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ways_back_room2014-04-22 05:55 am
bjornwilde) wrote in ways_back_room2014-04-22 05:55 am
Entry tags:
DE: One from the vault
I am brain dead this morning, so one from camwyn :
What's something taken for granted, or at least considered normal, in your pup's canon that would be completely bizarre or unthinkable in another Bar pup's canon? (e.g., sexism/class structure assumptions/slavery in an historical canon; the casual acceptance of thinking machines in many SF canons to a character from Frank Herbert's Dune; things like that.)
camwyn :What's something taken for granted, or at least considered normal, in your pup's canon that would be completely bizarre or unthinkable in another Bar pup's canon? (e.g., sexism/class structure assumptions/slavery in an historical canon; the casual acceptance of thinking machines in many SF canons to a character from Frank Herbert's Dune; things like that.)
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The fact that there is a multitude of murderous monsters who will hide amongst the population, kill people, assume the forms of the dead to fool you, and launch massive murder plans in early Autumn of each year, is just accepted as one of those facts of life, like the common cold or bad weather.
For Sherral, er, probably quite a lot. The Archadian Empire isn't portrayed as evil, per se, but it's definitely quite alien to modern sensibilities, and not in a good way. Their very rigid class structure, their very widespread speciesism (it's almost certainly to save on character models, but only humes can serve in the Archadian military. Seeq, bangaa, moogles, viera, nu mou, etc, nope, nada), their extremely imperialistic nature.
What stands out the most is the entanglement of their legal system and military - the Judges, a military order that essentially forms the leadership of the Archadian military, are permitted to accuse people of crimes, pass a verdict, decide upon a sentence and then immediately execute that sentence without any kind of oversight, save perhaps higher ranking judges, and there's nothing to suggest that this is viewed as at all strange by the populace.
Oh, and Mist. More than once, when Sherral has explained that it's gaseous magic, he has received the response "... But that's impossible."
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And wow had that not occurred to me.
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Sounds like Hogwarts. "Oh, it's almost summer. Time to get ready for the annual Voldemort attack."
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Droids and therefore Artificial Intelligence are everywhere in the Star Wars Universe. Faster than Light travel is a regular thing and how a lot of commerce happens. And in her time, as opposed to Han Solo's, the general public knows that the Force is a thing that exists. They probably can't use it themselves, but with thousands of Sith and Jedi around they know that OTHER people can use it. There are even soldiers specially trained to deal with Force Users.
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Edward Kenway's from 1715. Nobody's abolished slavery yet, and while there are plenty of free black men and women in the Caribbean they're still routinely considered second- or third-class at best. His fellow former-privateers-turned-outright-pirates were surprised that he would allow Adéwalé to carry a pistol in-game, at least at first. Also there's the part where in his canon, sighting a whale is grounds for 'stop the ship, we need fresh meat'. Characters from canons taking place in the United States or western Europe after the mid-twentieth century (and probably quite a few other places as well) would just kind of jawdrop at that, I'm pretty sure.
Medic's canon went completely insane after I stopped playing it, so I have no idea what the hell is going on in actual canon. I'm just going to go with what was happening the last time I fired up TF2 and say that the part where RED and BLU have wars that take place during restricted business hours seems to give people pause.
Stacker Pentecost's canon has three hundred foot tall giant monsters for which the most reasonable approach was to build giant robot suits to punch them in the face. 'Nuff said.
Varric's... hrm. The problem with normal stuff that other canons would find unthinkable is that Varric is from a medieval fantasy canon, and the majority of characters in Milliways seem to come from canons in which medieval fantasy settings are at least a known thing and thus a lot of people would hear about stuff in Thedas and go 'oh, well, it has magic and kings and monsters, that's going to happen in a world like that'. Maybe the treatment of mages? Since people tend to assume that if you have magic you can do whatever you want, and if you're a magic user isolated in a tower you're probably doing it because you want to get away from the rest of society, rather than because very nervous people with large swords want to keep you from messing with your fellow humans and/or elves- oh, yeah, the elf thing. Hearing that a fantasy setting has institutionalized racism with walled ghettoes and that elves are second-class citizens at best is probably pretty shocking to people familiar with fantasy canons. Also that the few elves who are of the Magical Shiny One With Nature variety are unwanted nomads viewed by civilized society as a bunch of annoyances at best and the equivalent of violent Basque separatists at worst. Not really something you expect to hear.
