cant do much when team balance is not up to the mark. They have lot of loopholes which they need to close fast.

RCB had lost 6 of last 8 matches against RR. Shreyas Gopal had literally toyed with Virat and ABD. Even though RCb had won 2 of 3 games, they stood 3rd from bottom considering their run rate was poor after huge loss against Punjab. RR started off well as they raced to 27-0 inside 15 balls. That’s when match turned towards RCB side and RR didn’t stand a chance post that. Udana dismissed Steve for 5. Soon after Saini dismissed Butler for  22 of his first ball. Chahal then dismissed Samson of his first ball. From 27-0, RR were reduced to 31-3 inside 10 balls. Though Lomror and Tewatia tried hard, RR just managed 154-6 in 20 obvers. RCB had conceded 80 plus runs in last 5 overs against Punjab and MI. They just conceded 55 this time. They didn’t give length in too many balls which helped. There is still scope for learning though. Saini and Chahal impressed. Chahal ended with 3-24 which turned out to be match winning. RR had to take early wickets. Once Padikkal hit Unadkat for six of the first ball and hit 15 runs of his over, match lost its contest. Though Shreyas dismissed Finch early on, Padikkal continued in style His 34 ball 50 and back-to-form Virat ensured there was just one winner. Padikkal was dismissed for 63. Virat showed signs of coming back to top form. He scored 72 of 53 balls after being just run a  ball for 30 runs.  RCB won by 8 wickets with 5 balls to spare. This has been most convincing win for RCB since 2016 when they had a run to finals. Hope this gives confidence to them to make serious in roads into IPL 2020. They have a gem in hand in the form Padikkal though. They need to preserve him like gold.  They have moved to top of IPL table. Cant recall when they last were at the top.

Matches in Sharjah have proven to be paradise for batsmen and nightmare for bowlers. Short boundaries and ball coming to bat like a dream are prime reasons. Fifties by Shaw and Shreyas and cameos by Pant and Dhawan helped DC reach a score of 228-4. Shreyas made 88 of 38 balls which had 6 sixes and 7 fours. Shaw made 66 of 41 balls. 77 runs was scored of last 5 overs. Russellw as pick of KKR bowlers. He had spell of 4-0-29-2 which was priceless. Narine who just bowled 2 overs for 26 runs was dismissed for just 3 runs. He has been very poor in this IPL. He has hardly contributed neither with the bat nor with the ball. Gill and Rana too KKR forward. They kept the runrate between 7-8 per over. They didn’t get a  big over. Amit Mishra was bowling brilliantly. He dismissed Gil for 28. KKR 72-2. As soon as Russell came in, Shreyas introduced Rabada. After hitting for a four and a six, he holed to Nortje. This ensured DC were firm favourites to win.  KKR 94-3 in 10 overs. Harshal dismissed rana and DK of consecutive balls. Cummins didn’t score much either. KKR 122-6. It was all left to Morgan. 92 was needed of last 5 overs. It came down to 78 from 4 overs. Tripathi hit SToinis for 1 four and 3 sixes in 17th over. Target reduced to 54 runs needed from 3 overs. Morgan took Archer to the cleaners by hitting sixers of first 3 balls. First one hit the roof too. Tripathi hit four of the last ball to reduce target to 31 from last 2 overs. Nortje dismissed Morgan for 18 ball 44. KKR needed 29 from 9 balls at this stage. These 3 balls turned the match towards DC side. Nortje bowled an outstanding 19th over, KKr needed 26 from last over post this. Tripathi hit Stoinis for a boundary of first ball but was castled by an yorker next ball. That sealed the match for DC as they won by 18 runs

In French open, Thiem and Nadal cruised to 4th round with straight sets. They played good aggressive tennis. Nadal’s serve seems to be coming back to best which is needed in 2nd week for sure. He would face Sebastien Korda in 4th round. He is son of 1992 French open finalist  and former Australian open champion Petr Korda. Should Nadal win 4th round, he could potentially face Zverev in QF who also cruised to 4th round with straight sets win. Schwartzman, Kenin, Halep, Bertens and Svitolina all cruised to 4th round with easy wins. Tsitsipas also won in straight sets. With Medvedev out of his side of draw, he could potentially reach SF if he keeps his composure. Berrettini was shocked in 3rd round by Altamaier. With this Djokovic might not face any top 10 players till SF where he could face Tsitsipas. Busta, Kvitova, Khachanov, Dimitrov and RUblev also reached 4th round with ease.

[tranceadvancedmusic]

Episodio 103

[starsailorstories]

Also periodic refresher on commonly confused SC political terms, not because it actually matters at all but because I know we're all nerds here and why not split hairs:

Astraea is an umbrella term for all the sapient, humanoid (although they obviously don't think of themselves that way), astrobiological subspecies who evolved in the vacuum of space within the Andromeda galaxy. I translate all collective adjectives for them as "Andromedan," since that's what an earthling would call them. I know some of you guys use the term "astraean"/"astrean" when talking about my stuff and that is very cool and has my full support and approval, I just thought you'd want to know it isn't technically "canon compliant." But you don't have to stop lol

Altamaian is a group of ethnicities originating on Altamai who, because of historical land tenure, have a lot of social and political privilege in Basilean society. It's also the name of the official language of Basilea.

Basilean is a nationality thought of by the Hyperian dynasty and their supporters as encompassing the Seven Suns systems and the Rings, although some colonized peoples within the Seven Suns systems do not identify that way. It is heavily associated historically with the Basillan species identity, but not all Basillans are Basilean and not all Basileans are Basillan.

Basillan is the astraea subspecies, originating in the Atya system and historically associated with the planets Tarega, Altamai and Glasmiri, that the Hyperian Empresses belong to. Their nobility--the descendants of the Taregan Captain-Queens and Altamaian Avesian Maximatas--have colonized a significant portion of the galaxy in the period between the Flight era and the Hyperian era.

[starsailorstories]

altamai is in crisis as an imagined entity rn because I discovered today that i planned two huge swaths of culture and language with 2 totally different sets of numbers, so now everything is set up as if the lunar year is somehow almost twice as long as the solar year. I’m either going to have to change a lot of stuff that’s already canon, ignore and let it bother me for the rest of my life, or think of a really good in-universe justification so...Pray for the Motherworld

[starsailorstories]

Continuing this week’s theme of actually fully explaining the calendar, here’s a quick writeup on why the Altamaian months have the names they do:

1. Semphora - With Semphora being the Ultimate Midwife, she watches over the pre-spring sleep of the natural world and guides the progression towards the rebirth of things that were dormant in the dry and/or cold season. Semphora was also, in myth, Orellistia’s firstborn--so being the oldest sister, it makes sense that she leads the calendar.

