Body language and Traipah, plus culture
I've been working on this Traipah story called "Culture Shock," which is about humans moving to Traipah without enough preparation, and finding it very difficult to adjust. I have the human characters hailing from a colony world that's a lot like our society now, so they're like a stand-in for us. I've been having fun remembering existing Traipahni cultural things that they'll have issues with, of which there are many, and making a few new ones along the way. But the core of the story is making the humans feel, on Traipah, like people on the autism spectrum here feel now.
I was originally going to use this emotive language I came up with for the AKB, which was essentially a subconsciously-used vocabulary of sounds representing different emotions. But it feels unnatural, and it contradicts previously established canon, so I'm scrapping that, rewriting everything I've already written. I came up with a new system anyway, one which feels natural and makes sense. What I've changed it to is that pretty much everybody on Traipah is empathic, and they've been this way so long that most have forgotten how to read most body language. And what's more, the AKB - while looking almost exactly like humans - have an entirely different body language than humans do. A lot of their body language directly contradicts our own, and there's just SO much opportunity for misunderstandings there. Especially since I've come up with an outline of the different ESP abilities which puts humans on such a different empathic "channel" from AKB that only Active Empaths, IE empaths that can reach into people's minds to feel their emotions as opposed to just picking up passive broadcasts, are able to read human emotions. So characters who can read human emotions, like Nokwahl can - from other stories in the same 'verse - are... uncommon. At least compared to other empaths. But it works because "active" ESP is open to other channels, so they don't have to actually violate someone's mind to get an emotional read on them, just keep switching channels until they find the one the passive transmission is on. (Though some species, like the Xazis, don't broadcast their thoughts, and so reading their minds can be very challenging and painful.)
One of the unexpected side benefits of the work I'm doing on this story has been the cultural aspects I've been adding. Like clothing (when they wear it), body decorations, jewelry, festivals, and various sorts of things that are sounding like ideas I want to adopt in my own life if I can. Which is great, because I've wanted ideas like that for YEARS. For years I've been wanting Traipahni cultural things I can do in my own life to feel closer to my spirituality, and the prelim work for this story is providing ideas towards that. Which, funnily enough, most of that is coming from my focus on the youth culture of Traipah, since there are two kids in the family who will be attending school on Traipah, and thus will become immersed in the local youth culture.
For another challenge, Griiahkah - the city they've chosen to live in - is not as familiar with humans as other cities, as it isn't a tourist attraction yet, and is more traditional in the sense that they've literally been using the same computers in the city for the last few thousand years1, so their AI - while more impressive than what we have nowadays - is nowhere near on par with what they'd have in Grah'Bah'Nah'Scia. So the computers there don't know any Terran languages, and the family is poor, so until the kids learn TPNN, the family has to kludge together an adaptation to the language barrier using their own cheap and shitty tech that they brought with them, and trying to interface it with Griiahkah's ancient tech. Which should prove amusing.
Could they try another city, one more familiar with humans, with more people who speak English or other Terran languages? Yes. But A. This is more fun. B. By the time the mother feels like giving up, the kids are already adapting and have friends. She's already moved them away from their friends once, she doesn't feel like doing it again. Also, for all their struggles, life on Traipah really is better than life on their home colony.
One last note: There are parts of the story I've written already that are too good to scrap. Like the scene where they're trying to figure out the bathrooms, that's just too hilarious to leave out. :-)
1 = Things on Traipah are designed to last a hella long time.
This was cross-posted from http://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1291654.html
You can comment either here or there.
I was originally going to use this emotive language I came up with for the AKB, which was essentially a subconsciously-used vocabulary of sounds representing different emotions. But it feels unnatural, and it contradicts previously established canon, so I'm scrapping that, rewriting everything I've already written. I came up with a new system anyway, one which feels natural and makes sense. What I've changed it to is that pretty much everybody on Traipah is empathic, and they've been this way so long that most have forgotten how to read most body language. And what's more, the AKB - while looking almost exactly like humans - have an entirely different body language than humans do. A lot of their body language directly contradicts our own, and there's just SO much opportunity for misunderstandings there. Especially since I've come up with an outline of the different ESP abilities which puts humans on such a different empathic "channel" from AKB that only Active Empaths, IE empaths that can reach into people's minds to feel their emotions as opposed to just picking up passive broadcasts, are able to read human emotions. So characters who can read human emotions, like Nokwahl can - from other stories in the same 'verse - are... uncommon. At least compared to other empaths. But it works because "active" ESP is open to other channels, so they don't have to actually violate someone's mind to get an emotional read on them, just keep switching channels until they find the one the passive transmission is on. (Though some species, like the Xazis, don't broadcast their thoughts, and so reading their minds can be very challenging and painful.)
One of the unexpected side benefits of the work I'm doing on this story has been the cultural aspects I've been adding. Like clothing (when they wear it), body decorations, jewelry, festivals, and various sorts of things that are sounding like ideas I want to adopt in my own life if I can. Which is great, because I've wanted ideas like that for YEARS. For years I've been wanting Traipahni cultural things I can do in my own life to feel closer to my spirituality, and the prelim work for this story is providing ideas towards that. Which, funnily enough, most of that is coming from my focus on the youth culture of Traipah, since there are two kids in the family who will be attending school on Traipah, and thus will become immersed in the local youth culture.
For another challenge, Griiahkah - the city they've chosen to live in - is not as familiar with humans as other cities, as it isn't a tourist attraction yet, and is more traditional in the sense that they've literally been using the same computers in the city for the last few thousand years1, so their AI - while more impressive than what we have nowadays - is nowhere near on par with what they'd have in Grah'Bah'Nah'Scia. So the computers there don't know any Terran languages, and the family is poor, so until the kids learn TPNN, the family has to kludge together an adaptation to the language barrier using their own cheap and shitty tech that they brought with them, and trying to interface it with Griiahkah's ancient tech. Which should prove amusing.
Could they try another city, one more familiar with humans, with more people who speak English or other Terran languages? Yes. But A. This is more fun. B. By the time the mother feels like giving up, the kids are already adapting and have friends. She's already moved them away from their friends once, she doesn't feel like doing it again. Also, for all their struggles, life on Traipah really is better than life on their home colony.
One last note: There are parts of the story I've written already that are too good to scrap. Like the scene where they're trying to figure out the bathrooms, that's just too hilarious to leave out. :-)
1 = Things on Traipah are designed to last a hella long time.
This was cross-posted from http://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1291654.html
You can comment either here or there.