Glossary
Aether: a gas-like medium encountered in that portion of hyperspace adjacent to our three dimensions. Aether is analogous to the atmosphere of a planet, if our three spatial dimensions were compressed to the two-dimensional surface of a sphere. As an airplane lifts off into the sky, a hyperglider lifts off into the aether.
Aetheric Drive: a means of propulsion wherein spinning hypervanes are rotated into hyperspace and interact with the aether to create thrust. Analogous to an airboat’s fan pushing it across water.
Airscarf: an olive green synlife scarf that processes post-Warsing (terraformed) Martian atmosphere to provide breathable air to its wearer. Must be refreshed daily by exposure to light and breathable air or it will die.
Arkipelago: a collection of asteroids, mostly small, mostly icy, trailing Jupiter by sixty degrees in its orbit around the sun. Home to Tholos Hive amongst many others.
Artiform: an artificial lifeform constructed atom-by-atom in a drexler, itself created and maintained by similar artiforms. Examples of artiforms include mekanos, mekans, pchelans, mantids, chirons, and tharks. Typically powered by kinos. Contrast with bioform, synlife.
Baseline: a human with no significant genetic modifications from the Homo Sapiens baseline. Minor augmentations such as gecko pads for zero gravity are included; major modifications such as wings are not. About 86 giganode neural capacity.
Beanstalk: a structure that bridges the surface of a planet to a station in synchronous orbit, enabling elevators to carry goods and passengers from ground to orbit.
Bioform: a biological lifeform based on DNA, including genetically engineered variants. People, goats, chickens, fish, insects, etc. Contrast with artiform, synlife.
Brainstone: a pre-Warsing brain implant that captures everything its bearer experiences, with the premise that it will be used to resurrect that person after their biological death in a cloned body.
Bulban: a mekano designed to contain beverages in low or zero gravity.
Ceres: the largest body in the Belt, classified as a dwarf planet. Notable features include the Ouroboros, a subsurface river that girdles the entire planet, and the city of Meridian, which hosts Taproot hive, and before the war, anchored a beanstalk to Greenwich Station in synchronous orbit.
Ceresean: generically, one who lives on Ceres. Specifically, non-baseline humans genetically engineered for Ceres’ very low gravity. Cereseans have bat-like wings extending from long, foldable little fingers to their waist, long webbed toes, and augmented eyesight.
Chainblade: a blade whose edge is comprised of spinning nanosaws that can cut through most materials. Nanosaws are microscopic machines; think a pinhead-sized radial saw.
Chiron: a mantid (mekan) with its core aversion to harming quads restored by Tholos Hive. About 90 giganode neural capacity. Named by Elise Aberdeen after the single civilized centaur in Greek mythology.
Combat Shell: kino-powered personal armor used by UCSF for combat on, in, and around spaceships and asteroids. Combat shells have no windows, relying instead on external sensors. They are pressurized, but combatants also wear skinsuits and facemasks inside for additional protection from breaches.
Cutlass: a close-combat weapon used by the UCSF that uses a chainblade programmed to shut down on contact with spacecraft or habitat hulls, while cutting through almost anything else.
Ded Moroz: every 14 Martian months, iceteroids arrive from the Arkipelago and deposit gigatons of water and ammonia ice into the atmosphere in events called icefalls, superimposing an artificial winter upon the natural 12-month seasonal cycle. Named after a Slavic analog of Christmas celebrating Grandfather Frost and the Snow Maiden, as icefalls result in snowfall regardless of the natural season.
Drac: derogatory; a male Ceresean.
Drexler: a vat-like machine that uses molecular-scale assemblers to produce almost any artifact. A mekan hive uses drexlers for reproduction, based upon mekova produced by its queen. A mekovum embodies assembly instructions encoded within gems, which are in turn forged by hivemasters. Named after K. Eric Drexler, who first popularized nanotechnology.
Ecostate of Nüwa / EON: Earth’s government from the time of its ecosystem collapse until the Warsing. Nüwa is the Chinese goddess of nature (the equivalent of the West’s Gaia). EON’s anti-capitalist policies were a major force behind the Exodus.
Exodus: the flight of people and capital from Earth to Mars when the wealth of the richest one percent of the population was threatened by EON’s ecological policies.
Facemask: a UCSF variant of spex with a transparent full-face lens surrounded by a flange that mates with a skinsuit to protect its user from exposure to vacuum.
Genelock: a hive is genelocked when its queen will only accept gems from a hivemaster with a specific genome. This practice inhibits hivejacking, a form of piracy wherein outsiders seize productive control of a hive. See parth.
Giganode: a rough unit of measure of intelligence, corresponding to one billion nodes in a lifeform’s neural network. Dogs have about 2 giganodes. Humans have about 86 giganodes.
Goggles: a post-Warsing variant of spex with better protection from common Martian surface pollutants such as dust, noxious gasses, and ammonia rain.
