The Touchstone Trilogy

Glossary

Agowla - The (fictional) high school Cass attended in Sydney.

AI - Artificial Intelligence.

Arenrhon - Settlement at site of underground installation of the Lantarens.

Aspro - Aspirin. Headache relief.

Atanra - A facility constructed near to the Muinan rift into deep-space. The word means passage.

Authoritah - This is an indication that Cassandra has watched South Park, and not a typo.

Aversan - The old Muinan name for the platform town discovered in her month on Muina (initially called Goralath by the Tarens).

Beanie - A close-fitting knitted hat.

Breaking, The - A Taren term for the disaster which shattered the spaces.

Buckley’s chance - Buckley was a convict in Australia who escaped and survived by living with Australian Aborigines. The phrase means "nearly impossible".

Café Crescent - Pandora’s first café.

Carche Landing - The main airport in Unara.

Casszilla - Rawr!

Caves of Nonora - A Taren children’s story, where Til, Magara and Nosk discover an entrance to the kingdom of the Tarull, deep below Unara.

Channa - A rocky planet inhabited by ex-Muinans living a nomadic tribal life. Tare has established a mine on Channa in an area of land isolated from the inhabitants.

Chapstick - Lip moisturiser.

Chune - One of the ships KOTIS uses to travel between Tare, Kolar and Muina.

Copped a Serve - Received a barrage of anger.

Council of Tare - The Lahanti (mayors) of the cities of Tare.

Cruzatch - A dangerous humanoid Ionoth, shadow burning white.

Dazenti - Swarming phasic Ionoth: capable of passing through walls.

Ddura - An enormous energy being created by the Lantarens.

Deep-space - The large portion of the Ena which exists between the memory spaces. It is white in appearance, and filled with gates which open directly to real-space worlds.

Deep-space Ionoth - Ionoth which are formed and dwell not in the relatively small Spaces, but instead in Deep-space.

Delar - A Taren measurement unit – roughly 75 centimetres.

Despawn - Disappear, vanish. Taken from computer games where a monster is said to spawn when it appears in the game world, and despawn when it disappears (usually after being killed).

Diodel - One of the ships KOTIS uses to travel between Tare, Kolar and Muina.

Do Not Go Gentle - "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", a poem by Dylan Thomas.

Dohl Array - A series of underwater farms on Tare.

Drone - An advanced robot, usually used for scanning and monitoring.

Drop Bears - Important Tourist Advisory: Please wear protective head gear when walking beneath gum trees in Australia.

Ena - A dimension connected to the thoughts, memories, dreams and imagination of living beings.

Ena manipulation - A psychic talent which can change the substance of the Ena, particularly in stabilising gates between spaces. It can also be used in a limited way to change reality.

Expecto Patronum - Looks like Cass has read Harry Potter.

Escort quest - A mission in an online game involving protection of a non-player character while they travel.

Faer - The Senior Captain in the Taren entertainment The Hidden War. Played by Eyle Sured.

Fahr - Kolaren treacle tea.

Falazen - A platform town ruled by border collies.

Fan service - Revealing or provocative shots of characters in anime/manga.

Fanfic - Fiction based on the stories of others and/or fiction involving a person of whom the writer is a fan.

Firiana - A platform town east of Pandora, situated among the islands of the surri.

First level monitoring - Interface monitoring which triggers an alert if certain conditions are reached (eg. loss of consciousness, heart attack). All residents of Tare are on first level monitoring.

Francesca - Francesca is a flowering shrub also known as "Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow" because its flowers fade from purple to violet to near-white as they age.

Gate - A tear or rift between spaces/worlds.

Gate Sight - A psychic talent which can judge the status of gates between spaces.

Gate-lock - An enclosure built around a gate from near-space to real-space to prevent Ionoth from passing through.

Gelzz - A now nearly-extinct cave-dwelling Taren insect noted for its tendency to admit a lingering rotten odour as a defence mechanism.

Goralath - The name originally given to the ruins where Pandora is later established.

Gorra - The first island settled on Tare.

Hasata - A city on Tare.

House Dayen - One of the leading Lantaren groups on pre-destruction Muina, and architects of the Pillars project.

House Renar - A Nuran House which was given the care of Sentarestel after her parents' deaths.

