Worldbuilding

This is the original on-site photo of the recovered coilgun before it was transfered to Hightower's museum.

The Zebro 989 was designed and sold to colonies before the war as a budget armament for colonial security use. The 10x60mm ammunition slugs were sized to allow a versatile choice of loadings. All actual projectiles were encased in a compressed magnetic powder inside of a sealant layer. The powder would be dispersed at the muzzle, but unlike more advanced designs, the mechanism often caused a large spark or flash. The 989 had no recoil countering system. Some colonial forces added aftermarket recoil counters, but this example lacks one.

The optic originally came from a CLR-PV/6 disposable anti-armor launcher. It was common to salvage the optics, which were intended to be disposed of along with the launcher, for use on small arms.

In the polar swamp regions of Nasskugel, the guns' safety sensors for detecting clear bores often malfunctioned due to moisture. Against Zebro recommendations, it was common for forces to disable the clear bore sensors. While the chance of a slug not clearing the barrel was low, the repercussions could be catastrophic for the user if they fired a second round into an obstructed bore.

When the arweli invaded and the guns were used in war rather than against occasional hostile alien wildlife, they quickly earned reputations as being substandard. While the weapons were durable and needed little maintenance, none of their loadings were consistently effective against power armor clad arweli commandos. To shorten the guns to make them more maneuverable in the dense foliage, many had their stocks entirely removed and replaced with some sort of improvised sling attachment, as seen here. The 989s were sometimes called "Black Bess" in reference to ancient muskets of earth. The 989s were noted for their large, smooth bores and the feeling by those carrying them that they were as good as having antiques.

While they would be abandoned as soon as better small arms became available, some human forces on Nasskugel never got the chance to do so, and carried them through the end of the war.

Nasskugel was one of the last planets discovered by humanity along a starway route.

The planet in some ways resembles earth in its very ancient path, with a thick atmosphere and humid surface. At the poles are massive swamps as the planet's conditions are long past even a technical ice age. Inwards from the swamps there are large oceans and bodies of water going into and breaking up the land; what land pokes through is covered in jungles approaching the equator. The equatorial region is too hot for humans to survive.

Despite the miserable conditions, much of the planet is still habitable for humans, and in '41 SD the first human colony set down. Over the next two decades more outposts on the planet were set up and people turned the planet into a home for themselves. Unique biological specimens were researched, and useful ones were grown, gathered, or hunted by the colonists as a large part of their economy.

However in '63 SD, Nasskugel was invaded by the arweli as part of their wide scale rapid surprise attacks on human controlled worlds. Nasskugel was seen as a stepping stone into the interior of human territory by the arweli, but when they jumped further in from Nasskugel the next human planet in had massed space assets to repel them. The damaged arweli fleet that returned to orbit over Nasskugel could not attempt to attack again, nor could they abandon Nasskugel defense to ensure human ships did not go through it to enter arweli territory.

The arweli ground forces landed to secure the planet and wipe out the humans to prevent them from being a long term threat. Orbital bombardment was held back on as humans were scattered in such low density that it was deemed to be inefficient, and the hot, wet world was seen as a paradise by the amphibian-like arweli who wanted to preserve it.

The human colonists originally put up defenses with the home guard and security forces fighting conventionally to defend the larger, slower floating colony hubs. As arweli ground forces intensified their campaign of extermination, the humans adapted with the military forces shedding helmets and armor and donning multi-spectrum camoflague anti-thermal suits which were like saunas in the conditions but could make them vexing for the arweli to track. The human colonies broke up into smaller groups of living space vehicles designed to move silently in rivers, or walk in swamps just above the waterline. The few remaining large human settlements were permanent outposts built at the bottoms of oceans, originally as research centers, but they had become central command centers.

The pictured helmet was of a type used very early in the conflict when human forces were still wearing old pre-war issued equipment. The one was found in an abandoned outpost on the southern polar swamp. Markings indicate it belonged to someone in the 6/1, or 6th Region, 1st Brigade Guard. The outpost was abandoned in early '65 SD, and it can be assumed it was left behind then although with poor record keeping there will likely never be an answer to who exactly it belonged to or what their ultimate fate was.

The Lonely Galaxy is not a speculative biology project. I come up with flora and fauna as I need them, nevertheless I feel a bit sloppy about it. Yih's biosphere isn't terribly different from Earth's. Some of this is deliberate. I want yinrih culture to be more relatable while still being different, so their environment has to follow suit. Some of it is laziness. "Eh just stick an extra body segment on a bug and call it a day".

Anyway, here's a very basic insectoid body plan. It has organs analogous to antennae, but they're positioned on either side of the mouth. They're also much stronger, designed not just for sensing but also for grasping. It has two thoracic segments rather than one. Each thorax has a pair of legs and a pair of wings, for a total of four legs and four wings. There is an abdomen that does not differ substantially from that of a typical Terran insect.

As with IRL bugs, there's a lot of variation in this form, including possessing more or fewer thoracic segments, with wings and legs along with them.

Here's a few bugs I've come up with in the lore:

Fireflies: despite the name they're more like bees, living in colonies, feeding on nectar, and producing honey. Their name comes from their bioluminescence, which they use to communicate. They occupy a cultural niche similar to butterflies or ladybugs, being seen as beautiful and pleasant critters. Their association with light once made Firefly a popular given name, but its use has dropped off a cliff thanks to Lichlord Firefly, the leader of Partisan Territory.

Fur lice: ectoparasites that infest yinrih fur. They thrive in crowded environments like the floating cities of Welkinstead and on orbital colonies. There are two species, a basal form that lives on the surface of planets, and a more derived form that has adapted to microgravity, losing its wings. They may be eusocial, forming colonies on their host.

Armorbacks: marine animals in a related clade. They look very crab-like. Legends circulate among the salty-pelted sailors on the surface of Sweetwater of a gargantuan armorback capable of devouring the crew of a mini sub, and the sub along with them. It is said to be completely invulnerable except for a weak point on its ventral side. To kill it you have to flip it over on its back.

I differentiate between "figures" and "characters". Characters are given more of a personality, and might be someone you could identify with, as you'd expect from a literary character. Figures are people primarily known through their effect on the world around them, the stories told about them, etc.

I say this because back on the worldbuilding subreddit I read an exchange between someone who was explaining several historical figures in their setting, and another person who insisted that they were "characters", that they ought to be given complex personalities and internal motivations as you would when writing a story. The other person said more or less what I did above, that they weren't concerned with their personalities and life stories so much as their effect on the setting.

I have both characters and figures in the Lonely Galaxy. For figures, I have a few named Claravian saints.

Pre space age:

Redclaw: described in another post, the founder of the order of Farspeakers, more or less the monkey fox version of Samuel Morse.

