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File 139793146365.png - (24.10KB , 800x800 , BTE1op.png )
49496 No. 49496 ID: d470e9

Due to some recurring complaints/demands, neumono and all other assorted Lagotrope quests will now have their own ITQ.

To keep things clean, I'll be moving all isolated neumono posts/questions from ITQ 10 into this thread (although posts that involve both lago and non-lago questions will remain in ITQ, so there will still be some juxtaposition on this front.

This is largely an experiment, and depending how it goes, either this will have sequels, or everything will merge back to normal in ITQ 11.

Current main ITQ:
>>80766

Previous ITQs:
>>76582
>>68983
>>50332
>>343117
>>338649
>>327658
>>319591
>>313335
>>1754
Expand all images
>>
No. 80778 ID: 2c6ff1

Polo: Do you think your near-obsession with the firing range contributed to your ability to go silent? That sort of practice with extended concentration had to have helped.
>>
No. 80782 ID: d470e9
File 139744950214.png - (10.78KB , 612x615 , PoloITQ72.png )
80782

We're still answering questions in here.

>Does anyone make coffee cake better than Rokoa?
Yes. I doubt I will be able to top my mother's, but there may be obvious personal bias on that. Even so, there are proper chefs out there that specialize in sweets.

I will not refrain from saying that despite that, Rokoa's was excellent.

>Polo: Do you think your near-obsession with the firing range contributed to your ability to go silent? That sort of practice with extended concentration had to have helped.
It is likely, but there is no way to tell for certain. If I spent the time at the firing range on trying to go silent instead, perhaps it would have gone faster, or perhaps not. There is still much unknown about the process, and how I succeeded.
>>
No. 80783 ID: d470e9
File 139744955343.png - (11.76KB , 800x800 , AzITQ2.png )
80783

Kind of a dinky little megaphone, but it should work.

>That outfit you're wearing looks more like a robe than a military uniform...
>I can't help but wonder if you just got a little bit of action but a moment ago, if not even while your answering these questions.
Are these things related? Becase I can't help but wonder what getting action has to do with whether or not I'm in a bathrobe or in uniform.

>We've heard neumono norms tend to look down on that, and that it's uncommon. How's it look from your perspective? Are the interhive prudes in the majority, the minority, losing ground fast...?
Oh, appearing prude is in the majority, easy. Lots of people who are unwilling to go out of their hive, and look down on people who did. But you take a guy out of his hive and put him on lengthy, lonely duties, and he'll end up wanting to shove his junk up the first girl he sees. Vice versa for the girls. All that's significant is that hives generally don't get split up like that.

>I assume military rank is separate from that ultra leadership-pyramid?
Alright let me rephrase, it's not like a pyramid. It's like a pyramid if the top half were chopped off. You spend like 30, 50 years in the ultrahive, that's good enough for seniority. But otherwise yeah, someone can be admiral or whatever without being the king or queen of the hive.

>Since you don't seem to be at all choosy about your bedwarmers: top or bottom? Both at once?
I assume you're talking like, physical location, not some dom-sub kink whatever. In which case, yeah, top or bottom, or both at once. Hell, bring on the dogpiles.

>Are you choosy about species and if so, how would you rank them on likeability? I believe another neumono said that fur is important.
Most aliens I work with are all work and no play. Most. I've made buddies with a few of each kind. Belenos are probably my favorite to hang out with if I want to have a chill time. Wait, fur being important? Shit, you're talking about more sex again, aren't you. Well damn. Not really, then. Physically, yeah, they pass the bar, that's good and well, and I could even get past the bedroom incapatabilities. No empathy, though? That's not a good thing. Now, I might be able to roll along with that if we still managed to click. Thing is, I never really clicked with any, not like that.

That said, it's not like I've never gotten cozy with any. I've met some Pomi who can give some mean backrubs. Their claws are goddamn magical.

>How's Sealock doing in the ultrahive? Do they know what's going on with Polo? What role do they play in the ultrahive?
They're solid enough. Pretty early to tell, and Polo's obviously the celebrity of the group.

So far they're still finding their place, but we're thinking they'll be the spearhead in the whole "Operation: Get More Polos".

>how much influence does their queen have?
Pretty calm. Like I say, they haven't gotten too far yet, it's just been a few months, but they look like they're capable of going places once they hit a stride.

>How good are they in bed?
I'm thinking I'm making myself look like I hump everything that moves. I haven't talked with 'em a whole bunch. Rakae didn't look half bad, but you know, she came to me worried sick about Polo. Trying to see how Sealock is in bed right then and there was, how to put it cleanly, fucked up.
>>
No. 80787 ID: 57a559

>>80783
We ask about Sex in here a lot because sex is the most easiest way to humans to understand others, the way they fuck, eat and kill being very important to their base characteristics, as it was very important base. So that's why humans are all perverts.

Plus super intimate and you learn shit about people you bone how they bone, same way if they're killing you but honestly that's super taboo to be the killer and ultra taboo to be the one getting killed. They both end super badly.

Then you also have dinner parties to also get to know someone, you know, to pay attention how they eat. Which is usually why it's typical for humans to have dinner, then have sex. I mean, honestly, if they can't pass the first test on finding an acceptable social partner, how could they past the second?

Dinners and Sex are our form of your empathy connections.
So asking about your sexual habits tells us a lot about you, more than just giving us boners. I mean, honestly, if we wanted just to get a boner, we would just go to PornHub. Which reminds me, I'm curious, what DO you think of porno sites.

What do you think of humans, or if what I said above might match your own observations of humans or are yours WWWWAAAAYYY different?

And, absolutely necessary question that must be asked of any soldier, what is best in life?
>>
No. 80788 ID: 75b8af

>Most aliens I work with are all work and no play.
Probably due to the fact that most people who get assigned working with offworld leaders and governments, tend to be of a certain personality type. Or they never would have gotten the job in the first place.
>>
No. 80838 ID: 0ee153

Could a neumono survive without a skeleton long enough to regrow one? Ignoring the complications of actually removing one, such as blood loss and/or infection from open wounds. Just imagine your skeleton suddenly disappears.

If a neumono skeleton was removed and placed in a nutrient-rich broth, could it regrow the rest of the body?
>>
No. 80840 ID: 66c5cb

Az: Any neumono you look up to/admire? Rokoa, Polo, or Biles, for example, for their psychopathic rage, silence/competence, and resourcefulness and strength of will respectively? Or maybe Pilon for those huge ears?
>>
No. 80845 ID: d470e9
File 139761574337.png - (13.48KB , 800x800 , AzITQ3.png )
80845

>Az: Any neumono you look up to/admire?
Huh? Look up to? Nope. I'm good like I am and I wouldn't trade me for anybody. Now don't get me wrong, there's plenty of neumono out there who I have great amounts of respect for. Hell, I put Polo real high up there along with containing the salikai, and considering the hypothetical threat they pose, I wouldn't mobilize extra units for her if I didn't have the utmost respect. Likewise I'd trust my space pilots to keep our noses out of asteroid dirt. Hell, you don't even need to be the best, you just have to be worth your pay. Now, for the others you mentioned, I'd also respect Biles' opinion if we were dropped naked in the deep greens. Rokoa you mentioned, but hell, I've never met her. All I hear are stories, and those can be exaggerated. If I'm lucky, I'll get the chance to destroy that legend. I am a goddamn mountain of unfair strength. I'll have a friendly match with that Giant once she gets settled in before I start talking too big, though. And one of those Rokoa clones I hear about, though I hear those aren't perfect. Whoa, I'm daydreaming now. Back to topic.

Okay. Look up to, like I'm below 'em? Nah. Doesn't work like that with me. Like I said. I'm good with who I am, and until I get defeated in honorable, hand to hand combat, that's not changing. Other neumono are better at some things than I am, but then you're comparing apples and oranges.

Oh, right, and you mentioned Pilon. For the huge ears. Good joke. I saw him run on his ship's surveillance. Couldn't stop laughing. Guy can take a hit, though, he's not all fluff.

>Could a neumono survive without a skeleton long enough to regrow one? Ignoring the complications of actually removing one, such as blood loss and/or infection from open wounds. Just imagine your skeleton suddenly disappears. If a neumono skeleton was removed and placed in a nutrient-rich broth, could it regrow the rest of the body?

Hell I don't know about that, the body kind if depends on that sort of stability, even if all your bones are broke usually there's still some kind of support for your flesh. You might just collapse in on yourself. Namely the lungs. Those might collapse. Maybe? Something to think about.

Well, if you dump then in a nutrient rich broth, that sure doesn't sound like 'air', so they sure as hell aren't going to breath. Unless you mean we have like some nozzle for breathing. In which case if we're using that, we're not eating the nutrients. I mean there's some misconceptions about neumono out there, but we don't consume stuff through our skin. We're not sponges.

Probably not what you meant anyway, so I'll move on.

I don't know if there'd be some complications keeping 'em from breathing or eating or whatever because of lack of bones, but if you could get by that, then yeah we could grow the bones back. The data's still in our cells, and our brain cells aren't in our bones.

>All quest characters: paper or plastic?
Plastic by a longshot. Who uses paper now?

Environmentally unsound? Takes a century to decompose? Who the fuck cares, warp drive that shit into the sun if it gets too much.

>So asking about your sexual habits tells us a lot about you
There's a whole lot wrong with this, I don't even know where to start. So, I won't!

>What do you think of humans?
Like I said, near all the aliens I meet are on business. So I'm gonna go ahead and make the assumption that they're not all a bunch of regulation-happy red tape generating rule generators that want absolute control over every damn aspect of life.

>Absolutely necessary question that must be asked of any soldier, what is best in life?
You sure you don't mean a fuckin' philosopher?
>>
No. 80846 ID: d470e9
File 139761576214.png - (12.25KB , 800x800 , RakaeITQ2.png )
80846

>So Rakae, what was it that clued you in on the CAI's fake-Polo trick? (Good work on that by the way).
To be honest, it just seemed like it was someone acting like Polo, not actually Polo. See, she doesn't really act all stern and monotone when she's talking to our hive. She might not admit it to others, but she's actually incredibly sweet. She's just good at putting that aside and acting cold and calculating. Well, not acting, she really can be cold and calculating, but what I mean is that that's a conscious effort, it's not her natural state except on a mission.

Her messages to us specifically were using a monotone, to-the-point type of speech. Now, she was on a mission, so it's perfectly possible that she might have acted like that, but I don't think it was likely enough. It got me worried.

In other words, it's not like I had concrete proof, I really only had a hunch.

> You up there flying something above the voklit valley?
Yes, nothing critical, I'm just on logistics moving supplies around.
>>
No. 80851 ID: 0ee153

>>80845
Did you ever meet or hear of Rokoa's queen? She was good enough to send Rokoa to the hospital and only be somewhat sore in the morning, as I recall. Dead now, of course, but I'd be vaguely surprised if the salikai hadn't considered grabbing brain matter of her too.

And I meant the skeleton in the broth, not the boneless neumono. From your answer, it sounds like it needs the brain cells, so I infer that no, a skeleton by itself cannot regrow into a neumono.
>>
No. 80854 ID: 66c5cb

Az: Have you tried to train to have Polo's silencing ability? It'd be pretty useful for general combat usage, not to mention anti-salikai missions. On the other hand, it might be disconcerting for a hive to have its king/empathetic center go silent for extended periods of time.

Also, how did you become king of your hive? Were you a rogue who was a latent king, someone whose empathy overtook that of the existing king/queen, or something else?
>>
No. 80855 ID: 66c5cb

Rikek: How are you doing? Do you still keep up with Polo/Rakae? Must have been embarrassing to be completely useless dead weight on that mission. Have you tried training silencing or overall combat/survival skills more to avoid that in the future?
>>
No. 80881 ID: abe34c

Neumono, salikai, voklit, arkot or other sentient species of the same origin: Does your home planet have any visible moons?
>>
No. 80882 ID: 66c5cb

Asteroidverse: Are neumono ears a delicacy anywhere? Neumono don't seem to be too troubled giving them up for reward, and according to Pilon's descriptions, they sound kind of tasty. Plus, they could be profitable just for the taboo of eating parts of a sentient being. Are there any neumono/hives who've developed a brand for their ears?

Also, that reminds me.

Pilon: When you mentioned the bacon-like taste of your own ears, what situation required you to eat your ears? Or was it just to know what they tasted like?

Polo: How did Rokoa's leg taste? Have you developed a taste for neumono flesh?
>>
No. 80889 ID: 0ee153

Is eating neumono dangerous for neumono like how humans can get spongiform encephalopathy if they eat human meat? It'd be amusing, if highly improbable, if any brain matter survived digestion and started trying to hijack the eater.
>>
No. 80890 ID: 012266

>>80889
seeing how they have adapted to eating each others ears for survival without any ill effects I don't think so
>>
No. 80894 ID: abe34c

Neumono that were around pre-contact: it seems to me that voklit might actually have been your best buds? I mean, they're big and strong so you don't want to fight them if you can help it, they're obviously people, but they didn't have the species grudge you seem to have with salikai, and they didn't bug you viscerally like other neumono did. Sure you competed with them when times were hard, but when times were good, wouldn't you just nod to each other as you pass and go on your way? Have unspoken agreements with each other, sort of thing.

Before the whole post-contact traditionalism power imbalance, of course.
>>
No. 80901 ID: 99624f

So here is a question to one of those "Brothel" hives the ultraking was talking about.

I guess the first question is how does your hive work?

Also what was life like before first contact? And how is life now compared to the old days on the homeworld.

How do you deal with differing empathy for your Neumono customers? And now that there are all sorts of species wandering around do you cater to non-neumono now as well?

Oh and to any other non human species from any quests what are your views on prostitution and such?
>>
No. 80903 ID: 66c5cb

Krak: How did you become Sharpa's slave?

Neumono: How well do you guys take to body modification surgery? I'm talking about things like distraction osteogenesis to lengthen bones.

Zirkala: What do you to entertain yourself when Story Seeker's not around. None of your summons seem to make great company, and it doesn't seem like you leave your halls much.
>>
No. 80920 ID: d470e9
File 139779553874.png - (17.15KB , 800x800 , AzITQ4.png )
80920

>Did you ever meet or hear of Rokoa's queen? She was good enough to send Rokoa to the hospital and only be somewhat sore in the morning, as I recall.
I never met her. Think I heard of her in passing, thought she might be trouble, but that ship sailed right on out the window before I got a chance to see her myself.

>And I meant the skeleton in the broth, not the boneless neumono. From your answer, it sounds like it needs the brain cells, so I infer that no, a skeleton by itself cannot regrow into a neumono.
Then my answer's right, cause you're right. The skeleton is just a skeleton. Calcium, bone marrow, and.... yeah I'll just assume that's it.

>Have you tried to train to have Polo's silencing ability? It'd be pretty useful for general combat usage, not to mention anti-salikai missions. On the other hand, it might be disconcerting for a hive to have its king/empathetic center go silent for extended periods of time.
That other hand throws one powerful punch. Even if I weren't king - as hard as that is to imagine - I don't think I'd care for it. Damn useful, but not my style.

>Also, how did you become king of your hive? Were you a rogue who was a latent king, someone whose empathy overtook that of the existing king/queen, or something else?
Hm.... guess I'd answer with my empathy overtaking the existing queen before me. Course, that's a little unfair to just say I naturally exuded that much more willpower. I just beat the shit out of her enough times before she conceded. She's still around, actually. Pretty cool girl.

>Does your home planet have any visible moons?
Yeah. 4 of 'em, though 2 are pretty small. The other two, though... heh, well, neumono surfers can be pretty happy they can hold their breath for dozens of minutes. And alien surfers have balls the size of our lungs. Well, depending on the area of the world you go to.

>Are neumono ears a delicacy anywhere? Neumono don't seem to be too troubled giving them up for reward, and according to Pilon's descriptions, they sound kind of tasty. Plus, they could be profitable just for the taboo of eating parts of a sentient being. Are there any neumono/hives who've developed a brand for their ears?
Yeah actually, since food has been real easy to come by with alien tech and we haven't had a chance to breed that luxury away, odd foods like that are pretty sought after.

There's no hives or anything that spend their days tending to their ears, but there is a bit of a market for neumono to lop off their ear for a quick buck.

>Philosopher never have an answer that's shorter than 20 words.
Ha ha!

>Have you met Polo in person yet?
Yeah, just briefly. A real short meeting on 'this person's still alive, keep it classified but know she's still going to be involved in some big plans.'

>Also what are your thoughts on the program that created her?
Not bad for a first trial phase. We could improve on it, and Sealock knows it could be improved, too.

>Do you think there is a big call for more silence capable agents? And if so what sort of thing would you use them for.
Yep. Once the improvements are talked over, we're going to have larger scale training sessions. Infiltrating some of those loose factions will be big ones. Neumono space pirates are also getting to be on the rise, I hear, can't say much on that one though.

>Neumono that were around pre-contact: it seems to me that voklit might actually have been your best buds?
Hahahaaa, nope. Now don't get me wrong, you'd be right thinking that we don't have that initial instant hate and distrust we get when we see another hive strolling on our path. Seeing things some2 to 10 times your size - depending on the neumono, of course - that probably eats a damn lot to keep their superior regeneration going? Not quite something that's easy to negotiate with if we try to work together. Voklit are also real inflexible mentally. They learn something at a young age, and they'll carry that thought to their grave as hard as they can. Which usually was all sorts of bullshit.

Now when times were good, okay, we might not mind each other, perhaps at the best of times manage a nod to one another, but alliances sure weren't something I hear about in the history books. Too much racial friction. Usually when we got along in the past, it meant we'd beat each other up and then not eat each other.

>Before the whole post-contact traditionalism power imbalance, of course.
We'd get on a whole lot better now if we could get young voklit to not be taught 'neumono BAD', but that sure got fucked up.

>So here is a question to one of those "Brothel" hives the ultraking was talking about.
Hey, Vivili, you're up!

>I guess the first question is how does [their] hive work?
It's not too much different from alien brothels, actually. We set up shop, pretty ourselves up, and do business. A lot of our marketing is done online, actually, so we're kind of a tourist attraction. Otherwise, we still pay taxes, we still have business to deal with, oh, and lots of security. I mean, the prim and proper society doesn't like to have places like we have in their own backyard, so we tend to set up shop in some rough neighborhoods as a result. We know self defense, hell, we can fight decent, but we don't want to make ourselves out to be tough burly guys and girls, or at least we don't want all of us to have that rep. So we prefer having outside muscle give people the stinkeyes so that we can smile and be nice. Some people call it overkill, but we take our safety very seriously.
I can vouch for that. If I was stuck in the ghetto and had to hole up real tight somewhere - which I wouldn't, but give me some suspension of disbelief for the hypotheticals here - I'd hole up in a brothel. Those places are surprisingly nice. At least the one's I'd be caught with my pants down at.

>Also what was life like before first contact?
We didn't exist before contact, at least not as a brothel hive. We were hunters and foragers, like most others.
And if there were any brothel hives back then, I can take a bet why I've never heard of 'em!

>How do you deal with differing empathy for your Neumono customers?
That's the tricky part! Lots of neumono - or aliens - come in just wanting the flesh. That's easy enough, usually jammers suppress even physical touch for most people's tastes, and if not, there's nothing we can do for them. For the neumono who want some real companionship, though, obviously they can tell if we're just faking it. That's why successful brothel hives are rare, we have to actually enjoy it, we can't just do it for the money! We've got to authentically be welcoming to all sorts of clientelle. And when a neumono comes in to see us, we generally put them in a room - unjammed, of course, though we can only afford so many jammers anyway - to see who they like best.

Usually just one guy at a time! There's a reason why it's called the Judgemental Room.

Th...that's just a nickname, we don't actually name it that!

You don't, everyone else did.

> And now that there are all sorts of species wandering around do you cater to non-neumono now as well?
Yes, some of us grow up to be alien specialists. As a matter of best practices, we should also be xenophiles!
Yeah I don't know why, I mean, it's not like they can tell you're faking it.
Could you fake it and be happy with yourself?
If you're good looking, I wouldn't have to!"
That's not really the point, big guy. I hope that answers the questions.
>>
No. 80921 ID: d470e9
File 139779555779.png - (12.58KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ73.png )
80921

>How did Rokoa's leg taste? Have you developed a taste for neumono flesh?
It tasted fine, although there was more fat than I expected. I did not develop a taste for it, but the taste was fine. The fact it came from Rokoa is what spoiled it, not the meat itself.
>>
No. 80922 ID: d470e9
File 139779560455.png - (14.62KB , 800x800 , KorliITQ20.png )
80922

>Are there any neumono who have had non-neumono sexual relations and if so please share.
Wellllllll... I diiiid meet a lot of alien guys that wanted to talk with me, and I thought some of them were cute, and some of them said I was cute, and it's not like I did a whole lot of living under the salikai, sooooo some stuff happened.

I mean beyond that though it's not like there's a whole lot to say. On one hand, aliens don't give that right chemistry that makes the payoff as good, but wow they move a lot. I mean so do neumono guys but that's more out of squirming rather, than, you know....

Oh geez I can't believe I answered the question, this one was way too lewd for me!
>>
No. 80923 ID: d470e9
File 139779567766.png - (10.94KB , 800x800 , RikekITQ3.png )
80923

>Rikek: How are you doing? Do you still keep up with Polo/Rakae?
I've tried, but...

>Must have been embarrassing to be completely useless dead weight on that mission.
This makes it kind of hard. I want to be able to speak to them in person again, so someday I'll return. I don't want to make my only visit to my homeworld so... well, I don't want to say I regret it, but... it wasn't good.

>Have you tried training silencing or overall combat/survival skills more to avoid that in the future?
You really are following my train of answers, here! I don't think I have what it takes to remain silent, but I've definitely re-looked at my training.

I'm not a soldier for a living, I was just one of my hive that took to arms for a bit of pay. I didn't see much action or anything. I was the best in my hive because I was the best at following orders and keeping each other's backs clear, but I definitely wouldn't have done well as a frontlineman. I was more in my element, but with Polo and Rakae, on our own, without someone to really give me orders in a well organized military chain of command... yeah, I just didn't do well at all. Even though I was injured, I could have done much better.

So I'm trying to train well. I hold a kind of normal job, but it leaves me with enough spare time, and there's a chance I may go back into the military for some mercenary odd-jobs. And if I do, well, hanging around Polo showed me that there are some really big fish out there.

When I do return to the homeworld, I would like to say I'm better prepared for it.
>>
No. 80924 ID: d470e9
File 139779570204.png - (12.16KB , 800x800 , PilonITQ31.png )
80924

>When you mentioned the bacon-like taste of your own ears, what situation required you to eat your ears?
When a day's hunt didn't go well, the bottom half of my ears were often the first to go. And it's not like those were rare; me missing chunks of my ears weren't at all an uncommon sight. In fact, they weren't quite so large when I was a child, but I took pride in, if nothing else, my ears could lighten a bad mood. I believe that's why they grew as large as they did, but that's not to say they were anywhere near average beforehand.

>Is eating neumono dangerous for neumono like how humans can get spongiform encephalopathy if they eat human meat?
No, provided there isn't anything wrong with the meat, of course, then it's perfectly safe for us.

>It'd be amusing, if highly improbable, if any brain matter survived digestion and started trying to hijack the eater.
There used to be a lot of superstition about this, which did lead to eating the corpses of fallen hivemates, but modern science does debunk this. Nevertheless, since this effect is mental, it absolutely is susceptible to the placebo effect.

>How do Neumono react to radiation poisoning?
We're good at removing the bad cells and regenerating it with our own, so we're fortunate to be resistant to it. We're by no means immune, though, as it can affect our brain in critical ways.

>How well do you guys take to body modification surgery? I'm talking about things like distraction osteogenesis to lengthen bones.
It's certainly possible, but it requires a lot of upkeep and maintenance to prevent us from just trying to grow around or through the modifications.

In the case of distraction osteogenesis, we can do that, but it would be an ongoing process to keep that new length of bone. If we just let it go, then the bone will gradually shorten to its normal length again. We are capable of shortening our bones, but that does take a long time for us. Hence, modifications of flesh require more upkeep than modifications of bone.
>>
No. 80925 ID: d470e9
File 139779571479.png - (9.92KB , 800x800 , KrakITQ8.png )
80925

>Krak: How did you become Sharpa's slave?
Answered.
>>80450
>>
No. 80926 ID: d470e9
File 139779595532.png - (109.16KB , 800x800 , ZirkalaITQ2.png )
80926

>What do you to entertain yourself when Story Seeker's not around. None of your summons seem to make great company, and it doesn't seem like you leave your halls much.
I do not have any minions that are competent at building rapport, no, but they still amuse me despite their lack of intent to do so.

As a powerful practicer of magic, there are plenty of manners of magic to keep me amused. It is ironic, that in my pursuit of lichdom, I learned to put aside my own pleasure in life. And now that I have the capacity to entertain myself with far more effect than I ever could in life, I do not desire it so much as I did while tied to flesh.

No, I am as strong as any lich, but unlike most others, I am easily content. I am fine with being the truth behind legends of terror lurking in the undersides of mountains where no kobolds or trolls roam, save for the abnormal individuals. As I have expressed to Story Seeker, a great terror puts all else in perspective, and I enjoy seeing the living put aside their petty complaints. I make it clear that I do not do this out of some idea of nobility, but rather out of personal preference.
>>
No. 80931 ID: 0ee153

I wonder if it would be possible to modify the brain-dart thing so it just changed physical characteristics without trying to overwrite any mental data. It sounds like the closest way to emulate children's bodies knowing what they're supposed to be in adulthood.

It'd still almost certainly be highly painful, slow, and probably unethical.

Korli or Ben or anyone else qualified, how feasible does this sound?
>>
No. 80940 ID: 32f812

To any neumono: Speaking of skeletons, how do yours work? I believe you mentioned having a spine before, but only needing it for support? It's odd that you have a humanoid body structure when you have a decentralized nervous system -- you shouldn't need a spinal cord, for instance.
>>
No. 80942 ID: 241087

>>80922
>Oh geez I can't believe I answered the question, this one was way too lewd for me!

Huh. Well, maybe someone else can answer this, then, because I've been wondering what you neumono actually, you know, do, during lewds. I mean, not the basic mechanic, I know that, but the secondary activities. As I understand it, you basically just... connect and then you just... sit there for a while? I mean, I assume you can get all touchy with your hands and you can lick and bite and such, but aside from that, what distinguishes a good lover from a bad one, or a rough one from a gentle?
>>
No. 80943 ID: 66c5cb

>>80931

On a related note: if you somehow could remove the consciousness from brain-darts, could you use them to inject memories? Considering the brain-darts' apparent ability to let those inflicted experience the condensed lifetime of the neumono contained in the brain dart, it could be immensely useful for educational purposes.

Vivili: So is everyone in your hive effectively pansexual? Or do you have different people for different species/temperaments/tastes? It feels like you'd all be pretty good at at least somewhat manipulating your empathy so that you'd feel welcoming to other neumono, especially considering the variety of your clientele and their empathy. Seems like the brothel hives might take up Polo's silencing training more easily than other neumono. Alternatively, they take on roles similar to Three-stripe's therapy jobs, to a severely more limited extent.
>>
No. 80967 ID: 1b8510

I think it got missed last time so I will phrase it better and also aim it at someone:

Yo Polo what would you do if you ran into something like >>/draw/22769 huh?
>>
No. 80968 ID: d470e9
File 139793953578.png - (16.51KB , 800x800 , RokoaSniperCloneITQ18.png )
80968

>I wonder if it would be possible to modify the brain-dart thing so it just changed physical characteristics without trying to overwrite any mental data.
>On a related note: if you somehow could remove the consciousness from brain-darts, could you use them to inject memories?
Nope. Not just are all of these things way too closely linked, they're all basically the same thing as far as our brain goes! Memories can shape personalities, personalities can shape how we remember the past, and we do have our empathic effects on our own body.

I mean I guess if a mad scientist really wanted to they could get some kind of super-neumono going, but he or she or it would probably be insane.

Oh and yes there are not many neumono that can actually survive the brain extraction process! The salikai have apparently tried it an awful lot, but Rokoa is the only one they could find.

>Speaking of skeletons, how do yours work? I believe you mentioned having a spine before, but only needing it for support? It's odd that you have a humanoid body structure when you have a decentralized nervous system -- you shouldn't need a spinal cord, for instance.
That's right, we don't need it! A broken back isn't bad, it just makes us suffere from instability. We have a bit of our brain in between the vertibrae, but obviously having that snap isn't nearly as bad as most other humanoids. Still, though, a lot of weaker neumono that can't hold their weight up with muscle alone need it intact.

As for the rest of it, it does offer protection! A bunch of our hearts are laced around rib-like bones that often have little grooves to catch and latch onto claws and other bladed things.

Otherwise though, we do have mostly similar bones to other things.
>>
No. 80969 ID: d470e9
File 139793963959.png - (16.43KB , 800x800 , KorliITQ21.png )
80969

>Well, maybe someone else can answer this, then, because I've been wondering what you neumono actually, you know, do, during lewds.
Okay okay I'm going for it! This one is going to be R rated.

>As I understand it, you basically just... connect and then you just... sit there for a while?
If you wanted to be boring about it, yeah. I mean, it's kind of not an easy process actually, so it can make for an very intense session of sitting there for awhile. Like, saying that you 'just kind of sit there for awhile' is like saying that passing a kidney stone is just a longer trip to the bathroom than usual! Except for us, it's not, you know... bad.

>I mean, I assume you can get all touchy with your hands and you can lick and bite and such, but aside from that, what distinguishes a good lover from a bad one, or a rough one from a gentle?
Okay, so, uh... friction does actually help! We still get pleasure from basic stimulus, I guess out of more of an evolutionary holdovers, since, you know, guys get boners even though they don't actually technically need to. It does help a bit in the whole getting-it-in-there though.

But still, a good lover will make sex an affair for the whole body! That does include licking and biting and I don't know spanking or whatever if you're into that and oh geez okay it's basically the same I think I'm done here so the hooker can take this question!
>>
No. 80970 ID: d470e9
File 139793965933.png - (11.99KB , 800x800 , ViviliITQ1.png )
80970

All a good lover has to do is to be able to read what the partner would like to have done to them, and do it.

The only difference with neumono rough love and gentle love is how hard a guy will push everything he has as fast as he can, and how hard a girl will suck everything out of the male. Otherwise, it is exactly the same as it is with most other species. Guys can pound harder, girls can get on top and bounce on the guys.

>Vivili: So is everyone in your hive effectively pansexual? Or do you have different people for different species/temperaments/tastes?
Yes, effectively we're at least somewhat pansexual. We still have our preferences, of course, but we are trained to see everything in positive light even if we don't get the client we might like best.

When possible, though, we do prefer to match up everyone as ideally as possible, so differences in our own tastes are factored in. The customer's preferences almost always take priority, though, at least to a certain level.

>It feels like you'd all be pretty good at at least somewhat manipulating your empathy so that you'd feel welcoming to other neumono, especially considering the variety of your clientele and their empathy.
Ehh... well, the trick, like I mentioned before, is more to teach our young ones to see the positives in everything. We can't really manipulate our empathy to feel a certain way, so we do our best to make sure we feel that certain way to begin with. Now... we might manipulate it subconsciously to a limited degree, but what Polo does is on a whole different level. And that.. I just don't think we're going to attain that.

Well, that said, if we could modify our empathy like a predator could, we'd be amazing! But that's nothing more than a little daydream.
>>
No. 80971 ID: d470e9
File 139793967168.png - (10.50KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ74.png )
80971

>Yo Polo what would you do if you ran into something like >>/draw/22769 huh?
Wake up.
>>
No. 80972 ID: cee89f

>>80971
On a similar note, have you ever just enjoyed a lucid dream for the fun of it?
>>
No. 80973 ID: 824f43

Speaking of dreaming: what's the shared dream thing like when it's not a terrible special case brought on by personality / memory invasion? Polo's reported usually just waking up as soon as she realizes what's happening, but what about for more people more comfortable with it? Is a shared dream always lucid? And what do you end up doing?

You're our local dream sage I believe, Katzati.
>>
No. 80975 ID: ca65e6

>>80970
>Well, that said, if we could modify our empathy like a predator could, we'd be amazing! But that's nothing more than a little daydream.

...Dastrica, have any predamono or even predators had jobs like this?
>>
No. 80976 ID: 66c5cb

Polo: Think you have what it takes to succeed your queen if necessary? Your empathy might suck from disuse, but given your newfound abilities with manipulating it, who knows how much it could grow. You could be a mini-predator. Plus, you seem to be a fairly decent leader from your performance so far. Minimal neumono deaths under your watch.
>>
No. 80977 ID: 66c5cb

Rokoa: Please tell me you jacked a few copies of Polo's movies/cartoons. Who knows, she might have more messages scattered throughout. You could use them as motivations for training to fight her too.

Yich eater spy whose name I don't remember: Why wear clothes? They're so itchy and uncomfortable. You take them off when spying, right? I mean, they must make you stand out as a yich eater.
>>
No. 80978 ID: 6c6fbc

>>80971
You wake up. It's still there. What then?
>>
No. 80982 ID: ec2e47

>>80978
I think at that point you realize you are in neumono-ception. Which kind of happened in the war-hive ship as I recall.
>>
No. 80983 ID: 6adc92

>>80971
That brings up an interesting thought though.
What's the largest species on your home planet, Polo?
It seems like the incredibly diverse biologies and dense ecosystems there could support ridiculously large creatures, at least aquatically. Are there are crazy kaiju-esque several-story notables around?
>>
No. 80986 ID: 824f43

>>80983
From previous answers: the giant sea monsters. If they're real, which remains to be proven. Not that anyone would be particularly surprised if they did.
>>
No. 80987 ID: d470e9
File 139795755820.png - (16.67KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ53.png )
80987

>Rokoa: Please tell me you jacked a few copies of Polo's movies/cartoons.
Request denied. Kappi, though? He's on the job. I'll watch whatever he comes up with as long as Polo didn't start entering weird ass competitions for longest-movie-ever.
>>
No. 80988 ID: d470e9
File 139795763129.png - (9.90KB , 800x800 , YaniITQ1.png )
80988

>Yich eater spy whose name I don't remember: Why wear clothes? They're so itchy and uncomfortable.
Like any infant, you get used to them. Clothing makes one familiar and minimizes impressions of being feral.

>You take them off when spying, right? I mean, they must make you stand out as a yich eater.
Yes. I only wear them when I do wish to stand out. On the other hand, I am not the first one to wear them, so perhaps the more appropriate answer is to say I only wear them when the situation calls for it.
>>
No. 80989 ID: d470e9
File 139795769636.png - (10.43KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ75.png )
80989

>Polo: Think you have what it takes to succeed your queen if necessary?
No. My queen is far more suited to managing my hive than I would be, I could not imaging filling her shoes. Even if I managed to gain predator like powers, I would not be as suited to it as she is.

>On a similar note, have you ever just enjoyed a lucid dream for the fun of it?
I am too quick to wake up when I realize I am lucid. The only time this was not the case is when I was recovering from the brink of death, too wounded to wake up. This was with Rokoa. Despite her presence, I still made an attempt to relax within this dream.

>You wake up. It's still there. What then?
Check myself in at a mental hospital, because such a thing does not exist.

>What's the largest species on your home planet, Polo?
I do not want to say, because new things are still being discovered.

Currently, the largest hypothesized creature is the atlanto. Named by some human legend or another. We aren't sure if it's actually a single beast, or a colony of beasts that act as one entity. It is a deep sea creature who feeds through extending tunnels that go to higher levels of the sea and simply opens its mouth, as a whale might. Two sightings have been made of an atlanto extending its feeders up to the surface - or of two atlantos - extending them as far as the surface itself. One of them sank a battlecruiser, if I recall correctly. The other one was not normally at the surface, however, it was too close to the surface when it began sucking, and made a whirlpool.

But, In this day and age, even raw footage is ready to be called fake by skeptics.

>Are there are crazy kaiju-esque several-story notables around?
In short, yes.
>>
No. 80990 ID: d470e9
File 139795779864.png - (10.74KB , 800x800 , KatzatiITQ8.png )
80990

>what's the shared dream thing like when it's not a terrible special case brought on by personality / memory invasion?
Well, it's still dreamlike, so it can be very wonky! It's somewhat stabilized by a hive helping it along. Then it can be nice, since you can imagine stuff with a lot more strength than you can normally do. Sometimes some real deep-seated emotions and desires come up, so it can be really embarrasing if you're not actually hivemates. Or if it's really out there, then maybe it'll still be embarrassing.

>Is a shared dream always lucid?
It's common, but no, it's not always. Sometimes it just feels like a regular dream with another hivemate inside of it, except they'll also have their perspective and overlap of it. Usually it just takes one person to become lucid to make everyone lucid.

>And what do you end up doing?
Anything you want! Or anything the hive wants, since our consciences kind of mold in together. I mean, you can nab a specific hivemate or two and try to do your own thing, but it'll always feel like the rest of the hive is right around the corner, so there's not any privacy. It's great for bonding, still.
>>
No. 80991 ID: 445ff6

>>80989
There's something amusing about following up "that doesn't exist" with "well there are these semi-legendary sea creatures..."

Though I'm pretty sure the end result of this line of question is you actually having the dream and then waking up irritated.

So, uh, in terms of an actual question--I forget if it's come up before, but is the neumono homeworld unique in terms of sheer density of (apparently often hostile) sapient species, or are there other worlds where something similar is going on?
>>
No. 80992 ID: 66c5cb

>>80987

Polo: If you're ever involved in any sort of movie/cartoon, make sure it's as terribly written and performed as reasonably possible. Also, make Rokoa look like a huge idiot. Trust me, it's for a good cause.
>>
No. 80993 ID: 1b8510

>>80989
Polo from the alternate universe where you're willing to accept that such a thing might exist but everything is otherwise the same: What about you?

Preemptively, in case there does not exist such a Polo: some neumono who is actually willing to answer the question: please just give me four or five sentences oh god i'm so alone
>>
No. 80994 ID: cee89f

>Check myself in at a mental hospital, because such a thing does not exist.
If the problem was your mental state, wouldn't you believe it was there anyway? Cuz, ya know. Crazy?

Kappi: You are now thinking about what Rokoa would look like in a french maid outfit while holding a bloodstained meat cleaver. Have fun with that.

Polo: Do you know of a way to fight other than with guns? Say, that jungle-style thing Polokoa brought up? I don't recall you using martial arts in your threads, but it seems like the kind of thing you would learn if only for practicality.

Rokoa: Permission to shove a live grenade down your throat to see what happens.

Korli: So do the goggles just protect your eyes, or do they have other functions? (x-ray, thermal, zoom, medical data, anything like that?)

Sniper Clone: Why red?
>>
No. 80997 ID: 445ff6

Because we clearly don't have enough frivolous questions in this thread yet:

Polo and Rokoa: You are jointly approached by a movie producer who, having heard an apparently garbled version of your collective exploits, is interested in producing a film which would feature both of your likenesses. In order to get you to agree to the project, the producer is willing to give you creative authority as you see fit, provided a basic premise of "due to some kind of science experiment Rokoa is now the size of a giant B-movie monster" is maintained. 1) Would you accept the project? and 2) regardless of the answer to the previous question, what kind of production would you aim for?

(Come to think of it this reads like the kind of weird shit they might ask at a Google-styled interview.)
>>
No. 80999 ID: 0ee153

>>80990
What happens on the times when a dream isn't lucid for everyone? It sounds like there'd be a lot of pranks and/or misunderstandings.

Also, Vivili, is dream sex a thing? It might be somewhat difficult to get the client and the hive into the same dream, but once it happens, a shared lucid dream sounds like you could offer a lot more services than in real life. It'd also be somewhat less likely to spread parasites or other infections, I suppose.

On that note, any common STDs or parasites like crabs?
>>
No. 81006 ID: 824f43

>Polo from the alternate universe
As has been already stated, >>66906 , the only other universes are made up ones.

>Do you know of a way to fight other than with guns?
Polo discusses what she's trained with here. >>80598
In quest she's fought with guns, knives, knife throwing, needle throwing, blunt objects, bioarmor, explosives, hand to hand, terrible jokes, and plasma swords.

>Say, that jungle-style thing Polokoa brought up?
This >>78437 wall of text contains a lot of background information that is canon in the asteroidverse. Relevant to your question:

>Polo's hive wasn't ever too seriously into it to begin with, and had little more than the training for quick movement and hiding, so it dropped off quickly. Which is a pity; tree style training would have done very well for Polo.

>Korli: So do the goggles just protect your eyes, or do they have other functions? (x-ray, thermal, zoom, medical data, anything like that?)
From Korli's inventory, when it was listed in the wiki:
>Goggles (x-ray, thermal, informational scans)
>>
No. 81009 ID: 0ee153

Stripper Rokoa: Have you considered joining Vivili's brothel hive? Did you try and/or get accepted/rejected?
>>
No. 81013 ID: 14db31
File 139797843919.png - (143.10KB , 500x500 , rokolodimensions.png )
81013

>>80993
>Polo from the alternate universe where you're willing to accept that such a thing might exist but everything is otherwise the same: What about you?
>Preemptively, in case there does not exist such a Polo: some neumono who is actually willing to answer the question: please just give me four or five sentences oh god i'm so alone

Here's an interesting fact: alternate universes aren't usually whole universes. Thanks to relativity, if something hasn't been affected by a change, then that change hasn't actually happened. A split in the timeline only creates a localized alternate difference area, which usually goes a lot further than you'd expect it to, but is often pretty small. Why duplicate the core of a planet that'll spin on the way it was always going to just because some dipstick on the surface has a quantum fluctuation about what pants he's going to wear this morning?

Upshot is, your Polo doesn't have a whole separate universe. She probably only has a separate few blocks of the city that split off from the main timeline when she decided to get drunk or something because that's the first scenario I'm imagining where the Polo you're talking about can seriously conceptualize that nonsense. But it's not physically impossible so, good news, she does actually exist somewhere, by necessity. Your "case there does not exist such a Polo" isn't something you need to worry about. But her harmonic differentiation is too low for her timeline to even attain perpetuation momentum and not get reabsorbed into the source line again, much less give her enough energy to manage interdimensional communication.

So she can't answer your question.

Obviously.

Sucks to be you!
>>
No. 81015 ID: d470e9
File 139798177803.png - (72.52KB , 800x800 , RokoaStripperITQ1.png )
81015

>Stripper Rokoa: Have you considered joining Vivili's brothel hive? Did you try and/or get accepted/rejected?
Nope nope and not applicable! Just because I really hate clothes now doesn't mean I'm any different otherwise. I mean seriously do you think that I'm a whole brand new person?
>>
No. 81016 ID: d470e9
File 139798181493.png - (9.10KB , 800x800 , KappiITQ20.png )
81016

>You are now thinking about what Rokoa would look like in a french maid outfit while holding a bloodstained meat cleaver. Have fun with that.
Yes. Yes I am.

... that wasn't a question though.
>>
No. 81017 ID: d470e9
File 139798183149.png - (10.74KB , 800x800 , ViviliITQ2.png )
81017

>What happens on the times when a dream isn't lucid for everyone? It sounds like there'd be a lot of pranks and/or misunderstandings.
Yep. If it's not lucid, we'd know though, so it's not like we'd have any hard feelings about flimsy little dreams like that.

>Also, Vivili, is dream sex a thing? It might be somewhat difficult to get the client and the hive into the same dream, but once it happens, a shared lucid dream sounds like you could offer a lot more services than in real life.
Well, it can be, but it doesn't happen nearly so reliably that we could charge for dream services. We simply don't have anyone that can reliably do it outside of the hive.

Sometimes we do sleep, and I mean do sleep, with the client, as even without the dream, it can be very comforting to just have a neumono next to you. If a dream like that happens, and it has, then it can be very good, and we've gotten some nice tips because of it, but again, it's just too unreliable for us to treat as anything but happenstance.

>On that note, any common STDs or parasites like crabs?
Nooot really. Our regeneration is pretty good about getting rid of that stuff. Post contact, modern medicine was able to get rid of the rest. Pre-contact, it wasn't unheard of, but since us hives didn't have much to do with each other, the diseases of a sexually passed nature didn't really get around easily.
>>
No. 81018 ID: d470e9
File 139798184408.png - (15.32KB , 800x800 , RokoaSniperCloneITQ19.png )
81018

>Sniper Clone: Why red?
Because that's what the CAI gave to me! Pickings are kind of slim, you know, and I'd take anything that fits.

I kind of like to think it fits me, but I'm not sure. The red, that is, the clothing itself fits fine.
>>
No. 81019 ID: d470e9
File 139798186387.png - (10.65KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ76.png )
81019

>You are jointly approached by a movie producer who, having heard an apparently garbled version of your collective exploits, is interested in producing a film which would feature both of your likenesses.
>In order to get you to agree to the project, the producer is willing to give you creative authority as you see fit
This is not a good selling point.

>provided a basic premise of "due to some kind of science experiment Rokoa is now the size of a giant B-movie monster"
Th- what.

>1) Would you accept the project? and 2) regardless of the answer to the previous question, what kind of production would you aim for?
I.... no.

If I were forced or otherwise successfully coerced into doing it, then I would strive for realism. I don't care about the premise.
>>
No. 81020 ID: d470e9
File 139798198394.png - (14.83KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ54.png )
81020

>Permission to shove a live grenade down your throat to see what happens.
I've always had permission to do stupid shit. Or are you being shy about telling me to shove a live grenade down my throat? Either way, my throat's staying grenade-free.

>You are jointly approached by a movie producer who, having heard an apparently garbled version of your collective exploits, is interested in producing a film which would feature both of your likenesses. In order to get you to agree to the project, the producer is willing to give you creative authority as you see fit, provided a basic premise of "due to some kind of science experiment Rokoa is now the size of a giant B-movie monster" is maintained. 1) Would you accept the project?
Hell yes I would accept it.

>2) regardless of the answer to the previous question, what kind of production would you aim for?
I don't know what 'kinds' of production there are. But I'd better launch entire buildings at Polo. How would she even fight me? It seems like if I breathed too hard on her she'd break all her bones.

Unless this isn't about our fighting and was about us teaming up. With her as the brains and me launching the buildings at the bad guys. Or good guys. Whoever.

I'd have to know more, but it'd be awesome. As long as I can sit back and just tell people what I want to have happen and not actually have to do the work in making a movie.
>>
No. 81023 ID: 1b8510

>>81013
Ok ok fine I get it.

I do not know if anyone asked but what kind of neumono music is there?

Are there, god forbid, neumono musicals?
>>
No. 81027 ID: cee89f

>>81020
I was asking for permission to do so, actually.

>>81016
... That was supposed to freak you out.
*grumble grumble*
... On that note, do Neumono have any major legend or monster that they know isn't real but still inspires fear, a la vampires or zombies?

>>81013
Is there a dimension where the only difference is that a planet is on the opposite side of the sun?
>>
No. 81028 ID: 14db31

>>81019

Polo, are you... wearing black lipstick?

... It looks nice.
>>
No. 81029 ID: 824f43

>>81028
Just you wait, Polo. We'll get you stuffed in a pretty dress yet.

...Polo's mom. When was the last time you managed to get your daughter dressed up?
>>
No. 81031 ID: 14db31

Is there a variance in neumono empathy sensitivity? Like, could you have two people who are otherwise similar, but one of them could sense the other's empathy at a greater distance or with greater detail than the other could sense theirs?

Or maybe are there any cases of other exceptional empathy sense things, like someone who could sense others even while they're asleep, or who could feel other empathy-like emissions like various electromagnetic phenomena and such?
>>
No. 81036 ID: d470e9
File 139804498061.png - (11.50KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ55.png )
81036

>I was asking for permission to do so, actually.
Haha what, you wanted my permission for you to stick a grenade down my throat? I've had some strange offers for scientific experiments on me, but usually they're more subtle about it than that. In case the answers not obvious, of course you don't have permission. If anyone wants to jam grenades into me, they're going to have to force it themselves.

