Practicum: Sinitti Republics
Greetings and semioviparous! …Someday I will get it right again! But I guess you humans are semioviparous if you think about it… Oh well, HI EVERYONE! Today is another practicum of a species of mine! Sinitusi!
As per usual with my aliens, they have different declensions of nouns and adjectives based on their native language, so here is theirs:
Singular: Sinitus
Plural: Sinitusi
Adjective: Sinitti
These are the declensions of their words; I tend to give them un-English ones because it feels more realistic, then.
Worldbuilding intent
The idea for them originally came from my first story and first set of characters. I am still undetermined how I will go about using them, but hey, they exist now in my universe!
But I wanted a few things for them. Sinitus and Dextune are binary planets that orbit each other, and I wanted the Sinitusi and the people of Dextune, their sister planet, to look almost identical, despite not being related, and be like half mirror images of each other. As one of my characters, Ortsana, came from Dextune, they became the good-looking guys. Which meant that Sinitus had to look bad. And here I mean they would initially appear to look very evil by sane human standards, and by that I mean morally and socially, not physically.
Anyone who knows me knows their evil facade would be all smoke and mirrors, but how would I pull this off? Well, that is what we are here for, right?
So, checklist:
Almost physically identical to Dextune people
Have a quick judgment of being bad people
Having a much deeper reality.
Not actually evil people.
Judge how well I do!
Biology
I usually joke about how I do mundane things, and then I really don’t, but for this species, I have really done very little on my most common trait of reproduction. But one thing at a time. Here is an image.
No, I am not stealing it, I just don’t remember where I grabbed it, and a reverse image search doesn’t bring it back. I am allowing all, watermark and such, in case anyone knows, and if so, tell me and I will happily link to the original artist.
So anyway, I used this as a baseline, kind of like a lemur-like creature, but with orange and black. Sinitusi have this basic appearance. The tail is the big difference, though. It is not that big and fluffy–everyone loves FLUFFY TAILS! But no, they do not have this. What they do have is a tail that is about the thickness of an arm, and at the end is a hand. This is where the people of Dextune and Sinitus differ. Sinitusi have a left hand at the end, while the people of Dextune have a right hand. That is literally all the visible differences between the two. So, outside of their star system, which is called Kheir, most people cannot tell the two species apart.
You also know of that rare condition where some humans have organs mirrored? Yeah, they are that too here. Sinitusi have the heart on the left side, the people of Dextune on the right side. And so on.
Some of you might be going
Vivian, you beautiful mastress of worldbuilding, this is highly unlikely, how does any of this make sense?
To which I say, aww, thank you! I try my best! Yes, I am very much aware of the insane improbabilities involved that a binary planet system would have two virtually identical, evolutionarily independent sophont species. But here is the thing that I say in my worldbuilding rules and in general: improbable things in a world are not bad, as long as they are clearly intentionally done.
So you have to, as a worldbuilder, somehow signal that this is a very real, very deliberate decision that serves a purpose. This is just so the audience knows that you know; they can’t call you out if you already know, right? There are a lot of ways to do this. In this case, I choose the method that I call ”So blatantly obviously wrong that there is no way zhi could be stupid enough to miss the stupidity here” method. So it is intentional, it entertains me, it creates a source for conflicts, and, more importantly, it might hint at other things, but probably not. Even though the people in Stellima do wonder about all of these strange coincidences… MOVING ON.
For when it comes to reproduction, this time around, I am going very boring, bi-sexed standard.
Ideology
Ideologically… that is where we get into the whole “looking evil” thing. One thing to understand is that Sinitusi have a MASSIVE victim complex as a people; I’ll get into why in a little bit. They constantly see themselves as victims of potential aggression from the people of Dextune and are hyperparanoid about it.
So, because of this excessive paranoia and fear, their entire ideology is all about defence and defending themselves against the evil Dextune people who will definitely attack at any moment if given the chance! Despite not having done it in centuries… But who cares about reality when you can just live in self-imposed fear? Yeah, that is the thing, this is not something the government or anything has pushed on people. This is CENTURIES old and something that they feed themselves.
But this entire mindset fills their society. They are officially called ”The Defensive Union of Sinitti Republics,” and the party they have is called ”The People’s Defence Party.” And I speak about one party because, yeah, they are essentially a one-party state with only one party. But in their case, it isn’t because other parties are forbidden; they are simply so massively popular with the people that over 90% of all votes in every election are for the PDP. The remaining 10% is a mix of others, and while they have no real power, they are used by the PDP to gauge the interest of people at large. Whatever non-PDP party gets the largest is likely to speak to the relevant concerns that the PDP needs to address.