House Zolen - A Lantaren group on pre-destruction Muina believed responsible for the Arenrhon installation.

HSC - Higher School Certificate. Received when graduating from high school in Australia.

Ian Thorpe - A famous Australian swimmer.

In-skin - An immersive interface experience where most of the senses – sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste – are stimulated.

Interface - An in-body nanite installation used by Tarens as personal computers/the Taren internet.

Ionoth - Creatures which form in the Ena, usually remnants of the dreams and nightmares of inhabited planets.

Ista - An honorific for medical doctors.

Isten - Professor.

Joden - The Taren equivalent of a minute, though the unit is longer than an Earth minute. One hundred joden equal a kasse.

Kadara - Naturally-forming massive Ionoth.

Kalane - A medium-sized island city near the Dohl Array.

Kalasa - The training city of the Lantarens.

Kalrani - Trainees not yet qualified as Setari.

Kasse - The Taren equivalent of an hour, spanning approximately two and a half Earth hours.

Kaszandra - The KOTIS research facility on Kalasa’s island.

Keszen Point - An outlying island of Konna used for warehousing.

Kolar - A hot, arid world settled by Muinan refugees, and advanced technologically by the Tarens.

Konna - Both the city and the island where the main KOTIS base is located on Tare.

KOTIS - An acronym for the "Agency for Ionoth Research and Protection".

Kuna - Supplementary memory provided by the interface.

Lahanti - Leaders of the cities of Tare – an equivalent to a mayor of a city-state.

Lantar/Lantarens - The ruling class of Muina before the disaster. Powerful psychics.

Lastier - A fictional equivalent of Kaoren Ruuel from the Taren entertainment The Hidden War. Played by Teral Saith.

Litara - One of the ships KOTIS uses to travel between Tare, Kolar and Muina.

Lolcat - I can haz cheeseburger?

Lord Vetinari - A most Machiavellian ruler, found in the Discworld books of Terry Pratchett.

Luim - One of the ships KOTIS uses to travel between Tare, Kolar and Muina.

Machiavelli - To Cass, Machiavelli is "Lord Vetinari, except real". Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian Renaissance writer whose book The Prince sets out a model of political stability achieved through not necessarily moral means.

March of Dawn - A traditional Muinan ceremony held in Spring. Flowers are carried to symbolise the birth of a new year.

Massives - Ionoth of unusually large dimensions.

Mea Culpa - Through my fault - acknowledging an error/taking the blame.

Mesara - One of the ships KOTIS has assigned to Muina.

Mesiath - A southern hemisphere city in a tall tree forest.

Moon Piazza - An enormous crescent shaped open area at the eastern base of the amphitheatre hill at Pandora. [Desza Tohl in Taren.]

Muina - A world abandoned after a disaster brought about by the Lantaren psychics.

Nanites - A machine or robot on a microscopic scale.

Nanna Nap - A short nap in the daytime, for the less active grandmothers.

Near-space - The envelope of Ena immediately surrounding a world, full of reflections of the world as it currently is – and it’s most recent nightmares.

Night on Bald Mountain - A composition by Modest Mussorgsky. Cass has encountered it in Disney’s Fantasia.

Nikko Pen - Permanent marker.

Noob - A new gamer who does not fully understand how to play/someone new.

Nori - The main character of the Taren entertainment The Hidden War. Played by Lanset Kameer.

Not happy, Jan - A popular phrase taken from an Australian television commercial for Yellow Pages.

NPCs - Non-player characters – a gaming term for characters in a game which you are not expected to fight.

Nuri - A pastoral moon inhabited by ex-Muinans.

Nurioth - One of the largest ruined cities on Muina.

OMGWTF - Oh my god, what the fuck?!

Oriath - A Muinan city, ruled by House Zolen.

Ormon of Nent - The hereditary ruler of Kolar’s northern kingdom.

Pandora - First Taren settlement on Muina.

PAoN - Profound Awareness of Nils

Path Sight - A talent for location.

Pelamath - An equatorial platform town located on top of a plateau.

Pippin - A small animal of excessive cuteness.

Pissed off - Made angry. [Pissed can mean angry or drunk in Australia.]

Public Space - Virtual décor visible to all interface users/anything accessible to all interface users.

