Burial Steel is an iron alloy or steel formed from cremated Senti bodies. It is the primary building material of the Senti race and holds significant religious importance.

It is strong, flexible, and many find it easy to polish to a high shine.

The Senti people hold a deeply ingrained belief that their ancestors continue to guide and protect them from within the essence of Burial Steel. This spiritual connection extends to their Flotillas, ships, and even personal effects made of the material, which are regarded as living entities imbued with the intact and conscious souls and memories of their forebears. This belief in a gestalt deity, manifested through the collective essence of Burial Steel that flows through every shard no matter how small, underscores the integral role of this material in their religious traditions.

As far as is known, Burial Steel has been an integral aspect of Senti culture for as long as records and oral traditions extend, dating back to the earliest epochs of their sapience. Even on their mythical homeworld, now lost to the annals of time, Burial Steel held sacred significance, symbolizing the enduring bond between past, present, and future generations of the Senti.

Despite the technological advancements of the Senti, Burial Steel remains a material of choice, revered for its symbolic value rather than its practical utility. While materials like Durandium Alloy, graphene, carbon materials, or other more modern materials offer superior strength and durability, Burial Steel's intrinsic sanctity and cultural tradition outweigh any pragmatic considerations. The emotional attachment to Burial Steel among the Senti is profound, with separation from their ancestral metals evoking distress and spiritual unease.

Research indicates that the preservation of Burial Steel artifacts, particularly among Senti individuals serving in military capacities, is crucial for their emotional well-being. These trinkets serve as tangible reminders of familial connections and ancestral guidance, offering solace amidst the rigors of combat and conflict. In short, the Senti do not own anything, but are the guardians of their sacred steel.

Function and Design

Senti, as iron-based organisms with bodies naturally rich in heavy metals and iron alloys, possess a unique physiological composition. Throughout their lives, these metals play integral roles in their metabolic processes. However, upon death, Senti bodies undergo a transformation through a ritualistic process, resulting in the creation of a culturally significant steel alloy.

Upon the death of a Senti individual, elaborate funeral rites are conducted within the their communal living vessels. Typically held at specially designated forges blessed for this purpose, these ceremonies are attended by family members and community members alike. Trinkets crafted from previous batches of Burial Steel are placed alongside the deceased's body in a casket specifically designed to act as a crucible.

During the cremation process, the intense heat causes the metals within the deceased's body to melt within the crucible of the casket. These molten metals blend with existing Burial Steel and are poured off to solidify into ingots. Once cooled and purified, these ingots serve various purposes within Senti society.

Burial Steel finds extensive utility within Senti communities, fulfilling roles in ship repair, construction, and maintenance of Flotillas. Additionally, it is fashioned into a diverse array of objects, including toys, tools, knives, armor, and small components. Furthermore, Burial Steel artifacts often serve ornamental functions, with jewelry adorned with gems and crystals sourced from the slag of the alloy.

An intriguing aspect of Burial Steel usage involves its purification into tattoo ink, employed by certain Senti professions such as Librarians, Smiths, and teachers. This ink is utilized to create intricate and historic designs, serving as tangible manifestations of cultural heritage and identity within Senti society.

Burial Steel exhibits several unique visual and mechanical features that can add to its spiritual and mythical significance when properly applied. These include, but are not limited to the following.

One of the most striking features of Burial Steel is its honey-colored hue, which imbues the material with a warm and inviting allure. This distinctive coloration, reminiscent of golden amber, serves as a visual testament to the material's rich heritage and profound spiritual significance within Senti society.

Furthermore, Burial Steel exhibits a remarkably smooth and lustrous texture, with its surface capable of achieving a high polish that accentuates its inherent beauty. This smoothness not only enhances the material's visual appeal but also contributes to its tactile allure, inviting touch and interaction from those who encounter it. It also possesses reflective properties that further enhance its visual appeal and aesthetic allure. When polished to a high shine, the surface of Burial Steel exhibits a mirror-like finish that can reflect ambient light with brilliance similar to high quality diamond, creating captivating visual effects and imbuing it with an ethereal radiance that may evoke a sense of wonder and admiration. Some will even claim to see the faces of the people the steel is made from in these reflections, but this is an unconfirmed phenomena.

Beneath its captivating exterior, Burial Steel boasts exceptional mechanical properties that underscore its practical utility and resilience. Despite its relatively lightweight nature, Burial Steel exhibits remarkable strength and durability, capable of withstanding significant mechanical stress and environmental pressures without succumbing to deformation or failure.

