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Peregrin
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Cartography

Post by Peregrin »

The Borders of Explored Space - An Overview

Only a very tiny part of the galaxy is familiar territory to the Descendants. At its height the Nerakk Empire only spanned a fifth of the galaxy, its contemporary remnant constituting only a one-digit number of systems. Only a tiny part of this fallen empire's abandoned citadels has been taken over by Descendants, the rest having been absorbed by that gigantic unknown that is the vast, mysterious universe.

The Descendant Confederacy itself is only a loose confederation of stellar nations connected by wormhole generation technology and united very tenuously not by the vague community feeling denoted by shared ancestry and the memetic activities of the Veglyr as much as by two things: The unpredictability and near-omnipotence of extradimensional visitors and by the enigma of that great sea of stars in which they are nothing but a tiny archipelago. The Confederacy and its members states themselves have many fringes: Thinly populated and often more or less lawless regions of space where the formal authorities are either powerless and/or represented only by small outpost stations and their squadrons of patrol boats. Though in case things get too chaotic, a small flotilla of dedicated warships can swarm through the local system's wormhole gate - and this deterrent does sometimes not even, to use a particularly outré analogy, keep the mice from eating each other when there's no cats around.

Then, consider how easy play space pirates should have in the fringe areas, it should not surprise anyone that a common term in various languages for planets in these areas is "Swordworlds". In fact, the population of the fringes is usually rather evenly divided between following groups of people:
  • Intrepid explorers with a heroic, if somewhat naïve, giddiness about the unknown.
  • Administrative personnel and the military/law enforcement. ("The Fuzz")
  • Cultural misfits of various sorts within their respective societies - eg. gendered Xril, Veglyr radical atheists, anarchists of any sort.
  • Xril anthropologists, missionaries of the Way and other assorted do-gooders.
  • Drunes, space pirates and other outlaws.
Nonetheless, it would be a great injustice towards what little objective truth that can be inducted in this omniverse to make that many sweeping generalizations about the fringes, imposing some ironically homogenous constructed identity upon them, for they have more things separating them than they have in common.


The Inanomalam Rim
This elongated collection of just under a dozen solar systems, stretching along one frontier of the Veglyr Cosmic Fleet's holdings, encompasses roughly eighty settled planets and moons and 300 habitats. The Inalomanam Rim, also known as the Rim of Fire, has become Swordworlds mostly for cultural/religions reasons: For some reason, the pantheistic religion of "The Way" never really caught on in the Rim anywhere as much it did among the rest of the Veglyr. Now, the leadership of the Veglyr Cosmic Fleet happens to be dominated by the warrior-mystic sect known as the Manizha Path, and with the fleet being the only unifying political power among the Veglyr in addition to the somewhat condescending view towards non-adherents the Way fosters in its followers, it should be no surprise that the mostly atheistic Inanomalir (or "Edgeworlders" as they also are called) not only hold the federal authorities in a very low regard, but are also quite proud of their atheism, which they often build most of their personal identity upon. Indeed, other religions are often equally as shunned in the Rim of Fire as the "hated oppressors who walk upon their accursed Way".

Economically, the Inanomalam rim is actually quite well off. The pragmatic reluctance of the military government to go there have led the Edgeworlders to maintain vital things for interstellar life themselves. The economy on the Rim is much more privatized and market-oriented in many parts, whereas in other systems, the system as a local community takes responsibilities for keeping habitats and wormhole gateways functioning to an even greater extent than the "Land of the Saved", as the Edgeworlders derisively call the other Veglyr-dominated territories. A combination of certain cultural developments and the resulting variedly disproportionately small and disproportionately big (depending on where you are) Fleet personnel here have created a vicious circle, however, where space piracy (especially those preying on government ships) is not only far more common than also more tolerated among the populace than in most other "civilized" parts of space. This, in turn, has led to a strong militia culture and a prosperous market for mercenaries on the Rim. While the Edgeworlder Mercenaries might not be able to match the training and equipment of the Veglyr Cosmic Fleet, or for that matter are they anywhere close to being seen as respectable people outside the "Rim of Fire" and other fringe areas, their "warrior culture" ironically manages to resemble the more militaristic Paths of the Way more than either believer nor atheist will aknowledge.

