Fu Yuan

Some aspects of Fu Yuan interstellar culture are reminiscent of feudal phases of Earth's Oriental cultures. Samurai from Japan, spiritual practices from Thailand, and peasants and tribal peoples from across the region have provided inspiration.

Fall and Rise

A wide range of sapient species were isolated on the Fu Yuan homeworld when the Dissolution plague melted their technology, plunging the people into Chaos and making of Fu Yuan an Onvern Velt (Lost World.) Millions died in the ensuing struggle for resources. Entire species were extirpated.

As a result of the struggle for resources during and after the Chaos, a sort of xenophobia spread like a second plague. People lost their tolerance of other species and separatism became the rule.

Development of the Clan system

Three species came to dominate the power struggle which finally sorted out the Chaos. They were the felinoid K'zin, anthropoid Human, and rananoid Gowachin. In the course of their competition they developed similar systems of organization in which large extended Families were grouped into Clans. "Lesser species" were tolerated as a peasant class as long as they did not stand between the Clan and the resources it desired.

Today nearly all the Clans are multi-species. In the beginning most were not.

Pure K'zin Clans tended to "win the battle but lose the war," as they were so quick to battle that their losses, even when winning, eventually left them vulnerable. As dedicated carnivores, K'zin populations tended to be spread out thinner, which compounded the vulnerability of low numbers.

A change to K'zin traditional culture was the adoption of a Samurai-like code. Under the Code of Honor, there is no shame in subsuming personal pride under Clan pride. Another was that in most Clans the old K'zin extreme rashness has been tempered; this is clearly a cultural change, but genetic drift may be providing reinforcement. This tempering process continues as the Clans become multi-species.

Humans were not as fierce as K'zin or as subtle as Gowachin, but, as has happened time and again, they succeeded through their exeptional versatility. Many species consider Humans to be remarkable in their range of temper, inclination, and ability, both as a race and as individuals.

Human proved to be fairly fecund, but their dedication to each and every offspring sometimes hampers their collective long-term progress.

Gowachin are not untalented on the battlefield, but their true forte lies in subtly in long-range planning, in accounting for the interactions of seemingly disparate lines of causality. By these means, when they are able to create time enough to weave plans and bring them to fruition, Gowachin "stack the cards" and create their own "luck."

Another Gowachin advantage lies in their high reproductive potential combined with a willingness to be ruthless in culling excessive numbers of tadpoles. Having survival of the culling as their first memory creates in the Gowachin psyche a certain ruthlessness but also a potential for strong fraternal bonds.

As Fu Yuan culture developed, this fraternal bonding has lead to a balance between the Gowachin willingness to supplant former masters who demonstrate weakness or incompetence and cold-bloodedness in eliminating rivals being balanced by a predisposition to aide those they develop fraternal kinship with, whether as tadpoles or later in the dojo or temple service, military or bureaucratic order.

Blending of the Clans

In this way Families from lesser Clans came to serve greater Clans of different species, sometimes as dependent yet distinct Clans and sometimes as adopted members of the greater Clan. The politics of all three races encourage bonding Houses together. Inter-species adoption has become quite common in many Clans. Those blended Clans came to honor all their members regardless of species benefited most from their varied talents, and so became dominant. Today only a radical minority of "Purist" Clans are not mixed.

Fu Yuan Philosophy

The Clanless

"The Clanless" is a term that first referred to those who were not in power. These were generally member of the "lesser species," as K'zin, Humans, and Gowachin were likely to be adopted by Clans seeking power through increased population. In this way, Clanless came to mean "lesser species," "outsider," and "peasant." That these are, in Fu Yuan thought, synonymous has had a great influence upon Clansfolks' interactions with others. The Fu Yuan are not known for their tolerance of those they consider to be "getting out of their place."

The Clanless, whether actual peasants or simply outsiders, are presumed to be without true honor. Outsiders may be able to win honor by proving themselves to enough individual Clansfolk as to merit a formal adoption as an honorary or actual Clan member. Such earned status is actually theoretically available to the peasantry, but actual occurrences are extremely rare.

