the writhing you feel in your forehead right now is the GREAT
OUROBOROS [unintelligible] burying eir goresoaked snout into your
frontal neocortex. e is eating your soul and letting your soul eat
itself. enjoy eir love. soon you will be one of us. one of us...
forever.
--disembodied voice in the head of a new inductee undergoing
Mh'azhi transformation
History
The Terran Federation had a civil war. in the early 2180s. It was a
very bloody conflict that saw (among many successful and
unsuccessful splinter factions) human supremacists commit genocide
upon all genemods and synthetics in a wide swath of space. They were
defeated soundly, and driven from human space. But
that's a story for another time.
The war brought a lot of disillusionment to humans. There already
was a Lateral-genemod subculture, but it was comparatively
non-ideological. This new organization, the eldritch-Laterals, or
Mh'azhi, were different. They saw mankind as, if not irredeemable or
inherently evil, but undesirable and always doomed to be conflicted.
Thus they changed themselves, into forms monstrous in shape and
alien in mind. They are pragmatic, however, and stayed in the Terran
government's good graces (especially since the new dominant human
ideology, Prometheanism, was actually pro-genemodding, but to a
lesser extent of course). Over the next 15 years, they built up
funds, people, and clout, then bought out an abandoned asteroid mine
in the frontier. They set up what is essentially an
eldritch-Lateral-only commune there. The mine's abandoned state was
because it turned out to be way less profitable than it was
projected to be due to remoteness and various dangers that made it
hard for baseline humans to work there. They pooled up funds to rent
out the biggest station, which would later become the Dark City of
Paradise.
They have a religion that worships the distortion of body and mind
and considers order to be a sin. They practice cannibalism. Their
whole aesthetic is dark, damp hallways with meat moss. Yet they're a
free and egalitarian society. Whether they're good is up to debate,
but they're probably not evil in the same way the dal-ghar or
Abyssals are.
The Federation actually helped them along, since they promised to
extract the comparatively last few magnetic monopoles in the
asteroid belt... and because that sector of the frontier was
completely barren of any notable permanent settlements. Considering
tensions with the hordes of the AEON Clusters required the region to
have coverage, the Fed decided to prop them up and essentially allow
them free reign over this little realm of theirs, in exchange for a
tithe of valuables mined, all performed research being shared, and
their nascent fleet being subordinate to the Terran StarNavy. Terra
did not and does not care for any and all debauchery that goes on
there as long as no outside citizens get harmed.
30 years later, the Yig'ragn'xu Community (Yig'ragn'xu means
roughly "Union of the New People") has spread to multiple other
asteroids in the system, reclaiming other abandoned mining stations
or digging new warrens. In the dark, damp corridors, the spacious
caves, or the overgrown forests of the Stations prospers a society
weirder than most actual alien civilizations. To them, it is a true
utopia, but to Flats it is a neverending pandemonium.
Physiology and psychology
The most noticeable thing about Yig is, of course, its inhabitants.
It is hard to give an overarching description for them, as each has
a different form (either created randomly by a recombinator device
or designed by themself), but they have some common features. First
of all, there are some stipulations regarding forms, enforced by the
community to preserve cultural cohesion:
- A Mh'azhi cannot have a human face or something too close to it.
- No forms directly based on existing characters from fiction or
myth (loose inspiration is fine).
- Forms must not make existing in the same space inconvenient for
others.
Every Mh'azhi is also implanted with an always-on BCI that allows
them to interact with their environment (the mechanized parts at
least) as if by magic, and connects their brain to the hive mind
known as the Consensus.
Their name for themselves in their constructed language is Mh'azhi,
roughly meaning "Folks of Twisted Flesh". They are divided into
several subgroups called Clades. Every Clade has a different
physiology and culture, and serves a different societal purpose, and
is detailed in a section below.
Eldritch-Laterals are reproductively compatible with each other
(but never with other Terrans or aliens obviously), and breed very
rapidly. Most are oviparous.
Their minds are a lot more driven by instinct and vibes than those
of humans. At once animalistic and detached. All Mh'azhi are very
erratic and unpredictable.
A very rough description of the stations
The second most noticeable thing is the environment of the
Stations. It is informed by their way of providing food and
oxygen, which replaces the fiddly, inflexible, and mundane CELSS
systems. Instead of these isolated mechanisms, the habitat
structures themselves are used to replenish vitals. The exteriors
of the asteroids are covered in gigantic, dark mushroom-shaped
trees and flowers that use the abundant sunlight alongside water
pockets to photosynthesize, pumping air into the interiors via
special tubes. Meanwhile, the halls themselves are an optimal
environment for life to grow in. What used to be insects,
reptiles, and rodents, all distorted like their creators, skitter
on the rough floors while consuming molds, mosses, stalk-like
plants, and each other. They, in turn, often are hunted down and
eaten by Mh'azhi looking for a quick snack. The lighting is
usually on the level of twilight or a full-moon night, which is
good enough for their many, enhanced eyes. Even Paradise, the most
'urban' Station, is very much a living ecosystem throughout
itself, and even its sapient inhabitants are part of it.
