The Cerberus Files: Historical Analysis of Citadel and Terminus Space

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Beloved Jack, elegant Rachel, and fearsome Richard

My research into the cultural concepts of the turians is now completed. Given the unity between the turian government and it's military, those two sections will have to be combined. Pel will be doing the bulk of that work, a topic I must admit I look forward to both for it's informative value as well as his mastery of invective.

Turian culture is rich, but most of it is akin to the merha sauces we asari use on our seafood - we can taste it and appreciate it, humans cannot taste even the slightest hint of it. Turian culture is inwards facing, reflective, not arrogative or presentative. It relies on a very turian way of looking at things, and many aspects come off as overly violent, grim, or barbaric to outsiders.

I hope my explanations can clarify some of what you see - and do not see - regarding the turians.

Cerberus Message of the Day : Worry not about morals and decency, when it is long past the hour for such things. You cannot afford to be decent when the headsman's ax is already falling.

Turian Culture: Art and Architecture

When most think of turian art, the only things that can immediately be brought to mind are the Sha Titans.

This is an unfortunate and rather sad commentary on the bigotry of all aliens when it comes to recognizing what is art. The Sha Titans, however, are not seen by turians as art, but as a direct representation of something they claim to have encountered.

Turians did not conceive of the visual arts as paintings, carvings or sculptures – in fact, they did not even have a word for such ideas until they encountered the volus, and to this day do not practice anything like statuary. Despite their predominant sense being vision, they see art as the presentation of the objects of everyday use, not specially set aside and otherwise useless things, and to many senses, including touch, not just the eyes.

Thus, in some ways everything is art to turians. This is why their buildings are so cleanly functional and yet always striking in form and angle, why their facial markings are so exact and exotic, why every set of turian armor is a striking admixture of the organic lines of their bodies and the hard, mathematical angles of their structures. It is why their floor coverings use such striking colors and they have so many wildly differing models of clothing.

Turian furniture and interior items, such as rugs and draperies, are richly decorated with geometric or organic shapes that are subtle and difficult for non-turians to even see. Likewise, turian weapons, tools, and even vehicles are molded into eye-pleasing forms and often utilize rectilinear shapes or tiny carvings of turian script that evoke the dicta or views of the crafter. Turians believe the most sublime art is that which is a blend of utility, subtlety, and making one appreciate a message or view from the shape or texture of an object alone.

Turians see art as literally, that which enhances the appreciation of the mundane. They boldly use color and augmented shapes and textures on everything they make and use. There is very, very little non-functional turian artwork, and most of that is exploration of bizarre non-Euclidean shapes in representation of the world of the ancestral spirits. Many of these strange objects are somewhat ominous or even frightening to look at for long, as no other race has the proper visual angles for the resulting intersection of shape and form to make sense.

Turians have a large appreciation for textures, especially contrasts in feel. This is why their clothing and buildings have such bizarre (to aliens) juxtapositions of materials used in their construction. Certain textures appear to convey different emotional responses – hard and smooth materials feel efficient, organic and natural textures relaxed, machined or rigid ornamentation is for diligence, etc.

Turians utilize repeated decorative foci – the curve of wings and claws, the sharp acute angle, triangles, oblongs, and irregular trapezoids. Circular shapes are rare in buildings, clothing designs or surface textures, and almost all turian rooms and buildings evoke echoes of ancient nesting concepts – shallow oblong bowls with hard overhangs, low and irregularly surfaced ceilings, and the like. Turian architecture is some of their most artistic endeavor - the Citadel Tower was redone by turian architects, and it's sweeping , simple lines are the pinnacle of turian subtlety through projection.

Very few turians engage in anything approximating 'conventional' visual art. A handful of somewhat eccentric turian types have take up such arts as painting in the past centuries, but they are seen as superfluous wastes upon the meritocracy and are hard-pressed to find much value perception in their work from their own people.

Turian Culture: Music

Turian music is, to be fair, somewhat simplistic, and almost its entire focus is upon a few key themes – glory to the people, glory to valor and sacrifice, spiritual reflection, and what Pel mockingly but insistently calls 'ass-whipping music'.

Turian music falls into two rough categories – jurchass, or 'movement', relies more on the shifts between notes and chords than melody to define itself, giving it mournful and dirge-like reactions. There is heavy use of percussive beats, and Pel referred to the turian anthem of "Die For the Cause" as 'old pre-Iron death metal meets modern slide-shift electronic in D minor or some shit'.

