Faulfenza
The true aliens, technologically advanced and deeply religious. See also Faulfenzair Religion, Faulfenzair Language.
Vital Statistics (At a Glance)
Pronounced 'fall-FEHN-zah'. Singular is Faulfenzair. Possessive is Faulfenzair. Plural is Faulfenza.
- Species Type: True alien
- Origin: Evolved
- Frame Type: Bipedal, digitigrade, heavy gravity-worlder
- Average Height: 5'8" to 6'3" (with outliers: 5'5" to 6'5")
- Average Lifespan: 800 years, Alliance-standard
- Gravity Preference: heavy; Qufiil is Mediger 9
- Homeworld: Qufiil (formerly, Quzen)
- Native Language: Faulfenzair
Appearance and Physiology
The Faulfenza are heavy-gravity worlders, bipedal with powerful, dense bodies, digitigrade legs, a long tail, partially prehensile and 3-4 feet in length. The tail is separated into two "bodies", a long fringe near the spine and a hairless/short-haired segment, followed by a second, long tuft. They have six digits (toes and fingers) and these toes and fingers have no nails or claws, nor toe beans. The bottoms of their feet, and the palms of their hands, are hairless. Their faces have long, narrow muzzles with vaguely deer-like nose pads. Eyes are forward-facing with round pupils. The ears are hemispherical fans with two points that sweep back and have significant range of motion: not forward, but sideways. (Like a rolltop desk.)
They are omnivores.
While they are bilaterally symmetrical, they tend to grow things in sextuples rather than pairs; so their hearts have six chambers, their largest thigh muscles have six strands, their hands and feet have six digits, etc.
Lifespan
The Faulfenza live around 800 of Qufiil's years. In their 30s they are considered a child, and once they reach 60ish, a young adult; most Faulfenza are operating as independent adults by their 80s. Since they do not mature sexually until encountering their lifemates, they don't have the same assumptions about adult thresholds as species with a puberty that proceeds on schedule, regardless of physical age.
It's common for Faulfenza to find their lifemates between their mid-first century and their fourth, with the greatest number clustering around the 200-year mark. At this point they become reproductive adults, and the next 250 years are their most fertile/virile, though they remain capable of reproduction (both male and female) until the end of their lives. The average Faulfenzair couple produces 4-5 children.
While rare, a late Entwining (for individuals older than ~600 years) is still capable of producing young, and late Entwinings tend to add years to a Faulfenzair's lifespan... the younger they are, the longer. So a Faulfenzair who Entwines at 600 might see another 100 years added to his life, but one who entwines at 800, maybe 20-30.
There are no records of Faulfenza who reach adulthood failing to Entwine. This phenomenon is known as Faulza's Magnanimity, and is casually accepted by Faulfenzair scientists in a way the Pelted would probably find crazy-making.
Coloration
The Faulfenza are furred in a tricolor pattern: one dark body color, and two accent colors, a pale (usually white or light gray or cream) and a reddish hue. Base pelt colors from most usual to rarest:
- black
- dark brown
- medium brown
- dark gray
- light brown
- medium gray
- slate gray-blue
- light gray
- silver
- white
- red, or russet (only three have been this color; they were known as the Fireborn. It is believed children born this color were forged in Faulza's cauldron and are messengers from Him.)
Black with white and red (as opposed to grayish or orange) is called the Qudii's colors. (Sometimes in text called the 'classic' colors.)
- Normal eye colors: blue, red, violet, orange, amber, green
- Rare: brown, gray, cream
Esper Powers
They are born with the ability to direct heat through their skin (commonly through the hands, though any body part will do, with practice), something they call the Mindfire. This is classified by the Alliance as an esper power, though the Faulfenza consider it a divine gift.
History
They were born to the world Quzen; a global famine was relieved by the embrace of farming technologies championed by the first Fireborn, Qufal. These technologies eventually destroyed the world's ecology. The messiah Faullaizaf was sent to lead them off Quzen and to a new home.
They later settled on the double world Qufiil and became wiser custodians of their environment. Historically, one week after their landing at Liiza, Jiizel led the Faulfenza who would become the Lost Kin off the world, to return for the Faulfenza who had stayed on Quzen to sing its death dirge, and from there to go as a larger group to seek the Others of prophecy. This event is recorded in the Scroll of Leave-Taking.
Not long afterwards, the decision to administrate the planets differently was made, a decision overseen by Faullaizaf, and that saw the two proponents for the winning instated as the first OverDancer of the Preserve and the first WorldDancer of the Seeker's Side: Jenai and Niidza, respectively. This event is recorded in the Scroll of the Stewards.
Return to Quzen
The third messiah, Zafiil, located Quzen and revisited it:
Quzen was... not what she expected. The Scrolls had been clear about the condition of their homeworld on their departure, or at least, as clear as they ever were: they had used up the bounty of the oceans, and poisoned them. They had depleted the soil and reduced the thousands of species to a bare handful. ‘The earth would not bear; the seas would not yield; the sky begrudged every breath.’ But that led her to expect a damaged world, perhaps even one that had healed in its thousands of years of peace. At very least, she should have seen evidence of Faulfenzair habitation: ruins on-planet, or abandoned orbital debris.
But the Slipstream pulled into orbit above a dead world, reduced to dust and rock, without so much as an atmosphere to clothe its cracked and naked crust. She would have been hard-pressed to find any evidence of satellites or orbital installations, except that there was a fine grit with metallic glints in it floating in orbit with her, pinging constantly against the ship’s debris shield. Zafiil stared down into the magnified display, her ears pinned flat to her skull. Unavoidably, she thought of Jiizel’s visitation. The Lost Kin found the Others. We are lost in truth.