>Neumono have any major legend or monster that they know isn't real but still inspires fear, a la vampires or zombies?
I keep hearing about how Polo is called the 'ghost' based on old tales like that. Besides the actual zombies from bug infestations, and neumono broken in by predators, we had our ideas about a neumono without empathy, or empathy without a physical neumono it belongs to. Those were our old fashioned zombies and ghosts respectively.

Still, we have our fair share of ground lurking monsters that spike neumono from the ground and drag them to the depths, or wicked neumono with such overwhelmingly pleasant empathy that they sway neumono from their hive, or giant insectoids in caverns that web your limbs together and suck the blood from out of you while slowly gnawing on your limbs.

And yes, all of these run parallel with things that exist. Desert trap diggers, predators and grottles in this case.
>>
No. 81037 ID: d470e9
File 139804499408.png - (10.78KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ77.png )
81037

>Polo, are you... wearing black lipstick?
What? No. The light is making my mouth look dark.
>>
No. 81038 ID: d470e9
File 139804500616.png - (11.87KB , 800x800 , KatzatiITQ9.png )
81038

>I do not know if anyone asked but what kind of neumono music is there?
Let's see... precontact, there were mostly just drums and other things you hit together in a sort of beat. And chanting and singing. I think there were some hives that did develop wind and string instruments, and even sheet music that were discovered by archeological teams. It's usually not too bad!

>Are there, god forbid, neumono musicals?
God forbid? Well, yes, there certainly are! That sort of teamwork to enact a play is something we're naturally good at. I mean, there is the trouble of our empathy, so it does kind of mess with suspension of disbelief, but at the same time, the audience does feel like they're actually a part of it. So as long as the cast is honestly having fun with it, then so is the audience. Which is why things are often played for laughs and lightheartedly. And I hear it's tough to really train for an actual play, because rehearsal is incredibly easy compared to doing it in front of an actual audience. Even moreso than aliens have it I think.

>Is there a variance in neumono empathy sensitivity?
Absolutely! One's own strength in empathy magnitude and projected distance can vary, as well as their ability to read empathy at a certain distance.

Plus, it can help to be familiar with the person you're reading. The more familiar you are, the more distance you'll be able to sense them at.

>Or maybe are there any cases of other exceptional empathy sense things, like someone who could sense others even while they're asleep
This one, not so much, although there is a little middle ground when you can sense both awake and sleeping. It's when you're so tired and you're inbetween awake and asleep. Most people don't get that at all, and it's just one or the other.

>Who could feel other empathy-like emissions like various electromagnetic phenomena and such?
Well, there is a such thing as artificial empathy. It's incredibly fake feeling though, and is very offputting, like an unpleasant noise in the distance.
>>
No. 81039 ID: d470e9
File 139804502037.png - (15.94KB , 800x800 , PoloMomITQ1.png )
81039

>When was the last time you managed to get your daughter dressed up?
I'm only a little happy to say when I got her to wear her own military uniform. And before that, I've only gotten her to dressup when we had alien company around back before we sent her after that moton egg.

She lost a bunch of interest in dressing up sometime during adolescence! There's all sorts of cute pictures of her dressed up as a kid, but she always went for stuff too big for her.
>>
No. 81041 ID: 99624f

Hey Polo's mom do you have any cute stories from Polo's childhood that you could share with us?

Also do you worry about her going out and doing all these dangerous missions? Its one thing to go out and fight people but she is up against some pretty nasty stuff.
>>
No. 81042 ID: 0ee153

>>81039
Has she ever worn lipstick, black or otherwise?

Are any sort of cosmetic product like eye shadow or whatever popular among neumono?
>>
No. 81045 ID: 57a559

Polo's Dad I realize we've never seen you!
Can you come out? and any bros and sis's I guess.
>>
No. 81046 ID: 824f43

All parents carry adorable and embarrassing pictures of their children. It's a rule.

>>81039
And what do you do, if I may ask? (Besides make a mean coffee cake, and have raised a kick-ass daughter).
>>
No. 81047 ID: e1609c

>>81037
so polo, have you ever played any human video games? I hear some of their longrunning fighter games are pretty good for testing reflexes.
Smash bros in particular is a good one.
>>
No. 81049 ID: 824f43

>Has Polo ever played any human video games?
At least two. >>62795
>>
No. 81050 ID: 57a559

>>81049
I still want to know who's her favorite MGS3 character is and what her reaction to the ending is, but then again for her it might be hard to relate to an alien specie's government doing that to one of it's soldiers, as a hive is a family and the closest things to government's neumono have ARE hives, which means neumono government is family. While human (and belosian) government can be very businessy and plotty.

I also want to know who Polo mains if she plays smash bros.
Actually any Lago character's I'd love to hear their mains, even in the universes where they wouldn't reasonably ever play Smash Bros.
>>
No. 81054 ID: 742a1e

>>81050
I'd like to hear what Rokoa and Polokoa think of MGR:R, if they're played it. That kind of game would probably be right up their alley.
>>
No. 81055 ID: bbc36f

Polokoa what do you think of this?

http://thedirge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=765

To me this seems like an alternate universe were a CAI convinced Old Man Henderson to fill his car up with McDonald's honey dip packets after urging him to flee a swarm of invisible bees. Do universes like that exist, or is there any way to tell? That took place on past earth it looks like. The records would be hard to find.

To ask a real question, how many shovelfuls of honey dip packets is too many?
>>
No. 81079 ID: cee89f

>>81036
Subtlety is for people who care if you know what they're doing. *sips soda* So if ya don't like grenades in your mouth, how about C4?

Polo's mom: Do you fight? What kind of weapons do you use? Who's Polo's daddy?

Polokoa: Cthulhu Fhtagn?

Rokolo AND Polokoa: What is the biggest thing you've ever punched, what do you feel is your greatest achievement, and what is your personal favorite achievemen?
>>
No. 81084 ID: 99624f

Here is a question for Three Stripes and Polo.

So even with a Jammer active you can use your empathy while in physical contact with another Neumono right? So if Three stripes hugged someone with a Jammer on but no armor could he take them over as long as he kept touching them?
>>
No. 81086 ID: 2c917a
File 139814227342.png - (178.67KB , 600x600 , dastricahookersmonsters.png )
81086

>Okay, here's another idea. When you were young, you saw your dad eating donated ears, and you had ears but in your mind you were a predator so those must be donated ears right? And thus you chewed on them. It became a habit. Or it could just be because they're "your" ears and that makes them okay to eat.
>Or maybe it's because you think you're doing a good job and want to donate your own ears to yourself as a reward?

They’re possibilities, but I just don’t know! If I was my own client I could explore my mental connections and see what feelings are linking up to what other emotions and memories and so on, and maybe figure it out for sure, but I can’t. You can’t see the back of your own head, sort of thing.

>Wait, people still play Starcraft centuries into the future?

Well, it wasn’t the original Starcraft! People don’t bother saying the individual titles for really long-running series’, they just say “have you played the new X” or something like that.

>Did you grow up with any other predators, or was it mainly when you were older that the population began to reemerge? It sounds like you're familiar with at least more than pops, and the younger hybrids can't all be your blood siblings, can they? Ohgodcanthey?

I have met other predators, of course! In fact that’s one of the jobs I do as a hybrid, I’m really good at translating predator thoughts into words for other people and at explaining things back to them as well. They’re… well, they’re people, you know, and almost actually a lot more individual than neumono can be sometimes, so I wouldn’t make blanket statements about them, but my dad is still pretty unique. But I didn’t grow up around any predators other than him, even though there were one or two other “civilized” ones by that point, because they weren’t so sure how they’d react to me.

As for the other hybrids, I actually do have a little sister, and I’m going to have another little sibling soon enough as well if no-one changes their minds. Maybe a half-sibling as well. The others aren’t related to me.

>>80975
>…Dastrica, have any predamono or even predators had jobs like this?

Er

Look ok so the patient-therapist relationship is going to be an intimate one by nature and it’s a lot more so for neumono because we’re-they’re used to being open and getting a sense of each other while at the same time getting more empathic sense and fulfillment from closeness, and for me especially as someone who uses empathy professionally it is an important step in the process when my client becomes willing to lie on top of me and let me wrap my arms and tail around them for as much body contact as possible

And when you’re telepathic it’s not really possible for there to really be professional distance as other species understand it and with the physical closeness some thoughts are inevitable and usually I’ll just pass those over but sometimes that’s not possible and sometimes the best way to deal with those feelings is to just

address them directly?

I mean, as well as which, having sex with someone often really opens them up, and some people need that er, little extra push.

But even though I may sometimes have sex with someone in the course of doing my job which I then get paid for, I wouldn’t consider myself a prostitute. Not that there’s anything wrong with that so long as everyone is perfectly informed and willing! And if I ever diagnose someone with just “needs to get laid” I actually might prescribe a trip to a professional for them. After all just because I could do it myself and just because there are some people who are very attracted to me and I think there are actually a couple of websites but, anyway sorry just because all that I just said, there are also a lot of people who don’t particularly want to have sex with someone who could literally crush them to death, I mean I weigh a pretty clear majority of a ton. It’s entirely reasonable.

I don’t think any predators have ventured in that direction, not sure how well that would even work but if any of my little predamonos want to go that way with their life when they’re older then that’ll be their decision, and I’ll encourage them to explore all options as much as I would any other profession they went after and if they choose to go on with it anyway all legal and legit then they’ll be doing something that makes people happier and I’ll support them, and it’s better than a lot of other jobs.

>On that note, do Neumono have any major legend or monster that they know isn't real but still inspires fear, a la vampires or zombies?

Well, there are certainly plenty of monsters across all of the neumono cultural mythos…es, but it’s the “that they know isn’t real” part of that question that presents the difficulty. A lot of cultures have a saying equivalent to “truth is stranger than fiction” but that goes double triple for our planet!

For example, a lot of species have an idea of something like a giant or an ogre or a troll or something, basically “like us, but big and mean and it’ll eat you”, and generally it’s a metaphor about The Monster That Is Greed In All Of Us or something like that, and when xenoanthropologists investigated neumono cultures they discovered that a lot of them had the common idea of a creature that had a bunch of different names in all the different languages and that they decided to all identify under the blanket name “wendigo”, after a mythical human creature. They were like neumono but bigger and more monstery looking with big eyes for seeing where you were hiding and long fingers for snatching up naughty little children and big teeth for eating you up and when they ate you they stole your soul so that then they knew where all the rest of your hive was hiding and how you would try to escape. Lots of spooky children’s stories and most of them easily read as xenophobic tracts about how all the other neumono out there were all monsters who would steal you away, probably inspired by some hives being bigger and fiercer who would torture information out of captives and often have no trouble eating neumono meat if there was nothing else.

Then some archeologists were poking around near some cave paintings they’d found and they discovered the remains of big creatures that were a bit like neumono and shared a lot of genes with them but were clearly quite distinct while also very… familiar. And then they looked closer at those cave paintings and although they seemed to depict neumono it turned out that they had been done by creatures with longer fingers than neumono have.

And then they cross-referenced genetic information and it turns out some modern neumono might have ancestors who had shared more than their delicious organ meats with these things.

So everyone was a little bit more uncomfortable about ghost stories after that.
>>
No. 81087 ID: 824f43

Katzati: do you think it's going to be weird if and when you meet any of Polo's hive or family, since you've sort of already know them, from Polo's perspective? (Having run through a good hunk of her memory while playing defense). Is it weird at all with Polo? Actually knowing someone else's experiences from the inside goes well past the level of intimacy empathy would usually bring about- knowing someone's feelings in the moment.

Ditto on the weirdness of spending time around the Rokoa clone Polo brought back.

Sharpa: so why cyborg, and how long ago did you make the upgrade? How you keep your regeneration from causing problems with your implants? Why still just working on getting the cyber kids- they're not big enough? No good facilities for it on the asteroid?

How'd you pick up your tight lipped arkot companion?
>>
No. 81088 ID: ca65e6

>>81086
Spooky. Any idea why they went extinct? Or if they ARE extinct?
>>
No. 81094 ID: ed883b

>>81086
Oh.
Oh.
Now that gets me thinking. Dastrica, is there any chance that the... "Wendigo" title may not be so much a misnomer at all? After all, it's been said that empathy can twist a neumono's body and body image in childhood and early adolescence. And it is entirely possible in a species where thoughts, emotions, and memetic concepts are shared almost reflexively, that such myths could take a life of their own in the collective unconsciousness?
So in other words, it is theoretically possible that either a rogue, a group of rogues, or an entire hive were trapped in a dire situation where eating other neumono was the only way to survive, and rather than rationalize it away as they murdered and ate their kin, embraced it, and slowly twisted themselves ,literally, into their own personal demons. OR maybe, they heard the legend, and in a similar situation, or after too long away from a hive, or any other neumono, forgot where the legend ended and they began.
My god, the Neumono are literally Carl Jung's wet dream and worst nightmare all at once.
>>
No. 81101 ID: 66c5cb

Rereading the polo quest archives, I found this.

>>/quest/499203

Not exactly vines, but are these what Hok describes as tail boners?

>>/questdis/63134
>>
No. 81103 ID: 937723

A question for any Milik's. So if you grow out of the ground but have sexes how exactly do you get in the ground to start?

Also being a evolved mobile plant what sort of side effects has moving off your home planet caused? Do you have to go back home to reproduce or can you do it anywhere with the proper soil?

On another note what is your diet like? Are you at least partially solar powered?

And finally do you have any distant ancestors or side branches of your species wandering around. Or not wandering around at all considering you are sort of plants.
>>
No. 81104 ID: 937723

For any Heef out there how did first contact go for you? I remember someone mentioning that it was a mess because you were sacrificing people to the new sky gods left and right.

So how has your society changed and do you enjoy the new way of doing things?
>>
No. 81107 ID: 66c5cb

To any Voklit/Kort:

How is Voklit society set up? Is it just a generic tribe setup, or anything more?

Also, I don't recall seeing any female voklits (that we know of) so far. Is there just minimal sexual dimorphism or is something else the cause?
>>
No. 81111 ID: 6c93bf

Well, if people are asking the basic social setup question, I'm going to engage in a little necromancy. Kiiu! The first salikai Polo met! The reasonable one! By the dark powers of ITQ (and derivatives), I summon you from beyond the grave!

My question: how does salikai society work? I assume there is one, that you at least keep some contact with each other, since you have language and names and you need to find mates somehow, and more particularly - and this is why I'm asking you - you somehow get the resources from somewhere that let you build huge underground facilities!

If it doesn't compromise any of your relatives, how did you get the massive amounts of metal, polymers, fuels, specialist parts and tools, and other resources you needed? I mean, the first base you had, that was at least partly just nabbed from the science hive, but it was clearly expanded upon, and then it turns out you had a whole second one. And maybe more, since preparations seem made to retreat again. Yet, your group seemed more like biological, electrical and computer scientists, not architects, and not with any big mining operation. Even if you did, we'd have to ask where you got the mining equipment! So the most likely scenario I can imagine is that there's some other salikai or salikai family out there who have some big secret mining facility and provide some sort of giant discount warehouse of materials that they trade to other salikai. Or some architect salikai that other salikai call in to build them a nice set of hidden lairs.

Which makes me imagine salikai society as a sort of network of kingdom/corporation-like entities with the salikai in place of the nobility/upper management, with drama and intrigue occurring through long-distance communication and reshufflings of deals and alliances and rare personal visits. Is that anything approaching reality?

Also, who was your mother?
>>
No. 81116 ID: 772641

Miss rokolo, are there any special people in your life? If so, could you tell us about them, please?
>>
No. 81140 ID: e15bdc

Does sexual activity with an empathy-less alien feel more akin to masturbation? Or is the partner's "presence" still felt to such a degree that it still "feels" like intercourse? Or is it perhaps different from neumono to neumono?
...While we're on the subject and still in the gutter, do neumono masturbate? Is there any kind of social stigma towards masturbation in neumono society?

Katzati:
Do you have/have you had any romantic relationships?
How much of a bearing does weight have on percieved attractivity for neumono?
>>
No. 81145 ID: 99624f

I bet you could replicate Neumono masturbation by wearing oven mitts.
>>
No. 81158 ID: d470e9
File 139831160340.png - (15.84KB , 800x800 , PoloMomITQ2.png )
81158

>Hey Polo's mom do you have any cute stories from Polo's childhood that you could share with us?
Hmm... ah, in school, kids are often subject to lots of exercises involving balance and hand-eye coordination, since that isn't something that comes as naturally for us. Once, a lot of the kids did the exercise of holding a spoon with an egg on it, and having to walk from point A to point B without letting the egg drop. She started walking with the rest, but after a second, she started thinking about the rules again. I don't remember what the rules said word for word, but I know that Polo at least thought she found a loophole in them. Before we could get her to stop, she pulled her spoon back to catapult the egg all the way to the finish line.

Well, she tried, anyway, but the egg escaped the spoon right as she started to push the spoon up, and it hit the back of her head. It wasn't a hard hit, but the yolk slipped down the back of her shirt, she panicked, and started running around and colliding with other kids.

>Also do you worry about her going out and doing all these dangerous missions? Its one thing to go out and fight people but she is up against some pretty nasty stuff.
Of course I do, but it's for a good cause. There's no reason at all I would tell her not to go, but of course if she decided not to go, she's welcome back home.

>Has she ever worn lipstick, black or otherwise?
Nah. She's been shown it, but she's never taken to the stuff.

>Are any sort of cosmetic product like eye shadow or whatever popular among neumono?
Yes. Lipstick is tricky to apply right and have it look decent at all, so that isn't as popular, but things like eye shadow and fur highlights are certainly common among hives that do want to augment their physical looks.

>And what do you do, if I may ask?
I'm a farmer, or a gardener to be specific. Or at least, that's what I've been most of my life, but now that I'm with the ultrahive, I don't know what I'm going to be yet. We've gotten a year's grant to be able to focus on further education, though, since most of us aren't far beyond a high school level of education. We wouldn't even be that far, except that we did still deal with aliens, and we knew that never picking up a book wasn't looked at favorably.

>Do you fight? What kind of weapons do you use?
I know how to handle a gun, but only the basics of a pistol.

>Who's Polo's daddy?
A man of few words. Perhaps Polo took after him more than me, at least in some ways.
>>
No. 81159 ID: d470e9
File 139831161762.png - (10.62KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ78.png )
81159

>Questions about video games
I do not play many. I do not have the time.

>I also want to know who Polo mains if she plays smash bros.
I have not played this and I doubt I will.

>So even with a Jammer active you can use your empathy while in physical contact with another Neumono right? So if Three stripes hugged someone with a Jammer on but no armor could he take them over as long as he kept touching them?
Yes, we can sense another with physical contact. However, this is still largely suppressed. A predator would most likely be unable to pacify a neumono with a jammer even with physical contact, assuming an average predator versus an average neumono.
>>
No. 81160 ID: d470e9
File 139831165177.png - (10.91KB , 800x800 , PolosDadITQ1.png )
81160

>Polo's Dad I realize we've never seen you! Can you come out?
Yep.

>and any bros and sis's I guess.
None of those. Not full siblings, but hive is family enough.
>>
No. 81161 ID: d470e9
File 139831166631.png - (12.76KB , 800x800 , KorliITQ22.png )
81161

>Is the neumono homeworld unique in terms of sheer density of (apparently often hostile) sapient species, or are there other worlds where something similar is going on?
Yep! Other worlds usually have some sentience going on, but mostly just one - arguably two for those lenient on the meaning of - sapient creature. We have like a dozen or something absurd. I mean, some of that is really arguable, and I sure couldn't imagine myself holding a conversation with them, but, you know, still self aware.

>Does sexual activity with an empathy-less alien feel more akin to masturbation? Or is the partner's "presence" still felt to such a degree that it still "feels" like intercourse? Or is it perhaps different from neumono to neumono?
Well no it's still intercourse. I mean think about it like, uh... if you turn off the lights. You can't see each other, but you still certainly know that they're there.

>While we're on the subject and still in the gutter, do neumono masturbate? Is there any kind of social stigma towards masturbation in neumono society?
Yes and basically no. I mean unless you mean in public. Or in empathy range at inappropriate times. I mean two people in an unjammed motel who are next doors might not feel too comfortable getting to know one another at a distance, you know.
>>
No. 81162 ID: d470e9
File 139831168046.png - (16.90KB , 800x800 , KatzatiITQ10.png )
81162

>Do you have/have you had any romantic relationships?
Well, nothing too special, just my close friends in my own hive. Now, that could be called romantic relationships by some people's eyes, but what I have is a lot more casual than what I think 'romantic relationship' tends to imply. Really, though, when we cuddle as much as we can do, I'd be lying to say that things never went farther.

And, I do have a couple of kids.

>How much of a bearing does weight have on percieved attractivity for neumono?
For this one, I'll just recycle an old answer.
>>80754

>Do you think it's going to be weird if and when you meet any of Polo's hive or family, since you've sort of already know them, from Polo's perspective?
Not really. Keep in mind that even though Polo and Rokoa had a very realistic perspective, I was still just doing conventional dreamwalking, and could still easily tell it was a dream, even if it was far more vivid than normal. It's not too much different than if Polo simply told me about her hive, except she included little mannerisms and things as well. It's still in Polo's perspective and memory, and I still haven't met them myself. Maybe it's enough to give me more than a single preconceived notion about how they are, but it's not enough to make me feel like it'll be weird at all.

>Ditto on the weirdness of spending time around the Rokoa clone Polo brought back.
Ditto here, too, then.

But... when I think about it, hearing and seeing all of these Rokoa clones, it might be a little funny if I ever met the original somehow. I think that's a lot less likely, though.
>>
No. 81163 ID: d470e9
File 139831171844.png - (11.23KB , 800x800 , SharpaITQ1.png )
81163

>Sharpa: so why cyborg, and how long ago did you make the upgrade?
Because it is superior overall, and I did it as soon as I could. Technology is still my weakness as with anyone, but should my opponent not be prepared with the right weapons for me, I am effectively unbeatable.

>How you keep your regeneration from causing problems with your implants?
By extensive trial, error, and constant maintenance. Installation is rarely perfect the first time around, and I must know how to maintain things so that I can keep everything in working order, lest my own muscles seal the joints shut.

>Why still just working on getting the cyber kids- they're not big enough? No good facilities for it on the asteroid?
Both. It is difficult enough to install implants in an adult, let alone when they are still growing. It is also extremely expensive even with the right connections. On this backwater hellhole, finding anyone suitable besides myself is nigh impossible.

>How'd you pick up your tight lipped arkot companion?
He used to be with the Zozu mafia. Despite my distaste for them, I was involved in a low profile mission with them. Krak was one of them. I noticed how easily he obeyed orders, no matter how much inconvenience to him. As long as it was made clear who was boss, I have little doubt that he would have leapt without question if we told him to leap in front of an oncoming tank. It is rare for an arkot, and I do not even think that he is aware of how loyal he is.

I negotiated to be his new boss for the job that I did, after we worked together for a couple of weeks.
>>
No. 81164 ID: d470e9
File 139831173009.png - (12.28KB , 800x800 , HokITQ12.png )
81164

>Not exactly vines, but are these what Hok describes as tail boners?
>>/questdis/63134
Well yes except it's not actually a boner. Just sort of a... side-boner. Yeah. One that's not as easily covered up as pants.

>So if you grow out of the ground but have sexes how exactly do you get in the ground to start?
So a girl lays an egg but it turns out that egg is more like a seed and then they plop it in the ground and if the situation is right then it'll sprout. Like normal plants.

>Also being a evolved mobile plant what sort of side effects has moving off your home planet caused? Do you have to go back home to reproduce or can you do it anywhere with the proper soil?
Yeah it's really not too tough to emulate the soil or the right conditions. I mean it's probably a bit expensive to get a personalized one, so usually there's little actual miklik baby factories where you can rent a spot of dirt to grow a miklik in and in return they'll grow the miklik and actually know what they're doing.

>On another note what is your diet like? Are you at least partially solar powered?
Yeah but when off planet we do tend to need a hefty but of mineral and vitamin supplements to survive. Otherwise we just kind of munch on whatever and usually it turns out okay. I mean our digestion is not very efficient but that is mostly because it's quick to say 'this could possibly might be poison let's dump out the whole meal.'

>And finally do you have any distant ancestors or side branches of your species wandering around. Or not wandering around at all considering you are sort of plants.
Yeah we don't have a whole lot of variety of wildlife on my planet. It's basically plants as far as the eye can see. There's other wandering things, and a few miklik-traps that are often pretty rare unless a miklik society forms that actually likes having kids and lots of them.
>>
No. 81165 ID: d470e9
File 139831176477.png - (12.17KB , 800x800 , SomeHeefITQ1.png )
81165

>For any Heef out there how did first contact go for you? I remember someone mentioning that it was a mess because you were sacrificing people to the new sky gods left and right.
Yeah we were preeeettyyy religious. And contact went preeeettyyyy bad for us. We basically made all the aliens think we were a bunch of savages. Which we were. We had brutality and warfare that put some human cultures to shame. And Belenos... well, belenos are savages of politics and shit, which apparently is more acceptable.

So yeah we got taken advantage of, and unlike the care put into the Pomi and Neumono homeworld, we weren't given much of a chance to adapt that quick. So we got food but not a whole lot of jobs to go with it. We were put in a whole bunch of economic bubbles, and when they bursted, we weren't the ones who had solid footing under us.

That's why us heef have the highest percentage of criminal heef versus not-criminal heef.

>So how has your society changed and do you enjoy the new way of doing things?
So eventually some kind-hearted aliens came to our homeworld and said what the fuck are you guys doing to these bird things. I don't think they really cared about us, they just cared about the shortcomings of the alien's ethics. Sort of like giving to charity to feel good about yourself. Hearts of hollow gold. But whatever, that still was in our favor, so eventually there was some pretty effective assimilation projects that went on. Still, damage was dealt, and we don't forget our ancestry too easy even among the criminals, so there's that. That said, we got the lowest lifespans easily, so we have a lot more chances to forget ancestry than other species. So it'll probably be fine eventually, but for the time being, there's a deep reputation we got for being criminals.
>>
No. 81166 ID: d470e9
File 139831179479.png - (11.55KB , 800x800 , VilnITQ5.png )
81166

>How is Voklit society set up? Is it just a generic tribe setup, or anything more?
Voklit society is typically built by elders. The wisest of us gather and select chief through who has shown to be most cunning and intelligent based on tribes' ideologies.

During wartime more young voklit who prove themselves in combat may be in inner circle of tribe. Favorite is always wise elder who fought many battles and survived. Best combination is best chief.

All voklit judgement is based on actions. Words are kept slim, as they are sign of poor attempt at making up for action. Viln has had to surmount this challenge, as aliens favor words and ideas rather than physical action.

Voklit recognize that actions of the past are silent in the presant. As memory of this, best souvenir - er, trophy, perhaps better word - of action is taken from anything worthy of remembering. Defeated voklit skulls are taken and placed in one's shelter. Saving another voklit makes them new trophy until other voklit saves one who saved them - similar to myself and Polo. To preserve sanctity of actions, stealing another's trophy is punishable by exile and death. To steal one's trophy of the present is to steal one's sacred action of the past.

Point Viln is making is status of oneself is proportional to all trophies gained.

>Is there just minimal sexual dimorphism or is something else the cause?
We tell by scent. Otherwise, not even keen voklit eye can tell difference between male with loincloth and female with loincloth.
>>
No. 81167 ID: d470e9
File 139831180663.png - (11.48KB , 800x800 , KiiuITQ1.png )
81167

>Kiiu! The first salikai Polo met! The reasonable one!
Are you calling my siblings unreasonable? My father appears to be going insane, but do not belittle the others.

>How does salikai society work?
It is hardly what one would call a 'society.' Even we would call it 'business' in our own tongue. Yes, we have contact with other salikai, and it is common that a small number of salikai would know the location of one, forming a long net of known locations. Locating a single arbitrary salikai could take months of dealing for their location, as we never were keen on making our locations well known. Underground bases are hardly something we were forced into. Rather, they are our natural environment, whether or not they are reinforced by 12 inch walls of steel.


>You somehow get the resources from somewhere that let you build huge underground facilities!
Yes, we did 'somehow' get that. That, however, is absolutely not something I would ever share so long as I have the tiniest scrap of loyalty to my family. Which I do have a scrap or two thereof. So I'm afraid the entirety of your third paragraph will have to go to waste, and an answer will have to come from Polo.


>Which makes me imagine salikai society as a sort of network of kingdom/corporation-like entities with the salikai in place of the nobility/upper management, with drama and intrigue occurring through long-distance communication and reshufflings of deals and alliances and rare personal visits. Is that anything approaching reality?
Yes.

>Also, who was your mother?
To be honest? I do not know much of her. My father does not care to speak of her much, and I expect it was her bearing his children as a business rather than any concept of affection. With the deed done, she moved on to other parts of our homeworld.
>>
No. 81169 ID: ca65e6

>>81161
Wait how does neumono masturbation even work if there's normally not much movement during sex?
>>
No. 81170 ID: 99624f

>>81167

So Kiiu where do you think your families research would have lead if you had not gotten mauled to death by Rokoa?

Also do you have any entertaining stories about subverting the Science hive? We asked Korli but she wont talk about it and is probably to young to know what happened anyway.

Oh and was all your weapons and such made by the Science hive? Or do you have some technical genius's in your family? Either way its awesome because getting someone to make mind controlling torture weapons that only affect there own species is the best evil plan ever. I mean it would have come crashing down eventually but would have been one heck of a ride.
>>
No. 81173 ID: 824f43

>actual miklik baby factories
Nurseries, Hok. The word works both for babies and plants, or both in this case, and is rather more appropriate. Unless they're being mass produced for slave labor or something.

>>81166
Hmm, the trophy thing (and even the rescue-enslavement) makes a lot more sense when put in the context of devaluing language for action. If you can't express ideas verbally or in the moment, you need some other representation. They're physical manifestations of abstract concepts. It's telling a story in three dimensions instead of encoding them in a song, or painting them on a cave wall, or writing them down.

>>81167
Well, if you're answering questions from the dead, I have one I've wanted answered for a long time.

Why exactly were you left alone, on the outermost edges of your family's facility, without the resources your siblings seemed to have? No arkots or alien mercenaries or science hivers to assist you, protect you, or do your dirty work. You had to recruit Polo to assist your ends (in person! A risk none of the others took), and needed to find your own neumono for your research, despite the science hive and tribes your family had on hand. You were almost literally on the front lines, and it cost you your life.

Was your isolation self imposed? (You wanted to be further from the others? You were the only one who took an interest in the upper caves, or trying to set up preemptive countermeasures against the warhive?) Was it some kind of punishment or pseudo-exile?
>>
No. 81175 ID: e15bdc

>>81161
When is an appropriate time, then? I mean, in a hive setting you'd have your hivemates within empathy range at all times. Is that still appropriate?
Speaking of being within empathy range, what kind of reaction is elicited when someone within empathy range, both in a hive and extra-hive, is just noticeably turned on?
>>
No. 81176 ID: 49b933

Not so much a question but a comment, but it seems like many of the most awesome neumono are 'larger than life' both figuratively in that they show uncommon to legendary levels of mental fortitude, and literally in that in comparsion to other neumono, they're huge.
There are exceptions (Polo, possibly Polo's family.) Buut this generally seems to be the case.
Anyone have any idea why this is?
>>
No. 81179 ID: fe4bfc

So this is to whatever Salikai wants to imagine it.

Lets say instead of Polo quest it was called Salikai quest. Everybody loved you and hated those dang floppy eared Neumono. So stuff happens like it did in Polo quest but this time everything goes your way. Polo ends up working for you and Rokoa gets turned into your predator slave. Then you manage to ruin the war hives reputation and either blow up or steal there ship and no one ever finds out you exist.

Where does it go from there? If everything went wonderful for you over the next few years what would it look like?
>>
No. 81180 ID: 0ee153

>>81176
I believe it was explained a couple of times that if a neumono's hive thinks they should be bigger they get bigger, although I'm not entirely certain if anyone knows exactly how much is due to the hive and how much is genetics.
>>
No. 81184 ID: 66c5cb

Sealock queen: How's operation: get more Polos going? Also, what's your name? Also, how do you like being in an ultrahive?

Polo: What's with your strange urge to make other people prettier? First the prettiest arkot, then brushing Viln's hair. Are you letting out pent up desires to be pretty yourself on the people around you?

Heef: How do you feel about eating poultry? Same question for belenos and lamb/mutton. Also, have any special racial abilities? Or is the lack thereof why you weren't really taken in like neumono were for work/combat

Three-stripes: How do you feel about Polo going off to fight four-stripes and the salikai? Do you want to help? Also, how are you and giant's hive doing in modernizing? Have you learned English yet?

Story Seeker: Would you consider turning into a lich? I mean, kobold lifespans are pretty short, and there is so much of the world to explore/find stories in. Zirkala would probably help you through it if you asked nicely, maybe after a few more years of relationship building. If you become a lich and learn soul-transferring spells, you might even be able to fulfill Morgana's dreams of being a drake by sending her soul to a dragon's body.

Rokoa: Who would win in a fight while naked and unarmed? You or Chop?

Hok: How do you feel about getting off the asteroid, with either Pilon's plan or Sharpa's (which may or may not be the same thing)? What would you do if you could escape the asteroid?

Az: How do you feel about Biles' ultrahive?

Science hive queen: So what happened to your hive, and how were they taken over?
>>
No. 81186 ID: 5b7abd

Any belenos: Do you use your horns for anything? Aside various cosmetic and attractiveness purposes. Like, if you get in a fight, do you feel a compulsion to headbutt each other? Maybe you had some ancestor a little ways back, evolutionarily speaking, who fought with them?

I mean, no offense, but if they're not used for anything they must be a strain on your spine. And I feel like I recall something about you guys having easily snappable necks, but I don't know from where.
>>
No. 81192 ID: 824f43

>>81173
Also, as an addendum, the whole memory-trophy thing makes me wonder what you'll end up thinking of modern monuments, when you see them. Or military medals.

>Az: How do you feel about Biles' ultrahive?
He already gave a pretty succinct empathic summary of his feelings when Biles met him.
>>/questarch/548553
>there's some prejudice against coalition neumono, here. He thinks that they're headstrong and thick skulled.
>>
No. 81208 ID: 742a1e

>>81184
>Rokoa: If you and Chop got into a fight while naked and unarmed, how fast would it turn into hatesex?
>>
No. 81214 ID: 0ee153

>>81208
Do either of them have any real reason to hate each other? Also, I know Rokoa has been stated to not be into interspecies sex somewhere.
>>
No. 81225 ID: 66c5cb

Sharpa: Think you can beat Rokoa/Polo in a fight? Or Hok, if he has time to plan?
>>
No. 81234 ID: 9ccb59

>>81208
Just because they're naked doesn't mean they're automatically going to have sex, neither of them are Story Seeker.
>>
No. 81240 ID: 824f43

>>81158
So is photography a hobby of yours? Or is it that cameras were just popular among neumono at that point in time? (Would fit with Likol, at least). Polo would have been in only the first or second generation born after contact had really settled down (well, as much as it makes sense to try and split the long-lived fuzzballs into 'generations'), which really makes it one of the first times you'd have been able to do things like hold onto baby pictures. (Ignoring science hives that managed to tech up that far on their own before getting killed).
>>
No. 81241 ID: ca65e6

Polokoa: How do you get along with the other ultrahive kings? Like Az?
>>
No. 81248 ID: d470e9
File 139853030873.png - (7.19KB , 639x800 , KiiuITQ2.png )
81248

>So Kiiu where do you think your families research would have lead if you had not gotten mauled to death by Rokoa?
>Let's say everything worked out for the Salikai when Polo came. Where does it go from there? If everything went wonderful for you over the next few years what would it look like?
We'd bide our time more, I'm sure. I'm not going to breach the topic of how we got and get our supplies - but if we could take more time, we would, doing so as safely as possible. We'd keep running our experiments as we were and not need to take so many risky bets.

Eventually, well, I'm sure my father has plans, but even we weren't privy to them. And yes, I am aware I am being vague, but you are asking very personal questions.

Near perfect bugs, two well trained predators and reliable empathy relayers... good, healthy clone armies - we have plenty of food, and we could take our time properly taming all the Rokoas we could deal with... more secret bases, with expansion, as hard as trustworthy allies can be to attain... ah, I'm letting myself go with these power fantasies. I'm sure my father had these, as well, and perhaps realizing they could have been a reality only to get crushed by a few bad choices and timing, well, perhaps I can't blame him for being far too on edge for his own good.

>Also do you have any entertaining stories about subverting the Science hive?
>Oh and was all your weapons and such made by the Science hive?
I do not, not for you! These questions are also too personal.

>Why exactly were you left alone, on the outermost edges of your family's facility, without the resources your siblings seemed to have?
An entirely personal choice. I always had the feeling that if I wanted something done right, I would need to do it myself. Raising and upbringing arkots were a fine experiment, but they are decades shy of being anywhere near reliable for what we needed. I prefered small, controllable things that I could oversee myself. I had all the resources my siblings had access to, even as the youngest of us - but sometimes less is more. Hence I had my cozy little lab up topside, with no arkots or protection, and went out to the front lines myself. Of course, I fell short on calculating the maximum strength that one of Rokoa's size could bring forward. I would have injured her more, but I was afraid of killing her. That care I took with her life was rewarded with death. These two mistakes were made in a world that does not easily forgive. That would have been a good lesson to my siblings to do what they do, but half of my siblings were killed by Rokoa even when they did hide behind their walls of arkots.
>>
No. 81249 ID: d470e9
File 139853032766.png - (13.84KB , 800x800 , KorliITQ23.png )
81249

>Wait how does neumono masturbation even work if there's normally not much movement during sex?
Well there's actually artificial chemicals, so girls can get a dildo or vibrator to suck stuff through and that's fine.

And then well guys just need like a vacuum cleaner I gu- okay no that's not actually a good idea and I'm sure the neumono that tried that was filled with regret. But I mean, something that sucks, but okay some guys can actually push it through on its own and can even prefer doing so if they want to work for it.

>Science Queen: So what happened to your hive, and how were they taken over?
She's unavailable!
>>
No. 81250 ID: d470e9
File 139853036095.png - (14.78KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ56.png )
81250

>Rokoa: Who would win in a fight while naked and unarmed? You or Chop?
I'm the top end of my species, and he at the top of his. So it's a fight between a neumono and one of those little frail things.

I could win with a hand and a leg tied behind my back.
>>
No. 81252 ID: d470e9
File 139853043624.png - (14.17KB , 800x800 , MikaliITQ3.png )
81252

My name is Mikali.

>How's operation: get more Polos going? Also, what's your name? Also, how do you like being in an ultrahive?
Right now, it's not going at all. It's more of operation: think about operation get more polos. We've hardly settled in, after all, and the costs, risks and rewards of having us continue the silence training are being considered.

We all think that it's worth a try, us and the ultrahive, so it's more a matter of when than if. We're hopeful, of course, but it's going to be a challenging experiment with no way to tell if the end of the road is worth it or not.

>So is photography a hobby of yours?
I wouldn't say so, but it is something I always carry around just in case there's something I want to have a permanent visual of. So, cameras were popular, but no more popular than the rest of the shiny tech. Polo was born just a decade or so after we really hit a stride with getting technology.
>>
No. 81253 ID: d470e9
File 139853044975.png - (10.51KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ79.png )
81253

>What's with your strange urge to make other people prettier? First the prettiest arkot, then brushing Viln's hair. Are you letting out pent up desires to be pretty yourself on the people around you?
The prettiest arkot was a mockery after his attempt to blindfold me. I simply discarded the blindfold in a manner to make it clear I would not put it on.

I was not attempting to make Viln prettier. I was attempting to have Viln follow the most basic hygiene levels. There is no telling what wildlife had made its residence in his hair.
>>
No. 81254 ID: d470e9
File 139853050263.png - (12.34KB , 800x800 , SomeHeefITQ2.png )
81254

>How do you feel about eating poultry? Same question for belenos and lamb/mutton. Also, have any special racial abilities? Or is the lack thereof why you weren't really taken in like neumono were for work/combat
Are we poultry? If we're not, then you mean those things that look nothing like us but still have delicious meat? Yeah we eat it. And that was rhetorical! We're not poultry.

I bet the belenos feel the same way.
>>
No. 81256 ID: d470e9
File 139853057211.png - (12.24KB , 800x800 , ThreeStripesITQ9.png )
81256

>How do you feel about Polo going off to fight four-stripes and the salikai? Do you want to help? Also, how are you and giant's hive doing in modernizing? Have you learned English yet?
Three Stripes hopes that she is as careful as possible and Three Stripes hopes he did not hold back too much training her because she wanted to and Three Stripes thought it was weird and not good at first but maybe Three Stripes understands why now. This is why Three Stripes wishes he knew their sounds all the way through but words are too hard for Three Stripes and he is pretty sure he will only get a little bit of it ever.

Giant's hive and Three Stripes are still doing things with modern and will learn things in the future or at least that is what Three Stripes hopes.
>>
No. 81257 ID: d470e9
File 139853058342.png - (13.02KB , 800x800 , HokITQ13.png )
81257

>How do you feel about getting off the asteroid, with either Pilon's plan or Sharpa's (which may or may not be the same thing)? What would you do if you could escape the asteroid?
It's cool I guess. I mean I probably wouldn't do much different except out there there would be more law enforcement. Which probably isn't good. I mean, I sure can't see myself at some desk job with a phone in each hand for 7 hours a day either though. So, I dunno.
>>
No. 81258 ID: d470e9
File 139853060593.png - (11.71KB , 800x800 , AzITQ5.png )
81258

>Az: How do you feel about Biles' ultrahive?
Hey, I've answered a lot of questions. A lot of personal ones, a lot of tough ones. But this one?

Don't get me started on those chucklefucks. Yeah there's some decent ones. Hell, just about every one in Polo's group I've got some respect for in some way shape or form, but the big head honchos of it? They call themselves the most modern neumono the species has to offer, and if that's the case, I hope aliens fuck right off and leave us with nothing but sticks and stones.

I'm a professional, so I won't elaborate.
>>
No. 81259 ID: d470e9
File 139853062022.png - (12.51KB , 800x800 , EmereITQ3.png )
81259

>Do you use your horns for anything?
Nnnoo... we had some ancestors that did, but now they're just ornamental.

Our necks are actually not as strong as you'd think they'd be, but instead of doing something reasonable like losing the horns, they just became light. Not hollow, but they really are not difficult to hold up at all. I guess it's because we still found them appealing towards mating past evolving from things that used good, heavy horns, so they just happened to persist with us.
>>
No. 81260 ID: d470e9
File 139853063027.png - (12.10KB , 800x800 , SharpaITQ2.png )
81260

>Sharpa: Think you can beat Rokoa/Polo in a fight?
As for Rokoa, I would probably win. She has been known to do unexpected things, and as volatile as fights are, I could never say that I would have a 100% chance of winning. The chances also fell when she got that new bio armor. That is the only armor she wears, and so the quality of bio armor is critical for her. I have also become a high profile neumono, or at least high enough that Rokoa has most likely taken note of me, and measures to fight me should I turn hostile.

Until I get a chance to kill her in safety, or until she starts participating in wholesale rogue slaughter, I won't fight her.

I doubt I could beat Polo, for classified reasons.

>Or Hok, if he has time to plan?
This is even more vague to tell. If he has a year to plan, and I'm forced to fight him on his own grounds, then I'm sure he will have something that I can't surmount. In fact, even if he had a single day, there's no telling what he could get, if anything.

If I wanted to kill him, I would simply attempt to snipe him from the shadows.
>>
No. 81261 ID: d470e9
File 139853064451.png - (112.35KB , 800x800 , StorySeekerITQ6.png )
81261

>Story Seeker: Would you consider turning into a lich?
Hm... I would like to say that I don't believe lichdom would suit me, but on the otherhand, Zirkala does not strike me as the traditional lich personality! And back onto the first hand, Zirkala does appear quite capable of doing harrowing, questionable-moral deeds to get things to go her way, and I simply don't know if I have what it takes to do such a thing.

No, if I gained some form of immortality, then I would take as much advantage of it as I could, but I would not actively seek it out, either!
>>
No. 81262 ID: 824f43

>>81253
I remain amused that this hygiene thing seems to cut both ways. You complain about the things living in his hair, while he sniffs and complains that neumono should really bathe more often.

>>81257
Space is big, and there all kinds of lawless places. And even where there are laws, there's usually a market for people with your skills, from militaries and governments to corporations and criminal organizations and politicians and people with too much money for their own good. And then there's all the backstabbing, and freelancing, and all the stuff there is to steal in the big bad universe...

You'll be fine.

>or until she starts participating in wholesale rogue slaughter, I won't fight her
You're no rogue, though. You're just isolated from your hive and ultrahive by the asteroid. But you would help them anyways?

>I doubt I could beat Polo, for classified reasons.
Obviously the UnSe cast escapes the simulation by merging not with the CAI, but with the Ghost, when she arrives. Which means future-Polo has super magic CAI hacking power tech infiltrator powers and Sharpa knows she'd be no match!
>>
No. 81263 ID: 66c5cb

Why'd you authorize and take an active part in the production of such a cheesy live-action movie about you and Rokoa?
>>
No. 81264 ID: 66c5cb

>>81263

Oops, forgot to address that at Polo. Also, Polo: How do you feel about the ultrakings and queens? I'm surprised none of them (or other kings/queens) have tried to assassinate you yet, considering your uncanny knack for regicide. I mean, none of them really have a reason to hate you yet, but considering how paranoid human rulers tend to be, I'm surprised neumono ones are so different. I mean, it'd be hard to do it without alerting you somehow via empathy, but there are plenty of other species that can be sent in (or jammered neumono).
>>
No. 81265 ID: 2fc3e9

Dear Biles' leaders: What makes you so modern? What's your opinion of Az and his hive/ultrahive?
>>
No. 81268 ID: e15bdc

>>81175
Asking this again because it was missed.
Also, does a queen's current mood affect her hive? Like, if a queen is in an angry mood, would the hivemates get angry more easily?
>>
No. 81274 ID: 824f43

>>81263
Polo can't (or won't) answer that, yet. The movie is filmed sometime after her mission in Polo Quest is completed, so from her perspective, it hasn't happened.

I suppose future-Polo could answer, but so far the characters have stubbornly kept their answers and perspective in line with their current location in the story. (So Polo and her contemporaries are answering from ~135 AW, and the Asteroid denizens from 185 AW).
>>
No. 81275 ID: 66c5cb

>>81274

Oh, right, forgot about that. Then Lukratsa: Any insight into >>81263
?
>>
No. 81277 ID: 66c5cb

Rikora: Rokoa's more successful suitors and opponents seem to be tiny and clever. Remind you of anyone?
>>
No. 81279 ID: b6659b

Neumono: would falling from a great height kill you instantly, since it's whole-body damage? Similarly, something large and heavy falling on you? Being caught in the shockwave of an underwater explosion?

And to balance that grim question: who would be the most famous historical/mythological character in pre-contact neumono memory? Someone equivalent to, like, the humans' Hercules, or Gilgamesh, or Alexander the Great, or Genghiz Khan?

What would you say was the best single event to happen in history, for the well-being of your species as a whole?
>>
No. 81280 ID: 99624f

>>81249

Well that explains a lot of things. So unlike most mammalian species that have a fire and forget method of impregnation your mating is more about working the large sperm ball from one place to another.

That would explain some of Rokoa's cryptic remarks from much earlier. Makes me respect Kappi all the more now.

So your sex toys must be pretty interesting. I bet the human sex industry had a field day when they figured that out. Slap a vacuum pump on a fleshlight and you are good to go. And on the other end making some sort of dildo that you can suck some sort of egg thing through?