Clan Membership

The structure of Families dependant upon Clans, with lesser Clans sometimes in dedicated, symbiotic service to greater Clans, and of greater Clans forming generations-long alliances bears a striking resemblance to The Harmony's institutionalization of the absorption of minor states into the Territories and Provinces and more advanced states as Subject States and the forming of symbiotic relations with Client States is likely not a coincidence. Rather, the parallels are likely the result of "ancestral memories," as the Fu Yuan call their secret, sacred histories, some of which clearly pre-date the Chaos.

It was the Gowachin influence which brought to Fu Yuan culture the belief that it is good to promote one's pool (family branch) within one's House as good, better to promote one's House within one's Clan, and best to promote one's Clan within the world. The benefit of promoting one's pool may last only a generation while the benefit of promoting one's House may last centuries. The benefit of promoting one's Clan may be eternal. Through the promotion of one's Clan, one can achieve a sort of immortality.

Dueling developed as a way of settling disputes without both sides spilling so much blood that they were left vulnerable to being shredded by other parties. When there is a conflict, the Great Warrior, the true supporter of his Clan, will come forward and challenge the opponent. If he fails, only his life is lost, sacrificed for the good of his Clan. This is honorable; his Family is to be rewarded, even by the opponent. But should he succeed, that is great honor. His Clan will rise, and his Family's place in it.

Gowachin influence also contributed a dedication to quiet and unnoted work for the promotion of the Clan. This is in direct contribution to the K'zin contribution to Clan philosophy of a drive for renown and glory, that one may be remembered by future ages. The two are reconciled by a belief that there is a time and a place for everything.

Gender Roles

Fu Yuan culture has a strong masculine bias. (Consider Gowachin, K'zin and feudal Japan for examples.) Females are theoretically subserviant to the point of worshiping their males. In point of fact, many a Family and many a Clan are practically run by females behind the screens. Being behind their men, females are sheilded from much of the Fu Yuan judiciary system.

Freed from the energy-draining physical side of Fu Yuan masculine culture, the females are free to practice the more feminine arts of intrigue. Females also may make better scholars and scientists than men, as they are not likely to be called out to duel. Females are also often found to be the ones actually handling the finances. They are expected to do so with tact, operating behind the scenes. A woman's position depends upon the honor of her man, and being known to submit to the will of the women of one's family is a sure road to dishonor for her man.

As a point of balance to the heavy overt male domination of the society, there is a counter-tradition of great warrioresses and openly dominant business women, scientists, scholars, and other exceptional females.

While Fu Yuan males are generaly about as tolerant of females getting out of their place as they are of peasants or members of lesser races doing the same, there is actually more possibility for the exceptional Fu Yuan female to prove herself than these is for the exeptional outsider. That may not be much, but it is there.

Because of the strong masculine bias of Fu Yuan culture, exceptional femals must often go outside of Fu Yuan culture to earn their honor, and then return and prove themselves all over again. They face as great a challenge as any outsider trying to earn Fu Yuan honor. Should they succeed, the rewards are proportionate because honor requires even those males who opposed their "unfeminine behavior" to aknowledge the immensity of the challenge overcome.

Alternatively, females can escape the subserviant role of a traditional Fu Yuan female by convincing their Family head or Clan head to give them up for adoption to one of the Amazon Fu Yuan Families.

There are entire female-dominated "Amazon Families" in Fu Yuan, some actually active members of the Amazon Alliance. As the AA has very poor relaitions with the Fu Yuan, this can be a very delicate situation. Most Fu Yuan Amazon Families consider joining the AA an unwise move.

SEE Amazon Alliance

Some exceptional females marry Clansmen of approximately equal rank. In such cases, both use the title "husband" because the very word "wife" is submissive. There is sufficient tradition for there to be specific services for such ""he-husband and she-husband" weddings.

Amazon Families are more prejudice against such co-dominent couples than are most regular Families, but even in the most tolerant of Families the "she-husband" will find herself having to prove herself over and over again untill she is either resigned to something closer to traditional subserviance or achieves such honor that she cannot be overshadowed.

Other exeptional females find complimentary males, willing to render them the worshipful service normally researved for the dominant Fu Yuan husbands. In such a reversed relationship the exceptional female is actually refered to as the husband and her male spouse as the wife.

In parallel, there are Families composed of only males. Such Families may have "husband and wife"-titled couples, "husband and husband" couples, or other, less orthodox arangements.

