Culture

Packs
Perhaps one of the most important, and often overlooked features of avali culture and lifestyle, is the concept of 'packs'. For humans and many other life forms, the lowest common denominator is one individual. However, for avali, this isn't the case, and often leads to many miss-communications between avali and other species. For humans, as an example, one individual earns money, one individual has a job, one individual owns a property, a ship, etc. But for avali, the pack owns the property, gets the money, etc. The pack is the very base of the avali lifestyle, and the smallest indivisible form closely resembling the functional capacity of an 'individual' in other cultures.

What is a pack?
An avali pack is 3-6, but almost always 4 avali, that operate in much the same way that an individual does in human society. Pack's are utterly inseparable, and it is rare that you'd ever see an avali without their pack. Often times, all individuals of a pack structure will display common, or nearly identical personalities and ambitions, with small differences inbetween each individual, and furthermore, when it comes to skills and abilities, packs tend to become very specialized in the few fields which the individuals therein find interest in.

Members of a pack are highly acclimated to working as a team, and are extremely resourceful and efficient. Members within a pack tend to develop primary methods of communicating with eachother that, due to the extensive time spent together, can be shortened down to simplistic, and from an outside perspective, gibberish format. That, mixed with avalonian hearing, and their predatory nature, makes pack structures a deadly effective and efficient system, whether considering military or workforce advantages.

How do packs form?
Avali, when born, are raised in a hatchery. Unlike human forms of parenting, avali are raised by a large group of their older peers, and the parents do not always stick around to raise their offspring. While in this hatchery, eggs tend to hatch at around the same time (due to seasonal breeding most likely), and generations are raised in waves. These waves ensure that many avali of around the same age grow inside of the hatchery at the same time, and due to many factors, including biology, culture, and even somewhat technological advancements, young avali hatchlings have urges to emotionally grab onto other individuals. During the first few years of life, young hatchlings are tumultuous, and curious, and will seek out a few favorite playmates. As the generation starts to grow a bit older, the groups start to thin down, forming a distinction between 'friends' and 'pack', and the tightly knit social structure that results from this strongly resembles a family. This newly forming pack at this stage may rarely go through changes, but often times will only grow stronger and solidify as each member grows closer to each other, and they begin to resemble one another. After a few more years of this, the pack is considered officially formed (around 10 years old) and the newly formed packs having been raised in the hatchery, start to grow independent, often times gaining a wanderlust. At this point, the pack is often gifted, or crafted tools, gears, or trinkets, that may help them on their journey, or simply remind them of home.

What do packs do?
Avali day-to-day life is affected heavily by the post-scarcity status of avali society. It would be easy, yet inadequate to state that packs 'work the same job'. Instead, the daily life and ambitions of a pack ought to be summed up by avalonian tradition, as without capital and money, it is hard for humans to otherwise understand just what a pack's standing is in avali society.

Tradition for avali, upon the age of ten years old (earth years), packs are expected to leave home in search of personal understanding and fulfillment. It is seen as natural for packs to go seek their own adventures, their own gains and losses, and to experience life, free from their tribe, but secure together. During this time, they may seek out hobbies of a sort, weapon crafting, ship scrapping, spelunking, you name it. However, without the concept for money, the materials and utilities gained from these activities are the only form of 'payment' the pack acquires. Thus, in some ways, these hobbies can be seen as jobs, as many of the materials gained may very well be used to trade for other desires, however these hobbies are not considered necessary for a pack to exist in avali society, like jobs are for humans. in fact, on the opposite spectrum of human expectations, many packs simply wander space, or settle elsewhere, enduring hardships with no help on purpose, as it is considered commendable to do so. Many avali ascribe to the belief "gains without effort, are no gains at all". And thus, extrapolated, the more effort you go through to acquire something, no matter how simple, the more valuable it is.

