it's like chaotic good drow all over again EDIT: Though Aiko IS correct, Chucklefish's opening lore does kind of pave the way for outcasts and exceptions to the "norm" of the various races. It's just that, in some cases, we've kind of kept to the norm regardless. A great example is our huge number of religious/psuedo-religious Avian PCs.
Get it right, happy go lucky civilized florans looking for love in the stars, are the norm. Savage, tribal, feral, ignorant, etc. Florans, are unique snowflakes.
Ahaha well, if we all stuck to the canon chucklefish lore openings for our characters, this whole RP would just be a pile of terrible with a dash of "we all stopped playing 5 months ago"
As I was reading your post, I had in mind to say this. I think that's the best way to go, while it -may- be subconscious, it's clearly a strong cultural point, I like to think that it also comes with the worry of -not confusing-. I.E., body language, tone and communication are generally confusing things overall, and Glitches naturally want to stay away from anything cryptic that they can't have an answer for for sure, so even if you do give your Glitch a tone or visible emotions, it still makes sense for them to do it out of convenience. I like to think there's a protective aspect under this subconscious idea of enouncing intent, as in, where careless words can pain someone's heart for sentient organic beings, being overly cryptic or confusing, or saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment for a glitch would be hurtful to another glitch, I.E. would be damaging, and that would be sabotage within the hivemind. Thankfully, Glitches are clear and honest in their intent. This is why I think the hivemind Glitch would be unable to lie, while the free Glitch wouldn't. The "Free glitch" definitely can shift this and lie, saying they're honest when they're not. The hivemind Glitch looks out for the hivemind and is absolutely honest to the hivemind. I think this makes even more sense when free glitches are exposed to other species every day. Even if they started dropping that habit for some reason, they would probably come back to it very quick, for the same reason they would have within the hivemind: not confusing people. Glitches are supposedly very smart, and I imagine body language gets even more confusing when you're a robot talking to plant-beasts or over emotional humans. It seems to fit the glitch to approach conversation with a lot of strategy and tact. I get that you're joking around of course but Florans don't have to be ignorant and feral to fall into the lore. There are some people that do play regular Florans that are part of a society without rejecting completely their kind/origins. Sure, they can't kill and eat anyone on sight, but they still hiss, they're still naive about some things, they're still naturally curious, they still don't understand manners really well, and are still very ferocious and lack a culturally human sense of honor in fight or bargaining. Plus, to me, the ridiculous thing isn't that people exactly play special snowflakes florans, it's that they play human-shaped florans who do everything like your regular 21st century human. I think there is one too, but if someone was to come out with an extremely posh and ridiculously high class Floran, it wouldn't really be bad, it's just that people jump into the Floran specie cause they're cute and play them exactly like they're humans when they're the farthest thing from human in the games.
I would assume that after a long time of Florans living with other species, they'd eventually lose their lisp, like someone losing an accent, and if they really beat themselves up about it, they'd stop referring to themselves as Floran and instead refer to themselves as I or me. That, could also be part of the Floran accent, however, and would probably be dropped over-time. Now, as for glitch, I have no personal opinion, due to the fact that I haven't played/nor role-played with a glitch very often, other than Skyrax, who doesn't have the BEEP BOOP thing.
The story you're talking about's The Prefix Problem: "'Delight. It is nice to see you.' I said, but the Glitch just looked at me strangely, and then said something to his friend. I noticed something here, too. When the Glitch address each other, they do not use these prefix words. Perhaps something in their programming means they can read each others' tones without explanation." I figure it might be a vocal quirk akin to people automatically speaking louder and more slowly when addressing someone who doesn't speak their native language. As far as writing goes, I'd probably assume that the usage/non-usage of prefixes depends on the writing's intended audience. I always figured the Floran lisp was what happens when you make non-human anatomy try to replicate human sounds. Buuut... universal translators, so idek.
I have always imagined that Glitch communication was much like the Elcor from Mass Effect. Glitch are not only unable to show emotion through facial expression but are also unable to change the tone of their voice. Glitch would have other subtle cues that only other glitch would pick up on. To an organic, trying to communicate with a glitch would be like talking to a man in a mask with a monotone. I imagined that the prefixing is merely a utility to aid in communicating with organic lifeforms and entirely optional. That said any glitch that does not use this convention would be totally unable to express any kind of emotion to any organic lifeforms, probably to the point that it would be somewhat unnerving for everyone involved. I could be completely wrong but I will always secretly pretend that every glitch sounds like Microsoft Sam.
