The Lonely Galaxy Megathread (comments encouraged)

[Visions1]

Since Yih doesn't have a moon, there are no months. Since the yinrih progressed technologically so rapidly after gaining sapience (achieving spaceflight a mere 5 Earth millennia after becoming rational) they don't have a week (which was originally based on the seven planets as reckoned in ancient times on Earth). Whether they have intermediate time division between day and year is to be determined, although they probably do.

I'd imagine the (official?) calendar would have to make some divisions. 528 days is a long time to keep count.
My guesses for factors probably would be:
- Seasons (you mentioned solstices are holidays)
- Holidays in general
- The number 12 (counting is done in base 12, the torpor cycle is 12 days...)
- The stars (thinking of the Venus counting they do in Arhem land)
- Availability of resources, or times of certain natural phenomena such as breeding or increased water in rivers (e.g. honey calendars on earth)
- 528 = 264 x 2 = 132 x 4 = 66 x 8 = 11 x 48 = 6 x 88 = 3 x 176

It's worth noting that for the whole world to have one culture, it would require a fair amount if historical development. After all, earth is fantastically diverse, despite it all.

[lurker]

Also

I figure the desk diagrammed above is probably a deluxe edition. The simplest desk for us is just a table. I guessed here it'd be a log with a bookstand, the latter in this case being moveable.

I think I got the eyes wrong.

Reminds me of when I worked at a call center. The chairs we were given were the bare minimum in terms of ergonomics. They were very uncomfortable to sit in for over an hour, let alone eight hours. We were always raiding the conference room for the nice chairs that were actually designed with the human spine in mind. The chairs would inevitably get put back and we would get a lecture, but we'd do it again after a month. I still find it baffling why they used nice chairs for the place that gets used for like an hour a week, and terrible chairs that have butts in them 8 hours a day five days a week.

Regarding the eyes, yinrih don't have sclarae, or eyeballs at all really. When their eyelids are closed they look like they might have normal eyes, but when open they look like pitch black voids where their eyes would be. Their eyes are more like radio antennas (or patches of billions of nanoscopic antennas). These nantenna patches are very good at absorbing light, so they look pitch black to a human.

[lurker]

Since Yih doesn't have a moon, there are no months. Since the yinrih progressed technologically so rapidly after gaining sapience (achieving spaceflight a mere 5 Earth millennia after becoming rational) they don't have a week (which was originally based on the seven planets as reckoned in ancient times on Earth). Whether they have intermediate time division between day and year is to be determined, although they probably do.

I'd imagine the (official?) calendar would have to make some divisions. 528 days is a long time to keep count.
My guesses for factors probably would be:
- Seasons (you mentioned solstices are holidays)
- Holidays in general
- The number 12 (counting is done in base 12, the torpor cycle is 12 days...)
- The stars (thinking of the Venus counting they do in Arhem land)
- Availability of resources, or times of certain natural phenomena such as breeding or increased water in rivers (e.g. honey calendars on earth)
- 528 = 264 x 2 = 132 x 4 = 66 x 8 = 11 x 48 = 6 x 88 = 3 x 176

It's worth noting that for the whole world to have one culture, it would require a fair amount if historical development. After all, earth is fantastically diverse, despite it all.

At the very least I think they'll use quarters. The year begins on one of the solstices/equinoxes so the quarters line up with the seasons.

Regarding cultures, the yinrih never had a bunch of separate cultures. They've had a written language for as long as their species has been sapient, so they never sundered completely like we humans did, and they never had an equivalent to the age of discovery where we started running into these separated groups way down the road. At the most their whole species is like the Indo-Europeans, always vaguely aware of one another even if they don't often interact, but I suspect it would be more like the Latin cultures during the middle-ages, where they're no longer in constant contact but the language and customs are clearly related.

This has some "fun" implications for First Contact. We humans pattern our notions of First Contact on the aforementioned age of discovery, so we have some experience to lean on. The yinrih don't have that experience, so while they're technologically orders of magnitude ahead of us, they're very naive about how to interact with an unknown civilization. The humans don't know this, and we also assume that they're part of a galaxy-spanning meta-civilization like you see in most sci-fi. It comes as a huge shock to us that they're also all alone until they meet us.

