Road to Hope

[Jakob]

Ryen Kya

Ryen Kya, aka (named, like quite a lot of girls from that time period, after a certain water goddess who was the subject of a very popular TV show at the time), was hatched in Y943, she and her other half Ayen are the older pair of Ryen-pack's children. Ryen-pack lives in a fancy apartment on the shores of the oasis in the predominantly upper middle class District 2, not far from the huge skyscrapers of Ikun's Financial District, District 1, where they work for an influencing firm; basically they get hired by wealthy clients to get the Lawspeakers to change laws for them. In Y952, Ryen-pack gets a new assignment to help a foreign billionaire pack from the Meatbucket region (Andin city-state in specific), Dagwar-pack, to get Ikun to remove their regulations around geoengineering and other green tech like ecological nanobots. Dagwar-pack seem to be very eccentric to say the least, but have built up an eco-tech empire in the Meatbucket and are looking to expand to the Ikun market. However, since Ikun has banned this and heavily pressures city-states around the world to do the same using its considerable soft power, this is because any global Climate Control System that arises from widespread geoengineering would likely be heavily controlled by their geopolitical enemy Koranah, who is ahead of Ikun in this industry. This is of course not told to the public; the official narrative is that geoengineering is dangerous and unreliable, and the environment is collapsing so fast that only extreme measures like leaving the planet via Project Hope are viable.

This quickly becomes a passion project for Ryen-pack, their alpha Kerok in particular, whose birth-pack were climate scientists. Ryen-pack sees this as an opportunity to do a lot of good, as they believe that with Project Hope, society is hurtling towards collapse and Project Hope is accelerating their demise. They spend long hours working on the project, staying at the office far into the night and coming in on weekends. The young Kya and Ayen aren't neglegted, the adults still spend time with them and teach them a lot about their fields of expertise (as they all are highly educated, having gone to the world-famous Nktan University). However, they still spend a lot of time in the office while their birth-pack makes calls and writes reports, instead of being out playing or exploring or doing whatever young Kyanah normally do...well young Kyanah from middle class packs anyway. Even the pack's vacations are heavily geared towards work, they often travel to far flung city-states to gather environmental data or speak with local politicians, scientists, and business owners.

As the years go by, Ryen-pack starts to put together a picture of what's going on, and how geoengineering and related technologies are not as dangerous as Ikun's politicians claim, and that the environment, while bad, is not collapsing fast enough to justify the stated motives for Project Hope. However, this isn't enough for Ikun's Lawspeakers to put a stop to Hope, or really do much of anything, and the project keeps rolling onward. Kya and Ayen remain very close to each other, at one point making each other these bracelet thingies and promising to wear them even when they had their own packs. However, Ayen is clearly much more academically inclined and more interested in activism for Ryen-pack's mission, whereas Kya of a normal kid (as far as Kyanah go...) who is growing up to be more outdoorsy and also a bit of a geek--she kind of admires Project Hope on the down low. Their second pair of young, Nyak and Korek, hatch in Y954, with considerable complications for Teren, who laid their eggs; this is about the only thing that temporarily distracts the pack from their work.

By Y960, Ryen-pack's boss decides to drop Dagwar-pack as a client and move on to less controversial clients with a better chance of winning. However, Ryen-pack, at Kerok's behest calls in a lot of favors and takes on a lot of extra work from their boss in exchange for being able to keep Dagwar-pack as a client. This means that the pack is even more consumed with work. However, it is all for naught, and by Y962, their boss announces that the company is officially dropping the Dagwar-pack work and they can no longer cover for Ryen-pack. Nua, who is a late import to Ryen-pack and one of the more impulsive members, blurts out that they are going to get into politics to do it themselves. Kerok actually thinks this is a good idea, and Ryen-pack quits to pursue a challenge for Lawspeaker. Though naturally, leaving their job doesn't mean less work for them. They hire a pack of analysts and staffers to work out an optimal strategy--which isn't cheap even for Ryen-pack--and begin promoting themselves in Ikun and beyond. Their campaign strategy is highly optimized and data driven, with very specific words and actions called for from all of the pack. This includes their young--while Nyak and Korek are young enough that they can be sedated for high profile events without drawing too much negative attention, Kya and Ayen are expected to actively participate and play their complex roles in showcasing Ryen-pack as a viable Lawspeaker. Ayen takes much better to this than Kya, she studies their pack's strategy more and deeper and plays the role of a firey young activist whose greatest fear is growing up in a dying world. Whereas Kya is clearly less comfortable in dealing with crowds, conforming to AI optimized scripts, and putting more energy and time into politics than she has to.

Slowly but surely, Ryen-pack begins to spend more time with Ayen than Kya, as Ayen is subconsciously seen as a more valuable resource for their political aims. Though everyone is on the surface still kind and loving, it's difficult to actual spend time with or get significant emotional energy from the adults, even Nua, whom Kya was very close to before Ryen-pack went into politics. Teren has probably changed the least, but has always been kind of reserved. In Y963, Ryen-pack files their first challenge for Lawspeaker against District 2's incumbent pack, but the challenge fails. Ryen-pack decides to regroup and focus less on obscure geoengineering policies and go straight for an attack on Project Hope. They realize it doesn't matter if geoengineering is a more sustainable solution than Project Hope--the elites know this already and have other considerations, and the regular citizens will never believe it due to years of propaganda. Kerok in particular is highly disappointed in their failure and insists that everyone needs to work harder and even more aggressively optimize their public behavior.

Y963 becomes Y964 and Ryen-pack goes for a Lawspeaker position again. This time they challenge the Lawspeakers Association itself with the goal of creating a new seat for themselves, and they focus on the economic and environmental effects of Project Hope itself, rather than going for a geoengineering platform directly. They actually win their challenge this time and become Lawspeakers for Ikun. Now they're in a position to kill Project Hope by removing it from the city's annual agenda, but getting there will be a difficult process. They first have to identify potential allies, built up their reputation, and identify possible threats to their soft power through extensive research on the other Lawspeakers. And of course the other Lawspeakers and their staffers are busy sizing them up as well. Ayen adapts well to this, though her zealousness and youthful lack of nuance sometimes come back to bite Ryen-pack and drive away possible allies. But Kya remains a fish out of water in the Hall of Power, especially with all the adults being pre-occupied and less supportive. Kerok often expresses disappointment when she fails to adhere to their carefully crafted strategies. Kaun does try to tell Kerok to go easier on Kya, but Kerok often doesn't listen to her and insists that the work they're doing is too important for any mistakes. Kaun still goes out of her way to try and mold her into a skilled political activist like Ayen, or at least an academic, much to Kya's dismay, and Teren, who is easily the least political of the adults, provides occasional respite for Kya, as does spending time with the boys, which she tries to do a lot while the rest of the pack is caught up in their political scheming and strategizing.

As Kya and Ayen reach their teenage years and the associated dominance struggles, they naturally drift apart, becoming more distant. This is exacerbated by the way in which the adults have played favorites and pitted them against each other to encourage the best possible "results" out of both of them. Ayen has developed a bit of an arrogant streak from years of being the golden child, and Kya has become somewhat agressive and resentful towards her as well, though they have their moments when they get along. Through Y965 and Y966, the pack begins to find their footing in the Lawspeakers Association and begins slowly but surely gathering together a bloc of politicians willing to work to stop Project Hope, for various reasons of their own, from seeing it as a waste of money to genuine concern about the environment to having money in the geoengineering sector to being neutral but willing to work on anti-Hope initiatives in exchange for other concessions. This also makes them enemies though, as there are many packs with deep pockets and a vested interest in continuing Project Hope, including Nyektak-pack themselves. A common strategy in Ikun's political culture (and really the planet's political culture as a whole) is to aggressively target the children of one's political enemies with constant harassment and slander to provoke their packs into withdrawing from politics to protect them. As their enemeies' analysts have deduced that Kya is the weak link, she bears the brunt of this. However, Ryen-pack refuses to fall for such tricks even though it's clearly hurting their children.

Meanwhile, Ryen-pack have to make many difficult decisions as a Lawspeaker, often about things that have no direct relation to Project Hope. In order to make allies and raise funding, they find themselves having to increasingly do shady back-room deals with huge corporations and foreign governments, and find themselves sacrificing many key positions and values to keep their position and influence among the Lawspeakers, which often causes disagreements among the adults. They end up lying, cheating, suppressing the economy, and more, but justify this under the assumption that they need to keep their power and influence to have a chance of stopping Project Hope. In the midst of navigating the shady world of Ikun politics, Ryen-pack is also often flying around the world to fancy climate conferences and leveraging their professional contacts and AI matching to arrange future packs for Kya and Ayen. For Ayen, they gradually find the perfect blend of scientific and activist minds from influential packs to place her with, which she seems very happy and excited about. However, Kya definitely does not want their help or involvement in selecting a pack for her, which complicates things further and puts her under even more pressure, and she spirals down a destructive path of self harming culminating in early Y967 with consuming a bottle of Teren's sleeping pills to try and end things after a huge fight with Ayen in which Kerok predictably took Ayen's side. However, she's discovered by Ayen and hospitalized before they can take full effect. However, Ryen-pack, and especially Kerok, have by this point become so consumed by their political ambitions that they rapidly carry on with what they were doing, even having an important meeting as soon Kya physically recovers enough for the pack to leave the hospital. However, Ayen gives Kya a heartfealt apology and they make up somewhat.

The next couple of years go by quickly, as Ryen-pack begins to consider the possibility of challenging Nyektak-pack for City Alpha eventually. The economy continues to freefall but Ryen-pack is well-to-do enough to avoid the worst of it. Efforts to get Kya a pack resume to some extent, but don't really get anywhere. And Kya continues to deal with lingering depression due to both the stresses of political life and her belief that the planet is quickly dying and her pack is working to dismantle what she thinks is the best chance of saving their species. She becomes outright supportive of Project Hope, even to the point of having some pro-Hope merch, but for obvious reasons has to keep this secret from the rest of her pack. In Y969, she and Ayen both sit the entrance exams for Nktan University, as this is seen as a critical next step in the initiative to stop Project Hope and save the planet (though Kya, for her part, actually wants to be a scientist or engineer on Project Hope so she can get herself and her future pack off the planet). Located in the neighboring city-state of Nktan, Nktan University, the most prestigious university in the world and Ryen-pack's alma mater. Ayen receives an invitation (Nktan University is so prestigious that you don't apply, you have to get invited to attend) as do all the prospective packmates picked out for her, but as it turns out, Kya is not invited and is inconsolable, as without this, getting onto Project Hope is much more difficult. Kerok and Kaun reassure her that they will find her some bright and loving young minds for a pack and get her into one of Ikun's local public universities, and make sure that she and her pack will make great activists and be a huge help for Ryen-pack's goals regardless. Obviously, this is not really what Kya wants to hear. She makes up her mind that even if she can't get off the planet as a scientist, she can still get off the planet as a soldier, and resolves to join Ikun's military, not just to escape a "dying world" but also to spite her birth-pack. She knows that her pack will never approve of this, and really wants the 100,000 qoin (converting alien currencies is hard, but this is likely about $20k USD) she and Ayen were each promised in order to get their lives started once they separate from Ryen-pack, so she lies that she has signed up for an environmentalist NGO and will travel for a few years and find a pack for herself that way. Kaun is a bit skeptical, but Nua thinks it's a brilliant idea, and he eventually convinces Kerok, who convinces the the rest of the pack to sign off on Kya's separation papers as well as Ayen's. Kya regrets not being around to shield Nyak and Korek from the toxic world of politics anymore, but she's made up her mind.