Starlight: a healer and botanist who invented a type of self-adhesive fabric inspired by the spiky plant burs that would stick to her fur.

"Blast powder" Blessed Guts[^1]: a ~~test subject~~ I mean tertiary assistant to the research monks experimenting with manned projectiles. Martyred when the projectile he was piloting crashed into a canyon. He possessed an at times destructive interest in blasting powder and firearms, lending him his nickname.

Post space age:

Sunfire: a steadtree hermit[^2] and spiritual councilor who is (in)famous for a particular icon depicting him striking the muzzle of a penitent who sought his spiritual direction. The ritual is common in the Bright Way but often misunderstood by secular yinrih.

Clearwater: a poor bum who lived and died a drunken mess, whose fame in religion comes from him sacrificing himself to save a group of kids drowning in a pit filled with raw sewage, who, in a darkly humorous twist, has become the patron of lone bathroom-goers.

Greenleaf the Steadtree Hermit: credited, along with Iris the Hearthsider, for kicking off the War of Dissolution where a traditionalist faction of internal reformers seized control of the Bright Way from the majority of clergy whom they felt had grown corrupt and worldly. Most famous for calling the High Hearthkeeper a heretic to her face.

Iris the Hearthsider: A cleric aligned with the Pious Dissolutionists who preached against the ruling hierarchy's corruption and greed. Her name has become so ubiquitous among the pious that the word "iris" is almost a synonym for woman. Another Iris would achieve fame for being one of the missionaries to finally make First Contact.

Cloudlight[^3] the Sensible: a rather portly fellow known for his wit, down to earth wisdom and, common sense. One of the major figures hwo helped re-establish the Bright Way after the war.

[^1]: "guts", or viscera are considered the symbolic seat of emotion, so the name is less whimsical to the yinrih ear, perhaps better translated "favored soul".

[^2]: a type of ascetic similar to a stylite

[^3]: "cloudlight": sunlight reflected off the glaciated tops of convective clouds near sunrise or sunset, making it appear as though the sun is rising in the west or setting in the east.

Post image: a human artist's impression of the Claravian afterlife, the Empyrean, depicting a blessed soul immersed in the Uncreated Light. The Empyrean is sometimes derisively called "The farm" by irreverent humans.

Pious spacers will assume this posture while in torpor. The palms of the forepaws are raised, with the inner and outer thumbs pressed against the palm. The palms of the rear paws are pressed together. Yinrih are not unconscious during torpor, and often use the time to meditate.

1. ink bulb
2. phalanges
3. ink duct
4. digital pad
5. claw

One of the few anatomical differences between yinrih and tree dwellers is the arrangement of the so-called "writing tract", the system including the writing claw, the ink duct, and the ink sac or bulb. In tree dwellers, the ink bulb and duct are located directly ventral to the phalanges, meaning each footfall applies pressure to the ink causing some to flow out passively onto the surrounding surface as the tree dweller walks or climbs. In yinrih, the ink duct and bulb have migrated slightly to the side, thus applying less pressure with each step, reducing or eliminating passive ink excretion. Presapient yinrih had to actively smear their ink onto surfaces in order to mark them, encouraging the development of the yinrih's primordial written language.

Yinrih have conscious control of the muscles that cause the ink bulb to contract, and ink flow relies more on the pressure applied by the contracting ink bulb than to gravity. This allows yinrih to write in zero-G.

Stormburg, also Stormboro or Stormborough, is the capital of Moonlitter. It is a floating city located on the planet itself. It is not open to the air like the cities on Welkinstead, since the atmosphere is not breathable. It is located in the eye of a perpetual cyclonic storm. No sunlight penetrates the deep clouds around it. The only natural light comes from the constant lightning from the surrounding storm clouds.

Why the capital was placed in such an inhospitable location has been lost to history. Unlike Welkinstead, Moonlitter itself has few exploitable resources, and the bulk of the population lives on the planet’s many moons. The location may have been chosen precisely because it did not favor any one moon, or perhaps to make life miserable for the politicians who have to live there.

This is Pascal from one of the stories I posted a while ago.

Following from my earlier post. This website will give you the Lagrange points for a two body system given their masses and distance between them.

I used Pluto (or a pluto-like dwarf planet with no moon) and the sun as examples, and I got about 6881688.874956055 km for L1, which is where the mini sun from my other post would have to go.

If I wanted the insolation from the mini sun to equal the actual sun on Earth, it would have to put out 810 zettawatts. That's a lotta watts.

But we're not talking about Earth. Yih has a solar constant (focal constant?) of arount 860 W/m^2, so we can shave the power output down to about 511 ZW. If we wanted it to equal the insolation at Yih's pole during the summer solstice which is 430 W/m^2, we get 256 ZW. Now that's the equator of our dwarf planet getting that amount of pseudo sun, the poles would get much less.

At this point I have to wonder, why bother with the lagrange point? Surely if I put the thing in LEO any savings on fuel provided by the lagrange point would be more than made up for by the lower power needed to get a reasonable amount of insolation, so we're back to my constellation of close-orbiting satellites. That's not quite as dramatic lore-wise though.

TL;DR, you need a magnetosphere to keep the solar wind from stripping your atmosphere. You could create an artificial magnetosphere by placing a really powerful magnet at the first Lagrange point such that the planet is shadowed by the object's magnetotail.

This is a lot simpler than what I had conceived, rings of satellites orbiting the planet and doing... something that keeps the atmosphere stable. Of course there's a lot more to maintaining a terraformed climate than just the magnetosphere, so maybe I'll need those satellites after all.

The Claravian Order of Farspeakers were responsible for building and maintaining the yinrihs' telecommunication infrastructure prior to the War of Dissolution, which ended the Bright Way's monopoly on much of Focus's economy.

The order can trace its roots back to before the space age, when research monasteries were first experimenting with aeronautics. It quickly became clear that they needed a better understanding of meteorology, and to do that they needed to establish a network of surface observation stations. These stations would need to send data in real time to a central location where the data could be plotted on a map to reveal the state of the atmosphere at the synoptic scale.

But before they could do that, they had to devise a way to send information beyond the direct line of sight in real time. Several methods were tried, none of which were satisfactory, though they had marginal success with a system of towers where signalmen would relay tail semaphore signals to one another. This system still relied on maintaining a clear line of sight between individual towers.

A few methods employing the recently discovered phenomenon of electromagnetism were attempted, but the monks were stuck on how to encode the information in a way that didn't require costly and complex infrastructure such as multiple wires and intricate transmitting and receiving stations.

The answer came not from the monks but from a groundskeeper at a particular research monastery. He is known to history as Redclaw, though this may have been a playful pseudonym. Yinrih claws are naturally rust-colored, so the name isn't much of a differentiator, akin to a human calling himself "two-arms".

