27 [TEXT]
I've been working on this map--it should be done within the next couple days, with luck--and it's gotten me to thinking.
We elves are the only ones here who seem to be able to read this foreign language, correct? The only ones who don't see a foreign script where everyone else unfamiliar with "English" does? The Commander assumed it was something the scientists did, but it doesn't make sense to me for them to toy with us in such a manner and no one else. We aren't special, after all; we have been granted no more allowances than anyone else in this place.
This train of thought has made me reach a very interesting question--what if it wasn't the scientists at all? What if it's just part of who and what we are?
Think about it--back home, how many styles of writing do we have? Just one. How many spoken languages do we have? Last I checked, the current count was up to four--Common, Marauder, Lurker, and Old Precurian.
I know there aren't many people left on our world, but does no one else find that the least bit odd? Over time, with the main cities so completely cut off from each other that they formed different spoken languages, there should have been shifts in our writing forms as well.
But there hasn't been. Not even a little. We've written things using the exact same alphabet since before the time of Mar, since before the Precursors disappeared. What if that isn't because we somehow kept to traditions for thousands of years, but because that's all we, as a species, can see?
I'm not religious by any means, mind you, but the Precursors did leave us quite a lot when they disappeared. The ability to harness eco, the old Sages, their technology, our writings and religions--we have it all only because they left it for us to put together. But we can't exactly put things together if we can't understand one another, or the teachings the Precursors wrote and left behind. There have always been too few of us to leave that sort of thing to chance, to just hope that it would all work out.
So what if we can read this "English" not because the scientists reprogrammed us, but because it's been drilled into our genetic makeup? Spoken languages still sound different, but everything I've seen written here has been something I can understand.
I know it's a strange line of thought, but it makes about as much sense as anything else, right?
We elves are the only ones here who seem to be able to read this foreign language, correct? The only ones who don't see a foreign script where everyone else unfamiliar with "English" does? The Commander assumed it was something the scientists did, but it doesn't make sense to me for them to toy with us in such a manner and no one else. We aren't special, after all; we have been granted no more allowances than anyone else in this place.
This train of thought has made me reach a very interesting question--what if it wasn't the scientists at all? What if it's just part of who and what we are?
Think about it--back home, how many styles of writing do we have? Just one. How many spoken languages do we have? Last I checked, the current count was up to four--Common, Marauder, Lurker, and Old Precurian.
I know there aren't many people left on our world, but does no one else find that the least bit odd? Over time, with the main cities so completely cut off from each other that they formed different spoken languages, there should have been shifts in our writing forms as well.
But there hasn't been. Not even a little. We've written things using the exact same alphabet since before the time of Mar, since before the Precursors disappeared. What if that isn't because we somehow kept to traditions for thousands of years, but because that's all we, as a species, can see?
I'm not religious by any means, mind you, but the Precursors did leave us quite a lot when they disappeared. The ability to harness eco, the old Sages, their technology, our writings and religions--we have it all only because they left it for us to put together. But we can't exactly put things together if we can't understand one another, or the teachings the Precursors wrote and left behind. There have always been too few of us to leave that sort of thing to chance, to just hope that it would all work out.
So what if we can read this "English" not because the scientists reprogrammed us, but because it's been drilled into our genetic makeup? Spoken languages still sound different, but everything I've seen written here has been something I can understand.
I know it's a strange line of thought, but it makes about as much sense as anything else, right?