2. Collamara - Collamara rules over logistics and productive labor, and her novilunium is busy with both because it’s the time when those in the agricultural, shipping, and atmosphere harvesting industries prepare for the coming of milder weather. 

3. Philoxia - On both Altamai and Glasmiri (at least in the temperate zones), this is planting time for fiber crops, and the blessing of the goddess of fibers (and her sisters, the goddesses of reaping and spinning) on the whole process is thought to be crucial.

4. Femea - As summer moves towards its peak, wild places are at their most alive, and their guardian goddess is thought to be at her most attentive.

5. Thaxia - This is the month of the summer solstice on Altamai. The planet is close to the suns, receiving their rays, and this is thought of as a celestial cue to honor Thaxia, who is believed to be embodied in every rocky planet.

6. Ouria - Ouria is an altamai-specific goddess who rules over the day cycle and is said to bring protection and prosperity to Altamai and her daughters specifically. She is characterized as a Mother, and as the days begin to shorten she’s said to enter symbolic hibernation leading in to the dormancy of winter and rebirth of spring.

7. Sonorura - The air of Altamai, Sonorura’s domain, cools off and gets clearer (as in less “smoggy”). Because of the air clarity thing, cold snaps at the beginning of winter can trigger both animal and astraea babies to hatch from their cocoons. Because of her association with the first breaths of newly born children, Sonorura is further associated with the first frosts of winter.

8. Aetha - Aetha is protectress of the Altamaian planetary throne, and this is the beginning of the court season. New queens are also usually crowned at this time of year.

9. Sonlia - As the days grow shorter and darker, sound becomes more noticeable and meaningful, and traditionally, social life becomes more centered around fireside singing and recitation; all realms protected by Sonlia, the goddess of sound and vibration.

10. Luca - The winter solstice is here, the light is about to return, let's all think of Levinoxia's favorite daughter as the veil of darkness covers us.

[starsailorstories]

Altamai is absolutely ridiculous because its atmosphere is like in turmoil and in most places not really healthy for astraeas to breathe/burn at a sustain, its surface can reach boiling temperature at the most cloud-dense areas of the equator, its oceans are super acidic and its water cycle is eroding the mountains that most of its cities are built on at threatening speed, and Basillans didn’t even evolve there so they have no natural adaptations to any of this, and they’re still like “<3333333333333 our holy Motherworld!!! <333333333333333333”

[starsailorstories]

Historical Overview of the Seven Suns systems

Ok I’m still planning to do a more fun illustrated/narrative version of this and plot-essential stuff is in the exposition of the books BUT if you’re a nerd (and I know I am!) here is Everything that led up to the Hyperian dynasty, directly or indirectly, starting from the first astraeas to live in this area

First Permanent Migrations

Cosmonist legend holds that the first astraeas to leave the vacuum and settle on the surfaces of planets did so on the six Holy Worlds that have been populated the longest: Tarega, Sitheria, Thass, Vesta A (the Basilean name for the world of Ami Ge), Esmrrrder and Hirimar. This is arguably true, although making a distinction that doesn’t really matter--worlds in the antedome and the Elorica quadrant were being settled around the same time. There’s more archaeological evidence to support another legend--that a flotilla of debris rafts that had drifted with gravity for generations, carrying the ancient proto-astraeas who had lived on them for generations, counselled in the outer orbits of the Basilean binary. Some continued on to the Sol Minerva system and settled on the Sitherian surface almost immediately upon their arrival. Another group set their course for the inner Sol Atya system, and would live on their rafts in the upper atmosphere of Tarega, gradually evolving as the chemistry of their lights changed from generation to generation in response to its composition, for another several million years. Because astraea genetics are as much a result of environment as they are of heritage, it’s difficult to tell where these proto-Sitherians and Basillans came from originally. What matters is that they came together and were in heavy communication even prior to written history.

The Miragari of the Sol Vesta system have likely lived on their own world even longer than the Sitherians have lived on theirs, but they seem to have migrated from the opposite side of the dome, reaching Basilea’s second-closest unincorporated star via the Carina Alta arm. Like the Basillans, ancient debris in the orbit of their world suggests that they lived in the upper atmosphere for anywhere from thirty to fifty thousand of their planet’s years before beginning to build their civilization on solid ground.

Other species seem to have arrived later in other mass migrations, having already developed inheritable biological features in other atmosphere environments (the fact that the Esmrrrderians and Hirimarians are more physically similar to each other, for example, than they are to the Basillans, Sitherians, Thassians or Miragari would suggest that they were once members of the same clan or group of clans). There is some theorizing that the Thassians may have originally come from Sol Vesta, but if so, their traits diverged from those of the Miragari long ago. They lack the archaeological evidence a “lander culture” that is common to other established species in the area, so their origins remain mysterious.

Development of Planetary Civilizations & First Atya System Explorers

Pre-contact Miragari cultures were sophisticated but tenuous, with populations in some parts of the planet dwindling after rapid agricultural development brought about significant changes to the local atmosphere. Although they developed their own forms of powered spaceflight and traveled widely, organized exploration was sparse--their system’s dense asteroid belt made exit in a large ship of the period difficult, and most of their resources were focused towards on-planet innovation. In this they advanced far beyond their counterparts in other systems, building massive and efficient cities with elaborate codes of law and traversing their abundant seas in ultra-fast and luxurious submarines.

The Basillan colonies that had landed on the surface of Tarega spent some generations growing apart from their Sitherian cohorts, but eventually began communicating, trading, and cooperating. The centralization of the Sitherian settlement in the megametropolis of Ovaiakon, which had by this point grown to cover 20% of the planet’s largest landmass, made travel and trade convenient for Basillan sailors. This partnership gave rise to mergers of cultural institutions all over both worlds--the most significant of which were the adoption of the Sitherian Syfrae logography/syllabography across the Sol Atya system and the compilation of the Writings of the Holy Poets, the document that solidified and spread the Cosmonist religion. With these uniting cultural threads, leaders on Tarega were able to ally with one another and pool resources to begin formal, recorded exploration missions to other planets--leading to the first settlements on Glasmiri, who appointed the first of the area’s planetary High Queen in order to unite politically and win a war of independence against their mother tribe--and to other systems.

Soon after the Glasmirian push for sovereignty, the Sitherian archpraeceptorate was established, and immediately developed a relationship with the planetary royal court, urging the High Queen and her scionettes to enter into honor-bound contract with the goddesses. This began to set the precedent of the perceived relationship between the Basillan planetary nations and the pantheon their people believed in.

Invasion of Sol Vesta System & Planetary Conflicts

Among these was one to Ami Ge (Vesta A), which in the next few centuries the Ixavol clan of Tarega and their wide-reaching allies, seeking conquest of the system of the nearest Holy Sun outside the immediate binary, would invade at multiple surface points--leading to a long and treacherous war, known widely as the Sol Vesta War, which would last for over twenty cycles and whose repercussions are still felt. After a complex series of concessions were negotiated on the planet’s surface, Basillan outposts remained in her orbit, basically maintaining a presence to keep the territory in their sights.