Hivemaster: the individual responsible for a mekan hive’s (re)productive governance. Hivemasters forge gems, which encode blueprints for physical artifacts ranging from mekans to industrial components like rocket motors. Pre-Warsing, most hivemasters were human females. See parth, genelock.
Hyperglider: a vessel capable of unpowered flight in hyperspace by virtue of a pentachoral wing made of hypervanes that rotate into the fourth dimension when energized, generating a fourth dimensional lift force. Hypergliders use the aetheric equivalent of atmospheric thermals to stay aloft.
Hypermissile: a vessel capable of ballistic travel through hyperspace. They are effectively faster-than-light, which means they cannot be detected via electromagnetism (light, radar, etc.) prior to their arrival and detonation. Hypermissiles were used by UCSF against EON forces that had seized the Lunar mines.
Hyperspace: generically, a fourth spatial dimension at right angles to our observable three spatial dimensions. Specifically, that portion of our four-dimensional universe that exists outside of our three dimensions and can be accessed for extra-dimensional and effectively faster-than-light (FTL) travel.
Hypervane: a Warsing artifact that when energized, rotates partially into hyperspace. Hypervane is used to construct pentachoral structures, which can then be fashioned into propellors, wings, transducers, and other artifacts required to access and navigate hyperspace.
Iconji: a visual language based on icons, used as a pidgin between humans and mekans.
Joint Service Academy / JSA: a United Colonies of Mars military academy providing training to members of the Space Control, Space Force, and Mars Guard. Includes an academic component with ongoing research programs.
Kino: an energy storage device based upon two or more small counter-rotating flywheels. The flywheels are built of carbon nanotubes and spin extremely quickly. Their kinetic energy can be tapped as electrical or mechanical power.
Kunming: a genetically engineered human thought to have been developed by EON for terrestrial ecological law enforcement, and subsequently encountered off-planet in actions against UCM. Named after pre-collapse Chinese wolf-dogs used in warfare and law enforcement.
Laserscope: a combination of a laser and a telescope used for communications, remote sensing, and deflecting obstacles. They are the primary weapon of UCSF torchships. At long range they can overheat an enemy ship and cause it to shut down. Up close they can vaporize its components.
Ledeye: a portmanteau of LED and eye: a sensory and communication device or organ that can both transmit and receive visual information in the form of colors, shapes, symbols, and images. Mekans have two ledeyes that resemble illuminated dragonfly eyes.
Mantid: a four-legged, two-armed mekan with its core aversion to harming baselines reversed. Bred by Taproot Hive and first encountered by UCSF on 55 Pandora. Used on by tharks on post-Warsing Mars as enforcers.
Mars Guard: the surface-to-orbit armed service of the United Colonies, with a rank structure and mission like the US Coast Guard. Responsible for search-and-rescue missions on and in the vicinity of Mars, limited law enforcement outside of city-state jurisdiction, and in wartime, planetary defense. Service members are not subject to gender or genetic constraints but must be able to use standard equipment.
Mear: a Martian year; the time it takes Mars to orbit the sun. A mear has 669 sols (day-night cycles) and is equal to 1.88 Earth years or 687 Earth days. Martians measure their lives in mears instead of years. A mear is divided into twelve months, three of which have 55 sols, and the rest 56.
Mekan: generically, any sapient eusocial artiform with six limbs that reproduces via drexlers assembled into hives. Specifically, human-scale artiforms used as labor on UCM spaceships.
Mekano: a non-sapient artiform incapable of self-reproduction, produced by mekan hives to fill specific niches in mekosystems.
Mekosystem: an ecosystem comprised of mekans, mekanos, and in some case synlife. Often designed to fulfill specific human needs. An example is the system by which iceteroids are harvested from the Arkipelago and delivered to the Martian atmosphere for its terraforming project.
Moravec: a pre-Warsing device popularized by Hans Moravec that slowly converts its bearer’s brain to a silicon equivalent, with the promise of immortality without loss of continuity.
Oner: an individual from the wealthiest one-percent of society. Earth’s oners financed and led the Exodus to Mars. On Mars, oners explicitly hold the greatest political power, as citizens vote with energy-denominated money. Pronounced wunner.
Niner: an individual who is not in the wealthiest one-percent of society; not a oner.
Parth: a female human produced by parthenogenesis, making her a natural-born clone of her mother. A parth’s sexually-produced siblings would be parthsibs, and from her perspective, her mother is her parthparent and so forth. Hivemasters use parths to ensure genelocked hives survive their death.
Pchelan: a species of mekan designed for autonomous life in space and low gravity environments such as asteroids. Prominently featured in the Deimos hive. Russian for “bee.”
