Rhon Psions , known as Ruby Psions , are a group of extremely powerful psionics in the fictional Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro .
128-437: In the novels , psion is a term describing fictional people with empathic and in some cases telepathic abilities. Psions can detect emotions , and even individual thoughts, depending on the strength of the psion and the proximity of those around them. They are also susceptible to the emotional suffering of people who are near them, and can suffer emotional scars from other psions who project their pain naturally. To survive
256-518: A book . The English word to describe such a work derives from the Italian: novella for "new", "news", or "short story (of something new)", itself from the Latin: novella , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus , diminutive of novus , meaning "new". According to Margaret Doody , the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in
384-438: A Pharaoh under special circumstances, such as his when his royal mother had no daughters. However, their shallow understanding of space-faring technology, and possibly their corruption, led to the empire's collapse after only a few centuries. This isolated the hundreds of planets in their empire from each other for thousands of years. Eventually, about 400 years ago, Raylicans re-achieved space flight, this time fully understanding
512-472: A balance between humanity and efficiency, giving J-Force the highest alcoholism and suicide rates within the forces of the Skolian Imperialate. Some Jagernauts manage to survive by suppressing their more human side, becoming either cold and machine-like (Kurj), or living lives of quiet emotional desperation and loneliness (Sauscony). Help is usually available to emotionally damaged Jagernauts in
640-487: A few Rhon serving as well. Their telepathic or empathic abilities mean that they function best when there is no crew (and their corresponding thoughts) to interfere with a Jagernaut's concentration. As such, they generally engage in battle in small squadrons, bound to their single-pilot craft called "Jags" in a near symbiosis of human and machine. A Jagernaut has "psiphon" sockets which allow them to interface their body directly with spacecraft. Their mind links directly to
768-411: A form of entertainment. However, one of the earliest English novels, Daniel Defoe 's Robinson Crusoe (1719), has elements of the romance, unlike these novels, because of its exotic setting and story of survival in isolation. Crusoe lacks almost all of the elements found in these new novels: wit, a fast narration evolving around a group of young fashionable urban heroes, along with their intrigues,
896-747: A great column of light called a "Kyle singularity". The ancient technology which created the Locks has been lost, but the Skolian Empire has deduced some of its functioning. Their three known remaining Locks are located on the Orbiter space habitat (headquarters of the Skolian military), the planet Raylicon (origin of the Ruby Empire), and on the Onyx platform. The psiberweb is crucial to the defence of
1024-464: A hero and his life. The adventures led to satirical encounters with the real world with the hero either becoming the pitiable victim or the rogue who exploited the vices of those he met. A second tradition of satirical romances can be traced back to Heinrich Wittenwiler 's Ring ( c. 1410 ) and to François Rabelais ' Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), which parodied and satirized heroic romances, and did this mostly by dragging them into
1152-549: A house or complex of buildings. In interstellar travel, Skolians often make use of quasis , which is a form of quantum -shielding that freezes the quantum state of all particles on a spacecraft. Ships in both the Skolian Empire and the Eubians are equipped with devices, controlled by EIs that shift a ship into "quasis" to avoid damage to the ship from weapons fire or from high-G maneuvers. The quasis prevents change in
1280-406: A human lifespan to several centuries. People also keep a young appearance, as they stop visibly aging at the age of 30 – 40. It is important to start the treatments as early in life as possible. People who received those treatments in early childhood or before birth (passed on from mother to child during pregnancy) achieve the best results. The older a person is when receiving anti-aging treatments for
1408-573: A nostalgia for the old romances with their heroism and professed virtue. Jane Barker explicitly advertised her Exilius as "A new Romance", "written after the Manner of Telemachus", in 1715. Robinson Crusoe spoke of his own story as a "romance", though in the preface to the third volume, published in 1720, Defoe attacks all who said "that [...] the Story is feign'd, that the Names are borrow'd, and that it
SECTION 10
#17327659186031536-524: A number of functions, including promoting injury recovery, preventing the ingestion of poison, augmenting skills, delaying aging, and more. Jagernauts are renowned for their large size and efficiency in battle. Jagernauts ranks from highest to lowest The main training academy for Jagernauts is the Dieshan Military Academy (DMA). The cadet ranks from lowest to highest are: Apprentice, Journeyman, Junior, and Senior. A Jagernaut exists on
1664-449: A philosophical and a theological novel, respectively. The tradition of works of fiction that were also philosophical texts continued with Thomas More 's Utopia (1516) and Tommaso Campanella 's City of the Sun (1602). However, the actual tradition of the philosophical novel came into being in the 1740s with new editions of More's work under the title Utopia: or the happy republic;
1792-639: A philosophical romance (1743). Voltaire wrote in this genre in Micromegas: a comic romance, which is a biting satire on philosophy, ignorance, and the self-conceit of mankind (1752, English 1753). His Zadig (1747) and Candide (1759) became central texts of the French Enlightenment and of the modern novel. An example of the experimental novel is Laurence Sterne 's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759–1767), with its rejection of continuous narration. In it
1920-586: A planet called Raylicon. Then the unknown race disappeared, leaving only parts of their technology behind. The humans on Raylicon used this technology to develop space travel. They founded the Ruby Empire and colonized hundreds of planets. But the empire collapsed, and many worlds were left isolated for thousands of years. Gradually, the empire was rebuilt, and approximately 400 years ago, the Raylicans re-developed space travel. The Raylicans also rediscovered
2048-406: A point in a conversation, and the exemplum a priest would insert in a sermon belong into this tradition. Written collections of such stories circulated in a wide range of products from practical compilations of examples designed for the use of clerics to compilations of various stories such as Boccaccio 's Decameron (1354) and Geoffrey Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales (1386–1400). The Decameron
2176-568: A pseudo- bucolic form, and the celebrated L'Astrée , (1610) of Honore d'Urfe (1568–1625), which is the earliest French novel, is properly styled a pastoral . Although its action was, in the main, languid and sentimental, there was a side of the Astree which encouraged that extravagant love of glory, that spirit of " panache", which was now rising to its height in France. That spirit it was which animated Marin le Roy de Gomberville (1603–1674), who
