The Lonely Galaxy Megathread (comments encouraged)

[Visions1]

What happens if one of the brains is put out of commission? Or the spinal cord is severed?
I imagine that the whole business with an uncontrollable (or I imagine, limp) tail is a sign of aging, like a frayed spinal cord in people.

[lurker]

Yeah.

The concept is inspired by octopus tentacles, so while yinrih normally have conscious control of the tail, some neurological conditions may cause it to act on its own, or go limp as you suggest.

I'm not sure if a yinrih could survive having the entire main brain destroyed, but a lot of it can grow back using information stored in the caudal ganglion. The only time the caudal ganglion is accessed directly is during torpor when the corresponding function of the main brain is inactive, or when that portion of the main brain is damaged. Having to use the caudal ganglion is why torpid yinrih are slower to react and have dulled sensation.

In severe cases of alien tail syndrome, the tail is amputated altogether. Lightray Lacktail, one of the members of the Dewfall's mission control team, has had his tail amputated for this reason. In a world designed for people with tails, he's considered disabled.

[lurker]

What happens if one of the brains is put out of commission? Or the spinal cord is severed?
I imagine that the whole business with an uncontrollable (or I imagine, limp) tail is a sign of aging, like a frayed spinal cord in people.

Not sure what happens if the butt brain itself is damaged, though I suppose the "backup" works in reverse. Also both brains are either much denser or otherwise organized in such a way that yinrih can get away with sophont-level intelligence in a brain case the size of a dog.

[lurker]

So here's what fur patterns have come up in the lore so far:

- solid black (Stormlight)
- solid red (Sunshine)
- red with black ears and black socks (Tod)
- assorted brown shades
* fawn with black mask (Sunshine's original coat color before I decided to make her red)
* liver (The as-yet-unnamed asteroid miner from Table Manners)
* tawny (Crystal)
- solid white (Lightray Lacktail)
- white with biscuit pointing (Iris)
- Blue (Lodestar, Graypelt)
- Piebald/bicolor (Pascal)

Pascal's coat pattern looks like the stereotypical Holstein cow, which you sometimes see on pitbulls. The black spots are too large to be considered spotted like a Dalmatian, and there aren't enough of them to be considered harlequin. They're also small enough that he doesn't look like a border collie.

I'm not sure what constitutes "Blue". It could be ticked black and white or it could be a solid diluted black. I'm imagining a solid smokey gray color for now.

Albinism likely also exists, and can be differentiated from white by the lack of pigment on the digits and palms. Since yinrih eyes don't depend on pigmented retina cells, albinism won't affect their vision.

Redpelts don't have white countershading, making them look slightly less vulpine.

[Visions1]

Finally finished your manners stuff - please keep it going (if you have the time)! It's very good.
Thoughts:

"You try to reorient yourself, recalling a similar story of First Contact from an old Sci-Fi novel. If you try to think of him like a man shaped like an animal, he becomes abominable. But if you look at him another way, as an animal with a rational soul, he suddenly becomes delightfully charming, like he walked straight out of a children’s book."
Which sci-fi novel are you thinking of here?

The washing pool reminds me of how customary ablution is in some places. In richer areas of the Muslim world, for example, it’s normal for all bathrooms to have bidets, because water is religiously preferred to toilet paper.
In truth, I wonder how much paw washing impacts the Yinrih, considering that hand wash-heavy cultures are a human thing (and conversely, some which don’t really wash their hands, and therefore use one only hand to eat.)
I do wonder if Yinrih healers have ritualized ablution for the same reasons human religions do. Or if Yinrih religions do in general.

Also, I imagine people just rearing to do reaction videos on Youtube over the steadtree juice:
“Tribal people try Yinrih food for the first time”
“180ml STEADTREE JUICE CHALLENGE for $1,000,000 || MrBeast”
“YIH mukbang (SOUREST FOOD IN THE UNIVERSE??)”
“Weird Explorer: Steadtree - space doggo apple" (insert latin name here)” (actually, what would its latin name be?)
“[This video has been removed from Youtube due to violating our policies on children’s content]”

Also, I think since his fur is liver-coloured, maybe the pupper's name should have something to with innards. I was thinking "Blessed-guts."