Ohhhhhh, it's Hikari Corale. Hoo boy. Okay, the only problem with Hikari Corale is that she's something of an unreliable narrator. A lot of her works have the tendency to embellish facts somewhat, much like old travel and adventure novels back when those were all the rage. Therefore, I have the tendency to take whatever her codex entries say with a grain of salt, although some of them are valid. In this case, I'm thinking that The Prefix Problem is largely inaccurate, simply due to the fact that is clashes with the rest of our known evidence. Transcripts from the Steel Casebook very clearly show the Glitch using prefixes when speaking to one-another. More importantly, speaking with any Glitch NPC as a Glitch character will lead to dialogue in which they use prefixes. Since NPC dialogue is custom written for which species of character you're playing, I feel as if this would be a rather enormous oversight, if it were intended.
I'm gonna throw something into the ring here, and look for citations to back it up later. I read somewhere that florans have no tongues, and from what I see in art, they have a lack of lips. So talking for a floran is kind of a miracle. EDIT: Florans do apparently have tongues. -waaaaaaalks away slowly- Anyway, citation for florans having no lips: here - on the official starbound page as well, reverse image search it.
No tongues? Whaaaaat? I always imagined them with something similar to a snake tongue. cause Hisssssssssssssssss
Floran speaking patterns are something I think about very deeply, particularly while playing Crim. First of all, my assumptions. I reasoned that anything purely grammatical could be overcome with practice, observation, and enough (young) exposure to non-Floran speaking patterns. So, "Floran likes stab." can become "I enjoy stabbing things." with the right context. However, the lisp seems to be very biological. They have plant-like non-lip-ridges, and a maw full of very, very pointy teeth. This sets aside any differences with their voice-box equivalents. So, in the end, I conclude that the lisp is nigh-impossible to fully overcome. One could perhaps make the hiss shorter with practice, but likely never outright eliminate it. Even then, laughs would likely cause at least a light hissing sound. This is how I play Crim; even with repeated attempts to suppress the hiss, it remains there. Now, to address this server-old dilemma of "Dr'zzt Florans" vs. "OG Tribal Florans." Any claims that the former is in the majority are utterly false, or at the very least, disputed. Many people play the straight-up savage-or-near-savage Florans that just happened to get space travel. I would say they hold a steady majority. Additionally, outcast Floran can most certainly be done right, as long as it takes everything into account. I do get very tired of the archetype being bashed so frequently. Plus, as some have noted, outcast-Floran is the base player lore; quite honestly, I don't see it played straight very often at all. I can only think of two examples that made butchered attempts at this; that's about it. Even more lazily-made florans tend towards being tribal, because that's easier, and it's fun. Now, for how I deal with the lisp and the outcast Floran. Crim, for example, is more-or-less a Floran Uncle Tom equivalent. One of his main character conflicts is suppressing the basic essence of what his race's biology and culture, and struggling every step of the way. He practiced speaking extensively, just to get past the grammar problems. He trains himself constantly just to shorten the lisp, to little avail. He also started out illiterate, and after almost three months on the server, he still only reads at the kinder-garden level. Even violence is a struggle; he wants to reject it, but his basic cultural upbringing tends to drag him right in. Their racial tendency towards curiosity also drags him into all kinds of trouble. Plus, there's a lot of stuff that he just doesn't understand. Most of all, he often has trouble fitting in with both Florans (because he's not tribal and acts differently) and with other races (because he's pointy, red, and stereotypes are a bitch). Discrimination, ostracization, and just the downright expectation for him to stab people are always present. The other people on the server do well to keep the realism of his situation going, and it's fun to play along with it. Tl;dr Grammar cultural, lisp biological. There are no Drow princes here, no one even has panthers. Outcast Floran can be done right, haters gonna hate. Also, this server is full of racist characters (of varying severity), and it gives immersion. I love it. End textwall.
Eh, I can kind of agree with you there, hypocritical considering the fact Sativa's probably the most famous friendly Floran on the server...(Not to brag, or anything...) But really, things are just different in other area's of the sectors, it's not like there are no evil Florans, they're just not real people, they're NPC's. Of course, I can't deny that the server is lacking in certain racial lore such as a lack of a real Miniknog presence or "true" Florans. In fact, I recall that Firedrinker actually did both of these, but he hasn't particularly been active due to RL issues from what I know. Still, it would be unfair if we forced people to play certain characters, RP is meant to be fun, not a dayjob.
That's not entirely what I meant with that. Sativa is a floran. Interacting with him feels like interacting with a floran. It's undeniable. He is a friendly one at that, but that's not entirely what I'm talking about. I'm talking more about the plethora of florans who are -just- humans at the end of the day, and who say they just rejected their own kind, while still being raised in a tribe, etc.
