Chatlog Dump

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Alicorn
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Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

I will be dumping chatlogs that concern/relate to Mevwan here for ready reference. THESE ARE NOT CANON UNTIL THEY MAKE IT OUT OF THIS THREAD. NOT! CANON! Interlocutors may ask that lines be redacted.

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Alicorn
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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Winged One (Alphabeta): So, you wrote that psionic control is "weakly trainable." Does that mean no matter how much effort you put into it you can only improve it so much, or that it requires a lot of effort, or what?
Alicorn: Both, although more the second one.
Alicorn: So Ace would be a high-power low-control astrapitor who had to work his ass off to get to a medium-control level and not accidentally set shit on fire.
Alicorn: annnnd why do I still feel inclined to call him Ace when my character *never* called him that and it wouldn't make sense for him to have that nickname at all in this setting?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Habit. It's also shorter.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Metagaming Ace: And I hate being called that.
Alicorn: being called "Ace"?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, he did in the original timeline. He didn't feel he deserved the nickname and it reminded him of times he fucked up.
Winged One (Alphabeta): So, just what does a professional psion do for a living?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Do they just get a job in whatever field their powers are most suited for or something?
Alicorn: Miscellaneous tasks. Demolitions, secure telephones, diagnosing and fixing electrical problems - yeah.
Alicorn: It is considered classier to be a professional psion than a non-psion worker with an identical job description.
Winged One (Alphabeta): *eyeroll*
Winged One (Alphabeta): At people in general, not you.
Alicorn: Well, they have to societally encourage the efficient use of powerful psionics *somehow*. if they don't then the astrapitors might all teach swimming lessons or something when anybody could do that with equal efficiency.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I'm imagining a government program to care for low-control anticipaths being shut down because someone thinks that getting their predictions from them is exploitative.
Alicorn: That could be a thing.
Alicorn: Also, probably periodically telepaths who claim to have learned anticipathy are revealed to just have access to a low-control anticipath.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Wouldn't that stop after people started assuming it?
Alicorn: Well, depends. People really *can* learn other disciplines sometimes and this isn't always in fakeable ways. So telepaths who thought they could hide it even under suspicion might go on trying.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm. Ace wouldn't be able to learn perturbation no matter how much he went "dammit, kinetic energy is just another kind of energy."
Winged One (Alphabeta): I take it?
Alicorn: Not unless he was also a born perturber, which is certainly possible.
Alicorn: (Note that his control and strength can differ between types, as well as between subcomponents of each per type.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes. How rare are multiple-type psions?
Alicorn: Whatever 2% times 2% is. They appear independently.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm. .16% chance of all four types times a population of twelve millions equals 19,200 four-type psions in the human population.
Alicorn: What?
Alicorn: No, the base rate of psions in general in humans is 2%.
Alicorn: So I guess my math was wrong
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes. 2% of 2% of 2% of 2% is .16%
Alicorn: Oh, I misread.
Alicorn: I think my math was still wrong though
Alicorn: If the types are all equally common then there would be a negligibly over a half a percent chance of having any given one to add up to 2%.
Winged One (Alphabeta): So it should be .5% of 1% of 1.5% of 2%?
Alicorn: I'm… not sure.
Alicorn: I will ask a math person.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Going by that, one such person is 18% likely to exist in the human population at all.
Alicorn: asking a math person.
Alicorn: (you don't especially identify as a math person, do you?)
Winged One (Alphabeta): No, just a proficient calculator user
Alicorn: I have confused my math people, which is a good indicator that I was right to consult them.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Though they may be tempted to pretend otherwise
Alicorn: Math person 1 says that any given pair of psion powers will appear in .0025% of the population.
Alicorn: Math person 1 also says that all four will appear in one in a billion.
Winged One (Alphabeta): So yeah, no human 4-power psions in a population of 12 million.
Alicorn: Math Person 2 says individual psion traits appear individually at a rate of .504% [I rounded from more sig figs than that)
Winged One (Alphabeta): What, like .504% of people are high-control psions or something?
Alicorn: No, .504% of humans in Mevwan are astrapitors.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Where'd that .004% come from?
Alicorn: Math person 2 said p=.00503794 for any person having a specific one of the four.
Alicorn: I rounded.
Alicorn: Math Person 2 confirms Math Person 1's figure of .0025% for any given pair of powers (and adds sig figs but that's how it rounded).
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes. Where'd that extra .00003794 come from, though?
Alicorn: Oh - because some people have more than one power, so for the total to be 2%, each individual power has to be *slightly* more common than half a percent.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah.
Alicorn: Math Person 2 says: In general, the probability of having any particular two is .00503794^2, any particular three .00503794^3, and all four .00503794^4
Winged One (Alphabeta): I
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'd call math another language, but Spanish was way easier to learn

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Alicorn24 entered the room. (11:18:57 PM)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta) entered the room. (11:19:02 PM)
Winged One (Alphabeta) entered the room. (11:19:02 PM)
Alicorn: WELCOME, CITIZENS.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hail, Friend Computer!
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): heh.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (11:17:54 PM) Adelene: Okay. I was thinking of a Zaee character in charge of some kind of minor organization, like a school or an orphanage or something, but that might not work too well.
(11:18:21 PM) Alicorn: Orphanage would be uncustomary for Zaee. School works - what kind of school?
(11:19:46 PM) Adelene: *shrugs* Something in the elementary-to-middle-school range, I think, though I expect that the Zaee don't do things very much like we do in that area.
(11:19:55 PM) Alicorn: Yeah. hm.
Alicorn: The only background I have already on Zaee schools is about pwilkwo training and I wanna keep that
Alicorn: So you can pitch stuff
Winged One (Alphabeta): Do you mean an organization for minors or an organization which is minor? Or both?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I was referring to the latter concept. My other idea was some kind of AI shop thing.
Alicorn: AI shop thing would not work.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Yeah, thought that.
Winged One (Alphabeta): A shop that sells AIs or caters to them? The former is kind of slavery.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Huh, I don't usually do that twice in a row.
Alicorn: do what?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): More like the latter, but along the lines of 'place for AIs to be when they don't have owners. (Making some probably-incorrect assumptions about Zahee/AI interactions, there, I know.)
Alicorn: AIs are normally culturally treated like children
Alicorn: Gevene has one, which she is basically fostering for a school-friend and she made one that her school-friend is fostering for her, except the AIs "stay children" indefinitely
Alicorn: This means that they are "inherited" sort of the way a kid would be if its parents die
Alicorn: except that this is more strongly expected to happen eventually.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Winged One (Alphabeta): Is there any particular reason that AIs are made to stay kids forever?
Alicorn: They're not *made* that way, they can be as mature as they're programmed to be, but that's the cultural treatment
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah.
Alicorn: Otherwise there'd be no way to make sure they were safe
Alicorn: in the "friendly AI" sense, except they're not allowed to be that powerful.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Don't want to be accused of godmodding.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Anyway, what sort of little organizations would the Zaee citizenry of Mevwan need?
Alicorn: I already mentioned "daycare" in the post...
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Nursing home, but meh. Um... shops of various kinds. Places to make things. Art galleries.
Alicorn: Need a good word for a kind of psionics that's about manipulating electricity and possibly light.
Alicorn: they need farms too
Winged One (Alphabeta): That's more of a family activity than an organization though. A farmers' co-op, on the other hand...
Winged One (Alphabeta): How abou- *gets shot with lightning and possibly lasers*
Alicorn: (Context for Ade: He is bad at naming things. Running joke is that if he tries someone will shoot him rather than allow him to release the abomination.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): heh.
Alicorn: Ade, idea?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Part of the draw of the school idea is that if it's structured even remotely like schools are here, I can abstract out a lot of the day-to-day stuff... there's a layer of teachers/managers between the position I want and that.
Alicorn: Maybe you could run Mevwan's first both-species school, or something?
Alicorn: Borrow elements from both cultures and have plenty of excuse to make stuff up?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): That'd be neat.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *will ponder.*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Hm. Maybe Zaee have specific modular schools for specific topics, with less of a focus on age, giving students and wingfamilies more control over what a given child learns?
Alicorn: I'm thinking that what usually happens with Zaee is there will be sort of temporary vocational training/apprenticeships, where they follow and help miscellaneous people, and change every few months, and when they find something that really grabs them they go to a vocational school (but the population is low enough that this might just take the form of sticking with the grabby apprenticeship).
Alicorn: Age would be largely irrelevant except insofar as older children are more likely to have been so grabbed.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Maybe humans have that and some Zaee feel like trying it?
Winged One (Alphabeta): *that=Adelene's idea
Alicorn: Sure.
Alicorn: They'd combine rather well
Alicorn: Zaee apprenticethings until getting grabbed then goes to a human school on the subject, and only people who want to be pwilkwos or whatever wouldn't be able to find a human school about it.
Alicorn: Farming techniques would probably also translate poorly.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I was thinking about a farming school, anyway.
Winged One (Alphabeta): And... I don't know, mail couriers or aerobatic entertainers?
Alicorn: A psion school could be more interesting
Alicorn: and more open to having both species.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I didn't see any actual description of psionics...
Alicorn: I'm writing up psionics now
Alicorn: I need a name for the energy one though.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): What're the others called?
Alicorn: The others are "perturbation" (telekinesis), telepathy, and "anticipathy" (precognition).
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): "envigorizing"?
Alicorn: eenh
Winged One (Alphabeta): *fires off hurried e-mails denying his own involvement in that one*
Alicorn: hee hee hee
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *snerk*
Winged One (Alphabeta): Something-bation?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Get yer mind out of the gutter.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Energiabation?
Alicorn: bleah!
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): indeed.
Winged One (Alphabeta): *gets shot THROUGH TIME AND SPACE*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): What does it do, exactly?
Alicorn: Manipulates electricity, temperature, and light, via magic I MEAN SCIENCE THIS IS SCIENCE FICTION IT'S ALL SCIENCEY.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): heh.
Winged One (Alphabeta): It's science fiction with magic?
Alicorn: it's psionics *it's totally different*.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): psionics. 'cause it's science.
Alicorn: yes.
Winged One (Alphabeta): *awesomeface*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): hee.
Winged One (Alphabeta): astrapi is Greek for "lightning"
Alicorn: oooh.
Alicorn: Astrapition maybe?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, technically αστραπή is, but astrapi can be spelled
Alicorn: hee
Alicorn: does astrapition sound good?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Astrapition makes me expect something astral.
Winged One (Alphabeta): It came FROM SPACE
Alicorn: it did. Space.
Alicorn: BECAUSE IT'S SCIENCE. SPACE.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Astrapition makes me expect something *explicitly* astral.
Alicorn: What would constitute something "explicitly astral"?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, there's a lot of heat and light coming from stars.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): In this context? I dunno, moving spaceships around or something. (Actually what it *sounds* like is astral projection, but that doesn't make any sense at all.)
Alicorn: The perturbers could move spaceships.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Maybe, they usually do stuff with powering spaceships so they can move themselves?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *shrugs* Objection lodged. Do as y'please.
Alicorn: hai.
Alicorn: Psionics descriptions added to summary post.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ok
Winged One (Alphabeta): Huzzah! *giant toaster monster drops out of the ceiling*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *grins at the hat tip in the astrapition section.*
Alicorn: :)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): hmm.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Subject change:
Winged One (Alphabeta): Predicate change?
Alicorn: INTERJECTION CHANGE!!!!
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Game theory says that the Zaee fostering system is *weird*; there must be some disadvantage to children living with bio-parents that's major enough to overrule the advantages of simplicity and ability to pass along information that's genotype-specific. I suggest something immune-related; perhaps the diseases on the Zaee homeworld are particularly good at adapting to particular families, to the point where having children in the same household as biological family members seriously increases the chance of them all catching something fatal.
Alicorn: I explained this to Winged before, hang on, will paste - but the immune idea is interesting too.
Alicorn: Winged One (Alphabeta): Okay. Seriously, where did the non-fosterage taboo come from?
Alicorn: In the ancestral environment Zaee were under threat from [handwave], which could only be dealt with by extremely tight-knit communities, and rather than adapting religion or racism to create a strong interdependent in-group like humans tend to, they started credibly signaling and encouraging mutual trust by giving up their kids to others in the group. That way everyone has more relatives they can *personally* trust to help them out with [handwave] and other problems, and *way* more relatives-of-relatives (you could easily have an extended biological-and-memetic family of thousands as long as everybody's spread out and not using the same foster parent(s) for all of their kids). The decoupling of sex and romance shares this origin - if you're a Zaee lady trying to do something that will help your four kids collectively, it's better to have four bio-dads and four to eight foster parents who are on board with this project on your kids' behalf plus one spous who's on board on your behalf, than just one dude.
Alicorn: *spouse
Winged One (Alphabeta): Nifty!
Alicorn: :)
Alicorn: The "before they learn to fly" thing is mostly just a Schelling point.
Alicorn: But acquired its own cultural baggage, of course.
Could not send the last message because it was too large. (12:26:07 AM)
Alicorn: Winged One (Alphabeta): Okay. Seriously, where did the non-fosterage taboo come from?
Alicorn: In the ancestral environment Zaee were under threat from [handwave], which could only be dealt with by extremely tight-knit communities, and rather than adapting religion or racism to create a strong interdependent in-group like humans tend to, they started credibly signaling and encouraging mutual trust by giving up their kids to others in the group. That way everyone has more relatives they can *personally* trust to help them out with [handwave] and other problems, and *way* more relatives-of-relatives (you could easily have an extended
Alicorn: biological-and-memetic family of thousands as long as everybody's spread out and not using the same foster parent(s) for all of their kids). The decoupling of sex and romance shares this origin - if you're a Zaee lady trying to do something that will help your four kids collectively, it's better to have four bio-dads and four to eight foster parents who are on board with this project on your kids' behalf plus one spous who's on board on your behalf, than just one dude.
Alicorn: *spouse
Winged One (Alphabeta): Nifty!
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): eeeh, sounds like group selection t'me.
Alicorn: intelligent species can *do* group selection. just requires memes to do some of the work.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *remains skeptical.*
Alicorn: Well, the classic example of group selection is limiting breeding. Do you think a smallish human society that needed to keep its population down, and had access to birth control, would overwhelmingly fail at this task?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Over the course of several generations, certainly.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Or fall into a babyeating attractor.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Attractor?
Alicorn: After a few generations it was extremely customary for Zaee to do the fostering thing, and this is spun as a child welfare issue - if you don't give up your kid the group will take the kid, and, depending on how enlightened they are, they'll kill you so you can't have any more.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): If kids who exist are sacred, people who are good at cheating will have more kids, who will be allowed to grow up and pass on the good-at-cheating genes, and that falls apart pretty quick. If kids who exist aren't sacred, it's much easier to enforce rules.
Alicorn: Some Zaee societies may have considerd kids who flew under the care of their bio-mom "tainted" in some way and killed them.
Alicorn: Plus we can incorporate your disease thing.
Alicorn: Since kids are generally the responsibility of the bio-mom until fosterage it is harder to cheat - hard to hide you're pregnant
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I'm still trying to wrap my head around Zaee psychology - what do the male Zaee get out of their romantic/reproductive setup, other than greater variance in ability to reproduce (which should probably have more of an effect on things than seems to have been shown, by the way).
Alicorn: And some lady living in isolation who only meets other Zaee to get knocked up is of course vulnerable to [handwave].
Alicorn: Male Zaee can reproduce without needing to invest in the offspring.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): But they generally have to invest in offspring who aren't their own, so that's not obviously net-positive.
Alicorn: They don't have to. You can refuse to foster when asked.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Okay, so why don't they?
Alicorn: So they can choose to foster only when they think that [the kid will help them out when they're old, or sooner/the mom will help them out for doing it/they will gain community status for doing it].
Winged One (Alphabeta): So, why is it [handwave] instead of predators?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *considers* From an evpsych standpoint most of that doesn't really work. What I could see working is having fostering itself be a high-status thing, and fostering children of high-status people being especially high-status, such that agreeing to foster means you have much better options for where to place your own kids.
Alicorn: I do think it is customary for women to take in a foster before having their own biokid.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): This implies a very status-oriented society in general, I think.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Is there a functional difference between you thinking something about the Zaee and knowing it?
Alicorn: I'd describe the Zaee as being *role*-oriented more than status-oriented
Alicorn: If I think it, it's more readily changeable.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): That does make some sense for the females (I'm really having trouble using the word 'ladies' or 'women' for 'em; need another term). For the males, though - why do they get married at all, from an evpsych standpoint?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Or a game theory one.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Feel like it?
Alicorn: Some of them don't, but it's useful to have a companion you don't have to renegotiate with every time you want some more-than-one-person job done.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): So it's more of a working kind of relationship? Kind of like me and Three, maybe?
Alicorn: Kind of, except that sex-as-pairbonding is used.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods* that makes sense, ok.
Alicorn: I don't have a detailed account of how pre-tech Zaee females arranged to have kids with specific people not their spice, but suspect that fertility is largely voluntary (and being pregnant feels really awesome, or something).
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): It seems odd to me that Zaee are monogamous even in that sense, all things considered.
Alicorn: Yeah, that's mostly an artifact of a subplot me and Winged were doing in the RP whence Zaee.
Alicorn: I don't wanna get rid of it, it's embedded in my mental image.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): 'k.
Alicorn: Ade, are you planning to reply to the census or waiting until your role is more clearly defined?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I was planning on waiting.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Monogamy: Maybe living with people is risky - that immune thing again - but there's some kind of gender-specific thing relating to childrearing that happens on an ongoing basis, so there's some specific benefit to having a male and a female adult around, but also a specific benefit to keeping the number of people living in any one place low.
Alicorn: Same-sex marriages are not uncommon among Zaee.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Yeah, I did notice that. There are a few obvious ways of dealing with that; the most obvious one is that one of the things might have been usurped by technology - maybe one of 'em is like giving milk, and since they invented refrigeration that doesn't necessarily involve a nursing-equivalent anymore, or something.
Winged One (Alphabeta): But they're birds.
Alicorn: Zaee aren't birds.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, sort of. My point is that they're not mammals.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Even if they were birds, crop milk is a thing.
Winged One (Alphabeta): *consults Wikipedia* Crop milk is indeed a thing, but why would it be related to gender?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Because it's convenient to the plot.
Alicorn: My mental image of Zaee history doesn't indicate that same-sex marriage used to be nonexistent/uncommon.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *wants a timeline. :P*
Alicorn: bleah.
Winged One (Alphabeta): _______________________________________
Winged One (Alphabeta): That passes through time.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Instincts don't have to fit together in sane ways - in humans, if the point of producing non-reproducing offspring is to give your grandchildren aunts and uncles who will pay lots of attention to them, asexuals make more sense than gay people, but gay people are still more common, probably because it's a smaller deviation from the normal genes. Could be basically the same here - monogamy got encoded in their genes because it's good for child-raising; same-sex marriages are a deviation from that in only one direction.
Alicorn: there you go.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): And same-sex couples being able to foster kids might be a relatively recent thing for practical reasons.
Alicorn: Most kids are actually technically assigned to *one* foster parent, who may happen to be married.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Oh.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Okay, scratch that then.
Alicorn: Married foster parents usually share rearing duties, of course.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Given the lack of separate words for 'my wingfather who is my official foster parent' and 'my wingfather who is not my official foster parent', I assume that in practice there's not any significant difference between those two positions?
Alicorn: what do you mean, "given the lack of separate words"?
Alicorn: There's a legal distinction but little to no practical one.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): That's what I was asking. Ok.
Alicorn: Well, except the spouse of the official wingparent can't refuse the fosterage except by influencing the official wingparent.
Winged One (Alphabeta): So, how about them humans?
Alicorn: thinking.
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'kay
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Thinkin': If the disease thing is a major factor in the fostering, and it's a function of Zaee-world diseases rather than Zaee themselves (which makes sense), then it seems likely that it'd affect other Zaee-world species as well, and would have been a relatively major factor in their evolution; it seems reasonably likely that most Zaee-world species, including ancestral species of Zaee, abandon their young, and that developing an instinct for adopting abandoned young of others (which seems unlikely, really, but might make sense if the wingchild/wingparent one is more beneficial to the parent in some way than a human parent/child relationship is) might have been a very early step in them developing civilization. This would imply that Zaee eyeparents would have an active drive to get rid of their eyechildren after a certain age, and might actually be prone to abandoning them if a wingfamily can't be found.
Alicorn: Well, they go to great lengths to find wingfamilies (and try to avoid having kids if they don't reasonably expect to find wingfamilies) but yeah, all but weird mentally ill Zaee would abandon rather than keep a flying kid.
Alicorn: …disease may be caught at a high altitude.
Alicorn: tree canopy or something.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): If it's a specific disease I'd expect them to have developed immunity rather than such a convoluted childrearing practice; I was assuming that it was a property of all Zaee-world diseases.
Alicorn: *all* of them would be a stretch, but it could be a class of diseases that spend part of their lifecycle at high altitude.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Sure, that works.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I assume you're doing that because you want livestock without the abandonment tendency.
Alicorn: No, they can do the same thing if they fly.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *is lost*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Oh, I think I get it.
Winged One (Alphabeta): *stats selling ma- dammit*
Alicorn: ?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, lost people are more likely to want to buy a map.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Or... maybe not so much. Less confused, but still confused. I think you're saying something about the kids not being affected by the disease if they're not living with their parents when they're exposed, but that doesn't really make sense.
Alicorn: oh.
Alicorn: ...[handwave]
Alicorn: I no longer care.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): heh, ok.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Maybe the kids catch the not-so-nasty in-the-trees stage of the disease, which messes up the kid's relatives if they catch it? But nobody else?
Winged One (Alphabeta): ... *protects beard from the incoming Occam's Razor*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): heh.
Alicorn: Could be kids are better at shaking off the disease, genetic relatives are more likely to catch a strain that's been incubating in a given person, etc.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Yeah, that makes enough sense that it won't bother me for the rest of it to be handwaved.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Basically I'm reading it as: Kid starts flying; kid gets exposed to disease; kid gets disease; disease evolves to be good at attacking Zaee from that family, but not overly dangerous to the kid (surprisingly likely; diseases want to spread more than they want to kill their hosts); kid is dangerously contagious to eyefamily for some number of months.
Alicorn: yes.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Next topic?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Brains?
Alicorn: Braaaaaaains
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Actually... that does kind of beg the question of how the kids aren't getting exposed to the disease from their parents...
Winged One (Alphabeta): Other fliers?
Alicorn: Their parents will carry strains that are adapted for other families.
Winged One (Alphabeta): That too
Winged One (Alphabeta): Wait, won't that make them contagious to their wing-kid's eye-family?
Alicorn: …Oh, and the mom's *spouse* probably does most flying-requiring things while the kid can't fly, and the mom stays home with the kid.
Alicorn: Which would be a pressure to not have a kid with your spouse.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I meant more along the lines of the parents going flying and getting dust or whatever on their wings, with the wild form of the disease on it.
Alicorn: Oh. Um, it doesn't survive at low altitudes without a host.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Okay.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Good point about cross-family contagiousness.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I think it makes sense for the kid's wingfamily to be dangerous to the kid's eyefamily while the kid is in the contagious period, but not after; they might not be dangerous to them at all with modern hygiene, though there's probably still some kind of instinct to stay away.
Alicorn: I'm envisioning the early use of messenger birds or something to correspond.
Winged One (Alphabeta): This is assuming the Zaee didn't go Dalek on this disease.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (And in fact the disease probably doesn't exist at all in their current context.)
Alicorn: The disease has indeed probably been eradicated by now.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Wouldn't the messenger get the disease too?
Alicorn: if it's a different species it wouldn't get a Zaee-dangerous disease.
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'kay
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Some species can be carriers for other species' diseases, but yeah, it's pretty safe to assume that that's not an issue here.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Wouldn't be surprised if there was some degree of superstition and/or ritual surrounding the whole thing, btw.
Alicorn: *nod*
Winged One (Alphabeta): So, next?
Alicorn: I'm too tired to do more stuff.
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'kay
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): It is like 2am here.
Winged One (Alphabeta): It's 11 here, but I'm apparently nocturnal today
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, goodnight, I guess
Alicorn: night

