Poswob culture and sociolinguistics

Moonshine is a language spoken mostly in cold climates north of Poswob territory. Throughout its history, it has been a very rapidly changing language, in both grammar and phonology, such that speakers at one time could not understand texts written 200 years earlier. For example, Diʕìlas tĭniku "doll" becomes Poswa tinik, Pabappa timpi, Sakhi tiniu, and Moonshine č. Another example is Diʕìləs luməs "sunshine" becomes Poswa rumus, Sakhi lump, and Moonshine lut, though not all preserve the meaning. (This word disappeared in Pabappa.)

Culture

The first thing outsiders notice about the Moonshine people is that their women are consistently taller than their men. This is a biological trait, not due to high heels or any other type of clothing the speakers wear. In fact, despite most of their people living in very cold climates, they don't tend to wear thick boots that would give them extra height. Although Moonshines are a blend of various peoples from around the world, the tall-female trait is impressively consistent throughout the empire and has even bled out into the neighboring Poswob Empire (Pusapom) which largely encircles the southern rim of the Moonshine Empire. The Moonshines know that being tall-femaled is unusual on this planet, but their societies are almost perfectly homogeneous and they do not think about it very often, because to anyone in any part of the Moonshine Empire, women being taller than men is unquestionably normal. And because this trait has pushed its way well beyond their borders, Moonshines are not in contact with tall-male populations even at the edges of their Empire.

Thus Moonshine is a strongly feminist society, and this is a stable trait, not reliant on police or weapons any other artificial structure to keep women in power. They tend to have a high birthrate, even though their disproportionately large wombs are no more likely to conceive multiple births, because the female-led culture sees a large family as the primary measure of power, rather than accumulating wealth or weapons. This same ideal of high-birthrate feminism has led the tall-female parts of the Poswob Empire to outgrow the tall-male ones and essentially turn Pusapom into another feminist empire led from its North.

They are also very pacifistic, although they were pacifist even before they developed the trait of tall women, and there are other societies on this planet that are far, far more pacifistic than Moonshines, to the point of dying by the hundreds whenever a wild animal such as a pig or wolf gets into a town. Moonshines live in very cold climates, such that life for any other human culture except for some of the Poswobs would be essentially impossible, and therefore they rely almost entirely on eating animals for food. Although the Moonshines are settled thinly enough that they could likely survive entirely on animals such as penguins who vastly outnumber humans and die frequently of natural causes, Moonshine society relies on a stable food supply and that means making hunting animals a regular part of daily life.

Because women are taller than men, they are generally stronger than men even though they have less muscle. This leads to the fact that men attacking women is considered "fair", even though it is discouraged the way all violence is disourcaged. Basically they dont have a "fairer sex" because men and women are weak in different ways. They are like young children, or like video game people where all women are magical and can entrap men with Womb Magic, etc, even though they are weak to physical attacks that men are not weak to.

The Moonshine Empire consists mostly of territories that were never claimed by other peoples. Although they have been unified as a single empire for thousands of years and wielded immense military power, very rarely have they started wars to take over new lands to add to the Empire. However they have absorbed aboriginal peoples through slow-paced conflicts where the Moonshines overwhelmed the aboriginals by birth power rather than weapons. Even then, however, the remaining aboriginals blended into the Moonshine society rather than being killed. This is why even today there are very few ethnic minorities anywhere within the Moonshine Empire.

All of the constituent states within the Empire are defined by water boundaries: either they are islands, groups of islands, coastal land areas, or in one case a state separated by a powerful river from another state.

Most Moonshine territory is very cold, with an average temperature below freezing, and in many areas it is well below freezing. They do have some warmer lands, with the warmest parts of the territory consisting of inland semiarid valleys with average temperatures of around 51°F ... similar to Vancouver or Toronto. Thus Moonshine territory could be compared to Russia or to Canada plus Greenland in terms of climate. However, unlike these countries, the warm areas of the Moonshine Empire which would be good for farming are still as sparsely settled as the frigid icecapped areas because Moonshines can actually survive quite well with just the animal food sources.

States

Safiz

Safiz

Sàfiz is the most powerful and most populated state in the Empire. It is also in the unusual situation of being a subject state of two different empires: the Moonshine Empire and the Ogili Empire. Officially, Ogili speakers pay taxes to the Ogili capital and Moonshine speakers pay taxes to the Moonshine imperial capital (which is also the capital of Safiz), honoring a treaty that is over 2000 years old. In practice, though, taxation is paid at the municipal level, and each city either goes 100% Moonshine or 100% Ogili, with most going Moonshine. This is a recent phenomenon. Historically, although the Moonshines reached Safiz first, they were conquered and demographically overwhelmed by invading Ogili speakers, and the Ogili capital was in central Safiz. However, as the center of economic power moved south, Ogili speakers began to leave Safiz, and those who stayed had a much lower birthrate than the rural Moonshine aboriginals.