PVP - Combat in online games where players fight other players rather than computer-controlled opponents.

Pwn - Defeat comprehensively – a gamer term.

Rotation - Setari missions in the Ena designed to cover Ionoth respawn near Taren cities.

Rotational space - A space in the Ena which moves so that its gates regularly align and move out of alignment.

Rukmor - Appointed heads of various sciences and arts on Tare. Forms part of the world government.

Rule 34 - Rule 34 of the Internet: If it exists, there will be porn of it.

Schoolies - Australian high school graduates celebrating the end of school during "Schoolies Week". Primarily located around the Gold Coast in Queensland.

Searns - A Setari squad member on the Taren entertainment The Hidden War. Roak Larion.

Second level monitoring - A safety/security interface setting causing all sights and sounds experienced by the monitored person to be retained in a secure log which can be accessed under exceptional circumstances.

Setari - Psychic combat Specialists trained since childhood to combat Ionoth.

Sf&f - Science fiction and fantasy.

Shared Space - The interface equivalent of a conference call.

Shattering, The - A Nuran term for the disaster which shattered the spaces.

Shim - A Squad Emerald Setari in the Taren entertainment The Hidden War.

Smex - Sex with added m.

Smutfic - Erotic fanfiction.

Solaria - An icy world settled by ex-Muinans. Currently not located by Tare.

Southern Ancipars - The three elected rulers of Kolar’s southern country.

Soylent Green - Is people!

Spaces - A concept used in multiple contexts on Tare, covering world, dimension, area, region of the interface, and many others, but most particularly a bubble containing a fragment of a world remembered and reproduced by the Ena.

Stickie - A parasitic Ionoth capable of living within a host human. Difficult to detect.

Stilt - A spindly-legged deep-space Ionoth.

Stray - A person who walked through a wormhole through the Ena to another planet.

Super Sight Six - An old Taren TV series about psychic detectives.

Surri - A native Muinan animal with an appearance of slender, dog-like seals.

Suyul - A pink flower (also pink/white-skinned).

Swoops - A variety of deep-space Ionoth resembling a pterodactyl.

Tai - Old Muinan for Lake

Tai Medlair - The Old Muinan name for the lake where Pandora is located.

Tairo - A kick-ass ball sport.

Talent - A psychic ability.

Tanty - Tantrum.

Tanz - Taren air transport.

Tarani - A many-legged deep-space Ionoth reminiscent of a caterpillar.

Tare - A harsh, storm-wracked world settled by Muinan refugees. The highly technologically advanced inhabitants live crammed into massive whitestone cities.

Taren year - One third of an Earth year.

The Hidden War - A Taren entertainment based on the Setari.

Therouk Island - A food processing island, with a small residential portion.

Third level monitoring - Active observation of everything a subject sees and hears.

Thousand Cats, A - See Neil Gaiman’s "Dream of a Thousand Cats" in the Sandman series.

Thredbo - An Australian ski resort.

Timesa - A food processing island, with a moderate residential portion.

tl;dr - Too long; didn’t read.

Tola - A classification of Ionoth which have little physical substance.

Toolies - Adults preying on teenagers during Schoolies Week/pretending to be a Schoolie.

Touchstone - The subject of the story.

True-space - The world, not the Ena.

Tsa - An honorific which is the equivalent for Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss.

Tsaile - Commander.

Tsee - Setari Squad Captain.

Tsur - Director.

Tupal Rock - A small cluster of rocks which form the nearest island to Pandora.

Twig/twigged - Realise.

Tyu - A zither-like musical instrument.

Unara - The largest city on Tare, located on the island of Wehana.

Unco - Uncoordinated.

Unstable rotation - A rotation where the spaces are more likely to change and bring unexpected situations.

Wangst - Self-indulgent angst.

Wehana - The largest island on Tare, almost entirely covered by the city of Unara.

Wharra - One of the ships KOTIS uses to travel between Tare, Kolar and Muina.

Whitestone - A building substance formed with nanites.

Wuss - Wimp, coward.

Wut - What, with added incredulity.

Year 10 Formal - An end-of-year dress up dance held by schools in Australia.

Zarath - The nobility of Nuri

Zelkasse - A quarter of a kasse.