SMOOSH JUICE
Oasis-Cities of the Megastructure (Lanthanide Horizon)
You walk the path to Vyeku Proxy Tekha, member of the nomenklatura, the contending-class. You walk it first in trepidation, then in terror, then in resolve – your tin fingertip-covers click against the handle of your knife. He deserves it.
First, into the city, over the red-and-violet mosaic that marks its border (for the city has a border, and the men of the city say they need no wall to protect it), then into the favored-district, where the houses are tiled and plastered instead of painted metal, and the street glows with a calming light, then through Vyeku’s gate, past the brass statues of his father, his grandmother, his brother (taken far too early), still clothed and fed as well as he.
When you see him – running a hand across the cheek of the statue of his wife – and he sees you, you feel that telltale click in your hindbrain and watch that telltale symbol (who could say what it means, except for the presence of your patron) flash before your eyes as your heart leaps with joy.
You pull out your knife – and then hand it to him by the hilt. You could never do anything else.
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At the peak, the hedrarchs, fountains of food and water, who take all goods into the bureaucracy of the palace economy to be distributed to those below.
Below them, the nomenklatura, those who have passed their civil service examinations and become eligible for election to the hedrarchy. Subjects of the system of names – their ration set individually by the hedrarchs, to reward and punish. (Among the nomenklatura, the Proxies, legally identical to those they represent.)
At the base (apart from foreigners), the citizenry, who give fealty to their favored nomen in votes, in corvee labor, and in military service in exchange for patronage in goods – for the tribute to the citizen class is thin – and favors. (Among the citizens, the Sworn, prosthetic armigers given new limbs and strange weapons stolen from the machines of the world in exchange for lifelong service.)
These chains of patronage radiate downwards – hedrarchs summon individual supporters in the nomenklatura to rouse their subordinate nomen, and them to raise their citizen-levies.
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To foreigners, it is your modifications that make you recognizable. Augmentation – lacquered steel limbs and glittering golden eyes – is not ubiquitous, but is common enough to mark you. One alteration, however, is universal, or near enough – a click in the hindbrain. Complete conscious control of emotion.
Firstly, control of your own – it takes a second too long for your face to contort in rage as you seek the dial and tune it to what you desire.
Secondly, for the nomenklatura, control of your clients’. A scale to weigh their hearts.
Among the Navigators (who the northern Oases, like the vast city Lightning-in-Amber, see on their yearly pilgrimages, or when they come to collect their salt-and-electrical-component payment for mercenary service) this power is called “telepathy” – and their modernizing factions dream of it.
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Sworn (generic): 5 HD, AC 18, 2 DR, two attacks with bare hands at +4 2d8 + superhuman combat maneuver. Their arms and legs are too long, cast in gold and aluminum, engraved and lacquered.
Sworn armor/prosthetic complexes are unique (coming with not only the generic statblock, but with heart-seeking javelins, irradiating curselights, and so forth), named, and inherited – their nerve hasps have felt the touch of innumerable forebears. Recovery of Sworn bodies is paramount, and often features as the inciting incident of their wars and war-stories.
Swarms of prosthetists surround them, pulling off limbs to tune and retune, replace motors, solder wires, apply unguents and oils. Without constant maintenance, nerves delaminate and contacts rot.