The Lonely Galaxy Wiki

Painting yourself into an evolutionary corner - created

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-15T11:00:14+00:00

Painting yourself into an evolutionary corner One of my big fears about humanity as a species is that we may have painted ourselves into an evolutionary corner. Our bodies are built for persistence hunting in a wide-open Savannah. We're wired to seek out sources of quick energy, and store that energy as fat when it's not immediately needed. We're also not built to live in a society consisting of hundreds of millions of other people. Back in the stone age your little tribe may be the only other …

Commonthroat - [Indirect Objects]

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-11T15:49:22+00:00

Commonthroat Commonthroat is the most widely spoken language among yinrih. Because yinrih do not use their teeth, tongue, or lips when speaking, they refer to languages as throats rather than tongues. The yinrih are not united as a species, and Focus, their home star system, is home to several political powers that speak different languages. Commonthroat is the official language of the Allied Worlds, a political union of most of the inner planets that currently enjoys a degree of cultural and e…

Early firearms - created

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-09T18:09:52+00:00

Early firearms Early firearms came in two types: low-precision back-mounted shotguns that could be fired while moving, and high precision rifles that could be stored on the back but had to be removed and mounted on a bipod or similar to aim and fire.

Writing claw

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-08T15:03:52+00:00

Writing claw The anatomy of the writing claw. 1: ink sac, 2: phalanges, 3: ink duct, 4: digital pad, 5: claw The writing claw can refer to the claw of the digit next to the inner thumb of the forepaw, or to the entire digit analogous to a human's index finger.

newhome_city_2.jpg - created

visions1 (visions1@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-08T03:57:14+00:00

newhome_city_1.jpg - created

visions1 (visions1@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-08T03:57:14+00:00

newhome_city_3.jpg - created

visions1 (visions1@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-08T03:56:03+00:00

underlay_inside.jpg - created

visions1 (visions1@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-08T03:52:41+00:00

underlay_edge.jpg - created

visions1 (visions1@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-08T03:51:24+00:00

steadfruit.jpg - created

visions1 (visions1@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-08T03:35:26+00:00

Dual Grav Suit

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-08T00:27:15+00:00

Dual Grav Suit Finally something cool for humans! This is a dual grav suit, which is powered armor designed for humans living on the Split Horizon. Its most notable feature is the caudal prosthesis, an artificial tail emerging from the middle of the suit's back (rather than the base of the spine as would be expected). It's meant to tether the center of mass to paw cables and tail bars designed for vulpithecine use. The

dual_grav_suit.png - created

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-08T00:04:28+00:00

Zap Rat King - created

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-06-04T13:30:22+00:00

Zap Rat King 'Member the eusocial swarming carnivorous zap rats I mentioned a while back? Well what if they're not just eusocial, but a quasi colonial organism? They're physically stuck together in a manner similar to a rat or squirrel king, perhaps with tree sap, which is how it often happens to squirrels. They learn to not just survive like this, but thrive, coordinating moving, hunting, and feeding.

Yinrih medical cadavers - created

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-05-30T17:41:04+00:00

Yinrih medical cadavers It just occurred to me that the donation of medical cadavers would go both ways, so humans would have yinrih cadavers to study. Given how important first contact is to yinrih culture, and coupled with their particular way of honoring their dead, human doctors would have a

Audio Samples - created

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-05-29T01:08:27+00:00

Audio Samples An overall impression of yinrih speech from a human perspective. An attempt at synthesis meta

gjg_attempt_2.wav - created

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-05-29T01:07:46+00:00

Surface Pressure of Yih - created

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-05-27T21:38:59+00:00

Surface Pressure of Yih So I'm trying to calculate the average surface pressure on Yih assuming the total mass of the atmosphere is the same as Earth. To find the total mass of the atmosphere, you multiply pressure by surface area and divide by surface gravity. Rearranging that to find the pressure, you multiply mass by gravity and divide by pressure.

Art Angst - created

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-05-27T18:27:14+00:00

Art Angst Ron sat in an overstuffed armchair hunched over an iPad, stylus in hand. The tablet's screen cast a feeble bluish-white glow over the rough popcorn ceiling of his darkened living room. The midnight silence was punctuated by the quiet ticks of a cheap wall clock, one that Ron had little use for. It was just a white circle on the wall as far as he was concerned.

Nanosuns - created

lurker (lurker@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-05-23T13:14:56+00:00

Nanosuns This is a snippet that may be incorporated into a future story. Pilgrims' Rest was the last dwarf planet in the Outer Belt to have a working nanosun (the massive orbital star hearths tended by the sunwrights). ---------- Pilgrims' Rest was known as the oasis of the Outer Belt, the last dwarf planet with a working nanosun, a tiny artificial star orbiting the planet, providing not only enough light and heat to give us a perpetual spring, but a protective magnetosphere to keep our atmos…

More on Micro Mechs - ↷ Links adapted because of a move operation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-05-22T22:49:30+00:00

More on Micro Mechs [image] Here's a healer's micro mech. The device above the mech is a biopsy capsule. They're stored on the mech's back in those pods, and expand outward into a ring. Starched over the ring is an elastic polymer that engulfs the mass or tumor or polyp or whatever the healer needs to extract, and can re-attach to the back once collected. The mech's muzzle has whiskers that translate tactile information to a helmet worn by the healer, and there are also olfactory relays on th…