Planet Waba

[pencilitin]

Nanjiao is not from Earth! Here are some notable facts about planet Waba and its differences from Earth:

• History: Over 2,000 years ago, Waba was part of the Galactic Commonwealth, before a massive disaster led to a collapse of local civilization. Contact with the rest of the galaxy was cut off completely, and most advanced technology was lost. Since then, society has made it back to the level of 21st-century tech. People are aware that humanity was born on a different planet, but for most people that's just an interesting factoid rather than something that actually affects their lives.
• Gravity: The local gravity is slightly higher than it is on Earth. It's enough that you'd probably notice it, but not so much that it would be a significant handicap for Earthlings. The main takeaway is that the average height of humans on Waba is about 2-3 inches shorter.
• Peifou: The country of Nanjiao's birth. A coastal socialist nation in the southern hemisphere with a stable economy and a high standard of living. Everyone benefits from a universal basic income, the country has good relations with its neighbors, and life is overall pretty good these days.
• Gender and sexuality: The concept of a sexual identity is very loose in Peifou. One might say that they like one gender or another, exclusively or not, but it's unlikely to be considered a rigid thing at the core of a person's identity - there isn't any widespread prejudice against sexual minorities to defend oneself against. Many things that are gendered in our society (for example skirts vs pants) aren't gendered here, either. Gender-affirming medical care is widely available to anyone seeking it.
• Language: Peifouga is a famously challenging language to learn. It's a tonal language, having technically five tones, but many learners struggle with 'neutral' tone characters, with their tendency to adopt the tones preceding or following them based on complex rules that are generally intuited rather than taught.
• Names: Peifou names follow a fairly (but not universally) consistent pattern - single-syllable surname, then two-syllable given name. Many parents choose the given name for a child such that the second syllable has a semantic connection with the family name; for example, in Bei Nanjiao's name, 'Bei' means River and 'Jiao' means Raindrops. A common form of familiar address is to use only the latter syllable of someone's given name (Jiao); an even more familiar form is to redouble it (Jiaojiao), but this has very strong romantic connotations, so you'd be unlikely to hear it from someone other than a lover.