Paradise
Paradise is the largest Station by far, and the only one with the
title of Dark City, because of the density of its population and
the amount of industry. In many ways it is the "default" station
and is what most outsiders think of when they think about Yig, not
in the least because it has the only interstellar starport.
Qysy'xith-a, better known as "Paradise", is the cultural and
economic de-facto capital of Yig, and holds about two thirds of
the Mh'azhi population: 120 thousand compared to 200 thousand. It
was the original site of settlement after the buyout, and
accordingly has the longest history. When people think of Yig,
they tend to think of Paradise, much to the dismay of the natives
of other stations.
It is an asteroid bordering on dwarf planet, about the size of
Pallas. Its natural gravity is negligible due to its small size,
despite its dense composition, which means that Yig had to spin it
up to provide centrifugal gravity to the tunnels inside. The
acceleration on the equator is around 0.35g, which is as much as
the asteroid can handle with a good safety margin. Thus, one
cannot stand on its equator's outside, and docking to it is only
safe on the poles. The strain on the asteroid's structure is
lessened by the carbon-nanotube poles lashed from pole to pole
along meridians.
The Warrens
Most of the population lives in the dense network of warrens that
forms a band around the asteroid's equator. It's not expanded to
its full breadth yet, and as new hatchlings are reared, the band
is filled up and expanded as needed. Nevertheless, space is spent
efficiently, and part of being a Mh'azhi is being comfortable with
never being any kind of alone-- and considering the Consensus, in
more ways than one. While the band is narrow, it goes down fairly
deep, with each level "upwards" (actually closer to the core)
having lower gravity. There's no hard boundary, but the last
tendrils of rarely-used rooms taper off around a third of the way
into the asteroid. Despite being "urban", it has its own ecosystem
of mutated Earth animals and plants, alongside engineered
organisms.
The urban part of the band is split into residential, recreation,
and industrial blocks. All three are composed of dark,
irregularly-shaped rooms connected by tiled,
intentionally-overgrown passageways. Plants and fungi sprout from
cracks in the walls between detailed murals and engravings
depicting unrecognizable imagery that makes human heads hurt. The
faint lighting is provided as often by "proper" lamps as by
floating organic orbs. There are lots of little alcoves where one
may rest.
Most of it, however, is still an artificial wilderness in caves
and abandoned stretches of mine, where sapient habitation is
sparse. It has been growing for thirty-odd years now and is
indistinguishable from an alien ecosystem now.
The Sea
The inside of Paradise has a natural wealth of water pockets
that, towards the core, becomes a whole ocean. It is sparsely
populated by aquatic Mh'azhi and lots of imported Earth deep-sea
biota that have been modified to thrive in the harsh environment.
The gravity is low to nonexistent here. In the wide-open central
core there is an agglomeration of distorted settlements. The
inhabitants of this region tend to be the weirdest of the weirdest
even by Yig standards, and are, relatively speaking, apart from
the "land-dwellers", though even the latter are almost always
amphibious themselves, and frequently visit them, not to mention
that the glimmer of the Consensus reaches there as anywhere. This
region is very varied: some areas are pitch-black like an abyss,
others are covered in many bioluminiscent plants. Exploring it
without being able to breathe in water is possible through
minisubmarines.
The Starforests
The natural color and texture of Paradise's surface is gray,
pock-marked with craters. However, from outside, the asteroid
appears to be black with the faintest of greenish hues, with some
purple, red, and blue mottling. This is because of the
vacuum-resistant plants that cover its surface in a dense forest.
They are firmly rooted, as the effect of the centrifugal gravity
is that everywhere except for the poles, they are actually hanging
from the surface of the asteroid rather than planted onto it.
Their canopies are mushroom-like, in order to absorb the maximum
amount of light, and have a natural lead-infused coating that
blocks off the worst of cosmic rays. These trees are tended to by
a few diverse species of biomechanical organisms, tailored to be
able to survive and feed in space. Their implants, however, have
to be installed "manually" (by an auto-doc, with oversight by a
Mh'azhi). The forest serves a purpose: CO2 and assorted waste from
Paradise itself is fed into their trunks, where it is
photosynthesized and recycled into O2 and usable biomass.
Capillaries
Obviously, (rail)roads are unviable in this environment.
