Quantum Characters & Plot Devices

The Quantum Series Characters & Plot Devices

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The Quantum Series Characters & Plot Devices

These are some of the characters and other plot devices used in the Quantum Series of novels, including minor characters, and some characters or objects featured in short stories that form part of the Quantum universe. Characters and objects are listed separately and in alphabetical order.

Characters:

Adriano Lupini – according to Deannan history, Adriano Lupini was the very first colonist to set foot on the surface of Deanna. He was also credited with discovering crabby-grass, the distressing grass-like life-form that dislikes being stepped on – and consequently, also simultaneously setting the record for being the first person to actually swear on Deanna. He still lives on Deanna and regularly attends Founder’s Day Ceremonies held at Lupini Square every year, in safety boots.
Albert McIntyre-Smythe (General, ret) officer in charge of the Imperial Officers Reserve on Deanna, which consists mainly of retired military types. Smythe is often described as a spry young man for his age (74 years), having retired only twenty years previously after a career spanning 36 years in the Starmarines. Decorated with various – um, decorations – including among others, the Silver Cluster (Gold) with bar and several other good attendance medals – which he humbly dismisses as “it just means I was at work most days without screwing up badly enough to get fired“. Smythe saw action in several incidents in the Terran Empire’s history and had been an accomplished soldier in his time. He’d got the purple-heart thirteen times – along with the nickname of ‘Fucking Bullet Magnet’, which he received early on in his career, from what was left of his platoon.
Bart McCracken, the portly, elderly Mayor of San Fedora.
Bartholomew Farrow – The Managing Director and majority share-holder/owner of Mace-Polythorp Inc. At 47 years Farrow rode the crest of his wave of success. His company had controlling interests in the local mining industry on Deanna, including construction, er – destruction, information technology, stationery and medical supplies production etc. The whole Mace-Polythorp office building in Atro City belonged to him too as a matter of fact, and his office formed part of his penthouse right at the top, from where he had an excellent view of the surrounding city and the bay, which was laid out before him and created the impression that he could just reach out and take something if he wanted it. This may have contributed in a small way to his sticky end.
Brad Xyl, a villain. One of the founding members of the Time Saving Agency and a co-inventor of time travel. He is a really bad man who managed to escape from the Limbo Practicale, a really, really escape-proof para-dimension where Time Offenders are sent by the TSA on a permanent basis to teach them how not to mess with Time again. It took about twenty years for the TSA to capture him in the first place, while he merrily romped through Time and Space, setting himself up as Absolute Dictator here, and Emperor For Life there, sparking a few minor cases of genocide and wantonly declaring unnecessary public holidays. Sorting Time out again took some, well – time. He finally appeared on Deanna in the past – er, present, disrupting a Puritan church service as well as Atro City traffic, all while brazenly inviting fines for Walking While Shedding Sparks and Leaving Smoking Footprints In Public. Although his misguided plan to blow up Deanna and the Universe failed, he did finally find his long sought-after little place in the sun – er, Ramalama. Right at its center.
Bran Johannsen – The 25 year old captain of the TR74 Duval, a Bannor class loderunner belonging to the Beljan Interstellar Mining Company. (This ship is the one that brought Cindy-Mei Winter and Fred to Deanna in ‘Black Sunrise’.) He has a slight aversion to plant life in general ever since a certain potted passenger was awarded a medal for intervening in the Ruminarii invasion of Deanna. Consequently he also harbors feelings of resentment for having slept through probably the only really interesting thing that would happen in his career as a merchant starship captain – and he missed it.
Brandon Carver, a villain. A drifter recruited by the D.S.L. to assassinate Prince Justin. The assassination sparks off the Deannan Uncivil War, but he’s really come to Deanna to hunt vampires – and there are plenty on Deanna, if you know where to look.
Cindy-Mei Winter, an ex-Colonial Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative (and former male). She has much in her past she would prefer to forget and write off to having happened to someone else, instead of her. She wants to start over in life and is just looking for her own little share of happiness – but the rest of the universe just keeps getting in her way. As a man she was a go-getter, ambitious and effective in her work. Now she prefers to live and let live, preferring to remain anonymous and live under the radar. She is fairly financially independent, thanks to some wise investments she made during her clandestine career and manages to live rather well off them. She first appeared on the scene in ‘Black Sunrise’, as a sort of tourist-cum-holiday maker while recovering from her surgery. When she arrived on Deanna she stumbled into all kinds of strange situations and adventures.
Danielle Grauffis, a young 19 year old, also a transgender character, who is virtually a complete opposite to Cindy-Mei, in that she has always lived as Danielle, has had understanding parents and friends and has had an ‘easy feminine’ life. Where Cindy-Mei had a good deal of hardship and danger in her past, Danielle is an innocent, who also just wants to be happy as her true self. She first makes her appearance in ‘Black Sunrise’. In future stories, she and Cindy-Mei become good friends. Cindy-Mei takes her under her wing as a protégé. Later, in ‘Dead Mans Hammer’ she has an unfortunate encounter with the assassin Villainessa Tittel, but survives.
Doktor Heinrich Septimus Gleichstein speaks with a heavy German accent. He is the only quantum physicist to ever come near Deanna, possibly because the planet has a quantum factor of 220.67 out of 10 (which quite honestly, was just too good to pass up) and to almost blow it up as well. He lives in a run-down house where even the mouse holes should have blast doors. At any rate, the mice gave up and moved out years ago. He conducts experiments in the lounge, having already blown up the garage. Several varieties of mutated cockroach have been discovered there by Interstellar Geographic in recent years. He spends a considerable amount of time putting off visits from ‘Interstellar Geographic’. His favorite advice, given quite seriously, is that “in a controlled environment it is far more difficult to lose your eyebrows”. His companion is Vluffy, a grumpy little black dog of uncertain breed who wears a flame-proof doggie jacket for safety reasons. Dr Gleichstein is most notably remembered for inventing the Luminous Paperclip and also the Self-Cleaning Mouse Trap – which isn’t saying much. During the Deannan Uncivil War he develops a quantum wunderwaffen for the Resistance.
Dorian Wintermuller (Dory), a pre-op transsexual romantically involved with Timaset Skooch, the lead character of ‘Loderunner’ for more than two years. Dory has lived most of her life trying to find her place in the gay world, under the impression she needs to be a drag queen until she realizes she wants to really be Dory all the time. Described as ‘good with a frying pan – and I don’t mean cooking’, Dory has her own part time home and interior decorators consulting agency. She spends much of her time trying to explain the subtle differences between lilac and cerise to her clients.
Felix Clayne, a villain. The Field Marshall General of the Deannan Republican Army (DRA) who acts as commander in chief of all the Deannan Service Leagues (DSL’s) armed forces during the Deannan Uncivil War.
Fred (the Arborian), an alien sentient plant that can move and talk. Watching him walk on his lower branches and carry his own pot is indeed a sight to behold. When he’s around, people who don’t know him tend to scream or faint for no apparent reason, or to study the labels on whatever it is they’re consuming. He provides comic relief in subtle ways. Fred has in the past been a passenger/occupant of the potted plant rack in the rec-dec aboard a loderunner, and has since moonlighted as a security guard (under-cover – er, camouflage division) at a shopping mall in Atro City. Fred, as a member of the species Sapiens flora silicae, doesn’t seem to be burdened by many of the moral dilemmas or materialistic hang-ups the Human characters seem to have. As a result, his approach is far more direct and pragmatic – and unusually effective. He is also a singular wit, dropping bad puns like well, dry leaves. His main talent though, seems to be camouflage… and often, vengeance.

