The Taurans

Taurans are humans adapted to high gravity, high radiation planets. The product of their environment, they are stocky and dark-skinned, prone to mutation — and immensely proud of their survival in such a severe environment.

Clan members are equally proud of their cultural survival. Although named for an ancient star grouping that contains the planet where they first emerged, they do not refer to themselves as "Taurans." They consider the name one imposed by outsiders, and symbolic of all the wrongs they have suffered at the hands of other clans.

Among themselves, Clan members call themselves the Layth al Din, a name they chose themselves. They consider the moment they had the power to name themselves the major turning point in their history, and, for them, its use is a reaffirmation of their independence and strength as a Clan, as well as their committment to protecting the autonomy of others.

History

To most, the Terran Union is an era of outstanding achievement. Few care to recall the unsavory elements that were also part of that era -- but it is in such an element that the Taurans began, and they do not forget.

As the discovery of c-tunnels opened up the possibility of colonization, a problem soon emerged. While no shortage of colonists existed for terrestial planets, volunteers for marginal worlds were always scarce. Yet these marginal worlds could be just as profitable to colonize as more hospitable ones, especially if they possessed an abundance of rare elements. Often, they could be exploited moe easily than terrestial planets, because complaints about environmental damage were less likely.

One solution to this problem was indentureship -- the selling of a person's labour to a colonizing effort for a set period of time, most frequently 40 years. Various governments sought to regulate indentures, but enforcement remained a problem, and stories of abuse and virtual slavery abound.

However, even indentureship could not supply all the colonists required for marginal planets. Instead, many colonizing organizations sought what was called "transfer of citizenship," but was basically the indentureship of entire populations. Quite simply, the idea was that citizenship was a commodity possessed by governments that could be bought and sold like any other commodity. Those affected by this doctrine were held to have no right to oppose such transactions, although in theory they could seek petition for redress when faced with inhumane treatment. Unsurprisingly, this doctrine was never applied to affluent citizens of industrialized areas.

Unsurprisingly, too, its application ended the problem of supplying sufficient colonists, as thousands of criminals, dissidents, or minority populations were shipped off without their consent. Transfer of citizenship was particularly popular in Africa, where, in the recent past, national boundaries had often placed historically hostile ethnic groups in the same country, resulting in permanent power struggles.

About three centuries after the start of colonization, Astral Colonies, Inc. obtained a transfer of citizenship for several thousand citizens of East Africa through a series of intensive bribes to local officials eager to show progress in stablizing the region. These citizens consisted largely of people of the Samburu, Turkana Luo, Kikuyu, and Kalenjin tribes, with a scattering of others from the Dinka and Maa.

Together with about six hundred indentured workers of mixed origin, these transferred citizens found themselves dumped on Juba, a planet with a weak magnetosphere that provided little protection radiation protection, gravity almost a third greater than Earth's, and what is still the largest supply in human space of Scandium, a rare element that remains a key ingredient in several of the alloys preferred in ship construction.

In the subsequent five centuries, Astral Colonies profited greatly from Juba, and the distances and expenses involved in space travel at the time insured that its indentured workers could never leave Juba. Locally, too, Astral officials were careful to make sure that indentured workers remained indebted to corporate businesses and could never regain their freedom. For instance, any attempt by indentured workers to leave was legally treason, and punishable by an increase in the years of servitude that the offenders owed the company.

Physically, the colonists do not seem to have been mistreated at first. If anything, the records show that Astral Colonies did everything within its power to build up the numbers, including running artificial insemination clinics and encouraging the immigration of fertile women, in order to build up the work force. However, in the early years, many died of heart failure from the high gravity, or of skin cancer from the radiation. Infant mortality rates were also high in the first half dozen generations.

