Lore:Tajaran

SPECIES

Tajaran

Denonyms: Tajaran, Tajarans Other Names: Taj Related Lore: The Six And One Languages: Siik'tajrOverly complicated and with a turbulent history, this tongue comprised of short-form speech mixed with growls and meows is native to the Tajara. Due to the size of their Empire, countless dialects and different idioms exist - making a simple uniform way to teach this language almost impossible. After first contact, Humans describe the tongue as sounding somewhat similar to old Scandinavian languages in some form or another. It's rarely seen spoken by those not native to Taj, though certain genemodder groups have picked up a form of the tongue.

Tajarans

Tajarans hail from the Sagittarius Arm, originally from a vast spacefaring empire covering its every star system. For countless years, Tajarans expanded and maintained their Infinite Empire with cryostasis-enhanced sub-light spaceflight -- the distances between vassal states being the Infinite Empire's strength, and the sudden introduction of FTL travel cutting those distances to shreds quite literally upending Tajaran culture overnight. In the year 2000 a new council of six pirate faction leaders and the remnants of the Imperial Navy established themselves as the central Tajaran power in an act that still leaves scars in the hearts and minds of Tajaran people.

In modern times, most Tajarans live with House Names in service to House Contracts of the Six and One, often working as sanctioned privateers, domestic servants, merchants, or all sorts of vocations under them; even alongside other species. The Six exist in contrast to the One, the Seventh House corresponding to what is left of the original Imperial Navy, a seat of the council that often remains unfilled by any living member. Tajarans are fiercely loyal to themselves, their House, and their people, balancing prestige and restraint (Face & Heart) as measures of social standing, morality, and even personhood.

Biology

Tajarans are a xeno-anthropomorphic race, mammalian in their nature. Retractile claws, huge external ears, and well-developed whiskers, they tend to stand anywhere between four to seven feet tall on digitigrade legs. Owing to the sheer amount of time their race has been spread across the cosmos, Tajarans have a wide range of builds, heights, and variations in appearance. Some slender and dexterous, others bulky with sloping backs and blunt, short faces.

They are traditionally known for their biological duality -- showing truly alien levels of bilateral symmetry. Historically, the idealized Tajaran was famous for their twin tails, serving as a method to balance themselves. Dual two-chambered hearts pump in their chests, miscellaneous other organs either being doubled or having 'extra' chambers or lobes. This chimeric effect holds an unknown origin, species displaying it being of prime interest to the scientific community. Tajaran eyes host a unique iris crystallization that glow in the dark, seemingly being 'charged' by light. This allows for extra night vision, crucial due to Tajaran eyes only being capable of slight dilation.

As an example of certain non-universal traits, many Tajarans display four eyes as well, thought to be a further adaptation to allow for seeing through the shadows of their original homeworld, the Sleepless Throne. Nobles as well as hunters were both known for coincidentally developing nonverbal systems of communication based entirely off series of upper and lower blinks, somewhat similar to Morse.

These idealized traits come with a steep cost, recessive genes stacked upon recessive genes. While the ideal traits serve to keep the Tajaran at peak combat prowess, the tradeoffs range from reduced lifespan to a highly taxing metabolism. Only the most picturesque Tajarans in vassal states would be accepted as tribute to the Sleepless Throne, even with the highest of political regards. By random chance, any particular commoner might possess one of over thirty subtle traits, whilst the invading legionnaires might posses upwards of twenty, depending on political favors received or wrath incurred. With the necessarily immutable ideals of the Sleepless Throne, while clothing fashions might vary wildly amongst vassals, reflective of local politicks, the bilateral symmetry of a stalwart hunter served as the Infinite Domain's standard of perfection. To be bilaterally symmetric was to be of noble blood, to be most Sleepless, and carried an innate gravitas of Face. To be bilaterally symmetric was to struggle to write, to wield half the thoughts at twice the speed, and to be dead by sixty.