Therefore, for quick transportation between various regions of
Paradise, there are large subway-like capsules, suspended and
propelled in vacuum-filled tunnels via powerful magnets, allowing
for zero friction and thus very high speed. These capillaries have
2 major types of pathway: meridians (going to the pillars, see
below, at the poles there are major hubs that allow going to any
station in the band) and core (going straight through the
asteroid, through the deep ocean and to the other side). Though
Mh'azhi are used to them, to humans the acceleration of even the
passenger capsules tends to be headache-inducing.
Pillars
If the docking ports were located at the equator, every
approaching captain would sweat bullets trying to dock without
ramming into a densely-populated warren. To avoid any incidents
and facilitate easy trade, there are two docking pillars extending
up from Paradise's poles. They do not rotate (in the same way the
pillars on stations do not rotate). This is the only way in or out
of the station or Yig as a whole (the other stations in most cases
have ports only designed for resource ferries), and most human
traders only ever see it, fortunately for their sanity. The
tiniest, tiniest veneer of formality is put on during dealings
here, but even that is prone to breaking down. These pillars are
very large and even have human-style private accommodations for
those who have to stop here. Capillary hubs are also located at
the bases of those pillars, and are the entrance into "Paradise"
proper.
Foundry
Mh'azhi society
Everything is shared in their society. Not only is there
essentially a lack of even personal property, thoughts and even
mind-fragments are routinely exchanged, permitted by the ubiquity of
BCIs in their culture. They are very open about such things, and
just as open to outright tampering with each others' minds. Unlike
in the Federation, where mind-modification is taken very seriously
and is sometimes looked down upon, Yig's society actively encourages
sharing one's BCI password around and generally treats the whole
thing as a game. Not everyone engages in this, but the majority does
not keep their brains private. However, in this "game" only
temporary changes are allowed, and permanently brainwashing someone
without consent is considered to be like assaulting and mutilating
them, and will result in repercussions. In addition, there is a
constant, low-intensity mind-link between every inhabitant of a
Station, which essentially appears as a sea of thought called the
Consensus. It is not coherent due to the many overlapping voices
being quiet, but it conveys a general vibe very well. It also helps
communicate the best course of action for the society, and subtly
affects the actions of all inhabitants. This is the closest thing to
any kind of authority in Yig, with its people living in total
anarchy aside from it-- it is much less controlling than, for
example, the iywkaa hive mind.
The biggest faux pas one can make is to seem like one is asserting
authority over someone else. It is not even in the mind of any
Mh'azhi raised there. Everything about their culture that they are
marinated in from birth teaches them that control is the most evil
thing that one can do, that all injustices and suffering suffer from
attempts to control people, and that exerting control over another
sapient being will literally cause demons to possess one.
Biological self-experimentation is also highly encouraged. Nobody
really pays any attention (except admiration) if one decides to slap
on an additional leg, optimize the shape of both livers, and remove
an extraneous eye (then eat it). However, people generally settle on
a vibe and stick with it, and total morph changes are seen as
unusual (if accepted, after all there's probably a good reason).
The Consensus also serves as the backbone of much of their
technology. There are three layers to it: the mindlink, which
essentially serves the purpose telepathy would if it existed; the
electrofabric, which allows machines and some wildlife to be
controlled as if by magic; and the net, which is essentially their
fully decentralized internet shard where anyone can host their own
website for free. Every Mh'azhi has a profile that their BCI
connection always projects. It contains information about their
identity, interests preferred manner of communication, and any
boundaries for interaction. Not respecting what is written there
usually gets one punished.
Generally, Mh'azhi are some of the most creative and
outside-the-box-thinking people in the Oval. Their entertainment
often surpasses Chimera entertainment in sheer incomprehensibility,
though unlike the Chimeras' clean and abstract aesthetic, Yig art is
raw and unpolished and visceral.
- Artwork: lots of contrasting colors, usually desaturated. Highly
stylized, with rough strokes and shapes that are either jagged,
broken and angular, or smooth and melting into each other. Grainy
and uneven. Sometimes "drawn" in scars on sheets of living skin,
or painted in blood. Murals cover the halls of Paradise. Most of
it depicts gore and viscera, humans transforming into Mh'azhi, or
various creatures doing things to each other that should not be
put to text.
- Music: Yig musical tradition by and large rejects the tonal
system. There is a focus on bizarre timbres and intentional
dissonance. There are many music genres specific to the scene,
though to humans most of those fall somewhere fall somewhere
within hardcore techno, dark ambient, harsh noise, and black
metal. Quite often it incorporates sounds that cannot be heard by
human ears. Regardless of genre, walls of static and cascading
squalls of feedback are common.
