XiC: Cultural Exchange

Orchid

Upon Sandra’s return, one of the biggest changes for the rejuvenated Xi’s cultural sphere has been the opened-up trade and exchange with the universe of Orchid. A reality inhabited not by rule of the stars and great darkness, but beauty and spirituality spawning from the cold soil below up onto the golden lily’s that rise to bathe in the sun. The hypercapitalist society of Xi soon found itself floored with Flora missionaries, an influx of new architects, businesses and tourists desiring to see the entrepreneurship and innovation that Xi’s scientists and business leaders offers. Flora in turn, welcomed the Xi’ans who came into Orchid with open arms.

Those who did would experience missionaries and priestesses, statues and monuments to the great goddess Flora and the grandiose majesty her church offered them over countless worlds in all its divisions and divinations. The exchange between the two cultures brought about a newfound appreciation and understanding for each other's unique qualities. Xi citizens were introduced to the spirituality and reverence for Flora that the Orchid people held, while the Orchid citizens were amazed by the innovation and progress that the hypercapitalist society of Xi had achieved. Despite their initial differences, the two cultures found common ground in their desire for progress and growth. The shared notion that ‘One the only time one’s hands should be idle is when they’re cut off’ propelled both into a mutual appreciation for sentiments of expansion.

The two worlds soon realized the benefits of trading with each other, with Xi exporting high-tech machinery, robots, and vehicles to Orchid in exchange for natural resources, rare metals, bountiful food and knowledge of their world’s augmentations and medical technology. Orchid also traded in various handicrafts, fabrics, and jewelry, which were highly valued in the galactic markets of Xi which sold for their exquisite quality.

As the trade progressed, the two worlds began to share their knowledge and expertise with each other. Xi's engineers and scientists collaborated with Orchid's architects and designers to create new products and technology that were inspired by the natural beauty of Orchid. Orchid's spiritual leaders and priestesses shared their knowledge of the universe and the mysteries of life with the Xi, who were fascinated by their insights into phenomena such as the Cascade. which opened up new avenues of scientific inquiry and philosophical debate. Xi's scientists and philosophers were fascinated by these insights and began to incorporate them into their own research and thinking.

One of the more unwieldly entrances of cultural exchange have been the disputes between the two Glitterkiss fractions of Orchid and Xi, Chrysanthemum and Coruscators respectively. Allegedly the two split long ago over unknown historical disagreements and diverged into separate organizations through long periods of time. The two finally reached an ultimatum under the guise of Gala Maelstrom, or ‘Mala Strata girls’ organized by the Solar Society Glitterkiss Feyslayer capital. Mala Strata included members of both galaxies as a joint effort to bridge the dialectic division between the two.

The capital city of the Mala Strata group is known as the Rain of Roses on the planet Aureatea, due to the skyborne flora organisms passing through the atmosphere and raining petals down perpetually per their migration patterns. A city settled, engineered and formed by scientists and educational heads of both Orchid and Xi, it was quickly populated by locals from both civilizations and filled with those willing and excited to mingle.

Within Rain of Roses, there is beautiful farmland alongside jungles, villages, pastel coasts and a silvery distinct of skyscrapers in the center. Strange wild beasts roam, said to have emerged from the junction of the two worlds. When a girl of 16 steps into the Employing centers, high achievers are often offered a job as a Star Lily’s, the Meister units of Mala Strata in Gala Maelstrom. Star Lilys receive a marble embedded in their forehead with a tiny spark of the Cascade powered within, which awakens magical abilities and allows them to artificially age up for short-boosts of time to enhance their physics. These girls receive training for these abilities and are tasked with protecting Rain of Roses from incursions and learning all they can about the two distinct cultures they come from. Upon recruitment, Star Lilys receive a cutesy familiar that is their lifelong companion and assistant. However ‘lifelong’ is rather literal, their moral and biological status as a helpful organism is altered upon the Star Lily’s death- essentially, it mutates into a Nearsoul. A Nearsoul is a powerful mutated monster that was previously a familiar, they have a natural drive to feed on Cascade-related energies and will attack spaceships, power engines, Warp Stations and even Star Lilys themselves by killing them and harnessing the marble on their forehead.

Unknown to the participants, these marbles are actually unfertilized seeds of these entities- Nearsouls are kept imprisoned in StarLily Junction and forced to breed them continually while being fed energy through the Cascade itself.

Localities of Aureatea outside Rain of Roses on the same world include:

Unity Reach ◦ A metropolitan city where large, lightspeed-railway stations are connected to Cascade-powered portals. Travelers and passengers from Orchid, the Solar Society and AU aswell are constantly coming in and out by the hour, stops bustling with countless faces who are eager to see Xi with their own eyes.  his city is mostly known for the beauty of the place, the architecture, the culture and the hospitality. And most of all for its breathtaking views from the windows of the many skyscrapers and the magnificent parks. The streets are crowded and the sky is always full of flights and cargo. The city is a true melting pot of a place where the diverse races of the galaxy are united by the will to become one, a place where people forget about their differences and live to love, to laugh and to live. This city is connected to Rain of Roses by monorail train. Like Rain of Roses, it has a massive hollowed pyramid-shaped dome overhead that can close in on the entire city’s geo-structure to mobilize and protect it in case of attack.
Lily Junction ◦ A small settlement town which holds an untold number of shops and merchandising vendors for new Star Lily’s looking to buy sophisticated weapons, up to date fashions and the latest gadgets. The marketplace is always bustling and carries inventory from Xi, SS, AU and Orchid spread throughout in a diverse and dazzling fashion. The Lily Junction market also makes room for countless eateries that feature the most exotic dishes, while offering fine wines and cocktails. One can find multiple bars and lounges to soothe the soul and offer a variety of relaxation spots that are open to the public if they look. A large central park and plaza is located in the center of the market that allows visitors to relax and unwind in the midst of the bustling stalls, complete with a large 20m fountain that is often lit up at night. Every few months, the plaza is filled with people dancing under the lights and the warm night air when the Joining of the Stars festival is held seasonally. Within Star Lily labs, Nearsoul’s are confined to breeding pistons and machines that pump them day and night to produce the marblized Star Lily crystals required to form new Star Lily. These facilities are deep underground, they’re fully funded and run by Lilyhand of the Great Sky.

