BY LETTER
Riposte
 Image from Worldtree | |
| A Riposte seen from underneath; the scales on the underside are capable of clinging to surfaces using gecko-like attraction | |
Overview
The Riposte are a xenosophont species from the EuCytherean garden world of Scaramouche in the Pantalone system, located in the south-counterspinwards periphery.First contact, made in 10220 by the Communion nullship Acts of Dialogue, is considered to be one of the more successful attempts. Despite being a primtech species, they were successfully introduced to Terragen civilisation with minimal harm to the native culture.
Evolution
The Riposte evolved from social generalist herbivores with a variety of feeding strategies, preferentially eating the energy-rich storage organs, seeds, and fruiting bodies of nemosynthesisers and the biofilms produced by photosynthesisers. Though largely arboreal, they were also capable of crossing the windswept plains between forest bands.The proto-Riposte were the preferred prey of Giant Skyhooks and a larger species of Geminoid. The resultant evolutionary pressure developed their sensory apparatus and their intelligence, ultimately leading to sophonce.
Physiology
Gross Anatomy
A mature Riposte individual is a clonal colony, consisting of two zooids joined at the head.It has a flat, wide head (similar to a hammerhead shark), with two long snakelike bodies trailing behind it. The head has two eyes at the edges, and two mouth openings at the front. The skin is covered with feathers everywhere except the undersides of the bodies, which have adhesive scales.
In a fully grown adult, the head is 1.4 metres wide, 30 centimetres long, and 6 centimetres thick. Each body is 4.8 metres long and has a maximum diameter of 22 centimetres. Despite this size, they have an average mass of 26kg due to the low density of supercritical CO2.
The entire body can be made fully flexible by liquefying the bone minerals. Even the head can be rolled up or folded. Usually, though, the head is held in a comparatively rigid form, while the bodies remain flexible.
Riposte are predominantly arboreal organisms and have many forms of locomotion. At slow speeds, they wrap their bodies around branches and anchoring cables. At higher speeds, the head provides significant dynamic lift, supporting the front half of the organisms, while the bodies push against branches. The head also allows them to glide significant distances.
When moving over open ground, the head is supported by dynamic lift and the bodies move in a sidewinding gait to push against the ground.
Riposte manipulate their environment in two ways. First, their long, flexible bodies are capable of prehensile grasping, aided by the adhesive scales on the underside. Second, their specialised fabricator organ (see below) is capable of building tools. Generally, the bodies are used for gross manipulation tasks, such as moving objects and putting on clothes, and the fabricator organ for fine manipulation tasks, such as manufacture and repair of tools.
Integument
Riposte feathers only superficially resemble bird feathers. They are much simpler, lacking a shaft and barbules. Instead, they are a simple open lattice of tough fibres. They grow continuously from slits in the skin, with the tips crumbling away due to wear and tear. The feathers have no colour variation, but display patterns in polarised light.The scutes on the underside of the body are adhesive, covered in microscopic setae (similar to gecko feet). Riposte can consciously vary the stickiness of their scutes, and use this to hold themselves down in strong winds.
Skeletal system
Members of the tropeost phylum, Riposte can change their bones between rigid and flexible states. They can melt or freeze the eutectic salts within their bones by varying the chemical composition to change the melting point of salt ossicles. When solid, the ossicles interlock to form a rigid structure. The ossicles are embedded in a network of tough but flexible fibres to form a complete bone.Changing the state of bones takes a little over two minutes.
The skeleton forms two helices, one left-handed and one right-handed, just under the skin of each body. When flexible, they work like springs, storing elastic energy to make movement more efficient. A series of horizontal ribs holds the head open, and connect in the centreline where the two zooids have merged.
Respirovascular system
Animals on Scaramouche use supercritical carbon dioxide as a solvent, an energy source, and a surrounding medium. This means they can transport carbon dioxide directly to their cells. By contrast, in an aqueous biosphere, complex life must dissolve oxygen in the blood using gills or lungs.Riposte have multiple spiracles in their skin. Filtration organs just below the spiracles trap organic and particular matter, and allow clean carbon dioxide to pass into a fractally branching set of tracheoles that run throughout the body. There is no need for full circulation, because the flow is one-way into the tissues where carbon dioxide is absorbed.