Over the effectively generational time passage that occurred during the war, the political motivations for fighting it shifted. While the original invasion had political and religious impetus, by the time of the final withdrawals the Taregan climate was changing, and holding land in the Sol Vesta system (including the uninhabited Kori Ge) became vital to the importation of particularly water and building materials. For a period of about 6,000 years following the concession talks scarcity on both Ami Ge and Tarega led to infighting among the regional populations of both worlds. Populations were significantly affected, but eventually technological advancement began to resolve things: Sitherian engineers--most notably the priestess and researcher Eiona Vang, who took eldership over the project--were brought to the royal courts of Saivega and Solreg to design large-scale atmosphere regulation systems that allowed for the creation of settlements above the clouds of Altamai, where the Taregan aristocracy fled practically in full in a span of just decades (with a few notable exceptions). Soon after, there was a mass migration of common colonies, who converted industrial spacecraft, hitched rides, or built their own ships in the desert and flew out by night without the behest of any authority.

Settlement of Altamai & Shali

Once on Altamai, Basillan culture changed and flourished. The international council of leadership that had existed on Tarega, after some centuries of trying, finally managed to appoint a high queen, Athaema Seflioma of Avès, who oversaw the building of ten experimental cities. In order to survive above the cloudline, the citizens of the new cities needed a steady supply of artificial atmosphere. With the same technology that allowed their mountaintop superatmospheric buildings, ships were constructed that could sustain a large crew for a long period of time. After several exploration missions, a fleet of ships were sent to the orbit of Shali, where, expanding upon the models for orbiting settlements that had been used to blockade the Sol Vesta system, they were gradually developed into a permanent orbiting settlement--effectively a company town for the atmosphere harvesters. This building model would later be used in the Fila Fenaeta and Fuscus swarms and, most grandly, in the Rings of Basilea.

In this period the planetary royal court developed rapidly, ennobling hundreds of notable residents from the settlements and making them both distributors of the wealth and enforcers of the royal will. Meanwhile tensions grew between post-war enclaves established on Ami Ge, specifically those that still maintained a relationship with the Taregan-Altamaian aristocracy and those that did not. Although extremely primitive by the standards of the system at the time of the story, this was the first conflict in which the Basillan ruling classes provided arms to their allies, making the conflict much more uneven than it would have been and placing the unallied Maeg people, whose ancestral mountains bisected the zone of the turf war, at an economic and political disadvantage that would take centuries of struggle to overcome.

Trade between the Jenya, Atya and Minerva systems, meanwhile, was busier than ever, with thousands of solar-powered ships passing between the populated worlds every few planetary centuries (most voyages at that time took 4-5 of those, which in the context of an astraea lifespan is sort of like 1-2 years). It’s in this era that the spacefaring subculture--its specific routines, songs, legends, superstitions, and roles which still hold at the time of the story--really began to take root. Basillan, Sitherian, and Miragari voyages to the Ante-dome and the disk also took place in this period, laying the groundwork for sociopolitical situations in the centuries to come.

As the difficult construction of the permanent settlements on Shali was finally completed, the current ruler of the Seflioma dynasty died suddenly on the brink of producing an heir. Astraea Mothers experience a period of basically hibernation before childbirth and health complications are relatively common, but given their honored role in society preventative care is also generally excellent, and a childbearing-related death, particularly of a noble or royal, is almost unheard of, so this was a cause of much anger and suspicion--even at the time of the story, it’s still widely believed that she was poisoned. Her “consort colony”--that of her wife--had recently had a new Mother born, and the court agreed to allow her coronation when she came of age. For the next several hundred cycles, the planet was effectively in the hands of her aunt, a Faellran dowager submaxima who worked tirelessly to set up global interests for her ward. When the Olaean dynasty finally dawned, it was into unprecedented power, and within the first few years of her reign Queen Daemarima commissioned the research and creation of a global language based on the planet’s three most common tongues. The teaching and speaking of Standard Altamaian was theoretically enforced by law all over the planet, although this proved logistically difficult, and all three of the local languages it was meant to replace survive to this day. The Standard, however, did grow in popularity, and became the lingua franca of court life and politics, as well as developing as the common language between new workers on Shali.

The Turn of the Intergalactic Age

On the less permanently-settled worlds of the Sol Garna and Sol Amphira systems, isolated cultures were beginning to make contact with the rest of their own planets as their populations grew. The Esmrrrderians in particular began to connect the peoples of their world through vast networks of trade and communication, which brought about an unprecedented era of global exchange and peace. At several points in the past, Esmrrrderians had intercepted Basillan and Miragari ships attempting to avoid the Sol Vesta blockades, or rescued the survivors of wrecks, and these aliens integrated into their colonies fairly seamlessly. But at this point, they still had no official contact with the Jenya-Atya system or with any other.

On Altamai, Daemarima’s great-great-granddaughter said fuck everything, married her lady-in-waiting, and abdicated to her younger sister, who married acceptably but then promptly died in a duel defending her older sister’s choices. Possibly because everyone was fed up with their nonsense, the throne passed peacefully from the Olaeans to the Fortefemens.

Meanwhile in the orbit of Sol Minerva, Ovaiakon was rocked by a series of earthquakes over a period of about three centuries, their intensity increasing over time. Finally--just days before the all-important Avi-fora (festival of the end of the liturgical calendar)--the great city cracked down the middle.

In the coming years residents of this intellectual and religious capital of the binary watched as the two sides of their city rapidly drifted apart and the sea rushed into the fault. The geological schism fueled several political and religious ones, with various sects interpreting the catastrophe as divine retribution for some act they disagreed with. For a few solar years there was absolute chaos. Priestesses and literators were executed by their own followers; still others fled to the wildernesses of the Glasmirian equator or the uncharted solitude of the Sol Amphira system (whose watery worlds and moons are largely absent from this history because their island-dwelling natives are so far-flung they don’t interact much with the outside world or each other). Order returned slowly, but Ovaiakon would now become two cities on two continents under one name, gradually drifting apart; and for many whose religious fervor outweighed their political loyalty, faith in its authority was forever shaken.

Several centuries after, another galaxy-changing event befell the system: a joint coalition involving scholars and politicians from multiple Basillan worlds sent a series of exploration missions to the neighboring Maculata galaxy, which we know as the Milky Way. After several landings on uninhabited worlds (they were looking first for planets that could support their own type of life, not the type they actually found) they finally ran across a Cadrian outpost on a moon of their homeworld.