Kya and Ayen both leave together in Y970, Ayen to join her new pack and start at Nktan University, and Kya to join the Ikun Army. Ayen reveals that she knows Kya is lying about joining the NGO and asks what she's really doing. Kya decides to be honest and unload everything she's been keeping in all these years. Ayen is outraged at this and accuses Kya of never having loved Ryen-pack, seeing as she's willing to work against everything they stand for, which really touches a nerve for Kya. The two briefly fight physically before Ayen disengages and tosses her bracelet into the lake; the two then part ways on hostile terms.

[firestar464]

just wanted to say that you're talented as f*ck

[Jakob]

just wanted to say that you're talented as f*ck

Thank you, it's always nice to hear <3

[Jakob]

Aktektan Ractor

Aktektan Ractor, aka from an old northwestern word for a messenger, is a few years older than Kya and Tau, having hatched in Y936. Aktektan-pack lives in a drab rundown apartment in Ikun's dirt-poor District 12 and works at a weapons factory owned by Ikoin Corporation assembling bombs and missiles for Ikun's military. Around Y950, production quotas at their factory are ramped up, as news reports show that in the south, Koranah is ramping up their own military and becoming increasingly bellicose, staging coups in several small pro-Ikun city-states and committing genocide (or so the TV says at least). Ikun is planning to send more troops and weapons to the region. Aktektan-pack is wildly supportive of this, even though it means higher quotas for them. They also seem to be constantly fighting with each other, and ignoring/isolating from each other over trivial issues; for instance they often leave Ractor by himself for hours at a time (not normal Kyanah behavior at all and seen as rather abusive in their society). However, Ractor the increased milatarism only benefits the military industrial complex and Ikun politicians, a view which he frequently and snarkily espouses even though it inevitably leads to shouting, name-calling, and violence. Karien, who laid Ractor's egg, tries to shelter him from the worst of it, but is mostly ineffectual. She also teaches Ractor to swim, a very rare ability among Kyanah, who are slightly denser than water.

Ractor tends not to be the most dilligent worker in the factory, to say the least, and spends most of his free time (and some work time when no one is watching) reading on his beat up hand-me-down watch and trying to ignore the rest of his pack, and eschew's his pack's tendency to mostly just play-fight (and actual fight) and do the deed with each other and watch sports and "news" (which is often propaganda), all of which seem to get on his nerves. Though the pack's other children, of which there are many, will often "play fight" with Ractor without the "play" part, much to his annoyance and disgust. Ractor sees Nyaken playing neten-tyak, a complex strategy board game and she begrudgingly agrees to teach them.


A few years go by, and in Y954, Aktektan-pack is still working in the same job as before, though apparently the is now employing a "data-driven" system for "optimizing inefficiencies" with ubiquitious sensors and video monitoring. Which proves to be wildly unpopular with everyone. Aktektan-pack decries the "lazy Dunelanders" ruining things for everyone, while Ractor complains about government spying. And everyone begins trying to tamper with the signals or sabotage other employees to not be at the bottom of the list. Meanwhile, it seems that food prices are going up while the quantity and quality are going down, especially for Aktektan-pack who can only afford highly processed and trash quality meat. Which Ractor, being Ractor, vociferously objects to (and claims, with no evidence, that processed foods are why Nyaken can't lay viable eggs) but it told rudely to shut up and eat or starve by Nedak. Nyaken meanwhile goes back on her earlier plans to stop drinking, which appears to be partly motivated by once again having laid unviable eggs; none of Aktektan-pack's children are hers, which causes her to be deeply resentful of them. This starts another blowout fight between her and Tanun and Nortak, two other adults in the pack. While Karien is usually fairly nice to Ractor and his siblings, and Nyaken can at least be civil while they're playing neten-tyak together, Ractor has few if any other positive interactions with his pack. Nedak in particular appears to be quite insufferable and constantly has a snide answer to everything, but Tanun is the most overtly violent.


Things continue to go downhill for Aktektan-pack. The factory continues to automate as technology develops, which leads to more conflict and fighting between the workers as they jockey for position. Nyaken's drinking and smoking continues to escalate--to be fair most of the rest of the pack does this, including some of Ractor's older siblings. When this leads to workplace accidents that cause Aktektan-pack pack to drop down in the rankings, Nyaken predictably blames everyone in the pack except herself and lambasts Ractor for being a singleton, which is a sign of bad luck. Her neten-tyak games with Ractor continue on the decreasingly frequent occasions that Nyaken is sober and they aren't completely incensed at each other, and Ractor is eventually able to hold his own, but hasn't yet defeated her. Slowly but surely, most of Ractor's older siblings separate and go look for their own packs; one or two eventually turn up at the same factory with their packs.

In Y958, things come to a head when Ractor tells off Nedak and Tanun for doing the deed while he is busy trying to read, and after much needling by two of Ractor's younger siblings, it comes to light that Ractor is asexual, which is not well-liked in Kyanah society. Karien, who laid Ractor's egg, is deeply apologetic to him, fearing that she may have somehow caused his "condition". Ractor is appreciative of the fact that she does not immediately gang up on him like the rest of the pack. Tanun wants Ractor gone immediately, but Nyaken says that's not happening until Ractor is capable of love. This leads to yet another fight and, which Nyaken is also dragged into, and Nedak throws Nyaken's inability to lay viable eggs in her face, which only adds more fuel to the flames, although Ractor and Nyaken have a common enemy in this fight, which is unusual. After things simmer down, Ractor and Nyaken play one last game of neten-tyak, and Ractor scores his first win against her. Instead of being proud of him, Nyaken only says she's disappointed in him, and he will never love or have a pack. They don't play ever again after that, but Ractor also doesn't separate, as he takes Nyaken's words to heart and believes that since he'll never find a pack, he's better off here.

Into the Y960s, Ractor remains with Aktektan-pack, even as all but his two youngest siblings separate from the pack. The working situation at the factory becomes even more toxic and precarious, all the automation and robotics being deployed don't make their jobs eaiser, they just make them more convoluted, especially as staff are cut and quotas are raised in preparation for Project Hope and Ikun's other military endeavors. With their savings already being nonexistent, increasing prices of food, fuel, and electricity, and Nyaken and others' increased drinking and smoking capsaicin (to Kyanah, a psychoactive and moderately addictive substance) mean that they're slowly becoming mired in consumer debt. Despite everything, they still are somehow able make their donations to the Project Hope war effort, motivated by extensive propaganda and peer pressure. Though Ractor is disdainful of this, pointing out that none of them will ever be on the starships. And predictably gets told off for not loving his city-state. At some point, Nyaken starts smoking pure capsaicin, which is a lot stronger than just fireflower leaves, and this spreads to the rest of the pack. Attempts to find side jobs for the most part don't go particularly well, and most are short-lived and/or pay next do nothing.

Karien is no longer Ractor's biggest defender; while she still cares for him, she's simply tired of taking all the abuse from the rest of the pack every time she takes his side in a fight, and begins to withdraw, though privately she tells him that the pack is going down and Ractor needs an exit plan lest he be dragged down with them, financially and emotionally. Though Ractor stubbornly refuses to budge, even when Karien insists he can overcome his condition and find a pack. He continues to spend his time reading anything he can find, though his hand-me-down smartwatch is beginning to die despite his best efforts to repair it with tools and components stolen from the factory, and no one seems amenable to getting him a new one. And he also takes to writing long and angsty diatribes on Ikun's governance, Project Hope, and misanthropic (miskyanahthropic?) rants and bits of poetry. Though whenever any of his pack happen to see any of this, they react with scorn and derision, or even try to delete some of the more seditious stuff, so he keeps it to himself. And as the years go by, the pack has to sell a lot of stuff, including Ractor's smartwatch and their car, to make ends meet, and deal with some pretty shady packs, leading to a few stints in prison.


During the especially hot and arid summer of Y967, wildfires smolder across the Ikun oasis, filling the air with toxic fumes, while water levels reach record lows, and many buildings in Ikun itself catch fire. Aktektan-pack's apartment building burns down while Ikun's firefighters are occupied in the wealthier districts. They briefly live on the factory floor before finding an equally rundown apartment. With slightly higher rent of course. Ractor gradually finds himself becoming interested in Kyakenadak, and even encounters a pack of recruiters online (much to their chagrin, he tries to debate/argue with them about the finer points of their ideology). However, upon finding out that the packs bankrolling Kyakenadak fly around in private jets, own shares in coal mines and weapons manufacturers, and hobnob with politicians at exclusive climate conferences, he eventually becomes disgusted and loses interest in the group, instead just becoming disillusioned and nihilistic about everything.

Aktektan-pack continues to sink into a deeper and deeper financial mess, especially as Nyaken continually tries medical treatments to lay viable eggs, despite probably being too old for that at this point. Their donations to Ikun's war effort/Project Hope, motivated by extensive propaganda, don't help out their financial situation either. Nedak, Nortak, and Ractor confront Nyaken over the pack's finances, with predictable results: a fight. Nedak, whose birth-pack was in the Ikun Army, begins encouraging Ractor to join the military, saying it will make him into something loveable, but Ractor refuses to have anything to do with Ikun's war machine. Even Karien suggests this might be a good idea, but drops it after Ractor snaps at her.

Going into Y968, Nyaken's health begins to fail, though she remains as irascible as ever. Nedak ramps up the pressure on Ractor to join the military, though Nyaken still resists this idea for the same reason as before, saying that first he needs to be lovable. Though secretly very deep down there is some small part of her that would miss him if he separated. Not that she'd say that in front of anyone, especially Ractor. In the aftermath of the attack on the Ikun Spaceport by Kyakenadak, Nyaken insists that they join a march in support of Project Hope, an idea which the pack have mixed opinions on, though Nyaken, as Alpha forces the matter. Afterwards, Ractor decides he's had enough of sulking in the corner every night and absolutely unloads on the entire pack, even Karien, saying that maybe he would know how to love if any of them had ever set an example, and throws Nyaken's lack of her own young in her face.

This is finally enough to get Nyaken to flip and authorize kicking Ractor onto the street for good. Though Karien tries to apologize for everything, Ractor doesn't want to hear any of it and storms off. Now on his own on the streets, he considers his options. He's extensively read up on the activities of Ikun's lawspeakers, the City Alpha, and how they correlate with the job market, and realizes that the latest economic downturn is Ikun's government deliberately crashing the economy to drive military recruitment numbers for Project Hope by cutting off other options for young Kyanah like himself. He's been sort of looking into this for a couple of years and it all comes together the night he's kicked out. He doesn't have the mental energy to do anything with this information and decides that if he can't beat the government, he may as well join them, and signs up for the Ikun Army, despite being a bit disgusted with himself for playing right into Nyektak-pack's hands.

