Glossary

Anything not found here probably has its own section.

Agressive Peace: Agressive peace is the preemptive strike that eliminates a threat before it commits an atrocity. It's a difficult balance as, for example, you only definitely know someone is a murderer once they have killed someone, but by then the victim is dead. Anti-bomb laws are a form of agressive peace as it allows people to be taken down before they hurt anyone, even though they have not actually committed any other offence. The biggest legal form of aggressive peace in the Humanitarian Alliance is the Settlement Act 2109, which throws jurisdiction over all humans. The military enjoys agressive peace.
Artificial Intelligence: AI's are computers and are not alive. They can be grown to become alive where they become EI's; the same way a sperm and egg can grow to become a biological human.
Astronaut (Redefined): An astronaut is an explorer or pioneer of space. They are generally not military but often hail from military and are typically scientific. They are seen as bold peaceful explorers of the unknown vastness of space. As exploring is expensive, most astronauts are funded by government or large commercial organisations with a specific goal in mind. It was astronauts funded by the Humanitarian Alliance that explored the Oort cloud looking for new avenues to further Humanity. See also Cosmonaut
Astry: On the ground there is the Army. On the water there is the Navy. In space there is the Astry. The word is taken from the Greek, from where we get the word ‘astro’.
Augment (redefined): As augmentation became ubiquitous, the term became too long and clumsy, like the perambulator and the omnibus. The ‘ation’ has generally been dropped except by the very old.
Bag and Frag: Marine slang for ‘capture and kill’, where the aim is to capture but if lethal resistance is met, the order is to kill.
Bayonet: A ‘bayonet’ sword is a straight sword that is stored in an arm of the combat suit. It can be ‘flung’ up the arm moving from concealed to projected from the back of the hand, and due to a clever break storage system, it is the full length of an arm. If the arm is bent, only the top half the bayonet can be deployed. Bayonets can also be deployed as handheld swords but the only advantage is in utilising the training of an individual, with the disadvantage of loosing the use of the individuals hands.
Belter: See listing. Someone who is from a settlement in the Terran asteroid belt is a Belter, but it is also used for anyone who didn’t grow up on a planet.
Biologicals: The portion of humanity made up of flesh and blood biological systems. The other type of human is of course Electrical Intelligence.
Blow-Out: From the asteroid mining industry but now used in general speech. A blow-out is where a mine looses its air-tight seal and air is suddenly blown into space. Most blow-outs occur when the structure of mine wall is weekend and the 1 bar air pressure pushes a hole in the wall.
Blung - Belter's lung: Blung is caused by breathing in dust from the air inside mining equipment. At best, lung damage can hamper breathing, at worst, uranium in the lungs slowly irradiates the blood and the whole body. The symptoms can vary from the 'mad hatter' to asbestosis.
The Boosted Turing Test: 64 people interact for 64 hours and any number of participants may be seeking EI status. Typically the number is between 0 and 9. It is defined by MEIA 2024. Also see Electrical Intelligence and Asimov Convention 2020.
Brain Surgery: The process of fixing the hardware used by Electrical Intelligence to process their thoughts.
Cabin (redefined): A cabin is a self contained habitat designed to provide accommodation. They are used in the mining industry where a form of semipermanent housing and offices are needed. Most mines are are air tight but cabins will protect its sleeping occupants should there be a blow out. Additionally the occupants can stay there in safety if there is a blow out and mine collapse. With independent power and life support, some view a cabin as flightless ship. Most cabins are a rounded cuboid which look very similar to Earth’s portacabins on the inside and are equally stackable.
Chairs: The elected leaders of Aetherial are called Chairs, and they sit at the Table. All five Chairs around the table have an equal vote as each represents one of the elements of the Elementals religion. You don't have to be religious to have a chair at the table, and most chairs aren't. Each Chair at the Table holds office for a different amount of time, called a Period of Time. Collectively the institution can be called the Periodic Table of Elements, an unsurprisingly naff name considering that Elementals are basically space hippies.
The Chamber and Chamber Members: The top 300 people with the most votes in the HA election get to sit in the Chamber as a Chamber Member. The Chamber is the political place where HA law is made.
Chamber Privilege: The elected Chamber has the right to change the law including the Constitution, but is still subject to the law except where such laws would infringe on the democratic process. The most famed example of this 'Chamber Privilege' is in regards to official secrets. If a Chamber member feels they need to, they may freely discuss official secrets within in the Chamber.
Champions: Those who first land on a protoearth and fight to make a population recognised by the Settlement Act 2109 as sovereign. There hasn't been many of these people.
Compos Mentis Dijudico Corpus: The HA views that people have a right to do with their own body as they see fit, providing they are of sound mind. The 'right to die' is therefore a legitimate right and can be put into a 'living will', where decisions are known in case of certain eventualities. Additionally someone may just choose to die, in which case they must be viewed as in 'sound mind to decide the body' or 'Compos Mentis Dijudico Corpus', where the decision specifically is to die. Latin was chosen for the phrase as it is a dead language and so to use the phrase you must specifically mean that someone wishes to die, and so legal proceedings can act accordingly.