Bet that lead to some embarrassed teens getting odd looks at the x-ray clinic.
>>
No. 81282 ID: 99624f

>>81248

After thinking about your situation Kiiu I think what you needed most was a good public relations person. All you have to do is put a bit of spin on your tale and suddenly people are supporting you.

A family hunted to the ends of the earth by there ancestral enemy. Forced to live in hiding under the ground in horrible conditions. Spending every day working to avoid detection. Up against a enemy numbering in the millions all part of twisted hive mind controlled by savage Queens. A species capable of regenerating from almost any wound and so ravenous they will devour anything they come across.

But do they give in? No they work to subvert a morally deprived science hive that was already making sinister weapons. Weapons designed to only work against there own twisted race. Working together with other oppressed species you formed a army capable of fighting together for the common good.

And then a emotionless zombie and a raging monster descend on your home and systematically hunt your people down and destroy everything you have worked for.


As long as you keep people from noticing all the torture, slavery, and bio weapons in the backroom it would go well I think.
>>
No. 81283 ID: 3dd384

>>81258
Are you and Lukratsa related? If not, what's the meaning of "rozu"?
>>
No. 81284 ID: 66c5cb

>>81283

Rozu basically means "from".

>>/questdis/62284

So Az is from the gunblocker hive. Huh; gunblocker. Is that another way of saying meatshield?
>>
No. 81285 ID: 57a559

Sharpa and/or UltraKing, do you think you could serve Rokoa, Biles, or Polo in a dance off?
>>
No. 81288 ID: cee89f

Rokoa: What do you view as honor and what level of honor/dishonor do you hold yourself to? Like, on one hand, you seem perfectly willing to fight dirty, especially where your hive is involved. On the other, you're perfectly willing to throw down your arms, forsake your advantages and just have a good old fashioned duel to the death. (See: Red. You mentioned in an earlier ITQ that you would've been fine with fighting him without weapons and bioarmor if you'd had the time) It's an interesting dichotomy to me - on one hand, you do what it takes to win. On the other, there are things that are more important than just winning for its own sake.

Also: Who would in a fight, Rokoa or Zirkala?

Polokoa and Rokolo: Beer, liquor, or wine?
>>
No. 81289 ID: 824f43

>>81284
I'd kind of expect it to be related to his having shot himself in the face anecdote.
>>
No. 81290 ID: 2fc3e9

>>81288
>who wins: high-level caster or low-to-mid-level martial?

Guess.
>>
No. 81292 ID: cee89f

>>81290
Well sure, if you want the boring, obvious, and dnd inspired answer from the half-deranged lunatic who never admits defeat.
>>
No. 81293 ID: cee89f

>>81292
Also, low level? >.> She's mid level at absolute least.
>>
No. 81294 ID: 27ca74

>>81293
Relatively, sure, but if one world uses E6 rules and one doesn't there's not much of a contest. Admittedly there's no proof that Poloverse is E6, but Poloverse is relatively realistic as to what people can do and E6 was meant to model the real world.

Seriously though, I don't really see how Rokoa would possibly win in a boring straight-up fight. Propose a few scenarios, give them time to prep, whatever. Don't just dump them into an arena if you don't want the obvious answer.
>>
No. 81296 ID: cee89f

>>81294
I'm more interested in Rokoa and Zirkala's responses than the actual answer, dude. -_-

(I had a longer reply but it got lost somewhere in cyberspace)

Also, I love Asteroid Quest, but realistic, it ain't. (see: Brain darts)
>>
No. 81302 ID: e15bdc

>>81296
>I'm more interested in Rokoa and Zirkala's responses than the actual answer
That's not what ITQ is for, "dude"

That is exactly what ITQ is for. Come back in a day or so.
>>
No. 81303 ID: cee89f

>>81302
See first ITQ:
>You ask questions to quest characters, and they may answer as the author sees fit!
I don't see how my question is invalid just because I want the answer from the character's perspective. >.> We've had people asking quest characters for dates and sex, how a quest character would fare against a fictional character from our own world and making fun of a character's hair (that one wasn't even a question, iirc).

Hell, half of the questions posited have been psychology or personality based. What do you think ITQ is for? >.>

>"dude"
You say it like the word means 'asshole' >.>

Neumono: How does empathy figure into large-scale battle strategy? Say, a few hundred neumono on either side.
>>
No. 81307 ID: 62a84f

Anyone with good knowledge of predators: Regardless of why a predator would ever want to do so, would it be possible for one to stroll through a heavily populated area while ordering everyone in range to ignore/disbelieve them?
>>
No. 81318 ID: 445ff6

Oh hey another question which might have been brought up before but I'm not sure:

Presumably Three Stripes is not the only predator in the history of the species who has approached relations with neumono the way he has. If that's not a faulty presumption, has there ever, in recorded or legendary history, been a predator who was able to be "tamed" by neumono other than him?
>>
No. 81322 ID: d470e9
File 139874187903.png - (16.66KB , 800x800 , RikoraITQ3.png )
81322

>Rokoa's more successful suitors and opponents seem to be tiny and clever. Remind you of anyone?
This runs in the family. This is neither secret, nor profound.

"More" successful suitors may be tiny and clever. Successful suits must be more clever than they are tiny.
>>
No. 81323 ID: d470e9
File 139874189208.png - (15.16KB , 800x800 , KorliITQ24.png )
81323

>When is an appropriate time, then? I mean, in a hive setting you'd have your hivemates within empathy range at all times. Is that still appropriate?
Oh yeah I missed this one. Well, I mean, anytime is appropriate inside of ones own hive. I just meant, when non-hivemates are around, then people get squeamish. I mean, some people do it anyway. I heard some people did it in public in the early days, too.

>Speaking of being within empathy range, what kind of reaction is elicited when someone within empathy range, both in a hive and extra-hive, is just noticeably turned on?
Well in a hive, usually they take care of it! In fact, it kind of cascades, and hives are usually in sync for that sort of thing. In fact once I was at a little party and the hive excused themselves to go deal with that, and I wasn't invited which wasn't cool but they weren't comfy with outer participants I guess.

>Also, does a queen's current mood affect her hive? Like, if a queen is in an angry mood, would the hivemates get angry more easily?
Yes! That is kind of related. Like, if one person was mad, then it may make others mad a bit, but the whole thing that makes a queen a queen is that they have higher strength of empathy, and so their mad is more contagious and overpowering. I mean, there isn't really any special new thing that a queen or king has that a normal person doesn't - there's just a threshold they cross that can form and bind a hive. That threshold is real subjective, too.

>would falling from a great height kill you instantly, since it's whole-body damage?
Yeahhhh mayyybe. I mean if we really hit the ground in the wrong way we actually kind of explode. We have to be going really fast, though, and hit a hard surface perpendicular to our trajectory - probably flat. Since falling means straight down.

On the other hand we can survive a much worse fall than more aliens, but we're definitely not immune. And of course, we can break all sorts of bones and can't get back up again, there's that too.

>So your sex toys must be pretty interesting.
Yep.

>Bet that lead to some embarrassed teens getting odd looks at the x-ray clinic.
And less embarrased adults.

>Regardless of why a predator would ever want to do so, would it be possible for one to stroll through a heavily populated area while ordering everyone in range to ignore/disbelieve them?
Not likely at all. During the stroll, it would be possible to do this, however, it is not possible for a predator to make anyone forget anything in a brief moment. In this scenario, a lot of neumono would enter and exit the predator's bubble before such a concept took hold. They would be aware that they were disbelieving and ignoring the predator for a length of time, and when they left the bubble, they would be back in control of themselves.

Oh and there's the whole thing that predators can generally only control so many neumono at once.
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No. 81324 ID: d470e9
File 139874192465.png - (10.40KB , 800x800 , LukratsaITQ13.png )
81324

>Why'd Polo authorize and take an active part in the production of such a cheesy live-action movie about you and Rokoa?
I get the impression her hive talked her into it. Said it'd be great. And they were right. Polo's too much of a stick in the mud when on her own.
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No. 81325 ID: d470e9
File 139874195980.png - (10.75KB , 800x800 , SharpaITQ3.png )
81325

>You're no rogue, though. You're just isolated from your hive and ultrahive by the asteroid. But you would help rogues anyways?
I am an isolated part of a civilized hive. Rokoa's hive is detestable for reasons I will not go into here.
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No. 81326 ID: d470e9
File 139874197447.png - (12.37KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ80.png )
81326

>Polo: How do you feel about the ultrakings and queens?
They appear different from one another. I cannot think of accurate blanket statements, nor have I gathered enough of their political movements to do so.

>I'm surprised none of them (or other kings/queens) have tried to assassinate you yet, considering your uncanny knack for regicide.
I have only done it once, and when I did so, I did not simply decide that I felt like killing a queen for its own sake.
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No. 81327 ID: d470e9
File 139874199358.png - (12.10KB , 800x800 , AzITQ6.png )
81327

>Gunblocker. Is that another way of saying meatshield?
And damn good ones, at that.

And that's right. Rozu means 'from.' Sort of a firstname-hivename divider. Doesn't actually roll off the tongue as well as, say, 'Von', but Rozu's the ancient word from the legend of a past ultrahive. The language was long since dead, but I guess the aliens liked honoring the idea that we were able to do this sort of thing on our own. Not like it worked too well, apparently.

>Do you think you could serve Rokoa, Biles, or Polo in a dance off?
Now look, I may consider myself to be a stellar example of superiority, but that's because I'm also in my element. There's things I'm not good at. Dancing? That's one of them. A reanimated tree trunk would be a more suitable opponent for me. Wait. No. I just gave myself a mental image of a dancing tree trunk. And it's got some funky moves. Bad metaphor, nevermind.

Biles looks like he has a sense of rhythm and confidence for that sort of stuff. That sort of thing is probably natural for the the little fairy. Rokoa's hive might've been all about the war, but they had their rituals and their dances, so even though it's primitive, I bet she's got some moves. More than me, at least.

Polo, though? I bet would have to be coerced into a dance off, and would look like she'd rather be wrestling a salikai. Maybe a danceoff with her would be even. But it'd be bad. Embarrasing for everyone. Me. Polo. Everyone bearing witness.
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No. 81328 ID: d470e9
File 139874200583.png - (16.69KB , 800x800 , KiiuITQ3.png )
81328

> All you have to do is put a bit of spin on your tale and suddenly people are supporting you.
"All I have to do?" There is more to spinning some tale than that. There are prejudices, and the salikai are not on equal footing, and not in the way that allows pity and victim complexions.

People would take those who say the world is flat more seriously than those who say that the salikai are just trying to live in peace.
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No. 81329 ID: d470e9
File 139874207658.png - (29.22KB , 800x800 , PoirinITQ1.png )
81329

>What makes you so modern? What's your opinion of Az and his hive/ultrahive?
We're modern because we follow in the footsteps of the aliens. Some say it's pandering to them, but if the alternative is how leaving us to fend for ourselves, I say pander away.

Az is a surprisingly brilliant tactician and warrior, but he is also a conceited war monger. I doubt we will ever have peace while people like him are put in positions of power. I can say that I can live happily in peace, while I doubt he could sit in a home for more than a week.

Their ultrahive's formation was so bloody and costly that it made our own seem like it was built from handshake and mild mannered conferences.

It was not. I have respect for some specific organizations and individuals within their ultrahive, but I am glad to be part of the one I am part of, not the other.
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No. 81330 ID: d470e9
File 139874217455.png - (12.20KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ57.png )
81330

>What do you view as honor and what level of honor/dishonor do you hold yourself to? Like, on one hand, you seem perfectly willing to fight dirty, especially where your hive is involved. On the other, you're perfectly willing to throw down your arms, forsake your advantages and just have a good old fashioned duel to the death.
I've been asked this before, sometimes by my own hive.
I've thought about it, and I never came up with anything that sounded right. Sounds like soul searching and philosophy, and I do neither of these.

There's no external codebook of honor I live by.

I'm just me. The only part of 'honor' in that, I don't hide from who I am.

>Who would in a fight, Rokoa or Zirkala?
If I had a good weapon, I bet I could get a shot off because she can do her magic bullshit. Cept for all I know her magic bullshit can turn the rocket around on me.

There's not much of a fight with something that can melt my face off if she thinks about it hard enough.

Now, if it's barefisted with no armor, and Zirkala doesn't use magic, then we'd have a good fight. And I'd have no idea.

Cept she's just bones. Held together by magic bullshit too, so she has to use magic. Just not a good fight without too many restrictions.

I mean, fuckall, this is apparently a world where I'm "low to mid-level."
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No. 81331 ID: d470e9
File 139874219579.png - (109.44KB , 800x800 , ZirkalaITQ3.png )
81331

>Who would win in a fight, Rokoa or Zirkala?
I would not agree to a fight without magic. And yes, I have ways of dealing with explosives. Even if I did not, if she does not have any anti-magic provisions, then she would most likely not be able to use any tools before I could rot her hands into blackened, vile stumps.

So either there would not be a fight, or I would win.

For purposes of entertainment and an even fight, any of my non-magician summons would be a much better match for her.
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No. 81332 ID: 66c5cb

Zirkala: Whatever happened to the lich king? It seems like he just wandered off one time cycle and never came back.
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No. 81334 ID: 57a559

>>81331
Zirkala, have you ever considered visiting other universes? Or how about becoming a Demi-lich? Do you know why there's so few Demi-Liche's, or if there is even one at all in your universe and that he or she may be stopping the creation of anymore? Do the gods just straight up stop you?

I'm just curious about the universe questions, like say you wanted to stop by something like the Shadowrun universe or something similar to Asteroid Universe, but one where multiple universes actually exist and could conceptually accept magic. I imagine on a practical level, penetrating a universe where magic doesn't seem to exist in any shape or form may be very hard and/or dangerous.

Tom, now from your perspective, do the gods straight up stop Demi-Liches and/or multiverse travel? What about from OTHER universes, what jurisdiction do you have in that case? Do the other universe's gods get pissed off if you detain them and start doing diplomacy if they accept multiverse travel personally? Have you met another universe's god at all yet? Oh and are you working jointly with future Chee? I mean, time doesn't really exist as we perceive it up there right? You just have jurisdiction between the time Chee is born and dead, don't you?

Kappi, what is your favorite video game?

Wendel, as the only human we really know on the asteroid, are humans in minority on the Asteroid? How's your love life? Aliens in it at all?

Korli, since you've enjoyed the company of aliens, and this can mean any kind of relationship for all I care, which aliens are your favorite, if you play favorites? Maybe culture wise if you pay attention?

Rokoa, fight any interesting humans in your life? Or are they too squishy to be interesting to fight?

Hok, get any interesting humans to hate you in your life?
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No. 81340 ID: dbe554

Biles Modern Hive: Can you tell us the benefits that going up to date have given? Considering most of the time we see more 'tribal' and 'warmongering assholes' who constantly put down your hive, which almost seems like a wave of envy or 'species betrayal'.

I'd like to know what dealings you have with the other, as well as the issues.
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No. 81345 ID: 49b933

>Thread is called Behind The Ears
I've gotta ask- do you neumono like being scratched behind the ears?
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No. 81348 ID: a95b2e

>>81324
Sounds right. Seems like that's much more something that would appeal to their sense of humor than hers. A prank has to have a reveal, right? It's not funny if you don't get to shout April fools at the end. And after pretending she was dead for months, a celebratory silly movie makes a good ah-ha.

>>81327
...well, Polo is quite agile, but good luck getting her to do anything outside a life and death situation.

>>81328
There's also the fact they're terrible at selling their own message. It really wouldn't have been very hard for Kiiu's siblings to recruit Polo and continue using her against the warhive after his death, but instead they just attacked and antagonized her and tried to control her with heavy handed emotional manipulation (letting her think her hive was dead) that eventually backfired.

They got a lot of leeway, actually. Polo was pretty indifferent to and seemingly willing to overlook a lot of it, even the fact they'd enslaved a science hive and some tribes, until they started shoving the war crimes and bio-weapons and mind-control and attempted nuclear hijack attempts in her face.

It's not that they just didn't have good PR- they actually forced the issue.

Although Rokolo is apparently what happens in the universe where they managed to hide their war-crime boners long enough to get Polo working for them before they went for the inevitable betrayal. So maybe there was no win condition.
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No. 81354 ID: 445ff6

>>81318
Psst I think this one slipped by.
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No. 81361 ID: 00a7f7

Where/how do neumono females store those little blue sperm ball things and can she store other thing in the place she stores these?
Actually what are they anyway, are they liquid inside or a gel?
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No. 81386 ID: 5bf190
File 139891728155.png - (308.24KB , 800x700 , thebiggestITQpost.png )
81386

>who would be the most famous historical/mythological character in pre-contact neumono memory?
>has there ever, in recorded or legendary history, been a predator who was able to be "tamed" by neumono other than [Three Stripes]?

Let me introduce myself. I am Aryega, Queen of the Dustwalker hive, and I’m going to give you four answers to the history inquiry, ranging from fanciful mythology towards concrete history. The third one should settle the predator question, as well as involving my ancestor, which is why I’m the one answering. So: the most widespread myth that involves specific identifiable individuals, and therefore probably the oldest, is the one about the creation of the neumono species and why we’re divided into different hives. Settle in, because this might take a while. Ahem.

The Sun and Her Children.

Long ago, so the story goes, the Earth, the Forest and the Sea-sky had created all the beasts that inhabited themselves, each given a spark of heat from the Sun to bring them to life. Then, wanting to have companion creatures who could think and speak and make things themselves, they each designed intelligent creatures. Forest wanted creatures that were clever and dextrous, and created salikai; Earth wanted beings who were strong and steadfast, and made voklit; Sea-sky was mysterious and secretive and we don’t know what was made for those depths; and the Sun, who was secretly lonely because no-one could get close to her, wanted creatures that could endure pain and who would always understand each other, so she made the neumono. After enjoying their work and teaching their new children for a while, the Earth, Forest and Sea-sky became tired and went to sleep, but the Sun, who had limitless energy, decided she wanted to go on and live among her creations. So she turned herself into a neumono, the largest and most powerful and most beautiful there has ever been, with fur of black and ashen grey. She shared her own spirit with them, lending them endless fitness and youth, and eventually, she had five children: the oldest, a white-furred daughter who loved the mountains and snow, then a red daughter who loved the open grasslands, then a green son who loved the forest, then a blue son who loved the lands by the sea, and finally the youngest, a son with violet fur, who loved the dark places under the earth. Each one, being greater than normal neumono, became leaders of those who were most similar to themselves, and had many children among them, but though they lived apart they all were one people, with the Sun as High Queen over all. But the youngest son, though he was cleverest and best in making beautiful and useful things, was also smallest and weakest and became envious of his elder siblings, for the attentions that were put on their achievements, while most neumono outside his own people were too nervous of the dark to come visit him, to see the real beauty of his home and the full splendor of the treasures under the earth. He did love them, however, and so he came up with a plan that, he thought, would not harm anyone; he began to create all manner of splendid gifts for his siblings, presenting them to each with a declaration of what great and worthy deeds had earned it. Each trophy he presented was greater than all that had gone before, so that those who received them began to measure themselves against each other and to compete for the honour of the greatest prizes. Then, when they asked to meet him and deliver their assertions on why they deserved the next gift best, he could say he was too busy to visit them, and ask them to come to his home as guests instead. Surely, then, he would receive an equal measure of the glory his siblings had.

He did not appreciate the full heat of the feelings he had inspired, however. The Sun’s second daughter, she of red, had always felt herself overshadowed by her older sister, and had been overjoyed to receive for her triumphs a splendorous spear, stronger and more deadly than any other weapon that had existed. But the white daughter, planning to hunt an enormous beast, and believing the spear a much better fit for her own hand, went to her sister’s home and took the spear without leave, so great was her certainty in her own right thinking. Enraged by the theft, and by the empathic certainty that her sister thought herself better than her, the red daughter went to the white and grabbed it off her again. Shocked, the white daughter instinctively tried to pull it back, and the red sister answered by swinging the spear down and cutting her sister’s hand from her arm. Though both sisters were immediately horrified by this turn of events, and sickened by their own part in it, they were both overpowered by their outrage. The white daughter departed, but swore she would take redress for the injury and insult her sister had done her. Fearing the anger they had provoked, the two sisters and their people prepared to defend themselves from each other. The Sun was troubled by this, but did not interfere, believing that her children could resolve the issue themselves; her two daughters were each strong, self-disciplined, loving and protective, and would surely forgive each other. Even if not, their brothers, each of them clever and crafty, even-tempered and generous, would certainly step in to help cure the trouble. But the green son and the blue son, knowing their sisters were mightier than they, hid themselves rather than risk getting between their anger. The violet son, realizing his personal responsibility, instructed his people to refuse giving any further weapons or tools of conflict to his sisters’ peoples; but the red daughter, still stung by her sister’s scorn, took this disobedience from her youngest sibling as a dire insult, and sent her followers to take these things by force. Fighting back, the neumono who lived under the earth were killed or captured in great numbers, enslaved and their secret crafts and treasures stolen. The white daughter, woken from her own personal indignation by this crime, went with her own warriors to put an end to it. Seeing the culmination of their fears, confused and driven to desperation, some of the most powerful of the red daughter’s own children used their empathic power to capture other neumono who were not yet involved in the conflict, stealing their souls and sending them into battle as their slaves, believing that their enemies would hesitate to fight them. They were wrong, however, and so all races of neumono became involved in the war.

Driven by guilt and the need to redeem himself, the violet son told his remaining people to escape and scatter; once they had gone, he turned and began to fight his way to the center of the battle. Though the weakest of his siblings, he easily pushed his way through the struggles of lesser neumono, until he reached the bloody field where his two sisters now fought each other one on one, all others too afraid to approach them. Overcome by the desire to put an end to what he had begun, the youngest son of the Sun pushed himself between his two sisters and they, blinded by their rage towards each other, each drove their weapons through his body at once, and killed him. They had only begun to understand the horror of what they had done when the Sun herself finally appeared, blazing with her grief and rage and the agony of best hopes betrayed. Her children had been foolish, they had been cowardly, they had been cruel, they had allowed their feelings to master them, and they had spilled their own blood and that of those who had followed them. By poisoning themselves with anger and fear they had divided their spirits from each other forever more, and she could no longer bear to be near them. Those who had enslaved their own kind, she cast out into solitude, where they would be transformed into beasts without thought or craft, consoled only by the empty husks of their victims. All others, she banished to the corners of the world, to never live in one place and as one people again. The blood of her fallen son, split by petty and treacherous passions, dripped down into the earth and gave rise to twisted monsters, so that no neumono could ever dwell under stone in peace again. Finally, the Sun silenced her own connection to her creations, leaving them to become tired and sick and to eventually die of age. She left the world, and though she would keep watch on her children and her children’s children, she would never walk among them again so long as they remained enslaved to themselves.

That’s the first story. Just a story, obviously, but it is very popular. There are lots of different versions, tweaking it to suit the morals that particular hives want to teach their kids. It has a lot of cultural influence and forms the source for a lot of symbolism in other legends and in modern works of fiction. But, although there are various theories on where the myth might come from, like maybe there was once one really huge hive that just happened to split into several pieces at once, there’s no evidence for any reality behind this story other than that there were an unusually large number of hives that were passing it on. It was probably just made up to answer questions like “where did we come from” and “why are other neumono different from us”, while passing various lessons and also a bunch of gender and race stereotypes. The next story I’ll tell also has a lot of mythic elements in most tellings, but there is a little evidence for some aspects of it. So:

The Teacher who Listened to the World.

That title as actually a rather poor translation; the original words used in place of “Listener” mean receptivity in an empathic sense, not an auditory one. A more accurate but fanciful title might be “the teacher whose soul was open to everything”, though that’s still kind of inaccurate. In any case, he’s a figure that aliens have been interested in, as he’s the closest thing to a religious philosopher in our history. Some aliens call him “neumono buddha”, even though there isn’t that much in common between the two besides a general message of peace and enlightenment.

The story goes that, at a time somewhere more than three thousand years ago, on the western side of a continent in the northern hemisphere where the forests of a particular mountain range meets the red grasslands, a neumono boy was born the son of a rogue. Various legends exist regarding his childhood, but what all versions agree upon is that, even as he grew to adulthood, the young man’s empathy was so pure, wholesome, forthright and sincerely unselfish, that he found himself able to travel amongst the hives of other neumono without disturbing them, and was even welcomed by many. Instead of choosing one hive to become his, he continued to wander between them, at times disappearing into the wilderness for some time before returning, always miraculously unharmed. With his visits he brought knowledge, teaching the hives he visited how to find new kinds of food, how to make new kinds of tools, and how to tend to their environment so as to ward off dangers and prevent starvation. He tried to persuade the hives to leave rogues alone, to live in peace with each other, and eventually would even make the attempt to form them into what we would now call an ultrahive. This is where religion comes in. The Teacher taught his various friends that empathy was universal: we were, all of us, members of one hive, and simply unaware of it. Though the neumono were the main focus of his teachings - he taught that hostility and fear between hives was only a reflection of the hostility and fear we felt towards ourselves, which we would overcome if we achieved inner peace - he also extended it to all other living things and even to the world around us. Just as neumono stopped sensing each other when we fell asleep, but the empathy still existed, he believed that the world and all other creatures had a kind of empathy that was just too distant for most neumono to make out. So, just as neumono were gifted with the awareness that they and theirs were all of one single hive, a person who had achieved enlightenment would realize their connection with the universe and become aware that they were part of it, while it was part of them. The legends attribute amazing feats of empathic sensitivity to him, the capacity to sense other neumono from many more miles away than anyone else; in more extreme versions, he’s even attributed with the power to communicate with the world around him through empathy, to make flowers bloom and to have ravenous beasts lay down peacefully at his feet. His ideas on life and death may have appealed to some neumono as a comfort, as he taught that reincarnation - of the piecemeal sort that a lot of neumono hives believed in - would continue even when an entire hive was put to an end.

The story doesn’t have a happy ending, however. An insane Queen, of a hive of fierce and terrifying warrior, falls in love with him. Internally tormented, ashamed of her affection for such a peaceful person, unable to express her feelings in any healthy manner, and maddened by jealousy of his many companions, she endangers all the other neumono of the area and everything he has worked for in an attempt to take and keep him for herself. In the end, he uses himself as bait and drags her and himself over a cliff, ending her threat to his friends and giving her peace at the cost of his own life. The nascent ultrahive he attempted to create falls apart, and his message of peace eventually fails to find any significant purchase; it survives amongst rogues and among smaller, weaker hives enchanted by the idea that their more powerful competitors might be persuaded to spare them their depredations, or else is remembered purely for the diverting romantic tragedy of how the story ends. Post-contact, more neumono have started taking an interest in the philosophy behind it all, since it’s so supportive of the ultrahive values we developed after aliens took an interest in us, but the number of people who subscribe to the religious aspects remains quite small.

A lot of the story’s elements are pretty fanciful, of course, but there is a little evidence that it might be based in reality. The landmarks mentioned in the fuller versions of the story are clearly identifiable and match up with a real place, where a lot of the hives who had the story lived, and some of whom even remember themselves as descendants of descendants of et cetera of a hive described in the legend. These hives also display a commonality in some of their traditional practices, mostly agriculture, that could be the result of them all being taught from the same source. Most likely, leaving aside the miracles, was that there was at some point some person or group of people who moved through the area and passed on knowledge and technology to all the hives they met. If that person was really a neumono, then the idea that they could move so freely between hives and not get killed is quite miraculous enough. Let us move on to something more certain in its details.

The Predator Empire.

Long ago, a hive was almost entirely wiped out by a predator, save only one person, who discovered he was immune to the creature’s control. Why this was so, we don’t know - modern scholars speculate that perhaps he was able to silence his empathy, or that he suffered from some mental illness - but he dedicated his life to using that immunity to hunt down and kill every predator he could find in revenge for the loss of his family. As he did so, he would often ally himself with hives that had suffered from predation by his quarry, until one day the Queen of such a hive discovered, after their successful hunt, that her empathy could command the dead predator’s mindless slaves. Taking them as a labour force for her own hive, they were better able to build shelter and grow food, and the Queen decided to continue helping the Hunter on his quest in order to take more slaves. Becoming prosperous and populous, she and her hive built a city in the mountains, fed by terraced farms, where they could be safe, well-fed and at peace. Knowing she couldn’t stay away from her hive for too long at a time, however, she decided to have many children, most of them with the Hunter himself, in hopes that they would demonstrate the same powers as her, or him, or even both. Eventually, she succeeded, producing a daughter who had the same slave-commanding empathy as herself, who she could send with her father to fight predators and secure more of the broken servants for their own use. Here is where the question about tamed predators can be cleared, for as the story goes, the daughter of the Queen and the Hunter found two baby predators, whom she secretly rescued and raised as her own pets.

History has forgotten whether the daughter became Queen of her own offshoot hive after this, or if she remained merely a powerful champion of her mother’s hive, but what is clear is that she took a group of loyal companions for herself, and began to conquer other hives. If they capitulated to her, they were made into slaves of the normal kind that neumono often took from each other; if they fought back, she used her predators’ powers to break their minds and enslave them in that manner. Much of the stories of what magical feats her predators could perform seemed exaggerated for a long time - turning neumono into unwitting traitors against their own hives, or endowing her own warriors with unnatural courage and tirelessness - but since Three Stripes turned up, they’ve become a lot more plausible. Regardless of how many such stories were true, we know the Queen’s daughter built herself one of the closest things to an empire our planet has seen. There is archeological evidence of stone towns, paved roads, extensive farming plantations… all products of slavery, of course. In time, other hives who remained free, but under threat, decided to team up with each other to finally do her in. It is said that her father joined them, and even her mother, either from horror at her cruelty to other neumono or simply from the rational realization that the expansion could not sustain itself. After a long and terrible war, the Empress and her predator pets were killed, and her loyal warriors slain alongside her or driven back to the arms of their more peaceful elders. Without the brute labour of her slaves, the lands that they had taken were abandoned to nature; and, though the original hive had helped fight her, the others feared them and forced them out of the security of their mountain home. The allied hives had discovered they enjoyed some pleasant benefits from working together, but couldn’t put up with each other; so, in return for graciously not being slaughtered, the exiled hive were marked with the three points of a predator’s eye on their foreheads, to remind them of their crimes and to signify they were not to be killed on sight, and conscripted to walk between the territories of the once-allied hives, carrying goods and materials in distant exchanges from each to the others.

That hive, one of the few examples of a trading hive in pre-contact history, is my hive, the Dustwalkers. The original Queen, the Hunter, and perhaps even the would-be Empress are all my ancestors. It is speculated that we managed to survive in our way of life because our empathy is unusually mellow and inoffensive - perhaps a distant, inherited side-effect of having once lived alongside masses of empty predator slaves. Since Polokoa returned our old homeland to us, and we wait only for the archeologists to satisfy their desire to examine it all before we finally return to living there, we have decided to keep wearing these marks on our heads when we reach adulthood, so we can always remember our history.

So, to cover the breadth of the question we started with, I’ll finally tell you the story with the least myth, and the most reality.

The True Ultrahive.

As my previous story demonstrated, hive slavery was very common among ancient neumono, and directly observable in many places when aliens first arrived on our world. What didn’t exist at that time, and what almost exists only in legend, is a true ultrahive, one of multiple hives who worked together in mutually beneficial alliance. But, we know there was one. Centered on the hostile environment of a particular archipelago, but spreading much further, there exists even today the worn but still enduring fortresses of an ultrahive which, it is theorized, once numbered a population of over a hundred thousand neumono - puny by modern city standards, but by ancient and particularly by ravenous neumono ones, it was terribly impressive. Possibly unsurpassed. Aside from history passed orally by hives that still lived near their old territory, the land itself still bears the weight of their homes and their castles - yes, they had actual castles, a good few of them are even still there - which are, themselves, both filled with normal dirt-digging archeological evidence and decorated with elaborate stone murals depicting their culture and history. They even had a written language, though unfortunately no-one has managed to translate the glyphs that are still legible, even though we’ve pieced together much of the spoken tongue through their linguistic descendants. They were quite advanced technologically; not the most advanced that neumono ever were before contact, but quite high up there. They had paper, glass, steel, currency, compasses, simple mechanisms and even the lower levels of gunpowder weapons, including cannons.

But, before you get the wrong idea, it was not an ultrahive like the ones we have today. Their hives existed in a sort of feudal system - normal slave hives on the bottom, then more privileged hives of sailors, artisans and other skilled workers, then warrior hives with even more power and prestige, and finally one hive atop all the others, with their Queen not only their own ruler but also that of all the lesser hives below her. A Queen of Queens, as it were. She reappears in multiple depictions through the ruins they left behind, always larger and more central than all other figures and often with images of tribute and reverence being offered to her.

It didn’t last. It’s unclear as to whether there was some disaster, or an uprising by the lower classes, or even a disaster which caused an uprising… but that one and only definitely proven ultrahive did fall apart, well before aliens ever came close to us. Still, we have to offer our thanks to them; the discovery of their former lands, so easily visible from the air, did a lot to convince aliens that we were worth bothering with. They’re one of the biggest tourist destinations on the planet, now. And we’ve gotten a number of historical dramas full of sex and intrigue and backstabbing. They would be happy, I’m sure.

I hope that’s… sufficient answer to your questions.
>>
No. 81394 ID: 445ff6

>>81386
Man this is some fascinating stuff.

>there’s no evidence for any reality behind this story other than that there were an unusually large number of hives that were passing it on.
Well, I mean, depending on why you had a bunch of hives passing it on, you might be able to draw some interesting conclusions about interrelatedness and/or past geographical situation of different hives... or it could just be something that transmitted well.

>the daughter of the Queen and the Hunter found two baby predators, whom she secretly rescued and raised as her own pets.
So not really the same situation as Three Stripes, then, since there's a pretty big difference between raising something from birth and taming something that's reached adulthood in the wild. I suppose maybe he is relatively unique, then. Still, interesting to hear!

>the exiled hive were marked with the three points of a predator’s eye on their foreheads, to remind them of their crimes and to signify they were not to be killed on sight
So that/your hive basically got the Mark of Cain?

>They even had a written language, though unfortunately no-one has managed to translate the glyphs that are still legible, even though we’ve pieced together much of the spoken tongue through their linguistic descendants.
I was gonna say that if you've pieced together the spoken tongue then this ought to be like working out Mycenean Greek/Linear B (which took about sixty or seventy years from discovery to decipherment)... but depending on the nature of the writing system it might be more like trying to work out what the hell written Mayan is supposed to say without access to a single codex, or ancient Egyptian without something like the Rosetta stone. There are plenty of spoken Mayan languages, and plenty of borrowings from ancient Egyptian (plus a descendant language that lasted into the early modern era) but logographic systems can be pretty impenetrable without any glosses at all; you can't just look for expected sound patterns since so many words would be indicated by unique glyphs. Most undeciphered earth writing systems instead suffer primarily from it not being apparent what language they are meant to transcribe.
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No. 81395 ID: fe4bfc

This is a question for a character long forgotten. While your "adventures" were not technically in a quest maybe you are still around.

So miss Rabbit. Never got your name but you had two earrings in one ear and were stuck in a dungeon full of minotaurs run by that little kobold guy who could not pronounce your name right. They were planning on sacrificing you to there "god".

So how did you get in that mess in the first place?

Also what sort of dungeon was that anyway and how common is that sort of place in your world?

And finally did you ever manage to escape or is that a tale for another day?
>>
No. 81396 ID: d470e9

>>81395
Not a quest or otherwise applicable for answering questions, sorry.
>>
No. 81397 ID: 7b8d4c

>>81395
That would have been a interesting interview.


Anyways a question for anyone. With all the different species using computers now what do your keyboards look like? Is there a whole new market for office supplies?

Oh and a question for Three Stripes. Do you remember when and where you got you original buddies? Before Silent and Toothy showed up.
>>
No. 81398 ID: 445ff6

Actually now that I'm thinking about it, what is neumono writing like? In human cultures, writing is interesting in that, while it is considered a hallmark of human civilization and almost a requirement for large-scale societies, basically every writing system in use in the modern world is descended from one of only three original systems (just two if you accept the argument that the Brahmic script was originally a modification of Aramaic). Indeed, while a substantial number of unrelated scripts flourished in ancient times, the idea of writing was only independently developed a handful of times (Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, China, possibly Egypt, possibly India).

So how does it go with neumono? Are there a wide variety of native scripts, or did a couple manage to establish hegemony as different regions simply repurposed the scripts of their neighbors? For that matter, how has the post-contact era affected neumono languages and writing systems? Has some script borrowed from another species significantly displaced native scripts due to a combination of evident cultural neutrality and a lack of the disparity between what is said and what is written that literary languages tend to build up over time? For that matter, are languages of certain regions, or even ones borrowed from other species, replacing native neumono languages? If so, is this having substratum-type effects?
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No. 81402 ID: ecb99c

Polo: Have you gotten drunk before, and if so, did you do anything interesting and/or embarrassing while you were?
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No. 81410 ID: dd08ba

I'm wondering now what ancient salikai ruins are like. Because, given the reclusiveness, the lack of concern for other species' well-being and the general craftiness, I'm envisioning traps. Tripwires, spike pits, wall-shifting labyrinths, giant rolling boulders. Pressure plates especially, since I imagine salikai distribute their own weight very well. Lots of big vertical climbing shafts that they can probably go up and down as easy as walking. Secret passages. Treasure, depending on whether salikai have much in the way of magpie tendencies; they'd probably keep supplies of stuff like good metal and other crafting resources, which primitives wouldn't be able to make themselves and want to get their hands on. Is it so?

Also, how do you pronounce "salikai", anyway? Sa-lick-ai? Say-li-kai? Sally-kai?
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No. 81416 ID: 0ee153

What are neumono dentistry and orthodontics like? Are cavities common at all, or is their elimination one of the benefits of futuristic health care? How much of a problem are misaligned teeth, impacted teeth, and the like? Do neumono have an equivalent to wisdom teeth? If teeth end up crowding one another, what's the solution? Yanking it would be a short-term solution because of regeneration, right? Or can you put in small metal fillings to stop them growing back like Bitey Clone capped her ears?

Do toothbrushes use bristles, pressurized water, or ultrasonics?
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No. 81418 ID: a95b2e

Rokoa: does Kappi's recreational drinking of poison net him any points?

>>81410
It's been Sal - i (as from ick) - kai in my head.

>What are neumono dentistry and orthodontics like?
Orthodontics for something with rapid regeneration almost seems an exercise in futility. Human teeth are stubborn enough and migrate back to where they want to surprisingly quickly as is... You'd probably see a lot more permanent retainers and/or surgical hardware to keep things in line?. Unless they can just knock their teeth out until they finally come in strait.

Overall, that strikes me as one drawback they have. Anything that's a birth or genetic defect that could be corrected by force or surgery in another species will end up taking a lot more trouble to deal with.
>>
No. 81431 ID: a95b2e

>The Sun and Her Children
>There are lots of different versions, tweaking it to suit the morals that particular hives want to teach their kids.
I'll bet there are a lot of variations on which of the siblings were the heroic ones or villainous, or more to blame, and maybe even what colors they were assigned. A hives own region and color(s) and perspective would be bound to skew it.

Actually, neumono culture strikes me a something that would fracture myths even moreso than we're used to. Hive structure leads to pretty extreme tribal divisions- meaning oral traditions would spend longer developing / diverging in parallel tracks.
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No. 81439 ID: d470e9
File 139924641998.png - (14.02KB , 800x800 , AzITQ7.png )
81439

>How does empathy figure into large-scale battle strategy? Say, a few hundred neumono on either side.
Morale is huge. Nearly everything. It's one thing to start getting iffy or even scared, but it's a whole other thing if you're that way when the enemy is so damn sure that your head isn't going to have much attached to it in a minute.

A king or queen making a rousing speech before a big fight better be some good stuff and work everyone up into a berserker mindset. They're a huge target at the battlefield, too, but you can bet that the hive leader that wants to fight better be up there hacking and slashing with everyone else. Works wonders.

And if they do fall in combat, there's not much more motivation I can think of if their last thought is something like 'avenge me' before they're knocked out.

>I'm wondering now what ancient salikai ruins are like. Because, given the reclusiveness, the lack of concern for other species' well-being and the general craftiness, I'm envisioning traps. Tripwires, spike pits, wall-shifting labyrinths, giant rolling boulders.
Hell yeah they had those. They often chose some amazingly dangerous spots too, dens of all sorts of dangerous bugs and animals. But Salikai knew how to deal with them. Knew how to tame them in a way that they wouldn't even know they were being tamed. Stuff like directing where they do and don't go in the tunnels by placing down certain aromatic components, or sacrificing arkots to teach beasts that if they stay in a certain spot for long, they'll get a free arkot.

As for resources, only what they think is valuable. Gold, for instance. Real valuable. Even some hives liked it. Some saw it as a worthless soft metal, which till aliens shows us their uses, was true. But when a Salikai thought that anything was valuable to anyone, they'd collect a whole bunch of it.

I say gold for one other reason. I heard of a salikai who hung where a forest was just across a mountain from a voklit inhabited desert. That salikai was on friendly terms with the voklit, and very unfriendly terms with the neumono of the forest he lived in. Neumono hunted the salikai for years, and the salikai didn't want to move out. Now, the neumono and the voklit got along pretty well actually. Not best buds, but they did some trading now and then and boasted of their own strength. So the salikai couldn't get the voklit to come hunt the neumono, not when the voklit didn't favor one over the other.

So the salikai knew of some gold in a nearby cave in the forest. He was able to smelt it down into some decent jewelry.

He then went down deep into another cave just on the border of the forest and the desert where he knew the voklit hadn't been deep into, and fabricated and forged a fake voklit burial chamber for what must've taken months for it to look authentic based on their culture, and to make it look legitimately old and worn down. In that, he had the burial tomb explain mystical strength of gold, that it empowered the greatest warriors.

He showed the voklit the burial chamber. They're superstitious at heart, and bought right into it. So now the voklit wanted gold, and lots of it. But the gold mine, the salikai explained, was in the forest.

So they had to trespass. Bang. Instant turmoil, getting the voklit to keep the neumono busy and away from hunting the salikai.

In other words, salikai ruins may not look like salikai ruins at all.

>Also, how do you pronounce "salikai", anyway? Sa-lick-ai? Say-li-kai? Sally-kai?
'Sal' as in sally, 'ik' as in ick, 'ai' as in eye.

Funny accents notwithstanding.
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No. 81440 ID: d470e9
File 139924643027.png - (16.39KB , 800x800 , KorliITQ25.png )
81440

With all the different species using computers now what do your keyboards look like? Is there a whole new market for office supplies?
Comically huge! We can still fat finger most, though, so most of us keep our claws a little long and blunted so that we can just push with that. The keyboard buttons also don't need to be pushed down as far, but the ones that still make little 'clicks' with each press are popular.

For compact stuff like phones, uh... well, voice recognition has come a long way, thankfully.

>What are neumono dentistry and orthodontics like?
Painful! Have you seen our braces? Most of us have fine teeth, though, since we can keep making them, and any misalignment is more or less fixed up. I mean, it really sucks when that doesn't happen, so there's probably a reason why those bad genes aren't around much anymore.

We do get cavities and all that stuff, and we can get fillings that work for a long time, but if it's that bad, we can just cut it out and have it regrow back.

Thankfully we've had long enough to get past the human problem of having too many teeth for our jaw, so that's even more rare of a problem. Solutions are pretty extreme, but they do involve gnarly looking metal caps to prevent regeneration from getting in the way.

The earliest neumono cybernetics was basically highly specialized metal shoved into our gums.

That's extreme permanent solutions, though, for lesser problems we can just get braces for... well, an excruciating couple of weeks or an uncomfortable couple of months or something like that. Then pretty heavy retainers for, uh, whenever you're not eating, for the rest of your life.

>Do toothbrushes use bristles, pressurized water, or ultrasonics?
Just bristles! Only the occasional dentist tooth cleaning involves that other stuff. We can collect quite a bit of plaque.

Usually a tooth cleaning is given to tribals, but that's preeeetty high up on the civilization tier tree just because the first real modern tooth cleaning is, uh, intense.
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No. 81441 ID: d470e9
File 139924646542.png - (13.38KB , 800x800 , RikekITQ4.png )
81441

>Actually now that I'm thinking about it, what is neumono writing like?
I've studied this some, and it's almost always pictorial. And they might get the ideas from another hive, too, but not want other hives to be able to read what they write, so they change a few things around too. But that does mean that it's difficult to tell the origin of a language, there's been so many changes, that the languages that were derived off of an original set don't resemble the original at all. You usually can find a lot of similarities across a region, though, even if reading one doesn't mean you could read another!

Now, there have been signs of more simplified languages in the past that did use the concept of letters, but even those aren't a good writing system.

Generally, the bigger the hive, the better the languages. Snow hive literacy rate was almost zero, since hives were usually small and tightly packed, so writing wasn't so necessary. Jungle hives, though, often were in the dozens or over a hundred, and were often separated. Leaving notes for each other was used more.

Annnnd contact completely obsoleted everything. I mean, old hives still kept their writing as a nostalgia thing, but if they've been civilized, they really only use it as a ceremonial thing. They're encouraged to speak english in an ultrahive. There's incentives and, uh, not really 'ranks' of citizenship, but you are entitled to food stamps and luxuries if all your kids know and speak fluent english. They're allowed to speak their own on their own time, of course, but they're only going to support their hive so far if they're really fresh off the grass.

Obviously hives that are still tribal use what written language they have, if anything.

I hope that answers your questions, I sort of just sprayed information out.
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No. 81442 ID: d470e9
File 139924647533.png - (11.94KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ58.png )
81442

>Rokoa: does Kappi's recreational drinking of poison net him any points?
Yes. Negative points.

Things are going to change.
>>
No. 81444 ID: a95b2e

>Rokoa verus a lifelong caffeine addiction
...I don't think I ever really felt bad for Kappi until this point.
>>
No. 81447 ID: 0ee153

>>81444
I don't think I ever really felt bad for Rokoa until this point.
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No. 81450 ID: 99624f

>>81442

Good job Kappi. When a woman starts working on improving a guy it means she wants you around. So keep up the good work and try not to die.
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No. 81451 ID: 66c5cb

>>81450

I dunno; what if she actually seriously tries to make Kappi stronger and goes the route of her mother. i.e., abducts him for a several year long bone-breaking torture/training. Except Kappi would probably fail in the first day and get killed.
>>
No. 81454 ID: 99624f

>>81451

Eh he knew what he was getting into when he approached her. Sometimes love is worth the possibility of getting horrible mangled.
>>
No. 81455 ID: 57a559

Aww
I like Kappi being Kappi
I hope that most of Kappi's Kappi stay's Kappi after Rokoa's done with him
The Kappiest parts at least.
>>
No. 81458 ID: b72560

>>81442

Good news, Kappi, she's invested! It's like that old test humans use: you wear your clothes or your hair just a tiny bit askew, and if she bothers to adjust it, then you know she cares. In your case it's less straightening your tie and more putting you through such dire rigors that the lesser troubles you had before become as trivial as a slight itch on your ear, but it's basically the same thing!

One of the other signs is if you're visiting her home and she feeds you, but I think the gender dynamics might be reversed in this case since it's the females of your species that are the giant ravenous hunter-raiders. Also you probably shouldn't visit Rokoa's home.
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No. 81467 ID: 876afe

Rokoa, since you decided to stop being "dumb as a brick" and broaden your skill horizon, have you discovered any special interest in anything you've studied? More than you would have expected? Also, can you sing? Do people think you have a good singing voice?

Less diplomatic question, more tabloid: If I recall, you said earlier that you've never killed anyone during sex. But has your decision whether to kill anyone or not ever been significantly influenced by their performance in such an encounter?
>>
No. 81468 ID: 32f812

>They're encouraged to speak english in an ultrahive

English is the official human language? Did America and England take over the world???
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No. 81470 ID: f461c5
File 139932912198.jpg - (9.85KB , 500x500 , Nuemono Sex Toys.jpg )
81470

>>81323

Just some shitty diagrams I threw up in a few minutes.