The sheer deterrent factor of what the Veglyr Cosmic Fleet can muster (both in terms of numerical and technological advantage), however, means that a Veglyr civil/holy war has not yet resulted between the mostly Way-following Veglyr (for whom the Edgeworlders have more derogatory terms than most 20th century languages singularly have perjorative nouns) and "those who kneel to no priests" has not yet erupted.

The Inanomalam Rim is actually an outwards-expanding region: With their mercenary retinues, explorer-minded Edgeworlders gladly move outwards into the unexplored systems to build habitats and asteroid farms. This entrepreneurial spirit of the Edgeworlders is culturally unique among Veglyr, but means that Imperial Jardra often find more to relate to among the Edgeworlders than the missionaries they know the "Believer Veglyr" as.


The Thzaxian Exodite Autonomy
Known under various other names, this area of space comprising 3 solar systems, 24 inhabited planets and moons and 18 habitats is in practice completely lawless, save for the innermost 3 planets (and connected habitats) of the Vlurn system united under the Independent Society of Vrlurn. Believe it or not, this fringe actually has a somewhat respectable history, which is why its very existence actually has gathered a lot of popular admiration - though just as many think quite lowly of it. It traces its history back to Thzax, the Xholnra system's outermost world which during the Zxavorian era became a self-governing world as its inhabitants tired of the draconian authoritorial presence. The technocracy which replaced it was not met enthusiastically either, but at least the Thzaxians were now afforded the resources to settle their own systems to claim as their own. A stroke of luck even led to Eisenhans terraforming a few planets for them.

Culturally, the Exodite Autonomy could not be more different from the Xhatrr Dominion. The Exodite Xril are nowhere as 'borged-out, and except for the Independent Society of Vlurn there are no unified political entities above the scale of an individual habitat - and sometimes not even then. Nonetheless, the Autonomy is a very sprawling area of space and definitely not without its charm, what with its often under-repair wormhole gateways and the ambience being very different depending on as much as which corner of the same habitat you happen to be in. The original Thzax Autonomy people's utopian vision of direct democracies has indeed come true in many places here, most notably the Independent Society of Vlurn... but there is no Eden without at least one snake. For each anarchist utopia, there is at least two or three decaying and half-abandoned habitats (a few of which have even been converted into "space hulks") whose habitable parts are battlegrounds between tribes of bored malcontents led by warlords, fighting over the control of power generation, what little food there is left and whatnot.

Of course, most of these people have taken to space piracy, and it is indeed rare to find an Exodite Xril willing to as much as enter an unarmed ship for travel - for behind almost every moon and planet, you can count on finding a lurking flotilla of pirates... if you're really unfortunate the ramshackle gunboats ambushing your ship might be manned by a pack of Drunes, though their raiding activity is rather rare.

In short - the Autonomy contains both Heaven and Hell, often amidst each other. You'll find the same place containing both the best and the worst... and it can easily be argued that Autonomy Xril are much more genuinely alive than the technocrats of the Xhatrr Dominion, even if they objectively speaking probably lead worse lives.


Bodharaktam (the Rush-Stones)
A strange chain of events regarding the Jardra post-war has led to the existence of the Post-National Empire of Greater Avarnam being perhaps the single most culturally and economically vibrant of all Descendant nations. It is definitely the one which strangely enough is the most optimistic about their uncertain future, though - and it is ever expanding into the unknown frontiers of space, but the adventurousness the Avarni Imperials has means that this is a final frontier constantly expanding as ambitious entrepeneurs (spearheaded by Varanor Bodharakt, this frontier's namesake), utopian dreamers, modernity-weary traditionalists, Xril anthropologists and Wayist pilgrims/missionaries populate the increasing number of systems slowly but surely becoming entangled in the Postnational Empire's spiderweb of wormhole gateways. (Bodharaktam Drunes tend to be quasi-nomadic, as the frontier is constantly moving)

For this very reason, the interstellar gold rush frontier of Bodharaktam is possibly the "safest" fringe, as it resembles not as much the distant edges of settled space but rather a sea of a strange recombinant culture expanding through waves washing over a a rocky beach of worlds that, if they ever have seen civilization before, have not done so for many millennia. As such, where the law's presence is practically nonexistant, there are always Edgeworlders willing to make a quick buck, sometimes resorting to small-scale space piracy to stay alive.