Moreover, Burial Steel possesses a unique degree of flexibility that sets it apart from conventional metallic alloys. Unlike rigid materials that may fracture or shatter under excessive strain, Burial Steel demonstrates a remarkable capacity to flex and bend without losing its structural integrity, making it ideally suited for a wide range of applications where resilience and adaptability are paramount. It is also known to work harden, and takes a thermal hardening cycle beyond that, enabling the material to take an edge almost as sharp as modern ceramics.

In instances of violent death at the hands of a sapient entity (Whether self inflicted or otherwise), a distinct ritual surrounds the utilization of Burial Steel. It is customary to afford the soul of the victim an opportunity to reconcile the trauma of their untimely demise under the guardianship of another.

Despite variations stemming from cultural nuances and individual beliefs, the construction of Service Knives exhibits remarkable consistency across Flotillas and forges. These knives span a spectrum of forms, ranging from Bowie-style blades to larger Karambits, occasionally resembling swords akin to a broadsword. Nevertheless, the ritualistic crafting process, oral traditions, and issuance ceremonies remain largely uniform, hinting at a shared ancestral heritage rooted in a tumultuous past.

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Image example: Service knife originally issued to Aliset Kōun, currently held by Sacre Ven Sanssinia

Crafted from surgically extracted bone, typically the Humerus, the handle symbolizes unfinished mortal affairs and serves as a poignant reminder of the individual's earthly existence, and preventing the soul from entering the burial steel fully until their mortal affairs are concluded under the guardianship of their wielder. This bone undergoes meticulous cleaning, carving, and integration into the knife's handle, imbuing the artifact with profound spiritual significance.

Throughout the knife's three reforgings, variations in the bones utilized are permissible, provided they undergo carving rather than forging.

A portion of the steel will be skimmed off to make a blade, normally between 5 and 10 inches in length. This blade is a utilitarian work knife, a tool, and one of the only weapons the Senti can produce.

The blade is carefully folded into hundreds of layers, with prayers recited throughout the process. The blade is then shaped and sharpened to a razor's edge, sharp enough to easily cut through Senti skin. The finished blades are polished to a mirror finish, etched and then engraved.

The resultant blade will be issued to a Precentennial Senti upon their entering into the Law Enforcement system, serving as a symbolic token of graduation. Engraved with the wielder's name and a personally resonant quote, the knife symbolizes the transition into this esteemed role.

Every century of the wielder's life warrants the reforging of the blade, integrating the steel of another departed soul. The bone handle undergoes meticulous resetting, cleaning, and cold-welding onto a new layer of steel, ensuring the knife's longevity and functionality. Often with significant reshaping to preserve ergonomics.

When the wielder dies, whether of age or by other means, the knife is forged down with its wielder, bringing those who died with the wielder into the afterlife to watch over and protect the living.

Senti Burial Steel is extremely rare on the open market and tightly controlled by the Flotillas. It is considered priceless, similar to selling the ashes of a loved one.

Burial steel is not for sale, ever, due to its religious and cultural significance.

However, there are a few ways to get burial steel artifacts, including the knife.

• It may be gifted as a display of love. Different forms of love warrant different artifacts, from toys and jewelry, to tools and knives. Normally, it is a request for permanent companionship.
• As the companion of a Senti who dies, one will be given a handful of small ingots of the person's raw steel, alongside one artifact made of it. This may be passed down through generations or blended with you upon death.
• If one can pass Senti Law Enforcement training, learning the language, and being willing to work with Senti on a regular basis, one can earn a Service knife of their own.
• This method is not recommended. Killing the owner of the burial steel and taking it for one's self is considered a heinous capital crime. It is likely that the victim will be forged into the knife used to execute the murderer.

Efforts by the Star Army of Yamatai to replicate Burial Steel have been met with limited success, raising intriguing questions about the nature of this enigmatic material. Researchers within the Star Army Research Administration (SARA) have endeavored to produce a foil that closely matches the chemical properties of authentic Burial Steel. However, despite their endeavors, the replicated material falls short of its natural counterpart in several key aspects.

The replicated foil exhibits inferior mechanical properties compared to genuine Burial Steel, displaying increased brittleness, reduced luster, and diminished tensile strength. Moreover, the replicated material demonstrates decreased resistance to radioactive damage, highlighting significant disparities between the two substances.

Furthermore, the development of the replicated foil was motivated by practical considerations within the Star Army, specifically aimed at comfort for Senti personnel by providing furnishings clad in a material reminiscent of their cultural heritage at reduced cost. While the replicated material serves the functional purpose, its shortcomings underscore the irreplaceable value of authentic Burial Steel within Senti society and comfort.

Madi Harper created this article on 2020/03/10 13:13.

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