The Song of the Jubilee (The Phantom of the Earth Book 1)
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BENARI COIN: A benari coin is made of a proprietary blend of synthetic silver, gold, and platinum. They are 2.1 millimeters thick with a circumference of 8.3 centimeters and weigh 8.2 grams. They are used primarily as a means to support the shadow economy of the Great Commonwealth, which Chancellor Masimovian believes contributes to law and order in the underground. They also provide a means to alter the money supply physically—all benari currency is backed by the RDD’s supply of synthetic resources.
BIOMAT: A biomat suit is used by anyone approved for a surface excursion on Earth. The inner layers are synthetically designed at the microscopic level to mimic the Venusian surface, one of the deadliest places for life known to man. Early iterations of biomats protected against exposure to the Reassortment Strain 70 percent of the time; later iterations achieved percentages as high as 95. Breaches have never been understood.
BIOSTAR: a synism capable of synthesizing or manipulating minerals and metals via biologically mediated nuclear processes.
C
CENTRAL COMMAND: Candor Chasma on Mars is home to Central Command, Beimeni’s largest extraterrestrial research site in the solar system. Vastar Alalia once suggested to Chancellor Masimovian that he begin a new colony on Mars, but the chancellor refused, wishing instead to return to the Earth’s surface or travel to an Earth-like exoplanet.
CEREBRAL CORE: the domed, spherical room that contains Marstone.
CEREBRAL NETWORK: transhuman brain impulses scattered throughout the ZPF, stored within Marstone.
CHIRALITY: also called handedness, the aspect of a structure or property, such as the configuration of a molecule or the spin of a particle, that renders that structure or property distinguishable from its mirror image or symmetrical opposite.
COLLAPSE OF THE WAVEFUNCTION: an actual event results not by an evolving wavefunction, but by the collapse of the wavefunction by observation. For instance, a particle such as a photon doesn’t exist in space-time; photons carry light in tiny packets, but they also behave like waves, which extend in all directions, forming the electromagnetic field that spans the universe. There’s a probability of finding a photon anywhere in the field, but as soon as you do, the probability is no longer necessary; the act of observing has transformed the wave into a particle. That a particle can exist in an invisible state suggests that prior to the Big Bang the universe contained all possible probabilities; when the wavefunction collapses, there’s a subject-object split whereby the invisible particle comes into existence; prior to the subject-object split, reality is an infinite one. (See quantum probability.)
COMB COVE: the strategic expedition (strike) team headquarters, which opened in 207 AR; decommissioned by Chancellor Masimovian in 273 AR.
COMMONWEALTH CARD: identification cards issued to all Beimenians upon entering development; contains the commonwealth security number; connects to the Beimenian banking system. (See commonwealth security number.)
COMMONWEALTH LIAISON: a chief spy in the commonwealth who acts on behalf of the Liberation Front.
COMMONWEALTH MISSION: an official mission sanctioned by the Office of the Chancellor; typically conducted by the strike teams and in agreement with the ministry, the board, and a majority vote by the strike teams.
COMMONWEALTH SECURITY NUMBER: the nine-digit identification number given to all citizens registered within Marstone’s Database.
CONSORTIUM: a combination of institutions, private and/or government, designed to foster economic profitability and conversion.
CONVERSE COLLAR: the technology used by the commonwealth to suppress the transhuman connection to the ZPF.
CONVERSION: a discovery.
COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISORS: the advisory board consisting of thirty-one members who aid the chancellor in making economic decisions for the greater good of the people of the Great Commonwealth; led by a chairperson and vice chairperson.
COURIER OF THE CHANCELLOR: youths who, while mentored in houses of development, grow into transhuman adults naturally, over the course of twenty years. They serve the commonwealth in the Office of the Chancellor. A common role is to issue the Warning Communiqué. (See Warning Communiqué.)
CRISPR SYSTEM: also called the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats system; commonly used to edit genomes.
CRYO ROOM: the facility where the commonwealth stored the Livellan scientists held near absolute zero; decommissioned in 327 AR by Captain Broden Barão following the deaths of 334 scientists during a failed Regenesis procedure. (See Regenesis procedure.)