Due to the subserviant role of the traditional Fu Yuan wife, male-male couple are actually not so uncommon among regular Fu Yuan Families. In most cases, the two males are simply given wives and the two couples share a dwelling. Wives of such males have a perhaps undeserved reputation for being of easy virtue.

The "dom" men of such families tend to be hypermasculine leathermen. Their "subs," if they have them, can be as feircely proud of their status as any butch streight male.

With modern cloning technology, such male-male couples may have "twins," one cloned form each, or they may choose to adopt. Adoptions may be latteral, as in adopted blood-brothers, or Spartan in nature.

SEE Phallikopolis

Perhaps it should be expected that a culture in which interspecies bonds are common would be more liberal in other ways.

Body Art

Fu Yuan commemorate significant events, good and bad, with body art. Scarrification, tattooing, and piecings are old traditions. More recent traditions involve cosmetic surgery.

One familiar with Fu Yuan tradition can tell much of an individuals history, at least in terms of its dynamics if not concrete facts, by decoding the person's body art.

Individual, fraternal, Family and Clan events such as funerals and battles, examinations or awards, anything significant may merit some body art. The art generally expresses the emotions and significance of the event rather than its concrete expression.

Fu-Spirits from PhD

Fu Yuan has been inhabited since it was first formed some seven billion years ago. Its birth was exceptionally violent and stretched thin to breaking the division between the mundane universe and what has become known as the Fu-Dimension, or PhD. PhD is a non-material dimension. It is inhabited by ecosystems of energy-spirit life forms as complex as any material ecology. The first Fu-Spirits were sucked through the rift. Some found the mundane universe to their liking, at least near Fu Yuan's energy-rich core. The Fu never come completely into the mundane dimension; we perceive but vague impressions of them at best. High-energy areas permit them to manifest most forcefully.

This has happened on several worlds, but the manner in which the spirits manifest and impact the words varies. Elsewhere, they may or may not be "Fu-Spirits."

When life began to develop on Fu Yuan, it was so weak that its energies did not attract the attention of the Fu. Native life never did grow strong here, as stronger life attracted the Fu who sucked it dry.

Early colonization attempts failed as the colonists were likewise sucked dry. To the Fu, the energies of the colonists were like novel deserts. The losses were attributed to "fluctuations of unknown energies," which was, in a limited fashion, correct.

Eventually it was discovered that heavy shielding of non-energetic (non-radioactive) materials such as lead or gold would shield colonists from the Fu. Slowly the nature of the "fluctuations of unknown energies" became understood, first that they were attracted to strong energies and especially life-forces, then that the effect was from living energy beings, that they were diverse in nature, and that some of these varieties are intelligent.

Convincing these Fu than we material folk are intelligent was rather more difficult. That our being sapient is relevant is a point most Fu are still not decided upon.

The Fu enjoy the "flavor" of life-energy. When they understood the intentions of the colonists, some decided to help. Today, Fu Yuan is rich with life. Whole ecosystems have been imported. The Fu have helped nurture this life, tending it as a great garden-farm. The more material life there is, the more life-energy there is for them to taste.

Fu of various types have merged with several archetypal mythology forms. Today, many are solicited and propitiated as Kami, rather as in Japanese traditions.

Fu permeate the world. If a farmer neglects the Fu, they will taste him more and more. This results in fatigue, clumsiness, and bad luck. If a farmer honors the Fu they will enhance his life and his crops.

Ghosts

When great psychic energies are released, they may impress themselves upon nearby Fu. Some types of Fu are very susceptible to this. The result may be strikingly similar to traditional conceptions of "ghosts." The nature of the energies and the variety and character of the Fu involved account for the wide range of effects.

Spirit-Crystals

Certain Crystals can act as anchors or beacons for individual Fu. With a Spirit-Crystal intermediating, a flesh-person and a Fu-Spirit can grow together. The Fu melds with the person. The Fu becomes as the ki of the person.

Fu-Spirits and Interstellar Expansion

When the folk of Fu Yuan conquer and colonize other worlds, they often have their personal Spirit Crystals with them. As they establish, they bring more and more crystal to their new world, whether as small jewels or as huge slabs.

As native sources of crystals are mined out, Fu Yuan has discovered that crystals may be imported from off-planet and set up about temples or in Spirit Houses to be energized, and then exported.

