Tag Archives: lexicon

So, Fox Hunt is out tomorrow and I thought I’d give you all a hint of things which might appear in Fox’s world. Now, this is a direct paste of the lexicon I compiled for my use, and for Kate, my proofreader, and it currently spans three completed books, so don’t expect to see all of it in the first.

Now, if you read on a Kindle, you may get a bonus since I think X-Ray pulls information out of Shelfari and I’ll try to get as much as possible of this into the glossary listing there. Of course, that’ll take time, so all you folks who devour my books two minutes after they go on sale might have to check back after that first read or, date I say, read the book a second time. I know, a terrible hardship. That’s why you get to do the manual lookup here if you like.

• AI: Artificial intelligence (except in agricultural circles; look it up). AIs are grouped into ‘classes’ based around how closely they mirror humans in sentience and processing power. Class 1s are dumb, barely aware, never learn, and don’t have emotions. Class 4s are largely indistinguishable from a human. All AIs are infomorphs.
• Android: A humanoid cyberframe. Often a male bodyform, but the term is used more generically for male and female shells.
• Arcology (arcologies): A self-contained, largely self-sufficient, ‘hyperstructure’ designed to allow people to live in it without ever leaving the building if they wish. These structures are enormous, some exceeding a kilometre in height.
• Arigeep: A genetically modified sheep breed used in America. Compounded from arid, goat, sheep.
• Bindwire: Genericised trademark name for a kind of plastic fibre a little like high-tensile silly string. Used in crowd control and prisoner capture, the material forms thin, very strong fibres which stick to a subject, tangling their limbs and fixing them to the spot.
• Bioroid: A ‘biological android.’ Currently (2060) little more than a concept. These are artificially created life forms which can be manufactured, but require normal growth processes. (Wet nanofabs will fix this.)
• Blip: Short video advert designed for insertion into IB channel multicasts.
• CRS: Cyber-Rejection Syndrome. A collection of conditions which either preclude the use of cybernetics or tend to make them malfunction over time.
• Cyberframe: Some form of robot body which can be operated by remote or by an AI.
• Dopy (dopies): One who is high on drugs, alcohol, virtual mood enhancement, or just life.
• Droid: Shortened from android, but typically used when the gender-form of the frame is unknown or unspecified.
• Emergent AI: A lower class AI which develops to AI-4 on its own. No one knows how this happens, or whether it has actually ever occurred in real life.
• Force de Police Républicaine (FPR): Canadian national police force, replaced the RCMP in 2032.
• Frame: Shortened form of cyberframe.
• Gynoid: Specifically a female bodyform android. Some consider the term crass, others consider it more accurate and correct than using android. (When wishing to ensure no offence is given ‘cyberframe,’ ‘frame,’ or ‘droid’ is always correct.)
• Hyperstructure: A very, very large building.
• Infomorph (infomorphs): An entity which exists as data. Probably an AI of some sort. (I didn’t make this one up!)
• JITC: Just-In-Time Compiler. A mechanism for allowing code to run on multiple machine architectures. (I didn’t make this one up either.)
• Lensman (lensmen): UNTPP operatives. Derives from the first book of E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith’s Lensman series, Triplanetary, which someone thought was just like ‘Trans-planetary,’ and also the perceived gung-ho attitude of UNTPP cops.
• LifeWear: Wearable computing technology (a small headset) designed by the LifeWeb people and sold as designer tech (rather like the iPhone today).
• LifeWeb: Replaced Facebook as the number one social site due to a focus on sociometry, the control and visibility of the links between associates.
• LWOS: The LifeWear Operating System, a VA designed to interoperate with LifeWeb, running on LifeWear hardware. Pronounced ‘L-was.’ Attempts to get it pronounced like ‘low-os’ never caught on.
• NAPA: North American Police Administration. In a similar manner to NIX, NAPA was formed to reduce administrative overheads and improve efficiency, collecting together metropolitan and federal police agencies, and judicial enforcement under a single banner. Unlike NIX, NAPA has a fairly reasonable reputation: certainly no worse than the old cops.
• Napper: Derogatory term for police in America. From NAPA, obviously, but also aimed at suggesting most of them are asleep on the job. Believed to come from the common conception that, since patrols are performed by cyberframes, the rest of the cops spend most of their time in bed.
• NIX: National Intelligence eXecutive. America’s national intelligence agency, formed from all the civil and military intelligence agencies in what was described as a cost-cutting exercise. Generally considered as a Big Brother organisation.
• Nomad AI: A (currently theoretical) AI which exists on the internet and has nowhere to call home. They hack into computers powerful enough to host them, taking over operations or hiding on unused processors.
• PA: Short for personal assistant. Where this is an AI rather than a human, a PA is generally a class 4. PAs are likely to run on a server and interact with their owner via telepresence since (as of 2060) few implants are capable of executing a class 4 AI. See also VA.
• Painaway: Proprietary painkiller about equivalent to aspirin, but without the side effects.
• Pearl, the: The pearl is the best, the ultimate, the greatest ever. From sup-PERL-ative.
• Plazkin: Technically a trademark, but now so standardised that it’s become a generic word. A thin, polythene-like plastic material with elastic qualities. Used in a lot of clothing. A common component in 3D printed clothing and easy to recycle for reuse.
• Q-bug: Basically an electric quad-bike, commonly used for transport in agricultural regions and on Mars.
• Robot: A robot, obviously, but now used more specifically for devices which have their operating software built in (firmware) rather than cyberframes which can have operating software downloaded. The more generic meaning of a self-motivated device does still apply: robot is used where the precise nature of a device is unknown.
• Slideway: A moving sidewalk, generally elevated, generally running from a station to an arcology or apartment block, or between associated apartment blocks.
• SOS: Acronym for Smart Operating System, an AI (usually class 2) which is used to operate a computer through vocal/gesture/neural command.
• Sprawl (usually has a capital ‘S’): The litter of temporary and semi-temporary dwellings which fill the spaces between the arcologies, apartment blocks, and other permanent structures. Some Sprawl is actually old buildings still in place, but those occupying them are technically squatters and could be kicked out if someone wanted the land. Others live in tents, old cars, lean-tos, and whatever else they can find shelter under.
• Sprawler (sprawlers; not usually capitalised): One who lives in the Sprawl.
• UNTPP: United Nations Trans-Planetary Police. Effectively Interpol with teeth. Responsible for international and interplanetary policing, and liaison between national and private forces.
• US: Mostly used in speech as a shorthand for America. It no longer really means “United States” since there are no states, officially.
• V-tag: A device which emits a signal detected by local receivers and interpreted by a neural implant or wearable interface to augment a user’s virtual environment (viron).
• VA: Short for Virtual Assistant.
• Viron: Virtual environment. The environment created through the use of an implanted computer/neural interface system and its interaction with v-tags.
• Virtual Assistant: An AI program (generally class 2 or 3) which provides basic augmented reality functions (memory enhancement, facial recognition) and secretarial functions.
• Wet Nanofab: A fabrication system which performs bottom-up object construction starting from a molecular source. It requires carefully controlled conditions to operate and is done in a ‘soup’ of nanomachines and source material, hence the ‘wet’ part.