Concepts and Definitions

Definitions:

First Lifer - Someone that is in between Birth and 1st Rejuvenation. Usually very vocal and inexperienced in sexual matters.

Second Lifer - Someone between 1st rejuvenation and 2nd. More experienced and cynical than the wide eyed First lifers. By this time frames standards if you are a first lifer you are a teenager...even if you are actually 60 years old.

Rejuvenation - The process where they de-age you to a preferred age. Some, mostly socialites and their ilk go back to 18 years old. Professionals, like Lawyers and Doctors and Politicians, like to go back to their 40's or so to be "distinguished". It takes about two weeks to fully rejuve.

Re-life - In the event of an accident that takes the life of your body they can clone you and insert either your inserted memory cell or your secure memory download to bring you back to life. Basically....no one ever dies anymore unless it's under conditions. Children don't get their memory inserts till about 13 so "bodyloss" up to that point is the only really. Except on certain planets where they decided to live a more simple life.

Travel between planets is by train. That's right, train. The tracks are laid down and lead right into a point specific wormhole. Basically a travel line would be Earth to Augusta (First Phase) to Wessex (Second Phase Capital) then branches off more to smaller planets. Space travel is limited to Train Station to High Angel because the High Angel won't allow a wormhole to be opened on it. And also between a station near Silverholme and Silverholme because the Silfen don't allow technology on their worlds.

Intersolar Dynasties: The most powerful families in the Commonwealth.

The Sheldon Dynasty: The creator of the Commonwealth are generally considered to be Nigel Sheldon and Ozzie Fernandez Isaacs. They created the wormholes that started it's formation in 2050 (I'm not certain of the exact year of Commonwealth Formation though) when they opened a wormhole from their lab in California to Mars just as NASA was landing on the Red Planet. After that they formed CST and they control the transportation through the 600 planets of the Commonwealth and Huxley's Haven the only non-Commonwealth planet on the network. As such it is the most powerful and biggest of the Dynasties. (In the book it basically saved the human race from extinction) Ozzie is not an actual part of the Dynasty even though he has power in it as he owns 49% of CST...he just hates politics. As does Nigel...but he's better at it so he became the face of CST when it was started. (And yes...this takes place in the 2600's or so and both are still alive.)

The Halgarth Dynasty: Perhaps the second most powerful Dynasty as it found an alien ship crashed on Far Away that held the secret to advanced fields. Sadly they didn't realize the alien (The Starflyer) was still alive and it took over the minds of certain members of the family. Not all were taken over though.

Near Intersolar Dynasties (not actual term)

The Kime Family. Derived from NASA Pilot Wilson Kime, can't say descended since he's still alive. He was the pilot of the Spaceplane that landed on Mars in 2050. After the Wormhole became known he went into business and used his military training to work his way up a rather large corporate ladder. After 380 years he was finally able to punch Nigel Sheldon in the nose for taking his dream of flying to Mars and being one of the first there.

The Grand Families. Powerwise they are equal to the Dynasties but they are all based on Earth and stayed there. There are 16 but the book really only talks about one.

The Burnelli Family. Probably the third most powerful family in the Commonwealth.

Unisphere - Internet basically but orders of magnitude more powerful.

SI - Sentient Intelligence. Evolved AI's. They "live" on Vinmar, which is not part of the Commonwealth. They are allied with the Commonwealth, but some don't trust them. They can go anywhere so long as there is Unisphere access. Which is why Nigel Sheldon kept the Sheldon Dynasty planet of Cressat off the unisphere.

Silfin - Alien race that in their young form resemble elves, while their adult form...well they resemble demons. Nominally allied with humanity.

High Angel - Alien Spaceship. Allied with the Commonwealth.

Primes- Alien life form from the Dyson Pair. They were entrapped inside their planets over 1000 years before the stories because whoever trapped them considered them to be very dangerous. They were right as they, after being freed by the Starflyer (which turned out to be a Prime that had been traveling between Dyson Alpha and Beta and so didn't get trapped IN it), almost immediately invaded the Commonwealth destroying the Lost23 (Planets in the first wave of the invasion, rendered uninhabitable by humans) and then the New 47 were invaded later but that invasion was incomplete before the Sheldon's secret weapon was used on the Primes Gateway to Hell wormhole staging system, the Novabomb. Ozzie, after returning from the Silfen Paths, was able to reactivate the trapping barriers with the help of Nigel Sheldon. This war was called the Starflyer War. The Primes are inherently hostile to all other lifeforms. Their goal was to destroy all life except their own. (Spoilers: The Raiel would have destroyed them in an eye blink.)

Raiel: Giant flying squids is how they are described. Very advanced, to the point that they probably have gone post physical, but something keeps them in the physical. Some Raiel are addicted to human emotions and pay for downloads of human memory cells to experience them. (Spoilers: They are the creators of the High Angel, and the reason they haven't gone post physical is that their is a massive evil int he center of the galaxy called the Void. They've spent the last 700,000 years trying to defend life in the galaxy from that. They gave the Aminones {who have since gone post physical} the means to trap the Primes in their home systems.)

Cyberware.

When a kid reached thirteen they get their memory cell inserts and their first "eButler" basically an electronic personal assistant.

Most hardware are called inserts (for eyes as an example you'd have magnification inserts or thermographic inserts. There's tactile inserts to make sexual play more intense.)

All of this is controlled by OCTattoos. Sadly the books NEVER go into how the hell they work at all. But from what I've read in this universe EVERYONE has tattoos. Gore Burnelli (Patriarch of the Burnelli Family) has so much OCTattoos that he's ALL GOLD. Basically it's like a hand motion activates the tat and that turns on the TV (called Portals here). Another Motion calls in the Maidbot. Or checks stock prices. or...anything. I don't know how it works at all.