APPENDIX

LINKS OF INTEREST

Splintegrate

Maps and Info: https://thesaadani.net/SPLmaps

Audiobook: https://thesaadani.net/SPLaudiobk

Sa’adani Empire

Wiki: http://www.saadaniwiki.com

Fiction: http://www.saadaniempire.com

Deborah Teramis Christian

Website: http://deborahteramischristian.com

Mailing List: https://thesaadani.net/mail01a

You can also find Teramis online at Facebook (https://thesaadani.net/DTCFBk), G+ (https://thesaadani.net/DTCGPlus), and Twitter (@Teramis)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Naming Conventions: Names that come from the traditional Sa’adani Empire are given in clan name–personal name order. One’s clan, house, or lineage is always more important than the individual.

Names originating in CAS Sector cultures tend to follow personal name–surname order.

Characters marked with “*” also appeared in Mainline.

The Royal Family of the Sa’adani Empire

• Adàn Nalomeci III—Emperor
• Adàn Rishan—daughter of the Emperor, in line for the Dragon Throne
• Adàn Esker, Lord Imcari—late son of the Emperor, the assassinated heir apparent
• Oshida Halani—shigasa who is Nalomeci’s mistress, family intimate, and friend to Rishan

Imperial Factions

• Lord Shay—minister on the Imperial Council, leader of the Reconciliation Faction, and ally to independent factions in the Empire
• Outside Lords—losers in the politics of the Great Game who are banished from court or exiled. The Outlords, as they are called, oppose House Adàn

Internal Security (IntSec)

Imperial domestic security service

• Commander Obray*—runs IntSec operations in Lyndir Subsector
• Captain Brace, Zippo, Nomad—IntSec netrunners*
• FlashMan (“Flash”)*—former indie netrunner, now working for IntSec in lieu of serving prison term

Political Division of Internal Security (PolitDiv)

• Ilanya Casani Evanit (“Eva”; “Kingmaker”)—Head of PolitDiv. Emperor’s right hand
• Teo—Eva’s matasai (bodyguard/aide/slave)
• Raem Taskmaster—Eva’s implant construct

Scientists

• Metmuri Esimir—director of Special Projects at Naval Weapons Research Station 207, and lead scientist on the Splintegration project
• Avenoy Terel—Esimir’s right-hand aide
• Ferris—Esimir’s senior lab and med tech
• Prevak Rohar—the scientist who pioneered splintegration technology

Officers of Naval Weapons Research Station 207

• Commander Olniko Sevaro Tai—a Gen’karfa-caste decorated military hero
• Simikan Ugoli—Olniko’s adjutant

The Enclave

Licensed pleasure quarter. There are three different Enclave districts in Lyndir; events in Splintegrate transpire solely in the Shelieno district.

• Hinano Kesada (“Kes”)—the Winter Goddess, star dominatrix at Tryst
• Morya—Kes’s lover, a joygirl at The Salon
• Kiyo—Dosan (housemother) of The Salon
• Helda—Dosan (housemother) of Tryst, a Palumara house of domination
• Bejmet—Eosan (clan mother) of Palumara House shigasue and chair of the Enclave council
• Desta—Kes’s house slave at Tryst
• Adano—captain of the Tensin, the Enclave’s internal security and admin force
• Berishnan Vorey—young officer in the Tensin
• Marit—an Eosan in the Shelieno, responsible for Enclave security

Organized Crime (“Derevin”)

See Glossary for details on the nature of derevin.

• Janus*—triumvir of the Red Hand cartel
• Sefano—triumvir of the Red Hand cartel
• Mika—triumvir of the Red Hand cartel
• Karuu*—Janus’s lieutenant
• Eldin—Janus’s valet
• Gistano—boss of the Icechromers derevin
• Franc—Icechromer lieutenant
• Crevon—Sefano’s senior netrunner

GLOSSARY

More detailed glossary entries and information on the world of the Sa’adani can be found at http://www.saadaniwiki.com.