Independent tanker-cells carry other nutrients, primarily in the form of oxide "sugars" and excess carbonate waste. These use motor protein-analogs to crawl along tracks in the tracheole walls. The main bottleneck is nutrient transport rather than gas transport. Endocrine signalling is also limited, and complex organisms on Scaramouche use nerve signalling more extensively than those on Earth.
Nervous system
Scaramouche life doesn't use action potentials or synapses. Instead, nerve fibres transmit signals mechanically using a "wire and tube" system. A complex of biomolecules forms a long wire inside a hollow tube. At each end, the wire is connected to the tube with conformation-changing clamps.In its initial state, the system is spring-loaded, with the clamps under tension on the transmitting end. To signal, a locking molecule is released, and the clamps pull the wire half a micrometre through the tube. This changes the conformation of the clamps on the receiving end, propagating the signal. Once the system has fired, it requires a refractory period on the order of milliseconds to reset. Wire and tube signallers come in bundles within nerves, and signalling is stochastic.
Complex "origami folded" phyllosilicate sheets connect the signaller bundles. The sheets change conformation in response to mechanical signals, producing a single output from multiple inputs. Conformation changes of the integrator sheets can also catalyse the formation of new wire-and-tube bundles, allowing neuroplasticity.
Nerve cells form a single syncytium, without any barriers between signal bundles and integrator membranes.
The Riposte brain is roughly cylindrical, running along the rear edge of the cephalofoil and passing beneath the digestive tracts. Each ends narrows into an optic nerve. At the seam, the brains of the two zooids are joined by their redundant optic nerve into a single structure. In each zooid, the brain projects three nerve chords backwards into the body. Two run laterally to the tail, and one runs ventrally, terminating at the gizzard.
Digestive system
A Riposte individual initially has two digestive tracts, one in each zooid. However, as it matures, only one is retained as a true digestive system, while the other is repurposed.Riposte have no jaws or external mandibles. Instead, they can evert their pharynx to a length of 50cm. Gripping plates in the pharynx catch the food item and, if necessary, tear it free. The food item is then swallowed whole. Riposte can swallow items up to twice as wide as their body.
The gizzard is immediately behind the head. It is more complex than the name suggests, consisting of multiple internal mandibles which can physically manipulate and break apart food items, separate the most nutritious parts, and send them down to the stomach, while regurgitating the rest. The process is under conscious control, and a Riposte can choose what to reject or not based on personal preference.
The stomach and its surrounding glands are similarly sophisticated. Individual sections of the wall can secrete and absorb special concentrations or eutectic molten salt to help dissolve mineralised portions of the food and then safely extract the energy-bearing calcium oxide sugars.
The remaining sections of the digestive tract absorb useful silicate-type and silicone-type biopolymers. Solid crystals of excess calcium carbonate and waste silica and sulphates are collected at the end for excretion. The digestive tract runs the entire length of the body.
Fabricator System
The digestive tract of the other body becomes the fabricator system. The gizzard and stomach grow together into a single complex organ, capable of secreting and crystallising layers of eutectic salt into complex structure. The secreted salt can be used directly as a construction material, or as a binder for other materials ingested by the second mouth. The internal mandibles of the gizzard move and carve the resultant construction into the desired shape. When the process is finished, the Riposte regurgitates the object through its second mouth.This specialisation is found in all animals in the order Dyadiformes but becomes most sophisticated in the Riposte themselves. Its usefulness seems to be why the dyad colony form has been retained in evolution. The fabricator system originally evolved as a nest-building tool, but in modern Riposte it serves as a manipulator for building tools.