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Are Zaee AIs sentient? What do they look like?
Alicorn: Yes. They look like whatever they're uploaded into. Gevene has one in a wee pink humanoid chassis with wheels instead of feet so it can get along without a tail.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Okay.
Alicorn: I've already posted in-character as Iriwande, Self-Appointed Minister of International Participation-in-Things, and Gevene is a recycled character who I also reserve for myself, but other than that I'm open to whatever bit of Mevwan you might wish to claim and operate.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ...Zaee reproduce like woah.
Alicorn: I was guessing 50-year generations and four children per woman.
Alicorn: And I think I rounded down.
Alicorn: Notably, they were a *colony* ship, they were *supposed* to be able to fill a whole moon with their descendants, they were picked for fertility and inclination to reproduce
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): That does make sense.
Alicorn: Also notably, there is no particular reason that they can't foster kids with humans.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Alicorn: So they don't have to personally take care of each kid they produce for more than a couple years
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Alicorn: The fact that they can only eat Zaee food is a limiting factor, but they had the resources to get their farming capacity up to scratch in a hurry.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): mmhmm
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *continues reading*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): "Childbearing decisions is made independently"
Alicorn: bleah. *goes to fix*

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Alicorn: Okay, working Mevwan cultural stuff for humans now. Queries/inquiries?
Alicorn: /suggestions?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm. Do humans live on Mevwan's mainland bit?
Alicorn: Yes. Actually Zaee only live on the island - they visit the mainland sometimes, but there's currently no settlment of them or Zaee farming going on there.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Do they have any technology more advanced than Earth's was shortly after we started using electricity?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Do they lack any technology that we had then?
Alicorn: I'm not actually sure what sorts of things humans had then-ish so I'm going to make it up case by case.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm... are there any cultural developments that you think would be interesting for the Zaee to go through that humans could prompt given the right culture?
Alicorn: Not sure what you mean.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Do you have a guess as to what I mean that has an interesting answer?
Alicorn: No.
Alicorn: Although that is a good thing to ask.
Winged One (Alphabeta): :) I was thinking that there might be some aspect of Zaee psychology that would only be apparent around outside influence or something.
Alicorn: like what?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Dunno. They're your aliens.
Alicorn: you know what I know about their psych.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Okay, anyway. Back to humans... they'd have to be pretty individualistic as a culture to come up with a democracy without outside influence.
Alicorn: It's not really a democracy.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah, wait, it was more of a republ- right
Winged One (Alphabeta): That still means something... that they're not willing to put up with undesired leaders out of inertia?
Alicorn: Hm. Anti-centralization, anti-bureaucracy, pro-inititative.
Winged One (Alphabeta): This is supposed to be a series of utopias. :P
Alicorn: yup.
Winged One (Alphabeta): (though centralization isn't a bad thing IMO)
Winged One (Alphabeta): On the other hand, bureaucracy is an incentive toward literacy. And it's not much of a utopia without that being common.
Winged One (Alphabeta): So we could use another reason to be literate. A cultural expectation of it seems lazy, and should come from somewhere anyway.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Oh, duh, meeting minutes
Alicorn: yes. hm. A religion with a mess of books, maybe. Also the minutes, but that introduces a class tiering thing.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Not necessarily. There could be a culture that everyone needs to be /able/ to take the minutes in case of... I don't know, something happening to the minutes-taker?
Alicorn: enh
Alicorn: I think the greatest obstacle to widespread literacy is the unavailable of books. So, they have printing presses. The question remaining is what they print with them.
Alicorn: *unavailability
Winged One (Alphabeta): Right. Maybe it's not just the boss who gets the meeting minutes?
Winged One (Alphabeta): And something else too...
Alicorn: Widely-reproduced summaries-of-summaries… No, I have it. *newspapers*.
Alicorn: Mevwani humans are a culture of *reporters*
Winged One (Alphabeta): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8u7px_GzWQ
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm. Maybe everyone publishes some news in whatever newspaper will have them? The ones that suck are only read by family and friends of the writer, of course...
Alicorn: Mevwan:newspaper::modernUSA:blog
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes.
Alicorn: But a lot of content is repeated in many papers, of course.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Wait, i don't have a blog. Well, I think I technically do, but I never update it.
Alicorn: that's okay, I have several.
Winged One (Alphabeta): *awesomeface*
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm. It seems odd if the Space Internet doesn't already have blogs...
Alicorn: Oh, this is humans we're talking about
Alicorn: who, if they want to get on the Koeen, have to go to one of the few hundred Zaee with a computer and pay to get on.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes, just trying to see if the Zaee would be influence at all.
Winged One (Alphabeta): *punts a typo goblin*
Winged One (Alphabeta): Right. So newspapers are still widely in use until someone reinvents or reverse engineers the computer.
Alicorn: right.
Winged One (Alphabeta): They
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'll need to practice a sustainable lumber industry.
Alicorn: yes.
Alicorn: I think I might decree that they make paper out of some sort of grass, which can be mowed instead of being killed.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Is that actually possible?
Alicorn: I will make up a type of grass for which it is possible.
Winged One (Alphabeta): :D
Alicorn: This is why speculative fiction is awesome. I don't have to actually *know* anything!
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes! :D
Winged One (Alphabeta): Though it helps!

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Winged One (Alphabeta): Okay. Seriously, where did the non-fosterage taboo come from?
Alicorn: In the ancestral environment Zaee were under threat from [handwave], which could only be dealt with by extremely tight-knit communities, and rather than adapting religion or racism to create a strong interdependent in-group like humans tend to, they started credibly signaling and encouraging mutual trust by giving up their kids to others in the group. That way everyone has more relatives they can *personally* trust to help them out with [handwave] and other problems, and *way* more relatives-of-relatives (you could easily have an extended biological-and-memetic family of thousands as long as everybody's spread out and not using the same foster parent(s) for all of their kids). The decoupling of sex and romance shares this origin - if you're a Zaee lady trying to do something that will help your four kids collectively, it's better to have four bio-dads and four to eight foster parents who are on board with this project on your kids' behalf plus one spous who's on board on your behalf, than just one dude.
Alicorn: *spouse
Winged One (Alphabeta): Nifty!
Alicorn: :)
Alicorn: The "before they learn to fly" thing is mostly just a Schelling point.
Alicorn: But acquired its own cultural baggage, of course.
Winged One (Alphabeta): What's a Schelling? Besides a pun on selling?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Googled it my damn self
Alicorn: Schelling was a dude who wrote a book called Strategy of Conflict. A Schelling point is something that people can agree on without mutual communication. (Imagine that you and a friend planned to meet up somewhere, but hadn't specified the location, and intended to work it out via walkie-talkie later. Then the receiver on your walkie-talkie breaks, so you can't hear your friend, but they can hear you. You say, "Meet me at place X." And even if X is the last place your friend wants to go, they have to show up if they want to meet you at all.)
Alicorn: Schelling's book is mostly about when and how it is a good idea to break your own walkie-talkie receiver, and similar gambits.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah.
Winged One (Alphabeta): What's Zwerise like? And for that matter, if it wasn't for stronger communities, what was it for?
Alicorn: Iiiiii have not actually invented Zwerise yet.
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'kay.
Winged One (Alphabeta): What was the area that now contains Kthropfe like before it did so?
Winged One (Alphabeta): *that now contains Mevwan and contained Kthropfe right before then
Alicorn: I dunno. I'm leaving the distant past mostly open because apocalypse.
Winged One (Alphabeta): It occurs to me that Zaee tech that breaks the laws of physics like FTL might need psionics to manufacture. Not that it'll help them in Mevwan, since nobody knows how to manufacture it, but it could give you some ideas for the system.
Alicorn: Some of it probably does call for psionics. Hrm.