Initially, the landing party were mistaken for invaders from one of the planets of Alpha Centauri, and might have unintentionally reignited an interstellar war (millennia before they INTENTIONALLY reignited it) if they hadn’t immediately engaged, giving the Cadrians a good look at them to confirm they weren’t Centaurian as well as earning their respect in battle (not every [sub]culture on the Cadrian homeworld would’ve reacted like that, but for better or for worse these did). After spending years as honored, if slightly uncomfortable, diplomatic guests, they returned, introducing Cadrian delegates--and the business interests they represented--to their respective leaders.

The aristocrats, noting the similar life spans and political structures but slightly appalled by what they perceived as a lack of reciprocity in Cadrian culture, jumped to form military alliances and yet weren’t at all interested in doing business. The delegates, however, wanted to get their hands on some of those super-fast, intergalactically-durable spaceships, and they weren’t going to wait around to earn the trust of nobles. The commoners who had gone on the mission had had time to understand the bizarre system of investments and currencies, and fidelity in the most Andromedan sense was all it took to get them building away--they felt they owed the Cadrians for their hospitality, and their colonies and professional networks provided labor out of simple loyalty. When simple loyalty in the labor force wavered, the new common shipyard moguls appealed to their Cadrian backers for resources and began to provide an “arrangement” for their workers--land off the local noble’s estate--that still allowed them a high profit margin. This was the beginning of the astraea-specific version of industrial capitalism, and notably also kicked off the massive Elorica quadrant asteroid-mining industry as foundries struggled to produce enough vitruvol to meet the demand. The descendants of these original shipyard owners remain the wealthiest and most powerful commoners in the Seven Suns at the time of the story.

Eventually, Andromedan spaceships began to be exported to the Maculata in such numbers that some inevitably fell into the wrong hands, and Maculatan pirates--as well as Andromedan pirates, but the nobles didn’t talk about those as much for ~some reason--got pretty bold with it, attacking planetary estates without warning. Between this and the (fallacious, but spoken about) idea that working for one of the common shipyard moguls provided Options, the popularity and clout of nobles began to be much more dependent on their ability to protect their resources and provide for their peasants. In response--and without explicit royal permission--they formed a legislative body which was to become the High Parliament and which actually streamlined (for better AND for worse) the process of enacting international law considerably. In retaliation, the Queen ordered them to hear official delegation from the Union of Commons, a political party of wealthy and powerful non-nobles who effectively bought their way into court (this still exists and has a reputation for being socially liberal and advocating legal reform, though it’s a joke on all surrounding sides of their political spectrum that this has to do with the fact that the Basillan nouvelle riche are so very very commonly in legal trouble).

Around the same time, international councils on Esmrrrder and Hiramar made a joint decision to open their system to trade with the rest of the galaxy. The two worlds had industrialized and begun to advance technologically practically overnight (especially by astraea standards) and with industrialization had come economic disparity between urban and rural communities. The leadership claimed--and perhaps some of them really did intend--that the economic boost would allow local governments to provide necessities like water and medicine for small villages affected by environmental destruction and other modern problems. But the new Basillan and Cadrian capitalists poured their resources into wringing productivity from the cities, worsening conditions for workers there and for the rural villagers alike.

The people of the Sol Garna system were not about to take that shit lying down.

While they couldn’t fight the exoplanetary power completely, labor unions and parties rose to prominence after centuries of a bloody power struggle that made their system infamous among the elite of the Seven Suns for the tenacity of its populace. Traditional Basillan morality taught loyalty to the beneficience of authority, but traditional morality as taught by the Garnaxe lawspeakers taught loyalty to the planet, the self, and the community, and the people returned to it in force. Although not without flaws--the same principles had been used to justify isolationism, and many of the labor activists harbored prejudices understandably towards the Basillans and Cadrians but less rationally towards all outsiders--the movement led to a system of defenses against economic exploitation that served as a model for other worlds taking up their own causes against the Basillan worlds, and later the aula.

Tensions on the Basillan Motherworlds

As trade--and conflict--with the Cadrians and manufacturing in the Sol Garna system settled into steady rhythms of give and take, the ancient aristocracies of Altamai and Glasmiri were restless. One step beneath them, moneyed commoners threatened to lure away the peasantry that had historically supported their lifestyle (many of them sorted this out by marrying daughters into new-money families or going into business themselves). One step above them, the planetary High Queens--legitimized by the praeceptorate and venerated by the people--could still limit the power they held in the courts and the legislature almost with impunity. Noble houses favored by the Queens defended them almost fanatically--most had formal and legal Fidelities and honor bindings to uphold, and some Particular Favorites had even more personal stakes. At the height of the divisions in high society on both worlds, the High Queens of Glasmiri and Altamai announced, together, that their eldest daughters were betrothed. The loyal subjects celebrated; the courtiers drew swords on each other in their castle gardens.

The alliance sealed, the next few heirs to the throne continued to operate over the loud aristocratic paranoia that they would become unassailable tyrants. The mutual economy boomed, with Altamaian interests establishing the free-drifting macroengineered Fila Fenaeta settlement in a resource-rich nebula in the Naulia quadrant and Glasmirian ones building the similar Fuscus Swarm structure in an enclave of the Milky Way sold to them by the government of one of the Cadrian national superpowers. With these outposts driving down the cost of chemical resources for space travel, the age of exploration and imperialism that had begun with the first voyages to the Maculata kicked into a higher gear, laying ground for the occupations later undertaken by the Hyperians in the Ante-dome and in the outer-disk Djickhasa and Sokhash systems.

It also sparked the dream of the Rings--the largest building project Basillan civilization had ever undertaken. It would ease strain on the overcrowded Altamaian cities and fragile Glasmirian wetlands. It would create farmland to grow the raw materials for textiles, which had become a main export to the Cadrian home system. And it would all be directed by one trusted royal advisor: maximata Siderina Hyperia.

Siderina was a leading figure in the aristocracy’s political corner. Coming from a high-ranking family, she styled herself as a Defender of the Old Ways and gained mass support from her peers and from the bootlickers segment of the traditional peasantry who believed that increased autonomy for their Sworn Ladies would lead to prosperity for their own families. As I detailed in this post, she betrayed the Queen and established her building project as the capital of a new empire. Attempts to hold her legally accountable for her breach of a royal Fidelity--normally a capital crime--fell through on the favors of nobles and politicians who owed her for something or other and felt compelled to stay silent. Siderina treated betrayals among her own ranks with infamous volatility, and nobody wanted to be on her bad side, at least not until they knew how this was going to play out.

Siderina’s daughter became the first Empress. A new calendar, based on the rotation of the rings, was begun. Within its first three generations of monarchs, the new government--which subsumed the still-existing High Queendoms by virtue of legally binding vows of familial loyalty--invaded dozens of unaffiliated worlds, including Caesura, Aeverell, and Ashtiva; spearheaded the modern LGA with the help of the Cadrians and started recruiting people to fight all kinds of random wars for them; and developed the cloning technology that would create the labor force for their runaway expansion. 