Spirit Houses

One of the duties of children on Fu Yuan is to focus their energies upon the Spirit House of their home and other buildings of their family, House, and Clan. The most efficient way to do this play. To facilitate this, the Spirit House doubles as a dolls' house, designed for playing. To further increase the life-energy, Spirit Houses are often located in garden patches or window boxes. Many have cupolas or towers which are bird houses, or bird houses may be located near by. TheSpirit House may have a miniature pond or lake by it which functions as a bird bath. Folklore holds that these birds fly prayers through the sky until the kami smell and take them.

Temples

Fu Yuan is studded with fabulous temples. Some are neutral, inter-Clan territory, but most are Clan-specific. These are heavily fortified and well-guarded, as there is honor lost when opponents manage to seize relics. Relic theft and counter theft is as much a game as sheep raiding, and plaid with equal enthusiasm despite the hazards involved.

Many temples are also Clan libraries and boarding schools, trophy halls and meditation centers as well as shrines.

Temples are often fabulous palaces lined with crystals, mirrors, and gilding of silver and gold, lead and copper, to create fabulous texture-gardens, as perceived from the viewpoint of the Great Fu who come to them. The various activities performed in the temples, from simple prayer to elaborate, energetic opera-dances, from masses chanting to solitary meditation, all created different flavors of psychic energy for the Fu.

When pleased, the Great Fu may have a direct, blatant effect upon the material world. More often, their pleasure emanates through their own PhD until it impacts upon lesser Fu who are in a position to affect the world more subtly. Their displeasure is equally effecting. Luck is a very palpable quality on Fu Yuan.

Reverance of Ancestors and History

Every Fu Yuan Clan member recives as a basic cultural skills set training outsiders would associate with Librarians and Archaelogists, Rabbis and Lawyers, with physical athletic sports and mental gamesmanship as well.

The Fu Yuan practice ancestor worship. This development was likely fostered by memories of Cosmic Culture's fascination with and respect for The Ancients. Fu Yuan practice is not necessarily a metaphysical belief in the physical divinity of one's ancestors but rather a dedication to learning from the past. All ancestors are revered, the greatest individually as saints (in a Buddhist-like tradition) and the lesser collectively for that quiet service that is the vital foundation upon which the great acts of the glorified are staged.

As knowledge is power, the "ancestral memories," the life histories of Clan members and, by extension, histories and biographies in general, are treated as secret, sacred texts to be sought out, hoarded, and guarded from outsiders. The result is a sort of historically oriented mystery cult with librarians and archaeologists as its priests. This synonimity of the sacred and the scholarly is rather like a rabbinical tradition; the title Rabbi is often used when compounding a translation of a Fu Yuan title. As the lessons to be learned are more important than the actual physical facts, that some of the histories are distorted or even complete fabrications is irrelevant.

The Fu Yuan value biographies and histories of all peoples, for all have lessons to teach. This has lead to a surprising propensity toward archeology and library sciences. Unfortunately for outsiders, this is accompanied by a drive to horde information. The information itself is important, so there is a disinclination to destroy its source by, for example, blowing up an archaeological site once it has been explored, but Fu Yuan are likely to re-bury or otherwise secure sources of information from others, hoarding the secret of its whereabouts and methods of access. The result is the creation of treasure maps.

As seeking information is a benefit for the Clan, Fu Yuan archaeologists may be utterly unwarlike and get along with other scholars just fine as long as they don't have to share what they consider possibly sacred information. Still, one should not be surprised to discover that a band of crypto-librarians may show a willingness to battle, defending their information hoard and the honor of their Clan.

Judicial Practices and Deadly Sport

Those familiar with Frank Herbert's Gowachin notes as recorded in The Dosadi Experiment, 1977, and Larry Niven's notes on the K'zin in his volumes on Known Space will recognize certain aspects of the Fu Yuan judicial system and Hunting tradition.

For lesser disputes resolutions that do not involve bloodshed are bountifully available. Great codices have been compiled giving sample disputes and their suggested resolutions. This is rather like the Talmudic legal tradition. The challengers may consult mutually acceptable texts and select an example to follow, or go to a judge to have various precedents weighed and a resolution method proscribed.

