#Djesh

[space-emperor]

It’s kind of funny to me that the Djesh started as an afterthought/side joke that didn’t feature largely in the plot but have absolutely become the most interesting part of the story to me.

They’re big old parasitic xenomorph-lookin space bug women, right? They do not have a binary sex—only a select few choose to metamorpihize into a reproductively mature imago, while the others remain infertile neonates for their entire lives. Functionally they are all hermaphroditic and can reproduce sexually or asexually depending on environmental pressures. But also: they’re all women. As far as they’re concerned, so is everyone else.

Their closest concept to gender is relational:

A mother is anyone who creates with her body. This could be a literal gestational mother who lays eggs, fertilizes, or gives birth, but it can also mean a creature or person serving as host to the parasitic larvae. A mother in this sense is typically a final, fatal role immediately preceding death.

The Djesh do not distinguish between “mother” and “aunt” but for translation purposes it’s easier to explain with different terms. An aunt is a type of parent who participates in the rearing of young. If a mother or host survives and helps to raise a child, it counts as an aunt-parent. An aunt’s role is to teach and protect and to transmit stories from one generation to the next. An ideal Djesh family consists of many aunts raising young communally—possibly dozens. A family with too few aunts is considered deeply taboo in a way that’s comparable to incest. A Djesh encountering a two-parent nuclear human family for the first time would be horrified and disturbed and have trouble accepting that an intelligent species would reproduce like animals.

A sister is any independent adult who is not actively occupying a parental role. An aunt will revert to sister when her young reach adulthood. An aunt who abandons her role before then is committing a grave taboo—if a Djesh encounters a human who has been deployed on a military or scientific endeavor and left children at home, she will be repulsed and disturbed and potentially hostile.

A daughter is anyone, specifically a child, dependent upon a caregiver. I haven’t made up my mind yet on how this intersects with Djesh conceptions of disability but it’s something I may want to explore.

A Djesh will continue to molt and grow indefinitely. It’s possible that they have the technical capacity for immortality, with no set upper limit. They can regenerate limbs with each molt of their skeletons. As they age, however, the time between each molt grows longer, and the process becomes more difficult and perilous. Because this molting process functions as the only natural limitation on lifespan, there is a taboo against interfering. To succumb to the temptation to help a loved one with a bad molt that would otherwise kill them is to curse them and is a kind of spiritual betrayal… it’s very evil and very, very romantic. The idea of it is horrifying and tragic but they also eat that shit up like it’s Shakespeare.

Most importantly, of course, the Djesh are biologically dependent upon stories. They cannot be Djesh without them. You could incubate and hatch a Djesh egg in a laboratory and provide the larva with all the nutrients it required, but unless you (and, ideally, your entire team) spent time constantly telling it stories, it would never grow into a Djesh. It would survive, sure, but it would take the form of a weird gelatinous animal. This is why Djesh familial units consist of many aunts: the stories and narratives they pass on give Djesh children physical form and act as genetic information more substantially than whatever they inherit biologically. The more stories, the more diverse and robust their DNA-analogue. This is why most Djesh remain neonates and die infertile—they are able to reproduce more effectively by passing down stories than by producing/fertilizing eggs.

Turantirok is sometimes described as the Djesh “religion”. And it is, but only sort of—different populations may have different mythologies and beliefs, but turantirok is better defined as the cosmic force that drives narrative. To other species, Djesh may seem to behave erratically and seemingly act against their own interests. Even those few who manage to get around the language barrier struggle to understand the Djesh, and they are broadly regarded by other species as dangerously insane. In reality, Djesh have an innate instinct for turantirok—they will act according to whatever they believe best furthers a cosmic narrative, up to and including self-destruction. This was an evolutionary adaptation to pass on better stories to their descendants, but now that their planet is incorporated into a galactic civilization, turantirok may be an existential threat.

[jjcocker]

I don't think she actually cares sbout me

she doesnt care about how much i get overwhelmed sikce the age of Thtee

she will omly out got first and wkmr care avouf me she will omly put gdo first and i am just someone she birthed sje doesnt yruly care about my needs does she she doesnt acutlally care sbout anything sheje doesrnt dshe doentbwnswf djesh

[draconym]

Made this doodle of a freshly-moulted Djesh for @glumshoe some weeks ago and then forgot to show it to anybody else

[myriad-rainbows]

I’d love to pick your brain about that Djesh post you added to.

