Present Day Ionians

What is a present-day Ionian?

An Ionian of the present time is unquestionably a living being, the product of natural evolution, yet it is at the same time augmented, with the inclusion of certain elements of their million-year-old technology as standard equipment. (Ionians use a standard of time based on the “year” of their original home planet, Ionus, but it is close enough to the terrestrial standard to make the current discussion meaningful without adjustment). Ionians stand about 1.6 meters from the top of their heads to the ground, either when on their four (of six) rear limbs, or seated (like a cat), on their haunches with the middle limbs on the ground. (Reared up on rear legs alone, they are a little over 2 meters in height). Their front four limbs all have articulable “hands” with slender, gracile digits capable of precise manipulation; the middle limbs are very strong, while the front limbs have exceedingly refined motor coordination. All limbs are invariably artificially enhanced to give an Ionian strength and speed which significantly transcends their (former) natural state. An Ionian is capable of lightning-fast movement, antlike ability to lift and carry many times its own weight, an ability to leap and run very fast even in considerably higher gravity than that in which their species evolved, and extremely rapid reaction time. They do require a reasonably richly oxygenated atmosphere and have fairly stringent nutritional requirements, but these matters are routinely attended to via technology. Their (to a human) almost paranoid concern for personal safety and having basic life sustenance needs secured ensures that in almost any situation, an Ionian, if it is willing to be where it is found, has ensured its survival and comfort.

The overall appearance of an Ionian has been characterized (by people) as like a strange cross-breed of a cat, a sleek bird with iridescent scale-like feathers, and a giant praying mantis. Especially the large, triangular head with oversize eye sockets and taut membranes on either side of the mouth, and their use of forelimbs in feeding themselves, is oddly insectoid, as is their peculiar physical form that incorporates elements of both an internal skeleton and a hardened carapace in some locations of the body, notably the skull. In addition, the skull carapace is augmented with a closely integrated thin helmet-like technological overlay that allows direct wireless electronic communication with the worldsystem, (like an internet, but universal and actually integral with the minds participating in it), as well as with each other. Their ancestors used the forelimbs to scrape the membranes to produce complex harmonic and rhythmic sonic patterns which served as their language, which is still used for intimate conversation, but more long distance or general communication is always conducted with the augmented aids. Thus, an Ionian is usually silent when communicating with others or with technological systems. The catlike quality comes from the way they sit on elongated rear feet like a cat. Also like a cat, when walking, they lift off their rear long feet and walk only on the toes; the middle limbs have hands which also serve efficiently as feet, while the front limbs are never used in walking. The movements of their heads and tendency to stare fixedly at objects of attention, which are also oddly reminiscent of cats. Their scale-like “feathers” reflect light in moiré patterns and changing iridescent colors, which can be stunningly beautiful, especially in indirect light situations, and of course, are somewhat reminiscent of terrestrial birds.

The Ionians’ equivalent of language is more subtle and entirely different in organization when compared to human language. There is nothing comparable to words or sentences. Meaning is constructed of semantic elements overlain in a sonic tapestry (or corresponding electronic replica of sound) that is utterly incomprehensible and irreproducible by human minds or even human technology. Only the most basic glimmer of what transpires in an Ionian “conversation” can be thought of as accessible to human beings. On the other hand, although they generally find it uncomfortable, frustrating, and inconvenient, Ionians are capable of learning and reproducing the sounds and sense of human language, and can relatively easily manage to learn and use the written forms of human languages. When this occurs, however, the results are often very noticeably alien; Ionian psychology is in many respects radically different from human psychology.

Long ago, in their pre-technological past, Ionians developed a sort of writing to represent thoughts, and approximate, in the way that a musical score approximates music, their “speech.” They still use this system, although mostly only ceremonially or as a historical curiosity. Most language is directly communicated either in sound or electronic signals, and retained in augmented electronic memory in the same way. An Ionian’s mind is integrated with the electronic augmentation and connection to the worldsystem in such a way that it really cannot be said to exist apart from it; an Ionian completely isolated from all other Ionians is rendered almost catatonic, although they can relatively easily recover from such a state.