In modern times, not only has genemodding rendered genetic elitism moot, but taking on the appearance of the throne's will is no longer universally adored. Various groups in Tajaran culture have varying opinions of the Throne that once held absolute dominion over their lives, and those opinions will reflect upon those still with noblesque traits. Some may still know them as valiant heroes, courageously upholding high standards of living, while others still have nightmares woven into their genetic memory of four souless eyes leering through the black of night, heartsick and resolute.

The Infinite Empire

The Infinite Domain was a vast and spacefaring empire covering every star system in the Sagittarius Arm. Despite dwarfing even modern galactic superpowers, the Tajarans of the Infinite Domain lacked faster-than-light engines. The distances between vassal states were remarkable compared to the trips between the different corners of Sol, with many cultural quirks arising as a result.

While the Infinite Domain answers to a single planetary chain, the Sleepless Throne, regional matters, on the scopes of star systems and star clusters, tended to be the concern of a local Noble. Most Tajarans would only know the Emperor by the perpetual invasion fleets she sends. Waves of soldiers locked into cryosleep, serving as a routine test of loyalty or steel. Between recolonizations, individual sentiment towards the Emperor may wax or wane, but once the platoons wake up and integrate into the region with open arms or an iron fist, the Domain's populace tends towards numerous and loyal.

Nobility, Face, and Heart

Varying in title from Palatine to Princept to Margravet to practically anything, the nobility of the Infinite Domain held a unique power over the common Tajaran -- the right to have Face.

Face is a Tajaran concept denoting prestige and peer recognition, gained through being funny, clever, intelligent, having spunk and chutzpah, or simply doing things stylishly; rumors traveling with the same speed and impact as Imperial warships.

Conversely, Heart is a concept representing boorishness and raw power, one acting in a very base, crass, primitively violent fashion. An excess of Heart would lead to one being treated much like a leper; a noble might be able to militarily defeat another in a border skirmish, but to do so with a lack of Face would make them Heartsick.

All nobles were equally unimportant under the Emperor and His power, yet Face served as the informal hierarchy between them, with sufficient Face leading to control over vassal states, an increase in number of titles, or lavish and terraformed provinces within the Inner Ring. This ensured that it would be difficult for one with lesser Face to act against one of superior Face, especially if they carried a reputation of being Heartsick. Commoners were referred to as the Faceless, for being unable to have formally-recognized Face regardless of their conduct.

The Sleepless Throne

The inner politics of the Sleepless Throne were, to all but the residents thereof, an abstract and meaningless facade, fluff hiding the Emperor's force in prose and rhyme. One could not simply enter the Sleepless Throne without an invitation, or marque de slumber, for none could know the true strength of the Throne's interstellar defenses, or the dreamweave, and those who attempted to invade were scryed by impossible long-seers and unspoken with kilometer-long dialogues into smoldering fragments of debris.

The ability to output countless invasion fleets once every other generation comes only from great industrial perfection. Once a Tajaran Noble had been granted permission to send a member of their bloodline to the Sleepless Throne, that tribute would arrive alone and be promptly integrated into the Emperor's Harem, where they would live a life of comparative luxury, their only duty producing heirs and fodder alike. Historians are conflicted on whether the "Emperor's Harem" was an official institution, or general slang for the entire population of the Sleepless Throne's star system.

Regardless, the Harem's influence over the Empire was both greatly overhyped, yet impossibly pervasive. While a Consort might not ever be in the same city as the Emperor, and thus be unable to directly adjust political direction, parenting a majority of a recolonization ship's officers lends itself well to influencing that ship's destination. The Moonlit Society held sway as the alleged Nobles amongst Nobles, those whose offspring were chosen not for conquest, but to reinforce the Shattered Throne itself.

