F

FAMILY (capitalized): The extended family structure recently introduced
in the Kingdom Systems, primarily as a socially-acceptable means of
dealing with the satyr virus and the physiological changes it produces.
As a side effect, it also provides a family structure stable enough
that Special Operations personnel may now marry and are no longer
required to be sterile. The new Families, the first and best known of
which is Family Cortin, consist of several spouses--ideally, but not
necessarily, half male and half female--with any children. (As an
example Family Cortin, at this point [2572], consists of Colonel Cortin
herself, who is Family head but not a spouse, two wives, five husbands,
and three children, with a fourth on the way. It may become more
balanced in the future, since it began as a mostly-male Strike Force
team and has as yet had little opportunity to court more than one
civilian wife.)

FEALTY, CONDITIONAL: (Sandeman) An oath to someone in return for a
consideration, unknown until Gaelan DarShona talked some of the
warriors on the guardian fleet around Mjolnir into taking service in
Planetary Security in exchange for Imperial credits. Such an oath is
considered void if payment in wilfully withheld (inability to pay is
negotiable) or if the one to whom such an oath is taken attempts to
injure the oath-taker, at which point the one taking the oath may feel
free to take appropriate action against the false acceptor.

FEALTY, PERSONAL: (Sandeman) An oath of absolute personal loyalty and
obedience. Theoretically, anyone may swear such fealty to anyone, but
in practice it is almost exclusively warriors swearing to Warleaders or
other high-status warriors.

It is an honor either to be offered such fealty or to have it accepted.
The one giving fealty (thakur-na) becomes, to the best of his ability,
an extension of the one accepting it (thakur). The only acceptable
reasons for disobeying a thakur's will are to preserve his honor or his
life, with the thakur's honor taking precedence. This relationship is
most obvious to non-Sandemans in the custom that any children a 'na
fathers are considered the thakur's, and their use of the familiar mode
of High War Speech.

The 'na has his right cheek tattooed with a mark of his thakur's
choice. Although in theory, since a 'na does swear absolute obedience
and perfect fidelity, there is no need to acknowledge even the great