2304-457: A quasis field and re-animate the crew in the midst of a massive explosion. A collapse of a quasis field results in a rupture of the Klein bottles holding the anti-matter fuel used to power the ship, resulting in matter-antimatter explosions. Due to advanced nanotechnology , microscopic nanomeds can be put into people's bodies to manage cell repair and delay aging. This enables the extension of
2432-541: A result, the stronger the psionic abilities of a parent, the more likely it is that a child will be either deformed or not survive pregnancy. This is why Psions are very rare. Telepathy and empathy in Asaro's novels are mediated by two microscopic brain structures, the Kyle Efferent Body (KEB) and Kyle Afferent Body (KAB). The KEB works by modulating the wave functions of some of the particles within it in
2560-465: A rising literacy rate among the growing population of townspeople, as well as the development of lending libraries. Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693) might be said to have given birth to the modern consciousness of the novel in Japan, mixing vernacular dialogue into his humorous and cautionary tales of the pleasure quarters, the so-called Ukiyozōshi (" floating world ") genre. Ihara 's Life of an Amorous Man
2688-517: A scandalous moral, gallant talk to be imitated, and a brief, concise plot. The new developments did, however, lead to Eliza Haywood 's epic length novel, Love in Excess (1719/20) and to Samuel Richardson 's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1741). Some literary historians date the beginning of the English novel with Richardson's Pamela , rather than Crusoe. The idea of the "rise of the novel" in
SECTION 20
#17327659186032816-489: A separate key. The Mercure Gallant set the fashion in the 1670s. Collections of letters and memoirs appeared, and were filled with the intriguing new subject matter and the epistolary novel grew from this and led to the first full blown example of scandalous fiction in Aphra Behn 's Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684/ 1685/ 1687). Before the rise of the literary novel, reading novels had only been
2944-672: A single sheet folded into books of 8, 12, 16 and 24 pages. They were often illustrated with crude woodcuts , which sometimes bore no relation to the text. When illustrations were included in chapbooks, they were considered popular prints . The tradition arose in the 16th century, as soon as printed books became affordable, and rose to its height during the 17th and 18th centuries. Many different kinds of ephemera and popular or folk literature were published as chapbooks, such as almanacs , children's literature , folk tales , nursery rhymes , pamphlets , poetry , and political and religious tracts . The term "chapbook" for this type of literature
3072-408: A six denotes a telepath. There is also a group of psions who have a rating too high to be measured numerically. Those are called "Rhon". They are extremely rare and to be born Rhon a child must get the full set of psion genes from both parents. In practice, the term Rhon refers to members of Ruby Dynasty, the ruling family of Skolian Empire, as Rhon not related to them are not known. The Rhon Project
3200-461: A superluminal universe does exist, we have no way to reach it given that we must go through the speed of light, which to the best of our knowledge is impossible. In this paper, I show that by making speed complex, we can go around the speed of light in a manner analogous to the way a car faced with an infinitely tall roadblock might leave the road to go around that barrier. The treatment is a mathematical device; no known physical interpretation exists for
3328-513: A way that models, on a much smaller scale and with a low degree of precision, the electrochemical patterns (i.e. thoughts and emotions) of the brain surrounding it. The KAB detects such signals from the KEBs of other nearby psions via quantum entanglement , establishing matching patterns. "Parastructures" surrounding the KEB and KAB feed information about a sender's brain activity into the KEB, and interpret
3456-503: Is Simplicius Simplicissimus by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen , published in 1668, Late 17th-century critics looked back on the history of prose fiction, proud of the generic shift that had taken place, leading towards the modern novel/novella. The first perfect works in French were those of Scarron and Madame de La Fayette 's "Spanish history" Zayde (1670). The development finally led to her Princesse de Clèves (1678),
3584-706: Is a marked tendency to emphasize themes of courtly love . Originally, romance literature was written in Old French , Anglo-Norman and Occitan , later, in English , Italian and German . During the early 13th century, romances were increasingly written as prose. The shift from verse to prose dates from the early 13th century; for example, the Romance of Flamenca . The Prose Lancelot or Vulgate Cycle also includes passages from that period. This collection indirectly led to Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur of
3712-473: Is a type of narrative in prose or verse popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe . They were marvel-filled adventures , often of a knight-errant with heroic qualities, who undertakes a quest , yet it is "the emphasis on heterosexual love and courtly manners distinguishes it from the chanson de geste and other kinds of epic , which involve heroism." In later romances, particularly those of French origin, there
3840-548: Is all a Romance; that there never were any such Man or Place". The late 18th century brought an answer with the Romantic Movement's readiness to reclaim the word romance, with the gothic romance , and the historical novels of Walter Scott . Robinson Crusoe now became a "novel" in this period, that is a work of the new realistic fiction created in the 18th century. Sentimental novels relied on emotional responses, and feature scenes of distress and tenderness, and
3968-529: Is associated with the army, the Imperator being the supreme commander of all Skolian military forces. This title is also hereditary but the Imperator can choose a successor from among several suitable candidates. If a member of the Ruby Dynasty cannot assume this title for some reason, then the person who is currently next in command of the military becomes Imperator. To do the job well, to its full extent,
Rhon psion - Misplaced Pages Continue
4096-486: Is characterized not only by their cruelty but also by power-hunger and sense of superiority. Their leader, Eube Qox founded the Eubian Concord and his descendants presently rule it. Aristos began breeding psions to torture and use as pleasure slaves called providers . Their main goal was to produce a single, extremely strong psion who could serve as an ultimate provider. The stronger a provider's psionic abilities,
4224-582: Is considered by some to be one of the earliest "romances" or "novels" of China, and it was influential on later works of fiction in East Asia. Urbanization and the spread of printed books in Song dynasty (960–1279) led China to the evolution of oral storytelling, chuanqi and huaben , into long-form multi-volume vernacular fictional novels by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). The European developments of