[lurker]

Finally finished your manners stuff - please keep it going (if you have the time)! It's very good.

Thanks. I do have some ideas on how to continue. Just need to find time.

Which sci-fi novel are you thinking of here?

Out of the Silent Planet by CS Lewis

I do wonder if Yinrih healers have ritualized ablution for the same reasons human religions do. Or if Yinrih religions do in general.

I think they would, but it probably doesn't look much different from normal pre-surgical hand washing. Perhaps they say a little prayer or two.

[lurker]

Also, I imagine people just rearing to do reaction videos on Youtube over the steadtree juice:

Indeed. I already made a reference to Sarah making YT videos of her trying yinrih food.

Also, I think since his fur is liver-coloured, maybe the pupper's name should have something to with innards. I was thinking "Blessed-guts."

"Liver" is the dog fancier way of saying "brown", as in the color of a chocolate lab. I love "Blessed-guts" as a Commonthroat name (rfcrjsFDrskp), but that definitely won't fly in English. He's a miner so maybe he could be called Steve. I need to rewrite the portions from the analysis swap thread.

[Khemehekis]

I don’t know about birds, but yinrih certainly don’t. That’s why they use the same word for dream and drug trip.

Wow. In the Lehola Galaxy, there's a hallucinogen that's called oneirin in LIE (Lehola Intergalactic English), and it gives you things called "D-dreams" that are like experiencing dreaming, except you're awake.

[Visions1]

I love "Blessed-guts" as a Commonthroat name (rfcrjsFDrskp), but that definitely won't fly in English.

Benedict would probably be a good calque. Or Blessed-heart (though that sounds like a Care Bears character, but Yinrih names sound like that, as do some English calques of Native American names, such as Sitting Bull).

Edit: So here's what Wikipedia says about Steven:

Spoiler:

The name "Stephen" (and its common variant "Steven") is derived from Greek Στέφανος (Stéphanos), a first name from the Greek word στέφανος (stéphanos), meaning 'wreath, crown' and by extension 'reward, honor, renown, fame', from the verb στέφειν (stéphein), 'to encircle, to wreathe'.

So maybe in Yinrih, it'd be a name meaning "halo."

Second edit: By this same logic, Lodestar would have the rather simple name of Max.

[lurker]

I love "Blessed-guts" as a Commonthroat name (rfcrjsFDrskp), but that definitely won't fly in English.

Benedict would probably be a good calque. Or Blessed-heart (though that sounds like a Care Bears character, but Yinrih names sound like that, as do some English calques of Native American names, such as Sitting Bull).

Edit: So here's what Wikipedia says about Steven:

Spoiler:

The name "Stephen" (and its common variant "Steven") is derived from Greek Στέφανος (Stéphanos), a first name from the Greek word στέφανος (stéphanos), meaning 'wreath, crown' and by extension 'reward, honor, renown, fame', from the verb στέφειν (stéphein), 'to encircle, to wreathe'.

So maybe in Yinrih, it'd be a name meaning "halo."

Second edit: By this same logic, Lodestar would have the rather simple name of Max.

Steve is a Minecraft reference.


Been thinking for a while that pious yinrih names sound like My Little Pony characters. Humans will probably point this out at some point.


Lodestar’s original name is think would be Magnus.

[lurker]

I don’t know about birds, but yinrih certainly don’t. That’s why they use the same word for dream and drug trip.

Wow. In the Lehola Galaxy, there's a hallucinogen that's called oneirin in LIE (Lehola Intergalactic English), and it gives you things called "D-dreams" that are like experiencing dreaming, except you're awake.

What makes D-dreams different from hallucinations?

[Khemehekis]

I don’t know about birds, but yinrih certainly don’t. That’s why they use the same word for dream and drug trip.

