Straylight
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[[Image:{{{coat of arms}}}|100px]] |
| Feudal Status: | Duchy |
| Capital: | Discontinuity |
| Largest Cities: | Discontinuity, Gensym, Deep Trouble |
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| Local Leadership Title: | HONIS |
| Local Government: | Adhocracy |
| Current leader: | Ari Rahikkala |
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| Local language: | Shirithian English, Straylightian English |
| Local Religion: | Cedrism, Soloralism, Christianity, animism, atheism |
Straylight is one of Shireroth's more many-faced and unique subdivisions, although its published cultural development is nowhere near as deep as that of, say, Hyperborea. Since its creation somewhere around 976 ASC by Ari Rahikkala, its legal status has gone from duchy to dissolution, to barony under Brookshire, to another dissolution, to county under Yardistan, to county under Naudia'Diva, and finally to duchy again. Its most constant attribute during this time has been the semi-presence of its founder (except for a brief time when Shyriath was its Baron), lack of published culture and great activity (except for that whole Shirlan affair that we're still a bit ashamed about), and the use for tech support.
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Original Duchy of Straylight
The original incarnation was largely inspired by David Brin's science fiction novel Startide Rising, and the many sentient dolphin characters in the book. Founding a duchy in the sea, between Brookshire and Kildare, was unproblematic and provided a free token of cultural uniqueness for the fledgling duchy. Its founder had plans for significantly expanding its culture and connecting it to Khaz Modan ((many of) the sentient dolphins would actually have been Khaz Modanians who had gone into hiding in the form of an (immortal) dolphin from whatever it was that destroyed their culture... but infighting and getting a bit too used to their new form would finally destroy them) - all that he ever actually got around to was postulating some pieces of Technomagi technology, mostly for allowing the dolphins to operate freely on land.
Straylight from the Barony age onwards
Later on, as Ari learned of Seasteading (originally from R. Buckminster Fuller's concept of a floating city, the culture got completely upturned. The dolphins were completely forgotten and a new backstory was drafted.
Straylight, in its current incarnation, is an extremely loose conglomeration of city-states, each of which is built on a floating platform. These cities are called sancts in Straylightian English. Most sancts are built on floating spar platforms, but the largest ones - specifically Discontinuity - are "simpler" constructions with platforms inside artificial or natural breakwaters.
Straylightian society is mostly governed by a form of "unenlightened anarchism" - most forms of leadership are ad-hoc, any contact with a bureaucracy might just as likely to be painless as a long race through dark places and traditions of bribery, and vigilante justice is common and generally accepted despite being known to not always be accurate. Obviously, there are exceptions - several sancts contain authoritarian or theocratic enclaves, Discontinuity has a relatively large yet efficient and transparent public sector, and Pohjankaupunki has a relatively large, inefficient and opaque public sector.
The only common thread through the government of all of Straylight is the general adherence to the feudal system. While the feudal system currently basically "stops" at the level of the Duke of Straylight, the will of the Duke of Straylight, of the Landsraad, and of the Kaiser *is* considered the law in Straylight.
In the real Shireroth, the Duke of Straylight is Ari Rahikkala (by tradition). In the fantasy Shireroth, the current Duke of Straylight is Pero Zermelo, a mathematician from the sanct of Incremental Search. Straylightian feudal leaders in the "fantasy" Shireroth are chosen according to the rule that the threat posed by a leader is relative to zir ambition, their power, and their incompetence. People chosen to be Straylight's feudal leader are usually accomplished mathematicians, physicists, or medical doctors. However, businessmen, COSAC members, actors and the occasional athlete have also found their way to the top in Straylight's fictional history.
Sancts
Main article: Sancts
The word "sanct" was originally technically used only for free-floating cities on the high seas. This is because they actually were sanctuaries: Piracy is rampant in many parts of Shireroth, so much so that places like Norfolk and Port Nevermore are actually famous for their pirates. As piracy fosters in narrow straits and bays that are difficult to navigate, actually placing a city right on the high seas with no navigational hazards and plenty of oversight makes it practically impossible for pirates to operate.
Later on, however, the word has come to refer to every city in the Duchy of Straylight, whether it be a seafloor base, a large city on the high seas, or a small one in a bay or some other area that's safe from the winds.
The economically most important sancts are Discontinuity, Gensym and Pohjankaupunki.
The flag of Straylight
The flag of Straylight, also known as the RGB flag, was not designed. Like the best of them, it was discovered - Ari was playing around with zooming out from different fractals with different colouring options in XaoS, and from some set of choices that he's long since forgotten, this flag just happened to emerge. There's nothing fractalish about the flag, of course - in fact, the file you see was rendered by a little C program written for the task - but the point is that he was not trying to create a flag when he discovered this, and it was only by chance that XaoS happened to make one for him.
Being a discovered flag, the RGB flag does not have any intentional symbolism in it. For instance, the colours represent nothing but their own colour channels, and the shapes are, in a way, accidental. Despite this, it actually symbolises the culture of Straylight very well:
- It's perhaps not immediately recognisable as a flag, but it does follow many of the basic ideas of vexillology - Straylight's strange adhocracy hardly reminds one of an honest government, but the same basic ideas are there.
- The flag has a kind of a primitive symmetry and balance (but no actual axes of symmetry unless you render it in a way that makes it, well, something else than the flag of Straylight)... but despite being a "good idea" in theory, in practise the colours clash in horrible ways. Just like Straylightians often do.
- Still in another way it represents an ideal: If you understand basic colour theory and have in your life seen a plot of the function f(x) = -1/x, you can just look through the flag and see that the 18 different "pieces" of the flag are really made up of only three simple shapes... just as Straylightians believe that with the right knowledge there is a way to see through human nature and really improve and simplify society.
- Finally, the creation of the flag itself has its own symbolism. A flag that's designed would carry its creator's intent and by necessity stifle others' imagination. The RGB flag is free of that concern: What you see in it is your own business. A true Straylightian will seek to never prevent others from making their life what they want it to be. Not that there are all that many true Straylightians in Straylight, of course.