4352-469: Is considered the first work in this genre. Although Ihara's works were not regarded as high literature at the time because it had been aimed towards and popularized by the chōnin (merchant classes), they became popular and were key to the development and spread of ukiyozōshi . A chapbook is an early type of popular literature printed in early modern Europe . Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered booklets, usually printed on
4480-631: Is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era . Literary historian Ian Watt , in The Rise of the Novel (1957), argued that the modern novel was born in the early 18th century. Recent technological developments have led to many novels also being published in non-print media: this includes audio books , web novels , and ebooks . Another non-traditional fiction format can be found in graphic novels . While these comic book versions of works of fiction have their origins in
4608-578: Is noted as one of the few female science fiction writers who also has a doctorate in hard science, in Asaro's case a PhD from Harvard in theoretical Chemical Physics. The novel Spherical Harmonic involves an imagined universe based on the Hilbert space described by the spherical harmonic eigenfunctions that solve the Laplace Equation , and some prose in the book is written in the shape of
4736-708: Is the Imperator of Skolia. The ISC has four divisions: The main centers of ISC are the space habitat Orbiter with its War Room, Triad Chair and Lock , the Onyx Platform protecting the Third Lock and the planet Diesha, which serves as the ISC headquarters and seat of the Dieshan Military Academy. Asaro is known as a hard science fiction writer for the scientific depth of her work. The amount of science varies from book to book, with novels such as Primary Inversion , The Radiant Seas , and Spherical Harmonic on
4864-511: Is the only obstacle that prevents the Eubians from conquering Skolia. Another player on the interstellar stage is the Allieds, the smallest of the three empires, centered on Earth. They act in a strictly neutral way to both Eubians and Skolians and support the solution of their neighbour's conflicts by political, rather than military means. Today's Skolian Empire is an egalitarian society, but
4992-483: The Roman à clef . Other works could, conversely, claim to be factual histories, yet earn the suspicion that they were wholly invented. A further differentiation was made between private and public history: Daniel Defoe 's Robinson Crusoe was, within this pattern, neither a "romance" nor a "novel". It smelled of romance, yet the preface stated that it should most certainly be read as a true private history. The rise of
5120-630: The Ancient Greek and Roman novel , Medieval Chivalric romance , and in the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella . The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism , in the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel . Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne , Herman Melville , Ann Radcliffe , and John Cowper Powys , preferred the term " romance ". Such "romances" should not be confused with
5248-469: The Laplace Equation , the author invents a universe where "location" is based on quantum wave functions rather than position and time, and where a psion's thoughts determined their location in Kyle space. The Locks are three powerful sentient machines created by the ancient Ruby Empire . They are located at points of disruption in normal spacetime caused by an intersection with Kyle space, which manifests as
Rhon psion - Misplaced Pages Continue
5376-716: The Locks , devices that have allowed advanced telepaths to establish the interstellar network called the Kyle Web or psiberweb, which can be used by others. Thus, the Rhon project was developed to develop genetically the necessary neurochemistry to power the Locks . The unintended result of the Rhon project, however, was the creation of Aristos, a race of anti-empaths, whose brains interpret pain of others (especially of psions ) as pleasure, which turned them into sadists. This result led to
5504-480: The genre fiction romance novel , which focuses on romantic love. M. H. Abrams and Walter Scott have argued that a novel is a fiction narrative that displays a realistic depiction of the state of a society, while the romance encompasses any fictitious narrative that emphasizes marvellous or uncommon incidents. Works of fiction that include marvellous or uncommon incidents are also novels, including Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein , J. R. R. Tolkien 's The Lord of
5632-552: The psiberweb , an interstellar network existing outside of normal space and time that transmits messages instantaneously. Their empire was called the Ruby Empire. The Ruby Empire was a matriarchy ruled by powerful females who held the title of Ruby Pharaoh. The Pharaohs wielded enormous power, leading armies to wars and treating their husbands like property. Succession went strictly through the female line, men being seen as incapable of such responsibilities. A man could only become
5760-420: The quantum state of any particle, temporarily rendering the ship invulnerable. While in quasis, the quantum state of all the occupants of the ship also freezes causing the crew to experience the quasis as a disjointed segment of time. Each weapon strike against a ship in quasis weakens its quasis field. The novels describe an unspecified number of weapon hits (typically suggesting two to four) that will collapse
5888-501: The sinusoidal waves found in the spherical harmonics. Her novel The Quantum Rose is an allegory to quantum scattering theory and is dedicated to her doctoral advisors and mentors in the subject, Alex Dalgarno , Kate Kirby , and Eric J. Heller . The novella "Aurora in Four Voices" includes topics ranging from Fourier series to integration problems in calculus . In essays at the back of some of her novels, Asaro explains
6016-425: The "belongs to the commoners", "trivial daily talks" aspect in one of his work. The earliest novels include classical Greek and Latin prose narratives from the first century BC to the second century AD, such as Chariton 's Callirhoe (mid 1st century), which is "arguably the earliest surviving Western novel", as well as Petronius ' Satyricon , Lucian 's True Story , Apuleius ' The Golden Ass , and
6144-410: The 16th and 17th centuries two factors led to the separation of history and fiction. The invention of printing immediately created a new market of comparatively cheap entertainment and knowledge in the form of chapbooks . The more elegant production of this genre by 17th- and 18th-century authors were belles lettres — that is, a market that would be neither low nor academic. The second major development
6272-401: The 18th century is especially associated with Ian Watt 's influential study The Rise of the Novel (1957). In Watt's conception, a rise in fictional realism during the 18th century came to distinguish the novel from earlier prose narratives. The rising status of the novel in eighteenth century can be seen in the development of philosophical and experimental novels . Philosophical fiction