Wow. In the Lehola Galaxy, there's a hallucinogen that's called oneirin in LIE (Lehola Intergalactic English), and it gives you things called "D-dreams" that are like experiencing dreaming, except you're awake.

What makes D-dreams different from hallucinations?

With a D-dream, basically, your mind is working the way it works when you dream. The way a dreaming brain seams together recent experiences and thoughts in a tries-to-make-sense-of-them way.

[Visions1]

What are some Yinrih sports? Board games? Children's games?
I assume tag on trees in a riveting sight.

[lurker]

What are some Yinrih sports? Board games? Children's games?
I assume tag on trees in a riveting sight.

Definitely something I need to think over. Spacers absolutely have a few pastimes that take advantage of microgravity, and mech fighting a la the Arena from Armored Core is 100% a thing.

Not just tree tag, but tree capture the flag, or ball/fruit. It's like normal capture the flag, but perhaps there's a rule that you can't hold the flag in your tail or mouth, meaning you have to dedicate a paw which could otherwise be used to brachiate to holding the flag.

Also obstacle courses like ninja warrior or whatever that show was called. Lots of leaping and brachiating and swinging by the tail.

Perhaps a post First Contact sport where yinrih and humans take turns trying to catch one another. Humans would have to hunt yinrih in a dense jungle while yinrih would have to hunt humans in an open savanna. Then they could switch habitats and see how yinrih fair in the open and humans in the forest.

[lurker]

How's this for a sport?

One or more yinrih are piloting micro mechs. Their goal is to subdue another yinrih who is not in a micro mech in a Dark Souls style giant boss battle. The micro mechs would be somewhere around thumb sized, so not microscopic.

[Visions1]

Heck yeah.
People shouting "git gud" from the stadiums (or something nicer), sports films with more drama and better battles than a greek play, people training their whole lives to wear a "micro"mech suit, Lodestar giving Ron all of his opinions and matchups.
Though I wonder how safe it is.

[lurker]

I wonder how safe it is.

The mechs are piloted remotely in the same manner as a healer’s micro mech. The only risk would actually be to the “boss”. Not sure what the win condition would be. Maybe the mech needs to touch the tip of the boss’s nose. Extreme snoot booping.

[lurker]

The more I think about it, the more the idea of knighthood being linked to mechs in the same way it's associated with horses in European culture makes sense.

I've also decided that mechs as a concept evolved out of powered armor, with armor getting bigger and bulkier slowly over time until it wasn't a person wearing a suit but a pilot driving a machine.

So I think I'll change the Commonthroat word for mech (currently translated as "limbed vehicle") and give it a single morpheme that encompasses anything from bulkier powered armor to big stompy walking war crimes. The word for a mech pilot would either be identical to, or related to, the word for knight.

I also think a sharp distinction will be made between remotely controlled mechs such as those used by healers and the internally piloted mechs used by soldiers. Remote mechs are safer and can get microscopically small, but you lose some situational awareness and there's input lag. No big deal in most situations, but on the battlefield a fraction of a second can make all the difference and you can't afford to that loss of awareness.

[lurker]

So we're coming up on one year of this project. I thought I'd celebrate by posting my original overview of the setting that I posted on the worldbuilding subreddit. A lot has changed since then, and there's a ton of outdated lore. The taboo regarding eating in public was hard to develop, so I dropped it. The nature of the Bright Way and the purpose of the missionaries has been greatly expanded, as can be seen here and here.

The Data Plane isn't really a thing anymore, as ansibles are far too low bandwidth to support a Matrix-like experience, although amnions can still pull it off locally as can be seen in my later stories.

Probably the biggest change is in their anatomy. Although I don't explicitly mention it, I still thought of them as bipedal at this stage. I didn't settle on their body plan until I was writing The House of Friendship.

