The Confederation Handbook

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Economy

  This operates very differently from the human concept. The Tyrathca use a global accounting system rather than a currency. Existence of the vassal castes means that there is little trade in basic foodstuffs. The agrarian communities tend to specialize in foods particularly suited to local environmental conditions.

  Although there is a multitude of each kind of specialist-hardware production centers, they do not compete against each other. For example, an engineering factory will distribute its products only over its own allocated area, whose boundaries are defined by transportation costs. A boundary will lie exactly halfway between two engineering factories (taking difficult terrain into account), and every community on either side of that boundary will always go to its own central factory for its engineering requirements. As the Tyrathca always share their knowledge amongst themselves, their level of standardization is total and complete in every discipline.

  Since contact began with the Confederation, a new specialization of merchant has been evolved, responsible for earning foreign currency. Confederation currency is required principally to hire starships in order to establish new Tyrathca colonies and trade in those very few commodities they lack internally, or particularly value.

  A space-based industry is starting to develop in the Hesperi-LN star system. Before contact with the Confederation, the Tyrathca had eight industrial asteroid communities spread throughout the Hesperi-LN system, producing basic microgee compounds for the planet. Subsequently, two asteroids have been shifted into high planetary orbit, and development of new free-fall industrial techniques has started (the Tyrathca either never wanted asteroids in orbit around their planet, or never thought up the concept). Production under license has begun of components from human astronautics companies, and eventually indigenous FTL starship design is expected. It does seem to take the Tyrathca a very long time to learn anything new, which is why their industry expands so slowly. However, once they have mastered the art of a new concept, complete understanding of it is spread rapidly and easily through their bodily chemical programs.

  The general level of technology on Hesperi-LN has risen perceptibly since contact began with the Confederation.

  Power Sources

  Hesperi-LN employs hydroelectric dams and ocean thermal exchange generators to provide power. There are no fusion generators, even though the Edenists have expressed a willingness to supply them with He3. The existing renewable sources are quite sufficient for all Tyrathca requirements.

  Government

  The nearest human equivalent of the Tyrathca system would be federalization. Governance, if it can truly be said even to exist, is very localized. The different areas organize themselves with very little debate, arranging civil organizations such as the ambulance service or telecommunications very much to suit themselves. There is no voting or elections, since all Tyrathca automatically work for the common purpose. Crime and personal advancement to the detriment of others are not concepts which they even understand, let alone practice.

  If something like a road needs building, then all involved will simply discuss what is required, and then get on with it. The main problem with this, from other Confederation traders’ viewpoints, is their lack of distribution networks or their understanding of the needs of outsider communities living among them—or even getting to know about such needs. The new Tyrathca merchant communities have worked hard to develop computerized inventories to minimize this cultural gulf with outsiders, and to send representatives across the planet to locate markets able to provide imported goods for their alien residents.

  It is these same merchant communities, established around the various spaceports, which have become the most authoritative voice speaking for the Tyrathca when it comes to relations with the Confederation, principally because they are the ones who bring in Confederation money for the fellow members of their race.

  The Tyrathca have only four offplanet embassies: on Avon for the Confederation Assembly, on the Kulu Kingdom, on Jupiter, and on Earth (though actually based in the O’Neill Halo, where their preferred gravity level can be more closely matched). An ambassador breeder-pair family will assume this role for their lifetime, and they pass on to their offspring an understanding of human culture through their programming chemicals, so they in turn can carry on the same profession. Tyrathca embassies also act as merchant agents for Hesperi-LN.

  The merchant communities have formed a central economic council to deal with large projects such as funding colonies and developing asteroid settlements.

  The Confederation has appointed a special commissioner to oversee all Tyrathca contacts with humans, who acts to prevent them from being exploited. All commercial contracts are subject to veto by this commissioner’s office.

  Buildings

  All Tyrathca houses follow the same traditional layout: a cylindrical tower, tapering upwards slightly, which can accommodate the spiral ramps they need, and rising four storys high. In the race’s pre-technology phase these houses were made solely of stone and mud cement (see Builder, page 223). However, they are now constructed of cut stone, bricks, wood, composite, etc., depending on the nature of the particular community and what materials are locally available. Modern conveniences such as electric lights, cookers, telecommunication links, heaters, plumbing, etc., are now included, of course. It is still the builder caste who do all the necessary manual labor and, once loaded with the appropriate chemical program, they are now as capable of handling modern materials as they were stone and mud. The doors are always arched, and the windows round, while arches are used to support the interior floors and ramps. The Tyrathca have no other concept of architecture, although the sheer alien-ness of these towers makes them look impressive constructions to human visitors.

  Their houses are only lived in for one generation, and this is true even for the houses of communities involved in the technological professions. For once a breeder pair reaches senescence, both they and their vassal-caste dependents will withdraw inside the house, and builders will proceed to seal them in. This inevitable conversion of houses into tombs causes an outward ripple effect in the towns. Thus the older a town is, the further out it will extend, as the abandoned area occupied by the dead eventually becomes larger than the peripheral area still inhabited by the living. After several generations, this outer, inhabited ring becomes so widely separated and far-flung (typically 15–20km from the original center) that it becomes impractical to sustain communications, and the surviving community then shifts en masse to a new location. This is the only occasion when a Tyrathca will move house, and it happens only once every few generations.