Something worse than the Others she’d met. Something responsible for the void bridges, full of hate. Something that unmade... as Quzen had been unmade, past any hope of restoration. The Faulfenza had hurt their world, but they hadn’t destroyed it. Not like this. [1]
Post-Zafiil
The Faulfenza joined the Alliance in 311 BA, a decision Jan Naula made when Alliance scouts were sighted close enough to the planet to make contacting them first a good idea.[2]
- See also: Faulfenzair Language and Faulfenzair Scrolls
Society
Faulfenza are inherently nonviolent and do not deliberately cause harm to sapient species; they were unable to conceive of that as possible until after first contact with aliens. Regarding killing: "This is against Faulfenzair beliefs in a way I have difficulty describing. We do not have a history of war or violence; we die of natural causes, and of accidents, but we do not willfully cause one another harm. To inflict harm on others is... not even anathema, because that requires the act to be conceivable," [3]
Fostering
If fostering is done at all, the children are sent in their thirties, and spend thirty years on Quafiirla. The end of this period is known as last-mark.[4] Fostering is not done in reverse, to Quapendai; Quafiirla adolescents, however, may choose to spend their new adulthoods on the Seeker's Side as their equivalent to fosterage. In this way, Faulfenza have a solid, pre-technological childhood and the opportunity to participate in a modern society as adults, if they choose, after that foundational period.[4]
Stereotypes
Religion
See Faulfenzair Religion and Faulfenzair Scrolls.
Common Family Structures
Native or Common Dress
Faulfenza often go without clothing at all, considering fur alone an appropriate covering ("We have fur, why do we need anything else? [5]. Clothing is used for utility only and is named for what it does (keep-warm, shelter-wrap, shield-toes, etc.).[5]
Naming Conventions
Historically, Faulfenza names were typically "First name – name of birthplace", and if the Faulfenzair fostered on another world, and felt that site became a second home, they would ask permission to append a third name, the name of foster city/village/place. After Zafiil, fosterage/second-homes became a way to honor the Fireborn messiahs, and it is now rarer to meet someone who hadn't fostered and taken a third name than otherwise. Almost all the Faulfenza who leave Qufiil for the Alliance, or who spend significant time off-planet in other endeavors, will have third names.
Cultural Norms
This is a section for little details that might get lost until I find a better place to put them.
- While the Faulfenza have the concept of takeout, they don't do disposable containers. The delivery person will have restaurant containers, permanent, for delivery, and will serve from them into the person's dishes/bowls. If someone is staying in an overnight-house that accepts delivery, they will accept it into their own tableware and send it up to the room.
Recording Policies
Faulfenza do not believe permanent recordings of events (video, audio, etc) are beneficial to society. History should always be recounted by people in their own words, and passed on to others, if it's deemed important enough, for two reasons: first, because it is easier to believe a recording is an entire account of the facts of an event because of how it "fools" the senses; and second, because hearing events through the filter of someone's explanations makes it easier to recognize that all history is subject to observational bias. Personal writing is exempted from this belief because of its lack of immediacy and sensory impact, but even so Faulfenza don't tend to preserve their own writing, and after their deaths such writings are consigned to fire as ephemera. Documentary visual art (not video, but things like paintings and drawings) fall under a similar cultural habit, often discarded, but abstractions, landscapes, and depictions of historical or divine events have more longevity. Faulfenza also don't record or document themselves for pleasure or personal reasons: the culture of constant photography/videography of personal life events never took hold for them.
While the Faulfenza broadcast news, news items "expire" and are deleted/no longer available after a brief period of time: usually a few days, but sometimes a few weeks. Recordings of individuals are never maintained after their death. Even important individuals are subject to this ruling: all three of the Faulfenzair messiahs appeared during technological eras capable of recording their activities for posterity, but none of those recordings were stored.
The notable exception to this rule are the Scrolls of history, dealing as they do with the divinely-led events of the Faulfenza as a species, and even so few are written in a documentary style. This exemption is considered normal because the Scrolls are either from before a technological era that permitted recording, or because the Scrolls are transcriptions of Dance, and Dance is a sacred language given by the God. There have been times (the Faulfenza say) when the God has corrected a Scroll by not allowing it to be Danced as transcribed.
Recordings meant for education have a longer lifespan, but even so they are allowed to expire and are renewed, and if they ever involve a particular Faulfenzair they are subject to the same habits of deleting items.
Historically, there is probably a link between the Exodus and the falling away of personal writing; the ships were crowded, everyone had a mass allotment, and paper is heavy. This accelerated a move toward electronic record-keeping as primary vehicle for information sharing. The break with prior culture on Quzen, and the creation of new habits on Qufiil, probably solidified this habit: paper was wasteful, personal accounts past a certain point were deadweight, and things that must be saved should either be educational/informational or divine/religious.
Fiction
Faulfenza don't write fictional stories, and have no culture of fiction-writing. No movies, no novels. The Scrolls, which are considered historical fact, are the closest they come to fiction. They don't lack imagination, and thought exercises and hypotheticals are learning devices used by every Faulfenzair, but making up stories and living vicariously though them, or learning from them, is alien to them.
Technology
Famous Figures
- Qudii, the First-Mother
- Qufal, the first Fireborn, and his Voice Efaulii
- Faullaizaf, the second Fireborn, and his Voice Narelu
- Zafiil Paidiiza Qodii, the third Fireborn, and her Voice Daqan
Characters
See also List of Minor or Background Characters.