You can probably date this by some of my attempts at topical humor. And yes, the exam I mention at the beginning is the same one I'm still trying to pass. (just failed my fifth attempt this morning )

I wouldn't have been able to keep this going without the input and interest expressed by everyone here, so thanks for keeping this ADHDer going. Commonthroat is the first language I haven't scrapped in my 20+ years as a conlanger.

Anyway, here it is in all its unorganized glory.

---

I’ve been hyperfocusing on this all week, but I’m supposed to be studying for a very expensive certification exam, so I was hoping I could finally put this out of my mind by sharing it. It isn’t part of a larger project or story, and likely never will be. I suck at drawing, writing, pretty much anything “creative”. just the product of idle daydreaming when I should be studying. So I present for your consideration, the Monkey Fox! This was basically born out of me pondering the Fermi Paradox, and also feeling kind of lonely. I also wanted to play with some of the typical First Contact tropes, so instead of our rationalist heroes fighting off religious fanatics trying to blow them up (see Contact) it’s the religious people desperately looking for aliens. I also think the idea of space Mormons is kind of funny in an endearing way. The aliens, while much further along on the tech tree, so to speak, aren’t part of a galaxy spanning multi-species civilization that humans haven’t found yet. They’re all alone, crying out into the void just like us. I originally conceived of them as more dog like to signify their status as Man’s new best friend, an intelligence that isn’t our own that can walk through the hardships of life alongside us. It’s not organized; it’s just a bunch of ideas.

Anatomy: They’re about 4 feet high on average, with bodies covered in fur save for the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. They have two arms and two legs, as well as a tail. The hands, feet, and tail are prehensile, and the feet look like slightly larger hands. Speaking of hands, they have six digits, with an arrangement like humans’ but with an extra thumb on the other side of the hand. One of the digits on each hand contains an ink sac, with the claw being modified into a sort of pen nib. So they have a natural writing utensil. The torso and limbs are proportioned like a human’s (hence “monkey”). The head looks vulpine (hence “fox”) with a muzzle, rhinarium (wet nose), and erect, triangular, well-furred ears.

Yinrih are the sort of small, furry critter that triggers a human’s nurturing instincts. After all, they look like a cross between a fox, a red panda, and a lemur. The only physical feature that mars this otherwise adorable image is the eyes. They’re black, as in no pupil, iris, or sclera, and there’s no reflection whatsoever. This appearance is due to the structure of the surface of the eye, which consists of millions of nanoantennas that couple with the ambient electromagnetic radiation the same way a radio antenna does. The result looks disquietingly like they have empty eye sockets.

Natural History: Before “asking ‘why’”, which is their term for achieving sapience, they were social tree-dwelling carnivorous animals living in large “family” groups, though see below for why “family” is in quotes. The natural pen finger was used to mark territory. They grouped together for protection from larger predators and to make reproduction easier, but they hunted alone and did not share their kills. Kits were expected to hunt as soon as they were weaned. This food strategy will have a huge impact on their culture later. They began asking “why” around the same time as modern humans, so around a hundred thousand years. However, they reached level II on the Kardashev scale (consuming 100% of their sun’s output) around the time we discovered agriculture. The secret to their rapid development lies in the fact that they didn’t invent written language, they evolved it. They’ve been able to preserve information between generations for as long as they’ve been speaking. This is in sharp contrast to humans, who only invented writing around 5000 years ago.

Reproduction: If you could come up with a procreation method that you could explain to a class of kindergarteners without blushing, this would probably come close. Monkey Foxes are monotremes (well, they evolved convergently into monotreme-like creatures). The females lay eggs and sweat milk from the palms of their hands to feed kits, hence the common oath “by the palms that nursed me!” The males also ley “eggs”. Technically they’re spermatophores, but they’re still called “eggs”. Female eggs have yolk sacs while male spermatophores do not. The males do not produce milk. Both genders have a cloaca and lack external sex organs. Upon reaching sexual maturity, members of the den will start laying eggs, and females will produce milk, all on a regular nesting schedule. When breeding season comes around, sexually mature den members put their eggs and spermatophores into a central nest. A protective membrane forms over the clutch and forms a sort of external womb. The eggshells dissolve, and the combined genetic material from all the contributing parents mixes into a soup, which is then used to form zygotes which eventually grow into a litter of kits. The kits feed off the yolk sacs from the female eggs while in utero. The number of kits in a litter depends on the number of contributing parents.

