The Weirdest World with Human Habitation

A good story contains a lot of interesting things. I don’t dare to say Ninda is a good story, I trust deciding it on the readers, but well, it contains a lot of interesting thigs. One of these is – Szúnahaum, the weirdest world ever made habitable in the Galaxy.
  Note that the novel being written in Hungarian, I’m leaving all names in their original Hungarian spelling. Actually, this means

(Hungarian has several additional letters that differ from English, but they aren’t present in the szúni language, so no need to mention them here.)
  In this article, “no data” means information currently missing from the book. When I’m writing this, only 58% is written of the book, planned to be about one million words.

Szúnahaum is located inside the Cloud, a large dark interstellar dust cloud that lies between the galactic spiral arm Earth is located in, and the neighboring arm towards the galactic center, in the relatively dark (starless) area called tuamsá in szúni language. Being there little traffic between the arms, and even that is avoiding any clouds, the internals of the Cloud are undiscovered for the dzserang nations (this is the szúni term for everyone not szúni). There are several stars in the Cloud, including a sun being orbited by Auríhaum, an Earth-like planet with indigenous life (plants and animals, but no sentient beings) – the szúni populated it, built cities there and everything, but they chose a different planet as their capital: Szúnahaum.
  It’s orbiting a yellow dwarf star called Szúnahaum-síssanaurangi. Its planets are: Dzsomti, the volcanic innermost planet; Szúnahaum; the asteroid belt Dzseldul, with lots of metals; and Hauhummá, a gas giant with moons captured from the Dzseldul. No data about any inhabited place built on any planet or moon in Szúnahaum’s solar system, but there are several inhabited worlds in other solar systems inside the Cloud. Szúnahaum and Auríhaum, located in two neighboring systems, are the only ones with breathable atmosphere, others have domed cities only.
  Note that the existence of the Cloud and everything inside it, including Szúnahaum and Auríhaum, are classified information. No dzserang may ever hear about them.

About a billion szúni years ago, a catastrophic event happened to Szúnahaum that changed it forever. A large asteroid group left the Dzseldul and collided it, causing three drastic changes.
  1. It broke Szúnahaum’s crust on a large area and left behind an always volcanic, earthquake stricken area on what we would call northern hemisphere; the szúni name is Dzsisszáfaur. The other hemisphere is Séninnaur.
  2. It changed Szúnahaum’s rotation and orbit. Both were slow before the Boom, too, but now they became even slower. Now it doesn’t move at all, if measured by terms of the human lifespan. Since the beginning of its terraforming, some 40,000 szúni years, the sun changed its position on the sky a very little. It is movelessly standing above the Hot Pole, the center of Dzsisszáfaur. (The szúni calendar has nothing to do with Szúnahaum’s movements: it counts 30 days, and a day is of 80,000 “beats” = seconds. Thus, a szúni year is only 27 days, 18 hours and 40 minutes on Earth.)
  3. The asteroids exploded into fragments and created the Sínisuál, a huge ring around the equator, shining in gold because it is mostly of Dzseldul’s material, gold, copper and other ores. Looking from the surface, the Sínisuál is not visible as an object but it changes the color the sky: instead of normally sky blue, it is sky blue and yellow at the same time, without becoming green. No data on what color it is, actually. Now it takes a central position in the emotions of the szúni.

These don’t exist on Szúnahaum, since both its rotation and orbit is extremely slow. The sun is always standing at the same point on the sky, above the Hot Pole. If you sit on a rock and you see it shining above a certain peak, it will shine exactly the same place at noon and midnight, a year later or 1000 years later, it doesn’t count. Days and nights are dictated by only the clock. (A day = 10 derki = 100 limli = 1000 mati, and a mati is 80 seconds.)
  There are no stars on the sky of Szúnahaum, their light being covered by dust of the Cloud.

