Taelon - Cultural Practices

Cultural Practices

P'raj'rath is the cultural equivalent of a duel to the death. This is the only means by which a modern Taelon (one existing after the creation of the Commonality) may kill another. The practice involves playing the foovlasha game to an extreme level. Foovlasha depletes mental energy as it is played. Since the Taelons primarily exist as a manifestation of mental energy, the game can be fatal: at a certain point, one player must channel all his mental energy into a final move, and ceases to exist. Foovlasha can evidently also be played to a lower level as a game rather than as a duel.

Pad'Ar was a ritual form of combat practiced by the ancient Taelons. The arena was formed of three connected rings, with a central node. Opponents would be armed with staves, and the entire arena had a form of simulated gravity so that combatants always had a subjective 'down'. Thus, if a player fell out of any part of the arena, they would continue in that direction until stopped by safety fields. The rings and node represented various elements of the spiritual world, with the staff being symbolic of connections between them. Thus, for the Taelons, Pad'Ar was both a spiritual and a combat experience.

Embracing the void or Ascending to the next level is a kind of Taelon suicide. While Taelons do, to some extent, continue to live on after death within the virtual plane occupied by the commonality, embracing the void is the release of the physical elements of their being. As Taelons are primarily energy-based entities, ascending to the next level requires them to release that energy and relinquish their physical selves. Because of the race's fear of death and extinction, few Taelons choose to embrace the void. On several occasions, Taelons have been compelled to embrace the void through the mass will of the Synod, or the will of the commonality. A Taelon is able to reverse the energy release until the very last second, as shown with Da'an in season 1 episode Live Free or Die.

Hjarth'ra is the banishment of a Taelon spirit from the Commonality. After death, a Taelon's spiritual form can 'haunt' those on the physical plane. Completion of the Hjarth'ra ritual results in a Taelon being forever banished from the commonality and hence ceasing to exist in spirit form. This ritual is usually undertaken only when a Taelon spirit has been irrevocably soiled, or when the haunting threatens the lives of others.

Ka'ath'am is broadly equivalent to puberty. It is unknown if ka'ath'am represents the beginning of an individual's fertile stage of life, or if it is the beginning, middle and end of a reproductive phase. If the latter is the case, then it likely occurs more than once. Only one example of Ka'ath'am occurs in the series, and is experienced by Zo'or, at an apparent age of approximately 1000. Taelon reproduction is still deeply mysterious, but it is hinted Taelons either reproduce only once, but have multiple offspring in their Ka'ath'am (Da'an has at least five children), or that Ka'ath'am occurs periodically. Ka'ath'am is accompanied by uncontrolled releases of small amounts of core energy, unusual dreams that occur repeatedly, difficulty in concentrating, erratic behaviour and occasional loss of consciousness.

Ka'ar'paaj is a meditative Taelon cleansing ritual. Ka'ar'paaj is carried out in untamed areas of the Taelon home planet. An important part of the process is observing the alignment of three of the moons of Taelon. The setup may be artificially created by a virtual reality simulator. Relatively few modern Taelons engage in the ritual, though both Da'an and T'than have been seen to. Zo'or speaks very lowly of the ritual and most likely does not participate in it himself.