[Time_Traveller]

You're extremely imaginative Jakob, well done and I love the thread so far.

[Jakob]

A random break from characterization for a beastiary of the Kyanah homeworld. The Kyanah seem to divide the life forms on their planet into different taxonomic groups based largely on their method of locomotion. Obviously all 80,000 animal species can't be listed, but these groups include:

The walkers. Land-based flightless creatures that walk on two or four legs, and may or may not have feathers. This is the second most diverse group, with examples including:

The Kyanah themselves, obviously, as well as various proto-Kyanah species that are now extinct.

The tkorks, the other extant branch of the Kyanahforms. These creatures vaguely resemble Kyanah, and indeed they share a common ancestor with true Kyanah around 4-5 million Earth years ago, although they tend to be smaller and more nimble (rarely exceeding 40 kilograms), but with proportionally larger teeth and claws. Like Kyanah, most tkorks form pack structures with superficially similar behaviors, and share their carnivorous diet, but have a far more limited understanding of tool use and language (some tkorks have been taught simple words and phrases but don't seem to be able to express complex and abstract ideas). They often mimic Kyanah speech in a garbled and distorted manner, much like Earth parrots, but it's unclear to what degree, if any, they understand the vocalizations they're repeating. And unlike Kyanah, multiple packs rarely collaborate towards a common goal. Although the word tkork comes from an old scrubland word meaning "stupid one", they are more intelligent and adaptable than almost any other organisms on the planet, with only Kyanah themselves blowing them out of the water; really they're only "stupid ones" compared to Kyanah. Most tkork species are endangered or extinct in the modern era, but a couple have adapted to life in urban areas and as a result have done quite well for themselves, preying on other urban life forms and abandoned or discarded food. In fact, in many scrubland cities, they're something of a pest, rummaging through trash receptacles, opening unlocked doors, and harassing passerby with sticks and stones. However, due to their high intelligence and agility, removing them from urban areas is often difficult. Tkorks tend not to be well-liked by Kyanah, as they sit squarely in the uncanny valley, and aren't even particularly edible due to the risk of blood-borne diseases and deadly prions, but they are often used for various scientific studies. Being native to the northern latitudes, they aren't found as far south as Ikun, and the city-state's government has gone to considerable lengths to prevent them from being introduced. Tkorks are some of the very few non-Kyanah animals with six-core brains.

Nyruds, a quadrupedal species of browsing, solitary, egg-laying herbivores that vaguely resemble enormous Komodo dragons, with males averaging 5.4 meters in length and 1.2 meters in height, with a mass of slightly over 2 tons, while females average 4.1 meters in length and 1.0 meters in height, with an average mass of 1.3-1.4 tons. In addition to their large mass, nyruds defend themselves with thick skin, a whip-like tail, and a robust facial plate studded with bony spikes. They rather indiscriminately feast on leaves with their beak-like mouths and are a very important animal to the Kyanah, having been among the first to be domesticated. Their meat, eggs, and blood are very commonly consumed in most cultures, their skins are converted into leather, and before mechanized transport, the nyruds themselves were the animal of choice for beasts of burden and cavalry. A line of charging bull nyruds, each one dripped out in war bling and ridden by an entire pack of armored knights, would have been a terrifying sight for any infantry pack before the advent of decent firearms. Nyruds are essentially the Swiss army knife of domesticated animals, and dozens of breeds have been developed for specific roles over the milennia. Even in the modern era, they are the symbol of more than a few city-states, and the namesake for various civilian and military vehicles.

Tyorkets, another species to be domesticated by the Kyanah. They are quadrupedal carnivores with a layering of feathers averaging around 20 kilograms in the wild, with an average height of 50-60 centimeters, though domesticated breeds can be considerably larger. Like most walkers, they are egg laying, and they tend to form temporary monogamous pair bonds to raise their young. Their most notable feature is their extreme speed, they can reach 100 kilometers per hour in short bursts. Due to the thick atmosphere and high gravity, this can only be acheived by having a very narrow and streamlined form to reduce drag, and an enormous amount of fast-twitch muscle fibers in their legs. Once they catch their prey, they make up for their small size by dealing enormous damage with 10-centimeter sickle-shaped dew claws. Prehistoric Kyanah would often steal tyorket eggs from their nests, hatch them, and raise them to assist their own packs in hunting. Typically, they would be trained to advance ahead to weaken and immobilize prey, for instance by severing the tendons in their legs, while the slower-moving Kyanah would follow behind and use their own spears, teeth, and claws to finish it off. Tyorkets are often kept as pets in the modern era--usually with their dangerous sickle claws trimmed--and despite their four-core brains they are quite intelligent, able to display distinct personalities, recognize individual Kyanah, and obey verbal commands.

Sandstriders, an insectovorous egg-laying tetrapod native to the Dunelands with a mass of 100-125 kilograms. They have a comically splayed out posture with webbed feet that enable them to sneak up on subterranean creatures like Sandworms (see below) without triggering their vibration sensors. Their snouts are elongated into multiple flexible tentacle-like appendages to pick up small crawlcritters from burrows hidden in the sand, and tight crevaces in rocks. Like most large walkers in the Dunelands, they have humps on their back to store water for their long journeys between the sparse oases. These factors combine to create a creature that looks like a bizarre cross between an anteater, a camel, and a lizard. Sandstriders are occasionally consumed by Kyanah, especially in Duneland cultures.

Thukukenoids are one of two classes of flying animal. Thukukenoids fly by floating like living balloons, using enormous bladders filled with hydrogen gas or hot air, scooping airweeds, pollen, spores, and wind-borne small animals into their shovel-like mouths as they float along. Their sizes range from 15 centimeters and a handful of grams, to the behemoth Giant Ryothah, with a gas bladder up to 6 meters tall and 3 meters wide, weighing in at 25 kilograms. This category is named after the thukuken, a medium-sized thukukenoid reaching about 1 meter on average, which is commonly farmed by the Kyanah, who generally puncture their gas bladders to prevent them from just floating away. Smaller species and juvenile thukukens are sometimes prepared by stuffing the gas bladder with meats and roasted tubers.

Wingbeasts or gliders are the other class of flying animal, definitely the less alien of the two types of flyers on the Kyanah homeworld. They glide by unfolding highly optimized airfoil shaped wings, using a fixed-wing configuration rather than flapping like birds, which allows them to be somewhat heavier and more robust than Terran birds and still fly. They also tend to have large, robust, almost spring-like rear legs enabling them to make high jumps, making it easier to gain some initial altitude on takeoff. These creatures typically live in mountainous areas where they can leverage ridge lift and thermals to take off more easily, and tend not to use flight for short maneuvers as takeoff is for more energy demanding than Earth birds. When on the ground, wingbeasts will fold in their wings to protect them from predators and the elements and adopt a quadrupedal stance. Wingbeast diets are diverse, they can be herbivores, omnivores, or carnivores. As wingbeasts tend to cover great distances during their lives, rarely returning to the same place twice, laying eggs is not practical; instead they have a marsupial-like pouch for their young to be able to carry them with them.

Watermeat refers to the class of swimming creatures that inhabit the planet's oases. These can be quite diverse, but include the kenits and the neuz.

Neuz are amphibious creatures that can swim like eels within water or slither like snakes on land. They typically lay airborne eggs that catch the wind and float away from the oasis; when they land and hatch, the babies make their way to the first oasis they can find, and tend to spend most of their lives in the water once they find one, rarely venturing beyond the shoreline, especially as their vestigial limbs tend to atrophy in adulthood. Neuz have a broad array of sizes, ranging from less than a centimeter up to about 2 meters in length. Their aquatic nature is ironically quite useful on a desert planet, as few predators are able or willing to swim into the oases to pursue them. Most neuz species are herbivorous, feeding on aquatic plantlife in the oases and on their shores, but larger species will often feed on smaller neuz, small shore-dwelling animals, and kenits.

Kenits are semi-sessile water creatures consisting of a substrate anchored to the bottom of the oasis, which moves very slowly, if at all. Attatched to this substrate are numerous tentacles; unlike sessile Earth animals like sponges, these tentacles are mobile, with simple brains and eyes, and can reach out to grab prey. As kenits are relatively small, with the longest specimens being similar in size and shape to strands of spaghetti, they mostly consume plants and creatures like tiny aquatic worms, but small neuz can fall victim to the largest species. To avoid being preyed upon or evaded by their own prey, kenits employ sophisticated camouflage, being barely distinguishable from plants or the oasis bottom. To reproduce, kenit tentacles can detatch and swim to another location, where they will grow a substrate and plant themselves down, allowing a new colony to start growing. Unlike neuz, they have no practical way to transport themselves across the desert between oases, and thus aren't often seen beyond the Meatbucket region (an unusually mild and wet area with a high and irregular water table, leading to many interconnected oases). However, they've been introduced either accidentally or deliberately by Kyanah to other oases and are sometimes farmed in other regions of the world.

Crawlcritters tend to refer to small organisms that travel in and on the ground on an irregular number of legs and typically have only a stalk, with no cores in their brains. They can broadly be divided into "worms" with no legs, and "true crawlcritters" with six or more. Crawlcritters can be eaten by Kyanah but this is only common in very impoverished city-states, as they will typically avoid them except as a last resort. They are typically detrivorous or herbivorous in nature. One notable example is the sandworm, a detrivore native to the Dunelands (every desert planet has to have sandworms!) which burrows underground and has a knack for sensing vibrations...and they're about 10-20 centimeters long, blind, toothless, and have no defensive mechanism whatsoever save for armored skin and foul-tasting secretions that are also used to reinforce their tunnels. Sandworms tend to be gregarious creatures that concregate in burrows with dozens or hundreds of specimens. Though there are countless other species occupying nearly every nook and cranny of the planet.

[Jakob]

The plants on the Kyanah homeworld are divided into four main categories, which diverge considerably from Earth plants, despite some notable parallels.

Two of these categories, endoskeleton plants and exoskeleton plants, are considered the structured plants, which make up virtually all large plants on their world (though not all species are large). In the exoskeleton plants, the structural support is provided by a hard woody exterior that protects the core from damage, while inside is a softer core used for nutrient transfer and water storage. In endoskeleton plants, it's the other way around, the woody load-bearing part is on the inside, and on the outside is a softer, more pliable layer with a predominantly cellulose matrix containing not only nutrient and water transfer infrastructure, but a network of nerves running across the plant's surface, allowing information about conditions or threats in one part of the plant to be relayed to the rest of the plant, or even communicated to nearby plants of the same species using chemical secretions. This matrix, due to its high cellulose content, is similar in texture to cotton, but stronger and more securely attached to the woody core than, say, a cotton boll, you couldn't just pluck it off with your bare hands, at least without considerable effort.