His eloquence is truly touching, Jack.

Jurchass is mostly used in military related or inspirational pieces, such as battle anthems and the like. It is the most popular kind of music that other races listen to. I find it very amusing that humans think that "Die for the Cause" is 'catchy', given it's rather depressing overtones of being killed for the sheer glory of the Hierarchy and having your name inscribed on a piece of stone, but the male-oriented and frankly phallic-worshiping fixation of turians, batarians and humans on violence has never made much sense to me.

The other type, falchan, or 'spirit cry', is mostly tonal variances on 'hard' choral accompaniment to a heavy, staccato beat. The beat changes periodically, resulting in a curious quality almost like poetic meter as it drifts back and forth, speeding up in shifts as the singing increases in intensity and emotion. This is more religious in nature, and is used in both events of a joyous nature as well as sorrowful ones. Perhaps the most moving and powerful piece of music in this vein is "Sacrifice is Never Without Regrets", often sung when particularly young turians die in the protection of others or for the safety of innocents.

I fear my trials and hatreds have hardened me to things such as pity, but I will not deny that hearing this song on Magna, at the funeral of a turian boy barely fourteen years of age, who died in searing agony to rescue three young females by running through plasma fires, made me weep as if I was a maiden. I doubt you will appreciate the beauty and loss in such a piece, but it shows me that, unlike the salarians, the turian soul is not some empty black place filled with duty, but has sorrows it merely endures.

Turian instruments are rather eclectic, with a lack of anything like horns or strings in favor of a bewildering array of percussive instruments both terrifying and grotesque. At least two musical instruments incorporate turian bone and other elements of the turian body, and several more are similar to the human drum.

Turian Culture: Entertainment and Sports

Turians are a very active, physical people, and it should be of little surprise that they entertain themselves in a primarily physical manner. They are fiercely competitive, if good natured about such, and most sports is adversarial in it's concept, with a primacy in demonstrating strength and durability over cleverness or intellectuality.

Turian sports include the always popular clawball, hideth turram (a mix of human polo and asari venchass), several types of foot races and gymnastics, and competitive martial arts tournaments. Turians are also very fond of combat with ancient melee weapons, particularly what humans would call axes. Other more sedate sports include contests of visual accuracy with hurled objects.

Turians delight in hunting as well, particularly the dangerous alpha predators known as vakars, which may be semi-sentient and are dangerous enough to require modern military arms and armor to survive a pack assault. Turian hunting expeditions range far and wide in search of increasingly outlandish game, and more than one turian has died foolishly attempting to hunt thresher maws.

Even krogan are not brave enough (or suicidally stupid enough) to actually hunt those monstrosities.

Turians are also heavily involved with designing and playing what you would call 'board games', and are fascinated by human chess, which has more complex rules in the turian adaptation. Many turian board games are of a military bent, including recreations of the Krogan Rebellions or even the Relay 314 incident. (For obvious reasons such games are rarely played by other races.)

Turians do not like gambling or any forms of games of chance, unless they have a physical aspect ... with the exception of P. , but that strange figure is hardy an exemplar of turian values.

Turians value dance immensely, and most turians can be surprisingly elegant and energetic in dancing, but their form of interpretive dance, uchanas, is also a form of ritual combat and not recommended for aliens to partake in.

Turian haptic entrainment is mostly limited to musical shows, military movies, educational programming, historical reenactments and the like, with a couple of exceptions. Turians are extremely avid consumers of pornography, although unlike humans and asari they are rather fixated on purely their own race when it comes to such. (I find Minsta's dislike of asari sexuality hilarious in light of the fact that only humans match the asari in the watching and creation of pornography.) As I believe referenced by Pel, a good amount of said material covers egg-laying and other rather unpalatable subjects for aliens to watch, and much of it is rather ... extreme.

It is a rare moment when Minsta, Pel, and I agree on a topic, and further discussion of turian sexual proclivities is over.

Turians are also (very surprisingly) absolutely rabid consumers of romantic dramas, not only including the common Fleet and Flotilla show but even risque asari dramas and human 'soap operas'. They will bicker about the context of these shows endlessly, often becoming quite driven when the pairings of such shows do not match the turian expectations of what should happen. The rather lustful and shamelessly wanton (even from my perspective!) behavior of some female quarians in the show that so turns off other viewers is seen as perfectly normal by turian females, although the reasons are much different.