6400-444: The 19th century, they have only become popular recently. A novel is a long, fictional narrative. The novel in the modern era usually makes use of a literary prose style . The development of the prose novel at this time was encouraged by innovations in printing , and the introduction of cheap paper in the 15th century. Several characteristics of a novel might include: East Asian countries, like China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan, use
6528-470: The 19th-century femmes fatales . Skolian Empire The Saga of the Skolian Empire , informally called the Skolian Saga or Tales of the Ruby Dynasty, is a series of science fiction novels, novellas and novelettes by Catherine Asaro , revolving around characters from an interstellar empire known as the Skolian Empire and their power struggle with the rival Eubian Concord . The plot of
SECTION 50
#17327659186036656-447: The 5th through 8th centuries. Vasavadatta by Subandhu , Daśakumāracarita and Avantisundarīkathā by Daṇḍin , and Kadambari by Banabhatta are among notable works. These narrative forms were influenced by much older classical Sanskrit plays and Indian classical drama literature, as well as by oral traditions and religious texts. The 7th-century Tang dynasty narrative prose work You Xian Ku written by Zhang Zhuo
6784-413: The Allieds, are an extension of a present-day Earth civilization who enter space travel only to find all worlds are already inhabited and thriving under either the Skolian or Eubian Empire. Their role in the series is that of a neutral party, interested only in the cessation of hostilities. Around 6,000 years ago an unknown race moved a group of Mayan humans from Earth to the distant planet Raylicon. Then
6912-509: The Assembly Key is required to have a peerless intellect and a piercing analytical mind. Therefore, the person who is the Assembly Key takes the sobriquet of the "Mind of Skolia", or the style of Ruby Pharaoh, with at least the executive powers of chief-of-state. The Selei branch of the Rhon produces the Assembly Key with following line of succession: Lahaylia, then Dyhianna, with Taquinil the designated successor. The personality powering
7040-659: The Assembly. The largest block of votes belongs to the First Councilor, who is the leader of the Assembly. The next largest blocks are held by Councilors of the Inner Circle and by Skolian Imperator and Ruby Pharaoh. All Skolian noble houses have hereditary seats in the Assembly but only the Ruby Dynasty and the House of Majda have blocs of votes with considerable influence. There are five main political parties within
7168-633: The Assembly. The role of the Pharaoh is also associated with the Triad title of Assembly Key, though both positions don't have to be necessarily joined together. There have been only two Skolian Pharaohs so far – Lahaylia Selei, the founder of the Imperialate, and her daughter Dyhianna, who is the current Pharaoh. The heirs to the throne are Dyhiannas sons, first Taquinil, then Althor, with her younger sister Roca being next in line. The title of Imperator
7296-484: The Assembly: The Inner Circle consists of elected Councilors representing different ministries of the Skolian government: Industry, Life, Finance, Intelligence, Judiciary, Stars, Planetary Development, Domestic Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Protocol, and Nature. The Foreign Affairs Councillor is Roca Skolia . Besides the Assembly, two important titles in the Skolian government are held by members of
7424-516: The Fatalist (1773, printed posthumously in 1796). A market of literature in the modern sense of the word, that is a separate market for fiction and poetry, did not exist until the late seventeenth century. All books were sold under the rubric of "History and politicks" in the early 18th century, including pamphlets , memoirs , travel literature , political analysis, serious histories, romances, poetry, and novels. That fictional histories shared
7552-555: The Imperator also has to be the Military Key in the Triad , as the commander must be able to coordinate the military forces with an amount of speed only allowed by using the psiberweb . The Skolian Imperators so far have been Jarac Skolia, Kurj Skolia , Sauscony Valdoria Skolia, General Naaj Majda, and Kelric Valdoria Skolia who presently holds the title. The Skolian Empire traces its roots to six thousand years ago, when an unknown race took humans from Earth and resettled them on
7680-412: The Imperialate. In the case of the Pharaoh, traditional loyalty to the Ruby Dynasty queen also plays an important role. This makes the Assembly's power far from absolute. The Assembly consists of thousands of delegates, who represent the many worlds of the Imperialate. The number of votes held by delegates depends on the size of the population of the planet that elected them and also on their status within
7808-554: The Kyle Web, but cannot construct or maintain it. It is possible for a Rhon psion to physically enter psiberspace via a Lock, as the Ruby Pharaoh Dyhianna Selei and her son Taquinil did to escape a Eubian attack on the Orbiter. Inexperienced psions suffer potentially fatal headaches upon entering a Lock. Dyhianna eventually emerges from psiberspace on a random planet, but Taquinil's whereabouts remain unknown at
SECTION 60
#17327659186037936-606: The Locks. Ruby Dynasty members differ physically from the members of other noble Houses, who are mostly dark-haired and dark-eyed, also with darker skin. This is because some ancestors of the Ruby Dynasty came from ancient colonies of the Ruby Empire, where people genetically engineered themselves to better adapt to their surroundings. The first Skolian Imperator Jarac was extremely tall (over 7 feet) with metallic skin, eyes and hair. Some of his descendants inherited these traits, particularly his daughter Roca and grandsons Kurj , Althor and Kelric . Ruby family members who look similar to
8064-609: The Military Key is required to be robust, ruthless, agile, forceful, and uncompromising. Therefore, the person who is the Military Key takes the sobriquet of the "Fist of Skolia", or the style of Imperator , with the executive power of commander-in-chief of all armed forces in the Imperialate . The Skolia branch of the Rhon produces the Military Key: Jarac, Kurj , Althor Valdoria Skolia, Sauscony Valdoria Skolia , and Kelric Valdoria Skolia . The personality powering
8192-600: The Principles of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the Youth of Both Sexes", which focuses on a potential victim, a heroine that has all the modern virtues and who is vulnerable because her low social status and her occupation as servant of a libertine who falls in love with her. She, however, ends in reforming her antagonist. Male heroes adopted the new sentimental character traits in the 1760s. Laurence Sterne 's Yorick ,
8320-538: The Rings , and Harper Lee 's To Kill a Mockingbird . Murasaki Shikibu 's Tale of Genji , an early 11th-century Japanese text, has sometimes been described as the world's first novel, because of its early use of the experience of intimacy in a narrative form. There is considerable debate over this, however, as there were certainly long fictional prose works that preceded it. The spread of printed books in China led to