The largest species of structured plants are similar in size to small trees from Earth, with tough, rigid exoskeleton plants reaching maximum heights of 10-12 meters, while more pliable endoskeleton plants max out at 6-8 meters. However, plenty of species are much more akin to shrubs or bushes. Regardless of size, these plants have a completely inverted growth pattern compared to Earth trees and bushes. As the plants grow, additional trunks will descend downwards from the main trunk and make multiple points of contact with the ground, where they take root to help stabilize the plant as it grows taller; both endoskeleton and exoskeleton plants do this. Beneath the ground, enormous root networks collect scarce water from far away and provide additional stability. These factors mean that they take up much more space than Earth trees, preventing dense forests from existing as a biome. Also, rather than having many small and flimsy leaves, they have a smaller number of large leaves with robust woody supports, in order to enhance durability and protection against herbivores, strong winds induced by the 2.2 bar atmosphere, and gravity-induced stress induced by the planet's 1.4G. Each leaf might be half a meter across and noticeably thicker than a normal leaf but there will be far fewer of them than on an Earth tree. All endoskeleton plants and a few exoskeleton plants can dynamically angle their leaves to optimize sunlight capture.

Structured plants also don't produce flowers or seeds, instead relying on the wind to disperse large volumes of spores across great distances; since spores can travel further than bigger, heavier seeds, they are better able to cross the gaps between oases, and can remain dormant for a long time until the rare rains allow them to germinate. The comparative cheapness of spores also means that larger numbers can be produced compared to seeds, increasing the probability that some make it to the next oasis or other habitable area.

Ecosystem-wise, exoskeleton plants usually live in harsher, drier, windier areas, with simpler ecosystems, where mechanical stress from the elements are the biggest threats, and there is less going on in their environment, making the nerve system less useful. Whereas endoskeleton plants usually live in comparatively lush environments (by the standards of a desert planet at least) in more dynamic ecosystems, where being a "social plant" is advantageous and surroundings can change rapidly, forcing plants to chemically and/or mechanically adjust equally rapidly. While their soft outer layer is less durable than an exoskeleton plant, they make up for this with thorns, poison, and inter-plant communication, whereas exoskeleton plants just have the brute-force protection of their wooden shell.

The other two categories of plants are the unstructured plants, comprised of invertebrate plants and airweeds. Invertebrate plants have no woody support structure at all, inside or out, which limits their height to a few centimeters to protect them from the gravity and the thick atmosphere's stiff winds. This category includes the only seed-bearing, flowering plants on the planet. Due to their small size, they can't biologically afford the enormous spore factories of structured plants, and lack the height to disperse them across vast distances in the wind, so they invest in smaller numbers of heavier seeds that germinate close by or get transported by animals.

However, not all invertebrate plants have seeds and flowers, especially the older and more primitive taxa. There are also the various aquatic plants, which tend to be invertebrate, and the crawlers are invertebrate as well. As the name suggests, these plants crawl along the ground, spreading in intricate maze-like patterns and fixing themselves to the ground with additional soft stems as they expand. The result can be described as similar to kudzu or ivy patches, but less dense and usually confined to the ground instead of climbing, and serves a similar niche to Terran grasses (which are too flimsy to thrive under 1.4G), in that it carpets the ground in savanna analogues, and grazing herbivores consume it.

Last, but not least, we have the airweeds, which not only have no skeleton, but no connection to the ground at all. Some species do actually still sit on the ground, just not attached to it, resembling moss carpets or tumbleweeds, but most airweed species are free-floating, using the wind to endlessly drift around, with the thick atmosphere overcoming the heightened gravity to make this a viable evolutionary niche. Airborne airweeds tend to be microscopic or barely visible, but there are a few that measure a centimeter or more across, often using air sacs for buoyancy so they can remain aloft despite their large size. Wind and weather patterns, and conditions of the underlying soil, give rise to airweed belts encircling the planet, where airweed concentrations are far higher than outside.

[Jakob]

This actually relates to an important point on Kyanah biology (and the other animals on their planet). One may notice that quite a lot of species propagate themselves by airborne means; despite the higher gravity, the thicker atmosphere cancels this out to make it a viable strategy. The end result is that there is a far higher concentration of airborne biomass floating around than on Earth, a veritable stew of spores, airweeds, and even airborne eggs from neuz and crawlcritters fill the air and can irritate lungs that aren't evolved to deal with it; an unprepared human would quickly find themselves coughing their lungs bloody if teleported to a temperate region of the planet, especially if they spawn in an airweed belt (they would be mostly okay in the arid equatorial regions, but there heatstroke would get them instead, as temperatures of 60-70 Celsius are common, and higher is not unheard of).

Kyanah and the planet's other native animals have evolved to deal with this by means of a tracheal sieve, which physically blocks the bio-particulates from entering their lungs, like a sieve (as the name might suggest), in addition to the various other active defenses employed by Terran lungs. On the flip side, this sieve means that Kyanah lungs are less efficient at drawing oxygen from the air, and require higher partial pressure of oxygen.Their long-term survival on Earth thus relies on advanced medical technology combined with the time-honored acclimation techniques used by mountaineers; an unprepared Kyanah simply teleported to Earth would be short of breath, even at sea level.

Environmental factors can influence these bio-particulates. Due to climate change and pollution impacting the thukukenoid populations, which float like balloons and eat the airborne biomass, the planet has in modern times experienced a massive boom in bio-particulate concentration, especially massive airweed blooms, which lead to lung irritation and reduced quality of life for everyone, and allergic reactions and death in highly sensitive individuals, as even the tracheal sieves are overwhelmed.

[Jakob]

Back to characterization wheee!

Rtoryn Kwert (aka , which actually doesn't mean anything, Ikun's immigration authorities just changed his actual name to sound more "Ikun-ish") hatched in Y944 to Rtoryn-pack, along with his other half Troyt. Rtoryn-pack is not originally from Ikun, but instead comes from the Duneland city of Adronkin and immigrated to Ikun in Y950. They have been apparently waiting for a long time (a couple of years at least) to be approved for an interview and in the meantime, their home city-state has been dealing with their oasis drying out leading to a coup attempt and civil war looming on the horizon. One of the pack's adults, Nekyez, suggests that their application will never move forward and they should try to sneak or bribe their way into Ikun, or find a different city state. However, this is likely not possible, as Ikun's borders are guarded by natural terrain, heavily armed border police, and a "virtual wall" of cameras, drones, and robots; many packs have been shot trying to sneak into Ikun. Rtoryn-pack's alpha Rytor insists that Ikun is a land of opportunity but they must make it their honestly to avoid giving their people a bad name. At long last, the pack is informed that they have been invited to challenge the Ikun government for entry into the city. A young Kwert asks what's in Ikun, to which Alpha Rytor simply says "hope" (ironic considering a certain megaproject going on in Ikun).

They set about securing a cleaning job in Ikun, which seems like a step down from their current position as office workers in a local textile factory, but Ikun's economy is so much bigger that even a janitor pack makes about the same in Ikun as Rtoryn-pack does in Adronkin. This done, they at last leave everything behind and begin the long drive to Ikun. Their challenge against Ikun's immigration authority is successful and they are granted access to the city, but it is not easy for them, they are grilled for hours (whereas some of the blue packs present for their immigration challenge get through in minutes) and pressed for a special "processing fee" that's implied to have been made up on the spot by the authorities. However, at the end of the day (literally) they are let in. One of the packs working for the government advises them to change their names to sound more "Ikun-ish" to avoid drawing negative attention, which is how Luept becomes "Kwert".

A few years go by, Rtoryn-pack has been working hard and trying to save as much money as they can while living in their assigned district--Ikun's poor 25th district, which has a high Dunelander population. The climate is milder in their home city, there aren't rolling power and water outages, and insurgent groups aren't blasting their neighborhood with artillery. However, like with most things, there is a catch. Living in Ikun is more expensive than Adronkin, so the wage boost isn't as impressive as it seems on paper. The area they live in turns out to be a hotbed for gang violence with numerous shootings, robberies, and burning buildings, and Ikun's police tend to be less than helpful, arriving to the scene late or not at all for calls from Dunelander neighborhoods--though this isn't entirely one-sided, many packs from these neighborhoods are uncooperative or hostile with the Ikun police as well. And on a minor note, they've had to adapt to diurnal living in Ikun, instead of the nocturnal that is common in the Dunelands.

And they, like most immigrants in Ikun, are being heavily monitored at all times, with AI monitoring their progress in assimilation and any slip-up or infraction carrying the risk of possible deportation and replacement with one of the other millions of packs beating down the door to get in. Rtoryn-pack's assimilation has been mixed, with the adults and especially the kids handling it to different degrees. Kwert seems to have taken better to it than his other half Troyt, especially with regards to learning the language, which Troyt is not a fan of. Most of the adults, especially Rytor, very much believe in the Ikun dream, however Ntreyn has always been rathern skeptical of the whole idea; she doubts that Ikun will ever truly welcome them.

Rtoryn-pack does ease the transition by establishing contacts with Dunelander groups in their district and even gains a couple of ikoin/allies. They frequently attend "Dunelander parties"; these events seem like raucous parties on the surface but are actually highly formal and ritualized events wherein elder and higher status packs are given gifts and favors in exchange for assistance with finances, networking, dispute resolution and arranging future packs for their young. There is also heavy pressure to resolve disputes between fellow Dunelanders at these events instead of relying on Ikun's official courts. They also encounter many packs at these events who have become gangsters and criminals to try and make it in Ikun, which Rytor does the best to steer his pack clear of. They do, however, make a couple of Ikoin; one member of Rtoryn-pack, Gadah, has a brother whose pack is also in Ikun. The pack also hatches two new girls, Neun and Koren (very typical Ikun names), in Y953.

A wave of tax increases in Y958 to support Project Hope threatens to wipe out up what little savings Rtoryn-pack has managed to build up; they have been planning to start a business in their district for a while but this has made the idea a pipe dream. As no bank in Ikun is willing to loan them enough money, Rtoryn-pack has no choice but to turn to their Dunelander party for assistance and get loaned some questionable money from questionable packs. However, with this, they are able to start a small grocery store selling ethnic Duneland food. Their store actually does well enough, despite the teetering economy, and the pack can even pay off their debt within a few years. However, going into the Y960s, there are increasing challenges. Their assimilation score at times teeters on the borderline, and one of their ikoin is actually thrown out when it dips too low. However, it seems that this happens to most immigrant packs, but the government only deports them if they don't like them, or they get too political. Rtoryn-pack contributes to the economy with their store and stays out of Ikun's politics, so the immigration authorities mostly leave them alone.