Commander and Chief of all Military Forces: Also known as just the 'Commander and Chief', the rank is the highest military rank in all of the HA, to which all military forces report into including the Astry. It is a military rank and has to follow motions from the Chamber although it does have some executive authority. Nation states still technically command their own forces but have ordered their troops to follow HA orders. General respect means that the HA never weakens a sovereign nation or undermines or embarrasses their national government. In 2215 the Commander and Chief is the EI Sol Tzu, who is loved by the populous.
The Constitution of the Humanitarian Alliance: The Constitution is the highest legal document in the HA, signed at its founding. Any other Act of Chamber can be struck out by the Supreme Court if they judge it to be unconstitutional. The Constitution arguably holds equal high power with the Chamber of Members, as Chamber Members are subject to all laws, but they can vote to change laws, including the Constitution.
Constitutional Watchdogs: The Constitutional Watchdogs are EIs given executive investigational authority and tasked with protecting one part of the Constitution. There is one EI for each part and they are known as the ‘Constitutional Watchdogs’, the 'Constitutionals' or the 'Watchdogs'.
Cosmonaut (Redefined): Fallen out of use except as personal expression. Those who feel a geographical link or ideological link to Russia, often call themselves cosmonauts. There is no specific definition used by the human race so it is open to interpretation and misunderstanding.
Decant: EIs can 'decant' into drones to have a localised part of them. The drone will become a body with the full potential of becoming a fractured EI. If the drone doesn't have this capability then it is not decanted, instead, the drone is simply just being remotely controlled.
Deus ex machina: It is the unofficial statement soldiers make when they think they need help from Sol Tzu. Sol Tzu operates HAM as a decentralised 'local' deployment where the highest rank on a scene runs the show. Occasionally troops may feel overwhelmed and so ask for help. Sol Tzu says there is shame if you don't ask for help when you need it. The phrase means 'god from the machine' actually comes from the label for poor story telling, where characters get suddenly rescued from trouble for no effort of mind or body, rescucd by a great machine.
DINER: Direct Input Neural Electrical Recovery (DINER) is the illegal technique where electrical charges are applied to a dead body's brain, to provide artificial localised electrical life; to literally make the dead speak. The process destroys the pathway so each part of the brain can only be 'dined on' once, and the best anyone ever got was the single word 'no' before the body was 'untenable'. Despite being illegal and unethical, Iron Wall tried to refine the process.
Door (hatches): This definition of a door in this context is a paired set of hatches that link two ships, so if you can trigger one to open the other will automatically open as well. As this is a specific setup where you don’t have to open the other hatch, the ‘door’ in this context has this specific meaning. If the hatches unpair, it is no longer a door.
Drones: A drone is anything that acts as a body to a mind but has no mind of its own. The mind must be easily detachable or the object will be considered a body and not a drone. Being just an object, the drone can be shut down or destroyed without harm to the mind. Drones may have an AI to act as a nervous system to the body but as AI's are not alive, the drone remains an object.
EI - Electrical Intelligence: A sentient computer is an EI, is alive, is regarded as human and so has human rights. Non-sentient computers that function are known as Artificial Intelligence where AI’s are not viewed as alive. See also Asimov Convention.
EIPS - Electrical Intelligence Protection Service: Set out in the MEIA 2024 Act, a sentient computer, known as an EI, needs to be declared as an adult before it can be free to act in society. EIPS officials can protect people from insane EIs or protect child EIs from any harm.
The Elementals (Religion): In 2100, a peaceful religious group, assigning meaning to the date, went into the asteroid belt and by joining their many small ships, created the democratic colony of Aetherial, which orbits the Sun on the innerside of the Asteroid Belt. They followed a modern version of the ancient polytheistic religion of ‘Elementals’, a reinvention of the Ancient Greek classical thought, now involving five elements, Earth, Water, Fire Air and Aether.
Encoding (Time Bubble): All time bubbles are encoded, although one without the encoding apparatus is actually coded to zero. Encoding can be achieved by changing the magnetic field that envelopes the Impossibility Engine. A simple spinning magnet is enough to encode a time bubble, but it will be difficult to match.
Entangled Network: Created in 2181, the Entangled Network was created by HAS along with the Exchange. It provides instant communications and is freely available to all; and it is paid for directly by HATTER who sees it as an obvious economy generator. It is under the remit of 'perfect market information', the number 1 aspect to a free market. Sol Tzu firmly believes the HA would splinter without it as ou holds that governments cannot be sustained where there are communications lags longer than a week between responses, as with the First Landings, otherwise dependent on Punch Runners.
Ð (Eth): Ð is momentum energy, or the energy differential between frames of reference. It is all the kinetic energy not explained by þ (Thorn). The symbol is a Latin uppercase and can be found listed as Unicode 208. The second order relationship is: ΔÐ = 2þ*(t-1). Time is very important to Ð.
The Exchange: Like phone exchanges before it, the Exchange is the singular hub where all communications that are not point to point are routed through. Most communication is across the Entangled Network, created by HAS.
The Factum: The Factum is the currency of the HA, created and controlled by HATTER. It is from the Latin that literally means something done or made. For ease of conversion, FAC 1 was worth USD 1 when the world switched over to one currency. Its symbol is a modified F with two lines through the F where the normal middle bar is shown, although the single ‘F’ and the ‘$’ can also be used officially as they are more recognisable.