Redclaw was not educated in the mysteries of Creation like the research monks, but he was a chronic tinkerer, and took a special interest in wires and batteries and switches and the like. He eventually developed a simple circuit consisting of a switch, a battery, and a sounder that would click whenever the switch was closed. He showed his handiwork to the monks, who dismissed it as a mere toy.

The local hearthkeeper, however, saw potential in this system, and encouraged Redclaw to continue developing it. Eventually Redclaw hit upon a way in which he could encode information by varying the timing of switch closures, creating a distinct rhythm that could be made to represent words. Compared to the monks' prior attempts, this system was almost too simple, requiring only a single wire and a ground return. To the monks' credit, they swiftly adopted the system once it was proven that it could reliably transmit messages, and telegraph lines were built connecting distant monasteries.

A distinct order was spun off from the research monks whose sole duty was to build, maintain, and operate this new telecommunication infrastructure.

Just as hearthkeepers tended increasingly advanced hearths, the farspeakers built more and more complex networks as the yinrih climbed the tech tree. Simple telegraphs evolved into telephone and eventually digital networks, and wires gave way to radio waves, optical fiber, and ultimately to FTL ansible links.

Junior farspeakers are called seekers both because they seek the wisdom of more established members of the order and because they're the ones who seek out and troubleshoot problems in the field. Senior farspeakers are called anchorites or anchoresses. They are so called because they tend to stay secluded in a central office, observing the overall network from afar. The order also tends to attract introverts who prefer to spend their time with machines rather than people.

TL;DR, noon on a distant planet like Pluto orbiting a sunlike star is about as bright as civil twilight on Earth.

I can't remember where I heard about "Pluto time" (probably a vsauce video) but the original NASA site with the calculator is archived and no longer works.

The site linked above seems to recreate the original. You input your latitude and longitude and it spits out the next time (evening or morning I presume) that it will be as bright as noon on Pluto.

I did some quick napkin math and determined that the luminous flux on Pluto at noon should be around 100 lux. I checked the outdoor light sensor at the time given on the site above and it's in the ballpark, around 80 lx. That's light enough you probably wouldn't need a flashlight just to get around but probably not enough to read by, maybe.

As for my own conworld, yinrih can see a much broader spectrum than humans, so my napkin math doesn't apply, but it does give an idea of how other things that require sunlight would fare. You're probably not doing agriculture without artificial lights, for one thing.

In the Outer Belt they cultivate a type of high-latitude plant with large leaves to absorb as much of the feeble polar summer sunlight as possible. It forms large cysts filled with a creamy liquid that it uses to survive the winter. Selective breeding has allowed it to thrive on the dwarf planets of the Outer Belt, but still with a heavy dose of artificial light provided by orbital infrastructure and terrestrial illumination.

Welkinstead is the anglicized name of the innermost gas giant of Focus. Its Commonthroat name is LLpLg /long low weak grunt; long low weak grunt; early falling weakening grunt; short low weak growl/, derived from LLg (outpost, colony or homestead) and pLg (cloud), "Welkin" being an archaic English word for cloud or sky.

Welkinstead is a member of the Allied Worlds, along with Sweetwater, Yih, and Newhome. The official language is Commonthroat. Welkinstead is a strong ally in its own right with the planet Moonlitter, the other of Focus's two gas giants.

The large floating cities that house the planet's population are clustered together along two subtropical high pressure belts. The subsiding air helps keep the poisonous gases from the layers below from upwelling into the breathable layer of the atmosphere where the cities can be found, though cyclonic storms occasionally bring gases upward , and residents must shelter inside until the storm abates.

Culturally, Welkinsteaders have a reputation for being provincial and loud, but also friendly and hard-working. Residents of Welkinstead's few moons, called Moonies have the same reputation among other Welkinsteaders as Welkinsteaders have among the rest of Focus.

The Moonie accent of Commonthroat has many of the same cultural connotations as the American English accents of the Southern US. The dialect has a prohibitive mood unique to itself formed with the modal particle Gr /long low weak growl, chuff/, a contraction of the standard G rnL, the imperative modal particle + not. Compare the standard

G rnL qdBq scBqp qnlqCbK
G   rnL qdBq-0  scBq-p   qnlqCb-K
IMP not drink-A water-3D make_sick-DOG
Don't drink that water; it'll make you sick!

With the Moonie:

Gr qdBq scBqp qnlqCbK
Gr   qdBq-0  scBq-p   qnlqCb-K
PROH drink-A water-3D make_sick-DOG
Don't drink that water; it'll make you sick!

edit spelling

Who would have thought creating an entire world would be so complicated and interconnected, but here we are. How do you keep track of it all?

I've used Obsidian for the Lonely Galaxy. I try to write up a topic there before posting it here or on the CBB. I also have a wiki that largely consists of polished (or not so polished) versions of those notes as well as forum posts I never bothered to document properly.

For conlanging I've been all over the place and back again. The grammar is easy enough. I just write in markdown. The lexicon is much harder because it needs to be searchable. I've tried Excel, Obsidian, TiddlyWiki, a JSON file, and currently a CSV file. I wish I could commit to one and stick with it but at this point I'm impressed I was able to preserve the lexicon through so many different formats.

Cloud cities. You know them, you love them, and I want them in my conworld. The last story I posted here takes place in one.

Economically, here's how I see this panning out:

1. A gas giant has economically exploitable gases.
2. Floating extraction platforms similar to oil rigs are set up to extract those gases.
3. These platforms develop ancillary economies to support the people mining those gases.
4. These ancillary economies attract more and more people, diversifying the overall economy to the point that the platforms become floating cities.

In terms of physics and chemistry I'm on much shakier ground. This isn't a rock-hard sci-fi setting, so I'm willing to fudge things, but I like learning about the real world through my worldbuilding so it's fun to try and make it work.

The cities are held aloft by Flanar pontoons and stabilized in part by the extraction equipment hanging down from the underside of the city into the layer where the extractible gases can be found.

At first I imagined the cities being sealed from the outside, but that makes them no different than orbital colonies save for the presence of gravity, so I want them open.

Right now I imagine there being a belt of breathable air, encircling the planet, limited to a certain range of heights and possibly combined to certain latitudes, where the cities can be found. They would drift along with the wind currents, so the air speed would be near zero, allowing people to venture outside without being blown away.

One possibility I entertained was that the whole planet is mostly oxygen and argon, but that doesn't seem likely.

On other places where this question has come up people suggested a Venus-like super earth, so a massive rocky planet with a very thick atmosphere. That would still necessitate sealed cities I think.

This is mostly one guy thinking out loud but I thought it fit the spirit of this community.

