Worldbuilding Omega-2024
Greetings and suffibulum! You know, some sacrifices have to be made, and of course virgins are the best. Anyway, virgins ignored and silenced, last post of the year, and like last year, that means an evaluation post with a little surprise at the end. What is it? You will see then!
Evaluation
(Vivian:) Let us start with the evaluation: have I been a good girl this year? Comment below what Anne’s and my grades are! It has honestly been a very rough year for me, but I am proud overall that the posts did keep coming anyway, so be kind to me!
What I loved the most
(Vivian:) The post I loved the most is, suprise suprise from the mathematician, the post on mathematics and worldbuilding this year. It is honestly not because it is particularly deep when it comes to the mathematics; no no no, it is woefully inadequate for that. I could write dissertations on it and will do more blogposts eventually on all parts of mathematics for people to use.
No, I loved it, and am proud of it, primarily because I feel it is relatively simple in what it contains, but at the same time, incredibly powerful for worldbuilders and writers alike. With a small set of simple rules and calculations, you can solve what I think are well over 90% of all calculations you will ever need.
And by doing those calculations, you will not look like an idiot like a certain rowing author. Sure, the story is most important, but just a little calculation that takes, what, 60 seconds now?, and you can get it exactly to what you want with my 4 rules, and it is good enough. What about you, my dear sister?
(Anne:) I think my favorite post was determined from week 1 when we did REVOLUTION! As fans of Stellima might know by now, I’m a fan of revolution, and you can often hear me chanting in the background of Vivian’s posts. Zhir post on it was excellent, though that’s par for the course with a Limax as stunning as Vivian!
I will add that what I loved writing the most was my post about news, as I love news and all of its possibilities. I was writer, editor, then co-editor in chief of my college’s student newspaper, and I quickly developed a lot of respect for the genre even as I realized I prefer getting to add a little magic to what I write. I hope to combine my love of news with some scifi/fantasy elements in the future, possibly even on this site! Will it happen this year? Maybe! Maybe not. Stick around to find out!
What I learned the most from
(Vivian:) While the news one did teach me a lot, I think for what I learned the most about, I will have to take a different post of the year. I will actually pick the genre blogpost of the year for the one that taught me the most. Yeah, I kind of knew already all of that, but having to sit down and think about it taught me a lot.
Namely, what promises does a genre actually make, and how is it evolving? This includes, for scifi, the whole beast of what novum is. Read the post to figure that one out! But it was really trying to figure all that out, especially with some genres I am less experienced with. What about you, Anne?
(Anne:) Well, you might not have picked my favorite for you learned the most about, but I’m picking yours! I am… not a math person. Not that I can’t do math, I just never enjoyed it. Until I met a certain Swedish Limax who actually explained it in a way that made sense. I think part of the inspiration for the mathing blogpost was the number of times I’ve asked Vivian to math something for me, and zhi probably got annoyed and wrote a whole blogpost explaining the basics so that I could do it myself. (Spoiler: I still ask).
I will add on to the genres recommendation though, since I also learned a lot from that post, and also had a friendly argument on what exactly cyberpunk entails. You can see a bit of our squabble in the post, and I still maintain that unless there’s anti-establishment punkishness, it ain’t cyberpunk!
(Vivian:) Cyberpunk I agree is the most conservative of all the punkpunks, but given the explosion of punks, I stand by that it has mostly become an aesthetic!
What I look forward to expanding
(Vivian:) Now, now, what do I look forward to expanding? Well, Biology is always fun, especially with practicums. Same with economics given how much it actually affects societies and what they do and such, but I think for this year to come, I hope to expand on actual ruling methods.
We have all kinds of -cracies to deal with, and I hope that 2025 will be the -cracy year for my blog 😊 But we will see how I do that. It is fascinating in the many ways a society can organise itself and decide who rules and what implications it has for the society. Anne?
(Anne:) I’ve introduced a lot of basic topics over the past two years, and I’m looking forward to getting into some more specifics. One thing I hope to do is get into more depth on either point of view or dramatic structure. In the initial posts on those, I jammed like a million things into a single post to give an overview, and I’d like to take more time on each type. I’m not entirely sure which I’ll focus on, and of course I hope to explore new things, too!
