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When I get ideas for an original fic, I never seem to have time to write it down. It's annoying, because as a teenager I'd write fiction during study hall and lunch, but I don't anymore.
Maybe it's because I have only so much time to be creative, and I know that my fiber arts things will actually get finished -- and are much better at satisifying my 'busy hands' needs -- than writing stories do.
On that remark, I'm writing down notes, in the faint hope that they'll germinate, or at least clear out of my head for a while. It doesn't help that I like design alien cultures more than I working on coherent plots, either.
The Premise
The Te-tse-te-tli (I'm trying to use non-English sounds, but ones I can actually pronounce myself) are hermoaphroditic dinosaurian aliens, with feathers and all that. They're influenced by the Laeseks from Carla Speed McNeil's FINDER, and a dinosaurian charater from an old obscure comic book called FUSION -- there's only so many ways you can make intelligent dinosaurs, after all.
Biologically, they're odd because they're born/hatched as identical quadruplates (like armadillos!). Any group of quadruplates is a 'tetrad', and regard as an individual person by the Te-tse-te-tli -- the basic prounoun in the language translates as "we-four", although there is a singular pronoun that is used when an individual is operating separate from its identical siblings. Tetrads are possibly telepathic amongst the siblings, or just so good at groupthink among themselves that they might as well be.
Cloning is a big part of the culture. While sexual reproduction is not unknown, it's considered less satisfactory because of the unpredictablity of results -- tetrads that are the result of sexual reproduction are 'experimentals' and are looked at as potentially troublesome by normal society. The most common social units are the 'array' -- which is tetrads all cloned from one original source, and the 'lineage' -- which are genetically linked arrays.
Te-tse-te-tli are also experts at mindmapping. They regularly copy their minds, and will edit and copy them into new bodies. An array will be mindcopyed from the most stable/successful member of the progenitor tetrad, with tweaks as determined by the ranking members of the array's lineage (for a new array) or the eldest-self of the array (if the array is established). Sometimes this means that two or more mindmaps are combined, or a mindmap is so heavily edited that the personality will be very basic and encouraged to grow into directions the progenitor did not folow.
Socially, the society is ranked, with a 'solar' tetrad being 'orbited' by lower status tetrads. However, the most highly individual on the planet is just that, an individual. The 'Wheel of Heaven' is genetically and mentally engineered by the best experts, to be the best ruler and an intermediary between the living and the gods. The 'Wheel' is surrounded by four individuals created from the the most talented/established arrays on planet.
Te-tse-te-tli gods are partly archetypes of the Te-tse-te-tli culture, and partly ansectors. From a Te-tse-te-tli perspective, when an individual dies, they become part of their progenitor in the afterlife. Te-tse-te-tli believe each array has a continuous soul, and that when indivuals in the array die, all their experience accumulates into their ancestor. Eventually, the ancestor accumulates enough experience to fade into a god, which can elevate the rank of the array into the highest levels of society or ends the array, as its soul no longer need a prescence in the physical world to sustain it.
Te-tse-te-tli came into conflict with humans over planetary colonization, since both species require similar temperature/water/oxygen levels.
The problems were exacerbated when the Te-tse-te-tli cloned the first humans they encountered (after accidentally killing them) to use as interfaces. Interfacing (or more sinisterly, masking) is how Te-tse-te-tli diplomacy works. Non-related lineages will collaborate to create tetrads that share the genes of both lineages and are mindprinted from carefully spliced mindmaps -- once these individuals are constructed and functional, all business between lineages are conducted using them as intermediaries. The creation of Interfaces can be very fraught, as trust between non-related lineages is shaky at best.
Masking, on the other hand, is the theft of an indivudual by a non-related lineage, cloning of that individual, and creation and installation of a mindmap that mimics the original personality well enough to be unremarked but which is loyal to the lineage that cloned it that it will infiltrate the lineage that it is genetically a member of and help destroy it. It's a very nasty form of warfare among the Te-tse-te-tli, especially because a Mask is considered a threat to the array's soul's integrity.