8448-415: The Ruby Dynasty, a hereditary monarchy. According to traditional Skolian political theory, the ruling body is absolute, therefore the Assembly is Sovereign. All powers of the Imperator and the Pharaoh are theoretically derived from the Assembly, including their right to vote within the Assembly. In actuality the Pharaoh, and also the Imperator, have power because they are necessary to the continued existence of
8576-452: The Ruby Dynasty. Ruby Pharaoh is the hereditary title of a reigning monarch. It dates back to the ancient Ruby Empire that was ruled by powerful warrior queens. When the modern Skolian Empire was founded, the title of Ruby Pharaoh was resurrected, yet this time the power of a Pharaoh is not absolute anymore. An elected Assembly governs, with the Pharaoh being mainly the titular head of the empire, though she holds an important bloc of votes in
8704-730: The Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro . The stories of Asaro mostly revolve around the Skolian Empire. She also has written several novellas and novelettes on the world of the Skolian Empire. Skolians are in a permanent near-war state with their enemy, the Eubians, who rule a much bigger star-spanning empire called the Eubian Concord. Eubians (often also referred to as Traders , due to their flourishing slave trade) have stronger militaries and dispose of greater resources. Skolians, though weaker, balance this out by usage of their faster-than-light interstellar communication network called psiberweb , which gives them an important advantage and
8832-676: The Skolian Empire books comes from a paper Asaro wrote on complex variables and special relativity that appeared in the American Journal of Physics . The form of space travel is called "inversion" because the equations of relativistic physics predict that if ships could travel in a supraluminal universe, the constellations as we know them would appear inverted in position. In the abstract for her paper, "Complex Speeds and Special Relativity," Asaro writes "The quest to find faster‐than‐light particles has intrigued physicists for decades, though it has yet to turn up any real candidates. Even if
8960-542: The Skolian Empire together with an elected parliament, the Assembly. The different Keys that can exist, (depending which time period the particular novel occurs in), are the Assembly Key, the Military Key, and the Web Key. Each of these Keys has a line succession that is hereditary, though all the members of the Skolia family are in each of the lines at various points due to issues of consanguinity . The personality powering
9088-443: The Skolian Empire. Access and control of the psiberweb is what gives the Skolian Empire its equal strength to the more powerful and more numerous Trader empire. Only the Rhon psions have sufficient Kyle Rating to interface with the Locks. In exceptional cases Rhon can even receive emotions over big distances (even through space), mostly when they are closely related to the sender. Less powerful psions called telops can also access and use
9216-472: The Skolian Imperialate. Once a member of the Ruby Dynasty makes contact with a Lock, they become part of the Triad (formerly a Dyad). A member of the Triad is called a Key. Three types of Keys exist: Assembly Key , Military Key and Web Key . Each Key has to have a unique personality different from the other two as much as possible because if the neurological processes are too similar, they cannot coexist in
9344-566: The Triad. So far the title of Pharaoh was always associated with the Assembly Key, while the title Imperator was associated with the Military Key. Jagernauts are fictional soldiers in the Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro. They are members of the J-Force, which is an ISC elite fighting division composed of independent fighter pilots who engage in small squadron combat with the Eubians. Jagernauts are psions with high Kyle Ratings , generally full empaths or even telepaths, with even
9472-459: The Web Key is not required to have any great intellectual or organization skill, merely large amounts of willpower and emotional strength. The person who is the Web Key takes the sobriquet of the "Heart of Skolia". The only one so far who has ever been the Web Key was Eldrinson Althor Valdoria . Eldrinson perceives psiberspace as a sea. Novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as
9600-620: The ancient definition of "small talks" merely refers to trivial affairs, trivial facts, and can be different from the Western concept of novel. According to Lu Xun , the word "small talks" first appeared in the works of Zhuang Zhou , which coined such word. Later scholars also provided a similar definition, such as Han dynasty historian Ban Gu , who categorized all the trivial stories and gossips collected by local government magistrates as "small talks". Hồ Nguyên Trừng classified his memoir collection Nam Ông mộng lục as "small talks" clearly with
9728-547: The anonymous Aesop Romance and Alexander Romance . These works were often influenced by oral traditions, such as storytelling and myth-making, and reflected the cultural, social, and political contexts of their time. Afterwards, their style was adapted in later Byzantine novels such as Hysimine and Hysimines by Eustathios Makrembolites Narrative forms were also developed in Classical Sanskrit in India during
9856-517: The appearance of the vernacular classic Chinese novels during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and Qing dynasty (1616–1911). An early example from Europe was Hayy ibn Yaqdhan by the Sufi writer Ibn Tufayl in Muslim Spain . Later developments occurred after the invention of the printing press . Miguel de Cervantes , author of Don Quixote (the first part of which was published in 1605),
9984-561: The author not only addresses readers in his preface but speaks directly to them in his fictional narrative. In addition to Sterne's narrative experiments, there are visual experiments, such as a marbled page, a black page to express sorrow, and a page of lines to show the plot lines of the book. The novel as a whole focuses on the problems of language, with constant regard to John Locke 's theories in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding . The rise of
10112-412: The birth of two competing interstellar empires – Eubian Concord (founded by Aristos) and Skolian Empire – founded by Lahaylia Selei, progenitor of the modern Ruby Dynasty, a family of Rhon telepaths who currently co-rule the Skolian Imperialate and power and maintain the Kyle Web . The collection of Skolian armed forces is called Imperial Space Command , or ISC . The commander-in-chief of all ISC forces
10240-408: The book unfolds over several generations of characters and revolves around political intrigues, but also contains subplots regarding physics , bio-enhancements, virtual computer networks , romance , mathematics, and military conflict as it is affected by superluminal space travel. The Skolian Empire , or Skolian Imperialate , is one of the major empires in the science fiction novel series called
10368-462: The cities as traders. Cheap printed histories were, in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially popular among apprentices and younger urban readers of both sexes. The early modern market, from the 1530s and 1540s, divided into low chapbooks and high market expensive, fashionable, elegant belles lettres . The Amadis and Rabelais ' Gargantua and Pantagruel were important publications with respect to this divide. Both books specifically addressed