In any case, the cultural landscape of Bodharaktam has, aside from the few traditionalists there, managed to somehow become even more chaotic and fragmented than the rest of the Avarni Empire. This is probably what separates Bodharaktam the most from other "Swordworlds" - here, the conflict is mostly cultural and often memetic rather than physical, as distinguished from the specific form of chaos which reigns in most other fringes. A close of comparison could be the Inanomalam Rim, where a holy (unholy?) war is constantly lurking under the surface to arise like a demon from the depths, not the least due to the Way-centric attitudes dominating the rest of the Veglyr-held worlds. Avarni Imperials tend to see things in less black-and-white matters, except for the traditionalists who mostly stick to themselves in their occasionally expanding isolated communities.


Necropolises
This universe is not millions but billions year old, and from the era where a species acquired enough intelligence to eventually taken to the stars, interstellar empires have arisen only to eventually vanish before the scythe of entropy. Finding clear evidence of previous, vanished spacefaring civilizations is no unknown occurrence, if still rather rare.

Nonetheless, it seems like the longer out the Descendants have expanded their reach into the vast not-that-much-a-void of their galaxy, the more likely they are to find entire regions of space wherein ancient high-technological (if either incomprehensible or no longer working) artefacts and remnants of past galactic civilizations are highly concentrated - sometimes even with neither rhyme nor reason.

Many spacefarers fear these necropolises, or at least the most concentrated ones, on a seeming instinct perhaps growing out of sheer intuition or in others acquired through how it reminds them of their own mortality. It might as well be in the nature of creatures past a certain threshold of intelligence to react with mythmaking as soon as they are confronted with such testaments to the craftsmanship of long-dead intelligences possibly beyond their own comprehension due to their sheer strangeness. Of course, what these necropolises ultimately are to the vanished civilizations which made them are shadows upon the walls of a dimly illuminated cave, cast by cardboard reconstructions of the full splendour (or degeneracy) of starfarers so ancient that very few among the Faeries (sentinels of the omniverse of such age) remember more than a few of their cultures, though neither them nor the Nerakk are without their fanciful speculations which might have more credibility.

Due to the often tenuous legends arising from a combination of these factors and somewhat legitimate concerns, spiralling totally out of reasonable proportions (or is it really so?), these are probably the thinnest populated of all fringes. All Descendant presence there consists of archeologists, the obligatory naval outposts with their wormhole generators and the occasional pirates/grave-robbers out for a quick fortune, crossing both the law and spacer superstitions.

For obvious reasons, parts of the stretches of tomb-space that consist the Necropolises have already become common knowledge: A gas giant called the Great Spaceship Graveyard due to the thousands of colossal derelicts orbiting it, and the Siinirak system whose subterranean cities have been completely abandoned by its robotic inhabitants, of whom not a single specimen remains.

In the shadows of the Necropolises, many Descendants wonder at the sort of intelligences they by accident could find themselves at war with if they go too far into the unknown. Indeed, many respectable thinkers speculate that the entire Descendant Confederation and Nerakk Enclave exist within a somewhat small portion of the galaxy currently unclaimed by some greater, hitherto-unknown galactic empire. It is not only statistically possible, but there are also the still-unknown of the ancient nemesis of the Nerakk and scourge of the Ncha (who were wiped out in the three-front war that reduced the Nerakk Empire to its current state) and the Valvyza-Nerulai Incident, where two Veglyr Cosmic Fleet voidfish disappeared in a fringe system mysteriously, only to later reveal cryosleeping survivor who upon awakening babbled incoherently about hostile demonic creatures of untold age sleeping deep beneath the surface of many settled planets, which in the future would awaken to throw the omniverse into a cataclysmic war between the forces of Order and the slavering hordes of Chaos.