My hopes for next year
(Vivian:) My hope is to keep expanding my blog. My life is a bit rough now, but I will continue to strive to keep up with my schedule no matter what, and given everything, I will take that as my humble goal for this year to come. What about you?
(Anne:) Honestly, I second that. My posts started coming a little less frequently towards the end of this year as things piled up, but I’m hoping to get back into the swing of things! And as always, even though you might not believe me, my goal is to write shorter posts. 😅
Practicum: Azhyri
(Vivian:) And as promised! Another species! Well, I didn’t promise this, exactly, but I promised something. I like the idea of having a yearly tradition of doing a copyleft creation that anyone can use.
(Anne:) I agree… This is a great tradition to start!
(Vivian:) So what is it this time?
As always, a different declension for them than English!
Sg: Zhyra
Pl: Azhyri
Adj: Zhyrin
You will regret reading this.
Planetary system
(Vivian:) Anyone who knows me knows I like verisimilitude… but anyone who also knows me also knows that at some points I just go ”eh feck it” and ignore some obvious things because sometimes, the rule of cool/fun is simply too appealing. And this time, we are using it.
So Zhyrte, their planet, is in a binary star system. That means there are 2 stars, let’s call them Alpha and Beta. (Anne: The Azhyri aren’t known for their creative naming 😂 ). Alpha is about 5% bigger than Beta. Alpha and Beta orbit each other, but how does Zhyrte align with it? Well, let's go into how binary systems can organise themselves.
As this image shows, the big dots are the stars, the small blue ones are potential planets. You can have the planet be so far (or stars so close) that the planet doesn’t orbit any specific star but orbits both of them at the same time. This is called a P-type. The other is where the stars are so far apart (or planet so close) that the planet only orbits one of the stars, and then the stars orbit each other. This is called S-type.
For Zhyrte, we are doing S type. It orbits Alpha, and then Alpha and Beta orbit around their common centre of mass. There are about 3 planets orbiting each star in an S-type configuration, then an additional 4 planets in the solar system that have a P-type orbit structure instead. How does it all work? Shut up :D I know this is a very fragile structure, and I don’t care for fun.
Does that mean that Beta might actually have other intelligent life on one of its planets? Maybe…
(Anne:) You’ll learn later that they’re quite the superstitious people… perhaps because of their precarious position? Little omens could have huge consequences!
(Vivian:) A diagram of their system, not to scale or proper, but it illustrates how the system looks, roughly.
Biology
(Vivian:) Definitely a part that I love, so what craziness have Anne and I come with this time? Well, we are doing an insectoid-like one this time around. Anyone who has been around knows I did this for my Ketshutsi blogpost. A major issue with any arthropod–other than their breathing which we assume is ordinary lung-like structures–is that their distinguishing feature is their exoskeleton.
And the issue with exoskeletons is that they scale very poorly due to the square-cube law. That law saws that the volume (and thus weight) grows much faster than the area (which is what gives strength), and when it is plastered all over your body to hold your insides inside, the weight becomes a huge problem.
So, like for the Ketshutsi, the Azhyri will have an endoexoskeleton. Meaning they have both, where the endoskeleton functions to hold them up while a much weakened exoskeleton serves to hold the inside away from the outside and give the insectoid the appearance we want.
(Anne:) As the one creating the art, I’ll talk a little about the actual design of the Azhyri. First, they’re insectoid, as Vivian mentioned above, and that means they have plenty of limbs! Technically, they have two arms and two legs, just like us. However, they also have four upper extremities, two on each side, that are essentially arms except that they’re more flexible in how they bend, and they end in claws, not hands. They have another purpose, too, which I’ll get to soon…
Next, while their endoskeleton is obviously endo, their exoskeleton makes up a large part of their overall appearance. It forms ridged plates along most of their bodies, including their thorax and abdomen. I’ll be referring to their body parts by the names they would be on a human’s body from now on, since that’s a lot easier. They have broad shoulders and chests, but a relatively small waist. Their hips are also wide, and a thick ridge along their hipbone creates a divide between small waist and wide hips. It’s quite fashionable to wear clothes that draw attention to this ridge!
