Avout

Not to be confused with vout, a derogatory extramuros label for an avout.

Definition

Avout are members of the mathic world who reside within a Math (walled cloister) under the Cartasian Discipline (formal rule-set). Their life centers on study, liturgy, and work inside the walls; contact with the outside is carefully bounded.

Context and Usage

• Origins of separation (post‑Reconstitution): Mathic reference works and civic lore record a widely held—but unproven—account that fears of Praxic‑Age weapons called Everything Killers in the wake of the Terrible Events led to a policy of segregating theors from non‑theorical society; when enacted, this became synonymous with the Reconstitution. This background helps explain the avout’s distinct legal standing and ritual boundaries.
• Rebirth (historical): A named turning in mathic histories when the gates of the maths were opened and avout dispersed into the Sæculum, marking the divide between the Old Mathic Age and the Praxic Age. Accounts describe a subsequent flowering of culture, theorical advancement, and exploration.
• Contact cycles: Formal contact with the outside world occurs during Apert (gates-open observance), when gates open under rules set by the Discipline. Outside authorities cannot enter the math except at this time.
• Legal status: Avout are described as existing wholly apart from the legal system of the Sæcular Power (outside civil authority). They are not recorded in that system, are outside its jurisdiction and benefits, and do not receive identity documents. As a practical consequence, crossing political frontiers that require documents can be difficult or impossible for avout. In some cities, constables explicitly note that incidents involving avout are administratively complicated by this status.
• Travel abroad: When sanctioned, avout may go extramuros (outside the walls) under Peregrin (sanctioned travel) or as part of a formal Voco (official summons). Groups often travel together to preserve the spirit of the Discipline while outside. In speech, avout commonly address one another with honorifics such as “fraa” (male title) and “suur” (female title).
• Status term (“Feral”): Some speakers use “Feral” to accuse an avout of abandoning sanctioned discipline while on peregrin—leaving the walls or continuing travel without authorization. It is reproachful in tone and may be cited in arguments over a person’s standing during a Convox or their placement at meals.
• Collective reference and recognition: Extras use "avout" both collectively and for individuals. A magister in a Kelx service speaks of “the avout in their concents,” and a lay passenger on a coastal vessel asks whether a traveler is “one of the avout,” treating a meeting as an honor.
• Perceptions and slang extramuros: The term “vout” is used by some speakers outside the walls as a derogatory label for an avout; in in‑world lexicography it is associated with iconographies that depict avout very negatively. In crowds, onlookers have been heard to shout “vout,” and some misinterpret an avout’s use of standard kit (e.g., the expanding sphere) as “sorcery.”
• Entry and access: Gatekeepers recite a traditional admonition that one may not pass the gates unless swearing a solemn Vow (oath not to leave). Speakers also assert that one on whom the Anathem has been rung (banishment rite; “Thrown Back”) may not reenter a math, and that an avout who has been Evoked (formally summoned out) to a Convox (mass convocation) should present at the designated host rather than at another math.
• Observed local variation (Ecba): At Orithena, a walled community on Ecba, residents present themselves as avout to outsiders but identify the place internally as the Lineage (ancient tradition) rather than a Cartasian math. Visitors are not made to swear the Vow, and residents indicate they can depart at will. The outward avout presentation serves as a cover for dealing with extras while maintaining avout‑like dedication to work; the community also avoids submitting to an Inquisition (mathic authority).
• Education and terminology: Instruction for fids (novice students) follows long‑standing traditions. Speakers note that different orders of theors (theoretical scholars) prefer different models and terms for quantum theorics; some avout mentally translate between an “old” vocabulary and a more polycosmic (many‑cosmi) phrasing.
• Emergency interaction with outside authorities: In a security response at Orithena, soldiers of the Sæcular Power fitted avout with numbered collars (tracking devices) and directed an evacuation by aerocraft. Avout on site sought to preserve time for learning from a visiting artifact even under pressure from outside authority.

