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A BILLION WORLDS GLOSSARY



Aldakor: Shape-shifting smart-matter chassis.


Altok: Language based on English.


Baseline: An intelligence level roughly equivalent to an unmodified Homo sapiens; the legal minimum for personhood in most places.


Biara: All-Qarina hab in Neptune’s leading Trojans.


Biologicals: Intelligent beings made of meat.


Borg: A cyborg, typically one whose body is mostly mechanical with only a small biological component.


Bot: A mechanical being with sub-baseline intelligence.


Centro: Boss (Rocasa slang).


Chac: Giant ring habitat a thousand kilometers across, orbiting Jupiter beyond the major moons.


Corvids: Intelligent species genetically engineered from ravens.


Deimos Ring: Large orbital structure extending all the way around Mars in synchronous orbit; one of the major powers of the solar system.


Ebuthuntu: Utterly safe and comfortable Main Swarm habitat.


Entertainment: Most common form of fiction, incorporating elements of novels, films, and interactive games.


Fangshuo: Team ball game in which contact is forbidden.


Fratecea: Medium-sized hab in the Main Swarm, currently ruled by a repressive regime.


Gendakhel: Zero-gravity ball game.


Gigajoules: Units of energy, or of purchasing power, very roughly equivalent to one-tenth of a US dollar in the early 2020s.


Glorious Unique State: Empire which ruled most of Earth in the post-Great War era; sometimes called the Tsan-Chan Empire.


Great War of the Ring: Massive conflict in the Fourth Millennium, between the Inner Ring and most of the rest of the solar system.


Hab: Short for “habitat,” an artificial structure in space.


Inner Ring: A structure surrounding the Sun at a distance of 0.3 AU, made of the remains of the planet Mercury transformed into computronium. Home to the most advanced minds in the solar system.


Jiaohui: One of the larger Salibi habs, located in the Main Swarm between Earth and Venus.


Juren: Largest space hab ever constructed, located at Jupiter’s L1 point.


Kendraraj: Large habitat in the Main Swarm, scene of genocidal violence in the 9890s.


Koenig: Design cooperative based in Plato, Luna, specializing in plasma drive and weapon systems.


Kreyda: Habitat orbiting Venus.


Kumu: Lawless hab in the Kuiper Belt where Qarina are made and trained.


Longwu: Martial arts for dinosaurs.


Magonia: Cycler hab circling between Mars and Jupiter.


Main Swarm: The collection of several hundred million space habitats orbiting between Mars and Venus.


Malapert: City near the Lunar south pole.


Martian redwood: Engineered redwood species growing on terraformed Mars.


Memetic Intelligence: A being capable of independent decision-making, embodied entirely in patterns of legal and organizational information rather than an algorithmic digital mind or a biological brain.


Mysteries of the Hidden Emperor: Cult founded in the Eighth Millennium, claiming an origin in the Fifth Millennium under the Glorious Unique State. Boasts about a hundred billion adherents, mostly in Jovian space.


Ningen: Language derived from Japanese.


Nuledor: Nulesgrima player.


Nulesgrima: Zero-gravity stick-fighting sport, uses graphene palos.


Old Belt: The original asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.


Osorizan: Hab dedicated to backup storage for digital intelligences.


Oterma: Comet converted to a habitat, in a cyclic orbit between Jupiter and Saturn.


Pasquin Tiu: Martian writer famous for his anti-Deimos lampoons.


Politica: Political prisoner in Fratecea habitat.


Qarina: Human created for sexual slavery.


Raba: Habitat at the Uranus trailing Trojans cluster.


Rebodar: Rocasa word for a drifter or transient (“ricocheter”).


Retro Ring: The outermost ring of habitats circling Jupiter, orbiting retrograde.


RKV: Relativistic Kill Vehicle. The ultimate argument of worlds. A chunk of something dense traveling very fast.


Rocasa: Language derived from Spanish and Esperanto which originated in the Old Belt.


Sabela: Queen and hereditary owner of Oterma, of the matrilineal House of Buntala.


Safdaghar: Wrecked habitat formerly at the outer edge of the Old Belt.


Salibi: Followers of an ancient religion with only a few billion remaining adherents.


Saur: Hindi-based artificial language (“Solar”).


Scapino: Habitat in the Jovian Retro Ring, notoriously home to criminals and shady mercenaries.


Scarab: Salvagers of derelict or obsolete habitats.


Sekkurobo: Ningen word for a sex robot.


Shikyu: Artificial uterus or baby printer (from Ningen).


Summanus: Large, old, and powerful space habitat orbiting in Jupiter’s L2 position; also the high-level AI controlling the habitat.


Synchronous Ring: The lowest orbital ring around Jupiter, with elevator cables extending down into the planet’s cloud tops. Home to about a trillion people.


Tiedao: Gambling card game, its origins lost in time.


Titan Psychoactives: A self-owning Autonomous Corporation. An example of a purely memetic intelligence.


Trojan Empire: Powerful government controlling thousands of habitats and asteroids in the Jupiter trailing Trojans cluster.


Ubas: Genetically modified fruit based on grapes. Commonly grown in space habs.


Woshing: Most common language on Mars, derived from Chinese.


Xiyu: Seldom-used language.


Washikyosho: Famed Lunar goldsmith of the mid-9900s.


Zukyu: Sport resembling rugby (from Woshing).


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