The Te-tse-te-tli did not understand Humans in the slightest, and their attempts to make Interfaces came up against Human attitudes towards cloning (which prohibit it as a threat of death of species by monoculture). The fact that they'd modified the cloned Humans to comply with their requirements (such as adding a syrinx to the anatomy, for better language production) and their aesethetics (humans are not nearly brightly colored enough for the Te-tse-te-tli), did not sit well either.
The planet of Warm Nest is a colonial world for both species, and the treaty peace is tense at best because of the incomprehensibility of both species. The story follows three characters, Pri Vo Uu, Gallowsfoot, and Icewind as they get involved in the conflicts between the Human colonists and the Te-tse-te-tli settlers.
Main Characters:
Gallowsfoot of Joh's Array -- an Interface, and a member of a junior tetrad of the oldest Human-Interface in existance. He's smart, compassionate, and very dedicated to his array and lineage. Because of the importance of contacting an alien rate without a xenocidal war resulting, his array was adopted by a lineage in the first orbit around the local Wheel of Heaven, Annular Eclipse. His eldest-self (the oldest living member of his array) is Wind-in-the-Grass, who was the first contact with the Humans, and Gallowsfoot tries to keep up the reputation of his array, even though he's in a less prestigious position than he expected, and he's shepparding his youngest-self, a newly cloned tetrad of his array, who are so wet behind the ears that they don't even have individual names yet -- they're also as insatiably curious as terrier puppies, and about as bouncy.
Pri Vo Uu -- a Human terraformer, monitoring the local ecosystems. She's most concerned about a biome collapse from incompatible lifeforms (Terran vs. Te-tse-t) catastrophically interacting. She meets Gallowsfoot when his youngerself blunders into one of her monitoring sites and ruins the equipment. She's also interested in Te-tse-te-tli genetic technology, but the cloning freaks her out (as it does most Humans)
Icewind of Wind-Sings-to-Her-Child's Array -- a middleself of the solar array of Gallowfoot's lineage. She's in charge of the local lineage property, which is a pharmecutical herd. It's an important industry for the lineage, but not politically involved. This suits Icewind fine, because she's not really designed for political manuveuring -- personnel management is her speciality. She's finding Humans annoying to the point of wishing they were just considered vermin (or varelse).
Annular Eclipse, 3rd iteration -- the planetary Wheel of Heaven. Tends to be underestimated by Humans because she looks so young. She was rushed into production when her previous Iteration was killed in a sub-orbital vehicle crash; since her mindmap hadn't been updated recently, she lost several years of memory, and while she knows what happpened in the interval, it's not visceral knowledge, but book-knowledge. Thus her emotional reactions can be flat to Te-tse-te-tli *and* Human expectations.
Under Glaciers of Joh's Array -- an indiviual of the youngest-self of Gallowsfoot's array, he's been isolated from his tetrad and his mindprint is rather different from other three quadruplates. He serves as one of Annular Eclipse's four sukkals, and he looks like a prepubscent Human rather than a post-adolscent as the rest of his array. He was brought online early, with a highly edited mindprint -- a combination of the standard Joh mind, Wind-in-the-Grass' personal memories, and Annular Eclipse's own. He is just as dangerous as his name implies (in full, 'Under Glaciers Death Sleeps', a cultural allusion to volcanic eruptions under glaciers that can cause catstrophic mudslides).
Plot
Needs work -- I was thinking some sort of ecological disaster is looming, because the humans are cheating/breaking the rules/being careless about what they're supposed to let go wild. The Te-tse-te-tli aren't being careless, but they find it difficult to communicate with Humnas even using an Interface, and so are reacting by introducing even more incompatible lifeforms. They are also hissing, raiding for biologicals, and all sorts of petty border strife that might erupt into a genocidal war.
I'm willing to put this kind of thing on a filter so I don't bore too many people with my ramblings... just give me a holler if that interests you.
Maybe it's because I have only so much time to be creative, and I know that my fiber arts things will actually get finished -- and are much better at satisifying my 'busy hands' needs -- than writing stories do.
On that remark, I'm writing down notes, in the faint hope that they'll germinate, or at least clear out of my head for a while. It doesn't help that I like design alien cultures more than I working on coherent plots, either.
