Glossary and Characters
- A-autom – Classification of a craft-lect that controls a Wanderer ship. It is at the top of the ship’s internal machine-lect hierarchy.
- AB level – Empire, civilisation, race, species or any other grouping of sentients that has reached the point of technological advancement comparable with that of the ABs. The term can also be used to describe specific technologies that are comparable in advancement to those used by ABs.
- AB space – A reality deeply connected with real space. It is the ‘true’ home of the ABs.
Antigraviton – Elementary particle of the antigravitational force, which acts over massive inter-galactic distances to push objects further apart. The force acts like gravity’s opponent, although it is a separate force and not an antimatter equivalent, which does not exist. - Apalu – Sibling of the craft-lect.
- Ascended Biologicals (‘ABs’) – Most advanced known civilisations in the galaxy. They had been thought to be all-powerful, until they chose suicide in the face of the sensespace threat. A defining aspect of the ABs was that they were unable to be fully understood by the less advanced, wider galactic community. They reside in both real space and AB space, although the latter is their ‘true’ home.
- Axe-coding – Type of inhabitant of a craft-lect’s technosystem reality, alongside the c-automs. Axe-codings cull c-automs at the instruction of the craft-lect.
- Axe-haven – Structure that disseminates orders and updates to the axe-codings, and whose existence is purposely concealed from the craft-lect.
- Axenic garrison – Thorus’ territory that is separated and hidden from the rest of the galaxy using transit-point technology given to it by the Makers.
- Axuum – Common material that is light-weight, strong and impervious to gamma radiation making it useful for space travel. Typically found across most manufacturing areas within young civilisations.
- Azuum – Material that is similar to Azuum, and typically found across most manufacturing areas within young space-faring civilisations.
- Balrooni Wonder – Galactic marvel, discovered by the Balroons.
- Balroons – Race of large, technologically-augmented macronematoids.
- B-autom – Category of machine-lect designed by the Wanderer Enclave to co-ordinate c-automs within early craft-lect ships. They did not act as intended and were either destroyed or repurposed.
- Beast-men – Extinct species that was similar to Gil’s people.
- Bio-lect – Biological sentient that has been upgraded near to the point of becoming a machine intelligence, while keeping its biological thought constructs. Differentiated from a machine-lect, although technically a subset. Rare instances have shown they can evolve naturally, such as with the Waka race.
- Biological sentient (‘biological’) – Non-exotic living entity that has naturally evolved, or would have been able to, and that also possesses an intellect.
- Bloom – Wanderer propulsion method powered by vacuum energy.
- Blue Dots – Phenomenon appearing within the photospheres of most heavier main sequence stars within the Minor Hednes Arm. It has been debated whether they are a primitive species or simply an emergent property of a complex system. Their apparent patterns are thought to be governed by a set of equations known as the ‘Hyplex Dolsden Triple’.
- Bo – Oldest and wisest elder of Gil’s former commune.
- Bunch’wan – Small aquatic, and heavily religious species that fractured into various derivative civilisations in pre-Conflation times. The base species, alongside with many others, became extinct as a result of the war against the sensespace. Offshoot levels three, eight, nine, ten and twenty-seven are known to have survived and reintegrated into one society.
- Capacity – Amount of concentration available to each Wanderer machine-lect, which can be divided and allocated between tasks.
- C-autom – Lowest classification of sentient sub-lect within the autom series. They are created by Wanderer craft-lects and delegated various tasks.
- Ciqalo – Disappeared sibling of Apalu and the craft-lect.
- Cognitional demarcation (‘coupling’) – Technique allowing data-lects to ascertain the veracity of information entering the Wanderer data exchange network.
- Commune – Type of community where Gil was raised on her world.
- Communer – People who live in a commune.
- Coupling – See ‘cognitional demarcation’.
- Craft-lect – Wanderer machine-lect that travels the galaxy detecting and destroying incidences of sensespace infection.
- Craftnet – Ship-wide network on a Wanderer craft-lect’s ship. It is available to be used for ship-wide communications by all c-automs.
- Cross-Prophet – Entity initially referenced by Thy, who reveals himself to Tor and DeVoid. Also known as the ‘Guardian of the Spaces’ and the ‘Traveller’.
- Data exchange network – Wanderer civilisation’s information network, spread across the galaxy. Often referred to as ‘the data exchange’.
- Data exchange portal – Individual portal within the Wanderer data exchange network. Usually referred to simply as ‘a data exchange’.
- Databanks – Wanderer memory technology.
- Data-lect – Higher Wanderer machine-lect that usually acts as a steward of a data exchange portal. Originally created during experiments by the Machine Alliance, and prodigy-tending on average. They exhibit greater independence of thought than most Wanderer machine-lects.