The extent to which Ionians, in various numbers, may form something like “group minds,” or not, is a subject of much speculation among humans who have occasion to interact with them. The short answer to that question is, they know and they aren’t saying, but it does seem clear that, while a typical Ionian is essentially constantly exchanging information with its peers, they do have separate self-awareness, and separate interests, likes and dislikes, motivations, etc. They appear to have no difficulty at all communicating with many others simultaneously, and, at the same time, carrying on other forms of activity, including self-reflection. Their minds seem to operate in parallel, even on a conscious level, to a greater extent than is possible for humans. There is no sense in which Ionians give the impression of being a hive mind, or anything of the sort; each has its own characteristics and “personality,” and any individual will have different views and perceptions from those of its peers.

Among the medical/technological augmentations that come standard for modern Ionian beings is greatly extended lifespan. Biologically evolved aging has been almost entirely circumvented, and reproduction, and hence young, are quite infrequent, so that populations of Ionians tend to not grow appreciably over time, except in situations where such is for some particular reason desirable, as when a new world or habitat is first settled. Eventually, the organism does degenerate to an extent, and, even more definitively, there does eventually come a time in the life of every Ionian when the individual has just had enough of life, and is prepared to die. Typical lifespans are rather highly variable, from several hundred years to several thousand. None has ever exceeded six or seven thousand years. To many Ionians, living more than 1500 years or so is thought of as rather unseemly; there is a general feeling that “enough is enough.” Despite the countless millennia of civilization, there is still no real certainty about what lies beyond death, but for whatever reason, a being, at least an Ionian being, who has lived more than a thousand years, has no fear of death. Fear of death, in fact, as opposed to the motivation to take sensible precautions to preserve life for purely rational reasons, is, avowedly, essentially incomprehensible to an Ionian. When an Ionian does die, since it is a rare event, it is a notable occasion, but not a sad one; generally the closest “friends”, “mates” and “relations” (to the extents the terms apply) will gather and celebrate the life of their compatriot who has (usually) elected to “cross over.” Accidental death is, of course, not unknown, but it is generally regarded somewhat philosophically; wailing and gnashing of teeth in grief is an emotion virtually unknown among Ionians (not that they have teeth; the forelimbs are used to “crush and stuff” foodstuffs into the mouth, which has abrasive surfaces that undulate in a sort of peristalsis, but they have no teeth per se).

Which is not to say that Ionians are not emotional. In fact, they are strongly possessed of something akin to a love of beauty, and particularly enjoy the experiencing the forms of nature and the replication of natural elements in “art” (including “music,” which, since it is a variant of “language,” also has “meaning,” and so is also, “poetry”). They have a highly developed sense of “love,” which centers more on delight in the happiness of peers or others, rather than strong possessory attachment to others. They have numerous gestures, sound patterns, facial contortions, and bodily movements (akin to “dance”) to express emotions. The emotion of anger seems quite rare, but there is something like frustration, which finds ready but fleeting expression. Irrational hatred or animosity towards living things is considered extremely bad form, to the point of outright pathology, amongst Ionians, who therefore give off a (sometimes misinterpreted or exaggerated in the perception) feeling in humans that they are wise and benevolent. In actual fact, the attitude of Ionians towards humans is frequently merely curious and indifferent, although almost never actually aggressive or malignant.

Ionians are also given to moods and often give humans impressions giving rise to words like pensive, elegiac, reflective, bittersweet, nostalgic, etc. What the actual underlying emotional state of these alien beings actually is, is of course not really knowable. By their own descriptions, they have strong emotions, which mostly take the form of delight and surprise in the twists and turns of the emergence of eventualities of life, along with a sense of something like sadness, at times, from the very same source. More than one Ionian (who had taken the trouble to learn to and to actually perform communicating with people) has said something like: it’s complicated, I can’t really explain it. Which is more or less where it stands. The present-day Ionian is knowable to a human being only to a certain extent; in many ways they are irreducibly alien, and, as denizens of a civilization orders of magnitude older than ours, there seems no likelihood that will change anytime soon.