World shapes are something I like to play around with. I think I mentioned my previous conworld that existed on the inner surface of a sphere, and it would have some similar optical effects, with distant parts of the surface visible in the sky.

I briefly considered making the yinrih's homeworld a toroidal planet but decided to give it a ring instead.

I found this to be tremendously helpful in charting the development of metallurgy for my own conworld. Because it's pretty old there are likely inaccuracies, but for getting worldbuilding ideas it's pretty solid.

In particular, the theory that smelting was discovered accidentally by placing a campfire on top of ore-bearing rocks or native copper deposits is cited as a previously held theory now regarded as incorrect. I however may use this theory to explain how yinrih discovered smelting since fire tending is a big part of the lore already.

I think the theory presented as most plausible in the show is that smelting emerged out of pottery kilns since they would provide a reducing atmosphere.

”Where’s your bathroom?”

I think this was the third time any of us had heard him speak since we met. Brightstar and Moonglow had found him on the tram from the city center, his snout buried in a claw-written notebook. We needed a second sire besides myself to equal the two dams, and he smelled of age. Moonglow was never one for subtlety. She came right out and asked if he was looking to join a childermoot. “Yes” was all he said, and “OK” was his answer to her offer to join ours.

The two of us were sitting in my den, our womb-nest incubator humming quietly in the middle of the room, occasionally beeping with a routine diagnostic message. Until he spoke he had been staring out the window at the clouds below.

“Bathroom’s over there.” I pointed at the curtain separating the closet-sized restroom from the den. Welkinsteader houses are small by necessity, and the bathrooms smaller still.

He entered the restroom. “What do you do for fun?” he asked from behind the curtain.

“You’ve seen what’s all over my walls; what do you think?”

“Ah, the old guns.” He paused for a moment. “What’s the attraction? Why do you like collecting them, I mean. You don’t look like an ear-notch.”

“Well if you have good firing posture you won’t blow a chunk out of your ear. But no, I’m not a gun nut, well not THAT kind of gun nut. It’s the craftsmanship. I like the leatherwork on the saddles, the paw-forged iron barrels, none of this all-polymerite nonsense. It’s amazing what we were able to make with our own four paws before we invented fabricators.”

He washed up and rejoined me next to our womb-nest.

“What about you?” I asked. “Got any hobbies?”

He looked down at that same claw-written notebook sitting on the desk under his perch. “Oh, just this and that.”

“This and that?” I probed. “You seem awfully attached to that notebook.”

“Oh, that. It’s nothing.”

“Clearly it’s not nothing. You haven’t been without it since my friends met you on the tram.”

He let out a long sigh. “Those are my worldbuilding notes.”

“Ah!” I yipped. “So you’re a writer!”

“No no no.” He began running a rear paw through his tail and I smelled nervousness in his musk. “I’m no writer, amateur or otherwise. It’s just for fun, you know. Pups make up imaginary worlds, and I just started documenting mine as I grew up.”

“Tell me about it.”

He hesitated. “Are you SURE?”

“If I’m going to raise a litter with you I want to know what’s bouncing around between those ears of yours.”

He started wringing his tail like a towel with both rear paws, and his shyness stank up the den. “So it’s about this race of star folk called.. well we can’t pronounce their language, so we call them qMqmg. That’s an onomatopoeia of their name for themselves in one of their languages.”

“What do you mean we can’t pronounce their language?”

“Well, they have a very different vocal tract from us; no muzzle, more muscular lips that can form an airtight seal, flatter more crowded teeth, a smaller and much more nimble tongue. They use their tongue to shape the sounds coming out of their mouth to speak.” He had opened his eyes wide and his ears were pinned back. He was clearly excited to have someone to share all this with. “The tongue is so important that many of their languages use the word for tongue to mean language in the same way we use the word for throat.”

“And you went to all the trouble of designing their...’vocal tract’?”

“Yup. And some of their languages, too”

“You make up languages?”

By now he was holding his tail in a death grip like it owed him money. “Yes. Constructed languages. Honestly the languages are the main thing. The world is just there to give them more life.” He opened his notebook to what looked like a table of different word forms in an alien script written left to write. “This language is called, well, again we can’t pronounce the name. Ultimately the name comes from this tribe who lived on this island in the northern hemisphere.” He turned to a page showing an impressive world map and pointed to a large island to the northwest of a massive continent. “So this tribe invades this island after this other empire fell.” He pointed to a peninsula on the southern edge of the continent. Anyway, this tribe becomes an empire in their own right after a few centuries.”

“Centuries? Seems awfully fast.”

“Oh, yeah, they only live a tenth of our lifespan. Makes things move a bit quicker, gives me an excuse to play around with more languages.” at this point he has started wiggling on his perch.

“Anyway, the tribe becomes an empire and they spread their language as they expand. They found some colonies on this other continent.” He pointed to another landmass across an ocean to the west of the first. “And these colonies rebel and found their own country which eventually spreads all the way to the west coast. The tribe become empire is still expanding despite the loss of some territory to these rebels, but after two massive worldwide wars this empire also falls and the rebels turned country become an empire in their own right, with their own variety of that island tribe’s language spreading across the globe in its turn.

He turns back to the table of words. “So this language is spoken by two different empires and becomes a de facto lingua franca around the world. It’s their version of Commonthroat.”

“Sounds like they haven’t terraformed any other planets,” I say.

“No, they achieve spaceflight right before we find them.”

“And besides this ‘vocal tract’ of theirs, what do they look like?”

“Well, they have no tail, and almost no fur except on top of their head, so they weir cloth coverings like a healer. They used to have fur and live in trees just like we did, but they started living in wide open grasslands. Their rear paws lost the ability to grasp.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of an advantage, not being able to grip things with their rear paws, especially given they don’t have a tail.”

“That’s because they walk exclusively on their rear paws. Their hind legs get much longer and more muscular. It’s all so they can run long distances to catch prey. That’s also why they have no fur, it’s because they excrete saline from pores on their skin that evaporates to cool them down.”

I wrinkle my muzzle. “Eww, sounds gross.”

“Oh that’s what the missionaries that find them think at first. It smells really pungent. But eventually they grow to like the odor. They say it smells like a friend.”

“And the wildest thing is they can’t write.”

“What do you mean; you showed me that alien alphabet earlier.”

“Well they can’t write naturally like we can. They don’t evolve it, they have to invent it. So they just speak for tens of thousands of years before finally inventing writing.”

“And how do they preserve information then if they can’t write?”

“Orally at first, passing it down from sires and dams to their pups.”

“Doesn’t sound very reliable.”

“Oh it’s not at all. They spread across the globe long long before inventing writing, and don’t even remember one another until they meet again thousands of years later. At that point the different groups have developed vastly different cultures and languages.”

“More languages to invent?”

“Exactly!” he yipped.