Gary Beck a.k.a. Beck the Badfeller, a good looking and talented bounty hunter with a legendary reputation for always getting his man. Er… except in that other case where his ‘man’ turned out to be a woman. His reputation claims he’s so good he could find the missing day in a leap year. He is a resident of Lugaluru (a less-affluent lower-class suburb of Atro City), living in an immobilized mobile home in – well, these days we would call it a trailer park. He becomes involved with Cindy-Mei Winter towards the end of ‘Black Sunrise’. Gary is the kind of good guy who values a clear conscience and likes to have a peaceful night’s sleep while affording his “clients” the same luxury. He believes in principle that a live man is far easier to carry than a dead one (and could be worth more in the end because in theory he could always need to be caught again in future – thus generating more income for him.) He is fundamentally opposed to the idea of killing – unless it’s in self-defense or by complete accident. He is supposed to be the “knight in shining armor” in the story, the wholesome good guy any girl would love to take home and introduce to Mama.
Giggling Harry – one of the gray characters on Deanna, an underworld figure, what some might call a big fish in a little pond, a small-time crime boss. A leader of a small enterprise that dabbled in this and that. Giggling Harry dabbled in shady imports. (Which co-incidentally, happened to be the name of his largest business enterprise. Shady Imports Inc.) And Giggling Harry was called Giggling Harry on account of what he did most of the time. He giggled. It was sort of a nervous tick. One that would suit any self respecting mad-scientist or any person on the verge of potential insanity. And yes, his name really was Harry.
Horst van der Ku (Captain), commander of the (Imperial Star Ship) I.S.S. Antares. He is a man who takes pride in his achievements and decorates his office walls with them. Along one part he has a set of chrome and glass shelves decorated with defunct old weapons and other items of interest, is a heavy-looking flintlock pistol which lost pride of place after it cost him a fingernail when he accidentally caught his left thumb under the hammer.

The current pride of his collection is a curiosity, a thing that reminds him simultaneously of both human ingenuity and stupidity and the inane ability of an entrepreneur to – no matter how good an idea may seem – find a way to blow his head off with it just to make a quick buck. Horst van der Ku is a single-minded martinet who spends his spare time dotting t’s and crossing i’s. He succeeded Captain Mykl d’Angelo as commander of the starship Antares after thirty years of service and is somewhat resentful of his predecessor’s happiness, having served aboard the ship with distinction in the company of his mate, Commander Riple Jones all that time.