• Arcolo—“Division Leader”; Sa’adani military rank equivalent to a colonel.
• Ashani—Sa’adani goddess of protection.
• benko—a shigasa-in-training (apprentice).
• Between-World see Gantori and Gantori-Das.
• blastplas—blast-proof high-test plas.
• borgbeast—cyborgified animals, smarter than natural and programmed for control and directed action. Featured in the novel Mainline.
• breis—a barley-rice hybrid grain genetically engineered to grow on a wide variety of worlds. It is the most common staple grain in Sa’adani culture.
• brodien—the three-legged, three-armed, furred mammal-like natives of Triskelos, famed for the clever inventions and small utility devices their planet exports.
• Bugs—slang term for an Internal Security netcop, a play on their shortened name IntSec.
• camisq—intelligent hive-mind insectoid aliens, infamous for conducting vivisection experiments on humans before the two races learned to communicate with each other.
• CAS Sector—Sector named for the Confederation of Allied Systems, which was the former governance body before annexation by the Sa’adani Empire. Over the 150 years of annexation, the acronym is now morphing into an actual noun in common parlance (“Cas Sector,” “Cas,” or “Cass,” with the last s representing the abbreviation for Sector).
• Cassian—adjectival form of CAS.
• castle-blocks—a child’s game of specially magnetized and balanced blocks.
• castle-stones—a strategic board game similar to chess.
• cloning—see this page for a discussion of the basic cloning process used in splintegration: https://thesaadani.net/splclone1a.
• com, coms—short for communications, as in com set, com chatter.
• Commander—a courtesy military title and common appellation for officers in charge of a field detachment or performing field duty with subordinates who report to them.
• coolsuit—hard-shelled environmental suit worn in the harsh outdoors of Lyndir.
• cuas, cuashan—a sensual dance with erotic, active movements. Cuas are kata-like motions; cuashan refers to the manner in which they flow together to perform dance.
• cyberdecker—a neural-interface equipped individual capable of experiencing the Net through cyberdeck-mediated virtual reality; often shortened to “decker”. See also netrunner.
• dae—literally “great,” in the sense of “great one.” Refers to a full-blooded, honorable member of a Sa’adani clan and bloodline, especially those of the Great Houses. See also den-miri, its antithesis.
• Darvui (“Seller”)—the merchant caste, standing in the middle range of Sa’adani caste ranks. Traditionally tradesmen and shopkeepers, the stereotype of the Darvui is that they are grasping, penny-pinching, even greedy.
• datasphere—the data-level cloud of a global information and communications network. See also infosphere and Net.
• den-miri—dishonorable bloodline status, applied to persons born on the wrong side of the sheets and those descended from them.
• derevin—the term originally meant a street gang that followed an organized business model. It has come to mean any well-organized criminal group, large or small, that runs their activities in a businesslike manner. Mafia, Yakuza, and drug cartels are all examples of derevin that have grown large in our world.
• dolophant—the massive herbivorous vaguely elephant-like creature whose native habitat is the Dolos Ocean on Lyndir and its surrounding wetlands.
• Dom, Domna—Old Sa’adani honorifics for Lord, Lady.
• Dosan—housemother of a shigasue establishment.
• duradome—a type of high-stress, ultra-durable dome construction used in harsh environments, such as in the jungle on Lyndir.
• durgl—a hardy rodent used for lab experiments.
• Enclave—a generic and collective term for a licensed entertainment district where shigasue live and work. See also Gantori-Das.
• Eosan—clan mother of a shigasue clan (“House”).
• faie-wood—a hardwood notable for its yellowish hue marked with distinctive and intricate sepia striations.
• Fantasto—brand name of a beverage containing an amphetamine-related “pick-me-up” drug with euphoric undertones. Nonaddictive, but impairs physical coordination if used to excess. Street name: “happy juice.”
• flexor—the flexible hemispheric brain scan array used in splintegration, which in turn is based on the flexor arrays used in neurosurgery and neural repair in ordinary medicine.
• Gantori—Between-World, the name for the domain of the shigasue.