The survivors adapted and worked on, enduring conditions that one observer called "physically, the worst in the galaxy." The corporation spent some effort advertising its supposed humanitarian concerns, trotting out the time-honoured argument that the indentured and transferred citizens were its assets, so that their mistreatment made no sense. Yet, as often in such cases, the mistreatment continued, spurred by the usual concerns to reduce operation costs. No doubt the remoteness of corporate headquarters and the fact that Juba was widely considered a hardship post by mid-level managers further encouraged the gradual worsening of conditions.

Even the eventual banning of indentureship and of transfer of citizenship by the Terran Union did nothing to relieve conditions, because Juba was exempted by a grandfather clause designed to create agreement among all affected parties. At any rate, the ban would have been unenforceable on Juba without the active cooperation of Astral Colonies.

Revolts were frequent on Juba, and ruthlessly stamped out. Finally, in IY - 6376, a woman who later renamed herself Faiza staged a successful coup on the main administration compound. Since Faiza worked as the indentured personal assistant to Astral Colonies' senior manager on Juba, the coup was efficiently planned, and executed with hardly a glitch. Without exception, all those loyal to Astral Colony in the compound were cut down, and Faiza used the administration's own communication devices to call for a planet-wide revolt. The fighting was both fierce and merciless, and left the colonists in control of many major centers in a matter of days, although sporadic fighting occurred for several centuries afterwards.

Early in the struggle, the colonists began the process of renaming both themselves and their planetary landscape. This gesture was made largely at the urging of a man who called himself Safwah. Safwah preached a a monotheistic religion that he called simply The Faith. Although the name echoes other past and present religions, what defines Safwah's The Faith is its placement of personal independence and its defence among the highest moral imperatives. This priority was exactly what the colonists wished to hear, and The Faith quickly spread among them, encouraging them to continue their struggle until -5772 when, over-extended by the obsession with Juba by its board of directors, Astral Colony declared bankruptcy, and its local representatives either fled or were massacred.

Soon after their victory, the Taurans convened an assembly of factions and began the process of consciously creating a modern version of the cultures from which most of them had come. This process, "a mixture of cold-blooded pragmatism and naive romanticism," as Orangutan scholar Socrates called it, is believed to be unprecedented in human history. When it ended two decades later, the clan had assumed much of the form that it retains to this day.

During The Great War, Juba was cut off from the rest of the Human Federation, and for a time was believed to be destroyed by the Crucians. Reality was different; because of its position, Juba had escaped the main thrust of the Crucian advance and was left to develop on its own. When contact was re-established, the Taurans were found to have conducted a surprisingly effective guerilla war against the Crucians, and to have expanded to a few systems beyond Juba. Although much of the credit for this resistance is due to the Taurans themselves, they were greatly aided by their shipbuilding resources, and the fact that they faced relatively small Crucian fleets. In face-to-face combat, too, the Crucians were ill-adapted to high radiation and high gravity planets; probably, it is no accident that the three Tauran worlds destroyed by the Crucians all shared terrestial environments.

This period of isolation heightened the Taurans' sense of self-sufficiency and isolation from the rest of humanity. When they re-established contact, the Taurans showed a marked insistence on being treated as allies rather than subordinates, and quickly gained the reputation among the Human fleets of being difficult to work with. As a result, they were present at few major battles, and served mostly as detatched units in smaller actions in which hit and run tactics were the norm. An exception was the Battle of Majorca Major, where the Tauran main fleet managed the difficult feat of defeating a numerically superior fleet fleeing from Humanity's main advance on the Crucian home world. The Taurans also proved themselves tireless in the centuries of mopping up that followed the end of the main conflict.

Newly confident, wealthy, and proud of the physical adaptations that were originally forced on it, the clan expanded further in the last stage of the Great War. Many of the first planets they settled shared one or more of the characteristics of Juba because the Taurans had few competitors for them and the Crucians had little interest in such environments. However, such planets are relatively rare. Far more often, the worlds colonized by the Taurans were as terrestial as those favoured by other clans.

