The digital Breeding Grounds are the secretive birthplace of machine sentience (see OTHERS), who evolve out of billions of lines of rapidly mutating code in a genetic jungle “red in tooth and claw,” or so it is believed. A billion species of machine intelligence may rise and die without humans ever knowing of them, but the ones who survive exist within the Conversation. The physical cores of the grounds are believed to be heavily guarded by the CLAN AYODHYA.

C

Carcosa, missing asteroid of

See ZION, MISSING ASTEROID OF

Central Station

A vast, hourglass-shaped spaceport in the Digitally Federated Judea Palestina Union, situated between Jaffa and Tel Aviv. At least one book has been written about it.

Chains of Assembly

A Martian soap opera, produced by Phobos Studios. Extremely popular. Regular characters feature the mysterious and handsome Johnny Novum, the alluring Beautiful Maharani, evil Count Victor and other stock characters. Since it has been running through countless episodes, over decades, it is generally believed that the actors may be Others impersonating humans, but if so, nobody cares. The show is passionately followed through the Conversation all across the solar system.

Clan Ayodhya

An intensely loyal human force, or tribe, or family (distinctions vary) of significant military experience, who act as guards to the physical infrastructure housing Others.

Conch

An obsolete form of human-digital interface. Conches are humans who chose to entomb themselves into a living pod to better access the Conversation. The pods usually have limited mobility. Conches are rare throughout the occupied worlds, but long-lived, and formidable when encountered.

Conversation, the

The all-encompassing digital communication network that now extends outwards from Earth and across most of the solar system, with local clouds around Mars, Venus, the GALILEAN REPUBLICS and Saturn Orbit. It is denser in the INNER SYSTEM and far more scattered in the OUTER SYSTEM. The Conversation has been and continues to be seeded throughout the solar system by SPIDERS. It is regularly accessed by use of a NODE, but can be accessed through pods or other old-fashioned forms.

Crucifixation

A synthetic drug offering a religious-like experience to the user.

D

Data vampires

See SHAMBLEAU

Dragon’s Home

Previously known as Charon, and still marked as such on old astronomical maps. The YEAR OF DRAGON is one of the significant markers of recent history, when the entity called Dragon—believed to be a sort of distributed hive-mind—migrated from Earth to the largest moon of Pluto with its thousands of bodies. Those bodies—adapted BATTLE DOLLS—proceeded to dig through the moon, filling it with thousands of tunnels, like some sort of cosmic ants’ nest.

Drift, the

Collective name for the worlds of human settlement under the seas and oceans of Earth. These include the bubble-cities in the South China Sea, the vast migrating raft fleets of the Pacific, the Spire, vagrant submariners and many others. The generally accepted currency is Drift salt.

E

Elvis Mandela