10496-707: The concept of novel as it is understood in the Western world was (and still is) termed as "long length small talk" (長篇小說), novella as "medium length small talk" (中篇小說), and short stories as "short length small talk" (短篇小說). However, in Vietnamese culture, the term 小說 exclusively refers to 長篇小說 (long-length small talk), i.e. standard novel, while different terms are used to refer to novella and short stories. Such terms originated from ancient Chinese classification of literature works into "small talks" (tales of daily life and trivial matters) and "great talks" ("sacred" classic works of great thinkers like Confucius ). In other words,
10624-410: The concepts of the Hilbert space described by the harmonics to create the universe called Kyle space. Spherical harmonics (see also Spherical Harmonic ) are an orthonormal set of eigenfunctions used in many areas of math and physics, including quantum mechanics and electromagnetics . By directly applying the rules that define Hilbert spaces described by the angular wave functions that solve
10752-559: The early 1470s. Prose became increasingly attractive because it enabled writers to associate popular stories with serious histories traditionally composed in prose, and could also be more easily translated. Popular literature also drew on themes of romance, but with ironic , satiric or burlesque intent. Romances reworked legends , fairy tales , and history, but by about 1600 they were out of fashion, and Miguel de Cervantes famously burlesqued them in Don Quixote (1605). Still,
10880-443: The first Pharaoh Lahaylia, such as Dyhianna, Sauscony or Taquinil, are on the other hand smaller than average and slim with black hair. Eldrinson Valdoria , a native Lyshrioli , had violet eyes, fair skin and burgundy hair, which is also true for several of his children, especially Eldrin and Del-Kurj. Ruby Dynasty members tend to be good-looking because their progenitors were bred as pleasure slaves before they rebelled and established
11008-475: The first novel with what would become characteristic French subject matter. Europe witnessed the generic shift in the titles of works in French published in Holland, which supplied the international market and English publishers exploited the novel/romance controversy in the 1670s and 1680s. Contemporary critics listed the advantages of the new genre: brevity, a lack of ambition to produce epic poetry in prose;
11136-602: The first time, the larger the possibility that they won't work that well. In Skolian Empire, many people, most often in the military or administration, carry bio-implants . Most common are nodes in brain which are used mainly as extended memory to store useful data. Many people have also psiphon sockets in their spine, wrists, and ankles, that enable them to lock into the psiberweb . People who suffer severe injuries and lose their limbs or eyes can get prosthetic ones. The Skolian Imperialate consists of many worlds with hundreds or thousands of different languages. The language that
11264-584: The hero of the Sentimental Journey (1768) did so with an enormous amount of humour. Oliver Goldsmith 's Vicar of Wakefield (1766) and Henry Mackenzie 's Man of Feeling (1771) produced the far more serious role models. These works inspired a sub - and counterculture of pornographic novels, for which Greek and Latin authors in translations had provided elegant models from the last century. Pornography includes John Cleland 's Fanny Hill (1748), which offered an almost exact reversal of
11392-612: The heroes, it was always hinted that they were well-known public characters of the day in a romantic disguise. Stories of witty cheats were an integral part of the European novella with its tradition of fabliaux . Significant examples include Till Eulenspiegel (1510), Lazarillo de Tormes (1554), Grimmelshausen 's Simplicissimus Teutsch (1666–1668) and in England Richard Head 's The English Rogue (1665). The tradition that developed with these titles focused on
11520-560: The imaginary part of a complex speed. However, it can provide an entertaining problem in special relativity, one that may encourage students to think about the connections between equations and the physical universe." Evolving Intelligence, also known as EI , is the term given to sophisticated computer systems, similar to what is commonly known as Artificial Intelligence , or AI, but with more capabilities, such as complex learning algorithms and personality routines. EIs are used for example in starships or as administrators of computer systems in
11648-551: The involvement of the Aristos in creating the Rhon psions. The Kyle Web, also known as the psiberweb, is an instantaneous interstellar communication network powered by Locks. The psiberweb can be thought of as similar to the Internet. Unlike the Internet, the psiberweb, rather than existing in real physical form, transmits information through "Kyle space", also known as "psiberspace". A theoretical physicist by training, Asaro uses
11776-405: The kidnappers disappeared, leaving their victims on their own. The Raylicans developed star travel using the remains of three starships left behind by the aliens on their new homeworld. They reverse engineered the technology, allowing them to achieve spaceflight and colonize hundreds of planets. They also discovered the Locks , an ancient and sentient alien technology that allowed them to create
11904-537: The low realm of the burlesque. Don Quixote modified the satire of romances: its hero lost contact with reality by reading too many romances in the Amadisian tradition. Other important works of the tradition are Paul Scarron 's Roman Comique (1651–57), the anonymous French Rozelli with its satire on Europe's religions, Alain-René Lesage 's Gil Blas (1715–1735), Henry Fielding 's Joseph Andrews (1742) and Tom Jones (1749), and Denis Diderot 's Jacques
12032-455: The mathematical and physics basis of the ideas used in the books, in particular Spherical Harmonic, The Quantum Rose , and The Moon's Shadow. In the anthology Aurora in Four Voices (which includes the novella of the same name), Asaro describes the mathematical basis of several stories in the anthology, including the use of Fourier transforms, Riemann sheets , and complex numbers in "The SpaceTime Pool." The method of space travel used in
12160-420: The meaning of "trivial facts" rather than the Western definition of novel. Such classification also left a strong legacy in several East Asian interpretations of the Western definition of “novel” at the time when Western literature was first introduced to East Asian countries. For example, Thanh Lãng and Nhất Linh classified the epic poems such as The Tale of Kiều as "novel", while Trần Chánh Chiếu emphasized
12288-417: The modern image of the medieval is more influenced by the romance than by any other medieval genre, and the word "medieval" evokes knights, distressed damsels, dragons, and such tropes. The term "novel" originates from the production of short stories, or novella that remained part of a European oral culture of storytelling into the late 19th century. Fairy tales, jokes, and humorous stories designed to make