- Video games: most Mh'azhi video games are run directly on the
BCIs everyone has. Universally, they are deranged and terrifying
in ways only barely approached in human culture by obscure indie
horror games. Their contents are literally beyond words-- and
while gore and shock imagery is rare, the few humans who tried
these games have simply never been the same anymore. Most genres
present there have no equivalent in humanity.
Their technology is frequently biological, especially the more
'mundane' objects-- while heavy machinery still has to be mechanical
and thus imported... furniture is often grown from black wood and
down-like fuzz; all sorts of medicine and drugs are synthesized in
large bulb-like plants; bioluminescent fungi (just like those in
sy!yvl cities) often replace electric lights; and specially-bred
insects clean up crumbs and spills. This cuts down on reliance on
the outside world, of course, and promotes harmony with nature. In
addition, certain Clades are focused solely on their given function;
they may look just like Mh'azhi, but lack the capacity to think of
anything but their task. They thus are somewhat akin to biotech.
Yig culture is completely orthogonal to human culture. While the
founders of Yig wanted to cast away everything that makes them
human, the later generations are organically different. They do not
even think about human concepts like law, family, or leadership.
Many are literally neurologically incapable of accepting or even
comprehending authority. Instead of a state or nation, they think of
Yig'ragn'xu as a living organism and of themselves as its cells. The
Consensus, meanwhile, is like a brain with every Mh'azhi being akin
to a neuron.
Crimes such as assault or vandalism get one reprimanded and
rehabilitated. Crimes such as murder or rape get one cornered into
an alley, shot or stabbed, and eaten. They sometimes draw criticism
for mob justice, however crime is rather rare anyways due to the
fact that there is little motivation for it. In fact, Yig and
especially Paradise are safer than many Terran frontier worlds.
You're more likely to get hurt by one of the wild animals or
carnivorous plants that often roam the halls than become the victim
of a crime.
The culinary habits of Mh'azhi are quite primal. There are no
codified recipes and no real unified cuisine, every cook does things
in a different way-- though each way is downright disgusting to most
humans. The ingredients mostly consist of fungi and plants harvested
from the wilderness areas of Paradise, as well as insects or slime
mold, or animal prey. Non-synthetic meat is seen as completely
normal, there are few vegetarians or vegans amongst them.
Infamously, cannibalism is ubiquitous-- everyone who dies in a way
that leaves an uncontaminated corpse is devoured, and their most
common death penalty is being eaten alive. The Mh'azhi are proud of
being cannibals.
Mh'azhi clothing varies as much as their bodies and minds do. There
are no dress codes or social expectations of any kind around it, of
course, and they try to make it distinct from the usual human style.
So it ranges from strips wrapped around the body, to robes covered
in symbols, to colorful tunics, to form-fitting outfits with
glittered tassels, to indescribable messes of foil and blinking
lights. Most often though, it is very goth. Some however don't wear
anything, especially the less humanoid morphs and animalistic minds;
there are no taboos on public nudity.
There are some practical considerations to clothing, like not
having too big of a footprint, being water-friendly, and being
inedible to insects and bacterial mats. It is also self-cleaning,
which helps with frequent dirt, slime, and blood stains. Nothing
really describable as 'formal' in any way we can recognize, and
consciously so.
They also usually decorate themselves with lots of jewelry and
sometimes tattoos or body paint. Spiky piercings are ubiquitous.
Much like relmai, the purpose of their flashy adornments is to make
oneself attractive to potential mates. However not only accessories
serve that purpose; many Mh'azhi have fold-out fins, membranes,
feathered plumes, and so on; as well as pheromone glands or
bioluminescent photophores.
Their dwellings vary a lot. Most live in shared chambers alongside
dozens of their peers, these chambers combine in one unseparated
area a bedroom, a kitchen, and a recreation area. More introverted
individuals have to themselves small cozy rooms that they can do
whatever with. Those with more serpentine forms often sleep in
random crevices in the hallways. And those with more animalistic
minds, or those who love nature, have nests in the forests of
Paradise. They don't really need much to live, they always value
interaction with their fellow beings over any material goods.
As alluded to before, none of them care for what they were and
where they were from before being modified. Those inducted into
their society cast away all of their national heritage and identity,
and human history is not taught in the creches. Very few of them
have any interest in it, they consider their society to be truly
timeless and final and that all history is irrelevant. In some ways,
Yig is indeed outside of time. Rarely does one see references to
recent events elsewhere, schedules and timeframes are very flexible,
media and entertainment is often nonlinear. They are free of
ephemeral pop-culture as seen in Terran and relmai and many other
societies.