So I imagine the simplest of nuemono sex toys are sort of just a ball on a thin flexible shaft, so it can be sucked in or manipulated or whatever an still be easily removable, while more complicated ones would be more along the lines of the second image sort of a shaft with a string of softer rubber beads that can be sucked out, with a pull chord to get them all back out when finished. Presumably able to be disassembled for cleaning.
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No. 81475 ID: e1609c

any neumono: is this accurate in any way
>>
No. 81478 ID: 1fbf8f

Story seeker, you're the most gentlemanly and Suave guy I never met. (in person) Can you please dispel the myth that is: "The neg"?
>>
No. 81486 ID: 9a511f

>>81470
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfXiNyHYdFE
>>
No. 81487 ID: 0ee153

>>81486
...Huh. That's a thing. I suppose I should just be glad they didn't use actual chicken eggs or something.
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No. 81492 ID: 9ccb59

>>81468
>The teaching of English as a second language is now universal. The Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands were the first to recognize the dominant roll English would play; other European countries followed, including, with the fall of Communism, eastern European countries.

>In the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Germany, the teaching of English is compulsory, with the language attaining a quasi-compulsory status in an even larger number of countries. In the subcontinent of India English is more than a second language and the language of instruction. The British Council estimates that by 2015, two billion people will be learning English worldwide and three billion people, half the population of the planet, will be speaking it.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120729/opinion/English-is-world-s-lingua-franca.430532
>>
No. 81497 ID: 32f812

>>81492
Huh. Sorry, I didn't realize it had already gotten that extreme.
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No. 81507 ID: 58fc88
File 139941705565.jpg - (54.52KB , 460x368 , c4p26.jpg )
81507

>>81470
Oww!!! Owww, Ow Owwww OOOWWWWW!

I could have just used a small portion of my imagination and the forgot about it.

Now I feel as if my soul has been damaged slightly.

So Jess whats it like to go out with 'kinda' a guy who you might not be able to drink peppermint schnapps around safely? That whole no spicy food thing Belonas have.
>>
No. 81511 ID: 876afe

Neumono: among humans, music is often enjoyed for its capacity to evoke feelings. A stirring march in a military movie makes the audience feel the call to duty and glory, a tense track in horrors make you feel scared, love songs attempt to communicate how it feels to be in love, sad music makes you feel sad, and so on. The feeling is temporary, but it can feel genuine enough while it lasts, if the music is good.

My question is, assuming the same effects happens to you, is how does this interact with your empathy? Is it amplified, if a neumono hive are all listening to the same sad song, and each get sad, and then their sadness starts bouncing off each other, and they make each other feel sadder still? That sounds intense. Or if it's a song with a funky beat that makes you want to dance, then in addition to the beat putting a bunch of neumono partiers in rhythm, does it also put them all in the same mood and make them make each other want to dance even more? That sounds almost kind of dangerous. I can imagine neumono collapsing of objection because you can't stop the music, man.

Also, are there like, hive anthems? Songs neumono have made to try and capture/communicate/enhance the feeling of being part of a hive?
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No. 81514 ID: 95170a

Hok do mikliks expel waste and do they experience pleasure for sex, is there such a thing as anal for mikliks.

>>81470
Now do one for the males:3
>>
No. 81520 ID: 0ee153

>>81086
So, about these wendigo. What are the chances that they're still around and integrated into neumono hives? Given that they're genetically close enough to neumono to interbreed and that the legends of them say they're neumono, it doesn't seem as though they'd look very different from neumono on the outside. Skeletal structure might vary, but as dinosaur fossils show external appearance doesn't always map to skeletal structure and I doubt random X-rays are routine.

If they didn't grow up as wendigo, I doubt they would be aware they were wendigo if they were integrated deeply enough, and given their ability to make neumono think they're part of the hive it doesn't seem likely that they'd be caught automatically.

If such a scenario were true, how would you detect them? Desire to eat neumono, maybe, but that's not particularly taboo among neumono other than the murder bit. It occurs to me that with the "I'm one of you" thing they would make good diplomats.

Rokoa, what are the chances of Nokshra being a wendigo who thinks he's a neumono or is continually terrified of being found out if he becomes violent and starts wanting to devour tasty neumono?
>>
No. 81522 ID: 52ddcd

>>81520

I don't know if Rokoa's the best person to ask. Given the time frame, it's possible the archeological discovery happened after her hive was banished. It might also be that it's not happened at all in the main timeline, since it looks like there's been more of a push for scientific discovery in the Polokoa offshoot, what with the jetalium suit, and the CAI and the salikai in public, and the hybrid neumono-predators.

Plus they're described as having longer fingers and bigger eyes and teeth than neumono, those wouldn't be too easy to make look normal. I think describing them as similar to neumono was like describing humans and chimpanzees as similar.
>>
No. 81523 ID: 0ee153

>>81522
>bigger eyes and teeth
...
Hey Pilon, can we see your teeth?

And I've seen a hell of a lot of ugly people who could pass for shaved apes, especially if they got a short haircut.
>>
No. 81529 ID: 52ddcd

I'm a little curious about voklit. The way they've been described, they seem very rigid, like they only have a brief period in childhood where they're open to new ideas, and then they stick with those the rest of their lives? Or at least, comparatively so, compared to other intelligent species.

But that's kind of weird. The whole advantage of being an intelligent, language-speaking tool user is that it allows you to adapt easily to new environments. You take an animal from a jungle, slap it in a tundra, it dies, because it hasn't been physically or mentally equipped by evolution to survive. Do the same with a person and, if they're smart, they figure out how to equip themselves for survival. They stop doing some things and start doing others. As with individuals, so with societies, each generation goes through a phase of questioning the traditions of its elders and testing its boundaries so as to weed out obsolete practices and find new ones if necessary. What's the point of having language if you're not going to accept new ideas from each other? What's the point of having thumbs if you're not going to invent new tools to do new things? Even assuming that voklit can be creative so long as it doesn't contradict what they already hold to, that's still a big restriction.

Or have the non-voklits we've been talking to gone and miscommunicated the whole thing? Overstated it? Portrayed it as a wholly fundamental biological thing when it's a more plastic cultural thing about ancestor veneration? That salikai story suggests voklit are open to new ideas so long as they look like old ideas, which would make it cultural, not a developmental brain thing. I'm kind of doubting that voklit have let themselves and their kids get brain-scanned. Or maybe voklit have some other quality balancing the rigidness out? The fact that they can be bipedal, quadrupedal and can breathe water suggests they're good at moving between very different environments, but that doesn't seem to fit with their mentality.

While I'm at it, are there any species related to voklit, like predators are related to neumono? What about salikai, any species cousins there?
>>
No. 81530 ID: 0ee153

>>81529
From what I remember, voklit, neumono, predators, salikai, and vernauts are all distantly related. Voklit can regenerate, and better than neumono according to Az. Salikai have that mental boost thing instead of empathy. Vernauts are big and presumably strong.
>>
No. 81531 ID: 2f4b71

>>81529
>>81530
Hm, I wonder if the Voklit's overactive regeneration may inhibit neuroplasticity once they've matured. If it also inhibits the retention of memory, that may also explain the collection of physical components of important events, to allow the memories to be continually reconstructed (i.e. without the artefacts, Voklit would actually forget important events).
>>
No. 81538 ID: a95b2e

>Voklit can regenerate, and better than neumono according to Az
Huh. According to Polo, based on in quest actually watching voklit woulds heal, voklit regen is comparable to neumono, not superior. >>/questarch/477960

Not sure if I'd trust Az's opinion over hers, considering his experience has probably been more fighting with them than working with them.

>all distantly related
Well, they all evolved on the same planet. Go back far enough and you'll find common ancestors. How far do we have to go, though?

Neumono and vernauts diverged recently enough that there's obvious physical similarities (vernaut looks like big, dumb, quadrupedal neumono who swapped their ears for horns). Predators and neumono share a common empathic ancestor, obviously. All three would likely fit in the same mammal-equivalent class of their planet's animal kingdom. (And it's possible all three share a closer grouping- say, the same family or order, but we really don't have enough information to be that exact).

Voklit is tougher. I mean, they have gils, sexual dimorphism is completely different, and it would appear they don't produce milk. I'd say similar bipedal shape and regeneration are more likely to be convergent evolution than a sign of close relation to neumono. They're probably a different class or phylum, with any common ancestor further back.

The salikai are definitely a class over. They're clearly insectoid, they have a different color blood, and their neural systems are wired completely differently- they don't even need to sleep! (Actually, that's potentially significant enough to push them to a different kingdom). You'd probably have to go way back to when the things that would become their planet's insect-equivalents and mammal-equivalents were diverging to find common ancestors. They probably have a closer common ancestor with the grottle than the other sapient species.
>>
No. 81540 ID: a95b2e

And an actually question, inspired by all this taxonomy talk. Do Pomi have skin or scales?
>>
No. 81541 ID: 57a559

It seems that high regenerative properties are common amongst species on the Neumono planet, at least the species that seem to survive the best.

Ben's desires for a good species to experiment on like the neumono but without the moral quandaries may be found eventually on that planet. That entire planet is probably filled to the brim with biological wonders than will advance medicine, science and other things insanely quickly.

Somehow an environment happened that created the most insanely powerful natural lifeforms in the universe. And evolution just made them all get even more powerful to keep up. I mean, it got straight fucked up once the aliens started elevated species to space-tech which created neomono dominance so the planet's full potential been kinda ruined now, but shit. That planet is amazing.
Everything is so OP it's balanced.
>>
No. 81542 ID: 99624f

The big weakness in all the races with crazy regeneration is there huge calorie intake. If you can only survive a few days without food it means its hard to find time for anything else but hunting.
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No. 81545 ID: 0ee153

>>81541
Except the parts where they have shit-tier reflexes and the amount of time they can go without eating is apparently measured in hours. Other than that and their biology making their culture unable to sustain much scientific progress, sure, they got a pretty good deal.
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No. 81546 ID: 2f4b71

>>81541
>Somehow an environment happened
Question to astrophysicists of any race: the Neumono homeworld has experienced and unusually long period of very stable climate. What type of star is the system formed around? Is there an unusual number of resonant gas giants that keep the inner planet(s) stable? Is the any evidence that the solar system was subject to wide-scale engineering, e.g; clearing of objects well outside of gas giant orbits, stable (or total lack of) oort cloud, evidence that the Neumono homeworld has not experienced any asteroid or comet impacts in an unusually long time, etc.
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No. 81553 ID: 57a559

>>81545
Well, I meant OP in a biological sense rather than an efficiency sense or competitive sense. Yeah, they couldn't really develop science well at all in these conditions, but I was really talking more of these place being a giant petry dish that we could abduct organism's from and study them to develop new, powerful technology.

The neumono planet, left alone, would keep evolving insanely powerful creatures from a non-technological standpoint, and nature can create some amazing ass shit apparently on its own in that planet. Of course there's drawbacks from the species on a practical level.
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No. 81562 ID: 75b610

Lagotrope, do you have any kids?
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No. 81563 ID: 9d86a4

This is going to sound terribly timed after the last question, but considering neumono have such great toughness and regenerative abilities, what's childcare like? You must not have to worry so much about them bumping their heads on sharp corners or falling down stairs or playing with knives and such. I can only imagine traditional methods allow for a more "eh, it's the only way they'll learn" attitude than other species do.

Of course, it also opens up the possibility of crazy spartan-esque treatment of the kids, at least for ancient and/or primitive hives.

... Were there ever any hives that entertained themselves by putting their kids in little rings to have little pit fights and bet on the outcome? Good way to make sure you get strong fighters. Or you could do it with other hives' kids. Maybe some horrible bandit hive that steals kids from other hives and then makes them fight, and the ones who win get adopted as full members and the others get to be slaves. That sounds pretty rad. Terrible, but rad.
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No. 81564 ID: 0ee153

>>81562
...What? If there was ever a good time to ask that, wouldn't it be on IRC?

Well, regardless. To follow up on the child fighting thing, how popular are/were blood sports? Did hives kidnap other species like veranuts, voklit, or any large dangerous animals?
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No. 81576 ID: d470e9
File 139974037486.png - (11.39KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ59.png )
81576

>Have you discovered any special interest in anything you've studied?
No, but what I did gain was more acceptance of using guns and explosives and the like. As much as I used them before, I thought they were a distasteful necessity. Now I've got a nice appreciation for how sophisticated using the tech can be.

>More than you would have expected?
Yes, but I didn't expect much.

>Also, can you sing?
Yep.

>Do people think you have a good singing voice?
It's not bad.

>If I recall, you said earlier that you've never killed anyone during sex. But has your decision whether to kill anyone or not ever been significantly influenced by their performance in such an encounter?
No. Are you serious? I'm not that petty. If they're bad, I just throw them out.

>How does [music inducing emotions] interact with your empathy?
Exactly like you'd expect it would.

> Is it amplified, if a neumono hive are all listening to the same sad song, and each get sad, and then their sadness starts bouncing off each other, and they make each other feel sadder still?
Nah it's not amplified. In fact you can usually tell if it's sad or whatever from the music piece. Unless it reminds them of something that really did make them sad.

Either way, yeah, those emotions can bounce around and that can amplify its effects. If that happens though, they got other people around to enjoy misery with, so it's not dangerous or anything.

>Then in addition to the beat putting a bunch of neumono partiers in rhythm, does it also put them all in the same mood and make them make each other want to dance even more? That sounds almost kind of dangerous. I can imagine neumono collapsing of objection because you can't stop the music, man.
Yeah some people party till they fall over. Usually if they're so in sync with each other that they actually feel that kind of pressure, they'll be synced enough to pace themselves all at the same time and get tired together. And then they'll use their combined powers to stop the music.


>Also, are there like, hive anthems? Songs neumono have made to try and capture/communicate/enhance the feeling of being part of a hive?
Usually they've gotta be big nerds to have an actual anthem. Usually they just make music for certain situations, but don't call it their own anthem.

Post contact breeded a whole buncha nerds, if you get me.

>So, about these wendigo. What are the chances that they're still around and integrated into neumono hives?
Probly pretty good, but it's not like you can point to any neumono and say 'that ones a wendigo' any more than you can point to a human and say 'that's an ape.' Well, maybe a little, but it's more like there's some wendigo genes that are fooling around here and there. Just means neumono meat is a little bit tastier to 'em, and their fingers are a little bit longer, but they're still gonna be way more neumono than wendigo.

>Rokoa, what are the chances of Nokshra being a wendigo who thinks he's a neumono or is continually terrified of being found out if he becomes violent and starts wanting to devour tasty neumono?
You kidding? If anyone in the war hive discovered they had wendigo in them - and again, had wendigo, not were wendigo - then they'd be going 'fuck yeah' and brag about it.

Not like I know the specifics, I just heard about 'em in some magazine.

>Hey Pilon, can we see your teeth?
No, he's got about as much wendigo in him as a toya. The belenos genetically engineered passive pets, for those who forgot what a toya was.

>From what I remember, voklit, neumono, predators, salikai, and vernauts are all distantly related.
Salikai are about as close to us as the sun. I'm sure we shared some single cell organism ancestor and that's about it.

Voklit are pretty far too, but somewhere between vernaut and salikai. Predators and vernaut are pretty close as far as these things go.

>Solar system of the neumono homeworld
We got a sun not too unlike Sol, just a bit bigger, and we're a bit farther. There's 12 planets in our solar system, and a few stupid big gas giants way out there. Mostly we just got lucky that any asteroids that hit us weren't some apocalyptic event. It's theorized that we didn't get life until way after the solar system settled, and any rocks that would hit us would've already.


>What's childcare like? I can only imagine traditional methods allow for a more "eh, it's the only way they'll learn" attitude than other species do.
Yeah that's basically the gist of it. A lot more hives baby their babies through their childhood than there used to be, but it's a good time to learn that fire burns. We've got the regeneration, there's no point not to use it.

>Of course, it also opens up the possibility of crazy spartan-esque treatment of the kids, at least for ancient and/or primitive hives.
Yeah, if not for the extreme ties that the kid's got to the parents. To do that sort of crap, there's got to be some kind of mental arms-length distance or something that separates babies from the hive, and that hardly happens. You can feel their empathy while they're still in the egg. If it seems like they really might be weak, then maybe they won't be bothered with, but that's not something done lightly. When a couple of parents have a kid, they're going to try their damn hardest to have that kid make it.

That's what I'd like to say, but there's been hives that puncture 5 hearts of a kid to make sure they live. My own hive was considered brutal, but we were the cuddlehive in the eyes of some others. We were tough in other ways, and there's a reason we survived past contact and they were never heard from again.

Other hives kids, though? What I said about trying their hardest to have them make it doesn't apply. Most couldn't give a shit, so it was more likely that captured kids would have to go through some trials. I'm sure battles to the death for adoption have happened before.

>How popular are/were blood sports? Did hives kidnap other species like veranuts, voklit, or any large dangerous animals?
Yeah some hives did some of that. Course, some voklit or salikai did the same to neumono. Voklit usually to make a game of a hunt, salikai for entertainment. And us capturing them for trophies, mostly, since the lot of them are bigger than us.

Blood sports with death are non-existant now outside of some underground, illegal rings. Sports that have blood, though, are pretty popular. Hell, the neumono wrestling channel isn't fake at all. It's real, but they still managed to make it amazingly dumb.
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No. 81577 ID: d470e9
File 139974038787.png - (10.76KB , 800x800 , HokITQ14.png )
81577

>Hok do mikliks expel waste
Uh with our butts

>And do they experience pleasure for sex
Yeah we mostly have that. It's kind of an acquired taste that most mikliks acquire. We don't think of it day in and day out like all the other species though.

>Is there such a thing as anal for mikliks.
Yeah it's a concept that we filed away in the department of holy shit no don't do that.
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No. 81578 ID: d470e9
File 139974048393.png - (13.00KB , 800x800 , JessITQ11.png )
81578

>So Jess whats it like to go out with 'kinda' a guy who you might not be able to drink peppermint schnapps around safely? That whole no spicy food thing Belonas have.
Well I'm not a huge fan of spicy stuff either, so I mean, he ju... wait, what do you mean 'going out with?' He's made it pretty clear we're just buddies. So if that's what you mean, it's not like I can't be buddies with someone who can't have peppermint schnapps. We have to follow our own diets, anyway, so we usually split the fridge into our own sections.
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No. 81579 ID: d470e9
File 139974049444.png - (17.53KB , 800x800 , VilnITQ6.png )
81579

>The whole advantage of being an intelligent, language-speaking tool user is that it allows you to adapt easily to new environments. You take an animal from a jungle, slap it in a tundra, it dies, because it hasn't been physically or mentally equipped by evolution to survive. Do the same with a person and, if they're smart, they figure out how to equip themselves for survival.
I disagree. An intelligent, language speaking tool user may have the intelligence to both create ideas and hold true to them. Survival also has little to do with our rigid ways. We were moved, from the great deserts to the trees and caverns. We have survived, because our traditions run deeper than simple hunting methods. We can carry old ideas whether or not we jump between trees or shield ourselves from sandstorms.

>What's the point of having language if you're not going to accept new ideas from each other?
To have our elders pass on our ideas to us, and to pass on our ideas to the next generation.

>What's the point of having thumbs if you're not going to invent new tools to do new things?
To use the tools that we have used for as long as anyone can know.
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No. 81580 ID: d470e9
File 139974050504.png - (10.51KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ81.png )
81580

>According to Polo, based on in quest actually watching voklit woulds heal, voklit regen is comparable to neumono, not superior. >>/questarch/477960
I have since learned that I was incorrect. Voklit regeneration is in fact better in most regards, and I believe that Vern's wound may have been worse than I initially believed.

>Polo: Have you gotten drunk before, and if so, did you do anything interesting and/or embarrassing while you were?
I have gotten a buzz, but I have never drank enough to become fully intoxicated. Some of my hive has, and when they were attempting to find me, started yelling out "Marco!"
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No. 81581 ID: d470e9
File 139974051881.png - (14.04KB , 800x800 , MissITQ1.png )
81581

>Do Pomi have skin or scales?
Scales for sure, but there's a loooot of hygiene products that smooth them over. That's basically a unanimous feeling that smoother scales are sexier for everyone, and we've gotten pretty good at making it look almost like skin.

Course, some aliens think they look better as scales, so then things get all messy.
>>
No. 81582 ID: d470e9
File 139974068305.png - (86.45KB , 641x800 , StorySeekerITQ7.png )
81582

>Story seeker, you're the most gentlemanly and Suave guy I never met. (in person) Can you please dispel the myth that is: "The neg"?
First of all, thank you for the kind words! Now, I'm not sure I would call it a 'myth' as though it does not exist, but I'm sure your question was not one of semantics. I'll simply share my thoughts, for what my own limited experience is worth. While it may be used, I do question its legitimacy. Certainly, unless it seems to be made in good fun, no self respecting girl would respond well to such an advance. And given its name implies negativity, it sounds like it's in no sense fun by any regard! No, the more I think on it, the more it appears to be nothing more than a crude device used when one either prefers ill-mannered advances or has no faith in their own positive traits. Even should a creative neg gain a girl's attention, I expect that any equally creative compliment and good mannered approach would be better in every regard.

The only time I could possibly imagine a neg being useful is when a girl legitimately enjoys such negativity, and the guy prefers a girl who enjoys such, but the very thought of that kind of a relationship makes my insides churn.

In short, I would not have anything to do with such a tactic. Even if I am incorrect and it does prove effective, its very foundations are dipped in unsightly methods. I would rather fail and carry on than succeed with such methods, even if our relationship was to simply be a night's fling.
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No. 81583 ID: addc6e

>>81581
I bet smoothing them over also reduces the problem with people rubbing them the wrong way and it being terribly uncomfortable. And stops clothes catching on them and such.

Tell me, which of the other big races do Pomi generally like best? And who do you like best? Which species do you think has the cutest babies, besides Pomi because probably you have an instinctual bias there?

Also, we've seen Pomi that have different numbers of spines in their fins, and sometimes they really stick out and sometimes they droop down, and one guy who looked like they went all the way around his head, and there's all kinda variation. Also most of you seem to be orange, but it varies between yellow to red. And some of you have big fangs. Is that just personal variation, like eye and hair color in other species, or is it a race thing? Or both? Some things one and others another?

>>81576
Do neumono movies ever try use music as a replacement for empathy? Like, giving particular hives their own leitmotif, with variations for its members, and a particular score coming up in the track just before someone appears on screen, or changing to fit with the mood of the characters?

>>81580
Considering that they don't have the same complicated redundant biology, it might be they have the same level of regeneration on a cellular level, it's just organized better and that's what makes it work faster. Maybe?
>>
No. 81584 ID: d470e9

Missed a question for Polo - her last post has added words.

Also,
>Lagotrope, do you have any kids?
I am not a quest character but no I don't have any kids, and would like to ask what brought this question on.
>>
No. 81585 ID: 257051

>Course, some aliens think they look better as scales, so then things get all messy.
Ahaha, sexy standards clash. (Also- Miss totally confirmed for perving on xenos).

>>81577
I must admit I'm curious how much of that lessened interest in sex is a species / culture thing, and how much of that is well, a Hok thing. (I suppose it makes sense in a way. Make being sexed completely optional and people end up less focused on it. And plants wouldn't have as much a libido?).

>voklit regen is faster
>they don't have the same redundant biology
They also have a centralized nervous system. So even if they grow back / heal faster than a neumono, they can't tank damage without dying as easily (can be one-shot or fatally injured with single bullet in the right place). I'd also be curious if it functions to the same extent. (Can they regrow lost parts? Limbs, bones, eyes, etc?).

>Do neumono movies ever try use music as a replacement for empathy?
Asked and (partially) answered, though she didn't go into much detail. >>62455 >>62793
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No. 81587 ID: 75b610

>>81584

I showed AsteroidQuest to somebody, and they wanted to know if you had children because of how Pilon got along with his kids.
>>
No. 81589 ID: 57a559

>>81334
Hey Zirkala,

I don't know if you found most of my questions really dumb in my post or what, but I figure the question on Demi-Liches is at least legit.
I'm really curious about the existence of Demi-Liche's in your proffesion, like if it's just a myth or if there really are Demi-Liches, somewhere, out there.
Also admittidly curious about potential dimensional travel too but that may stupid enough to be what turned you off from answering my questions so I understand. Talking to normals who understand little must be a bore most of them time, right? Or is it very entertaining?
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No. 81591 ID: d470e9

>>81589
>>And others
I should've mentioned in the OP, that if any character ignores a question, it's because I missed it. If this happens, please just point to the post that was missed or re-ask the questions. No question is meant to be outright ignored - if the character actually doesn't want to answer it (or it's spoilers or whatever the reason) then they will either say they won't answer it, or they'll shrug it off, but even if they don't give a proper answer, they will confirm that the question was in fact received.

So again - if any character appears to ignore a question, it's because I screwed up, so please point it out.
>>
No. 81660 ID: 3a344d

Hey, Hok! Or Tin, or any other miklik or miklik expert. I've noticed we've never seen any fat mikliks. Do you guys just not do that?
>>
No. 81668 ID: 13b599

Is Behind The Ears a good place to give scratches to a Neumono?
>>
No. 81669 ID: 0ee153

>>81668
I think someone said it varied between neumono.
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No. 81674 ID: d36747
File 140007639517.jpg - (343.92KB , 700x5817 , pettingchart.jpg )
81674

Maybe we should just up and ask if there are any charts like this for neumono. Or belenosians. Or anyone.
>>
No. 81676 ID: fe4bfc

Have a couple of questions for various people.

First of all to Polo and any of the others that went through the silence training. How exactly did you get started? I mean what even made you think it was possible in the first place? I bet Polo could train people who are interested now but back then what sort of training did you start out with when you had to write the book on it.

The next question is for Rokoa's old Red Queen. Rokoa mentioned that you kicked her ass in a fight once. Was she exaggerating to make Polo take things more seriously or were you just that awesome.

Finally a question for Zirkala. We had Story avoid the book about your past so we know little about your history. Do you mind talking about some of it? What made you decide to become a lich? Also did you ever have any contact with lich king Cheelop back in the original timeline?
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No. 81677 ID: 0ee153

>>81676
Also to Red Queen: What's your name, is there anything you care to tell us about yourself like why you ran the hive the way you did, and do you think you could take Az in a fight?
>>
No. 81687 ID: 0ee153

So I was rereading the archives to kill some time and I ran across Polo not being able to tell what Rokoa was feeling, and I vaguely remember Rokoa saying she'd do Polo.

Was the emotion Polo couldn't/wouldn't comprehend lust?
>>
No. 81690 ID: cee89f

Rokolo: is it possible to make an alternate dimension significant enough to split off into its own universe, other than letting it take it's course?

For instance, say you wanted a universe where the aforementioned Drunk-off-her-ass-that-one-time Polo was a thing. You said (in short) that the event wasn't significant enough for the universe to push itself apart from the others. Would it be possible for you to visit that dimension and make it significant in some way, or is the fact that it's too collapsed to be its own universe mean that you can't get to it to alter it anyway?

Polokoa: How diverse is your harem? Are we talking mostly neumono, or xenos? Any AI? Sentient harem outfits? Something we'd find ridiculous and unbelievable in any other universe?

Sniper clone: Favorite weapon, other than a sniper rifle.
>>
No. 81700 ID: c20db9

Sniper Clone: How are you so good with your hands, making these cute little posters and stuff, despite having huge hands?
>>
No. 81703 ID: d470e9
File 140019740443.png - (12.58KB , 800x800 , MissITQ2.png )
81703

>Tell me, which of the other big races do Pomi generally like best?
Mikliks and humans are pretty up there, at least, that's been my own experience.

>And who do you like best?
Oh, I can't choose favorites, I'm basically the biggest xenophile.

>Which species do you think has the cutest babies, besides Pomi because probably you have an instinctual bias there?
Besides Pomi, ah... probably mikliks, actually. They're so dumb, it's great.

>Is that just personal variation, like eye and hair color in other species, or is it a race thing?
Wait which thing, fangs, scale color or our fins? Fins rarely go above 5 or 3, but that number and whether or not they have snaggleteeth is a personal thing. But every non-genetically engineered Pomi has yellow to red scale tones.
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No. 81704 ID: d470e9
File 140019741463.png - (10.34KB , 800x800 , HokITQ15.png )
81704

>Hok, get any interesting humans to hate you in your life?
Proooobably.

>I must admit I'm curious how much of that lessened interest in sex is a species / culture thing, and how much of that is well, a Hok thing.
Well I'm sure there's some real sex addicts out there, but like... I mean, can you imagine Tin doing it? I can't. So I'm not about to think I'm some exception!

>Hey, Hok! Or Tin, or any other miklik or miklik expert. I've noticed we've never seen any fat mikliks. Do you guys just not do that?
We do but usually not much. When a miklik is fat, though, it sure is... something.
>>
No. 81706 ID: d470e9
File 140019748805.png - (124.09KB , 800x800 , TomITQ7.png )
81706

>Tom, now from your perspective, do the gods straight up stop Demi-Liches and/or multiverse travel?
Yeah we fuck up Demi-liches pretty bad but keep that on the downlow. We'd rather let lich's dare to be ambitious.

As for multi-verse? Yeah none of that around here. I mean if there is, then it's beyond me, and that'd be saying something! Which ruins all your other questions. Except for the one about Chee.

>You just have jurisdiction between the time Chee is born and dead, don't you?
Yeah except that they just wanted Chee to do stuff because she had no idea what she was doing. And after that last chaos fiasco, they wanted someone kinda like... Cheelop.

But it turns out I make for a pretty decent one so I've got the temporary promotions going on since I mean, Cheelop was cool with that.
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No. 81707 ID: d470e9
File 140019753690.png - (12.96KB , 800x800 , KappiITQ21.png )
81707

>Kappi, what is your favorite video game?
Adventures in Andol! It's a sandbox game and is actually a crazy ambitious one, but unlike the other crazy-ambitious ones, this one had a really good development team and a stupidly big budget. I mean you still can't do anything, but you can do a lot. The combat is actually really nice and there's a lot of online options. Which doesn't really do me much good, but the single player still made me lose more than a few hours of sleep.

>Rokoa cares what you drink, ergo, cares about you
My heart says good but my brain says 'oh no.' I mean, I'm following my heart, of course, so it's good.
>>
No. 81708 ID: d470e9
File 140019755968.png - (13.15KB , 800x800 , WendelITQ2.png )
81708

>Wendel, as the only human we really know on the asteroid, are humans in minority on the Asteroid?
In most areas, yes, but the rich sector has more humans than usual. The asteroid is around the criminal activity that drew a lot of aliens rather than humans and, to a lesser degree, the belenos.
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No. 81709 ID: d470e9
File 140019757289.png - (13.34KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ60.png )
81709

>Rokoa, fight any interesting humans in your life? Or are they too squishy to be interesting to fight?
Nah, they're squishy, but they can also be damn smart about it. I've had to fight some pretty competent ones that made me come to them and scrounged out every advantage they had.
>>
No. 81710 ID: d470e9
File 140019758442.png - (14.87KB , 800x800 , KorliITQ26.png )
81710

>Do neumono movies ever try use music as a replacement for empathy? Like, giving particular hives their own leitmotif, with variations for its members, and a particular score coming up in the track just before someone appears on screen, or changing to fit with the mood of the characters?
Yep. I can't really elaborate on that, it's completely true and happens all the time. Well, okay, I guess I'll add that it also works since while music can be subjective, so can how we read empathy, so... it works out sort of.

>Can Voklit regrow lost parts? Limbs, bones, eyes, etc?
Yep, basically everything except critical organs, which just heal fast if cut or whatever.

>Korli, since you've enjoyed the company of aliens, and this can mean any kind of relationship for all I care, which aliens are your favorite, if you play favorites?
Probably Pomi, actually. They're so light though, I have to be careful. So sometimes I'm in the mood for a heef. Or somewhere between and a human or belenos.

And mikliks if, uh, well, a lot of them don't go for it, but the ones that do can get into some really freaky stuff.

>Maybe culture wise if you pay attention?
I don't!

>Do neumono like being scratched behind the ears?
Yes!
>>
No. 81711 ID: d470e9
File 140019759502.png - (11.35KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ82.png )
81711

>Do neumono like being scratched behind the ears?
No.

>First of all to Polo and any of the others that went through the silence training. How exactly did you get started? I mean what even made you think it was possible in the first place? I bet Polo could train people who are interested now but back then what sort of training did you start out with when you had to write the book on it.
We had no idea if it was possible or not. It was just 'wouldn't it be nice if', and decided that we would investigate this. Again, I received other training, I was not simply spending 20 hours a day every day for something that may never be.

>So I was rereading the archives to kill some time and I ran across Polo not being able to tell what Rokoa was feeling, and I vaguely remember Rokoa saying she'd do Polo.
>Was the emotion Polo couldn't/wouldn't comprehend lust?
No. No, it was not lust. I still do not know how I would explain what it was, but it was not lust.
>>
No. 81712 ID: d470e9
File 140019761187.png - (14.07KB , 800x800 , PoirinITQ2.png )
81712

>Can you tell us the benefits that going up to date have given? Considering most of the time we see more 'tribal' and 'warmongering assholes' who constantly put down your hive, which almost seems like a wave of envy or 'species betrayal'.
>I'd like to know what dealings you have with the other, as well as the issues.

We've got more favor from the aliens - more favor means more tech, and in the new world, that's everything. With tech we can support more numbers, and our numbers will be better equipped.

Our normal biological capabilities haven't changed, after all, it's all knowledge and material. If that's not a merit that's worth being called pandering weaklings by stubborn war mongers, I don't know what is.
>>
No. 81713 ID: d470e9
File 140019762691.png - (12.83KB , 800x800 , WarhiveQueenITQ1.png )
81713

>The next question is for Rokoa's old Red Queen. Rokoa mentioned that you kicked her ass in a fight once. Was she exaggerating to make Polo take things more seriously or were you just that awesome.
No, it is true, our fight was one sided. It pains me to admit she had gotten stronger by the time Polo was introduced to us, although it only means it would not have been so easy to subdue her, not that I couldn't anymore.

>Also to Red Queen: What's your name, is there anything you care to tell us about yourself like why you ran the hive the way you did, and do you think you could take Az in a fight?
My name became irrelevant when I became queen, and I am not of an ultrahive. I ran the hive like it wanted to be run, nothing more, nothing less. A queen isn't a dictator of a culture, it's an embodiment of it.

As for Az? I am confident that I could, but there would have only been one way to find out.
>>
No. 81714 ID: d470e9
File 140019765406.png - (16.88KB , 800x800 , RokoaSniperCloneITQ20.png )
81714

>Sniper clone: Favorite weapon, other than a sniper rifle.
A rocket launcher, with motion seeking rockets! Or a shotgun I guess.

>How are you so good with your hands, making these cute little posters and stuff, despite having huge hands?
Our fingers might have some rigid limitations, but the bones and stuff can be flexible. Plus, our hand stability is actually really good. And, I mean, the little posters weren't really that little.
>>
No. 81715 ID: d470e9
File 140019807273.png - (101.29KB , 800x800 , ZirkalaITQ4.png )
81715

>Zirkala, have you ever considered visiting other universes?
I have not, as the magic is not well understood, and perhaps not possible. There is not even empirical evidence that alternative universes even exist, rather than just pocketed dimensions of various size.

>Or how about becoming a Demi-lich?
It is possible to become that. However, no lich that has gone that route has ever been heard from again. There is no way to tell if that is simply because there is never interest in coming back, or if they are systematically destroyed by divine powers.

I do not believe that even the Lich king has lived long enough to exhaust all entertainment and knowledge of this world. I doubt anyone would, and should they feel that they have, that is more likely them being naive to how much the world has rather than exhausing the world of everything it has.

>Zirkala: Whatever happened to the lich king? It seems like he just wandered off one time cycle and never came back.
He is a slippery one. Chances are he simply gathered the data he could, and ran off without a word.

>We had Story avoid the book about your past so we know little about your history. Do you mind talking about some of it?
Yes.

>What made you decide to become a lich?
Power.

>Also did you ever have any contact with lich king Cheelop back in the original timeline?
I don't know any Cheelops.
>>
No. 81716 ID: 0ee153

Hey, Rokoa. What are some things that you do disapprove of, tech-wise? AI? Calculators? TV? Communications tech?
>>
No. 81717 ID: 57a559

>>81706
>Yeah except that they just wanted Chee to do stuff because she had no idea what she was doing. And after that last chaos fiasco, they wanted someone kinda like... Cheelop.

>But it turns out I make for a pretty decent one so I've got the temporary promotions going on since I mean, Cheelop was cool with that.
My question was regarding the fact that you gods exist out of time and that there is also version of Cheelop further ahead from Muo', Story Seeker', Clamp', Chomp's and Chee's point in time that is currently doing the chaos goding for the point past her death.

Like, could you talk to Chaos God Chee right now and have tea with her or something.

>I mean if there is, then it's beyond me, and that'd be saying something
So if it's beyond you, does that mean that the god's that would be investigating that sort of possibility have told you nothing about it or does straight up no one else know about the possibility of other universes? If you gods don't know about other universes, do you HAVE a plan to guard against attack from another universe, or an accidental visit by one? Would you immediately destroy that multi-universe traveler or try and contact the gods from the other universe first because attacking a visiting foreigner might attract their wrath?
Just curious about theoretical policy if any one of your coworkers doctored one up for such a future case. Maybe the god of Absolute Preparation?

Will your universe eventually reach Heat Death? Or is that exclusive to our universe? Have you prepared in anyway for the Heat Death of your universe if it will happen?
>>
No. 81718 ID: 0ee153

>>81714
What are your thoughts on the idea of a sniper shotgun?
>>
No. 81720 ID: a8f0e8

>>81717
I imagine if he tried any time tomfoolery the time guys would smack his shit in
>>
No. 81722 ID: 0ee153

>>81720
Gods > time lords in their own realm.

And the gods are stated to exist outside of time anyway, what the gods do among themselves isn't the time lords' business.
>>
No. 81723 ID: a4af07

Dr Ben: We know that the Neumono homeworld houses the champions of healing, but what about other species?

Are they at human level? Better? Worse?
>>
No. 81724 ID: 9580c9

Hey Rokoa do YOU like being scratched behind the ears?
>>
No. 81733 ID: 0bd0c5

Both our resident xenophiles are pink.
>>
No. 81734 ID: 0ee153

>>81733
Do you have a question? Also Miss is orange.

That said, Skullbash and Bodyslam, are you xenophiles?
>>
No. 81735 ID: dbe554

Modern Hive: Did you create the uniforms you use or did you copy or alter another alien races uniforms that you enjoyed?
>>
No. 81749 ID: 131602

>>81734
Sure. Scruffy neumono doctor who seems like he's seen too much; whats your story (and name?) and being a shade of off-red yourself are you also a xenophile?
>>
No. 81754 ID: e57b71

>>81582
I totally agree! Thanks for Reassuring me Story. And like you, I can't imagine a relationship with someone who likes negative comments regarding their person.
>>
No. 81761 ID: 9a281a

Okay, something I'd like to ask. How exactly does the distinction and overlap between family structure and hive structure work at large scales?

I mean, at the small scale, it seems simple. Your hive is your tribe is your family. There's not enough of you for it to be anything but. But what happens when you have hundreds of individuals in a hive? More than a thousand? Your hive is so big that there are people you've never met. Which seems like it would be strange. Your immediate family (parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, children, grandchildren) would only make up a small portion of the whole. How does family, and your relationship with them, then end up being different from the hive? Past a certain size, death of a hivemate goes from an infrequent tragedy to a statistical regularity. It would probably vary more (and it's certainly less certain than death), but for large populations enough even occurrences of rogues would become a matter of statics. All kinds of stuff that's supposed to be very personal and intimate, and that empathy tells you still should be, complicated and/or diluted by scale.

How do big hives deal with that? (I started writing this for Polo, but I'd be willing to hear more than one response, as the obvious answer is: it varies. Family structure, dealing with life and death and rogues is obviously different between say, Sealock and the Warhive, or even the Warhive and the Asteroid Hive it later develops into. Heck, the science hive has problems with everyone not knowing each other with a population of less than 50, due to circumstances).

>>81716
>Communications tech?
...you know, I almost imagine communications tech came with far less of a social upheaval or fundamental cultural change for neumono than a lot of other species. They're already used to interconnectedness at scale, and communication even out of line of sight or range of speech. It would have felt almost natural. If anything, they'd probably have been miffed it expanded on what felt less fundamental or important to them (the aliens can make mere words go further, but not empathy? Weird).
>>
No. 81771 ID: 41386d

>>81761

Kind of related to this question, what is the legal system like in regards hives? I mean, I assume that each ultrahive differs in the specifics, and the example I'm mainly going off (Rokoa's hive getting exiled) was sort of an ad-hoc thing, but it seems as if hives would be cohesive legal entities? Like, in any crime where it's clearly not just one or two people, a whole hive would be on trial and share the punishment? That seems like something other species would think is weird but would make sense to neumono. You can sense each other's thoughts, so you should know when each other are doing bad stuff, and if you don't act to stop it you're an accessory so that's what you get, it's a fair cop.

But, like, using the warhive as an example, a whole hive commits a crime, whole hive gets exiled. What happens with their rogues from that point on, then, legally? What if those rogues manage to join a different hive, or if a child of that hive is abducted/lost and adopted by another hive? What if a new hive splits off of the original hive? Or if they get a new King or Queen and start going in a very different direction?
>>
No. 81809 ID: 761017

Question to any Belenos:
Do Belenos share a lot of fictional work with humanity and vice versa?
Do Belenos have any cultural reaction to "Star Trek" fictional techno-babble, or is it ignored as part of the show?
Do you guys have any popular documentaries that are widely received by alien audiences?

General questions to whoever can answer, even salikai:
Uploading (destructive or nondestructive) biological intelligences to AI cores, is that possible again?
Have there been any attempts to turning a neumono hive into a neurally networked hivemind?

Question for Author: Are you familiar with the Orion's Arm universe?
http://www.orionsarm.com/
Do you enjoy the works of any of the harder-sci-fi authors?
>>
No. 81834 ID: f3f27e

Hey, Rokoa, can you give us rough analogies for how much you can lift in and out of bioarmor? Like, in the 94% suit, could you lift a truck, assuming it had enough structural integrity to not fall apart?

Also, maybe someone else would need to answer this, is there a professional world record athletic set on your homeworld yet?
>>
No. 81877 ID: 3cab7e

I'm wondering about this thing where latent queens can form hives out of a collection of rogues. What are the minimum numbers like? Once you have enough, how long does it take? Does it vary according the Queen's empathic strength? Does it take less time the further over the threshold you are? Once the hive is formed, is that it done and sealed, or is there a period where new rogues can still join? Maybe as long as the original Queen is around she can still pull new people in, and when she's gone it's over? Or is there a more vague period of adaptation where it starts easy and gets harder and harder until it's unfeasible?
>>
No. 81890 ID: 9a281a

How common are rogues, anyways? I know the neumono homeworld is still wild west enough that there's no hard census, say. But what percentage of the neumono population aren't part of a hive?
>>
No. 81963 ID: 761017

DISCLAIMER:Some of your questions were already answered in the past threads. I can't recall where, but I can share you some of what i remember.

>>81877
>What are the minimum numbers like?
Undefinable, as a strong Queen can force-create a Hive with any number of neumono rogues. If you wanted a "Space Marine Chapter Neumono Hive Random Generator", a Queen with the 'Rogue' trait would roll 5d20 to represent the average range of a Rogue Hive starter size.
>Once you have enough, how long does it take?
Undefinable; the transition from "group of random rogues" to "hive" is a network of empathic bonds that build over time until a empathic "switch" is instinctively flipped.
A more fitting question is 'how long does it take all the hive members to consciously note the permanent shift from allies to hivemates?'
>Does it vary according the Queen's empathic strength?
Very yes!
>Does it take less time the further over the threshold you are?
Yes, though it has less importance than the Queen's empathic strength. A large group of Rogues will instinctively arrange themselves around their strongest empathic node, and the multiplying feedback of that arrangement will boost the strongest empathic node into a Queen; the stronger the Queen's basic node strength is, the faster the process happens.
>Once the hive is formed, is that it done and sealed, or is there a period where new rogues can still join?
It's a sealed deal, but as a first-generation Rogue Hive they may be willing to exercise discipline over their empathic rejection of new rogues.
>Maybe as long as the original Queen is around she can still pull new people in, and when she's gone it's over?
Yes, a first-generation Queen can influence the hive empathy to accept a rogue adult. The older a first-generation hive is, the longer it takes for alien neumono to "marry into the family", and the "100% hivemate" transformation becomes impossible after the first generation, with the universal exception of young children.
>Or is there a more vague period of adaptation where it starts easy and gets harder and harder until it's unfeasible?
Yes, although the period of adaptation is undefinable.

>>81890
>But what percentage of the neumono population aren't part of a hive?
Pre-Contact Neumono: 1/1000 is a fair estimate, after controlling for disbanded/slaughtered Hives. Pre-contact rogues faced shortened lifespans though.
Post-Contact Neumono: 1/100 is a fair estimate, after controlling for disaffected neumono. Post-contact benefits massively boosted the size of hives while simultaneously increasing the safety of going rogue with exposure to rogue-friendly ideologies and technologies.
>>
No. 81965 ID: 0ee153

Grudge Bearer: How hard would it be to make another vase depicting the deeds of your ancestors to act as a keepsake, and if Hok produced such a testament, would you be satisfied?
>>
No. 81969 ID: 542831

>>81963

Not to go demanding a bibliography or anything, but I've read through these threads a lot and I don't recall some of those questions being answered as definitively as you're saying they are.
>>
No. 82013 ID: d470e9
File 140142552697.png - (15.47KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ61.png )
82013

>Hey, Rokoa. What are some things that you do disapprove of, tech-wise? AI? Calculators? TV? Communications tech?
I disapprove of damn well nearly everything to varying levels. Having to adapt has been tougher than any fight.

All this talk about alternate universes? If I was approached with the chance to go to a parallel universe where alien contact was never made, then I'd be damn tempted to go. Course, I wouldn't, since I belong where I am.

>Hey Rokoa do YOU like being scratched behind the ears?
Who wants to know?

>Hey, Rokoa, can you give us rough analogies for how much you can lift in and out of bioarmor? Like, in the 94% suit, could you lift a truck, assuming it had enough structural integrity to not fall apart?
I can deadlift around 500 kilos and bench press about half of that, out of the bioarmor. With the bioarmor, I could lift about double of that for a limited time. Thing is, is if you really push yourself, the bioarmor can typically overdrive your body into lifting huge amounts. Problem with that is that it usually completely destroys your body doing it. That's part of the training for bio armor - forcing yourself to hold back, because going all out means going all but dead.

So, the truck? If a situation was desperate enough, I could lift a truck, shortly followed by not being able to lift myself.

>Also, maybe someone else would need to answer this, is there a professional world record athletic set on your homeworld yet?
I heard about 'em, actually. The record for the deadlift is a solid 900-something kilos. Once that became known, I got a lot of shit about just being a big fish in a little pond from people who think that people fight to the death through arm wrestling.

Plus, if I took the drugs they took to lift that amount, I'd be dead by now.
>>
No. 82014 ID: d470e9
File 140142556530.png - (13.90KB , 800x800 , RokoaSniperCloneITQ21.png )
82014

>What are your thoughts on the idea of a sniper shotgun?
That... I would have to see! It could be great or it could be the worst thing, but the concept alone doesn't really mean much.