FECER: As all frontier space exploration is expensive, only the super-rich could afford to claim a planet. The result was that every large nation and political block went looking for a planet as part of a colonisation race, even though there was technically no need. Psychologists refer to the domino effect and game theory as mechanisms of psychological pressure for this need to colonise from fear of becoming weak and a victim of a stronger group. They call it 'Frontier Expanding Control Extension Requirement' or FECER where the C is pronounced as an 's'. Critics prefer to pronounce it as a 'k'.
Fi-sics: Pronounced as the contraction of Sci-Fi Physics that it is, fi-sics. The word use to describe fictional physics and should never be in conflict with real physics.
Filterfuge: The filterfuge is a form of medical centrifuge. It is a spinning drum with rings of filters with increasingly smaller holes. Blood arrives in the filterfuge directly from a vein in the body and is spun causing the components to separate by size. The contents of the bad layers that contain toxins, bacteria or viruses are then extracted. The red blood cell layer is oxygenated and returned to the body with all the other remaining components. Filterfuges can be used for dialysis or to almost completely remove bacteria or viruses from the blood, allowing the immune system time to fight an infection.
Fiss (pronounced fizz): In nuclear physics, fusion is the process of fusing atoms and fission is the process of ~~splitting~~ fissing atoms. We can fiss an atom. If something is fissing then it is radioactive e.g. “Don’t touch it, it’s fissing/fissy.”
Flash Welding: Flash welding is where a sheet of metal, known as a tile, self welds over another piece of metal. The tiles are made mostly of iron oxide and carbon but contain reactants that when triggered, change its chemical makeup. In their preuse form they can be easily shaved to be shaped to fit an area, but are tough enough and safe enough to be handled by a naked hand. The tiles come in various surface sizes and about 3mm think, but they can be stacked and used in more substantial blocks. They can adhere to a surface before the weld, either by atmospheric pressure, or through an induced magnetic field using an application tool. You definitely don't want to be holding one in place when detonated by a small electrical detonator.
Fleet Admiral: The highest rank in the Astry.
Fligs: Fligs are devices that throw metal accelerated by an induced magnetic field and have replaced the gun. No chemical propellant is used, making fligs quieter, less polluting (important in confined airspace), and as they can fling any metal, they are very cheep to get ammo for. Instead of bullets they fire shot, or anything metal. Early Belter's called them 'flingers' but everyone else called them 'fling guns', which got shortened to fligs.
Four Stroke Fusion: Currently known as inertial confinement fusion, see nuclear physics for more details. I’m calling it Four Stroke Fusion so engineers looking at their fusion engines actually sound like they are talking about engines. There really is no other reason.
Fractured Consciousness: All human brains are made up of component parts. Biological humans are limited to having all their brain in one place (most biologicals); however EIs don't. They can have their thoughts linked by networks that separate parts of their brain. These different parts are called fractions and an EI can have its consciousness fractured, defined as one part not being able to talk to another part. Any fractures not large enough to be EI on their own, become AI objects, like a dismembered body part. Any parts large enough to become EI on their own, become free individuals. Rampent EI cloning is prevented by the The Return Imperative, one of the first EI only instincts.
The Friendship Think Tank: A body of biological humans who continually intellectually evaluate the Humanitarian Alliance governance.
FTL - Faster Than Light: A stalwart of science fiction. FTL allows us to explore the universe within a lifetime.
Fune Kaisha: Created in 2133, Fune Kaisha is a criminal franchise that continually assesses your worth. Loyalty is viewed as a myth so even if you betray a section of Fune Kaisha, another section or even the original can happily work with you if they can gain from it, as betrayal is also obviously a myth. In Belter-Japanese-English it means ‘Ships Company’. It was created and is run by the near mythical Blaze, the Soulless. His brain was once dying in a semi-random way, due to toxic air and limited oxygen. His limbic system was severely damaged leaving Blaze largely emotionless. He doesn't fear. His anger is limited as is his empathy, although he does feel these a little. He calls them his 'pointers'. Fune Kasha enforcers are Samurai.
Governor: The person in charge of a space station is a Governor. Some Governors have been 'listed' by the HA where HAJaR delegates 'executive' territorial authority. The authority always extends out at least as far as 150km and potentially encompasses the entirety of the solar system. The authority is similar to a mayor, but also includes a HAM military authority equivalent to a newly promoted Major and the rights to commandeer to use any asset to defend civilians from any threat.
HA: The Humanitarian Alliance is the single federal government that runs the human race.
HA Election - Electoral Votes: Each person in the HA gets one vote in the election. They can vote for anyone who stands for election and anyone can stand for election. Electoral votes are the vote(s) you receive, not the vote you give.
HA Election - Hearing Votes: When submitting a motion to be heard, you can attach hearing votes to the motion. You get one hearing vote for each Electoral vote you hold. Pins can work in blocks to get their interest into the fabric of the motion.
HA Election - Pins & Proxies: In an election everyone gets an Electoral vote to use. When you vote for someone, you give them your vote to use for the next 5 years as it converts to other forms of votes. You cannot change your vote after the election. You can however stand for election and vote for yourself and so receive your own vote. If you only receive your own vote then The Electoral Register reports you as elected with 1 vote and you are known as a Pin. The name was given as a convenience to others and is said to come from the 1 vote looking like a pin. As you may not want to spend all day checking the motions, you can with the aid of the The Electoral Register, an EI who runs the HA election process, program your Electoral vote(s) to run anyway you like. Typically people choose someone they politically follow and designate them their proxy, (which can be undone at any time). The proxy gets to count the Electoral vote as theirs until the proxy designation gets removed. This process allows pins to get on with their lives while knowing their vote is still being used, but also can be withdrawn. People who voted for someone else don't have any Electoral votes and therefore can't proxy.