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Winged One (Alphabeta): So, I noticed that you haven't written down how the humans have influenced the Zaee. Admittedly, they've had fewer generations to be influenced in, but it seems rather odd nonetheless.
Alicorn: Since the only Zaee we've got are the ones in Mevwan, there's not that much use in comparing them to the Zaee who haven't met these humans. I'll touch on it briefly during culture in the Zaee section (older Zaee v. native Zaee).
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'kay.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I've thought of a backstory for an Ace-expy. He remains kind of overpowered, but in a person of mass destruction way rather than an author avatar way.
Alicorn: oh?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes. I'll need to redo it if you don't want to make the psionics system support it.
Alicorn: Tell me.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Basically, when he was young his strong, difficult-to-control psionic power caused him to accidentally his native city. He ended up getting fostered to a very experienced psion Zaee since ey could both teach him how to not do that again and mitigate the damage if/when he did. He has that flat affect of his either because that's how psions of his caliber control their power or because he's still traumatized about the last time he showed emotion.
Alicorn: Okay, but let's make it a little village instead of a city?
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'kay. That was what I was originally going to go with, acutally.
Winged One (Alphabeta): *actually
Alicorn: :)
Winged One (Alphabeta): And yes, I use the accidentally deleted word meme because I don't know what's possible under the system.
Alicorn: It works ^^
Winged One (Alphabeta): :)
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'course, this way he loses his ignorance of Zaee culture, since he was raised in it.
Alicorn: Well, not if you interpret "young" to mean something like "15" and have his mentor mostly live in a human community.
Winged One (Alphabeta): True. Though I did imagine a thing where the humans tend to consider the village destruction to be his fault.
Alicorn: As long as he lives far away from his hometown they won't necessarily have heard about it.
Winged One (Alphabeta): True.
Winged One (Alphabeta): But would a Mevwan human be raised ignorant of Zaee culture at all?
Alicorn: Not deliberately, but if he lives in a remote village where no Zaee happen to have settled, he could have never met one and forgotten most of what he was told as irrelevant.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm. A lack of Zaee presence would explain why nobody got him sufficient tutoring before something terrible happened.
Alicorn: *nod*
Winged One (Alphabeta): I don't consider losing that ignorance to be a bad thing from a character perspective, since I can always make a new designated person who gets things explain to them.
Alicorn: *nod*
Alicorn: Although it does mess up some of the early Ace/Gevene interaction
Winged One (Alphabeta): So I think we'll say he was an ignorant fucktard when he was a teenager, but has settled in well since then. He might still have some jealousy issues, though.
Alicorn: oh?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Unless you've changed Zaee reproductive culture?
Alicorn: That's still there.
Winged One (Alphabeta): So yeah, he was originally raised to think that it's perfectly fine to get jealous if your lover sleeps with another guy, and still carries that assumption even though he consciously considers it wrong now.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Probably
Winged One (Alphabeta): Not that he /shows/ it or anything
Alicorn: *nod*
Winged One (Alphabeta): Mevwan human culture isn't really that developed beyond their government.
Alicorn: yeah, I know, I'm working on it.
Alicorn: the Zaee are more interesting to me though. you're allowed to come up with ideas for/about the humans.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I know. I just meant that his old cultural baggage is subject to change.
Winged One (Alphabeta): What prevents someone from causing a revolution and making themself the dictator of the humans? Or the Zaee, for that matter? Cultural inertia doesn't go as far for some as it does for others.
Alicorn: They have law enforcement and a military and stuff.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes, but what stops whoever is in charge from using them to stay in power?
Alicorn: The minutes-takers can go to the military itself and be like "people seem to think it is not a good idea if this fellow is still in charge."
Winged One (Alphabeta): A shoot-on-sight order on the minutes-takers would be rather suspicious, I suppose...
Alicorn: Yep.
Winged One (Alphabeta): There's a thread in the senate subforum, btw
Alicorn: the expansion thing? yeah, I'm writing up Iriwande's speech now
Winged One (Alphabeta): International Participation-in-things is a rather irreverent thing to call it.
Alicorn: Yes.
Alicorn: Well, "Things" is capitalized.
Winged One (Alphabeta): hee hee
Winged One (Alphabeta): Does being consensus-appointed minister of something mean that someone else wanted the job and it was decided to give it to them, or that it got fobbed off on them because someone had to do it?
Alicorn: Either!
Alicorn: Posted Iriwande's speech.
Winged One (Alphabeta): What if it's both that are objected to?
Alicorn: Then the last paragraph.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Also, the senate posts are an interesting ways to show off a country's culture.
Alicorn: Yes.
Winged One (Alphabeta): By the way, how much input does the Avewe have in the senate stuff?
Alicorn: Oh, he could have gone instead of Iriwande if he'd felt like it, but Iriwande's the one who likes to Internationally Participate-in-Things, so he checked his speech with the Avewe and got the go-ahead and went.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah. Let me guess, Mokarith doesn't give a crap about a far away country's expansion either as long as nobody starts a fight over it?
Alicorn: Yup.
Alicorn: Iriwande apparently has a yak now.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes.
Alicorn: And apparently he is supposed to owe Támsáng for it.
Winged One (Alphabeta): He probably just owes them a yak. They seem to be their currency.
Alicorn: I wonder if she will be offended if he just says she can have the yak back.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I don't know. I'm probably going to read the relevant subforum and hope to find out then.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Zaee languages have a great many languages
Winged One (Alphabeta): I think you mean a great many words
Alicorn: oo
Alicorn: fixing
Winged One (Alphabeta): How often do Zaee pretend to be screwing for reproduction when caught at actual infidelity?
Alicorn: Rarely. Because then they'd have to go on until they actually got pregnant or one of them turned up infertile.
Alicorn: They have stories that are just one long awkward moment of trying to do that and finally being caught.
Alicorn: Or angsty stories where kids are born because of this and find out.
Winged One (Alphabeta): In the former, they're unsympathetic comedy protagonists and in the latter the parents are portrayed as outright assholes, I'm guessing?
Alicorn: Yeah.
Alicorn: http://cdn.smosh.com/smosh-pit/042011/p ... k-nose.jpg
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm. Should Ace and Gevene get together in this version?
Alicorn: Of course.
Winged One (Alphabeta): We'll need a reason for them to meet.
Alicorn: He could live near some of her family or something.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Also, cute pic
Winged One (Alphabeta): Also, there's approximately nobody who calls him Ace anymore IC, so if he gets mentioned (probably in the psionics section if anywhere) it should likely be by full name.
Alicorn: which is still Laren Drax?
Winged One (Alphabeta): I'm not really attached to the name, so if Mevwan linguistics would contradict it then no.
Alicorn: I don't have developed enough linguistics to rule it out and it doesn't sound obviously wrong.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I'm considering changing it anyway to distance him from his original incarnation.
Alicorn: Okay. Whatever you like. So far only the unhyphenated cities have Ekoin names in the post.
Winged One (Alphabeta): So, why did you want Ace's accidental ed place to be a village instead of a city?
Alicorn: Because villages are smaller.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes. Why is that a virtue in this case?
Alicorn: I don't really want to make Ace into a Mevwan superweapon.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Fair enough, I guess.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Can his existence actually matter, though?
Alicorn: Yeah, it can.

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Alicorn: Beginning of intro post posted.
Winged One (Alphabeta): So, what elements of the psionics system are you going with?
Alicorn: Haven't decided yet. I'm thinking that humans couldn't use them until the Zaee landed and then started being born with them, and they're normal where the Zaee came from, and the mysterious force described elsewhere in the forum prevents them from leaking out of Mevwan.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Is the mysterious force the plot?
Alicorn: There's not really a plot. It's just a device to explain why we're not going to have consistent magic or tech statelet-to-statelet.
Winged One (Alphabeta): That's what I meant. More accurately, I could have said "the way the game works and the wishes of the players"
Alicorn: I'm putting Gevene on the Cezkwe.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Has she been developed in your head beyond a generic and slightly mean pwilkwo?
Alicorn: Slightly mean?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, mean when it's warranted.
Alicorn: She still has Dwen-lin
Alicorn: and the same backstory
Winged One (Alphabeta): How long have the Zaee been there, anyway?
Alicorn: Like 200 years
Alicorn: So not exactly the same backstory; she was now born in Mevwan
Alicorn: but same general idea.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I'm thinking you might want to invent an entirely new psionics/magic system for this.
Alicorn: Yeah, I'm thinking similarly. I barely remember the original.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Mostly because I was in charge of it and you didn't find it relevant, I think. And to be honest, it wasn't that well-defined in my head.
Alicorn: *nod*
Winged One (Alphabeta): Crap, I forgot to ask: are citizens allowed to post in OOC decision-making threads?
Alicorn: You don't get your own vote in the Senate, but I think you can post in non-Senate stuff.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I'm a them now?
Alicorn: what?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Re: Register your statelet here.

Postby Alicorn » Tue May 10, 2011 7:15 pm
Mevwan. Me. I also have citizenry who will ultimately make themselves known in the Mevwan subforum.

Alicorn: Oh. I asked Ade too, who seemed amenable.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Who's Ade again?
Alicorn: My roommate.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah
Winged One (Alphabeta): adhocracy? really?
Alicorn: what?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ari described Mevwan as "a consensus-driven bifurcate adhocracy," which sounded like a reference to something you said due to context
Alicorn: Yeah, I said that. Does it not seem like an adhocracy to you the way I described it?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Oh, it does. Adhocracy, however, is a word of power so potent that it can rend the barriers between the physical world and Pun Hell.
Alicorn: I didn't invent it.
Alicorn: Cory Doctorow did, as far as I know.
Winged One (Alphabeta): o.O
Winged One (Alphabeta): Huh.
Winged One (Alphabeta): It's still a silly word.
Alicorn: yes.
Alicorn: Do you like the flag?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Seems like the kind of flag a country made of two peoples would have.
Alicorn: :)
Winged One (Alphabeta): So, why'd you use the name Ekoin for the humans' language? Were you just trying to confuse me?
Alicorn: Because that's what passed for Common in the original setting. It wasn't a Zaee language.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes, but it wasn't a human language either.
Alicorn: So you'd have preferred I didn't call any language "Ekoin"?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes, though I recognize that you have the authority to not give a shit.
Alicorn: I think I'll leave it in case anyone has seen it already
Alicorn: I would change it if Ari hadn't replied
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'kay

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I think my Zaee is going to be named Ivwi, pronounced sort of like if-we.
Alicorn: That is a good and suitable name.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ^^
Alicorn: I congratulate you on your apprehension of the sound of Zaee language.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *grins*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Perhaps Ivwe zoo?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *Zoo
Alicorn: ?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I think the Zaee name that was mentioned already had two parts.
Alicorn: Zaee have one name apiece. I'm not sure who you mean.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Winged One (Alphabeta): Also, there's approximately nobody who calls him Ace anymore IC, so if he gets mentioned (probably in the psionics section if anywhere) it should likely be by full name.
Alicorn: which is still Laren Drax?
Alicorn: Oh, Ace is a human.
Alicorn: Or he would not have a nickname.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Oh. Okay, just Ivwi is fine.
Alicorn: :)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ^^
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Also I think Ivwi likes critters, particularly "exotic" human ones - any clues on what may or may not be available in that genre?
Alicorn: well, Iriwande's son in law now has a yak.
Alicorn: we appear to be in a cold place.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *suspects that Bonjour might have a better-than-average chance of being able to do a cross-program file transfer.*
Alicorn: ooh.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Though if you're not seeing the offer of a file, I guess not. :P
Alicorn: I am not. what are you trying to send?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): The colors I picked for Ivwe.
Alicorn: did you want to be "Ivwe" or "Ivwi"?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Meh. The plan was Ivwi, but if my fingers don't start cooperating...
Alicorn: Also, there has been a minor asplosion in the Colony thread in Center of the World
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ?
Alicorn: http://www.bastionunion.org/forum/viewt ... 375&t=1875
Alicorn: look at Winged's first post on the thread. (he posts from a history of RPing with me.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ok
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): It may be a thing that Ivwi's eyemother wasn't too great with spelling, such that Ivwi and Ivwe are both technically correct in some sense.
Alicorn: is Ivwi a male or a female?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Male.
Alicorn: he'd have to pick one or the other or everybody will find it appallingly awkward to interact with him, given the "no mangled names" thing
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Aw.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I find this slightly surprising, actually - it seems to me that if Ivwe's eyemother says that both spellings are correct, it should be just as offensive to correct her about that as to correct her about a single correct spelling. *Odd* situation, yes, and I could see it making some people uncomfortable (but they could pretty easily just pick one spelling and consistently use that one on an individual basis), but I'm surprised that the norms shake out the way you're saying.
Alicorn: I guess it depends on the individual personalities involved. It would still be awkward but I suppose neither Ivwi nor his mom have to designate a single spelling if they don't want to.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): 'k.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): This does bring up the broader question of Zaee response to disability.
Alicorn: oh?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Well, it is implying that Ivwi's eyemother is something of an outlier in mental capability.
Alicorn: hmm. Zaee who congenitally can't fly were probably looked at as eternal small children in a less enlightened age but now they'd probably be fostered at the correct age regardless and no longer looked at that way and there'd be no comparable history for acquired incapability. The colonists were screened for good genes, but that doesn't mean the screening was perfect or that brain injury couldn't happen - or she could be an overwhelmed anticipator who's only rarely out of the visions long enough to be lucid for a bit.
Alicorn: *anticipath
Alicorn: I'm not sure what to make of this highly abstract color palette.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I like that last one - it works well with him being a psion himself. (That is inherited, right?)
Alicorn: (No, but he can be one anyway.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (I'd assume, given he's running a psionics school)
Alicorn: (Psionics is mostly environmental - that's why humans cropped up with it when the Zaee landed.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): The main brownish color is his body color; the lighter bit to the left is the wingsail color; the blue and grey concentric bit on the right is his eye colors; the redish bit on the top is his hair color.
Alicorn: okay.
Alicorn: I may draw him/some Zaee in general in the future but not until I'm out of this hole of art backlog.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Psionics is environmental in a *weird* way. But anyway, Ivwi's mother being a low-control anticipath offers an explanation that makes at least as much sense as genetics: She saw where to go to cause him to become a psion, and was able to, to a degree, optimize that. Offers a decent explanation for why he's (as I want him to be) a moderate-to-low-strength, high-control one.
Alicorn: yes.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Also makes it seem less munchkiney if I want him to be a dual- or triple-.
Alicorn: *nod*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Which I hadn't actually *planned* on, but having him have one main skill and a couple of weak ones might be interesting, especially if he mostly ignores or downplays the latter.
Alicorn: Yeah.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I'm thinking he's going to be a decent telepath, serviceable-but-just-barely perturbationist, and technically-but-not-really-usefully an astrapitioner.
Alicorn: :)
Alicorn: Astrapitor.
Alicorn: And perturber.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): 'k.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *pokes at descriptions*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Given his strength is control and his main skill is telepathy, I think I'm going to say that he can work with animals, which seems like it'll give some... interesting... options as far as running a school, or really anything where one might want to be in several places at once.
Alicorn: "His spies are everywhere!" "We can't break curfew - there's a *bird there*!"
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Yep. :D
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Not that he's a jerk about it. More I imagine that he doesn't really like confrontation, and being able to stop things before they start suits him fine.
Alicorn: *nod nod*
Alicorn: Do note that time in Archipelago passes at a rate of one year per day, so you don't have infinite time to play with any given character.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): That's, uh.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Hm.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): :\
Alicorn: yeah, I'm not unduly thrilled with that either
Alicorn: might bid for a change.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Even with the longer Zaee lifespans... we'd have, what, two weeks to play out the entirety of someone's school career?
Alicorn: Yeah.
Alicorn: Or less, depending.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): 'd be interesting to actually see characters be played through more than one period in their lives, which most rp I've seen doesn't do (not that I've seen a bunch), but still, a year a day is *quick*. Zaee lifespan is less than 7 months.
Alicorn: yup.
Alicorn: I'm thinking of retroactively waiting to put Gevene on the Cezkwe until I'm ready to actually *do* her subplot
Alicorn: otherwise she'll be old before that
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I think Ivwe's perturbation is about at the level of being able to make origami or write without using his hands.
Alicorn: high control, low power.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Yep. Also, part of that is practice - it seems entirely consistent that he'd be placed with a wingfamily that'd focus on that.
Alicorn: *nod*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Not that it's really relevant in this case, since there's enough backstory to explain it even if the answer is the one that makes what I want less likely, but are the various kinds of psionics related enough that 'ability to control psionics' is more one skill than four?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): My model says probably-yes; control sounds like a particular cognitive skill rather than related to specific fields of psionics.
Alicorn: No. It varies. In fact, various "control" abilities can vary widely even within a single discipline. One could be able to manipulate very tiny things but have no ability to move them *slowly*, for instance.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Ah. Ok.
Alicorn: Control is *correlated* within a discipline, but not that strongly, and almost uncorrelated between them.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I'm kind of confused at 'minimum speed' being control-related within perturbation.
Alicorn: have you ever tried yoga?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Nope.
Alicorn: the hardest thing is to move very very slowly.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Thinking more I can see how it might work that way, yeah.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I'm rethinking the origami.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Writing without using his hands seems less tricky, to me, though there should probably be a "for some value of 'legibly'" caveat there too. It's more a party trick than a skill.
Alicorn: *nod*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Upper bound size-wise, maybe say two paperback books, and anything more than one is tricky for him.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): And he could open a paperback book, but not to a particular page.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I think for astrapition he can move light around and change its color and brightness, but not create it and not make it follow complicated paths.
Alicorn: :)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): That actually has some useful signaling applications, if he can specify the starting point and direction of the light... take some that's headed somewhere uninteresting, turn it a color, and point it at your ally; the color determines the message according to a pre-arranged code.
Alicorn: yup.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Though if he's already a moderate-strength telepath I think the only advantage there is range.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I'm starting to wonder how this guy hasn't been pressed into service as a spy.
Alicorn: Well, telluric fields render cross-border psionics challenging at best.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): And Zaee aren't unobtrusive outside of their homelands. He could still be given some kind of cover story tho.
Alicorn: if I decide to go into espionage we can do a subplot about that.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): The reading part of telepathy - I assume it can be done covertly? How does Zaee society handle that? Human?
Alicorn: It can be done covertly. The humans took some adjusting but by now both societies are like "well, that would be awfully fucking rude, wouldn't it, I'll think better of telepaths I meet until I have evidence otherwise".
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): How.... naive. Okay.
Alicorn: There are also jokes about how it's convenient to have a crush on a telepath because they'll either ignore if you if they're not interested and you never have to say anything or they'll seize you and kiss you.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): heh.
Alicorn: Low-control telepaths mostly don't have the ability to distinguish thoughts on purpose anyway so being *accidentally* overheard isn't much of a concern.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I imagine that Ivwe's school has some sort of ethics course, which young telepaths are Highly Encouraged to do well in.
Alicorn: yes.
Alicorn: There is also a stereotype that telepaths are very good in bed. This is mostly true.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *snerk*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): So far I'm imagining Ivwe as unattached. I'm mostly not interested in taking on npc family members for him.
Alicorn: Okay.
Alicorn: He could have kids that just never come up at all.
Alicorn: He doesn't have to interact with them ever.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I suspect he probably doesn't have all that much trouble in the passing-on-his-genes department.
Alicorn: *nod*
Alicorn: chicks probably ask him to knock them up on a regular basis.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I do need to think about how he arranges his personal life.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Oh, quirk/thing: He tends to wear clothes, specifically emerald green ones. It helps him get along better with the human parents he has to deal with, and he likes that color.

