I've been thinking about this story a long time. At first I was working on it as a Twine game, but it was too sprawling and ambitious. Then I thought about making it a (vanilla, non-erotic) novel, but I couldn't figure out how to start it. Making it an MC fic just made the most sense.

I'm going to try to put out a chapter a week but I've got a new rival, a potential new sub, and a professional license exam coming up, so no guarantees. Also, this doesn't mean I'm abandoning any incomplete stories, I'm just not ready for them yet.

The primary influences on this story are Mass Effect and Xenosaga, but it's also probably influenced by Star Control II, Niven's Known Space stories, Asimov's Empire and Foundation stories, Star Trek, Stargate (which I'm currently watching my way through for the first time), and Babylon 5.

I know I normally put this sort of thing in the afterword, but that's being used for something else: inspired by Xenosaga's Database, Mass Effect's Codex, and to a lesser extent (though it probably inspired both of those) Asimov's Encyclopedia Galactica, I'm making a bunch of optional worldbuilding stuff available in the form of a sort of glossary or encyclopedia. It's quite long in this first chapter, and may be similarly long in some of the other early chapters; it'll get shorter as it goes. Each chapter I'll put new and updated terms in the afterword; when the story is done, I'll make the final chapter the complete Codexipediabase. (If anybody knows of a way to post a final chapter up front and then fill in chapters before it as I go, please leave a comment and I'll do that instead.)

Love,

Jenny

Cygnus Starswarm: The Cygnus Starswarm is the cluster from which the Cygnus Exploration Project originates. A region of space roughly seven hundred light-years long and two hundred wide, it contains thousands of stars and over ten thousand planets, but is itself only one region of the larger galaxy. Unfortunately, without the development of more advanced efteal propulsion technologies, exploration much beyond the (somewhat vaguely defined) edges of the cluster is impossible, as the surrounding clusters have no known habitable planets and are unlikely to have enough of them to maintain the outposts needed as waystations for exploring vessels.

The Cygnus Starswarm is home to seven known homeworlds inhabited by five known humanoid subspecies: the ciri, etaera, humans, nekmi, and ranians. However, only roughly 40% of it has been explored, and it is likely that there are several more homeworlds and possibly even other subspecies out there. Of course, in addition to the homeworlds there are also a number of colony worlds.

Archeological investigations on many worlds have revealed evidence of one or more humanoid civilizations that inhabited the Cygnus Starswarm many centuries before the ciri began exploring space. Dubbed the Old Empire, it is unknown whether these humanoids were one culture or many, an empire or independent worlds or some sort of confederated republic, but it is believed that all modern humanoids originated from them, and that their civilization, or civilizations, extended beyond the Cygnus Starswarm and possibly even encompassed the entire galaxy. The cause of the Great Collapse that ended the Old Empire is unknown and much speculated upon.

Etaera: The etaera are a humanoid species originating from the homeworld of Syrena, which has a single supercontinent surrounded by a handful of islands. This results in a thin band of arable land near the coasts and vast deserts occupying much of the interior of the continent, an environmental structure to which the etaera are well-adapted.

First, etaera skin (and egg) cells contain numerous chloroplasts, which both provide some protection from the effects of excessive solar radiation and convert that radiation into sugars via photosynthesis, substantially reducing the amount of calories the etaera need from their food. This gives the etaera their characteristic green skintone, and means they can focus their use of that limited arable land on producing foods rich in micronutrients, rather than raising staple grain crops (for carbohydrates) or livestock (for fats). Nonetheless, they do require some amount of both: even in the sunny environments to which the etaera are adapted, the surface area to mass ratio of a humanoid body plan is simply not high enough to absorb enough sunlight to entirely replace food as a source of energy, only supplement it.

Of course, humanoid animals do not simply evolve chloroplasts; studies of etaera chloroplastic DNA (which, like mitochondrial DNA, is independent from the DNA of the individual and inherited solely from the mother) show that they originated from plants and were most likely painstakingly injected into the cells of an etaera ancestor genetically engineered to maintain and utilize them.