Recently, military presence in the various necropolis regions at the edges of various Descendant nations (indeed, some overlap with the Inanomalam Rim and Bodharaktam) has increased, at least in the more important and... interesting... Necropolises, where habitat-sized research stations and fleet bases are under construction. In turn, this is another sign of how the fringe regions of space are often constantly changing and expanding, though the extent depends on where you are.

The future is uncertain, and nowhere is this clearer than on the fringes.
"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." - Heraclitus
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Peregrin
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Re: Cartography

Post by Peregrin »

The Post-National Empire of Greater Avarnam

After the overthrow of Zxavor, one of Txaxil's first moves was to help the Jardra rebuild their civilization he had almost left in shambles before the alliance was established. The entire system of Vorou was with help from the new, Txaxil-led Xhatrr Dominion unified under a central government led from Avarnam by Tukajra, an Avarni admiral in whom Txaxil observed a natural talent for leadership.

Thus was crowned Tukajra I, Emperor of Greater Avarnam - aided by a council hand-picked from the best and brightest minds among the Jardra. Under Tukajra I's rule, all societies in the system slowly began reconstruction to the Imperial Council's recommendations - yet, learning from the past history of the Xril as well as themselves, the constitution the Imperial Council agreed to was somewhat more lenient than that of the iron-fisted "enlightened despotism" some had feared. The "Post-National" was added to the nomenclature to reinforce that this was a state uniting all of the Jardra, not founded exclusively on Avarni cultural values.

By the time Tukajra died, his successor Telshii Korenzar another veteran of the Wormhole War and Greater Avarnam's first Empress, the Empire of Greater Avarnam had become a state on rough technological level with the Xhatrr Dominion though few of its inhabitants had become anywhere as cyborgized and perhaps not quite as populous either but still spread across 67 planets (not counting moons) and 253 habitats over ten solar systems. Today it continues to expand under the leadership of newly crowned Emperor Akuugin Belshaksa as a member of the Descendant Confederacy.

Government

The Imperial Council numbers several thousands of advisors, who elect an emperor from among themselves whenever the last one either dies or chooses to abdicate. Rather than election or inheritance, though, membership is determined solely by invitation by the Council. As the Empire expands so does the Council, with each new province - being defined as a planet and its orbiting moons and habitats, though a particularly populous moon or habitat can count as a habitat on its own which has led to a few relatively peaceful secessions - being represented by a number of Jardra respective to its population.

Though the Emperor formally has absolute power, it is rarely exercised to its full extent as each province is sufficiently ruled over by a governor and has its own constitution (if one that has to be approved by the Emperor and the Imperial Council upon establishment, just to prevent future civil wars) and performs far more of the usual services of a state than the Imperial central government whose main task is to intervene whenever social upheaval or external wars escalate beyond the control of local authorities. Avarnam is the exception, falling squarely under the Emperor's rule. Most provinces, even the habitats, also tend to be somewhat more thinly populated than in any of the Xril interstellar polities or Hrukan Oligarchy.

There is in fact also a hidden partition of powers through the Watchers, a shadowy secret society created by Tukajra. The Watchers are sworn to uphold the value the Post-National Empire of Greater Avarnam had been founded upon, trained in all secrecy to be the best spies and assassins in the known galaxy and ready to strike the instant the Emperor abuse his power, though such an occasion has fortunately yet to present itself since many of the founding Imperial Advisors are still active as such.

Culture

For what is nominally an absolutist monarchy, the Post-National Empire of Greater Avarnam as a state - both the Imperial Council and local provincial governments - does less to enforce any sort of cultural and ideological uniformity upon its citizens than most states in history. This is incidentally also difficult and expensive when a state is as thinly spread over as many worlds and habitats as the Post-National Empire is. The sheer amount of social and technological change that met the Jardra species ever since the beginning of the Wormhole War has divided them.