They do have a calendar, of course, and it consists of essentially
meatbag-readable binary. A year in the Pkh'ngys'xu calendar is
defined as the orbital period of a large metallic sphere put into
the same orbit that "Paradise" occupied at the time of its first
settling in 2200 AD, thus 0 PNX (Paradise had its orbit shifted
several times since then). It is around 1.4 Terran standard years or
512 standard days, by lucky coincidence. And from thereon, the year
is divided into a warm and cold season of 256 days (the orbit is
somewhat eccentric), each of which is in turn divided into two
quarters of 128, each of which is divided into two octuples of 64
(this makes 8 months in a year), each of which is divided into two
months of 32... and so on.
They do not marry, and their culture is too alien for human
concepts of romance to apply. Some have permanent partners, others
have transient mates, many others simply breed with no attachment.
Sex is treated as simply a natural and healthy part of the Mh'azhi
experience.
All Mh'azhi also don't fit anywhere on the gender binary or even a
spectrum, appearing completely androgynous to outsiders' eyes. Even
very masculine bodies still have a few effeminate features, and vice
versa. Biologically most of them are hermaphrodites.
The anthem of Yig is called 'Under Brightest Stars'. It is a
wordless, roughly 8-minute electronic track that is always
improvised in a different manner in every performance, though some
traits like the frequent squalls of feedback and stuttering pads
stay a constant.
Demographics
There are, as of the mid-2230s, two adult generations in Yig: the
founders, who grew up and likely lived as humans for a long time,
causing them to still have a fundamentally human perspective– and
lots of resentment towards it and themselves. It could be argued
they aren't truly eldritch, and only put on a mask, but the degree
to which they became that mask is debatable. The second generation
onward, vastly outnumbering the founders, are the raised. They have
lived most or all of their lives within the tunnels and caves,
sometimes not having seen a planet's surface except in a holovid or
a BCI world. They are truly alien from the ground up– but the
founders' frame of reference still leaks over. The raised are much
more optimistic and can be less edgy. Those who have been "adopted",
i.e moved in and were turned, vary in worldview between those two.
The raised are actually fine with Terran culture. Many of them grew
up watching Terran vids, listening to Terran music, playing Terran
games. They see no issue with it, to the chagrin of the more
dogmatic founders, who are in no power to stop them. Many have
resigned themselves to how the course of their society is well out
of their control by now, and that trying to seize ideological
control would splinter it just like Redemptor Omnium's Last Pure
Kingdom did-- and so they ceased their ideological involvement,
mostly serving as spiritual guides.
A form of egalitarian natalism is a cornerstone of Yig ideology.
The ideal Mh'azhi must reproduce as often as possible (but in
practice nobody is forced to; asexual Mh'azhi exist and are under no
scrutiny). There are no families. The annual population growth rate
fluctuates between 8% and 10%, around five times faster than even
the most fertile human growth. Thus starting from just a few
thousand founders, by 223X there are now around two hundred thousand
eldritch-Laterals. At the present time, there is an ongoing
population boom that has no signs of stopping any time soon. There
will be 96 million by the end of the 23rd century-- and possibly
more, with further advances in fertility.
Mh'azhi children are raised communally, in special creches, from
before birth: in each creche there is a "recombinator device", a
broad swath of slimy, veined flesh with pods in which eggs are
stored, with metallic wires and tubes going into every pod, overseen
by those of the specialized breeder clade. The recombinator
scrambles the DNA of every embryo. Then once they hatch, the
community as a whole raises them, teaching them about the world and
indoctrinating them into the ideology and faith. They have quite a
lot of independence and oversight is near nonexistent. Learning is
mostly self-directed, though if a young Mh'azhi picks up statist or
(somehow) pro-Hegemony beliefs they end up getting taken away and
brainwashed.
Higher education is not yet present (as of 223X) on any of the
Stations, but Yig is part of the Alliance Scientific Zone, which
means they can study at any Alliance institute or
university-equivalent; in practice those of them who pursue a higher
education go to the nearest Terran colony of Novoye Pomorye-- a
sleepy world with shallow, ice-wracked oceans and windswept plains.
For many raised Mh'azhi this is their first experience with human
society or planetbound life-- most don't like it very much but pick
up some valuable experiences.
Symbols
The symbology that the eldritch-Laterals use is not standardized,
but nevertheless there are many motifs usually used in art that
represents the Community as a whole.
The most commonly-used emblem Yig uses is the Ouroboros
(khe'inyykh'ngh) , specifically a vaguely canine-looking variation
with four paws. It has an expression that can be interpreted as
either anguish or ecstasy. Sometimes, the spot where its teeth meet
its own tail is streaked with blood and gore (usually in color,
unlike the rest of the symbol which is black and white). This
symbol, as in ancient cultures, represents the circular nature of
existence as well as the concepts of rebirth and fertility.
