Sent a few PMs out to get some collab'd dialog. If anyone wants to drop in and throw out some chatter feel free. piratepad.net/XmOPf980XN
Beach Burrito Member
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@Terminal I still don't think we're quite on the same page--but I a bit too much mental fatigue built up for the needed rewrites at the moment. I'll take another look at it in the morning and see how I feel about it after a good night's sleep.
All I'm implying is that the non-bitumans have the capacity to be effected--even if a culture/species doesn't capitalize on cultural or artistic pursuits to completely lack a mind capable of appreciating them would demonstrate certain intellectual failings. Some races (like your own) might be more resistant due to plenty of factors (shorter lifespans, goal-centric/highly actualized populace, etc.) But I really have to reaffirm this is the continued effort of vast, non-human intelligences working in tandem to produce a single composition of stimuli that spans nearly a hundred systems and has nothing that it could possibly be accurately compared to. Like how eldritch is a go word for truly inconceivable horror 'bitumesque' would be its equal and opposite expression. There works are inconceivably beautiful, able to strike a chord with beings of sufficient intelligence.
If you're still insistent on reigning it in I'll let the issue drop. It's your RP after all
If you're still insistent on reigning it in I'll let the issue drop. It's your RP after all
I'd say that it would need to be more minutely calibrated if the intention were to target and effect a specific person within a desired timeframe, but as a whole the initiative should be fairly effective. Everything is deterministic, including the psyche. Bitumans can accurately assume certain values to be in place based on approximate levels of intelligence and the activities a person chooses to engage in. Like everything there'd be a margin of error to account for but on the whole I think it's a pretty solid foundation.
@Terminal - On the centerpiece Initiative I may not have been as clear as I should have--it's not outright brainwashing but applied stimulus indoctrination. In runs on the notion that beauty is not subjective, and that it can be calibrated to have desired effects upon desired viewers. On the base level it's a broad spectrum 'appreciation' for the various structures and overall composition by which it falls together, with considerations given to a plethora of sensory awareness--running the gamut from sight and sound to smell and electrorecption. On the surface this just means bituman's have 'making worlds pretty' down to a science.
The personal pull comes from interaction with bitumans and exposure to bituman culture--with intensity on the effect proportionate to the time one remains immersed. This is because subliminal messages lace just about everything one can see/hear or interact with. It relies on the idea of 'pitfalls' based around the type of entertainment or recreation an individual may seek out of their own accord, with the vector of indoctrination calibrated to the specific 'profile' of those most likely to become its targets. What sort of people are likely to look for prostitutes? Illegal substances? Nightclubs? It's an active effort administrated over by some of the most powerful intellects in existence--machine or otherwise.
Think of it like this, soldiers aren't going to call off an attack just because the city their bombarding leaves them awe struck--but immigrants and detainees are going to have a higher turnaround than they would with other nations and operatives in 'deep cover' might end up going native.
That's my take on it anyhow.
The personal pull comes from interaction with bitumans and exposure to bituman culture--with intensity on the effect proportionate to the time one remains immersed. This is because subliminal messages lace just about everything one can see/hear or interact with. It relies on the idea of 'pitfalls' based around the type of entertainment or recreation an individual may seek out of their own accord, with the vector of indoctrination calibrated to the specific 'profile' of those most likely to become its targets. What sort of people are likely to look for prostitutes? Illegal substances? Nightclubs? It's an active effort administrated over by some of the most powerful intellects in existence--machine or otherwise.
Think of it like this, soldiers aren't going to call off an attack just because the city their bombarding leaves them awe struck--but immigrants and detainees are going to have a higher turnaround than they would with other nations and operatives in 'deep cover' might end up going native.
That's my take on it anyhow.
Darn. Did I not make the cut?
I'll throw my post up after traction, as Kali will probably go in the direction of stretching her legs/dropping one of the other characters off somewhere else
I might doodle up a visual aid but most of the bituman peacefleet will be variations on the same design. A large sphere in the back for the engines connected to a very large, almost needle like cone. The whole thing trussed with three layers of spiraling corridor and compartments and armored by an ablative gel. Because of its conical design point defense placed further back can still fire forward without risk of striking the ship itself. There are no exterior apertures or openings of any kind as meson weaponry simply fires from inside the ship and point defense 'rings' float freely within the armor.