[Visions1]

Regarding cultures, the yinrih never had a bunch of separate cultures. They've had a written language for as long as their species has been sapient, so they never sundered completely like we humans did, and they never had an equivalent to the age of discovery where we started running into these separated groups way down the road. At the most their whole species is like the Indo-Europeans, always vaguely aware of one another even if they don't often interact, but I suspect it would be more like the Latin cultures during the middle-ages, where they're no longer in constant contact but the language and customs are clearly related.

I think the Latin-groups would be a good analogy. After all, they have an "empire" across planets. I'd expect the cultures on each planet would be different.
Also, it'd probably be a good idea to look into religious schisms and political breaking-aways across history.

[lurker]

I think the Latin-groups would be a good analogy. After all, they have an "empire" across planets. I'd expect the cultures on each planet would be different.
Also, it'd probably be a good idea to look into religious schisms and political breaking-aways across history.

I've already got a few factions in mind. As for schisms, there's what I like to call the "silent schism" in the Bright Way, which has to do with how to deal with the fact that they've gone from the center of yinrih society to the margins as society secularizes. The causes for this marginalization are many, but it's mostly due to the yinrih confronting the Fermi Paradox. One of the Bright Way's central dogmas requires other intelligent species to exist, but they've been searching in vain since before H. Sapiens left Africa.

[lurker]

There's a bit of a shibboleth between spacers and yinrih who live planetside regarding body language. Spacers are more prone to gesticulate while talking. They may do this with only their front paws, or use all four paws and their tail at once. When on a planet's surface, they'll often stop and rear up when having a conversation in order to free up their paws to move around. Sometimes their rear paws and tail will even twitch as though they would be moving them too if they didn't have to support their weight and maintain their balance. If they can't rear up they might do a "tippy-taps" style motion while talking.

When casually greeting someone, most yinrih chuff (the same trilling nasal exhalation used as a phoneme). It fills the same niche as a human smile.

Yinrih can hiss, although this isn't used as a phoneme, at least in Commonthroat. A hiss can be either plain or trilled. A trilling hiss is used to express unwelcome surprise, similar to saying "ouch!" or "arrgh!". A plain hiss can express other mostly negative emotions like frustration.

Quickly flicking the ears back and then returning them to their previous position is the equivalent to a shrug. Flicking just the left ear is like a wink. Tilting both ears forward and opening the eyelids wide is a sign of strong positive emotion.

Moving their head such that the muzzle traces an upper half circle or arc is the same as a human rolling the eyes.

Since yinrih don't have a concept of romantic love, prolonged physical contact between adults isn't a thing, but some gestures do involve brief contact between individuals. Flattening the ears and briefly touching the top of both individuals' heads together is somewhat similar to a handshake, but it's only done between previously acquainted individuals of equal social status. A similar gesture is performed between a subordinate and a superior, with the subordinate pressing the top of his or her head against the side or chest of the superior.

Adult yinrih are, as a rule, much more particular about their personal space, which causes problems when humans mistake them for dogs and try to go in for a pat on the head or scritch behind the ears. "I'm a person and I have personal space!" is the common response. This often goes unheeded by humans who don't know Commonthroat and mistake their annoyed protest as quiet yipping and grunting.

When kits are very very young, they will often be carried on their dam's back, yet another contributor to the yinrih's "dog possum" nickname. Older pups will intertwine their tail with a parent's tail while out and about, similar to holding hands for safety. Intertwining tails is also a comforting gesture, and may be done between adults, for example when comforting someone after a traumatic event.

Running the claws of the front feet through one's tail is a common way to fidget, as well as being a self-soothing gesture. Thumping the tail on the ground repeatedly is either a threat or a way to release pent-up frustration. Flicking one's own side with the tip of the tail, like a horse shooing a fly, is similar to a dismissive hand wave. (The word for this gesture is even used in the same way we would use the term "handwave" to brush off an inconsistency.) Flicking someone else's side with the tip of the tail is a very rude gesture indicating the the person so flicked is both a nuisance but is easily "dealt with". It's the closest the yinrih have to flipping the bird.

The yinrih equivalent to kneeling in prayer is to lie flat on the ground, tail extended straight out behind, and all four limbs flat on the ground, getting as much contact between the belly and the ground as possible. Less pious humans refer to it as "the sacred sploot". Another meditative posture, done in microgravity, is to coil the tail around a tail bar, face the the palms of the front feet outward with the inner and outer thumbs crossed over one another, and the rear paws either clasped together or with the palms of the rear paws pressed together. This is the usual posture taken by clerics during torpor. Being in microgravity means they don't tire out while doing it, and can maintain it for the whole 24-ish hours of their torpor.