Some, having seen how their societies arose phoenix-like from the ruins have become perhaps as welcome to change as people can be - whereas others see all socio-economic problems that have either emerged or become worse in the interstellar era (as they call it) as the result and have thus moved to the frontier in order to establish new communities fitting some idealized version of pre-Wormhole War life that for some reason always has nowhere as much in common with its alleged template as claimed.

Considering that their closest allies in the Descendant Confederacy are the Xhatrr Dominion, of all countries, it is certainly strange that the Post-National Empire of Greater Avarnam is one that just lets its member cultures develop. Its vast physical space relative to population allows a culture to move to the frontiers of discovered space if it clashes too much with the dominant one in the area... unless, of course, the economic situation does not allow it - and though most Jardra usually can agree to disagree, there are areas that have to be policed heavily because of cultural conflict.

Even then, the presence of Xril and Veglyr living among them has not only accustomed many Jardra to coexistence with wildly different people, but many of those outsiders also live in the Empire in order to study what their own involvement has caused: Those Jardra not returning to an attempted pragmatic adaptation of an idealized past golden age are perhaps the most culturally fluid of all the Descendantverse. A religion can become the majority upon a planet two years after its inception, and a family can change first language with each generation while still living in the same city. Depending on which Imperial Avarni planet or habitat you are in, the Jardra living there would in comparison either find 20th century society hopelessly chaotic or hopelessly static.

Speaking of the other Descendants, they have too influenced the cultures of the Post-National Empire of Greater Avarnam. A growing number of Jardra convert to Veglyr religions like the Way and the Thronebearers, and there is a subculture of gender-bending cyborgs no doubt inspired by the Xril.

All these things considered, there is still a tendency for new cultural trends - be they fads or paradigm shifts - to begin somewhere in the core systems and then spread throughout the Empire, the lack of FTL communications sometimes meaning that new meme is more or less unrecognizable by the time it reaches the frontiers... creating some quite unusual situations, such as when people in the Bodharaktam begun manufacturing and wearing comically wide-brimmed hats in imitation of a style of hat that a Shaikarsite company had begun making... which had a wide brim only to support the amount of fake feathers decorating it, but none of the imitators from the frontier worlds had anything resembling that decoration.

Finally, some notes on language: Everyone speaks the official language, a standardized and heavily simplified version of Varounnish fluently and is expected to do so - most interplanetary communication being in it. This is, however, mostly as it is one of the few more or less ubiquitously constant languages in the Empire. On the planet Gahuokra, for instance, the next most dominant language and by far the most used in everyday conversation is a constructed language no older than two generations.

Economy

The Avarni Empire has probably the closest thing to a 20th century free market economy that can be found in the Descendant Confederacy, but even this is a bit of a stretch. The structure of the economy depends wildly from where you are, as to be expected from an empire where the centralized authority is more of a watchdog over the provinces than anything else. Even then, the larger corporations - most of whom have evolved out of the United Moons of Sarkai's "houses" - exert some influence on even the most protectionists of local governments.

Not so few provinces exist in more or less total economic isolation in order to remain more or less self-sufficient and in some cases to preserve their culture, whereas the aforementioned moons of the gas giant Sarkai in the Vorou system have slowly turned into one big administration centre for corporations that stretch across all of the Empire. Again, the Post-National Empire is all over the place when it comes to economy but it might bear worth mentioning that quite a few provinces have strengthened their control over the economy as their political leaders have gotten the impression that the (usually Sarkai-based) interstellar corporations have started to consider themselves above local laws.

Still, in most cases protectionism happens out of concerns for local businesses (as in, any business operated from the province in question) as squared up against the Sarkaian ones that spanned across several planets and moons already back in the pre-interstellar era.

Military

There are two forms of military in the Post-National Empire.

The local forces whose equipment and organization varies from provinces to provinces though for matters of practicality there is a fair amount of de facto standardization in both areas - these armies, air forces and navies (both seagoing and space-going) are generally not tasked with defending against much else than the occasional insurgent group or space pirate fleet that gets beyond the grasp of police agencies.