He suddenly smelled embarrassed. “You probably think I’m crazy now.”

“Crazy? No. Maybe just a bit eccentric. But you clearly have a vivid imagination. I’m sure our pups will love hearing your stories.”

A hearthkeeper's duty is to bring physical and spiritual light and warmth to her congregation. This is accomplished through lighthouses, places of worship of the Bright Way. They evolved out of the open bonfires tended by shamans prior to the Theophany. These bonfires grew into sheltered hearths as the yinrih's society advanced. With the discovery of electricity the hearths evolved into small power plants distributing electricity to the homes of the faithful. These plants burned fossil fuels at first, with a ceremonial hearth located in the sanctuary and the loud and smelly power generation equipment located elsewhere on the property.

As research monasteries continued investigating space, the nature of stars as sustained fusion reactions was eventually discovered. Efforts quickly began to replicate these icons of the Light on a smaller scale for liturgical purposes. Thus was born the fusion reactor, or star hearth. These too were at first located away from the worship space, but as miniaturization proceeded, smaller hearths that resembled stars inside a glass cylinder were able to be incorporated directly into the liturgy.

Between the fossil fuel era and the perfection of the star hearth there was a period where fission reactors were used, with the sanctuary and nave built around a small reactor pool.

Whatever the means of power generation, the hearthkeeper takes the lead role in actively maintaining the equipment and transmission lines. This is why hearthkeepers are both priestess and engineer. Claravian seminaries are centers of theological and pastoral training as well as technical colleges. Helping the hearthkeeper in these tasks are several acolytes. Acolytes can be pups of a certain age, though they must be female. Adult laywomen are also frequently seen as acolytes, and seminarians serve as acolytes as part of their training. Males are permitted to assist in a less technical role as pages--essentially gofers.

The most striking feature of the lighthouse from a human perspective is the presence of bones lining the interior, and occasionally exterior, of the building. A lighthouse is not just a church but also a cemetery. A belief common across yinrih cultures, in and out of the Bright Way, is the idea that to properly honor the dead, one should make good use of their remains. This usually takes the form of using their bones as architectural adornment. The fact that the yinrih are canine and they build things out of bones is a frequent source of comment by humans.

Lighthouses are generally dome-shaped or otherwise incorporate domes into the architecture. This is to mimic the vault of the heavens. Ceilings are painted to resemble the sky, with stars or clouds on a blue background. The bones extend from the base of the wall up a certain height, usually low enough for bonekeepers to easily maintain. Floors may be decorated with natural scenes such as rivers and flora, or in the Outlander tradition of sacred architecture, be painted with icons depicting the lives of saints and martyrs. Support pillars are usually designed to resemble trees as a reminder of the yinrih's arboreal origins. In general, the inside of a lighthouse is meant to resemble Creation in miniature.

The nave of the lighthouse is round. Perches are distributed around the area. The sanctuary is either located in the center of the nave or on the eastern wall. The star hearth is concealed by a shear sanctuary vail outside of liturgies and certain feasts.

Back when lighthouses contained actual hearths, there was an oculus open to the sky that served as a flue for escaping smoke. This became a decorative window after the transition to star hearths. On inner planets where Focus is more prominent, this decorative window takes the form of an arch stretching across the domed ceiling of the worship space. The width and angle of this arch are designed such that the sun always shines into the room as long as it is above the horizon. Take every azimuth and elevation where the sun can appear throughout the day and over the course of the year at that particular location, and connect those points into a solid arc. This represents the size and shape of the window.

Further away from Focus the window is a mere circle above or near the sanctuary. The window is usually stained glass, depicting a yinrih missionary greeting a sophont out of frame.

On orbital colonies, the lack of gravity means that instead of perches, tail bars are used for floating worshippers to anchor themselves in place.

It actually was just a phase.

---

Human culture is far more varied compared to Yinrih culture thanks to the fact that we scattered into isolated communities long before inventing writing, and longer still before eventually rediscovering each other and initiating the process of globalization.

Sure, there are Yinrih myths, legends, and stories, but they're nowhere near as diverse. Human culture also changes more rapidly compared to Yinrih culture, meaning we're churning out epics, ballads, lays, and sagas by the dozen at a rate that monkey foxes could only dream of.

Scary obsessive fandoms are just as likely to crop up among yinrih as humans, and human culture has its scary obsessive fans among monkey foxes. Yinrih refer to these people as HrBqMqmg, from HrBqg (nerd) + qMqmg (human) i.e. one who is a nerd regarding humans. The word has a neutral connotation among yinrih, but its most common English translation, terraboo, has all the negative associations you'd expect from such a word.

Terraboos are infamous among humans for a number of things:

• Trying to speak English or other human languages. No, I don't mean learn the language and use a keyer to synthesize it, I mean actually try to utter human speech sounds. The result sounds a lot like a husky trying to have a mid-checkup conversation with his dentist.
• Wearing human clothes, or at least trying to. Our clothing isn't really designed for quadrupeds with tails. Savvy humans can make a killing selling suitably sized pet clothes and passing them off as modified human garments, which they kind of are, but still.
• Some will even try to walk on their hind feet for extended periods. This is horrible for their back. Terraboos will even buy Partisan military surplus powered armor because it has a bipedal locomotion mode, originally to free up the forepaws to hold more guns. It doesn't work very well, by the way, and looks just as creepy and uncanny as you'd expect.
• Using the term "cynoid" to refer to themselves when speaking English, this is especially common among fans of human Sci-Fi.

But the truly obsessed take it so far that even regular Terraboos think they're crazy. These oddballs among oddballs are called 'skinnies', because they shed their fur in an attempt to appear more human.

This is a minor taboo in yinrih society, as shedding ones fur is traditionally associated with healers, and in some jurisdictions is legally protected as such. Skinnies illegally procure the balding drugs used by healers in order to achieve their desired look.

Pictured above is a spacer terraboo that has shed his fur. This is evident by the black skin on his paws and muzzle that would normally be covered by pelage. Note the presence of a plastic solo cup despite the cup being useless in zero-G.

Humans, as I'm sure you know, tend to react negatively to animals that should have fur but don't, so skinnies are avoided even more than their less obsessed terraboo brethren.

The more extreme expressions of terraboo-ism like fur shedding prove to be a passing fad, persisting for a few decades after First Contact, a flash in the pan in vulpithecine terms.