As Kwert and Troyt enter adolescence in the early Y960s, Kwert begins to reject his own culture, believing that the only way go ever be seen as true citizens of Ikun is to become, essentially, more Ikun than the natives. He pushes back against Dunelander food and attire, increasingly insists on using Ikun's language, even at home. He's increasingly disapproving and resentful of the Dunelander Parties (a fact which is noticed by other attendees and leads to Rtoryn-pack being chastised) and of the pack's long and dull trips across the city to visit the few temples to Duneland gods in Ikun. Meanwhile, Troyt moves in the other direction, increasingly refusing to have anything to do with Ikun's language or culture and adopts the "Blue is the great enemy" rhetoric espoused by many in the Dunelander gangs. The pack's adults--especially Rytor and Tkrien, who are the most pro-assimilation of the pack, aside from Kwert, and the two's older brothers--often try to mediate between the two and get them to moderate their ways, but they both become more set in their respective paths.

Rtoryn-pack's two oldest young separate in Y965 and Y966, one ends up joining Ikun's police force (it's common for young immigrants from the Dunelands to join Ikun's military or police, as it legitimizes them, and completing a term confers automatic naturalization even if a pack wouldn't otherwise qualify by majority rule), and the other, after finding a pack with the help of Rtoryn-pack, comes back with his new pack to help in the store, allowing them to remain open for longer hours and make more money; however these gains are mostly eaten up by another wave of tax increases for Project Hope. Meanwhile, violence simmers in District 25 as immigration increases, in no small part because Ikun and the corporations working on Project Hope want more cheap labor. The western and eastern Duneland gangs clash with each other, and with the native Ikun gang Blue Future, and the police become even more hesitant to get involved in the area due to the increasing danger, which leads to more violence in a vicious cycle.

Rtoryn-pack and their store become increasingly caught in the cross-fire, often succumbing to robberies and vandalism, and the Dunelander gangs increasingly pressure them for protection fees and favors, reminding Rtoryn-pack that it was their loan that allowed them to start the store to begin with. Rytor is especially disgusted with the gangs and refuses to have his pack directly help them, but they have no real choice but to pay the protection fees, and they have little or no recourse with the elders at the Dunelander Parties, nor with Ikun's authorities. In fact, one one or two occasions, said authorities raid their store looking for signs of gang activity; they don't find anything but trash the store and their living space in the back and threaten to have Rtoryn-pack deported. Amidst all this, Kwert because increasingly extreme in his rejection of Dunelander culture, resulting in many arguments with his birth-pack.

Troyt separates from Rtoryn-pack in Y967 and despite insistence from Rytor that he not get involved in the gangs, that is exactly what he does with his pack that the Dunelander Parties match him with. They start off their time as a pack with a stint in prison together, and upon getting out, immediately get into a three-way shootout against the police and a Blue Future pack, which ends up killing Troyt. The incident prompts Ikun's authorities to begin investigating where Rtoryn-pack's store got its initial funding from, putting their status in Ikun in jeopardy once again. The Duneland Party elders are able to use their connections in district politics to get the case buried, but in exchange expect not only an exorbitant fee, but also for Rtoryn-pack to move some mysterious packages for them. Packages which they suspect to be several kilos of pure, industrial-grade capsaicin. Rytor is outraged at this and comes to blows with the elders, but Nekyez and Rinun calm him down and convince him that they have no other option if they want to keep the shop and stay in Ikun, and the adults decide to go for it, though they are able to negotiate down the number of packages they're supposed to move.

However, Kwert flatly refuses, saying that either they decline the deal, or he's turning their pack in, and tells them to think of the example they're setting for Neun and Koren, and goes on a tirade about how associating with Dunelanders always leads to nothing but trouble and that their culture is nothing but drugs, violence, and death. This clearly hurts the rest of the pack, but they have a heart to heart, with Nekyez lamenting that they've tried to earn an honest living, only to find the deck stacked against them at every turn, and Rytor pointing out the good parts of their culture and the times their people have helped them over the years. Kwert proposes that they only pay the money, and don't move any packages, and in exchange, they only get legal assistance instead of the case just vanishing. The elders are actually pretty impressed with Kwert at this proposal, and seem to want to have fewer young packs getting involved in the drugs and gangs, and even suggest they might know some other young Kyanah who might be looking for packs soon. With their legal assistance, Rtoryn-pack is able to win the challenge against them, stay in Ikun, and hold onto their store for now. Kwert slowly starts to be less wildly opposed to his culture, though coming to actually accept it will be a long and slow process.

In Y970, the military propaganda in Ikun begins ramping up as the city-state is looking for soldiers for Project Hope. This, along with his general desire to be seen as a real citizen of Ikun, prompts Kwert to consider joining the Ikun Army, a move which Rtoryn-pack wholeheartedly approves of, with Rytor especially saying that it's a good and honorable path, and not to worry about the shop, as some of their other children's packs will run it when Rtoryn-pack is too old to do so. Thus, interestingly, Kwert is the only member of the future Ryen-pack who separates from his birth-pack while they're alive and on good terms with him. Which does tend to shape his attitudes going forward.

[firestar464]

Damn a wholesome reconciliation arc

[Jakob]

Damn a wholesome reconciliation arc

Can't have everything be grimdark all the time! But maybe it's a bit too convenient to match the tone of the rest of the story. I'll have to think more about it.

[Jakob]

Naturally Kyanah employ a different sort of structure in their militaries--including the Ikun military. The key building block is the Cohort, which consists of 30-40 packs, or around 120-240 individuals. Packless Kyanah as well as packs can join, but during training, they must form packs with other members of the cohort; those who fail to do so are sent to other cohorts and eventually discharged without benefits if they wash out multiple times. This is because jobs are created with packs in mind rather than individuals, just like in the civilian sector. Generally the Kyanah (whether in Ikun or other city-states) only make exceptions to this rule when fighting for their very existence, since packless Kyanah aren't seen as fully fledged members of society. Each cohort, upon formation is assigned a Cohort Alpha, an experienced military pack with leadership skills who are responsible for training their new cohort.

This is a very delicate process; in fact a huge part of the 1 year training period (~0.46 Earth years) out of the standard 8 year term (~3.68 Earth years) is getting the trainees to trust their Cohort Alpha and respect their authority. The same Cohort Alpha who trains them will also subsequently command them on any missions they take part in; a Cohort's leadership generally does not change unless the Cohort Alpha is killed (either all members of the pack, or enough that they're no longer a valid pack), discharged, or promoted. Consistent changes in leadership would force new Cohort Alphas to waste enormous amounts of time and effort to basically restart the training/bonding process from scratch, so they're kept to a minimum. However, if a cohort becomes too small to perform its role properly (whether through deaths or retirement) it will often be merged with another cohort. Due to all of this, it's important for Cohort Alpha's to be charismatic and well liked by the packs in their command, and to convince them that their Cohort Alpha is on their side.

Cohort Alphas are said by many to have the hardest job in the Ikun military. They are still expected to be out in the field with their cohort, shooting and getting shot at, and are bombarded with endless demands and instructions from officers, while getting their cohort to cooperate with each other and follow instructions, which is like herding cats. Indeed they have more packs directly reporting to them than any other rank. Yet paradoxically, they also are left to figure out a lot of things for themselves. They get a set budget from their superiors, and with this, are responsible for inventory management and payroll for their cohort; how they fulfill their orders within their given budget is up to them. The internal organization of their cohorts, if any, is up to them; they can teach their trainees whatever skill sets they think are most critical for the cohort's mission. Most competent Cohort Alphas will delegate some of their responsibilities to trusted packs in their cohort; not only does this free up time for them, but it makes the transition to new leadership smoother should the Cohort Alpha retire or have some of their members killed in battle.

Ambitious Cohort Alphas will often use the time saved by this delegation to train additional cohorts and subsequently command multiple cohorts at once. Such activities can often lead to being promoted to Junior Officer, leaving room for some of their delegates to be promoted to Cohort Alphas. Junior Officers can create additional cohorts under their command and assign them Cohort Alphas; they are usually responsible for about 4-6 cohorts. Above them, experienced Junior Officers can become Senior Officers. They can either oversee multiple Junior Officers, directly oversee Cohort Alphas in a larger number than Junior Officers (usually 8-16 cohorts), or some mixture of the two. Under Ikun's military structure, the civilian government is authorized to hand-pick generals from the pool of Senior Officers (or, more rarely, Junior Officers), and upon conclusion of their operation, they revert to Senior Officer (though some operations go on for decades, and their leading generals retain the rank indefinitely). Much like human generals, these packs oversee lower level officers, autonomously manage entire campaigns and operations, and rarely interact directly with the lower ranks. Generals usually don't command individual cohorts, but may sometimes retain one of the cohorts they used to directly command (complete with its own Cohort Alpha) and use said cohort as personal staff to assist with logistics and strategy.

This is pretty much the entire formal hierarchy in Ikun's military (and the same with most other Kyanah city-states). It's quite flat, with the lowest ranking packs being only about 3-4 levels removed from the highest ranking generals. However, there's quite a lot of informal hierarchy, both within and between cohorts, with who gets the biggest budgets and the cushiest assignments. Of Ikun's population of 13 million, around 150,000 individuals are in the Ikun Army and Ikun Air Force, comprising around 30,000 packs. Of these, slightly under a thousand packs are Cohort Alphas, with 100-150 Junior Officers, 60-80 Senior Officers, and around 16-20 packs are generals.

[Jakob]

Basic principles of Kyanah military doctrine during Project Hope.

- Information is the most important thing. As mentioned, every piece of their equipment has sensors constantly collecting data about battlefield conditions and communicating it in real time to the rest of the army. Autonomous drones add further nodes to the network, gathering information about areas the Kyanah haven't even arrived in. As a result, every soldier has an astonishing level of situational awareness about everything that's going on in the area; it's all but impossible for human soldiers to sneak up on a Kyanah cohort. All this data is being fed into massive supercomputer clusters to predict the enemy's next move. Essentially, they know where every human platoon, every tank, every aircraft, and every artillery piece are at all times, and know where they're going next with high accuracy, often before the humans themselves know.

- Between their engineered Kesler syndrome taking out all human satellites, their own kinetic bombardment satellites, and their hypersonic aircraft that never need to refuel thanks to nuclear power, and their ever expanding network of ground-based laser arrays, the Kyanah have complete air dominance. Anything that flies within a thousand kilometers of their bases gets shot down, and any ground-based human convoys get bombs and Rods from God rained down on them as they advance. Missiles and ICBM attacks are predicted in advance and destroyed by the laser arrays.

- The Kyanah, with their very limited numbers (the North American theater has just 8-10 thousand troops) know that fighting a head-on land war against millions of human soldiers will to them getting slaughtered despite all their tech. It's thus absolutely essential to prevent large groups of human soldiers from ever reaching the Kyanah positions. Thus, they use their aerial and orbital supremacy to derail and fragment any large troop movements, then use their superior stealth and mobility to pick off the survivors.

- Only engage with overwhelming odds. Again, due to their limited numbers, but also due to the pack-centric and fractuous nature of their military organization, even a few deaths can seriously damage operations and threaten cohesion. With their superior situational awareness and mobility, if the odds aren't overwhelmingly in their favor, they can simply retreat and return when they have the upper hand; they pretty much unilaterally decide where and when any battles happen.