Convox and rites

• Convox (large convocation of avout): Defined in mathic dictionaries as a gathering of avout from maths and concents across Arbre, typically held at Millennial Apert or after a sack, and in rare cases upon request of the Sæcular Power. Avout summoned to such a gathering treat it as formal duty.
• Inbrase (Convox induction aut): A ceremonial program that formally enrolls newly arrived peregrins into the Convox. It renews vows, includes processions, symbolic acts, addresses by hierarchs (senior officials), and musical offerings by contingents. Notices are dispatched to home concents recording each avout’s change of status.
• Orders and lines present: Distinct cohorts attend, including Thousanders (long-sealed line) and other orders with their own musical and ritual traditions. Some groups perform computational chanting (music-as-computation that permutes a theme by rule) and maintain sequences over centuries. Ethical stances vary by cohort; for example, avout from Ringing Vale describe the “Everything Killers” as dishonorable.
• Plenary (public session of a Convox): A large assembly in a nave where an interlocutor—styled a loctor—conducts an extemporaneous dialog with an invited avout before the gathered community. Host concents may stage such sessions with lighting, scaffolds, and a speely feed, and microphones are sometimes clipped to bolts so speakers can be heard throughout the nave. Sæcular officials and technicians may be present as observers and crew.
• Roles and authority: Avout belong to chapters within orders and recognize internal leadership positions. A senior figure may be styled “First Among Equals” of a chapter. During plenaries or messals, junior avout may be assigned as servitors to senior doyns according to local custom.
• Daily rhythm at large gatherings: Mornings (ante Provener) are commonly spent in Laboratorium (assigned work with others); after Provener and before Messal, Periklyne is used to mix, share results, and propagate information; after Messal, Lucub (late‑night work) allows self‑organized effort and ad hoc collaboration.
• Risk and dispersal planning (Antiswarm): When large gatherings face an external threat, organizers may prepare a planned dispersal sometimes nicknamed the Antiswarm. Avout are preassigned to small cells, each including some Ita, with rucksacks and badges issued alongside instructions. The aim is to maintain coordination over the Reticulum while mingling into the Sæculum and taking on immediately relevant tasks. Some avout explicitly compare such preparations to a “second Rebirth” and “a second Praxic Age,” and the visible readiness to disperse is used as a deterrent.
• Execution in practice: In one large-scale evacuation, controlled demolitions opened multiple apertures in the outer wall to prevent bottlenecks; avout streamed out along badge-guided routes, kept their rucksacks close as instructed, and moved to drummons staged extramuros. Cells were formed that mixed avout with Valers and Ita, aid teams handled injuries on the move, and sound trucks directed anyone who had become separated from their badge or pack.

Improvised launch and orbital assembly

• Launch support under pressure: At a makeshift site, avout were pressed into service as launch crew, using improvised materials (kitchen wrap, packing tape, expanding foam) and hand‑annotated checklists to brace and position a suited traveler inside a small fairing (“gazebo”).
• Retrieval and clustering in low orbit: Working within a mixed cell, avout used monyafeeks to rendezvous with color‑coded payloads, grapple them with telescoping lines, and tow them into shelter behind a metallized balloon. Roles included a central “Glommer” to collect arrivals and “Getters” to fetch and deliver strays while others performed star checks.
• Ground coordination: Support cells on the Reticulum pushed route overlays and procedure steps over a line‑of‑sight relay, monitored suit biometrics, and talked teams through congested assemblies.
• Concealment and approach: Avout assisted in assembling the Cold Black Mirror and an inflatable decoy, then helped deploy an electrodynamic tether with a counterweight to generate continuous, quiet thrust. This allowed a gradual spiral toward the Daban Urnud while avoiding detection by the Geometers.