Then there are the far better-funded Imperial Army and Imperial Navy, who command most of the military star ships of cruiser size and above. Steadily updated to not only keep up with the other Descendant nations but also the truly alien - and that includes the impetus to as quickly as possible become able to square off with the Mala'akim that has arisen as their contact with the Descendants has become not only more frequent but more volatile, the Imperial Navy of Greater Avarni is only inferior to the Veglyr Cosmic Fleet in numbers.

Astronomical Structure

The Core Systems

The three innermost systems - Vorou, Kirlash and Saruur - are by far the most heavily populated. It is only Vorou, however, where the any planets and moons are anywhere as densely populated as Earth.

For the most part, these space habitats either stretch through the orbit of planets or cruise throughout the system to refuel for resources at each planet or moon. The solid planets and moons which do not have atmospheres are often settled mostly with industrial facilities, whose sparse crew (factories being mostly automated) live either in the orbiting habitats or houses with large adjunct indoor gardens recreating the atmosphere of a more Earthlike (or in this case, Avarnam-like) planet. Habitats, however, more often have a comfortable level of gravity thanks to having artificial gravity systems.

As the core systems are the most affluent as well, many of their gas giants have one or two artificial moons, a phenomenon unique to the Core Systems. The artificial moons have surfaces similar to those of a real planet complete with atmosphere, but beneath the crust are found absolutely enormous clockwork/electromagnetic systems performing the same functions as the insides of a planet. Power to keep these running are provided by cargo star ships that land at vast star ports near the polar entrances to the internal operation systems. The construction of an artificial moon in a system hence often creates an economy of manufacturing moon-batteries. Since this trend does not appear to be ending right now, people are immigrating from across the Empire to pursue a career in the industry revolving around (no pun intended) the construction and maintenance of moons.

The exception to this is Taurash in the Vorou system, whose moons' inhabitants have a long tradition of frowning upon this. Mind you, it has its share of habitats but none of which are above the size of a large city - and even this after the moons of Taurash have become home to a quite lucrative asteroid farming industry attracting people from all over the Empire.

As far as habitats of the Core Systems go, Shkoblar in the Kirlash system deserves mention. This red gas giant is orbited by artificial moons that have been built to order by private contractors' specifications - something which its original settlers have made fortunes on. The results are bizarre habitats orbiting it, their interiors often deliberately made to resemble a specific fantastic artist's work or places hitherto existing only in fiction. Though custom habitats exist all over the Descendant Confederacy, none build them bigger and fancier than the architects of Shkoblar who are thought to employ at least a fifth of the Kirlash system's population. This also means that Shkoblar's (both artificial and natural) have a number of non-Jardra luminaries among its citizens. Xril, Veglyr and even Haenoki personalities and collectives have their residences orbiting Shkoblar.

Solid planets close in size and gravity to Avarnam have always been terraformed if they do not already have a similar atmosphere. These are usually also the ones that are the most densely populated (Gahuokra in the Saruur system more so than any world in the Vorou system, in fact), usually having at least as many people on the surface as in the orbiting habitats. These planets are generally the only ones in the Empire whose population number in the billions.

The Khirra'or Sea

In roughly the same direction relative to Vorou as Saruur lies the Khirra'or Sea, a region of space shared by the Post-National Empire of Greater Avarnam and the Xhatrr Dominion. As such, these four systems - particularly Takkushra - has the highest population of Xril anywhere in the Empire. Some of them are academics studying the history and cultures of the Jardra, others are just dissatisfied with the overtly micromanaged Xhatrr Dominion but not quite comfortable with the anarchy of the Thaxian Exodite Autonomy.

Many of the Khirra'orite Xril (or Kxirathil, as they call themselves) also find no small amount amusement from the other obvious sociological fact of the Khirra'or Sea: The strongest presence anywhere in the Avarni Empire of the Keshedjra, the aforementioned subculture of Jardra emulating the Xril - specifically those of the Xhatrr Dominion, complete with an elaborate hierarchy based upon brain cyborgization, removing all body hair and a strife to knock down as many gender roles as can be thought of. The unintentional humour Kxirathil see in the Keshedjra comes as much from non-Xril emulating Xril, but from how much many aspects of Xhatrr Dominion culture most of the Keshedjra misunderstand and either filter through the nearest analogue they know from whatever their previous culture was or pick up that type of cultural pseudomorphosis as has happened through two generations of Keshedjra, in case the people in case were born into it.

