Urnudans

Urnudans are the people of Urnud, often mentioned in connection with the two‑world bloc known as the Pedestal alongside Tro. Reports available on Arbre describe Urnudans as key participants in building and operating the starship Daban Urnud.

Context and history (as reported)

• Analysts correlating timestamps on captured Urnudan records with Arbran events estimate that Urnudans set out on their first inter‑cosmic voyage roughly nine centuries ago. Later, Troan participation grew, and the two worlds traveled and conducted “Advents” for long periods between new contacts. Some observers suggest this long wandering helps explain their brisk, sometimes tetchy bearing.
• Accounts from a Laterran visitor indicate that during the extended voyage the leadership culture aboard shifted in tone—from strictly rational theors to something more priestly in outlook—especially among those closest to strategic decision‑making.

Community aboard the Daban Urnud

• Many Urnudans are part of the shipboard population commonly called the Forty Thousand. The living hub of the vessel consists of sixteen rotating spheres (“orbs”). Each orb is half‑filled with water and supports house‑boats with gardens on their roofs; communities are officially organized so that each of the four participating worlds holds four orbs, though mixing occurs in practice.
• Education and technical training are emphasized to maintain ship systems and mission continuity; competition among the worlds for skilled roles is described as keen.
• Pressurized corridors link the orbs, allowing inhabitants to travel between living spheres and supporting both world‑based organization and practical mixing.
• Captured sunlight from the icosahedron’s exterior is piped inward via trunk lines of optical fibers to illuminate the rooftop farms within the orbs.
• Everyday life on the house‑boats is adapted to motion: cabinets latch, furniture is fixed down, and communities adjust to occasional jostling when the ship maneuvers or the water sloshes.
• Within the Orbstack, Orbs One through Four are Urnudan; by convention Orb One houses high‑ranking members of their community. The Nexus where Orbs One, Five, Nine, and Thirteen meet adjoins a torus of command spaces used for leadership meetings. Current accounts note that tensions between the Pedestal and the Fulcrum have led to physical partitions and secured hatches within parts of this command ring.

Language and measures

• Documents attributed to Urnudans use “Urnud years” as a standard unit of time. Where their reports reference people or places from other worlds, a phonetic alphabet for transliterating proper names is employed, easing cryptanalytic comparison to Arbran events.
• Urnudan numerals are used prominently to mark accessways to the orbs; for example, the Urnudan glyph for unity is painted next to the approach for Orb One.

Facilities and operations observed

• Vertex complexes include observatories; the main telescope dome can be sealed, pressurized, and vented and effectively functions as a large airlock. Telescopes are typically operated remotely via the Reticulum.
• Urnudan personnel include armed soldiers and firefighting crews who traverse the vertices, Tendons, and the Core to respond to incidents.

Surveillance and tactics (reported)

• Advisors describe Urnudans as past masters of space warfare who couple powerful telescopes with syndevs to sift very large image sets, building a census of objects injected into orbit and flagging any that maneuver with thrusters.
• Decoy discrimination is said to exploit orbital behavior: large balloons feel atmospheric drag differently from dense payloads, allowing analysts to separate fakes from true targets over time.

Current posture

• In present contact near Arbre, Urnudans act in concert with Tro under the Pedestal banner. Descriptions emphasize a capable, wary leadership and a disciplined shipboard society prepared for decisive action when they perceive threats.
• During a night‑side pass, observers in low orbit reported kinetic rod strikes on major equatorial launch facilities, an action attributed in‑world to the Pedestal’s orbital presence.
• While suited crews were working on the World Burner, one account reported a sequence of bright flares followed by a palpable jolt, interpreted as destruction of propellant tanks on the device. Immediately afterward, the forward bearing chamber filled with responders moving along the Tendon serving that vertex; injured personnel were seen evacuating, and access control tightened across the Daban Urnud, with soldiers securing approaches to Orb One.