There’s no intercourse, and Monkey Foxes completely lack a sex drive. This means that human concepts revolving around reproduction like courtship, marriage, or the concept of having a mother and a father that you can point to as your progenitors don’t really compute for Monkey Foxes. Kits are raised by the grownup den members together. The phrase “It takes a village to raise a child” is literal in their case. Uninformed humans often mistake the Monkey Foxes’ lack of “Eros”, as C.S. Lewis would term it, to mean they’re cold and emotionless, or that they’re somehow an entire race of uptight prudes. The fact that most Monkey Foxes interacting with humans are missionaries only reinforces this misconception. You can no more praise a Monkey Fox for his chastity than you can accuse a bald man of having red hair or measure the temperature of the vacuum of space.

Monkey Foxes do know what “love” is, in the sense of “willing the good of the beloved” and they are more than capable of forming friendships and acting selflessly for the sake of others. They do, of course, have their own cultural taboos and disordered appetites, and unfortunately some of those taboos intersect with human customs that we would find not only normal, but necessary.

Customs: Because Monkey Foxes lack the concept of modesty, and because they have fur, clothing is optional. Any clothing that is worn is utilitarian, like hats for shade or raincoats to keep dry. Monkey Foxes living and working on earth will wear clothes to better fit in with humans. We humans say a lot with what we wear, after all. When on their native world, the more communicative function of clothing is filled by perfumes. Their stronger sense of smell means they can detect individual volatile compounds that combine to make up a single odor. So, where a human police officer would wear a uniform and a badge to let others know what he’s doing and who he is, a Monkey Fox police officer would have a particular scent that communicated the same. Luckily for us what a Monky Fox thinks smells good largely overlaps with what a human thinks smells good, so nobody’s strolling around smelling like a broken gas line.

The big “hangup” in Monkey Fox culture surrounds eating. Because their ancestors hunted and ate alone, they have a strong resource guarding instinct, and altercations around food can and do lead to serious injuries. Eating in public is shockingly taboo for Monkey Foxes, though that’s not to say there aren’t people who do it anyway. Normally, Monkey Foxes eat once every week or two, and enter a state of torpor for about 24 to 48 hours immediately after, which functions like sleep for humans. Monkey Foxes do not sleep in between meals. The food itself is bland, not unlike hard tack or, as technology progressed, a dietetically engineered flavorless nutrient paste. Drinking publicly is fine, although it’s also rather plain, with the only elaboration being the addition of alcohol for relaxation or caffeine for stimulation. Most Monkey Fox faiths have strict restrictions surrounding eating, not unlike how sex is seen in human culture. Even talking about your feeding habits is the sort of delicate conversation reserved for medical professionals and religious confessors.

This eating issue is a huge cultural barrier when Monkey Foxes first meet humans. Humans, as I’m sure you know, have a ton of social and religious traditions around food. Sacred hospitality is a very common human custom and naturally the first go-to for a human to make a guest feel welcome is to offer them something to eat.

First Contact: The dominant faith in Monkey Fox culture is called the Bright Way. The Bright Way can be traced back to nearly the beginning of Monkey Fox history, which again, is around 100 thousand years. It’s had its ups and downs, taking turns as persecutor and victim, with plenty of peaceful tolerance (in the sense of putting up with something you disagree with for the sake of social harmony) in between. Apologists will put forward, half-jokingly, that surest proof of the Bright Way’s divine mandate is that it’s managed to survive so long despite the profound stupidity of its leaders. However, around the time of First Contact, much of Monkey Fox society has secularized, and most who self-identify as believers are merely culturally attached rather than practicing members. The central tenant of this faith is that Monkey Foxes are to be apostles to the rest of the universe. “Go and spread your light to the stars, and ye shall become brighter yourselves.” is a common scriptural quotation.

