Athmari Empire Notes

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Government is same as Mariner universe. The Athmari are divided into Clans. There is no large genetic difference between Clans but there are some physical differences as between nationalities among humans or tribes among elves. Betandis breed for height; Vis do not consider anyone over 5'5" attractive. The six current Clans are: Betandi, Kessel, Ta'bur, Vi, Traneri, Marigren, and Sobhara (pronounced sabara).Some minor Clans were completely destroyed by the 'mindless ones'. A Clan may contain the equivalent of the population of several planets, or may have just over a dozen members. Each Clan is subdivided into Houses. A House is descended from a single female (or in some rare cases, a female and her brothers) and named after that woman. Designation of House falls between the given name and the Clan name, and the House founder's name is prefixed by n', thus: Shanin n'S'aryn Betandi. (The n'- prefix generally means 'blood of' but can be used to express time--Athmari say 'it is of four' not 'it is four o'clock.) Each House is ruled by a matriarch or House Head who is supreme executive and judge for that House. The House Heads are ruled by the Clan Head, who is head of the most powerful/oldest/most respected or revered House. The Clan Heads make up the High Council, the ruling body of the Athmari, and the head of Clan Betandi is High Master, the most powerful of the Athmari...at least in name. The High Council is more decorative than anything else, now that the Athmari have been driven out of their homeland, and Shanin often refers to the Council as 'a grand f***ing farce.' More powerful are the Clan Councils, composed of the House Heads, who hear appeals to the decisions made by House Heads and set matters of policy for the entire Clan. Thus, the Empire is a confederacy pretending to be an aristocracy.

Generally, members of the same Clan address each other by first name or title. Members of different Clans address each other by first name and Clan name, possibly with title, and with emphasis on the Clan name if they wish to be disrespectful. Full names are used in formal address or to show extreme respect (or lack thereof, depending on who it's coming from). In some cases, members of the same Clan will address each other by first name and House name; this is usually done in situations where the person being addressed is a close friend and is being praised. Clan and House names can be used as subtle comments on status, depending on the strength and size of the House/Clan.

The Athmari claim to be descended from a single man named Caden, who may or may not have actually existed. According to the histories, Caden witnessed the death of his parents in a hideous battle. His mother essentially committed suicide by rushing into the middle of the battlefield after the death of her mate. Caden was so sickened by this that he could not stay in that place, so he took a small band of followers, all relatives of his by blood or adoption, and they wandered the universe. Eventually they were pulled through 'a portal' (the Athmari word is not very clear as to what this is) and found themselves in a place very much like their old home. They settled on what would be the Core Worlds of the Athmari Empire.

A more historically sure event in the history of the Athmari people was the destruction of those worlds, which occurred several hundred years before the corresponding event in the Mariner universe. This is believed by transuniversal scholars to be the result of increased belligerence on the part of the Ai'ani, a neighbor race of the Athmari. Basically, the warlike nature of these Ai'ani brought their region of space to the attention of the 'mindless ones'--what Mariner's crew will know as the Formorii. The mindless ones decided that the hunting would be good among the Ai'ani and proceeded to destroy them, along with the neighboring Harat and many of the Athmari. Many more Athmari escaped and are now living in relative secrecy near some of Starfleet's deep space stations.

The Athmari currently live on large starships similar to U.S.S. Mariner. Cmdr. Ari Molokov of Mariner described his new posting as over twice the size of the ship he'd served on before (I assume that this was a Galaxy-class) and said that many Athmari ships were larger. These ships are equipped with, at the very least, absorption shielding and some form of cloaking device. Absorption shielding uses the energy from a phaser/disruptor or the detonation of a photon torpedo to increase the strength of the shields. Once the shields have reached full energy, excess power is transferred to the ship's weapons.

