NationStates Jolt Archive

This factbook is perpetually outdated. The Archive is doing it's best to correct this, our employees pray to Sol for more resources and new coworkers three times a day. Donations are welcome, and if you wish to become a priest of Sol please contact Aleph@archive.

Index of separate articles

People of importance (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14089560&postcount=7)
Genealogy (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13866536&postcount=3)
Sentient species of Fir!n (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13711988&postcount=2)
Wildlife of Fir!n (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13937077&postcount=5)
Fir!nan language ((+~o^-^)o_:_) (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14050833&postcount=6)

... or you might check out all articles at once. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=13709251)

History:

TFP was an organization of pacifist polytheists on the old Earth. In the great religious war (about 350 years ago) they found themselves forced to leave the planet (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=13850927). With help from the Kewen, they ended up on the planet Fir!n (freet-click-en), where they were the first aliens not to be wiped out by the locals, because a Fir!nan child (see characters/Mother) insisted on having them as pets. Later, the same Fir!nan created human-fir!nan hybrids.

Fir!n is located in some forgotten corner of space. It is the only planet orbiting its star and has no moons.

Weapons:

Humans use light rifles for hunting small animals.

Nanotechnology can potentially be used as a WMD, but nobody seems to have ever thought of that possibility. Aniska does use nanotech for destructive purposes, but she doesn't tell anyone about it because she is afraid that would make the Council force diplomats to go into space without cloaking armor on their ships (which is based on the same nanobots). (paragraph removed at request of Jonathan)

The Fir!nans have created a wide variety of creatures that can destroy many different things in many different ways.

There are cloaked EMP mines in orbit around the planet.

Government:

The human city is a democratic theocracy (the most important priest(ess) of each god has one vote). The rest of the planet is under control of the Fir!nans.

The religion/government doesn't micromanage citizens, and relies on donations rather than taxes.

Anyone with authority to sign documents on behalf of the Council of high priests has the title Sir or Lady. This includes members of the Council, top level diplomats (who live on planets of allies) and second level diplomats (who explore space). Third level diplomats can also sign some types of documents, but don't get the title.

Additional notes, general:

The newer two species on Fir!n (humans and hybrids) consider diplomacy of top importance. Diplomatic missions are always assigned to teams of two persons who dislike each other - this is supposed to keep them honest. One is active, the other observes them and will report on their behavior. If possible they take turns.

Additional notes, hostilities:

As long as you don't come to Fir!n and annoy the Fir!nans, you have nothing to worry about. Do worry about our allies. Sometime in the future there might be too many hybrids for Fir!n to sustain, a mass emigration may follow (but first the problem that being away from Fir!n for too long kills hybrids would need to be solved). The hybrids consider this unlikely: either they will take their responsibility and stabilize their numbers, or the Fir!nans will wipe them out. This might seem to make sense, but nobody knows if the Fir!nans would turn against creatures that technically are the same species as them.

Other noteworthy things:

Elegy II:
Large (1 km) needle shaped decoy ship made from nanobots by Aniska. Currently destroyed, but the program to create it is stored in Elegy I as well as in Harmony.

Purple Bay:
A place with interesting nature (including purple waterlily-like flowers). Hybrids consider it a good (or cliche) place for a date, humans not so much. It's near the place where humans first landed.

Kewen spaceship:
The KSIS Inquisitioner was buried on the side of the planet opposite to Purple Bay, and forgotten. It was recently found, and the Kewen have disassembled it.

Current affairs:

Lady Aniska went on a very successful first contact mission, (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=556954) which got her and Sir Jonathan fired because of her lack of respect for the rules. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=563456)

Ladies Firna and Sen established diplomatic (ho-hum) relations with IISA. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=568719) (note from Lady Sen: I don't know who put hat "ho-hum" there and how you managed to lock me out of removing it, but I will find out and kick your rear.)
Firna also invented a new type of FTL engine, which she is building into the ship Elegy. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=14438303)

Jonathan, Aniska and Sanka nearly got themselves killed by whales with telepathic abilities on one of the many other Earths. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=14086571) They're now about to observe* some kind of weapons test. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=579261)

*) OOC continuity warning! This is a few months after the other active thread!