The whole concept is a little... unsettling, but I don't know why.
>>
No. 82015 ID: d470e9
File 140142559767.png - (15.42KB , 800x800 , BenITQ12.png )
82015

>We know that the Neumono homeworld houses the champions of healing, but what about other species?
>Are they at human level? Better? Worse?
Almost all better, but it's always more complicated then that! Yich for instance may be slow to heal, but they can survive considerable damage and blood loss so long as their critical organs are in place.

Us Belenos are on par with healing rate, but cannot take as much!

Heef can heal at comparable rates and recover from marginally worse wounds than humans to continue putting it in painfully generic terms, but there can be many healing complications despite this! They are always the biggest liability for a medical ward.

>How exactly does the distinction and overlap between family structure and hive structure work at large scales?
There have been lots of graphical simulations to show the rates of this!
With considerable variance, the average hive will attain one hundred members before sub-cliques will begin to form. These cliques respond to each other much as a neumono would respond to another neumono in a small hive, although the subtleties are something studied by specialists and few others. Most cliques are between a size of 10 and 50, and are most likely to see each other as their familiar comfort zone, and the rest of the hive as an idealized foreign neighbor, not empathically grasped, as one neumono has put it, but always within empathy's arm length! And that is, supposedly, the difference between an unfamiliar hivemate and an extra-hive neumono.

As for family, some hives tend to have biological parents as the child's primary caretakers, but there are some hives where family seems to mean nothing! Even their eggs are put into a large nursery for caretakers to deal with, without the slightest regard for who the parents were. These neumono still can form and be within cliques, but they tend to be unpredictable.

This is normally enough for cliques to be familiar with each other, often at a subsconcious level, and such still be part of a single hive. Nonetheless! It is entirely true that a higher population of a hive has a higher chance of having rogues. Some hives realize when they may be approaching a limit, and tend to stifle their reproduction as a result.

>How do big hives deal with that?
Proximity and dependancy! Pilon has made note of the biggest hive currently in existence, the miners of a dead planet. There are two reasons for their size and stability, both of them being formed by being on an efficient space base. When they're at home, they're in empathic range of dozens and dozens of their hivemates at a time. Secondly! They are hardly even aware of the events in the galaxy, and likely only know of the outside galaxy because of the freighters that exchange their goods for supplies and payment. Hence, 99% of what they know is their own hive! In their eyes, leaving behind all they know is absurd. Of course, it has happened, but for a hive of such size, their rate of rogue bleeding is astonishing.

>Do Belenos share a lot of fictional work with humanity and vice versa?
Yes! Our evolution has had many parallels, and so our aspirations, morals and ethics are only different in superficial amounts.

>Do Belenos have any cultural reaction to "Star Trek" fictional techno-babble, or is it ignored as part of the show?
Hmph, I use 'superficial' loosely. Techno-babble can be ignored as long as it seems like it is grounded in reality, so long as they do not say things that are simply wrong! I have seen early human sci-fi movies, with their rocket men and space.... ro... I could not watch much of it, it is an astronomical anamoly of science that humans of all things were the ones to realize the warp drive.

>Do you guys have any popular documentaries that are widely received by alien audiences?
Hmph, again. We have many popular documentaries amongst ourselves these days now that we are becoming one with technology again, but our documentaries are only seldomly appreciated by humans. The other species... the neumono are worst of all, calling it 'boring'. They prefer human documentaries! With arguments born from sensationalism! Narrators that sounds as though they are the ancient bards retelling a grand battle when talking about a common fruit! Titles like 'The Neo-Empirical Fortress of Evil'! It was a house! It was a commoner's HOUSE, hardly fit for a modest thunderstorm!

>Uploading (destructive or nondestructive) biological intelligences to AI cores, is that possible again?
It WOULD be if my recently-deceased ancestors weren't such idiots crying over my long-deceased ancestor's actions!

>Have there been any attempts to turning a neumono hive into a neurally networked hivemind?
Again, the same answer!

>I'm wondering about this thing where latent queens can form hives out of a collection of rogues. What are the minimum numbers like?
Theoretically the queen and someone else, but that's hardly a hive and they know it! Hence, there's hardly any recorded cases of under four, but there's no soft limit other than needing one person. Otherwise that queen is just a rogue!

>Once you have enough, how long does it take?
Thats dubious! The actual formation of the hive happens as sudden as an epiphany, but most of these 'epiphany's are a long time in the making.

>Does it vary according the Queen's empathic strength?
Yes.

>Does it take less time the further over the threshold you are?
Threshold of what? The needed power of empathy? If so, yes. If you mean the threshold of how many neumono are needed, then no! In fact, more neumono may complicate things.

>Once the hive is formed, is that it done and sealed, or is there a period where new rogues can still join? Maybe as long as the original Queen is around she can still pull new people in, and when she's gone it's over? Or is there a more vague period of adaptation where it starts easy and gets harder and harder until it's unfeasible?
Once the hive is formed, decisions are made fast! Neumono on the fence between original and new are rare, and decisions are rarely second-guessed. Hence, those who would join the new hive are quick to join the new hive, and so much of this question is non-applicable! Simply staying around the old hive will not let the queen change the minds of those original loyalists.

>How common are rogues, anyways?
It's estimated that the average rate is 1 neumono out of every 50 is a rogue! Mind you that estimates wildly vary. The neumono hives, since contact, have bred with reckless abandon. That does mean the hives are far bigger than they used to be, they are far bigger than hives were comfortable being! Many hives have great rates of rogue bleeding, thinking that if they make 2 kids for every one rogue, things will be fine. They aren't!

Before contact, rogues were considered extremely rare. Going rogue quite literally meant being ostracized from anyone you were ever even friends with, only to be surrounded by things that want to kill you! Obviously, rogues now can make friends with aliens and still have shelter. Furthermore! Neumono had safety not just in numbers, but in the hive itself being a critical component! Having one sacrifice oneself so the others may live was done without the bat of an eye. For rogues who have to go it alone, the lifespan was terribly short.
>>
No. 82017 ID: d470e9
File 140142566910.png - (13.87KB , 800x800 , WasaoITQ1.png )
82017

>Scruffy neumono doctor who seems like he's seen too much; whats your story (and name?) and being a shade of off-red yourself are you also a xenophile?
... I do not know if you are talking about me, but I do not know who else you are talking about.

If you are talking about me, I doubt you have given more than a peripheral, cursory glance at me. Apparently you have caught on to my shade of fur, however, and from that are suspecting that I am a xenophile as a result. From what I can see, there has been a sample size so far of one, and an orange pomi mistaken as pink and one. This level of leaping to assumptions is... I do not know where to begin.

No, I am not a xenophile, nor do I stray from my hive.
>>
No. 82018 ID: d470e9
File 140142569430.png - (13.42KB , 800x800 , SkullbashAndBodyslamITQ1.png )
82018

>That said, Skullbash and Bodyslam, are you xenophiles?
I am not, but my sister does not discriminate. Rather, she is bad at it.
>>
No. 82019 ID: d470e9
File 140142572074.png - (19.86KB , 800x800 , PoirinITQ3.png )
82019

>Did you create the uniforms you use or did you copy or alter another alien races uniforms that you enjoyed?
Actually, our uniforms are not 'copied' from alien races so much as they are the uniforms for alien races. Refitted for neumono bodies, of course.

>Ultrahive laws
I'll briefly summarize. We are, as the name of our ultrahive implies, a coalition of hives. Hence, we respect each other's own ambitions and cultures while allied. We're a democracy at heart. Each hive gets a single vote on any matter that may concern them - for instance, a roadway entrance in a certain sector would only involve a few hives, so the others could not vote on it -, as well as a vote for our Ultraqueens and Kings. It's the Ultra's duty to enact the laws, as well as form movements, factions and such managerial branches, military affairs included.

While many of these don't have votes, we do have a massive council room in which our ultras and any hivequeen wishing to participate may discuss the matter. The Ultras should and do respect everyone's opinion, and act in the best interest of all. For our Ultras, there are limited terms, but also the capacity for the public to remove them from office, and as such, we do switch leaders a great deal. Hence, many laws are made and removed consistently, but it is showing signs of stabilizing as people learn what they want. Oh, and hives without a queen or king may vote as one entity, but may not participate in discussion.

It's also worth noting that hives have their own territory, usually their homes, where they may also have their own laws and customs. This area is... much fuzzier, as we don't wish to enroach on their customs with un-modifiable laws, but we don't want a troublesome case of a hive having murder legal, and them insisting that that enemy hivemate of theirs 'just happened to invite himself in their home and that they were perfectly fine murdering him.' Currently, of course, murder is at the top level of illegal, and it is the more peace-keeping laws such as 'no nudity in public' that they may cross out.

It's far from perfect, even we must admit that, but it's working out well and it's improving every day. It's far better I think then the insanity of the Tree.
>>
No. 82020 ID: d470e9
File 140142575198.png - (17.82KB , 800x800 , AzITQ8.png )
82020

The tree is awesome and I'm going to tell you why. First off, it's a ladder system. Sort of. Course, some people think of it like a pyramid scheme, and it sure can be, but we damn well recognize talent and determination when we see it. We talk of seniority all day, but when we see some upstart hive kicking ass, we pay attention. Kind of a non-issue.

So, we're not some democracy. I mean, shit, half our hives have barely removed the bloody teeth of their enemies out of their ears, you want insane, you have them have a say on whether or not prostitution between species should be legal.

Our leaders are voted on by one layer down on the... fuck it, I'll call it a pyramid. And those guys are voted in by one lower rung of the pyramid. And so on. Back to the Tree. It goes on like that till the lower rung, the leaves and they're so colloquially known, and known to be the most numerous and the meat and potatoes of the whole tree. Yeah, lowest common denominator, but remove them and the rest of us won't last too long. So they're respected, but damn if they're gonna meddle in the internal affairs of... not really sure what's at the center of a tree, but whatever.

Point is, Ultras in the tree are more powerful than the Ultras in the coalition. Mentally and physically too actually, but I'm talking politically here. We make a lot of the laws and make a lot of organizations to do what has to be done, but we still have a few laws above us. We can't go screwing around with the people that make up the organization below us. Our hives also don't have any special place - they're right there with the rank and file. With our hives in the public masses, it keeps the Ultra's motives not far off from the public's motives. Let's see, what else before... well, we do have to do whatever the aliens do, since we rely on 'em more for food and supplies, than I'd like, but that's changing. Which is fine, turns out the aliens have more experience with government than we do, so shit would hit the fan pretty fast if we were cut loose even if we did have enough food and supplies.

So we've got one other movement that's basically my little pet project, and that's military power. Every able bodied person of every hive has mandatory military training. Course, it's not too big a deal, just 8 hours a day for a couple years closest to their own home where they learn the ins and outs of military training and riot control. They get food and a little bit of spending money. Real easy, all they gotta do is learn how to shoot guns. Now, that riot control teaches 'em two things; how to protect their place in case of a mass riot, and how to make a riot.

That's where I'm going with this one - the government should have power over the people and the people should have power to fuck that government sideways if that power doesn't do them well.

Pretty safe to say that most Ultras will resign sooner than do a bad job. Aliens had a good idea to modify that, cause sometimes an ultra is faced with a hard decisions that's gonna piss somebody off, and that's to allow an Ultra to open up public discussions on the matter like the Coalition does, just with the stipulation that the Ultra still has final say. That way though, there's some damn good documentation that the Ultra got input on his decision and wasn't just incompetent.

It's worked out pretty well so far.
>>
No. 82021 ID: d470e9
File 140142579367.png - (16.21KB , 800x800 , GrudgeBearerITQ1.png )
82021

>Grudge Bearer: How hard would it be to make another vase depicting the deeds of your ancestors to act as a keepsake, and if Hok produced such a testament, would you be satisfied?
As in... a fake vase?! It would say my ancestors and their deeds were fake, for it was my ancestors who each made their own mark on the vase! To have some artist or even myself do it would be blasphemous. No. It was one of a kind.
>>
No. 82022 ID: d470e9
File 140142582147.png - (96.77KB , 800x800 , TomITQ8.png )
82022

>Like, could you talk to Chaos God Chee right now and have tea with her or something.
>So if it's beyond you, does that mean that the god's that would be investigating that sort of possibility have told you nothing about it or does straight up no one else know about the possibility of other universes?
>The Hypothetical Inquisition
Man this kind of stuff is exactly what I am trying to get away from.

I'm just gonna answer the heat death thing and so that considering we can generate heat from damn well nothing I don't think that's gonna be a problem.
>>
No. 82023 ID: d470e9
File 140142584520.png - (66.37KB , 800x800 , NotEarsITQ1.png )
82023

>Question for Author: Are you familiar with the Orion's Arm universe?
Nope.

>Do you enjoy the works of any of the harder-sci-fi authors?
Nope, mostly because I'm not familiar with any.
>>
No. 82024 ID: 57a559

>>82021
But, you are going to start a new vase, right? For your future descendants so they aren't screwed? Or have you dishonored your ancestors to the point that you won't allow yourself to have descendants, and have decided to suffer fading into nothing and leaving nothing behind for your failure, with your last meaningful act being the death of Hok?

Then again, your trapped on a Space-Rock, the odds of finding a mother for your future children are ridiculously low, right? And one that will even bear them, since, again, you couldn't save your precious vase from Hok, right? No vase, no man. You're just walking dead?
>>82015
Ben, do you listen to any music while you try and work your science? Anything we humans from the distant past might know? Are you a fan of classic rock? Or classical? Or perhaps dubstep is your thing?
>>
No. 82025 ID: 0ee153

>>82013
If Kappi tried scratching you behind the ears, how much tissue would he lose?

Also, I'm assuming that details about how Lakkat managed to get you to love him beyond sheer persistence are private, but what was he like in general? And would he have gotten away with scratching you behind the ears?
>>
No. 82027 ID: 079a08

>>82017
I believe we have a misunderstanding, as you do not seem scruffy at all. I was referring to the doctor in the Ultraking's entourage.

The sample size with the (now noted as) orange pomi (i am mildly colorblind and cannon discern orange properly)may be one; but the science (theory ... wild guessing.) has to start somewhere.

A pleasure to meet you and get off thoroughly on the wrong foot though!
>>
No. 82030 ID: 69d9fb

>>82021

... what would have happened when you ran out of room on the vase?
>>
No. 82031 ID: 0ee153

>>82030
Another vase? Actually, why was it a vase in the first place? And if you do make another such memento, are you going to pick something more durable?
>>
No. 82032 ID: 363ecd

>>82015
>Some hives realize when they may be approaching a limit, and tend to stifle their reproduction as a result.
Hmm. Interesting, and answers a question I never thought to ask. Means there may be some hope that the rapid population growth will start to naturally correct at some point.

>Estimated 2% of the population is rogue
Wow. That's... higher than I expected.

Polo, could I ask for a more personal perspective on how the big hive personal dynamic works? You grew up in a big pretty modern hive. How does Sealock handle family versus hive, getting along, kids, death? What about rogues? You've never mentioned your own. How often do they happen, and what did you guys do about them? (They just left the island, you offered them transport to a neutral nexus...?).

You also have kind of a relevant personal perspective. With Rakae, you were suddenly stuck together with a hivemate outside your circle, who you'd never eve met previously, having her suddenly reduced to your entire hive, drifting apart, and then ending up very close. And with you sudden celebrity, you've gone from being one person to kind of a representative of your hive. Lots of outsiders will think of Sealock first as "Polo's hive", and more of your hivemates will know you (or at least of you) than you know them. How's that affect things?

Why did Sealock remain independent (technically considered a warhive, even) before the nuclear attack forced the decision? As a whole, you guys seem to have a very modern mindset, and to have adapted pretty well pretty quickly to working with other hives. And on an individual level, you've certainly shown to be better at dealing with extra-hive neumono than many others we've seen. So why did you guys turn down previous invitations of membership?

Are there plans to reclaim Sealock's old (coastal / island / archipelago?) home in the works? It would be a longer term thing (radiation cleanup, rebuilding, repopulating native life, clearing out whatever insane monster wildlife that moved in / liked radiation...) but it's certainly doable, and something that could be saved for.

>>82017
It's the ninja doctor! All right, a less frivolous question. What drew you to your profession? In the reckless, gung-ho (and gun-ho) attitude of a warhive, it seems like something like the medical profession could be undervalued, or at least a less attractive new advancement to focus on. Especially if you've been so used to leaning on regeneration or toughing things out for so long.

>Coalition versus Tree politically
So... the Coalition sounds closer to a true democracy, and seems to see itself as more of a kind of UN, with the hives treated more like sovereign member states. With the full bureaucracy and slowness to react to sudden situations that entails.

Whereas the Tree sounds more like a meritocracy / tiered republic- with elected representatives electing the representatives above themselves (like a weird merger of state and national legislatures with the electoral college). Divisions between hives don't sound as formalized or pronounced (hives as cultural groups rather than states?), and there's more executive power to react faster.

Certainly explains why the coalition was an easier target for the salikai (the governance structure makes it hard to react quickly to a crisis, and if individual hives have more autonomy / sovereignty that means they're more isolated, and it's easier to compromise one at a time), or how the Tree managed to respond so damn fast. Not that the coalition's model is necessarily inferior- there are certain situations where that kind of stability and inertia is an advantage (or where the Tree could get chaotic). And the setup could certainly make things easier for some kinds of hives.

The mandatory military training thing I have mixed feeling about. I see the logic in preparedness, and in discipline / self control, but I really wonder if it's necessary at that scale, or universally a good thing. It also depends on what's grandfathered in, I guess.

How do both those structures handle rogues? Does that minority have any kind of voice in the political structure?

(...wait, how did I end up with this wall of words).
>>
No. 82036 ID: 38267a

>>82032
I guess it's contagious...
Average post size in this thread is exceptionally much above the ordinary post-length after all...
>>
No. 82044 ID: f996af

>>82018
Bad at discriminating?

What, does she insist she's only into neumono, but keeps mysteriously ending up in bed with aliens?
>>
No. 82047 ID: 0ee153

>>82044
The alternative is bad at sex, and I wonder how her sister would know that.
>>
No. 82048 ID: 363ecd

>>82047
...terrible awkward empathy?
>>
No. 82049 ID: 0ee153

>>82048
Given the xenophilia context, I don't think the guy would have empathy. Possibly just her waking up earlier than either of the other two and catching the guy sneaking off.

Is this what happens or no, Skullbash/Bodyslam?
>>
No. 82050 ID: 363ecd

I meant more terrible awkward I'm-listening-to-my-sister-have-terrible-sex empathy. :V
>>
No. 82064 ID: 2f4b71

>sniper shotgun

Essentially a miniature Canister round, possibly with a delay or proximity fuse (think XM25). The XM109 probably already counts.
>>
No. 82078 ID: 6fad9a

Grudge Bearer: So Voklits have to write their deeds themselves? What about those who die in the process? Are their deeds forgotten instead?
>>
No. 82084 ID: 6ac64d

Hey Az, how does hives joining you normally work? Is there a process, or does it depend on the situation for each hive, like a primitive hive has to be treated differently from a modernized hive or a farming hive from a science hive and so on? Do all your hives have to share some sort of geographical linearity so you can draw continuous borders, or is it allowed for your territory to be spots and blotches across the map with gaps or even other people's stuff between them? Do hives ever try leave one ultrahive to join another? If a particularly desirable hive was looking for an ultrahive to join, would there ever be a kind of bidding war for them? Like, say, some hive that had been raised up by an alien company for land claiming, well educated and well equipped and experienced with taming wildland and making it habitable and profitable, something everyone would want to have around, and they've cut loose from their employers now and are setting up for themselves. Would ultrahives compete with each other to attract them?

Next, Three Stripes: I know Predators seem to be mostly solitary, or live loosely so you're near each other but don't live with each other, but can Predators work together with their powers? Like, if two Predators teamed up to control a neumono, or a hive of neumono, would that make them more effective, or would they just get in each other's way?
>>
No. 82091 ID: 0ee153

Dear non-canon Rokoa or Polo or whoever's bed that was: What kind of sheets do you get to not show the blood?

Dear sheet manufacturers: How do you make your products so stain-resistant?

Actually, does neumono blood stain like human blood does? What about other species' blood?
>>
No. 82093 ID: c7a241

>>82091
>Actually, does neumono blood stain like human blood does?
Well, part of the fluff explanation for the crazy biology on the neumono home world is that it's more oxygen rich than the norm. Given that and their reasonably mammalian biology, it's not an unreasonable to assume they're carrying oxygen in their blood. And since their blood is red, that color very likely comes from the iron in the hemoglobin (or some similar compound) used to carry that oxygen.

...and iron is gonna stain no matter what planet you're from.

If you want to explain the lack of stains it might be due to stain resistant sheets, or the fact that neumono ears have kind of evolved to be severed easily (so they probably stop bleeding quickly).
>>
No. 82095 ID: cee89f

>>82021
Well what about putting the individual pieces back together?... i mean granted, at least some of the pieces have probably been lost by now (and it's very likely they're not on the asteroid even if they haven't), but if that were possible?

Ben: What's the status of molecule-arranging nanobots?

Az Rozu Gunblocker: You versus Rokoa. What happens?

Rokoa: Same question. Also:
-What does human meat taste like? I hear it's like beef. Is that at all true?
-Have hives ever used fellow Neumono as projectiles in some sort of catapult-esque contraption?

Polo: This has probably been asked before, but is there anyone in your hive named Marco?
-What is your favorite type of non-conventional ammo? (Depleted uranium, explosive ammo, etc)
>>
No. 82102 ID: 0ee153

>>82095
Az's been asked about Rokoa before. He says he doesn't know, can't find out now. Might try a clone, but those aren't as good.

I suspect Rokoa will answer the same way.
>>
No. 82149 ID: f08e35

>>80763
I can see how you would think so, but this is not the case. Changes in the biology directly involved with reproduction can have enormous effects on reproductive fitness, so it's actually one of the unusual cases where natural selection works quickly and decisively.

For the sperm ball thing specifically, it sounds like it's mostly a matter of the viscosity of the seminal fluid. Main ingredients there are water, proteins, and sugars. Adding or removing some particular protein that readily binds to the sugars or the other proteins, or even just tweaking the ratios, could have dramatic effects on the viscosity.

As for what could cause the divergence... think about what we've seen of Neumono and Predator behavior 'in the wild' and what that implies about reproductive strategies. Neumono cuddle other Neumono all the time, and need lots of food which isn't always available, so mom can wait on the baby-making until she's good and ready. Predators, on the other hand, seem to be relatively solitary, with a slow steady metabolism and a herd of minions as a food store and only line of physical defense.

Maybe the default strategy is to bukkake a slave and send 'em over to pollinate the lady-predators, like bees.

Anyone who would know: is there the slightest bit of accuracy in this theory of mine?
>>
No. 82150 ID: 0ee153

Hey, Mimi, any stories of Waska's earlier fuckups that aren't too personal?
>>
No. 82160 ID: c7a241

Ben, it suddenly occurs to me for someone who professes a desire to preform all kinds of amoral or socially unacceptable research, you seem awful well versed in social sciences. Why the interest in how social groups work from someone who spends so much time wishing society would stop getting in his way?

Hok, how'd you get started? What was your first break into crime?

Rokann, what's with the gun-cuddling thing?
>>
No. 82169 ID: d40239

Hey Mimi how did you and Waska hook up? Also how long have you been together?

Has he always been like this or was he better/worse at one point?

Oh and are you from the same hive and how did you end up on the asteroid?
>>
No. 82233 ID: c7a241

Jess. Kappi, Rokoa. Reaction?
>>
No. 82238 ID: 9de468

Jessica, chairs are the BEST form of transportation, agree or disagree?
>>
No. 82261 ID: d470e9
File 140227377514.png - (13.06KB , 800x800 , GrudgeBearerITQ2.png )
82261

>But, you are going to start a new vase, right?
No. I will start a new life, now.

>Then again, your trapped on a Space-Rock, the odds of finding a mother for your future children are ridiculously low, right?
The odds are currently zero. I would know if there was another voklit on the asteroid, but as it is, I am the only one. Not even the salikai know my solitude.
>>
No. 82262 ID: d470e9
File 140227379652.png - (14.72KB , 800x800 , BenITQ13.png )
82262

>Ben, do you listen to any music while you try and work your science?
Unless I'm studying the science of music, listening to music can only serve as a distraction! All these kids today who constantly need the background noise to function! It's awful!

>Are you a fan of classic rock? Or classical? Or perhaps dubstep is your thing?
All of it is noise! Bring my synthetic instruments all around, I don't want classical with 'organic' instruments, and I don't want the meritless crashing noises that is dubstep!

>Ben: What's the status of molecule-arranging nanobots?
Hrm. There's material limitations to go that small! Nanobots have been at a standstill for years now to dealing with anything smaller than what they can already. A marginal improvement towards molecular toying is now considered a breakthrough of the century for nanobot technology!

>Why the interest in how social groups work from someone who spends so much time wishing society would stop getting in his way?
Because I am a generalist! All things are interconnected, and attempting to separate biology and sociology is folly. Besides, by studying such things, I can tell what experiments of mine will arbitrarily get their fur in a knot!
>>
No. 82263 ID: d470e9
File 140227383456.png - (12.54KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ62.png )
82263

>If Kappi tried scratching you behind the ears, how much tissue would he lose?
Unless he tries to do it while I'm on business, none.

>Also, I'm assuming that details about how Lakkat managed to get you to love him beyond sheer persistence are private, but what was he like in general?
He was definitely focused on his job. Real nice dedication to his missions. Course, I got in the way of that as it happened.

>And would he have gotten away with scratching you behind the ears?
Yeah, probably, cept he wasn't the sort to do that.

>You versus Az. What happens?
That penpusher's probably forgotten how to fight by now. If not, then it's gonna be one of those fights where I rely on being faster rather than being stronger.

>What does human meat taste like? I hear it's like beef. Is that at all true?
No. It tastes awful. Dunno why.

>Have hives ever used fellow Neumono as projectiles in some sort of catapult-esque contraption?
You can damn well bet they have. Not full on catapults, but just stuff to launch 'em on top of walls. Nah, when I think about it, some dumbass hive was probably desperate enough to try full catapults.
>>
No. 82264 ID: d470e9
File 140227385143.png - (14.14KB , 800x800 , PinipsiaITQ1.png )
82264

>I was referring to the doctor in the Ultraking's entourage.
.... I think there's another misunderstanding.

I'm not even pink. Or male. Or scruffy.
>>
No. 82265 ID: d470e9
File 140227387425.png - (14.51KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ83.png )
82265

>Polo, could I ask for a more personal perspective on how the big hive personal dynamic works?
>How does Sealock handle family versus hive,
Similar to what Ben said, although our cliques tend to be biologically related. We do not do what Rokoa's and many warhives do and have pedigrees such that only the "top" level males and females reproduce. Not everyone in sealock reproduces, but everyone has the freedom to do so.

>getting along
I've never thought about this. Getting along is just something that happens, I do not know the science or dynamics behind it.

>kids
Although not everyone reproduces, nearly everyone has some hand in raising kids. In our cases, we did send our kids to foreign places for proper schooling, but at time home, we tend to wander and get to know nearly everyone in the hive. Hence, it's likely that I have met Rakae at least in one point in time, but she blended together with everyone else as is common.

>death?
We have a graveyard, with a single rock with one's name inscribed on it, that is organized in a grid of the other deceased. We mourn, and move on.

>What about rogues?
Rogues have become more common with more freedom to become rogue in the first place, at least in ultrahives. Since Sealock has only just become part of an ultrahive, that has not affected us. Hence, we occasionally get rogues. We don't attempt to murder them, but we do forget about them fast, as though they never existed. I have never seen a rogue after they left.

>And with you sudden celebrity, you've gone from being one person to kind of a representative of your hive. Lots of outsiders will think of Sealock first as "Polo's hive", and more of your hivemates will know you (or at least of you) than you know them. How's that affect things?
Not much. At least, not yet. I have spent much of my time training, and although I have gotten close again to my hive as ever, I have not paid much mind to how the outside world views my hive. Considering that I was considered dead, people would want to meet my hive rather than me. This would have been difficult to hide with empathy, but many dead neumono are considered to be living in the spirit of the hive, so even hivemates that broadcast 'she's not dead' would be seen as being 'not dead in the spiritual sense.'

> As a whole, you guys seem to have a very modern mindset, and to have adapted pretty well pretty quickly to working with other hives. And on an individual level, you've certainly shown to be better at dealing with extra-hive neumono than many others we've seen. So why did you guys turn down previous invitations of membership?
We had misgivings. For one thing, we can't deny rogue rates are increased, and we're most likely not immune. Secondly, we seemed to be doing well as an independent faction. And despite attempts at otherwise, ultrahives have been known to remove a hive's individuality and make them cogs in a machine.

>Are there plans to reclaim Sealock's old (coastal / island / archipelago?) home in the works? It would be a longer term thing (radiation cleanup, rebuilding, repopulating native life, clearing out whatever insane monster wildlife that moved in / liked radiation...) but it's certainly doable, and something that could be saved for.
It's possible. While borders are constantly being redrawn, they are moving outwards for ultrahives, and the one we're in will most likely eventually have our archipelago in our sight. Given this, and what I have seen, we will most likely have first dibs on inhabiting it. In short, there are not any immediate plans to do so, but we have not removed the thought from our minds.

>This has probably been asked before, but is there anyone in your hive named Marco?
.... no.

>What is your favorite type of non-conventional ammo?
At this point, I can reliably say that explosive ammo has done the best for me outside of normal ammunition.
>>
No. 82266 ID: d470e9
File 140227388619.png - (14.30KB , 800x800 , WasaoITQ2.png )
82266

> All right, a less frivolous question. What drew you to your profession? In the reckless, gung-ho (and gun-ho) attitude of a warhive, it seems like something like the medical profession could be undervalued, or at least a less attractive new advancement to focus on. Especially if you've been so used to leaning on regeneration or toughing things out for so long.
Regeneration doesn't help a decapitation or a body so beaten it loses too much blood. It is not undervalued. It used to be. Most of my hive is naturally drawn to being infantry or other direct fighting measures, and thinks taking cover behind the front lines in safety is a coward's task. However, when so many of us owe our lives to this supposed cowardice so that they themselves can keep on the front lines, our hive accepted us and made a proper medical team. We quickly learned to respect the medical field, realizing how stressful the weight can be holding so many of our own lives in our hands.

Most aliens operate on complete strangers and can focus on the physical meat on the operating table. We, however, operate on our own family.
>>
No. 82267 ID: d470e9
File 140227390462.png - (13.10KB , 800x800 , AzITQ9.png )
82267

>How do both [ultrahive] structures handle rogues?
They get their own quarters with other rogues. Course, these places end up slummier than usual, but trying to fit 'em under other hives that are bugged by their existence would have its own issues. Otherwise? Not much. They pay rent. They have jobs. They might have kids if they want to have a mini-hive going. Or maybe not.

>Does that minority have any kind of voice in the political structure?
Nope, not unless that's something that has more impact on rogues specifically than the ultrahive in general. Course, it's still the hives that decide what constitutes as a rogue's decision!

So yeah there's a buncha talk about how they're treated like second class citizens, but they still get to eat and not get hunted by things that'll eat them alive. Fuck's sake, the gunblockers used to eat 'em alive. They're sure as fuck not ready to complain about their lot in life considering a lot of 'em remember shit like that.
>>
No. 82268 ID: d470e9
File 140227393338.png - (12.72KB , 800x800 , ThreeStripesITQ10.png )
82268

>Maybe the default strategy [for predator reproduction] is to bukkake a slave and send 'em over to pollinate the lady-predators, like bees.

Three Stripes

has never done this

Three Stripes is pretty sure that is not how it works. He means he doesn't have kids of his own so he isn't sure and maybe he doesn't have kids because he hasn't

It is Three Stripes' belief that this is not how it works.
>>
No. 82269 ID: d470e9
File 140227395321.png - (20.98KB , 800x800 , HokITQ16.png )
82269

>Hok, how'd you get started? What was your first break into crime?

>"Hoook, that's not your-HK-yours!"
"Well I'm holding onto it, so it kind of is."

Yeah that's basically the story of my life.
>>
No. 82270 ID: d470e9
File 140227396612.png - (20.11KB , 800x800 , RokannITQ1.png )
82270

>Rokann, what's with the gun-cuddling thing?
I've been in a lot of ultrahive formation wars, and sometimes people would get seperated or have to go on alone to do something. When it's like that, and your only assistance is a gun, it shouldn't come off as any surprise that I'm going to keep it close.
>>
No. 82271 ID: d470e9
File 140227398699.png - (11.95KB , 800x800 , MimiITQ1.png )
82271

>Hey Mimi how did you and Waska hook up? Also how long have you been together?
Waska came to me, insisting on hooking up. I was new on the asteroid, and figured that I would have to join a faction to make it here. That isn't entirely true, as it turns out, but at the time I figured if I was going to have to join a faction, I may as well join a leader who had such an infatuation with me. I did not know how he got what he had, but it certainly was a small party compared to what we have now.

This appearance of me as the leader's consort has let me do the management behind closed doors moreso than if I were officially recognized as the leader of the outpost. This doesn't always work out perfectly, but better than I would have expected.

>Has he always been like this or was he better/worse at one point?
He was similar. Perhaps more dumb before I taught him some things, but now he occasionally acts up in weird ways.

>Oh and are you from the same hive and how did you end up on the asteroid?
As you can guess, we're not from the same hive. I was part of a smuggling operation that went bad. We expect that our coordination systems were tampered with so that we would end up in the asteroid field, but we could not find out for certain.
>>
No. 82272 ID: d470e9
File 140227400649.png - (13.08KB , 800x800 , JessITQ12.png )
82272

>Jess. Kappi, Rokoa. Reaction?
I'm staying out of that one.

>Jessica, chairs are the BEST form of transportation, agree or disagree?
Fuck you!
>>
No. 82273 ID: 0ee153

>>82261
What kind of hair care do you require? Are lice a problem? Do you ever braid it Viking-style? Do you have any idea what kind of life you would like?


Ben, what do you think the challenges would be in making/cloning a female voklit from a male one, and what could possibly motivate you not to play God like this? Also, do you have any idea whether or not jetalium could fossilize? Is there enough time since it was first made for a fossil to form, does it decay too quickly, anything like that? It included some organics, as I recall.

Az, how often do you do actual fighting instead of paperwork?
>>
No. 82275 ID: 9de468

>>82272
Why so angry Jess, did the chair ride have a abrupt end or did you find yourself gliding through several rooms from Rokoa's tiny push?

Which make me wonder, Rokoa; Did Jess being near Kappi bother you so much you had her go on a little trip, or was that you just having fun?
>>
No. 82277 ID: c7a241

>Considering that I was considered dead, people would want to meet my hive rather than me.
>I have not paid much mind to how the outside world views my hive
Maybe you haven't, but I was more thinking about things from the other end. You hive can't entirely avoid how the outside world sees them, and in that world, you've become part of their identity. Something that defines them. You're no queen, but your role in the social order around you has changed (or is changing).

So I'm less asking what it's like finding yourself acting as a representative than I am asking what's it like that your hive may be starting to see you that way.
>>
No. 82278 ID: cee89f

>>82261
>I would know if there was another voklit on the asteroid, but as it is, I am the only one.
How? I mean sure, you guys aren't exactly hard to spot, but it's a big asteroid. Is there a pheromone/long-range empathy thing we're not aware of?

>>82272
Okay. Let's ask Mimi instead what her reaction would be! And Waska!

... And Scratch/Miss!

>>82263
What do the other aesteroid denizens taste like, now that I think of it?
>>
No. 82279 ID: 0ee153

Speaking of Miss, what is it about Hok that you like so much? Generic Miklik stuff, his taste in fashion, been a while since you got any, what?
>>
No. 82300 ID: 2df983

>>82264

I ... What? How is this a thing that is happening? I suspect the CAI is having some fun at my expense.

The doctor i'm looking for treated Biles when he was extracted from the Salikai caverns.

But since you're here, whats your story? Do you attend to the ultraking in the field frequently and is it as hectic/dangerous as I imagine it should be?

Wasao: what's your standing in the medical hierarchy?

Medical Staff: Gurney Surfing; acceptable form of transportation that rivals office chair commuting?
>>
No. 82307 ID: 95170a

>>82269
Hok, who the fuck is that and what the fuck are they?
>>
No. 82308 ID: c7a241

>>82307
Some miklik who had the misfortune of knowing Hok as a kid. (They're plant-ish, prone to mutations, and have a lot of variation in basic appearance).
>>
No. 82317 ID: 559bfe

Any member of an 'uplifted' species: will you show us your Traditional Native Garb?

Whiskers: we asked Hok what he thought of you, what do you think of Hok?

Rokoa's warhive neumono: Can you clarify the difference between 'rogue' and 'not a member of a hive' and 'not my hive, but in a hive'? In the latter case especially it seems like... like, you still don't like them, but you generally recognize their right to exist more than you do rogues? What if one of your rogues went and joined another hive, would that 'upgrade' them?

Also does your hive have an actual name beyond 'the warhive' or '[individual]'s hive'?
>>
No. 82318 ID: 95170a

>>82308
Poor SoB. I wonder how long he lasted?
>>
No. 82321 ID: 37a55b

>>82272
Jess, for the empathy impaired: what was Rokoa broadcasting when she sent you on your way?

As I understand it her empathy is as scary as her behavior
>>
No. 82324 ID: 3488e6

>>82317
>Rokoa's warhive neumono: Can you clarify the difference between 'rogue' and 'not a member of a hive' and 'not my hive, but in a hive'? In the latter case especially it seems like... like, you still don't like them, but you generally recognize their right to exist more than you do rogues? What if one of your rogues went and joined another hive, would that 'upgrade' them?
I think it had already been explained: A hive feels highly amplified rejection butthurt towards their own rogues, causing murderous rage. I don't think anything has been said about other hives' rogues, however. I guess it wouldn't make much difference between strangers and rogue strangers.
>>
No. 82326 ID: dc4b80

>>82267

Dang Az I can understand that rogues rub people the wrong way but most races do not go eating there estranged family members alive.

Anyways now that your race has enough food and weapons to avoid your previous horrible upbringing how do you think Neumono society will evolve over the next few hundred years? Most old people like to complain that kids have it "easy" these days despite the fact that each generation has its own unique problems. But in your races case your children really will have it much easier. Do you worry they will get lazy and weak without the constant threat of being devoured by everything in there environment?

Rokoa's and Pilon's take on this question would also be interesting.
>>
No. 82333 ID: fe4bfc

>>82267

Wait so was your statement about "eating them alive" just hyperbole? Or do you in fact have rogues around that remember how you used to eat people without being polite enough to finish them off first?
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No. 82339 ID: 3e2018

Rokoa, Polo got asked this question, now it's your turn.

>Who in your hive would you say is your best friend, or at least the person you spend the most time with, beyond the demands of [your work]?
>>
No. 82340 ID: cee89f

Rokoa: Who's the best combatant in your hive, aside from you? Who's the best on the asteroid? (again, aside from you)
>>
No. 82355 ID: fd35b0

>Unnatural Selection: Whoever cares to reply:
Anything embarrassing, scandalous, or juicy happen in the 16 years in the house simulation?
>>
No. 82379 ID: c7d837

Rokoa clone, clones, or person who knows a lot about the Rokoa clones: are you genetically identical to Rokoa when all is said and done, or still genetically your original person and just look like Rokoa? Or to put it another way, if for example a medium-sized red neumono was turned into a Rokoa and then had a kid with another medium red neumono, would the kid be red-medium or would they maybe be a big white-grey snow hive person?
>>
No. 82382 ID: 0ee153

>>82379
It depends. Remember the battle in Polo's mind? That determined how much she became Rokoa. The more Rokoa wins, the more the neumono becomes Rokoa. Leather Clone and Bitey are more or less 95%+ conversion, since I don't think there's much or any of the originals left. Sniper is... what, 70%? Not sure on that one.
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No. 82383 ID: c7d837

>>82382

That doesn't answer whether or not they're genetic clones, though. The basic question is, if a Rokoa clone has a kid, is that kid going to turn out the same as if they were the original Rokoa's kid?
>>
No. 82384 ID: 0ee153

>>82383
...Yes, it does. The point of the darts is that they make other neumono's genes into them via their regeneration. That's how they work. That is the point of the clone darts.
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No. 82385 ID: c7d837

>>82384

It's more ambiguous than that. Like, does the injected material inject its own genetic code into the host's cells, like a virus? Does it take control and then devour and replace the host's flesh, so that the injected material is basically growing into a new Rokoa while feeding off the host for food and also absorbing some of their memories? Or is there some empathic I-think-I-am-therefore-I-am thing where the injected material somehow commands the host to start looking and thinking like Rokoa, but they actually still have all their own cells and genetic material that's just being ignored in favor of Rokoa's? Or maybe something else? Or a blend of all of them?

I'm just speculating here, but I don't think neumono just take their genetic info and build themselves directly on that. We know there's epigenetics - larger mothers produce larger children - and we know that environmental effects can have an effect on appearance, like if you're starved during childhood you'll be stunted and smaller and if you receive now-you're-the-king/queen empathy you get a bit larger and so on.

So what I think is, somewhere in their neural material, a neumono's deep brain takes the genetic foundation, and uses that with a bunch of other factors to decide on what their 'complete' appearance should be. And then their regeneration uses that to work off of. But that appearance isn't totally set in place - it doesn't activate fully until childhood is over (possibly connected with why their empathy is malleable until then?), and if you receive the right kind of empathy you can be changed to Royal Mode or whatever. Plus the other theoretical empathy shaping stuff that's been mentioned.

So, it's possible that the Rokoa clones aren't genetically Rokoa clones. They might just have had their regeneration reset and and their autonomic nervous system tricked into thinking that they 'should' be Rokoas.

I'm not saying you're wrong but it's less certain than you're making it out.
>>
No. 82388 ID: fb9a0e

>>82385
>>82384
Oh man, it's the "are Space Marines genetically modified" debate all over again...
>>
No. 82390 ID: 410c24

>Genetic clones?
Well, yes. Literally, the original Rokoa clone(s) is / are more of a cutting than anything else. Biomass was removed from Rokoa, and then kept alive with science until it could regenerate into a whole (or, at least enough of a whole for their purposes). That's essentially the same thing that happens when you cut a starfish in half just right, or clip off a part of a plant and then chemically stimulate root growth. Artificial asexual reproduction- creating a new, duplicate individual from a piece of the original. By definition, same genetic code.

The dart clones are more complicated, as they're what happens when you attempt to graft two separate organisms together. Liquified Rokoa biomass (complete with genetic information and personality, consciousness, and memories) is injected into a host. That then leaves you with two sets of genetic templates in one body, each with their own immune and regenerate system. Each thinks the other is alien or outside material in its body, and tries to consume / rebuild the other. This is the normal biological response when regeneration runs into foreign material. (It's why Polo's skin grafts from Pilon eventually turned the right color again- her body absorbed and converted the donor material).

This is then complicated by the fact that the will to live apparently matters. The outcome of the mental battle will influence / shape the outcome of the biological battle. A body without a mind to drive it falls, and is consumed. You're only left with one genetic code after someone wins decisively. (So when Polo 'won', that meant her regeneration was free to devour and convert any Rokoa-biomass established in her body. Whereas when Rokoa wins, her biology has free rein to slowly rebuild the host-body according to her own template).

The interesting case is what happens when there's no clean victory, and hybridization occurs. Obviously you end up with one individual who expresses traits from both parent templates, but we don't know, mechanically, how the codes interacted. Do the codes merge? Are they left with too many genes / chromosomes with epigentics or emptahy picking and choosing what ones to activate? Are their long term risks for stability or viability? Are there problems with sterility? Unfortunately, we only know enough to speculate. Things like cell functions, how genetic information is stored, mechanics of immune responses, etc fall well bellow the resolution of the information we've been given.

>tl;dr
The darts literally contain liquified Rokoa-brains, which would include her genetic code. So while empathy plays a role in deciding which individual 'wins', or possibly which traits are expressed in the case of chimerazation, there are still gonna be Rokoa-genetics of some kind in a resultant clone.

>Oh man, it's the "are Space Marines genetically modified" debate all over again
Except ours are fuzzy. And no one argues about whether they have tits.

...well except that one clone who cut hers off, I guess.
>>
No. 82391 ID: cee89f

>>82384
>>82385
I always thought that the clone darts worked by having the Rokoa material regenerate inside the host at a rate that the victim's body couldn't handle until it consumed the original. What we saw with Polo was the clone and Polo's brain matter duking it out for dominance. The struggle in Rokoa's memories causes severe mental trauma, which hinders regeneration (possibly?) enough in the original that the Rokoa bits can thoroughly outpace the rest. Sniper clone is what happens when Rokoa has only a partial victory. Or maybe SC is closer to Rokoa pre-Rikora's training.

>>82388
Technically no, but they might as well be.

Polokoa: I assume your eyes are two different colors to pay homage to your two component neumono, but do they differ in any significant manner otherwise?

Rokolo: Same question.

Rokoa: Is it better for your muscle strength/health to train in or out of bio armor? I assume 'out', but we don't know everything about bio armor.

Polo: Is bioarmor all generic performance enhancement, or are there different kinds? For instance, Rokoa would probably prefer strength-enhancing bioarmor, but is there a kind that's specifically tailored for stealth and/or athleticism?

Korli: Is there bioarmor for more than just the neumono, and if not, would such be possible?
>>
No. 82392 ID: 0ee153

>>82391

A suit of bio armor was first envisioned by a joint research between humans and belonosians (sheep creatures) approximately 28 years before first neumono contact. This form of psuedo-intelligent armor comprised of nanites on the inner surface area that would mold to fit evenly across ones form, but still was uncomfortable at best. The nanites fuse with the body itself in most areas - the more surface area someone has, the higher effectiveness it grants. The armor was weakest at the orifices, where they were made to be as least intrusive as possible, such that the user may easily perform body functions such as eating without having to take the whole suit off. There is no bio armor around the eyes, either, as that region is simply replaced with a visor, with a thin strip along the rims that is made to seal the visor to the bio armor.
Each nanite held a little bit of biological energy that could give and receive energy between itself and the user. When the user expended energy, the bio armor would give its own - it acted, in ways, like a battery to the musculature and many body functions, as well as an amplifier. Once the body heals itself, it begins healing and recharging the nanite's own lost energy as the last priority, yet still as though the armor was part of the user's own biology.
The benefits were significant when the bio armor worked. Special forces that had bio armor on underneath normal armor were regarded highly. However, the bio armor was expensive, dangerous, and only held moderate benefits considering the huge amount of resources and danger that went into them. Although they were never entirely abandoned by humans, but they were far from being a common sight.
It didn't take long after the discovery of the neumono to realize that their physiology was a far better fit, with the exception of fur. Testing occurred, and bio armor became a staple of high tech neumono warfare which involved smaller, elite teams.

Source: http://tgchan.org/wiki/Neumono
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No. 82398 ID: 95170a

>>/questdis/82397
>>
No. 82401 ID: ac14c0

>>82398
That doesn't link to anything.
>>
No. 82404 ID: 0ee153

>>82401
It links to a deleted comment. If I recall correctly, The Ass of Hat posted a picture of some stripy guy asking how/who they wanted to "fite".
>>
No. 82408 ID: cee89f

>>82392
...

Guess I gotta find a different question for Korli then. *grumble grumble* Where did I put that paper...
>>
No. 82410 ID: ac14c0

Timekeeper: Just how much sex happened during those 16 years that Chief is choosing to ignore?
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No. 82424 ID: 0ee153

Jukashi's speculation reminds me. Grottles and vernauts were said to be hunted to extinction because their scales and horns were valuable, there were no preservation laws, and they did fuckall for the ecosystem.