Turian entertainment is usually collective, and the turians have a wide array of what they call 'all-gathers', a free-to-the-public mix of gymnasium, bar, boxing ring, entertainment theater, and, well, rooms for sexual contact. Stressed turians will come here to fight, watch shows, eat, get drunk, mate, and thus feel better. They are definitely not the sort of place a human would fit in, although you could probably gather a great deal of useful information from inebriated, overstressed turians.

Turians enjoy nature, and love mountain climbing and hiking, although they are not good at swimming as noted by Pel and avoid all forms of water sports.

Turian Culture: Tourism and Events

Turians do not really have a sense of tourism as asari, humans, or salarians do. The idea of leaving your clan and comfortable surroundings to go haring off into some strange alien landscapes and looking at pointless and functionless art is completely bizarre to turians. However, the idea of seeing natural beauty of a kind not familiar to one, such as mountains, or natural formations like the Grand Canyon on Earth or the Shatter on Thessia, is understandable to them, as is going on exotic hunting trips.

As such, there is a minor tourist industry in turian space. Few aliens come to turian space to see the sights, and Palaven in particular is only exceeded by Tuchanka and Irune in it's hostility to alien life.

Most turian tourism is actually religious in nature. When a turian is torn between the course of action he must make or feels himself dishonored by circumstances not of his control or ability to avoid, they will often engage in a pilgrimage of sorts. This is a fasting trip, where a turian disengages from everyone (except a mate) and attempts to reconnect to the ancient values. Such turians will not speak while engaged in this rite, eating only enough to survive and often spending time meditating or thinking alone in spots of natural beauty and away from civilization.

The turians only have two holidays in their calendar. The first is the Day of Ash, where they remember the sacrifices of the race to ensure the survival of the people. Turians carefully paint their faces with thin and complex sigils of black ash in memory of loved ones or friends who died in such a manner, while the Primarchs do the same and venerate the spirits of all those who died during the Burning. This is the only day turians will neither work or fight, as the day is seen as holy – interrupting them during this time is likely to result in being ignored.

The other holiday, Highfall, is when Menae is closest to Palaven every six years, resulting in the magnetic field of the moon clashing with Palaven and creating huge auroras in the sky. The ancient turians believed this was the day ancestors ascended to become spirits if they died in a worthy manner, and it is the only time turians are celebratory and relaxed. It is, according to Pel's somewhat disgusted recollection, an interesting admixture of brawling, open sexuality, drunkenness, and silliness, with a dash of the human emotions at your New Year's ceremonies of unity.

Turian Culture: Ritual Combat

Turians have a fixation on unarmed combat, both as a way to relieve stress and to enjoy the feeling of strength and power flowing through their bodies. However, there are certain situations in which this combat is more serious and often involves serious injury – when it is to solve conflicts between those at different ranks or places on the meritocracy, and as a sort of erotic foreplay between males and females.

These two types of very ritualized combat have strict rules and observed traditions. The first is known as kha'lal, or the challenge. It is usually invoked when a turian subordinate cannot bring herself to follow the orders of a superior who is clearly not qualified for their rank or position. This is not when a turian disagrees with orders, mind you. A turian will follow orders they feel are wrong as long as the superior has their confidence, because the turian feels the superior must know something he doesn't, or that there are no other good options – his is not to question but to obey.

However, an incompetent leader – even if they are making what seems to be the correct choices – cannot command respect or submission in his subordinates. Turians ancient instincts will force them to rebel – this is, writ large, why the otherwise unified race is constantly racked with internal rebellions. The challenge is a formal protest to suggest the leader be removed and replaced.

The battle is fought only using talons and with no armor of any kind. The goals of the combatants are very different. The challenger and subordinate is looking to cripple or kill his superior, while in order to prove his superiority, the senior must disable his subordinate without crippling him , preferably as fast as possible. No martial arts can be used, instead both must fight in the 'old way' – kicks, fangs,claws, and grapples. No one can interfere, and the combat only stops when one turian submits or is too crippled (or dead) to fight on.