The traditional introductory greeting gesture is to rear up on the hind feet and pat one's belly with the left forepaw twice. If you're familiar with the origins of the boy scout handshake (a normal handshake but done with the left hand) it's supposed to indicate trust. In the yinrih's case you're demonstrating that you trust the other party by exposing your belly. This is the gesture that goes with the traditional greeting "Light shine upon you, friend."

[lurker]

Human beings have long used drinking bowls e.g. kylixes. Why not adapt that? Maybe the bowl shape is just like how we have it, but the handles are different.
Also, second idea: maybe a Yinrih bowl might look more like a spoon or a shell. Fill it up and pour it in.

Yes you are correct. The only real question is whether canine drinking is inherently messy or whether a canine possessing a rational mind would know how to drink without splashing water everywhere. If lapping up liquid requires that rapid motion that ends up flicking water all over the place then drinking vessels would need to be designed to mitigate that.

Your suggestion of having a shallower vessel, which I assume the yinrih lick rather than lap, might also work. Eating is another thing I'll have to tackle at some point. At the very least they won't have a concept of chewing with the mouth closed since I don't think that's possible for canids. I know meat is a huge part of their diet.

[Visions1]

Idea: Each planetary system should have a localized calendar based on the solstices and equinoxes, and "weeks" should go based on that. On the ringed one, there would be a 6-day week (made of two 3-day subweeks). Planets with prime number "weeks" just do subweeks+1 (e.g. 5 day "week" = 2+2+1).

[lurker]

Idea: Each planetary system should have a localized calendar based on the solstices and equinoxes, and "weeks" should go based on that. On the ringed one, there would be a 6-day week (made of two 3-day subweeks). Planets with prime number "weeks" just do subweeks+1 (e.g. 5 day "week" = 2+2+1).

I think I'll go with a 12 day "week" and four quarters (seasons).

Something I just realized today is that, if everybody has a different torpor cycle, it would be hard to organize meetings, classes, gatherings etc. in such a way that all relevant people could be there, with the likelihood of somebody's torpor cycle conflicting with it rising as the size of the gathering grows.

This sounds like a similar problem to monochronic vs polychronic cultures. Comparing the US and Mexico, The US is a monochronic culture while Mexico is a polychronic culture. Monochronic boils down to putting an emphasis on exact time and punctuality. If a meeting starts at 10:30, you better be there by 10:25 at the very very latest, and much earlier if you're the host. "Early is on time and on time is late" is a good summary.

Polychronic cultures like Mexico put much less emphasis on punctuality. If a function is scheduled for 10:30, people may not start wandering in until 10:45 or later. Each of the two cultures has their own stereotypes of the other. Americans think Mexicans are lazy and Mexicans think Americans are slaves to the clock. Just look at This Video for a good example.

Anyway, here are some possible solutions:

1. If the community is small enough, have everyone synchronize their torpor cycles. One of the defining factors of what makes a cohesive yinrih community might be synchronized torpor cycles, but adjacent communities may not be in sync with each other.

2. There are four 3-day "weekends" per 12-day week. When attending a school or getting a job, you pick one of these 4 slots as your individual weekend. You go into torpor for the first day and spend the remaining two days doing regular weekend stuff. Individual families might have synchronized cycles even if the larger community doesn't. Pious yinrih would probably use one of these days to attend their weekly liturgy.

3. Speaking of liturgies, perhaps in communities that are both small and pious you might have the whole community synched to the cleric's torpor cycle so everyone can attend the same liturgy. This would make the lighthouse the center of community activity.

I'm also thinking there will be a separate timekeeping method that's universal across Focus. It's inspired by the Unix epoch, which is the number of seconds since midnight on January 1st 1970. In the case of the yinrih it would be measured from the founding of the first permanent off-world colony, which would be about ~95,000 earth years before First Contact.

[lurker]

While yinrih can't talk very loud due to how their vocal tract works, they can produce some vocalizations as loud as terran canids their size. In particular, they howl. They can't modulate their voice to form words while doing it, but they can vary the pitch and volume of the howl, and this fills the social role that singing does for humans. It is, however, possible that they had something analogous to a whistled language involving howls, since timing, volume, and pitch are three out of the four features needed to distinguish vowels. However, this would have existed for the briefest of periods in yinrih history, as they were already a space-faring civilization 5 thousand years after gaining sapience, which is 95 thousand years before First Contact, and still during the time our own species was confined to Africa.