- For much the same reason as the two points above, the Kyanah can't just midlessly advance into areas with a large human military presence; urban areas are especially bad for this. They first have to scatter and disrupt the human forces. This is done with aerial and orbial strikes, but also long range railgun artillery that can hit targets from up to 500 km. However, they don't have unlimited bombs and missiles, so they can't just carpet bomb everything. Instead of massed artillery barrages, they prioritize surgical strikes, using AI to predict which locations to shell to cause the most damage. When large area attacks are unavoidable, they occasionally fire tactical nukes (just nuking everything is something they are trying to avoid, as the nuclear winter would turn the already relatively cold Earth even colder). Once the human forces are sufficiently fragmented and disarrayed, the Kyanah themselves finally roll in to mop up the remaining resistance.

- The Kyanah are well aware that in time, humanity's vast logistical networks will grind down their limited forces, and the only way to prevent this is to cripple said logistics. Attacks are thus designed to maximize damage to infrastucture rather than simply kill as many people as possible. Highways, rail hubs, dams, power plants, factories, airports, launch pads, and military bases are all extensively targeted for hundreds of kilometers around their landing sites. However, civilian areas with none of these things are generally left alone. As they say, "a civilian casualty is a wasted bullet". Though of course thousands of civilians are still caught in the cross fire of these attacks. However, their mistaken assumption that they are fighting hundreds of city states as opposed to continent-sized nation-states, makes it much more difficult to realize this objective. Eventually the Kyanah realize this (thought it seems their AI indirectly figured it out first) and adapt accordingly.

- There's no such thing as an interstellar supply line. Anything they need must either be brought with them from the homeworld, or manufactured on the front lines using ISRU techniques. Naturally, they have brought along thousands of scientists and engineers to optimize their ISRU tech. This sort of applies on the homeworld too, city-states tend to be small and not have a lot of resources compared to human nation-states, so every shot they fire has to be for a very good reason. Indeed, one of their big uses of AI, aside from predicting enemy movements, is optimizing their use of equipment to get the most bang for their buck and not waste any ammunition. It's said that in human wars, 97% of all bullets miss; with the Kyanah, it's less than half.

- In general, Ikun's military doctrine can be summarized as an overwhelming display of fangs to terrify the enemy, followed by leaping out of the shadows to bite the enemy whenever their back is turned, and keeping their distance when it isn't.

[Jakob]

Perhaps a discussion of Kyanah economic systems would be of interest. While there is of course a lot of diversity in economic systems amongst the countless city-states on their homeworld (with the southern hemisphere tending to be more collectivist and communal than the north), we can focus on the economic system of Ikun, which is quite popular across the northern hemisphere, and elsewhere in the world where the Ikun military has been involved in regime changes. Though it's worth noting that as with language, politics, and religion, there's no hard geographic line where one system begins and another ends, they all just gradually fade into one another. You generally won't find city-states with significantly different government systems, language, or culture near each other unless interventionist foreign governments (such as Ikun itself) have been tampering with the status quo in the region.

Ikun's government doesn't seem to commit to either abstaining from intervening in the economy, nor to single-handedly controlling the economy. Instead it's treated as simply another participant in the economy. Ask a typical Ikun citizen-pack what the purpose of the state is, and the answer will likely be something along the lines of maximizing the wealth of its politicians by selling goods and services to its citizens. In general, there's no inherent taxation, and very few inherent regulations on domestically owned businesses in Ikun. However, in order to get a leg up, it's possible and common for businesses to cede some level of control to the government in exchange for critical benefits. Businesses may, for instance, agree to turn over a portion of their shares or products to the government, let the government make certain operational or staffing decisions, or be compelled to resolve disputes and administrative matters through the official legal system instead of private negotiation. In exchange, these businesses get access to money, materials, and personnel from the state, as well as exemptions from various laws. In extreme cases, businesses can cede total control to the state in exchange for unfettered access to the state's resources, effectively becoming a state-owned company. Most small and medium-sized businesses use one of a series of standard boilerplate contracts, but any large business worth its salt--especially in strategic industries like energy or defense--tends to negotiate a customized arrangement with the government.

Essentially nearly every significant business ends up being some sort of government contractor to one degree or another. This isn't strictly speaking forced, but in practice it can be almost impossible to survive and grow as a business without participating, especially when all the competition is taking advantage of the state's resources, and independent businesses that are successful despite the odds often find themselves under heavy pressure to submit to government involvement. Additionally, packless individuals, non-resident packs and foreign businesses are subject to much heavier restrictions on both doing business in Ikun and accessing the state's resources. As a result, the multi-national megacorporations common on Earth aren't often seen on the Kyanah homeworld; instead businesses seeking to expand globally will establish domestically owned subsidiaries run by local packs in foreign city-states, allowing them to bypass many of these restrictions.

As for social programs, they do exist in a sense, but not necessarily out of some communal spirit or moral imperative to provide for the needy. Instead it merely indicates that either the government has found some way to extract economic value from those who aren't traditionally employable, or is willing to eat the cost as a sort of loss leader, because they have calculated that they will recoup it elsewhere through the increased social stability. For instance, abandoned and orphaned eggs are sometimes collected and raised with the intent of recooping the cost via adoption fees. Hatchlings and children too, in the rare event that one can be found that hasn't already suffered irreparable mental and physical damage from being separated from their pack. Elderly packs (and elderly individual Kyanah whose packs have died) without retirement savings can also sometimes be found in these same facilities, where they are used to provide the constant socialization and stimulation that hatchlings and children require for mental stability. However, it's pretty much impossible to get provided for just by virtue of existing. Even these facilities do a careful cost-benefit analysis of any would-be entrants, and those deemed insufficiently valuable, whether because of physical or mental defects, pack history, or simply being an ethnic minority, or often rejected or only kept for a limited time.

As for land ownership, the city-state of Ikun is considered to own all land and natural resources within its borders, with any other landholders merely renting from the government; this has been the case since the abolition of nobility in Ikun in Y341 (about 290 Earth years before Project Hope). While the government does own the land in Ikun, they don't claim to own the stuff that private packs have built on the land; there's no legal framework like eminent domain to seize private assets that aren't being used for criminal activity through overt violence, except to recover unpaid debts, or if the owner has given up control of such assets through the frameworks previously described. Similarly, failing to pay taxes doesn't lead to prison; persistent failure to pay said taxes along with interest accrued instead just leads to exile and denaturalization, along with a ban from doing future business in Ikun. Curiously, actively filing fraudulent tax documents is considered a crime however. Basically, not paying for the government's services means they'll just tell you to pay up or go away, but actively trying to trick them is what lands you in legal hot water.

Meanwhile, outside of the city's political borders lie its economic borders. Anyone from anywhere in the world--with the exception of foreign militaries and residents of certain sanctioned city-states--can freely traverse through this region without having to deal with the border security around the city proper, and Ikun has no legal jurisdiction unless its citizens are involved in an incident. However, foreigners can't permanently occupy, develop, or remove natural resources from the region without permission from the government. This being said, they do tend to be a lot more free-wheeling with granting permission for foreign entities to have operations out there versus in the city proper. And beyond Ikun's economic borders is classified as "open land", which is basically a free-for-all except where inter-city treaties apply.

[Jakob]

Kyanah computers are really...weird.

They invented machines quite similar to Babbage's analytical engine when their own technology was similar to late 19th century Earth, but unlike Charles Babbage, Kyanah engineers fully implemented this technology and continued to improve upon it, instead of leaving it to languish as a technological dead end. Even before coming to Earth and observing humanity's computers, they were aware of the concept of electronic computers as a theoretical idea, but saw no need to reinvent their pre-existing computer systems from scratch. In time, materials science would advance, leading to a period of exponential advancement and miniaturization, but this would stagnate earlier than our Moore's Law, requiring significant innovations to get around. Eventually, however, advancing nanotechnology allowed the continued miniaturization of gears and other mechanical components to an absurd degree, while the development of room temperature superconductors via zero-G manufacturing solved crucial heat dissipation problems to prevent high-performance computers from simply melting internally.

And so we get to the modern Kyanah computer, a machine similar in its theoretical framework to the Analytical Engine, but so far beyond it as to resemble an alien device (which it literally is). While gears in most computers come in a variety of sizes, the most miniaturized ones have a diameter of just 2-4 nanometers. To enable rapid computation, the fastest gears in consumer-grade computers can spin at around a million RPM, with some components in supercomputers exceeding 10 million RPM, leading to rotational velocities of many kilometers per second. The enormous mechanincal stresses these components are put under, especially the highly miniaturized ones, require complex manufacturing processes and advanced alloys. As a result, nanogears (really a proxy term for any nano-scale mechanical computer part, whether it's a gear or something else) are a highly strategic resource and city-states that can produce high-quality ones in bulk enjoy considerable geopolitical advantages, much like the human semiconductor industry.

While the earliest Kyanah computers were powered by steam engines (like the proposed analytical engine) modern ones simply spin the gears with electric motors, which can be powered by either a wall outlet or a battery. They tend to be more power hungry than human electronic computers, drawing over a kilowatt of power for the average desktop, and computers with large components can be quite loud. There has been considerable research into quieter components, but civilian tech lags quite a bit behind what the military has regarding that, and civilian computers are often characterized by a white noise of whirring and clanking. Most Kyanah are used to it and just ignore it, though ear protection is definitely recommended inside a high-performance computing complex. Kyanah computers can also be a bit dangerous; if you were to stick your hand inside one while it's running (disregarding why in the world anyone would ever do that!), it would be swiftly ground into mincemeat by the hypersonic gears and likely destroy the machine in the process. Fortunately for the average consumer, home computers tend to be "idiot-proofed" and automatically shut off if the protective casing is removed or tampered with.

However, in recent years, the very same ultra-dense batteries and supercapacitors used to power handheld railguns have spilled over into the civilian market, allowing for laptops and tablets that can actually run for more than a few minutes without being plugged in. This includes even more portable devices; unlike humans, who carry their portable computing devices in their pockets in the form of phones; Kyanah utilize wrist-mounted equivalents, which are sometimes ornately decorated to convey wealth and status, much like human watches. Even microscopic sensors and nanobots can have non-trivial compute power crammed into them, though it's obviously far more limited than macroscopic devices.

Displays are another area where Kyanah tech has diverged considerably from human tech. The earliest Kyanah computers simply used arrays of dials that were mechanically turned to display an output that could be read by the user. However, as technology advanced, they managed to hook up the output to a cathode ray tube-like display, which was in turn succeeded by a homogeneous metamaterial sheet capable of changing its color and brightness in response to mechanical pressure. This sort of continuous display has the advantage of effectively unlimited resolution and colors compared to discrete pixel-based displays, and is largely immune to glare (a nice to have feature on a hot and sunny desert planet!) but comparatively struggles at abrupt color changes (though one would have to look very closely at the screen to notice).