The other major adaptation to desert life in the etaera anatomy is the presence of the ambrosial ducts. These structures produce and fill with a mixture of water and nutrients that, in combination with photosynthesis, allows them to function without food or water for weeks at a time. The ducts are accompanied and supported by structures of gynoid fat which likewise can be consumed in lean times and rebuilt when food and water are plentiful, extending the etaera's survivability in harsh climes still further. As in other humanoids, these gynoid fat deposits are located in the hips, buttocks, and around the mammary glands in the chest, but the etaera are unique in that the deposits' size directly correlates to how stable the etaera's access to food and water has been recently.

These structures have led to the myth that all etaera are female, but this is untrue. First, transgender etaera are born at roughly the same rate as in other humanoids, though prior to encountering other humanoids trans etaera were generally unable to articulate their experience and suffered in silence. Second, it would be more accurate to say that by the standards of most humanoids, most etaera are intersex and female-presenting, as internally nearly all etaera possess structures that are usually sex-specific among other humanoids. Most accurate, however, would be to say that the etaera have little or no sexual dimorphism, even in comparison to the already very slight sexual dimorphism of humanoids generally.

Despite most etaera producing both eggs and sperm, they are not able to self-procreate: the gametes of a given etaera are "labeled" with chemical markers and the egg will reject any sperm that matches its markers. The penis and testes of most etaera are not externally visible, but the semi-prehensile penis can emerge if the etaera is sufficiently aroused and willing, allowing copulation; however, most sexual encounters between etaera do not involve the penis unless the partners are trying to have a baby, as leaving it retracted is an easy and reliable form of birth control. 

Etaera society comprises two distinct but interrelated cultures, the nomadic Desert Clans of the interior of the supercontinent and the settled City Dwellers of the coasts and islands. The Desert Clans are more warlike, valuing boldness, honor, and generosity, while the City Dwellers value beauty, ease, and community. The two cultures were initially hostile, given the Desert Clans' historic tendency to raid the City Dwellers; over time, however, growing numbers of Clans and Cities allied, resulting in the modern state of affairs, where all children are raised among the City Dwellers until they reach adolescence, at which point they may choose to undergo the trials to be accepted as a member of a Desert Clan, or remain in the City as one of its Dwellers.

The etaeran Cities and Clans are each self-governing, with a wide variety of systems of government. Representatives from each City and Clan sit on the Council of Syrena, which governs all matters outside the homeworld--colonies, space fleets, interstellar trade and the like. All matters on Syrena, however, are governed by a City or Clan; when more than one is involved, they engage in diplomacy to determine a consensus decision.

Gravitic Drive: A form of spacecraft propulsion that utilizes gravitics to accelerate and decelerate the vessel. Gravitic drive operates by, essentially, amplifying the gravitational attraction of all matter in front of the ship, while simultaneously decreasing the attraction of all matter behind the ship, causing the ship to accelerate forwards. The same operation can later be reversed to accelerate the ship backwards (i.e., decelerate). In a star system, the gravitic drive thus essentially works through the ship "pulling itself" toward a planet or star; in infraspace, it pulls itself toward all the gas and dark matter in the direction in which it's headed.

Gravitic drive has numerous advantages over reaction thrusters. Most notably, it eliminates the need for reaction mass; the energy consumed to generate the gravitic fields involved is the only thing the drive consumes. In other words, a ship's delta-vee (a measure of its ability to accelerate, decelerate, and maneuver) is dependent solely on its ability to generate power, not thrust. Second, acceleration due to gravity is the same regardless of the mass of the object being accelerated; in other words, a more massive ship does not require more energy to accelerate with gravitic drive. Third, because all matter within the ship is accelerated evenly rather than “pushed” by a drive, there is no experience of G-forces by personnel or equipment on the ship, greatly increasing the maximum safe rate of acceleration.

However, gravitic drives do have some noticeable drawbacks. The drive involves paired gravitic generators that create the necessary fields by working in tandem, located to either side of the direction of thrust. In other words, the gravitic drive can only accelerate or decelerate the ship along one axis, so reaction thrusters are still needed to rotate the ship. This means that a ship's speed and maneuverability are decoupled; the more massive it is, the more fuel and reaction mass the reaction thrusters need to maneuver it, but its ability to straight-line accelerate is the same regardless of mass.