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(Took the pic slightly cockeyed but) the dress of the Altamaian Royal Guard! They wear the colors of a sunrise in honor of Ouria, the goddess of the Altamaian day cycle, who they like to depict as attending the Holy Suns in their sky just like the guards attend the High Queen. The Altamaian court originated the rules of Similia modesty, with commoners in the royal presence wearing veils to conceal their faces and lights.

[Image: A tall humanoid with a light on her head, wearing a long dress with armored sections done in gold-tinted metal. She wears a round headdress and her face is covered by a veil. She’s holding an imposingly-sized, ornately-decorated broadsword and standing with her feet spread apart.]

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Chivalry’s pretensions of being almost--but not quite--royal don’t come out of nowhere; she is a granddaughter of someone in the line of succession for the Altamaian throne (which is currently under the control of the Hyperians but they are USURPERS and Chivalry’s grown up hearing about it) and has the royal surname as part of her name as a kind of courtesy title because of that.

Now, she shares those circumstances with about 1,200 other living people, because that’s how asexual colony-breeding species Work, BUT her adoptive parents (which for astraeas = the family you are legally in the hereditary lineage of because they’re 95% sterile and EVERYONE is adopted) are a Fortefemen raised in a different noble family AND a second daughter of the Vega clan, which can trace its lineage back to the original landings on Altamai (as can the Revoni clan, who are their historic allies and traditionally marry every subsequent generation of oldest adoptive daughters to each other), so she’s close to the throne by marriage and adoption which are the only ways astraeas get close to anything. 

Noble titles get passed back and forth in alternating generations from the colony’s Mother to the First Daughter (as in literally the first child the Mother bears in her life) who then has the duty of raising the colony’s next Mother when she is born. That Mother then inherits the title from her aunt and the cycle repeats.

Being a second daughter generally entails being adopted into the title-bearing household but not inheriting the title or ancestral land. You’re still probably set for life--titles being passed through Mothers theoretically ensures that the property is the recourse of the colony, but as royal favor and nobles being representatives of their colonies at court has become more and more important that’s become much more of a trickle-down effect to the point where you can have a royal name but be living a peasant’s lifestyle on the dregs. Generally the closer you are to the Mother and/or First Daughter the better off you’ll be.

As the youngest adoptive child of a second daughter, Chivalry kind of gets all the perks and none of the responsibility--she’s not expected to marry any particular ally or raise any particular scionette--and she’s secretly pretty down with that, she kind of just thinks her beef with the empire tastes better when it’s personal

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In other news I finally finished the long, wild, aristocratic-nonsense-fraught history of altamai

The first officially-sanctioned superatmospheric settlement on Altamai broke ground in the year 2190 of the ninth Taregan cycle, and her first official citizens arrived just under a (Taregan) decade later, after a long and dangerous building process largely carried out by the indentured and indebted of the ancient city-state of Solreg. In this early period, the population was scattered between “legitimate” landing sites, fly-by-night towns, and nomadic groups. The planet was a frontier: land changed hands via sword and seduction; criminals held territory with no trouble but the occasional vigilante; and vigilantes operated however they saw fit for good or ill, living in their starships and chasing bounties across the foggy plains.

The supposed descendants of the original Captain-Queens who settled Tarega had long had an informal international council, which became formal in the early years of Altamaian habitation. Gradually, national lines began to be drawn--most of the wars had already been fought, and there was a period of non-violent, albeit not necessarily just, claims and concessions. By virtue of the ancestry of their leadership, the Oghai, Saiven, Solrega, Nadega, Avesian, and Faellran peoples emerged as major powers.

In an oathing ceremony performed at request by a praeceptor-trained priestess, these seven world leaders would become (in addition to the queenly titles most of them brought from their homeworld) the Avesian Maximatas--to this day, the highest offices of Basillan nobility outside the royal family, passed down in a continuous line for over 600,000 planetary years. Here they swore to be mothers to the planet, to care for all of her inhabitants and follow the will of the goddesses. The language of the oath would later become a rallying point for commoners seeking accountability for their rulers, although ruling classes in the Binary have always had the kind of accountability problem that only revolution really solves.

Anyway, for holding to a vow of such profound importance, the priestess exacted a high price--she asked that if, as had been discussed, they chose a High Queen for the planet, it be her own country’s queen, Athaema Seflioma of Aves. They technically could have refused this request, but it would have been, to use the proper terminology, a Whole Thing. To turn down the bargain of a priestess and an oracle, and one sanctioned by the holy city, would be seen as akin to disrespect for the goddesses if it got out that it had happened, and wouldn’t start the new seat of power off on a popular foot. And so, in 10230 19th cycle, High Queen Athaema was crowned by her peers and sisters, and immediately got down to business setting up a royal court designed to serve the entire Sol Jenya system, planning and constructing ten state-of-the-art “civilized” cities to centralize industry and government in the various population centers, placing unaffiliated frontier towns under the jurisdiction of local landed gentry, and bearing over 2,000 children, her successor Aviana among them.

The crackdown on unaffiliated settlements was indiscriminate--lumping peaceful, self-sufficient villages established by poor colonies seeking freedom from the abuses of the feudal system in with organized-crime strongholds rife with violence and exploitation. The decree was presented with a spin that basically guaranteed its popularity with those who had no firsthand experience with the situation--without the care of the nobility, the court instructed its messengers to say, fly-by-nights were vulnerable to extreme poverty and plagued by thieves. A select few hard-luck stories were treated with highly public charity, and the project is still widely understood as a benevolent one by Basilean citizens at the time of the story. In reality, many fly-by-night towns were happy, prosperous, and most concerningly, egalitarian; and these fought tooth and nail to remain free until they could fight no longer. The far left wing of Basilean opinion remembers as martyrs a handful who went down swinging to the last girl standing. During Aviana’s comparably unremarkable reign, others simply vanished into the mists, operating in such secrecy that only the archaeological record attests to their existence. Fairly recently at the time of the story, a colony was discovered who had been living in self-imposed isolation for so long that they had developed a unique dialect of the Solrega Aundell language, a unique projection style adapted to their low-visibility home in the Tonevan cloud forest, and even a few subtle but distinct physical adaptations.

As the 23rd cycle drew to a close, Athaema’s granddaughter Ouriama died suddenly before she could produce an heir. Although an assassination was suspected, no proof was uncovered, and it remains an unsolved mystery and system-wide legend. The crown passed to her wife’s colony (and to another of the seven powers) in Faellra, where a new mother had just been born who could inherit it, and the guardian of this new queen, Analemma Olaean, jumped at the opportunity to make her ward Daemarima the best-connected and most legally powerful High Queen yet. This unwittingly made her a prime suspect in the previous Queen’s death, but from the international council’s centralizing perspective, it was all worth it. High Queen Daemarima commissioned the construction of Standard Altamaian, a single lingua franca for the planet, less than a turn (not that they measured turns back then, but it’s a good way to describe a period that feels like ‘a quarter year or so’ in astraea lifespans) after her coronation. In the ninth year of the twenty-fifth cycle, the planetary government financed the implementation of the new language in schools and other institutions, and in a more sinister move, outlawed the speaking of local languages in a handful of key centers of resistance to the hierarchy. 

