Glossary

Artificial wombs: Talin women cannot get pregnant if they don’t “scent bond” (see Scent-Bonding) with their partner. When scent-bonding started going out of style (and eventually because illegal), the Talin started using artificial wombs to have children. Live births were outlawed and instead, artificial wombs were used. It was expected that each Talin couple would have exactly two children, one male and one female, unless the government requested more to make up for a population unbalance.

Cresh (creshes): It became fashionable not only to have a child produced in an artificial womb, but to have them raised by specially trained professionals. Children spend their lives in the cresh and only leave when it’s time for them to begin training for a future career under the guidance of their family.

Common: One of several universal languages used both for speaking and writing.

Ending (clinically referred to as Collapsed Scent Disease): If scent-bonded partners are separated for too long, they can suffer and die. The length of time partners can go without each other depends on the individuals, but most can only last ten or so days apart because they start suffering. It’s a painful death and one of the reasons that a distant Talin monarch started encouraging his people not to scent bond.

Fading (clinically referred to as Catatonic Withdrawal Disease): This is a disease that can strike a Talin at any time in their life, but is most common when they’re in their prime breeding years. Without a scent-bonded partner to help stabilize them, they can fall into a deep depression. They stop eating, moving, and eventually die. It’s considered a shameful disease among the Talin and those that suffer from it are often hidden away by their family.

Identification Cubes (AKA Idents or Ident Cubes): Often called simply an Ident, these devices act as a combination of communication device, locator, and identity verifier, recorder, and method of payment, among other things. Most species have moved to using small Information squares instead of the awkward cubes, but Talins refuse to give them up.

Information square: These can range from the size of a human hand to the size of a human torso. They look like a square of glass, but are embedded with electronics. They can store data, record, access to UniBases, store wealth, and act as a form of identification. Most species use these instead of the older, less versatile Identification Cubes

Innercranial translator (also known as an INT): This is a small bit of tech that almost every hearing species has implanted in their head. It only works with verbal or gesture-based languages; it can’t translate written words.

Mattil medal: Awarded to soldiers for acts of bravery. At best, most soldiers only win one in a lifetime of service.

Scent-bonding: Talins have oil secreting glands in their cheeks. Each Talin produces oil with a unique scent and they can become addicted to their partners smell. The lack of oil producing scent glands in humans is why it’s believed that Talins can’t become scent-bonded with humans.

Talin Government Basics

Monarch: The monarch and Apogee Assembly work together to lead the Talin people. Although the monarch doesn’t serve on the Apogee Assembly, they have the power to challenge any laws the assembly wants to pass. They can also unilaterally disbar an assembly member, but this is considered an extreme action and rarely done.
Apogee Assembly: This is the major law making and governing body. Under this assembly other government programs are overseen. The members of the Apogee Assembly are referred to as Servant Citizens and are elected by their Clan Assembly to a position in the Apogee Assembly.
- It is expected that a monarch’s grown children, called Prime Son/Prime Daughter, will serve on the Apogee Assembly. There are always two positions set aside for them, although it’s rare that both will serve at the same time.
Clan Assemblies: Talarian, the Talin homeworld, is divided up into providences. Each providence has a Clan assembly made up of a representative from each clan in the providence. Those that serve on Clan Assemblies are called Assembly Citizens. These Clan Assemblies will pick one of their members to serve on the Apogee Assembly.
Colony Assemblies: Most colonies don’t have large clans or are made up of a few families starting a new clan, therefore these Assemblies are made up of whoever the citizens of that colony feel will do the best job of governing. Most homeworld Talins look down on colonies as being made up of upstarts or new clans.

Talarian: Name of the Talin homeworld.

Moravi: capital city of Talarian and home to the Apogee Assembly

Time Keeping

Common Units: This is a universal time keeping framework used by most species. It’s based on a ten unit day with each unit being the equivalent to about two hours of Old Earth time keeping. Most species divide up a day into a five unit working cycle and a five unit rest cycle.
Marks and Strikes: Talins don’t use Common Units, they have marks and strikes. 1st mark is at sunrise and last mark is at sunset, 13th mark. Strikes are used at night and go from 1 to 13. Each strike and mark on Talarian is the equivalent of 45 Old Earth Minutes. Each mark is made up of 100 sub-marks
- If you’re referring to a passing of time they’re all marks, whether they happened during the day or night. For example: Searin set his Ident to wake him at 11 strike. That was only three marks from now.
- Because colonies would be unlikely to have the same day and night pattern as the homeworld, they keep the 26 strikes and marks, but change how many sub-marks are in each unit so that it all still works for their individual colony time keeping.
- Talin ships will keep the same hours as the homeworld.

UniBase: This stands for a universal database that most species keep and allow free access to for all their citizens. Often ships will have a copy of their species UniBase, but might restrict access to only the members of the crew that are the same species as the captain or owner.