HA Election - Ruling Votes: Each Ruling vote is technically a referendum of the whole population. Practically speaking, enough proxy voting goes on to mean that the vote is in effect a Chamber vote.
HA Election - Trigger Votes: Each of the 300 members of The Chamber get a Trigger vote. With these the Chamber can immediately call a Ruling vote on a non-tabled item. It allows matters that more than half the Chamber consider urgent, to jump the queue and get voted on.
HA Election - Zero: If you stand in the HA election and get no votes you are considered an idiot by many as you didn't even vote for yourself. Your name will be listed on the election sheet with a zero next to it.
HAA: Humanitarian Alliance Astry. See Astry.
HAAS: Humanitarian Alliance Astry Ship
HABIT: Humanitarian Alliance Building, Infrastructure and Transport. It is the HA construction arm that generally focuses on the mega projects too big for an individual nation but doable by humanity as a whole. HABIT also does pannational projects where national governments can't work together. It looks only fill any gaps as seen from a single human race perspective and so it does not tender for construction that national markets can provide for. National projects for rich nations are therefore of no interest to HABIT and so it will not out compete local business.
HAED: Humanitarian Alliance Education and Development. The driving force behind the HAED (typically pronounced ‘ha-ed’ or ‘head’ and not using the ‘a’ unlike HAJaR), is to make sure every child has a good education. It runs schools it requested HABIT to build, all around the human sphere and regulates standard exams, including at the universities, which are actually run by HAS. Its remit and funding was given by HATTER 'to remove the lack of an education that acts as a barrier to entry to the free market'. As the education is freely available, it along with HAHA are why the HA remains hugely popular around the world.
HAFA: Humanitarian Alliance Financial Authority. Closely linked to HATTER, HAFA is specifically concerned with all financial activity in regards to any regulatory requirement.
HAFO: Humanitarian Alliance Food Office. HAFO is concerned with all aspects of food production, including animal welfare.
HAHA: Humanitarian Alliance Health Authority. HAHA aims to make sure everyone is fit and healthy, both from a social remit from HA and from an economic aspect from HATTER, who controls the funding.
HAI: Humanitarian Alliance Intelligence. An agency also known as just 'Intelligence', nothing is out of its jurisdiction, although if an activity is legally dubious, they make seek a 'legal or not' ruling from HAJaR
HAJaR: Humanitarian Alliance Justice and Regulation. HAJaR runs the courts and regulates agencies that have delegated authority, such as Intelligence.
Hive Computing: All computers on a hive network have access to all system resources on that network. See also Canicott Tec.
HOST - Hive Operating System Technology: All computers on a hive network use HOST coding, an open source platform. See also Canicott Tec.
Hub (HA Hub): Hubs are centres paid entirely by the HA in order to provide all key servies in remote areas. They are built by HABIT and most often they are built following the declaring of a new nation under the Settlement Act 2109.
The Human Sphere: Also referred to as ‘the Sphere’, it is the sphere of space inhabited by the human race. It began as a replacement for the use of ‘the world’, such as ‘no one in the world can do it’, which as a statement didn’t include everybody the way it used to, and so the need to express emphasis on how ‘no one can do it’ actually fell flat. It then got used as a ‘sphere of influence’ of the human race and came to represent territory. For a long time the heliopause was ‘the Sphere’. As per 2215 the human race hasn’t met anyone else but none the less has marked its territory. Some philosophers poke fun at the human race for the need to mark this territory so in response the Marines have an unofficial personal tradition to pee directly onto the outer planets in order to poke fun at the philosophers. Amongst other marines they also get to claim the planet and avoid beer tax at the local bar.
The Huston Committee: An organisation setup purely with the task of investigating the crimes of Iron Wall within Intelligence. They have delegated Supreme Court authority on this issue and so are not in any Intelligence chain of command thus keeping their independence, and they also have full access to view any material. The names of the members of Huston Committee are a state secret.
HydrOx: A generic term for all products that use hydrogen and/oxygen, but comes from the Belter company HydrOx. It can be written as either ‘hydrox’ or the company name of ‘HydrOx’. Rival companies can call their products ‘HydrOx’ but they are not allowed to use any similar branding. Hydrogen and Oxygen are also known as ‘rocket fuel’.
Imp Engine: A small Impossibility Engine. No other difference. An Imp Engine is an Impossibility Engine.
Impossibility Engine: The Impossibility Engine is a device that allows a ship to experience up to 8x more time than the universe around it. An inner bubble is the inversion of the outer bubble causing a net zero time effect. Each bubble is also an inertia bubble, so people in the inner bubble don’t experience thrust in the outer bubble.
inbody: Where an EI can be solely in one object that is its body. As they can spread out across networks they can choose to be in inbody or not.
Inertially Detached: All time bubbles are inertially detached from the outer universe. Ships engines may generate 100g’s of force on a ship, crushing barrels stored near by, but anyone in a bubble that lies within the ship will be weightless.
