GLOSSARY
Altok: Language based on English.
Arnet: Intelligent species genetically engineered from Norway rats.
Bagung: Fermented fish paste.
Baseline: An intelligence level roughly equivalent to an unmodified Homo sapiens; the legal minimum for personhood in most places.
Bidomaz: Corn vine plant, often grown in space habs.
Biologicals/Bios: Intelligent beings made of meat.
Borg: A cyborg, typically one whose body is mostly mechanical with only a small biological component.
Bot: A mechanical being with sub-Baseline intelligence.
Caelus: Immense “aerosphere” habitat orbiting Uranus, with hundreds of billions of inhabitants, mostly angels and corvids.
Carcol: Engineered snails used as food, common in space habs.
Cascarons: Rice doughnuts, originating on Earth in the Philippines.
Centro: Boss (Rocasa slang).
Cetacean Republic of Miranda: Dolphin-dominated anti-technological regime controlling Miranda in the early Eighth Millennium.
Cevishimi: Flavored raw fish.
Chongs: Dedicated fans (from Woshing word chongzhe)
Corvids: Intelligent species genetically engineered from ravens.
Cryoglyphs: Carvings in ice, specifically the ones in Syracusa Sulcus on Miranda.
Dagda: Giant twin-cylinder habitat 5,000 kilometers long, orbiting Uranus. Home to hundreds of billions of inhabitants, mostly humans.
Deimos Ring: Large orbital structure extending all the way around Mars in synchronous orbit; one of the major powers of the Solar System.
Dekopon: Citrus hybrid plant from Earth.
Ecliptics: Belt of habitats orbiting Uranus in the plane of the Solar System rather than the planet’s equator.
Entertainment: Most common form of fiction, incorporating elements of novels, films, and interactive games.
Equatorials: Belt of habitats orbiting Uranus in the plane of its equator, including all the major moons and the synchronous ring.
Fairbanks: Habitat in the Oort Cloud, orbiting at about 10,000 AU from the Sun.
Fang: Aerial dance spin move.
Fangshuo: Team ball game in which contact is forbidden.
Fog Shield: A cloud of nanobots used for personal protection.
Gendakhel: Zero-gravity ball game.
Gigajoules: Units of energy, or of purchasing power, very roughly equivalent to 1/10 of a U.S. dollar in the early 2020s.
Giro: Nulesgrima spin maneuver.
Glorious Unique State: Empire which ruled most of Earth in the post-Great War era; sometimes called the Tsan-Chan Empire.
Great War of the Ring: Massive conflict in the Fourth Millennium, between the Inner Ring and most of the rest of the Solar System.
Gundong: Aerial dance forward roll move.
Hab: Short for “habitat”—an artificial structure in space.
Hellan Caviar: Roe from engineered fish in Hellas Sea on Mars; noted for exceptional flavor.
Huihou: Large hab orbiting at Uranus’s L-2 Lagrange point.
Inner Ring: A structure surrounding the Sun at a distance of 0.3 A.U., made of the remains of the planet Mercury transformed into computronium. Home to the most advanced minds in the Solar System.
Instruction or Instructional: The nonfiction version on an Entertainment, a hybrid of research paper, documentary, and interactive tutorial.
Jhallari: Stringed percussion instrument.
Juren: Largest space hab ever constructed, located at Jupiter’s L-1 point.
Jushiwu: Culinary dance artform.
Kejum: Zero-gravity tag.
Koenig: Design cooperative based in Plato, Luna, specializing in plasma drive and weapon systems.
Ksetram: Titular capital city of Miranda.
Leiting: Legendary general of the Glorious Unique State in the Fifth Millennium; also name used by a mercenary intelligence in the late Tenth Millennium.
Lingga: Large city on Earth at the foot of one orbital elevator tower.
Lotors: Intelligent species genetically engineered from raccoons.
Magonia: Cycler hab circling between Mars and Jupiter.
