Terminology

Aeternitas	Outside time altogether, the perspective that is to Aevum as Aevum is to Tempus.

The Advanced	The postintelligent cultures of Ex Tempore that have reached the Ceiling.
Adventus	A new arrival to Ex.
AI	Artificial intelligence; usually used to denote intelligent computers but also among Ex Tempore humans species that have transformed themselves into something more to their liking.

Aevum	The time of Ex Tempore. Used to distinguish from the time in the timestream, tempus.
Arrival committee	NRC diplomatic committee meeting new arrivals in the Bays, giving a rough overview of the situation and doing a preliminary study of the visitors.
Ars Ultima	“The ultimate craft”. Clarketech, the most advanced technology possible.
Babel disease	A progressive neurological disease destroying the language areas of the Homo sapiens brain. Caused by a bionano-parasite most likely constructed as a weapon by the Lamplandae and released during the unification conflict. Easily treatable using nanotechnology or smart vaccines.
Bays	The reception areas of the Ex, spread throughout the upper reaches of the structure. Some of the more helpful mainliners quickly bring in stranded arrivals to suitable bays and announce it on the nets.
Belluha	“Beast-man”, Aquincorian derogatory slang for Lamplandae. Today used to denote the Lamplandae fractions supporting the attack against the Republic during the unification conflict.
Burst	When a change in the timestream causes other time travelers to come into existence and cause further changes. Very unpredictable, bound to leave newcomers in Ex and possibly dangerous.
The Ceiling	The ceiling of technology. The laws of physics are finite, and do not allow arbitrarily powerful technology. After a civilization has mastered nanotechnology, quantum technology and how to manipulate spacetime there is not much more to discover. The technology can be used in many different ways and for different ends, but there is no qualitatively more powerful technology waiting to be discovered. Once a civilization has reached the Ceiling, all further development will be mainly cultural rather than technological.
Chrononaut	Time traveler
Chronophasia	Confusion caused by time editing. While most people get over it, some suffer chronic chronophasia where they feel uncertain of reality, who they are and the meaning of their actions.
The Circle	The timestream. Also Orbis.
Clarketech	Advanced technology indistinguishable from magic. After Arthur C. Clarke’s dictum “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. In nolatin ars ultima.
Cogitown	A town or other community heavily directed towards theory, research and virtuality.
Correction Cascade	Common occurrence when parachronic travel is discovered or used by government or security organizations. They send back “corrective” information to prevent accidents and support their vision. This results in escalation of fixing, which produces a very unstable culture. Usually cascades end with some accidental disaster.
Cosmogogue	“Leading to an orderly universe”. Ideologicals seeking to reshape the universe into a suitable form.
Defensor Publicus	Public defender, a legal advisor provided by the Arrival Comitte to new human arrivals. The defender is intended to safeguard their rights and help them fit in with the Ex administration
Disparate	Beings that do not belong to any of the cultures, usually because they are newly arrived small groups that have not yet settled down. Among humans, the disparates are the humans that refuse to join the main nations and often live in the Labyrinth or bays.
Divergence exponent	A measure of how unstable a given point in history is. A low exponent means that changes will have slowly growing effects, while a high exponent means that tiny shifts will have wild effects.
Ex	Shorthand for Ex Tempore, especially the inhabited part, “the Ex”.
Eruptio	A burst, especially one that leads to invasion.
Handshake Devices	Remote controlled devices used to initiate communication in Ex between beings belonging to entirely different species. Usually designed to look harmless and able to communicate in a wide variety of ways.
Jump	Moving from one time in the timestream to another. It takes at least a tesserae of Aevum-time, and longer over greater distances.
Ideologicals	Groups with agendas for all of Ex Tempore and/or the universe.
Labyrinth	The network of tunnels connecting the human habitats.
Last Change Point (LCP)	The latest arrival of a time traveler in a certain timeline before a certain historical event. As long as further changes do not go before the LCP the historical change will remain.

Mainliner	An Ex Tempore culture that has remained stable for a long time, starting to regard Ex Tempore as its true home and the timestream as something external. Most mainliner cultures are very advanced and postintelligent.
Mindstate	The current neural network (or similar structure) of a being. Many advanced civilizations buy human mindstates.

Nolatin	Modern latin, the Aquincorian form.
Nova Roma Consensus.	Sometimes Nova Roma Concordia or NRC. The current political agreement between most of the human Ex cultures. The most notable culture not participating is Shoukakegawa.
Parachronic travel	To travel outside time, either to a point in the timestream or Ex Tempore.
Parachronic	Something dealing with the physics of non-tempus time.
Singularity	The steep transition point of a civilization from a primitive state to physical mastery. This transition is dominated by accelerating change, sometimes taking millennia even during the fastest periods, sometimes occurring in a few days.
Sinichlain	Derogatory Latin Celtic Aquincorian term for Asian people, especially those of the UJKH.
Tempus	The time in the timestream.

Tesserae	“Mosaic pieces”. The minimal units of space and time on the Planck Scale. A tessera moment is 10^-44s, the shortest possible time.

Timeline	A single history of the universe. Any parachronic travel will change it into another timeline.

Timestream	The universe and its circular time (the circle, orbis). At any moment (in Aevum time) the universe has a well-defined history, which will remain unchanged until a time traveler changes it.

Peripheral	An Ex Tempore culture that has is fairly young and has not yet started to see Ex Tempore as its true home.
Orbis	The timestream, the Circle of time.
Phasing	Moving out of or into the timestream.
Virtuality	The virtual environments of Ex. Distributed nodes enable massive reality simulations, and many cultures prefer to interact only through the virtuality. The haphazard structure and lack of central protocols makes translation and interaction somewhat complicated.
Postintelligence	A being with immensely enhanced intelligence and power, no longer constrained by its biological or technological background. Sometimes called AI or posthuman.
Veteran	(lit “of a former time”) A member of a timeline that has been erased.
Virtuality	The virtual environments and computer networks of the Ex.