Posted by stratokummulus 3 years ago Report

Since I saw "The Fly" - the Goldblum version, of cause, a rare case of a remake much, much better than the original - I wonder how an arthropod/chordate hybrid body would even work. The only thing both parents would have in comon is they are bilaterians (to be more precise, nephrozoans - you live and learn). Both animal clades split so early after the appearance of multicellular organisms, they differ in almost all crucial features:

1) prostomia/deuterostomia: which end of the embryo forms the head?
2) external/internal skeleton - how would moulting and continuous growth interact
3) spinal/ventral nerve cord
4) how would they breathe? The variety in how animals breathe is astonishing, even within the groups. Just some: open/closed system, lung/trachea/gill/./., blood/hemolymph, ...

Those are only some of the most surficial differences.

And now you come up with a living-arthropod-hive/chordade hybrid and I am completely ... let's say confused.

The special limbs mythical creatures like centaurs and four-legged-two-winged dragons have ... ok, they are mythical, why mingle them with science (the mockumentary about the latter I saw some years ago was fun).

By the way, Beetaur sounds to me like a Bee-cow hybrid (taurus = bull). I have no idea what naming to suggest. Melissacentaur or apiscentaur in the style of "hippocentaur" would also be unclear since centaur suggests /with a horse-body below the torso/ to many people.

Posted by Aril_Lisidmuthir 3 years ago Report

Interesting questions and insights on the realm of fantasy.

The answer to most of these things literally is "A wizard did it!"
As in the animal hybrids thing to begin with started with shamans looking at the animals around them and using magic to infuse themselves and their tribe with their properties and stuff.

But... you do pose an interesting idea onto the nature of the animal people on the world. Maybe not all of them are genetically compatible? Maybe Sospin is essentially a "mule"

As for names; well pop culture has already sort of ruined things like that. Like how snake people who can turn people to stone are called "Medusas" instead of "Gorgons." Lamia also gets the same treatment; it was some monster before but now the overall community has decided that lamia applies to snake people...

Spider people are popularly called "Arachne" despite the mythological basis being a single person. Or they're called Driders (Which in particular are Drow Elves with spider bodies, not regular people with spider bodies)
Centaur applies to person with horse (or cow) lower body. Minotaur seems to cover just anthro bulls? Yeah it's confusing there. But anyway, because of that, people would just add -taur at the end of the animal name since most people would think "Animaltaur" means "Like a centaur but with the animal instead of a horse"

Posted by stratokummulus 3 years ago Report

So those mysteries are a proof of the "wizard(s) of the gaps". ;)

It's hard to interpret intentions of the shamans or however you call them. Lascaux etc. had no commentary section like their successor Eka's, so to speak.
But those shamans knew which shrooms, weeds and rituals worked best. My take on mythical beings: bad trips. Recently heard a theory that consumption of drugs were one reason for building the first fixed settlements like Göbekli Tepe. Breweries are hard to carry around, and barley and wine have to grow somewhere.

Mules are a nice example. Horses and donkeys are very closely related species, nearly identical body structure, yet, their common offspring is usually sterile, but they are said to inherit the best features of their parents, contrary to hinnies.

Naming always is delicate. I was annoyed by my former me so often when I had to work again on coding I wrote myself. Names must be unique and (self-)explaining, but short enough not to get another tenosynovitis. Of cause names were mostly too short or the concept I chose was not nearly as intuitive as I thought. Naming in natural languages ... better I don't dive deeper into this topic since it is a bottomless pit.

In greek, ἀράχνη or arachne simply means spider. So I guess you can see her name as a mnemonic. Myths were told first, not written and it's hard to remember thousands of names. Once a character is popular or the story written down or even transferred into another language, the names of a phenomenon and it's anthropomorphisation may evolve differently: Thor/thunder: I guess originally the same name, in German the words evolved more parallely: Donar/Donner. Same: Hel/hell. In case of evolution, Languages have a lot in common with genetics.

As far as I remember the minotaur also was a single monster like Medusa.