This is an every day occurrence. Every household keeps a few basic compilations of precedents, which are a combination of legal codex and philosophical guide, on hand to settle simple differences. The resolutions suggested are often far more concerned with resolution and restoring harmony than with such impersonal abstracts as right and wrong. Many Fu Yuan can quote hundreds of passages; being able to do so is necessary in Fu Yuan society, just like memorizing Torah before a bar mitzvah or Confucius before a Mandarin examination.

Games of chance and games of skill are very popular, and are played recreationally as well as for more serious resolution purposes. Many such games are confusing to outsiders because they do not involve winning or losing per say but rather strengthening one's position relative to the environment as a whole; cooperation is frequently more effective than opposition.

When Clansmen are playing a game, an outsider may not be able to tell whether it is for fun or is a serious disputation. Often enough, it is both. Fu Yuan consider debate as much a sport as intrigue.

Fu Yuan tradition does not make any inherent differentiation between accuser and alleged perpetrator; they are equally challengers in the matter, and equally exposed to potentially dangerous judicial procedure.

Traditions of gaming, sports, and dueling, which are not differentiated in the Fu Yuan mind, mean that most disputes are resolved without recourse to formal authorities beyond the guidance of codices of tradition.

Judges

Judges are consulted when needed. They are not randomly appointed state bureaucrats. Any individual of great personal honor who is sufficiently respected may be selected by (or on behalf of) the challengers. It is a great honor to be petitioned to judge a case. To be able to take a position of complete neutrality is a point of honor; it is not uncommon for a challenger to prefer a judge who is a known opponent as such a judge will be all the more scrupulous in his or her neutrality. To refrain from accepting a petition to be a judge is to cast question on one's honor; few refuse the honor. Performing the duties of judgeship effectively neutralizes the judge outside the court as well as inside, a point used by clever Clansfolk in Fu Yuan intrigue.

In addition to personal honor, a prospective judge should have a thorough understanding of Fu Yuan judicial tradition. Fu Yuan does not differentiate between being a lawyer and a librarian, just as it does not differentiate between being a scholar and a priest (rather like a rabbi.)

Fu Yuan judicial tradition weighs the severity of the accusation and the likelihood of perpetration to determine a reasonable level of challenge to the inevitable judicial combat where a lesser game will not satisfy. Whether this combat whether presented as a duel or a hunt, a legal sentence or a game, are outsider differentiations, concepts alien to Fu Yuan thought. Fu Yuan judicial tradition has the advantage of making superfluous the need to delve into disputable or sensitive issues.

This has made Fu Yuan judicial tradition a favorite of corporate lawyers, as it protects the megacorps for having to answer ticklish questions and costs only the personnel sacrificed to the dueling field, arena, or hunting grounds. Such personnel are more expendable than the cost of many other court systems. Megacorps with access to Fu Yuan judicial practice retain gladiator-lawyers just as Fu Yuan Clanheads do.

The Fu Yuan judicial system does not provide for execution by the State, if for no other reason than that there is no real State, but simply a consensus of Clans. Instead, the severity of the alleged offence and the likelihood that the challenged is actually the perpetrator determines the conditions under which the challenged is to be challenged. There is no line dividing judicial combat used as a method used to arrive at a mutually honorable resolution without the need, personal duels, whether for basic exercise, matters of vital honor, or simply to settle a friendly dispute, or games, including fights, performed as commercial sporting events.

Likewise, there is no real line between a combat challenge and a hunt. The term duel is simply used to indicate that one honors one's opponent. Thus, a party of several Clansfolk challenging a powerful beast while on safari may refer to the match as a duel, while the accuser in a court case where the judgment is for judicial combat with equal weapons may be termed a hunt as an indication of lack of respect for the challenged's honor if he or she is a Clan member.

Simply having honor does not guarantee access to duel with an equal. If the alleged offence is great, and the likelihood of perpetration is high, the conditions of the challenge are likely to be very lopsided. In an extreme case, the challenged may be permitted neither weapons nor co-defendants, while the accuser may bring in any and all allies and weapons.

The greater the challenge, the greater the honor. The more unbalanced the advantage is in one's favor, the less honor. When the opponent poses no real challenge, there is no honor. Therefore, one may need to decrease one's advantage to create the opportunity for honor. There is increased honor when advantages are discarded.

This does not apply when a higher priority, such as Clan advantage is at stake. In such a case, supporting one's Clan is the higher honor.