@Amongheroes - Yes, it says that racial nationalism is alive and well. :P
Just as an aside, I liked toying with how different ways of reproduction would effect a society as a whole. For instance, bitumans do so by having two individuals (Or more if you're some sort of reproductive deviant) glom together and disperse themselves as a pile of juveniles. So the idea of having kids is sort of a mixed bag of making a murder/suicide pact with someone that results in a bunch of kids -- their opinion of the matter is a tad like reincarnation.(In that a small part of the parents lives on) This also means that families are more sibling units than mother/father households, with the adoption system in place to combat the once terrible strain roving bands of bituman young put on honest citizens. Because size and sentience correlate with this species (By virtue of allowing for larger and more complex webs of nerve clusters) newborns aren't inherently people, protected under the law by special considerations for 'potential people', which extend rights to them whilst also place certain responsibilities on adoptive guardians. Wise bitumans pay for guardianship of their children well in advance of the actual reproductive process, ensuring a capable someone is then contractually obligated to rear the feisty brood.
For instance one aspect of the Val interested me a great deal. They birth in litters like terrestrial canines--so are they seasonal breeders as well? I could imagine that something like that would hugely impact gender roles within society, especially as/if issues like women's rights, the nature of consent or even a system of marriage developed. Would rape be a touchy and complicated legal issue for them? Do females have a support system in place for those not willing or able to have litters? What sort of child support systems are in place? Both for single mothers with 'fire-and-forget' fathers and rearing for unwanted or orphan litters? Do poor Val occasionally eat one or two of their young?
As you can see from the above even a small change breeds many interesting questions, true the Val could simply be continuous breeders like humans--but I've always felt the best bits about an alien aren't the ones that make them a different creature, but how those bits make them a different people.
Just as an aside, I liked toying with how different ways of reproduction would effect a society as a whole. For instance, bitumans do so by having two individuals (Or more if you're some sort of reproductive deviant) glom together and disperse themselves as a pile of juveniles. So the idea of having kids is sort of a mixed bag of making a murder/suicide pact with someone that results in a bunch of kids -- their opinion of the matter is a tad like reincarnation.(In that a small part of the parents lives on) This also means that families are more sibling units than mother/father households, with the adoption system in place to combat the once terrible strain roving bands of bituman young put on honest citizens. Because size and sentience correlate with this species (By virtue of allowing for larger and more complex webs of nerve clusters) newborns aren't inherently people, protected under the law by special considerations for 'potential people', which extend rights to them whilst also place certain responsibilities on adoptive guardians. Wise bitumans pay for guardianship of their children well in advance of the actual reproductive process, ensuring a capable someone is then contractually obligated to rear the feisty brood.
For instance one aspect of the Val interested me a great deal. They birth in litters like terrestrial canines--so are they seasonal breeders as well? I could imagine that something like that would hugely impact gender roles within society, especially as/if issues like women's rights, the nature of consent or even a system of marriage developed. Would rape be a touchy and complicated legal issue for them? Do females have a support system in place for those not willing or able to have litters? What sort of child support systems are in place? Both for single mothers with 'fire-and-forget' fathers and rearing for unwanted or orphan litters? Do poor Val occasionally eat one or two of their young?
As you can see from the above even a small change breeds many interesting questions, true the Val could simply be continuous breeders like humans--but I've always felt the best bits about an alien aren't the ones that make them a different creature, but how those bits make them a different people.
Funny thing is I've never actually been able to sit through a single episode of Doctor Who. New or old. Just go out of my way to make alien races sufficiently alien when I do NRPs.
Toyed with the idea once of making a NRP where one of the big rules was you couldn't make a species too similar to someone else's. I.E. if the first guy makes a humanoid--that's it--pick/create a different body suited for another world.
Toyed with the idea once of making a NRP where one of the big rules was you couldn't make a species too similar to someone else's. I.E. if the first guy makes a humanoid--that's it--pick/create a different body suited for another world.
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