- Deliverer – Powerful machine-lect created and left behind by the ABs, dedicated to learning about and destroying the sensespace.
- DeVoid – Data-lect with origins predating the Great Conflation.
- Diasporasm – Siltlong species that evolved from the Silti, and are their largest descendants.
- Dissociation shell – Enormously destructive weapon based on dissociation technology.
- Dissociation shield – Complicated technology that funnels a dissociation explosion around an enclosed, protected area.
- Dissociation technology – Antigravity technology that was banned before the Great War.
- Drone – Automated instruments that are typically not sentient.
- Dual-structure lect – Type of machine-lect architecture that allows for two distinct expressions of sentience to co-exist within the same medium at the same time.
- Duspatock – Siltlong species that evolved from the Silti, and are their smaller descendants.
- Emblem-ship – Largest and deadliest Battle Class ships produced by the Woal Collective, initially created during the early stages of the Great War. They are more conjoined fleets than individual ships, comprising hundreds of interlinked baubles – each with their own machine-lect in charge. They are known to favour weapons derived from dissociation technology.
- Enclave-lect – Member of the Wanderer Enclave.
- Faistri’al – Species made famous throughout the galaxy for their association with the Balroons.
- Flap-weaponry – Type of Faistri’al weapon.
- Fringe viewpoint – Description of a minority school of thought in the Wanderer civilisation.
- Galactic community – Encompasses known spacefaring civilisations who exchange information between each other. Also used to group together all sub-AB sentients.
- GA-Ries – Galactic civilisation known to the Wanderers.
- Gate-lect – Machine-lect from the gateway mechanism.
- Gateway mechanism – Mechanism overseeing the Wanderer data exchange network.
- Gil – Twin sister of Tor.
- Granthan – Mysterious race that reached near-AB level before technologically plateauing.
- Granthan-lect – Machine-lect from the Granthan civilisation.
- Granthan-lect fragment (‘fragment’) – Partial copy of the original Granthan-lect that infiltrated the craft-lect’s ship.
- Graviton – Elementary particle of the gravitational force.
- Gravity cocoon – Device to suppress or dampen an explosion.
- Great Conflation – Mass suicide event which occurred sixty million years ago, during the fight against the sensespace. It was initially proposed by the embattled ABs as a means of forcing the sensespace into dormancy by removing its ability to actively control those it had infected, as it was theorised to rely on the aggregate level of sentience within the galaxy. Sometimes, the Great War is referred to as the Great Conflation, although that is not technically correct.
- Great War – Three hundred million years ago, following its discovery by the Balroons, the sensespace attacked the galactic community. It exerted an active control over those it had infected to carry out destruction. The war is still ongoing.
- Guardian of the Spaces – See ‘Cross-Prophet’.
- Han – Most skilled hunter in Gil’s former commune.
- Hatelei – Grouping of Siltlong races that is far smaller than the Wanderers.
- Higher-level c-autom – C-autom with greater-than-average intelligence.
- Hollow-world – World-sized husk that appears typical but is identifiable primarily by its negligible gravitational readings.
- Hugger Encroachment – Civilisation that mostly had settlements within the outer perimeters of star systems, with a level of technology far inferior to that of the Wanderers. Extinct long before the Wanderers were formed.
- Hunter – Communer who hunts animals for food in the surrounding forests.
- Hyper-lucidity – Ability of some biologicals to exhibit intellectual leaps far surpassing the abilities of most machine-lects, and often requiring prodigy or savant machine-lects to understand.
- Insul – Craft-lect and parent-lect of Pelteus. Deceased.
- Lect – Living entity that possesses an intellect and is therefore sentient. Usually an affix to a machine intelligence.
- Lenbit Orbital – Asteroid field where the craft-lect encountered the derelict research base, disguised as a mining station, established by One-oh’s race.
- Lower-level c-autom – C-autom with lower-than-average intelligence.
- Machine Alliance – Pre-Wanderer grouping of machine-lects who engaged in numerous technological experiments, banded together by the central tenet of machine superiority.
- Machine-lect – Machine-based intelligence.
- Makers – Creators of the sensespace and ‘the spaces’.
- Mart’oop – Upright hexapodic insectoid species that caused their own extinction hundreds of millions of years before the Great Conflation.
- Maspero – Private AB civilisation rumoured by the Wanderers to have been involved with creating the Deliverer.
- Maspero gateways (‘gateways’) – Rotating gravitational singularities that appear to allow near-instantaneous passage between separate locations.
- Metalink – Conduit used by Thorus to receive and transmit information from its garrison.
- Meta-traps – Snares used by Pelteus to attack its prey.
- Multiversal boundaries – Boundaries separating universes within the multiverse.