Athmari ships are the color of hematite (a shiny, dark-grey gemstone) and arrowhead-shaped. They might accurately be described as giant, metal boomerangs. Each warship carries a 'constellation' (36) of smaller fighters not too dissimilar to the fighters seen in Star Wars and B5. Athmari routinely engage in ship-to-ship, fighter-to-fighter, and individual combat and so are trained for all three. One of the highest honors in Athmari society is to be named a domyn. Domyn'el are similar to Klingon Dahar Masters in that they are highly trained warriors with exceptional knowledge of weapons. Each domyn specializes in several weapons and can inflict any amount of damage to any part of the body with even substandard weaponry. Shanin, Seleyn, and Solundat are all domyn'el. To become a domyn'el, one must prove the required weapons proficiency to the High Domyn (currently Leru Kessel). Male domyn'el are rare as males are generally not encouraged to become warriors. Most Athmari believe that only the ability to create life (i.e. giving birth, not just contributing to conception) gives the right to take life. A related part of the Athmari philosophy is the right of life and death that a mother has over her underage children, which is similar to the rights of a Roman father.

There is generally great animosity among the different Clans but in recent times Clan Betandi has formed a casual alliance with Clan Vi for trade purposes. This has gone to the extent of allowing a mating between Shanin Betandi and Lukaya Vi. Both are closely related to their respective Clan heads but their children will not be considered for any role in government (this is a large part of the reason why the relationship was allowed). Shanin believes that she was passed over in favor of her younger cousin, Julani, because she routinely breaks the edict against contact with other races; this is not true but the real reasons are as yet unknown. Lukaya, the brother of Clan Vi's head, is simply too far behind in the line of succession. His sister, Thedara, has many daughters and they are spread out among their Clan's ships (some of them riding herd on 'Kaya himself) so that the death of her entire family is very unlikely.

Athmari children are not as rare as elvan children but the birthrate is much lower than that of humans because of their longer life expectancy. Additionally, about 10% die before reaching adulthood. Pregnancies last about three years and childbirth fatalities are rare.

Athmari mature much more slowly than elves or humans. Case in point: at forty-seven, Thelyssa Marigren was forced to assume leadership of her Clan after her mother's death. The emotional and physical equivalent of an eighteen-year-old human, she was not taken seriously by any of her peers. (Shanin is currently about 800 years old, much older than in the Mariner universe. S'aryn, however, lived for about the same length of time, about 2500 years.)

Most advanced Athmari technology centers around defense, stealth, cybernetics, and medicine. They are not immortal as some elves are, but their regeneration chambers can nearly halt the aging process and heal all but the most severe injuries if used quickly. Extensive cybernetic implants are common and most adult Athmari have a thin layer of circuitry beneath their skin which allows something akin to touch telepathy, which is also used to access their computers. Thanks to Shanin, Clans Betandi and Vi now have Borg shielding. The use of shielding is not yet widespread because of incompatibilities between Borg nanoprobes and Athmari implants. Extensive use of regeneration chambers is necessary to fully integrate the two systems and it is too costly to equip an entire Clan.

Athmari are generally xenophobic, untrusting, and a bit sadistic. They enjoy hunting members of other species or even of other Clans(think "The Most Dangerous Game"). Their prisoners of war rarely (if ever) get a sporting chance. Their idea of a good encounter with another race is one in which their existence is not discovered or reported. Upon being seen by another race, they generally transmit a warning message telling the other ship to back off, then fire a single warning shot, cloak if possible, and leave the area as quickly as possible.

Shanin has a small (by human or Athmari standards) ship called Diamond Shard. It is crewed by 15 others, plus Liet. One is Dal Betandi, based on Nurse Dal from Mariner.

The Athmari count in hexadecimal for some strange reason. They have ten fingers like humans and are completely baffled by questions about why they don't use base ten, so the rationale behind their number system may never be known.

Athmari are often accompanied by energy creatures with limited sending abilities. They assert that these creatures are actually their souls, but do not share this with outsiders. Make of this what you will.

Healers are rare among the Athmari. Some have limited sending ability but most are only able to receive sendings. They are able to conceal their thoughts but this ability tends to diminish with increased telepathic/telekinetic ability. The Athmari have three words for medical professionals. One translates as healer, denoting the rare few who have some magical ability. Medics are somewhere between a doctor and a highly trained nurse. An actual 'doctor' is the most skilled from a technical perspective, able to perform surgery and to insert and repair cybernetic implants.