Intelligence: Humanitarian Alliance Intelligence.
The Intelligent Warship Argument: All Astry ships could be made to hold Electrical Intelligence, that is to say, to be alive. If you do this you are creating life that maybe sent to die without choice. Self-destruct is a suicide order and the crew may loose their lives to save a ship that otherwise would have not needed it. Conversely if you don't make a ship EI capable then it is not fighting to its full potential and the crew may die in battle due to choosing to have inferior capability. There is no right answer so philosophers and legal students love to debate this unendable argument. The Astry will not make an EI combat ship as an ethical choice but it does network in the EI Ship.
Interference (Time Bubble): Two or more outer time bubbles from the same design of ships will naturally merge into one averaged time bubble. However if one ship is running 'encoding' then all bubbles will collapse unless all the ships run the same encoding. In effect, a non-encoded time bubble is actually a bubble coded to zero. Interference can be created with the Impossibility Engine on, before any time bubbles are created. It is possible to run interference while not being able to generate a time bubble due to that interference. Interference reaches out 100km in all directions. The interference only applies to the time aspect, the inertial detachment remains.
Iron Wall: Iron Wall is a fascist organisation that grew like a cancer within HA’s own Intelligence organisation. It was brought down by a young Intelligence Officer in 2208 but Iron Wall evaded capture. It is believed they fled to, and got absorbed by Fune Kaisha and hid out on the Kuiper Belt. Iron Wall's bent is anti-communism so they have declared open warfare on Red Blood and openly hate the Rock Breakers Union, which Red Blood is thought to have infiltrated.
Kilopower Scale: The kilopower scale is a notation method of noting wide ranging scale differences, such as distance across the universe. It’s made of two parts, separated by a colon. On the left is the unit of measurement, such as metres, and on the right is the power to 1000. For example 24:0m is the height of a house where as 24:7m is the distance to the Andromida galaxy.
Jump: According to the Astry, 'Jump' is the side the portal was created on (also known as portal side). The other side is 'Landing' (also known as 'starward' side).
The Jupiter Run: An annual race where competitors set off from Ops at the top of the Space Elevator , have to loop around Jupiter and return to Ops. The race tends to take between 5 and 12 hours depending on orbit locations.
Knives (Swords): Old Belter family's still refer to their swords as knives, as that is what they started as. Each old family tends to have their own design of knife and rarely are the typical Samurai sword shape that is otherwise standard.
Landing: According to the Astry, 'Jump' is the side the portal was created on (also known as portal side). The other side is 'Landing' (also known as 'starward' side).
Legacy People: People who time travel arrive in the past can stop themselves from traveling back. It doesn't create a paradox but you are left with a legacy person.
Life Paramount: Life Paramount was founded in 2097 as a political group following the creation of Space Cows. Although they were created illegally, the cows themselves were innocent and so not under attack. Life Paramount actually sought to make sure their welfare was maintained but it was difficult in the 'Wild West' style of lawlessness that pervaded before the recognition of Aetherial as a political force in 2109.
MAT - Mission Adjusted Triage: Triage is the process of assessing a group injured people to prioritise treatment with limited resources, with the aim to save the most lives. Generally someone will conduct triage on the the group before helping anyone. Mission Adjusted Triage is about saving the most lives while considering future potential harm. For example, if there is one medic in a group of ten, one person on the verge of dying and another with a sprained arm, the medic would treat the sprained arm first, if it belonged to an engineer who was needed to disarm a nuclear bomb. There is no point to saving the seriously injured if they are all going to die when the bomb explodes.
'Matter of Opinion' Law: The HA tries to minimise its involvement in law making, preferring to keep society as liberal as possible. It does however recognise that some laws could be applied locally to a geographical area, which are known as 'matter of opinion' laws. The classic example of a 'matter of opinion' law is euthanasia. The HA as an authority directed the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution and rule on euthanasia. The Supreme Court ruled that it was a 'matter of opinion' law and so local law authorities (countries) could decided if it should be illegal. Some countries allow it, some don't, but the law is restricted to geography and time so if someone conducts euthanasia where it is legal, they cannot at a later time be arrested for it in a country where it is illegal .
MCP - Mission Critical Personnel: MCP's are people who are key to preforming a function and would get MAT preference. MCP status can change during a mission, for example, as soon as an explosive expert has blown up the target, they may entirely loose MCP status where as the pilot that will fly them home will gain it, as the mission objectives shift.
Maintenance Overhaul Cycle (MOC): All ships and machines are required by the Astry to have a maintenance cycle similar to a cars MOT. At each MOC, the ship will be assessed as to when it needs to again have another Astry verified MOC. Typically new ships have to have one after the first year, to catch manufacturing bugs. Some ships are then entitled to two 10 year cycles until they reach 21 where it will be typically assessed as eiher every 3 years or every year. Where EI is involved, the MOC often sets the basis for The Return Imperative time frame.
Moneytime: Space has no meaning without time so it is actually spacetime. We are so used to time that we ignore it. Equally, money has no meaning without time so really it is moneytime. To standardise monetary value across time, people calculate its equivalent worth right now, its Net Present Value or NPV.