Data storage was historically done via punch cards, but this has become largely obsolete due to problems with reusability and miniaturization, so this has instead been replaced by...reusable nanotech punch cards! Instead of tearing physical holes in a piece of paper, nanoparticles are arranged on an inert metallic surface and moved around with electrostatic charges or piezoelectric actuators. As nanoparticles can take any position or orientation on the substrate, this allows for data to be stored in a continuous manner, rather than discrete bits. Reading can be done via a form of nano-scale lidar recording irregularities in the substrate that indicate the presence of nanoparticles. Resarch is underway on using optical levitation to position nanoparticles within a 3D space, allowing for even denser storage, but this remains energy expensive and unreliable. However, even 2D nanocards are quite powerful; they don't use bits and bytes as we understand them, but a single 1 cm by 1 cm chip can store the equivalent of nearly a petabyte of data. And the Kyanah soldiers' AR goggles can have as many as twenty stacked cards inside; it's easy to see how their invasion force combined casually collects a few NSA data centers' worth of data per day about battlefield conditions and human military capabilities.

The Kyanahs' continuous rather than discrete paradigms also extend into software. Low-level instructions tend to be based on continuous signal strength, rather than discrete units of binary, or even another base. Higher-level programming languages are structured in a similar manner, with extensive error-correcting mechanisms built into all levels of software to smooth over inevitable imperfections in signal strength. This leads to Kyanah code being less precise and reliable than human code, but also much more compact and forgiving of minor errors (in fact subtle errors can even be intentionally leveraged, as seen later). Those who have learned both species' programming languages tend to say that it's easier to quickly write complex and detailed programs in Kyanah languages, but harder to code in a disciplined and orderly manner


Experienced Kyanah programmers often leverage esoteric glitches to achieve results with less code, time, or memory usage than the official language specifications imply to be possible, in a manner similar to video game glitches or exploits. As a result, their code is often filled with what humans would call "cursed expressions" (which may not even be technically part of the language in question) and "wtf constants" (inexplicable magic numbers). In fact writing strictly "legal" code is often a sign of a novice programmer; to an advanced one, the rules of a programming language are more like guidelines. Lists of useful glitches are often circulated in manuals and on the internet, but actually being able to explain why they work often requires intimate knowledge of the hardware at a mechanical level. It may seem confusing, but if you know what you're doing, you can combine the abstraction of high level languages with the fine-grained hardware manipulation of low level ones.

In order to test this continuous code, they have what's known as grid testing, where you iterate through every combination of parameters at specific increments and cross reference the output with the desired result. The more critical the application, the tighter the grid increment and the broader the range, though this comes at the cost of spending more time testing, though sophisticated test programs will dynamically vary the increments to focus testing on more common and/or critical regions of the parameter space. Instead of code coverage, they're concerned with the volume of the parameter space that's covered by their grid testing.

[Jakob]

Despite it being impossible for either species to hack into the other's computer systems or even directly communicate between computers, there's still a way in via trickery and social engineering. If one species can transmit a file to the other via radio and convince an engineer to convert it to the appropriate computing paradigm and install it on their species' computers without realizing that it's a malicious executable, then they can do considerable damage. Though getting a programmer to understand it well enough to translate it, but not well enough to recognize it as malware, is an enormously difficult task.

The humans are the first to try. A group of military operatives pretend to be traitors to humanity leaking classified intelligence to the Kyanah, but actually sending a program designed to make their computers' gears jam and overheat, irreversibly damaging delicate nano-scale components. If successful, this would destroy the Kyanahs' space-based supercomputers, which they rely on to perform Stockfish-like analysis of battlefield conditions in real time.

Not only does humanity actually manage to create a malware using this continuous computing paradigm, but they actually manage to get it onto a Kyanah computer. Only for it to do nothing, because the whole time it was running on a within-computer, a type of program that merely simulates an actual computer, much like a human VM. Evidently the Kyanah are aware of cybersecurity and respect humans enough to use it. But worse than that, it gives the Kyanah an idea.

Human traitors have told them that humans lack a thorough understanding of the inner workings of their own AI systems. So the Kyanah begin designing within-computers that simulate not their own mechanical computers, but the discrete electronic computers used by humans. And so begins a project that can roughly be translated into human language as "Operation Drunkard", so named because its goal is to make human AI systems act "drunk" in a way.

Months later the Kyanah radio another file back to the human double agents, which is dutifully transcribed onto a human computer system by one operative who is actually a triple agent. Gradually it spreads across the internet, hiding itself on billions of machines. But it doesn't just delete data or brick computers--that would be far too obvious, humanity would figure out what's going on and adapt. Instead it's far more insidious.

Most of the time, on most machines, it doesn't do anything. But if it detects that an AI model is being trained, it targets the GPUs, randomly altering weights to make the training ineffective. At best the models are suboptimal and take forever to converge; at worst they're no better than random guessing. And because deep learning systems are largely a black box to humans, it takes them a very long time to pinpoint why all their models are suddenly trash.

Which has huge spillover effects in other areas of the war. Humans won't be able to create their own "battle Stockfish" to optimize their strategies. They can't bridge the gap in materials science, because many useful Kyanah materials are AI designed. And as a result, any Kyanah military hardware that falls into human hands will be that much harder to reverse engineer.

[Jakob]

Naturally, Kyanah computers communicate with each other, and they have their own analogues to the internet and web. There exists specialized software called transfer programs that can take a numerical pointer to another computer and interface with the hardware in a computer's comms module, converting the pointer into movements of mechanical components allowing the data--encoded in the form of radio, laser, or even neutrino signals with varying frequency and intensity--to be transmitted to a specific destination. Such comms modules and transfer programs weren't invented until after the Utopian Wars, decades after the first mechanical computers, but are a vital component of most Kyanah computers ever since.

The Kyanah internet can be likened to sort of a tree structure. Each node has a data layer, which can be rendered by a client analogous to a human browser, and a pointer layer, which stores pointers to child nodes and metadata on their purpose, structure, and other technical details. Anyone who owns a server node can freely configure it to create as many child nodes as they like. In practice, creation of child nodes is limited by an owner's ability to afford all the required server infrastructure, but child nodes can be gifted or sold to other owners to reduce the burden (or simply deleted). This explains why an entire internet isn't simply controlled by whoever owns the root. Speaking of the root, it is obviously a given that every tree must have a root, and so it is with Kyanah internets. Depending on the root in question, it can either be a single massive server complex, several geographically spread out server complexes to allow multiple redundancies and balance loads, or even a fully distributed and massively redundant system distributed amongst every end user's computer. With the exception of the third type, root servers are often stored in remote locations in open desert (the closest legal equivalent on Earth would probably be international waters, but obviously they don't have oceans) to avoid putting them in the hands of a single government and remain operational even in the event of natural disasters or war.

When querying an internet, all queries naturally start at the root with a specific set of parameters indicating the desired outcome of said query. To process an incoming query, a server will check if its data layer matches the query parameters to a sufficient degree and if so simply follow the instructions given in the query. Otherwise it searches its children to select the most optimal node and forwards the query to it. As child nodes tend to be at least somewhat relevant to the parent node, this generally allows queries to gradually converge on an optimal node as they go deeper. Spammers can of course manipulate the data layer and the metadata on its children to draw in traffic from irrelevant queries, but there are several strategies to prevent that. At the client level, there are multi-queries; many queries can be sent out with small amounts of random noise added to each query parameter to ensure that they don't all end up at the same malicious site, and browser-side algorithms and/or the user can select the most relevant one. Similarly, at the node level, a lot of nodes introduce a contempt factor, wherein if there are many children with nearly-equal relevance scores, the most relevant one won't always be chosen for further search, but instead one of the nearly-as-relevant ones. This makes it less likely for queries to fall into a "local maximum trap" created either by spammers or by accident. As parent nodes control their children's metadata, dubious or malicious nodes can also be flagged by their parent's operators, allowing queries to avoid them.

In general, node operators have a lot of latitude in selecting their own algorithm to evaluate the relevance of themselves and their children, though off-the-shelf algorithms definitely exist. There tends to be an incentive to not outrageously abuse this power, as it can annoy the owners of child nodes, who can delete themselves and acquire a new child somewhere else on the tree, leading to reduced traffic to rogue node. Such repositioning of nodes is not uncommon, though generally the closer to the root one gets, the demand outpaces the supply, so a child very close to root can be quite expensive, and subject the operator to increased scrutiny from governments and the general public alike due to the high visibility. High level node operators tend to also be wealthy and prominent packs, corporations, or government agencies that have an image to maintain, and thus also have an incentive to avoid blatant abuse of the system at the highest levels. Of course, abuses still occur at all levels of the tree to one degree or another, as with any system.

Query parameters tend to be more structured and complex than simply typing into a search bar, with many conditions and even elaborate functions that can be checked against the metadata layer to produce a numerical relevance score for the node, as well as instructions on what to do when a suitable node is reached, whether that be retrieving all or part of the data layer, storing data in the data layer, or performing some other server-side action on behalf of the user (e.g. processing payments). They also include data structures to require or forbid traversal of certain subtrees, which includes simply hardcoding a list of pointers specifying exactly which child to access from each node, allowing exact navigation to specific nodes, though in Kyanah internet culture, getting the desired information, regardless of where it comes from, is usually more prioritized than going to a specific node. The desired child pointer, along with the query parameters, can be passed into a transfer program, which directly interfaces with the machine's comms module to physically send the query parameters to the child. Other data structures included in the query parameter protocol include authentication structures (both to authenticate users and ensure the integrity of queries), and edit instructions for nodes that allow it, creating baked-in support for the equivalent of forums or wikis. In modern times, nobody types in machine readable queries, instead they use a query adapter that can generate queries from natural language. While modern browsers tend to come with a query adapter it's common for tech-savvy packs to use an open source one or code their own to ensure a less biased and more customized online experience.

Queries can sometimes be edited by nodes; this can be done for benign purposes such as optimizing them to ensure more relevant results within the subtree, or to sabotage said queries and prevent them from reaching a relevant node. Authentication codes can verify whether or not a query has been modified, but some nodes--even high-level ones used by millions of packs--do it anyway, which is quite controversial and a subject of hot debate in internet policy. Censorship by authoritarian governments tends to require significant effort unless they simply retain ownership of all child nodes at any depth (which a few actually do, but it isn't very practical for a large internet, unless they also have tons of money to burn). Deleting a child node can't be done by the root, only by itself or its immediate parent, and there's no "node where all the government critics hang out", so trying to attack from the top down could also delete millions of apolitical or pro-government nodes. Simply tracking down and arresting node operators can work, but they may well be in a foreign city-state. So state censorship tends to operate via root nodes editing queries that pass through them. Many query adapters are constantly being updated to allow politically sensitive queries to slip through the cracks and make it to their intended destination untouched.