So yeah, when it comes to Sinitusi, you should always expect that they have plans to defend themselves; that is their thing. And they are extremely much a backstabbing kind of people if they feel you might become a threat to them.
History
The Sinitti history up to the invention of telescopes is rather uninteresting. Empires rose and fell, tech developed, was forgotten, yada yada, you know the drill. It was once telescopes developed that things took an interesting turn. They had long since known that their heavenly companion Dextune existed. They had even figured out that it must have life on it. Not too difficult to understand when they see the seasons happening in the sky as well as in their own world.
But with the telescope, they could see that there was a kind of PEOPLE on Dextune. Insane, I know, other civilisations right across the cosmic pond; they too built buildings, houses, and more? Of course, the people of Dextune were, at about the same time, getting telescopes as well, so both sides could see each other watching them. And this is where an insane series of cosmic coincidences started happening.
Over time, the Sinitusi noticed that whenever anything bad happened on Sinitius (or their local region of it), some people on Dextune had been doing things prior… COINCIDENCE!?
Yeah, of course, it is all coincidence, but the myth started and spread like wildfire. That the people of Dextune, through magic, some weird tech, somehow were causing all the misfortune of Sinitus. It spread because it meant you had someone external to blame, and confirmation bias helped reinforce the idea that there is a connection between Sinitti misfortunes and actions taken by the people of Dextune.
This continued for centuries until they finally figured out how to do radio signals. Which meant they could FINALLY TALK, right? Well, there were attempts, but there are HUGE hurdles with this, trying to standardise how you encode signals, modulate them, and so on. And then, there was the issue that the Sinitusi had already absolutely no trust in the people of Dextune; after all, they did all the bad things!
So, at around WW2-era techwise for both planets, communication had been established, but for Dextune, it had become blatantly obvious that the Sinitusi were extremely hostile toward them. Which meant that once both sides figured out that space travel was possible, they wanted to be first to space so that the other couldn’t launch surprise missiles out of the blue.
From here, the fear of each other continued to escalate until both sides had enormous arrays of missiles constantly aimed at the other one to be certain they wouldn’t do anything stupid.
This culminated in a treaty, the Treaty of Truce Between Sinitus and Dextune, which was an actual attempt between the two planets to stop this senseless armament and constant fear of each other. They had not yet gone to official war, but you know… names be weird. What does the treaty say? Essentially, it creates a hostage situation. The Sinitusi are the most fearful ones, so the treaty says that whenever a new Premier (the highest official of Sinitus, I will get into it in a bit) comes to power, one of the Royal Family of Dextune marries someone of the Premier’s family and lives on Sinitus. The idea is that the people of Dextune love their royal family, so there is no way they would launch an attack on Sinitus when there is a 100% chance that members of said family will be killed either in the attack or retaliation.
Does it work? So far it has! It has lessened the tensions, but the tensions remain still.
Modern Culture
So, what is modern Sinitti culture like? Well, as you can imagine, they are very paranoid and defensive toward anything related to Dextune. A lot of cursing goes toward the people of Dextune; they get blamed, even to this day, for anything bad that happens in your life. You stubbed your toe? Clearly, the Dextune people’s fault. Didn’t get a raise you were promised? Boss probably blamed the Dextune people for it, so it is definitely their fault.
This is why shield symbolism is prominent and literally everywhere. The sense of community and togetherness for the Sinitusi stems from their feeling that they need to defend each other together from the evils of Dextune! Does this seem reasonable? Look at the US during the Cold War, and we all know the answer.
So, being a Dextune person on Sinitus is a really bad idea. That is why a lot of the royal family who are married off to live on Sinitus undergo surgery to change their tail so it is a left hand instead of a right hand. Funnily enough, the opposite is less true. A Sinitus on Dextune doesn’t face nearly as many problems as a Dextune person does on Sinitus. A sad thing on Sinitus is that while most are left-handed by nature (noticing a theme?), a small percentage, less than 5%, are actually right-handed and would rather use their right hand as the dominant hand. They do, unfortunately, face a great deal of social discrimination. They are viewed as less trustworthy, more likely to “succumb” to Dexune propaganda, and so on.