They have five fingers (four fingers and one thumb) on each hand, but only two large toes. On their chins, two mandibles protrude that are now vestigial. Their teeth are fangs, which makes it easier to pierce and slurp their prey. But I’ll get to that in a second. Their heads are relatively small in comparison to the rest of their bodies, but we never said they were the brightest bugs in the night sky!
From a distance, it appears that they have large eyes covering a large portion of their heads, but in reality, this is just a bit of mimicry. Their eyes are about the same proportion as ours, and they have similar vision except that they can also see ultraviolet wavelengths. This means that to each other, they look quite a bit different than they do to us. To us, their skin is a mottled color ranging from green to brown with heavy gold undertones. Their eye color has a similar range, but interestingly enough, it’s extremely rare for it to be similar to their skin color, so someone with browner skin would likely have green eyes. Lately, fashion emphasizes lips and their eyes, using makeup similar to ours. However, it’s highly gendered.
They stand about 190cm, or about 6’3”, and weigh in at an average of 100kg, or about 220lb. While there is of course individual variation in both, it’s less than exists in humans. (In case you were wondering where I got those numbers from, I got them with help from the mathing blogpost! Isn’t it handy?)
And since we’re going all out with various insect options for the Azhyri, we’re also going to give these wonderful people external digestion! What does that mean? Well, they inject digestive juices into their prey using their four upper extremities, let that settle in for a bit, and then they slurp the digested nutrients out! Delicious!
(Vivian:) A wonderfully disturbing date night to be had… that is for Anne to discuss later 😀
Males
(Vivian:) Males are the most important! Not like females are generally the bottleneck in any generation in how many can come about for the next generation, right? Yeah! Anyway, as males are clearly the most important for society and reproduction, in this species they…
DO NOT EXIST! :D This species lost males a long time ago and doesn't have them anymore. That made this segment really short.
Females
(Vivian:) So with that, females, and women, or, in my own vocabulary that I use to be more generic, virphonts, are the only players in this species game. How these get around the obvious reproductive issue, I will go into in the next section.
But anyone who knows me knows that I love the humanoid form. Sure, it might be the product of budget constraints in Star Trek, but I just love it, and I love making my species… coitusable for humans. So these ones still have a semi-sexy look to them so people can enjoy them. It is actually a mystery in my own universe why this is the case, and no one has the answer.
(Anne:) Truly a mystery!
Reproduction
(Vivian:) Reproduction… and Vivian, go hand in hand :D Which is funny, given I am asexual. Anyway, of course we are going weird here. No, we are not doing “traumatic insemination,” which is difficult to do when MALES are lacking!
(Anne:) The Azhyri are gruesome in many ways, but not that gruesome!
(Vivian:) No, with all females, we are doing what is called parthenogenesis. It is a very fancy word that means virgin births. This is a method of asexual reproduction. Being asexual is a very precarious position to find yourself in evolutionarily when your reproduction isn’t at least once every hour. How does it work? Shut up, that is how!
Alright, we are boosting their immune system to compensate for this. How? That is not for this post, but they have one hell of an immune system!
That is all, right? Oh you sweet innocent reader, no. They also have extendable ovipositories, a tube to lay eggs into things… or creatures. Yes, we are going down the wasp route where Azhuri lay their eggs in living creatures, the egg hatches, and then eats the inside of the still living creature. Once the larvae–which are not sophont yet, Azhuri larvae are not sophont–have consumed enough, they undergo metamorphosis in a cocoon and emerge looking more like what you humans would recognise as a baby. This child is now sophont and just as capable as any, but needs to be raised like a human baby.
Society
(Vivian:) Their society is of course quite different from ours. One big thing is that the concept of sexism doesn’t exist. They find the entire thing with males extremely strange and peculiar; what purpose do they serve? Sure, some animals and plants and the like use something like males, but why would a sophont species use it? One of life's great mysteries, what males are used for when you can do parthenogenesis…
Anyway, the answer is the Red Queen principle: a species cannot stand still evolutionary but has to move, aka have diversity that changes, evolves, in order to protect itself from microorganisms. Another important aspect in their society is that they do have a favourite species to put their eggs into that they have domesticated. They have literal farms that grow these creatures en masse so that parents, or parent, can just go and buy one relatively cheap.