Mixed marriages tended to side with Moonshine as well, though these were rare because of the tall female/tall male mismatch along with geographical and economic separation. (Although Moonshine men were shorter than the women of both nations, Ogili women could choose between tall Ogili men and short Moonshine men. Thus Ogili women nearly always chose Ogili men. Meanwhile, Moonshine women did sometimes pair with tall Ogili men, but such mixed marriages tended to also identify as Moonshine if they remained poor, and to leave the state if they became rich.) Today Safiz is over 95% Moonshine and the Ogili imperial capital is on the warm west coast. Note that most mixed marriages in Safiz happened either during the early or the late periods of cohabitation, not during the middle when there were few Moonshines left in the area. However, one exception to the pattern is that mixed marriages where the sons tended to be taller than the daughters would often switch sides even if they had previously identified as Moonshine, due to the Moonshine culture's inability to accept tall men as natives. Even so, these families would not have the high birth rates of the other Moonshines and tended to slowly die off if they did not assimilate into Ogili culture.

Thus Safiz is a de facto Moonshine territory, though it still swears loyalty to the Ogili Empire and has fought in Ogili's wars where the rest of the Moonshines have not. In fact, both sides realize that Safiz's army could probably conquer all of Ogili if it wanted to, but has chosen not to do so because Ogili is an ally that supplies Safiz and the rest of the Moonshine Empire with wealth and tropical foods that could not easily otherwise reach them. In turn, Ogili wants Safiz to stay because of their military power and the fact that the rest of the Moonshine Empire tends to follow along with them. Thus both sides prefer geographical and political unity.

Tòdʔřóm

Did I spell this right? Sorry, even I have trouble with it. Todrom is a state that is often mistakenly believed, even by the Moonshines themselves, to be the original Moonshine homeland, because it is very cold and Moonshine settlements often seem to have radiated outward in all directions from northern Todrom. But actually this is not so. Todrom is merely the first place where a Moonshine society won a battle with an Ogili army, and was given independence and a land to call their own. The pattern of settlement is indeed due to Moonshines leaving Todrom for warmer areas of the Empire, but on the way they encountered and absorbed older Moonshine settlements, some of which were in place before Todrom had even been discovered.

The climate of Tòdʔřóm is similar to that of Alaska, in the sense that it is very diverse, ranging from subarctic but with fairly mild snowy winters along the west coast to -50F as the average winter temperature in the highlands near the Xeman border. Most of Todrom is very windy which makes the winters and even the summers feel considerably colder than temperature would indicate.

Moonshines as minorities

Besides the example of Safiz up above, many Moonshines live in warm climates outside their parent empire.

Pusapom

In the Poswob Empire, known as Pusapom, Moonshine speakers are often aggressive. They have carved out four states of their own, and ruled out all non-Moonshines including even the Poswobs from visiting. Pusapom still provides them economic assistance even though the Moonshines do not need to pay taxes to the central government in Blop. This is all done by Moonshines employed by the government, as any Poswobs found in the empire, even with good intent, can be enslaved or killed at will. Moreover, Moonshines leaving their own territory are allowed to break some of the laws of the Poswob Empire, such as visiting other forbidden territories and hunting animals for food. Nevertheless, Moonshines do not exist solely to abuse the Poswobs; the Poswob military is famously weak and when the Empire has been invaded by other hungry foreigners the Moonshines have fought in the war even though they knew that they themselves were not the targets of the invaders. And they have given shelter to Poswobs who would otherwise be in danger.

It should be noted that the reason for the Moonshines' presence so deep inside Pusapom's borders is that they were the previous inhabitants of a much wider territory, but Poswobs filled in the spaces around them, eventually leaving them surrounded on all sides. Thus it is historically the Poswobs that are the invaders. This is also why they are not generally in danger during wars: they are among the deepest parts of the Empire and all invasions hurt mostly the people living at the edges. This territory is also the only Moonshine-speaking area that extends into a subtropical climate, and true tropical climates are very near by. However, the population density is no higher here than in the colder mountainous areas because Moonshines do not generally live on tropical fruits.

As Pusapom is also primarily a tall-femaled society, Moonshine people living in Pusapom are not treated with the same mix of disbelief and sexual curiosity that they are in other areas such as Ogili.