Second, the closer one gets to either of the two gravitic generators used for the drive, the more complex the gravitational fields become--between the generators, the smaller distortions cancel out, but a close-in object may experience gravitational pulls in multiple directions simultaneously. As such, it is unsafe for the gravitic drive generators to be located too close to the ship's power plant or living areas. On the Cygnus-class ships where the technology is being applied first, this distancing is accomplished by placing the generators at the tips of the radiator “wings”.

Homeworld: A homeworld is a planet possessing one or more independently developed civilizations; that is, a world that has been continually inhabited since the Great Collapse. All known homeworlds originated as Old Empire colonies; humanoid life does not appear to be native to any known planet, but presumably there was at some point an original homeworld on which humanoid life evolved before spreading out into the stars. Legends abound about this world, but its location, name, and properties are unknown, with the exception that it can be assumed to have had an environment highly hospitable to humanoid life, which does narrow the possibilities somewhat.

Most known homeworlds developed on largely similar lines after the Great Collapse: an initial struggle for survival in which the science and technology of the Old Empire were lost, forgotten, or shrouded in legend, followed by a gradual rediscovery of their principles, either from scratch or learned from what scraps of Old Empire records and technology survived--usually, a combination of both. These civilizations then moved out into space, developed or (more commonly) discovered efteal drive, and then reached out into the stars to discover others.

Homeworlds typically start out as agrarian or agricultural societies that then transition into industrial societies, and hence initially experience high population growth. As a result, they typically have populations in the tens or hundreds of millions, though this varies somewhat by the environment and race. By contrast, colonies are always settled after a civilization has achieved the three factors that essentially negate population growth (industrialized economy, mandatory education/restrictions on child labor, and technologies and social norms that give individuals capable of pregnancy control over their reproduction), and moving people between planets (let alone star systems) is expensive and difficult, so colonies typically have populations in the thousands or even less.

There are two known cases of homeworlds which did not achieve spaceflight on their own (so far). One, Virin, was home to a human civilization that had a fairly advanced industrial infrastructure and sciences but not space travel. The other two known human homeworlds, Urde and Denne, cooperated to uplift Virin to achieve spaceflight and join the galactic community over the course of roughly 70 years. The other is Vra, home to a mostly agricultural nekmi civilization with little to no communication between the planet's three major continents. Nekmi researchers covertly embedded within multiple communities across the planet are currently observing to determine how best to approach the inhabitants with the offer of uplift and achieve a consensus response.

Humans: A subspecies of humanoids. Humans are the most common subspecies in the known Cygnus Starswarm, and genetic studies suggest that they are the closest form to the original ancestors of the humanoids, hence the term. Humans are typically well-adapted to environments from arid to humid with temperatures ranging from 5 to 35 C, with gravity near 1 G and an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere near 1 atmosphere of pressure. Although no humanoid subspecies is particularly genetically diverse, humans are slightly more so than the other known races, making them slightly more resistant to pandemics (although again, all humanoid populations are more vulnerable to pandemics than most other organisms). They are otherwise not specialized in any particular respect.

Humans have the most homeworlds of any subspecies known, a total of three. Urde achieved interstellar travel roughly 200 years ago, and Denne about 50 years later. First contact between them occurred soon after. Initially, Urde was an egalitarian society that celebrated personal freedoms and cultural diversity while Denne was more authoritarian and aggressive, resulting in two decades of conflict between them. However, first contact between Denne and the ranians led swiftly to the Ranian-Human Wars and the formation of the Human Alliance between Urde and Denne. After the conclusion of the wars due to ciri intervention, hostilities between the two human homeworlds and their colonies might have resumed if not for the discovery of a third human homeworld, Virin. Virin was on the cusp of developing spaceflight, and the Alliance served as a vehicle first for Urde and Denne to cooperate in making contact with the Virinians and offer them uplift, and then once it was accepted, to help them develop the necessary educational and industrial infrastructure to enter the interstellar community--and the Alliance--a generation later.

