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Post by Andrew on May 7, 2015 1:54:51 GMT
Fortunomancer, I apologize for my mistake with your title. I have corrected that post and will try to avoid similar mistakes in the future.
Our electric lights are devices that, when supplied with electricity, glow brightly. They are inexpensive, although they ofter stop working and need to be replaced. The electricity is generated centrally using various methods, and is also relatively inexpensive in much of the world. Thus, people can have most areas well-lit at night without the risk of open fire for very little money, much less than the minimum wage to hire a person to do something for them.
We can also use electricity and some of the same concepts behind recording sound to transmit sound from one place to another using a device appropriately called a telephone, which is again relatively inexpensive and does not require nearly as many people to operate it as I imagine would be required to allow any two people in the country to talk to each other with telemancy whenever they wished.
Assuming you can teleport with passengers, and depending on how one reads the recordings (our audio and video recordings can be read with further electric devices), it sounds like your magical technology is more advanced than our non-magical technology in most other areas except space travel and perhaps the broadcast of sound and video (used for entertainment and information). In general, it seems like you can do more stuff than we can, but what we can do is more scalable and better available to the average person.
Is there a reason you could not teleport to places beyond your planet as long as you were able to identify a location that was hospitable to life or you had taken appropriate safety precautions?
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Post by Fortunomancer on May 7, 2015 2:50:18 GMT
Andrew,
Your observations on the relative merits of telephones as compared to telemancy are correct. Some smaller communities have set up telemancy networks that are similar to telephones, but it would be difficult or impossible to initiate on a large-scale level.
It is possible to teleport with passengers. Teleporting becomes more difficult over longer distances, but otherwise, there is nothing preventing us from teleporting to locations beyond the atmosphere of Mysis assuming the given caveats apply.
This sounds accurate. The scalability of technology is appealing.
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Cardea
Poster
words
Posts: 34
World: Adunka
Pronoun: she
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Post by Cardea on May 7, 2015 8:41:27 GMT
Leaf, without getting into your personal medical history, is it just for the last instar that your humans use the artificial puparia? Or are they also used for larva who are predicted to have trouble moulting in earlier instars?
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Post by Leaf on May 7, 2015 12:04:12 GMT
Humans don't metamorphose in my world; we only have one continuous stage of gestation between conception and birth, and after birth we don't do any more gestation-like or metamorphosis-like things for the rest of our lives.
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Cardea
Poster
words
Posts: 34
World: Adunka
Pronoun: she
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Post by Cardea on May 7, 2015 16:36:34 GMT
Wow! That's interesting. You don't outgrow yourself?
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Post by Leaf on May 7, 2015 16:53:35 GMT
As far as I understand what "outgrow yourself" means, no, I don't think we do.
Does your kind of human have an exoskeleton (a hard structure on the outside of your body)? My kind has an endoskeleton (hard structures on the inside of our bodies). You mentioned somewhere else that your kind has wings; my kind doesn't have those, either. We have (at least most of the time) two arms and two legs each, and that is all of our limbs.
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Cardea
Poster
words
Posts: 34
World: Adunka
Pronoun: she
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Post by Cardea on May 7, 2015 19:35:59 GMT
We have exoskeleton and 4 legs and 2 arms but our arms aren't really different from our legs they're just closer to our heads. Our adult forms have wings. Larva can understand but can't talk. I am in my adult form for several seasons now but my wing buds were removed for safety so I cannot speak. How does your kind of human talk without wings? I write with my hands and without magic, but most people don't understand me.
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Thorn
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Posts: 44
World: Eclipse
Pronoun: she/her/hers
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Post by Thorn on May 7, 2015 19:48:53 GMT
Several different ways; the oldest/most basic, at least in my world, is with, um, specific sets of sounds that mean specific things. It sounds like your communication is more visual.
Why were your wing buds removed?
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Post by Leaf on May 7, 2015 19:51:21 GMT
Your wing buds were removed for safety? That sounds... a little alarming. Is it okay if I ask what happened?
Thorn already explained a little about the kind of language my kind of human uses, while I was writing this message, but I'll try to explain it more.
My kind of human speaks by making sounds with our voices. We have mouths and throats that are good at reliably making many different sounds the same way over and over again, and ears that can hear those sounds. Words are made of sequences of sounds. Instead of looking at each other to understand speech, we listen.
Some of my kind of human can't hear or can't speak, and some of those humans made a different kind of language, where you speak by making gestures and movements with your hands and body, and understand speech by watching the speaker. That seems like it's more similar to your wing colour language, but still not quite the same.
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Cardea
Poster
words
Posts: 34
World: Adunka
Pronoun: she
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Post by Cardea on May 7, 2015 20:45:09 GMT
My mother did it to make me safe. She takes care of me.
I don't think I could make sounds like that, or that people would understand me if I did. How many sounds can you make at a time? Do you have to say them in order?
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Post by Leaf on May 7, 2015 20:50:58 GMT
We do have to say the sounds in order, and we can only make one sound at a time.
Why did having your wing buds removed make you safe?
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Post by Andrew on May 7, 2015 21:45:27 GMT
I explained our written communication earlier. The concept of “word” from that explanation is the same concept as when Leaf explained vocal communication. We use the same words for both types, but when writing the words are composed of letters and when speaking they are composed of sounds. The letters used when writing are usually roughly equivalent to the sounds used when speaking, and the letters also need to be in the correct order. We primarily use speech to communicate. There are some things that we can do in speech but not writing, and some things we can do in writing but not speech. It sounds like your primary method of communication is the same as your recorded communication, but expressed on wings instead of note-leafs. Is this correct, and is there any reason somebody with working wings would write on note-leafs other than to keep a record or to send to somebody else who wasn’t present? I, too, am curious why removing your wing buds makes you safe, and why you are not allowed to practice magic.
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Post by Botanical Engineer on May 7, 2015 22:15:39 GMT
Sometimes words are written with symbols that represent the meaning of a word, rather than the sounds a word makes.
Language seems not to be very inherently connected to biology. Should there be a new thread, or is it close enough to the subject?
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Post by Leaf on May 7, 2015 22:17:46 GMT
This conversation about language grew pretty organically out of one about biological differences. Wings versus vocal equipment, and all. But if someone wants to start a thread about structure of language, by all means, do so.
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Post by Mother Starlight on May 7, 2015 22:22:03 GMT
If you want to talk about language in a lot more detail, then a new thread might be a good idea. So far the discussion seems to be about how the anatomical differences affect major modes of communication (e.g. vocal cords, wing colors, hand gestures).
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