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Winged One (Alphabeta): It occurs to me that I may have been unclear about Ace's powers. What I meant by wanting him to matter is that I want him to be able to serve as a statelet-scale plot device. since that's basically the scale that matters in this game.
Alicorn: He can. blowing up a village is still largish, and since he hasn't *tried* to blow up any cities it remains unspecified if he can operate at that scale.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Okay then. Just making myself more clear.
Alicorn: *nod*
Winged One (Alphabeta): Why is it immoral to keep a flying kid?
Alicorn: It just iiiiiis.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I was just wondering if that whole clusterfuck at Ace's village could be considered a metaphor for that.
Alicorn: ?
Winged One (Alphabeta): This is assuming he can fly.
Alicorn: oh. I haven't decided about that yet.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Does Kwa mean "heading for" or something like that?
Alicorn: It's a preposition in roughly that region of conceptspace, yes.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Who named and invented the Koeen?
Alicorn: Somebody before they crashed.
Winged One (Alphabeta): IC, I mean
Winged One (Alphabeta): So you aren't coming up with it because nobody cares?
Alicorn: Oh, it was called the Ekonet before.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes, I know
Winged One (Alphabeta): I was there.
Alicorn: oh. Why would anybody on the ship know who invented it?
Winged One (Alphabeta): They wouldn't. I'm not asking them
Alicorn: I'm not specifying.
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'kay.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Does the name stay constant no matter what language you're speaking, or do different peoples call it different things?
Alicorn: "Koeen" is constant.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Aw, I was hoping there was someone out there who calls it the Space Internet
Winged One (Alphabeta): It seems like a consensus-based government would have a lot of difficulty reacting quickly.
Alicorn: well, they have laws on the books that authorize various people to do various things under various circumstances. The military doesn't have to meet and achieve consensus before they can react to an attack.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah, so it's only stuff they don't anticipate during times they have time to argue a lot that they can't react to quickly?
Alicorn: Basically. And people *can* do stuff without explicit authorization, and then there can be consensus about whether to punish them later.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah. Sometimes it's better to ask forgiveness than permission, then.
Alicorn: *nod*
Winged One (Alphabeta): So, how'd you discover the conworlding thing?
Alicorn: Scott talked about it.
Alicorn: He'd been doing Shireroth before, but I didn't want to be in that because it had a lot of history I didn't feel like slogging through. This'un is new.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, post-apocalyptic, which amounts to much the same thing.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Where was the leaders' meeting held before there was a capital?
Alicorn: Oh, there was, it just wasn't Delo-Kyan.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah. What, it became the capital because the Cezkwe didn't want to do politics at the one at the time?
Alicorn: Because it was decided that the Zaee lived there too and most of them lived in then-just-Delo, and the city was growing a lot for this and other reasons.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah. I thought they lived in their own communities mostly. Not sure why I thought that.
Alicorn: Communities, yes, but it's like having a Chinatown.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Can I help you come up with Mevwan ideas?
Alicorn: Not working on it right now, but in general, yes.
Winged One (Alphabeta): How can I do so?
Alicorn: You come up with ideas, and tell them to me, and I come up with ideas and I tell them to you and you say things about them.
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'kay
Winged One (Alphabeta): Is asking questions similar enough to coming up with ideas?
Alicorn: Yes. But not right now.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Okay

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Alicorn: http://www.bastionunion.org/forum/viewt ... 388&t=1881
Winged One (Alphabeta): Are you sure you want your thought processes made public?
Alicorn: I want them there and don't care if they're public.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Going to put our chat about how much you don't want the Speaker job and will fob it off onto me up there for the curious?
Alicorn: no, I don't think so. I already posted my "aaaaugh you guys I dont want the job" in-thread.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Must you put the discussions of Ace up as well?
Alicorn: why not? I'll redact them if you want
Winged One (Alphabeta): It'll look like I only joined the statelet to play out the Ace/Gevene subplot, when the reality is that I'm mostly keeping it out of nostalgia.
Alicorn: I don't think it'll look like that much.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I do like the whole micronations thing, after all, I just don't like work.
Winged One (Alphabeta): By the way, what would Ace do as a professional psion? Be a power plant?
Alicorn: Once he accumulates enough control that anyone would dare have him around, yeah, he'd make a swell power plant.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I sent an email to the person MW's error message says to email, btw
Alicorn: arigato
Winged One (Alphabeta): Eh, someone had to.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, yes, obviously that'd have to come after he achieved non-shit control
Alicorn: So yeah, he could totally get work as a power plant.
Alicorn: go in to an office, hold some uninsulated copper wires all bundled up
Alicorn: maybe read a book and try not to set it on fire without hurting his power output
Winged One (Alphabeta): Why not put the place in his house or something?
Alicorn: I haven't decided how the grid works, but I guess there's no reason he even needs to be technically employed; he can just pour power into the grid from his house and his meter will run backwards and the electric company will send him money on a regular basis.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Could be a status thing.
Alicorn: yeah. if he committed to a certain minimum power output or was on-call during shortages/peak hours they could give him official employment status (they = the electric company).
Alicorn: or he could do something else, but that'd be a safe default option.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Like what? They don't know anything about manufacturing, so being an industrial LAZOR won't work.
Alicorn: The Zaee know enough about manufacturing *and* psionics to have proposed the use of LAZORS long ago.
Winged One (Alphabeta): The ones in the colony that was expecting to have Space Internet access when they got there?
Alicorn: The pro psions would know from memory that that was a thing.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes, but they won't know how to do anything that would benefit from having a LAZOR
Alicorn: you don't think they'll benefit from having some large things become smaller things?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Huh?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Where did I imply that?
Alicorn: well, cutting is a use of LAZORS.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah. It's also a use of knives
Alicorn: Lasers are neater and easier to use on a large scale without distorting the shape of the cut object.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah, okay then.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Iriwande isn't the initiative-taking type, I take it?
Alicorn: Nope, not especially.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I wonder what's taking the yak lady so long to pounce on this
Alicorn: where "this" is the election?
Winged One (Alphabeta): No, the traders from Pluto subplot
Alicorn: ooh
Alicorn: they probably don't have any yak
Winged One (Alphabeta): They can import it. From her.
Alicorn: heh.

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Alicorn: http://www.bastionunion.org/forum/viewt ... 74&p=13526
Alicorn: Also, you should read my entry in the Religions contest
Winged One (Alphabeta): There's a contest now?
Alicorn: Two, actually
Alicorn: but the Religions one has the more interesting entry. (I entered both.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): More than the one you already had?
Alicorn: Yeah.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Retathtim's creation story definitely sounds like something that would happen.
Alicorn: yup.
Alicorn: "Holy fuck I need a god of trains now NONSENSE WORD YOU ARE NOW MY GOD OF TRAINS SAVE ME"
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yep.
Alicorn: you should weigh in on the citizen voting thing in the Sunday Address thread
Winged One (Alphabeta): Done
Alicorn: yay for the RENDING OF THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM
Winged One (Alphabeta): ^^
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hey, nonlinear time is really helpful in a PbP game.
Alicorn: yup.
Alicorn: You can also create your own Foreign Policy about how people may treat your characters in the thread Scott linked in the address.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I'm thinking normal, but if I disappear for more than a week then it's permissib- ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL
Winged One (Alphabeta): :P
Alicorn: "normal"?
Alicorn: also I don't get it
Winged One (Alphabeta): As the standard policy
Winged One (Alphabeta): for the whole Archepleago or however it's spelled
Alicorn: Archipelago.
Alicorn: Put that in the foreign policy thread anyway just so it's clear you're not following me on the matter.
Winged One (Alphabeta): "ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL" is an interrupting meme. I used it to indicate that taking total control of my characters is permissible if I disappear for a week or more.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I'm trying to decide if Ace should be Zwerise and think the authors are sadists to keep him in line with Metagaming Ace, or Elehaith just because it's awesome.
Alicorn: heheheh.
Winged One (Alphabeta): And because I have an idea for Elehaith funereal rights that shows that he's not well.
Alicorn: oh?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Normal practice is to keep one of the deceased's gods alive until you feel ready to let them go and let them reincarnate. Ace worships a massive pantheon, none of which are of his own making.
Alicorn: Why doesn't he make any of his own?
Alicorn: Oh, to keep his village alive?
Alicorn: Not all of his village would be Elehaith unless he's from somewhere in the absolute sticks of Mevwan
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm. Is making a god of the dead to take care of non-Elehaith people a practice that's done?
Alicorn: I hadn't thought of it, and I think you'd need to invent the god before the relevant people died.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Anyway, he might make some of his own if there's gaps in the pantheon, or if they fail him to the point where he'd normally starve them.
Alicorn: oh, like "I'm inventing you to take over for this person, who died, but whose god is not doing an adequate job, hop to"?
Alicorn: Unorthodox but not out of the realm of plausibility.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm. That'd work, but he might just invent one god to take over for all the people whose gods fail in the present or future.
Alicorn: *nod*
Winged One (Alphabeta): Also, I take it that Elehaithi don't consider their gods to have actual feelings or anything else that would make it wrong to kill them like Bond villains.
Winged One (Alphabeta): (like Bond villains kill their minions, not like how Bond villains are killed)
Alicorn: Well, they think the gods can be threatened and don't want to die, but they don't really assign moral weight to the gods' continued existence if the gods aren't doing their jobs

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Regarding Zwerisi: Hey, no recursing! ^^
Alicorn: I was trying to make it not-self-referential actually
Alicorn: I just liked the idea
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *giggle* Okay.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): How does the Zaee aversion to unhappy stories interact with hypotheticals generated for other purposes besides storytelling? Would they find a trolley-problem-contemplating human to be sinning in some sense?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *giggles at rings*
Alicorn: They'd compose fanfiction in which the trolley was spontaneously lifted off the tracks and didn't hurt anybody, but they could contemplate the position of the person who didn't know that was going to happen just fine.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Okay. (Still seems to me that they'd be likely to flinch away from composing such scenarios in the first place.)
Alicorn: (they wouldn't do it spontaneously but they can live with the fact that humans do.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): 'k.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Alternately they might specifically use real, known people when composing hypothetical situations? And possibly do some kind of ritual amends-making afterward?
Alicorn: There's nothing in their theology saying they couldn't be branching the person (who is simulated anyway); they'd still need the happy ending.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Mm. I'm thinking less about happy endings and more about simulated emotional turmoil before that point.
Alicorn: Making amends to the other branch wouldn't help, although getting permission ahead of time would.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): except that that interferes with situations where the person is supposed to not know something.
Alicorn: well, you could say "I want to write a story where you forget we had this conversation and then x, is that okay?"

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Hey. Is it possible for Mevwan telepaths to 'impress' some fact upon a third party or animal, which can then be recognized later by themselves or another sufficiently skilled telepath as having been so impressed?
Alicorn: I imagine some telepaths can do that.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): It seems to me that being able to do that might be an important safety method for someone who works with crazy people - being able to make a 'known sane' impression of the state of one's mind, and check it afterward to make sure one hasn't picked up anything nasty.
Alicorn: Oooh. Good.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ^^
Alicorn: "This… is my SANITY TURTLE."
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): heee.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): If Zaee AI are sentient, does that mean telepaths can telepath with them?
Alicorn: They can, but only if the AI has a thing installed to let it work on the right wavelength. Some do.
Alicorn: also: "can telepath with them". cute.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): That would probably be a functional better idea than sanity turtles, if less fun ^^
Alicorn: heheheh.
Alicorn: I want "sanity turtle" to have an in-group meaning now.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): hehe :D
Alicorn: (The advantage of a literal sanity turtle is that animals are cheaper than AIs.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I expect that animals can only hold impressed data at high accuracy for a short time, though, while AIs can, if they choose to, hold it indefinitely.
Alicorn: Depends on how much data.
Alicorn: you could have, like, a "sanity flock of starlings" for high redundancy
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods* Assuming the data degrades in such a way that you can tell which bits are degraded and should be ignored.
Alicorn: *nod*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I suspect that *that* is a function of the biases in the brain doing the storing, so again AIs have a clear advantage, and also different animals are good for different kinds of data.
Alicorn: *nod nod*
Alicorn: Turtles seem like they would be pretty stable repositories of stuff.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods*
Alicorn: SANITY TURTLE
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Lizards in general, actually. But turtles perhaps especially.
Alicorn: turtles are not lizards.
Alicorn: lizards are a clade in Squamata.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): o.O
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): 'k
Alicorn: Squamata also includes snakes.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Well, lizard-level-of-complexity things.
Alicorn: *nod*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Birds are probably really bad for high-fidelity storage. They're very smart for their size, which suggests that they're probably using lots of heuristics rather than brute-force thinking.

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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Alicorn: Have you given further thought to your shcool?
Alicorn: *school
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Not really. I've been busy with other things. Also I seem to be having trouble getting into the idea of roleplaying in that context, for whatever reason.
Alicorn: Hmm.
Alicorn: Context meaning the board?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): mmhmm
Alicorn: we could do it via IM and paste it on afterwards.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Anyway, roleplaying via IM might help, but I think the issue has more to do with not having a good handle on what the site is *about*, yet, to know whether any particular instance of roleplaying will be suitable.
Alicorn: It's about people pretending to be countries.
Alicorn: I've decided to do much of mine by writing excerpts from press items, but there's no reason you need do the same.
Alicorn: (Although you're welcome to produce bits of a school newsletter or what have you.)
Alicorn: We are the only statelet that is a *we*, so anything we do amongst ourselves is automatically the Archipelago Precedent For Intra-Statelet RP.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Okay. In that case it does seem to make more sense to me that I'd play as the school rather than the schoolmaster. I'm still not clear on what kinds of school-based roleplay would actually be useful to the statelet in general tho.
Alicorn: well, like, if I decide "hey psions of variety X should discover that they can learn to Y", then you can say "school now offers classes in Y"
Alicorn: Usefulness is hardly the point
Alicorn: it's a game
Alicorn: it's for fun1
Alicorn: *!
Alicorn: Mevwan as a whole does not have concrete enough goals that usefulness is a *thing*.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Mevwan is not a person. You are a person. I can optimize for you-having-fun.
Alicorn: I would have fun reading things you might write about what your school and its component persons are up to.
Alicorn: Or co-writing such things.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Okay. I will ponder a school newsletter. And perhaps a map of the grounds.
Alicorn: :D
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ^^
Alicorn: also, when you reach a post count of 30, I get a bounty for your recruitment.
Alicorn: I am saving up to swallow the lake north of us.
Alicorn: (Don't artificially inflate your post count.)