Motiveness: Effectively an ownerless not for profit, a motiveness is halfway between a charity and a business, it competes with businesses without any additional benefits that charities get, but works to achieve the aims of a charity. The classic example are T-shirt sellers who make money on selling half of their clothing, while giving the other half away to clothe those in poverty. The key difference is that there are no owners/shareholders so there are no legal requirements to maximise profits.
Nation Day: Not an official HA holiday, the military services developed a tradition, on the 1st of April, to wear the dress uniform of their nation, in honour of their nation. It started as a 'non-uniform' day where soldiers could wear what they like and get to know everyone as people. As the soldiers liked to look sharp in a crisp uniform and were fiercely proud of their nation, they chose to take the opportunity to wear their nation's dress uniform. It makes a very colourful break from the general military uniform colours of black, grey, gold and silver.
Notch: A notch is the length of 2cm and isn’t really used as a measure of distance. In speech it replaces the snappy but archaic sounding ‘inch’, as ‘centimetre’ has far to many syllables.
One (Replacing 'man'): The word 'man' is generally accepted to be short for human, where some men have wombs and so are wombmen, spelt woman, so a fireman can refer to both genders. Some people in the Robilliverse (both men and women) found this clumsy, but any other alternative must be orally as snappy as 'man', and so it became fashionable to use 'one' in its place. Not everyone agrees but the concept is well known, and companies started adopting it to minimise legal issues. See also Ou
Ou (Replacing he/she): Some times you just don't want to use he or she. You use Ou. In 1789, William H. Marshall records its existence in an old dialectal English. Wikipedia
The Outback: Out amongst the asteroids in the Asteroid Belt.
Oxgae: Oxgae is a genetically engineered algae that like tomatoes, grows more, the more carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. It is used to terraform protoearths and comes in two varieties. Green oxgae is edible and primarily used to convert atmospheric CO₂ into O₂. Red oxgae is used to clean water sources as it takes up everything disolved in the water, and so is toxic if eaten. Dead red oxgae can be harvested from the seabed and processed for to reclaim everything from salt to rare elements or gold. Oxgae itself can be refined into hydrocarbon products.
Oxidant Supreme: A minor fascist political organisation with no real power or influence who started rising in both, as they began to be supported by Iron Wall. They like hearing each other talk like a narcissistic echo chamber.
Payload: The payload is the name given to any addition to a ship which adds purpose. In simple terms a payload can be a cargo where the whole point of the ship is derived from the need to transport the cargo. On the other end of the scale is the science payload on HAAS European Class ships where the payload itself has a scientific purpose, but most of the time it adds little to the purpose of the ship. The extra science is the 'European gift' to humanity.
Period of Time: The elected leaders of Aetherial are called Chairs, and they sit at the Table. All five Chairs around the table have an equal vote as each represents one of the elements of the Elementals religion. You don't have to be religious to have a chair at the table, and most chairs aren't. Each Chair at the Table holds office for a different amount of time, called a Period of Time. Collectively the institution can be called the Periodic Table of Elements, an unsurprisingly naff name considering that Elementals are basically space hippies.
Punch Runners: Ships that are dedicated to creating portals for other ships to use. The other ships get to save time and effort as the portal is there made from them. That said, the Punch Runner is still the first to arrive and the first to return, potentially making it a FTL mail carrier.
Pregnant: An organisation trying to build an independent EI is said to be ‘pregnant’. The analogy can be extended.
Presidents Precedent: By US presidential decree, all members of a state intelligence organisation can be individually found guilty of collective institutional crimes, where evidence gathering may be impossible. It aplies to the moment when made and so appart from the moment when made, it is spoken about in the past tense. The jurisdiction started on US soil but the view was made HA policy by a Supreme Court recognition on the applicability of guilt. It was invented for and currently only applies to Iron Wall.
The Prime Frequency: 0.134366834. The constant of 0.134366834 used in calculating the energy required to generate a portal.
The Principle of Versatility: Everything that can be designed to fit around a biological human and run by a biological human should be designed to do so.
◌ Portals: Portals are wormholes that are created by a photonic self-interference across an electrical charge gradient. They are typically created by firing lasers at a slit where one side is electrically charged. The volume is directly related to the energy put in, which can be sourced from relative kinetic energy. The ship can decide the width of the portal, but as the volume is set by the energy, the wider the portal, the shorter it will be. Without supplementary power, a portal radius with shrink by about 1m a day. Punch Runners are ships with the sole purpose to create portals. Portals near earth are illegal except for emergency military use. The symbol used to represent a portal is Unicode 9676.
◌ Portal Side: Portal side is the side the portal was created on (also known as Jump to the Astry). The other side is 'starward' side (also known as Landing to the Astry).
◌ Portals (Traveling): Portals that have significant stellar drift are known as traveling portals. Generally, people really don't like these at an instinctive level, even if their occasional use would be logical. Traveling portals take more energy as you need to gain velocity before you get to zero velocity in a drifting portal.
Portage (aka Portaling): From the French, to portage is to transfer cargo through a portal.
Protoearth: A protoearth is a planet that can be terraformed into an Earth like planet. Protoearths are exactly like Earth was before life converted the CO₂ atmosphere into an oxygen rich atmosphere. As oxygen is reactive, planetary formation causes all oxygen to react into molecules such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) and iron oxide (FeO).
