What makes an Abh

Legally the Abh are defined as "the royalty, peerage and knights". Thus anyone who has become one of these is called an Abh. But the word Abh has another meaning; the name of a biological species distinct from Homo sapiens. It is the latter meaning that non-Abh people usually think of. These two definitions of "Abh" are identical in most cases but there are occasional exceptions like Ghintec. That is, when a grounder become a legal Abh (e.g., through enlistment to and promotion in the Space Navy), he or she will remain Homo sapiens although any children must become an Abh biologically through the genetic manipulation.

When Abh are to have a child (usually through artificial genetic manipulation), the genes of the baby must go through a genetic check (ïanarhmucosec) in which its genes will be examined at as many as 27,000 locations to maintain their integrity as Abh. Their blue hair is one of such requirements to be an Abh.

They are sometimes described as "Art of Genetic Manipulation" as all of them are beautiful. This is, however, never a source of pride for them. They care more what they do rather than how they look as the latter is a work of their parent, not themselves. Their life expectancy is also longer. They may live more than 200 years but do not become old in appearance. They grow up like us until they are about fifteen or so and then spend the next 25 years aging about 10 years in appearance. This is the end of their outer growth and, thus, a 200 year-old Abh still looks like 25 year-old. They call the period before 15 "growth" (zarhoth) and the next 25 years "maturation" (féroth).

There are two other major physical differences which distinguish the Abh from humans. The first is the space sensory organ (kuushiki-kikan, froch) on the forehead of an Abh. The second is the voyage field (kouhou-ya, rilbidoc) in the Abh brain. The space sensory organ looks like a diamond-shaped pearl and is a bundle of more than 100 million "eyes". The compound eye of an insect may perhaps be the closest parallel for it. An Abh tiara (almfac) has nearly 100 million illuminating devices covering the organ, through which information about the three dimensional environment around it is passed. If the tiara is connected to the sensor system of a spaceship, an Abh can "feel" what is going around the ship. Such information can be processed by the voyage field of the brain, which enables an Abh to operate a ship as easily as we might walk.

Abh are proud of being a space-faring species and love to call themselves "Members of Stars" (hoshi tachi no kenzoku, carsarh gereulacr). They are born in space and most of them stay there for their entire life. It seems they both disdain and fear the ground world (nahainec).

Class

As with any empire in the history, the Abh Empire (aavu-teikoku, Frybarec) has a strict class system. However, it should be noted that, when two Abh belong to the same organisation, such as the Space Navy, the rank within overrides the class in the Empire. This is why Laicch treated Lamhirh as an ordinary soldier whereas she gave special respect to Ghintec (who wasn't in the Space Navy at that time).

The royalty consists of eight royal families (hachi-ouke, Ga Lartïéc). The head of each royal family (lartïéc) is called a king (ou, larth) and owns one of the eight kingdoms (faicec) that make up the Empire. The relation between a king and his kingdom is, however, purely symbolic. All the stars and planets in each kingdom is ruled by the nobles who are directly appointed by the Emperor (I use male forms here for simplicity but in Abh's society men and women are absolutely equal).

The term "Prince" (bhodac) here means "a major peer", not "a son of the Emperor". They are a peer whose territory includes at least one inhabited planet. Neither a Viscount or a Baron has such a planet in his territory but the former has at least one planet that could become habitable after terra-forming. If you compare the territory of Ghintec (Earl), Lamhirh (Viscount) and Lymh Feubdash (Baron), the difference is clear. Ghintec owns the planet to which he was born while Lamhirh is hoping to make one of her planet habitable in the future. But Lymh Feubdash has no such hope. If a Viscount successfully make their planet inhabited, he will be (apparently automatically) promoted to an Earl. Then another (automatic?) promotion to a Marquess is granted when the population of his earldom reaches one hundred million.

The difference between a national (lémh) and a subject (sosec) is that the former is under the direct control and protection of the Empire whereas the fate of the latter depends exclusively on the Prince of the region. The Empire has no right to interfere with the relation between a Prince and his subjects. On the other hand, a subject can always escape the Prince's rule by becoming a national, for example, by joining the Space Navy.

Throne

The Emperor (speunaigh) is selected from the royal families. The Abh believe that it is the military power that ultimately unites the Empire and their Emperor must therefore be an excellent commander, too. Consequently they have set up a system to choose the Emperor in which one's ability as well as blood is considered.