The Emperor, at once One of Many Faces and the Holder of The Bleeding Heart, was the most powerful figure in the Infinite Domain, with the Face of all nobility simply being Masks carved in replication of Hers. Their power was not just borne from authority, but distance -- the lack of FTL travel making it a multigenerational project to even think of assassinating Her. One rebelled against the Emperor not through direct conflict, but control of the narrative. Weaving tales of loyalty and extravagant tithes might spare your star's eccentricities from excessive scrutiny, and having your version of regional squabbles hit the Emperor's ear before your rival's was the difference between receiving a jovial colony ship and a death squad keen on glassing your entire bloodline.

The grand impotence of space travel held the Infinite Empire together stronger than any cultural notions of dignity or duty could. Petty grudges held with the reverence of blood feuds piled up, stoppered only by the the impossibility of meaningful interaction between distant individuals. The Infinite Empire boiled for millenia, a perpetually toppling house of cards continuously rebuilt as fast as cards could be removed, for no cat could possibly touch multiple cards in their lifetime.

The Shattered Empire

Once the last Emperor of the Infinite Empire was deposed in a brutal galaxy-spanning coup known as the Fracture, the Six and One became the new ruling body of the Shattered Empire, stemming directly from the Six Houses of the Scalpel, the band of Tajarans responsible for the Fracture. Modern Tajaran individuals are either Contracted to one of the houses through a House Contract, or remain unHoused. Being contracted to a house comes with obligations, both outlined in the individual house's contract and in the Seven-Part Mandate (the ongoing agreement between the Six And One), but also with privileges, including the use of the house's Face and good standing. The houses are divided into Inner and Outer Houses as a result of their focus; Inner houses are more concerned with the workings of the Empire, and Outer houses address cultures outside of the Shattered Empire. Neither are intrinsically superior, or hold more Face, though their goals often run contrary to each other.

《 The Six 》
《 Inner Houses 》	《 Outer Houses 》
House Astameur: Harem turned Fashionista. Masters of luxury and status.	House Morikann: Corsairs, pirates. Reliable but unruly mariners and footmen.
House Verikami: Hospitality and Hospitals alike. Fierce and often Heartsick, rural and agarian.	House Ussirune: Traders, merchants. Cultural affinity with drugs and commerce alike.
House Parigari: Scientists, technologists, engineers. The devil is in the details, seeking technological progress. Conflicts with Toranga over technology's purpose.	House Toranga: Grand Architects, shipbuilders and masons. Grand scale designs, for war, for stability. Conflicts with Parigari over grand-scale vision of the Empire.
《 The Seventh House 》
Despicable, horrid rot, the worms that infest the Last Emperor's corpse. Descended from the Last Emperor's own forces, own family, and own House. Widely hated, feared, or disdained by both commoners and nobles even before the Fracture. The Seventh House's work is in war. Not the privateering of House Morikann, or the muscling of trading vessels known from House Ussirune, but killing the Empire's enemies for the sake of killing them off; Heartsick behavior.

Work in Progress: Footer subject to change at a moment's notice. Do not take a red link's presence, struck-through or otherwise, as confirmation (or denial) of their canonicity.

Nova Sector Lore
	Common Species	Humans, Tiziran, Unathi, Moths, Ethereals, Azulae, Slime Hybrids, Teshari, Synthetic Humanoids (and assorted robots), Pod Persons
	Other Species	Genemodders (Felinids, Ice Walkers, Dwarf), Ashwalkers, Hemophages, Snailpersons, Ordoht (Formerly Skrell), Plasmamen, Flypeople, Vox (Primalis et al), Tajaran, Vulpkanin, Xenomorphic Hybrid, Rouges (Abductorkin), Miscellaneous Species
	Nanotrasen	Nanotrasen, Central Command, Emergency Response Corps
	External Groups	The Syndicate, Interdyne Pharmaceutics, DS-2, Cargo, The Spider Clan
	Nova	The Nova Sector, Indecipheres, Freyja
	Concepts	Bluespace, Plasma, Faster Than Light Travel, Resonance ("Souls"), Death
	SolFed	SolFed, Earth in 2565, The SolFed Armed Forces, The SolFed International Capital District