James Eregut McMillen, a villain. He is a professor at Atro City University who was also a leading figure within a clandestine right-wing organization called the Deannan Service League (DSL) which launches a coup to seize power over Deanna and he becomes the Chancellor of the new Deannan People’s Republic. He develops a few nervous ticks after numerous disappointments at the hands of the Loyalist Militia and the Resistance, who make a mockery of him and his authority.
Jaymie Vallantdorf, a young pre-op transsexual girl kidnapped by a dastardly group headed by Jones, his family’s former butler who turned out to work for the Olduvai Trust. Frederyck Vallantdorf, the mayor of Mars City is her father. She is rescued by Timaset Skooch and his crew in ‘Loderunner’.
Jenny Grauffis, elder sister of Danielle. A tough rancher type who keeps running into funny characters even stranger than her younger – um, brother who has far more fashion sense than her. She takes Marsh’k in after he saves their lives when they are held captive by men in the employ of the mines on Deanna.
Johnathan Scrooby, is often described as a man more out of time than a one-handed drummer. One of the best agents the Time Saving Agency has, had or will ever have. (Their core business being Time Travel, we should assume they know what they are talking about.) He is the kind of man who will drop an apple out of a tree onto Isaac Newton’s head just to make sure gravity gets invented. (After all, people would sort of silly just floating around in mid-air.) His favorite advice is to “never ever try to explain Ursa Minor to anybody wearing a uniform.” He appears in a story every now and then just to bail the author out of difficult corners she has written herself into (Like for instance, when Bobby died and then one day months later, it was all just a bad dream.) He also shows up for those somber occasions when a man in a yellow polka-dot dress is just what the doctor ordered.
Johannes Albrecht – An immigrant who originally hails from New Excelsior Colony, Albrecht is the owner-operator of Albrecht’s Takeaways, a modest yet popular coffee shop set up in an old shipping container on Lupini Square in Atro City. The small enterprise has become well known, especially for his famous family recipe Hot Dogs and Cold Cats – which according to him – are made “the way his a’mamma showed him back in the Old Country” (New Excelsior Colony).

Owned and operated by Albrecht, an entrepreneur who sells exotic coffees and deserts, Albrecht’s Takeaways has grown popular with locals and visitors to Atro City alike. The small enterprise is a popular meeting place for locals, such as Cindy-Mei Winter and her friends, including Danielle Grauffis, Fred and local legendary bounty hunter Beck the Badfeller. The ad-streamer above the serving hatch advertises “Buggers and Chips – only 4.95! Ask about our flavored coffees! TWO for the price of ONE! Specials on Hot Stuff Blend!“

The cozy coffee shop, which consists mainly of a converted former shipping container surrounded by clusters of brightly painted benches, tables, chairs and umbrellas, is something of an open-air street-café. Forming part of a cluster of similar businesses operating on the bustling Lupini Square at the very center of Deanna’s capital, Atro City, the business has achieved an entry in the Deannan Tourist Guide. Albrecht’s comes highly recommended – despite featuring a few quirky and possibly even hazardous items on its menu – such as Hot Stuff Blend – known perhaps as the strongest coffee known to Humankind and which (at least according to his advertising) is meant to be drunk while standing up, preferably while running – which has sometimes had …unfortunate consequences.

“Had some once – couldn’t sit down for a week!” is the average sort of comment from people who have sampled Hot Stuff Blend sensibly.

After a visit from Brad Xyl, who arrived in Atro City trailing smoking black footprints and shedding iridescent blue sparks – and promptly drank not one, but two cups of Hot Stuff Blend – and then asked for something stronger. Alas, the stress was too much for poor Albrecht, who became an inmate of the Willow Gardens Resort For The Temporarily Insane for a little while after that, and even lost his put-on accent entirely for a short spell. It was what some – especially Albrecht – considered the chances of, say, a fella lurching up to the bar and downing two cups of Hot Stuff Blend, and for instance, walking away after that – and not being dead… impossible. Ever since then however, Albrecht has limited customers to a single serving of the blend for health and safety reasons – and because Albrecht, being the perceptive businessman he is, wishes to avoid any potential lawsuits if some unlucky customer stiffens, falls over, and doesn’t get up again. Or in case he doesn’t – and asks for another – he probably isn’t sure which is worse.

Albrecht, who had always been a little highly strung, has fully recovered from his nervous breakdown, and the public is immensely fond of him. He tends to exaggerate his quasi-Italian accent quite a bit, because he believes people like it when he ‘sounds foreign’. According to a recent survey conducted by the Deannean Tourist Office, the general public didn’t care about his accent one way or the other as long as the food was quick and the coffee was good. The survey results showed around 540 for and 120 against, with a few respondents who actually remarked “what accent?“

Albrecht still offers bottomless cups of coffee (and a free doughnut with the 5th cup) but only on Tuesdays and only if drunk while standing up. Then again, who could drink that much coffee and stay sitting down? This is similar to his innovative credit policy: Until recently Albrecht’s offered credit to clients only if customers were over 60 and if accompanied by both parents and grandparents – until somebody actually did that. (Hey, this is the future – anything’s possible.) Although Albrecht is strictly speaking, a small-timer, his business has about twenty small tables surrounding his establishment. His popularity makes him rather unpopular with several other merchants around the square who tend to fill only half that much. This has led to some healthy, if rather frisky competition.