A Clan member would consider shooting a deer or a dove good practice for improving one's marksmanship, but would not call that hunting and more than one would call it a duel. Wrestling the deer would be better, but still, the deer's main desire being to flee makes the matter challenging but not a source of honor. Going on safari and dousing oneself with cat scent while invading a cougar's territory armed only with a knife is a real hunt.

Hunting is a very popular sport among all the Clansfolk. Many Fu Yuan games, such as descendants of chess, could be classed as simulated hunts, but even the most sedentary bureaucrat benefits from the exercise of a real outdoor hunt or even just a few rounds in the local gymnasium-coliseum. One never knows when one might be called upon to defend one's honor on a dueling field or render military service to one's Clan, so being in top physical shape and a good marksman are basic standards of fitness.

Intrigue, the combat of the mind, is equally, is equally important to the Fu Yuan, both as an exercise and a sport. Outsiders are often bruised because they fail to understand that every interaction is a challenge and every situation a game, however serious. Outsiders often find themselves pawns in Fu Yuan games.

The Fu Yuan take their most frivolous games as seriously as the seek joy and excitement in the most solemn of pursuits.

Contemporary Fu Yuan

The present is the product of the past. Today Fu Yuan retains vast areas of wilderness dotted with isolated compounds but also glittering cities. Fu Yuan is in no way technologically backwards.

The Clanless

Where yesterday's peasantry toiled in the muddy fields today they labor in factories, including the vattories where the bulk of Fu Yuan's food is grown. Only the most refined of K'zin palettes can distinguish vat-grown "flesh" from cage-farmed flesh when properly prepared. Despite this, or rather because of it, free-range beasts remain in high demand for the table of Gowachin and Human as well as K'zin, so great ranches remain a major investment for most Clans.

The farms and factories, and the vattories that combine the two, are generally fairly automated. They are staffed by peasants and slaves. It can be difficult to tell the difference. The higher the rank of the worker, the greater the chance that he or she is a slave; a peasant might be tempted to save up a nest egg and strike out for a better life elsewhere, whereas a slave should be thankful for every luxury afforded him or her. As a consequence, many slaves come to hold high position.

Slave may be quite well educated and used by Fu Yuan as assistants in the most technical of fields. One advantage of using a slave is that a slave is not a potential rival.

Those peasants who have been able to save money and go in to business on their own have given rise to a very prosperous class merchants and producers. They range from poor street corner venders and craftsmen toiling on the curbside, many new to free enterprise, through a large middle class of shopkeepers and owner/managers of small factories, hostelries, and entertainment venues, to a small but increasingly powerful group of wealthy merchants, industrialists, and bankers.

Clansfolk also invest in capital ventures, but their preoccupation with intrigue and honor can be a handicap. Clanfolk may use the Clanless as pawn, but the clanless are not likely to be so plotted against so tenaciously.

This explosion of wealth outside of the Clans has not gone unnoticed. As the Clansfolk have dealt successfully with wealthy and powerful outsiders, these clanless classes are considered less a challenge than a resource.

It is not uncommon for a prosperous clanless family to, by marriage or adoption, merge with an established Family or become a capital F Family in their own right and become Clansmen. Where the position of adopted son or daughter is too central to the Family, the lateral position of bloodbrother may suffice. The more traditional Clan heads may disapprove, but the temptation to add industrialist wealth to Clan authority is great.

This also defuses any discontent brewing among the clanless, at it gives them hope of joining the elite.

Fu Yuan Cosmonauts

Fu Yuan is a great market for imported beasties of the most challenging varieties. Naturally, the Fu Yuan are interested in the associated interstellar industries which supply such beasties. Their gymnasium-coliseum, on Fu Yuan itself and in Clan Holds elsewhere, are famous for incredible spectacles. The audience is often invited to participate in the event; refusal is not always an option.

The elite frequently travel to other worlds for safari. The most challenging quarry is sentient game.

Fu Yuan Cosmonauts are also frequent worlds with good reputations for gaming and gambling, although some shy from Fu Yuan customers because they sometime fail to distinguish between a game and a personal challenge.

Fu Yuan may sometimes take on the role of knights errant, traveling alone or in packs to gain honor. They have no qualms about accepting mercenary pay for this as long as the work is honorable. They are as likely to become pirates with a touch of class as they are to be free-lance heroes.

