One of the illustrations of the #acecombat#エースコンバット Community Art Book. We used this in one of our major flagship article talking about Sotoa 1 year before the events in AC8.
Iron from the grassland
Sotoa remained a semi-traditionalist country and retains its nomad steppe culture after modernisation.
Boyu, or a clan, represent the basic unit of Sotoan society. A Boyuyesi is the name of a clanmate. A Boyu varies in size and culture vastly, some formed by close-knitted family of dozens of boyuyesi, to regional hegemony of hundreds of thousands.
A Boyu is not bound by blood, they could be individuals bound by shared values, ideals or temporay alliances base on geo-political reason. Anyone can be a boyuyesi of any Boyu, but one shall never be Boyu-less, or a Kimsesiz, for wandering the dangerous steppe alone will be consumed by it.
All Boyuyesi are warriors by nature, and the strongest among them would be professional soldiers, a Kayi. The Kayi Steppe Lancer - Sipahi, carrying their signature long lances and riding their now extinct Tarpan horses guarded the Sotoan’s eastern borders for hundreds of years, fending off intruders to the endless sea of grassland.
On taking the title as a Kayi, a Kirbiya, a short crescent blade would be given as both weapon and personal keepsake. They must be carried by a Kayi at all times. Modern Sotoa has extended this custom to every service member of the armed forces.
A Kayi would ride along an ancestral pilgrimage path every year as a way of showing respect to the Boyus. This tradition survived after the modernisation. At the end of basic training, all recruits regardless of branches would wear their Boyu’s traditional dress, shoulder a Sipahi lance and march across the same steppe, albeit now a desert land. At the end of the journey, senior officers would present each recruits their own Kirbiya, declaring their status as a proper warrior.
# Again these are head canon from the writers, DO NOT treat these as official lore. I imagine the Sotoa a bit like Kharak in homeworld, but with a lot of Steppe culture in them.
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