Szúnahaum’s surface consists of three main parts:
  – Dzsisszáfaur, the hot hemisphere, volcanic, uninhabitable and uninhabited, continuously bombarded with sunshine. No atmosphere, tourists can visit it in space suit only, with strict security measures.
  – Séninnaur, the cold hemisphere, a mere desert of rock, just like Earth’s Moon. Never saw sunshine since the Big Boom. No atmosphere, uninhabitable and uninhabited.
  – And Szúnahaungaur, the equatorial zone, the only habitable place of the world: a ribbon around the equator, about 5000 szirszi wide, averaging. (No data on how long is a szirszi, but it should be the same scale as the kilometer.)
  Szúnahaum is a Ribbon World. No life outside of Szúnahaungaur, except that Séninnaur serves as a harbor of many szúni star ships.
  Szúnahaungaur is separated from both uninhabitable hemispheres (in szúni: siór) by a force field that keeps the atmosphere inside and any unwanted effect outside (gases and particles from volcanic eruptions). It follows an irregular path determined by local circumstances like relief and the possible risk of earthquakes. Szúnahaungaur is not free from earthquakes near the hot hemisphere, however, they can be predicted always. The boundaries of Szúnahaungaur are called the Dzsisszáfaur Rim or Hot Rim and the Séninnaur Rim or Cold Rim. The Cold Rim is slightly beyond the equator, because the Sínisuál reflects some sunlight so it isn’t completely dark there, but direct sunlight can never be seen.
  Instead of the clock, it’s the geographic latitude what determines how high you can see the sun: the closer to the Hot Pole, the higher the sun on the sky. Calling the dzsisszá-most point of Szúnahaungaur zero, and measuring in szirszi, there are four zones: the first thousand is the “daytime” zone, the next thousand the “early afternoon”, then the “late afternoon”, the “early evening” and the “late evening” zone, and finally, beyond 5000 szirszi, the “night” zone.

Before terraforming, there wasn’t a single water molecule on Szúnahaum, and all water on it was brought there by humans. Vapor in the air is continuously pushed by solar wind séninwards, until it reaches the Cold Rim where it is condensed and falls down as snow. There is continuous, extreme snowfall on the Cold Rim. To prevent it from accumulating there and extract all moisture from everywhere else, snow collector robots are working all around the Cold Rim. They’re shovelling the snow into the channels where it is melted and begins to flow dzsisszáwards.
  There are nearly 9000 channels starting at the Cold Rim and flowing across all of Szúnahaungaur, to the Hot Rim. Some 800 of them don’t reach there but are unified with the neighboring channels. They aren’t straight, they were never intended to be and the relief doesn’t allow that. They may go around mountains, but at places they flow uphill, helped by pumps. All of them have a name. The largest one, which grows from 13 converging channels, is like a huge river, called Szesszi, after the largest (natural) river which existed once on the lost szúni world.
  The channels’ water is used everywhere on Szúnahaungaur for all human purposes. The remaining water, now warmed up, reaches to somewhere near the Hot Rim, where each channel finishes in a shallow basin to let the water simply evaporate.
  Lakes, islands, waterfalls can be found at many locations, but they’re all the creations of the channels, and as such, of humans.
  There is no weather. No wind other than the insáhirun, the never-stopping, slow wind coming from dzsisszá and travelling to sénin, pushed by the solar wind and transporting the moisture back to the Cold Rim. No rainfall. No snowing anywhere but at the Cold Rim. Being the world practically not rotating, there is no Coriolis effect, no change in the amount of heat received by any point of the surface, therefore, no chaotic effects.
  Szúnahaungaur’s ecology is completely artificial, and without continuous maintenance the world would be quickly rendered uninhabitable. Millions of robots are working on it continuously.

Szúnahaungaur has a variable relief, with large plains and great mountains. No data about any snow cover on the top of mountains.
  Both Dzsisszáfaur and Séninnaur are similarly variable. But the polar regions of Dzsisszáfaur are frequently changing, being totally volcanic, and Séninnaur has huge areas completely flattened by the weight of ships landing there.

With 300 million permanent residents, Szúnahaum is the most populous world of the Szúnahaum Brotherhood. Auríhaum has only 100 million. The majority of the 5000 million szúni are living on large star ships that travel around the spiral arm to sell wares and service. The ships provide comfortable life to its residents, from several thousand to a few millions, while transporting dzserang passengers, offering valuable service for them. However, the dzserang aren’t allowed to those floors the szúni are living on. They can’t have information on how many szúni are living on a ship, how many ships are there, these are all classified.
  If not earlier, all szúni are returning to Szúnahaum to celebrate the namindan, the year-long holiday held every 12 years.
  Permanent residents of Szúnahaum are living in small towns and villages, the biggest cities at about 20,000 inhabitants. Most towns are in the zones that receive more light, but there are inhabited places near the Cold Rim, too. Their architecture are slightly modified according the lighting, but generally uniform. Families are living in own houses, one or two stories high, rarely higher. Most of them are surrounded by a garden. Building material is plastic.
  When Ninda settled on Szúnahaum, she chose Jasszani-Haugímú, the edge of a city of 20,000, near the flow of the Lengu and the hillside forest. The city is built on a plateau inside the Dzsimbandon mountains, in the early afternoon zone. The water of the Lengu is pumped uphill, and where it leaves the plateau with a waterfall, there is a large canopy to shade direct sunlight which always comes from the same point. There was a small house built for Ninda, one room, a bathroom and a kitchen, and a larger one next to it for Hait and Ámmaít, her close friends whom everyone considers the closest ones to be her friends, but she always refuses an adoption. Later, when Ninda founded an own family, her house was extended to two rooms. Both houses were later surrounded with a hedge of trees in a circle, and this place serves for the core of the great philosophy school wearing Ninda’s name.
  When the 5000 million szúni are returning to celebrate the namindan, they live in large underground cities designed to provide for a million each, but they don’t spend much time there, rather they’re dancing, visiting their friends and so on.