It's not all annoying though. Terraboos immersed themselves in human pop culture, which exposed them to the scandalous reality of neglected and abused human children. The semelparous and non-contact nature of yinrih reproduction makes this a nonissue for monkey fox pups. The idea that one could have kids but not want to raise them is a foreign concept to yinrih. Since raising a human from infancy to adulthood is a comparatively brief commitment vs raising a litter of pups, many terraboos seek to adopt human children, and there are Claravian fostering orders dedicated to raising unwanted humans.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/40388903

I have a science-fantasy world with intelligent non-anthro animals living in harmony, which I've posted some lore about this in the past. Think "communist non-anthro Zootopia with sci-fi technology." This is something that I've been thinking about for a while and combines my interests in worldbuilding and software. I want to create a fictional social media platform for the animals in my world, and stage fictional threads in the typical Reddit/Lemmy format discussing news and politics taking place within the world. Then post screenshots here with context explaining what is happening. I just thought this might be a more fun way of sharing lore about my world than just the articles themselves, almost like an ARG. I'll also be able to introduce some of my main narrative characters through their social media presence.

On the technical side of things, I don't know if I want to compile and spin up a local Lemmy instance at home and actually stage accounts and posts on it. But actually logging in and out of different accounts sounds like way more work than necessary so I could also just take the Lemmy UI and add my own mock thread data to it. Or, I could write my own code for a completely fictional GUI, since I don't want to just use the default Lemmy UI and break the illusion. The second and third options might be more important if I want to make this an actual ARG and host a website for it, since in that case I don't actually want people to sign up and post.

I would love some feedback in general on this idea, and maybe gauge interest on if this is something people would like to see.

Part 1 in case you missed it.

Fr. Shaheen took a drag of his cigarrette as he stared up at the night sky. A few stars were just bright enough to shine through the gray haze cast by the street lights in town.

Just at the edge of the trailer's porch light sat an old foundation where a sizeable rectory once stood. It had been far too large for a single resident, so he had it torn down and was now living in a much more modest mobile home. At one point a youth center was planned to take its place, but the number of heads devoid of gray hairs that could be found in the pews of Our Lady of the Cedars could be counted on both hands.

Rare was the night where the priest couldn't be found puffing away in front of his trailer. Restful nights were few and far between. Maybe his smoking habit was to blame. His new housemate did comment frequently on his snoring, loud enough to be heard from the other end of the house.

That new housemate was awkwardly lying on the bench across from him, a haphazard jumble of limbs. He was covered wet nose to prehensile tail in black and white fur. He broke the silence with a cough. "Why you cleric breathe that smoke stick?" came a tinny robotic voice from somewhere in the tangle of legs. "That smoke make cough. Smell bad bad." While the little quadruped's English was improving by the day. The intonation was off, with stressed syllables appearing everywhere but where they should.

"We all have our vices," sighed Fr. Shaheen. "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"

"You cleric friend, ask ask."

"Why'd Iris insist on you staying with me?"

After a long pause, "She iris think you human maybe follow Light more good than us yinrih. Maybe again you cleric make me friend believe."

"I think Dr. Staples has been giving you guys the wrong idea about humanity."

"He doctor show us how strong human, how fast human. Show us beautiful arts. Show us human help other and not think self."

"Yeah, that's what we aspire to be," grunted Fr. Shaheen as he rose to his feet.

"Where you cleric go?" asked the creature as he oozed down from the bench and planted his hexadactyl paws on the wooden porch.

"Come on. We're going to get more cancer sticks." The priest walked to a dust-caked pickup truck parked next to the trailer. After a deep bowing stretch the alien trotted behind him.

"Turn off that synthesizer," said the priest as he turned the ignition. "I need to work on my Commonthroat comprehension."

The alien complied, slipping the small chording keyer from his wrist and placing it in a pocketed band around his right foreleg. His real voice came in quiet melodic whines and growls, as though a dog were trying to speak Mandarin in its sleep. The priest had to strain to discern the subtle shifts in volume that were just as meaningful as the underlying sound.

«When are you going to give me a human name?» the alien grunted.

"Eh? Don't you have a perfectly good Commonthroat name? ring...light, isn't it? So like moonlight, but from a ring around your home planet?"

«Yeah, but I want a name humans can pronounce.»

"What's wrong with translating your name as is?"

«This planet doesn't have a ring, and none of you humans have been on a planet that does. I feel like the name falls flat. I want my name to mean something to those around me, not just to the five other yinrih who are with me.»

After a long pause, "Back there before we left, you said you didn't believe anymore."

The alien hesitated, then tilted his muzzle up, a rough equivalent to an affirmative nod. «I was a devout pup. I went to liturgies daily, poured over hagiographies, could quote scripture as easy as breathing. Faith helped me back then. I was...am--» The next few words were lost on the priest.

"Maybe rephrase that last part, Those are some new words for me."

«Well... I'm not sure if you humans experience this, but some of us have something wrong in our brains, a condition that keeps us from feeling happy. I have that condition.»

"Depression," said the priest. "We've got that over here alright. I struggle with depression, too. A lot of humans do. My faith keeps me afloat. Sounds like it helped you, too. But what happened?"

«I always needed something solid I could stand on, something tangible that vindicated my faith. Through my puppyhood I thought I had that something, but I turned out to be wrong.»

"What was that something?"

«Persistence,» said the alien. «For a hundred thousand years the Bright Way persisted. It survived threats from without and from within. It managed to survive so long despite the often profound stupidity of its leaders. I thought only a divine mandate could keep such a mess from foundering.»

"And...?"

«It was a lot of little things. I noticed other Wayfarers could be just as rude and hateful as anyone else, and that made me wonder if the Bright Way is no better than any other group of people, is it really special? Surely the organization that claims to be the bastion of truth and virtue should be BETTER, right? Not just not any worse.

«But the tipping point was when the High Hearthkeeper tried to shutter the missionaries, the whole purpose for the Bright Way's existence, you know? 'Go, dearest little ones, spread your light to the stars, and ye shall become brighter yourselves.' That's the Great Commandment. That's our most sacred precept, that we're not alone in the universe, that we should seek out the Light's other creatures among the stars. So what? We're just going to abandon it now? Than what are we? What is our reason for being?

«That's when it hit me. If our own leader doesn't care, why should I?»

"You sacrificed a lot. It took you 250 years to get here, and it'll be at least that long before you see others of your kind again. If you think this mission from God, this Great Commandment, of yours is just a fairy tale, than why bother?"

«As for me,» said the alien, «I'm not a very gregarious person. The other missionaries with me, they're all I've got. If I didn't go with them I'd likely never see them again.»

"But still... dropping everything knowing you may never return, that's a heavy choice to make, friends or not."

«Well, you can blame Iris for twisting my ear. She said if I were right, and this is all nonsense, I will have lost nothing by coming with them. It's not like we age while in suspension, and it wasn't like I was pulling up roots by leaving home. But if the Bright Way is right, I will have gained everything by obeying the Great Commandment, so--» He quickly flicked his ears back in a cynoid shrug.

The priest was beaming.

