Nickname for the small, gold-toned, blue-clad recruiting droids commissioned by the Cloistered Order of the Cosmic Veil and built by the Handi-Andi® Corporation, though calling them droids is stretching a point, as they are actually robots, albeit with limited memories imprinted on thin sections of vat-grown brain tissue, then coupled with an electronic brain, mainly concerned with the recording and storage of images. Though the nickname was inspired by the size of the droids, as well as the fact that they are dressed in the same clothing as the Sisterhood’s Nunz, it also points to the fact that most sentient beings find them to be more than slightly annoying. They are ubiquitous on the galaxy’s many Rec Stations.

Baby Sister Droids

A small, octagonal, titanium alloy coin. The head of the Baron RSVdG Bajar, in profile, and the words “WREDDE AD CAESAREM QUOD CAESARIEST,” are stamped on one side of the coin. On the other, a steel taloned shreeguh clutches a crown and scepter. The Baron Roderigo Bajar (under the auspices of the United Free Trade Planets) had these coins minted in cycle AE 78, hence the phrase, “Not worth a Bajar Shilling.”

Bajar Shilling

Wife of Roderigo Sejanus Vasco d’Gama Bajar (grandson of PAHM Bajar, widely known as the Dread Dictator), mother of Phillipe Cesare Kalif Alexander Bajar and Indira Lucrezia Ronnie Lee Ellis Bajar, the renowned speculative fiction writer.

ILRLE Bajar

(AKA Ronnie Lee Ellis) Well-known speculative fiction writer, best known for Mind Spiders From the Planet Xenon, and daughter of RSVdG Bajar. Miz Ellis was something of a prodigy, having begun her writing career when still a minor child.

PCKA Bajar

Heir and only son of the Baron Roderigo Sejanus Vasco d’Gama Bajar, ruler and CEO of the United Free Trade Planets.

(6531 IET – 174 AE) A brilliant and ruthless businessman, the Baron RSVdG Bajar built a mighty empire from the tiny desert planet, Mirage, where he had, as a boy, been exiled with the remains of his family, after the fall of the Incorporated Elysian Republic, which was neither heavenly, nor a republic. His first business, the enormously successful Crown and Sceptor, was a shipping enterprise. It soon began to gobble up the smaller businesses it dealt with and United Free Trade Planets, Ltd., was born. This company/kingdom includes Seven Planets, its satellites and mining belts, Hydrangea and several other resort planets scattered about the galaxy, the Onolos, and a number of uninhabited worlds that were stripped of their resources and left drifting like pockmarks on the face of Mother Void. The Baron’s strange and violent death is still a mystery. He was found early one Alpha, sitting in his courtroom on Mirage. A sprig of rosemary had been potted in the bowl of his pipe. A child’s report card with every subject marked “failed” had been pinned to his jacket. Certain of his vital organs had been removed, individually wrapped in birthday paper, and placed in a krystal box on the Baron’s desk. Bajar was survived by a son, Kalif, and a daughter, Lucrezia. He left the two of them his huge estate, to be in shared equally and run jointly, “in the hopes that they will destroy itself like the monster they is.”

The Baron RSVdG Bajar

1) When referring to a certain “place” in space/time, banlastic is that quality of elasticity that, in some cases, allows for near-instantaneous travel from wherever it is you are to various distant corners of the Multiverse. 2) When referring to the waistlines of yo-yo dieters of the type disposed to periodically visit certain Rec Station eating establishments, banlastic is a quality of elasticity in one’s skin and clothing that is required by a continually expanding and contracting circumference of the belly.

1) An elastic or expandable unit of space. 2) A subjective measure of space, always longer than “right over here,” never as long as “way over yonder,” and just wide enough for an average humanoid to rest on it comfortably.

Designed and manufactured by the Booze Barn®—a company selling barstools, blenders, dispensers, bottle displays, swizzle sticks, glassware and cocktail shakers, as well as assorted libations, beverages, potations and brews, not to mention Bar Buddys® and similar servingbots—the Bar Bonnet® is a snug-fitting, viscoelastic cap, whose unique patented and proprietary technologies allow it to displace the energy of a chair, fist, or bottle swung, or otherwise aimed at the head, and send the force right back to its point of origin. It can be worn alone, or as a protective liner under more formal headwear. For bartenders at some of the rougher nightspots on some of the rougher stations, the Bar Bonnet® is a steal, even at its overly steep price. “More bang for the bang,” as they say in the biz.