Fir!nan

Solitary carnivores. Nanotechnology and biotechnology experts. Not interested in anything beyond making sure the ecosystem that feeds them is not disrupted.
Number: unknown, due to them using nanotech cloaking most of the time.
Size: about 2m.
Reproduction: eggs, probably. Possibly hermaphrodites? Young Fir!nans are extremely rare, probably because of the solitary nature of the species.
Recommended amount of respect shown: if grizlies hunted in packs of ten, they would be equivalent to one of these creatures - just leave 'em alone.
Additional notes: don't try chemical warfare against any species on Fir!n, not even the mosquito-like ones, or else the Fir!nans will kill you.

Fir!nans are shy and solitary feral animals. They protect the ecosystem that feeds them, and don't care about anything else. Although they are highly intelligent, it is somewhat surprising they managed to develop such advanced technology. It probably only happened because they were given lots and lots of time. There's not much more to be said about them. It is assumed that to understand the psyche of a Fir!nan, one should study the hybrids and subtract the social behavior.

Human

Social omnivores. Priests, diplomats, politicians, bureaucrats, and the like.
Number: estimated at 4000
Size: m 180cm, f 175cm
Reproduction: you know that
Recommended amount of respect shown: they're more helpful when you're nice. Not a threat.
Additional notes: they have trouble surviving between all the poisonous creatures of Fir!n.

The humans of Fir!n are deeply religious, but tolerant and very curious about the cultures of aliens. After all the ages they have lived on Fir!n, they consider it their home planet. They're rather obsessed by bureaucracy and ritual - things must be done the "right" way, or not at all. Because they are used to living in a hostile environment, they are rather cautious. Just like humans elsewhere, some of them can be bribed to do pretty much anything.

Hybrid

Although they are social, these carnivores hunt alone. Engineers, politicians, priests and diplomats.
Number: unknown and exploding.
Size: m 180cm, f 175cm
Reproduction: eggs, 3 or 4 at a time, which are about 1 1/2 times the size of a chicken egg. The young catch up to the size of humans children the same age in their first year, and develop similarly from then on. They're able to catch their own food from the moment they hatch. Females can also breed with humans with some help from bio/nanotech, resulting children will be 75% like their mother and 25% like their father (because they need full sets of Fir!nan genes to be able to hatch)
Recommended amount of respect shown: if untrained, equivalent of a single large cat (eg puma) in unarmed fights, helpless in armed fights. If trained, quite deadly. Untrained ones will probably run away when any kind of weapon is pointed at them, unless they think to know you will not fire it. Very unlikely to start fights, but will defend self and friends.
Additional notes: patriotic, creative, compassionate and more intelligent than most humans. Their names are human names modified to have meaning in the Fir!nan language. They have nanomachines in their blood that can make local damage heal faster, which hybrid diplomats sometimes use to kill themselves to keep top secret information secret.

On one hand, hybrids think like carnivorous animals, their preferred way to acquire food is to catch it without using any technological help. On the other, they love advanced subtle types of technology. They consider less subtle technology (such as weapons and heavy armor) to be something for inferior species with weaker spirits or bodies.
Hybrids are fiercely loyal to the planet Fir!n. This instinct cannot be overruled, not even by letting them grow up on a different planet and not telling them Fir!n exists (if that would be possible, being away from Fir!n for too long kills them).
They are compassionate creatures, there is a saying that the best defense against an angry hybrid is a sad story.
Three human emotions are missing: hate, fear and greed. They interpret the first two words as synonyms of dislike and worry, and don't understand greed at all. The concept of ownership of anything else than useful objects is foreign to them, and they can't see how for example owning two spaceships is better than owning one.
Hybrids tend to have inflated egos, and like to show off their skills. Using one skill to pretend having another (the equivalent of human stage magic) is liked even more.
Whether they are trustworthy or not depends on the sense in which the word is used. It would be unwise to assume they always speak the truth and nothing but the truth. On the other hand, they can be trusted to have good intentions.

x = (mostly) normal reproduction and coupling
c = cloning, genetic engineering, etc
a = adoption


Asanna c Andrea
|
Natalia a |
| |
Aniska x a Jonathan
| |
(Fir, Is, Ka) Sanka

Post ready to be recycled.

