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theeurekaproject · 4 years

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A Painstakingly Complicated Discussion of the Caste System

This post is mirrored from my Wattpad story Eureka in Excessus, which is a collection of miscellaneous pieces of the Eureka Project that never quite made it into the book. You can find it here.

Today on "Wren Has Too Much Free Time: The Book," we discuss the painful intricacies of the caste system in a society that doesn't exist! I'm the type of person who gets super into worldbuilding (sometimes at the expense of the actual story) so writing this type of guide is really entertaining to me. That being said, if you would rather not listen to two thousand or so words of rambling about the social order of a fictional empire, you are by no means required to read this—the actual story can be understood just fine without it. If you're a lore-obsessed geek like me, though, read on :)

I knew from the very beginning that Eleutheria had to have a caste system. I needed a quantifiable way for characters to compare themselves to other characters, and "she's rich but I'm poor" didn't really work because poverty and status are so relative. The noblewomen consider everyone beneath them "poor," but then there are people like Lyra, who were literally raised on the streets. There's also the fact that Eleutheria's social order is incredibly complicated and alien—it's almost nothing like our own, owing to the fact that they have larger gender differences, a weird history, and bizarre societal norms that are often at odds with what readers consider normal. So I knew I needed a quantifiable system that shows which characters are ranked higher than other characters.

The caste system started as simple ranks and numbers, but that got boring and difficult to keep track of very quickly, so I started giving the castes names. Like everything else in Eleutheria, they're in Latin, but I'm hoping that a combination of context clues and obvious English loanwords will be enough to give readers an idea about what they mean. Eventually the system grew from ten vague groups to exactly twenty extremely specific castes grouped into several different cohorts. I like this way of organization because it allows me to make certain jobs equal without combining them into one caste—scientists and medical types are different things, but they're in the same cohort and thus relatively equal. I finalized the hierarchy with a few additional groups that aren't quite considered castes, and that led to the system I—and Eleutheria—use now. So, without further ado: the twenty castes of Eleutheria!

The Trinitarian castes are the "best of the best"—the old money noblewomen who lead Eleutherian society and serve as models to everyone else. Nothing a Trinitaria says or does is wrong—they can get away with murder if they so desire, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop them. Despite their high status, though, the Trinitarium are constantly fighting amongst themselves, frequently resulting in bloody civil wars that leave hundreds of thousands of people dead. Naturally, the people who start said wars get off scot-free; they always do.

Caste Cipher is the highest Trinitarian caste. Supposedly descended from the Founders of Eleutheria, the Ciphers are said to have unflinching brilliance, impossible beauty, and the divine wisdom of their ancestors. Their shockingly blue eyes, unflinching gaze, and uncanny-valley nature distinguishes them from the rest of the nobility (or, well, at least it did; Acidalia-Planitia, eldest daughter of Alestra Cipher, has, to the rest of the court's disgust, very plain, very human brown eyes.) Ciphers are considered almost gods by quite a few denizens of Eleutheria, and anyone who dares question them will be swiftly and violently stricken down by Alestra Cipher's hand.

Examples: Alestra, Aleskynn, and Acidalia (the latter only sort of.)

Caste Princips is the second-highest caste, consisting of nearly all the other noble families on Eleutheria. Noble houses Vulgaris, Communia, Summus, and others reside on this level—just below the Ciphers, but above everyone else. They are said to have descended from Eleutheria's earliest settlers, a population chosen by the Founders to spearhead their new civilization. Despite their high ancestry, though, they are not above stupid, petty squabbles, and they spend most of their time arguing with one another over nothing of importance. Though Caste Princips are not nearly as revered as Ciphers, they evoke the same anxiety in ordinary citizens—mostly because they too are wealthy and powerful enough to erase people from existence.

Examples: The ladies-in-waiting, most of Aleskynn's friends

Caste Praelia is the final, dying Trinitarian caste. It once consisted of numerous noble houses who served as military powerhouses; Praelium houses produced an untold amount of warriors, generals, and gladiators. However, Alestra came down on them hard during her reign, not wanting to be superseded by charismatic Praetors and their extremely loyal armies. Now the only remnant of caste Praelia is the noble house Generalis, which is also slowly fizzling out—its matriarch, Anatolia Radiata, died several years ago, leaving her daughter Cassiopeia as the lone survivor.