Footnote on restricted ancient technological transfer from Ionians to humans

Technology, from the very start, was somewhat parsimoniously shared by the Ionians with the humans of Zubos, and neither advanced electronic computation devices (with the exception of some medical instrumentation) nor cybernetic/biological augmentation technologies, were  generally made available in the early history of the new world, so the human inhabitants rather quickly invented their own means to record language and information. This amounted within a very short time to the essential equivalent of pencil and ink marking and paper. See History of Ionian/Zubonian Technology Transfer; and The Original Transportation and Settlement of Zubos; also Notes on the Ionian Civilization before the Recontact. The early Zubonians apparently were quite well aware that the Ionians possessed superior technology, but it does not seem to have been seen as strange or unfair that they would not divulge everything they knew. Within a fairly short time, actual Ionians absented themselves from Zubonian affairs anyway (generally and publicly, at any rate, although to some extent their continued clandestine presence played a role at various points in the history of the Human Worlds, and it was always clear, at least to those of a conspiratorial frame of mind, that some among the Ionians were keenly interested and involved in human affairs). In the main, over the long span of Zubonian and Human World history, Ionian involvement was seen as minimal, although the basic facts remained universally known: a race of beings who must have seemed supernatural to the early Zubonians had brought them from the “old world,” (called Urbos or sometimes Yibos), given them the “new world,” (Zubos) and then mostly left humankind to get along on its own. These beings were radically different from humans in many ways, so they must have seemed like “gods” in the sense that they were not expected to be on the same level with people; yet, for whatever reason, they were never worshiped nor especially revered, and the fact that they were living beings comparable to humans in in general seems to have been understood right from the beginning. However, for reasons explained in Some Notes on Ionian Language, it was never possible for humans to even approximate Ionian “speech,” and Ionians did so in reverse only as suited them and as consistent with their own rather alien linguistic psychology.

Old Zubonic and the modern Zubonian Languages: an Overview

Old Zubonic is the language that quickly emerged and stabilized among the humans who arrived from Earth on the the newly prepared planet Zubos in approximately 16,000 B.C. The language is a creole of unknown and probably only loosely related antecedents spoken by various contributing groups from Earth. Both the language itself, and how (if?) the humans were assisted with its use and recordation, is presumably known in detail to Ionians, but is not a part of recorded history known to the Zubonians. It is, however, generally inferred that the writing system which emerged essentially immediately after landfall on Zubos was suggested or at least initiated by Ionians, despite the fact that it is not related to the writing systems the Ionians themselves used. It was apparently invented specifically to represent, reasonably accurately but without fussiness, the phonemes of the humans' language.[*]

The writing system is alphabetic; with the vowel open-a assumed, and other vowels indicated by marks above or below the “letters.” The writing system long predates any human writing on Earth. It has changed stylistically, but was well enough suited to the language right from the start that its essential elements remain more or less unchanged, despite the passage of more than 15,000 years and the later introduction of electronic communication displacing actual writing on fiber sheets or other forms of inscription, in a transition now lost to the mists of memory, if not history. 

 Old Zubonic later evolved into quite distinct dialects, but has remained in use as a literary and ceremonial language, and the language of ancient texts still widely read and understood. Of the twelve major modern Zubonian languages (all of which derive from Old Zubonic, and are relatively closely related to it), the language of the Maril region, Marilic, is the most widely spoken, being the birth language of approximately half the planet, as well as the worldwide language of commerce and science. The Eight Daughter Worlds all use this language, although each has developed, to a greater or lesser degree, variant dialects of its own. An educated denizen of Zubos can easily read, and speak after a fashion, both Old Zubonic and Marilic, and can generally make himself understood to anyone on Zubos or any of the Daughter Worlds, even if Marilic is not his first language.


The basic form of all the Zubonic languages is governed by the fact that Old Zubonic originated as a creole, but its grammar, although basic, is well fixed. The word order is rigidly SVO (Subject-verb-object). More specifically, the grammar can be plotted as [Subj]+[postposition/modifier/modifying phrase]•[Verb]+[adverb/modifier/modifying phrase]•[subordinate clauses]•[Object noun/postposition/modifier/modifying phrase], with the second two elements dispensable. The verb “to be” in the present tense is frequently simply inferred, and thus omitted. There is no definite article. Definiteness can be indicated by adding the the word zet, 'this,' when necessary, or by other means which vary from one dialect to another.