A ritual dagger with two blades curved into a double helix like DNA
(ywesha-i) is carried by all Mh'azhi who are devout to the dark
gods. It is forged from black or purple alloy and has runes carved
into its blades. One of the blades is serrated, the other is smooth.
Usually used for sacrifices and to engrave things.
They also enjoy fractal imagery.
Religion
Mh'kri-ism (Darkspeech: i'ith-kri'zhya) is the "state" religion of
Yig. Though taking elements from Gnosticism, neo-Paganism, and the
collective dreamings of the nascent Consensus, it has little
relation to any other faiths. It venerates the Mh'kri
(gods/angels/good spirits), an infinite multitude of chaotic beings
that inhabit every Planck length of the universe, but align
themselves with prominent concepts and places, from the broadest to
the most granular. These divinities do not fully exist in the
material world, instead residing in a non-spatial and non-temporal
plane called Uysza'ngh-e (astral). They have always existed and will
continue to exist, and in fact their subtle influence is what causes
the destruction of repressive hierarchies and toppling of this vile
concept called order. But they're only truly active in
places where the Mh'kri (eldritch-Laterals, lit. "distorted people")
reside and live according to their and their gods' wishes.
Mh'kri themselves are uncountable, but within Uysza'ngh-e they
group themselves into several Constellations that are usually the
ones commonly venerated as gods. These include the Great Ouroboros,
the Watcher in the Darkness, and so on.
There are no prophets (Lyyrr Kyn-tanarth, the main founder of the
faith, begged his people to only treat him as any follower) and the
scripture, such as it is, intentionally contradicts itself more than
any traditional religion. Anyone can be a nezg'sheg (shaman) if they
feel up to the task, but nobody stays in the position permanently.
Syncretism is fine, though considered unusual, and they tolerate
other faiths as long as they leave them alone.
Mh'kri-ism attests that a person may have any amount of k'ihgge
(souls), most often a non-integer more than 1 but less than 27.
These souls are not themselves conscious, but they interact in
subtle ways with each other, the brain, hormones, and very
importantly the k'sythl-e (metaphysical imprint) of the body to
produce the k'ynzig (sense of self). These three things are
partially mirrored to and from Uysza'ngh-e, but bodies that are
twisted into forms unlike humans, aliens, or animals are more
connected to this otherworld. This gives them a deep attunement both
to the material world and to what is beyond it.
There is a sharp distinction, to them, between nature and
organicism. Nature is an ambivalent thing, which may be good or bad,
but organicism is always good. Something being organicist does not
necessarily mean being derived from nature, or even organic
compounds (though often it is), but usually means it is dynamic and
flowing and cohabiting rather than controlling. This means that
organicism is, in fact, the opposite of the "natural order" as
defined by Terran conservatives, new and old.
The virtues are: Organicism, Fertility, Compassion, Entropy. The
vices are Rigidity, Purity, Callousness, Order.
Opposing the Mh'kri are the gzi'Mh-aq'kri (devils/demons/bad
spirits), essentially filling a similar role to the Demiurge in
Gnosticism-- they created much of the material world and while there
is an infinite number of them, they have a strict and endless
hierarchy and no free will of their own. Many people who oppose Yig
are deemed to not be people and instead simply gzi'Mh-aq'kri in
human form. To protect the universe and curry favor with the gods,
these are kidnapped and brainwashed or sacrificed when possible.
Economy
More of them need to work than Terrans do, proportionally, because
of the engineered ecosystems of the Stations requiring tending to,
as well as maintenance of technological systems. The largest
occupation, however, is that of mining. Their physiology, combining
resilience, extreme stamina, and perception, as well as adaptation
to 3D navigation, makes them more capable miners than most Terrans.
They are adept at extracting monopoles and other valuables from the
depths of the asteroids. Export of raw materials to nearby human
colonies is vital, as the Community is not fully self-sustaining
yet. When an asteroid is 'emptied', the mines are reformatted into
warrens, with extra rooms dug out and various amenities added, and
the entire asteroid is spun up using carbon nanotube cables attached
to space-tugboats. Thus, a new Station is born and ready to be
populated.
When it comes time to make a difficult decision that could affect a
Station or the entire Community, the Consensus temporarily increases
in its coherency, depth, and bandwidth, essentially merging the
minds of everyone in a Station into one for a duration ranging from
a few seconds to a few hours. This is uncommonly done, but it makes
the Yigragn'xu Community have surprisingly effective administration
despite its total lack of hierarchy or a concrete code of law. When
a single diplomatic representative or the like is truly needed,
someone with good knowledge of alien cultures and Flat-style
communication is brought forward, called a Voice. After the decision
is done, the Voice is recalled.