Examples: Cassiopeia, the late Anatolia

The Logos castes are just underneath the Trinitarians. Consisting of scientists, doctors, businesswomen, and other academic types, this cohort has given rise to some very powerful people. However, most women in this category remain solidly middle-class—not every researcher is an Einstein, you know? Despite this, they are treated with a sort of reverence by the rest of the population, because they're considered the "movers and shakers" of Eleutherian society. They discover new things, uncover the past, and help move humanity forward; who wouldn't love them? So they usually get off pretty well in the grand scheme of things... sure, sometimes they discover things they weren't meant to know and get themselves shot for treason, but considering that this is Eleutheria we're talking about, that's not that bad.

Caste Negotia is mostly composed of businesswomen, economists, and management types. Some are your ordinary office busybodies, and others are CEOs. They can be enormously wealthy, but many are your regular old run-of-the-mill managers. Still, the caste is associated with luxury anyway—very few Negotium are cripplingly poor.

Caste Scientia consists of researchers and scientists, who are further divided into specialties depending on their field. Again, they can be very rich, or kind of in the middle, but rarely ever impoverished. Outside of the Trinitarian castes, the Scientias are one of the most respected groups in Eleutherian society—after all, they invent the technology that's made the empire so powerful. Despite this—or maybe because of it—they are under intense scrutiny. Alestra is so afraid of the Scientias mobilizing against her that's she's started an aggressive campaign to keep dangerous ideas from spreading: she takes away their children to be raised by the state, kills anyone whose research goes a little too deep, and brutally slaughters everyone who disagrees with her just to make examples out of them. Scientias also have a tendency to die young due to completely unrelated reasons—they're often frail, sickly, and inexplicably weak. Conspiracy theories abound about this, but every time someone makes a breakthrough, they wind up dead.

Examples: Athena, Carina

Caste Medica contains medical professionals—doctors, nurses, dentists, and the like. Alestra sees them as slightly less of a threat, so she's a little more lenient with them. Besides, she kind of has to be nice to a degree—even Imperatrices get sick, and she wants to avoid being killed by her own doctors if something goes wrong. This caste is generally kept happy, just because Alestra knows offending them could result in her death. It would be very easy for the royal physician to cut the wrong thing during surgery and make an assassination look accidental.

Caste Historia ostensibly contains the historians, archeologists, et cetera. In practice, though, it's hardly composed of unbiased historical researchers. Most Historium are paid off by the state to publish the truths the government agrees with, and dissenters are simply killed. Much like the Scientias, Historium are subject to an intense amount of scrutiny; if someone publishes a document they aren't supposed to, Alestra's whole reign could collapse in on itself. This, compounded by the fact that society doesn't really need historians in the same way it needs scientists, has led to the thinning of caste Historia. After Alestra took power, their numbers were greatly reduced, and they never regained their lost power again.

The aptly named Artem castes are the creative types. Dancers, actors, artists, designers, animators, and anyone else who works an "artsy" job is classified into this cohort. Unlike most castes, the Artem castes are incredibly diverse and offer a high degree of social mobility for anyone fortunate enough to swindle their way into a high-paying job. Starving artists can become millionaires overnight if they're lucky, and famous stars can fade into nothingness if society forgets about them. It's a high-risk, high-reward game, but if you're skilled, loyal, and reasonably attractive, you have a decent shot at making a good living for yourself. Of course, artists who choose to defy the status quo never seem to remain in the spotlight for very long.

Caste Auctor is composed of writers, authors, and scribes. Auctores can be almost anything, so long as it's related to writing or communication. They can work in conjunction with Scientias and Medicas to do the paperwork surrounding scientific studies and case reports, help Magistratum with investigative journalism, translate ancient languages alongside Historium, create works of fiction, et cetera. Like the Scientias, they're somewhat respected by the majority of society, but that just means Alestra hates them more because they have so much influence. Any Auctor who finds themselves on her bad side will meet a swift and merciless end.

