New type of character for FTL:2448: "Le Ractua"

First off, I had to learn a little Loglan to come up with this name. "Le ractua" literally means "the traveling worker", and can be interpreted as a "migrant worker". Ractuas (lo ractua, "lo" is how you say some thing is many or plural.) are the stellar migrant workers of FTL:2448. I admit that I got this idea from the wonderful online comic Dicebox by Jenn Manley Lee. A story of two migrant workers plying the starlanes.

When a seasonal business needs a "grupa turka" (a bunch of workers) they will hire this unique breed of migrant worker. Lo ractua are a group of workers that take working passage on ships, or ride in cryosleep to the next world that has "ro fu corperpli" or many temp jobs.

Many colonies don't have the people to do all the jobs that are available or only occur at irregular times. The lo ractua fill that role. They travel from system to system, from fu corperpli to fu corperpli. They don't earn much, just enough to keep food in their stomach, and to pay for ice bed on the next trip. If they can wrangle a "le fu corperpli sea racketpi" or working passage, they will, as most dislike cryosleep.

There are generations of lo ractua wending their ways through ISCO space, after the next job and dry place to sleep. Many are in need of adequate health care, and most shy away from the authorities, as they don't trust the ICL or ISCO.

Third or fourth generation lo ractua speak nothing but Loglan, are slightly taller than grounders, and have connections everywhere, even on good ole mother Earth. Typically these lo ractua have a strong constitution and a stronger back, but may be missing minor body parts like fingers or other appendages. Normally, they travel either as complete family units, or as pairs, typically as a civil union couple, whether or not they actually are.

Some "lo ractua kulgru" (migrant worker clans) have been able to pool their money and buy a claptrap of a space ship, and then form one of the infamous kibbutz ships. Most of these ships have seen better days, hell, better centuries, and only by dint of constant repair and scavenging parts, do they even fly. If caught by a ICL patrol boat with nothing better to do, they are typically towed to the nearest planet and the ship impounded. This typically lasts until the kulgru can pool enough money to get the ship out of impound orbit and off they go again.

This is just the beginning for this concept. I plan to expand it some more.

Snapshots: Life on Alverez Station

From Fegbottom's Guide to Alverez Station:

...One thing that strikes many a sentient, is the how safe it is on a space station with a million inhabitants. And the reason for this is one of the most contentious and controversial practice ever discussed in known space: Behavioral Modification.

Every child on the station is monitored and "guided" to be a productive and law abiding citizen of the station. "I wouldn't have it any other way," says Eugene Jackson, head of the BeHave line of behavioral modification clinics that dot the station and on other colonies. "We live in an artificial environment, were one mishap can kill hundreds, if not thousands. We try to guide dangerous behavior that is not only tolerated, but almost encouraged in grounder cultures. Behaviors that cannot be allowed at all on our station."

Even immigrants to the station have to go through a personality screening, before being allowed to settle permanently on the station, and some immigrants do not pass. But to be honest, those who do not pass are the aberrations of their own culture, and to far gone for BeHave treatments. But not for full reconstruction and retraining, colloquially known as "R&R" or "Clockworking"

"I dislike the term 'clockworking'," says District Attorney Grisna F'be, "as it has some unsavory connotations. In any case, a sentence of reconstruction and retraining is only carried out on those individuals found guilty of a crime and those individuals cannot be assisted by a course of BeHave treatments. At that point we have the choice of either exiling the person or to try to make him, her or rie a productive member of society. If that means rebuilding the personality from the ground up, then that's what we have to do."...

...A visit to a classroom looks to be ordinary enough, but if you watch carefully, you may see that those children that resort to violence are sent to a small BeHave clinic in the school and have a session with the BeHave clinician about their anti-social tendencies. Surprisingly, this session does not involve drugs or hypnotic trances, but a one on one discussion between the clinician and the troubled child.

Of course there are stories where the result of these session ends up with the child's parents and siblings being summarily sent to a BeHave clinic for "Family Therapy". Interestingly enough, no official denies this happening...

"We have tried several times to change the laws of Alverez Station, but we are stymied," says Gregor Dean, of the ICLU. "Alverez Station is not a government per se, but a corporation, and as a corporation, they can enact rules and regulations that on other worlds would be illegal under ISCO and ICL laws. Life on Alverez Station is very much a 'Brave New World Order'."

"Rie Dean is blowing vacuum," replies Stationmaster Paulo Alverez. "The ICLU lives on a dirt ball, with free air and water for the taking. If some gangbanger opens up with a weapon in a building, no one is sucked out into space from the holes in the wall. The fumes from a Tri-meth-alze lab do not get into the lifesystem and poison thousands. We live in a very controlled environment, with a very hostile one outside our walls. We have to control those dangerous behaviors and personalities or thousands will die. And its not as though we are suppressing aggressive behavior. Far from that, in fact any one will tell you our traders and merchants are far from being benign pushovers. We know you cannot suppress aggression, so we instead redirect it into other areas, more often than not, into areas of interest that the person already has.

"I myself am a product of our system. I chose to redirect my aggression from hurting others to administrating and organizing groups. I used that aggression to become the best damn administrator and stationmaster Alverez Station has ever seen." It must be noted that despite his surname, Rie Alverez is not from the founding family Alverez, but the son of parents who came to the station fifty years ago.

So as a word of warning, if you come to Alverez Station for a visit, keep a cool head and stay honest...


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