#essenus

COMPULSIVE PROBING - What the nomenclatures of the home systems of the alien species of Mass Effect can lead us to imagine (3/?)

Part 1 - humans and asari - here ; Part 2 - salarians - here.

The turian home system : Trebia

Whereas the humans and the asari named the planets in their home system after deities, and the salarian re-named their own after significant figures from the early days of salarian space exploration relevant to the individual planets, the planets in the turian home system are also named after historical figures but of a very different kind.

Starting from the planet closest to TREBIA then going outward, the planets are :

Aventen

Caelax

(Palaven)-[Menae, Nanus]

Impera

Essenus

Datriux

The theme here is figures from turian history who were influential in one way or another on the constitution and ideology of the Turian Hierarchy ; this means, by extension, that as with the salarians the turians renamed the planets of their home system, in that case at some point after the formation of the Turian Hierarchy. The figures we know of are :

Aventen was "a tactician-philosopher whose treatise on leadership is known by every turian youth who pays attention in class." ;

Caelax, "[like] … Aventen", was "an ancient philosopher and author. But where Aventen wrote for the military leaders of tomorrow, Caelax focused on those who feed, clothe, heal and arm the soldier. Her enormous tome, "Service" features a lengthy chapter on laws that formed the basis for the turian concept of citizenship tiers."

and Atrin Impera was the so-called "'turian Machiavelli', whose ambitious political philosophies led to her reign as regent in the continent-spanning Nialin Empire for more than a decade. She famously combined citizenship tiers with a meritocracy, rather than a caste system, which served to strengthen her empire. This practice fell in and out of favor for centuries before its revival early in the turians' age of nation-states."

But we don't know who Essenus and Datriux are named after, even though we have every reason to assume those are significant figures in the history of the Hierarchy.

A few notes on those three turians :

They each provided a core element of Hierarchy society : Aventen was a tactician who wrote on military leadership ; Caelax provided the basis for citizenship tiers ; and Impera appeared to have foregone the caste system of the Nialin Empire in favor of a meritocracy. Moreover, it appears that Caelax wrote to complement Aventen, and that Impera expanded Caelax's proto-citizenship tiers system ; in other words, each of what I'll be calling the "Planetary Figures" added something which constituted a progress in the direction of the Turian Hierarchy. Therefore, it's likely that Essenus expanded on what the first three did before, and that Datriux made the final step.

Speaking of which, it appears that the closer to Trebia a planet is, the more remote in time their namesake will be. While both Aventen and Caelax are deemed "ancient" philosophers, which means they might have even been contemporaries, Caelax appears to have reacted to Aventen, meaning Aventen's work is the earliest ; moreover, the use of the word "ancient" places them both in the very remote past, close to prehistory (turian history is canonically 15,000 years old or so at the time of the Reaper War). Meanwhile, Atrin Impera and the Nialin Empire appear much closer to the present, as only "centuries" separate them from the rise of the turian "nation-states" (something which IRL happened after the spread of liberal democracy and industrialization). In other words, the planets of the Trebia system are named in chronological order. This entails that Datriux, the planet farthest from Trebia, is the most recent figure in turian history, whereas Essenus would stand at some point between Impera and Datriux.

Finally, I would be remiss not to note that of those three figures, at least two - Caelax and Impera - were women (Aventen's gender is unknown). Those are perhaps our only insights into gender in/equality in pre-Hierarchy turian societies : whereas IRL influential ancient woman philosophers are basically unheard of in Greek and Roman societies (because those very misogynistic societies couldn't imagine and therefore couldn't allow a woman who thought and was an authority on thought), here we have a prominent female philosopher in the turian philosophy canon - so major in fact she got a planet named after her. This suggests that, in Caelax's ancient society at least (but that's a society that was deeply and probably directly influential on the Turian Hierarchy) there was no misogyny, or if there was misogyny it was very different and/or less intense than our own. Impera's title of "regent" is likewise interesting but ultimately less telling : there are examples of women temporarily ruling in a (male) monarch's stead in our own misogynistic history, such as the wives or mothers of kings ruling in their king's stead (e.g. Catherine de' Medici in Catholic France), or the daughters of kings (e.g. Anne de Beaujeu, still in France which literally barred women as well as men descended from kings through women from the throne), or the sister-wives and aunt-stepmoms of kings (e.g. Hatshepsut in Egypt in the 15th century BCE). Perhaps what's most interesting about Atrin Impera is that she was only the regent, even though she appeared to have been a very skilled politician, whereas Hatshepsut in Egypt or Wu Zetian in China managed to leverage their position of regent to then successfully usurp the throne and rule in their own right ; then again, the original human Machiavelli, while enormously influential in political philosophy for his novel pragmatic approach to politics tied to a realistic understanding of human nature, didn't have such a good time in actual politics. As Machiavelli would have probably told his turian counterpart, since Impera was trying to radically change her political system by upsetting customary power relations, she is bound to have earned the hate of those who would have been in power if not for her (and in all likelihood with only lukewarm support from those who might stand to benefit from those changes in theory). (But I guess Machiavelli is in fact the human Impera, since he's a Renaissance Italian man while she lived and died at some point before 500 BCE ?)

