In-universe terms and meanings.
• Tellus and Lyra are the Earth and the Moon respectively.
• "Year" is sometimes referred as Annum and "Day" as Sol. Month and Week remain the same.
• The term "animal" is often replaced by "primeval." As humans are animals, "non-human animal" is replaced by "non-human primeval."
• The terms "people" and "person" have synonyms of "furless/ape" (human), "dog" (for dyre/vledax), and "sapiens" (all three.)
• Most titles are gender neutral.
• "District" is the term used by the sapiens to refer to their particular group with the same principle as tribes, clans, and packs.
• "Shell" is synonym to Body.
• "Year" is sometimes referred as Annum and "Day" as Sol. Month and Week remain the same.
• The term "animal" is often replaced by "primeval." As humans are animals, "non-human animal" is replaced by "non-human primeval."
• The terms "people" and "person" have synonyms of "furless/ape" (human), "dog" (for dyre/vledax), and "sapiens" (all three.)
• Most titles are gender neutral.
• "District" is the term used by the sapiens to refer to their particular group with the same principle as tribes, clans, and packs.
• "Shell" is synonym to Body.
In-real-life definitions.
- Instinct is 'an innate, typically fixed pattern of behavior in response to certain stimuli.' Every lifeforms have instinct, a deep rooted and subconscious survival ability. As a matter of fact, humans are more instinctive than we let on, yet instinct doesn't negate sentience and sapience. Whichever lifeform, instinct is needed.
Sentience is the ability to feel, awareness of one's own existence, thoughts, emotions, surroundings, and other beings. One doesn't even need a brain to be sentient, as jellyfishes and plants have demonstrated, Sentience can go further as self-awareness, consciousness, and the ability to reason.
Semi-Sapience refers to non-human animals regarded as highly intelligent such as corvids, parrots, dolphins, elephants, and our cousin primates to name a few. They've gone beyond basic sentience and may evolve full sapience someday.
Sapience is the ability for abstract thoughts, critical thinking, deep reasoning, greater understanding, foreshadowing, and similar forms of mental activities. It's usually seen as a human-only thing because we're so far the current sapient animals on Earth since all others are extinct. (We often erroneously refer to our tool use as a sapience thing. Tool use is our evolutionary advantage.)