Sensory System
During the day, Scaramouche has sufficient illumination to see, but the long nights are entirely dark. The thick atmosphere even blocks starlight.Vision is the primary daytime sense. Riposte have two wide-set eyes at the sides of the head. The eyes are crystalline, and have large, oval pupils. They focus using reflective options, by changing the curvature of a concave mirror at the back of the eye. They lack colour vision, but can perceive polarisation.
At night, the eyes sink into the head, and a thin layer of bone solidifies in front to protect them.
Olfactory and seismic senses, while always active, become most important at night. They are complementary. Olfaction is limited to upwind, but can alert an individual to airborne approaches, which usually come from this direction. The seismic sense can detect animals animals pushing against the ground or climbing on branches to move against the wind. Ripe food is available to olfaction, while the constant motion of nemotrophic plants makes them clearly audible to the seismic sense.
Olfaction occurs through the spiracles. Spiracles across the head are specialised for olfaction, and lead to channels lined with chemoceptors. Riposte are considerably more sensitive to odours than bloodhounds or elephants, and the width of the head allows a strong sense of direction even in windy conditions.
To pick up seismic waves, Riposte press their head against a branch or the ground. The underside of the head is flexible enough to couple with the substrate, and is covered with a dense mesh of mechanoreceptors.
Riposte hear using a lateral line, and have a hearing range of 10Hz-4kHz. This is skewed towards longer wavelengths than the baseline human hearing range. They taste using direct contact receptors at the front and underside of the head.
Riposte have two channels of communication. Over longer distances, they generate seismic waves by scratching the tips of their body against the ground/branch. When in close contact, they communicate using taste, by exuding chemical substances on the pharynx membranes and everting it for others to touch. Like most animals on Scaramouche, they are incapable of vocalisation because they lack lungs.
Reproduction
Riposte use external fertilisation with nest construction and biparental care. They show a vestigial alternation of generation, with one part of the cycle being non-sophont, passive, and short-lived. They have two sexes, but almost no sexual dimorphism. Co-operative breeding is ubiquitous. Many close family members and friends serve as alloparents during child rearing.Mating begins with extensive courtship, though the details vary by culture. The final stage of courtship, however, ends with nest building. One parent initiates construction by clearing a suitable area. The other parent, if responding positively, constructs an element of camouflage or protection in their fabricator organ. This, in turn, prompts the first parent to construct another nest element, and the two alternate from there. While the parents alternate, each begins construction of the next element before they have seen their partner's.
Nest building, therefore, becomes a complex dance of anticipation, expectation, guessing, and responding to one another's preferences. Riposte ancestors would have built nests in a variety of environments, and adapted the nest's design to ensure adequate camouflage and protection. Modern Riposte, having freed themselves from most predation, build nests as a form of cultural and individual expression.
If the nest is successfully completed, each parent secretes gelatinous spawn from glands on the non-digesting body. The parents mix the spawn and inside a constructed egg-case, which they then place in the nest.
Incubation takes two months. During incubation, the parents alternate roles in guarding the nest and foraging. At this stage, alloparents begin to participate in foraging.
Inside the egg-case, up to twenty microscopic embryos form. However, through a form of competitive chemical signalling, only one survives and consumes the rest.
At the end of incubation, the egg hatches to reveal a monad-form. It is a single animal, without a broad head, resembling a worm. It never becomes sophont. Instead, it accompanies the parents, allowing both the leave the nest and forage.
After four months, the monad form produces a chain of two or four Riposte zooids by budding from its head. These are the dyad-form, which grow into sophont adults. The monad-form dies soon after, dissolving its bodily tissues to feed the zooids. When it does, the zooids split from its remains. Two zooids form a single infant Riposte, and four zooids split again to form two infants.
The infants accompany their parents for seven to twelve years before becoming independent and moving around the community. They reach sexual maturity after twenty-three years.