«You're showing your teeth. Is something wrong?»

"Pascal!" the priest proclaimed. "That's your human name!"

«I don't follow.»

"Blaise Pascal, he lived 400 years ago. Most people today know him as a scientist, I'm pretty sure there's a unit of measure named after him, but he also talked a lot about faith. Pascal's wager. What Iris told you. We call that Pascal's wager. Lose nothing or gain everything."

Pascal looked out the window as the pickup pulled into a sprawling parking lot. At its center was an equally sprawling monolithic building.

«So why'd you bring me here, other than to get more of your foul-smelling smoking sticks?»

"I told you what Dr. Staples showed you was what we humans want to be. That's all well and good, but you also need to know what we are." The priest got out of the pickup and Pascal followed.

"You're definitely going to need that synthesizer."

Pascal positioned the keyer in his left forepaw, then looked up at the large illuminated sign above the entrance and attempted to sound out the letters.

"W A L M A R T"

"Hey," the greeter stepped in front of the pair. "No shirt, no shoes, no service," he said pointing down at Pascal.

"But--" Fr. Shaheen protested.

"--Nah, Just kidding, go on in. I've been wanting to say that ever since you little guys landed."

The two entered the store proper. "It'll just be a minute, My cigs are right over there--" Fr. Shaheen gestured toward one of the checkout lanes. A line of shoppers, at least 20 deep, snaked around the surrounding displays.

He swore in Arabic under his breath. "OK, it'll be longer than a few minutes."

"Short-staffed tonight," said the shopper at the end of the line. "Let me guess, Cigarettes? That's what everyone else is here for."

He glanced down at Pascal. "First time at Wally World?"

Pascal bobbed his head up and down in an exaggerated nod.

"He needs to see the other side of humanity," said Fr. Shaheen. "Those ivory tower folks at the college are showing them Olympic athletes and firefighters and renaissance masterpieces, and I want to give them the whole picture."

"Hoo boy you're in for something alright," the shopper chuckled. "Hey between you and me, if you wanna blow up the Earth after this I won't even blame you."

As they talked, a large woman in a scooter rolled up to the end of the line. "Aww!" she cooed between breaths of exertion. "So cute." She reached down and scratched Pascal behind the ears. "Whosagoodboyyesyouare!"

«I'm a person and I have personal space!» Pascal barked, ducking out of her reach.

The shopper glared at the woman. "Seriously, lady? You been living under a rock the last two months? What makes you think that's OK?"

"He's got fur, ain't he? And four legs and a wet nose. If God didn't want us to pet 'em then why'd He make 'em fuzzy?"

"You must be from Austin," said the shopper. "I thought we chased all you weirdos away weeks ago."

The pair's argument gradually increased in volume. The woman rose from her scooter and began gesticulating. Fr. Shaheen stepped between them. "Let's be charitable--"

"Cram it, fish eater!" the woman snapped.

Pascal slipped down an aisle and out of sight, anxious to avoid the melee that was surely brewing.

He stared up at the shelves and scented the air as he walked. Away from his human host everything seemed intimidatingly tall. Suddenly he felt something wet under his right front paw. He looked down at the yellow puddle underfoot and sniffed, the unmistakable odor of human excreta.

An elderly human was waddling around the corner, more of the same odor wafting off of him. "Better clean that up, sonny," he said to a passing employee.

"Clean what up?" A adolescent male voice approached from the other direction. The lad came into view and looked down at the puddle. His face flashed with frustration and then to embarrassment when he noticed Pascal's paw marinading in the mess.

"I heard over the walkie that one of you guys was here." he sighed, pulling a wad of sanitizer wipes from a cleaning cart behind him. "So, ready to nuke us from orbit yet?" he handed the wipes to Pascal. "It's the only way to be sure."

Pascal shook his head as he wrung the towelettes between his forepaws, wiping under his claws and between the pads on his palms.

"No?" The boy said as he mopped up the puddle. "You will be when you get out of here.

"I'll take those," he put the spent wipes in a trash bin on the cart. "All good?"

Pascal jerked his foreleg forward and gave an unpracticed thumbs-up along with an awkward affirmative bob of the head.

"Cool," the lad said. "Name's Jeff, by the way."

"Pascal," he synthesized, patting himself on the belly in greeting.

"Pleased to meet you," Jeff said, copying the gesture. "I'm gonna say sorry on behalf of my entire species for all this." He waved an arm vaguely indicating their surroundings. "Walmart's one heck of an anthropology lesson."

Pascal flicked an ear in goodbye and turned to walk back to the front of the store. He heard more Arabic oaths in the direction of the tills, and judging by the clamor more nicotine-deprived humans had joined the fracas. He did a 180 and trotted past Jeff finishing up his cleaning.

"Wise choice," Jeff said as Pascal turned the corner and headed deeper into the bowels of the store.

He continued walking, nose to the ground making sure not to step in any more surprises, until he heard two more humans approaching.

"Honey, why did you grab so many cans of beans?"

"It's those damn monkey foxes, Dave. I'm tellin' you they're fixin' to invade. And when they do, we'll be prepared."

"With beans?" her husband sighed. "There's only six of them. They don't mean any harm. One of them's even been coming to the radio club meetings. He's been trying to teach some of us a word or two of their language."

"It's all an act, Dave." The couple emerged from around the corner.

"There's one now!" the woman shrieked. Startled, Pascal jumped backward, knocking a few items off the shelf behind him with his tail. After gathering himself, he looked up at the woman, gawking at her spray-on tan and bottle blonde hair.

«I didn't know humans could be orange,» he muttered.

"What was that? Speak up, space coyote!"

Pascal reached into his wallet and pulled out his keyer, but the woman snatched it out of his paw.

"Ha! You're not brain-washing anyone tonight!" She hurled the keyer to the ground. Pascal dove after it just as the woman brought her foot down, intending to smash the keyer but catching Pascal's paw instead.

Pain shot up his foreleg. He stifled a bark and looked up at the male human as he massaged his paw, determined for this inter-species interaction to end peacefully. "You friend smell familiar. From radio club?"

"You got me," Dave smiled.

"Don't talk to the enemy!" his wife said, moving between him and Pascal.

Dave began tugging at her arm. "I'm so sorry," he said with a frown. "She's on some new meds; we're working on the dosage."

"ARE YOU CALLING ME CRAZY?!" the woman yelled, her eyes darting around wildly. "I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO'S NOT CRAZY AROUND HERE!"

"I'm so sorry," Dave repeated, steering her down the aisle and out of sight.

Pascal cocked an ear toward the tills again. The din had only gotten louder. He limped around for a few minutes until he caught the unmistakable smell of sugars and lipids on the air.