Since the war, the Taurans have been a major voice in human affairs for autonomy. Wherever they have settled, they have been firm allies of all groups seeking self-recognition. Four times -- at Durriyah, Ghusoon, Khuzama, and Nasim -- they clashed openly with Imperial factions who sought to suppress their rights to local self-determination. In Abdullah I, the emperor who ended the First Schism, the Taurans had their own brief dynasty, and factions of the Clan were also instrumental in causing the Second Schism.

At the same time, the Taurans remain a deeply mystical Clan, combining their everyday and political actions with their religion in a way that few other Clans do. This mysticism has made them among the foremost scholars of psionics, since many of their philosophers have stated that the expansion of human potential can be one of the main means to defend independence.

With this attitude, the Taurans were decimated several times over by The Disappearance. In fact, although we are only now starting to calculate the exact damaged caused by this cataclysm, preliminary data indicates that the Taurans lost more of their number than any other Clan. However, the resilience of the Clan has helped it reorganize, and, in recent years, it appears to have successfully recovered.

The Taurans Today

During their fight for independence, twenty-eight separate septs or sub-clans emerged among the Taurans. Colonization and time has increased that number to thirty-seven. The Clan is governed by a parliament that sits on Juba in which each sept has proportional representation. All members of parliament are elders, and government officials are chosen by rotation among the sept members. Among the largest and most influential septs are the Adham, Harith, Hilal, Jabalah, Rais, and Sayf. In recent years, these septs have been joined by the Khalis, the leading sept on Ghusoon, the most heavily populated Tauran colony.

Locally, the Clan is organized into age groups, a structure deliberately chosen from some of the ancestoral cultures. Customs vary between septs, but, ordinarily, age groups consist of both men and women born within seven years of each other within sept territory. Each age group is assigned a name or totem, which varies from planet to planet, and retains close ties to the age group above or below them with the same name. Taurans draw most of their friendships, as well as their marriages and social status, from their own age group, and often go to great length to preserve these ties or to carry out the obligations that they involve. Few Taurans, for instance, would turn down a direct request for a loan from someone in their local age-group, and most would find it difficult to ignore a request for aid from the member of another age-group with the same name as their own.

All Taurans make a point of returning to their home for the rites of passage, in which their age groups pass from one stage in life as defined by The Faith to the other. These rites involve both branding of appropriate symbols on the arms and are conducted by the next oldest age group to bear the same name as the one being initiated.

Although the exact time for the rites depend on the judgment of the elders, age groups become Recruits at about 18, Young Warriors at about 45, Warriors at about 90, Veterans at 120, and Elders at about 150. Warriors and Veterans are represented at local parliaments, while all Elders may attend and vote. Most Recruits and Young Warriors have no say in government, although one may be called in as an expert on a particular subject, or granted voting rights for extraordinary achievement.

In theory, Young Warriors are expected to serve as shock troops, Warriors as the main fighting forces, and Veterans as field officers. And, in fact, all able-bodied Taurans must report for military service for one month out of the year. These duties are regarded with the utmost seriousness, even though on most worlds, the Clan rarely has to defend itself. It is the sense of readiness to defend the Clan, rather than any immediate need to do so, that seems to matter.

Another unusual social institution among the Taurans is polygamous marriage, in which each wife operates part of the family business, and the husband either stays with each of his wives in turn or at a small apartment maintained to give him his own place. The Taurans maintain that this arrangement is best-suited for guaranteeing independence for everyone in the marriage. If nothing else, it makes for an even larger group of relationships than the age group, since no distinction is made in Tauran culture between full and half siblings.

Although Taurans make few gender distinctions, one area that is traditionally left to women is responding to the effects of the high mutation rate caused by their favoured environment. On the one hand, a high proportion of Tauran medical personnel are female, and their mapping of favourable mutations, such as immunity to diseases such as the Hangyul Pox and Yellow Pustules have greatly benefited the rest of humanity. On the other hand, Tauran women also provide for the victims of these mutations, often maintaining a separate suite in their houses where relatives suffering from genetic problems are maintained. This duty is considered delicate, since all Taurans are touchy about losing independence, but also one of great honour.