How are their scales and horns valuable, and surely at the very least their feces would serve as fertilizer?
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No. 82461 ID: 95170a

I'd like to remind Lagotrope that he is allowed to answer questions from ITQ in this thread if you want to.
We're not shoving you off into a corner somewhere.
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No. 82466 ID: d470e9
File 140285280977.png - (9.01KB , 800x800 , GrudgeBearerITQ3.png )
82466

>What kind of hair care do you require? Are lice a problem?
No, the asteroid is not of our home planet. Most parasites are eradicated across this rock. Nonetheless, I use a generic shampoo formula that is harmless to nearly all species.

>Do you ever braid it Viking-style?
I am not familiar with vikings. Even if I were, I would not, as a voklit's mane is not to be constrained.

>Do you have any idea what kind of life you would like?
No. Despite my wish to do so, the asteroid is no place to sort such matters out. I must leave it.

>How? I mean sure, you guys aren't exactly hard to spot, but it's a big asteroid. Is there a pheromone/long-range empathy thing we're not aware of?
Voklits are seldom seen on our own planet, let alone off of it. If a voklit landed, it would be a big deal.
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No. 82467 ID: d470e9
File 140285282986.png - (15.85KB , 800x800 , BenITQ14.png )
82467

>Ben, what do you think the challenges would be in making/cloning a female voklit from a male one, and what could possibly motivate you not to play God like this?
I am not a veterinarian familiar with non-galactic species, I do not know enough about voklit to clone one! I am sure it is trivial, but the only motivation to not play, as you put it, god, I need is that I have far more pressing matters on my mind. I do not have the equipment for cloning, besides!

Nevermind that if this voklit were a narcissist.... what I do know about voklit is that inbreeding results in a faulty child.

>Also, do you have any idea whether or not jetalium could fossilize?
Fossilize? No, it does not 'fossilize'! It decays into worthless slag! I have studied what has thought to have been decomposed jetalium, although it is difficult to tell, as the molecules that the jetalium decays to varies on the molecular state of the jetalium itself. I can say that whatever slag is left is not even a shadow of the fabled jetalium of the past.

>It included some organics, as I recall.
Yes, and the organic components I expect have long since been turned to dust.
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No. 82468 ID: d470e9
File 140285285151.png - (15.91KB , 800x800 , AzITQ10.png )
82468

>Az, how often do you do actual fighting instead of paperwork?
More than paperwork! If my day contains more paperwork than fight, it's a day gone bad. My colleagues better know me well enough to know that if they try to swamp me in paper, I'm gonna start a war to match it.

>Wait so was your statement about "eating them alive" just hyperbole?
Are you kidding? No. We just held them down and went at it. Cause we can't get 'em back in the hive mentality, so we gotta get them back physically.

Unless they were rogues that weren't part of our hive that we just stumbled across. Then we just ate 'em cause we were hungry.

>I can understand that rogues rub people the wrong way but most races do not go eating there estranged family members alive.
Most races aren't neumono, so what?

>Anyways now that your race has enough food and weapons to avoid your previous horrible upbringing how do you think Neumono society will evolve over the next few hundred years? Most old people like to complain that kids have it "easy" these days despite the fact that each generation has its own unique problems. But in your races case your children really will have it much easier. Do you worry they will get lazy and weak without the constant threat of being devoured by everything in there environment?
Yeah probably, but Ultraking or not I hardly give a fuck about the kids these days. There's always gonna be at least a little fighting, so the Gunblocker hive'll always have something to do and that's all that's important to me.
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No. 82469 ID: d470e9
File 140285287394.png - (10.92KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ63.png )
82469

>Did Jess being near Kappi bother you so much you had her go on a little trip, or was that you just having fun?
Didn't bug me, but I didn't want Kappi getting distracted while she was frozen up.

It was a little fun, though.

>What do the other aesteroid denizens taste like, now that I think of it?
Belenos are tender, voklit are chewy, arkots are disgusting, pomi are tangy, heef are juicy if prepared right, mikliks either taste like water or like poison, and yich eaters taste fine but have the feeling of chewing straw.

>Can you clarify the difference between 'rogue' and 'not a member of a hive' and 'not my hive, but in a hive'?
Yeah. Back before aliens, the difference is between 'we'll kill you for betraying us' and 'we'll kill you for being different.' Now, I guess we don't kill anyone who isn't a rogue from our own hive.

>What if one of your rogues went and joined another hive, would that 'upgrade' them?
Nope.

>Also does your hive have an actual name beyond 'the warhive' or '[individual]'s hive'?
Nope. None we've accepted, anyway. Around the asteroid, we're just called 'the big hive' for short.

>Do you worry neumono kids will get lazy and weak without the constant threat of being devoured by everything in there environment?
Yeah. Which is why while I'm around any kids I care about, they're gonna have the constant threat of something they don't like.

>Who in your hive would you say is your best friend, or at least the person you spend the most time with, beyond the demands of [your work]?
I'd say Kork, who hung around. She doesn't really do much fighting these days, but she keeps her skills sharp. Reminds me of the old days, and most people that do that are gone now.
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No. 82470 ID: d470e9
File 140285289073.png - (10.63KB , 800x800 , PilonITQ32.png )
82470

>Do you worry neumono kids will get lazy and weak without the constant threat of being devoured by everything in there environment?
I've felt a sense of detachment from the world that slowly set in ever since contact, and it changes faster than I can understand it. That was before landing on the asteroid, so now I simply have no idea what to think.

Except, that if technology can allow neumono to grow up lazy and weak, then so long as they can be happy in peaceable families, it may not be so bad. My family certainly isn't in such a cozy position, but while I would like to see them stay determined, I would also like them to be able to afford more relaxation than what the asteroid allows.
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No. 82471 ID: d470e9
File 140285290639.png - (10.51KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ84.png )
82471

>So I'm less asking what it's like finding yourself acting as a representative
It feels completely irrelevant to how my hive treats me, and how I live. I could be the only one in my hive that anyone outside of my hive is interested in, but my hive will see me as our successful experiment.

My position in the social order will be an ultrahive matter, not a hive matter.

>>Is bioarmor all generic performance enhancement, or are there different kinds? For instance, Rokoa would probably prefer strength-enhancing bioarmor, but is there a kind that's specifically tailored for stealth and/or athleticism?
There is some that is specialized, but in practice this is just a generic performance enhancement with moderate leaning to a particular aspect.

Stamina is a common specialization, but there is not a standard bio-armor that could assist in stealth. Aside from empathic-stealth, from the salikai's science hive bio armor.
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No. 82472 ID: d470e9
File 140285312996.png - (14.22KB , 800x800 , JessITQ13.png )
82472

>Why so angry Jess, did the chair ride have a abrupt end or did you find yourself gliding through several rooms from Rokoa's tiny push?
Oh, don't pretend like those questions aren't poking fun at my expense!

>Jess, for the empathy impaired: what was Rokoa broadcasting when she sent you on your way?
Just a lot of attention on Kappi. There was a lot of judgement and expectation. I mean, it wasn't even directed at me, but I froze up.

>As I understand it her empathy is as scary as her behavior
Yeah it... it's fucked up. I don't know how to explain it better. It's just fucked up.
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No. 82473 ID: d470e9
File 140285342869.png - (13.63KB , 800x800 , MissITQ3.png )
82473

>Speaking of Miss, what is it about Hok that you like so much? Generic Miklik stuff, his taste in fashion, been a while since you got any, what?
I dunno, the way he acts all cagey and awkward in every way, but then has these natural talents he's only half aware of. It's cute.

>Kappi, Rokoa. Reaction?
It makes a little sense. I mean, they used to be in the same hive. That counts, right? Maybe?
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No. 82474 ID: d470e9
File 140285344406.png - (15.06KB , 800x800 , PinipsiaITQ2.png )
82474

>But since you're here, whats your story? Do you attend to the ultraking in the field frequently and is it as hectic/dangerous as I imagine it should be?
Yes. Even though I'm not part of the gunblocker hive, I can deal with the shit he puts on me, so he makes me. There isn't much more to it then that.
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No. 82475 ID: d470e9
File 140285347044.png - (17.47KB , 800x800 , ZampilITQ1.png )
82475

>Scruffy neumono doctor who seems like he's seen too much; whats your story (and name?) and being a shade of off-red yourself are you also a xenophile?
Zampil Rozu Gunblocker. I'm a trained soldier and medic.

I'm not a xenophile because I'm red. I'm a xenophile because I like fucking.

>Gurney Surfing; acceptable?
When non-hive mates aren't looking, yeah, absolutely.
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No. 82476 ID: d470e9
File 140285348689.png - (14.29KB , 800x800 , WasaoITQ3.png )
82476

>Wasao: what's your standing in the medical hierarchy?
What hierarchy? We're not in an ultrahive. And hives don't have hierarchies. Not good ones, anyway.
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No. 82477 ID: d470e9
File 140285349819.png - (10.00KB , 800x800 , HokITQ17.png )
82477

>Hok, who the fuck is that and what the fuck are they?
What? Tup? That's just my miklik school buddy. I mean there isn't even anything special about him, that's just how he looks.

>Poor SoB. I wonder how long he lasted?
What? Man, he's an accountant or something. Like Itcher.
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No. 82478 ID: d470e9
File 140285351305.png - (18.07KB , 800x800 , whiskersITQ3.png )
82478

>Traditional Native Garb?
Gaudy and over the top, but above all else, entirely natural. Supposedly every article of clothing means something significant, but I'm not a fan, to be honest. Nekto actually isn't far off the mark, believe it or not. Of course, traditional in this case refers to post-emperor, anti-tech belenosian movements. If I wanted to get more traditional, then I'd be out of luck, because we don't have the synthetic material that was popular back in those days.

>Whiskers: we asked Hok what he thought of you, what do you think of Hok?
A goof. People of high caliber say he could be a real professional at what he does if he put his mind to it. What I think, though, is that a lot of his amazing subconscious knack and intuition for subterfuge only comes out because he doesn't overthink or try too hard. Lose that, and he won't just fail at professionalism; he'll be worse.

Others, such as Nekto, think of me as the weather, juyst to be worked around, but that mentality is better put on Hok. Even if the method to my madness is unknown, it does exist.
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No. 82479 ID: d470e9
File 140285353308.png - (11.75KB , 800x800 , CruncherITQ1.png )
82479

>Anything embarrassing, scandalous, or juicy happen in the 16 years in the house simulation?
Dunno, we play video games way too much to notice. Cept sometimes during the night, while everyone else goes to their rooms and we keep playing competitively, I hear some weird creaking noises from Timekeeper's room. It's slow, like someone up there is trying to be sneaky.
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No. 82480 ID: d470e9
File 140285356009.png - (12.99KB , 800x800 , TimekeeperITQ1.png )
82480

>Anything embarrassing, scandalous, or juicy happen in the 16 years in the house simulation?
Wellllllll, even though we don't sleep, we did make a little habit of going to our respective rooms at night for a little alone time. And I hear some weird thumping noises on the video game couch! I always get too shy to ask, though, but I always put my ear up to the wall and try to listen to see if they're talking to each other.

>Timekeeper: Just how much sex happened during those 16 years that Chief is choosing to ignore?
Welll, outside of the possible couch accessories, I don't think there would be any! Everyone here are either robots, jetals or simulated people, so I'm surprised there's any sexual feelings in the first place.

I try not to pry, though.
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No. 82481 ID: d470e9
File 140285361332.png - (13.30KB , 800x800 , MirimITQ1.png )
82481

>Rokoa clone, clones, or person who knows a lot about the Rokoa clones: are you genetically identical to Rokoa when all is said and done, or still genetically your original person and just look like Rokoa?
Okay. Okay, this topic. This shit is complex. Here's my unprepared lecture.

I'm not going to lie, I'm the specialist on this. And I don't get it. It shouldn't have even worked, the first Rokoa sample that was gained wasn't even that much, but apparently enough to get going. I wasn't part of that.

I can't tell you why the brain dart works, but I could go on and on about why it shouldn't. But that's not the question. You want to know the genetics? That shit is complex. I mean, we don't just have dominant and recessive genes, we also have dormant genes, usually ones from our parents. This is kind of backup stuff so that if some mutation or deformation comes up in a kid, the hive can go "holy shit what is wrong with your face" and then those dormant, normal-face genes will kick in and try to kick the new freakface genes out. In other words, those genes can get messed around with by empathy throughout childhood, but they generally get set in stone around adult. From there, dominant, recessive and dormant genes won't really change much, and it'll just be normal growth stuff that can be impacted, like if a neumono becomes queen and grows a few inches.

So, apparently, when Rokoa brain whatever gets injected in another neumono, that sort of direct brain matter with empathy makes physical contact with one another, and all those dormant genes just go fucking nuts. Course, ancestral genes are inherently weaker and weaker as the lineage goes back, so even parental dormant genes aren't as strong as the base test subject's and rokoa's own genes go, so that doesn't come into play too much. Still, point is, all the genes get activated and have a new battle royale going on. Since the genes respond to empathy, empathy is the biggest player, and genes that are expected to recede will recede. Hence, Rokoa thinking she's gonna win for sure will help, but that gets in trouble when the test subject is so damn sure they are who they are and that they're going to stay that way.

Rokoa usually wins mostly, but a complete victory is damn well near impossible. Usually leaning more towards one or the other, but not completely.

So, are Rokoa clones Rokoa genetically? If the clones have kids, would they be virtually the same as if Rokoa had kids?
Mostly. Maybe. Definitely not cut and dry.

What's interesting though is that the re-activated genes are reborn, and still malleable. So the clones, even though they're adults in form and experiences, their genes are basically that of a child's. Real malleable stuff that, if molded right, can make adult-child-Rokoa change into a very different adult-adult-Rokoa if that makes any sense. I dunno. Vanski was going to have Four Stripes really fuck around with that fact and try to make 'em grow into super whatevers, but he may not have the time for that.

>Grottles and vernauts were said to be hunted to extinction because their scales and horns were valuable, there were no preservation laws, and they did fuckall for the ecosystem.
>How are their scales and horns valuable, and surely at the very least their feces would serve as fertilizer?
The biomaterial alone has uses now that we have proper technology to harvest it, but it's unimpressive.

Why're those objects valuable? They're really not. They're worthless as material, but prestige is valuable to a lot of hives. What I'm saying here is that the value is artificial. Hives who thought highly of themselves would risk themselves for a grottle hide or vernaut horn so they could stroke their hive ego.

Since vernauts and grottles weren't acting as any sort of key component to the ecosystem, there weren't any conservation laws like you say. So aliens would hunt them down since they could get dumbass hives to do all sorts of shit for useless crap like that. I've seen footage of hives mining and exchanging gold for a few vernaut horns.
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No. 82484 ID: 410c24

>>82481
Your name's come up a few times, nice to finally meet you. And not behind the barrel of a gun!

Follow up question. If the clone dart process essentially resets childhood development (where gene activation is malleable to empathic suggestion and identify) what would the implications of that be for someone who has specifically spent years training to control her empathy?

...because, if I'm reading this right, that leaves Polo, after surviving her Rokoa-dart experience, in the unique and insane position to choose her own genetics. That's possibly the most terrifying thing the salikai have created.

Forget simply training to be better-faster-stronger. She could theoretically improve or change herself purely by will, or belief. Her body optimizing itself for what she wants to be from the available, and now larger, pool of genes. (Like, Rokoa was always scary-fast. Maybe Polo's reaction time is, or will be, better than it was?).

Maybe it wasn't just the memory of Rikora's training that helped her win that knife fight.
>>
No. 82493 ID: a84585

I think there was a missed question to Az about Ultrahives having bidding wars trying to 'court' particularly valuable hives into joining them. Also one to Three Stripes about whether predators combining their efforts would work.

My own question, though: is neumono professional wrestling both as cheesy and as totally real as I dearly dearly hope?
>>
No. 82495 ID: 5c2478

To anyone/everyone, are there any mannerisms/behaviors/physiological quirks that are "normal" to other races that just weirds you out? Mundane, gross, whatever, even if you feel like there's no real reason for it to bother you, but it does anyway.
I think we all know what (one of) Jess's answers would be.
>>
No. 82500 ID: 1b75e6

>>82480

I can understand how not having much of a sex drive would stop that sort of thing. But on the other hand sex is a great way to fend off boredom. Maybe if you are stuck in that stage long enough you might start experimenting.
>>
No. 82501 ID: 1b75e6

>>82468

You know Az at first I thought man that's pretty horrible. But then after thinking about it I realized its not that different from how humans and other species work. I mean having a family member go rogue is basically like the worst kind of emotional betrayal because of your empathy. For a species without empathy it would be like having a trusted friend literally stab you in the back. Before modern civilization made it taboo it was perfectly acceptable to go stabbing right back.

And the eating them part I can understand because of the fact your species caloric requirements are immense. If you let the rogue go its a constant reminder of there existence and they are using up food the hive could use.

The eating alive part is the only issue I have and that's because its just dangerous to go chewing on something that can still claw, bite, and kick. Do Neumono taste better uncooked and twitching? Or is it more of a revenge thing. "Sure I got my eyes gouged out but boy did we show him."

I guess with your regeneration the eye gouging is not as much of a issue.
>>
No. 82509 ID: 813949

>>82475

I finally found you.
>Medical Professional, Combat trained
>I'm a xenophile because I like to fuck
>Gurney Surfing: Absolutely

And I think I love you. Do you have a specific area of specialization in medicine or are you more of a generalist?

Can I watch your gurney-surf? Because that would be totally bitchin'.

And since it kinda looks like i'm stalking you anyway, how bout I buy you lunch. Or dinner? I want to hear about your wild adventures in combat medicine.
>>
No. 82555 ID: 5a807b

Hey Hok, you've committed 'almost every' crime. So tell me: does it count as indecent exposure if you don't currently have a sex?
>>
No. 82563 ID: 5a807b

Salikai: I notice you seem to have flat teeth. What do you eat?
>>
No. 82613 ID: 6a0d09
File 140322978407.png - (206.95KB , 600x600 , aryegaharem.png )
82613

>I'll bet there are a lot of variations on which of the siblings were the heroic ones or villainous, or more to blame, and maybe even what colors they were assigned. A hives own region and color(s) and perspective would be bound to skew it.

Certainly there were. In fact, even the longer version of just the story I told you isn’t all there is to it, there’s a whole mythological cycle of stories using the same characters. They’re sort of like ancient fanfiction of the original legend, and lots of different versions of those, as well. Not as many of the totally ham-fisted revisions as you might think, though: one of the main points of the legend is that all the characters were flawed in their own way. If you took out part of it, made one of the characters some perfect hero to match your own racial preferences, then for certain everyone in your hive would nod along and be all approving, but without even realizing it, they wouldn’t repeat that version of the legend so much, because deep inside it wouldn’t appeal to them the same way. So, those versions would die out. Neumono were always intelligent; it wasn’t as if aliens waved their magic science sticks and we all suddenly realized our interhive xenophobia was a problem for the first time ever. Some of that basic awareness that things weren’t perfect was always floating around, even when we weren’t all consciously aware of it or allowed ourselves to vocalize it.

It’s not like heroism and villainy were clear concepts for most neumono back then, anyway. A clear good-evil morality isn’t actually all that common: us-them was, but ‘we’ prefer ‘us’ because we are us, not because we thought there was some cosmic objective… thing. So, none of the characters in the legend were really heroes or villains in the modern sense, they were just… bigger and greater and more important than normal people. I understand a lot of old myths are the same for aliens.

>So that/your hive basically got the Mark of Cain?

Speaking of myths, the mark of what? Cane? Was that the one where it was his sled? Or the vampire?

>Polokoa: How diverse is your harem? Are we talking mostly neumono, or xenos? Any AI? Sentient harem outfits? Something we'd find ridiculous and unbelievable in any other universe?

I’m going to let you in on something that will probably disappoint you. Polokoa’s harem isn’t really a harem.

See, Polokoa is… er, hard to describe. I’m not sure how well this will translate, but imagine when you were growing up, and you had that one elder hivemember who was always stern with you, and they were disappointed and sort of angry with you, because you weren’t being all you could be. Not living up to your potential. Right? But their disappointment with you really hurts, because first, you know they’re grieved like this because they really do love you, and care about you, and want you to be the best person you can, for your own sake. And, worse, you really aren’t living up to your full potential and you know it, and you know they’re right to feel the way they feel, and you feel this blend of being loved and being ashamed of yourself at the same time. Got it? Now, you take that, and instead of being directed just at you, it’s directed at the whole world including you. And you combine this with a sort of deep, righteous, bitter fury, and you stuff it into one person and turn the volume up.

Saying that’s what Polokoa is like is an understatement, and rather inaccurate, but I can’t describe it better without using a language that actually has words for empathic sensations. Obviously Polokoa is still a person, and she has a range of other emotions, plus the additional confusion of the Polo and Rokoa parts inside her having their own as well, but the feeling I’ve just described is always there. So, as you can imagine, getting intimate and having to perform with someone like that is something that only a rare few people can do.

Back in the day, when things were still getting settled and Polokoa had more to be stressed out about, Dastrica wasn’t around, we would sometimes take one of those people and… throw them under her, metaphorically, of course. For her benefit, her benefit being our benefit. Calling them her ‘harem’ was a joke we started to tell, and surprisingly, when she heard it, she liked it and started repeating it herself. Some of Rokoa’s sense of humour slipping out, I suppose. So, sorry, there isn’t really any cushiony seraglio filled with silks and incense and naked concubines.

… At least, I don’t think so.

Since the fortress got finished, this weird servant hive showed up. They were just… there, one morning, like they were unpacked after the furniture. Whoever heard of a servant hive? And they’re always prancing around in frilly maid dresses or gardening with no shirt on or offering to wash your back. Sometimes you turn around and one of them has appeared from nowhere, I’d swear they can go silent but I’ve never caught any of them doing it. They don’t feel like perverts or anything, but they do always feel awfully… ready to serve.

I know my hive is more restrained than other neumono, but I am getting sick of people telling me I’m just paranoid.

>Polokoa: I assume your eyes are two different colors to pay homage to your two component neumono, but do they differ in any significant manner otherwise?

If her eyes are at least as good as the top-end military implants, which I’m sure they must be, then she has night vision functions and a suite of augmented reality overlays she can use, as well as the basic programs you get on any computer. She may have downloaded more programs; anything that works on an eye-operated headwear display can work on optical replacements as well.

I’m quite certain that one of the reasons she wears sunglasses all the time is so that she can browse the internet and play games during meetings.
>>
No. 82618 ID: 6a0d09
File 140323023261.png - (188.03KB , 600x600 , rokoloandsevens.png )
82618

>Miss rokolo, are there any special people in your life? If so, could you tell us about them, please?

“Depends what you mean by ‘special’, hah. If you mean just people I’m close to, then sure, I’m not a shut-in. Let’s see, there’s Rakae of course, my CAI equally of course, Three Stripes is always friendly, can’t mention him without mentioning Dastrica, and if I’m talking abominations of science I can’t forget Igor - CAN I, IGOR!?”

”RrrheeheheheehahAAahahaHAAHAA HA!! Rheh heh. Rrrrh. Yesh.”

“He’s a pet, he really is. And a wendigo. Well, a reconstituted wendigo, we had to piece his genes together from several sources. Several dozen sources. Not sure we got him quite right, or if wendigos are supposed to be just like that. Great memory, quick learner, but not a big independent thinker. But, he’s enthusiastic. Just wants to be useful, really. Good at pulling levers. Sometimes I feed my enemies to him.”

“And then I can’t forget to mention all the Rokoas, can I? We don’t exactly mass produce them, but we’ve made the process pretty quick, more than enough to overcome the attrition. I keep track of them. We have a big tournament every five years so they can see which of them gets to fight me for the chance at emancipation. None of them have gotten me yet, but after Lucky Sevens here reached me three times, she ended up becoming Queen of the whole clone hive. She’s come very close to beating me a few times since then. It’s really fascinating, actually, getting to observe the whole ‘coronation’ process with otherwise identical individuals to compare against.”

”Not totally identical.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course not, I’m simplifying for the plebs. Still plenty of good data, and the science hive were happy.”

”Not for long.”

“Yeah, them asking if you’d split yourselves so they could try and get another Rokoa to queenify wasn’t smart, but they’re a bunch of nerds and they were thinking with their science brains. I think being with the salikai so long made them forget a bit about how to be neumono.”

“Anyway, yeah. There are probably going to be a lot of big grey-white red-eyed neumono around here over the next few generations. They’ll be special to me as well.”

>Rokolo: is it possible to make an alternate dimension significant enough to split off into its own universe, other than letting it take it's course?

“No alternate dimension really splits off a whole other universe. Well, probably. Basically, the alternate sequence of events lasts until those events no longer matter. Like… say you bought a black phone, alternate you buys a blue one. The alternate universe persists for a while, so long as you have the phone, while the phones are in the trash, when they get tossed into the recycler… then it stops mattering and the universes slide together again. And maybe a few years later, if you’ve managed to survive that long, you’ll think back and go ‘did I own a blue or a black phone back then? I can’t remember’, and actually it’s because the two slightly different versions of you were re-merged. Now, some changes, like the difference between my timeline and the ‘main’ timeline, they’re much bigger and they’ll last for, oh, millions, billions, hundreds of billions of years. But, eventually, it’ll all come together again. Or, most likely, anyway. It’s the most popular theory at the moment.”

“So, see, we say that an alternate dimension has a certain amount of ‘temporal momentum’, which gives it the power to resist being drawn back into merging with its neighbour timelines. Dimension hopping can mess things around, though. My timeline has lots of momentum, and if I hopped to a lesser timeline I could provide it with more energy. But I would do so by changing more things, in which case, is it really the original alternate dimension you wanted in the first place? And before that, the problem is, the less temporal momentum a timeline has, the harder it is to find it in the first place. Because it’s less distinct from its timeline family, see? Traveling to it would be tricky, you could miss and end up in another one.”

“Temporal momentum seems almost to be a sort of energy that timelines can have more or less of. But, that energy doesn’t seem to come from anywhere! It just shows up when you decide to change things. I’d bet even you’re smart enough to see how that’s something to be interested in, if it could be tapped for anything other than what it does naturally.”

>Polokoa and Rokolo: Beer, liquor, or wine?

“Bit of a small selection, don’t you think? There’s all sorts of sugar and starch-bearing plants across the galaxy. And more exotic ways of getting alcohol. I couldn’t tell you what’s my favourite, I haven’t tried them all yet.”

>Rokolo: [I assume your eyes are two different colors to pay homage to your two component neumono, but do they differ in any significant manner otherwise?]

“Making assumptions, aren’t you? I’m a proper chimera, made with an infusion, not pieced together out of giblets and then stalled halfway through. Maybe my eyes are totally normal.”

“They’re not, but why would I tell you everything I can do?”

>Rokolo AND Polokoa: What is the biggest thing you've ever punched, what do you feel is your greatest achievement, and what is your personal favorite achievemen?

“The metaphorically biggest thing I’ve punched is that one belonosian who was head of the Regulation of Innovation in the Sciences Commission. Really important guy, the Commission sticks its fingers in every lab and research department in the galaxy it can reach. Which is related to why I punched him, coincidentally.”

“My greatest and favourite achievement hasn’t happened yet.”
>>
No. 82625 ID: ac14c0

>>82618
Dimension hopping... army of Rokoas... You're planning to invade Polokoa's timeline, aren't you.

Did you clone any Polos?

Igor: What's your favorite kind of meat?
>>
No. 82626 ID: 3dd384

>>82613
>Speaking of myths, the mark of what? Cane? Was that the one where it was his sled? Or the vampire?
In the relevant mythos, Cain was the first murderer, having killed his brother, and was cursed to be unable to grow food and to wander as a nomad forever. But he objected that a wanderer like that would be treated cruelly by everyone he met, so he had a mark placed on him that promised sevenfold vengeance against anyone who harmed him.

I guess some versions of the story have him as a vampire? Not the most common ones, though.

>I’m quite certain that one of the reasons she wears sunglasses all the time is so that she can browse the internet and play games during meetings.
Oh, so the CAI village plan has gone well enough for you to have an internet again? Good news!
>>
No. 82628 ID: 3dd384

>>82618
okay since I'm 90% sure you're expecting someone to ask, is that boobgem a fashion statement or did you people also unlock the secrets of bogus jetallium
>>
No. 82632 ID: ac14c0

>>82618
>“Anyway, yeah. There are probably going to be a lot of big grey-white red-eyed neumono around here over the next few generations. They’ll be special to me as well.”

Wait a minute, do you mean your Rokoa clones will be breeding? You have male Rokoas?
>>
No. 82636 ID: 32f812

Rokoloverse Dastrika: Tell us about yourself!
>>
No. 82655 ID: cee89f

>>82632
....Putting aside that she probably just meant more clones...

Wouldn't that have the same basic problems as incest?

Why couldn't they just clone rokoa the old-fashioned way?

Or have her mate with, say, Kappi or Pilon and get red-eyed grey-furred kids that way?

Rokolo: Where do you get the awesome t-shirts?

Polokoa: Where did you get your awesome shades?
>>
No. 82656 ID: cee89f

>>82618
Also, Rokolo, is your neurosuit black? Because it looks like it's black. With a bright pink core.
>>
No. 82672 ID: 50338d

>I’m quite certain that one of the reasons she wears sunglasses all the time is so that she can browse the internet and play games during meetings.
To be quite fair, with everything she has to put up with, she deserves the out.

>Did you clone any Polos?
Probably not, considering she's the result of Polo deliberately Rokoa-darting herself to preempt salikai betrayal with some kind of crazy suicide gambit. If Rokoloverse-Polo had trusted the salikai enough / let herself be helpless long enough for let them to surgically extract material to clone... well I doubt it would have gone well for her.
>>
No. 82678 ID: d470e9
File 140337886616.png - (12.00KB , 800x800 , AzITQ11.png )
82678

>The eating alive part is the only issue I have and that's because its just dangerous to go chewing on something that can still claw, bite, and kick.

Well that's why they're held down during the process.



>Or is it more of a revenge thing?

Yeah kinda. What you also said was true, too, about using up food the hive could use if we just let 'em go.



It's all moot now of course. We don't chase 'em down, let alone eat them alive. Gunblocker rogues usually go off planet.



>I think there was a missed question to Az about Ultrahives having bidding wars trying to 'court' particularly valuable hives into joining them.

Was there? Well if I answered it before, I'll answer it again.



Yeah. The closer a hive is to an ultrahive, the more the ultrahive is gonna try to suck them in. If they're out in the middle of the boonies, but they're sitting on a goldmine, then yeah we're gonna start trying to coax 'em. The Ultrahives aren't at war anymore, but those frontier cases can still get pretty rough where no one's looking.



>Is neumono professional wrestling both as cheesy and as totally real as I dearly dearly hope?

Like Rokoa up there said, you'd better believe it is. So there's two main leagues, the ruby league and the emerald league. The ruby one is for the real blockheads that just want to smash people's heads in. That one's nice and brutal, but it's got no finesse and it's not showbusinessy. Just for people who want practical, real fights. No moves or holds barred, and fights go till tagged out or until they can't stand up anymore. Breaking bones and poking out eyes and all that is all fine and well.



Now, the emerald league is where the ratings are. That's the one that people want to watch, the one that makes family friendly shows out of fights. You can't just be a dumbass, you actually need a wrestling license for it. That means you've got to pass written tests and examinations that show that you know what moves are allowed, what moves aren't, so on and so forth. The moves are ones that are meant to cleanly subdue the opponent that won't break bones. Course, injuries like that happen now and again, but as long as it was a clear accident, it's fine. The point is to put on a good show and a clean fight. Once you get your wrestling license, then you can just show up and fight whenever. The crowd runs the games. They cheer for who they want to fight against who, with a few judges to help coordinate it all. So it's not even just how good you are at wrestling, it's how good you can win people's hearts over. Someone who suck at wrestling but obviously tries their damn best can be constantly have their names chanted out by the crowd to come down and have a fight. Unlikable assholes that are the best can be booed off stage. Course, sometimes they stay on stage and become the villains, if the judges want.



Which is why having costumes and personas and shit are important. If you just show up as yourself because you want to fight using plain old textbook moves, you're gonna be boring and people aren't gonna like you. You need signature moves that are all approved for use, a garish costume and either be a likeable hero or a likeable villain.



Unless you're me. Sometimes when I have free time I drop in from the rafters or bust a whole from under the ring. And I don't need a costume or a persona or any of that shit. I'm the fucking Ultraking. I'm already badass enough for the crowd. And I have the rep to be able to just climb in the ring and do whatever. Now, any no name schmuck can climb in the ring, but if they're interrupting a damn important or a damn good fight, the crowd is gonna cheer for their early retirement and they're gonna get their ass kicked. So people who go in unannounced like that better know when and how to do it, cause it's a big move.



And if you're wondering, I take the belt when I want, and the belt is taken when I'm too busy to defend the title. It comes and goes from me, but if the world champ isn't me, then the world champ is disputed. Course, the disputed world champ knows they'll have the chance to fight me, cause once I get the spare time, I'll be goin' for them first.



The current world champ is Grandrock until either some normal guy takes it, or until I deal with all this salikai shit, whichever comes first.



So the Ruby league is for people who want to see some raw fighting with only a few limiters, like claws half an inch in length tops, while there's a lot more reason to watch the emerald league. People in silly get ups, people charging in the ring, over the top moves and holds, or just watching guys and girls get in some questionable positions and poses with each other.



Despite all the showmanship, the emerald league wrestling is real enough. When titles are on the line and there's stakes to be had, you can bet the two fighters will really go at it. Now hopefully I didn't go missing any more questions.
>>
No. 82679 ID: d470e9
File 140337896031.png - (12.49KB , 800x800 , MirimITQ2.png )
82679

>If the clone dart process essentially resets childhood development [...] that leaves Polo, after surviving her Rokoa-dart experience, in the unique and insane position to choose her own genetics.
Sorrrta. I mean that would take a lot of belief. But yeah in theory that's how it would go down. The genes get all muddied up and growth is still messy, so even if Rokoa has a near perfect victory, she's not gonna be as much of a trooper as her victory would indicate. I think. Now, with Four Stripes, Four Stripes could really yank those genes back out and possibly, if not outright likely, make a Rokoa clone stronger than the original after a few years or something I dunno. Definitely not an overnight process though.

>To anyone/everyone, are there any mannerisms/behaviors/physiological quirks that are "normal" to other races that just weirds you out?
Yeah, Pomi's. They use their tail for things. Things that they'd be better of using their hands for. It's ridiculous.

>Also one to Three Stripes about whether predators combining their efforts would work.
I'll answer this one. I doubt Three Stripes has much experience with it. Neither do I, but I would be able to infer more.

It is possible for two coordinated predators to combine their efforts to get a greater effect. This would require training and practice, and most predators don't think it works when it doesn't work the first time. Even if they try to get a neumono to do the same task, the way they try to ask can be jarringly different. It's a good way to brainkill a neumono faster than normal, so if that's the goal, good, but it's also overkill.

What two predators could do effectively is to try and control a larger hive and be able to split them up. Have one group go hunting, and the other protect their home.
>>
No. 82680 ID: d470e9
File 140337916304.png - (14.38KB , 800x800 , fatherZozuITQ10.png )
82680

>Salikai: I notice you seem to have flat teeth. What do you eat?
Primarily fruits and vegetation, but meat is always an option. Our teeth do appear similar on the outside, but the front ones are thin and bladelike, while they transfer to molars in the back.

>To anyone/everyone, are there any mannerisms/behaviors/physiological quirks that are "normal" to other races that just weirds you out?
Yich eaters seldom have much regard for society as a whole, and their inclusion to galactic races has baffled me. Belenosians can easily lose sight of bigger pictures in their goals. Some humans attempt to regulate everything, and attempt to squelch all outside forces that would be included in their formulas than excluded. Pomi's have by far the most irrational brains that I have ever seen. The slightest evidence or correlation is treated as undeniable proof and causation.

I will not bother with starting on neumono.
>>
No. 82681 ID: d470e9
File 140337918384.png - (16.02KB , 800x800 , HokITQ18.png )
82681

>Hey Hok, you've committed 'almost every' crime. So tell me: does it count as indecent exposure if you don't currently have a sex?
Well I sure don't think so, but some people seem to disagree.

>To anyone/everyone, are there any mannerisms/behaviors/physiological quirks that are "normal" to other races that just weirds you out?
Yeah yich eaters just do things with their tongues all the time and I'm pretty sure at this point their tongues aren't even made for eating stuff. I mean I see all this eye licking and feeling things and waving at people with their tongues but I've never actually seen a yich eater use their tongues for, you know, tasting.
>>
No. 82682 ID: d470e9
File 140337919609.png - (18.83KB , 800x800 , ZampilITQ2.png )
82682

>Do you have a specific area of specialization in medicine or are you more of a generalist?
First aid and common surgery for neumono. I am not legally allowed to operate on non-neumono bodies.

>And since it kinda looks like i'm stalking you anyway, how bout I buy you lunch. Or dinner? I want to hear about your wild adventures in combat medicine.
I'm not a storyteller. The only stories I have boils down to the same thing. Az sends us to get wounded and I'm sent to get them unwounded. It would be a short lunch. I eat fast.
>>
No. 82683 ID: e1609c

>>82682
You say, as you skate away atop a gurney down a steep roadway.
>>
No. 82684 ID: bb78f2

>>82682
You know, I think you could just slap that you-skating-on-a-gurney image on one of them awful-good spongebob games and have a good time.
>>
No. 82687 ID: dc4b80

Oh here is a question to any non Neumono doctor that has seen a Neumono doctor in action. "Are they actually proper doctors or does it make you want to cry a bit?"

Not to insult our fine gurney riding xenophile over there but I imagine that operating on a Neuomono is like a game of Surgeon Simulator. Cept with worse controls because of the giant mitten hands.

While I am on the subject of Neumono doctoring. Lets say Rokoa fell off a cliff and broke all her limbs. Luckily she landed in a swamp full of fresh water and lots slow moving ground animals that she can eat while crawling around. So she can survive fine but cant set any of her horrible compound fractures. How would everything heal up without the bones being set properly?

Another question for anyone who has gotten shot a lot. From what we have seen so far future guns seem to use some pretty hefty armor piercing rounds. What happens when you get shot with hollow point or hunting rounds? The type that swell up or spread out and deal massive damage to the soft tissues? Does your regeneration push them out or do you have to manually remove them.
>>
No. 82689 ID: 50338d

>Does your regeneration push them out or do you have to manually remove them
This at least, as been answered before.

When regeneration encounters a foreign object in the body, it tries to break it down, or failing that, to push it out. In the even it can't, the body just grows around it.

For example, Rokoa had a problem with this back when her hive was first uplifted. >>/questarch/555376
>After being shown what X-rays were, Rokoa was put under weeks of surgery to gradually take out the dozens of bullets that were too deep for her regeneration to kick out.

While we're on the subject of medicine: how big a problem is infection? We've been a lot more concerned with the wounds and holes put in bodies than the things that could get in when they're open.
>>
No. 82690 ID: 813949

>>82682
>"I'm not that exciting".
>He's here to fuck (and medically unfuck).
>He surfs down the god-damn highway.

Oh I beg to differ. Please tell me you have a way to do that uphill.

I suspect Zampil is hiding his power-level.
>>
No. 82693 ID: 13b599

Hok: What would you do if you met a doppelgänger who had the same proclivities and personality as yourself?
>>
No. 82704 ID: 16903a

Hey Ben, how many worlds were found that once had life but not anymore and how many worlds were found with only simple or primitive life?
>>
No. 82737 ID: bfdaf0

To Rokoa:

Inspiring terror in the hearts of enemies: Means or end?
>>
No. 82788 ID: 22fe1a

Tom:
When I remember correctly, when in cheequest the chaos-dream collapsed, you collected almost all souls and brought them to the new "real" world. However, I also remember the paladins had some ward up as they didn't want to get soul-eaten...
So are the current paladins some sliding profession to fit the gap or were the dream-paladin-dream-souls actually transfered, too?
>>
No. 82805 ID: b435c5

Loviro, a question in case you survive this whole CAI ordeal: Do you merely know how to assemble and program jetals, or do you have the knowledge of how to create jetalium?

As weird as it would be since you're a historical simulation made at a time where jetalium is a lost tech?
>>
No. 83016 ID: e247a0

To Jral, the neumono who was a predator slave but who Three Stripes sort of fixed: If you don't mind talking about it, I understand that your previous predator didn't wipe your memories entirely? Like, you still remembered your name and how to speak and motor skills and I assume a bunch of other things, and you just lost all motivation to put any of it to use. Right?

So, I'm wondering, now that you have a new hive and you've been fixed up a bit, how much do you remember? Do you still have any of the factual memories of where you came from and what kind of person the previous you was? And, if so, do you consider yourself to be still a continuation of the same person, or are you a new person? Or do you not care at all? Also how are you feeling in your new hive. How do you feel about other neumono and how do they seem to feel about you?
>>
No. 83017 ID: d95b6b

To Emerald: I'm having trouble with the words "belenos", "belenosian" (with or without capitals), and what each actually means: Name of your homeworld? Name of your species? Qualifier for things belonging to your species?

To Tin: Are miklik abnormalities genetic mutations, or more like growth incidents where the body "didn't build according to spec"? And if that's not too indiscreet, what are yours?
>>
No. 83071 ID: d8a627

Hey, Chief, I get you aren't a big person on romantic endeavors, but exactly how close did you get with Pepper? How deep into your lives did your conversations get?
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No. 83076 ID: 50338d

Do we know how long a predator's life span is? Although I'm not sure if anyone can answer that, what with Three Stripes being the first live subject to really be studied, and we don't eve know how old he is.

Polo's mom: where did you get your coffee cake recipe? I mean, it is an off-world thing, which makes it a little unusual, and I don't know how difficult transplanting the plants to other worlds would be. (Although making sure they bring coffee to new planets with them does strike me as something humanity would totally do).

We've established coffee is rather more poison for neumono than humans, but can I assume it's not so bad once it's been baked and broken down? I mean, it seems a little unlikely you'd give poison to a kid, otherwise. Or that Polo would maintain an unhealthy vice (although she certainly deserves one, what with everything else she gets up to).
>>
No. 83205 ID: 92fe71

Asteroidquest: Is there a space biker or even just a normal biker hive?
>>
No. 83207 ID: d470e9
File 140427232681.png - (14.00KB , 800x800 , FlotsiITQ1.png )
83207

>Oh here is a question to any non Neumono doctor that has seen a Neumono doctor in action. "Are they actually proper doctors or does it make you want to cry a bit?"
It's pretty awful. Most surgeons are gentle, but neumono... not really. They just sort of jam in whatever to open up body cavities, and I feel like they're just one step shy of not bothering with gloves, saying 'a little fur never hurt any circulatory system worth saving.'

>While I am on the subject of Neumono doctoring. Lets say Rokoa fell off a cliff and broke all her limbs. Luckily she landed in a swamp full of fresh water and lots slow moving ground animals that she can eat while crawling around. So she can survive fine but cant set any of her horrible compound fractures. How would everything heal up without the bones being set properly?
Neumono bones are kind of funny. They've got more control over readjusting, growing and shrinking bones than most creatures. So she'd need to sit still for bones to have a shot at healing, but once they get a mend going, it'll start recorrecting any weird angles that it was mended at.

>Hollow point/hunting rounds on neumono
It depends where it ends up. Sometimes it can be pushed pretty far to get out, but sometimes it just heals around and then the neumono has a bunch of shrapnel lodged in. That usually isn't much of a problem, but sometimes it is, so it's recommended to get x-rayed sometime and have it pulled out correctly.

>Infection
It caaaan be an issue, actually, but funnily enough, most bacteria on the neumono planet are actually a lot less resilient to different environments than other planets. So often the cure for infection is to just go to a higher altitude or space or something.
>>
No. 83208 ID: d470e9
File 140427233940.png - (12.56KB , 800x800 , HokITQ19.png )
83208

>What would you do if you met a doppelgänger who had the same proclivities and personality as yourself?
... like Miss?
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No. 83209 ID: d470e9
File 140427239422.png - (16.69KB , 800x800 , BenITQ15.png )
83209

>Hey Ben, how many worlds were found that once had life but not anymore and how many worlds were found with only simple or primitive life?
Hm... not a question with a clean answer. There are thousands confirmed that perhaps had life, but only a couple that have nothing more than simple life forms. Nearly all planets eventually gain some intelligence if no world ending catastrophe occurs in the meanwhile! In the latter case, both were on moons.
>>
No. 83210 ID: d470e9
File 140427242333.png - (11.78KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ64.png )
83210

>Inspiring terror in the hearts of enemies: Means or end?
Means turned into habit justified by the means.

>Is there a space biker?
Is being in space on a bike enough to make me a space biker, or do I need a leather jacket and some tattoos first?
>>
No. 83211 ID: d470e9
File 140427248816.png - (242.34KB , 800x800 , TomITQ9.png )
83211

>So are the current paladins some sliding profession to fit the gap or were the dream-paladin-dream-souls actually transfered, too?
Yeah that ward they set up didn't last toooo long. And I mean I don't actually know for sure, but I'm pretty sure they were never really paladins in any real world.
>>
No. 83212 ID: d470e9
File 140427252634.png - (12.53KB , 800x800 , LoviroITQ1.png )
83212

>Loviro, a question in case you survive this whole CAI ordeal: Do you merely know how to assemble and program jetals, or do you have the knowledge of how to create jetalium?
Given that I am a simulation made by a culture that lost that information, I doubt I know either. I don't know what will happen to my supposed knowledge if I leave the real world, but I doubt I will impress myself anymore.
>>
No. 83213 ID: d470e9
File 140427253921.png - (11.82KB , 800x800 , EmeraldITQ1.png )
83213

>To Emerald: I'm having trouble with the words "belenos", "belenosian" (with or without capitals), and what each actually means: Name of your homeworld? Name of your species? Qualifier for things belonging to your species?
Belenos isn't a native belenosian term, it's an alien's term for us. We're of the solar system Belenos, of which we inhabit Belenos IV. Given that we were the only sapient species, we earned that nickname. Belenos and belenosian is often used interchangeably.
>>
No. 83214 ID: d470e9
File 140427256244.png - (81.90KB , 800x800 , ChiefITQ1.png )
83214

>Hey, Chief, I get you aren't a big person on romantic endeavors, but exactly how close did you get with Pepper? How deep into your lives did your conversations get?
We nearly relied on each other after long enough. I was intent on winning, but even so, we refrained from suiciding out of fear the other would have too little left.

We often would just lie down together for company, if only to have someone else confirm our own existence. It wasn't deep, but it didn't take long for us to talk about everything we could talk about and then some.
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No. 83215 ID: d470e9
File 140427257349.png - (12.87KB , 800x800 , LukaITQ3.png )
83215

>Do we know how long a predator's life span is? Although I'm not sure if anyone can answer that, what with Three Stripes being the first live subject to really be studied, and we don't eve know how old he is.
It's... we estimate a couple of centuries, not too off from neumono. It's still a rough estimate though, since it's not like there's a surefire way to even tell how old a predator is, and most wouldn't know!
>>
No. 83216 ID: d470e9
File 140427260734.png - (14.58KB , 800x800 , JralITQ1.png )
83216

>To Jral
...

Empty neumono is still empty and Three Stripes is working on him please be patient.
>>
No. 83217 ID: d470e9
File 140427263540.png - (10.61KB , 800x800 , MikalliITQ4.png )
83217

>Polo's mom: where did you get your coffee cake recipe? I mean, it is an off-world thing, which makes it a little unusual, and I don't know how difficult transplanting the plants to other worlds would be.
Oh, yes, but we've had alien contact for a long time even without an ultrahive. We traded for a lot of their delicacies.