A yinrih feels a compulsion to join in a howl in the same way yawning is contagious for humans. There's a rich tradition of hymnody in the liturgies of the Bright Way that incorporates polyphonic howling. Unfortunately, yinrih can also be tone-deaf, so not every choir sounds like the lupine angels one would hope for. Since they can't put words to a melody, "lyrics" are realized as a chorus reciting words at intervals between sections of howls. Much like the howled language mentioned above, there would have been a period very early in yinrih history where their lighthouses (temples) would be built much like medieval cathedrals, in both cases to squeeze every last bit of acoustic energy out of the unaided voice. But again, since they reached a 21st century equivalent level of technology ninety five thousand years ago, both the howling language and the more gothic-styled architecture would be barely remembered even by interested academics by the time the yinrih show up on Earth.

---

On a bit of a meta note, I'm beginning to worry that I've bitten off more than I can chew with the timespan of this project. I picked a hundred thousand years ago as the point the yinrih evolve their written language because that's the date I see come up when the first modern humans show up in the archeological record. The idea is that they've been around only as long as we have, but their innate ability to write has given them a huge leg up. But a hundred thousand years is a long time, even for a species that lives to be over 700.

[Visions1]

In some human languages, music can be used to convey speech. In Hmong, words are regularly covered into music (since the language is highly based on tone), and this is a central part of their religion.
Here's someone explaining it. (Don't worry about visuals - the explanation and music are representative and full). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW43A_faXX8

On a bit of a meta note, I'm beginning to worry that I've bitten off more than I can chew with the timespan of this project. I picked a hundred thousand years ago as the point the yinrih evolve their written language because that's the date I see come up when the first modern humans show up in the archeological record. The idea is that they've been around only as long as we have, but their innate ability to write has given them a huge leg up. But a hundred thousand years is a long time, even for a species that lives to be over 700.

I'd probably say it's even with people. 100k for 700 years seems about right for the amount of time we've been doing stuff properly (10k for 70 years)
And that's to say nothing about "prehistory" (100k years) where Humans flopped around for a while before doing much, and because of their migrations some languages and cultural practices landed up in certain places instead of others.

[lurker]

I'd probably say it's even with people. 100k for 700 years seems about right for the amount of time we've been doing stuff properly (10k for 70 years)
And that's to say nothing about "prehistory" (100k years) where Humans flopped around for a while before doing much, and because of their migrations some languages and cultural practices landed up in certain places instead of others.

The progression is all over the place right now. The Great Commandment is supposed to occur within the lifetime of the first truly sapient yinrih, so at most a few hundred years after the first evidence of written language.

I give 5K years between sapience and spaceflight because it took us about that long after we started writing, but it might take longer for a longer-lived species. I still don't know how long it would take them from the first manned (or yinrih'd) orbital flight to the first permanent off-world colony.

I originally pegged their ascension to Kardashev II status at around the neolithic revolution on Earth, but I didn't realize at the time that that was comparatively recent. I thought we started agriculture around 30K years ago or so. So now I'm thinking it happened around the time the neanderthals went extinct.

[Visions1]

Mark Rosenfelder in his Incatena universe mentions that if people live longer, then change will happen slower, do to people with greater age holding on to their high positions in society longer. Plus, you know, social conservatism. So it could be that for all their quick advances, they change slower in some ways than others - meaning, fewer schisms, but fact tech development.

[lurker]

Mark Rosenfelder in his Incatena universe mentions that if people live longer, then change will happen slower, do to people with greater age holding on to their high positions in society longer. Plus, you know, social conservatism. So it could be that for all their quick advances, they change slower in some ways than others - meaning, fewer schisms, but fact tech development.

hmmm I like that. It might also give me an out regarding why some thing seem to remain static for dozens of millennia. In particular, yinrih gender roles are fairly static, although they don't quite align to what a modern human would consider traditional, the all-female clergy, and all-male military, for example. Traditionally, politics and medicine were also gender-locked to male and female, respectively, although unlike the clergy and military there's some intermingling by the time of First Contact.

It's possible the male-dominated political sphere is a result of the ouster of the clergy from holding secular power. It's also possible that only veterans can hold political office (a la Starship Troopers) with the same justification given by its proponents, that the only ones that should be allowed to declare war are those who have seen what war really means.