CRYPTOR: a diamond shard filled with a bacterium, E. cryptor, a DNA-based storage system. DNA, as a very stable nanomolecule, is an ideal massive storage device for long-term data archiving. Multiple uses during the Age of Masimovian, though the two most common include: by Janzers to perform crowd control in Fountain Square, and by the Liberation Front to send ciphered messages through the underground.
D
DARK AGE, THE: the time frame from early days of the Livelle Laboratory, After Reassortment, until the inauguration of Chancellor Atticus Masimovian in 168 AR; was an age plagued by structural collapses, Reassortment scares, and chaotic descent further underground.
DEATH WAVE: the climax of the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly (extinction event) at the end of the Quaternary Period, which killed more than twenty-five billion transhumans.
DECISION DECREE: any edict issued by the chief justice on behalf of the Office of the Judiciary and/or the Office of the Chancellor.
DELPHI: also called Her Lady of Lux, a physical recreation of the Twin Gods of the Cosmos in a place inside Earth where the transhuman connection to the cosmos is the strongest. (See Twin Gods of the Cosmos.)
DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC ACID: also called DNA; composed of two strands that twist together to form a helix. Each strand consists of alternating phosphate and pentose sugar and attached on the sugar is a nitrogenous base, which can be adenine, thymine, guanine, or cytosine.
DEVELOPED LIFE: the theoretically infinite life span of a transhuman after they complete development; for instance, a candidate developed in the year 335 AR might’ve reached adulthood in five hundred fifty days; her life thereafter is referred to as her developed life.
DEVELOPER: person responsible for developing transhumans, and since 176 AR, preparing candidates for the Harpoon Exams, typically by utilizing the CRISPR system, recombinases, and the ZPF in order to alter (and improve) the transhuman genome.
DEVELOPMENT: the time from when a transhuman is born to adulthood. The timeline varied depending upon available technology and rules and regulations. For instance, Before Reassortment neither the Western nor Eastern Hegemonies allowed for pregnancy duration to fall below two hundred forty days. Nor did they allow growth acceleration to adulthood in fewer than fifteen years. Population control was the most cited reasoning for these policies. Traditional development procedures, halted by Chancellor Livelle, resumed full operation via traditional houses of development in 15 AR. Unlike Livelle city-state’s leaders, Chancellor Masimovian has encouraged RDD scientists and developers to push the limits of growth acceleration and human genome enhancement. As a result, development is also the time when transhumans are improved genetically and trained in the ways of a Beimenian, including immersion in its culture, history, laws, language, government, technology, and aspirational goals. Development timelines vary depending on the house, the candidate, and available technology. Registered citizens-in-development weren’t referred to as Harpoon candidates until 176 AR, with the first Harpoon Auction administered in 186 AR.
Pregnancy and Development Timelines
*Low and high ranges are approximations; there are exceptions.
**Data from 368 AR to 370 AR is estimated.
Source: Office of the Chancellor.
DREAM FOREST: a synthetic forest on top of Hammerton Hall.
E
EASTERN HEGEMONY: the People’s Republic of China and its allies during the Second Hundred Years’ War.
ELDERS, T
HE: skilled telepaths who detected and contained the zeropoint attack on Livelle Laboratory at the end of the Second Hundred Years’ War, but not before the data regarding the Reassortment Strain was destroyed. They were also the first transhumans to conclude no one outside Livelle Laboratory had survived the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly. Additionally, the Elders helped Noriel Livelle, the first chancellor of the Livelle city-state, create the strategic expedition (strike) teams of the underground. Their order was disbanded by Chancellor Atticus Masimovian in 168 AR.
ETERNAL PARTNER: a husband or wife, coined during the Age of Masimovian; a legal bond between transhumans of any sex; surnames remain the same. A misnomer given that (1) transhumans die from several causes, including suffocation (owing to structural collapses), starvation (primarily in the lesser territories), and Reassortment exposure; and (2) divorce isn’t uncommon. (See lesser territories.)
EVOLUTIONARY WAR: sometimes called a forever war; the multidecade struggle between the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni and the Liberation Front.