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Alicorn
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Location: Mevwan, Pelagia
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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I have been giving some thought to school policies.
Alicorn: Write them up and submit them as an entry in the "newspaper" thing.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I'm still trying to get them coherent.
Alicorn: what've you got so far?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Well, I think it's going to be the case that new students are assumed unable to control their powers until they pass some sort of test. Students who haven't passed this test are designated in some visible way (perhaps hats?) and not allowed off campus without an escort. They're also not considered responsible (or at least not fully responsible) for mishaps relating to their powers. Students can request uncontrolled status at any point in their schooling career in order to resume the 'not responsible for mishaps' status, and can take the test at basically any time to leave that status. This may interact oddly with stillmind activists being on-campus - if loss of control correlates with stress or provocation, stillmind activists may trigger some significant portion of the student body to take on uncontrolled status while they're there (if for no other reason than to be able to zap 'em if they get too obnoxious without being punished for it), which will make the student body look more dangerous than it usually is at the worst possible time.
Alicorn: Hats don't work that well for Zaee unless they're very specially designed. The mobile ears and the lolloping gait, you see.
Alicorn: Scarves might work better.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods* Scarves'd be fine, and human students could have the option of either.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Also I think I decided that each student has a permanent record that acts as a portfolio or resume - companies that hire newly-graduated psions will generally demand to see it, so having too many disciplinary actions show up in there would be a bad thing. Actually, having instances of taking on and graduating from 'not responsible' status marked there might help with the stillmind thing - older students especially would want to keep their record as shiny as possible, so it'd mostly be the younger ones wearing warning scarves - the impression would be more that psions are slower to learn control than they are than that psions in general are uncontrolled. This could also be encouraged by social pressure.
Alicorn: *nod*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): The record would also need to have the option of showing notes on why a student took on uncontrolled status - I think that students with lots of different psy skills, or complex ones, will go into that status more often, since they'll have more trouble controlling subskills as they learn them. So one student's 6 instances of spending a week in uncontrolled status might be mood-related while another's might be skill-related, and the difference is important... not sure if that's too much of the wrong kind of pressure, tho.
Alicorn: Also, uncontrolled perturbers aren't much of a risk. They still can't use their powers without trying, even if trying gets them wild results.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Okay.
Alicorn: It's astrapitors and some telepaths who might be dangerous, and uncontrolled anticipaths wouldn't be at school anyway.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I'm going o.O at the implication that little attempt is made to systemically teach uncontrolled anticipaths to control their powers.
Alicorn: Well, it might be, but not at a school for other people. That's a special education thing.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): :\
Alicorn: Your school could offer classes for it but wouldn't likely house those students unless you want to add a mental hospital that's affiliated with you. Actually that's not a bad idea - student telepaths would be cheaper to hire for that purpose than pros
Alicorn: A teaching hospital as it were
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Interesting idea.
Alicorn: hmm. I want to write a new press article for the contest instead of just reusing the still minds one.
Alicorn: dunno what it should be about.
Alicorn: Ooh, I know. I'll do oblique coverage of starting Ace's subplot.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Sounds good.
Alicorn: but I should discuss that with Winged first.
Alicorn: Also, I expect it's more likely I can talk him into entering if he can do, like, an anonymous letter-to-an-editor by Ace about the same incident.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ah.
Alicorn: BTW, prefer if your school is in or near Delo-Kyan, since Ace will probably be in it and that way he can meet Gevene who he is supposed to fall in love with.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Okay.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Is there a map that shows where that is?
Alicorn: Delo-Kyan is marked on the main Pelagia map.
Alicorn: http://www.raikoth.net/Stuff/Archipelago/pelagia.jpg
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Okay.
Alicorn: Reason to prefer the "Ivwi" spelling for your character: there's someone on the Cezkwe called "Iviwe"
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Okay.

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Alicorn
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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

2:18
Alicorn24 entered the room.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta) entered the room.
Winged One (Alphabeta) entered the room.
2:19
Alicorn24
WELCOME CITIZENS
2:19
computermadsci
Brains
GREETINGS, FRIEND COMPUTER
2:19
AdeleneDawner
heh.
2:20
Alicorn24
y'all discuss your things and I shall go make delicious curry om nom nom
I shall read this chatroom after that is done
2:20
computermadsci
Yes boss
2:21
AdeleneDawner
zuh?
2:21
computermadsci
Zuh!
2:21
AdeleneDawner
Apparently so.
2:21
computermadsci
Indeed
2:22
AdeleneDawner
I actually want to come to a better stop point on the thing I'm writing before I do this.
2:22
computermadsci
Okay.
2:23
AdeleneDawner
Except that I seem to be somewhat stuck and now Alicorn's not there to bounce ideas off of.
2:23
computermadsci
I am bouncy.
2:23
AdeleneDawner
Did Alicorn tell you about the scarves idea?
2:23
AdeleneDawner
At the school.
2:23
computermadsci
Scarves?
By which I mean, no, she did not
2:26
AdeleneDawner
Semi-important context thing. New students are assumed to be uncontrolled until they take a test showing that they can control their powers. Uncontrolled students are assumed not to be responsible for any plausibly accidental power-use, but this comes with some drawbacks, relevantly that they're not allowed to leave the campus without an escort. They're obligated to wear specific scarves to show that they have this status. They can take the test at any time to switch to 'controlled' status, which implies more privileges but also means that they are responsible for any mishaps.
2:26
computermadsci
Ah.
2:27
AdeleneDawner
Also students can switch back to uncontrolled status at any time, voluntarily or punitively. This would mostly be a result of manifesting a new skill and not having good control over it yet, and again they can test out of uncontrolled status anytime they want.
2:27
computermadsci
*nod*
2:28
AdeleneDawner
Students are expected to maintain controlled status for some length of time -probably a year - before graduating; those who don't are generally not considered employable.
2:28
computermadsci
Makes sense.
2:28
AdeleneDawner
*nods*
This is referenced in the notice I'm writing, which is to be published in the school newsletter shortly after the Miara incident.
"Notice: All Students

Due to the recent events at Miara and subsequent Stillmind Society activity, the following policy changes are in effect until further notice (anticipath consensus: 3 months): All uncontrolled students are confined to school grounds unless accompanied by a legal guardian. Controlled students may leave school grounds only with a school-supplied escort or legal guardian. Exceptions to this policy may be granted on a per-outing basis by Head Teachers.
[more]

Students who have been going off-campus for after-class entertainment are reminded that the symphonic telepathy club performs in the green auditorium every Wednesday at 4pm and the perturber gymnastics team performs in the west gym on the first and third Thursday of each month from 6-7pm. Other clubs are encouraged to see the event coordinator (in room 35D from 12-1 and 3-4pm on weekdays) if they would like to reserve the use of school facilities to provide entertainment to their fellow students. Also, students who have been shopping off-campus are reminded that the campus store, between D and G buildings, is able to fulfill requests for items that it does not regularly stock."
2:30
AdeleneDawner
(2:13:16 PM) Alicorn: The difference between departure permissions for controlled and uncontrolled seems off - maybe "and written permission" for uncontrolled?
(2:14:00 PM) Adelene: Who would they get said permission from?
(2:14:12 PM) Alicorn: Head teachers or campus security maybe?
(2:15:50 PM) Adelene: :\ Maybe it'd be clearer if I specified what this was a change *from*? The 'get an escort and you're free to leave the campus' thing is not new, it's just the fact that it's applying to controlled rather than uncontrolled students that's new.
(2:16:03 PM) Alicorn: Yes, that would help.
(2:19:40 PM) Adelene: Hm. I'd left that bit out, since it should be common knowledge if just about everybody starts out with the 'uncontrolled' designation. (It's less important to perturbers, but I'm imagining that they go through it anyway, partly for consistency and partly because they *are* still potentially dangerous, if only when they're trying to use their powers.)
(2:19:54 PM) Alicorn: "As always, uncontrolled students..."
(2:20:56 PM) Adelene: No... the usual situation is that uncontrolled students can go out with an escort and controlled students can go out without one. The new situation is that uncontrolled can't go out without special permission and controlled can go out under the circumstances that usually apply to uncontrolled.
(2:21:13 PM) Adelene: (Except that the latter still don't have to wear scarves.)
2:34
computermadsci
Hm. Maybe the normal policy could be stated for the benefit of any off-campus readers who have a sudden interest in the school's policies on uncontrolled psions?
2:35
AdeleneDawner
Hm. I'd been assuming that this was a strictly in-house publication, but if I don't assume that, it would certainly make sense to have a separate article about the school's policies regarding controlled and uncontrolled students.
2:38
computermadsci
Hm. It'd normally be only of interest to students and faculty, but it's not like the school has seekrits(tm) that get discussed in it, right?
2:39
AdeleneDawner
Well, I could see them not wanting the Stillmind Society to know where they were going to be sending field trips to.
2:39
computermadsci
I was under the impression that they were just annoying instead of outright dangerous.
2:40
AdeleneDawner
Also if it is public it probably limits how they can use students' names. When I worked in a nursing home and did the newsletter there, I had to be careful about that 'cause family and friends could take the newsletters home and it was a privacy issue.
2:40
computermadsci
That hadn't occurred to me.
New students would find out the normal policy during orientation or something, I imagine...
2:41
AdeleneDawner
It might make sense to have a reprinting of the policies even if it is just internal, if they're usually fairly lax about it.
2:42
computermadsci
Are they?
2:42
AdeleneDawner
Also I imagine there's a student handbook for such things. As to laxity - there are advantages to having a rather kickass telepath as the head of the school, and being able to be lax without having things fall to pieces is one of them.
2:43
computermadsci
Wouldn't that be anticipathy? That, or a rather regular invasion of privacy...
2:44
AdeleneDawner
One of Ivwi's skills is that he can communicate with animals. In other words, he has (the potential to have) spies everywhere *and the students know it*.
2:44
computermadsci
Ah! That sounds familiar, pun not intended but left in anyway.
2:45
AdeleneDawner
heh.
It also means that he has a large degree of plausible deniability - if someone's breaking the rules in a way that he considers okay, he can just happen not to have been monitoring any of the animals there on that day, and short of bringing in another telepath to prove him wrong that holds up pretty darn well.
2:48
computermadsci
*nod*
2:49
AdeleneDawner
Alternately I could present the policy as having been published in another periodical, possibly as an inset in a larger piece about psion safety issues.
In fact I think that'll work the best.
2:50
computermadsci
It would probably be quoting the school newspaper, but the thing about fictional laws is that they can exist in a nebulous state until we need them to take form. ;)
2:51
AdeleneDawner
?
The inset would be quoting the student handbook, and this particular set of rules needs to be spelled out to make the temporary change to them clear.
2:52
computermadsci
There could plausibly be some law against quoting another periodical without permission, but there could plausibly also not be.
2:52
AdeleneDawner
Ah. I don't really think the student handbook counts as a periodical, but in any case it'd be pretty trivial to get permission to quote this part of it for this purpose.
2:53
computermadsci
True. Compatible agendas are like that.
2:53
AdeleneDawner
(In fact I suspect that the writer of the article might be a friend of Ivwi's.)
Okay. That's going to need more effort than I want to put into it right now. We needed to talk about Ace?
2:55
computermadsci
Yes. Who needs a real name, but I'm unqualified for that.
2:56
AdeleneDawner
I think Alicorn mentioned one - started with an L but I don't remember it. Ace is fine for now tho.
2:56
computermadsci
That was a previous version, but yeah.
Anyway...
2:58
computermadsci
Alicorn said you took his guardian?
2:59
AdeleneDawner
I'm not adverse to doing so, but also don't have my heart set on it, if you prefer that I not. If I do, Alicorn and I worked out that Ace's probably going to wind up adopted by one of the telepath-mind-doctors who works at the mental hospital that's associated with the school, which specializes in caring for uncontrolled anticipaths.
3:01
computermadsci
Makes sense. Ey'd have to be a pretty dedicated doctor to take eir work home, of course.
3:03
AdeleneDawner
I'm working on the assumption that e'd been thinking about adopting anyway - basically how this match was made was that Ivwi saw the news about the accident, figured that Ace'd need a wingparent, and checked with the hospital staff to see if anyone was interested, and then used his contacts in the government to pass the offer along.
Also I'm figuring that this is much less of a big deal than it'd usually be - Zaee already adopt on a pretty regular basis, after all.
3:04
computermadsci
Yeah, that was part of my inspiration for the plotline.
3:05
AdeleneDawner
Anyway, past that I don't have much worked out in terms of personality or job description - this particular doctor doesn't even necessarily work primarily with other psions.
3:10
AdeleneDawner
Alicorn appears to be done stinking up the kitchen ;)
3:10
computermadsci
That's a rude description of it. :P
3:11
AdeleneDawner
*chuckles*
3:14
Alicorn24
caught up.
my curry is delicious! it is not stinky!
Laren Drax is a fine name for a Mevwani guy.
3:15
computermadsci
It could be both. How should I know? I'm in another state. It'd have to be really stinky for me ot know about it.
'kay.
3:17
Alicorn24
anyway, I think it would be good for Ade to take Ace's I mean Laren's wingparent.
3:17
computermadsci
I know, I was there when you suggested it and agreed
3:18
Alicorn24
so let's firm up that assignment. Ey's all yours, Ade :)
3:25
Alicorn24
Ey needs a name and gender.
3:25
AdeleneDawner
This window does not make noise when it's in the background and someone says something! This is not a good thing!
3:25
computermadsci
Indeed it is not
3:25
AdeleneDawner
(Curry: Probably both, yes.)
3:26
Alicorn24
(it contains cauliflower and tofu. but also potato!)
3:26
AdeleneDawner
eeew, cauliflower.
3:26
computermadsci
Okay, I have a question about tofu.
Why do people eat clay?
3:26
AdeleneDawner
*laughs*
3:26
Alicorn24
Pica.
oh, wait, those sentences were related.
3:27
computermadsci
But on such a regular basis?
3:27
AdeleneDawner
Also apparently clay has minerals in it.
3:27
Alicorn24
I revise my answer: Hey!
3:27
AdeleneDawner
*laughs more*
3:27
computermadsci
^^
Seriously, you can probably bake bricks out of it.
3:28
Alicorn24
I have never managed to overcook tofu to the point of it being actually hard. I can manage chewy, but I'd probably have to actually set it on fire to get crunchy.
3:29
AdeleneDawner
Or fry it.
3:29
Alicorn24
I do fry it to get it chewy.
3:29
AdeleneDawner
Oh.
3:29
computermadsci
Well, you weren't really trying.
3:29
Alicorn24
anyway, in a curry sauce it's almost possible to imagine the tofu as paneer
3:30
computermadsci
In fact, you were almost certainly trying /not/ to bake bricks.
3:30
Alicorn24
yes.
3:30
AdeleneDawner
There was a topic?
3:30
computermadsci
There was, yes.
3:30
Alicorn24
Ade: your new character's gender and name?
3:31
computermadsci
Should we try to find it again?
3:31
Alicorn24
Also we need to figure out how old Ace I MEAN LAREN was when Miara went FOOM
3:31
AdeleneDawner
I'm leaning toward male or some variant of genderqueer, genderwise. And something with o's in it namewise.
3:32
Alicorn24
Kowedyo?
3:32
computermadsci
Bless you
3:32
AdeleneDawner
heh.
Hmmm.
3:36
Alicorn24
alphabeta-mine, Ace's age?
3:36
AdeleneDawner
Nah, bad idea. (Was considering having him be transgender and in charge of something relating to that, but the implications of having that at this kind of hospital... no.)
3:36
computermadsci
I was thinking adolescent.
3:36
Alicorn24
Like twelve or fifteen or what?
3:37
computermadsci
Let's go with fifteen. Young enough to be an idiot, but old enough to feel responsibility for his own fuckups.
3:38
Alicorn24
*nod*
3:39
computermadsci
You could just have em be trans and have it be unrelated to eir job.
3:39
Alicorn24
I'm not sure if Zaee *have* transpeople.
3:41
computermadsci
Hm. They do have a general lack of sexual dimorphism (I think that's what I mean to say. There don't seem to be gender roles or secondary sexual characteristics or anything.)
3:42
AdeleneDawner
good point.
3:42
Alicorn24
Yeah. And I'm not sure if I want to go so far as to say that they're all bisexual, but they are not now and have never been the least bit fussed about same-sex romances.
I think a Zaee being exclusively attracted to one sex would be a little like a human being exclusively attracted to one hair color. Not unheard of, not really stigmatized or anything, but a wee bit funny.
3:43
AdeleneDawner
Sexual orientation and gender are not actually particularly closely related, yanno.
3:43
computermadsci
Well, sexual orientation influences what gender one prefers in partners, doesn't it?
3:43
Alicorn24
Well, in humans, one common female trait is exclusive attraction to males and vice-versa. In Zaee, "typically attracted to X gender" is just one of many concepts in genderspace they don't really exhibit.
3:47
computermadsci
I don't know. To use your hair color example, I know a few people who show preferences for one hair color over the other.
3:47
Alicorn24
Sure. I'm generally not attracted to blondes, with exceptions. But this is not a gender trait.
They also don't wear different clothes, have gendered pronouns in their native languages, have traditional roles other than those directly regarding reproduction for their sexes, or have physical sexual dimorphism.
How many gendered traits can you carve away before transsexuals do not make sense as a thing, even eliminating the question of whether the etiology would exist in an alien species?
3:50
AdeleneDawner
I'd say as a rule of thumb that if it's an aspect of personal identity, transgenderism will still be a thing. But that just moves the question around a bit.
3:51
computermadsci
Etiology seems like a somewhat discriminatory word to apply to transsexuality.
Looking it up, I mean.
3:51
Alicorn24
can you think of a more neutral one?
They also come from a technologically advanced society. It's reasonably likely that if Zaee can have that happen, somebody was like, "This seems inconvenient. Let's figure out how to make that not happen." And then retroviruses or something and now it doesn't happen.
3:51
computermadsci
"causes"?
Rather vague, but eh
3:52
Alicorn24
I just like the word "etiology"
it's fun to say
3:53
AdeleneDawner
(I was actually thinking about something kind of related, earlier. From what I've seen, inclination to have kids is just as consistent of a personal trait as gender, but it's not considered part of peoples' personal identities in the same way as gender, so someone who was raised to believe that they should definitely have kids and then figured out that no, they personally really don't want to is not considered trans-something in the same way that someone raised to believe that they should be male who later figures out that they really want to be female is.)
3:54
Alicorn24
anyway, I'm inclined to say that transsexuality doesn't exist as a recognizeable phenomenon in Zaee; there might be something vaguely comparable but it would be super-rare and I want to think about it more before any characters are stated to have it.
3:55
AdeleneDawner
Okay.
3:56
computermadsci
So...
3:59
Alicorn24
I am going to go make brigadeiro!
4:00
computermadsci
Yay! I don't even know what that is!
4:18
Alicorn24
It's a dessert.
4:19
computermadsci
Ah,
So... is my presence really required? I'm thinking I'll go do some distracting RPing.
4:20
Alicorn24
You were waiting for Ade before you finished your framing device.
4:20
computermadsci
Effort! My one weakness!
4:21
Alicorn24
come on, you're nearly done.
4:21
computermadsci
Well, Ade, do you really care if i write for your character?
4:23
AdeleneDawner
I don't care, no, so long as you don't write em as overly girly.
4:24
Alicorn24
having established that the character is not going to be trans, please pick a sex for em.
4:25
AdeleneDawner
*finds a coin to flip*
The random number generator declares that this character is male.
4:27
Alicorn24
and when he's done, we should post in order - mine then Ade then Winged - and we should each include a note: "The writing in this submission is original to me, and if you wish to vote for it on that basis, vote for me. However, if you approve of the joint Mevwan story as a whole, please concentrate your votes on [Winged One/me], as [he/I] formed the inspiration for this storyline."
4:27
AdeleneDawner
(It also declares that he's a level-17 commoner with ranks in shipmaking, armorsmithing, and spot, but I think we can ignore that.)
4:27
Alicorn24
hahahaha
4:27
computermadsci
Except that mine isn't that good.
4:28
Alicorn24
Well, I have a justification for it being you and not for it being Ade, and it shouldn't be me because you guys aren't allowed to vote for me.
4:28
computermadsci
Ah.
4:28
Alicorn24
I'll do another pass of editing on yours if you want, but it's not bad.
4:30
computermadsci
Hm. How perceptive and/or free with the mindreading to you see Kowedyo as?
4:31
AdeleneDawner
I imagine that he's pretty good at body language and avoids mindreading unless he has either permission or some specific suspicion that something's up.
He's used to being in situations where mindreading is the only reliable way to get information, so he's not exactly *shy* about that.
4:33
computermadsci
Laren gave blanket permission to do whatever seems necessary shortly after adoption, but I don't know if that'd fly for him.
4:33
AdeleneDawner
But definitely also aware of the downsides of betraying trust.
Don't know if that'd fly how?
4:34
computermadsci
If he'd accept blanket permission to read Laren's mind or seek out specific permission whenever he wanted to.
4:34
AdeleneDawner
I imagine he'd ask permission if it wasn't inconvenient to do so.
He'd still e.g. ask how Laren's day was rather than just checking.
4:37
computermadsci
Just trying to decide if Kowedyo'd be aware of the fact that the anonymous article condemning him as a threat to society was written by Laren himself.
*condemning Laren, not Kowedyo
Bah, I cannot brain.
4:40
Alicorn24
Do you have the dumb?
4:40
computermadsci
A bit, yes
4:41
AdeleneDawner
Ah. It'd depend on how much Laren was thinking about it, but probably, given that blanket permission. Kowedyo might not habitually read Laren's mind, but given such permission he probably would at first, to help him adjust.
The more interesting question is whether he'd actually let Laren know that he knew, which, probably not overtly.
4:44
computermadsci
Maybe we could play it out?
4:44
Alicorn24
:D
4:44
AdeleneDawner
I have coding I'm really supposed to be doing today.
4:44
computermadsci
How's tomorrow for you?
4:45
AdeleneDawner
Probably better.
4:45
Alicorn24
bwar.
4:45
AdeleneDawner
?
4:45 Alicorn24 is impatient
4:45
AdeleneDawner
Paid work is important.
4:45
Alicorn24
yeeeees.
4:46 computermadsci offers huggles
4:46 Alicorn24 purrs