Religious doctrine requires that there be other sapient species out there, but much like humanity’s attempts at finding aliens, the Monkey Foxes have had no luck thus far, even though they discovered radio while we humans were still squatting in a ditch poking berries up our noses. Being confronted with the Fermi Paradox is a big reason why The Bright Way has lost relevance. There’s not much point in preaching to the blind infinity, after all.

Monkey Foxes who claim to have encountered aliens are the same sort of people who on earth would claim to see Mother Theresa in a cinnamon bun, and they’re dismissed off hand even by the otherwise devout. That’s not to say the faithful haven’t made serious, intellectually rigorous efforts to find ETs. This pursuit occupies a similar cultural position as missionaries do on Earth. They’d been sending probes, launching manned vessels, and otherwise screaming into the void for longer than we humans could possibly imagine, and they were only greeted with empty, pitiless indifference.

A typical Monkey Fox missionary journey went like this: build a pod about as big as The Titan, except hopefully less implodey, stick a dude inside, put them into hypersleep, and yeet the pod in the general direction of a star system with a planet in the habitable zone. If the onboard AI doesn’t pick up artificially generated radio signals after orbiting the planet for a while, begin the long journey back home. If, however, the computer detects artificial radio signals, the ship pulls the intrepid explorer out of hypersleep, whereupon he or she would put on their best ironed white dress shirt and tie (or cultural equivalent) grab their Good Book, and get ready to go door to door spreading the good news.

Of course, even at the relativistic speeds achievable by current Monkey Fox technology, these round trips take hundreds of years at a minimum. This might seem unmanageable, but Monkey Foxes regularly live at least 600 earth years, and don’t age at all in hypersleep. Certain ground crew members would also be popsicled in parallel with their missionary charges in order to preserve institutional continuity. Also keep in mind that, to a species whose cultural memory extends back to the dawn of their very existence as a sapient race, it really isn’t that long at all. They also have some tricks up their nonexistent sleeves for preventing “generation gap” from developing between the long absent traveller and the folks at home.

While it’s called “hypersleep” it’s really more of a way to halt metabolism while keeping the brain active and connected to the Monkey Fox version of the Matrix, which they call the Data Plane. While they haven’t figured out how to send matter faster than light, instant information transfer is possible thanks to The Underlay, a kind of subspace that allows superluminal communication. Interstellar vessels are equipped with an Underlay tunnel endpoint, with a corresponding endpoint located back home. Missionaries are able to interact with mission control and their loved ones back home via the Data Plane, sort of like a Clarke’s Third Law version of Zoom. Having said that, interstellar missionaries probably won’t ever see their loved-ones in the flesh again, so it is customary to hold a living funeral for friends who are preparing to venture into the infinite unknown.

Language: Monkey Foxes and humans have very different vocal tracts, and cannot directly produce one-another’s speech sounds. Any “loanwords” from one language to another, are thus more properly seen as onomatopoeia attempting to mimic the other creature’s speech sounds. Monkey Fox vocal articulation happens mostly in the chest, throat, and nostrils, with the mouth, tongue, and teeth barely involved at all. To a human, Monkey Fox speech sounds, rather adorably, like a dreaming dog, so lots of quiet growling, yipping, and breathing through the nose. It’s also frustratingly quiet by human standards. The best approximation of a Monkey Foxe’s word for their own species is yinrih, which, again, sounds more like a pair of quiet yips ending on a sharp nasal exhalation. Rather unhelpfully, the word translates roughly as “of the earth” or “from the ground” or in other words “earthling”, go figure.

