The truth behind Floran speech impediments (because knowing is half the battle!)

The Outpost Floran is, in my opinion, more due to some contradictory writing by the devs than anything else. I think it goes against server lore, too.

 

There's no reason to force it, but i believe people don't want a lot of plantsuit type characters becase they're special snowflakes and no1 likes that.

 

I don't buy it. It why would they all of a sudden deviate from the norm without a reason? Why not just put another race as that role, or just make another tribal Floran? I think there's even a reference to that NPC in a quest as the Floran Scholar, though I need to look through and confirm that.[/QUOTE]
It's probably just for show. It's a game not a story to them. While they're trying to make it look a bit more like an RPG and adding elements of such, the main purpose of the game is to be... well, a sandbox game. To build, explore and mine.
They probably want to show that not all florans are inherently evil. However this last statement has been usually taken out and horrifically stretched out to the point where you see stupidly cute florans running around smelling flowers and going 'uguu, isss floran cutess?" or "I am a civilized member of society, cheerio mate."

The thing is, a lot of other players that have stuck here from before have seen a lot of problems going around with Florans, specially the widespread epidemic of Snowflake Syndrome, which in all honesty just turns out to be worse than the original problem, which is to stay true to their culture and hissy-ness.

Because we have decided to leave some of the canon lore out in order to make Florans more "Floran-like" and alien rather than just another human with an alien suit. It'd completely erase the reason for playing a floran, if you're just going to use them for aesthetic purposes rather than to actually play a character that is a member of a controversial race. Might as well just play a human.

Again, the only thing that forces floran to speak the way they do is probably the fact that they have accents and speak using other parts of their mouth and vocal areas. French speak with all their mighty nasalness. English speaking people tend to use the mouth and larynx, the same way spanish people tend to use more the pharynx and palate a lot more than other people.. Believe it or not accents stick and you can't get rid of them after a certain age or period of your life, no matter how long you spend talking in a language other than your native one. I've known people who have lived in the US or Canada who lived there for over 40-50 years and still have their native accents.

 

Fun fact: doesn't care at all, just like to roleplay, dont make this a BIG deal since its just for fun, and if people want to use ''Isssess'' or without them, let them! there is no rule based on that fact.

 

Problem with the whole minority thing is that you have to remember that Floran don't quite mature the same way the rest of the species do. It is well known that they mature faster and also that they are generally if not always (except here in Antares, of course) regarded as a hostile species looking for its own gain. The backstory of 'found out alone/sole survivor of tribe then picked up by a human' is generally overused. Logically speaking no one would pick up a floran to care for them, because they are BORN mature, and by the time anything like that ever happened then the Floran would most likely already have the seeds of its culture engraved into its mind, and therefore regarded as a threat by any other species (except maybe glitch) and swiftly eliminated, because they wouldn't wish to become its next meal.

The problem comes into play when the majority of the server throws out the canon lore of every species but Glitch believing that floran are goodie-two-shoes and that one shouldn't be so quick to judge them, even if they did kind of carry out horrendous deeds in many, many, maaaany many many many occasions and have been constantly at war with every species but glitch.

As for the rest of the people who 'asspull', --for the lack of any other better, blunt term-- they are often shunned and ignored, regardless. They eventually fade out and after lurking for a bit, or if they're genuinely concerned and ask other players, they find out what's wrong with doing that.

Usually however, people respond with hostility or denial when being told that they can't do such things because it alters the bigger picture and affects everyone, and more often than not, results in major shitstorming and in some cases public humiliation (which is now thankfully prohibited.)

 

The interaction and conflict between tribal and ''civilised'' florans is a cool and lore friendly topic for some good rp. For this to occur there has to actually be a difference between the types of florans...

 

It's true.

I exaggerated a little bit without realizing. I believe things such as civilized florans and their lack of lisps is alright so long as they are regulated and role-played reasonably.

 

There's also a lateral lisp and a strident lisp.
A lateral lisp is when air pushed over the sides of the tongue causing a slushy sound on an S.
A strident lisp is when a high pitched sound, hissing , is produced between the tongue and a hard surface. Such as the mouth of the Floran. I mean, if they're plant-people, wouldn't they be made of the same hard fiber if not only slightly different?
In combination, the two would cause hissing.

The snake hissing while speaking thing is actually a TV trope. Hissing is produced in an organ that a snake has in its throat called a glottis. The hissing is only heard when air is expelled quickly. But also, snakes have narrow and long tongues. Floran have long wide tongues. I can't back this up though. I don't see many official pictures of the inside of a Floran's mouth.

I'm Vietnamese. It is a tonal language meaning that all words are greatly affected by their pitch. So I must use my throat to change the pitch. So I'd imagine that if I was using a translator, one like the Starbound one, it would make certain words sounds higher and lower than others. Also, translators can add S's. Imagine if the translator had only translated the word and then added the remainder. "Sunset" would be recognized as the word but the S's would be emphasized by the translator. Like Vietnamese would be with pitch.
Also, speaking in a different language forms habits. Although born in the US, I still drop pitch sometimes out of nowhere due to knowing how to speak Vietnamese.

If I know lore correctly, only the United Systems Colonial Marines and maybe a handful of civilians with them survived the Earth situation. Seeing as how it's a united system and humans have no trouble speaking with one another, there probably is a language all of them speak. Hey, maybe that language that the United Nations tried passing through actually worked. Words can still be comprehended through a translator even if the person has an accent. My dad has a thick Vietnamese accent and can still use voice to text. Lisps, as I mentioned before, would still add the S's after the word is processed.

This is just Chucklefish's way of having the races all be able to speak to each other. If you need a explanation, look at technology now and see how small it is getting. Now look 400 years in the future. Imagine how small it would be. Voice detection would be easy.

Now, I'll say that I care very little about the whole deal. People do what people want and words don't break walls.

 

Everyone can speak to each other because we all have Universal translators.

When you talk to an Agaran you get Universal Translator errors.