015 The New Aleph - Chapter Twelve

Paul gets some information on the Bond, Soma gets worried about the upcoming hearing, and Nathan gets very, very cold.

NewAlephChapterTwelve

Nathan's Vocab Study List

(This is the list that Irse gives Nathan in Chapter 11)

MONEY

• 1 credit = 2000 fractions (fixed rate)
• 1 foot (DA ink) = 12 inches ~ 100-500 fractions
• 1 fraction = 100 rubles (fixed rate) ~ 200-1000 shekels (median is 300)
• 1 ruble ~ 2-10 shekels (median is 3)

AUGMENTATIONS

• Seated Alephs – Mebar-level leaders. Only 21 of them
• Auditors – The Assembly’s law marshals. Extremely powerful. Only 8 of them.
• Sub-Assembly Seated – World-level leaders. 3-12 per world.
• Deputy Auditors/Masayoshigami/‘gamis – Assembly’s main police force (all are Alephs). Approximately 1000.
• Alephs – World administrators and assistants of world administrators. 1,000-2,000 on each major world.
• Vassals – Alephs, humans, or preyvedes that have DC commands tattooed on their bodies to give them powers. 5,000-10,000 scattered across Mebar. 
• Bondees – Alephs (rare), preyvedes, or humans that are bonded to someone above them in power. Hundreds of thousands. 
• Preyvedes/Tragic Dead – people who died on one of the mirror worlds and were resurrected on the opposite of their home world as an elemental being: Stone, Wind, Water, and Fire types. Approximately 100,000 per Mirror World. 

MAGIC

• Mazai – Abbreviation of “mahou-zairyo,” Japanese for “magical material.” Raw materials that come from special minerals, plants, and animals that have unique, often supernatural abilities. Also used as the name for machines and potions that combine these materials together into various uses.
• Kessho – magical energy. Preyvedes, Alephs, and some animals have a reserve of this that acts like a muscle group, regenerated by rest and eating. 
• Pocket World Potion/PWP – potions that draw one into pocket universes of varying designs and complexity.
• Hollow – Category of items that do not follow natural or mazai laws. Usually created with DC paper. 
• Aljinn – Cheap PWPs that give a mostly-scripted sexual experience. Mebar VR porn. 

CULTURE

• MOA – Mebar Operations Agency. Official term for the world-level presence of the Assembly. 
• World of the dead – whichever of the Mirror Worlds a person is not currently on (unless they’re a preyvede). 
• Found Item – Pieces of culture from Earth that have been “discovered” (smuggled out of Threshold). 
• Chain of Authority – philosophy originating with the Alephs, referring to the mechanics of how commands from higher-ranking people override commands from lower-ranking people.
• Pen Reader – Like a smartphone with a stylus, but the stylus and phone are the same size as each other. And the phone screen is holographic. And the battery lasts for months.
• Gray Market – Anything that is thought of as “disapproved” by the Alephs. Most found items are considered gray market. Written and recorded music from earth is by far the most common merchandise of this category. Some PWPs are considered gray market in Pan. 
• Black Market/Forbidden Knowledge – Anything considered forbidden by the Alephs or culture. Any information that seems to delve too deeply into the fundamental elements of reality. Or anything that seeks to change those elements. PWPs are considered part of Forbidden Knowledge in Prometheus. Both information about the true history of Mebar’s origin, and the technical details behind the false histories, are considered forbidden. 
• Security Paper – The biggest difference between Pan and Prometheus is not the innovation of mazai arts in Pan contrasted against the stagnated electronics in Prometheus, or even the acceptance of the existence of the Alephs, Managers, and preyvedes in the former against the willful ignorance of them in the latter. The chief difference between the worlds is in their attitudes toward privacy. Because people in Pan are conscious of magic that makes Clausius spy on other people for them, no one uses watches for anything but emergencies or the most pedantic communication. Or uses pen readers for storage of information of any value. Both are susceptible to Clausius’ probes. Important correspondence and notes rely on security paper, which is made of rough, inconsistent fibers and colors that make it so Clausius cannot determine what is written on it. None of this stops me from being able to see what is written on this paper, of course, but unlike the other Managers, I am immune to all magic. And I would never degrade myself by submitting to such petty, clandestine nonsense. 

014 The New Aleph - Chapter Eleven (take 2)

Soma pressures Ignacio to help kick off her vendetta against the Alephs, Paul looks for his own answers, and Nathan waits for Irse to appear.

NewAlephChapterEleven

Temporary Fix

Hey everybody,

So, due to a issue with how the RSS feed works, I'm going to have to take down the text version of the story from this site. I'll be looking into another venue for posting the text, and hopefully get that back up and running soon, but for now it's going away.

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