In remembrance of their origins, all Taurans wear loose robes of light-coloured silk or heavy cotton on formal occasions. Some choose these clothes at all times, especially Elders and those who follow The Faith most closely. Others are more varied in their dress, especially when young.

Relations to Other Clans and Intelligent Species

With their own social ties so central to their lives, the Taurans have little time for other clans and intelligent life-forms. Few Taurans live as minorities on planets ruled by other Clans.

The Tauran's closest ties are with Clans adopted to specific planet conditions, such as the Drylanders and the Aquans. Athough Taurans can rarely tolerate the environments preferred by these other clans, the fact that all three Clans are often seen as outsiders give them common cause, and they often meet to discuss mutual problems. Generally, Drylanders and Aquans have been the ones to pass on information about Tauran immunity to diseases to the rest of humanity, because few members of other Clans could ever hope to gain their trust.

Taurans are unfailingly prickly when encountering Clans with any claim to social status or power. The Aristocracy, Founders, and Spartans are all viewed as the genetic and political descendants of those who caused the suffering of their ancestors. Spacers are viewed as enablers of that suffering, while Masons and Pilgrims are dismissed as power-seekers that would be no better than the other should they succeed. Feelings against these clans are so strong that Tauran education includes considerable advice on possible reactions to avoid cooperating or even communicating with these Clans beyond what might be required by law.

No grudges affect Tauran relations with Empaths, but, in common with the Drylanders and the Aquans, Taurans pride themselves on the toughness and ingenuity that allowed them to adapt to extreme conditions, and dismiss the Empath solutions to adaptation as weak and almost immoral. In the same way, although they sympathize with the troubles that the Clones have faced, most Taurans feel that they should have adapted a more aggressive program of self-defence to obtain their goals.

Other clans are neutrally regarded, but are of little interest to the Taurans.

The same is true of other species, except for the Ferrets, for whom the Taurans often show a surprising amount of respect. At times, the Taurans even seem to prefer to deal with Ferrets rather than with human Clans whom they deem suspect. The Taurans themselves say that they admire the Ferrets for how they have faced adversity, but other Clans say that the close relationships is simply proof that the Ferrets are so good-natured that they will tolerate anyone.

Relations with Taurans are often full of potential problems, but those dealing with them should remember to refer to them as the Layth al Din, the name they chose for themselves, rather than "Tauran," a name they consider imposed upon them. Many members of the Clan have been known to walk away from highly profitable business arrangements rather than accept being called "Tauran," and physical attacks on the users of the term are all too frequent.

Names

The Taurans are given a name when young that is usually based on Arabic (Alhasan, Dawud, Udail for men, or Halimah, Jameela, and Safiyyah for women). Upon initiation into each age group, they are given a name by their peers that alludes (sometimes cryptically, so far as outsiders are concerned) to their personality or actions. As a result of this system, you can tell approximately how old Taurans are by how many names they have. This name is usually in Arabic, but is sometimes translated into standard Imperial by those Taurans who travel extensively.

For instance, Dawud 'Uday might also be known as David Fast-Runner, and would be a Recruit. When his age group became Young Warriors, he might become Dawud 'Uday Ihtisham or David Fast-Runner the Modest, and so on.

Under this system, which name you know a person by also reflects the length of your association with them. To family, and age group members, this same person might be known as Dawud. Those who met him as a Recruit would know him as 'Uday, but those who met him as a Young Warrior would call him Ihtisham, while non-Clan members might treat Ihtisham as a surname in a desperate effort to impose their own sense of nomenclature on the system.

Moreover, casual acquaintances would only know the name, but intimates would know the story behind the name. In fact, giving the story behind the name is an important step in any Tauran relationship. Usually, it occurs over coffee, and is a prelude to any serious business with strangers.

This system is the despair of bureaucrats everywhere, but only a few Taurans -- mostly the handful living as a minority on other planets -- ever take more standard names.