Protoportals: Before a portal is formed as a cylinder, its volume can be pumped up by putting energy into a protoportal. These are flat disks with a large radius, which can be disrupted by electrical charge. It is impossible therefore to create a portal near a star, in an atmosphere of any kind, or if an enemy ship is firing a sufficient charge into the disk. If the disk is disrupted, all energy put into it is lost into the 4th spacial dimension.
Punch Running: To generate a portal, the fastest and most efficient way is to spend time building speed and relative kinetic energy to convert into a portal. If all the kinetic energy is converted, the ship will arrive on the other side of the portal with no momentum. Most ships keep a little to move away from the portal. That said, the most efficient and economical way for a transport ship to use a portal is to have someone else create it, having set off some time ago. Punch runners are specialised to create portals and start their run at regular intervals, so a portal is always available near Jupiter. Punch runners are a Aetherial Racer ship type.
Raw: The fully scalable war game invented by Sol Tzu.
Ray Cats: Previously only fictional, real Ray Cats were engineered in 2117 by Acetylene Lox who 'got away with it'. Acetylene took the whitest Norwegian Forest cats, due to their large fur coats and lack of colour variety, and began altering their DNA, but only in regards to changing their coats. The coats change colour depending on radiation or poison exposure. In the case of alpha radiation, the fur coat is enough to entirely protect the cat from radiation, providing it is shaved after exposure. Non-fur covered areas should be treated. Generally, Ray Cats are allowed to roam anywhere they choose, as it is the best way to sweep for radiation. However, in order to protect unborn kittens, pregnant females’ ears go pink to denote that they should be kept away from potential radiation sources. Other than their fur, no other aspect of the cats were changed
Reacted: Anything that is reacted is something that is in its lowest energy or maximum entropy state. Water is reacted HydrOx and so is safe to store.
Rocket Fuel: ‘Rocket fuel’ specifically refers to HydrOx and nothing else. It originated as a Belter term that is now universally adopted. Other fuels are referred to as propellants.
Ronin: 'White hat' Samurai that fight Fune Kaisha. Many are 'disgraced' Samurai hitones that refused to kill a target. Some wear a horizontal green strip on the left side of their chest as a mark against Fune Kashia. Its origin is unknown.
Roundings: The currency Factum has no minimal decimal places. Most people offer any amounts lower than F0.01 to charity or gives it to children to collect. These amounts are called roundings.
The Snap: When flying a drone, the pilot is fully sensing through the drone as if it was part of their body. If the connection is suddenly lost, there is a brief moment when the pilot is disorientated as their traditional senses again come to dominate. The sudden throw back into the room the pilot is in is known as ‘the snap’.
Sol Meridian: All movement is relative, so Sol was designated as the ‘static’ reference point called the Sol Meridian. All stellar drift is relative to the Sol Meridian.
Sol Tzu: Built as an EI with the sole purpose to defend the human race, Sol Tzu is the greatest ever game player and the Commander and Chief of the HA Military. Sol Tzu has been known to take ous own drone body and enter combat as a foot soldier armed with the usual swords and fligs. With the mental agility of an EI and a Entangled Network connection to the drone, Sol Tzu can coordinate ous body with ship fligs allowing incredible manoeuvring with fire. It is believed that if Sol Tzu turns up personally to fight against you, you cannot win.
Space Cows: Space Cows are regular dairy cows that have been modified to survive naked in space; although they would only live for as long as they could hold their breath if equipment isn't available. They were created in 2086, in the early days of Belter expansion, early enough to still have the word 'Space' in their name. The breed became known as Raven after the creators Mary and John O’Raven, who created them outside any legal jurisdiction.
Spaceward: Heading out into space, usually from a planet.
Spatoral: Used to describe something that is both spatial and temporal, usually describing time bubbles.
The Sphere: AKA the Human Sphere. The Sphere is the volume of space the Humanitarian Alliance considers its territory. For a long time it was the solar system limited by the heliopause and was an actual sphere, but it grew to include all human settlement. Where people once said 'the best in the world', they now say 'the best in the sphere'. It can be interpreted as a sphere of influence.
Spook: A spook is another name for a spy. The good guys work for Intelligence and probably are a Major.
Star Grazed: When something passes close to a star it will be irradiated with many things, which may cause issues like metal blistering or brittle braking. Something that has this has been star grazed.
Starler: The Army has soldiers. The Navy has sailors. The Astry has starlers.
Starward Side: Portal side is the side the portal was created on (also known as Jump to the Astry). The other side is 'starward' side (also known as Landing to the Astry).
Stellar Drift: The stars in the universe are in many forms. They are also heading in many directions at many different speeds. With Sol as the reference point called the Sol Meridian, Sol is considered ‘static’. All other stars movement relative to the Sol Meridian is considered stellar drift. All settlement in other solar systems must have minimal drift away from Sol, in order to not loose contact. Some feel the Milky Way Meridian should be used, but outside academia, people only want to know relative to Sol.
Stellar Tow: When orbiting a star, you are actually being towed at the speed of the stellar drift.
