Shadow Man

~

Mesnie, mesnies: (Hara) basic unit of (traditional) Haran society, a group of households (i.e., a man, a woman, and their children) living together in a single compound and usually working together at a profession or industry; all the households in mesnie are related, and marriage within the mesnie is considered incest and forbidden.

Clan: (Hara) one of the fourteen political, social, and familial groupings that form the basis of Haran society; although the people who formed the first clans were not actually related, but rather chose to affiliate themselves with one of the original fourteen founders, at this point the clans are interrelated in complex and often confusing fashion. Each clan controls a particular territory, which varies in the quality and abundance of its resources; the Stane clan has parlayed their original good luck into economic and political dominance of the planet.

Watch: (Hara) largest division of Haran society, based on the original divisions of the ship that brought the first colonists to Hara. There are five Watches: White (command), Blue (medical/scientific), Black (engineering), Green (land-trained colonists), and Red (ocean-trained colonists). Watches retain certain administrative duties, and are also used to determine marriageability; the larger clans are split between Watches to help keep the genetic mix stable.