Well done sir. Well done indeed.

Still around. I'm happy to see activity, but I would be happier seeing more.

In rather unrelated news: The Savage Worlds compendium for Sci-Fi came out, and I've tried mapping the Endless Space races over. Main problem areas are (A) all robotic races, because Construct is a really massively powerful trait, and you run out of ideas for fitting negative traits and (B) the Cravers, which are Huge, Four-Armed, Cybernetically Tolerant and so on. Balancing a race that canon as declared as being extremely powerful fighters isn't easy. I've run into the same trouble when trying to make Krogan work for a Mass Effect Savage World setting.

Say, who else is writing an entry for the Unfallen population Quest? Because I know I am.

I'm too busy battling the effects of hardcore karaoke at unreasonable times. The contest seems interesting though.

Are you still playing and if yes, is there a slot for me?

I am really in  love with RP; playing pen and paper for more than three decades (oh gosh, I am a dinosaur ;) )

So combining RP with my new love Endless Space would be really great. At the moment I am reading what you have played so far.

Ah yes, and English is not my mother tongue.

We are still playing and there should be a slot depending on what you want to join as . It is just going a bit slow right now because of the ruin beeing one long scene with many chars

Great, thanks for the quick reply. Well, first I will finish reading the RP thread and then I will come back here with some character ideas.

We could certainly use new and motivated players. We'll find a way for you to join, no worries.

Thanks! I am still reading, but perhaps you can need a Z'vali communication officer?

Oh hey, a new person. That was unexpected. 

Hmm, I now came across the second line of Zeros occupation on the ship and of course I do not want a clash of positions.

My Z'vali would be more of the Xenolinguistic side, so more into translations. The basic idea (have to flesh this out a little bit more) is that he realizes that in Virtual reality there are not just games, but also learning software. So he just "inhaled" every information he could find, so he knows a lot of this and that (but lacks of course total the realpractical doing of things (like for example cooking, he knows recipies and saw a lot of tutorials, but never even boiled water). However, he is most fascinated in languages, how they develop, the endless language(s), etc.

Here just a question about the background lore: Are the different races in the galaxy using translators (like in Star Trek) or is there a kind of common language? I guess it is the first, but who knows.

My thought process was that every society has its own unique language, but there is a 'Galactic Common' language and the races can use tech to help with speaking it. For synthetic races like Sowers, Automatons, and possibly even the Riftborn, they could instantly learn a new language by downloading the PDF file or whatever and then start speaking it technically perfectly. Tech savvy races like Sophons and Z'vali probably have some hardware or implants that can act as a mechanism for the language to be learned or even translated on the fly. For less sophisticated races, like most of the others in the galaxy, some of them might have implants while others have to fall back on old-fashioned reading.

For my character, it's weird; the Vodyani are a synthetic race by every definition and are based on Endless tech, but they have no apparent way of downloading knowledge like most constructs. However, they lead very rigid, studious lives and have all the time in the galaxy to learn, so I like to think Valorum picked up Galactic Common through book-learning but also knows the Vodyani 'Eternal' language.

So I guess the answer to your question is 'both'.

That is a very good question. Untill recently i assumed that scientists of all races know the endless language from ruins and used that to create translations for their races . Given how fast they translate each others languages in game . I think galactic common is possible but more advanced races will mostly rely on translation software.  

I think a xenolinguist is a good idea , but they would often not be needed for simple translation but because of their knowledge of the tiny details of races . Stuff like body language so to say . 

To the riftborn: i am not sure if they could simply download information.  See they are more like pulsos , sentient matter , than like revenants,  which are programmes running in a movable body .

I think we should have more often lore analysing in this thread 

AIMMO wrote:

I think we should have more often lore analysing in this thread 

Lore discussions are good so that we all agree on how certain aspects of the roleplay work, but remember that this is not a worldbuilding thread. When questions arise (like now), then we should discuss it, but no need to start a discussion about things that don't affect us at this moment, like how Lumeris loos look like.

To the question at hand, I haven't given it much thought so far, just intuitively went with the assumption of there being some kind of lingua franca that everyone in the group speaks. How each race learns that language isn't that relevant, compared to how they can speak it. Humans, Lumeris, Z'vali, Gnashast, Haroshem and others all have a visible mouth and therefore most likely can pronounce the same kinds of phonemes as we, although possibly with rather severe accents compared to each other. Robotic races, like Sower, Epistis, Remnant etc can just reproduce any sound with a speakers. Cravers use artificial voiceboxes, which is no problem given their approach to cybernetics, and most likely the same goes for Niris, since underwater sounds don't travel well in air, and most likely also Tikanan, although we haven't seen them use one on pictures. As an insectoid race, they produce completely different sounds compared to a throat and mouth.

That leaves a few oddballs: Amoeba probably talk telepathically somehow, since they're astrally projecting themselves anyway. Bhagaba, Pulsos and Unfallen all lack a visible mouth or other sound-producing system, so I have no idea how they could work. The Riftborn, beind less robots and more robot-shapes projections of extradimensional entities, only fall arguably into the same category as the other mechanical lifeforms.

And probably the greatest trouble for the roleplay: Whether or not Vodyani speak in mouth-phonemes depends on whether the Endless did. But on the pictures we have of the Endless, they are lacking a mouth.

I agree on only discussing rp relevant stuff . I agree on most of the voice explanations . For vodyany though i think there was a mention of turning of speakers of an suit as punishment. Need to check that when i am home

Thanks for all your input on this question. As soon as I heard of this RP thread, these kinds of questions were popping up in my mind while playing.

Still, I am not sure about the Xenolinguist concept- if you are feeling ok with it. I liked the input of Aimmo with adding the body language to it and with this also some chunk of Xenopsychology.

Otherwise, if you feel better if I just flesh out a Redshirt, I can go with this at well- might make the incorporation easier.

Just wait for an ok, then I can go for the real character generation.

I like the idea of a xenelogist , it just needs some sync on behaviour of species . I am actually impressed we hadnt had a scene with a dissagrement because of information beeing lost in translation ...

AIMMO wrote:

I am actually impressed we hadnt had a scene with a dissagrement because of information beeing lost in translation ...

Actually, there was the scene where Ylona said she has a son and Valorum didn't know the word. Which also led to Ylona snapping at him for calling her "Sister" all the time, because Vaulters have a very different understanding of family compared to Vodyani.

and I read the scene, where the Craver was crashing the door because he misunderstood Zeros :)