EXILE: refers to a former citizen of the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni who lives in the Lower Level.
EXOPLANET: a planet that orbits a star outside the solar system.
EXOTIC MATTER: mass/energy that violates the weak energy condition, which states that all observers in space-time must see the local energy density (the energy per unit volume) to be nonnegative; has a repulsive gravitational effect on ordinary matter; makes possible schemes for faster-than-light (FTL) travel.
EXTREMOPHILE: an organism tolerant to environmental extremes and that has evolved to grow optimally under one or several extreme conditions.
F
FARINO PRISON: the commonwealth’s primary holding area for enemies of the state, and other equally dangerous criminals in the underground. As of 367 AR, there have been fifty-seven escape attempts without success.
FEVER, THE: the method to enhance the transhuman genome used during the Dark Age and the beginning of the Age of Masimovian. Infection from E. evolution led to a raised temperature, sometimes in excess of 60 degrees centigrade, its primary symptom. Other symptoms include muscle aches, tremors, runny nose, nausea, hallucinations, and in extreme cases, organ failure and death.
FIRST AERA, THE: the moniker given to the woman born Aerith Lazarus. She was the last descendant of the Lazarus family and the first woman to complete the striker training program. Government records suggest she perished during an escape from quarantine in the City of Eternal Darkness. (See strike team aera.)
FORMATION DOCUMENT OF THE UNDERGROUND: also called the Formation; the historical constitution written by the founders of the Livelle city-state after the fall of humanity on the Earth’s surface.
FOUNDERS, THE: scientists bunkered in Livelle Laboratory who survived the Death Wave and wrote the Formation document to govern the Livelle city-state, including the portion of the laboratory surrounded by a village. The founders included: Noriel Livelle, Ruslan Masimovian, Gayle Rupel, Ula Decca, Oceana Variscan, Qays Thuddan, Marc Lazarus, Aquarius Nexirenna, Zelimir Marsellessa, Cael Phanes, and Pisces Lochkafka, among others.
FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH: (See Fountain Square.)
FOUNTAIN SQUARE: the southern square in Beimeni City; contains the Athanasia Pool, Fountain Temple, and Fountain of Youth. All architecture in the square is designed to deliver the synthetic organisms that reverse the effects of aging on transhuman cells, enabling a theoretically infinite life span. The square and its components were designed by the Priabonian Consortium of artists, holographers, scientists, and engineers from 168–192 AR and constructed in Beimeni City in 197 AR.
FOUNTAIN TEMPLE: (See Fountain Square.)
G
GEMINI, THE: or Neanderthal Man, synthesized by the supreme scientist Damosel Rhea and her team of scientists in the Nicola Facility for Project Gemini. They are created with the Neanderthal’s genetic materials and transhuman DNA, reverse engineered from modern transhumans with 99.9995 percent accuracy.
GENESIS SILOS: the silos in the Research & Development Department (RDD) that contain synisms, which create all the raw materials humanity requires to survive, including, but not limited to, soils, minerals, alloys, plastics, and textiles, among others. (Note: Most of the Earth’s readily accessible raw materials were depleted prior to the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly, which historians believe contributed to the Second Hundred Years’ War.)
GRAKA TRAINING BOT: also called Grakas. These synbots are highly skilled with martial arts; were used by the commander Vastar Alalia to test the strength of his strikers, a tradition that continued after his death in 273 AR.
GRANVILLE CROWN: a training program transmitted to underdeveloped transhumans designed to ease their connection to Granville syntech. (See Granville syntech.)
GRANVILLE PANEL: (See Granville syntech.)
GRANVILLE SCROLL: (See Granville syntech.)
GRANVILLE SPHERE: (See Granville syntech.)
GRANVILLE SYNTECH: illusory technology developed by the supreme scientist Ninara Granville; contains synisms that influence transhuman senses via the ZPF, creating illusory worlds. The holographic imagery is typically projected from sky panels, unit panels, scrolls, and spheres made of graphene.
GRAPHENE: a single sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal honeycomb pattern. It’s as stiff as diamond and hundreds of times stronger than steel, yet it is also flexible and stretchable. (See Granville syntech.)
GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF BEIMENI: the name chosen by Atticus Masimovian for humanity’s territory underground. When asked why, he famously told his brother-in-development, Jeremiah Selendia: “An infinite life span is not a myth. Before the war, before the Atmospheric Anomaly, they were close, so close to achieving the apex of human evolution, and with your help, I know we’ll finish our ancestors’ work here, and together, ageless and fearless, we’ll lead the people back to the Earth’s surface.”
GREAT COURT OF BEIMENI: the highest court in the Great Commonwealth; a panel of nine judges including a chief justice; men and women are eligible for entry; responsible for interpreting the law as designated by the Office of the Chancellor; hosts hearings for Beimenians in all felony cases where exile to the Lower Level is a possible sentence. It is considered a great honor to give up one’s immortality and be named to the Great Court from a lower court in the cities; Chancellor Masimovian believes that only citizens who’ve given up their immortality can impartially decide whether to take that right away from a fellow Beimenian.
GREAT REASSORTMENT PANIC OF 165 AR: the last panic of the Dark Age, which forced humanity to terraform the Beimeni zone of the underground. It is considered a primary contributor to the rise of Chancellor Masimovian.
GREGORIAN CALENDAR: refers to the legacy timetable prior to the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly, which included days, weeks, months, seasons, and years, sometimes followed by the abbreviations AD or A.D. (anno Domini) or BC or B.C. (before Christ). This calendar era is based on the traditionally recognized year of the conception or birth of Jesus of Nazareth, with AD counting the years from the start of this epoch and BC denoting the years before the start of the era.
H
HAMMERTON HALL: an entertainment venue designed by architect Wilhelm Vanderslooten in the 200s, dedicated in honor of the hundredth year of Chancellor Masimovian’s rule in the year 268 AR.
HARPOON AUCTION: also called the Auction; an important ceremony in the life of a Beimenian, where consortium representatives or wealthy individuals place bids for Harpoon candidates. The valuations for the candidates are determined by the traders who work in Navita City, and while the bids are typically based, in part, on these valuations, the bidders can pay any price they deem worthy for a candidate. In other words, it’s entirely possible for a candidate to “fail” the first half of the exams and still receive a bid if the candidate’s skills in the second half demonstrate a match for a particular consortium or individual.
HARPOON CANDIDATE: a citizen-in-development who prepares for the H
arpoon Exams.
HARPOON CHAMPION: also called the Champion; the title conferred to the Harpoon candidate who receives the first and highest bid during the Harpoon Auction.
HARPOON CLASS: a virtual gathering of candidates from all the thirty territories in the Great Commonwealth for instruction from the Master of the Harpoons. The classes are usually organized in a stadium.
HARPOON DAY: the day of the Harpoon Exams.
HARPOON EXAMS: the life-determining exams given annually from 186–305 AR, bi-annually from 306–335 AR, and tri-annually since 336 AR. They consist of two six-hour sessions, with the first half being a holographic vignette and multiple-choice format designed to test language, math, and science skills, and with the second half being a virtual reality format designed to test critical thinking, telepathic, interpersonal, and physical skills.
HARPOON HAMLET: the village where Harpoon candidates dwell prior to the Harpoon Auction.
HARPOON HARNESS: the harness designed to connect a candidate to Harpoon Virtual Reality (VR). (See Harpoon Virtual Reality.)
HARPOON INSIGNIA: three interlocked bronze circles, three interlocked golden triangles, and three silver harpoons overlapped by a phoenix feather.
HARPOON STADIUM: the location of the Harpoon Auction; the stands can be adjusted to fit twenty-five million candidates.
HARPOON VIRTUAL REALITY: also called Harpoon VR; the interface where candidates interact in training and instructional simulations with their developers or with each other during classes or social gatherings.
HELPERS OF THE LEADERSHIP: children in the employ of the Leadership. (See Leadership Council, the.)
HOLO-PRODUCER: can refer to a professional artist skilled in capturing events in the ZPF in holographic form or in using synisms to transmit visuals to the transhuman brain.