A few of the habitats in the Khirra'or sea were built by the Keshedjra for coexistence between Jardra and Xril, but at least half of these are still under construction. It must be stressed that the Keshedjra are a minority subculture in the Khirra'or Sea, if a relatively big one, and as many people decide to leave it as join it. This has resulted in the people of the Khirra'or Sea in general being more extensively robotics-enhanced in physiology than those in other parts of the Empire, as well as a few regional fashions being traceable to the Xhatrr Dominion. The most notable case of this is that of having ears surgically altered to be pointier, but subtle things like clothes designs dominated in style by a distinctly stylized realism also come to mind. The biggest impact, though, is that most regional Khirra'orite languages and dialects have many slang words that are ultimately of Xhatrrian origin.

It almost goes without saying that this cultural contamination is no one-way street: For example, there are Xril other than the Kxirathil who subscribe to religions originating in the Jardra of the Khirra'or Sea, most notably the Oknathar Academy which now has a small but vocal amount of followers in the Xhatrr Dominion's parliament of educated technocrats. This probably has a lot to do with a few elements of their theology having been proven more scientifically sound than they appear, e.g. Interdimensional Eugenics. (Which incidentally is a bit of a misnomer as it does not have very much to do with genetics, though this is the best English-language description of the overall idea)

The Khirra'or Sea, by the way, is named after the Khirra'or Reef, a mysterious and quite clearly artificial structure found in the first solar system between Vorou and Xholnra that the Empire explored. It is neither of Nerakk, Ncha or even Mala'aka origin and its actual purpose has been subject to much speculation. It does not appear to actually be habitable, its structure does not follow any known ideas of engineering other than that required to make it exist but yet it drifts there in the Hakhottra system's asteroid belt as the single biggest object in it.

A few have connected it to the Great Singularity, the robot civilization that built the abandoned cities found in the nearby Siinirak system hence anomalously populated mostly by scientists studying them. However, that hypothesis has widely agreed upon as stretching it ever since close examination revealed that in terms of construction it is dissimilar from anything produced by the Great Singularity. The explanation currently considered most likely is that a Faerie dropped it there as a practical joke or a decorative work of art, an idea that is downright down-to-earth when contrasted against one previous consensus holding that it was some sort of communication device that could somehow be activated and create some sort of portal to the home of its builders or otherwise unlock to reveal a cornucopia of knowledge waiting to be deciphered. Any attempts to find such puzzles, though, ultimately proved futile - so the whims of a Faerie it probably was that brought the Reef to being.

Another big tourist attraction in the Khirra'or Sea is the planet of Kenehkvar, mostly for its architecture. For reasons known only to its first governor Sabaro Kishnarak most of its larger cities and orbiting habitats are built in the (rough) shape of an antique Koruuzokian clock down to the interior being vaguely reminiscent in overall layout, if with no(where as much) clockwork-based machinery providing their vital functions. It is a near-universal consensus in the Empire that only the artificial moons of Shkoblar can match Kenehkvar in terms of eccentric architecture built in recent history. Whether this is true is, of course, another question but the clock-shaped cities of Kenehkvar is perhaps the image associated with the inhabitants of the Khirra'or Sea.

Bodharaktam

In the opposite corewards direction from the Khirra'or Sea, stretching out into the great unexplored, is the Empire's loosely populated frontier. Called Bodharaktam after explorer Varanor Bodharakt, these three solar systems are populated mostly by those who belong neither in the core systems or the Khirra'or Sea - not just Jardra but also Xril and Veglyr either longing to get as far way from their respective societies as possible, just out to make a quick buck on completing the settlement of these systems (and inevitably the next to be conquered) or something completely third. Most of the tiny, self-sufficient societies of the Empire live here. Some are amateur experiments in social engineering, others are united by a combined entrepreneurial spirit and desire for refuge from the omnipresence of major Sarkaian corporations. They could be called the Post-National Empire of Greater Avarnam's equivalent of goldrush towns in the Old West.

