The most impressive of the ancient combatants in the Grand War were the Hogedep. Innately attuned to the magic of the Expanse, these immense serpents can levitate with ease and keep a familiarity with the metalanguage of TMF programming that verges on instinctual. They are an intensely proud people, having developed technologically and culturally far more quickly than the comparatively crude Ksreskézai, and of the civilizations of the Expanse, it is generally thought that only the Lyrisclensiae possess more sophisticated sciences, although some debate lingers about what the Tletkettoyi were capable of.
While most civilisations eventually organise their ideas into a scientific process, where superstition and mythology oppose evidence and analysis, the Hogedep only fully absorbed this lesson after the Second War with Thet (c. 5010 tgc.) Until then the dominant duality was the "Hot vs. Cold" divide, which split their sciences, arts, religions, and social policies based on whether a given idea originated with someone who favoured one cosmogony or the other. Unlike in fully scientific societies, the evidence-based predictions that each camp was able to successfully make were consistently extrapolated as proof of the validity of that faction's dogma, and a sort of power-sharing duopoly necessarily emerged, where the two rival sides tolerated each other's existence but vehemently persecuted any attempt at unification or other circumvention of the binary system, treating it as absolute heresy. The factions' ideas were named after what they each believed to be the final state of the universe:
Proponents asserted that the universe tends toward dissipation of heat, energy, and all gases; the addition of light, which also constitutes the energy of the soul, causes all motion from which work can be extracted. Starlight is constantly consumed by all living organisms; chemical processes are nothing more than trickle-down effects triggered by solar energy. The impetus of life itself is a signal encoded in infrared light, hence any understanding of biological processes that might be obtained from studying them directly is at best a distraction from greater truths about life's role in the universe, for bodies are nothing more than shells built by light to house itself.
Certain idiosyncrasies of the Hogenem life experience made this hypothesis seem rather more obvious to them than it would to other species; in particular, the Hogenem body can take days to stop moving after brain death.
It was believed that the universe tends toward dissipation of coldness, rather than heat, and that the universe will end once all matter is fully drained of cold. Further, proponents claimed that cold slowed gravitational attraction. Hot objects are those that can still absorb more coldness, which stars naturally devour from objects. Life emerges when cold moves through warm matter, creating contrast, and does not exist inside healthy stars—rather it manifests in sun spots, black holes, and other cold stellar remnants. Stars naturally seek to create structure and complexity, as evidenced by the process of fusion. Studying biology is therefore a cosmic obligation.
The Pesenese reported the Cold faction as being generally more amenable to scientific progress in the physical sciences, as well as less antagonistic of other species. The inverted thermodynamics advanced by the Hot faction created a needless obstacle to fundamental science; most technological breakthroughs were accomplished by the Cold researchers and regarded with suspicion until a sufficiently convoluted translation to their own metaphysical viewpoint could be constructed.
The roots of this symmetrical struggle, in early and even Iron-age-like rationalising about the physical geography of their homeworld, illuminate clearly how seldom the Hogedepi re-evaluate their own ideas. Under the tutelage of the Khúsak they experienced dramatical intellectual growth toward a more sensible world-view, but following the downfall of that culture, violent uprisings rapidly restored the old binary; the period of enlightenment was soon mostly erased from history. This powerful, somewhat unique case of societal cognitive bias is often lamented by modern historians, and rivals Pesenese compassion in terms of its specific impact on the Expanse's history.
Biology
Culture
While most civilisations eventually organise their ideas into a scientific process, where superstition and mythology oppose evidence and analysis, the Hogedep only fully absorbed this lesson after the Second War with Thet (c. 5010 tgc.) Until then the dominant duality was the "Hot vs. Cold" divide, which split their sciences, arts, religions, and social policies based on whether a given idea originated with someone who favoured one cosmogony or the other. Unlike in fully scientific societies, the evidence-based predictions that each camp was able to successfully make were consistently extrapolated as proof of the validity of that faction's dogma, and a sort of power-sharing duopoly necessarily emerged, where the two rival sides tolerated each other's existence but vehemently persecuted any attempt at unification or other circumvention of the binary system, treating it as absolute heresy. The factions' ideas were named after what they each believed to be the final state of the universe:
Cold
Proponents asserted that the universe tends toward dissipation of heat, energy, and all gases; the addition of light, which also constitutes the energy of the soul, causes all motion from which work can be extracted. Starlight is constantly consumed by all living organisms; chemical processes are nothing more than trickle-down effects triggered by solar energy. The impetus of life itself is a signal encoded in infrared light, hence any understanding of biological processes that might be obtained from studying them directly is at best a distraction from greater truths about life's role in the universe, for bodies are nothing more than shells built by light to house itself.
Certain idiosyncrasies of the Hogenem life experience made this hypothesis seem rather more obvious to them than it would to other species; in particular, the Hogenem body can take days to stop moving after brain death.
Hot
It was believed that the universe tends toward dissipation of coldness, rather than heat, and that the universe will end once all matter is fully drained of cold. Further, proponents claimed that cold slowed gravitational attraction. Hot objects are those that can still absorb more coldness, which stars naturally devour from objects. Life emerges when cold moves through warm matter, creating contrast, and does not exist inside healthy stars—rather it manifests in sun spots, black holes, and other cold stellar remnants. Stars naturally seek to create structure and complexity, as evidenced by the process of fusion. Studying biology is therefore a cosmic obligation.
The Pesenese reported the Cold faction as being generally more amenable to scientific progress in the physical sciences, as well as less antagonistic of other species. The inverted thermodynamics advanced by the Hot faction created a needless obstacle to fundamental science; most technological breakthroughs were accomplished by the Cold researchers and regarded with suspicion until a sufficiently convoluted translation to their own metaphysical viewpoint could be constructed.
The roots of this symmetrical struggle, in early and even Iron-age-like rationalising about the physical geography of their homeworld, illuminate clearly how seldom the Hogedepi re-evaluate their own ideas. Under the tutelage of the Khúsak they experienced dramatical intellectual growth toward a more sensible world-view, but following the downfall of that culture, violent uprisings rapidly restored the old binary; the period of enlightenment was soon mostly erased from history. This powerful, somewhat unique case of societal cognitive bias is often lamented by modern historians, and rivals Pesenese compassion in terms of its specific impact on the Expanse's history.