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| When moving near the ground, the Riposte use their lower extremities in a sidewinder movement; their aerofoil-shaped head provides enough lift to raise most of their body off the ground. Since the carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere is supercritical at this depth, it can support the body of the Riposte almost like a liquid. | |
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| Ripostes see the world in polarised light; this is how they appear to each other. | |
Psychology
Phenomenology
Riposte phenomenal consciousness includes more opaque elements than that of baseline humans, particularly in the areas of sensory input and self-modelling. That means that the symbolic processing underlying these systems are more available for their attentional focus, behaviour, and reasoning.For example, a baseline human experiences vision as immediate and can't focus on how visual experience is constructed, but is aware of the stages of logical, linguistic reasoning that lead to a conclusion.
A Riposte perceives the stages of logical reasoning in much the same way. However, when in a state of deep concentration, it is also capable of perceiving how its sensory field is constructed from underlying elements. It can introspectively discover how sensory errors (like optical illusions) arise, and with some training, it can even deliberate generate sensory hallucinations. In fact, auto-hallucinations are a common recreational activity.
The same applies for a Riposte's self model. In a state of deep concentration, it can perceive how its own subjectivity is constructed from lower level models of its body, intentional relations, social position, and autobiographical memories. It can perceive its conflicting urges and attempt to modify them. This state is somewhat similar to depersonalisation, but consciously controlled and emotionally benign. However, such levels of concentration require tremendous effort and can be dangerous. A Riposte that digs too deep into its self model may become trapped in "recursive lock-up", perceiving itself in the act of perceiving itself, without the attentional resources to escape. Individuals in recursive lock-up become catatonic. Roughly half of those can be saved through intense sensory stimulation. The other half usually die of starvation.
Therefore, Riposte only rarely focus on their own self-model. Nevertheless, doing so allows them a greater perspective and self awareness. It is a means of coming to terms with reality, and ultimately an experience of the sublime.
Language
There are two types of Riposte language. Seismic languages, produced by scratching branches or open ground, can (in the former case) be heard across multiple linked trees, or (in the latter case) have a range of up to a kilometre. Thus they tend to be used for open, public discussion. Conversely, taste languages, produced by chemicals on the everted pharynx, only work through physical contact. Thus they tend to be used for intimate, private communication between individuals.An average individual will learn between fifteen and twenty mutually-unintelligible languages over the course of its life. Most cultures have multiple languages, each of which has a different grammar and can be used in a different context: One may be blunt and practical, suited for the external world; another may be deeply emotive, suited for describing interior life; one may describe dynamics and processes; another may describe objects and properties.
For added complexity, Riposte frequently flip between languages for poetic or rhetorical effect. In this way, some languages may ultimately merge when used together often enough that the usages become standardised.
Polyirony is one expression of linguistic competence. Any given utterance has an explicit interpretation, on top of which lies an implicit meaning, on top of which lie multiple further layers of less obvious implicit meaning. The implications are indicated by the linguistic context, the physical context, the shared history of the participants, the choice of language, the tone of the original utterance, formulaic references, and relations between lower levels of implicit meaning. Generally, lower levels of implication are governed by specific rules, while higher levels owe more to the creativity and wit of the speaker. Highest levels are the most challenging to communicate with, and therefore the most pleasurable. Polyirony is an essential skill if all individuals, and considered a key marker of adulthood.
Semantic triangulation is the practice of approaching a difficult topic from multiple directions to better clarify and pin down its meaning. While any given definition or set of categories may be unable to match the complexity of objective reality, multiple approaches from different perspectives can help give a more precise picture.
Ontology
The natural Riposte ontology is based around non-centred implication: What may be obscure in one frame of reference or way of speaking may be obvious in another. They perceive the world in terms of phenomena which may be either obscure or obvious, and possible transforms that can render those phenomena more or less evident.Such transforms have no clear equivalent for baseline humans, but are somewhat akin to to metaphors, analogies, intertextuality, logic puzzles, or abstract algebras.
Pair bonding and sexuality
Riposte form long term pair bonds. Mated pairs stay in close, intimate contact, rarely separate, and often function socially as a single entity. Often a mated pair will develop a unique language inaccessible to outsiders.Homosexual pairings are common, and non-reproductive incestuous pairings occur occasionally. Bonded triples and quadruples are not unknown. All such forms are equivalent to other bonded pairs. (Reproductive incest, however, is taboo in almost all cultures.)