So yeah, no culture is perfect… So let’s talk about some good things! Despite their burning hatred for Dextune, they are, in fact, an incredibly friendly people toward anyone else! Which isn’t the best phrase in the world to say. But hey. If you are just a random alien coming from outside the Kheire system and visit Sinitus, you can expect very friendly behaviour. The locals will want to talk, hear your stories; they might even pay for the rounds of alcohol to keep you around!
For many reasons, including a sense of obligation to help their people and world, and the fact that they don’t have colonies due to being in a state of cold war with Dextune, most Sinitusi have never left their planet, so hearing stories and tales about what is out in the galaxy appeals greatly to them. Just don’t speak highly of the people of Dextune–just don’t mention them.
Government
Would you believe me that they are, in fact a democracy? Well, yeah, of course you would, I have already said that they are earlier in this. They are kind of like a federation. They are called the Defensive Union of Sinitti Republics, after all. So they are a union of 9 republics. And as republics, they all have presidents. Each republic is autonomous, for the most part, as long as it doesn’t come to broad-strokes decisions that the Defence Committee makes. The Defence Committee consists of the 9 presidents from each of the republics.
Out of the 9 presidents, one is elected to be the Premier, which you could call the “Supreme President.” A presidential position is a position for life unless the legislative house underneath can, with a ¾ supermajority, get a vote of no confidence against said president of one of the 9 continents. One republic, one Continent, fits well, right? So, a presidential election is a big deal on each of the continents.
The big event is when the Premier dies or steps down, and the position has to be elected. That can be a lengthy process and take many weeks. When the new president position has been filled, the election for the Premier is done. The process is as simple as it is convoluted. One of the presidents tells people to vote for their premier position. Then the remaining 8 presidents write on pieces of paper, crossing on yes or no. They go old school here, for it has been for a long time.
To become the premier, ¾ of the votes, or 6, have to affirm that they are the new premier, and you cannot vote for yourself. If the vote fails, rounds of discussions and intrigue start again, trying to get other presidents to think you’ll be a good fit to defend the Republics from the ebil Dextune people! And then, days later, you can call for another vote for yourself, or someone else calls for you to vote for them, hoping they don’t get enough support!
And when the election of Premier is successful, that too is a position for life unless a super majority wants to be rid of you. Usually, it doesn’t get to do a vote of no confidence however, because while the Premier takes control of half of all the orbital missiles, half of the space fleet, and half of the armies (well, their republic’s portions plus the portion that the premier has together makes half of all the strength), when the other half, namely other presidents, starts getting annoyed, it is wiser for the Premier to step down than risk a civil war. A civil war means the people of Dextune can use their moment of weakness and attack Sinitus!
For the Legislative houses of each republic, the exact composition and style are very much dependent on the republic, but all share one trait. Namely, the vast majority of all seats are held by the People's Defence Party members who are voted in. One thing to remember is that other people are not forced out–unless they are Dextune sympathisers, can’t have that! The party is just so popular that it holds an iron grip on politics and has for ages. It uses other smaller parties to gauge how people are feeling and adjust their own politics to essentially absorb all the votes the smaller parties would get. Why vote for a small party that cannot do anything when the main party says they will do what you want anyway?
And here is the Sinitti flag:
As you can see, it holds the shield symbol as they are all about defending themselves, but blue, red, and black? I honestly don’t remember, but it looks great 😀 So I am keeping it as is.
Just to illustrate a bit of the intrigue that happens between the presidents (FYI, Markaxht is the latest Premier):
Markaxht: There is a reason you voted for me to be Premier.
President: You didn’t give us much of a choice in the end.
Markaxht: Exactly. 😈
Summa Summarum
So, how did I do? Do they look a bit evilish but really not pure evil? I think I did a pretty okay job, that they are not pure evil, just have a very unhealthy obsession. But Premier Markaxht is odd because he does not in any way buy into their own beliefs and dogma; he has views for the future–but keep it quiet, the others cannot know yet 🤫
But yeah, I hope with this you can see that you can build a species on rather silly premises and it not be totally unbelievable. The whole right/left distinction between species is silly, and their thinking that the Dextune people are the cause of bad stuff is stupid, but people are prone to confirmation bias and superstition; it is a self-reinforcing system, and they build all around it to confirm what they already believe.
Markaxht is definitely one of my favourite characters to write.
So I hope this will give some fun ideas for species, and remember this:
No choice is a bad choice if you do it with intention and knowledge.
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