A clear win results in a temporary submission from those watching, while a battle that takes too long is seen as a sign of clear weakness. And should the superior actually lose, this is seen as clear incompetence.

The challenge is notably not allowed while in active combat the military, due to the fact that sometimes the orders being given did not originate with the superior, and that classified information might be required for them to make sense. Politics, business, and non-combat military commands are those who go through the challenge most frequently.

The other fight, the hulth, or the wanting, is a sort of mating challenge between two turians that are attracted to each other but vastly separated by the meritocracy. This challenge is usually by males seeking a higher rank female, but the reverse also happens on occasion. Generally speaking, matches across wide divides in the meritocracy are looked down upon, some even casting aspersion on the higher ranked partner. By completing the wanting, the challenger proves that while his valor and acts have not yet matched his or her desired mate, his will and discipline make him a worthy match and that there should be no shame in mating.

Unlike the challenge, the wanting is done in strict privacy – no others except one direct superior to the challenger may observe. Combat is similar to the challenge, with the change that neither is striking to kill or even cripple, but to weaken and subdue. This is where the uchanas is used, the ritual dance-combat of potential lovers. No alien has ever beheld such combat, but a few very rare bootleg haptic videos of such were taken. The resulting fight is both graceful and somehow sad.

The partner being challenged has every reason to fight as hard as possible even if they are desperately attracted to the challenger – if they lose, they cannot ascend further until their mate equals their rank in the meritocracy. It is often seen as somewhat crazed to risk such, as stagnancy in the meritocracy is likely to result in superiors assuming the person has no further potential to ascend.

If the challenger wins, the fight usually turns into somewhat aggressive and repeated sex, until the other partner is (if female) fertilized or (if male) unable to further perform. The two can then be bound. If the challenger loses, however, the winner chastises the challenger's superior for his arrogance and will depart. This results in massive loss of face for both the challenger and his superior.

The most famous of the hulth in recent history was the mating and bonding of General Regilus Vakarian to the challenge of Mitisia of Palaven, a lower ranked female. The general was at the time one of the youngest and highest ranked turians in the Hierarchy, while Mitisia was little more than a sergeant barely beyond the fourth tier of the meritocracy. They were drawn to each other and the combat was reportedly so fierce that to this day Regilus lost an eye to his wife, but ended with her victory and union. Given that this outcome is as if some street waif was able to lay claim to the hand of young Christian Manswell, it caused a great deal of controversy in the Hierarchy at the time.

Turian Culture: Promotion in the Meritocracy

The nature of the meritocracy is stultifying tests, perception and of course the evaluation of superiors and peers. Much of this is government, but one thing is very cultural, and that is the promotion tests.

The Trials, as they are called, vary based on the job the turian holds in society, their relative skill to others, and how much potential they have shown in the past. A highly skilled weapons designer with a past history of excellent military service will have a much sterner trial than a young cook who mustered out after one term of service.

However, the more strict the Trial, the higher one can ascend. There is a turian saying that 'low summits call for less skill than the Veriximus Peaks'. The Veriximus Peaks are the highest on Palaven, no living being has ever managed to reach the peak of Uxam Primus, and thousands have died trying.

Turians who ascend rapidly are often seen as both exemplars of the race and somewhat reckless, but those who ascend slowly are often seen as lazy or hapless. There is a great deal of expectation for turians in prominent Families or affiliated to great Clans to ascend rapidly, while most turians are willing to ascend at the pace best suited to their actual skills.

The Trials are very somber in execution, often with family members or friends showing up to provide moral support and encouragement. A successful Trial is cause for celebration, although this is of a short duration, while failure leads to the family and friends encouraging the turian to work harder and have faith in their own abilities.

Turian Culture: Language

There are two primary dialects of turian, along with a handful of secondary dialects only used by the military. When people think of the turian language, they typically only think of the primary two.

Pavaas, or lowspeak, is used by all turians, and it is a simple, flexible language that mostly deals with day to day concepts, military terms, Clan and Family ideas, and the basics of any sentient race's communication needs. Pavaas is the second most widely spoken language in the galaxy after the simplified Galactic Asari Standard that all races speak.

The second dialect, Vanaas, or highspeak, is a ritualized language supposedly derived from the speech and teachings of the Valluvian Priests. Many of it's concepts are very hard to translate, such as issues related to the ancestor spirits, dimensions of reality, certain obscure geometric and mathematical concepts that make no sense and the like. It is also very formal and archaic, full of anachronisms and lacking in modern technological terms. It is only used in ceremonial and ritual situations.