As far as how we sound to the Yinrih, we’re basically constantly screaming. If you’re an American, you’re probably used to this reaction anyway. It is possible for us to understand what the other is saying, although the yinrih are most comfortable when we’re talking just above a whisper, and we have to be in a pretty quiet environment to hear what they’re saying. Eventually humans and Yinrih develop a lingua franca sign language to communicate directly. Their body plan and ours is similar enough for this to work.

Yinrih aren’t terribly strong compared to a human. An unarmed human could easily kill an unarmed Yinrih. However, it’s a good thing to remember that Yinrih civilization as a whole reached level II on the Kardashev scale around the same time humans discovered agriculture. While they’re not quite “sufficiently advanced aliens”, some of there tech flirts with Clarke’s Third Law, like the aforementioned underlay tunnel endpoints.

While the Yinrih are much further along technologically than us, the fact that they’ve been able to write since they became sapient means they’ve missed out on a lot of very hard lessons that we humans have had to learn. Since we spread out across the globe millennia before inventing written communication, we’ve had to “rediscover” our fellow humans. When we think about contacting alien intelligences, we often pattern the experience after these historical instances. Yinrih culture never sundered completely after the dawn of their species, so they’re far more homogenous as a result. One could compare the full spectrum of Yinrih culture to that of the Romance-speaking areas of the former Roman Empire. Sure there are different languages and cultures, but they’re all pretty recognizably related. There’s no Yinrih equivalent to the Basque people or Native American groups. This lack of experience with culture shock means that the Yinrih have a much harder time meeting humans than we have meeting them. In spite of all that, the Yinrih are eager to get to know us better.

Even though first contact is established for religious reasons, the missionaries have made it clear that “conversion by the sword” is strictly off the table. The long history of The Bright Way means that believers have had plenty of experience as both persecutor and persecuted, and they don’t want to repeat that cycle. Nevertheless, they are not indifferentists, and will happily debate those whose views differ from theirs. They may not change their mind, but they’ll at least change the subject. Unfortunately there are other Yinrih factions besides the Bright Way, and they’re not as eager to engage in peaceful cultural exchange.

The biggest of these less than friendly factions are the Partisans. Historians differ on why exactly they formed. Some say they were a hardline religious sect, others say they were anticlerical iconoclasts. Most likely it’s a little of column A, a little of column B. If you think that’s impossible, you’ve never heard of the horseshoe effect. The Partisans occupy a large swath of territory on the fringes of the Yinrih’s home star system.

[lurker]

The martial aspects of knighthood are largely downplayed outside of Hearthside, but some, such as Lodestar, undertake mech pilot training as a way to maintain tradition, and besides, who doesn't want to stomp around in a big metal robot?

The cockpit is located in the mech's torso, with a hatch on the belly granting access to the pilot. Movement and weapons systems are controlled by paw keyers and tail-actuated analog controls located at the base of the seat. Sensor feeds are presented to the pilot via a HUD visor. Typical weapons include a back-mounted artillery cannon and plasma claws located on the forepaws. The rear paws have sharp metal claws designed to dig into the ground, allowing the mech to rear up on its hind feet.

Large mechs represent the upper limit of practical force projector applications in atmosphere, and arrays of projector plates are located on the palms of mech's paws, allowing the mech to walk without damaging roads and other structures underfoot. As with smaller powered armor, the force projectors also allow mechs to climb smooth vertical surfaces.

Like their pilots, mechs also have tails, which serve as melee weapons as well as allowing the mech to balance on its hind feet. Other cynoidomorphic features are included mostly out of tradition, such as antenna arrays positioned on the snout like whiskers, and heatsinks shaped like a yinrih's upright ears.

One quirk of large yinrih machines that humans find disquieting is their sound, or rather, complete lack of sound. One expects a building-sized robot to make _some_ sort of noise while running, like the roar of an engine or the whine of servo motors, but the only audible part of a mech's operation is the dull thud of its tread across the ground. This absence of mechanical noise gives the impression that the mech is a living thing moving of its own accord.

Yinrih mech pilots often joke with their human friends that it's nice that humans have to look up at them for a change.