The treatment of unpaired individuals varies by culture. In some cases, they are considered to be not true adults, and suitable only for alloparenting, assistant roles, or part of a quasi-venerated outsider group. In other cases, they hold the same social status as bonded pairs.
Nest-building is the equivalent of sexual intercourse. Nearly all Riposte engage in recreational nest-building, which the fertilisation step is avoided. Neither nest-building nor fertilisation are limited to pair bonds, however. Most cultures are tolerant of nest-building behaviours, which occur in a great diversity of forms. When considering fertilisation, which can be done by individuals other than those who built the nest, the diversity of sexual behaviours is still greater.
Riposte sexuality is diurnal: They only engage in nest building during the day. They are strongly territorial about a chosen nesting site and its immediate environment. Only close allies may enter. Beyond the nest, territoriality is almost non-existent.
Society
Riposte society is influenced by the long diurnal cycle (lasting 142 Earth days) and the geography of uninhabitable highlands and lowlands. There are five significant cultural groups on Scaramouche: Circumplanetary is the largest and most diverse, occupying a continuous, planet-girdling region around the equatorial and temperate zones. Polar I and Polar II both occupy the north pole. Peninsular occupies a peninsula of plains extending into the uninhabitable lowlands. Montane occupies a band along the edges of the south pole highlands, close to the maximum survivable elevation for Riposte.Circumplanetary
The Circumplanetary group contains 68% of the population. Despite the low level of technology, it forms a cosmopolitan, planet-girdling civilisation with many regional variations.Its social structure is diurnal, changing between day and night. During the long night, Riposte form nomadic foraging bands, consisting of 30-80 individuals. These bands range great distances, crossing the windless plains between forest stripes, and can cover close to 5000 kilometres during the night. Come sunrise, the bands congregate into stone cities, forming populations of up to a million. During the day, when food is more plentiful and Riposte sexuality is active, they live in the cities, sustaining themselves with a mix of local foraging and cultivation, and working to maintain the architecture. Most time, however, goes to forging new social connections, finding partners, playing games, arguing, and redecorating the architecture. Because of the movement of nomadic bands, the urban population continually shifts, each city having a new composition each day.
The daytime urban social structure is broadly egalitarian. Each city has a central open plain almost a kilometre across in which the population can gather and debate. Governance roles and responsibilities are usually chosen by lot, and occasionally by rotation. Larger decisions are settled by vote, preceded by intense debate.
The nighttime bands are hierarchical, led by a governing pair (or, rarely, unpaired individual) and several secondary pairs/individuals. The choice of leader, however, is made during the urban stage. Those who prove themselves the wittiest, most verbally adept, and most industrious during the city stage tend to attract the most followers.
Cross cutting the diurnal urban/band structure is a system of 23 clans. Clans have no unified governance structure, and never gather together at the same time, but are distributed across the entire Circumplanetary group. The clans are named after types of sensory inputs — light polarisation, seismic timbres, and odours of food. Membership in a clan entails a certain set of roles, responsibilities, and relations to other clans. For example, members of the Vertical-Polarised Clan have a responsibility to care for and extract food from the Echo Kitetrees while foraging and maintain the windbreaks of the cities during the day. They are owed hospitality by the Low-Seismic Clan at all times without question, and come after them in rotas. A young Riposte inherits its parents clan, but may change clan through a special ceremony at any time.
The clan system helps facilitate nomadism. Even if it turns up in an entirely new social group, a Riposte has a minimal set of social relations to work with. The combination of the clan system and nomadism helps bind together the Circumplanetary group across its great size and extent.
The land occupied by Circumplanetary surrounds the other smaller groups, and therefore these groups tend to have contact only with Circumplanetary and not with each other. The exceptions are Polar I and Polar II, which occupy adjacent regions.