Three minor dialects , called the little clawspeaks or the little mutters, are mostly used by the military. One is distinct to the hastatim, or turian vigilante culture, notable mostly for the large number of words borrowed from batarian and krogan. Another is mostly used by the Deathwatch and Blackwatch, mostly with combat related concepts. Pel, I believe, is familiar with this dialect. The final language is used only by the Turian Final Line, and is unique in that some of it is purely electronic in nature. Given the shadow-world these zombie-like monsters live in, between death and life, it is no surprise that this language is very strange.

Most turian concepts are very clearly delineated in their language, which has a very large number of descriptive adjectives and relational-ownership verbs. The language is rich in technical terms, in combat and killing words, in words describing math and amusingly enough, in sexual slang. (Although your Spanish and French remain supreme in the amount of sensual – or crude – terms related to sexuality. Perhaps Minsta should write a monologue on why that is.)

Turian Culture: Clans and Families

Turian clans are organized by 'circles'. A member wanting to join a clan must do so by impressing a member with acts of valor, demonstrations of why their mindset is akin to that of the Clan Founder, or other feats that attract attention. Once tested and admitted, they are in the whelpling's circle.

From there, the process is similar to a mini-meritocracy, except one gains rank by making sure their actions and deeds exemplify the core concepts and goals of the Clan. The circles move from whelpling to innocent, devoted, driven, and finally ascendant.

Once ascendant, a member becomes held as a Chieftain. Chieftains are not formal government figures, rather the collective ruling body of a Clan. Chieftains meet in council twice yearly to determine the direction and goals of a Clan and how to best live up to the Clan's central figure and achievements.

Most Clans have this circle of chieftains select a Primarch, or a circle of Autarchs, to formally represent the clan in their relationships with the military and government. Many powerful Clans are tied to specific elements of the turian military establishment – for example, the Jaxis clan is in charge of the turian food service system for feeding the troops, while the Actus Clan is in charge of salvage operations.

Families are, as stated earlier, mostly related by blood. Most Families have one 'primus' line, decended from the founder, and several 'honorus' lines, related less closely. The Family Name can be passed to anyone with a blood relation to the primus line, but should the main line die out or have no male offspring, there may be some reduction in the prestige of the Name for not managing to preserve itself as the honorus lines must take over.

Families take little role in the government, rarely even acting as Autarchs, but many hold high military rank and form the core of the military's veterans. Families, unlike Clans, are always associated strictly with combative military elements, either infantry or naval command. Most are significant because they are well known for their bravery, valor and refusal to despair, making them inspirational leaders.

Turian Culture: Clothing

Turian clothing is one of three styles, depending on the turian's background. Low-ranking turians outside of Clans or Families tend to dress fairly normally. Turians prefer bodysuits, sometimes with a vest around the lung-collar and chest, with long loose sleeves and high, heavy boots. Most turians favor darker colors – blues, blacks, grays – and females tend towards clothing that displays their waist, as a slender but strong waist and arched legs are the primary sexual attractors for turian males. Most civilian clothing is highly patterned with geometric shapes and several fabric types for a variety of textures.

Turians in the Clans (and their biotics) have a preference for long robes and half-hoods that are strips covering their fringe. Layered clothing and heavy fabric are common sights, as well as limited amounts of armor plate near the legs and chest. Most of the fabric used is heavy and rough, along with hide and fur linings and other barbaric accoutrements.

The Families tend towards wearing full armor most of the time, at least for those in military service. Even those who are not will wear up-armored versions of civilian clothing, or cover their armor with Clan-like layered robes. Family colors are often used to decorate such armor, while it's design and shape speaks to the Families relative position – more technological looking suits are clans that follow the dictates of duty, while overly traditional Families use more stylized armor.

Turians will not cover their faces with masks or the like for any reason, and remove helmets whenever they can to display their markings. Only criminals or those forced to work in areas with high chances of decompression or inhaled dangers will wear helmets all the time. Hoods that cover the face or cast it into darkness are also rare, although common among biotics and other types – the turian love of melodrama means many of them find this sort of outfit attractive.