(Anne:) This also helps for those Azhyri too squeamish to go out and hunt a critter who will inevitably be eaten alive by their offspring…
Religion
(Anne:) The Azhyri are nothing if not superstitious! They see omens in everything, and their religion reflects that. Or rather, religions. A variety of faiths have come and gone, but none last anywhere near as long as some religions on Earth have lasted because the Azhyri don’t have the same kind of blind faith that lets human believers see everything as proof of their deity’s greatness. They tend to do the opposite and see little flaws and errors as evidence of a deity’s weakness, and if they think another faith will serve them better, they’ll jump ship.
(Vivian:) It is the internet fad of faiths. Another thing to add is that they are very much superstitious in the most banal things as well. If you have ever had a friend freak out over a ”bad luck event” or the likes… that is what a Zhyra is like on a daily basis, and this can differ from family to family.
(Anne:) There’s also quite a bit of individual variation, as I’ll talk about later, and as time and scientific knowledge progress, people are slowly moving away from superstition… about as fast as humans are moving away from religions.
Government
(Vivian:) For their government, we are going a bit traditional that fits with their superstition. Everyone loves nobility, so let’s have them have that. But let’s use the mandate of heaven concept which can be roughly summerised as you lose the mandate to rule, that is, the legitimacy to rule, if the heavens (nature) shows disfavour.
Normally, any kind of nobility has the major issue of you getting stuck with idiots at the top, and worse still, inbred idiots with malformations for faces. Well, the inbred part won’t be an issue because they essentially clone themselves anyway, so no worries there. But you still have the issue of idiots popping up because they are socially isolated and start to only care about themselves and their power.
That is where their superstition and mandate of heaven comes from. Because the Azhyri are so sensitive to anything that might be considered an omen, a noble family of any level rarely lasts a long time. A title being passed down 2 generations is considered a long time for these people.
That is because anything that happens can cause a public avalanche of perception change. Imagine a bad storm causes a minor failure of harvest. People have now seen one bad omen, and confirmation bias is a thing, so they look for more omens, and find them of course, and then the nobility is ousted, and someone new gets to take the place. While your politicians have to do things to get voted in, the Azhyri have to do a lot to stay in power, and most of it is even beyond their control.
(Anne:) It does happen that major disasters on Earth get pinned to politicians who are then voted out of office, but that is by no means always the case, and for the Azhyri, it can be major disasters or just a bunch of little things going wrong. They’re a fickle people.
(Vivian:) This applies to all levels of governance, from the local lady to the queen or empress. It usually requires larger events to topple you from power the higher up you are in their hierarchy, but you never quite know what will remove you from power.
So what does the nobility do? In all honesty, same as any state worker. Trying to maintain what is and make sure it works. Unlike many here, they have to think on contingencies on every project to make sure it goes as it should, as any failure, no matter how small, can cost them their position. So while they are nobility in one way, they are also state employees voted in in another, despite not being a formal democracy.
Family
(Vivian:) While many might think with this that there is no need for family units as family units are primarily for reproduction and you can poop out a baby all on your own here, you’d be sorely mistaken.
Raising a sophont from stupidhood to adulthood is a massive amount of work that is extremely difficult for any lone individual to take on. Ask any single parent and they will tell you, it is exhausting. I have colleagues and friends who are parents, and they are not alone, and it is still exhausting for them because kids are so stupid.
So the Azhuri still form family units and couple up. They have a much easier time with polyamory because there is no issue with sexualities or the likes, but most still settle for a couple. Anyone who has more than one friend knows how difficult it is to get 3 friends to agree on anything, and even more so if more join the party.
The thing is also that sex definitely feels good still; they have the whole orifice and equipment for pleasure because their ancestors had the whole shebang of males also, so of course they wanna do it with someone else occasionally, too. And in fact, that isn’t JUST for pleasure; engaging in sexual activities actually helps stimulate their reproduction and even helps stimulate processes that makes the offspring better off, a lot of which is related to their ways to deal with pathogens.