Feel free to pop in to Albrecht’s Takeaways the next time you visit Atro City!

John Conway, villain. Chief of Atro City’s fascist police department during the Deannan Uncivil War, a dodgy-looking, surly sort of man dressed in a familiar S.O.D. uniform – but one with unfamiliar badges and insignia on it.
John Tyson, villain. The Admiral in charge of the Deannan Space Navy on the fascist side during the Deannan Uncivil War.
Jonn Deire – Skipper of the loderunner Celeste. Gray, bearded, said ‘Garn!’ a lot (whatever that means). Didn’t enjoy jokes about his name much.
Lirian Nimah, a vampire secret agent currently working as a double agent between the Vampire Underground on Deanna and the Colonial Intelligence Agency (CIA). Being an operative for the Colonial Intelligence Agency – a special department of the Terran government – provided favorable opportunities for Lirian Nimah to satisfy her vampyric needs without too many questions being asked. As a current CIA agent, she was a true professional. For Lirian, vampire, secret agent with the C.I.A., Resistance fighter, her job was more than just a job. It was also more than just a job with perks that would allow her to occasionally slake her thirst for blood – it was an opportunity to slake her thirst for justice. She also had a passion for 1980s movies, and tended to sometimes refer to various scenes from the more obscure ones at awkward moments – like in the middle of a mission.
Luciferus Krant, villain. The most senior Sergeant-Major in the Deannan Republican Army, and one of the more senior leaders in the DRA. Also the illegitimate son of Governor Thomas Kelsy Landry and Dorabella Krant.
Marla de Bris, a 200-plus year old secret vampire who has lived on Deanna for about 25 years, while not really interacting with the vampire underground on the colony. Once, long ago, she was an agent in the Colonial Intelligence Agency, and acquired skills making her the perfect candidate to establish and run the Resistance for the Vampire Underground.
Marsh’k (Mark), the commander of the Ruminarii warship, named the “Black Sunrise”. He first arrives in ‘Black Sunrise’ as a member of a warlike reptilian race whose moral values mirror our own, as well as those of every other known species in recorded history. For them evil is good and vice versa, which later leads to some interesting experiments in theology and sociology. He alone survives the botched invasion of Deanna and goes into hiding on the Grauffis farm outside Atro City and begins his education in Human Culture 101. He enjoys cooking, which makes a nice change from eating things raw, bloody and sometimes still living. Called Mark by the Grauffis sisters, because it’s easier to pronounce, the former enemy alien now lives in a storm shelter under the Graufis farmhouse as a literal illegal alien.
Michael Francis, villain. A very nasty young 21 year old Colonel in the Deannan Republican Army (DRA) in charge of formulating the D.S.L.’s plan to wipe out undesirables during the Deannan Uncivil War. He establishes Xanadu Re-education Facility and oversees it. He comes to a sticky end.
O’Donnell, Maxwell Sullivan (Sheriff) – a man of genuine Irish American descent (with maybe a little Cherokee thrown in). He arrived on Deanna twelve years previously as an over-eager Colonial Deputy with a head full of dreams and a wallet full of zilch. Twelve years later, he is the Sheriff of San Fedora and a man now rich in law enforcement experience. He had dealt with murders, robberies, hijackings and other varied violent crimes that plague Humankind at home before also following him into deep space and has extensive experience with numerous auto accidents and crow-related mishaps on the roads under his jurisdiction. He is no newbie when it comes to death.