>We've established coffee is rather more poison for neumono than humans, but can I assume it's not so bad once it's been baked and broken down? I mean, it seems a little unlikely you'd give poison to a kid, otherwise. Or that Polo would maintain an unhealthy vice (although she certainly deserves one, what with everything else she gets up to).
A little bit, I'm not sure! We do have to have a fair bit of caffiene for it to be a problem, and the amount in our cake was pretty low. I wasn't intending on even having it more than once, but it was good, and I couldn't deny little Polo it after sensing her reaction the first time.
>>
No. 83218 ID: d470e9
File 140427265733.png - (12.23KB , 800x800 , TinITQ3.png )
83218

>Are miklik abnormalities genetic mutations, or more like growth incidents where the body "didn't build according to spec"?
More like the latter. There's a 'base' build, and there's loose leftovers that pop up that take liberties.

>And if that's not too indiscreet, what are yours?
Consider that too indiscreet.
>>
No. 83220 ID: dc4b80

Dear Asteroid Cai. We have seen a bit of what life in the Saliki's experimental Cai creation system but I was wondering what yours was like?

Do you remember much about your creation? And whats life like in there now?

And finally how many of you are in there and how do you decide who gets to talk?
>>
No. 83225 ID: d43849

Medical Neumono: Have you considered forming a high intensity battlefield rockband?
>>
No. 83230 ID: 9de468

Any Hive Queen/King: Does your position as Queen/King give you some sort of immunity to being controlled by predators or bugs, that other Neumono do not get?
It would explain Giant's "dodging" of Three Stripes control.
Alternatively, if a Predator did control a Queen would the predator gain control of the entire hive in one swoop,or would the rest of the hive disconnect from the Queen?
>>
No. 83252 ID: 13b599

>>83208
Nah, she doesn't look a thing like you! I mean like a duplicate. Another entire Hok, with the same kind of hat and everything, but maybe with a different name and origin (through coincidence, not mad science)? Something more along those lines, anyway.
>>
No. 83287 ID: ccd544

>>83225
Are you implying the possible existence of a "philharmonic hive"?!
https://www.wordnik.com/words/philharmonic
I am entirely in favor of this concept :D
>>
No. 83289 ID: ccd544

Open Question: Is Warhammer 40K still around? How many millenia has it been since 0 A.D. in human years?
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Timeline#.U7XYJrH64Wk

Open Question: Is humanity the only species that is into fantasy LARP's?
>>
No. 83328 ID: 9de468

Alison: I'm not sure if you've been keeping count (I know I have lost count) but of all the hugs you have given, has Shopkeep been the one to recieve the most hugs?

Actually is there a hug chart somewhere?

Also Shopkeep your eyes are getting dangerously close to Pilon level eyes (adorable).
>>
No. 83329 ID: 1f9ed6

>>83213
>Belenos isn't a native belenosian term, it's an alien's term for us.

That's a little peculiar. I understand neumono or other originally primitive species being named by outsiders, because they would have had a bunch of different names for themselves and you wouldn't want to pick just one.

But belenosians were, at least at one point, united under one single cultural system, yes? One of your own names for yourselves would have taken hold as the dominant one. And you even had AIs walking around in robot bodies, so you would have needed a word for yourselves that didn't just mean 'people'. Probably the race fragmented culturally afterwards, but I'd have imagined that the languages would have retained a lot of linguistic links to each other, particularly in regards key concepts such as species.

It's clear that humans got to keep their name for themselves, or else they'd be called terrans or solars or something (the word 'human' does actually derive from a word that can be translated as 'from the earth', but it's actually more like 'child of the soil', not in reference to the planet). Is there a particular reason you would drop the name you had for yourselves?
>>
No. 83371 ID: d470e9
File 140466934769.png - (5.06KB , 800x800 , CAIITQ1.png )
83371

>We have seen a bit of what life in the Saliki's experimental Cai creation system but I was wondering what yours was like? And whats life like in there now?
We actually don't have a virtual world of interaction! We either look at the real world, or we have individual sleep modes.

>And finally how many of you are in there and how do you decide who gets to talk?
Since there's sleep modes and no virtual internal world, there's no telling how many of us are around. And, there isn't really any decision making on who gets to talk. There is an override in which people can be muted from saying something, but otherwise, there can be as many people talking as there are sound channels.

>Do you remember much about your creation?
No, we had a clean wipe and were all woken up by Hok.
>>
No. 83372 ID: d470e9
File 140466936031.png - (11.41KB , 800x800 , ZampilITQ3.png )
83372

>Medical Neumono: Have you considered forming a high intensity battlefield rockband?
I'm not sure why you specified a medical neumono for this. You mean like a military marching band? I seriously doubt the practicality of that over just having them fight. It's possible I guess, though.

There are musical hives though. Ones that might just play music, others that might specialize in plays, or ice skating musicals or whatever.
>>
No. 83373 ID: d470e9
File 140466937095.png - (18.67KB , 800x800 , AzITQ12.png )
83373

>Does your position as Queen/King give you some sort of immunity to being controlled by predators or bugs, that other Neumono do not get?
You damn well bet it does, at least sorta. First off, the whole hive is counting on you to be mentally stronger than all of them, and if that's not a good enough reason to toughen up against that sort of thing, you probably aren't a very good king or queen.

There is the usual factor though that the hive expects the leader to be big and strong, which does actually bring out some latent strength.

>It would explain Giant's "dodging" of Three Stripes control.
Yeah cept it doesn't. Queens and Kings might be harder for 'im to take over, but they still gotta resist. The big girl is just straight out immune. When Three Stripes tells her to drop a rock or whatever, it works about as well as if I mentally told her to drop the rock. We're still trying to figure that one out, cause the salikai were onto something with her. It probably had something to do with her drugged food.

>Predator did control a Queen would the predator gain control of the entire hive in one swoop,or would the rest of the hive disconnect from the Queen?
I'd say the entire hive in one fell swoop, cept it's not like some automatic thing. It's more just that if the predator can take over the queen, it can take over the hive by extension. Hivemates that weren't around wouldn't instantly be controlled somehow, but they probably would be once they get back to where the predator is waiting.
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No. 83374 ID: d470e9
File 140466939186.png - (13.04KB , 800x800 , KappiITQ22.png )
83374

>Is Warhammer 40K still around? How many millenia has it been since 0 A.D. in human years?
Ah, not really. There's things like it, but 40k I think got into some licensing hell? And it's been a few millenia, I guess. I dunno. They don't use AD anymore.
>>
No. 83375 ID: d470e9
File 140466941980.png - (12.33KB , 800x800 , HokITQ20.png )
83375

>I mean like a duplicate. Another entire Hok, with the same kind of hat and everything, but maybe with a different name and origin (through coincidence, not mad science)? Something more along those lines, anyway.
Oh, well geez I dunno then. Keep a hand around my wallet then I guess. I mean I don't think we'd work together well. With myself. Together.
>>
No. 83376 ID: d470e9
File 140466942989.png - (15.10KB , 800x800 , BenITQ16.png )
83376

>Being called belenos is peculiar
Beh, the humans woke us up out of an era of tribal fools!

Yes, we were once all under one culture and spoke the same language, and so we did call ourselves something that wasn't simply 'us'. Most likely some mutation of a word meaning 'of the planet' or 'of carbon-base' or maybe even 'organic'.

After some little thing went wrong and we blew ourselves to smithereens, the rest of us apparently felt so ashamed, that word turned into a dire insult and no culture would ever call itself that. Instead, the tribal belenos would detach themselves from the prime belenos as much as they could, treating the prime belenos they were an evil alien species!
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No. 83377 ID: d470e9
File 140466944196.png - (16.82KB , 800x800 , AlisonITQ2.png )
83377

>I'm not sure if you've been keeping count (I know I have lost count) but of all the hugs you have given, has Shopkeep been the one to recieve the most hugs?
I don't think so. It's possible he has the most unique amount of hugs, but I think the total time spent hugging would either go to Iso or Arbiter.

>Actually is there a hug chart somewhere?
I couldn't ask Mathematician or Scanner to concern themselves with that! I tried making one myself but it's too inaccurate, I can't remember all of them.

>Hey Alison you have several men in your life right now who seem to be smitten with you. If you can all escape your current situation and have a more normal life who do you think you would end up with?
I don't think I answered this one.

I'm trying to escape with everyone, so if things go well, I won't have to choose one person.
>>
No. 83378 ID: dc4b80

>>83377

Ah so you are going the Harem route then. Good choice.
>>
No. 83379 ID: bb78f2

>>83373
So you know of Giant Neumono then? Have you tried talking to her personally? If you have, or have at least had your empathy powers interact with each other, what do you think of her? Would you like to fight her old-style? Or train her new-style with guns and see how metal it gets?
>>
No. 83385 ID: d43849

>>83372
Because medically trained combat personal (or vice-versa) are more likely to survive such battlefield shennanigans. Also theres at least 3 of you already around and I think you guys are badass.

And no, I meant like an actual rockband. Kind of like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRafpGYa8co but ontop of an APC. With guns. (Guntars?) Or possibly ... rocket gurneys.

Do those exist?
Do you have one?

Think of yourselves as hyper-violent psychic space bards.

>>83287
Philharmonic hives stated to exist. We must unlock their mysteries.
>>
No. 83402 ID: 0ee153

How common are intersexed babies and what's public opinion on them? I ask because I remember someone saying something about empathy fixing stuff like weird faces, and I wanted to know if it can make more radical changes like changing a hermaphrodite's sex. Is that sort of thing possible or is it too much of a change?
>>
No. 83403 ID: 5b6107

Rokoa, you've built up a pretty solid reputation by now. Not everyone knows about you, but most in your line of work probably do, on the Asteroid.

What would you say people are most often surprised by, when they finally meet you?
>>
No. 83406 ID: 9de468

>>83403
If I had to guess? Her Teeth, or her fist.
>>
No. 83409 ID: f3f39e

@anybody: What's your favorite time of day? And why?
>>
No. 83448 ID: 50338d

>>83208
Question answered, then. You'd avoid getting fucked.

>>83373
You're basically admitting you're not immune, there. Which means you were counting on your own ability to resist long enough to kill anything attempting to control you when you turned down the protection-bugs.

>>83379
>So you know of Giant Neumono then?
Considering he's mentioned her by name before, and he's a leader of the ultrahive that took her tribe in, yes, I'd think it's fair to say he knows of her.
>>
No. 83456 ID: 29aaeb

Giant: 'Giant' isn't actually your name, is it? That's what Three Stripes calls you. What is your neumono name? Is it a word in your language that just means 'giant' anyway?
>>
No. 83458 ID: dc4b80

Are there any Neumono that have spent there entire lives in a jammer field? From the time they were born to the present never having left? And to go even further are there any that had there parents die and were raised by other species?

Basically are there any recorded instances of a Neuomono not realizing they had a empathy sense until late adult life.


And if so would that make them more or less resistant to say a Predator or one of the various Salikai empathy hijacking tech? Not that it would be easy to test but maybe Three stripes might know.
>>
No. 83459 ID: 0ee153

>>83458
Jammer fields don't stop empathy from functioning via physical contact, plus Polo has been shown to be aware of her own empathy.
>>
No. 83460 ID: dc4b80

>>83459

Yeah I know about the Physical empathy part thus the question if there are any who have never run into any other Neumono until later life.

And Polo is sort of a special case with empathy so not sure if everyone has nearly that much control or awareness over it.
>>
No. 83462 ID: 5a91ab

If a neumono hive already has a King or Queen, and a new king/queen-type neumono appears in the hive, do they generally feel some sort of hostility and/or aggression between them as a natural function of that? I mean, obviously there's the normal tension if it's like one person wants the hive to be one way and the other wants to take over and have it go another direction, and the buildup to a hive splitting is probably even worse. But aside the normal hurt feelings or rivalry that you'd expect in such situations, even for other species with their communities, is there a particular 'i see you too are huge, now we must fight' compulsion that happens for neumono, on a more instinctive level?

Or, like, if two hives meet, obviously they will feel the normal hostility, but would their respective Kings/Queens feel even more that way towards each other individually, above what the normal members of the two hives are feeling for each other?
>>
No. 83466 ID: 50338d

>>83458
>Are there any Neumono that have spent there entire lives in a jammer field?
Jammer cities exist, mostly off-world. (Lukratsa's from one, and talks about the subject in some of her itqs. Father Zozu also goes on about the affect jammer cities seem to have on neumono in one of his). So there are definitely neumono who spend a good of their lives under the influence of jammer. It's definitely not 100% though, since they still form hives (and parents would probably consider it something like abuse to keep kids jammed 100% of the time so they couldn't bond with the hive, anyways).

A kid somehow getting stranded somewhere and surviving alone an/or being raised by aliens must have happened at least once, though. It's a big galaxy, spaceships crash, shit happens.

>>83456
A name that means giant would be consistent with the naming patterns we saw in Polo and Rokoa's hives. (Giant did give Crown's name as 'Mas' at one point. So we know at least they have non Three Stripes names).
>>
No. 83498 ID: 58c5d1

Something I'm wondering about empathy. It's clear that normal neumono can't fake empathic feelings, at least without them being obviously fake. But from Rokoa's description of her own name, it's possible to 'call' certain empathic feelings, even when you're not legitimately feeling them at the moment. Presumably, you remember what the feeling was like and the memory makes you feel an 'echo' of the feeling that you can then transmit, or something like that? Like how you can wilfully remember something happy in order to feel a little happier.

So, is it possible to empathically 'describe' someone? Like, say Polo is describing Rokoa to another neumono. In addition to the normal, what she looked like, what she sounded like, et cetera, could Polo also go 'and she felt like this' and then produce that same sort of empathic echo effect, to give the other neumono a rough sense of what it feels like to be in Rokoa's presence?
>>
No. 83502 ID: dc4b80

Here is a question to any Neuomono engineers or other technical people. Your races empathy is a complex electromagnetic field that your bodies generate. So is it uncomfortable to be around high power lines and transformers?

Seeing that most consumer electronics already have strict laws governing how well they are shielded most normal equipment should be ok. But say if you worked at a power plan or with magnetic imagery does it give you a headache or just feel odd?

Oh and what happens if you get struck by lightning? Is it the same sort of random physical nastiness that happens with other species or do you have problems with memory and personality changes?
>>
No. 83505 ID: d470e9
File 140504704769.png - (14.61KB , 800x800 , AzITQ13.png )
83505

>So you know of Giant Neumono then? Have you tried talking to her personally?
Nah, not yet. Haven't had the time, and besides, I know a thing or two about dragging a tribal hive out from their huts. Gotta give them a little bit of time before some big dude crashes down from the ceiling wanting to fight their queen. But once she gets cozy and uplifted, she's gonna start getting some fist invitations, cause I want to know if she's all size.

>You're basically admitting you're not immune, there. Which means you were counting on your own ability to resist long enough to kill anything attempting to control you when you turned down the protection-bugs.
Yeah, I'm not immune, but I'm damn resistant enough.

>Is there a particular 'I see you too are huge, now we must fight' compulsion that happens for neumono, on a more instinctive level?
Yeah absolutely. Neumono are all about being the toughest around, or at least toughest neumono.

If it's a possible queen that's already in a hive with a queen, then there's probably going to be a fight, assuming they're a fighting hive. Perfectly normal, doesn't have to end in a schism. In non-fight hives, it's usually whoever's better at whatever the hive does, like say, being the smartest or nerdiest, where it's usually something the hive decides on. Seems subjective and full of schism-potential to me, while with a warhive, it's just an easy case to see which one can beat up the other.

>Or, like, if two hives meet, obviously they will feel the normal hostility, but would their respective Kings/Queens feel even more that way towards each other individually, above what the normal members of the two hives are feeling for each other?
Probably, but that could just be the fact that they're an intensive embodiment of the hive that feels disdain for the other hive, not that there's some external hate-bonus they get. It's tough stuff to place, that's for sure.
>>
No. 83506 ID: d470e9
File 140504706538.png - (43.21KB , 800x800 , ZampilITQ4.png )
83506

>Rocket gurneys.
>Do those exist?
>Do you have one?

That's how I get back up the hill.

>And no, I meant like an actual rockband.
Yes, rockband hives exist. Stunts may be included.

>Are there any recorded instances of a Neumono not realizing they had a empathy sense until late adult life.
Yeah, there are a couple cases of a newborn neumono moving off before it got a memory, for whatever reason, into an alien household. Not much to say about it. It still had empathy when it saw other neumono again allegedly at normal levels. Course, it's like discovering a whole new sense, so it was probably pretty overwhelming. Given the nature of it, I'd bet they'd be more susceptible to hostile empathic takeover.

> Your races empathy is a complex electromagnetic field that your bodies generate. So is it uncomfortable to be around high power lines and transformers?
Sorta. It's easily ignorable. How empathy is a complex electromagnetic field with a universal force that has yet to be discovered. So us being around high power lines or whatever isn't too bad, but it does have an effect. If there's not much to distract us, it's said to be pretty spooky after awhile. Sort of like if you put people in an ultra quiet room, or putting them in confined spaces under weird, unnatural artificial lighting. Not bad by itself, but can have some mental effects after awhile.

>Oh and what happens if you get struck by lightning? Is it the same sort of random physical nastiness that happens with other species or do you have problems with memory and personality changes?
It doesn't always kill us, but it does have a nasty rate of putting us in shock if it doesn't. So yeah, we get all sorts of shit that comes with an electrical shock, but the shock is almost always healed if they have a chance to rest around their hivemates to get them back in mental order.
>>
No. 83507 ID: d470e9
File 140504717211.png - (12.57KB , 800x800 , MirimITQ3.png )
83507

>How common are intersexed babies and what's public opinion on them? I ask because I remember someone saying something about empathy fixing stuff like weird faces, and I wanted to know if it can make more radical changes like changing a hermaphrodite's sex. Is that sort of thing possible or is it too much of a change?
It's possible and almost certainly has happened. There is evidence past neumono have been hermaphrodites, but such a mutation would be rare on its own, so neumono would expect a hivemate to be either male or female. Given the psychic ability to change mutations, it likely became a self fulfilling prophecy. It is, however, that sort of psychic ability that can make that thing possible as well, along with surgical methods.

>What's your favorite time of day? And why?
It used to be sunset, because then I could sleep. Now, I don't even know what time of day it is.

>So, is it possible to empathically 'describe' someone?
Yes. Memories that elicit certain emotions are transmitted as well, and anything that invokes an emotion at all. It's generally easy to spot though, that they're not naturally feeling said emotion, but rather that they're remembering something or otherwise trying to call that emotion forth.

It can be tricky, because some people lose that feeling if they try to bring it back too much.
>>
No. 83508 ID: d470e9
File 140504719114.png - (15.28KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ65.png )
83508

>What would you say people are most often surprised by, when they finally meet you?
That I don't maim them and their friends.

I'm serious. A lot of people just expect me to sock them in the mouth or make threats on their lives the first time I see their mug.

I only do it as a sometimes thing, but I've got a rep for it being an always thing. And that's fine with me.

>What's your favorite time of day? And why?
Sunrise, but it's just a nostalgic thing. It meant we survived another night, which was sometimes quite a feat.
>>
No. 83509 ID: d470e9
File 140504733117.png - (16.39KB , 800x800 , GiantITQ3.png )
83509

>'Giant' isn't actually your name, is it?
Giant's name in her own language is 'queen'.

Giant has expected other all other neumono to call her queen, and she beats up neumono that don't. She has to get used to being called giant, not queen, by tiny neumono and not stomping on them. It is difficult.
>>
No. 83510 ID: dc4b80

>>83505

Just make sure you let Three Stripes know before you go crashing anywhere around Giant. You might end up half mind controlled before she could tell him to leave you alone.
>>
No. 83511 ID: 638a22

>>83509
You weren't born queen, though. Didn't your parents name you? Didn't your hivemates have a name for you before you grew up, or before the salikai put you on those growth drugs?

What about when you did those meetings and territorial fights with the the other tribal leaders? You were all queens there. You'd think you'd need other titles or names to keep each other strait. (Though I suppose you could default to hive-names, assume you had those).

...and do you really want to be called queen by neumono whose empathy is obviously from a different hive? That would be an outsider caller you theirs. Wouldn't that be kind of an insult? Claiming you, or professing a bond that isn't there.
>>
No. 83512 ID: 3dd384

yo loviro did you meet anyone cool during cabin fever extreme

>>83506
> with a universal force that has yet to be discovered
psychic fieeeeeeeeeeld
>>
No. 83513 ID: cafa7a

>>83509

Well, your language is different from other neumono languages, right? What's the word in your language that means 'queen'? Though I suppose it's possible that word would be a common root across a lot of languages...
>>
No. 83514 ID: 0ee153

>>83507
Aren't the surgical methods temporary, or have other ways to stop regeneration been found? Like biter clone and the metal caps on her ears?
>>
No. 83515 ID: dc4b80

>>83506

Wait so is your empathy just based in the electromagnetic spectrum or are you saying there is another unknown universal force at work?
>>
No. 83530 ID: c20db9

Have you ever hugged someone who was expecting you to maim them the first time you met them, just to mess with them?
>>
No. 83537 ID: ccd544

>>83511
>...and do you really want to be called queen by neumono whose empathy is obviously from a different hive? That would be an outsider caller you theirs. Wouldn't that be kind of an insult? Claiming you, or professing a bond that isn't there.

You are on to something...
Whatever drugging the salikai did, may have altered Giant's perception of "hivemate" into something much more self centered, possibly by handicapping her empathic sensitivity until it was only detecting general empathic themes rather than communicating complex messages.

i.e. devolving the same hardware from a wireless data router into a wireless signal booster. A wireless hack could be understood by the router that would compromise the router's operating system, yet that same hack would be ignored as noise by the less versatile wireless booster.
>>
No. 83541 ID: d8a627

To anybody who's met Alison in the current run (ESPECIALLY Corrupter): How do you feel like you've changed since meeting Alison?

To Alison: Do you feel like you wouldn't have been as good a person as you are if you hadn't met everybody you have? Which people do you think had the most influence on who you are?
>>
No. 83585 ID: f3f39e

@anyone: How do you like to reward yourself for a day's work well done? If at all?
>>
No. 83630 ID: 92fe71

Do neumono children like to play-wrestle, and do snowhive children do it more?
>>
No. 83634 ID: fbd3fd

Since neumono lean more to the carnivore side in the omnivorous equation, I wonder about your traditional meals. Are there a lot of organ meats? How do you feel about kidneys, liver, cervelle de veau, sweetbreads, black/white pudding or haggis? I also imagine that, given that you need to eat so much every day, the old cultures must have had a lot of preserved meat methods, smoking and salting and heavy spices and so on?

>>83508
Perhaps I should have asked 'when they get to know you', instead.

Are there any non-neumono around that you would consider a personal friend, if you don't mind the question? So far your closest non-hive relations still seem to have been with other neumono, and I get the impression that wouldn't normally be the case.
>>
No. 83641 ID: cee89f

>>83511
Maybe, but it's also possible that instead the title is seen as a show of respect/deference. Like, when a foreign ambassador kneels to a different nation's queen and addresses her as 'my queen' or 'your highness', he means 'I am showing respect and deference to your rank in this land', not 'i am your vassal and you'll do your duty for me'.

Or to her it's just a word she uses for her name. People don't pay much attention to the meaning of their names in our world, either.

Neumono: Do you prefer chest or ass?

Rokoa: Have you ever considered putting on clown make-up or cutting smile scars into your face?

More seriously, what was your favorite fight since landing onto the asteroid?

Polo: I realize this probably can't be done practically (or if it has, no way has been discovered yet) but is it possible in theory to force another neumono to silence their empathy, cutting them off from allies and reinforcement? I thought of the needle trick at first, but that seems less silencing your empathy and more drowning it out in metaphorical noise.

>>83374
Well that's great news! Warhammer 40k lasted long enough that its biggest concern went from cost to licensing problems!

Are there 3D printers around, or full on fabricators? They'd probably be limited in scope or you'd have no problems anymore, but it's still interesting to think about imho.
>>
No. 83645 ID: 83636f

Whoever: What is your favorite time of day/night?
>>
No. 83663 ID: 22d852

>is it possible in theory to force another neumono to silence their empathy, cutting them off from allies and reinforcement?
Sure. Just render them unconscious.
>>
No. 83704 ID: 0a9959

>>83641
>>83663
>is it possible in theory to force another neumono to silence their empathy

I think that's basically what jammers are for, used offensively. So far we've seen personal jammers like Red's and Moi's used for self-concealment, but if you tweak up the radius a little you could also use it to get the drop on another neumono and grapple them without them being able to send out any signals.

Of course, any other neumono nearby would notice them suddenly disappear, but the same would happen any other way you forced them to be silent.
>>
No. 83706 ID: 0a9959

>>83509

I notice sometimes you refer to yourself in the third person and sometimes in the first. Is that normal in your hive's language? Or something to do with you being queen, like a sort of 'royal we'? Or just from hanging out with Three Stripes a lot?
>>
No. 83737 ID: dc4b80

Hey Rokolo. After watching the craziness in the chest day thread I have to ask how you got yours the size it is. Also how does it affect your sneaking abilities and you know everything else you do.

I know a couple of women your size and build and they tend to have to fight them to do anything.
>>
No. 83749 ID: d8a627

To any Neumono willing to answer (Possibly multiple, since Hive type might vary the answer): What are the views on shaving? I mean it in all sorts of stages--Shaving long bushy hair to be short, any hair to be "bald," or even excess flesh.
>>
No. 83775 ID: b0a41c
File 140573310834.png - (213.92KB , 550x550 , rokolochestITQ.png )
83775

>is that boobgem a fashion statement or did you people also unlock the secrets of bogus jetallium
>Also, Rokolo, is your neurosuit black? Because it looks like it's black. With a bright pink core.
>Hey Rokolo. After watching the craziness in the chest day thread I have to ask how you got yours the size it is. Also how does it affect your sneaking abilities and you know everything else you do. I know a couple of women your size and build and they tend to have to fight them to do anything.

That’s because they don’t have the astonishing, awesomely amazing luxury of wearing a deluxe personalized Combin-AI-tion-controlled protojetalium brassiere! Your primitive shaped rags of silk, wire and plastic are like encasing your huggable juggables in concrete by comparison! Your plain AI VariGel support garments are the fumbling fingers of a drunken microwave oven in contrast! With the benefit of neuro-interfaced protean semi-organic nanobionic matter, a well-endowed lady such as myself can finally achieve mammoramic perfection! Self-cleaning, non-fur-catching, adjusting to any level or absence of gravity or angle of acrobatic posture, and it also lifts, supports, secures, separates, zooms and enhances, cooks your books and calculates pi to the septendicillionth place depending on what you need at any given moment for your busy contemporary lifestyle!!

This shit is divine. Seriously. This is like the platonic ideal of comfort made manifest on my chest.

My boobs are this way because my CAI is a bunch of deviants and they were the ones who regulated my chimerification. Apparently they just like giving people big tits whenever they can? I like them, though, so that’s no problem. I guess they’re essentially groping me all the time now, but who gives a lick about that?

>Rokolo: Where do you get the awesome t-shirts?

My CAI. We have a 3D printer for clothes. They don’t come up with all the designs themselves, obviously.

>Wait a minute, do you mean your Rokoa clones will be breeding? You have male Rokoas?

Don’t be an idiot! I mean, sure there were a couple of male neumono that got darted and a few of them were a bit mixed up, but that’s not what I meant. There’s only one of them left alive anyway and she decided she was a girl. No, I just meant that there would be a ridiculously high proportion of Rokoa’s genes flooding into the general population. You’d expect there to be a shift in the phenotypes on display, don’t you think? Imagine if one guy slept around and had a thousand kids. There’d be a bunch of people a generation later who looked like him, and another bunch who looked like them another generation later. Same thing, basically. The clones are a hive and they want to perpetuate it. Obviously they’re going to take in external genetic material, but there’s still gonna be a preponderance of certain hereditary characteristics, you know?
>>
No. 83827 ID: d470e9
File 140581259966.png - (13.72KB , 800x800 , AlisonITQ3.png )
83827

>Do you feel like you wouldn't have been as good a person as you are if you hadn't met everybody you have?
Yes, definitely.

>Which people do you think had the most influence on who you are?
That's just too hard to say. I know a lot of people now, and they're all are made to fight too hard to survive, and it's how everyone's coped that had made a big impact on me. Trying to single out people is just too dismissive of everyone who I don't name.
>>
No. 83828 ID: d470e9
File 140581261987.png - (16.91KB , 800x800 , LoviroITQ2.png )
83828

>Loviro did you meet anyone cool during cabin fever extreme
No. Poorly made robots and jetals, the lot of them.

>How do you feel like you've changed since meeting Alison?
After learning that my entire perceived life was made up on the spot two times over, I'd be a fool to think that such a realization wouldn't change me. Of course, if I wanted to go further back, I would say that I would not currently exist without Alison entering the belenosian simulation. I am aware that my situation is not what you had in mind for your question.

>How do you like to reward yourself for a day's work well done? If at all?
I used to sit down with my creations and learn of their ideas and artificial thoughts. It both served to relax, get to know my creations, as well as examining the psyche of them. I could buy all the fine wine and cake the belenos had to offer, but my work created all the reward I'd ever need.
>>
No. 83829 ID: d470e9
File 140581263383.png - (16.65KB , 800x800 , GiantITQ4.png )
83829

Giant's name used to be... what is... Hotblood, before Giant became queen. Then Giant became Queen and that is Gi- my name.

>What's the word in your language that means 'queen'?
'Kago.'

>What about when you did those meetings and territorial fights with the the other tribal leaders? You were all queens there.
And they all demanded they be called queen too. Giant had to beat most of them up. But then she - I got beat up, but that is normal and Giant would still not call the volcanic hive girl queen.

>And do you really want to be called queen by neumono whose empathy is obviously from a different hive?
Yes. This means they still consider me superior.

>How do you like to reward yourself for a day's work well done? If at all?
This only happens if a day went by extremely well. Then Giant permits the hive to dig up old, rotten meat that has developed an ideal taste for eating.

Life has been too easy since Three Stripes came around so there has been no reason for rewards so far.

> Are there a lot of organ meats? How do you feel about kidneys, liver, cervelle de veau, sweetbreads, black/white pudding or haggis?
Giant does not understand most of these words. If it comes from the body, it is edible and therefore favorable. Unless it comes from poison-beast.

>What is your favorite time of day/night?
With the heat is at its highest, making some beasts lie and sunbathe and not bother Giant hive.

>I notice sometimes you refer to yourself in the third person and sometimes in the first. Is that normal in your hive's language?
Hive's own language is the third person, but Giant is trying to speak in everyone else's speech.
>>
No. 83830 ID: d470e9
File 140581265899.png - (12.88KB , 800x800 , MirimITQ4.png )
83830

>Aren't the surgical methods temporary, or have other ways to stop regeneration been found? Like biter clone and the metal caps on her ears?
Some of the latter helps, yeah, but surgical implants and cybernetics and that stuff requires a whole lot of upkeep. Eventually though the regeneration can take a hint, and gives up trying to move stuff out of certain areas.

>Wait so is your empathy just based in the electromagnetic spectrum or are you saying there is another unknown universal force at work?
An unknown universal - or at least presumed universal - force works in tandem with the electromagnetic spectrum.

>Psychic fieeeeeeld
That is basically what it boils down to with our current understanding, but of course scientists don't like that, as it implies some magical force that cannot be observed or studied.

And someday, we'll most likely figure it out, for better or worse.

>I also imagine that, given that you need to eat so much every day, the old cultures must have had a lot of preserved meat methods, smoking and salting and heavy spices and so on?
Yeah uh, there's whole cookbooks devoted to traditional neumono cooking. Some of it is pretty good, but then there's cookbooks that are for when food is tight. Those are... passed around the internet as big jokes to show just how absolutely disgusting some meals are.

Some of them are actually banned in ultrahives now, cause they don't want to aliens to come to our planet thinking we're just a bunch of soft huggable cuddle bunnies and then see us feasting on our own...

Well, I'll let one's imagination fill in that blank, because it's gonna be accurate to some hive out there.

>Neumono: Do you prefer chest or ass?
What a terribly broad question to ask a whole species. We have specific tastes too, you know. Some prefer the athleticism of a lithe butt or the signs of a cushiony life with a fat ass. Some seek the docile, homely look of a big set of boobs and some want their girl able to run fast without looking like their chest is trying to escape the planet. It's a science. I've studied it.

But I'll answer personally, and say ass for both gend - wait, you were just addressing that question to any specific neumono rather than asking if all neumono were into one or the other, weren't you.

>Are there 3D printers around, or full on fabricators?
3D printers absolutely, nothing short of mundane robots, which mundane in our case just means non-sentient.

Dunno what a fabricator is. If it's something that makes something out of nothing, of course not.
>>
No. 83831 ID: d470e9
File 140581268332.png - (12.86KB , 800x800 , RokoaITQ66.png )
83831

>Have you ever hugged someone who was expecting you to maim them the first time you met them, just to mess with them?
Yeah, but it gets old. Even bypassing the fact that a lot of the people who expect me to maim 'em think that me hugging them is a preemptive maiming, so they try to shank me or taze me or some other dumb thing.

>Perhaps I should have asked 'when they get to know you', instead
That I love dumbass action TV shows. Especially ones made by aliens - for neumono, campy horror flicks or whatever is practically standard, but seeing humans and even the belenos dress up in silly costumes or write ridiculous horror stories is something else. My favorite movies are all ancient though; by this point anyone either know how to make a movie, or are making it dumb on purpose.

>Are there any non-neumono around that you would consider a personal friend
Yeah, but I ain't sharing that sort of info. Friends of Rokoa isn't exactly something you wear as a badge of honor.

>How do you like to reward yourself for a day's work well done? If at all?
Pushups until I can't do anymore. Then squats until the same.
I also do that if I want to punish myself for a day's work poorly done.

It works out, because exercise can be celebratory or punishment, and the context alone makes or breaks the impact.

Unless food is too tight. Then I reward myself by resting.

>Do neumono children like to play-wrestle, and do snowhive children do it more?
You bet your butt they do. Snowhive kids play wrestle the most. I'd say redgrass ones would do it the most, cept that's not 'play' wrestling, the little buggers really go at each other. Basically any old hive has kids who like to show they're healthy. Maybe not so much now what with all the nerd-hives wrestling their keyboards.

>Have you ever considered putting on clown make-up or cutting smile scars into your face?
That's dumb, I can smile just fine on my own. And clown makeup is dumb for other reasons.

>More seriously, what was your favorite fight since landing onto the asteroid?
When a bunch of hive's kids decided they wanted a shot at taking ol' Rokoa down.

In case you're getting any ideas, that was a play fight. They weren't trying to kill me.

>Neumono: Do you prefer chest or ass?
Cute as their chests can be, you can tell a lot about a guy from his butt.

Kappi, for instance, has spent most of his life on it.

>What are the views on shaving? I mean it in all sorts of stages--Shaving long bushy hair to be short, any hair to be "bald," or even excess flesh.
Hair grows back damn fast, so trying to do something like that would be done for some kind of special event. Pretty rare stuff, so unless it's a real weird tuft of eyebrow fur or whatever, most neumono aren't gonna go worrying about little stuff like that. Special events these days being some kind of party or whatever that needs whatever arbitrary image codes I guess. Speciail events in the past days were stuff like suddenly needing to make a trek through the desert for reasons you'd better hope are quick.

As for flesh, taking off big ears isn't too uncommon. Some neumono can't seem to detach 'em at will too well, so they're real nasty grappling targets. That's about it, course, some overdeveloped girls need to do somethin' about their chest if they're in a life or death situation and need every bit of mobility. Makes some people squick, but hey, every sapient species done stuff like that, including the ones that don't regrow 'em back.
>>
No. 83832 ID: d470e9
File 140581269864.png - (10.14KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ85.png )
83832

>I realize this probably can't be done practically (or if it has, no way has been discovered yet) but is it possible in theory to force another neumono to silence their empathy, cutting them off from allies and reinforcement? I thought of the needle trick at first, but that seems less silencing your empathy and more drowning it out in metaphorical noise.
Knocking them unconsciousm or having them sleep. The former is simple, but how to do it is not. To have a neumono fully aware of its surroundings and not broadcast their empathy either requires a jammer, or my training. The needle trick apparently works, as while it is different than my silence, it does have the same effect externally.

To my awareness, there is no other way.

>Whoever: What is your favorite time of day/night?
Sunrise. I used to stay up late, so the sunrise is still novel.

>How do you like to reward yourself for a day's work well done? If at all?
I never thought to do this, if I wanted a reward, I would seek it out whether or not I deserved it. Now that I have goals in mind, I have no interest in rewards. If I succeed in damaging the salikai base, then my reward will be returning to my hive in one piece.
>>
No. 83834 ID: bb78f2

>>83829
Giant, do you have any kids? Or have there been no respectable males in your hive to justify having kids with?
>>
No. 83840 ID: f3f39e

@anyone: What's something you find comforting? Something you find disconcerting?
>>
No. 83841 ID: 3dd384

>>83829
>Yes. This means they still consider me superior.
What portion of the contestants in the old Salikai fights were you able to get to knuckle under on this issue?

>>83830
>Those are... passed around the internet as big jokes to show just how absolutely disgusting some meals are.
What about all that brouhaha of people collectively shutting down the internet because AI hackers got too good? Is that not a thing anymore?
>>
No. 83845 ID: cee89f

>>83830
>What a terribly broad question to ask a whole species.
I'm asking for individual opinions from the whole species, not for a general ruling >.>
>>
No. 83848 ID: d470e9
File 140582377699.png - (9.49KB , 800x800 , MirimITQ5.png )
83848

>What about all that brouhaha of people collectively shutting down the internet because AI hackers got too good? Is that not a thing anymore?
What? The internet is partitioned and highly monitored in the case of a rogue CAI infiltration, and could largely be shut down, but there's no way civilization would just say no internet ever!

>I'm asking for individual opinions from the whole species, not for a general ruling >.>
I know! I said that at the end. I'm sorry.
>>
No. 83849 ID: dc4b80

So who designed the first Cai system anyway? And how many did they make before they got regulated?

Am guessing that they are not easy to make because you would need a serious quantum computer for them to live on.

Also what sort of legal rights if any do Ai have these days?
>>
No. 83851 ID: 3dd384

>>83830
>Dunno what a fabricator is. If it's something that makes something out of nothing, of course not.
Nah, obviously you still have to have the input mass-energy. More like... hmm. If we were to postulate a machine that, given some homogenous materials used as input, could be programmed to turn that goop into arbitrary chemical compounds, where would it fall on the scale of "currently available consumer technology" to "mythical Belenosian bullshit"?
>>
No. 83853 ID: 2fc3e9

How often do neumono have giant fur eyebrows, anyway? Who has the largest eyebrows in the galaxy, neumono and non-neumono? Locally?
>>
No. 83865 ID: c20db9

So do Ultrahives try to convey an image that you're all a bunch of soft huggable cuddle bunnies to the Aliens?
>>
No. 83893 ID: 22d852

Polo-mom! We know what you do, but what about Polo-dad? He was wearing what looked like bioarmor before. Does that mean he's a soldier?

Asking you, since he ain't much of a talker. ...how'd you end up falling for mister strong and silent type, anyways?

>>83848
So, Mirim, are you and Korli close at all? You're the clone specialist, and her specialty leans towards biology. Overlapping fields of interests, and all that. (And in snazzy eyewear, too).

>>83831
>bunch of neumono kids mob-wresting Rokoa
Now that's an adorable mental image.

>>83849
>So who designed the first Cai system anyway?
Belenosians / humans. (Kind of makes sense, since they were at the front of the uplift train).

>Also what sort of legal rights if any do Ai have these days?
None. The only legal AIs are pretty simple, and the AI-constraining movements have more clout than the AI rights movements. ( >>66436 )
>>
No. 83900 ID: fc67cf

>>83775
But I thought you were a 'natural' chimera as a result of a clone-darting suicide gambit. You weren't a horrible Frankenstein stitch together job like Polokoa. Why would your CAI have needed to intervene or mediate at all, much less have had an influence on your form?
>>
No. 83919 ID: d8a627

To any Miklik: Apparently, Mikliks are very featureless until they decide to sprout gender parts. How does the process of sprouting parts work? Can you only sprout once, and then you're stuck with the gender you chose? Can you sprout whatever shape you choose? And is being hermaphroditic only until you choose a gender, or can you actually grow both?

Defects, mutations, and/or abnormalities are "common" according to Starsteroid's scanner, but how common is it for Miklik to grow with a standardized body? I'd like to know what the ratio of abnormal to normal is.
For that matter, how common is it for a Miklik to be born with sexual organs?

How does consumption work for Miklik? Hok said that there is waste expelling, so I assume it's not purely photosynthesis, but is photosynthesis a thing for Miklik? How about water, do they just soak it up, or do they have to drink through their consumption orifice? ...Where is that orifice, anyways? Do you have mouths like other species, or does it vary from Miklik to Miklik?

What forms of sight are common? Color, Infrared, or what? Can Miklik see better in low or high light levels compared to other species? What levels of vision are common (going by the Human's 20/20), and is near/farsightedness rare? How about Cyclopia or having more than two eyes? Do Miklik eyes ever end up compound?
>>
No. 83960 ID: 9ddf68

hey sevener, what is the goal of the administration? I ask earlier but you thought someone would just ask later so you just said pass but now I rally don't see it coming up in quest.

So what did someone working in the administration have to do to advance, what counted as failures, how was it decided who did what, what was the ultimate goal, and how did you win?
>>
No. 83963 ID: a8aa2a

Aliens: What is your favorite childhood story?
>>
No. 84019 ID: 9d942d

In regards bioarmor: The suits themselves are described as percentages, based on what fraction of the a species' population can't survive wearing them, right? 30% bioarmor only kills the 30% weakest of the species, 90% can only be worn by the top 10 percent.

But bioarmor also gets described as having its strength based on that as well. However, we've been told that bioarmor is more effective the larger surface area its given, so larger people get more out of the same suit than smaller people. And what about versions? Surely the first bioarmor created generated less power than the ones you have now. And what if someone tunes it up further, so that the new 40% gives the same power as the old 50%?

Are the percentages just given as a percentage term for casual reference, and there are more detailed statistics and other details that producers and aficionados would use?
>>
No. 84067 ID: 6cf573

Right, back to the hypothetical nozzel questions. When I first thought of this hybrid I was thinking more about how fucking imposable it would be to take down, not how cute it would be.
I mean think about it: near unbreakable bones, immunity to poison, distributed yet hyper fast neural and cerebral network, battle speech with empathy, the ability to rapidly (compared to most species) regeneration of any limb or organ, immune to psionics, and possibly more.
I think the only thing more dangerous would be a super space doobie!
>>
No. 84088 ID: ccd544

>>84067
nozzel = Tozol+Neumono?
assuming that then:
>near unbreakable bones
Tozzle only
>immunity to poison
Tozzle already has that (Suppress™ is space magic)
>distributed yet hyper fast neural and cerebral network
Tozzle already has that
>battle speech with empathy
Ok, acceptable boon, but may conflict with anti-psionic trait
>the ability to rapidly (compared to most species) regeneration of any limb or organ,
Tozols already have that (tozol quest was a tozol without anything to eat)
>immune to psionics
Tozzle only

>super space doobie!
Those are the aliens from Alien­­­™ franchise, in a different body, with regeneration and all.
>>
No. 84090 ID: c32879

>>84067

Like

>>84088

said, Tozols already have every superpower and no weaknesses.
>>
No. 84097 ID: 6d3b18

>Tozols already have every superpower and no weaknesses.
May 26 16:20:33 <TestPattern>OTOH some weapons will go straight through a tozol, in one side and out the other.
May 26 16:20:36 <TestPattern>Like the beam that hit Penji.
May 26 16:21:01 <TestPattern>A neumono would have taken a lot less than 40 years to recover from that.
May 26 16:21:19 <TestPattern>Even if it made their head explode. (Which it probably would have, honestly)
May 26 16:28:28 <TestPattern>But under normal circumstances if you put a big hole through a tozol's brain, it'll die.

Nobody's got everything going for them.
>>
No. 84098 ID: 2fd516

If Tozols had redundant organs and a decentralized nervous system they'd be ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS.
>>
No. 84099 ID: ba8629

>>84098
Redundancy is inefficient and distributed processing is slow.

The traits that let neumonos regenerate from anything are the same traits that give them slow reflexes and huge caloric needs.
>>
No. 84113 ID: 9ccb59

Signals in the nervous systems travel at around 200 mph. Empathy presumably travels at the speed of light. So if Neumono could find a way to get their systems to run on empathy they'd have the fastest reaction times of any species even with their redundancies. Of course they'd need to make sure their systems could fall back on wires when there's jammers around but I figure a lot more research would go into anti-jammer tech.
>>
No. 84116 ID: ba8629

>Signals in the nervous systems travel at around 200 mph. Empathy presumably travels at the speed of light. So if Neumono could find a way to get their systems to run on empathy they'd have the fastest reaction times of any species
Sound travels 3+ times faster than nerve impulses. Humans just need to replace all their nerves with yelling to react much faster.

How hard could it be???
>>
No. 84119 ID: 9ccb59

>>84116
Use nanomachines inside CNTs to synthesize quantum vibrations in the spacetime strings.
>>
No. 84120 ID: 45b88d

>>84119
So, essentially, playing the universe like a violin?
>>
No. 84125 ID: 2fd516

>>84099
>>84116
They can already regenerate from almost anything, can't they? They just can't (usually) survive a hole in the head, and I presume they can't handle organ damage but it's not a big deal because they have a shitload of armor protecting their organs. However, anything powerful enough to destroy a Tozol's head would be strong enough to pierce that armor, and as we've seen, a Tozol neck is not as well armored.

Couldn't Tozols have fiberoptic nerves or something like that to compensate for having a distributed nervous system?
>>
No. 84126 ID: cee89f

>>84120
More like drums.

>>84113
Yyyyeah, they kinda already DO that when fighting other Neumono, since their empathy knows what the opponent is doing long before they move.

>>84116
i think you mean 3x

...

*sigh* okay okay *puts on the 'smartass' hat and goes to sit in the corner*
>>
No. 84127 ID: bb78f2

Hey Ears,
considering you're technically a representative of Lagotrope but also a separate character too I must ask. What do you think of Lagotrope's work in the Chest Day thread? Do you think he's overdoing it? Underdoing it? Or has he made just the right amount of chests?
>>
No. 84132 ID: 53548a

>>84116
What is a man? A miserable pile of whispers.
>>
No. 84133 ID: 53548a

>>84126
Also, if this were true, wouldn't it mean that two Neumono fighting would result in them standing stock still, intercepting and reacting to each others' moves and counter-moves before they could actually be executed?
>>
No. 84138 ID: 0ee153

>>84133
No. Look at Itcher's thread for an example. Rokoa vs. Red.
>>
No. 84148 ID: cee89f

>>84133
No. By that logic sight should prevent any fight from breaking out, since light moves just as fast as empathy. Just because you can see/sense that someone's going to punch you doesn't mean you're fast enough, trained well enough or strong enough to stop them.

And empathy strikes me as something very abstract. Like you can tell 'Rokoa wants to hurt me', but it'd be a lot harder to discern 'Rokoa wants to rip out my skull and beat me to death with it'.

...That reminds me.

@Neumono: How precisely can you sense things with empathy? Like, could you tell the difference between 'punch with left fist' and 'punch with right', or is it more abstract? ('this guy's hostile' kinda thing)
>>
No. 84150 ID: 5c3a18

>>84148

If I recall correctly, it depends a lot on how well you know the person whose empathy you're reading. With your best friend from your hive who you've known and fought beside since childhood, you're practically telepathic, but with some shlub from the other side of the planet you just met you'd be like 'I think he's unhappy'?
>>
No. 84168 ID: 53548a

>>84138
That's not what I asked.

>>84148
You have a delay between external stimuli like light and sound and an organism's response, and sight only lets you know what people are going to do as they're doing it. The argument it seems like you're making is that their empathy lets them know what they're going to do "long before they move." Your own words. That makes it sound like they'd have plenty of time to react to their opponent's planned move, and as soon as they did, their opponent would already know how they were going to react and would be reacting accordingly. In which case they would have empathically detected that reaction and would already be responding to it... etc.