Children of the royal families must join the Flying Section of the Space Navy. If they successfully reach the rank of Imperial Admiral, the top of the Space Navy, they will be appointed to the Commander-in-Chief of Imperial Fleet, which practically means that he has become Crown Prince. He will succeed the throne when another member of the royalty gets promoted to Imperial Admiral to replace him. When a new Crown Prince is chosen, it is customary for the other royal members in the Space Navy who are older or younger by less than 20 years to become a reserve. They and those who have voluntarily given up their hope of the throne either succeed his kingdom or become a life royal whose children will become a mere peer.

Obviously promotions (and demotion) of members of the royal families in the Space Navy bear far more significance than those of ordinary soldiers. Thus the issue is exclusively dealt with by a special committee which lies outside of the Space Navy. It is called Council (joukou-kaigi, Luzœc Fanigalacr) and consists of eight Councillors (joukou, fanigac) who are former Emperors or Kings, each one representing one of the eight royal family.

Name

Ablïarsec + néïc Dobreuscr + Bœrh Parhynr + Lamhirh

1. Clan Name
   

   This is rarely changed and throughout the long history of the Abh has become handed down with the family line. Consequently as clans have diverted, having the same clan name doesn't mean having a similar social position at all. For example, the clan of Spaurh includes a wide range of people from a Great Duke (nimh) to a normal knight (reucec). The Imperial Family is, however, an exception. Those who are not the heir to a King are no longer regarded as a member of the Imperial Family when they grow up. Thus they are forbidden to use the clan name, Ablïarsec, and will be given a new clan name instead.

2. Family Name
   

   This indicates which family among the clan one belongs to. The family name begins with a family title (sei-shougou, sapainec) of which there are six; one (néïc) for the royalty, three (bausec, arounn and ssynec) for the peerage and two (üémh and borgh) for the knights. bausec is used by descendants of the Imperial Family. arounn and üémh indicate that the family existed before the establishment of the Empire.
   Thus those who have the family title of either néïc, bausec, arounn or üémh can claim descent from one of Abh's 29 Clans of the Origin, whereas baurgh is only used by new Abh whose origin is a grounder. Things are a little complicated for ssynec as both of üémh and baurgh can be promoted to ssynec.
   It may be noted that, at least for the royalty, the "family name" is different from the name of family. For example, Lamhirh's family is called Clybh but her family name is Dobreuscr. No explanation is given for this by the author. I think it is derived from the name of its founder. For example, Ghintec's family is founded by his father, Rock, thus the family name is Rocr. Also Samson Tirusec, who has just become an Abh, has the family name of Tiruser.

3. Title (if any)
   

   Only the royalty and peerage have a title. Hereditary nobles have a similar title to those in Britain, that is, the title and the name of their territory (say Duke of Kent). So Lamhirh is the Viscount of Parynh (Bœrh Parhynr, "Parynr" is the possessive case for "Parynh"). On the other hand, life peers, who don't have any territory, use "Empire (title)", such as Empire Viscount (teikoku-shishaku, Rüé Bœrh).

4. Given Name
   

   As with most cultures on Earth now, the given name is usually "given" by one's parent.

Language

See the language page.

Numbers and Measurement System

The Abh use the decimal system as we do. Thus there are ten figures. Like the alphabet, they have their own figures, different from their creators'.

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0

The Abh measurement system is based on the cgs (centimetre-gram-second) unit system.

The unit of the time - the second - is the same as one we use. An hour, day and year are exactly 60 seconds, 24 hours and 365 days, respectively. This means their year is slightly shorter than ours.

Length is measured in centimetres (dagh) whereas the weight is in grams (bau).

Prefixes are also used, corresponding to our "kilo" or "mega". However, the prefix changes every four (rather than three) digits, as shown in the table below. This is probably due to the influence of the Japanese counting system. Thus three üethdagh is 300 metres.

For very long distance, units such as the light-year and light-second are also often used and it is rare that units larger than zaisacdagh are used.

Obviously these are not enough for the planar universe, where different laws of physics apply. Thus two units are defined for it; cédlairh and digrh. One cédlairh is the distance which a space-time bubble in the fully mobile state of a mass of one secbauh (100tons) moves in one second of the time within the space-time bubble. One digrh is the velocity with which one can move one secbauh in one hour in the planar universe.

There is another unit frequently used; daimon. It is a unit for gravitation and one daimon is half of the 1G.

Back to the top page

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page