 Here is an example of a modern Marilic sentence, using an approximate transliteration designed to use only ordinary Latin letters:

Hoskenme badhosken errezilks bohlmeplese bade olotsarulmse zorbtsarhin sero olomashantese emkeiwui.

Trees forest adorned leaves-with many golden sunlight-in evening country-high-in latest.

“The trees of the forest are adorned with many golden leaves in the latest high-country evening sunlight.”

 The entire sentence can be transformed to past tense ('the trees of the forest were adorned...') by the addition of the past modifier after the verb to be ase, inserted between S + O.

Hoskenme badhosken asiks errezilks bohlmeplese bade olotsarulmse zorbtsarhin sero olomashantese emkeiwui.

"Trees forest were adorned …

Note that nouns can modify nouns, and the first noun is always the one modified in a series. Badhosken 'forest' modifies hoskenme 'trees.' The first word of the object phrase contains the suffix plese 'with' after bohlme 'leaves,' which is in turn modified by 'many golden' and 'sunlight-in,' which is in turn modified by 'evening country-high-in,' which itself is modified by 'latest.' Generally the modifiers come second in any sequence. Noun modifiers come before modifying phrases or adjectives. Nouns can modify in sequence. Hoskenme badhoskenme olomashante: 'trees of the forests of the high country,' literally: trees forests high-country; the modifier status and what is modified is position-determined. Tiny pauses between words and vocal intonation make ambiguities clear. Compound nouns are distinguished from modified nouns, for example, by the speech rhythm and intonation. Generally, however, there is no confusion. Rhythm and dropped voice for the second part of the compound, symbolized by writing them together (both in the Zubonic script and the transliteration here), distinguishes Trolktoh 'hammerhead' from trolk toh, 'hammer head,' i.e., 'chiefly-used hammer.' This is clear enough in most instances, but can sometimes lead to double entendre, which is exploited for literary purposes frequently.

Physical Characteristics and Evolution of the Ionians

Life evolved on the planet Ionus more or less in parallel to the way it evolved on Earth. For more than a billion years after the evolution of the first cells, quasi-prokaryotic (non-nucleated) single cell organisms were the only form of life, just as on Earth. Approximately 2 billion years b.p., microorganisms formed colony cells comparable in many respects to the eukaryotes that evolved on Earth, which, in turn, evolved into various complex macroscopic life forms. The planet itself and its star system is actually just a little bit younger (4.7 billion years as opposed to around 5 for Earth), but the evolution of life followed a similar course. What could be described as phyla of complexly structured marine animals and plants had emerged by about 600 m.y.b.p. Among these phyla were wormlike organisms that were segmented in a manner somewhat comparable to the arthropods of Earth, and others that were more or less similar to the chordates, which became the ancestors of fishlike creatures and subsequently most land animals, including the xenosophonts.

Unlike on Earth, the dominant body plan of the appendaged land animals and some of their marine ancestors featured six limbs rather than four, although in many lines the uppermost limbs evolved into feeding apparatus and communication appendages. Evolution happened to favor not vocalization, but the production of sound from friction with stretched membranes or cords, as the dominant means of animal communication. In arboreal animals somewhat comparable to Earth’s primates, the uppermost limbs became adapted to serving this purpose, with the evolution of complex ability to produce and recognize sound patterns used for rudimentary communication, but in parallel, the uppermost limbs served as grasping and manipulating appendages, while the middle limbs were used for brachiation and to assist four-limbed walking. Thus, Ionian "monkeys" and "apes" were radically different in appearance and many functions from Earth’s analogues, but nonetheless can be seen to be an example, to some degree, of convergent evolution.

The line of these quasi-primates that led to the Ionian sophonts had a highly developed capability to produce complex harmonic sounds, and eventually emerged from forests and became adaptive enough to live in many different environments on the planet. At the same time, much like the emergence of apes and humans on Earth, they became erect in posture, using the lowest pair of appendages as legs, the middle appendages as “arms,” with strength and grasping ability, as well as sometimes for balance or four-footed walking, and the uppermost appendages for fine motor activities and feeding. Both upper and middle appendages have four-digit hands, with opposing digits (“thumbs”), although the detailed architecture is quite different from what emerged on Earth.