Caste Momentum consists of the people who are involved in creating "movies" and "TV shows" (read: "thinly veiled propaganda presented to the citizens as if it's truth.") It's a somewhat odd caste limited to propaganda professionals; there are actors and directors, but also certain psychologists and writers who specialize in messing with the human mind. Momentum castes regularly collude with Auctores, Medicas, and Scientias—and sometimes even Ciphers themselves—to create terrifying, mind-melding cocktails of half-truths that can convince weak-minded citizens of anything.

Caste Incentor is much more innocuous, containing mostly musicians. They're monitored heavily to prevent Dangerous Ideas from spreading, but they have more freedom than most Artem castes, mostly because Eleutherian music is by and large kind of terrible. Incentores are stereotyped as being dizty, lovestruck morons, because they're one of the few castes that never really does anything with science or history or government—mostly they just sit around and look pretty, and some of them sing on occasion. (Of course, most of them are not really that brainless, but they pretend to be stupid anyway—the dumber Alestra thinks you are, the less she'll want you dead.)

Caste Sollertia is a weird, catchall mixture of other "creative types." All sorts of career artists wind up here—designers, certain architects, tattoo artists, and anyone else Eleutheria can't shove neatly into their own little category. Sollertium are stereotyped as "free spirits" because they can grow up to be pretty much anything, so long as that thing has a creative component to it. The daughter of an architect can easily become a graphic designer if she so chooses (though it's customary to take your mother's job upon reaching your age of majority.) Sollertium associate with Logos castes like Scientias somewhat frequently—you kind of have to consult engineers if you're designing a building—so they have slightly more respect than Incentores, despite their caste's lack of structure and organization.

The Auxilium castes are where things start to get depressing (if the government surveillance wasn't depressing enough.) Auxilium are "helper castes," and that describes them pretty accurately—they only exist to serve other people. They range from middle-class to extraordinarily, horrifyingly poor, and they don't have the greatest of reputations. Most of the upper castes look down on them at least somewhat, and anyone who makes friends with an Auxilia will be made fun of mercilessly. There is one exception to this rule, though—Ministratora, especially the Imperial servants, are treated with a great degree of respect. Mostly because they report back to Alestra.

Caste Suffragia is the most fortunate of the Auxilium castes. They're called Suffragium because they used to be one of the largest voting blocs back when Eleutheria held elections (same root word as "suffrage.") Suffragium are, by and large, everyday workers just trying to make a living. Regular old salesmen, secretaries, and the like are mostly Suffragium, as well as most retail employees. It's rare to see a Suffragia rise above middle-classs mediocrity, but this is Eleutheria, so dull suburbia and ticky-tacky box houses are pretty decent. And they don't get murdered by furious Ciphers on a semi-regular basis, so... that's a win for them.

Caste Ministratora is domestic workers. Personal assistants, maids, nannies, and some cooks are all Ministratoras, and their quality of life varies depending upon their employer. They can make very good money if they work for very rich people—you'd think noblewomen would treat their servants pretty poorly, but it'd be extremely easy for a resentful maid to slip something lethal into a drink or let important information slip, and sure, they might get themselves killed for it, but what good will that do if you're already dead? Alestra in particular is shockingly nice to the Ministratoras she employs, mostly because she's terrified of them turning on her.

Caste Raeda consists of the people who keep Eleutheria's public transportation system in check. It's a more important job than it sounds, but it's also too dirty and grimy for Scientias to want to do it, so the grunt work falls to the Raedae. They range from train conductors to mechanics to spaceship pilots, and though they're looked down upon by most other Eleutherians, their card isn't actually that bad. They don't make a lot of money, but that means they have more freedom than most, and they can escape Eleutheria with ease if things turn nasty—Alestra doesn't care about them enough to look into it when they vanish mysteriously.

Caste Vilicius is where things start to get human-rights-violate-y. Vilicius is a small caste that only exists to keep the Laborum and Cantatores in check—the second the lower castes start causing a problem, the Vilicii are there to beat them into submission. Allowing Vilicii to go mad with power and indiscriminately maim or kill Obscuri is one of Alestra's favorite ways of keeping Eleutherian society the way she wants it. Vilicii are another group that can get away with murder—provided they're murdering the "bad" people, of course.