Ogili

In Ogili, Moonshines are noticeable primarily because of their strong tendency for their women to be taller than their men. In Safiz, although their growth took more than 500 years, it was quite noticeable, and the leaders of the Ogili side of the coopereative government were afraid that Moonshines would smother them and feminize their men until their military was so helpless that both sides would soon become slaves of a foreign power. Even though Ogilians and Moonshines had been living together for over 4000 years, on the individual level, most people had little contact with the other side. Ogilians couldn't take the threat of a society led by women seriously, and many Ogili men imagined the Moonshine settlements as merely a utopia of hypersexual societies without men in which they could settle freely and take multiple wives while making slaves of the native male population. But Moonshine women largely rejected them, and this repeated itself over and over as Ogili men were to slow to learn and their own birthrate was in decline.

In the end, fears of an all-female Moonshine army feminizing the few remaining Ogili men were unfounded, and in fact Safiz became the military leader of both Empires with both sexes serving in the military at all levels. Nevertheless, this turn of events corresponded with the flight of most economic activity into warmer climates where there was less emphasis on military power. Thus Safiz remained poor, and survived mainly as a check on the power of the other richer states through the threat of civil war. Many Safiz battalions are called on to other parts of the Empire for protection, often in a position more reminiscent of police than an army. Since their battalions are gender-mixed, they can even marry and have children while serving "in the army". Pregnancy and childbirth does not excuse them from military service, but the state they are living in is obligated to pay extra money to the mother for child support, and the family can even choose to stay there after their service is over.

As for the rest of Ogili, the situation was similar, but less advanced. Moonshine is spoken well outside the formal borders of the Moonshine Empire, and tall women are a majority well beyond even that. But neither trait has yet broken the borders of the economically advanced capital states of Goga, which is the economic powerhouse of the Empire. Feministic societies tend to thrive where economic poverty is widespread, and paradoxically tend to be the most well-defended areas militarily for several reasons:

• All of the society, both male and female, is ready to fight, whereas in the rich coastal cities everyone is unarmed and generally working in jobs that make them easy targets during a war.
• The birthrate in Moonshine societies is well above average for the Ogili Empire, and since they live primarily in low-energy cold climates, food is scarce. None of their territory could reasonably be called overpopulated, but the threat of starvation is real enough that a life devoted to the military is only slightly more dangerous.
• Although Moonshine women have largely rejected attempts by Ogilian men to mate with them, the male jealousy they see is real, and Moonshine men (and some women) are strongly racist towards any foreigners they see as a physical or sexual threat they aren't equipped to handle. This leads them to become even more militarized near their borders, even though they still officially adhere to pacifism, and to exaggerate any crimes against their people to the point of raiding Ogili towns and sometimes killing innocent people, and then threatening even harsher punishment if the Ogilians retaliated.

Nokʷ

The state of Nokʷ does not have a significant population of Moonshines. However, it borders Goga, which does, and the Moonshine language has spread out through the Nokʷ school system, such that is has become the majority language of Nokʷ. This happened by friendly contact even though the Moonshines were officially placed right at the border in order to stop the Nokʷ people from invading Goga.

This is an example of a pure cultural diffusion with no exchange of population, and thus an exception to the rule that the tall-female phenotype pushes out further than the Moonshine language and culture. Nokʷ's people are essentially pure descendants of the Khulls settlers from 4600 years ago, meaning men are much taller than women, and lack the tough skln and high body fat proportions of the Moonshines and other cold climate peoples. Nokʷ culture is partially defined by a boundary encircling warm, snowless climates, where simple agriculture is possible (though even they do not have grains) and wild animals tend to be the types that have sharp claws and teeth rather than overwhelming humans with pure body size.

Nokʷ is the type of area that is surprisingly warm and sunny, like Oregon & Washington in the USA where people from out of state say "What do you mean 115 degrees Fahrenheit? I thought it was always cold and rainy here?"

Goga

As above, Moonshine living in Goga are primarily soldiers or descendants of soldiers, and have not integrated well into Goga society, or even learned to speak the local language. They are only about 8% of the population, but are sometimes confused with Poswobs who are about 15%. Anti-Moonshine politicians are afraid that the Moonshines will absorb the Poswobs and unite against the Goga majority, and perhaps even bring in allies such as the Nokʷ people who seem suspiciously friendly towards the Moonshines even though the Moonshines were invited in specifically to protect against Nokʷ. Most politicians are too embarrassed to admit that two feministic societies which combined only make up 23% of the population could feasibly overthrow the entire government, but the fear is well-founded based on all the other societies they've overturned.

