| cellspace | the grid of cells representing a digitized terrain |
| citizen | the digital human being, has attributes like vision, metabolism, sex etc. |
| consumption units | abbr. CU, refers to the number of cycles, for which a current commodity's stock will suffice. Derived by dividing commodity by metabolism for that commodity. |
| marginal rate of substitution | abbr. MRS, the value of sugar in units of spice. |
| surplus | the excess supply of one commodity after subtracting the amount required to keep TUD constant. |
| time until death | abbr. TUD, the number of cycles that a citizen will survive given present stock levels. It is equal to the lowest value of all CU's. |