Houses and rule

The Speghti are ruled through Houses, each of which holds a fortress and the provinces around it. At the top is the Uiloi (something like a king), who rules from the capital fortress; the Uiloi's own House is the most important of all. Below that are the Loi (like dukes and duchesses) who head the great Houses. The two other fortresses of real importance are Fortress Irsula (House Irisu, under Loi Ishani Irisu, one of the three most powerful Speghti alive) and Fortress Trulia (House Trulianui, under Loi Isuni Trulianui). Beyond these sit many lesser fortresses and settlements. Speghti society is organised in Houses only; there are no tribes.

Houses are family affairs. The Loi's children and household fill the House's offices, so a Loi's son may be its leading scientist, a daughter the captain of its cavalry and another son its ambassador to the nearest human outpost. The younger children of a great House can expect to be sent off to another fortress, or to a human outpost, as diplomats.

The Loi is the highest local authority and decides matters in open assembly; a gesture of the forelimb is enough to quieten the room. Authority is delegated rather than assumed: an Asoloi abroad still writes home to the Loi, "for the concern of the Uiloi", asking permission to extend their authority to cover anything new. A Loi may also grant a temporary rank to an outsider for the duration of a task (Antinomy was offered the rank of Aosul to lead a scouting party).

Titles

Titles come before the personal name (Loi Isuni Trulianui, Usula Iuiloui, Asoloi Tui). Plurals take -ao (the Usulao, the Aosulao).

Fortress life

A fortress is a living coral colony, part underwater and part along the coast, with an inner colony that everyone outside the walls is brought into when danger threatens. The outer walls filter the water, and the phytoplankton they catch, together with the nutrition given off by the greener parts of the coral, feeds the livestock: a dozen or so main species of fish, squid and trivalves (like our bivalve molluscs). Kelp-like crops are farmed alongside, the same material their soldiers' woven armour is made from. The Speghti use a three-dimensional housing layout that is easy for humans to get lost in. Guests are given moonpools, air-filled rooms entered through a pool in the floor.

They have catered for human guests before. Food and drink will be provided, and protocol is that low-ranking military visitors (guards and the like) are expected to take shifts in the fortress's defence unless the visiting party has them doing something else.

The fortresses farm well enough to have food to spare: Fortress Trulia offered fortress-farm produce to the Cradle in exchange for offshore trade platforms, and the planned Speghti colonies on Calypso were to tithe in pearls and food. Mineral pearls are a recognised store of value.

Warfare

Every House keeps cavalry mounted on Ibui (a creature similar to a blue marlin) and can call up levy companies of farmers and other civilians when needed. Fortresses also mount static emplacements, and the greater Houses are developing Starship-class mechs (Starship (Trulianui mech)).

The Shock Cavalry

The cavalry is each House's standing force, commanded by a Sul of the House (Sul Huli for the Trulianui). The Trulianui Elite Shock Cavalry fight as a swarm of riders on Ibui, in woven body armour of farmed kelp-like fibre, charging with cavalry spears and then wheeling away just far enough to charge again. Against the giant "dolphin" at Fortress Trulia they waited in bluffs prepared for centuries, while the Starship took the creature head-on; their lances only just pierced its skin, so the mech did the real damage. The fleet's visit added coiled-spring lances, aquatic rotary rifles and self-propelled explosive harpoons to what the cavalry could carry.

Speghti tactics 101: cavalry charges if the fight is well outside the fortress; nearer the fortress, levy infantry and cavalry together. Against larger creatures they prefer the fortress's static defences and cavalry with some infantry support. With wildlife, they keep a list of methods for warding off each species and will try that first; if it fails they kill the creature outright, so it cannot come back, and because it is often a good way to stock up on food. Before the kaiju they had not faced a new threat from nature in generations.

Chemical warfare is forbidden near the fortresses, since it would kill the coral colonies they live in, and rushed projects that would put too much strain on a fortress (risking permanent colony collapse) get vetoed.

Attitudes

The Speghti will accept help, but on their own terms and towards their own goals, and they are suspicious of anything that looks like humans imposing their ideals. Even after the fleet warned Fortress Trulia of the giant "dolphin", a young farmer (Sulva) openly asked whether it was a ruse to force the Speghti into complying with human views of how society should be, before the elders calmed things down.

They are proud of their own work: Tui would not take a masterwork gun that was not Speghti-made. Their way with newcomers, making themselves known and helping without taking over a people's development, was put forward in the Atlas Council as a model for Atlas's own first-contact doctrine.