Lone Avali/ Pack loss
As stated above, avali are very rarely seen alone or without their pack. This is due to how tightly knit the pack structure is. Packs are closer than family, and operate like one body, with a shared ambition. Thus, the analogy continued, to lose a member of your pack, is akin to losing an arm, a leg, or your heart. Avali, biologically, mentally, culturally, and physically, are not fit for individual existence, and in the absence or permeant loss of their pack, an individual can go through multitudes of ailments, worst of all being a condition known as "Pack Loss". Most individuals in this sort of situation undergo psychosis, and are considered heavily crippled by avalonian society. Sometimes, these individual avali can be reintegrated into another pack, but unfortunately, the most common outcome of these situations is suicide, or transfer to an Aide-unit shell. (link soon)

Pack loss itself is a well known, and dreaded fate in avali kind, often considered a taboo topic of conversation. To be left alive without a member of your pack, or on your own, is a fate worse than death, and often leaves the individual, regardless of conditioning, with habitual schizophrenia. In other words, having become so used to their pack being around, an individual may hear or expect habitual responses from other members of their pack that are no longer present. They may carry out conversations entirely on their own, and grow increasingly distressed when there is no response when one is expected. A rather apparent example comes about in the dynamic between individuals of a pack. In many packs, there is one individual who will manage talking to others outside the pack. If such a member is missing, and you were to ask this pack a question, the avali may just sit there, expecting the answer to come from a pack member who is no longer there. Such habits are biologically rooted in avali, and take years to overcome.

Tribes
Tribes makeup the small time working forces of avali society. Comprised of relatives, close friends, and packs with related ideals, they can be seen as a sort of clique which can be semi-permanent, or temporary affairs, depending on the foundation. Traditional tribes can trace their lineages back to the very basis of avali society, whereas other tribes may form simply to gather effort for one project, and disband once that project is completed.

Not all packs belong to a tribe due to their nature, and at the same time, being part of one tribe, does not exclude a pack from also being part of another. But, a tribe's relation to the colony is one that ensures that a majority of avali do have a tribe of belonging, even if only for convenience. Tribes provide residence, land, and material supply, as well as handling masstrading, and project organization, and thus are a lucrative opportunity for avali. It is even somewhat expected, and considered socially 'normal' for packs to join a tribe at some point in their life.

Colonies
Colonies are probably the most familiar part of avali society when compared to human society. Being somewhat a vacuous structure, colonies come about through the natural process of tribes and packs congregating near eachother for convenience. At a certain point, there needs to be a further authority, and when a civilization of avali reaches an unknown critical mass, colonies are formed out of necessity, resulting in an over-arching party of tribe leaders with somewhat similar goals, putting their resources to use to help manage a very large population. Much like tribes, they tend to handle ingoing and outgoing material and trade goods, but unlike a tribe, colony leaders are expected to take up a responsibility over the tribes in their domain. When unfortunate situations arise such as murder, theft, or the like, colony leaders are the ones expected to place bounties over the head of those who committed the crime, and furthermore, find packs who can deal with the issues, and provide them the gear to do so. When larger issues, such as planetary disasters arise, the colony leaders are in charge of salvaging resources, providing aid, and assigning packs/tribes and spareable resources towards rebuilding infrastructure and residence.

In 'avalonian politics' colonies are the engines of avali space. Anything large gets done thanks to the organization and directing of colonies. They often times operate entirely independently, relying entirely on themselves to provide incentive and resources to their domains. There is however, one very large exception. Factions.

Factions
Factions are the largest wholes in avali society. No doubt everyone who knows what an avali is, knows something about the most dominant faction known as the "Avalonian Illuminate". However, this is merely one faction among many others, all continuously vying for the support of colonies to further their goals.

Factions can come in many different forms, and are usually controlled by one colony of very ambitious and strong-minded avali. Generally a faction has a direction it wants to push, or a goal of some sort, much as the Illuminate has a near-infinite lust to be at the cutting edge of technology, there are factions out there who wish to protect the traditional avali life, create utopian societies, prove avali supremacy, or any number of other ideals.