They allow anyone who shows up to be turned for free, there's
always room for more Mh'azhi. The process invariably causes a
massive personality change, usually causes dissociation from past
memories, and generally causes various psychological side effects.
In addition, the subtle influence of the Consensus gradually erodes
ideological differences from the wider population, ensuring that no
statists intrude upon the united will of the Stations' inhabitants.
It could be said that the past self of every eldritch-Lateral dies
as soon as the nanites finish altering their brain, but of course
they consider that bunk. However, one ritual every prospective
Mh'azhi has to go through before turning is to take one or more
sentimental things from their past on the journey to the Stations (a
photo album, a beloved childhood toy, an old-fashioned paper book)
and destroy it in front of a wide audience in as senselessly brutal
and vile way as possible. This is a way of showing that you indeed
want to obliterate your past self. The more senselessness and
brutality, the better: smashing a book against the floor will result
in yawns; while biting the head off a teddy bear, then disemboweling
it with your bare hands and smearing yourself with the cotton inside
before tying its limbs into a knot will earn you applause. This,
alongside their other aspects generally considered repulsive (such
as the cannibalism), ensures that people who join actually want to
be there instead of joining only because of the aesthetic.
When someone shows up at the dock to be turned, they are first
asked if they really want to, several times, since there is no going
back from being a Mh'azhi.
After this, whether they turned voluntarily or not, their head is
shaved, their clothes are removed, and they are drugged to make
their mind flexible. Then the 'victim's limp body is forced into a
flexible pod filled with fluid, and genemodding nanite serum is
pumped into their bloodstream while an E-BCI clamps over their head.
They experience a month or two of insanely vivid dreams starting
mostly about being devoured by monsters and then becoming something
truly horrific, while the dreams grow more grotesque and bizarre,
then they become soothing as their now-malleable mind permanently
shifts. Soon, they begin seeing these dreams even while awake, and
as their frontal cortex is inhibited they become unable to see these
dreams as separate from reality. From their perspective, they are
not in a pod. They are in a space that only Darkspeech can describe,
that is, the Astral. They see themselves as being caressed and
pumped full of serum not by a machine, but by a divinity or two. All
the while, their body changes, metamorphosing like a caterpillar
into a butterfly. When they come out, in a few months at most, they
recognize their past life and beliefs as a folly.
The Star Navy of Yig
The Community has a small but vibrant fleet composed of a mix of
second-hand Terran vessels (that would have been scrapped if not for
Yig offering to buy them for a pittance) and several ships locally
produced in the shipyard of Foundry. Often, they do not quite match
up to modern Terran safety standards, and the hallways accumulate a
layer of grime and end up crawling with local wildlife, not to
mention the smell. The outside of the ships, meanwhile, tends to be
covered in a layer of radiogenic fungus that feeds off both stellar
radiation and that caused by the torch drives. This fungus makes the
ships pitch-black in color, and provides the environment for unique
vacuum ecosystems as well as a substrate for the gaping maws, eyes,
and tendrils that cover the vessels.
The ferry ships, both passenger and cargo, are old starliners that
would have been decommissioned if not for thrifty eldritch-Laterals
buying them out for a pittance and fixing them up. If they were
meant to be interstellar, they would likely never handle the
stresses of warp again, but they more often than not were simple
interplanetary vessels-- more than suited for travel between a few
asteroids. Travel between Stations is not a very routine ordeal, but
somewhat more common than interplanetary travel is in Terra, as the
Consensus encourages exploring the subtly different cultures of
each, both for personal growth and to help keep an unified identity.
A common dare offered to human tourists is to take a ride on one of
the ferries instead of the tour starliner. "How bad could it be?"
indeed.
The warp-capable ships, meanwhile, are mostly military and trade
vessels, similar in design and nature. The former serve the purpose
of patrolling the sector for pirate activity and acting as a
Starguard, watching out for terrorist vessels that could attack one
of the Stations. The latter directly sell monopoles and finished
goods to dodge tolls and fares that come with human traders. Their
crews, of the kyn-Nschyin clade, are outright part of the ships,
being sapient lumps pincushioned with wires and tubes in the carpet
of meat moss that covers the inside, or specialized AIs-- though
there are a few generalized crewmembers for diplomacy and such. Very
often they grow attached to, or literally fall in love with, the
ship and its biosystems.