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Peggy-Ann Muller (Peg), Sheriff in charge of the Atro City Sheriff’s Office Deputies (S.O.D’s). A tough girl who has had a secret crush on Gary Beck for quite some time, completing the quintessential love triangle. She sometimes acts as his agent in finding him bounties. When she inadvertently introduces him to Cindy-Mei (under the impression that she is in fact a CIA agent) and they fall in love, she is somewhat distraught. She becomes a little bitter towards her, but they eventually settle down into a fairly comfortable friendship, even assisting each other in a professional capacity from time to time.
Ramsley Valcovar The Second (The Very Reverend), a minister in the Reformed Puritan Church of Deanna. He is based in The Chapel Of St Lucienne The Prostrate in an upper class suburb of Atro City, where he passes his time comforting widows and making the name of the girls’ youth choir (Virgin Snow) into a complete – um, fallacy. Ramsley Valcovar graduated from the Puritan Secular School on Uripides with honors, top of his class in ’69. Born into a wealthy family, he always wanted the kind of posting where he could settle into a routine of comfort and class, where he would have three services every Sunday and be invited round for dinner by the well-to-do members of his congregation. He enjoys the reputation for having once performed a wedding ceremony in pig-Latin, just to see if anyone would notice. After an odd disturbance in the chapel he spent a good deal of time in the Willow Gardens Resort For The Temporarily Insane, where he now has a chair reserved in the Group Therapy Room with his name on it. He likes sitting in the garden listening to the Flatular Canaries in the Ploplar trees. The nice doctors also let him play with clay there.
Sam Barthoff, the Mayor of Atro City.
Thomas Kelsy Landry, the Terran Governor of Deanna. Usually found in the Governor’s Palace just opposite Lupini Square, deposed by Chancellor McMillen at the start of the Deannan Uncivil War, then led the Loyalist Resistance and a government in exile from the Grauffis family ranch. He returns to his office and resumes his role as governor.
Timaset Skooch, the man you want to hire if Beck the Badfeller is otherwise occupied. A private investigator by trade, this former cop decided he had enough of getting shot at for not much and went to work for himself. Lately he even gets shot at for free.
Triple-J, aka Jimmy-Jo Jackson, a member of the crew of the loderunner Celeste, a short, pale little man with thick glasses and a squeaky voice. Celeste’s only engineer, best known for stripping the star-drive at strange and inconvenient times for no particular reason at all. A deadly throw with a hydro-spanner at ten paces.
Vernon Carridene (Uncle Vernon) another secret vampire, and an elder in the Deannan vampire underground, he strikes most people as a strange little man with the pasty complexion and gelled hairstyle, who reminded them a little of a caricature of Bella Lugosi because of his pasty black hairstyle. Referred to by Marla de Bris as Uncle Vernon, he is a family friend to Marla, and believed to be around 423 years old.
Victoria Summers, aka Vic, tall and muscular and not very much on the feminine side. The loderunner Celeste’s cargo master. Handy with physical stuff, including ‘blowing shit up’. If you needed a detonator and all you had was a microwave oven, she’s your girl.
Villainessa Tittle – if poets write about Helen of Troy as the face that launched a thousand ships, then they would write about Villainessa Tittle as the bitch that sank them. She started out as a professional assassin in the employ of the Terran Colonial Intelligence Agency. Ever since she turned professional and went freelance she’s been making a killing. She thinks of her profession as a form of frontier art and considers it her true calling in life. She likes to read books from the back because she prefers endings instead of beginnings. She displays a deeply sadistic streak and innovation in nail fashion. She takes on slightly too much in ‘Dead Mans Hammer’ when she comes after Cindy-Mei and Gary Beck.

Objects:

Atro City (sometimes hyphenated: “Atro-City”) The capital city on Deanna. It is a medium-sized city by current standards, consisting mainly of smaller colony towns that sprawled into each other as the number of Deannan colonists increased over time. The place name was derived from the designated landing zones (Alpha, Tango, Romeo and Oscar) of the original settler landings approximately fifty standard years previously.

Atro City University – In recent years, Atro City University had become quite an academic force. Graduates from this institution were becoming well-known across the Terran Empire – heading blue-chip companies, holding prominent government positions, winning Laureate Awards and sometimes, on rare occasions, even getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar. It is a place where people from all walks of life mingle more-or-less as equals. (Recently, some scholars anonymously drew unwelcome parallels between the University and prisons based on this similarity.) It is said that ATU teaches everything from Quantum Physics to Advanced Stamp Collecting.
Battle of Atro City, The – When a Ruminarii Hammerhead arrives to invade the tiny third-rate Terran colony of Deanna, bombs the city and then makes a landing at Atro City Space Port, a mixed group of people arrive to welcome them with open arms. Make that exposed arms. Civilians, SODs (Sheriff’s Office Deputies) and the Skeggs Valley Dynamite Fishing Club – and Fred, in orbit. The battle takes at least an hour – and the poor Ruminarii don’t really stand a chance.

Beljan Interstellar Mining Company. Said company specializes in deep space mining operations. They are the largest, having a fleet of mineral survey ships and loderunners almost an eighth the size of the Imperial Star Fleet. If there’s a demand for it, they’d be out there digging it up. TR74 Duval, the carrier Cindy-Mei Winter and Fred the Arborian arrive at Deanna on, is one of their ships.

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Blood Diamonds – referring to Nubian blood diamonds. In the short story “Death By Vampire”, Terran secret agent Lirian Nimah trades ten blood diamonds to an enemy agent for the lives of a hundred Terran hostages. Each one valued at a hundred thousand credits, each one for ten Terran hostages. Of special note about the value of these particular blood diamonds, they couldn’t be forged or copied, not even by a transmatter replication device – something about the atomic structure interfered with the process. This made them even more valuable. Mined on the planet Nubia, they weren’t called ‘blood diamonds’ because anyone died mining them… they had that name because they were the color of the blood of several species – green blood – like the Jim-waians… which, Lirian Nimah – secret agent and even more secret vampire – found less palatable than the red blood of Terrans!
Braking Dolphins, cute little marsupial dolphin-like marine creatures, about hand-sized. The strong freshwater currents pull the creatures backwards because of their pouches, which tend to slow them down quite a bit, hence their name.Tourists come from everywhere just to watch them as they accidentally swim backwards through the tour boats propeller.