No rainfall and no dew condensing at dawn, since there is no night and no dawn. Each and every plant, be it a tree, a shrub or grass, must be regularly irrigated by robots, including those growing in the wilderness, on a hilltop or anywhere. Planting them on purpose is not always necessary since animals can spread seeds, but they won’t survive without irrigation. The robots (small orbs flying around with antigravity) discover any growing transplant and start to irrigate it, according to the needs of the species. They’re performing all necessary actions, healing sick plants, harvesting fruits.
  Being there several worlds with indigenous life known to mankind, plants are originating from many of them, resulting in a great variation – as usual on all inhabited worlds. There are trees with green, yellow, orange, red leaves, grass growing in different colors, and so on. Ninda’s and Ámmaít’s houses were built with a large huhalli tree between them.

Animals are also originating from many worlds. There are large pastures where animals are living free, being that the accepted form of keeping livestock. They’re being cared for by robots as well. Killing them and processing meat is also automated. The szúni diet prefers vegetables, but includes meat as well.
  Pets are also coming from different worlds. Ninda buys a kiri family, a dog and an ivut.
  Wild animals are present to maintain ecologic diversity. As humans occupied millions of worlds in the Galaxy, they developed methods to build sustainable ecosystems, and Szúnahaum is no exception.

The Szúnahaum Brotherhood is one of the largest nations nearby, both terms of population and of economic and military power. The szúni tribes trace their origin back to Szúnahaum-sínarraómi, their homeworld destroyed in a war tens of thousands of years ago. Their earlier history was lost in time.
  Since losing Szúnahaum-sínarraómi, they became a merchant nation, they’re wandering around the Galaxy and trading. Now they’re wealthy enough for poverty be forgotten.
  Despite their complete seclusion from the dzserang, the szúni are welcoming immigrants. Ninda herself is an immigrant by accident from the repressive dictatorship of Sỳÿndoṙeìa (in szúni: Szindoria), as well as Hait and Ámmaít. Ninda’s either love, Aini comes from the small, hot forest world Saunis, the other one, Szinensi is a native szúni. Their adopted daughter, Sileni is from a fourth country.
  The szúni are also known for charity. For examples, the hospitals on their ships are receiving patients from anywhere, and the lawyers ask their home countries for payment only after the treatment finished. They’re taking great parts in building radiation dams, the largest man-made objects in the Galaxy, half-spherical shields around (yet only 18) worlds to protect them from the radiation of a supernova predicted to explode. They’re actively defending human rights, including Szindoria where the dictatorship was put to an end upon szúni intervention, attributed to Ninda herself.
  The government system of the Brotherhood is classified. The dzserang can’t learn who are leading the Brotherhood and how, and also they can’t know the captains of the szúni ships. The truth is there is no government, they removed it long ago; all directive work is performed by workgroups, both in the society and on the ships. There is a group responsible for piloting the ship, another one for routing, one for life supporting systems, one for cargo, and so on.

Little is known about the szúni language. Its phoneme inventory: a, b, d, dzs, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, sz, t, u, v. Vowels and d, k, l, m, n, r, s, sz and t appear long, too; no data about the others. B is rare and mostly appears in the cluster mb, also rare. Frequent consonant clusters include ng, lg, rg, rd, ndzs, ldzs, rdzs, ngdzs and a lot more. They can appear word-initially, too, but less frequent. The ancient szúni language had more clusters, among which the most characteristic one is hp which appeared inside words, word-initally, word-finally.
  It is a naming language, what means neither a vocabulary nor a grammar is created. From the occasional cases a word is seen in different forms, it can be suspected a fusional language.

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