Interstellar Clan Holds

Fu Yuan Expansion: Toe-holds, megacorps, and colonies

Fu Yuan has become the origin of a great interstellar web of power. This is not a clearly defined Empire because there is no single central power with authority over the Fu Yuan Clans. Even The Harmony's Pasha and Kha-khan (regional civil and military authorities) are uncomfortably aware that they are considered just pawns of extreme power in the Fu Yuan game of life.

While the Fu Yuan have conquered and colonized a hundred worlds, the Clans are just as likely to establish a presence on other worlds which already have a strong government, rather as a megacorps establishes a branch office and expands its business interests under the local authorities, as they are to colonize a world they can dominate and claim sovereignty over. Clans do not shy from investing; some are basically megacorps with an honorable name to defend.

As Families compete for prominence within a Clan but present a unified front against any external opponent, as Lesser Clans jockey for position under and the favor of their dominating Greater Clan, so too do the Greater Clans hold their fraternal bonds sacred when faced with opposition from Clanless outsiders.

New worlds, whether already occupied or not, are generally moved in on by Families of several Clans at once. No Clan would risk letting another have the potential advantage of an entire world with no rival Clan to keep it in check.

Leaving to establish a Clan Hold on another world, whether as a demi-sovereign colony or as a business-like venture on an established planet, can be an invaluable escape valve.

A Family, or even a whole Lesser Clan, which is losing power may choose to, instead of wasting itself in a losing game locally, strike out for a fresh start elsewhere. This is something of a withdrawal with honor.

Equally, when a Clan becomes too powerful in one local other Clans will ally to prevent the powerful from becoming overwhelming. The game on intrigue is played, an escalating coldwar with duels diffusing the tension. Still, this is eventually recognized a waste of energy. So, those energies are directed outward, resulting in member Families establishing Clan Holds elsewhere. Other Families, who inherit what the departing Clan cannot take away and benefit from the power vacuum created, generally subsidize such a move.

To sabotage those departing is very dishonorable because they are spreading the collective power of the Fu Yuan into new areas, which is as honorable a mission as could be desired. Even their opponents within Fu Yuan will gain prestige as Fu Yuan as a whole is augmented.

Over the centuries, small Clans align with or are absorbed by larger Clans. As history rotates onward, large Clans are split by indecisive Wars of Succession. Alliances of Clans co-operate in conquering and colonizing new planets. Just as often, a rival Clan will cooperate with an opponent in a colonization project in able to be able to monitor and maintain a balance.

Eventually, most major Clans are recognized as Great Clans as they come to have several dependant Lesser Clans, each composes of several Houses, which in turn have several Lineages, or branches. These are usually dispersed among several worlds. This provides some "back up" in case a Clan's House or Houses on one world are endangered.

Colonizing New Worlds

SEE Fyn Lakshyr's East Fjord Coast, a sample colony.

When colonizing a new world without Indigenous sapiens Clansfolk are likely to import peasants and / or slaves. They are equally progressive in using automated machineries, but are wary of anything suspiciously like a "thinking machine."

Any Indigenous sapiens are considered a resource. They provide a ready labor pool and any lawbreakers can be used for sport hunting.

Where the Indies may become a challenge, they may be driven from the territories the Clans are settling and supplanted by imported labor. Such imported laborers are likely to be more loyal to the Clansfolk when the Indies are perceived to be a barbaric threat.

Indies who show honor may be able to organize into Lesser Clans under the wing of a Greater Clan, or they may be adopted as Families into established Clans.

Fu Yuan may not be able to interbreed with Indies (or other adopted folk) without the assistance of a gene sculptor. If no gene sculptor is available locally, mixed couples must either go off-world to have children crafted or adopt. Adoptees are just as likely to be young adults of great promise from other Families, even if of different species (which make for good politics) as they are to be "extra" children of prolific close relatives or orphaned members of their own or an allied Clan.

Miowara Megacorp

The legends Miowara Tomocato (FROM Mark E. Rogers' Samurai Cat series) are typical Fu Yuan hero-myths. The great diversity of folk he encountered in his adventures suggests that he prowled in some very far away places.

The synonymous Miowara megacorps and Clan are Tomocato's powerful legacy.

SEE Miowara Megacorp