Buffer, The , a device which protects the TSA temporarily, from what they call UTE’s (Unforeseen Time Events), or in other words, screw-ups. It provides a grace period to sort out the timeline before it catches up.

Cocka-snoek, a local fish renowned for being tasty but yet incredibly hard to kill as well as for being unusually resourceful. In fact, the best known way to catch cocka-snoek is to dynamite them, then scoop them up while they’re mildly stunned and floating on the surface. Droves of experienced fisherman have come to visit Deanna just to hunt these elusive creatures, just to return home with naught but an empty fish-box and bits of shrapnel in their butts. There is something disconcerting about a fish so tough that it has to be stunned with a hand-grenade before you can catch and eat it.

Colonial Intelligence Agency (The) – (known as ‘the CIA’) a clandestine Terran government agency involved in law-enforcement, counter-terrorism, intelligence gathering and possibly even stamp collecting.

Crabby-grass, the native semi-plant life form on Deanna. It is naturally aggressive and tends to go for anything living with piranha-like vigor. It is a well disguised animal form that bites and snaps at livestock that tries to eat it, causing havoc and nervous disorders for livestock farmers to worry about. Crabbygrass generally subsists on small bugs living in the soil but it seems to favor the pigeons inadvertently imported from Earth as its staple diet. It has been described as “it looks like grass, it smells like grass, it even feels like grass – but just you step on it!” As a result, most of the poorer population, who actually walk outdoors, wears safety shoes.
Deanna, a third rate colony world on the borders of civilization, where strange things can happen and often do. It has been described as the center of the universe as far as weirdness is concerned. (It has become famous throughout the Terran Empire because it has a small moon that falls down occasionally.)
Ding and Dong, the two mad little moons of the planet Deanna. Inspired by Mars’ Phobos and Deimos (Fear and Panic). Dong is a chunk of rock about a kilometer around, while Ding is made of solid titanium and is only about 50 feet around. Ding has a tendency to get knocked out of its low orbit by visiting ships every now and then. The Tourism Office keeps polishing it and having it put back again.
Duval – Loderunner, Bannor Class. Civilian Freight Carrier. Registration: TR-424. Crew: 10. – The ship that brought Cindy-Mei Winter and Fred to Deanna.

Editor – a Time Editing Tool similar to a Projector, but with features the other device doesn’t have. It can make changes to a particular timeline such as cut, copy and paste – and of course undo.

Flatular Canaries, I think that description is pretty much self explanatory!
Fortitude – or Fort Itude to give it its original name, was originally established as a fort whose purpose it was to protect settlers against wild, rabid crabby-grass that prowled the plains. The fort was named after Reginald Itude, one of the earliest colonists to arrive on Deanna – not as early as Adriano Lupini who was widely celebrated as the first colonist to set foot on Deanna, but of the same vintage. Over time, a town developed around the original settlement, and a number of industries that caused it to grow and to keep people there. Ironically, as has been pointed out by some in the past, Lupini got a square in Atro City named after him – while Mr. Itude got a fort – and then a whole city.

Haha Birds, a native bird from Deanna, about two feet tall. The species is unusually accident prone and psychotic, having to deal with the profound insanity of throwing itself from a perfectly good rooftop every morning just to find breakfast and a good place to crash. (Showers of yellow feathers are not uncommon.) It is the only known bird species with an inherent fear of flying, and has been described as the only birds that could “actually crap themselves in full flight” and often do. If you thought Red-horned Wildebeest were funny, wait till you see a haha bird.
Hot Stuff Blend – the strongest nonalcoholic concoction known to humankind. It contains well, coffee naturally, but the kind grown by a mad scientist who might’ve added various outlawed chemicals. (This could be likened to say, taking LSD for a headache.) It’s excellent for fixing hangovers, if you didn’t mind losing your sense of taste or not sleeping for a week. It could prove fatal if taken on top of certain medication for heart conditions or chronic depression. Generally it is accepted that nobody can drink more than one cup in a single day. The effects of two or more could be described as unknown, ‘what?!’ or most likely fatal.

Japp’s Saloon and Speakeasy’, a small bar in the northwest corner of the only legal red-light area of Atro City (Lugaluru). (The S.O.D.s believe in crime management.)

Jeepo, a cheap and common form of transport on Deanna. A typical off-road vehicle designed for a frontier environment. It can be described as a cross between a low end 4×4 and a beach buggy. Usually they are electric powered as more expensive SUV’s are hydrogen fueled and much more fun.

Loderunner, a name for a freighter or freight carrying star ship.

Lugaluru – a suburb of Atro City populated mostly by trailer parks and low simple wooden buildings mostly left over from the early days when colonization just began on Deanna. It is most famous for having Beck the Badfeller as a resident.