Superamic (Super Ceramic): Superamic was invented in 2051 and was a key part in making the maglev train project economical. It naturally doesn't carry any charge or produce any magnetic field, but when a magnetic field is applied to it, it uses the field that would pass through it to produce the opposite field. The two incredible properties of Superamic are: 1. Any charged particle that approaches it, is repelled by it. 2. No magnetic field can pass through it, providing it with incredible magnetic insulation properties (technically half the field passes through it and the other half is converted to the opposite field, cancelling it out). Note that a gram of Superamic can only produce so much magnetism, so an appropriate level of thickness is required to be effective.
Superamic Magnetic Feedback (SMF): SMF opened new methods of propulsion. It was found that an ion, when placed in an open ended narrow Superamic corridor, it will accelerate away from a magnetic fields core, when a field is placed onto it, regardless of charge. It was found that the Superamic interacts with the ion and the magnetic field in such a way as to always push the ion into a less dense magnetic field. As it is an atomic interaction, no control of the magnetic field is needed and the ion will always be fired out.
Swarm Hub: People trade when they need to, so ships are continually coming together. Occasionally a few ships may find themselves coming together at once as multiple ships trading at once is more efficient. Once in a while by pure chance, a lot of ships will come together and create a temporary trading post that will attract in other ships that otherwise wouldn’t have joined. It is this attraction that defines a swarm hub. Once all trade is done there is no need to stay as a clump, so the swarm hub will naturally disintegrate, which also defines a swam hub. The arguable exception is Aetherial, which as the first swarm hub, attracted everyone and gained mass like a gas giant. It never has broken up (although it regularly decouples for safety tests). Fune Kaisha organises illegal trade fairs and gets them to form in a way that looks like a swarm hub. Technically not a swarm hub, they can be labelled as one as they share similar characteristics (by design).
The Table: The elected leaders of Aetherial are called Chairs, and they sit at the Table. All five Chairs around the table have an equal vote as each represents one of the elements of the Elementals religion. You don't have to be religious to have a chair at the table, and most chairs aren't. Each Chair at the Table holds office for a different amount of time, called a Period of Time. Collectively the institution can be called the Periodic Table of Elements, an unsurprisingly naff name considering that Elementals are basically space hippies.
Temporal Frequency: When people time travel the temporal frequency changes, so you can see that there has been time travel.
Temporal Scanner: A tool used to find out when a time traveler went to by watching for a change in the temporal frequency.
þ (Thorn): þ is he energy output of an engine per second, making it a rating for engines. The symbol is a Latin lowercase and can be found listed as Unicode 254. It is a subdivision of kinetic energy and so an engines þ can be calculated using the kinetic energy equation where time is only 1 second. When the þ is known it can be used to calculate acceleration, as acceleration = square root (2 * (thorn / mass) or a = √2(þ/m)
Time Bubbles: A time bubble is a volume of space that is experiencing a different rate of time than the universe around it. They are created in pairs and only created by an Impossibility Engine. The net sum of time passed is the same as the outside universe. The trick with the Impossibility Engine is that the slow bubble is within the fast bubble and so anyone within it experiences the same relative time as that of an outside observer. It is possible to have an inner bubble wrapped around the Impossibility Engine so you wouldn’t know it was there. Time bubbles are irrelevant to gravity. It will affect you just the same within your time frame. To an outsider you may appear to fall faster.
Vigilantly League: The Vigilantly League is an officially sanctioned wing of Intelligence and was when it was founded in 2183. The members actually don't know they are officially sanctioned and think they are breaking the law by existing. Professor Smith brought VL into existence in order to facilitate free thinking and free action. The main aim is to have people who will break the law to do the right thing, in order to compensate for failings in the legal system and the locking in strick ethic of Professor Smith ou's self. It is a direct counter to Fune Kaisha who corrupt people at many levels, including cops and judges. A VL member may find that they have to be brought to justice for a crime they felt necessary, which will end their career in the VL and substantially damage their lifes prospects. This can be done as the members are fully convinced they are acting outside the law before they take action, so any choice to break the law is theirs and not institutionally implied by a government body. Occasionally the Police will harass 'suspected' VL members, which is actually Professor Smith's way of stopping an 'in for a penny, in for a pound' philosophy in regards to law breaking.
War is Upon Us: 'War is upon us' is an official declaration that any HAM personell can make. In making the declaration the HA is immediately accepted as being at war until the declarer or a higher authority says otherwise. The declaration allows a military individual to immediately respond on a war footing, gaining 'war rights', such as commandeering supplies, in order to defend the body politic. The declaration was created as it is believed that waiting for a political declaration could cause a war to be lost. The first person(s) to correctly make the declaration (from observation, not communication) receives the Green Star for Protection to the Human Race. Any declarations made in error but with good intentions are officially forgotten. Malicious declarations are a criminal offence and would lead to a Court Martial. The process works by each rank above the first declaration reassessing the situation and either repeating the declaration of 'war is upon us, or countering with 'we are at peace'. The first declarer can also issue the declaration of 'we are at peace' clarifying if we were briefly at war or if the situation was misunderstood. Typically a soldier would declare 'we are under attack' before getting to the point where they would declare 'war is upon us'.
The Wire: The Wire is the news network operated by HANA. As every story has a different source but they all can be heard about on the Wire, it is easier to refer to news having come from the wire.
Zero Fast: A phrase to mean apparently instantaneous. It comes from the speed test on the first Hive, which ran out of decimal places and reported a run time of '0.000000000000 seconds'. See Canicott Tec.