  Public buildings, of which there are few, such as utility stations and factories, are strictly functional and do not follow the traditional tower shape. In fact their modern factories can look surprisingly similar to human structures. When a community needs to relocate, the production equipment from such a factory will be taken along with them (where practical), but the building itself remains. These abandoned towns are never revisited.

  Defense

  The defense of Hesperi-LN is managed by the Confederation Navy. There are twenty-five strategic-defense weapons platforms orbiting the planet, and a supporting sensor network.

  Although there is very little of value to humans on this planet, or indeed within the entire star system, the Confederation remains concerned about the captains of rogue starships attempting to blackmail the Tyrathca with the threat of surface bombardment. Ever since the Tyrathca were first discovered, there have been rumors about mineral wealth on Hesperi-LN, which the Tyrathca have supposedly mined and stored. Although these are without foundation, the Assembly remains concerned about the prospect of unprovoked assaults, and therefore funds the local SD network.

  The Tyrathca pay 5 percent towards the cost of their own defense. Some of the astroengineering companies transferring industrial technology to them have been approached by the merchant council to sun-license the production of combat wasps. This
request is currently under negotiation with the Assembly-appointed commissioner. As an officially equal partner in the Confederation, there is no legal reason why the Tyrathca should not be given full access to human weapons technology. However, most member-state governments have deep reservations about handing over such powerful technology to a species whose past was once violent enough to develop a soldier caste.

  B. From Post–2611 Information

  Mastrit-PJ

  The Tyrathca home system is 2,300 light-years from Earth, hidden behind the Orion Nebula (itself 1,500 light-years away from Earth), which extends thirty light-years across.

  Mastrit-PJ’s star expanded into a red supergiant 14,500 years ago, with a radius of 420m km in diameter, engulfing all the planets which originally orbited it.

  Early History

  One of three sentient races to evolve on Mastrit-PJ, the Tyrathca were in fact the last to achieve sentience.

  Ridbat

  The first species to evolve were the Ridbat, whose civilization flourished a million years ago. They were smaller than the Tyrathca, with a flattened ovoid body, 1m high, 1.3m in diameter, and had four legs and four arms emerging in pairs on opposite sides of the body. There was a slim neck at the upper center of the body, with a rounded, wedge-shaped head and two large eyes allowing 300° vision.

  The Ridbat eventually developed a high-technology civilization, establishing colonies on several moons and planets in the system. Although one attempt was made to bioform a Mars-like world, the project was never completed. All their other colonies were either domed or underground.

  The Ridbat were a very clan-orientated species, which gave them a high aggression factor. Their various nations were engaged in near-constant disputes, two of which resulted in the use of nuclear weapons on the planetary surface.

  The total duration of their civilization (measured since the point of emerging from the hunter-gatherer stage into the farmer-builder stage) was around 15,000 years, 9,000 of which were pre-industrial. Their internal wars delayed any industrial development considerably, the population being repeatedly culled by military action. As a consequence their planetary population never rose above 500,000,000.

  Major (industrial-era) wars knocked their global technology base back from advanced electronic-cybernetic to basic electrical-mechanical on at least three separate occasions. Apart from the deployment of military spy satellites and orbital weapons platforms, spaceflight was limited. They only used interplanetary spaceflight during their third industrial era. This was a period lasting nearly 700 years, and the most prosperous they ever enjoyed. It ended with a nuclear war on the planet itself, and the destruction of its offworld colonies. The Ridbat never attempted interstellar flight.

  Their fourth, and last, industrial era was ended by the release of several biological weapon agents which wiped them out, along with 70 percent of the animal life existing on the planet at that time.

  Little else is known about them.

  Mosdva

  The Mosdva were the second sentient species to emerge, and they still survive. The Mosdva has a flexible body 2m long, with an oval cross-section 75cm deep at the center. There are six limbs, paired equidistantly along the body. The hide is composed of a variety of hard scales (similar to the Tyrathca themselves) and is dark brown in color. The head is pointed, with two eyes and a beak mouth, and the neck looks different from the rest of the body by reason of the heavy wrinkles, which provide it with increased flexibility. Each limb is 1.5m long, with a ball-and-socket “shoulder” joint allowing considerable range of movement. The first limb section is 1.2m long, ending in a “wrist” joint. The foot/wrist appendage itself is lengthy, possessing nine digits. The forward pair of limbs has evolved into highly dextrous hands, the middle pair can be used for either manipulation or locomotion, but the rear pair is exclusively for locomotion.

  When upright, the Mosdva can squat on its hind limbs, using the tail-end of its body as a tripod base to ensure greater stability. It can also shuffle about awkwardly using only its hind limbs, but walking and running at normal speeds involve use of the middle limbs as well. For a really quick “sprint,” the front pair of limbs is also brought into play.