Today, almost a century later, the culture of the Human Alliance is diverse and complex. It is not that Urde's culture subsumed the other two, but rather that the conservative and authoritarian elements originating from Denne, the moderate liberalism of Virin, and the Urdean embrace of multiculturalism and cooperation are (occasionally uncomfortably) coexisting trends found on all human worlds, homeworlds and colonies alike.

Humans enjoy cordial relations with the ranians, although some mutual distrust and resentment rooted in the Ranian-Human Wars remains; they have outright friendly relations with all other known humanoid races. It has been argued that this is, in fact, what humans are specialized and adapted for: communication and cooperation with outsiders. Modern scholars generally dismiss that idea, however, and chalk it up to cultural factors, specifically the combination of Dennean norms of hospitality and care once someone has been accepted with Urdean norms of broad acceptance.

Humanoid: The term "humanoid" refers to one of two groups of organisms, depending on context.

• Humanoid life refers to all organisms that share a common ancestry with humans, including the other humanoid subspecies but also organisms as varied as rats, salmon, ants, yeast, wheat, and E. coli. Humanoid life shares a number of common properties, namely protein-in-water biochemistry, a shared subset of the possible amino acids used in that protein, DNA and/or RNA, and so on. Some of these properties are found in non-humanoid life, but all known organisms which possess all identified humanoid traits also show signs of common ancestry with humans, though the date of this common ancestry varies from millions to hundreds of millions of years in the past.
• Humanoid subspecies, or more simply humanoids, refers to members of the same species as humans--that is, all humanoids, including humans, are capable of producing viable offspring with each other under the right circumstances, and all humanoids share a common ancestor roughly 300,000 years ago. Genetic studies suggest that this common ancestor was anatomically most similar to a modern human, hence the term "humanoid" and use of humans to define the species. All known humanoids share common traits as well, including a generally similar body plan, bipedal locomotion, opposable thumbs, binocular vision, tool use, and a tendency to form complex social structures with both horizontal and vertical conveyance of culture via some form of language.

Humanoids can also vary significantly. Humanoid populations living in isolation on different planets for many generations have diverged biologically to adapt to particular environments, aided by genetic engineering in the days of the Old Empire. The result has been the evolution of a number of distinct subspecies of humanoids, such as the arboreal ciri, desert-dwelling etaera and nekmi, and amphibious ranians. AIs may or may not be considered humanoid depending on context; on the one hand, they are created by humanoids and therefore arguably share a common ancestor, as well as being deliberately modeled on humanoid intelligence and behavior. On the other, their fundamentally different construction leads to profound differences in experience that, it could be and has been argued, makes them essentially alien.

As mentioned, all known humanoid races are sapient; in addition, all known sapient beings (except arguably AIs) are humanoid. The existence of non-humanoid intelligence--true aliens--is a popular media trope, but no examples have ever been found and many scholars believe no example will ever be found. Sapience is not one trait but the emergent confluence of many, and the solution space for organisms is very large compared to the size of the universe. Scientists thus argue that the probability of all those traits co-occurring in two completely unrelated organisms--that is, two organisms with less in common than a human and a bacterium--is simply too low to be plausible.

Native: In the story, used to refer to humanoid populations that settled a planet prior to the Great Collapse, as opposed to immigrant or colonist populations that moved to a world within documented history.

Nekmi: The nekmi are a humanoid subspecies and the most recent arrival on the interstellar scene, having developed interstellar flight and made first contact with the Cygnus Exploration Project slightly over a century ago, just after the Ranian-Human Wars. The nekmi are, like the etaera adapted to arid environments, but where the etaera are adapted for an equatorial supercontinent (that is, large amounts of dry interior that consistently get high sunlight) the nekmi are adapted to a low-moisture world (that is, environments with a large range of sunlight and temperature but consistently low water). They are able to function equally well in high desert, dry steppes, or subpolar tundras, thanks to a water-efficient metabolism optimal for long rests interrupted by quick bursts of energy, which works well for them as obligate-carnivore ambush hunters (that is, they can only derive nutrition efficiently from meat, which they acquire by lying in wait and then "pouncing" on prey, though this is usually done with a weapon). In addition, areas of the body particularly vulnerable to burning in strong sunlight or losing heat in cold climates--the ears and tail in particular--are covered in a fine, soft fur that shields from sunlight and traps heat in the cold. This is accomplished by thickening and lengthening of the fine, short body hairs that most humanoids possess; the hair remains short, thin, and difficult to see over most of the rest of the body, as is the norm for humans, ciri, and etaera.