12416-399: The modern novel as an alternative to the chivalric romance began with the publication of Miguel de Cervantes ' novel Don Quixote : "the first great novel of world literature". It continued with Scarron 's Roman Comique (the first part of which appeared in 1651), whose heroes noted the rivalry between French romances and the new Spanish genre. In Germany an early example of the novel
12544-416: The most scientifically dense end of the spectrum, including elements such as equations and diagrams of quantum mechanical wave functions and Klein bottles . Stanley Schmidt , the long time editor of Analog magazine, wrote that Primary Inversion is "an impressive first novel; not just a good story, but the kind of speculation we too seldom see – really new science that just might be possible." Asaro
12672-501: The new customers of popular histories, rather than readers of belles lettres . The Amadis was a multi–volume fictional history of style, that aroused a debate about style and elegance as it became the first best-seller of popular fiction. On the other hand, Gargantua and Pantagruel , while it adopted the form of modern popular history, in fact satirized that genre's stylistic achievements. The division, between low and high literature, became especially visible with books that appeared on both
12800-469: The novel did not occur until after the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1439, and the rise of the publishing industry over a century later. Long European works continued to be in poetry in the 16th century. The modern European novel is often said to have begun with Don Quixote in 1605. Another important early novel was the French pastoral novel L'Astrée by Honore d'Urfe , published in 1610. Romance or chivalric romance
12928-469: The ongoing emotional attacks, psions are trained to put up barriers around their minds, both to protect themselves from unwelcomed feelings and thoughts and to prevent projecting onto others. There are several hundred genes that result in psionic abilities. The more such genes a psion possesses, the stronger psionic abilities he/she manifests. However, many of these genes are closely linked to other Recessive genes that may cause deformities in offspring. As
13056-442: The original Ruby Empire was a matriarchy and remnants of this still remain in Skolian culture. Although it is now not uncommon for men to hold an influential position, many important ranks in Skolian politics and the military are still occupied by women. Many people, especially members of the noble houses, still consider men as the "weaker gender". The Skolian Imperialate is ruled partly by the Assembly, an elected parliament; and by
13184-425: The other hand, while larger in number and more successful economically, constitute a society built entirely of a slave hierarchy run by Aristos, who have been genetically engineered and have no capability for compassion, but rather experience pleasure in the form of "transcendence" through the projected suffering of powerful psions that have been kidnapped from the Skolian Imperialate. A third but much smaller group,
13312-482: The pair, name unknown, committed suicide upon realizing his intended purpose. The female, Lahaylia Selei, killed her captors and escaped. Lahaylia then founded the Skolian Imperialate . Later she discovered a natural Rhon from a nearly dead race of Ruby colonists, named Jarac Skolia, and took him as her consort. However, since this history is rather unnoble, the story as told in the Skolian Empire omits
13440-453: The plot is arranged to advance emotions rather than action. The result is a valorization of "fine feeling", displaying the characters as models of refined, sensitive emotional affect. The ability to display such feelings was thought at this time to show character and experience, and to help shape positive social life and relationships. An example of this genre is Samuel Richardson 's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740), composed "to cultivate
13568-467: The plot of novels that emphasise virtue. The prostitute Fanny Hill learns to enjoy her work and establishes herself as a free and economically independent individual, in editions one could only expect to buy under the counter. Less virtuous protagonists can also be found in satirical novels, like Richard Head 's English Rogue (1665), that feature brothels, while women authors like Aphra Behn had offered their heroines alternative careers as precursors of
13696-427: The popular and belles lettres markets in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries: low chapbooks included abridgments of books such as Don Quixote . The term "chapbook" is also in use for present-day publications, commonly short, inexpensive booklets. Heroic Romance is a genre of imaginative literature, which flourished in the 17th century, principally in France. The beginnings of modern fiction in France took
13824-427: The psiberweb. The ruling family of today's Skolian Empire is called the Ruby Dynasty, as Lahaylia Selei, the progenitor of the modern Ruby family, was cloned from the genetic material of one of the long dead warrior queens of the Ruby Empire. The descendants of the Ruby Dynasty are all Rhon psions . They can read moods, and even particular thoughts. They were created in a genetic engineering experiment to help power
13952-562: The publication of histories that dared not risk an unambiguous assertion of their truth. The literary market-place of the late 17th and early 18th century employed a simple pattern of options whereby fictions could reach out into the sphere of true histories. This permitted its authors to claim they had published fiction, not truth, if they ever faced allegations of libel. Prefaces and title pages of seventeenth and early eighteenth century fiction acknowledged this pattern: histories could claim to be romances, but threaten to relate true events, as in
14080-612: The quantum patterns in the KAB back into emotions and thoughts in the receiver. The term KAB Rating stands for Kyle Afferent Body Rating, and is also called "Kyle Rating". It refers to the strength of a psion's empathic and telepathic abilities and is measured on a scale from 0 to 10, based on a logarithmic inverse of how many people it would take to find an individual with a given mental strength. Most humans rate between 0 and 2 on this scale, which denotes absent or marginal empathic and telepathic abilities. A three or higher indicates an empath;
14208-521: The razor's edge of sanity needing to balance empathy with efficient battle reflexes. Jagernauts must be psions to make the necessary neural links with the Evolving Intelligences of their starfighters, but that also means they experience what happens during war more intensely than most soldiers. To maintain self-control every Jagernaut is trained to adhere to a strict moral code of honor and personal decency. Not all succeed in maintaining
14336-479: The same space with academic histories and modern journalism had been criticized by historians since the end of the Middle Ages: fictions were "lies" and therefore hardly justifiable at all. The climate, however, changed in the 1670s. The romance format of the quasi–historical works of Madame d'Aulnoy , César Vichard de Saint-Réal , Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras , and Anne-Marguerite Petit du Noyer , allowed