Main Swarm: The collection of several hundred million space habitats orbiting between Mars and Venus.
Manadanzo: “Hand dance” zero gravity dancing style in which only the couple’s hands touch.
Martian redwood: Engineered redwood species growing on terraformed Mars
Mediolan: Floating city on Miranda’s subsurface ocean.
Memetic Intelligence: A being capable of independent decision-making, embodied entirely in patterns of legal and organizational information rather than an algorithmic digital mind or a biological brain.
Mer: Human subspecies modified for aquatic or amphibious life.
Momos: Steamed dumplings (from Saur)
Ningen: Language derived from Japanese.
Nuledor: Nulesgrima player.
Nulesgrima: Zero-gravity stick fighting sport, uses graphene palos.
Old Belt: The original Asteroid Belt between Jupiter and Mars.
Osorizan: Hab dedicated to backup storage for digital intelligences.
Oterma: Comet converted to a habitat, in a cyclic orbit between Jupiter and Saturn.
Palo: Nulesgrima stick.
Paoshi: City floating in Saturn’s atmosphere; controlling mind is Paoling.
Pedescos: Rocasa word for tapas.
Polyarchists: Political faction in Miranda, opposed to the oligarchy of the Sixty Families.
Qarina: Human created for sexual slavery
Qinguang: Stringed musical instrument.
Raba: Habitat at the Uranus trailing Trojan cluster.
Rasgulla: Dessert dumplings.
Rebodar: Rocasa word for a drifter or transient (“ricocheter”).
Repun: Orca cybership, former comrade of Pelagia in the Silver Fleet.
RKV: Relativistic Kill Vehicle. The ultimate argument of worlds. A chunk of something dense traveling very fast.
Rocasa: Language derived from Spanish and Esperanto which originated in the Old Belt.
Safdaghar: Wrecked habitat formerly at the outer edge of the Old Belt, then catapulted toward the Kuiper Belt by a Jupiter encounter.
Saur: Hindi-based artificial language (“Solar”).
Scarab: Salvagers of derelict or obsolete habitats.
Sekkurobo: Ningen word for a sex robot.
Shikyu: Artificial uterus or baby printer (from Ningen).
Shining Sea: The artificially heated subsurface ocean inside Miranda.
Shinkai Force: Self-sustaining arsenal sub battle group in Miranda’s ocean.
Silver Fleet: Space mercenary unit which once employed Pelagia.
Speedboarding: Ice sport combining elements of snowboarding and bobsledding.
Summanus: Large, old, and powerful space habitat orbiting in Jupiter’s L2 position; also the high-level AI controlling the habitat.
Svarnam: Large floating arcology city in Miranda’s ocean.
Synchronous Ring: The lowest orbital ring around Jupiter, with elevator cables extending down into the planet’s cloud tops. Home to about a trillion people. Uranus has its own Synchronous Ring, smaller and less densely populated than Jupiter’s, devoted to the manufacture of antimatter and black holes.
Taishi: Large habitat at Uranus’s L-1 point; the main transit station for traffic bound for the inner Solar System.
Teishu: Tea master.
Tiedao: Gambling card game, its origins lost in time.
Thattai: Spicy fried snack food made of rice flour and peanuts, originally from southern Asia on Earth.
Titan Psychoactives: A self-owning Autonomous Corporation. An example of a purely memetic intelligence.
Titania: Largest moon of Uranus, with hundreds of billions of inhabitants.
Trojan Empire: Powerful government controlling thousands of habitats and asteroids in the Jupiter trailing Trojans cluster.
Tudoki: Potato balls.
Tumba: Nulesgrima forward roll maneuver.
Ubas: Genetically modified fruit based on grapes. Commonly grown in space habs.
Viranmar Plaza: Large fashionable public space in the city of Svarnam in Miranda.
Woshing: Most common language on Mars, derived from Chinese.
Xiyu: Seldom-used language.
Yudham: Mock battle game.
Zukyu: Sport resembling rugby (from Woshing).