The Olaen dynasty lasted six cycles, during which interstellar exploration flourished in this new era of semi-forced international unity. Worlds in the ante-dome and outer disk were “discovered” by Altamaian newcomers on the regular and treated like matrona gifts in potentia for the various queens and aristocrats, although the era of outright invasions was still long to come. A sailor named Via suddenly appeared claiming to have lived on isolated, well-defended Esmrrrder for nearly thirty planetary years, and told tales of an advanced civilization perched high on its planet’s abundant mountains. The dream of crossing the vacuum between galaxies was already being heavily discussed as well, but before an expedition could be mounted, Daemarima’s great-great granddaughter married a commoner and abdicated the throne to her sister Leiliora, who would bring their dynasty to an abrupt end when she challenged Sastiena Fortefemen to a duel in defense of her sister’s honor and lost, dying that same night of an infection from a wound on her side. The Fortefemens had merely accepted the Queen’s challenge, but they stepped obligingly into the power vacuum and proceeded to rule the planet for longer than any other family, effectively controlling a throne they won in a sword fight for like 30,000 years. This is basically all you need to know about the Fortefemens.

It was early in her reign that Sastiena’s former ward Deracoura--named for the scriptural “protector” of the Taregan desert wayfinders--reached out to the leaders of the various Basillan-controlled worlds, as well as those of Sitheria, to spearhead the first intergalactic exploration mission. As you know from my broader historical overview of the Seven Suns, this expedition went in search of sapient life and returned with the first Cadrian delegation, who toured the cities of Ovaiakon, Solrega Nova, Neroka, and Alegia. It was on Altamai that the initial commoner-owned shipyard was founded via Cadrian investment and began exporting to the Maculata (as well as importing from the Elorican asteroid fields) and providing a colony-estate-esque setup for workers who viewed the Cadrian-style wage system with suspicion. As it turned out, providing the bare minimum was more profitable, at the time, than paying workers in flexible currency, and it had the added appeal of letting owners of capital basically act and live like nobility. 

Within the next two cycles, the business interests of commoners continued to grow, and the Union of Commons was formed to protect those interests. They published a manifesto expressing their belief in the right of landholders of low birth to govern their own lands--basically a “hey, we have money, so why don’t we also have power?” directed at the High Court and the nobility. Practically in response, nonroyal nobility from every clan and country began clamoring for international lawmaking power as well. They formed a planet-wide legislative council of their own, and while they declared no hostility to the royal tier of society, they asked no permission from them either. In the middle of all this, while en route from a visit with the Council of Emperors far across the intergalactic sea, Queen Deracoura unhelpfully died. 

Trying to please everyone, keep the peace, and maybe punish her insubordinate maximatas just a LITTLE bit, her heir Felixania Fortefemen ordered the creation of the High Parliament, which included representation from the nobility of each nation as well as for gentry of common birth. She still had the final say on everything no matter what, and it led to the creation of a lengthy court season that allowed the royal family to keep their nobles under close scrutiny, so in a way it was a devil’s bargain. 

In this era, there were clashes of interest between a variety of Basillan and Cadrian notables. In space and even on-planet, business owners enforced their deals like crime bosses and crime bosses did a steady trade. In a climate where the penalty for a breach of contract could be a village burned to the ground, the nobility increasingly styled themselves as the protectors of the people, loyalties strengthened, and divisions grew. Among the common people, favor was split between the common capitalist class--who seemed to offer freedom from the whims of the nobility by offering a relatively secure income, as well as representing the promise of moving up in the world; and the old aristocratic families, who represented tradition, family loyalty (Altamaian nobles overwhelmingly ruled over their own historic colonies and their offshoots, meaning their peasants were all actually related to them--providing, to be fair, accountability that later Basilean aristocratic rule would lack) and a kind of symbolic cultural function--still today conservative Altamaians take the tack that the gentle Great Ladies suffer for their sake and must be defended from (in modern times largely imaginary) outside threats. The nobility was more broadly fractured, with favorites of the one-nation queens and the High Queen defending them stridently while others feared their unchecked power would leave the ancient families destitute to be overrun by the nouvelle riche. Just outside the metropolis of Solrega Nova, a shipbuilding-business billionaire bought a castle, noted for its beauty, built by the Celetorias--an original-lander colony--and announced plans to demolish it to build a complex of vitruvol foundries, giving the entire planet something to throw down about for five seasons straight (she eventually chickened out).

Just as these ideological tensions were reaching a fever pitch, Felixania and High Queen Esthardine of Glasmiri announced that their scionettes were betrothed--an unprecedented consolidation of power in a single household. The marriage of Delianae Fortefemen and Celafina Vividel was the event of the cycle whether you were for the high court or against it: three of the planet’s titled first daughters lost their crowns in duels that day, and three more lost their lives. Scholars took to the streets to warn the peasantry while by and large the peasantry took to the public houses to toast the beautiful young princesses who after all looked so smitten in their official portrait. It was the middle of fiber harvest season in a good market year; people were exhausted and ready for a show.

Following her mother’s death, Delianae laid low (letting the nobility handle urgent matters themselves) until all but the most paranoid aristocrats practically forgot about her, focusing on well-received local historical projects such as the restoration of the first Aivuran temple and a modernized housing for the shrine where the Avesian Maximatas took their oath. Behind the scenes, she reached arrangements with multiple once-hostile Cadrian interests and secured a substantial income from intergalactic trade which was primarily socked away for the use of her daughter Deracoura (styled as Deracoura the second, or sometimes, when she was really feelin’ it, the third). 

Early in her reign, under the guidance of her elder sisters, Deracoura II established the highly profitable Fila Fenaeta swarm, a specialized, state-of-the-art vapor-harvesting operation set amongst the young stars of a resource-rich nebula. While the floating settlement started small, it was destined to grow into a veritable nation of employees of the crown. Almost immediately there was conflict over working conditions in this deep-void environment and the protection of the residents’ few rights as peasant-class planetary citizens (which were still meant to be upheld by the law despite their distance from home, but were not always, particularly with regards to due process in criminal trials and oversight of tribute apportionment--it was common practice for representatives of the nobility to embezzle a great deal of something valuable from a peasant colony and then disappear on a fast spaceship, leaving them on the hook to explain to their rarely-sympathetic lady where all the product went). Repeated uprisings were quelled through mass evictions that displaced families in far-flung space--often with inadequate supplies to get much of anywhere--and forced many to live as outlaws deep in the clouds, gaining the area a reputation as impoverished and dangerous. Dia “Acutri” (Altamaian: sharp-eyed) filia Senema, a second-born mother exiled by her noble sisters, founded a multigenerational pirate colony there that still persists at the time of the story.