Politics
As mentioned before, Yig is an anarchist society in theory and
practice. Unlike the "mainstream" anarchists of the Seven
Commune Worlds in the western Terran Federation, they deny the
left-right dichotomy and reject ideology in general. While claiming
to be neither left, nor right, nor even center, nor even syncretic,
functionally their nameless ideology is further left than the SCW,
and the Mh'azhi representative in the Terran People's Administration
always sides with the Communist coalition. Most Mh'azhi don't really
think about politics in their daily lives though, to them their
lifestyle is just how things are. They consider themselves to have,
as a species, achieved eudaimonia sometime in the early 2220s, with
further change not being in further tearing down of "human nature"
but in the Great Ouroboros continuing to eternally and blissfully
devour itself. There is no place for factional politics or policy
debates in their society. The concerns of the average Mh'azhi are
far more personal: surviving and reproducing.
Those who are interested in the broader politics of Terra
Darkspeech
Darkspeech is the official language of the Community. It is
extremely complicated, only really possible to become fluent via BCI
intervention, and relies a lot on both subtle 'waves' in the
Consensus and body language. Thus, it is off limits for baseline
humans. It sounds different depending on its user and the subject
being talked about: ranging from surprisingly melodic to demonic
screeching. In actuality, Darkspeech can be classified as a family
of related languages that change at a rate faster than any natural
language. Features include looping and branching sentence structure,
tonality so subtle as to require enhanced ears, and high density
akin to the Chimera language (though admittedly less than it or the
conlang Ithkuil). English is used for talking to outsiders, but it
is peppered with rather specific slang and has a very jarring
register. Some Mh'azhi are, additionally, mute, and only talk via
BCI messaging. One of the issues with Darkspeech (from the human
side) is that it changes so often that translation programs can
barely keep up, rendering it even less accessible to outsiders. They
are very proud of their language, and that is part of the reason.
Clades
Clades as a whole have two broad categories: generalized and
specialized clades. Generalized clades are fully sapient and their
differences are mainly cultural and morphological, with
psychological differences manifesting in biases of personality.
Specialized clades fill a very specific role in society and are not
fully sapient, being somewhere between person, animal, and organic
machinery.
-
kyn-Zh'khyann
- Generalized
- Default
- Generally, they are humanoids, taurs, or nagas, they have
either smooth skin or scales, with sleek fur as a distant
third place, covered in a thin layer of slime (which serves a
hygienic and temperature control purpose). They nearly always
have more than two eyes, broad toothy snouts, muscular bodies,
and unusually-shaped limbs.
- Their societal purpose is to form the backbone of Yig. These
comprise the majority of the Mh'azhi population, and can fill
any role. They pride themselves on their flexibility, which is
only matched by the kyn-Glh'nmyn.
-
kyn-Vilxrel'asyr
- Generalized
- Brights
- Slightly more humanoid forms than the kyn-Zh'khyann, much
thinner on average with more human-like shapes in general,
though still very alien. Colorful fur or downy feathers are
dominant skin textures, or translucent skin for more aquatic
types. Many specialized, enlarged sensory organs complement
the ears and eyes.
- Their purpose in society is to ease the darkness and
edginess that many of the other Clades emanate. They are
psychologically incapable of ever feeling sad for long. Much
of their culture takes cues from relmai culture with all that
implies.
-
kyn-Esuur'a
- Specialized
- Breeders
- Less humanoid than kyn-Zh'khyann, though not always.
Sometimes they look like nothing more but masses of tubes of
flesh, sometimes they look relatively 'normal' and
indistinguishable from that clade. In that case they're
somewhat plump and not really made for physical activity. No
claws, no spikes, soft and rounded facial features.
- Their sole purpose is to produce as many young as fast as
possible, with their reproductive systems being optimized to
crank out up to ten live-births or twenty eggs in three
months. And all they care about, on a neurological level, is
that.
-
kyn-Glh'nmyn
- Generalized
- Amorphous
- The most non-humanoid Clade. Their morphs are universally
nonsolid or at least highly malleable. Usually transparent (in
which case internal organs are visible) or single-colored.
Texture varies from watery to fleshy to rubbery. Lots of eyes
and other external organs and appendages that shift around
constantly. Some appear as membranes that sweep through
corridors.
- Their purpose is, surprisingly, to keep the halls clean.
Their slime is essentially sterile, and they are able to
process any sort of organic spill, trash, or corpse lying on
the floor (as is common in Paradise).
-
kyn-Nschyin
- Specialized
- Cogs
- Yig does not only have organics in its ranks. There are many
AIs that inhabit the chambers and caves. Generally look like
wheeled or tracked messes of geared machinery, with lots of
robotic arms and metallic tentacles. Sometimes there are
tendrils of sickly flesh and skin.
- The cultural trait of the Cogs is that they are constantly
on the grind. Looking for anything to do to keep themselves
occupied. Many do monotonous jobs that could've been done by
pseudosapient AI, because they find a pleasant intricacy in
the monotony.
-
kyn-Sooh'fth