Uh sure, if you mean you're interested in talking more about acknowledged-in-universe narrative causality! If you're interested in more about the Djesh specifically I'm definitely not the best person to talk to

[boricuatuits]

Vistas desde El Castillo... ✌🏾🇵🇷 @ Castillo San Felipe del Morro http://bit.ly/2jGfcRe | January 13, 2017 at 08:18PM

[niinhaa-blog]

Sempre bom pra animar um pouco mais a sexta feira <3

[space-emperor]

drawin’ a djesh

[space-emperor]

the concept of either Patsy or Iden interacting with children is very funny to me.

Iden would be very awkward—he can play the role of either a fun performer or an emergency responder, but when it comes to one-on-one interaction with humanoid children he’d feel lost and uncomfortable. He’s an expert manipulator but children are too easy and that kind of freaks him out. His child-wrangling skills are confined to circus tricks and showing them how to throw knives, but he doesn’t know how to actually bond with or speak to them. A teenage mugger he needs to dissuade or get something from? No problem. A child who wants to sit and talk or play with him? Nope. No thank you. (Djesh children, on the other hand, he’s an expert caretaker for.)

Patsy, on the other hand…

There’s a passage in the original Peter Pan novel describing Smee:

Feared him! Feared Smee! There was not a child on board the brig that night who did not already love him. He had said horrid things to them and hit them with the palm of his hand, because he could not hit with his fist, but they had only clung to him the more. Michael had tried on his spectacles.

To tell poor Smee that they thought him lovable! Hook itched to do it, but it seemed too brutal. Instead, he revolved this mystery in his mind: why do they find Smee lovable? He pursued the problem like the sleuth-hound that he was. If Smee was lovable, what was it that made him so? A terrible answer suddenly presented itself—"Good form?"

Patsy has no memory of interacting with children, nor any social skills to speak of—and yet any that cross his path would immediately adore him. Despite being, in my mind, roughly 6’3” and rather fat with a big frame, he’s got an aura of fragile helplessness (like Steve from Blue’s Clues) that makes him appealing to children in the way of a clumsy puppy or a duckling.

Iden might leave him somewhere and instruct him to avoid people and to keep his mouth shut to avoid saying something inappropriate and getting himself in trouble. When he returned half an hour later, he’d find Patsy missing, having been abducted by small children intent upon drafting him into a game of pretend, or festooning him with costume pieces, or having him carry them around on his shoulders like a great steed. Iden would have to go to great lengths to rescue him from their clutches—five year old girls would not give up their plaything without a brutal fight.

[space-emperor]

I’ve been thinking a little about Djesh reproduction strategies and what I’m leaning towards now is sort of a spin on r/K selection theory—Djesh have multiple methods of reproduction that vary based upon social and environmental factors.

In favorable conditions, where adults and caregivers are plentiful, resources are high, and seawater is within ideal parameters, I think one or both Djesh parents produce a modest-sized clutch of eggs—perhaps no more than a dozen. More than half of them can be usually be expected to survive the first year of life with a high level of individual care and attention; the child-to-parent ratio is roughly 1:1. In this scenario, the fertile parents typically survive, possibly reverting to a more stable, non-reproductive state, and may go on to reproduce again years later. I am leaning towards the idea that this form of reproduction is sexual and requires two Djesh—an expensive strategy because it puts two healthy adults out of commission for a while, but probably the cultural “ideal”. The Djesh equivalent to a white picket fence is a large (~12 person) parenting group and two reproductive parents who each lay sexually fertilized eggs. If things are a little more unstable, only one reproductive parent will lay eggs and the other will quickly revert to a non-reproductive state after fertilizating them.

If, however, social and environmental conditions are less favorable—as I imagine they are during the setting of the story—Djesh will typically revert to a different strategy. With a limited number of adults, parthenogenesis is more likely, with a single reproductive parent producing a much larger number of eggs at the expensive of her own health. Doing this costs her the ability to revert to a non-reproductive state, and she will die within a few months. Poor environmental conditions result in a lower hatching rate and higher infant mortality, so broods tend to be very large—50 to 100, with only a handful surviving to adulthood. Parental care is limited and more impersonal and there is a higher expectation of independence; surviving offspring from this type of nest are believed to be especially resilient, resourceful, and to have a stronger connection with turantirok.

Although most Djesh hope to engage in the first strategy, they recognize the importance of variation and adaptability. There is usually a cyclical pattern between generations, based largely on astrological movements and lunar cycles/tides/etc, so the Djesh culture and gene pool remains diverse and no one strategy becomes completely dominant.