The unrest was ultimately no hindrance to the prosperity of the Altamaian throne, and Deracoura continued with zeal the illumination of the galaxy (and beyond) to Basillan and Sitherian travelers that her great-great-grandmother had begun, opening trade routes in the ante-dome that would go on to gradually rob entire cultures blind. The deep roots of the Hyperian empire lead to things sown by the Fortefemens, even if they would later consider themselves rivals.

For two generations now, the narrative that the Old Ways had died with Deracoura I and been buried with the creation of the parliament had been kept at the top of the political toolbox, but no one had used it quite as Siderina Hyperia did from the beginning. With Altamai becoming increasingly inhospitable to its peasantry with the ongoing consolidation of wealth, her appeals to a kind of populist escapism--complemented by her position at the helm of the construction of the Rings and in guardianship of the heir to a little-known but prosperous landed colony--struck a chord with those who saw their planet’s new capitalist class as inadequate caretakers. While she never made any rhetorical attack on the High Queen, she took the angle that the enfeebled royal line now needed to be taken in hand for its own good. With her beautiful ward Estartina, she would revitalize the noble matriarchy of old and lead it to a glittering future in the Rings.

Siderina’s wholesome public image hid the mind of a shrewd general. Weeks after the Rings were announced complete, she commanded her knights to such a decisive victory against the royal guard that she was famously allowed to walk in and kill the old queen (Deracoura II’s daughter Athaema) with a small ivory dagger. In the aftermath she announced that she had acted to protect her world and avenge its integrity, claiming that the Fortefemens had sold information to a hostile Cadrian interest. This may or may not have been true--evidence did materialize here and there, albeit a bit conveniently--but the story was mainly believable because assertions of overfriendliness with Maculatan enemies were not a new thing for the dynasty, and a large segment of the public was willing to accept it. 

Siderina was tried for her regicide in a number of courts, but, by slipping names in the elderly queen’s ear, she had rallied those with judicial power on Altamai mostly to her support, and was never convicted of anything. While the coup had certainly not been a formal duel, the transfer of power was adopted mainly on the strength of the precedent set by the Fortefemens. While Glasmiri was a center of popular resistance, the thrones of the two worlds were still heavily tied together for economic reasons, and the Vividel line remained effectively in Altamai’s thrall. When the Sitherian Archpraeceptor objected to the matter of Estartina’s coronation, Siderina had her ousted, either bribing or threatening practically every organization of priestesses in central Ovaiakon. All of this occurred in the space of two planetary decades--a blink in astraea reckoning. In the twelfth turn of the Rings, Estartina Hyperia was crowned not with the traditional Avesian coronel but with what would come to be called The Diadem of The Empress of the Seven Suns.

At the time of the story, almost two hundred quinturns later, Altamai--the Motherworld of the Basileans, as it is called by the aula--is a place of extremes even beyond its dramatic terrain and climate. Below the cloud line, it is an industrial powerhouse where thousands live in sprawling underground complexes and spend their workdays extracting rapidly depleting natural resources. Above, the last children of the old nobility rehearse the motions of the ancient ways between the pink cloud-carpet and the blue sky. In this dreamlike setting, heavy security, subtle propaganda, and armies of carefully vetted servants work to evoke the memory of a utopia that never existed, tailored to the political predilections and aesthetic whims of the Last Great Ladies. The granddaughter and heir of the deposed high queen, who escaped the coup with her governess as a young child, remains in exile far away in the Perseus Cluster, dreaming, as the old Royalist battle hymn goes, of double sunlight on plumafore fields.

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An excerpt from my upcoming Altamai Overview - I’m still planning to post a spate of Planet Overviews but oof they take time to put together! I thought this was fun tho and wanted folks to be able to read it

Altamaian superstitions reflect the dangers of the planet and the preoccupations of the peasant class. While the notion that all living things have a praefulgaria and a connection to the goddesses is common among planet-dwelling cosmonists, several Altamaian cultures take this further to envision an intangible world obscured among the mists, teeming with mischievous and occasionally malevolent spirits. The folk cosmonism of the Tonevan cloud forests is particularly adamant that out there in the obscure landscape there exists a world where goddesses can walk embodied yet mortal fallibility is fully in play. If anyone--though colony matriarchs, young children, and adolescents who are growing their adult exoskeletons in particular--fails to show proper courtesy and take proper precautions, the spirits might make up lies about her to ruin her good name with the goddesses--and seize any “evidence” that might prove their claims. For example, it’s important that a mother’s bare feet never touch the ground, because the planet herself may notice and think she’s not being adequately cared for, and if that gets back to the goddesses they might steal or curse her to teach the colony a lesson. An old Aundell-language lullaby playfully announces to whoever might be listening “I love my baby exactly the correct amount,” i.e. not more than anyone higher up in the Cosmic Order, but no less than would prompt willingness to do anything for her. This kind of tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of the conflict between hierarchical thinking and natural interpersonal love is common in lower-class Basillan culture, and is actually understood to be an expression of deep and unbounded affection.

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altamaian geography/topography

Planet overviews are at a bit of an impasse because while writing Letters From Tropovoxia and actually attempting to make use of it I discovered some serious flaws in my original system of time and daykeeping, so a lot of the day and year lengths etc are in the process of being recalculated (although the calendar systems posted here are still canon, the numbers may not be quite on point). But in the meantime I thought I’d post my notes on the geography/topography of Altamai as I do PLAN to avoid changing the literal distance the planet orbits at!

Please excuse this terrible map:

The defining characteristic of Altamai is its cloud cover, which is constant at all but the highest latitudes. The majority of the land is temperate above the cloud line, but temperatures beneath can easily rise to health-threatening levels, so most population centers perch on mountaintops or mesas, overlooking the sea of mist below. Its large seas are relatively acidic and in most places the water cycle erodes the landscape quickly, leading to a general impression of smooth surfaces and soft edges.

Polar Atoll

The Altamaian north pole is highly volcanic, ringed by a giant atoll swirling with steam. At its center, a glassy lagoon several hundred miles wide shelters long-legged stork-like creatures who plumb the water and air alike for nutrition and ribbonlike eels nestling in the dust of the depths.

Armaidan Continent

The western hemisphere is dominated by the continent of Armaida, which is bisected by the Toneva (Syfrae: painted, multicolored) mountain range, the planet’s longest--extending from the landmass’s northernmost tip in the vast misty desert of the same name to the Berilium peninsula in the southeast. This line divides the continent’s biomes, broadly speaking, into desert and tundra on the north side and a type of temperate cloud forest unique to the planet. On the peninsula itself, however, the coastal breezes from the Armaidan and Ordraean seas create a pocket of relatively clear air--a hot real estate commodity on Altamai.

