29.6.04
Hi and Lo-life in Alien Supremal Cultures
By the time of Tuk's capture, alien cultures are fairly clearly divided into the supremal and subjugate races. A loose coalition of 17 supremal races rules the local area into which Ohida is pocketed; countless thousands of subjugate races (the distinction between the races blur with intentional and unintentional crossbreeding, intermingling, and absorption) form the background static. The Supremals interact formally and ritually, have very rigid strictures for racial qualification, and tend to remain rather isolated within their territories except for trade, war, or Republic conventions.
As individual and individually superior as the supremal races claim to be, they have, over time, come to have some striking similarity in their cultures.
One of their similarities is the "highway" structuring of their homeplanets. Nearly every one of the supremal races have constructed great platforms or plateaus, sometimes a mile or more above the natural surface. These platforms not only provide the supremal race a superior view over the landscape and their vassals, and control access to space, but they typically wall off the low-lifes from each other, which discourages plotting against the masters and leaves them to plot against the "beasts" on the other side of the wall. The supremal races can then get their fill of slaughter putting down incursions from one room to another, and appear the benificent ruler to those the saved.
Low-lifes are allowed onto the plateaus only as the personal property or by special permission of someone of power on high - they need few servants as they have Creatures to serve them. Tuk is one such - a "pet" of a princess.
The High-Lifes, of course, go down to the rooms as often as they wish to risk the stigma, or wish to hunt, or if they have business.
As individual and individually superior as the supremal races claim to be, they have, over time, come to have some striking similarity in their cultures.
One of their similarities is the "highway" structuring of their homeplanets. Nearly every one of the supremal races have constructed great platforms or plateaus, sometimes a mile or more above the natural surface. These platforms not only provide the supremal race a superior view over the landscape and their vassals, and control access to space, but they typically wall off the low-lifes from each other, which discourages plotting against the masters and leaves them to plot against the "beasts" on the other side of the wall. The supremal races can then get their fill of slaughter putting down incursions from one room to another, and appear the benificent ruler to those the saved.
Low-lifes are allowed onto the plateaus only as the personal property or by special permission of someone of power on high - they need few servants as they have Creatures to serve them. Tuk is one such - a "pet" of a princess.
The High-Lifes, of course, go down to the rooms as often as they wish to risk the stigma, or wish to hunt, or if they have business.
// posted by Wray Davis @ 2:26 PM 