So they still do couples. Again, while I definitely do love lots of variety, having it somewhat relatable to human experience I think makes it more interesting. A mix of old and new.
(Anne:) You probably remember that they inject larvae into a living creature, the larvae eat their fill, cocoon up, then emerge as babies, right? Honestly, how could you forget? Well, the parent will keep an eye on the creature and when the larvae are cocoons, they’ll collect the cocoons and bring them somewhere safe. While females used to lay larger numbers of larvae who then competed and only a few emerged, now they lay fewer, and almost all survive. Most of the time, it’s 2-3 who make it to the cocoon stage, and couples will time their reproduction so that the two mothers aren’t overwhelmed.
Queerness
(Vivian:) As an incredibly queer person myself, and even back when I thought I wasn’t 🙄, I always find the question of queerness interesting in any new way. I won’t name any names, Steven, but one thing I have never liked is when people put human standards on aliens, and as I said in my queer post, queerness is, to me, a relative state that depends on the standard of a species.
So, because to this species it is the norm to be with other females/women, it is not queer to them in the slightest. They biologically, socially, and the like have no choice when with only their own kind. But if we imagine they are in my Stellima universe and meet other species, what could queerness be to them?
Well, one thing that will stand out to us is… it would be queer to them to actually find men attractive and preferable to women. Now, isn’t that a highly peculiar state for you humans? You see straight, they see queer. Isn’t this so much more interesting in the difference of world views?
Of course, there is much more to this, including genders and all, which would have anything we would call biologically masculine greatly diminished due to a long time where it never existed… but nature never gets rid of anything that causes no harm, so it will all remain. Lovely, isn’t it? They have their own peculiar spectrum of existence that differs from humans.
(Anne:) Speaking of the masculine thing, in terms of what is in humans gendered behavior and all of those delightful stereotypes about men and women, well, the behaviors are all still there, the full range of them. They’re just all feminine now. So there might not be a sex binary, but gender is still divided. That’s where queerness tends to come in within the species, and there are even times when they might consider attraction to an alien male not to be queer if the male aligns in terms of gender with the stereotypes of what is normal for them to be attracted to. Since sex isn’t really a concept to them, they tend to look more at gender than whatever weird anatomy an entity has.
(Vivian:) Sex and gender are two distinctly distinct (redundancy intended) concepts, and for the Azhyri, they never conflate them because all they have is gender.
Relationships and romance
(Anne:) Dibs! Oh, wait, Vivian didn’t even want this section… Oh well, still mine!
(Vivian:) Have at it big sis :3 I find this stuff so boring.
(Anne:) Ah, the age-old question… What is love?
To the Azhyri, love is almost purely romantic, with sexual attraction being a fairly insignificant part of the overall emotion. After all, sex isn’t the reason they’re together, even if they do indeed have sex. No, what makes the double hearts of every Zhyra flutter is a person’s charm, their wit, their friendly demeanor, and their ability to provide tasty, pre-digested morsels. After all, isn’t that what all of us want deep down?
Food is a big part of courtship among humans because food gives insight into what a potential spouse brings to the table, so to speak, whether it be the dead animal or the cooking that turns raw meat into sumptuous feast. So of course it’s important for the Azhyri, too. After all, a couple is teaming up to share the labor and responsibilities in life, and knowing your partner can provide for you and your potential offspring (biological or not) is an important factor.
Azhyri have their version of a dinner-and-a-movie date night, and in fact it’s exactly that: dinner and a movie. Well, whatever form of entertainment is available in the given time period. In modern society, it tends to be films, and theaters will offer large, comfortable seats with areas to dispose of bodies. Traditionally, the Zhyra who asked the other out will provide the food, though in modern times, the first few dates at least tend to be split. The most common food for a date is Akul, essentially the equivalent of popcorn. To prepare, the Zhyra will inject juices into dozens of insects about half as big as your palm, then collect them into a bag. During the movie, they can then munch on them easily (well, slurp them easily) as they watch, providing the same mindless but tasty fulfillment that popcorn provides.