Turian Culture: Mating Rituals and Bonding

I will not risk a diatribe from Minsta (or more recommendations from Pel on which turian pornography to watch) and describe turian mating rituals in any long detail, but there are a few points which I feel you should be aware of as they outline important concepts in the turian mindset.

As stated earlier, turians mate for life when it comes to other turians. When they find a sexual partner of supreme compatibility, the male will bite the female hard enough to penetrate the plating and trigger a set of enzymatic and hormonal responses. This is called the Marking, and is eerily effective in ensuring fidelity between partners, as without the pheromones of the other being present, neither partner can apparently achieve orgasm (or in the case of the male, even sustain an erection).

I will admit to vast confusion on why such loyalty is important, since the stultifying nature of lovemaking with the same partner over and over loses any spice without external influences rather quickly.

[Notation: Private display to IllusiveMan: This is why I do not mind your other dalliances with various human women, Jack. I must admit, I was impressed at you inveigling so many beautiful human women to your side with little more than a few words. Your pleasures may simplistic, but are certainly not boring.]

Turian marriage is surprisingly similar to the asari rites of the Thirty, valor to their names. There is a use of bindings between the hands, certain spoken oaths, and a second bite to from the male to the female in view of all present. This second bite, known as the Intent, is a further triggering of the Marking, and the two are unbound only after it is completed.

Few turians go through with fully handfasting an alien, as there is a rather severe stigma among turians for not acting to uphold the race (read as breed more turians). While there have been examples of turians in love enough with asari to handfast in the past, it is very rare outside of commoner asari and low-rank turians to do so. Turians high in the meritocracy will have their judgement and even loyalty to the Hierarchy called into question for such acts.

Turians and quarians have somewhat similar hormonal/pheromone reactive natures when it comes to mating, but the quarian version is merely aphrodisiac for turians and vice versa, there is no locking in of loyalties. Additionally, the Marking and Intent are likely to cause infection for a quarian female. Most turian/quarian pairs are male turian and female quarian, although the inverse has been noted before as well.

Turians and asari rarely pair unless both are outcasts, and the asari's clingy nature when shorn from siari is usually enough to invoke strong protective instincts in males, keeping them loyal. Surprisingly, though, there are many female turian outcasts who prefer asari lovers, even though the turian female's focus on penetrative sex is hard for an asari to fulfill.

There are only a handful of turians who have mated with humans – humans lack the low level regenerative abilities of asari, making such more than a bit painful. Some human biotics can use their skills to protect themselves, and a certain subset of human sexual deviants who like pain are attracted to turian lovers as well. With both asari and humans, sexual secretions can result in slight chemical burns and thus neutralizing foams and protective sheathings are recommended.

I admit, I threw that last bit of information in there solely to torment Minsta and Pel.

Turian Culture: Death Rites

Turians are surprisingly macabre when it comes to death rituals. Turian biotics will literally plunder the skeletons of other turian biotics, making their talons into knives and their plating into a bizarre and rather horrifying sort of ceremonial sash.

Most turian families will have an ancestral vault, where the skulls of their ancestors are held along with carved representations of the turian made of the deceased's bones. Turian babies who die before reaching maturity are cremated and grieving mothers wear their ashes smeared across their faces, chest and loins for a month of mourning. Many turians have small necklaces or fringe-piercings made of bone from their ancestors, and turian cemeteries are more like storage facilities, where thousands of skeletal remains are cataloged for easy retrieval if someone wants to commission another bone pendant from their great-great-grand sire in celebration of a promotion.

I am not quite sure what to make of it, nor their lack of any real ceremony upon death. Turians see death as merely a transition to another state of existence, and with the exception of children and young turians under the age of twenty (who are seen as unable to have had time to develop a soul strong enough), rarely seen as a cause for despair or great sorrow. A turian who loses their mate is often devastated, but that is more due to the fact that they were very close emotionally and miss them, but not out of grief as asari or humans would understand it.

Turian fixation on the body parts of the dead reaches truly strange levels in the spirit houses, which can have, in the case of the largest ones upon Palaven, the remains of tens of thousands of dead turians incorporated into the walls, floor, furniture, and ceremonial items, along with endless racks of bone-carved spirit totems and the like. Many old battlefields on Palaven are left sealed off and undisturbed, vast fields of bleached bones, skulls and plating left as mute testimony to the self-violent tensions within turian society.