User avatar
Alicorn
Posts: 245
Joined: Wed May 11, 2011 2:57 am
Location: Mevwan, Pelagia
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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Alicorn24 entered the room. (3:37:19 PM)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta) entered the room. (3:37:25 PM)
Winged One (Alphabeta) entered the room. (3:37:25 PM)
Alicorn: WELCOME CITIZENS
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): heh.
Alicorn: I get a kick out of saying that. I'm sure it'll wear off eventually.
Winged One (Alphabeta): DO I HAVE TO MAKE ANOTHER PARANOIA JOKE?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Hey CMS. We should exchange contact info.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, I'm usually contactable by IM.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): 'IM' is vague. I prefer Skype or google, you?
Winged One (Alphabeta): I'm on meebo, so I can be on multiple ones simultaneously.
Alicorn: Does Meebo do Skype?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I assume not, I don't think anything does skype but skype.
Alicorn: More things should do Skype besides Skype.
Alicorn: Alas.
Winged One (Alphabeta): It does not.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Yeah, but it's proprietary.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Anyway, I'm [redacted].
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Got it.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Good.
Alicorn: So: what still needs doing before we are all ready to post our entries?
Winged One (Alphabeta): My framing device. I was thinking Adelene and I could play out the scene and then someone could edit it into prose
Winged One (Alphabeta): probably me
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I need to write the first part of mine, which means figuring out what if anything else needs added.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): And yes, you'd need to write that so it could properly go into your entry.
Winged One (Alphabeta): yes
Alicorn: So what's the setting for the playing out of the framing device, alphabeta mine?
Winged One (Alphabeta): One or the other just read Ace's article in a paper and Adelene's character started some kind of conversation about it.
Alicorn: Also, I think I'm going to set the year Ace accidentally Miara as year 14. Does that suit you both?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I don't have any reason to care.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I don't see any reason to care
Alicorn: alrighty
Alicorn: This should be a brief RP, four or five lines - this is after all a *newspaper* contest
Alicorn: …Winged. I point at you! Start!
Winged One (Alphabeta): Meep!
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *shrugs*
---
Kowedyo slides Laren's breakfast - inexpertly fried eggs and toast - onto a plate and sets it in front of him before retrieving a pair of zenlo roots from the shelf by the door for his own and stepping outside for a moment to retrieve the day's news.
Winged One (Alphabeta): "Thank you," Laren says in his usual impassive tone before he even looks at his breakfast. He eats it slowly, but without complaining.
Alicorn: (Ade, you've read my article.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (I have?)
Alicorn: (Well, I sent it to you. but I don't think you've seen Winged's. Winged!)
Winged One (Alphabeta): [quote]Fellow citizens of Mevwan, I have recently learned of a disturbing development in the Miara Astripator's case. As you probably know, the village of Miara was razed and its people burnt alive by an astripator less than a month ago, in what has since been conclusively proven to be a tragic accident. What you don't know is the killer's sentence. In flagrant violation of precedent both within the Sesdesh province and in Mevwan as a whole, the perpetrator was not placed within a detention facility, but instead ordered to be fostered.


Winged One (Alphabeta) left the room. (4:04:09 PM)
Alicorn: I will attempt to get him into the room again.
Alicorn: bleh. starting over.
Last edited by Alicorn on Thu Jun 16, 2011 4:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Alicorn
Posts: 245
Joined: Wed May 11, 2011 2:57 am
Location: Mevwan, Pelagia
Contact:

Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Alicorn24 entered the room. (4:08:16 PM)
Winged One (Alphabeta) entered the room. (4:08:20 PM)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta) entered the room. (4:08:20 PM)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): huzzah!
Winged One (Alphabeta): *watches a giant toaster monster crash through the roof*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *snerks*
Alicorn: oh, relevant: Ace's letter was published in Still Minds. If Kowedyo gets that it's probably in a "best to know what these weirdos are up to" kind of way.
Winged One (Alphabeta): So I was right in that it's the only one of the magazines he submitted it to that would actually print it?
Alicorn: Well, that probably depends on how wide he cast his net, but a) they'd definitely take it and b) I have mentioned them before.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Kowedyo might get it on those grounds, but it doesn't entirely fit with the personality I had in mind. On the other hand I strongly suspect that Kowedyo would object to Laren being subscribed to that.
Alicorn: Laren doesn't have to subscribe to have sent them a letter.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Perhaps they find a report in another periodical about the Still Mind article?
Alicorn: Maybe Ivwi gets it on those grounds, and forwarded the relevant copy to Kowedyo.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): That'd make sense.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *edits thing*
Winged One (Alphabeta): Did you get both halves?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): nope
Winged One (Alphabeta): Fellow citizens of Mevwan, I have recently learned of a disturbing development in the Miara Astripator's case. As you probably know, the village of Miara was razed and its people burnt alive by an astripator less than a month ago, in what has since been conclusively proven to be a tragic accident. What you don't know is the killer's sentence. In flagrant violation of precedent both within the Sesdesh province and in Mevwan as a whole, the perpetrator was not placed within a detention facility, but instead ordered to be fostered.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I understand the reasoning behind the judgement. It is a proven fact that upsetting the guilty party further could lead to additional tragedy. Implementing the extreme isolation measures that would mitigate more uncontrolled psionic activity would itself be such an upset, and hazardous to attempt. Sometimes, the preservation of sapient life must come before justice. However, this was not necessarily the case. The killer could have served their sentence while unconscious, or even killed to eliminate the threat they pose altogether. They already killed anyone who would have missed them.

You may call me a coward for refusing to reveal my identity. You may be correct. Would you let someone like that know who you are if you had said what I have?