Bar Buddy

A utilitarian, six-armed, robotic jukebox and drink-pouring machine, built with the independent Barkeep in mind, the Bar Buddy® is just the employee you want, when you don’t want employees. Humanoidish in appearance, the Buddy can simultaneously mix a dozen different fruity blender drinks, while listening to a whiney patron’s problems, and tossing a troublemaker out the front door. It also tells jokes, though potential purchasers should be aware that the joke myds will need to be updated frequently, the expense of which far exceeds the expense of the Buddy itself. Reviews in Bartender Weekly insist that the Bar Buddy® is good as a backup, but is iffy, at best, when left to its own devices.

Bargain Bliss Employees

A division of Living Doll Cybernetics® specializing in the development and marketing of nonsentient “love toys.” Bargain Bliss only came into being after the departure of LDC co-founder Mary Medea and was a special project of her former business partner, Mr. Anderson Grommit.

Small airborne record-o-droids used in filming newscasts, nooscasts, holovids and laserounds, the brains of which are based on cloned canid brains. Be Real® and See Real® droids are great for second and third unit filming, or to scent celebrities and sight perpetrators, as well as to fetch information for news/nooscasts. Other than looking pretty on camera, anything a professional ferret can do, these droids can do better.

1) Any member of the elite guard of Prime Minister Glorianna of Pheobus. 2) Any devotee of the religion Krystal Light, as practiced by the Krystal Miners of the Mitochondrian Belt in the Pheobus System. 3) Any bad tempered, ill-mannered individual. 4) Any individual existing in an altered state of consciousness whether chemically, hypnotically, or Krystal-induced. In its religious sense, the word “beastie” implies a state of union with the Natural Multiverse. In its drunken sense, the word denotes a period of release from the strictures of rational thought and civilized society, hence the phrase, “walking his (or her) beastie.”

Beastie

Once an attraction built and run by Major Rec Games® wherein nu chums (first-time Rec Station visitors), for the price of a ticket, would be encased in a large transparent globe and shot out into the many and varied transparent tubes that worm their way around any given Rec Station. Originally, the aforementioned tubes were filled with a proprietary liquid (also transparent) developed by Major Rec for the purpose of reducing drag and thus speeding the “ball” on his/her/their/its way. After the demise of MRG’s many Balls of Fire® arcades, Bee-the-Ball® was redesigned by All Wet Delivery & Passage® as a water-filled transport system to provide aquatic sentients with access to the many recreational activities on those stations that had once featured a BOF arcade. From the heights of Blue Heaven to the depths of The Gutters, the Bee-the-Ball tube system is a perfectly safe and sane method of getting a station’s gilled guests from here to there. Still known as Bee-the-Ball for some reason, any given tube system will have many outlets into the numerous pools, tanks and fountains peppered throughout all its station’s levels. The popular Vale of Tiers drinking establishment on Rec 97, formerly named The Sailor’s Grave, now the Brigader’s Bier, still maintains the private pool and aquaria built for the use of its former star entertainer, Eeeeeeeeeluh, an Aguatunesian empath.

Self-proclaimed leader of the Guernican Art Squad. To some, a terrorist organization, to others, champions of artistic integrity, the Art Squad strikes fear in the hearts of the pedestrian, the pretentious and the prostitute alike. Kettle Black began life as Mellusine White, the daughter of IER-CO-era krystal miners, and (after the fall of the Incorporated Elysian Republic) studied art at the Stellavista Conservatory, graduating with a double major in quantum sculpture and light-weaving. Though her first professional gallery show, Private Particles, was a popular success, with 2/3rds of her pieces selling to an enthusiastic crowd, (then) Miz White’s work received mixed reviews. Subsequent shows sold less well, hurt no doubt by the bad press, and Mellusine White disappeared from the scene, to emerge cycles later as Kettle Black. Her first act as self-appointed leader of the Art Squad was to purge the civilized Multiverse of the very critics who had wounded her pride and ended her career, painfully reducing them to their constituent particles and putting them to use in various objets d’art. Over the cycles, she seems to have spent less and less time as an artist and more and more time as an artistic activist. Current critics claim that, lacking a successful career, Kettle Black has made her life her art. That they claim this anonymously is completely understandable.

Kettle Black

An aphrodisiac drug most commonly used for 1) creating and/or extending the proverbial “real good time,” for 2) incapacitating any member of a multi-sexed species perceived as a threat, and for 3) extracting information from a member of said species. It’s hard to be discreet when you’re that happy.

An outer level of Rec Station 97, high enough to be really expensive, close enough to the Vale of Tiers to still be a rollicking good time, Boardwalk provides waterfront near the voidfront (or at least a close approximation of it). Best known as home of the Dome, Randall Factor’s club/casino, with its games floor, Freebetter’s Room, and nightly shows of its aerial ballet.