Limbo Practicale. No, not a badly named Latin style dance, it is in fact a chrono-spacial phenomenon where time runs in short loops and everything happens over and over again in different combinations of upside down, backwards and inside out. The TSA use it as a prison for time offenders. It is considered a just punishment and an ironically satisfactory one by TSA agents (who face the same risks on a daily basis). It is a one-way trip (which is just as well because anybody would be certifiably insane after a lengthy exposure to the Limbo Practicale) and would teach the bad guys to mess with Time in the first place.

Lulu Penitentiary – A large prison complex in the wilds surrounding Atro City. Sometimes the wardens would let the odd prisoner out for some air, just to give the dogs some real exercise, that sort of thing.

Martian Quail – When humans began terraforming Mars, Martian Quail was one of the native Martian species that awoke from prolonged hibernation. Martian Quail roughly resembles Earth quails except they are the size of a bull and slightly more aggressive. Apparently it can take a high explosive shell from an elephant gun to bring one down.

Obsidian Crows, are possibly the laziest birds known to Humankind. The hard bodied creatures are far too heavy to fly, or run or even to move at anything faster than a modest shuffle. They are a major road hazard because they tend to walk straight, as the crow fl – walks, more-or-less. In any case, they will usually just shake the dust off their stony scales and climb out of the crater in the road and wander off again. It has been said the only thing that can frighten an Obsidian Crow is quicksand. The safety bars on Deannan vehicles are named after them (“Crow-bars”).
Olduvai Trust, The, a major interstellar crime syndicate based in Mars City, Mars.

Ossifar Distana – one of the most luxurious deep space liners of its kind. It ferries the cream of society across the void in opulence and style. Only the wealthiest could afford an apartment on this ship for a trip of any duration, even a short one around the proverbial block and even the crew is obliged to pay rent. On any given day this gargantuan ship of the Red Star Line, the largest and most successful Star Line Company in existence, carries 5000 passengers, the actual figure varying slightly depending on where she is on the vast elliptical cruise that takes her around the Terran Empire.

Plaza, The – the main shopping mall in the central area of Atro City. It is a five story high building laid out in a triangle pattern with glass sides, and it’s a very busy place. It’s a hub of social life in Atro City, and consequently, Deanna. There are close to a thousand shops within its five tiered levels, arranged round the triangular courtyard and the garden at its center. Among these are boutiques, café’s, jewelry stores, restaurants and all sorts.

Polymetric Life Ender – a rather intriguing device, even to agents of the TSA. This is mainly because it comes from the 30^th century and strictly speaking, hasn’t been invented yet. It is, as its rather straightforward name suggests, an instrument of death. It has two distinct advantages, being both silent and virtually instantaneous. It applies compressed sound waves, which at close range (i.e. when pressed up against a human body), sends a single pulse of sound energy through the body cavity which instantly ruptures the internal organs. It is for this very reason that the Polymetric Corporation deemed it prudent to print ‘Keep Out of Reach of Children’ in very small letters on the inside of the battery cover. It was the weapon of choice for most common or garden Time Terrorists, because aside from the previously mentioned reasons, it is also easy to conceal and makes no visible mess.

Projector – a Time Editing Tool used by the TSA agents for scanning the time stream. To cut to the point, agents use it when searching for an event or person in a timeline, skipping through the DVD of Life – or ‘fast-forwarding the video machine’. It isn’t quite a DVD player or video machine, but it’s a fitting description to use when trying to explain the idea to a Time Native. To people of the earlier 20^th century it was a Flick or film projector. Natives of the 18 and 19^th, having less developed understandings of technology find it more difficult to understand such complicated explanations. (Sometimes these involve drawing little pictures.)

Ramalama, the star of of the particular star system which is home to the – er, unusual Terran colony of Deanna. The name of this star coincides with the two moons of Deanna – Ramalama-Ding-Dong. (This is a local joke.) Local inhabitants drink Ramalama-downers and eat eggs Ramalama side up.

Red-horned Wildebeest are lab-bred, genetically engineered cattle, sporting cute little red horns and a tendency to fall over on even slightly uneven terrain because of their top-heavy build. They are extremely rectangular in shape, which makes them easier to stack while in transit. Unfortunately this also results in steaks with corners and square ribs instead of spare ribs. The milk variety is known as ‘milk cartons’ because of their shape. Most of the creatures are somewhat jittery and suspicious of any innocent looking clumps of grass, which might turn out to be crabby-grass – which has a tendency to bite back. In fact, the majority of farmers have their Red-horned Wildebeest so hopped up on sedatives they usually don’t even notice they’ve been to the abattoirs until the day after.