There isn't any "wild" life on Fir!n in the usual meaning of the word. Everything has been modified by the Fir!nans to serve them and/or kill anything that doesn't belong on Fir!n after being activated by the release of "trigger liquid" (which by the way is yellow). Most things are poisonous and aggressive even when not activated. Picking flowers is a bad idea if you would like to keep your arms. Everything that is poisonous also contains a cure against the poison (if you're human, anyway), but in which part is different for every species.

Tir (pronounced more or less like tree, how confusing):
When "sleeping", they look like trees with eyes on the branches. Most of the creature is then buried (actual size 100x20x20m). Four legs, can walk on rear legs if necessary. Tiny brain somewhere deep inside. Not activated by trigger liquid, but by a stink bomb.

Fir!n-wolf:
It does have a Fir!nan name, but this is more descriptive. Like some other creatures, it is attracted to the sounds of guns, and will attack the source of those.

Flies, spiders, etc:
They bite. Some are engineered for special (usually destructive) purposes, those are not seen in the wild.

Qif-lizards:
Only social creature on Fir!n, apart from humans and hybrids of course. Dumb harmless small creatures.

... and of course there's lots more!

(to be expanded, a LOT)

English translations of things said in Fir!nan are usually written between {}. Untranslated words are usually names.

The spelling of untranslated words is mostly like in English. The "ir" sound is produced by whistling and saying "rrr" at the same time. Those who can't do that say "ree". "!" is a click, or a "t" followed by a click when used after a sonant ("ir" is a sonant). Remember that Fir!nans have very weak voices, whispering is the only correct pronunciation!

When two words are combined in such a way that there would be two "a"s next to each other, one "a" is removed. In the list of words we'll use a "." to show a removed "a", but like the () these are normally not written.

Often a reversed word has an opposite meaning, but not always. Doubling a word means "many".

List of characters (that look like Fir!nan language characters)

! o
ir ~
a -
e _ (very shallow u actually)
f +
i /
k .
n ^
q :
s x
t "
u \

How to write:

Each word has a base, with optionally a gender to the right of it, and a list of modifiers to the left of it.
With zero or one modifiers, just write left to right. With two or more modifiers, write the modifiers above each other, and the base (and gender if any) rotated 90 degrees clockwise to the right of the modifiers. Parts of complex words may end up upside down that way...

List of words (middle column is (almost) Fir!nan script):

!e o_ concept
!ean o_-^ deity
(!ean)an (o_-^)-^ priest
!eqe o_:_ communication
!n o^ place
!n!nqe (o^o^):_ freedom
(!n!nqe)(!ean)anan (o^o^:_)(o_-^)-^-^ free priesthood

irf ~+ ugly
irn ~^ bad, negative

an -^ person
an!n -^o^ house, home
anan -^-^ group of persons
anef -^_+ food, prey
anna -^^- woman
annane -^^-^_ gender-confused man :P
anne -^^_ man
annena -^^_^- gender-confused woman
((an)saka)!n ((-^)x-.-)o^ grave
as -x before
asan -x-^ parent
asanna -x-^^- mother
asanne -x-^^_ father

ef _+ food (never used without a prefix)

fir +~ beautiful
fir!n +~o^ paradise
(fir!n)an (+~o^)-^ fir!nan
(fir!nan)!eqe (+~o^-^)o_:_ fir!nan language

is /x play

ka .- fire
kaef .-_+ fuel
ki ./ water
kika ./.- either-or

nir ^~ good, positive
na ^- female (not a word, only used as a modifier at the end of one)
ne ^_ male (as above)

qe :_ move, movement
qi :/ work
qif :/+ (see list of creatures)
qifef :/+_+ qif-food, insignificant

sa x- after
saka x-.- ashes
sa.n x-^ child
sa.nna x-^^- daughter
sa.nne x-^^_ son
sa.s x-x now
su x\ you, your

tir "~ (see list of creatures)
ta "- plant, flower, result, reward

us \x me, my

If you're bored, try to decode some hybrid names: Aniska (this one abuses the language a little, Iska or maybe (Isan)ka would be better), Sanka, Kian, Firna.
Or perhaps this insult: "suasanna irftir, isqe suansaka!n"
(For the lazy: "Your mom is an ugly monster, I will dance on your grave.")
(Note from Aleph: Please, people, try to keep this article serious!)

see also: sentient species (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13711988&postcount=2)

The Free Priesthood

Sir Aleph:
Member of the Council (high priest of Sol), amateur historian.