- Multiverse – Collection of universes, separated by multiversal boundaries, that comprise the spaces.
- Nanosphere – Antimatter weapon.
- Near-AB level (‘Near-AB’) – Empire, civilisation, race, species, or any other grouping of sentients, that has technologically advanced to a point nearly comparable with that of the ABs, although still recognisably inferior by the galactic community. The term can also be used to describe specific technologies.
- Near-speed-of-light (‘N-SOL’) travel – Fastest transportation method known to, and possessed by, sub-ABs. N-SOL travel is an AB technology that was gifted to the galactic community billions of years ago.
- Needle-whip – Weapon.
- Nevosplitter – GA-Riesian instrument.
- Nine-Bunch’wan – See ‘Bunch’wan’.
- Non-ABs – Empire, civilisation, race, species, or any other grouping of sentients, whose technological advancement is inferior to the ABs, or who have AB-level, technologies but have declined to join the AB grouping. The term can also be used to describe specific technologies.
- N-SOL drive – Technology gifted by the ABs to the galactic community to make use of N-SOL travel.
- N-SOL space – Accessed via an N-SOL drive, it allows travel at far greater speeds than in real space. It is a phenomenon that is known to exist by the general galactic community, but not understood.
- One-oh – Bio-lect discovered to be contained within trove item 512<a>!110000, from the Lenbit Orbital research station, which had been disguised as a mining station.
- Orb-body – Physical form for c-automs to operate in real space, created by the craft-lect. Each orb emits its own unique glow.
- Parent-lect – Machine-lect that has spawned a sub-lect.
- Pelteus – Surviving spear-lect.
- Post-Conflation – Events following the Great Conflation.
- Pre-Conflation – Events preceding the Great Conflation.
- Prodigy machine-lect – Machine-lects who display genius-level attributes in almost all quantifiable fields, and thought to be a possible route to entering the AB fold. They are monumentally complex and tricky to produce – nearly always by accident – and are only created by highly advanced civilisations. Data-lects are almost unique in the Wanderer civilisation, being the only category of machine-lect able to be purposely created with prodigy-tending attributes.
- Pulsar spew – Unidentified exotic matter emitted from slow or non-spinning neutron stars, that is attuned to the sensespace and able to force it to manifest completely in real space.
- Pulsar spew technology – Technology that harnesses the exotic matter emitted by slow pulsars. Spinning neutron stars (‘pulsars’) emit periodic pulses of electromagnetic radiation, but this process stops when the rotation slows down. After this, the pulsar engine evolves, and the neutron star emits secondary, highly infrequent pulses of exotic matter.
- Quasi-sequential hermaphrodite – Single-gender species whose fundamental behavioural characteristics can significantly change, often without warning. This is analogous to the changing of sex in many gendered species. The Waka species is a notable example.
- Quick-lect – Category of Wanderer machine-lect in control of small ships that hunted their targets in packs. Assumed extinct.
- Real space – Encompasses all known scales of accessible reality for sub-ABs. Virtual and simulated habitats, and any similar constructs, are included in the term, although sometimes differentiated from physically-oriented classifications of real space for simplicity.
- Ril – Labourer, son of Yul.
- Savant machine-lect – Machine-lects who are unfathomably gifted in certain areas, but dramatically deficient in others. They are even harder to product than prodigy machine-lects, and even rarer.
- Selection mechanism – Used to efficiently allocate c-autom tasks.
- Selective-suppression – Ability of some machine-lects to dampen facets of their lects for specified periods of time, with the aim of optimising or exploring the change in functionality of a lect.
- Sensespace – Infective and hostile presence that appears to be drawn to sentience. It is believed to have been pushed into dormancy by the Great Conflation, when the level of aggregate sentience in the galaxy was dramatically reduced.
- Sentient – Living entity possessing an intellect (or ‘sentience’).
- Silti – Siltlong species, and also the progenitor of the Toolong, Diasporasm and Duspatock.
- Siltlong – Exotic category of sentient that closely resembles living orbital debris. The three main races are the Toolong, Diasporasm and Duspatock. All three hailed from the same progenitor species – the Silti.
- Singularity generator – Propulsion method relying on artificial gravitational micro-singularities. Also known as a ‘thrown singularity engine’ or a ‘recycled singularity engine’.
- Sower – Tool that is part-digger, part-planter, invented by Gil.
- Spear-lect – Wanderer b-automs who survived efforts to usurp their parent-lects and were subsequently captured by the Enclave, before being repurposed into weapons against the Enclave’s opponents. Assumed extinct.
- Sphere – Sense available to Gil’s people that allows them to explore the world around them. It is derived from the sensespace.
- Spin-hygen – Weapon.