Then there are those who simply do not belong anywhere else in the Descendant Confederacy. The planet of Bolosstir, for instance, is peopled mostly by Veglyr. To be exact, they are so-called "Edgeworlders", Veglyr with their ancestry from Inanomalam Rim where the dominant religions of the Way and the Thronebearers are unpopular. (The completely irreligious are looked somewhat down upon in most of the Veglyr Cosmic Fleet's dominion) As parts of the Bodharaktam are rather lawless despite the presence of the Imperial Fleet, many Edgeworlders living there can indulge their martial tradition by making their living as mercenaries.

The previously mentioned lawlessness of Bodharaktam can be explained by the fact that the Imperial authorities' presence used to be fairly limited until recently due to these systems' low population density, thus giving space pirates and similar organized crime more room to breathe than elsewhere as they did not have to confront anything bigger than local authorities and law enforcement. Though it now is a somewhat more stable place, pirate fleets sometimes holed up in abandoned habitats (usually cancelled halfway into constructions) hastily converted into bases with extremely makeshift pseudo-cloaking equipment - usually structural modifications that make them harder for some sensor types to catch - are still more numerous and well-organized than elsewhere in the Empire. As the infrastructure of wormhole gateways will expand to more systems, so will the outlaws undoubtedly move to the new frontiers?

Those will, however, not be the only to inevitably move with the edges of settled space. After all, as more people move to Bodharaktam so do the core worlds' influence (cultural, economic and political) upon the frontier increase and those communities created as a sanctuary from those have the options of becoming more insular, emigrating or letting themselves be assimilated. The few isolated traditionalist communities are incidentally also the reason that the newly increased Imperial Navy presence will also likely persist after the pirate problem has been dealt with. Though the imperial authorities mostly leave them alone, it is far from unlikely that these could create violent revolutionaries who could eventually become a problem. Historical experience certainly suggests so.

One world of Bodharaktam, Zoubs Cha, has acquired a reputation as the Empire's own planetwide garage sale. It arguably deserves this, as the planet’s unusually few and loose trade regulations means that all sorts of inconceivable and somewhat things (often marketed as having mythical or supernatural characteristics) are sold and bought here. From alleged fossils from the Progenitors' home world (which by now likely has very few surface clues that it once was widely populated, remember) over books written in hitherto-unknown, undeciphered alphabets that purport to contain the answer to the mysteries of the galaxy (e.g. the origins of the Khirra'or Reef and explored space's many millennia-old necropolises) to all sorts of trinkets that may or may not have belonged to Faeries once... if something is physically conceivable by a Descendant, someone will be selling it somewhere on Zoubs Cha. It should not surprise anyone that the best known inhabitant of Zoubs Cha is one Kraublor Raxx, author of a series of books investigating the origins of various "legendary artefacts" bought at auctions and whatnot.

In some way, Bodharaktam is a microcosm of the Post-National Empire of Greater Avarnam. Next to a planet peopled only by a few underground cities' worth of relatively reclusive hydroponics-farmers and miners staying culturally (but not technologically) in some idealized version of life a few centuries ago can be found a terraformed one with many orbiting habitats, whose citizens are as cosmopolitan as those of the core world Rihassok - if in their own idiosyncratic way. There are even a couple of analogues to the Khirra'or Reef and Siinirak, such as the Great Spaceship Graveyard. This gas giant's only population consists almost entirely of archaeologists and engineers studying the thousands of mysterious ancient derelict spacecraft orbiting it, though those scientists are fairly numerous as the Graveyard attracts the curiosity of people from all over the Confederacy. Oh, that and a strong Imperial Avarni Navy presence near the Graveyard due to vague concerns that the space hulks might contain ghastly and dangerous secrets.
"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." - Heraclitus
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