Pentachoron: take a tetrahedron – a three-sided pyramid whose base is also a triangle – and hence has four faces and four points. Add a fifth point at the center. Replace the four triangular outer faces with six triangular inner faces that each extend from the central vertex to two of the outer vertices. Pentachorons made of hypervane are analogous to aircraft propellors and wings.
Poyekhali: Russian for “Let’s go!” Famously said by Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, just before he blasted off.
Quads: generically, lifeforms with four limbs. Specifically, humans. Pre-Warsing mekans were hardwired with an aversion to harming quads.
Queen: the mekan at the top of her hive’s hierarchy. Queens translate a blueprint encoded in a gem into an egg-like mekovum that has the detailed instructions required to create a physical instance of the blueprint within her hive’s drexlers. Queens can produce many mekova per gem, but a drexler only produces one artifact per mekovum.
Qigong Reactor: a fusion reactor with a set of at least four opposing, co-terminated, plasma mirror lasers. The lasers are radially symmetric, joined together at focal point where a fusion reaction occurs. The plasma is actively stabilized by an artiform, who can be induced to suicide, resulting in an explosion akin to a thermonuclear bomb.
Ring: a superconductive electromagnet that encircles Mars near its equator. It is electrically powered by a network of Ring Stations. The Ring produces a magnetic field that shields Mars from the solar wind, thereby preserving its atmosphere, which would otherwise be stripped away.
Sentinel: generically, a human-scale pchelan caste designed to detect and communicate with distant objects such as incoming iceteroids and other hives. Specifically, an individual outcast from Deimos Hive.
Sisters of the Ring: a cultish organization founded after the Warsing by Space Control veterans. Its mission is to maintain the Ring and perpetuate the Martian terraforming project. Its adherents include girls – often orphans or castoffs – called kores, adult initiates called selenes, and elders called hekates.
Shards / Shever: extremely rare fragments of hypervane that are prized by mystics for their ability to induce transcendent meditative states. The Sisters of the Ring believe these fragments are physical manifestations of the shards of divinity of Kabbalistic lore.
Skinsuit: a synlife organism that, in combination with a facemask, can protect a human from exposure to deep space for extended periods of time. Given sufficient light, a skinsuit can recycle human breath and excreta to provide breathable air and basic hydration and sustenance.
Spex: smart glasses with built-in heads-up display, two-way audio, short range radio, and ledeye functionality for communicating with mekans.
Spin: slang for energy, which is the basis of Martian currency. See kino.
Sturmovik: a one-man rocket-propelled ground-attack vehicle. The Sturmovik’s pilot wears a combat shell and attached to the front of the vehicle.
Strekoza: a sapient, spindle-shaped EON warship built around two counter-rotating aetheric drives. Also called an interceptor by UCSF crew. Russian for “dragonfly.”
Synlife: a synthetic lifeform based upon organic molecular components engineered from the ground up. Examples include airscarves and skinsuits. Contrast with artiform, biolife.
Technomancer: an individual skilled in recovering, repairing, reactivating, and reverse-engineering Warsing artifacts.
Thark: a two-legged four-armed human-scale mekan without a core aversion to harming quads. 100 giganodes on up. Named by Elise Aberdeen after the four-armed warriors of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom novels.
Threelium: slang for helium-3, an isotope of helium found on Luna (Earth’s moon) and in Saturn’s atmosphere. When combined with deuterium in a fusion reactor, it produces clean neutron-free energy. Plays a similar role in the interplanetary economy as oil did on Earth before the ecosystem collapse.
Torchship: a spaceship powered and propelled by an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) torch. Prior to the war, the United Colonies had twelve torchships, one of which was UCM Tereshkova.
Tricode: a trinary (as opposed to binary) code that is part of mekan visual communications and is also woven into their carbon fiber exoskeletons as unique identifiers that are invisible to humans. Analogous to a 3-axis triangular QR code.
United Colonies of Mars / UCM: dominant pre-Warsing polity comprising the six original colonial city-states of Mars. Ceres became the seventh member of the United Colonies when it was forcibly annexed, after which polite usage omitted “of Mars” from the name, though it was formally retained.
United Colonies Space Control / UCSC: the spaceborne control service of the United Colonies, with governance over its Space Force. Provides mission tasking, traffic control, and intelligence services. All UCSC service members are female or asexual baselines.
United Colonies Space Force / UCSF: the spaceborne armed service of the United Colonies, with a similar rank structure and mission as the United States Navy. All UCSF service members are male baselines.
Vamp: derogatory; a female Ceresean.
Warsing: a portmanteau of war and singularity: the technological singularity at the climax of the interplanetary war between Earth and Mars.
Warsinger: the post-Warsing Martian term for thark. Warsingers directly control most of interplanetary space, and indirectly control much of Mars via their mantid enforcers.
Zhuk: a large (hippo to elephant scale) pchelan caste designed to harvest ammonia from iceteroids and collectively capable of changing their trajectory. Russian for “beetle.”