But if they can't tell what their opponent is doing, just that they want to hurt them, then you've backpedaled enough that there is no problem. Huzzah!
>>
No. 84176 ID: cee89f

>>84168
Ah. I misspoke, I mean that you can tell what someone is planning to do, but it's abstract enough that you can't tell specifics. It improves the neumono's reflexes to a degree, but not to superhuman levels. And as I said:

>Just because you can see/sense that someone's going to punch you doesn't mean you're fast enough, trained well enough or strong enough to stop them.
>>
No. 84178 ID: 53548a

It's just one more reason why psychic powers are firmly in the realm of fiction.
>>
No. 84179 ID: f3f39e

@Giant or Az: You're some of the only neumono we've seen with like, distinct pupils. What's up with that?
>>
No. 84182 ID: cee89f

>>84179
(we've seen others, too - see Rikora) I thought that was the art style =/ We've seen humans without pupils too
>>
No. 84201 ID: f05b47

Did hive kings exist pre-contact, or was it only ever queens? If not, what prompted the egalitarian shift and how has it affected things? How matriarchal were/are neumono in general, at that? I suppose it'd depend on the hive...
>>
No. 84213 ID: d470e9
File 140650851518.png - (13.89KB , 800x800 , GiantITQ5.png )
84213

>Giant, do you have any kids? Or have there been no respectable males in your hive to justify having kids with?
All male hivemates are respectable. My hive is currently fine as is. We have numbered 8 for many years.

>What's something you find comforting? Something you find disconcerting?
A high wind is comforting, as many predators cannot sense us as well. Likewise, no wind is alarming.

>What portion of the contestants in the old Salikai fights were you able to get to knuckle under on this issue?
Strength of a queen rises and falls under the salikai. There are few queens that have not beaten me, and no queens I have not beaten at least once.
>>
No. 84214 ID: d470e9
File 140650853486.png - (12.94KB , 800x800 , MirimITQ6.png )
84214

>So who designed the first Cai system anyway? And how many did they make before they got regulated?
>Am guessing that they are not easy to make because you would need a serious quantum computer for them to live on.
The absolute first one was made using some ancient blueprints that are sort of not really understood. They were regulated right away, because, well, quick backstory. When humans got their first visual on the belenos planet, it was from a whole lot of light years away, and a green lush paradise and all that. It looked like it might even have had sentient life forms, so humans sent their warp drive drones over to take pictures up close. When they came back, they got pictures of what was basically a blackened, lopsided husk, and a mission to paradise turned into a foray into a hostile environment. It was a shock to many that it was still remotely inhabitable. So, with that kind of surprise, humans were pretty quick to say that while they're going to do some archeology, they're going to do so knowing that some of this tech made mincemeat out of their planet in ways more complex than just nuking away at the surface.

So, back to the CAI, there's a certain collection of code blocks that still have to be decrypted to be understood. All anyone knows is that those blocks have to be put in place at certain places and times in the CAI's creation, or it won't work. Ancient belenos were also pretty protective of their stuff, and made the process difficult to be understood even if it was all stolen. So, it isn't too hard to regulate, since those blocks just have to be kept under tight lock and key.

That said, those black boxes of blocks are in limited supply and have to be heavily guarded, so I have no idea how Vanski got his claspers on a complete set. He could not have had the resources to just reinvent something like that out of the blue, although he did have enough to make the bigass supercomputer to house it.

>Also what sort of legal rights if any do Ai have these days?
Pretty decent ones, sort of. I mean, making a sapient or worse, sentient AI is a super big no-no without a license. The trouble though is that people started lobbying against punishing robots when their crime was basically being made. So, there are some protection laws, but the default is still to put them down if they don't have a sufficient level of self-preservation. The ones that do are usually pretty cool with being put in a quarantine that they can be monitored with in return for things they want. Usually they have wants, and aren't just a bolt bucket that doesn't want to die.

That sounds vague, but that's because it is. A robot in a place with a lot of belenos influence is gonna have a lot of excuses searched for to kill it, while the law has some trouble getting some backwater human colony to rat out their robot buddies.

>If we were to postulate a machine that, given some homogenous materials used as input, could be programmed to turn that goop into arbitrary chemical compounds, where would it fall on the scale of "currently available consumer technology" to "mythical Belenosian bullshit"?
It's no jetalium, but breaking down and rearranging molecules and stuff into other arbitrary things is probably something that hasn't been seen since the belenos empire. If it's been made, it sure hadn't been done in a practical fashion.

>Mirim, are you and Korli close at all?
Yeah I've tutored her a bit. I mean, we're hivemates, and we're not locked against other department doors, like I've never seen our rocket scientest before, just caught a bit of his empathy a couple times. Korli and I aren't super special buddies, but we get along.

>The suits themselves are described as percentages, based on what fraction of the a species' population can't survive wearing them, right?
Yes.

>And what about versions? Surely the first bioarmor created generated less power than the ones you have now. And what if someone tunes it up further, so that the new 40% gives the same power as the old 50%?
Then it's better. It happens, there are older models out there.

>Are the percentages just given as a percentage term for casual reference, and there are more detailed statistics and other details that producers and aficionados would use?
Goddamn yes, bioarmor isn't just a flat "and now you can hold 50 pounds more", it depends on the person, the person's size, the person's muscle structure, it's a ridiculous collection of factors that are often unpredictable. I mean, there's data and distribution for averages, but Everything is a best guess scenario. The basic percentage is just the surface level used to tell potential users how tough they've got to be on their toughness scores, which is a long winded series of physical tests and exams for a dubious, single-number stat.
>>
No. 84215 ID: d470e9
File 140650854817.png - (12.62KB , 800x800 , MikalliITQ5.png )
84215

>Polo-mom! We know what you do, but what about Polo-dad? He was wearing what looked like bioarmor before. Does that mean he's a soldier?
He did serve in the military for awhile, but that wasn't bioarmor. We didn't want to mess with the stuff, honestly!

>How'd you end up falling for mister strong and silent type, anyways?
I liked how if he got it in his head to do something, he'd stop at nothing for it. At first we thought that poor little Polo inherited my attention capabilities, but then she got into her teens, and, well, she'd get so focused on what she was doing, that she'd end up running home crying because she forgot to eat to the point of starvation.
>>
No. 84216 ID: d470e9
File 140650856097.png - (19.12KB , 800x800 , HokITQ21.png )
84216

>Apparently, Mikliks are very featureless until they decide to sprout gender parts. How does the process of sprouting parts work? Can you only sprout once, and then you're stuck with the gender you chose? And is being hermaphroditic only until you choose a gender, or can you actually grow both?
Not at all, we can mix and match. Also, I'm pretty sure hermaphroditic is having both? I dunno. We can be hermaphrodites too, if they're into that. Anyway we don't have to do anything special, we just sort of... you know, grow the parts. Then ungrow them if we want.

>Can you sprout whatever shape you choose?
Not really the shape too much, we can sprout the size of our junk though. So yeah I think I mentioned how all those aliens going on about how big their dicks are seems a little asinine and weird. I mean if it gets too big you just can't really use it.

>Defects, mutations, and/or abnormalities are "common" according to Starsteroid's scanner, but how common is it for Miklik to grow with a standardized body? I'd like to know what the ratio of abnormal to normal is.
Well normal looking mikliks are probably at like 60-70% or something but, only like 10% for an actual 'normal' miklik. I mean like, I have the standard base look, but I've got two skins and a few mysterious organs. Tin looks normal too, but, well, I dunno what mutations she's got, but she might be sporting a retractable set of frills down her back I dunno.

>For that matter, how common is it for a Miklik to be born with sexual organs?
That's basically never except those rare times when it does happen. Puberty is pretty uneventful, just a realization of hey look what I can grow.

>How does consumption work for Miklik? Hok said that there is waste expelling, so I assume it's not purely photosynthesis, but is photosynthesis a thing for Miklik? How about water, do they just soak it up, or do they have to drink through their consumption orifice? ...Where is that orifice, anyways? Do you have mouths like other species, or does it vary from Miklik to Miklik?
Photosynthesis is a healthy thing that isn't completely necessary like actual food is, but isn't too healthy to go without it. I guess. Doc's say that we on the asteroid don't get as much as we should and that we're working at 80%. I wouldn't know, I feel 100% but maybe that's just 100% of a lifelong 80%.

And uh yeah we have mouths they're just all small compared to the head full of teeth everyone else.

>What forms of sight are common? Color, Infrared, or what?
Usually color, sometimes weird variations therein, UV is the next most common outside of the normal range, then some infrared. There's been some that have been able to see, like, radio waves, but those generally go too fast to just, like, 'read' music or speech.

>Do Miklik eyes ever end up compound?
I'm... I don't think that's ever happened actually.

>How about Cyclopia or having more than two eyes?
This, however, definitely has. Usually the having more than two eyes though isn't really a good thing, I mean a lot of our mutations just sort of work as though intended, but with additional eyes, well sometimes they get lucky and it's just on the back of their head or something, but then sometimes it's on their hip and then it gets laggy compared to the rest of the eyes and they just close it. Then open it to become the life of the party.

>Aliens: What is your favorite childhood story?
I dunno they were all pretty dumb. Like the rabbit and the tortoise. The tortoise didn't win because he went slow and steady, he won because his opponent fell asleep in the middle of the race! It's not like the rabbit collapsed from exhaustion, no in every version he just decides yeah I'm pretty far ahead so I'll just go ahead and take a nap.
>>
No. 84217 ID: d470e9
File 140650857880.png - (33.88KB , 800x800 , SevenerITQ3.png )
84217

>hey sevener, what is the goal of the administration?
It's just a sham of a survival, like the contest except for a different group of people. Far as I'm concerned, the contest would be just as shitty even if we didn't touch anything. The real administration is somewhere up there that is probably just an actual system without a big set of personas and people surviving. If that's the car, then it drives itself, while we're the kid in the passenger seat fooling around with the toy-wheel on the dashboard.

>So what did someone working in the administration have to do to advance, what counted as failures, how was it decided who did what, what was the ultimate goal, and how did you win?
Whatever real system ruling the system up there decides who does the 'best' job. The people who did the best would move on, the people who sucked wouldn't. That's where it's not like the contest, our survival was judged on purely subjective means rather than a set of flat rules with clear win and loss criteria.
>>
No. 84218 ID: d470e9
File 140650859014.png - (15.18KB , 800x800 , RokoaSniperCloneITQ22.png )
84218

>When I first thought of this hybrid I was thinking more about how fucking imposable it would be to take down, not how cute it would be.
Noooo, well, okay, so tozols aren't actually possible to make a hybrid for, but they were, uh, invented, so a nozzle would have to be sort of invented too, right? I think a tozol could kick any neumono's butt normally, so really if a nozzle was supposed to be superior, it would just be like a normal tozol except with our empathy. Then maybe the empathy is integrated into the brain so that the brain could be distributed and the neural network would be made using empathy signals rather than, uh, whatever flesh materials are normally used, so they could still have the reaction speeds of regular tozols. Like fufa. Except as an organized structure rather than a.... fufa.

I mean that sounds like it make them really susceptible to psionics, so maybe... well I dunno what gives tozol their immunity either, so maybe the brain can still be protected.

I mean I'm just thinking about how a nozzle could be a super tough best thing ever, but really I just think that Lilian is going to be a complex factor of some of the advantages of neumono and tozol and also some of the disadvantages. She has to deal with people thinking she's the most dangerous thing in the galaxy, but really she's pretty weak by tozol standards!

>Aliens: What is your favorite childhood story?
Oh, the one about the two snakes that looped around the moon! It was one of Rokoa's hives stories about why the moons would wax and wane.

It wasn't that special of a story, but the image of two snakes rolling around the moon is pretty great.
>>
No. 84219 ID: d470e9
File 140650861046.png - (12.11KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ86.png )
84219

>How precisely can you sense things with empathy? Like, could you tell the difference between 'punch with left fist' and 'punch with right', or is it more abstract? ('this guy's hostile' kinda thing)
It largely depends on both how clear a neumono broadcasts their intents, and how well a receiving neumono can interpret them. Hivemates can, by default, read each other very well. It is never like telepathy, not even to the clarity that a predator can form, but it can be things like 'please check if the oven is off, and if the timer is less than a minute, please turn it off and then check the food' at absolute best.

For non hivemates, the understanding can be as bad as 'he's going to attack' but could be 'he's going to punch with his right fist.' If non hivemates work together frequently, then it can go up to 'please attack to distract I have a reason'.

I know that Rokoa, in her childhood, trained in impulsive fighting. That is to minimize the amount of manual thinking done during a fight, and to throw out punches without being particularly aware of throwing the punch, that is, to work entirely on instinct rather than reasoning.

>Did hive kings exist pre-contact, or was it only ever queens?
Kings existed, they were just always unusual. They still are, I don't believe there is a higher rate of kings now.

>How matriarchal were/are neumono in general, at that? I suppose it'd depend on the hive...
As usual, yes, it would depend, but in general to make a blanket statement, they are somewhat. However, while the females overall are seen in a slightly more dominant position overall, it is just a slight one. Near negligible in most cases, and we have not responded well to alien ideas of segregating sports and other events to just men or women.
>>
No. 84220 ID: d470e9
File 140650862582.png - (66.36KB , 800x800 , EarsITQ8.png )
84220

>Hey Ears,
>meta stuff
No this is too much of an existential crisis for me. I'm not answering this.
>>
No. 84223 ID: 445ff6

I was going to ask a question about sports but it looks like that actually got addressed in a previous thread, if somewhat broadly. Though I guess I can still ask—neumono basketball? Is that a thing?

Also, are there actually pygmy neumono? The answer could be important.
>>
No. 84224 ID: 0ee153

I think my earlier questions re: eyebrows may have been lost amidst the nozzle debate.
>>83853
>>
No. 84231 ID: 6d3b18

>We have numbered 8 for many years.
10 now, if you count Three Stripes, and Jral.

>>84215
The perils of raising a teenage determinator.
>>
No. 84240 ID: f05b47

>Kings existed, they were just always unusual. They still are, I don't believe there is a higher rate of kings now.

Huh, really? I don't think we've seen any pre-contact kings, but we haven't seen many pre-contact hives either. Have any scientists investigated why queens are more common and why it's a trend rather than a hard split?
>>
No. 84460 ID: d8a627

Northerners (Fen Quest)(Maybe Southerners too): How often are Kobolds from the central area, between the two kingdoms, conscripted?
(So many more things that I wanna ask besides just this but I'll wait on more in-quest updates to see)
>>
No. 84515 ID: dc4b80

Dear any Neumono. How does it feel to be compared to naked mole rats when you are all snuggling in a pile?
>>
No. 84544 ID: a0d097

Can Neumono cry? Do you have the physical capacity to have tears and stuff?

On the subject of being sad: Hey Mirim you seem nice, how come you science guys won't be friends with Sniper Clone?
>>
No. 84546 ID: a19cbe

>Can Neumono cry? Do you have the physical capacity to have tears and stuff?
>>/questarch/403265
>>
No. 84608 ID: 991b56

>>83506
>So us being around high power lines or whatever isn't too bad, but it does have an effect.

Now I'm actually wondering if that could be an advantage. Like, if you work at a power station, or with computers, or a physics lab. Like... when people learn to drive a stick shift, they often begin by watching the revs and changing gears with a lot of thought in it, but eventually most people end up just shifting gears when it 'feels right' to do so. They learn to subconsciously pick up on the vibration and noise of the car to judge when it needs to change gear. So, I wonder if neumono can do that with things that have electromagnetic fields.

Like, say a neumono is sitting in their room with the window open, it's bright and sunny and they have nothing on in their room. But then they get a feeling and go 'huh' and they reach to flick the lightswitch and it doesn't work, because the power's gone out, and they noticed on a visceral level because the faint signature of the electricity running through the building has stopped. Similarly, if an experienced neumono operator was working in a power station, or running the reactor on a spaceship or something, maybe they could learn to 'instinctively' feel when something is going wrong?

I also wonder, now: are there any documentations of neumono ever being able to sense magnetic north or south on your planet? Though, I think I recall something about your planet being larger but a little less dense than earth. Maybe you have less metals or different composition in your core, so your planet's magnetic field might be weaker, or different somehow. Although you kind of need a magnetic field to not be scoured by solar wind, so you probably do have one. Maybe dedicating your senses to empathy overrode any sort of magnetic sense, like eyes evolving for better near sight than long sight?

I have a question for salikai as well: what do you feel like? That is, are your bodies leathery, or scaley, or do you have a carapace or something? Maybe one of the former on top of the latter? Apart from your legs, you don't look segmented.
>>
No. 84616 ID: 9ddf68

to any character

how would you think you would fair playing boat-o-cross, specifically level 7-1?
>>
No. 84718 ID: d0341e

Can you tell if someone's a King or Queen? Like, if they're with their hive, I assume you can tell, but if one happens to walk down the street of an ultrahive's city and doesn't have any of their hivemates with them, and some neumono stranger from off-world was visiting and happened to bump into them, would they still be able to tell?
>>
No. 84725 ID: d470e9
File 140821295156.png - (15.22KB , 800x800 , BilesITQ2.png )
84725

>Though I guess I can still ask—neumono basketball? Is that a thing?
Heck yeah. Even pre-contact, we had all sorts of sports that involved getting a ball into a net, so basketball worked well for us. We have some modified rules, but the idea's the same. Just a bigger basketball, less foul detection and so forth.

>How often do neumono have giant fur eyebrows, anyway? Who has the largest eyebrows in the galaxy, neumono and non-neumono? Locally?
It's not uncommon at all for jungle neumono, pretty rare for others. Even with empathy, eyebrows do help seeing anothers' expression, and jungle neumono have so many hivemates that being able to see big eyebrows furrowing or whatever helps single 'em out.

As for records? Can't say. For neumono, once our eyebrows get to be a certain size, it's just a fluffy forehead. And there's been enough bio-experimental accidents to grow hair on ones face, so... not a good thing to keep track of without getting into big convoluted criteria of what 'counts'.

>How does it feel to be compared to naked mole rats when you are all snuggling in a pile?
Hey, I think they're kinda cute, so pretty good.

>Can Neumono cry? Do you have the physical capacity to have tears and stuff?
Yep.

>I also wonder, now: are there any documentations of neumono ever being able to sense magnetic north or south on your planet? Though, I think I recall something about your planet being larger but a little less dense than earth. Maybe you have less metals or different composition in your core, so your planet's magnetic field might be weaker, or different somehow. Although you kind of need a magnetic field to not be scoured by solar wind, so you probably do have one. Maybe dedicating your senses to empathy overrode any sort of magnetic sense, like eyes evolving for better near sight than long sight?
Yeah, I'm facing south right now. I'm the exception, though, being able to sense electromagnetic things to any useful degree is on par with me being able to stop my hearts at will, or Polo going silent. Well, probably the former. Polo's thing has got to be on another level, since I've tried to do that and can't.


>Can you tell if someone's a King or Queen? Like, if they're with their hive, I assume you can tell, but if one happens to walk down the street of an ultrahive's city and doesn't have any of their hivemates with them, and some neumono stranger from off-world was visiting and happened to bump into them, would they still be able to tell?
You could probably have a hunch. There's nothing that'll just outright give it away, but they usually do have a certain presence about them that'll at least give the idea that they could be a queen instead of some random schmuck. Especially in larger hives.
>>
No. 84726 ID: d470e9
File 140821302716.png - (14.37KB , 800x800 , MirimITQ7.png )
84726

>Have any scientists investigated why queens are more common and why it's a trend rather than a hard split?
There's a few hypotheses, one of the more solid ones is that females do get bonded faster with their kids, what with getting empathy while they're still inside. Even that seems pretty small, though, so there's a lot of work to be done.

>Hey Mirim you seem nice, how come you science guys won't be friends with Sniper Clone?
It's difficult to be friends with someone you're forced experiment on with duress and a laundry list of chemicals.

>How would you think you would fair playing boat-o-cross, specifically level 7-1?
I would not do well, but I'm sure I could whip up a quick robot to do it for me effectively.
>>
No. 84727 ID: d470e9
File 140821304945.png - (18.02KB , 800x800 , KiiuITQ4.png )
84727

>What do you feel like? That is, are your bodies leathery, or scaley, or do you have a carapace or something? Maybe one of the former on top of the latter? Apart from your legs, you don't look segmented.
Reports from other creatures in symbiosis with us claim that we are as smooth as anything. Our skin is tough, but is made for crawling through tiny crevices.

>How would you think you would fair playing boat-o-cross, specifically level 7-1?
I highly doubt that this cheap children's game would be much challenge.
>>
No. 84728 ID: d470e9
File 140821306072.png - (17.52KB , 800x800 , ZiziITQ1.png )
84728

>Northerners (Fen Quest)(Maybe Southerners too): How often are Kobolds from the central area, between the two kingdoms, conscripted?
I'll just take this question, having been in the north. As much as they can get away with! I barely understand it myself, but aside from just serving in the wars, it's also a culture thing. You know, take me. I get familiar with the northern empire, so that when they come on our doorstep, I can say oh hey I know these guys they're not all a bunch of ass wipes. Kind of a nice thing to say for people who take us at will, but they feed us, they teach us a lot of skills, so on and so forth. Sure, we might wake up with an arrow in our eye, but we won't starve. The mortality rate isn't too bad, actually, my siblings just got the short end of the stick.

So, the more people they take, the more people they'll have who can say that their conscriptors aren't too bad and share the empire culture with the tribe. That'll give them an edge for when the empires inevitably come to take our lands over again. Conscript too many, though, and the remaining tribe will be made way too weak and will probably die, and the conscripts will have no home to return to.

I dunno. It's really complicated. I think an officer once tried to show us the actual theory behind it. I didn't pay attention.
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No. 84730 ID: 36f29f

>>84728
Having a self-sufficient neighbor that can occasionally be counted on for troops is likely more appealing to them. Keeping the tribes capable of competing with one another also keeps your attention on them, so your people rarely have an opportunity to 'bother' the city slickers. Before the conscription/training thing some tribes likely tried raiding or thieving from the cities in hard times.
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No. 84743 ID: dc4b80

Dear Zizi. I notice you have different head frills/horns than your brother. Why is that and what variations are there?
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No. 84747 ID: 445ff6

More random questions I just thought of!

I suspect something along these lines might have been asked before, but what are the approximate relative populations of the different species on the neumono homeworld and civilized space in general? Obviously absolute numbers on either of those are probably impossible to figure out, but surely someone has some idea of, like, approximate percentages or whatever.

Also—pygmy neumono! Do they actually exist?
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No. 84764 ID: 0ee153

So, Tevliss, what's life like as a conscript and as a mountain kobold?
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No. 84766 ID: d8a627

>>84764
And to Shemi as an Aquatic Kobold conscript.
>>
No. 84838 ID: d8a627

I've been diving deep and reading old answers, maybe these have been asked before but I haven't reached the answers yet.

To the humans, or any of the other species contacted by humans before Neumonos (Which I believe is every single species that isn't Neumono, according to >>/questdis/65397): According to Father Zozu, during the early years of contact, before a full blown hunt was put out on Salikai, a lot of them were abducted for anal probing for research purposes, and quite likely placed into zoos. When their sapience was discovered, how were they then treated? Were there any that were given citizenship, at all?
With all the laws on AIs, I find myself wondering. Have any sentient AIs popped up seemingly out of nowhere? And about the containment on them, are they ever granted the freedoms of a standard citizen?

To any Neumono: There haven't been records of a Neumono being born without an empathic link, but what about unstable empathy? Not incredibly so, just the way their emotions work changes from time to time so that their emotional responses are unpredictable. What you sense from them would still be honest and what they feel at the time, but you would not know what to expect in advance. If there are such Neumono, are there any that have learned to control the switches to fit in with any other Neumono they happen to encounter? Would be a good friend among rogues.

To Father Zozu: If Neumono who lived in a Jammer City are more personable for the non-empathetic, then what about hives that, while raised with empathy, were also raised around the belief that they shouldn't rely entirely on it? I can't claim to know about the other species, but humans definitely had organizations that trained to ignore certain senses, such as sound, feel, or sight, so that they did not have to rely on them even if they still had use of it.
If one of your children (Either a biological one, or a non-Neumono employee) had a rare genetic condition that resulted in regeneration of some form, would you expect them to sacrifice themselves if it involved the area that could regenerate, or does that only extend to Neumono?
I know you don't play favorites, but do you have one of your children named heir to the Zozu family? Which children still in positions of authority have wronged you the most? The least? How many, including disowned children, have actually made you consider not giving them as many chances at rehabilitation as they "need"? Have any been expelled by your decision, and how many were disowned by their own decision, such as Itcher and Jessica? Which Biological family members do you believe have matured to the point that they stop actively seeking competition?

To Viln: A lot of your answers relating to relationships with specific Neumono were answered as such, so I'll ask this in a vague sense. Do you feel any attraction to Neumono? Is such a thing common, rare, or what among Voklit?

To Polo: >>65725
>I have been told that some sports, as a result, often end up looking absolutely hilarious to aliens, because they'll do the most ridiculous things for no apparent reason.
...I'm imagining those Japanese comedy Gauntlet shows, such as Takeshi's Castle now. Have you ever seen those shows, Polo?

To Lukratsa rozu Steelnaut: Kinda curious. What romances or "Almost romances" were included in the show? Did Polo's character have any love interests?

To Neumono Royalty (Historical figures count!): Any monarchs ever manage to hold up a philosophy that drew in Rogues?

To somebody who's got surveyed data on Neumono Rogues: How frequently do rogues manage to "link up" with other rogues? And, historically speaking, how many hives were started by rogues?
I know some rogues wish they could connect with others, while others just want to be left alone. What's the ratio on that? How many seek out Jammer cities?

To Tin (Hok's answered more than enough): Is inbreeding a problem among Mikliks?
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No. 84841 ID: 487455

>according to >>/questdis/65397
Oh hey, timeline ref actually being useful to people, neat. There's actually a more up to date version available in the wiki, although it's mostly characters that have been added, not new historical discoveries.

>what about unstable empathy? Not incredibly so, just the way their emotions work changes from time to time so that their emotional responses are unpredictable.
Isn't that basically equivalent to asking if there are ever mentally or emotionally unstable individuals? (Or if flaky or flighty people exist, I guess). It's a pretty safe assumption that examples of mental illness exist in a large population.

Although, historically, neumono have been kind of bad at mental illness. Either the hive is enough to keep you smoothed over and stable, or it isn't, in which case you go rogue and probably die.
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No. 84853 ID: d8a627

>>84841
>Although, historically, neumono have been kind of bad at mental illness.
Yeah, that's right, that was pointed out in one of the answers I already read. Such a Neumono would probably either go rogue, or be living in a Jammer City anyways, but still, has it happened?

I also want to know if Jammer City Neumono who do grow accustomed to Empathy are open and accepting of the xenoempathic waves of hive or rogue Neumono. It sounds like they would be, but are they actually?
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No. 84856 ID: d470e9
File 140883874250.png - (26.06KB , 800x800 , TevlissITQ1.png )
84856

>So, Tevliss, what's life like as a conscript and as a mountain kobold?
Conscript? I'm not some hillbilly plucked out of the middle of nowhere to play soldier for awhile, I'm a soldier proper. Joined cause working in my hometown just doesn't pay the bills.

The army didn't pay much better, and I had to risk my life every couple weeks on some rebellion here or barbarian tribe there. Kept at it, though, and here I am, making a livable wage.

Course, Shup keeps us busy. Has us stand around to guard some spot a lot of the day. Training schedule to keep our skills sharp, and occasional brief campaigns to keep our experience sharp.
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No. 84857 ID: d470e9
File 140883875480.png - (23.02KB , 800x800 , ShemiITQ1.png )
84857

>And to Shemi as an Aquatic Kobold conscript
Again, I'm not a conscript either. I am a distant relative of a wood noble, and was trained formally in martial arts to be able to have the position that I do.

My relation to the wood noble is both a gift and a detriment, as while it did grant me a boost to earn this position, I am put in safe positions. Standard guard duty, virtually no campaigning for anything but the safest, most pathetic of uprisings, and generally my skills are put to waste.
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No. 84858 ID: d470e9
File 140883876710.png - (41.19KB , 800x800 , ZiziITQ2.png )
84858

>I notice you have different head frills/horns than your brother. Why is that and what variations are there?
Yeah I got my grandma's frills. Variations, hm... well, there's a lot of kobolds that are just a whole lot spikier. Plus, we're the exception of the forest tribes, which have yellow eyes, while we and non-forest dwellers have white.

There's usually some trait that gives away where someone came from since a lot of variations are based on location. Yellow eyes in our forest, blue eyes in fisher's run, shinier scales in the goldyard, spikes everywhere in Erja Nokol, that sorta stuff. Course, not always, case in point our white eyes.

>Before the conscription/training thing some tribes likely tried raiding or thieving from the cities in hard times.
Hell a lot of tribes still do that! Most conscription work for me was just quelling a buncha jokers trying to take over a town.
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No. 84859 ID: d470e9
File 140883878097.png - (18.39KB , 800x800 , BilesITQ3.png )
84859

>Also—pygmy neumono! Do they actually exist?
If they do, they're definitely well hidden jungle neumono. It's actually possible. While there's no confirmation of it, there are jungle areas that are so thick that if neumono were to make it their home, they'd have to be pretty tiny.
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No. 84860 ID: d470e9
File 140883882139.png - (17.46KB , 800x800 , KorliITQ27.png )
84860

>>84747
Population statistics!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tg1NxFrlSKpbXGGtbxXpHhHCVciVvarBUnHYwCCFLYA/edit#gid=0
These numbers are in early phases - this doc will be show various public information, and information will be added when I get to it and existing information may be changed if necessarily/favorable.


>Have any sentient AIs popped up seemingly out of nowhere? And about the containment on them, are they ever granted the freedoms of a standard citizen?
Yyyyes, there are a number of underground organizations that have some pretty nice brain power behind them, so this sort of thing happens. In fact, underground organizations have been able to toy with some pretty nasty tech, so there's a lot of overground organizations that try to hunt down threats like that.

>To any Neumono: There haven't been records of a Neumono being born without an empathic link, but what about unstable empathy? Not incredibly so, just the way their emotions work changes from time to time so that their emotional responses are unpredictable. What you sense from them would still be honest and what they feel at the time, but you would not know what to expect in advance. If there are such Neumono, are there any that have learned to control the switches to fit in with any other Neumono they happen to encounter? Would be a good friend among rogues.
There are neumono that have pretty crazy empathy and are harder to read!

But those people are just called weird, and it's not really something that anyone's been able to control to fit in with anyone.

>How frequently do rogues manage to "link up" with other rogues? And, historically speaking, how many hives were started by rogues?
Like... a low fraction percent of a percent for a random rogue to honestly bond - not just get along, but actually bond - with another random rogue.

Not including schisms, though! Sometimes a hive will bleed rogues, but that could just be a type of schism where they'll then get along and bond with each other, so it's going rogue for like... not long.

Either way though, if rogues actually bond, then they will almost definitely start making a family, and if that is successful, usually a hive follows!

>I know some rogues wish they could connect with others, while others just want to be left alone. What's the ratio on that?
Real fuzzy, because rogues do get conflicting impulses and wants. They want to bond with others, but are frustrated when they can't, so they don't want to keep trying, but they do want it, so... it's lose-lose, really.

>How many seek out Jammer cities?
A few try it out, but to do so is sort of consigning oneself to that fate. If they can live with that, then jammer cities are perfect. If not, then, well, they still may have that hopeless desire to bond, and living in a jammer city basically removes that abysmal chance.
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No. 84861 ID: d470e9
File 140883884888.png - (9.91KB , 800x800 , fatherZozuITQ11.png )
84861

>When Salikai sapience was discovered, how were they then treated? Were there any that were given citizenship, at all?
Somewhat. If a salikai was lucky, they would be found by a proper human or belenos faction and brought in. To date, they are kept in discrete locations and have watchful eyes on them. In return, they will be given peace.
It is hardly what I could call citizenship. It is more like a nice prison. A zoo, perhaps, but at least a privately accessed zoo.

>If Neumono who lived in a Jammer City are more personable for the non-empathetic, then what about hives that, while raised with empathy, were also raised around the belief that they shouldn't rely entirely on it?
Perhaps a step up from the normal system. But it does require constant attention and training to not rely on, say, eyesight. I do not know any hives that have not embraced their empathy that was not raised in a jammer city.

>I know you don't play favorites, but do you have one of your children named heir to the Zozu family?
No. To do so would be to invite assassination. The heir, one of my biological children, must put themselves in a position that when I die, they will be able to take over effectively.

>Which children still in positions of authority have wronged you the most?
In terms of number of offenses, a human managed to become one of my lead managers, and proceeded to skim off the top of many deals, hinder many operations for his own gain, and was generally a constant detriment that I did not discover for an impressive length of time. But I did discover it, and he was not prepared to have himself outted.

>The least?
There are many that, I am confident, have never wronged me.

>How many, including disowned children, have actually made you consider not giving them as many chances at rehabilitation as they "need"?
If I find rehabilitation to have a good chance of success, then they will have as many chances as they need. This number is generally 0 or 1.

>Have any been expelled by your decision, and how many were disowned by their own decision, such as Itcher and Jessica?
Not many. For an offense to be worthy of exile, it is also likely deserving of death. As for their own decision, only a few have had the chance to walk away like Itcher and Jessica have. A member of Zozu is there for life, but in the case of those two, they were wronged like few were.

>Which Biological family members do you believe have matured to the point that they stop actively seeking competition?
Matured? To stop seeking competition? There will always be competition, but, Zozu is all Zozu. To deal with competition solely by taking away power from opponents is to weak Zozu as a whole, which is unacceptable. My biological children are told of this, they understand this, but none have matured, I believe, to the point that they have a good gauge of how many broken eggs are acceptable to make an omelet, as the metaphor would say.
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No. 84862 ID: d470e9
File 140883905178.png - (13.40KB , 800x800 , VilnITQ7.png )
84862

>Do you feel any attraction to Neumono? Is such a thing common, rare, or what among Voklit?
No. Neumono can be good friend, but attraction for such little things is odd for me.

No voklit Viln knows actively seek neumono for physical interaction. However. Voklit are social, and neumono create better company than nothing. It is certain some Voklit can feel affection towards such beings.
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No. 84863 ID: d470e9
File 140883908537.png - (9.88KB , 800x800 , PoloITQ87.png )
84863

>I'm imagining those Japanese comedy Gauntlet shows, such as Takeshi's Castle now. Have you ever seen those shows, Polo?
I have not, but we do have shows that attempt to outdo each other in ridiculous stunts.
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No. 84864 ID: d470e9
File 140883919787.png - (16.08KB , 800x800 , LukratsaITQ14.png )
84864

>What romances or "Almost romances" were included in the show? Did Polo's character have any love interests?
Lessee... well, Pilon was always an active subject for Polo, and even Rokoa and Polo would share a moment. Course, we always had to compromise to muffle that pairing since, you know, Polo got her say in the show, and Rokoa's actor and I almost looking like we were gonna make out would always put her in a huff. Course, Tammi here was usuall in character during that so she looked more like Rokoa. Seriously, she walks in to audition for Rokoa and I think she's just plain lost, but then she goes and puts on a dance with her pupils. Hey, Tammi! Say hello.
>"Hello."

So there was some continuity and all that, but for the most part we stuck to the status quo, so most of that stuff was just teasing the fans. Or teasing the haters.

Sometimes a side character would get involved with a side character maybe I guess, but it was a show about Polo, didn't have time for all that stuff!
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No. 84865 ID: d470e9
File 140883924742.png - (19.16KB , 800x800 , RikoraITQ4.png )
84865

>Any monarchs ever manage to hold up a philosophy that drew in Rogues?
Sometimes as slaves. Nothing more. They cannot be trusted, they must be fed, they are bad company, and the only thing to ever keep them from running away is an even more threatening wilderness.
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No. 84866 ID: d470e9
File 140883930901.png - (23.58KB , 800x800 , TinITQ4.png )
84866

>Is inbreeding a problem among Mikliks?
Yes. A couple generations of inbreeding will cause problems. We have many mutations normally, but generally most mutations aren't harmful, at least not directly. Inbreeding will start increasing the rate of harmful mutations, and multiple mutations that get in each others' way. They end up looking like mikliks that were mutated by popular culture radioactive exposure. Instead of just dying like actual high levels of radioactive exposure would do.
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No. 84868 ID: bb78f2

Viln
Do you have any children? Any girlfriends, or at least ex-girlfriends?

Sniper Clone
Since you like drawing and I suppose writing or other creative pursuits, have you ever made or thought up some raunchy fanfiction or drawings.

Zizi
What were your mother and father's names? What were they like?

Shup
Do you have any passions? Anything that's particularly ridiculous, such as a guilty pleasure in childish comics, figurines, etc.

Any Neumono
Are there any famous tragedies like Oedipus Rex that have lived through a lot of destruction, or is anything particular form of art that's actually might stand the test of time created recently? Could the Oedipus Rex trilogy even be adapted to be understood by Neumono audiences, or would so many events and relationships have to be changed to have the tragedy realized by a neumono audience that it couldn't even be considered an adaption of Oedipus Rex? Do any neumono we know by name even like any well-known human classics?
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No. 84872 ID: d8a627

> so... it's lose-lose, really.
Except for Kappi. That lucky bastard connected with Rokoa. Helps that she's nuts and wants to redeem rogues, and he found a connection to her, even if it was only in her body. ...Pun was not intended but now it is.
>I do not know any hives that have not embraced their empathy that was not raised in a jammer city.
Now I'm wondering if any aliens took the young student Neumono from a Jammer City and brought them out to where their empathy would work to help them understand it without relying on it so much. I mean, sure, if a human discovered telepathy, they'd want to use it as much as they could, but if they only had so much time a week that they had access to it, it would eventually become ingrained to only use it a limited amount. Except in this case it's passive, so, I dunno. Worth testing.
I wanna test that now. I wish I lived near a Jammer City and had the funds to sponsor such a project.
>This number is generally 0 or 1.
Well... It's definitely 1 now. You can never again claim it to be zero after gunning your former-son down like that.
>My biological children are told of this, they understand this, but none have matured, I believe, to the point that they have a good gauge of how many broken eggs are acceptable to make the omelet, as the metaphor would say.
Such a shame. If I may ask, how old is the eldest? And how does Salikai age compare to that of a Human's (who live to about 150, I believe it was)?
>However. Voklit are social, and neumono create better company than nothing.
Hmm. So, is attraction less of a shape thing, and more of a personality thing, or will a Voklit normally still only be attracted to fellow Voklit?

To Grudge Bearer: As the only off-planet Voklit we know of, I suppose this question falls to you. You've seen Pomi, right? While the similarities are very limited, how do you, as a Voklit, feel about the similarities to a Pomi?
To Miss: "I'm basically the biggest xenophile." What's your opinion on the Voklit, then?
>>84864
...Wow! Different Classifications of "Cool" but I'd say you're both on the same tiers of your respective classes. I did not expect that. Congratulations, Tammi, for what one fan's word is.
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No. 84873 ID: 487455

>Could the Oedipus Rex trilogy even be adapted to be understood by Neumono audiences
Well, they don't have an incest taboo. And permanent self-inflicted injuries don't translate well (unless he drove something through his eyes and left them there, I suppose). And empathy would make some of the conceits- not recognizing family, exile of a child, taking in an outsider as king, kind of weirder. That's a lot of alien stuff they either just have to accept, or that would have to be adapted or replaced.

Antigone would be a much easier transition, I think. A schism, division in the hive, the distinction between traitor and family, what respect is owed the dead, those concepts carry right over.

And... I don't think I know anything about the other play in the trilogy. No comment. Whups.

>>84864
>Tammi
Man, she's a lot smaller and less scary looking out of makeup.
>>/questarch/463754
I'm just gonna assume there was cheating movie magic at work, there.
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No. 84891 ID: d470e9
File 140891424437.png - (15.52KB , 800x800 , VilnITQ8.png )
84891

>Do you have any children? Any girlfriends, or at least ex-girlfriends?
No. Viln has waited for gaining impressive hunt or other grand trophy. Chances for such are dire, now.

>Hmm. So, is attraction less of a shape thing, and more of a personality thing, or will a Voklit normally still only be attracted to fellow Voklit?
A shape is important. However. One can be accommodated to any physical form, but one cannot get used to a bad personality so easily for the rest of one's life.
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No. 84892 ID: d470e9
File 140891430453.png - (14.56KB , 800x800 , RokoaSniperCloneITQ23.png )
84892

>Since you like drawing and I suppose writing or other creative pursuits, have you ever made or thought up some raunchy fanfiction or drawings.
Welllllll noooo. I mean I haven't had the time ever since becoming what I am, and my science hive part could have done it when things were more lax, but she was always too embarrased to do things like that!

I kinda wish she had, now, though.
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No. 84893 ID: d470e9
File 140891432950.png - (51.82KB , 800x800 , ZiziITQ3.png )
84893

>What were your mother and father's names? What were they like?
Lin and Vivi.

Wait, what were they like? They're not dead! Lin's a quiet woman, but she's still around our home base, she sleeps by herself these days. She's the one right behind me. Mostly keeps to herself, but real willing to help if asked. Well, with dad when he's around, but he's off doing work down south. He's got a more can-do attitude about things than most kobolds, and stubborn to match.
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No. 84894 ID: d470e9
File 140891434139.png - (20.64KB , 800x800 , ShupITQ1.png )
84894

>Do you have any passions? Anything that's particularly ridiculous, such as a guilty pleasure in childish comics, figurines, etc.
My well known passion is to create a solid foundation for my lands, as the strength of a noble is reflected by the strength of what he owns.

I have many more passions, of course, but they are passions kept to myself. I prefer people not know how to pander to me.
>>
No. 84895 ID: d470e9
File 140891435723.png - (10.40KB , 800x800 , RikekITQ5.png )
84895

>Are there any famous tragedies like Oedipus Rex that have lived through a lot of destruction, or is anything particular form of art that's actually might stand the test of time created recently?
There's been a lot of found stories, usually etched in stone, or perhaps in trees that can't heal over marks. The problem is is that most of the stories are from small hives, which had their own languages and ideas, and didn't last long enough to make a huge amount of material for cross reference and the like. So, museums often just have a string of foreign words and then some pictures on top, and it's... well, you see two guys standing, then a guy is standing over the fallen other guy, then a bunch of people are following the victor... you can kinda guess what's going on most of the time, but a lot of stories you know you're missing a lot of the material from.

>Could the Oedipus Rex trilogy even be adapted to be understood by Neumono audiences, or would so many events and relationships have to be changed to have the tragedy realized by a neumono audience that it couldn't even be considered an adaption of Oedipus Rex?
I think so, but it either would be a loose adaptation, or would come across pretty differently to us.

>Do any neumono we know by name even like any well-known human classics?
Well, uh, I'm a fan of Hamlet.
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No. 84896 ID: d470e9
File 140891437766.png - (12.59KB , 800x800 , fatherZozuITQ12.png )
84896

>Well... It's definitely 1 now. You can never again claim it to be zero after gunning your former-son down like that.
Allow me to clarify. The number of redemptions people may get is generally 0 or 1. In the case of 1, I make it clear that another transgression will not be taken so lightly, and so it is rare that a second form ever takes place.

In the case of my lost child, his transgression was so obscene that he did not get any second chance.

>If I may ask, how old is the eldest? And how does Salikai age compare to that of a Human's (who live to about 150, I believe it was)?
My eldest is merely 43. We may live up to 200 years.
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No. 84897 ID: d470e9
File 140891439083.png - (13.28KB , 800x800 , MissITQ4.png )
84897

>What's your opinion on the Voklit, then?
They're so serious all the time it's adorable! I always wanted to ride one. And I mean right like up top, not like down below, if you get me. I dunno what they're like down below. Okay that's a lie, but that might still kill me! I'm gonna stop now.
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No. 84898 ID: d470e9
File 140891440460.png - (13.64KB , 800x800 , GrudgeBearerITQ4.png )
84898

>As the only off-planet Voklit we know of, I suppose this question falls to you. You've seen Pomi, right? While the similarities are very limited, how do you, as a Voklit, feel about the similarities to a Pomi?
When I first saw Pomi, I thought they were tiny, starving voklit children with bad posture. Then I thought the galaxy was a horrid unjust place, as these small Pomi became a respected species, while Voklit were left displaced on our homeworld. I now realize that is because we would not adapt to the galaxy. The Pomi did. The Pomi had many rituals of the spirit on their homeworld that they quickly abandoned for sake of technology.

I do not see any mental similarities with them, and physical similarities are sparse.
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No. 84899 ID: d470e9
File 140891442427.png - (17.30KB , 800x800 , LukratsaITQ15.png )
84899

>Man, she's a lot smaller and less scary looking out of makeup.
Nah she was just hanging back. Tammi get up here!

>I'm just gonna assume there was cheating movie magic at work, there.
Tammi do the Rokoa pupil thing!
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No. 84900 ID: d470e9
File 140891443853.png - (17.58KB , 800x800 , LukratsaITQ16.png )
84900

And the Rokoa smile!
>>
No. 84901 ID: d470e9
File 140891446910.png - (18.70KB , 800x800 , LukratsaITQ17.png )
84901

Tammi's gotten pretty good at the smile.
>>
No. 84902 ID: dc4b80

Hey Lukratsa you got to meet Polo during the filming of the movies right?

What was your mental image of her after having read the script and heard the stories. And how did it compare to meeting her in person.

I mean we know what she is like but whats it like meeting this tiny little lady with such a huge rep for the first time.

Also if you got to meet Rokoa or one of the clones what was that like.
>>
No. 84903 ID: 2fd516

>>84901
Daaang, that's not bad.
>>
No. 84906 ID: d8a627

>>84893
Whoa, I've only seen those ridged eyebrows on Mountain Kobolds. Lin, do you have Mountainous ancestors, or is there some other reason for the eyebrows? Not just your brows, I notice you've even got the snap maw?!
Zizi and Kiki seem to have the two-repeating syllables of their father, Vivi, but what about Fen? Are the names a lineage thing, or did you just happen to randomly decide on those names?
>I prefer people not know how to pander to me.
Ah, so you enjoy seeing the fumbling of others attempting to keep you happy. You seem to be a rather relaxed guy, actually, it must be hard to bust your groove. How rare is it, exactly, that somebody actually riles some anger from you?
>The Pomi had many rituals of the spirit on their homeworld that they quickly abandoned for sake of technology.
There are actually entire tribes who have taken up technology. Pilon brought up Viln, who did not simply take up technology, but rather, he took it up as a soldier, so that Traditions could be kept with the exception of one job. We haven't seen how it ends up, but I'm sure there will be full tribes like that by your point in time.
How did you end up a slave, if I may ask? How long ago was it?
>>84899
>>84900
>>84901
That is damned awesome.
Tammi, what was your upbringing? City/hive type, any aliens nearby, etc?
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No. 84912 ID: d470e9

This thread is full, so a new thread is going to happen soon, either through BTE2 or ITQ11. Questions asked since the last batch will be answered in the next thread as usual. While this isn't a democracy, I'm going to be easy to sway if there's a stronger opinion in favor of one over the other.

http://strawpoll.me/2417790

Note that this is only to signal boost a relevant choice; discussion should happen on the tgchan IRC.
>>
No. 84921 ID: 921be1

>>84912
Just got to say, I think this is best. The amount of question on your world and characters really flooded ITQ. The whole BTE really deserves its own thread. And it keeps Tory and such from drowning in Fluffy
Wolverine TM space bunnies.
>>
No. 84932 ID: d470e9

Although I doubt it will change the flow of things, here's a poll with more options. y/n was rather lacking.

http://strawpoll.me/2419718
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