Polar I
The Polar I group has a sedentary culture based around villages. It is broadly egalitarian, though dominant pairs emerge through demonstration of moral rectitude, responsibility, and wit. The culture is conservative and moralistic, based on simplicity, self-abnegation and a rejection of luxury and vanity. It puts the greatest emphasis on focusing on one's self-model.Polar II
The Polar II group is also a sedentary culture based around villages, but is otherwise the inverse of Polar I. It is highly hierarchical, based around a great houses with an aristocracy that competes for fame and attention through conspicuous demonstration of wealth. It is the only Riposte cultural group to keep slaves (usually the indentured poor).There is continual low-level feud between Polar I and Polar II. Both groups have cool but not hostile relations with Circumplanetary, and some individuals combine Circumplanetary nomadism with sedentary daytime life in one of the Polar groups.
Peninsular
The Peninsular group has a very simple culture, based around small, quasi-sedentary foraging bands. It has a moiety system governing mating bonds. It places a strong emphasis on autohallucinations as recreation, and has a limited artistic output beyond that. Though egalitarian, it tends to be distrustful of outsiders, and has only limited contact with Circumplanetary.Montane
Riposte of the Montane group are adapted to the high elevations where they live, with denser feather coverings and more efficient metabolisms.Montane society is based around extreme sovereignty, but with crucial limitations. A number of hereditary sovereigns live in small palaces and are carried around on winged rafts by family members. In the dense atmosphere of Scaramouche, these rafts gain enough lift to take off even when being pulled by muscle power at low speeds.
Sovereigns have absolute, unquestioned and arbitrary power over any Riposte in their immediate environment, up to and including execution without cause. However, this power extends only to their immediate environment, and they have acceptable means of projecting it beyond that. Therefore, the majority of Montane Riposte make sure to avoid their sovereigns.
There are occasional interactions between Circumplanetary and Montane Riposte, but these are limited by their different environments and cultural adaptations.
Culture
Ritual insults
All Riposte cultures have exchanges of ritualised insults as a significant cultural element. In all such cases, the target of an insult is expected to respond in kind. Indeed, the designation Riposte itself is translated from a term common to all Circumplanetary languages.The insults themselves are, like all speech acts, laden with polyirony, and while the lower levels may be vitriolic, the higher levels can be complimentary or even compassionate.
There are three scenarios in which ritual insults are used most often.
The first is greetings. These are conducted at long range through seismic languages. A Riposte will acknowledge another with an insult, and expect a properly conducted one in return. Such exchanged are a coded form of information sharing. For example, if individual A mocks individual B's recent activities, this implies A is aware of those activities, which in turn implies a question about what B has been doing that A doesn't know about. In Circumplanetary, new arrivals to an area may be insulted for presuming to be a monarch, implying they do not feel the need to share their clan, in turn implying a request for the new arrival's clan affiliation. Greeting insults are often formalised.
The second is performative games. These are conducted at close range through seismic languages, allowing an audience to follow the exchange. Games may be between two individuals, two bonded pairs, or larger groups. The participants swap insults back and forth, building on each other's comments. It is important for participants to retain their composure; showing anger is a demonstration of failure. Exchanges are ranked by wit and level of polyirony.
The third is private games. These are conducted through taste languages, and therefore do not allow an audience. They are purely for the benefit of the two individuals, are are usually an expression of intimacy between friends and family members.
Poetry
Riposte facility with language allows a rich and complex poetic culture. They lack written language, so poetry is passed down through memorisation. Narrative forms are extremely rare, and poetry instead focuses on descriptions of the environment, emotional and mental states, nonsense, and philosophy.Philosophy
Philosophy falls into two broad categories. The first is influenced by self-model introspection, and considers the nature of the individual when that individual's subjectivity can be dissolved. It covers topics from absurdism to empiricism.The second considers the nature of social structures and their optimisation, value and function. This branch is most complex in Circumplanetary given the tendency to switch between different social forms, but also occurs in more self-justifying forms in other cultures.