[Visions1]

You could always make it that the interplay between male and female roles is complex and intertwined, which provides checks and balances on each group . For example, the rights exclusively given to each gender in the Iriquois Great Peace, or the current sociology of the Jews I was learning Yiddish from (the "Black hat" ones). I think that if changes were to happen somewhere over the years, it would be in the complex interplay between the groups. Not that they over time lose roles, but that the exact modalities shift in subtle ways.

the only ones that should be allowed to declare war are those who have seen what war really means.

It's a beautiful saying - maybe not in practice to whatever degree, but at least in theory...

[lurker]

It's a beautiful saying - maybe not in practice to whatever degree, but at least in theory...

That was an... interesting book. It was recommended to me when I asked about non-Japanese mech media on the Mecha subreddit. I loves me some giant robots, but I'm not into anime. The book is often cited as the originator of the powered armor concept in sci-fi, and by extension, mechs. There isn't a ton of action in the book; it's mostly about the main character climbing through the ranks.

It did give me some ideas about the yinrih's own powered armor. In particular the use of tongue-actuated switches in the helmet, which are all the more important for a species that can't easily manipulate objects while in motion.

Yinrih powered armor, or at least the stuff the Allied Worlds Peacekeepers use, is more a flexible suit of artificial musculature with some hardpoints on it. It doesn't look terribly imposing, at least to a human.

[thethief3]

Human beings have long used drinking bowls e.g. kylixes. Why not adapt that? Maybe the bowl shape is just like how we have it, but the handles are different.
Also, second idea: maybe a Yinrih bowl might look more like a spoon or a shell. Fill it up and pour it in.

Yes you are correct. The only real question is whether canine drinking is inherently messy or whether a canine possessing a rational mind would know how to drink without splashing water everywhere. If lapping up liquid requires that rapid motion that ends up flicking water all over the place then drinking vessels would need to be designed to mitigate that.

Your suggestion of having a shallower vessel, which I assume the yinrih lick rather than lap, might also work. Eating is another thing I'll have to tackle at some point. At the very least they won't have a concept of chewing with the mouth closed since I don't think that's possible for canids. I know meat is a huge part of their diet.

I'd imagine canines with opposable thumbs could just drink out of a bowl/cup like humans do.

[lurker]

I'd imagine canines with opposable thumbs could just drink out of a bowl/cup like humans do.

The lips and muzzle would make drinking from a cup pretty hard. At the very least they'd need a bowl rather than a cup. For now I'll assume they can drink in such a way that they're not flicking water everywhere, so the flange I mentioned in the image would be unnecessary.

[lurker]

A helmet used with yinrih powered armor. A few things to note:

There are ear guards. While this sacrifices some of the ears' motility it keeps them from getting damaged. Note the colored chevrons on the back of the ear guards. These aren't present when concealment is necessary. They're reflective and fluorescent, and they help identify individuals when working in law enforcement or peacekeeping.

Speaking of identification, the helmet looks gray, but it's actually brightly colored in a hue below the human visible range. Again, it's there to increase visibility, like a safety vest.

There are air filter inlets along the muzzle. Air is actively filtered from the environment normally, but they can be closed and air can be supplied by reserve tanks. However, this robs the wearer of vital olfactory information.

On the inside of the mouthpiece there are tongue-actuated switches and a hydration line that uses a sipper valve. The hydration line can be fed by taking in ambient water vapor. Some of the water goes to the hydration line, some is used as coolant, and some is electrolytically separated, with the hydrogen used for fusion reactor fuel and the oxygen either exhausted into the air or used to fill the emergency tanks mentioned above.

At the nape of the neck there is an umbilical port that attaches the spine of the torso jacket, possibly via magnets. One of the criteria for the design of the armor is that it has to be able to be donned without assistance. The umbilical is attached by tossing the head back so the port makes contact with the terminating end of the cable bundle running along the spine. The bundle carries power, water, data, and emergency air.

The HUD visor displays relevant data in an unobtrusive manner. In particular, it can show a video feed from the two drone capsules stored on either side of the spine. When deployed, the drones hover near the operator. They can be used as gun turrets, allowing the wearer to run 'n gun despite the yinrih's lack of dedicated grasping appendages.

There are also sensors in the helmet that use patterns of eye blinks, complimenting the tongue actuated switches and allowing even more paws-free input.

[Arayaz]

Speaking of identification, the helmet looks gray, but it's actually brightly colored in a hue below the human visible range. Again, it's there to increase visibility, like a safety vest.

Below = infrared or ultraviolet?