El Santo's world is one where it is perfectly normal for Martians to invade Mexico City, evil scientists to raise dead monsters, former Nazis to put Earthbound missiles on the moon, and all be stopped by a wrestler in a silver mask. It is like this in lucha movies in general even if it does cause characters from more sane canons to develop nosebleeds.
And Ellen's world just kind of takes it for granted that radiation either kills you horribly or mutates you into walking raw meat; that it's possible to survive a nuclear war, although not very desirable; that people routinely live in horrible conditions and don't leave because the alternative is even worse; that household robots were and to some degree still are a fact of life but that tiny computers and color television were so bizarre they were barely even considered in science fiction; and that the Chinese were America's hereditary archenemy for decades while the Soviet Union was relegated to the status of a few vague side mentions at best.
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Elle's world is actually pretty typical for the bar fare, especially as the one thing that made it non-mundane, so to speak, was something also largely hidden until very recently, so.
Will has sort of been told more than once that at least he only has to deal with mundane-human-murderers, though that's probably in part because he doesn't actually describe his human murderers. ("Death tableaux" why.)
Marceline, um, has the Mushroom War, which basically means anything she says about her world ever tends to confuse people. And as she knows little about her world pre-War, everything they say about their worlds tends to confuse her, too! (There are so many humans! So many.)
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But he's totally on-board with the benders'/furycrafters' "No, it is not magic please just stop I give up trying to explain" woes.
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PINE.
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Mulan: That a land mass can be known simply as the Enchanted Forest or that a political sovereignty simply as The Empire.
Jess: The people can come back from the dead, though not as often as you think.
Brimstone: That angels can be horrendous monsters and devils can be wise and noble.
Hank: Not sure how to answer since mutants are supposed to be a secret as is his technology.
Andrea: That magic can come and go like tides through out the day.
Anton: There is nothing to see here.
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Hahaha... ha... yeah. *shakes head at Commander Zilyana so much*
Though, I should qualify that. The general populace on Gielinor does not know just how bad Saradomin's angels, or more properly, the icyene, can be. Human lives are short and so is their collective memory, especially because of Saradomist propaganda. But those that know of Commander Zilyana's zealous actions tend to dismiss it as 'war is war' and brush it off. Demons aren't exactly noble either, though. Ocellus had good intentions from a Guthixian perspective, but went off the deep end when he started encouraging eugenic practices. There is also Ux, who might turn out to be a wise and noble demon, but not much is known about him yet.
I think that the fact that magic is only available to humans because of runestones (mostly) and that magic is so easy because of runestones that even inherently magical races sometimes use them is something that might shock pups from other canons where magic exists. The economy will probably seem backwards and upside-down to some, since metals are so plentiful and extractable near Gielinor's surface. Yet, gold (and rarely silver) is still used as a currency base because of its chemical stability. The egalitarian balance of most societies genderwise might also be surprising.
The way the Kharidian people view Amascut is surprising even to the rest of Gielinor. The goddess of destruction is not evil; she's dangerous, and perhaps crazy, but she is a fact of life and maybe even a necessity. Not some evil foe to be vanquished. Someone to be avoided and shunned, sure. Of course, the Adventurer is not Kharidian.
And... erm... slaves... slavery is still practiced in the southern Kharid and parts of the Feldip Hills and likely in other parts of the world. Most of it is one species enslaving another, but in the southern Kharid it is humans enslaving other humans.
