Wall of Account
The Wall of Account is a strech of the inner hull of a long-haul vessel or colony where the names, roles, and vital statistics of deceased crewmembers are inscribed. Because Evermornans typically honor their dead by turning them into fertilizer to provide sustenance for the aggrieved family and clan, there is often no single grave site where the deceased can be memorialized. A Wall of Account provides both a central place where memorials can be held and a physical record of the ship or colony's social history.
Historical Details
History
The Wall of Account tradition comes from ancient Evermornan Tradition, particularly from the funerary practices of Clan Harukin. The dead were honored with headstones if they died singly, but with a stele if they died in some collective event (i.e. war) or where bodies could not be recovered or identified. Walls of Account were also genealogical records of a sort, as it was once common for individuals' extended names to include statements of parentage, Clan affiliation, and other such connections.
In the modern era, while data storage is cheap and abundant, certain records are considered too important to social life to entrust to something as ephemeral as digital storage media. Births and other life accomplishments are recorded in one's vitreous vitae, while deaths are recorded on the Walls of Account. One morbid reason for this concern about permanence is that, during the Harkinite Expeditions, the Cobalt Protectorate discovered that they were among the few human or human-descended species who had not since succumbed to physical (or at least cultural) extinction. Creating a durable record provides Evermornans with some solace that, even should some terrible fate befall their people, their memory will live on for archaeologists to uncover and, perhaps, learn from what transpired.
Public Reaction
Walls of Account are often sites of pilgrimage and cultural tourism. The history of a specific ship or colony can be traced through the names found on Walls, and those seeking to gain a deeper understanding of their host society would do well to study the prominent figures memorialized there.
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