Posted by Aril_Lisidmuthir 3 years ago Report

That's the best theory that's come up with. Shamans of the past did the infusions and now there are no more Humans. In my universe there are Humans of all sorts throughout the galaxy(s) and they all have subtle differences. Earth Humans are more psionically active, Snogran Humans have solid eyes instead of pupils (maybe they have squid eyes?) and probably the ones of Name have weaker legs, hence why they'd want animal bodies to compensate for mobility options?

I don't think too hard about it except when I do. And I most go with guesses because I'm not sure if I should be thinking that hard or just go with the Anthropic Principle.

Names are just determined really by pop culture. If everyone starts calling snake people as Lamia, then despite the original meaning it'll be snake people. Same with spiders and Gorgons. People know Medusa but not the other Gorgon Sisters.

The Minotaur literally was the Bull of Minos but people now call any bull person as a Minotaur, like how Centaurs were from a region and were just really good horseback archers that could be seen as almost one with the horse.

Anyway, it's all fiction, relax and don't think too hard about the animal hybrids :D

Posted by stratokummulus 3 years ago Report

Thinking less hard is an advice I used to get often. Strange if you get this from a teacher. It's a vice hard to turn off when pondering is one of your "up to 11" personality traits. Even so it makes you look weird. It is a double-edged sword. It was one major reason for my burn-out, but before made fit for a job where I could earn and put aside enough money, so at least it did not leave me with financial worries despite crippling me so much that I am no longer able to work. And it is an ultra-thin filter when it comes to creativity. Not being able to put restrictions on your own curiosity makes it even worse. Although you have a lot of creative ideas, most times somewhere in your brain there is a "but". And in the rare case of an idea remaining genuine and fruitful, it instantly raises a chain reaction of inspiration, popping up new combinations, blasting open closed doors to long-forgotten memories, inducing feelings you would not have expected. It's those feelings and memories that stick, and in the end you rarely can remember what the original idea was. Not to speak of the additional filter process of putting it into spoken words or in any format onto paper (even harder for someone like me who has been personally isolated for a period about two to three times as long as the pandemic now and has considerably lost rhetoric capacity). It is kind of frustrating being nostalgic despite wanting to be innovative.
Young children are astonishingly creative. School is said to kick their creativity out of their heads. Maybe school simply puts those filters on.
Here on Eka's i am fine with people not thinking too hard. And i appologize to everyone who has problems with the fact that I am not able to follow their example.

I deleted a HUGE paragraph I drafted here on "naming things". I wanted to make a side approach to pop culture/sociolects via youth language and that and why it is better to use a more common language (even for experts doing scientific texts for other experts which is supposed in a study I sadly do not find anymore). I wanted to express the general advice that it may be a good idea to put in some nerdy terms that give good google results, but keep the language less niche-y because - short said - the number of people fitting into anyones niche is one. Instead I gave a Abe Simpson schtik. Sorry. That's when your mind is not a sniper gun but has "front toward enemy" written on it.
So just this: in your text it was "tauric" that irritated me, interpreting it as 'bovine' first. It gives no fitting google results, google image search is a little bit better. Beetaur does give better google results, but it's hidden in the tags. And having to google because something is not explained in your text may distract and redirect readers.

So the centaurs originally were mounted archers, that's interesting. That's how the conquistadores must have appeared to the native americans from the distance, like a kind of centaurs, as horses were unknown in the Americas and they were not used to mounting animals there. Their armours could even have appeared to be shiny exoskeletons. Some kind of Clarke's Third Law at work in real life.

Well, I am relaxed, but why should I give up a technique of escapism that may not be optimal but works for me fair enough. Also see Clark's Law number two.

Posted by Aril_Lisidmuthir 3 years ago Report

Yeah that's what happens I guess when language changes the original meaning. I assumed I could use the word "Tauric" as a way of saying "More like a centaur" than "More like a cow" because "centauric" probably would sound tryhardy.

And actually, speaking of Conquistadores... that's also in the lore of the world. Except imagine them all as bulls. Both the anthro version and the mountable version. They'd be riding on the backs of their friends, both dressed in heavy armour and both would be carrying guns to conquer the native lands for gold.
While the Aztec equivalents would Axolotl demis... so you'd have very hard to kill jungle warriors VS armoured soldiers with firepower.

Posted by stratokummulus 3 years ago Report

I think "more like a centaur" would be clear.