And that's where we stand on canon material for the Trebia system !

A headcanon : Essenus and Datriux

Living at the time of the industrial nation-states, Triantian Essenus was the founder of a philosophy subsequently known as Essenism, which demanded, in the name of peace, absolute altruism — that all turians, no matter their nationality, race, gender or any other determiner, be treated as members of one's own family. While the concept of altruism as the basis for morality is an old one in turian culture, Essenus took it to its extreme. Essenists were famous for coming to the aid of far-flung communities engaged in defensive wars, and they advocated international unity and government in order to end all wars.

After the collapse of the liberal regimes, General Aren Datriux brought about the Last Revolution which conclusively established the Turian Hierarchy. She was inspired by the Epimist philosophers (named after Gallian Epimus) who had devised a meritocratic society based on Equalitarian, Pragmatist and Essenist values, but with the distinction that it would be headed by military officers — in other words, a stratocracy. The Epimists believed that only those who had set out to give their lives for society's sake could achieve "the balance of authority and responsibility", as unlike politicians they would be ready to prioritize the good of all over their own. It took a series of attempted coups d'état both civil and military, a few civil wars, and a number of pro- and anti-meritocracy revolutions to establish the Turian Hierarchy ; motivated by her Epimist ideals, Datriux emerged out of what would be subsequently known as the Last Revolution as the leader of her country before exporting its model to the rest of Palaven through conquest.

While Essenus and Datriux can be considered the true founders of the Turian Hierarchy, turians honor equally all the people, great and small, which led to the establishment of the Hierarchy, the acme of 15,000 years of continuous turian civilization ; as with all things turians, it was a team effort.

Other instances of turian-named systems

Other turian-named systems or planets do not fall into this historical mold, making it an oddity in turian space.

Planets can be named after common word or phrases literally or metaphorically describing some of their key characteristics : this is the case of Erros ("overlook", "pleasant view" — a reference to its lack of atmosphere) or Choitadix ("gap-toothed" — a reference to its formation) in the Milky Way, or to Mornax Vinkaar ("bad mistake" — a reference to its unfortunate settlement efforts) over in Andromeda. This tendency is something turians have in common with salarians.

Planets can also be named after spirits if Temerarus (named after a spirit said to have inspired the crew of the first manned moon launch, presumably a spirit of, uh, temerariousness — I mean, temerity.) Note that turians also name weapons after spirits, for instance the Phaeston (an assault rifle named after a spirit of creation).

Finally, I'd be remiss not to point out turians rename their conquests with turian names, at least as far as Gellix is concerned : formerly a krogan colony established in 658 CE, the planet was contested and conquered by the turians during the Rebellions before its formal annexation in 801 CE. While Gellix is a planet turians cannot use (but are unwilling to give up), it is nonetheless extremely probable it was renamed : the "-ix" suffix suggests that "Gellix" is a turian word, and the original krogan name remains unknown. Likewise, the planet's capital Anapondus has a distinctly turian-sounding name (Latinate "-us" suffix), but whether this is a krogan settlement that was renamed or an original turian settlement is unknown.

Rather strikingly, we have no single example of planets being named heroes, which could be expected given how martial turian culture is. The only exception I could find is the name of a city, in this instance Shastinasio, the capital city of Invictus, named after the colony's (re)founder Shastina Emperus (suggesting "-sio" might be a turian suffix meaning "city", so that "Shastinasio" might mean "Shastina City" or "Shastinatown").

Finally, before leaving, I should point out that, like so many other planets, we only have the human names of some turian planets, following their own nomenclature* — for instance every single planet in the Fortis system, named after Roman virtues. This frustrates my efforts.

* : There's also a pun IRL about the name Triginta Petra : as the Wiki notes, this is likely a subtle joke reference to the TV series 30 Rock.