Reformed Puritan Church, the – something like the old Puritans, except they tend to be a little more camp and colorful. Rather pretentious too. They stand high on ceremony and ritual. There are ceremonies for everything. There is a ceremony for lighting candles, one for walking safely under a ladder and another for those possibly about to fall down stairs. It borders on the ridiculous. There is even an absolution ritual for committing adultery – except in the case of minors – for which there is another. Weddings and funerals are performed often and with full ritual, lasting several hours. Weddings pay better than funerals and they are far more numerous, whereas most people only die once. Anyway, it is an internal joke that the funerals last longer than some marriages. The standard divorce ceremonies are small private affairs and there are even more of those. Nobody attends the divorce ceremonies, but there is usually a small retinue consisting of two lawyers and a pair of big burly men and one or two trauma counselors who hang around in case any brawls broke out. (Paramedics usually wait outside in the ambulance.) The mothers-in-law often attend, looking rather pleased and self-satisfied and wearing smirky ‘I told you so’ expressions.
Ruminarii Hammerhead – A cruiser, Hammerhead Class. Ruminarii Space Navy. Registration: Unknown. Crew: 500. The main warship of the warlike Ruminarii, so named because of its peculiar hull shape. (The current advice in general circulation would be ‘if you see one, look for a hole – crawl into it and then pull it in after you.’) A hammerhead is about a kilometer long and is a dark shiny black, as black as space and – as some whisper, as dark as the souls of the Ruminarii themselves.
Ruminarii, The, a warlike reptilian race. In four short centuries they had managed to lay waste almost a thousand star systems, enslaving their populations and stripping them of all they wanted. It has been said that if the Harrt’shisk Hab’arr’oun (Empire of the Golden Sun) ever had any allies; it would’ve been a short-lived alliance indeed. Their ferocity was matched only by their boldness. They display only the negative emotions. How a race founded purely on hate, spite and evil managed to flourish as they did is a question on which few civilizations have survived to speculate. The Ruminarii are bipeds. They are a reptilian species (which probably goes a long way to explain their cold bloodedness.) Suitably shaped is the best non-offensive description I can find. Otherwise, they’re f***ing ugly. At least by most standards.
San Fedora – a small city about fifty kilometers away from Atro City, on the other side of Skeggs Valley, smaller than the capital of Deanna. An industrial center that is fast developing. There are several factories here, mostly automotive and related industries. The local hat factory is of prime note. The Jeepo factory is here somewhere too. Right next to the Crow Bar factory which has a stylized obsidian crow as a logo on a big billboard just inside the fence beside the road.

‘Shock Diamond’, The – a neat little night spot in downtown Lugaluru, a rather average suburb in Atro City. Average clientele, just your average Jane or Joe having an after work drink with a few mates or a few losers drinking alone. The place was named after the intense little blue diamond shape that would appear in the flare of a rocket engine at lift-off. Quite interesting, he thought, taking a seat at the bar. Not many people knew that. Not many people even cared, really, since the only rocket engines they still saw were in old movies or one or two surviving relics of the rocket era. Antigrav and warp drive were the current modes of propulsion for all things vehicular and spacified. Except for Jeepo’s of course. Often frequented by famous bounty hunter Beck the Badfeller who would pop in for a ‘cold one’ or two.

Skeggs Valley Dynamite Fishing Club, is made up of retired former military personnel, from the Space Fleet as well as the Starmarines. They congregate every few weekends to go dynamite fishing on the Whatoosie River in Skeggs Valley and blow the crap out of cocka-snoek.

Slipped Disk, The, the wildest club on Deanna. Need I say more? The Slipped Disk is in the basement parking levels of The Plaza, the biggest shopping mall in Atro City.

S.O.D. – Sheriff’s Office Deputy, the law enforcement agency on most Terran colonies. Most of the vehicles and badges bear the abbreviation ‘S.O.D.’ much to the amusement of everybody with a sense of humor.
Solus Gratuiti Award, The – A medal, which (aside from commuting a death sentence) is the highest honor that the Empire could bestow on anyone.

Strato-Penguins, a high-flying native Deanna bird species. It flies using some remarkable natural rocket propulsion that the author hasn’t quite figured out yet. Perhaps it’s caused by a diet of Rabid Beans or high octane beetles or something. They are known to explode if they stray too high up in the outer atmosphere. They usually fly in a ‘c’ formation in their eternal east-west migration. Strato-Penguins were named for their uncanny resemblance to Earth penguins, but with two main differences: Strato-Penguins are a good deal faster, and penguins don’t explode like that at high altitude.
Targa 800 – a hydrogen powered sports car capable of achieving speeds around 250kph, although on Deanna’s’ roads, you wouldn’t want to go much over 100 – there are a few pot holes here and there, to say nothing of what might happen if you hit an obsidian crow. Good night. And anyway, if you’re in that much of a rush, you can travel by airtaxi.

Time Saving Agency, The – An organization from some distant future that that polices Time travel and whose agents went around fixing screw-ups, rectifying things that weren’t really supposed to happen – either because of meddling Time Terrorists or UTE’s (Unforseen Time Events, ie screw-ups.)

Typhus Bay – a wealthy part of Mars City, where many professionals live.

UTE – Unforseen Time Event; ie. A screw up. Usually when this happens time agents have to Go Back or Try Again Later to undo the damage done to Time by Time Terrorists, who alter the timeline for their own devious purposes, i.e. MG (Material Gain) or PM (Plain Malice). History is very, very susceptible to UTE’s.

Wertle soup, which is made from the yellow wertle, a tri-cotyledonous bean-like plant which grows wild on the plains of Mars. It goes well with a twist of lemon, which gives it a salty taste.

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