• Gantori-Das—an Enclave; i.e., a licensed entertainment district of the shigasue. This is the proper High Sa’adani term for licensed quarters, but Enclave is more common in the vernacular.
• Gen’karfa (“Warrior-bred”)—second-highest caste in the Sa’adani Empire and highest-status aristocracy. Only the noble Lau Sa’adani rank higher.
• Glitz—a euphoric party drug.
• grieko—a large swallow-tailed bird native to Calyx, famed for its orange-red plumage and spectacular mating flights. Called “the Emperor’s Bird”; symbolizes good luck.
• Grinds—slang for police, equivalent to “cops.”
• grisk—a bulldog-like guard beast, known for its excessive joy in chewing on things.
• gritzl—burrowing rodent. It has big eyes that blink in surprise if exposed to sudden daylight, making it look rather silly. Hence the term “silly gritzl” is an endearment or a friendly jab.
• GTN—Global Transit Network, the vactrain network that girdles the globe of Lyndir and links most major urbitats together.
• holocaster—a device that projects a holographic image.
• holopad—a pad that projects a holographic image. Often used in pairs: a person stands on one pad, and their standing image is reproduced on the receiver pad. Commonly used to “attend” meetings or make reports “in person” somewhere far away.
• infosphere—the information layer of a datasphere, where data is consolidated into knowledge constructs. News organizations, for instance, reside in the infosphere, riding atop the datasphere, which transports the raw material of their news.
• InfoNex—a major nexus in the infosphere, and portal to myriad information resources. More specialized nodes such as FinNex (financial info) and NewsNex (current events) are components of the larger InfoNex system.
• Internal Security (IntSec)—the domestic security and investigative arm of the imperial intelligence apparatus. In slang they are called “Bugs” (a play on IntSec), but this is an English-language equivalence. These words and some subtextual meanings are different in the original Sa’adani.
• jeegar—a legendarily fast-running and famously tenacious hunting cat (technically, pseudo-feline) from the savanna planet Penura.
• Juro—Sa’adani god who is gatekeeper of the Underworld. Often invoked in curses and slang.
• kaf—caffeinated grain beverage. Popular hot drink.
• kushla—Old Sa’adani term for girl (as in “my girl”); for favorite; also for a person who is a sexual plaything or a concubine. Usually but not exclusively applied to women in the last meaning of the word.
• Lau Sa’adani—the noble and highest caste of the Sa’adani Empire. Generally translated as “Spiritual Warrior” but literal meaning is “enlightened members of the House of Adàn.”
• laufre—physical meditation and stretching exercises that run energy and build flexibility and body strength.
• LNNs—limited nanoneurals. Nanoneurals are nanites bonded with neural chemicals that map or create neural pathways, thus programming brain functions. The limited ones work only in certain areas of the brain or perform narrowly defined functions.
• Lyndir—capital of the CAS Sector and of Lyndir Subsector.
• Luus—capital of the tri-pedal brodien in what is called Triskelan Sector, known as Triskelos space.
• matami—a shigasue word for a mistress elevated from the women of a House.
• matasai—Slave-assistant-escort-bodyguard. An aide who is owned, expected to provide for every need of his owner, and die if necessary to protect him or her.
• mentaid—street name for Serafix. See Serafix.
• nashak—spice-based brandy-like drink.
• Navshi (“Ruler”)—high-ranking aristocracy, and the minimum caste level usually required to govern a planet.
• net—short for network, or “Net” if referring to a specific planetary infrastructure. The net is the coms and data infrastructure of a world; the datasphere rides atop it, and the infosphere atop that. All of these layers are referred to loosely as “the net” (or “the Net” if a particular one is meant), but in fact their various functions are different.
• netrunner—a cyberdecker who moves between the various layers of the net for fun, work, or mischief. A runner generally ranges farther and engages in more intrusive or illegal activities than does a mere cyberdecker. E.g., while a decker might use a secure system, a runner will infiltrate it.
• pammas—a tall reedy grass topped by a feathery white plume. The fibers are used to make traditional woven matting.