Submitted by an anonymous journalist
Alicorn: *or even been killed
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes. Thank you for the edit
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Ah heh. Yeah, Kowedyo would definitely not let Laren know that he knew that Laren'd sent that in at this point in the relationship, unless there's some surprise in Laren's thoughts about it that I don't know about yet.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, there's "nobody else printed it?" or something along those lines.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): That does open up an avenue for discussion if Laren actually says that, which Kowedyo would make a point of giving him an opportunity to do if he caught that in his thoughts.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm... well, actually talking about things isn't really one of Laren's strong suits.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Well, let's see what happens.
---
Kowedyo passes Laren his share of the periodicals, then settles back onto his tail and begins peeling the zenlo (which works rather like a banana, except that the peel is deep red and the flesh is tan with pinkish streaks and strongly lychee-scented). With the zenlo prepared, he rifles through the remaining stack of periodicals to retrieve the lone personal letter from the pile.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Would there be any editor commentary attached to the letter?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Seems likely to me.
Alicorn: In Still Minds? If you want to write it as part of your entry, Winged, sure :P
Winged One (Alphabeta): Let's say they got it just at the deadline and didn't have time to add any.
Alicorn: okay.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Laren looks through the stack, glancing at the front pages of each one in turn as he mechanically shovels bites of egg into his face. Once he's read those, he immediately goes for the anomalous copy of Still Minds and opens it to the guest letters page. As always, his face and body language don't give anything away.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): A couple of assumptions I'm going on, by the way: Laren is aware of Ivwi and that he set up the adoption; Kowedyo lives in a small house on the school/hospital campus, as is relatively common for youngish teachers and doctors.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm... Well, if he lives on campus, which makes sense, it'd follow that Laren is aware of Ivwi.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Is the letter from Ivwi or someone else?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Not necessarily - an average non-psion wingchild of a teacher would probably not be more than very vaguely aware of Ivwi - but it seems pretty likely in this particular case. The letter is from Ivwi about the Still Mind entry.
Winged One (Alphabeta): After a short skimming, he closes the paper and hands it to his wingparent. "I think Ivwi sent this to you," he says mildly.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Um, I think we have a confusion.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC I know it's not technically a normal adoption, but I thought it would be treated like one.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC I
Alicorn: (Laren would not have the letter in his hands at any point, I think is the confusion.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC I'm assuming that Ivwi's personality is well-known enough for this to seem like something he'd do.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Actually I think we had an issue starting with Laren having a copy of Still Minds - Kowedyo would have noticed that when separating out the stacks of stuff (Laren gets his own subscriptions) and asked about it, and I rather suspect that Laren would know that and not bother trying. Also yes, Laren never had the letter from Ivwi.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (It may be the case that Laren gets his own subscriptions because Kowedyo signed him up for some standard local stuff.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): Laren looks through the stack, glancing at the front pages of each one in turn as he mechanically shovels bites of egg into his face. Once he's read those, he goes back to the first newspaper he'd looked at and opens it, starting to read it more thoroughly this time. As usual, his face and body language don't give anything away.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Kowedyo chews his zenlo absently as he reads the letter. When he reaches the end, he harumpfs quietly, swallows, and ponders for a moment before addressing Laren. "It might be better for you to stay inside, today. Maybe for a few days, actually."
Winged One (Alphabeta): "Yes, sir," Laren says quietly, absently adjusting his scarf without looking up.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Should I put in Laren's thoughts without you saying that Kowedyo is reading his mind?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Nope.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Kowedyo's ears flick back momentarily before returning to their usual calm, professional position. "It shouldn't be long. Ivwe's already arranging for more security, he just wants to give it a couple days to see how serious this is. Shall I bring you some books from the library, in the meantime?"
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (And actually on further thought, Kowedyo'd definitely be mindreading his reaction to the vagueness there.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): "Yes, please," Laren says. Though his expression is as unhelpful as ever, a slight disappointment that his article hasn't made him too much of a liability to keep around is easy to find in his surface thoughts.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Kowedyo nods and takes another bite of his zenlo. His ears quiver slightly as he considers and chews. He then mutters, as if to himself, but mostly loudly enough for Laren to easily hear (or is it that he's making *sure* Laren hears it?), "[unclear] stillminders. Any civilised sentient would know better." (Also, still mindreading.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (I've decided that Kowedyo can send words and tone-of-voice, and can kind of send emotions by sending tone-of-voice without sending words, but can't send much if anything else - maybe some vague sight- or sound-qualia, if that.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (But, he can do those skillfully enough that it's sometimes hard to tell whether he's actually talking in the traditional sense or not.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): Laren feels a bit guilty for encouraging the stillminders just because they're right in the one case, but doesn't visibly or audibly react. He just starts eating his toast.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Kowedyo's ears freeze as he parses this unexpected response from his charge, then flick forward as he realizes the implications, then back as he realizes the implications of the implications. He peels the second zenlo root, and considers.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Digging these ears. They are awesome.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Yes. An awesome example of alien body language.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Am I safe to assume that Laren's not *actively* suicidal, or they'd've noticed by now?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: As in, Kowedyo knows that, rather than just guessing or assuming?
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Yeah, he's kind of half-assed about it because he doesn't /actually/ want to die.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: 'k.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC He just kind of thinks he should, if that makes sense.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: *nods* Also, why is he not actually a student at the school?
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC It wasn't considered safe for him to be one until he gets enough private tutoring?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Huh, I was actually thinking that it'd work the other way, that they'd want him in formal control classes as soon as possible.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Ah. Hm... well, all I've stated so far is that he has a scarf.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: That could very easily just be a condition of him being on-campus without having passed the control test - the students and staff need to be assured that if they approach someone without a scarf they're safe.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Yes
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: I note that Kowedyo has no reason to think that the letter was submitted anywhere but to the stillminders.
Alicorn: back
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Depends how deep mindreading can go.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: It can go pretty deep, but I'm going to rule that Kowedyo can't do that without being noticed.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Though actually if he does have permission it seems like he might give that a shot in this case, assuming it's not the first time he's done so and Laren hasn't previously objected in any sense.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Nah, I think this is the first time he'd object, and his blanket permission specifically includes the right to say "tough shit" if he changes his mind.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Kowedyo wouldn't know ahead of time that he'd object, tho, so yeah.
---
Kowedyo's chewing becomes mechanical and his eyes unfocus slightly as he gently observes the deeper bits of Laren's mind, checking to see if his hypothesis is correct and what implications this might have.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Regarding Laren's non-student status, perhaps he missed enrollment and the classes are all full?
Alicorn: (apropos of nothing, Ade, remember that if Kowedyo ever has cause to refer to Laren by name he'd use the full name Laren Drax.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ('k)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *pokes Winged and reminds him that it's his turn.*
Winged One (Alphabeta): *explodes*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *goes eeew and picks gore out of her hair.*
Alicorn: he always explodes when poked. but then he re-forms after a bit.
Winged One (Alphabeta): It still hurts!
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *giggles.*
Winged One (Alphabeta): Laren's head is as unpleasant a place to be as ever, full of overpowering guilt and self-loathing. For a second, it gets even worse as he fills his head with all the rage and pain he remembers. The lights flicker and his eyes go wide as his focus is directed to something he considers more important than his own secrets.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Kowedyo's voice in Laren's head begins muttering a calming mantra, not forcefully but compellingly, drawing the nearest of Laren's thoughts into the same pattern.
Alicorn: (remember, guys, this is a framing device, and should be short.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): (We can put in only part of the scene.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (There's enough useful stuff going on here I think it's okay if we run long, yeah, and just only use part of it for this particular thing.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): Laren lets Kowedyo help him calm down without question or hesitation, his expression settling back into the impassive one from before.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Once he's satisfied that the house is not in danger of going up in flames, Kowedyo returns his focus to Laren's thoughts and memories. After a few more moments (since he'd obviously found the important bit, to have gotten that reaction [ed note: unreliable narrator!]), he withdraws, and considers Laren, with a kindly droop to his ears. "Laren Drax."
Winged One (Alphabeta): "Kowedyo," Laren says mildly.
Winged One (Alphabeta): "I'm sorry for losing control like that. If you want me to leave, we can think of some solution."
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): typing!
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Thought so. :) Just thought my response was too damn short
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): "The ethics classes that they give to telepaths are not the same as those that they give to astrapitors, but perhaps they should be. There is a lesson that my teacher Iluedo gave me, that you would do well to remember: It is right to allow people to make their own decisions, rather than coerce or deceive [ed note: This is translated poorly from a telepathy-specific term that's a bit less, or at least differently, loaded, about constructing artificial beliefs] them into believing what you would like them to. One of the reasons that this is so, is that it is often impossible to do so without damaging them - not that you need to worry about that part, I suppose. But even without that concern, it is good to remember that most people will believe as they believe, whether you try to influence them or not."
Winged One (Alphabeta): "The only deception in my article was the implied concern for my own safety," Laren points out. "I only provided them with the relevant information. It was inconsiderate of me to force such inconvenience onto the rest of the school, however, I admit that."
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: I definitely need a word for that concept I was translating as deception - it means something like 'implying that there is a connection between true facts when that connection does not actually exist' - e.g. 'Laren is dangerous' is true, 'dangerous psions can be put to death' is true, but the connection between those two facts is new data supplied by Laren and thus is this thing.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Bullshit?
Alicorn: you want me to make up something in Iozwe?
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Or possib- yeah, that
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Not necessarily bullshit - it can be used for good as well as bad. New word, yes please, Alicorn.
Alicorn: koyoge.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Thanks.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: And now I'm uncertain how to actually use that grammatically. :P
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Use it as a verb?
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC It's going to be a loanword if they're speaking Ekoin.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Koyo can be the verb version (one can koyo, or decieve, someone) and koyoge can be the noun (a telepath can see and manipulate the koyoge in someone's mind, as well as the beliefs and emotions and things).
Alicorn: I think the nearest English translation for koyoge would be "adjacency".
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC "Connect the facts"?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: *nods*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Also koyo-ing someone is not exactly the same as deceiving them - there's some overlap, but that's all.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: It's more like 'convince' in that way.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Anyway. *rereads*
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Yes. Hm... sticking to words that Laren already knows wouldn't be the best way for him to pick up a new language, would it?
Alicorn: Winged, did you decide if you want Laren to also be a perturber?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): "Deception, no, but koyo, which is not much better, as you can see. It *was* only the stillminders who printed your letter; Ivwi would have said, otherwise." Kowedyo holds the letter out, not quite offering it, but making it available if Laren wants to confirm his assertion.
Winged One (Alphabeta): "Koyo?" Laren asks. He doesn't take the letter - he trusts Kowedyo enough to believe him if he says that, at least.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Kowedyo ducks his head in apology. "An Iozwe word, mostly used by telepaths. There are facts, and there are connections between facts, see?" he sketches the concept in the air with his hands. "We call the connections koyoge. Causing a connection in someone else is koyo. It's like convincing, but convincing is for facts and koyo is for koyoge. Pwariyo is causing emotions, in the same way."
Winged One (Alphabeta): "Ah. I don't see the relevance, sir," Laren says quietly. "I implied a link between my refusal to divulge my identity and the risk of me killing someone who upset me again, yes, but how would that change anyone else's decision except regarding any investigation into the author's identity?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: It amuses me to note that Kowedyo is not thrilled at being called 'sir'.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Yes, because Laren's emotional distance from people is so high on the list of his mental problems. ;)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Which is *why* Kowedyo's putting up with it. But it's still pretty insulting at first glance from his perspective.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC He doesn't pretend it's Kowedyo's name or anything. Do Zaee not refer to their family members by their relation?
Alicorn: They don't with family members, they do with teachers and stuff sometimes
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): "The implied link between young, untrained psions and criminals was more my concern, Laren Drax."
Winged One (Alphabeta): "...I only meant that to apply in my own case. Accidental killing is illegal, even if it isn't considered murder," Laren says, not looking at Kowedyo.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Darn. How does someone who *doesn't* know game theory usually answer that one?
Alicorn: With platitudes.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Bleh. :P
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC or he could just not know game theory by that name.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: I don't want him too overpowered. Ivwi might know the right answer to that one, but Kowedyo isn't specialized in the right directions to.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: It's a law/politics question, not a social-interaction question, basically.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Okay.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC I don't know game theory completely, but I can still see that Laren may have koyoed the stillminders into thinking of uncontrolled psions as criminals whatever his intentions.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC if that helps.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Only 'cause they were mostly there already.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC I'd think that ways to get suicidal people to stop hating themselves so much would be of interest to a psychologist, though.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Plausible, yeah. *considers*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): "The exception is *meant* to apply to cases like yours. You're more powerful than most astrapitors, but not any less controlled. Actually, the fact that you made it to your age, with your powers and no training, without any other major incidents, speaks *well* for your control."
Alicorn: (Laren does have below-average control, but he's not an outlier, is that what you meant?)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (Yup.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): (Wait, I was going under the impression that it's possible for a psion's powers to emerge later in life than birth.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (Oh, uh.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (Alicorn is afk and will probably be back in a few minutes.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): (Hm. I saw a comment on one of those webcomics that shows a roleplaying game's action as if it was happening in reality that said "not so much rules lawyering as reality lawyering." Isn't that basically what technology is?)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (heee.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): (In fact, a rules lawyer is basically a physicist in universes like the one from Order of the Stick.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (*snerk*)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (Alicorn is putting chocolate on fruit and further says that this is a noble pursuit that requires her attention.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (Or was.)
Alicorn: back
Winged One (Alphabeta): (Why can't machines do it? Or unskilled labor?)
Alicorn: (Psions are born with their powers but don't instantly know how to use them. It's like learning to walk or talk, but usually takes a little longer than either - but not by much.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): (What about uncontrolled psions?)
Alicorn: (usually take longer to figure it out, but Ace would have been able to set things on fire for at least a couple years before he accidentally Miara.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (I've been modeling them as just psions who're less good at controlling their powers than average, not as a separate group with separate rules.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): (Ah. Yeah, that makes sense. So someone who doesn't know a damn thing about how to use their powers couldn't do so by accident?)
Alicorn: (Could, but it'd require more stress than if they knew how to use their powers.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): (Ah.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): "Most low-control astripators only destroy property. That's rather more excusable than killing."
Alicorn: (Ace might have set things on fire when he was seven, but this would have been a *pure* accident, it wouldn't yet have become a response to stress, so he would only set things on fire a *little* even though he's strong enough to set them on fire a *lot*.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: What if anything would Kowedyo know about the circumstances surrounding the accidental-ing of Miara?
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Laren wouldn't keep anything from him, but wouldn't volunteer anything either.
Alicorn: Whatever Ace I MEAN LAREN GODDAMMIT told him, or whatever he dug out of Laren's brain.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Metagaming Ace: Nah nah nah nah nah nah
Alicorn: Metagaming Gevene: Don't tease the Authors, please.
Alicorn: (zwerisi!Gevene: fun!)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Dangit language, why do you never have the words I want?
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Because it sucks. We're making the switch to telepathy as quickly as we can.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Actually that's another concept that a psion-having culture would encode into its language: A provoked loss of control.
Alicorn: Call that "dyamie"
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Thanks.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Is it bad that I read 'dynamite'?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): "It's excusable enough, for a dyamie. Why do you think all our buildings are fireproof?" He gestures to the tops of the walls, which have vents set in them to allow smoke to escape.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Are you taking down a word list, Alicorn?
Alicorn: I should be. *starts*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): :)
Winged One (Alphabeta): "In case of a fire, obviously," Laren says mildly. "I suppose I have nothing to say to that but that I disagree."
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Now, here I want a platitude-ish thing, but I'm not sure I can generate one without it sounding weird.
Alicorn: a platitude to what effect?
Alicorn: brb, I must fetch the fruits of my noble pursuit
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC I still prefer chocolate and fruit separately.
Alicorn: back
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Meaning is roughly "I see and disagree with your koyoge, but respect your right to have it.", with tones of not being able to do anything about it right now anyway.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC Well, not ethically or safely.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Technically that, yes.
Alicorn: you want an Iozwe phrase to "clumsily translate", or a Mevwani saying?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: The saying would not be telepath-specific. I don't really care what language it's from, but I think Iozwe is more likely to have something like that. On the other hand there could be a standard non-clumsy translation by now.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC I've been assuming they're speaking Iozwe to help Laren learn the language?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): OOC: Nommiemonster demands noms. brb.
Winged One (Alphabeta): OOC is that like a less specific cookie monster?
Alicorn: Cat's name is Nom.
Winged One (Alphabeta): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMWi7CLoZ2Q
Winged One (Alphabeta): But seriously, cute name. :)
Alicorn: :)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): The Nom has been be-nommed.
Winged One (Alphabeta): That sounds like you nommed on em.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *giggles*
Alicorn: Nom is a boy cat.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Okay
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): He is thus named because he has a tendency to nom on my hands, playfully. "Halp! I'm being Nommed!"
Winged One (Alphabeta): Aw
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): All in good fun. ^^
Winged One (Alphabeta): You sure he's not threatening you? He is a cat...
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): He gets serious about it sometimes, but then I remind him that I'm bigger than he is.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Anyway, I don't care if we've been speaking Iozwe.
Winged One (Alphabeta): So. Plattitudes?
Alicorn: uuuum
Alicorn: everything I'm coming up with sounds too casual to make sense in Kowedyo's voice
Winged One (Alphabeta): Something for Kowedyo to use as a base, perhaps?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Also, Kowedyo's being unusually formal right now 'cause he doesn't know Laren well yet.
Alicorn: right, well, I'm coming up with train metaphors
Alicorn: "I can't re-lay the tracks in your head" or something like that
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I like that.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Do you want a toy train for your birthday or something? ;)
Alicorn: No, not especially, I just like them as a feature of Mevwan
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah. Any particular reason?
Alicorn: they are aesthetically suitable.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I'm suddenly thinking of Mevwan as steampunk-y.
Alicorn: Because it has trains?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Well, because trains are aesthetically relevant.
Alicorn: ah.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Also I'm thinking that it might be a standard metaphor that tracks/roads/flightplans are koyoge, vehicles are beliefs/facts, and cargo is emotions.
Alicorn: Yessss.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Which implies that the standard advice is less 'don't get too emotional' and more 'don't let your emotions get unbalanced enough to throw your beliefs off-course', which I like.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes. I can never resist mocking people who say "don't be afraid" when they mean "don't let your perfectly reasonable fear stop you from doing what you need to."
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): :D
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Anyway, I think we can basically call this wrapped? Kowedyo says something pithy and vaguely confusing about train tracks, finishes his breakfast, and heads to work?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Sure
Alicorn: Winged, thou shalt condense and prosify!
Winged One (Alphabeta): Gah, I missed some of the RPing and meebo doesn't save chat logs of rooms.
Alicorn: I'll send you an e-mail with a paste of all of it
Winged One (Alphabeta): thanks
Winged One (Alphabeta): I just realized that at no point in this story does anybody read the article that we're pretending is my submission
Alicorn: Ivwi forwarded it to Kowedyo.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Kowedyo reads it; I just didn't paste it in at that point.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah. So, what, a clipping in the letter instead of the actual paper as I assumed?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Yup.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Should I have the letter in there too?
Alicorn: It's a framing device, so put two or three lines before the letter, the letter in the quoteybox, and then a couple lines after the quoteybox
Alicorn: oh, you mean Ivwi's remarks?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes
Alicorn: nah, Ade would have to write those.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Bleh, I don't know what to cut
Alicorn: Start by cutting everything, and then decide what to put in.
Winged One (Alphabeta): ... that's very good advice. Thanks
Alicorn: :)
Winged One (Alphabeta): I'm thinking Laren might be a perturber, but his powers only work on his own body. Would that be possible?
Alicorn: No, all perturbers can move inanimate objects; only some can move living things, but none only affect themselves.
Winged One (Alphabeta): What about only things he's in contact with?
Alicorn: It's always at least slightly ranged.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Would Laren be allowed to have a scarf's ends sewn together around his neck?
Alicorn: Up to Kowedyo.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Describe that better?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Take a scarf, put it on Laren, then sew it onto itself so he can't take it off.
Alicorn: Kowedyo is now Laren's legal parent. Sewing on a scarf would be something he could tell Laren not to do if he wanted. (Unless you decide it's against school policy or something.)
Alicorn: You realize he could still set the scarf on fire, though.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes, but he's doing this voluntarily in the first place.
Alicorn: Sewing on a scarf *so Laren can't remove it* is silly.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Honestly, I'm having trouble imagining Laren making the request in the first place.
Winged One (Alphabeta): The idea is so it can't be removed easily or without actually making an effort.
Winged One (Alphabeta): ...those are the same damn concepts. Why did I put it twice?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): They probably actually have scarves that button, for fidgetty little kids who tend to forget stuff.
Winged One (Alphabeta): (Well, he'd actually want it sewn directly onto his neck, but that'd probably tip Kowedyo off that something's wrong a bit early.
Winged One (Alphabeta): )
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Indeed.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): My point was that I have trouble imagining him *approaching* Kowedyo with the request, tho.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah, right.
Winged One (Alphabeta): It'd probably be after a while, actually, and he might have decided that buttoned-on is good enough by then.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): He'd probably encounter a kid with a buttoning one at some point, and could ask about it and then take the opportunity to request it.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Probably, if the classes aren't separated by age.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): They are, but not strongly, and there's stuff like the cafeteria and recreational areas that aren't segregated.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes, but Laren is rather averse to socializing with anyone at that point in his life.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): True.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Hm... I guess I should keep the framing device short.
Alicorn: yes.
Winged One (Alphabeta):
Kowedyo absently chewed what looked to his wingless wing-child like a banana with a deep red peel and pink-streaked tan flesh as he read the letter. When he reached the end, he harumpfed quietly, swallowed, and pondered for a moment before addressing Laren. "It might be better for you to stay inside, today. Maybe for a few days, actually."
Winged One (Alphabeta):
"Yes, sir," Laren said quietly, adjusting his scarf without looking up from his own paper.
Kowedyo's ears flick back momentarily before returning to their usual calm, professional position. "It shouldn't be long. Ivwe's already arranging for more security, he just wants to give it a couple days to see how serious this is. Shall I bring you some books from the library, in the meantime?"
"Yes, please," the youth muttered. Though his expression was as unhelpfully blank as ever, a slight disappointment that his article hasn't made him too much of a liability to keep around was plainly written plain as day in his mind, for those with the talent to read it.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Oops
Winged One (Alphabeta): Before that is :Kowedyo and Laren sat accross the table from each other, reading their newspapers and eating breakfast. Kowedyo was on a clipping that had arrived in a letter.
Winged One (Alphabeta): And then the article
Alicorn: We're preferring "Ivwi" to "Ivwe", because there's someone on the Cezkwe called Iviwe
Alicorn: I'd prune the following phrase: "and pink-streaked tan flesh"
Alicorn: also, "harumphed"
Winged One (Alphabeta): How am I supposed to cut more out of that without failing at description?
Alicorn: and the last sentence is a bit long, maybe split it into two
Alicorn: Just cut the bit I quoted.
Alicorn: It's a banana-lookin' thing with a red peel; I doubt Laren's getting close enough to see what the interior looksl ike.
Alicorn: *looks like
Winged One (Alphabeta): Were you telling me to cut harumphed or correct the spelling?
Alicorn: The spelling.
Winged One (Alphabeta): peel as he read the letter. When he reached the end, he harumphed quietly, swallowed, and pondered for a moment before addressing Laren. "It might be better for you to stay inside, today. Maybe for a few days, actually."
"Yes, sir," Laren said quietly, adjusting his scarf without looking up from his own paper.
Kowedyo's ears flicked back momentarily before returning to their usual calm, professional position. "It shouldn't be long. Ivwe's already arranging for more security; he just wants to give it a couple days to see how serious this is. Shall I bring you some books from the library, in the meantime?"
"Yes, please," the youth muttered. Though his expression was as unhelpfully blank as ever, a slight disappointment that his article hasn't made him too much of a liability to keep around was written plain as day in his thoughts. One of the reasons Kowedyo had been chosen to adopt him was the talent to read such things.
Alicorn: Did you see the part about Ivwi's name?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes, I just forgot to change it.
Alicorn: Ade, is yours all done?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): brb
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Mine's not exactly done; I'm not satisfied that the scarves and the restrictions on leaving campus or taking certain classes are the only differences between controlled and uncontrolled students' privileges.
Alicorn: Maybe certain stressful situations/events are prohibited for them?
Winged One (Alphabeta): And the controlled ones might get better facilities?
Winged One (Alphabeta): It's only astripators who are uncontrolled when stressed, but only astripators are actually dangerous.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, the condition of being an uncontrolled astripator is the only such condition that's dangerous, anyway. Obviously anyone can be dangerous. You know what I mean.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Students who've been controlled for a significant period might get to move into the building with the other controlled students, which is much less likely to unexpectedly explode.
Alicorn: heee
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (All the buildings have very good fire-handling mechanisms, but it's still nice to be able to keep books/notes/whatever and not worry about them going up in flames.)
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well... yeah, I guess a stillminder wouldn't be any more likely to target the controlled-student building than the uncontrolled on.
Winged One (Alphabeta): *one
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I suspect that the campus is arranged in such a way as to make either of those scenarios pretty darn unlikely.
Winged One (Alphabeta): If it was at all likely in the first place, that makes sense.
Winged One (Alphabeta): And hell, the middle of campus is a good place for the student lodgings even without security concerns
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Alicorn and I already established that the stillminders are an ongoing annoyance, if usually a minor one.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Yes, but minor annoyance implies a lack of danger.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Also I think uncontrolled students (or at least astrapitors and perturbers) might not be able to borrow things from the main campus library. (There's a smaller library at the hospital for the anticipaths that doesn't have anything valuable (since they have a tendency to lose stuff, unless Alicorn objects to that) that Kowedyo's borrowing from for Laren.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Minor annoyance does imply lack of danger but it doesn't imply that it's a good thing to let them harass the students unnecessarily.
Winged One (Alphabeta): True. Especially since someone lighting them on fire by accident might make someone listen to them.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Yup.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Also nontrivially traumatic for the students.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Depends on the skill of the harasser, I'd think.
Winged One (Alphabeta): But yeah
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ...it's 12:30. No wonder I'm sleepy.
Alicorn: I really really want this up tonight
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I know.
Alicorn: do you have the spoons to accomplish that?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Maybe.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, yeah, diurnal people don't generally do things at this time of night
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I'm not diurnal. It's just that I've been up since 7am.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, you're diurnal today.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Which is a ridiculous hour of the day and my sleep schedule needs to get its act together.
Winged One (Alphabeta): :D
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Hum. I'm writing the bit about being allowed off-campus; it occurs to me that sufficiently young kids would not be allowed off-campus even if they are controlled, but this age would vary between Zaee and humans. How would this likely be handled?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ade, are you an introvert or an extrovert?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): very much an introvert.
Alicorn: Your discretion on human age; for Zaee let's call it 25.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Okay
Alicorn: Adjustable with guardian preference.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): 'k
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I do need to name this school.
Alicorn: yes. yes you do.
Winged One (Alphabeta): How abo- *gets shot*
Alicorn: How did Ivwi ascend to his position, anyway?
Alicorn: is he related to the founder?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Good question. He may've been wingchild of one.
Alicorn: do you want just a random Iozwe name for the school?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Thinkin'.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I thought formal psychic schooling was a new thing?
Alicorn: Would have been an obvious need when psion human babies started being born in Mevwan. Which was a couple hundred years ago.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Ah, right. Why did I think that, then?
Alicorn: Because you are a silly goose?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I'm thinking The [thingie] School for Ascending Psions, where that's a semi-mangled translation and 'ascending' is a term relating to first flights or learning to fly.
Winged One (Alphabeta): *honk*
Alicorn: <missingthepoint>But only some perturbers learn how to fly.</missingthepoint>
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *snerk*
Alicorn: I don't think flight is a good metaphor for it. Flight has all the connotations of growing up, leaving one's birthplace/eye-family, and also happens in very early childhood.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Some dumbass human could have named it
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): mm.
Alicorn: A Zaee would have had to found it, though, since all the trained psions in the world were Zaee at the time the school would have been founded
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *is swiftly turning into a sleep zombie.*
Alicorn: ngehhhh
Winged One (Alphabeta): They have drugs for that
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *giggles*
Alicorn: just call it the Zwiakwo School for Psions, is that good?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Sure.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): What's the format for dating newsletters and things again?
Alicorn: You mention the year (in this case, 14) outside the quoteybox. Otherwise, no dates.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ok
Alicorn: Yours isn't a regularly issued periodical (or is it an excerpt from a regular school newsletter?) or you'd do the Periodical Name: Volume X, Issue N
Alicorn: like, my quoteybox starts:
Current Events Mevwan: Volume 56, Issue 220 wrote: Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): The bit I'm workign on now is from the regular school newsletter.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Volume and issue numbers are determined how?)
Alicorn: So replace Current Events Mevwan: with the title of your newsletter, and pick the volume (the number of years it's been in publication as of Year 14, can have started in a negative year and probably should in this case) and the issue (CEM is on issue 220, so this is about two thirds into the year, figure out how many issues you put out per year and choose according to that.)
Alicorn: After my quoteybox, I will post this: The writing in this entry is original to me; please vote for it if you wish to register approval of that. However, the other two Mevwan entries are related, and if you wish to register approval of the story as a whole, please concentrate voting on Winged One's entry (as this plotline centers around one of his characters).
Alicorn: Ade, you should have a comparable if not idential addendum; Winged, translate it for yours.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Aw, you're going to spoil them?
Alicorn: how is the fact that the astrapitor is your character a spoiler?
Winged One (Alphabeta): It's not, I'm just a derp
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): heh
Winged One (Alphabeta): I had it confused with the fact that he wrote my article
Alicorn: and we should post it in order: me, Ade, Winged
Alicorn: So say when you're both ready and then I'll say when mine's up
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Do we have any names set yet for major local newspapers?
Alicorn: Current Events Mevwan is a major national newspaper. You want one that's more regional to Delo-Kyan?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): mmhmm
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): To where news about the school's policies would be relevant.
Alicorn: call it the Delo-Kyan Observer
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): 'k.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Should my thing be published before or after yours? After, I think? (Memory brainbits have wandered off to sleep already.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): In an IC sense, I mean.
Alicorn: The issue of the Observer should be a day or two after Current Events Mevwan's coverage.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Well, yours is like a week after the accident and mine is a couple of weeks, so before
Winged One (Alphabeta): I think
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): [quote="Excerpt from the Zwiakwo School for Psions Student Handbook, p. 14, printed as an inset in the Delo-Kyan Observer: Volume 67, Issue 222]