I try to imagine under which circumstances "both rider and mount armed" would give a clear tactical advantage compared to just armed riders. Depends on weapon technology, of cause, but mostly I think it would "simply" amount to "shock and awe":
In the americas they had stone weapons, really sharp but heavy and slow. I guess stone arrows did not pierce the metal armour. The rapier was a long, light and fast weapon which allowed parade and riposte, making it easy to kill quite a number of attackers in a short time without much exhaustion, quivalent to the chainsaw against zombies in Mythbusters.
It also depends on the organization of the army. To say the aztecs were hated by their neighbors may be an understatement since they used them as godfodder and kept eternal warfare on them for harvest (the ongoing war reminds me of the spartiates/helots thing called crypteia to keep the outnumbering helots down). I think, without having other natives as their allies Cortez would not have succeeded, even with his own men being very disciplined knowing there is no way back as Cortez burned down their ships. They hardly escaped from what is now Mexico City. Contrast this to what Pizarro's 170 men did to thousands of incas on their own. Shot two guns for disarrangement (shock and awe) and then mowing the incas down with their rapiers. It's said that there were only two of them wound at the end. The reaction when the respecive kings were captured was also much different.
Also, diseases took a main role on the long run. I guess the species barriers in your world would reduce that effect.
I myself do not understand the greed for gold. In the long run the gold and silver imports from america were a curse to europe, leading to a massive inflation, and in the end the Spanish ruin. The real "gold" we got from the americas is maiz and potatoes. And tomatoes, paprika, pumpkins, paprika, beans, paprika, ... And chili, which are actualy spicy small paprika.

Recovering from wounds and regrowing limbs in my eyes is more a psychological or a strategic advantage than a tactical one - unless they are Dragonballs Z characters (how many of them does it take to change a lightbulb again?). This reminds me slightly of the "strategy" the Romans did against Hannibal. One Roman army was erradicated after the other. And then quasi "regrown". Can you imagine Hannibal's frustration? And he did not dare to attack the capital to finish off his opponent for years - without supply which the Romans cut off.

By the way, in the "masked singer" show here in Germany one singer currently is dressed as axolotl. If your demi-axolotls had the same singing "talent", maybe they could use their voices as weapons. :roll: Well, the costume is cute.

Posted by Aril_Lisidmuthir 3 years ago Report

The world has magic on both sides. So the Aztecs would have had support from their own priests and mages, etc.
But so would have the Spanish. And they'd have the guns to back them up as well.

But you do have a point. And I'm thinking that the Axolotl-men were not well-liked by their neighbours because their ability to regenerate quickly and carnivorous diet would mean they'd need new sources of food and territory.

And when I say fast regeneration, Sospin for example can cut off a finger and have a new one in less than a minute. Losing a hand? Maybe a minute and another to have it functional. So when you take down an Axolotl-man, you have to make sure they're dead or they may just get up from a "mortal" wound an hour or a day later depending on the damage incurred. Headshots still work... but best make sure to put a few bullets in the head and decapitate them. So if they do survive, they'll have to regrow their bodies.

Not all of them had that sort of insane regeneration; just the ones who were "Blessed by the Feathered Serpent" like for example Sospin's father's bloodline. They would have been the ruling elite of the society. The regular Axolotl-men would have taken a lot less time to recover fully and need less healing magic.

Posted by stratokummulus 3 years ago Report

Well, magic is one of my blind spots. In my opinion one should use it wisely - when writing a story. It is too easy to create a deus ex machina which may turn readers off.

Posted by Aril_Lisidmuthir 3 years ago Report

Yeah, magic is... I try not to think too hard about how the spells could be used... then I do.
I want to avoid the typical "Why do they teach kids dangerous magical spells?" scenario found in many books about magical worlds.
Especially when it comes to love potion plots or memory erasers.

Posted by stratokummulus 3 years ago Report

I think Terry Pratchett had a nice approach on magic, it was something like: It takes you the same effort learning magic as you save later applying it. Some kind of first law of thermodynamics. Makes a balanced world.

Posted by Aril_Lisidmuthir 3 years ago Report

Well there is some real world-breaking stuff involved with magic... and the application of magic and tech. Because why should the two be mutually exclusive? Enchanted firearms for everyone! :D