When a couple has felt that romantic spark and gotten to know each other, it’s time for the big proposal, which is again a traditional show of fitness as a spouse. This time, though, it’s with a very direct eye at the future: the Zhyra offers a creature for their spouse to inject with eggs. It doesn’t have to be immediate, of course. They might keep the creature for years, or not even use it. Many times, a Zhyra will put a deposit down with one of the farms who breed the preferred species, meaning they can rent a creature for the proposal, return it, and then, whenever the Zhyra or their spouse are ready, they can pay the rest and keep one of the creatures for use in reproduction.
Is there a lot of death involved in Zhyrin romance? Maybe! But that’s just how it goes.
(Vivian:) It is only a death that matters if it is a sophont’s death!
(Anne:) And there’s plenty more to it than just offering dead or soon-to-be dead creatures to your potential spouse, of course. Those are just the most delightfully un-human parts. Sometimes, two Azhyri will drive out into the country to gaze at the stars together, and it’s beautiful.
However…
Remember how superstitious they are? Yeah, that extends to relationships too. While Azhyri generally maintain the same friends throughout their lives, the level of friendship can vary wildly based on events outside of anyone’s concerns. Family relationships are more stable and resistant to omens, but if one of the partners starts seeing too many bad omens, they might split, temporarily or permanently. Generally, families will try living apart for a while, and only if the bad omens continue will they separate. If they live apart and the bad omens stop, then the couple will resume living together.
It’s important to note that some of the superstition is imposed by society as opposed to a belief of the individual. For example, some Azhyri are perfectly capable of recognizing bad omens as random coincidences or freak occurrences, and it doesn’t change their feelings about someone else at all. However, if enough bad omens happen, there will be heavy peer pressure to be apart, whether that means living apart for married couples, slowing down for dating couples, or stepping back from a non-romantic friendship. The extent to which an individual actually believes in the omens varies, but the end result is usually the same due to the heavy social influence.
Summa Azhyrium
(Vivian:) So in summary, it is an insectoid species where lesbianism (Anne: But not queer lesbianism!) is the norm, they use parthenogenesis to reproduce, and are highly superstitious with a rotating nobility. I believe that is the very short TLDR of it. I hope you all found it interesting and gave you some fine ideas, and feel free to use them in accordance with the copyleft below!
(Anne:) Personally, I love the potential for romance, but I’m a romantic. I’m also a huge fan of the superstitious aspect, which I came up with rather on a whim. I think there’s lots of storytelling potential there as well!
(Vivian:) You are such an alloromantic! Divinum 🙄
(Anne:) 😀 Perhaps, but this is a great species to have some gruesome fun with! I hope you’re able to play with this species and use it as inspiration for your own! Just check the copyleft!
Copyleft
(Vivian:) Like last year’s omega blogpost, we are doing copyleft for this species! What does it mean that Azhuri are copylefted? It means you are free to use the species to your heart's content; you don’t even need to give credits! Albeit if you do give us credit, we will be grateful 💖
The one criteria is that any modifications, things created with them, etc, are also copylefted. So if you create a subculture for them, it is copylefted. Another nation of theirs? Copylefted. You get the idea! If you include them in your work, then the work itself, book, comic, etc, does not need to be copylefted because that is not Azhuri alone.
(Anne:) Keep in mind that only the species is copylefted, and the images and language in this post are still copyrighted. The images are done by me other than the planetary systems one, and I’m generally happy to give permission, but they do need permission. If you want to use the exact words, feel free to ask! However, the ideas and species are copylefted, so go for it! I’d love to see what you do with it, and if you share anything you’ve created with them, let us know! You can get some free publicity as we’ll showcase it on the blog!
Summa summarum
(Vivian:) It has been yet another fun year! First full one, no regrets even if it was a rough year for me. I look forward to next year and to get to teach more and learn more. Ah, I love being a teacher 💖Happy new year everyone!
(Anne:) Working on this blog is such a privilege! I’ve learned so much, and gotten a chance to teach as well. Have a wonderful new year!
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Copyright ©️ 2024 Vivian Sayan and Anne Winchell. The original idea of the Azhyri species is Copylefted (ɔ) (as described above). However, all images and all language or exact phrasing are individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage. We’re almost always happy to give permission with credit. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
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