Clothing and body decoration
Riposte make clothing from the membranes of wind-plants or from felt-like textiles, created in the fabricator organ from a mixture of plant fibres. It is a universal among Riposte, though the form varies by culture. The head and parts of the underside usually remain exposed. Common items are wraps for each body, single tunics connected by a strap around the head, and sheets that adhere to feathers of the upper body. Belts help secure clothing and function rather like shoes, protecting the underside from harm.Styles tend to be diurnal. Visual appeal is only useful during day. Decorations are based around polarisation rather than colour, and look quite drab to colour-only vision. Perfumed clothes are used worn both day and night. Decoration of the upper head with artificial feathers is quite common. Such feathers have appealing shapes, polarisations and odours.
In Circumplanetary, the most ornate form of dress comes in the morning, as bands arrive at the cities. Polar I styles are minimalist. In Montane, thick clothing is essential due to the (comparatively) low temperatures.
Autohallucinations
The Riposte ability to examine and manipulate the preprocessing layers of their own sensory input has led to autohallucination as an art form. A lone individual in a state of high concentration may explore and generate interesting and appealing sensory experiences. However, such explorations are necessarily limited. Autohallucination as a cultural phenomenon arises when Riposte share information and guide each other in their explorations.Sculpture
Riposte frequently use their fabricator stomach to make sculptural artworks. Such sculptures can be appreciated by sight, touch, and taste. They are representative but highly abstract, with the subject of the artwork implied by various surface features.Architecture
The architecture of villages and wondering bands is very simple. Rather than build walled-off spaces, Riposte create living spaces in forests by running cables between trees. These cables transmit seismic information effectively, helping to warn of an approach, while the open network structure allows free passage of odours. Forests absorb wind, and there is no inclement weather to worry about.The most complex architecture occurs in the Circumplanetary group cities. These are constructed behind windbreaks of cultivated trees. Individual dwellings are made of an open framework of stone arches and pillars build around a central pit. Cables are strung between the stone framework, and the pit can be used as a nesting space. Cities are ancient communal institutions dating back many tens of thousands of years.
Mathematics
Riposte have no practical mathematics. However, they do have a family of toy languages which are formally equivalent to Noetherian algebras. These languages are used purely as a form of play, but in playing with them, some Riposte have found a number of mathematical theorems.Technology and Tool Use
Riposte technology is extremely simple, roughly equivalent to that of Palaeolithic baseline humans.Cutting tools, constructed in the fabricator organ, consist a sharp or abrasive blade connected to several flexible loops that fit around one of the bodies.
Cables from windplants are used for hauling and connecting objects. Rather than knots, Riposte tend to glue the ends in place using secretions from their fabricator organ.
Kite-sails, usually taken directly from windplants, are useful for dragging heavy objects.
Wings are useful, because the dense atmosphere provides lift even at low speeds. A lightweight winged raft can achieve flight when dragged by sidewinding Riposte. Even if there isn't sufficient lift to fly, it can still reduce the apparent weight of heavy objects.
History
Pre-contact
Riposte have no recorded history, and the nature of their bones plus the temperature of Scaramouche's atmosphere make palaeontology and archeology difficult. Research, conducted with their consent, is still ongoing. However, current investigations have revealed some details.The Riposte appear to have been sophont for close to six million years. It has been theorised but not proven that their ability to experience their sensory experience and phenomenal self model is a more recent development, that has arisen due to long term interactions between culture and natural selection.
Highly fragmentary evidence suggests that the Riposte had some level of technological civilisation 4.1-4.3 million years ago. Several pieces of nanostructured silicon carbide have been found across Scaramouche, none of which seem to be the result of local biological processes. An unusually high surface concentration of beryllium close to the southern highlands may suggest the site of an ancient fusion reactor. At the equator, mineralised structures faintly resemble the ground station of a launch loop. All these interpretations are contested, but if true, would indicate that Riposte technological development has not been inhibited by their environment.