Esaian Continent

In the would-be gulf formed where the mountains meet the Laedag strait and the Solreg subcontinent lies the planet’s smallest continent, Esai (originally an Old Standard Altamaian abbreviation of Esaivega, ‘heir of Saivega’, the Taregan country from which its Saiven inhabitants came), whose “alta” (high, above-cloud) climate is what an earthling might call Mediterranean. Its landscape, carved by five large and ancient rivers and their tributaries, is staggered over bluffs and plateaus that reach above the cloud line, and canyons and basins that sit below.

Ogiahtan Continent

Much of the topography of Ogiah speaks to a primordial, colder Altamai. Ancient lowlands became seas as waters rose, and the Aineha mountains were once a continuation of the Tonevas before a tectonic shift divided them from Armaida. In its inner basin, waterfalls thousands of feet high feed the foggy forest below. 

Taevan Continent

The planet’s southernmost continent is predominantly arid, but in its upper reaches lush jungles line the northern coast. Along the opposite coast polar winds have carved towering white cliffs into a maze of glassy fjords, dotted with weather-twisted trees and flighted sea creatures. Vast echoing sea caves in this region are the subject of much myth and legend, whether they are said to house howling spirits or uncountable pirate treasure.

[starsailorstories]

Quick post ‘bout Aivuran Swordplay

Basilean culture, with its heavy carryover from Altamaian culture, values finesse over force--or at least likes to look like it does. So among the upper lumini, the weapon of choice for dueling is swords, and the style of choice for swordfighting is that created by the Aivuran Orders many millennia ago during the settlement of Altamai.

The Aivurans believed in the development of individual skill and perfection as a spiritual discipline; a way of achieving harmony with the will of the universe and the goddesses. They taught that an honorable warrior demonstrated her worthiness through the ethical, spiritual, and aesthetic qualities of her side of the fight as much as through bravery or victory (the choice of weapon alone demonstrates this--it’s actually pretty tough to kill an astraea with a sword, unless you’re an absolute surgeon with one). 

Many well-to-do Basillans and Sitherians begin learning the basic techniques of the style from a very young age, and nobody is ever straight up like “this is for dueling” yet at the same time it’s sort of expected that everybody knows somebody who is good enough at it to represent them in a duel. The first rule of Basilean high society is be ready to throw down and the second rule of Basilean high society is be real coy about the first rule.

It’s a martial art with HEAVY emphasis on the “art” part. Teachings about posture and footwork are tailored not only for combat efficacy but for balance, visual grace, and “line”, as in classical dance. Almost every possible move has an equal and opposite ideal response, and duels between equally skilled opponents who have memorized hundreds of these combinations are often basically contests of endurance--victory or defeat depends on whose reflexes slow down first. And because of THAT, the entire thing is extremely fast-paced, with everything from blade designs to training regimens expected to contribute mainly to speed.

Because of all of those factors it almost doesn’t look like a fight to outside eyes--it’s graceful, choreographed, two bodies moving beautifully in near-sync, double-time. The movements of the non-weapon arm, which were originally designed to shield the face and light (in a way it’s a sword-and-shield fighting style, except the shield is your own exoskeleton) have evolved equally to add balance and flourish as duels to the death become (a bit) rarer, and are sometimes used to distract or otherwise mess with the opponent. The strong and traction-providing yet flexible slippers traditionally worn for Altamaian combat sports of all kinds allow skilled practitioners to turn, stop, and dodge at incredible speeds using the pointes of their toes. It comes off to earthling eyes as something like the exact midpoint of European period-drama swashbuckling, kendo, voguing and ballet, and its philosophy of dominance through beauty and perfection is like I said just...painfully Basilean, particularly in the Hyperian era.

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While I’m timelining here’s my opinions on various altamaian high queens (just notable ones not all of em):

Aethema I: THE OG AETHEMA. did a lot of bad things very efficiently and effectively

Ouriama: Most notable for being the corpse in Altamaian history’s most interesting murder mystery. There’s definitely like a print serial or projection-play equivalent of an HBO period drama about her where she’s set up as an archetypal lovable doomed heroine surrounded by intrigue though

Daemarima: Just wanted everybody to learn her bad conlang. Relatable

Miorane II: Indirectly ended a dynasty to get with a girl, lesbian icon

Deracoura: One day her sister just came in and was like “Hey pipsqueak how would you like to be High Queen of the Motherworld” and purely by rolling with it she’s now remembered as the godmother of the LGA

Felixania: If you want to make some laws, go ahead, this hecker is 16

Aethema II: “I just wish we could all get along like we did in middle school” *is murdered by her own guards at the behest of her most trusted adviser*

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This is by no means final or exhaustive because +whispers+ I haven’t even started the final grammar of this language (the whole alternate-history-of-Latin thing is a Research Hole okay?) But here’s a rundown of OSA (old standard altamaian) “addresses” that characters in SC use for one another:

Sia Vi - “Vi”, pronounced with a long I, was actually borrowed into the original Standard from Syfrae, where it could be translated as “lady,” “captain,” or “queen.” Nowadays it’s used for overarching superiors; boss’s bosses.

Sia Doria - Doria is a now slightly archaic word for “guide” or “mentor;” possibly the best and most fitting translation would be “direction-giver.” As that might imply it’s used for immediate supervisors and senior coworkers; high-level students also use it for their professors. It’s almost kind of all-purpose for “one step up the ladder.” If you’re a student, the adjunct who teaches your 1000-levels is Sia Doria while the head of the department is Sia Vi; if you’re a sailor the warrant officer you report to is Sia Doria, but the captain is Sia Vi.

Sia Praefa - Praefa means “organizer” or “coordinator,” the military title “Praefecta”--an upper-middle officer in charge of practical logistics leading up to battle--is related here. Used for minor nobles and commoners in appointed public service positions. City magistrates, legal officials, postmistresses, and local arms of the state-sanctioned media are all Sia Praefa.

Sia Leta - Leta is a slightly more complicated Syfrae term meaning “purified,” “sanctified,” or “goddess-touched.” It’s used for both elder priestesses and for members of the nobility.

“Sia” is commonly added on to family terms like Matri, Doumatri, Senneta, etc, particularly in upper-class Altamaian households, as a display of respect, at least when introducing or greeting. The feel of it is like...when you first say hello, you’re expected to say “Grandmother,” but once you’re Over The Boundary (which is another whole...Concept of theirs) it’s fine to say “Gran” or “Nana” for example.

On the rings of Shali it’s common to use “Sia [first name]” as a term of respect for elders; other than that, terms like these are very rarely used in their dialect.