Xema

Xema is a country with a climate and shape similar to Greenland. Even the famously cold-tolerant Moonshines do not have large settlements here, but instead move along the icebound coast perpetually looking for better fishing spots. They also eat birds, and birds also eat them. They share this territory with the similarly nomadic Andanese peoples who were expelled from their homeland 4600 years earlier and have remained essentially unchanged in the meantime. Andanese women outgrow their men by an even wider margin than Moonshines do, but both sexes are very small-framed in general.

The interior of Xema is essentially uninhabited, but those Moonshines who can handle -128F temperatures will sometimes follow migrating birds who themselves are hiding out from danger in order to bring home more food. Even at the apex of summer, no food ever spoils in the high icecapped areas, so any killed animal can be left indefinitely.

Elsewhere

Poswobs have a few cities outside their empire. One is on the far east coast, the only east-coast city populated by Poswobs. It is difficult to reach, since one must cross 6000 foot glaciers to get there from the rest of the empire, but the east coast people around them are glad to have an outlet to the rest of the world through those glaciers. It is a rare example where Poswobs are the upper class, because all the other people are dependent on trade with the Poswob Empire and most are not willing to deal with -55F temperatures to get it.

Animals

Poswobs are the most interspecies people in the world, in the sense that they have the most different species of sentient animals living with them. The way they handle things is a bit different than Moonshines though.

Penguins

Penguins live in a fairly restricted area of the land. However, this happens to be exactly the same areas that humans live in, so the species are in common contact. Penguins and humans communicate primarily through hand signals, with one sign for each letter. Penguins also have their own series of languages, which is even more diverse than the human series, and appears nothing like any of them. Few humans have learned these languages, but in grammar they are surprisingly similar to those of humans, so "immersion" is possible. Of course since humans have lips and penguins have beaks the himans' attempt to speak is very different in sound, but again, still possible, because the penguins' phonologies tend to have only a few consonants. Common consonant invernoties are /p ḅ m s l/ or /p b m s w/. Consonants are mosdtly bilabials because that is what humans are most comfortable with and it makes it easier for te penguins to see. Nontheless, even though pegnuins have good hearing, sometimes it is better to have just 1 consojnant at each POa, hence the subtle differences in POA in setups like /p ḅ m s l/ (even here, /p/ and /m/ share a spot, thoiugh).

Penguins range in size from 0.2 humans to 13 humans. They have a much more meat-heavy diet than humans, but both eat primarily fish. This puts the two species in competition, but violent incidents are rare because both species are sparse enough that there is generally enough food for everybody. Humans have even introduced the penguins to cooked meat, and penguins often prefer this to fresh kills. And opewgnuins are good at sharing dfood that they have caught, thus penguin + humans is the most lovable combination of species.

Dolhpins

Dolphins range in size from 6 to 84 humans, and are present on every coastline. They have independent nations of their own, with distinct boundaries, and so they dont just simply roam throughout the entire ocean. The fact that a few dolpinh nations have žž in their name led them to be called "the ŽŽ zone". For the most part, the Dolphins standy by an agreement made with the Moonshines about 1350 years ago promising that each would defend the other. But since doilphins have nations of their own, they have wars of their own too, and humans cannot just tell the difference between a pro-Moonshine dolphin and a pro-Vatala intruder trying to destroy all the other nations. Dolphins communiate primarily through interpreters, but can learn human languages, so the interpreter just needs to repeat the sounds, not actually translate the language.

The world population od dolphins is about 3.6 million, just slightly lower than the human population.

Firebirds

The only spcies that is predominantly hostile, firebirds see humans as prey and only occasionally will cooperate with umans when their interestes coincide. On the island of Lan, for example, humasn are still 100% captive and have not yet been rescued from the firebirds' rock nests by other humans. But Lan is outside the territory of Moonshine. Within Moonshine, the two species mostly manage to coexist despite being at war, since neither exposes itself to harm often enough to make the kill worth the risk. i.e. a firebird could capture a human and then swoop away to safety, but this would rsult in a reventge attack of some sort, whereas they could choose instead to eat a fish, which has a lot more meat and muscle, and there will be no revenge attack from a colony of fish.

Like penguins and humans, firebirds are mostly found right near the water, but they prefer a warmer climate than the other two species because they have very little body fat. This is part of the reason why the temperate climates to the west of Nokʷ are almost entirely free of humans: this is the firebirds' main habitat. Firebirds range in size from 2 to 8 humans. THye usually die around 70F so Poswobs have to dwealth with them less than Moonshines do. Note that there are tropical firebirds which are smaller but just as deadly.

Rabbits

A very violent species that is responsible for hundreds of thousands of human deaths.