HOWEVER. At the time of the story—and how much of this will ever actually be relevant and how much is just me dreamily worldbuilding for the hell of it remains to be seen—I believe there has been enough social and environmental upheaval that the second strategy is becoming more and more common. Fewer eggs are hatching, fewer larvae are surviving juvenile molts, and anxiety about planetary stability has more families turning to parthenogenic strategies despite understanding the long-term implications of this, socially and genetically—parthenogenesis is fine in the short term, but if it keeps happening for multiple generations, the social structure begins to crumble.

[space-emperor]

For plot mysterious reasons, Djesh seem to lack the psychological capacity for “war” despite being profoundly physically capable and dangerous. They are useless as soldiers, confused by the concept of “the enemy” and unable or unwilling to apply their talents to military service even under duress. (I have explanations for this but it would take... a while. And be spoilery.)

Military scientists have attempted to raise kidnapped Djesh from eggs or infancy in laboratory conditions exactly mimicking Djenubian environments, hoping to instill a sense of loyalty and the qualities of a desirable soldier very young. These lab-raised Djesh seem to lack some essential nutrient needed for development and display extreme morphological differences from their Djenubian counterparts—notably, a lack of head crests, misshapen exoskeletons, and strange, soft, irregular patches where bioluminescent patterns would typically form—and are incapable of communicating with other Djesh. These specimens are unable to molt without assistance and usually die before the fifth instar (if they are not euthanized before then).

This is, of course, because “story” truly does act as an essential nutrient. Djesh inherit the right to tell particular stories from the adults who raise them—these stories physically alter young Djesh in some kind of cultural epigenetic process. This is why the “errant” stage of each Djesh’s lifecycle is so important, as it’s the window during which they form a unique story for themself that can be inherited. A Djesh who has not gone errant is not considered an adult, no matter how old they are.

The very cruelest curse in Djesh translates to “may your story be forgotten”. It is the threat of soul-extinction—of erasure from history, from the capacity to affect the future, a nullification of personal turantirok.

Because Djesh communication involves complex chemical signatures, bioluminescent patterns, AND spoken word, often all at the same time, “stories” on Djenubi are more like transfers of experience and cannot be replicated through one method alone. It’s considered artsy and experimental to tell a story only through spoken word—something sophisticated adults can appreciate, but which children typically find inaccessible and frustrating.

[space-emperor]

djesh doodle… designing alien visuals is not my speciality

[space-emperor]

Djesh secrete a kind of viscous fluid from their joints with which they can construct their nests. Weirdly enough it can function as an effective binding agent in many recipes. Even more weirdly, the humanoid friends of Djesh do not seem to like to make use of this function.

[space-emperor]

I was talking to my father about how he learned all his sense of humor from Groucho Marx and ended up launching into an incoherent ramble about how Djesh concepts of abiological genetic inheritance would therefore consider Groucho Marx one of my grandparents.

Fathers don’t let your children grow up to write science fiction they WILL say weird shit to you about alien physiology that they made up constantly.

[space-emperor]

Djesh blessing that loosely translates to “may your children have many mothers”, to the great confusion of other species

[space-emperor]

one of my favorite things about your writing is how good you are at subtly working worldbuilding into your descriptions and dialogue without making it feel obvious or overly expository. like the bit where you show us cyborgs are stereotyped as religious with a couple natural and concise lines of dialogue, and how you slowly build up our picture of the Djesh and Djenubi with little references peppered throughout the story, and how naturally and smoothly you work in tiny bits of extra detail about your universe and its different cultures into the imagery you and your characters use. you weave them in without making them glaringly obvious or clunky so that it adds to the immersion instead of breaking it, which is really hard to do and i rarely feel is done very well. it's so satisfying to read and really good to come back to when i feel like crap because i can just get lost in it and know i'm going to enjoy every minute.

Thank you! That means a lot—that’s something I always notice and appreciate in other writing. I read The Space Between Worlds a few weeks ago and found the way the worldbuilding and backstory was paced out to be very satisfying.

[space-emperor]

Iden’s a tricky character to write because he’s essentially already at the climax of a character arc the moment the story opens. He’s someone who has packed up all his things in preparation to leave and now has nothing more to do than to ensure a good death for himself. He doesn’t have any remaining goal or purpose to fulfill, no clear narrative left to his life, no driving spark—from a Djesh perspective he is like a living ghost, evading the natural closure to his own story and wandering through limbo. Obviously he can’t kill the space emperor now; a climax has its proper place and he missed the opportunity. Perhaps another will present itself. Perhaps not.