• plas—plastic synthetic used for windows and other moldable forms.
• Political Division (PolitDiv)—technically a subdivision of Internal Security, PolitDiv eventually became sequestered off as it morphed into the Empire’s secret police. Today it is a power unto itself. The head of PolitDiv bears only the rank of Arcolo (equivalent to colonel) but works at the behest of the Emperor and has vast influence in the Empire.
• Port Oswin—capital city of Lyndir, the capital of CAS Sector.
• purf—an energy symbiont and chameleon. A purf has a delicate snake-like body structure and a feathery “fur” that is white in its neutral state. It feeds off the bioelectric field and aura energy of its host. Its feathers take on the coloration of its host’s aura. In exchange, the purf soothes and calms its host if energies are too erratic. Frebo is Kes’s purf.
• Qualuni—the language of old Qua-lun, birthplace of the culture that later became the Sa’adani Empire. This language is still used among the high caste, in court circles, and in formal government business. In that context it is called High Sa’adani. It is the language of politics, administration, and high-born business throughout the Empire.
• Raem the Taskmaster—a psychological construct, a personified aspect of Ilanya Eva’s Tolex, her brain-augmentation chip.
• raffik—a clear distilled alcohol similar to aquavit.
• rez, rezzed, rezzing—to resolve or appear in cyberspace, as in “his sim-self rezzed out in the open.”
• roi’tas—literally, “honor, duty, obligation”; phrase used to signify honor-debt or duty owed another because of a debt of honor.
• rus—a stylized sigil or mark to signify caste, clan, or profession. Usually laserscribed into the skin and colored with nanite-based smart dyes. The wearing of a rus is usually mandated by law to mark someone in a visually distinguishable manner.
• Sa’adani—a contraction of Sa’adani words meaning “of the House of Adàn.” Initially it referred to a clan and their allies, later to a dynasty and the empire they founded. It also refers to the culture and civilizations native to this area of space.
• Sarit—“citizen”—common form of address for peers, lesser caste ranks, and non-caste residents of the Empire.
• scripman—one who deals in money on the backstreets: making loans, brokering bets, collecting debts. Loan shark–like but generally more diversified.
• SeF see sensie-feelie.
• Selmun III—a planet in Lyndir Subsector, scene of events in the novel Mainline.
• sensie-feelie—technology that records and plays back physical (and at the high end, emotional) sensations recorded from a subject via specialized neural circuitry and chipware. Often referred to by the acronym SeF, pronounced as it is spelled.
• Serafix—a designer drug that boosts mental acuity. Addictive; street name is “mentaid.”
• Shelieno, the—a district in Port Oswin that is one of three licensed districts belonging to the shigasue. Also called the Enclave, or Gantori-Das (“the Between-World”).
• shigasa/shigasu/shigasue—individual/plural/collective (organizational). The root word shigar means “to entertain.” A shigasa is a trained entertainer working in the licensed quarter of Sa’adani cities. The various word forms are used in this manner: “In the world of the shigasue, small groups of shigasu may entertain a guest, but one shigasa will be responsible for the engagement as a whole.”
• sim-self—an avatar simulating one’s personal presence in cyberspace.
• Simikan—“Raid Leader”; Sa’adani military rank equivalent to a lieutenant.
• Simkar—“Attack Leader”; Sa’adani military rank equivalent to a captain.
• Startown—slang for the generally free-wheeling urban area that grows up around a starport.
• steeloy—alloy of spun metal, steel-strong but very light. Used for structural support and construction, also certain types of moldable forms.
• synthsteel see steeloy.
• Tensin—“guardians”; the admin and security support staff that is the public face of authority in a shigasue Enclave.
• Tolex—brain-augmentation chip; boosts memory storage, collation, association. See Raem the Taskmaster.
• trodes—short for electrodes, but refers generally to fine devices ranging down to submicron scale.
• Tryst—high-end house of domination, run by Palumara House in the Shelieno.
• vansin—self-reinforcing ultra-thin smart polymer used in large-scale construction. More details on vansin are here: http://bit.ly/spltech01.