And, finally, the aforementioned Obscurus castes. They're called Obscuri because they quite literally live in the darkness, populating the pieces of Eleutheria nobody else will tolerate living in. They're mostly orphans and other people with no family name or legacy, and they're often considered "resources" that can be bought, sold, and used rather than human beings with valuable lives. The one plus about being an Obscurus is that Alestra doesn't care about them, either, which means they can get away with doing "treasonous" things others would be jailed or killed for. On the other hand, they don't reap the benefits from the government, either—meaning they have no access to programs intended to help the impoverished.

Caste Labora is made up of factory workers. They're one of the largest castes, and they're incredibly strong, rivaling the greatest athletes and gladiators Eleutheria has to offer. This means that, hypothetically, if a Labora was to start a large revolutionary movement, things would be very, very bad—they probably wouldn't win anything, but they'd cause a significant amount of damage before the military came to shut them down. Somehow, though, they never stay strong for very long—every Labora seems to get some horrible, immobilizing disease that cripples their ability to move or communicate once they outlive their usefulness.

Caste Cantator is like the catchall caste for people Eleutheria doesn't like. Bastard kids, orphans, illegal second daughters back when Alestra had a one-child rule, et cetera, all fall into the Cantator category. Cantator is one of the smallest castes, but Alestra hates it more than anything because every Cantator is a living embodiment of a broken rule. She hasn't outright killed them all yet, mostly because doing so would be inconvenient, but she's dangerously unsympathetic to their problems, and she's revoked what little support the government used to offer them. They're a constant thorn in her side just by virtue of existing, and she'd be very happy to see them all wiped off the face of the Earth.

Examples: Lyra

Caste Servum consists of slaves. Chattel slavery hasn't been legal in Eleutheria for over two hundred years, but the fact that this caste is still on the roster shows how little the government cares about enforcing that rule.

"Outcaste" is a sort of general term for a person who doesn't fit into the official hierarchy. It doesn't actually have a negative connotation; whether or not being an Outcaste is a good thing depends on the circumstances of a person's birth.

The Magistratum are the police force. They aren't considered a part of the official caste roster because they're technically military (though they're rarely treated as such.) Certain units of the Magistratum are terrifying and efficient, especially Alestra's not-so-secret police, but most of the time they're kind of a mess because they're always fighting with each other. Most units are ruled by the government, others are run entirely by the various gangs/mobs that pop up in the Eleutherian underground, yet more work for various non-government paramilitary rebel groups, and some just serve themselves. And for every cop who works for an ulterior motive, there's some poor guy whose entire job is filling out paperwork and fighting with idiot sov cits.

"De Caelo" is the what non-Eleutherians get on their paperwork in the place where the caste name should be. It literally means "from heaven" because it most often refers to people from other planets (usually Mars.) Eleutheria doesn't get many tourists (because it's kind of a dystopian hellscape) but it does get visiting diplomats, and the "de Caelo" classification is just a way of saying "no, they don't have a caste; they aren't from here."

Miles (pronounced mee-lays) are soldiers. Most men fall into this category because Eleutheria has compulsory military service. The military has its own ranking system, which is kind of impossible to memorize because it's so needlessly complicated—some of it is meritocratic like a traditional military structure (i.e. you get promoted if you do a good job), but most of it is just based on what you were born as, and it all uses random letters instead of fancy Latin names. The random categories are intended to confuse enemies so they won't intentionally target higher-ranking men—the idea is that they wouldn't single out a TB soldier over a DX soldier, because their names don't indicate how important they are. Of course, different categories have different uniforms and appearances, so the whole "random alphabet soup letter" names are functionally useless.

Examples: Ace, T (or AX-C240 and TB-2115, respectively.)

Luminosa is the title given to the founders of Eleutheria and other historically important people. It means "enlightened," and it's the highest honor an Eleutherian can ever hope to get. It's virtually impossible to receive this title—even Alestra didn't dare award it to herself. Less than fifty people have ever been called "Luminosa," and it's almost always awarded posthumously. Luminosae aren't considered a part of the caste system because they're theoretically above it—everyone on the planet would bow down to them, even the Ciphers themselves.

Examples: Katherine Amelia Davis, better known as Katerina Aurelia Luminosa (the woman Acidalia's coronation oath references, and ostensibly her ancestor.)

#lore #d e e p e s t l o r e #wren has too much time on her hands #worldbuilding #caste system #eleutheria #terra #solis #eurekaproject

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