* All new students are considered uncontrolled by default.

* Students may request a control test from their Head Teacher at any time. Tests are usually held every Friday in the north gym. Students who pass this test are considered controlled.

* Students may resume uncontrolled status at any time. Students who find themselves having difficulty with their powers are advised to do so, as any significant mishap that happens while a student is in controlled status will result in the student being returned to uncontrolled status and barred from taking the control test for a minimum of one month, along with any punishments deemed appropriate.
Alicorn: Current Events Mevwan then Observer then Still Minds
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta):
* Uncontrolled students are to wear a safety scarf at all times when not in their dorm building. These scarves are available at all times in room 50H. Students who are prone to losing things may be issued a buttoning scarf.

* Uncontrolled students and students under the age of 14 (human) or 25 (Zaee) may not leave the camups without a school-provided escort or legal guardian or the written permission of their Head Teacher.

* Students who have maintained controlled status for a full month may check items out from the library.

* Students who have maintained controlled status for a full six months may request a private room in the upperclass dorms; these are assigned on a first-come-first-served basis.

Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta):
Zwiakwo School for Psions Student Newsletter: Volume 187, Issue 36 wrote: Notice: All Students

Due to the recent events at Miara and subsequent Stillmind Society activity, the following policy changes are in effect until further notice (anticipath consensus: 3 months): All uncontrolled students are confined to school grounds unless accompanied by a legal guardian. Controlled students may leave school grounds only with a school-supplied escort or legal guardian. Exceptions to this policy may be granted on a per-outing basis by Head Teachers.

Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Students who have been going off-campus for after-class entertainment are reminded that the symphonic telepathy club performs in the green auditorium every Wednesday at 4pm and the perturber gymnastics team performs in the west gym on the first and third Thursday of each month from 6-7pm. Other clubs are encouraged to see the event coordinator (in room 35D from 12-1 and 3-4pm on weekdays) if they would like to reserve the use of school facilities to provide entertainment to their fellow students. Also, students who have been shopping off-campus are reminded that the campus store, between D and G buildings, is able to fulfill requests for items that it does not regularly stock.
[/quote]

Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): The writing in this entry is original to me; please vote for it if you wish to register approval of that. However, the other two Mevwan entries are related, and if you wish to register approval of the story as a whole, please concentrate voting on Winged One's entry (as this plotline centers around one of his characters).
Alicorn: Awesome. Winged, are you ready to go when Ade says the word when I say the word?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Should my disclaimer be The writing in this entry is original to me; please vote for it if you wish to register approval of that. However, the other two Mevwan entries are related, and if you wish to register approval of the story as a whole, please vote for my entry anyway (as this plotline centers around one of my characters). ?
Alicorn: yes.
Winged One (Alphabeta): I guess I should say "most of the writing is original to me"
Alicorn: "Apart from a couple of guestwritten lines, the writing..."
Winged One (Alphabeta): That works. :)
Alicorn: Okay. I'mma post mine now.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Can I put "in fact, vote for me anyway" in there? ;)
Alicorn: Sure.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Can I put a winking face there?
Alicorn: Ade, go. Yes.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Go.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Shit, formatting problem
Alicorn: we should also crosspost to the Press Archives. *goes to do that*
Alicorn: without the addenda.
Alicorn: You forgot to end your quoteybox
Winged One (Alphabeta): Fixed
Winged One (Alphabeta): That was not the problem, actually
Alicorn: also, it's "astrapitor", not "astripator"
Alicorn: Also, tense issues
Alicorn: "hasn't made him too much of a liability"
Winged One (Alphabeta): Fixed. Anything else?
Alicorn: MiaraA strapitor's
Winged One (Alphabeta): Fixed. Next problem?
Winged One (Alphabeta): Or can I move on to the typo goblin executions?
Alicorn: Nothing else is jumping out at me. Slay those goblins!
Alicorn: wait no
Alicorn: It's Sedsesh
Alicorn: not Sesdesh
Winged One (Alphabeta): Fixed. Next?
Alicorn: "A talent to read such things" should grammatically be "a talent for reading such things"
Winged One (Alphabeta): I meant to type "The talent to read such things," actually.
Winged One (Alphabeta): In fact, that's what I did put.
Alicorn: My article was incorrect, but "talent to read such things" is not grammatical I don't think
Winged One (Alphabeta): Okay, fine.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Talent is just a euphamism for being a telepath.
Alicorn: I know.
Alicorn: It's the use of the infinitive verb I object to.
Winged One (Alphabeta): Edited. Next problem?
Alicorn: Have either of you posted to the press archive yet?
Winged One (Alphabeta): I thought you would.
Alicorn: You should post your own things to the press archive.
Alicorn: I did mine.
Alicorn: (when you each attain a post count of 30, we get ECs.)
Alicorn: Ade, post your thing too.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): done
Alicorn: :
Alicorn: :)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): sleeeeeep. sleeeeeeeeeeeeep!
Alicorn: Yes, you can sleep now.
Winged One (Alphabeta): 'night!
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): ^^
Winged One (Alphabeta) left the room. (10:40:32 PM)

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Alicorn
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Location: Mevwan, Pelagia
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Re: Chatlog Dump

Post by Alicorn »

Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Can perturbers apply force in non-movement contexts? Like, if a perturber was at the scene of an accident, could they apply pressure to a wound without having to find some object to cover it with?
Alicorn: No.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): 'k
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): I've been basing Zaee ear-positions on feline body language, by the way.
Alicorn: You did read the thing I wrote about them, right?
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Uh... probably? *goes to look for something about body language*
Alicorn: Ears up is agitation/excitement/etc, ears down is calm/sad/tired
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): That's consistent with feline.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Mostly.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Felines also have 'back', which signifies anger.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (Also describable as 'all the way down' due to how they rotate.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): Cat, ears down: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickyv/3299559244/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/twiggie/43 ... 609166734/
Cat, ears up, attentive: http://www.flickr.com/photos/flipkeat/2952363167/
Cat, ears up, frightened: http://www.flickr.com/photos/austinite/387667598/
Cat, ears back: http://www.maniacworld.com/meanest-cat-ever.jpg
Alicorn: Notably, Zaee have their ears in the same place humans do, and their ears are longer than cat ears.
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): (There aren't too many pics out there of cats with their ears actually back, mostly because by the time a cat's *that* angry, taking a picture of it is very low on the priority list.)
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): *nods re: Zaee*
Adelene Dawner (Deltabeta): http://www.flickr.com/photos/tam_baker/ ... 609166734/

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