(former Lady) Aniska:
Age: 26
Hybrid priestess of Death. Used to be a second level diplomat, now works for Sanka. Creative programmer. Disobedient character. Considered arrogant. 170 cm tall, dark blue hair (has human genes for black hair, combined with her Fir!nan genes that makes dark blue).
Blood type: human AB+, Fir!nan.

Asanna: see "Mother"

Elegy:
AI / Angel class ship. 16 m tall, max speed 40 c, can cloak, has self healing light armor. AI has been extended by Aniska. Now owned by Sen.

Lady Firna (nickname Fireball):
Age: 20
Hybrid top level diplomat (female). 160 cm tall, bright green hair. Priestess of the Source (sea/dragon). Not very well-behaved, but in a cute way. Partner of Sen. Skipped second level because of some political weirdness, then discovered being away kills her much more quickly than is normal because her human DNA is part damaged and part missing. Special talents: origami and fixing machines.

(former Sir) Jonathan (ID: 8190):
Age: 25
Human priest of Sol, used to be a second level diplomat, now works for Sanka. Aniska's life partner. Knows how to do politics. Doesn't say very much unless he thinks some explanation is needed.
Blood type: AB+.

Harmony:
AI / Yacht class ship. 40 m tall, max speed 41 c, can cloak, has self healing light armor. AI is a copy of Elegy.

Kian:
Hybrid third level diplomat (male).

"Mother" (In Fir!nan language: Asanna, the name is only used by hybrids though) :
The Fir!nan that created the hybrids.

Lady Natalia:
Age: 48
Human high(est) priestess (president) (priestess of the Muse). Adoptive mother of Aniska. Is an annaisanna (see language). Has to deal with some bad experiences in her past, but is the right person for her job since she tries very hard to be correct, and has a talent for making people do the right things.

Sanka:
Age: 7
This is actually princess Xani of the Fifth Empire. Ssssh! (Sentence removed at request of Jonathan)
Her hair used to be blond but has been dyed blue, and her skin has been made whiter to make her resemble a hybrid. She likes this for some unknown reason. Considers Aniska her new mother.
Like the the rest of the royal family of T5thE she is a telepath. She has tricked Aniska into changing her into a hybrid, at the moment she's still rather human. Her hair is now green, she has the teeth of a hybrid, and she now has snowwhite skin, but control over her nanos is still limited. Growing a second nervous system takes a while.

Lady Sen (nickname The Brain):
Age: 22
Human top level diplomat, priestess of Sol (enlightenment/knowledge), seems to know everything there is to know about anything. Partner of Firna.
Fun fact: Sen was very unpopular in school until Aniska gave her the cracked password of the restricted section of the library and Sen learned everything in it by heart. Knowledge is power, or in this case popularity.

Snowflake II:
AI / Angel class ship, 16 m tall, max speed 40 c, can cloak, has self healing light armor. Used to be owned by Jonathan.

(following section removed at request of Aleph)The Fifth Empire

Notes:
T5thE is an ally, but that's a secret.
Aniska prevented the secret mission of Cho (to bring Xani to a safe place) from being captured by slave trading aliens.

Captain Cho (and his three pilots):
Typical human. Likes drinking tea while watching spacefights on a huge spherical screen. They use remote controlled drones for fights...

Princess Xani: see TFP/Sanka

The Bloody Dawn

Tentacled creatures. Pirates. Bright red ships. They use way too many words for simple messages, which may make them seem pleasant characters. They're not. Annoying sense of humor. We recommend that anyone who meets them blows them out of space at first sight. (Note from Sen: Are we to make such hostile recommendations?)