  When it comes to climbing rock faces or trees, the Mosdva show amazing agility and balance, apparently having no sense of giddiness or vertigo.

  When the middle set of limbs act as hands, they are employed mainly for largely passive tasks such as holding an object steady, their dexterity being less than half that of the front limbs.

  There are two sexes and they are egg-layers, like all of Mastrit-PJ’s other animal species, although the Mosdva are also marsupial. Both males and females possess pouches to contain their eggs as they move about. Newly hatched Mosdva do not use this pouch, even though they become mobile immediately.

  The Mosdva are herbivores, with a dual stomach arrangement. Because Mastrit-PJ’s plants have a woody structure, the first stomach is used to break up the bulk of their food intake, while the second one extracts nutrients from the previously pulped-up hydrocarbons, thus acting as a pre-intestine. Teats on the Mosdva are linked directly to this nutrient-extraction stomach, to feed their young with a high-protein fluid. There is no terrestrial-style milk-producing gland behind this teat. Both males and females suckle the young, and the suckling lasts for the first ten days until the infant’s first stomach is capable of initiating its own enzyme production.

  The Mosdva were still at a Neanderthal stage of evolution when the Ridbat achieved full sentience. They were incapable of high-order speech, but able to perform simple repetitive tasks. Consequentially, the Mosdva’s evolution was forced on them. On seeing what useful servants they made, the Ridbat essentially enslaved them. They were specially bred over thousands of years, in a program which principally concentrated on advancing their dexterity and smartness (as defined by the ability to obey complex instructions).

  By the time of the Ridbats’ extermination, the Mosdva had attained the IQ level of a smart ten-year-old human child. Although their population was also much reduced by the Ridbat war, they did at least survive the biological agents released.

  After this their genetic evolution reverted to a more normal pace. Because the Ridbat had also bred them for passivity and obedience, their own civilization developed extremely slowly. The ruined planet, with its exhausted mineral resources and extensive radioactive deadlands, was not an environment conducive to sophisticated or technology-based cultures, and the Mosdva psychology suited this well. They were not a species of researchers and dreamers. Instead they became nomadic, roaming between any still-habitable areas of the planet. This period started with an interval of nuclear winter, and once recovered from that slipped into a natural ice age. It was only when the glaciers retreated and the planet’s biota began to recover, roughly 500,000 years after the Ridbats’ fourth-era war, that the Mosdva started to advance again.

  700,000 years after the destruction of the Ridbat, the Mosdva achieved a modest level of industrialization. Because the planetary reserves of petrochemicals, coal and natural gas had been depleted, their technology was based solely around the concept of level sustainability. It was a benign goal, and helped to maintain their society’s status quo. Manufacturing corporations and market-driven competition did not occur on Mastrit-PJ under the Mosdva.

  Although their engineering was kept to the equivalent of late-Victorian machinery, they did make considerable progress in theoretical fields such as physics, astronomy, mathematics, and (bio-) chemistry. Any advanced developments were used only where “appropriate,” so as to preserve the ideal of stability around which their nature and world revolved. Although they were not opposed to change, any change generated from within was extremely slow in arriving.

  The one irreversible alteration to their environment, over which they had no control at all, was the evolution of the Tyrathca. The latter’s sentience began to develop fully after the end of the last ice age. Originally herd creatures, they developed specialize
d vassal castes to help feed and protect their clans.

  Although intelligent, the Tyrathca are not in any way imaginative. This aspect of intelligence might have evolved eventually, but in their case it did not need to. Sharing their world with a species as benevolent and advanced as the Mosdva meant that they constantly had access to high technology.

  Unfortunately for the Mosdva, the Tyrathca were more aggressive and confrontational, a trait deriving from their herd instinct. With their ability to copy technology, their greater physical size and larger numbers, they swiftly became the dominant of the two species.

  This situation could well have spelled extinction for the Mosdva, as their settlements were put under considerable pressure from Tyrathca expansion. Then the Mosdva astronomers discovered that their star was about to expand into a red supergiant.

  The Stellar Expansion Era

  Once they realized the disaster confronting their world in approximately 1,300 years’ time, the Tyrathca produced and implemented a racial survival plan. It involved two stages.

  The first and more difficult stage was the constructing of arkships so that at least some of the population could escape to the stars, thus guaranteeing their ultimate racial survival. With a population already reaching 1,000,000,000, total evacuation on these arkships was clearly impossible. Even with the entire planet’s industry mobilized, they would never be able to build sufficient numbers of them. The Tyrathca spent the first hundred years of this period forcing the development of an extensive spaceflight and orbital manufacturing capability. And for the second time in their existence, the Mosdva were essentially enslaved. Their smaller bodies, greater dexterity, and higher intelligence made them perfect astronauts. It was Mosdva technical expertise which was adapted and utilized to capture asteroids and shunt them into orbit around Mastrit-PJ, where they were hollowed out and converted into arkships. The arkship building phase lasted for 700 years, in which time 1,037 of them were built and launched.