Culture

When thralls were created almost four centuries ago, their culture almost immediately began to diverge from that of their human ancestors. Slavery was a crushing influence, but led to ingenious workarounds. Thrall music can be made without instruments, and their games can usually be played with only their minds and bodies. Even when speaking human languages, thrall slang usually might twist the meaning of innocent-sounding words. Even certain quick gestures can carry a message.

These are also blended cultures; when thralls have been sold or surrendered between nations throughout history they inevitably brought their originating human cultures with them. The mix can be confusing to trace, but there are some common threads between thrall cultures. Music is always important, children more so – a thrall child is cared for and protected by everyone in range.

The sections below refer to Savosi thrall culture, which is the setting of the main story.

Music

Songs carry the stories and histories of thralls as they’re shuffled from place to place. Thralls learn to sing before they can speak, and will have memorised hundreds of songs by the time they are adults.

By human standards the songs are complex. Most need at least three or four voices for full effect, and some will have dozens of separate parts. These choruses might be slow, relatively simple ballads or rapid-fire tonal nighmares, with beats using hands and feat. The overlapping harmonies are fascinating but almost incomprehensible to the average human musician. Thralls memorise these songs in one or two hearings, and evolve the melodies to their own taste while singing.

Complexity is not the goal though; thralls just enjoy using their talent. Usually the lyrics and theme are what makes a song popular, more than the sound. Humans might expect the music to be warlike, but thrall songs are rarely about heroics. Instead the lyrics are usually either sugary-sweet fantasies, or reflect the harsh realities of life.

Thralls sing in the gaps of the human world; in pitch-dark barracks at midnight, or while marching the barren Fronts.

Language

Savosi thralls speak standard Savic, with what humans call a ‘simple accent’. This resembles several low-caste human accents, but has diverged in the four hundred years since thralls were created. The overall sound is soft, drawling and leaves out some sounds (th, plosive p) which are hard to pronounce in major form. Humans describe it as ‘lazy’, and in books and plays thralls are often portrayed as not knowing the meanings of everyday Savic words.

For some thralls this is partly true, as Savic is their second language. Corps-Savic (or just Corps) is the most spoken language on the Fronts, and thralls at war will rarely have a reason to speak anything else.

Corps is a creole; a thoroughly blended language that evolved after thousands of captured Brairi and Ysandi thralls were introduced into the Savic ranks. What was originally a pidgin spoken by platoon-mates struggling desperately to understand each other has evolved into a new language with it’s own grammar and nuance. Some words have become tonal, depending on thrall’s musical sense to be understood. In general a speaker of Savic or Brairi will be able to catch the occasional word, but humans mostly find the language difficult to learn.

Most Savosi thralls speak Corps and usually quite well, though it can be hard for those living closely with humans to pick up. Major ward-corporations have banned the language, suspecting (correctly) that thralls use it to talk behind their masters backs. Still, most songs are written in Corps, so even the most sheltered thrall will know a few words.

The Fronts

The Southern and East-Brair Fronts might be war-torn hellscapes, but they are also the wellspring of Savosi thrall culture. These areas are now reverting to wildness, with only scattered ruins where major cities once stood. Human officers are rare. A posting to the South is now seen as a punishment more than any chance for glory, and the officers mostly stay to themselves, in command posts far from the action. This all means that human influence is weak on thralls in these areas. In fact a thrall in the worst parts of the Southern Front might go for months without seeing a human at all.

Without human oversight, the thralls are much more free to express themselves. The culture they are developing has Savosi roots, but differs in many ways:

• Children are often named using words from Corps-Savic, usually birds, plants and sometimes the names of stars and planets.
• Thralls sing casually, on and off in bursts for the entire day. It’s considered bad manners to listen to someone else singing and not join in.
• Humans are treated with wariness, instead of the abject respect and obedience seen in cities. They are often seen as a kind of natural disaster that might strike at any moment. Popular songs abound wherein officers pop out of bunkers, issue one or two devastatingly moronic commands and then disappear again.
• Gender has little impact on life on the Fronts. Those with female and intersex anatomy are considered equals, probably because they are equally dangerous and competent in a fight. People of all genders participate in caring for children.
• Corps-Savic has a non-gendered pronoun (li) which is used for all individuals in casual conversation. Although derived masculine and feminine pronouns exist, they’re usually reserved for discussing humans.

While thralls continue to fight the War with competence and dedication, this is usually not because they have any strong hatred of the enemy. After all, many ‘Savic’ thralls are part or even full blood Brairi. Instead thralls fight out of a strongly held sense of tradition, and a desire to protect their own. The general feeling in the Corps is that the war is necessary, though most thralls could not tell you why exactly, or even how it started. Many have also had their children removed to Savic cities, which is more than enough reason for them to continue fighting. They realise the Empire would fall if they stopped, and their children would be lost forever.