 Image from Worldtree | |
| a small crowd of Riposte can be seen here, from a distance, gathering around a four-sided antipyramid | |
The Circumplanetary seems to have arisen shortly after construction of the last antipyramid. Over the following thousand years it became the largest culture due to a combination of internal stability and nomadism, which allowed it to contact and absorb adjacent cultures. The oldest of the current cities date back to 300 000 years ago, but older abandoned remains have been found.
Contact
Scaramouche was identified as a possible life-bearing world in the late 9000s by long range telescope, due to chemical signatures in the upper atmosphere.In 10200, a copy of the nullship Acts of Dialogue arrived by lightway, after setting up an automated lightway transceiver. Its crew consisted of uploaded Requiem, who engenerated upon arrival, empai bridge minds, and an S1 advisor.
For the next decade, Acts of Dialogue studied the Riposte and Scaramouche's biosphere using atmospheric probes and artificial fauna.
The Communion first contact policy is to balance openness and caution, striving to maximise wellbeing for contacted xenosophonts while avoiding unnecessary disruption of their culture.
Dialogue initiated contact in 10210 using bridge minds embodied as engenerated Riposte. A hundred bridge minds, spread across the surface of Scaramouche, developed basic social relations with surrounding Riposte before revealing their true nature to the most open-minded individuals. Subtle demonstrations of Terragen technology allowed them to prove their nature.
Over the course of several years, the Riposte were made aware of the existence and nature of Terragen civilisation. While this did lead to considerable turmoil, the local cultures were able to absorb it within their own context.
Circumplanetary, the most robust cultural structure, received the revelation with little change except an increase in daytime debates. Polar II and Montane suffered significant disruption, primarily because their concepts of sovereignty and hierarchy put Terragen civilisation far above their own highest-ranked members. Peninsular was the most difficult to contact, refusing to form social relations with embodied bridge minds, but over time learned of Terragen civilisation from intermittent contact with Circumplanetary.
With contact stablished, Dialogue began a cautious cultural exchange, allowing the Riposte control over the speed and extent of the process. The largest success in this area was through medical technology. Many elderly and ill Riposte accepted life extension treatments so that they might continue their life as before. Other technologies had less penetration, because many Riposte considered the disruptive effects to outweigh the value. Some airlines between distant Circumplanetary cities became popular. (Requests for high technology from some Polar II aristocrats and Montane Sovereigns were denied.) Terragen poetry became very popular in some regions.
Some Requiem colonists adopted Scaramouchean biology to become "skysharks", living among the Circumplanetary Riposte. The more xenophilic Riposte began to travel offworld pressurised habitats and even tour the local system. In 10260, Dialogue constructed a launch loop on Scaramouche, allowing greater volumes of travel.
Over times, tensions emerged between those who were content to retain their current lifestyle with medical assistance and those who wished to engage more heavily with Terragen culture and technology. Tumultuous discussions filled the urban arenas and the incipient net, sometimes with the help of Communion mediators and sometimes not.
The solution, achieved peacefully, was to create a Cytherean-environment habitat for the Riposte who wanted to engage with Terragens, leaving the surface of Scaramouche for more traditional cultures. The habitat, a small McKendree cylinder at Scaramouche's L4 point, was constructed between 10290 and 10360 and christened d'Azyr.
In recent centuries, the Riposte of d'Azyr have been quietly expanding their numbers, developing a syncretic culture, receiving visitors, and on occasion exploring the rest of the Terragen Sphere. They still live in societies similar to those of Circumplanetary, and have a good relations with their kin on Scaramouche.
The Riposte and their Terragen associates are usually considered to be loosely affiliated with the Communion of Worlds, and the lack of Caretaker intervention may indicate that Communion archailects are acting as their patrons.
Articles
- Acts of Dialogue - Text by Liam Jones
Acts of Dialogue is a Communion of Worlds exploratory nullship, active in the South-Counterspinwards periphery. - Barocapnic Life - Text by Liam Jones
- Scaramouche - Text by Liam Jones
EuCytherean garden world, and homeworld of the xenosophont Riposte.
Development Notes
Text by Liam Jones
Initially published on 04 August 2024.
Initially published on 04 August 2024.