Spectra Oasis ◦ Shallow springs that go out in every direction across the horizon and sandy mounds are the sights one finds within this area, making it a popular tourist vacationing spot for those looking to unwind. The region has coastlines and hotels along with thousands of mounds as an archipelago of untold beauty. Star Lily Meister’s are often taken out here to train aswell due to the healing properties of the algae within the pastel coated water and the playful Merdogs and Merswine that love to splash, wrestle and engage the vigilant that enter their bathing territory. Any familiar healed in the Spectra Oasis is automatically healed for many hundred fortnights yet to come. 

 

Blossom heights ◦ A city on the opposite side of the world as Rain of Roses, its population too consists of an incredible blend of diversity, founded from the many bright minds of Xi, Orchid, SS and AU working together. The city’s glassy skyscrapers dot the landscape reflecting on the pastel pinks, oranges, limes and vanillas of the nearby ocean and sands that lay beyond and coat most of the planet. A fantastic themepark known as Kosmopark exists as a recreation of the original prior to its destruction when High Kosmosis suffered from a spontaneous incursion.

SS

Since becoming aware of the Solar Society’s existence, Xi has poured great amounts of money into understanding the sorcery of the almighty Hex. Hexad missionaries have had limited success spreading the gospel of their church and obtaining converts and transfers back into their own world for the sake of conversion, but the Xi’an governments interest in Hex and its applications for technology have invigorated the imagination of new upstarts everywhere. Science has always been an integral part of Xi and its people, and the idea of Hex being used as a way to advance scientific theories has caught the attention of many Xi experts. Some of Xi’an learning-to-be-mages prefer the spells of the ancient ways of Orchid to the Hex of the Hexads- though primarily because the former is certainly more accessible and available, the former provides more creative effects and appears more esoteric over the outcome. Those Wardens of the Solar Society have taken a great interest in Orchid magic aswell, noting its properties seem based around growth, progress, self-improvement and valorization of virtue, principles they can get behind. 

Initiatives from the Hex Church that are currently active in the city of Blossom Heights are the ongoing construction of a solar tower named ‘Avalon’, meant to connect the Solar Society itself more directly with a think-tank to study Orchid floralmancy and the cryptic UI materialization and alchemy of AU, as well as the conversion of a series of tests to run on various robotic entities from Orchid and Xi to see if artificial life can be upgraded with energy capabilities from other worlds. So far tests to implement the Hex into nano-dendrite structured bots from Byte Industries appear promising, in no small part to Amity Byte’s contribution to the research team and her invaluable direction of the project.

AU

The Solar Society has no direct opposition to nanite-conversion of AU steambot development, due to the fact that they have no problem with Hex being spread in other places- and that they are actually quite impressed with AU’s efforts to advance Hex magic into more effective uses in the kingdom of Camelot Heart. While AU’s robotic technology seems oddly antiquated and archaic by comparison of the digitalized machinery Orchid and Xi possess, that hasn’t stopped a renaissance of blueprints, scholarly work, magecraft study and interest from AU into incorporating the Hex into their inventions and UI. Numerous Wardens have jumped at the chance to join both magical guilds and crafting guilds within Camelot Heart’s idyllic grand workshop to progress these avenues of research and study as far as possible. The Solar Society itself has even been working to advance the UI capabilities and Ion-constructed technology through research of the Hex to use in building solar collectors within Avalon, that can harness Orchid’s solar harnessed energy, and Cascade into Hex-powered constructs alongside windmills and panels to power the workshop project. Numerous White Wardens have been sent to start a new Hex-division of magical teaching within Camelot Heart in what is believed to be the opening of a hopeful future Hex Academy within time where the Hex will flourish.  

Warp Station technology has found itself unfeasible to run in Orchid for reasons not quite understood, outside the theory that the Cascade does not operate intensely or as a natural phenomenon beyond Xi. However, Xi researchers have noted that the Solar Society is very interested and so-far confident in the Hex as a means to harness the powers of the Cascade and use it to power devices and objects, as they are not as familiar with the energies of Orchid’s magic to fully understand the means by which to convert Orchid’s light into Hex or Cascade. The powers of Orchid and the Powers of Xi/SS appear to have a metaphysical gap separating their basic approach. Theoretical research suggests a strong compatibility should exist between Orchid and the Cascade/Hex, but for reasons still in heavy debate the actual compatibility between the two has not been reached, the emotions running high on Orchid’s side of things and rhyme/reason along the Xi side vexing to explain fault in their calculations. One could suggest a miscalibration among higher powers at play, but that would be to enter into a rather quarrelsome puddle of speculation we’ll refrain from here.