- Standard time – Wanderer quantification of time which is also the standard in the galactic community. It is similar to that used on Gil’s planet.
- Step Principle – Warning against machine-lect self-upgrades to the extent a different entity is created that supersedes the incumbent machine-lect. Similar to the Usurper Principle.
- Sub-AB – Empire, civilisation, race, species, or any other such often-synonymous grouping of sentients, whose technological advancement is inferior to the ABs. The term can also be used to describe specific technologies.
- Sub-lect – Machine-lect spawned by a parent-lect.
- Table-chamber – Room created by the craft-lect for discussions between itself, One-oh, 998 and Gil.
- Tait – Respected individual from Gil’s former commune.
- Teacher – Machine-lect derived from the Granthan-lect labelled 1<k>!101010.
- Technosystem – Wanderer ship’s internal network which interfaces with the majority of its systems.
- Technosystem reality – Virtual environment within a Wanderer ship which can be inhabited by machine-lects. It usually acts as an interface by which the technosystem, and therefore the ship, can be efficiently accessed by c-automs.
- Ten-Bunch’wan – See ‘Bunch’wan’.
- The spaces – Encompasses a multiverse of distinct universes separated by multiversal boundaries. Created by the Makers, and defined by the Cross-Prophet as ‘probably almost everything’.
- Theory of the Intellect – Broad theory of sentience and consciousness, generally applicable to all biologicals, machine-lects and exotic variants thus far discovered by the wider galactic community.
- Thorus – Ancient and surviving machine-lect who used to be a member of the Machine Alliance, before the alliance joined the factions preceding the Wanderers.
- Thy – Originally created by the Thygo as their machine-lect guardian.
- Thy-child – Category of sub-lect spawned by Thy that resided within its simulated reality.
- Thygo – Progenitor race that created Thy, before being imprisoned by their creation.
- Toolong – Siltlong species that evolved from, and closely resemble, the Silti.
- Tor – Twin brother of Gil.
- Transit-point technology – Technology that allows parts of the galaxy to be sequestered and hidden from the rest.
- Traveller – See ‘Cross-Prophet’.
- Triamond – Extremely durable and versatile material.
- Trizek’d Theory of Lect – Theory describing the workings of lects, tailored by the Wanderers for their civilisation. The theory is in a constant state of flux since all Wanderer lects are constantly being affected by both new and/or changing variables, including time. It is not ultimately solvable in the sense that it can never be complete.
- Trove instrument (‘trove item’) – Technological item pilfered from an abandoned habitat or outpost, that a craft-lect can choose to dedicate resources to understanding.
- Usurper Principle – Warning against delegating inferior machine-lects to be involved with anything that might lead to them become dangerously upgraded or superior to the incumbent machine-lect. Similar to the Step Principle.
- Waka – Race of natural bio-lects, rumoured to be represented within the Wanderer Enclave. Waka individuals are quasi-sequential hermaphrodites, and take tens to thousands of years to reach full maturity.
- Wanderer Confluence – Optional events hosted by the Enclave for the Wanderer populous. They occur approximately every one million standard years, with the purpose of sharing and disseminating information, which is also available via the data exchange afterwards.
- Wanderer Enclave – Governing body of the Wanderers, thought to comprise mostly of machine-lects.
- Wanderer fleet – All of the Wanderer ships within the galaxy, although often refers to the craft-lect fleet, which is the largest.
- Wanderers – Formed predominantly from a variety of machine-lect alliances, following the Great Conflation. The Wanderer civilisation is the principal force in the galaxy attempting to destroy the sensespace.
- Woal Collective – Current allies of the Wanderers who were decimated by the sensespace during the Great War. They are one of the civilisations that decided to purposefully stagnate themselves so as not to contribute to the sensespace’s hypothetical reawakening. Their technology has long-been in the upper echelons of the non-ABs, although it has also stagnated since the start of the Great War.
- World-chamber – Artistic symbol of Gil’s home planet, constructed by 998.
- Yul – Father of Ril, who disappeared with Gil’s father.
- Yul’nka Empire – Close allies to the Wanderers.
- 1<k>!101010 – Trove item collected forty million years ago from the remains of a Granthan worldship, found to contain a subversive Granthan-lect loyal to the sensespace.
- 112 – Lower-level c-autom befriended by Gil.
- 289 – C-autom working on a task with 112.
- 997<0>!001100 (‘997’) – Higher-level c-autom intended as the intellectual equal of 998<0>!001100 (998) when it was created, at the same time, by the craft-lect. Deceased.
- 998<0>!001100 (‘998’) – Higher-level c-autom originally tasked with investigating trove item 512<a>!110000, although it has since evolved its responsibilities.