Tahora Whai: Difference between revisions
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Whai merchants who buy and sell wares with outside groups are the few who will accept foreign currencies. However, these traders prefer direct barter as a more reliable and concrete system. The few vendors in the [[Kikorangi o te Tahora Whai|Rangi]] who exchange currencies offer some of the least competitive rates in the sector, not to mention their exorbitant handling fees.
===[[Spectrum of the Link]]===
The Whai can alter or tune the level of integration they have with their peers. Stronger and more powerful links can increase one’s connection to their community, however, it may reduce one’s ability to achieve tasks necessary for the continuance of it.
==[[Technologies of the Whai]]==
While classically scavengers and raiders, Whai are also have a knack for creating their own gadgets.Dynaean technologies (and thus many Whai technologies influenced by them) by-and-large are bespoke, custom made, artisan and heirloom products. Mass-production is rare unless there is ready access to automation and abundant materials. The bones and other body parts of Tahora are typically integrated into tools, armor, and vehicles for their unique properties or to evoke the power and spirit of the great beasts. Whale bone is commonly used in spacecraft as it requires less refining and is often superior to conventional metals for use in the void. Whai tech is, however, often not made from scratch. Instead equipment is often salvaged, reclaimed, raided, stolen, and sometimes traded. A jury-rigged and scavenged ethos derived from a time of necessity pervades almost all that is found among the Whai.
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==Professions==
While regarded as either fearsome raiders or prolific and protective whalers in much of Beacon Space, the Tahora Whai are more than a pair of professions. Even within the groups that tend to predominantly hunt whales or pirate space, few individuals are defined by any one field. Ships and their crews are usually equipped to engage in both industries with many modifications and tools serving dual purposes. Beyond these ships a diverse network of professions consisting of shipwrights, mechanics, salvagers, gunsmiths, armorers, butchers, merchants, traders, cybernetics manufacturers, tattooists, researchers, etc. support what is commonly seen as the ‘average’ Tahora Whai. The popular image of scruffy void-borne menaces of trade falls flat when observing Whai society as a whole, but this image is cultivated to maintain a fearsome reputation.
===[[Tahora Whai Piracy and Raiding|Raiding]]===
Since before the development of the [[Vāk and Erinaa|Tahora Whai’s neural link]], the planet [[Dynae]] was the source of a piratical tradition. The Tahora Whai are, in many ways, inheritors of this Dynaean culture, much like how they are descendants of Dynae’s practice of whaling.
Whai ships often disguise themselves as humble traders or whalers to catch their victims unaware and with their guard down. But the ruse was much more effective if they were in fact utilizing their ships as a whaler when no dupes could be found. Dual- or multi-use ships became commonplace for the Whai. Tools like [[Technologies_of_the_Whai#Ship_Weapons_and_Equipment|harpoons and trackers]] could likewise be utilized in both situations.
In the [[Rangi]], and in other bases of Whai influence, escort services are a thinly veiled extortion racket to legitimize Whai piracy. For a fee, the Whai will keep your ship safe from the many dangers of the sector. On refusal to pay, a ship will be effectively marked as a target for various schemes. The Whai have negotiated rates with the [[Space Truckers]]–large shipping and logistics services of the Sector–to travel in these regions with minimal interruptions. Special relationships, such as the [[Commonwealth-Whai_Treaty_of_Free_Navigation_and_Commerce|Reach-Rangi Agreement]], also exist with entities like the [[Assembled Commonwealth]] for agreed ‘safe-travel’ for licensed merchants. The decentralized nature of the Whai causes a handful of diplomatic incidents but plausible deniability is the name of the game for the denizens of Sector-West.
===[[Whaling in the Rangi|Whaling]]===
The great [[Spaceborne Fauna|megafauna]], or Tahora, of the [[Rangi]] and Sector-West are part of the lifeblood of the Tahora Whai. Creatures like the [[Teuthemi Leviathans]] (aka Great Tahora) provided the people of [[Dynae]] with the resources to endure hardships and the devastation of their world; not to mention the inspiration for the [[Vāk and Erinaa|Vāk cybernetics]]. Whaling has long been practiced in this region of space, even before the genesis of the Tahora Whai.
To the Whai, these megafauna are all noble creatures, and to waste them would be a travesty in their eyes. To kill them for sport or profit is anathema. A healthy population of voidborne megafauna is necessary for the survival and continuance of the Tahora Whai. Management of the Rangi involves the protection of breeding populations of megafauna in sanctuaries and reserves, keeping populations in check through harvesting, and the elimination of the threat posed by violent beasts to the people of the Rangi by either shepherding them to managed reserves or defeating them if necessary. The Whai serve as wardens and keepers of the space that the Whales inhabit.
===[[Whai Cuisine]]===
Between station agriculture, whaling, and proceeds from raiding, the Whai have many sources for food, although hard-won. Whai food is as a result influenced by the old foodstuffs of Dynae and the requirements of void-borne life. Recent expansion of Whai influence into the constellation of the [[Rangi]] has brought more dishes to the pirates' tables.
==Oral Tradition==
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