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And as to slavery, that might be the one subject Brimstone may not be able to keep his cool about.
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If a player needs healing after murdering many Otherworldy Beings, the fairy nurse will question why you would kill Otherworldy Beings since they are generally friendly, but will shrug it off, accept payment for her services, and heal you. I would say it is just a gameplay issue, but it is baked into character dialog in so many places besides that. Probably also the reason Amascut has been able to get away with what she does for so long.
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Eriond: Probably the sentience of the Prophecy. Other than that, Standard High Fantasy.
Lois: Metropolis is in Kansas?! Given how many people are from/know about the DCU or superheroes, where Metropolis is probably wins for confusing. That and possibly "WTF why is Kryptonite giving people weird powers."
Tavi: Furycrafting. "No, it's not magi-- fine, if it makes this easier it's magic." Slavery, though to be fair Tavi doesn't understand that either and literally one of the very first things he does when he has near-absolute power is abolish it with a vengeance. The nuances of their social class system are odd. The entire history of lost Roman legion turns into thing later is probably a little odd. Giant wolf men, yeti, the Marat, and the Vord are probably all minorly bizarre depending on the person. Some of the politics. Possibly, when he does finally begin to talk about it, his family history. For something which is often Very Typical High Fantasy Alera can be... odd.
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And yeah, I figure at some point Felix just started going "Okay, I'm in Milliways, so I just won't use the word Psynergy." When "magic" gives a close-enough idea...
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WTF, do you want to give a standing invitation to anyone who might come to your door? Augh.
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Mia takes for granted that magic is widespread knowledge, even to what her husband would call muggles. She has to really watch her language and actions when visiting different worlds. When she inevitably slips up, she says she does the other kind of "magic" for a living and starts rattling on about sleight of hand tricks.
Lohengrin takes for granted that winter is not safe. That's the time when the Raven and his crows are strongest in his world. Anyone who speaks pleasantly about going out during that time of year is met with an odd stare.
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Mutants for Charles though compared to many Milliways' worlds, they're not that weird, but some of what they can do.
Ivan, compared to the other sci-fi worlds, his isn't too odd though the fact that Barrayar is an Imperium and still has a sort of aristocratic class confuses people as that's not always expected in a future world. I need to play him more.
The Charter for Sameth, that the magic is the world, walking in Death, sensing the Dead and everything connected to how stuff works.
William and Jane are from fairly historical worlds so usually its more that they're from the time they're from that causes moments of huh.
With Moist, what tends to get people is that the Disc is a disc on the backs of four elephants and great A'tuin. Moist finds it amusing how people will accept the magic, the various creatures but flat world, now he must be lying.
Demeter, the existence of her and her family.
Tumnus, it seems to be the Talking Animals that get the most huh moments of all the aspects of Narnia and how humans are a minority.
The Pirate King, everyone sings and there's only a passing glance at history.
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For Thor, the fact that science and magic are the same thing. That might be the big one -- a lot of people have context for superheroes and warrior cultures and such, and it probably helps that Thor slots tidily into an Earth pantheon (even if in his canon he's not actually a god.)
For Clare, the pervasive and mostly quite realistic fear of yoma. You certainly can live a life without ever encountering one, but they're widespread and they hide inside your neighbors' or family members' shapes and they're always hungry, and as far as most people are concerned it's just luck that saves or kills you. The fact that Claymores are instantly recognized as not human, and as scary. (The fashion. So many pointless straps.)
For River and Regan, probably the technology level, though there are also plenty of people with context for that. Maybe how everyone's bilingual? (Even though being bilingual doesn't actually work that way.)
For Trowa: successful (for now) world peace. The ages of some world leaders -- not sure if we have any teenaged world leaders kicking around right now, though it depends on if there are any upstarts and on what Mariemaia is up to, but several of the people in power now are only in their twenties or early thirties after several years in government. Giant battle robots as the common and accepted way of waging war.
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