"Ma'am, this is a bakery, but not a BAKERY bakery." Another young human, female this time, was being accosted by an older woman. "If you want a premade sheet cake, we got premade sheet cakes. You want me to put 'Happy Birthday' on it? I'd be more than happy to, but we can't bake a cake in the shape of a Stanley cup."

"The Customer is always right!" snapped the woman.

"in matters of taste," the girl muttered under her breath.

"What was that?!"

"I said 'Is there anything else I can help you with?'"

"No! You've just lost yourself a customer."

"oh no..." the girl whispered sarcastically.

The woman spun around, nearly tripping over Pascal's tail, stabbing it with a stiletto in the process.

He yelped in pain but the woman stormed off without looking back. His cry caught the attention of the girl behind the counter. She leaned over to peer down at Pascal. "You OK?"

«Honestly I've been better,» he grunted, probing with a padded finger at the maroon stain spreading over the white pelage of his tail.

"This tail fine," he said via the keyer. "Not much this blood. Hurt worse before."

He stood there for a moment, nursing his tail in silence as the girl looked on.

At last he curled his tail tight against his back and put his paws up on the sneeze guard. "You friend sell what?"

"Cakes and cookies," she said.

"Those C A K E S and those C O O K I E S what?" He drew out the unfamiliar words.

"They're food, you eat them. You want to try a sample?"

"Not want," he wagged his head from side to side. "Might kill me yinrih. maybe that human food this yinrih poison."

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," she said.

Pascal peeked over the counter. "No chair? What way you friend sit? All day that boss make stand you friend?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "They say it makes us look lazy if we sit. Such is the life of a wage slave. But I guess that's not a thing where you guys are from, huh?"

"We yinrih have," said Pascal. "some place we yinrih go buy this thing or that thing. Some place eat some food. When pup at that place me yinrih work, bring those food, take away those dirty bowl."

"You were a waiter!" The girl said.

"Me W A I T E R," Pascal nodded. He had set his HUD specs on his muzzle and was hastily skimming a poorly organized English lexicon for words he couldn't recall, occasionally jotting down new ones as the conversation unfolded.

"Where we come from, this place call--" he grunted the word in Outlander before finding the correct English translation. "Litter of moons. It call because planet big made of gas, have many moons, they follow planet like pups follow dam."

"That's sweet," said the girl.

"anyway," Pascal continued, "at moonlitter, it part of E D U C A T I O N of pups, they make pup work at store or at R E S T A U R A N T. They say it make pup E M P A T H I Z E with those worker in C U S T O M E R S E R V I C E when grow up."

"Ah, so it's part of your schooling, then? They make you hold down a job?"

"Yes," he nodded. "Teach F I N A N C I A L L I T E R A C Y too."

"I wonder what alien Karens are like," the girl said half to herself.

"K A R E N?" Pascal queried.

"That--" she pointed at the wound on Pascal's tail. "--that woman who stepped on your tail, that was a classic Karen."

"Yes yes," he bobbed his head. "Those we have."

"We call them..." here he paused while digging through the lexicon. "...It hard to say. "My language Outlander have thing English not have. English say 'you' for everyone, but Outlander have different 'you' for different people."

He uttered a few melodic grunts and whines. "That mean, 'you' but only for you sire or dam or litter mate. It called--" he rummaged for an obtuse grammatical term. "--it called F A M I L I A L form."

More growling, "and that mean 'you' but for friend only, That is A M I C A B L E form."

A chuff and some whining, "and that mean 'you' for everyone else. And that called T R A N S A C T I O N A L form."

Recognition dawned on the girl's face. "Ah! English doesn't do that but Spanish does. You say 'Tú' for friends and family but 'Usted' for everyone else."

Pascal flicked an ear in acknowledgement. "yes yes. Like that. When you talk to customer or when customer talk to you, It proper use transactional form. When you worker talk other worker use transactional too, maybe amicable if good good friend. But you never never use familial form at work. It considered V U L G A R."

"That bad?"

"Yes yes." Pascal geckered in amusement. "When foreigner learn Outlander they make this mistake much. Sunshine does this all the time. You see her, yes yes? Other missionary, no fur and big ears, she is from other part of Focus, planet called Hearthside. When Hearthsider learn Outlander, they think familial form mean 'I like you, you like my family, so I call you by that'. But that not right. Well, that not only meaning. Yes it mean 'I think you like family' but it also mean 'I expect you TREAT ME like family. So obey like pup obey sire or dam, or give special treatment like between litter mates. When customer use that form, it make them sound E N T I T L E D. Like you owe them respect, like they are one of your sires or your dams.

"Anyway, These Karens, they like to use familial 'you' to workers, So we have a word, it means 'one who uses familial pronoun'. Long in English but much shorter in Outlander. So I put 'Karen' in our lexicon."

The girl smiled.

"You show your teeth. That is good, yes?"

"Oh yeah, sorry," she said. "Humans show our teeth when we're happy."

"Like this?" Pascal slid his lips back, flashing his fangs.

The girl laughed. "Yeah. You know, I didn't realize how much like us you guys were. We have all these stories about aliens, some want to kill us, some want to loot our planet, sometimes we kill them. Sometimes they're so different from us that we can't even communicate. But it rarely ends well when we meet. But here we are, two veterans of the customer service trenches trading war stories. It makes the universe feel a little less lonely."

Pascal cocked an ear toward the front of the store. "The argument has stopped. I go back."

"Nice meeting you I'm Lupe, And your name?"

"Pascal," He said, rearing up on his hind feet and patting his belly.

"Bye, Pascal, Oh, and your English is great, I think you got better just while we were talking."

"Thank you. I talk more, I get better." He started off toward the front of the store.

"Got my cigs!" Fr. Shaheen, sporting a black eye and fat lip, held the carton of carcinogens aloft like a video game protagonist after acquiring a new item. A few of the other patrons were being hauled off by cops. "The bishop's gonna have some questions for me in the morning. I'm sure this'll end up in a few YouTube videos at least."

"So," he said as they walked back to the pickup, a lit cigarette already between his lips. "You've seen Man the angel and Man the ape, what do you think about us now?"

Pascal took stock of his injuries, his smashed paw and lacerated tail, then slid back his lips and looked up at the priest.

"You're showing your teeth. Is something wrong?" Fr. Shaheen asked.

«No, not at all. I know you can't smell our pheromones, so I thought imitating you're teeth-bearing gesture would let you know I'm happy.»

«I see now that humans can be violent, greedy, disgusting animals.»

"And that makes you happy?"

«Because yinrih are also violent, greedy, disgusting animals. You think these claws are just for climbing trees? I'm not as naive as you think, and neither are the other missionaries. We didn't set out to find perfect creatures to admire on a pedestal. We want others who can walk down the hard road of life together with us. We want friends, and that's what we found.»