14464-466: The same type were to join the psiberweb simultaneously, one is likely to die, as Kurj did to Jarac. Rhon psions that "join" the Locks are considered members of the Dyad or Triad, depending on the context of the novel in the series. A Dyad is formed by two complementary personalities, and a Triad is formed by three such. The Dyad or the Triad when acting together forms the full executive authority that governs
14592-444: The ship's EI , and together they control all aspects of the ship. A Jagernaut is enhanced with biomechanics. Bioplastics and other materials enhance their muscles and bones significantly. Although still requiring food, a Jagernaut has internal systems powered by a microfusion reactor. Complete with the latest in small-scale technology, Jagernauts have numerous nanomeds and nano / pico devices in their bodies that are responsible for
14720-440: The stronger the pain signals he produces while tortured and consequently, the greater the pleasure an Aristo experiences. The first Rhon psions were a pair of siblings meant to be bred to each other to found a pre-eminent line of providers. They were created from genetic samples of long dead members of the once so powerful Ruby Empire 's ruling caste, who were known for their great empathic and telepathic abilities. The male half of
14848-414: The style was fresh and plain; the focus was on modern life, and on heroes who were neither good nor bad. The novel's potential to become the medium of urban gossip and scandal fueled the rise of the novel/novella. Stories were offered as allegedly true recent histories, not for the sake of scandal but strictly for the moral lessons they gave. To prove this, fictionalized names were used with the true names in
14976-418: The technology, and started to rebuild their empire. Because of this theme, Asaro's Skolian Empire novels have been categorized in the lost world genre . By the time the Raylicans started rebuilding their empire, the psions which had a strong enough KAB Rating to power the psiberweb had been all but lost. As a result, the Rhon project was created to genetically engineer the traits necessary to create
15104-552: The time of the novel Catch the Lightning . Rhon psions can act as Keys to the psiberweb, engaging the Locks to create and maintain psiberweb links. The Locks can support only a limited number of Keys. This limit is determined by a psiberspace law equivalent to the Pauli Exclusion Principle , in that no more than one personality of a specific type can be joined to the Locks at any given time. If two persons of
15232-480: The word 小說 ( variant Traditional Chinese and Shinjitai : 小説 ; Simplified Chinese : 小说 ; Hangeul : 소설 ; Pinyin : xiǎoshuō ; Jyutping : siu syut ; Wugniu : siau-seq 7 ; Peh-oe-ji : sió-soat ; Hepburn : shōsetsu ; Revised : soseol ; Vietnamese : tiểu thuyết ), which literally means "small talks", to refer to works of fiction of whatever length. In Chinese, Japanese and Korean cultures,
15360-496: The word "novel" at the cost of its rival, the romance, remained a Spanish and English phenomenon, and though readers all over Western Europe had welcomed the novel(la) or short history as an alternative in the second half of the 17th century, only the English and the Spanish had openly discredited the romance. But the change of taste was brief and Fénelon's Telemachus [ Les Aventures de Télémaque ] (1699/1700) already exploited
15488-572: Was a compilation of one hundred novelle told by ten people—seven women and three men—fleeing the Black Death by escaping from Florence to the Fiesole hills, in 1348. The modern distinction between history and fiction did not exist in the early sixteenth century and the grossest improbabilities pervade many historical accounts found in the early modern print market. William Caxton 's 1485 edition of Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur (1471)
15616-432: Was chosen as a common tongue is called Skolian Flag. People from the Ruby Dynasty and other noble houses speak a nearly extinct language called Iotic. The Ruby Dynasty, the ancient rulers of the Skolian Empire , while possessing empathic and telepathic abilities enhanced by " pico " and " nano " technology, constitute a monarchy plagued by internal struggle and conflict with the elected Assembly. The Eubian Traders, on
15744-461: Was coined in the 19th century. The corresponding French and German terms are bibliothèque bleue (blue book) and Volksbuch , respectively. The principal historical subject matter of chapbooks was abridgements of ancient historians, popular medieval histories of knights, stories of comical heroes, religious legends, and collections of jests and fables. The new printed books reached the households of urban citizens and country merchants who visited
15872-828: Was instigated to genetically engineer extremely powerful psions. The project was led by the prominent geneticist, Hezahr Rhon. The initial project of Dr. Rhon was undertaken to prevent the suffering of psions by attempting to prevent them from receiving the pain of others. The project failed and spawned instead modified Kyle organs to interpret pain signals from psions as orgasmic pleasure called "transcendence". Upon discovering his mistake, Dr. Rhon attempted to destroy his patients but they murdered him first and destroyed his work. Dr Rhon's former patients are referred to as Aristos . They are anti-empathetic sadists utterly devoid of compassion. Notably, some Aristos (Corbal Xir, Calliope Muze, and Tarquine Iquar) have undergone surgery to remove their ability to achieve transcendence. The Aristo nature
16000-405: Was not exactly new. Plato 's dialogues were embedded in fictional narratives and his Republic is an early example of a Utopia . Ibn Tufail 's 12th century Philosophus Autodidacticus with its story of a human outcast surviving on an island, and the 13th century response by Ibn al-Nafis , Theologus Autodidactus are both didactic narrative works that can be thought of as early examples of
16128-469: Was sold as a true history, though the story unfolded in a series of magical incidents and historical improbabilities. Sir John Mandeville 's Voyages , written in the 14th century, but circulated in printed editions throughout the 18th century, was filled with natural wonders, which were accepted as fact, like the one-footed Ethiopians who use their extremity as an umbrella against the desert sun. Both works eventually came to be viewed as works of fiction. In
16256-512: Was the first best-seller of modern fiction, the Spanish Amadis de Gaula , by García Montalvo. However, it was not accepted as an example of belles lettres . The Amadis eventually became the archetypical romance, in contrast with the modern novel which began to be developed in the 17th century. Many different genres of literature made their debut during the Edo period in Japan, helped by
16384-468: Was the inventor of what have since been known as the Heroical Romances. In these there was experienced a violent recrudescence of the old medieval elements of romance, the impossible valour devoted to a pursuit of the impossible beauty, but the whole clothed in the language and feeling and atmosphere of the age in which the books were written. In order to give point to the chivalrous actions of
#602397