There is also more than one root; even discounting the countless private roots that require authentication to get in, there are many different internets on the Kyanah homeworld instead of one global internet. At the dawn of the planet's information age, this networking technology was independently invented and implemented in various city states, often using their own incompatible query parameter protocols and transfer programs. Over the years, many of these were merged into other nearby internets with sufficiently compatible software and network technology. Thus the number of internets has gradually declined from a peak of over 10,000 into just 21 "net zones", each associated with but not entirely exclusive to, a geographical region. This number has been constant for a few decades, as of the launch of Project Hope. Many of the existing net zones are quite large, with the biggest having nearly half a billion packs using them, and merging them would require the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars and months or years of effort by programmers and computer engineers, and there's also the often politically charged question of which zone would merge into which. Thus it's unlikely that there will be any more mergers in the forseeable future; the last was in Y910, about 30 Earth years before Project Hope.

Also as an adaptation to the multiple roots, there are what's known as bridge nodes, which transcribe select portions of the trees from other net zones into their own net zone. This is limited to nodes deemed by the operators to be useful or relevant to the public, transcribing everything would be impractical. It also isn't direct, real-time access, instead functioning as a mirror of sorts. It takes considerable technical expertise and often custom hardware to run a bridge node, and lots of money and server space to run a good one, But it's the best they're going to get, the Kyanah are too fractious and distrustful of centralized authorities to ever agree on uniform global protocols like TCP/IP or HTTP. Which is probably a big part of why they have city-states in the first place, instead of nation states or a world government...even hammering it down to 21 was a huge undertaking in global cooperation and diplomacy.

[firestar464]

You mentioned the Kyanah being known for being aggressive. Humans aren't as aggressive and are already pretty cringe on the net. I imaging a typical Kyanah online interaction to go like:

User1: geoengineering good
User2: HOPE HATER HOPE HATER

I WILL ******* DOX AND KILL YOU, AND I WILL HANG YOUR BODY FOR EVERYONE TO SEE
User1: YOU'LL HAVE TO GET THROUGH MY ENTIRE ****** PACK FIRST. WHO, BY THE WAY, WILL TORTURE YOU IN THE ***** AND DISEMBOWEL YOU. YOU WILL DIE, BUT NOT BEFORE WE FORCE YOU TO EAT YOUR OWN DIGESTIVE SYSTEM

Mods: This is normal.

<an hour later>

User1: Anyway...what about that new TV show?
User2: Yeah. Loving it

(as if they haven't just been throwing death threats at each other for the past hour)

[Jakob]

You mentioned the Kyanah being known for being aggressive. Humans aren't as aggressive and are already pretty cringe on the net. I imaging a typical Kyanah online interaction to go like:

User1: geoengineering good
User2: HOPE HATER HOPE HATER

I WILL ******* DOX AND KILL YOU, AND I WILL HANG YOUR BODY FOR EVERYONE TO SEE
User1: YOU'LL HAVE TO GET THROUGH MY ENTIRE ****** PACK FIRST. WHO, BY THE WAY, WILL TORTURE YOU IN THE ***** AND DISEMBOWEL YOU. YOU WILL DIE, BUT NOT BEFORE WE FORCE YOU TO EAT YOUR OWN DIGESTIVE SYSTEM

Mods: This is normal.

<an hour later>

User1: Anyway...what about that new TV show?
User2: Yeah. Loving it

(as if they haven't just been throwing death threats at each other for the past hour)

Haha I feel like it would also be a bit cringe in Kyanah internet culture--or at least on net zone 1--but for different reasons.

I think due to how the query parameters work, it's a lot less common to hang around the same node for a long time and post over and over, unless you happen to be the node operator. You find the most relevant node for what you want to say, you say it, and the next time you want to say something, you find the most relevant node for that. So it would probably be bad netiquette for the same two users to be talking back and forth on one node for an hour, even if it was a perfectly wholesome and relevant exchange. Especially as forums are basically the online equivalent of story-threads (I should make a post about Kyanah art and literature...); they're more seen as collaboratively building something (in this case a conversation) rather than having a social discussion with each other, something which is reserved mostly for packs, and sometimes their ikoin.

And whatever pack is the node operator might get a bit annoyed by it, they usually start nodes for a specific purpose and if others come in and start making it into a political space, the parent node might change the metadata to reflect that, which will draw in more packs looking for a place to fight about politics and ruin whatever space the operators were trying to build. (And no they don't all just make politically charged edits to random nodes all the time. Though they definitely have their own versions of trolling and shitposting.)

So yeah these two users would likely just get a lot of replies telling them (standard Ikun writing, can vary in other city states by a little...or a lot...Kyanah linguistics are complicated) which could be translated as "get a node", as in "stop hogging this node and go edit your own". Just to make things more confusing, "get a node" can also be a signal of unironic appreciation of a piece of content, as in "you should get your own node so you can put all your work in one place for others to find".

Though the weirdest part would probably be the implication that these two were talking to each other without their packs the whole time. Would definitely garner suspicions of infidelity from both their packs. Then again, most packs share an online presence together so perhaps "user1" and "user2" aren't the same individuals the whole time.

But you're right that Kyanah will generally get super aggressive over what would to humans seem like nothing, only to quickly de-escalate and carry on with their lives once they've sufficiently defended their dignity.

[Jakob]

As previously mentioned, Kyanah don't seem to care about personal space and privacy amongst their own packs, and thus as far as they're concerned, they have enough living space if they can move around without tripping over each other. A 5 by 5 meter apartment would be seen as a decent starter home for a pack of 4-6 adults and maybe their first pair of young. Units for individual, packless Kyanah are even smaller, 2x3 meters with space for only the barest necessities, is pretty average. Though most will only live in such conditions for a few years or less before they get packs of their own, and the "real" jobs that come with that. Wealthier packs, and those with more young, will often upsize somewhat, but unless it's a literal mansion (and sometimes even then), this usually just means a larger room rather than multiple rooms, and packs will still tend to congregate in the same part of the room; if they're idle and don't have any particular reason to be more than a few feet from their packmates, they probably won't be.

Naturally, this means that every bit of space in a Kyanah dwelling is put to use. Large open spaces are in fact seen as aesthetically displeasing in most cultures, like a pack was too lazy to finish making their living space into a proper home. The reason for this is fairly evident--their world is an arid super-Earth, if they want open spaces they can just go outside, there's no need to make one indoors too. If a pack has some unoccupied floor space that isn't needed for moving around, and they can afford to put something there, they probably will. Generally speaking, they don't divide their homes into multiple distinct areas for different purposes, but just stick everything together in one space.

Usually, essentials like appliances, storage bins, computers and TVs, line every wall; a lot of these would likely be recognizable to a human observer even if some of the details are different. Notably, this doesn't include anything resembling a bath or shower. Kyanah can't sweat, so tend not to get as damp and oily as humans do, and even with the Water Distribution System, tap water is still close to an order of magnitude more expensive on their homeworld than on Earth; during the Project Hope era, it tends to average $50-$70 per cubic meter in Ikun, depending on how you convert to human money. So usually a moist washcloth and some soap is sufficient for wiping off dirt and grime. They tend not to really like getting wet anyway. Another thing that might raise some human eyebrows is the tendency for toilets to just casually sit along the wall in plain view from the rest of the room, as again, Kyanah don't really have any desire to hide or isolate from their own packs. There tends to be a notable lack of chairs in homes and offices as well; trying to use a typical human chair would lead to them either sitting on their own tail or having their tail sticking out at an strange angle that would make sitting down or getting up rather awkward. So they just sit on pillows or cushions on the floor instead.

The placement of windows may also raise some eyebrows. Usually their angle, small size, and positioning near the floor or ceiling indicates that their primary purpose is letting in natural light rather than providing a view. After all, Kyanah aren't descended from tree climbing apes, unlike certain other intelligent species, so generally don't care to be reminded that they're 40 stories in the air, even if that is the most efficient urban planning solution. Instead of the steel and glass exteriors commonly seen in modern and futuristic architecture, their buildings tend to consist mainly of masonry, concrete, or even ceramic facades, often ornately decorated in fancy or important buildings. Some architectural styles lack windows entirely.

The literal and figurative centerpiece of any Kyanah dwelling, however, is the nest. It's a holdover from prehistoric times, when they were used to incubate eggs and hide them from ovivores (despite their apex predator status, eggs were obviously still vulnerable in primitive times), as well as protecting hatchlings from the climate in their ancestral boreal scrublands--a warm climate by human standards, but to Kyanah, the 20-25 Celsius winters hit like 0 does to humans, especially with the 2 bar atmosphere leeching away heat twice as fast. In modern times, eggs are simply kept in electric incubators plugged into a wall outlet, the environment inside their homes can be easily controlled by a thermostat, and even the few ovivores that aren't endangered and can survive in Kyanah cities have no way of navigating through locked doors anyway. But still the practice remains; non-nesting cultures are not unheard of, but rare enough to be the subject of anthropological studies (or whatever the equivalent is).

Kyanah build assembly nests on the ground, rather than submerged burrows or elevated eyries. In prehistoric times, they had to make do with sticks, leaves, and animal hides, but in modern times, with synthetic materials, factories, and global trade networks, they have access to a huge variety of much higher quality textiles from all corners of the world to choose from. It's common to buy a plastic or metal nest frame, often shaped like a cylinder or cone, and fill it with cushions, textiles, and other decorations--chains of small lights resembling human Christmas lights have gone in and out of fashion in Ikun over the years--and drape or otherwise attach enough material to cover up both the frame and the open space at the top. Smart textiles with animated displays provided by metamaterials are also a popular choice in modern nests, but some packs go for a more natural look, with synthetic replicas of ancient or prehistoric materials.

Kyanah packs tend to take great pride in their nests and spend considerable time and money tracking down the right materials and updating it to keep up with fashion trends. A nascent pack building their first nest together is seen as a huge milestone and bonding moment, though first nests are rarely permanent; in time a pack will usually wear them out or outgrow them by having children. Typically, adults will sleep around the edges, while their young, if they have any, occupy the center. Unlike human beds, Kyanah nests are typically only for sleep; having sex in the nest isn't unheard of or wrong, but seen in many cultures as a bit unusual and not exactly vanilla and apparently becoming less and less common century by century; using cushions and/or the floor is a lot more common. Notably, as Kyanah have a nesting instinct, they will, if separated from their homes for whatever reason, often have a strong urge to make a nest out of whatever materials are available; hotels usually provide a blank frame and leave packs to fill it in for themselves.

In general, homes are seen as special spaces that nobody except the pack who lives there is ever supposed to enter; the only real exceptions are emergency responders and maintenance personnel. Even a pack's longest-standing ikoin, who have known them for years, often don't even know exactly where they live, let alone actually coming and visiting. Social interactions between packs, when they do happen, are invariably on neutral ground, and must involve the entirety of both packs, otherwise it's seen as cheating and deemed a massive breach of trust. Even sharing photos from inside a pack's home is seen as oversharing by more traditional-minded Kyanah, though as generation after generation grows up with social media, the cultural zeitgeist is increasingly drawing a distinction between sharing photos of that space and sharing the actual space.