The Ma'jenn and the Civilized Ones

The ma’jenn will play an increasingly large role from Triple Strike book 3 onward, which is very exciting for me. I love the ma’jenn quite a bit, and while pyreans may look like space elves, they’re more “space orcs” in practice. Meanwhile, ma’jenn are unquestionably “space elves” in terms of society and technology…but also they’re still furries. Who doesn’t love space furries?

Like all the classic “vaguely-to-extremely xenophobic” space elf stereotypes in sci-fi, the ma’jenn consider themselves more advanced and intelligent than their spacefaring counterparts: the pyreans and humans. That said, they are hive-minded and eusocial (loosely based on naked mole rats and honey bees), so how they view alien life is a bit different from humans.

Like pyreans, ma’jenn are animistic. This means planets hosting life are considered a form of super-organism, and ma’jenn believe a wider range of life are sentient than humans might. Because of this, the ma’jenn do not terraform planetary bodies if it puts the native life at risk, and both pyreans and humans abide by these policies to maintain as good of relations as possible with the ma’jenn.

Ma’jenn do consider pyreans and humans to be exceptionally intelligent among the known species, but they do not classify pyreans or humans as Civilized Ones. Civilized Ones are species the ma’jenn believe to have a civilization. While the ma’jenn don’t deny that pyreans and humans have societies, the ma’jenn believe a civilization definitionally requires participants to be eusocial.*

Earth, with its incredible biodiversity, hosts a number of Civilized Ones, and despite the Moon Empire refusing to participate in formal trade with humans, they have some interspecies, scientific exchange to study Earth’s Civilized Ones.

Civilized Ones of Earth include a number of species of bees, wasps, termites, and ants, as well as several varieties of mole rat and shrimp. Supposedly there is a hotly contested scientific debate in the Crescent Court whether coral species should be classified as Civilized Ones, but ma’jenn scientists have yet to come to consensus.

Another ma’jenn classification of life is Honored Friends. Honored Friends are species the ma’jenn consider to lack civilization but have some notable quality making them worthy of “friendship” with the Empire. Earth’s Honored Friends include a handful of whale species, parrots, elephants, gorillas, and, for some reason, jumping spiders. Humans did not quite make the cut, but Corandisham y’Llaunau d’Helva does seem awfully fond of Alan (admittedly, whether they think of Alan as a friend or a pet is unclear).

Strangely, while ma’jenn do not consider cephalopods either Civilized Ones or Honored Friends, members of Cephalopoda have their own unique classification of “Voice in the Dark.” Voice in the Dark does not appear to be used for any other species in the galaxy, so what this means remains unclear to both pyrean and human xeno-anthropologists.

*Over the years, a number of human ma’jennophiles have tried to convince the ma’jenn that human society is interdependent enough that it should qualify as eusociality, but ma’jenn scientists remain skeptical.

Questions or comments? Want to talk about novel writing or indie dev? Please contact me at akulagames@proton.me, or join the Akula Games mailing list for blog and product updates.

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