1) To engage in copulation, 2) to copulate with a being or substance for which one has little regard, 3) to harm, confuse or destroy someone or something, 4) to express surprise at a turn of events while simultaneously castigating oneself, as in “Boot me!”

The chosen shield-name of a loosely associated group of militias whose membership was composed solely of male, or culturally male cyberphobes. Arising in the cycles preceding the Droid Wars, and arguably the main cause of said wars, the Boys in the Belt were mostly ex-soldiers who were left without a purpose once the Revolution ended. Many of these ex-soldiers subsequently became asteroid miners in the various belts scattered about the galaxy, though this work was boring and tedious when compared to soldiering for a great cause. Casting about for a new cause, a new enemy to give their new lives new meaning, they settled on cyberlife, specifically androids. “Have you ever noticed they look a lot like humanoids?” (They were built by humanoids to look that way.) “Have you noticed how you see ‘em everywhere you go?” (They were built to assist primarily humanoid owners and are therefore ubiquitous in most of the civilized galaxy.) “Have you ever noticed how they think they’re better than us?” (Arguably, they are, but what androids actually think is a matter of speculation.) The red-hot focus of TBITB’s ire were Vercadian Protector Droids and the rogue Mediconian faction that had conceived of and built them. But VEEPS were and are incredibly dangerous, and most were under contract to incredibly wealthy and powerful individuals, so “The Boys” settled for ambushing and destroying the kind of droids (most of them) that were unable to fight back, this thanks to the Axon Block Need Inhibitors® that came standard on any member of a legal droid line. (Note: The definition of “legal” varies throughout the known multiverse.) The Boys were soundly defeated by the end of the conflict, the defining battle being the Tri-Clone Invasion, in which human allies and clones of said humans fought on the side of the Cyberforms. The few TBITB survivors are said to have fled to the Xychromozone, though this has not been verified. To this malton unit, small Neo-TBITB groups seem to pop up every so often, though they have so far been quickly dispatched, and none have so far posed a threat as severe as that of the original group.

Disparaging slang term used to describe an android, or other Cybernetic Lifeform, alluding to the importance of yeast in the formation or “baking” of Droid cultures or lines. The term, however, is a misnomer. Though android bodies are vat-grown, yeast has very little to do with the process.

Brigader

Any member in good standing of the Amercadian Space Brigade, the military arm of Amercadia, whose motto is: “Good ‘Til the Last Drops.”

Fifth Level Sister of the Cosmic Veil, Cloistered Order of the Goddess Uncaring (see: Cosmic Veil, Cloistered Order of the) and sometime crew member aboard the U4F Harpy. A sensitive of the telepathic variety who grew up in Hon Ober, on Hon Grri, Griivarr Worlds, Bronwyn was also the author of Conversations With the Great Mother, a book historian Dwannyun of Griivarr (see: Griivarr, Dwannyun of) named as one of the nine great books of AnarchEra.

Bronwyn of the Cosmic Veil

Brucilla the Muscle

A strapping lass who grew up on a Korn Kake farm on Kansas, Amercadia, graduate of the Amercadian Space Academy and former member of the Galactic Girl Guides, Hawk Class. Brucilla (call name “The Muscle”) was implicated in the Neutral Zone Incident of AnarchEra 134 that resulted in her expulsion from the Brigade and the famous trial on Recreation Station 97.

A mythical belt near an unnamed planet in a zone so far removed from the civilized galaxy that it has not rated a number. Though the term Bumpkin Belt can simply be used to describe an extremely distant location, a person said to reside in the Bumpkin Belt is usually an untutored naïf who lacks the sense to come in out of a meteor shower. The Bumpkin Belt is also the place to which any former spacer who settles into the geezer’s life is said to retire.

A mythical village on an unnamed planet in a zone so far removed from the civilized universe that it has not rated a number. A person said to be from Bumpkinville is usually an untutored naïf who lacks the sense to come in out of a meteor shower, though it can be used simply to describe an extremely distant location.

Bumpkins from Bumpkinville

A mythical galaxy that is always farther away than anything else, no matter where you happen to be in the known universe. Hence the expression: “I’m gonna kick your tail from here to the Byzon Galaxy.” A person said to be from the Byzon Galaxy is almost always said to be from “Bum-Boot, Egypt, in the Byzon Galaxy.” Translation: “You are a person (or person equivalent) from a town no one wants to visit, much less live in, in a country that no longer exists, if indeed it ever existed, in a Galaxy that is farther away than anything else in the known universe.” (see: Bumpkinville in the Zero Zone)

Byzon Galaxy (or at least close to it)