The nekmi have a number of adaptations to improve their efficiency at hunting, including highly sensitive senses of smell, triangular ears that move independently and "trap" sound like a dish antenna, and excellent low-light vision optimized for spotting movement and detail over general acuity. All of these traits appear to have been largely the result of genetic engineering, either splicing feline DNA directly into a humanoid genome or modifying human genes to produce results phenotypically similar to cats.

Uniquely among known humanoids, the nekmi possess a tail. Though it is not prehensile, it is highly sensitive, able to detect the stirring of its fur due to small air currents. In combination with the long hairs extending from their eartips, this gives nekmi an additional sense able to detect nearby motion regardless of direction. The tail is also used to signal emotion; due to its sensitivity, touching it is regarded as highly intimate among nekmi. Nekmi also have a capability to "purr," producing low-frequency subvocal resonances with complex harmonics, similar to but more variable than those of cats.

The nekmi have two homeworlds, though only one is spacefaring, Rrem. Rremish culture highly values pleasure and novelty; not hedonistic per se, but highly valuing both rest and pursuing new experiences, with work regarded as an obstacle that must be faced and overcome rather than a goal in itself. A Rremish nekmi who focuses on their work at the expense of rest, play, or discovery is regarded as unwell and in need of counseling, while a nekmi who does what work is necessary and then spends as much time as possible relaxing and having fun is regarded as leading a well-balanced life.

The other nekmi homeworld, Vra, contains a variety of partially isolated cultures, some of which possess wooden sailing ships with which they are beginning to map their world. Some of the cultures present are tribal, while others have a feudal-like structure or caste system. Most have some equivalent of a warrior honor code, many quite strict. A handful of Rremish nekmi working for the CEP currently live covertly among the Vran nekmi as observers, attempting to determine how best to open contact and offer uplift without harming the Vran.

Purr: A soft rumbling noise produced by cats and nekmi with deep, complex harmonics. Like etaera "pheromone" production or a human raising their voice, purring can be either an involuntary emotional response or a conscious choice. The most famous purr, and the only one of which cats are capable, is the so-called "healing purr," which occurs at a resonant frequency that promotes bone healing and the production of platelets and white blood cells, accelerating overall healing from wounds and illness. This is not a magical ability: it cannot heal a wound in seconds or regrow a severed limb, but regular exposure to the healing purr can make the difference between taking a week to heal and taking five days. Nearly as famous is the "relaxation purr," which generates harmonies that induce a soporific effect in humanoids. Nekmi are capable of learning a number of additional purrs that trigger different responses in the subordination node of the brain.

Space Elevator: Essentially a very long, very strong cable connecting a point on a planet’s surface with a space station in geosynchronous orbit. The laws of orbital mechanics make it possible, by manipulating counterweights at the orbital end of the cord, to “drop” or “raise” containers connected to the cable between the station and the planet’s surface at an energy cost that is miniscule compared to using rockets or similar propulsion. However, the up-front cost and difficulty of constructing the cable, including manufacturing the exotic materials needed to keep it from snapping, means that they are only found on planets with advanced materials science and large industrial bases.  

Subordination Node: In the story, refers to a brain structure found in the hindbrain of all humanoids of unclear function. Studies suggest the subordination node is involved in transferring information from the sensory and language processing areas of the brain to the areas of the forebrain responsible for conscious decision-making and analysis of social relations. It is also known that certain sensory stimuli can trigger responses in the subordination node that suppress or distort the ability to incorporate analytical thinking into decision-making or alter the perception of social relations.