Naxarat

Naxarat (/næxɑrɑt/) is the home planet of Cherrewin Yehan and Zuhrovet Sikandaret. It is relatively close to Isterov.

The planet is home to two significant ethnic groups: the Kirrish, and the Naxorians. It was incorporated in the heptarchate c. 350.

Pre-Heptarchate Government

Prior to incorporation in the heptarchate, the three branches of government were the military/executive, the judiciary/religious scholars, and the legislature/Council of Houses. Rather than having a strong central government, the Naxorian system emphasized an interlocking web of contractual obligations. Such contracts were symbolically sealed by braids or knots.

Ethnic Naxorian hegemony was opposed by various Kirrish activist organizations, of which the most notorious was the Kirrish Liberation Front (KLF).

Houses

House Membership

Naxorian Houses were like privately held corporations with hereditary membership. If one was legally of age (23) and owned a full House share, one received a certain amount of money every year from one's House. Active employees of the House received extra stipends, and members at the executive share received even more. Someone with a fractional share received only that fraction of the House funding (and that's true for the extras as well, so a full-share executive made twice as much as a half-share executive would in the same position).

If one had anything more than a half share one could vote in House elections for the Board of Directors and to choose the House's representatives to the Council of Houses. Again, fractions of a share meant fractions of a vote.

House Associates

Around 200 in the high calendar, House associates fell into the following categories:

• House shareholders
• House employees
• House-supported. This includes children, as well as anyone else receiving room, board, and clothing but not drawing a formal salary.
• Indentured servants.

A fifth category was for individuals whose financial or moral debt was so great it could only be discharged by the sacrifice of legal personhood (see #Atrocities).

List of Houses

• Fountain House, in which Zuhrovet Sikandaret holds shares
• Otter House
• Rosemallow House, named after the hibiscus flower, with which the Rosemallow ship is associated

Family Law

Naxorian marriage contracts always involved two spouses. The traditional and most prestigious form of the contract designated a principal spouse, who contributed the majority of the financial resources to the marriage, and a supporting spouse, who promised obedience to the principal. The ceremony involved the principal spouse making an appropriate braid in the hair of the supporting spouse in front of a witness from outside either spouse's household. Marriage contracts lasted until the death or incapacitation of one or both spouses, or until divorce. Divorce typically entailed breach-of-contract payments by one or both parties. Members of the military were not eligible to form marriages.

The first four legitimate children of a House member inherited the right to a House share of their own, at the rate of half the parent's share. Children could inherit House shares from both parents.

Naxorian law also allowed for concubinage. Unlike marriage, concubinage could be contracted with multiple persons or for a definite period, and members of the military could participate. Children born from such unions were not considered legitimate and could not inherit House shares.

Language

The Naxorian language has at least four grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, animate neuter, inanimate neuter) and no definite or indefinite articles.

Profanity

Pre-heptarchate Naxorian profanity incorporates many references to Naxorian religion. Examples include:

• All the knots of hell
• Bind me to the eighth hell
• Bind me to the final hell with threads of fire
• Eight hells
• Eight spheres of hell
• Eightfold-damned
• Every star is a knot in Hell (This proverb is a misquotation of scripture; the original text implies that the bindings in the eight hells are in one-to-one correspondence with the stars in the universe, and burn with the same heat)
• Green saint
• Hells
• Knots and stars
• Knots and wires
• Layers of hell
• Nested hells
• Only the Prophet knows
• Prophet grant
• Prophet stab this with a bayonet
• Prophet's bayonet
• Prophet's boots
• Prophet's cloak
• Prophet's coat
• Prophet's hat
• Prophet's luggage
• Prophet's slippers
• Prophet's teeth
• Saint and prophet
• Saint of growing things
• Saint of leaves and vines
• Saint of vines
• Stars and wires
• Stars of hell
• Three-faced saint

Names

Naxorians typically used a given name, often in diminutive form, followed by a literal patronymic or metronymic. This byname was based on the name of the parental principal spouse, if a person's parents were legally married, or on the name of the sole legal parent (usually but not always the mother), if they were not. The most common byname endings were masculine -ov or -ev and feminine -ovet or -evet, though a gender-neutral form using a grammatically animate-neuter suffix such as -ova or -eva appears occasionally. The full legal name of House members also incorporated information about House names and shares.

Masculine Naxorian diminutive names often ended in -ek or -ik, while feminine diminutives used -et. Gender-neutral diminutives with animate-neuter suffixes such as -a or -ka were also common.

Calendar

The Naxorian calendar reckons from the Fourth Revelation; the year 5000 approximately corresponds to the year 200 in the high calendar.

In the standard timeline, Naxorian calendrical technology did not advance very far as an independent line of development; the tendency of Naxorian scientists to communicate only within a House or military unit, and the emphasis of the judicial branch on textual analysis rather than mathematical extrapolation, made significant innovation difficult. However, certain underlying patterns can be identified. The most obvious is that both Naxorian and Kirrish tradition placed a strong emphasis on the number 4, and multiples of 4 more generally. As a result, Naxorian calendrical computations often require the practitioner to work in characteristic 2.

Certain heretical Naxorian sects gave a mystical significance to the number 5. However, related calendars tend to emphasize the role of numbers that are equivalent to 1 (mod 4), rather than rearranging the whole calendar to work in characteristic 5.

Fashion

Traditional Naxorian clothing involved loose trousers and layers of knee-length tunics and coats. The culture placed a premium on organic fibers and embroidered or woven embellishments.

Naxorian teenagers and adults covered their hair with a hat or scarf while in public. Though generally viewed as a religious obligation, this practice may have more to do with notions of privacy. Major Naxorian contracts, such as marriage, were often sealed by braiding one's hair in a particular style, and hiding these braids allowed Naxorians to control the transfer of information about their personal contractual obligations. The exception to this rule was the military: members of the armed forces generally wore a single braid stranded with battalion or divisional colors.

Etiquette and Customs

Naxorians recognized eight types of formal apology, depending on whether the apology was witnessed or unwitnessed, whether it involved whether a bow or other physical obeisance, and whether a record (possibly written, electronic, or braided) was made.

Agriculture

Potatoes are not grown on Naxarat.

Atrocities

Prior to the heptarchate, the Kirrish were oppressed by the Naxorians. The Naxorians frequently imprisoned Kirrish people within industrial or military machines, forcing them to serve as operators in a process known as binding. Trains in particular had bound human operators, though this was not strictly technically necessary. The bound operators therefore spent much of their time in a drugged, drowsy state; they were only awakened when a potential disaster was imminent, so that a human could take responsibility for ensuing moral decisions.

When the heptarchate liberated the Kirrish, it retained knowledge of the relevant technology for its own ends; some observers have noted similarities between this form of Naxorian binding and the moths' harnesses.