Attire and kit in practice

• Wide variation by math: At large gatherings, avout display diverse wraps and accessories—turbans, hoods, footgear, under- and over-bolts—ranging from austere styles to elaborately folded ensembles. Some orders inherit and reuse ancient bolts until they are reduced to minimal coverings.
• Standard personal kit: The classic limit of three personal tools—the bolt, the chord, and the sphere—remains a cultural touchstone; new kit items may be issued for specific circumstances (e.g., quarantine) but are treated as temporary.

Meals and conversation at a host concent

• Messal (small formal dinner): Meals are organized as small, seated conversations in messallans (private dining rooms). Each messal is hosted by a dowment or chapter house (endowed/residential houses) and aims to keep discussion cohesive.
• Roles at table: Junior avout serve as servitors (junior assistants), each paired with a doyn (senior mentor). Servitors help prepare and serve the meal and, when appropriate, may listen in or contribute. Customs observed include standing behind the doyn during service, folding the doyn’s napkin, and providing a warm damp face‑cloth on request.
• Summon ropes and bellboard: At some houses, a velvet pull beneath each doyn’s place is routed by ribbon through the walls to a bellboard in the kitchen. Bells are labeled, and rope‑ends are chalked with servitors’ names so a doyn can silently summon assistance.
• Audio feed to the kitchen: Technicians from the Ita have been observed rigging a one‑way sound system so those in the kitchen—and sometimes remote listeners—can hear the messallan’s dialog.
• Local kitchen rule: At Avrachon’s Dowment, the host and staff ran the kitchen; extras were not permitted to cook, while avout servitors and household servitors prepared the meal.
• “Voting with their feet”: Described as an old tradition at Avrachon’s Dowment, servitors sometimes signal boredom or disapproval of a dialog by withdrawing en masse to the kitchen; doyns are expected to notice.
• Informational shielding: On a sensitive occasion, servitors—working with technically adept allies—enclosed a messallan and adjacent spaces in grounded wire mesh (nicknamed a Bucker’s Basket) and cut a microphone feed to block wireless monitoring. The maneuver preserved conversational autonomy and exposed a disguised outsider who had been carrying a body transmitter.

Related Terms

• Math; Cartasian Discipline; Apert; Saecular Power; Ita; Peregrin.

Notes

• Personal kit and property limits: Speakers describe an ancient prohibition that limits avout to owning only three personal tools—“the bolt, the chord, and the sphere.” These are used ingeniously for daily life and problem‑solving.
• Bolt and chord: Made of related fibers that can coil into springy, short forms or relax into long, inelastic strands. Avout adjust them seasonally (warmth vs. length) and employ them for rigging, binding, and mechanical advantage (named tricks include “Saunt Ablavan’s Ratchet,” “Ramgad’s Contraption,” and “the Lazy Fraa”).
• Sphere: A porous, pump‑membrane that can be compacted into a hard pill or softened and expanded like a self‑inflating balloon. In practice it can wedge in confined spaces, serve as an air‑bed, or act as a movable anchor when combined with the bolt and chord.
• Observed speech habit: One avout narrator remarks on a “compulsion to state facts,” offered as a cultural self‑observation rather than a formal rule.
• Honorifics and veneration: Common forms of address include “fraa” and “suur”; “Saunt” is used in names of revered figures and survives in the titles of well‑known tricks.
• Comfort with hypothetical reasoning: An avout narrator notes that they are used to being presented with outlandish cosmographical hypotheses and, in theorics, assume them provisionally to see where they lead.
• Philosophical currents: Avout study and debate the Split between syntactic and semantic approaches (associated with Saunt Proc and Saunt Halikaarn) and the “Aboutness Problem.” Some frame these debates with reference to the Hylaean Theoric World. In casual speech, terms like “Procians” and “Faanians” appear.
• Dialog (formal disputation): Mathic literature preserves Dialogs that are studied, re‑enacted, and memorized by fids (novices); formats range from the classic two‑speaker exchange to the Triangular (savant, seeker, and imbecile), among others.