Similarly, the head of an Ionian is quite different. They have binaural hearing, from bony “ears,” which is extremely acute. Their vision is binocular, from recessed eye sockets, and they have a comparable degree of expressiveness associated with eye movement and position. They have chemoreceptors (comparable to a “nose”), but these are located in vents in the neck area, not where the mammalian nostrils would be. The mouth is more radially symmetrical than in Earth mammals, and has “teeth” on the sides as well as top and bottom. The muscular and bony structures involved in “chewing” are complex and precisely coordinated; the upper appendages also participate in breaking food into small bits and inserting it into the orifice. Communication is not vocal, but by the production of musical tones from twin membranes on either side of the mouth, held taut or allowed to slacken differentially, to produce complex harmonic variations and timbral changes of sound over time with extreme precision and neural control, by a neuromuscular structure with bony supports. The sound is partly produced by scraping with a unique structure on one of the digits of the upper “arm.” Both sides of the head can produce intelligible “language,” although greater fluency is attained through using both, so when conversing or delivering formal or detailed communication, an Ionian will use both “hands” and both “cords” to “speak.” The language itself is “musical.” There are timbre and “attack” features which might be compared to consonants and vowels, but the language does not divide only horizontally, as time and rhythm, into words and sentences, but also vertically, through use of simultaneous tones to create harmonic information, which amounts to the ability to speak simultaneous “words.” The syntactic structure of the language is extremely complex; so much so that it is generally considered effectively impossible for any human being to master Ionian language, even to simply understand it. There was developed, in early days of the human/Ionian interaction, a simplified set of signals (“words”) that Ionians could use to communicate to humans. Ionians' artificial mental and cybernetic enhancements discussed below have become universal; un-augmented (or "species") Ionians continue to exist only in a few remote habitats where cultural peculiarities or extraordinary historical circumstances have occurre). Thus, Ionians typically are able to learn, and quite accurately mimic, human language, and most interspecies communication, from the earliest times, has been conducted in human languages. The now-unified common written language of Ionians is also fiercely complicated, although here there have been a select few human beings who have gained some technical proficiency in communicating with it.

Ionians’ skulls call to mind the head of a praying mantis: they are broadly triangular in form, with a large cranial bulge in the frontal area. The skeletal system is both internal and external, so the natural head surface is hardened and less vulnerable to injury than is true of humans. Moreover, for the past 100,000 years or so, modifications in the form of artificial helmet-like cranial cases, closely fitting to the skull and providing cybernetic enhancement and electronic communication directly to the brain, have become universal. With this enhancement, the typical Ionian is undeniably substantially more intelligent than a typical un-augmented human being; as well as being capable of accessing a vast amount of information accurately (in lieu of “memory”); and capable of advanced powers of deduction and real-time calculation. The skull, and, in simulacrum, the artificial prosthesis, as well as the entire body, are typically covered with extremely fine feather-like structures, which are often jet black, but sometimes complex patterns resembling some terrestrial birds, usually in shades of white, tan, brown, and black. Ionians’ eyes are invariably brown, with no whites.

Ionian medical technology and enhancements, including connectivity to cybernetic systems, have been advanced for so long a time that the lifespan of an Ionian, (despite the fact that the pre-technological or un-augmented species was actually slightly shorter-lived than humans), has gradually been extended to the point that Ionians can, if they choose to, live essentially indefinitely. As a practical matter, individuals older than about 500 years are exceedingly rare.

Reproduction in the pre-technological un-augmented species was sexual, and remains so, although the emphasis on sexuality in culture was and remains less prominent than among humans. Sexual activity is pleasurable, and is very common, but does not have quite the central social and pyschological role in the life of Ionian civilization as it does among humans. The birth of young is never, in modern times, accidental, but is a relatively rare event planned purposefully. "Children" are pampered and treasured, but it also a generally accepted truism that Ionians have developed over a very long history a thoroughly efficient and accurate science of Ionian psychology, which makes the rearing of young with generally few mental and emotional problems much more a matter of routine than has apparently ever been the general case among humans.

Daughter World: Corrace

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