How the Shard works

[jayphailey]

How the Shard works

Okay a brief review

Orions are distantly related to Vulcans. As if they had a common ancestor about 5 million years ago. They have green blood and the basic biochemistry is the same.

Orions would be built using human stats in any game system. They do not have enhanced strength like Vulcans.

Their psychology is also broadly parallel to human psychology. Orions are people.

Orions come in various colors. This is more than a skin-deep matter like humans.

Golden or Yellow Orions actualy range in color from Lemon yellow to gold, to bronze to red. Held by Bot'chok descended Orions to be the master race.

Green Orions - a strongly genetically engineered variant of Orions. Used as slaves and entertainers. They are not cross-fertile with Golden Orions. Green Orion Women emit a pheromone that causes lust in many humanoid males. It's rumored to be irresistible, but it's just strong. If you're around a Green Orion Woman for a while, you'll get used to it and the effect will fade.

Green/Yellow or Yellow/Green - in the Far Sector a mad scientist discovered how to set things up so Green and Golden orions could breed crossbreed this type of Orions, not previously seen.

Near "The Desert" a 100 light-year globe where no class M planets survived, Lefyt refugees discovered "Darnara" - a world of naturally occurring Green/Yellow Orion people.

The Green/Yellow variant was the original flavor of Orion people. Something the Golden Orions of Bot'chok (The Orion Colonies) DO NOT LIKE and are not addressing.

The Lefyt people are Golden Orions, genetically but different culturally.

Why are they called "Orions"?

Two threads - One a corruption of their original name the Orons.

And - in the wild west days of the Orion Main from 2150 to 2200, The Orions encountered were often raiders and scouts, trading where they could and raiding where they could.

So Orions. Named for the Earth Constellation, Orion the Hunter. The Hunter in the Stars. Star Hunters.

Orions of the 2160s liked the idea that they were written into the stars as "The Star Hunters" and so adopted the "Orion" name.

Humans hearing "Oron" often thought it was a mistranslation of "Orion" and so in Standard (English for our purposes) "Orion" replaced "Oron"

The word "Oron" still appears in old Orion texts and language, as a sort of happy Afterlife. Heaven, Stovokor, The Elysian Fields, Oron - the Home of The Gods, where the people were cast out of for some ancient sin, sent to wander the Galaxy until they found the ancient Colony of Bot'chok and landed there, making a new home.

-*-

The Shard is a surviving breakaway part of the old Oron Empire. The old Oron Empire ran that part of space and was as big as the core of known space all together.

The Shard suffered a reduction in technology and came close to total collapse, but managed to hang together long enough to begin the clawback.

The people of the Shard are also Yellow/Green Orions, although they have done some genetic engineering on themselves. In any game system, the Shard people have above-average stats, but not too high. They have eliminated the sort of variability that can lead to super low or super-high stats. So it's like Lake Woebegone. All the children are above average.

The Shard is run in a sort of Confucian/Legalistic way. Take a civil service test, or a military test, and pass, and you're on the ladder.

The thing that has made this work is their headbands. These are telepathic devices. They are telepathic transmitters. They yell into the wearer's brain "Put the Shard First! Be Loyal to the Shard!"

In time, this becomes second nature and the wearer no longer even sees his thought process being guided.

It's a sort of electronic form of psionic domination.

Wearing the headband is the key to success. Culturally the "Children of the Shard" see the headbands as a "good thing" (tm). Anyone who takes the headband off and pursues his own course has stepped away from being a valid influence or power in the Shard.

The system of The Shard is set up to reward the people who rise in power in this system but in a visible and open way. You get money and fame and goodies, but you do it in the open. Taking money under the table is not being loyal to The Shard. It's not putting the good of The Shard first.

If someone monkeyed with his headband to shut off the psionic domination gear. He could get away with it for a while. But the people around him would eventually see him doing something inconsistent with the demand of the headband. If a high-level person was found to be corrupt in such a fashion, the people around him who still had working headbands would put a stop to him. However necessary. They might be resentful and angry. They might just kill him for it. A group might tear him limb from limb for cheating.

All acceptable if it's for the good of the Shard

The Shard runs on boards and committees driven by their headbands to be loyal to the Shard and to put the Shard first.

These boards and committees govern who gets promoted and who gets into positions of power.

It's bureaucratic and legalistic, but workable because the path to greater power is to be loyal to the shard and to put the shard first.

Over time, the people have come to not only accept but to value the psychic domination of the headbands. Someone with a headband on is trustworthy. After they take a fair cut, they're going to put the Shard First.

There are contests for power and influence. But it's quiet, professional, process driven, and orderly. If there is a problem that needs to be addressed for the good of the Shard, terrible political enemies will set aside their disagreement to deal with the problem, and then resume their quiet bureaucratic and process-driven contest.

Only people of Oron descent may put on the headband and join the ruling classes. There are subject races in the Shard. They are not invited. They can do their things within their limits but only Children of Oron can rule.

The technology of the Shard has, without them realizing it, stagnated somewhat. Their tools and devices are the rough equivalent of 2360s gear but have been in that sort of state for at least a century and a half. If you have a Shard Tricorder, it will be an excellent device. The makers have refined it and refined it, and gotten rid of all design flaws and weird edge-case troubles.

But they don't see much use in increasing the capacity at this time. It's the same with all their stuff. Everything is 2360s but perfected and very smooth 2360s.

They value stability and predictability more than possibly disruptive progress.

The people of the Shard have a fundamentally cynical view of power and politics. The headbands rescue them from this but also confirm it. How does this affect their view of foreign policy? How does it affect their relations with non-Oron people?

Stay tuned and we'll find out together

[Innkeeper]

I was thinking there would be stagnation. You are taking your "best people" and short circuiting their creative spark with "be loyal, good for the Shard". So very refined to the nth degree TNG tech they think is better than everyone else, because it is Oron and therefor must be better.

Contact with the Federation is going to hurt.

[jayphailey]

Yes, this is why their tech stagnated where it has. They haven't needed to improve it.

You can bet they have a DiSodium project working up.

They see the Federation, the Klingon Empire and most of the rest of known space to be dangerously unstable.

Right now, they want to explore their Anti-Spinward frontier and figure out what's what.

I have more in mind with them.