The Premise
The Te-tse-te-tli (I'm trying to use non-English sounds, but ones I can actually pronounce myself) are hermoaphroditic dinosaurian aliens, with feathers and all that. They're influenced by the Laeseks from Carla Speed McNeil's FINDER, and a dinosaurian charater from an old obscure comic book called FUSION -- there's only so many ways you can make intelligent dinosaurs, after all.
Biologically, they're odd because they're born/hatched as identical quadruplates (like armadillos!). Any group of quadruplates is a 'tetrad', and regard as an individual person by the Te-tse-te-tli -- the basic prounoun in the language translates as "we-four", although there is a singular pronoun that is used when an individual is operating separate from its identical siblings. Tetrads are possibly telepathic amongst the siblings, or just so good at groupthink among themselves that they might as well be.
Cloning is a big part of the culture. While sexual reproduction is not unknown, it's considered less satisfactory because of the unpredictablity of results -- tetrads that are the result of sexual reproduction are 'experimentals' and are looked at as potentially troublesome by normal society. The most common social units are the 'array' -- which is tetrads all cloned from one original source, and the 'lineage' -- which are genetically linked arrays.
Te-tse-te-tli are also experts at mindmapping. They regularly copy their minds, and will edit and copy them into new bodies. An array will be mindcopyed from the most stable/successful member of the progenitor tetrad, with tweaks as determined by the ranking members of the array's lineage (for a new array) or the eldest-self of the array (if the array is established). Sometimes this means that two or more mindmaps are combined, or a mindmap is so heavily edited that the personality will be very basic and encouraged to grow into directions the progenitor did not folow.
Socially, the society is ranked, with a 'solar' tetrad being 'orbited' by lower status tetrads. However, the most highly individual on the planet is just that, an individual. The 'Wheel of Heaven' is genetically and mentally engineered by the best experts, to be the best ruler and an intermediary between the living and the gods. The 'Wheel' is surrounded by four individuals created from the the most talented/established arrays on planet.
Te-tse-te-tli gods are partly archetypes of the Te-tse-te-tli culture, and partly ansectors. From a Te-tse-te-tli perspective, when an individual dies, they become part of their progenitor in the afterlife. Te-tse-te-tli believe each array has a continuous soul, and that when indivuals in the array die, all their experience accumulates into their ancestor. Eventually, the ancestor accumulates enough experience to fade into a god, which can elevate the rank of the array into the highest levels of society or ends the array, as its soul no longer need a prescence in the physical world to sustain it.
Te-tse-te-tli came into conflict with humans over planetary colonization, since both species require similar temperature/water/oxygen levels.
The problems were exacerbated when the Te-tse-te-tli cloned the first humans they encountered (after accidentally killing them) to use as interfaces. Interfacing (or more sinisterly, masking) is how Te-tse-te-tli diplomacy works. Non-related lineages will collaborate to create tetrads that share the genes of both lineages and are mindprinted from carefully spliced mindmaps -- once these individuals are constructed and functional, all business between lineages are conducted using them as intermediaries. The creation of Interfaces can be very fraught, as trust between non-related lineages is shaky at best.
Masking, on the other hand, is the theft of an indivudual by a non-related lineage, cloning of that individual, and creation and installation of a mindmap that mimics the original personality well enough to be unremarked but which is loyal to the lineage that cloned it that it will infiltrate the lineage that it is genetically a member of and help destroy it. It's a very nasty form of warfare among the Te-tse-te-tli, especially because a Mask is considered a threat to the array's soul's integrity.
The Te-tse-te-tli did not understand Humans in the slightest, and their attempts to make Interfaces came up against Human attitudes towards cloning (which prohibit it as a threat of death of species by monoculture). The fact that they'd modified the cloned Humans to comply with their requirements (such as adding a syrinx to the anatomy, for better language production) and their aesethetics (humans are not nearly brightly colored enough for the Te-tse-te-tli), did not sit well either.
The planet of Warm Nest is a colonial world for both species, and the treaty peace is tense at best because of the incomprehensibility of both species. The story follows three characters, Pri Vo Uu, Gallowsfoot, and Icewind as they get involved in the conflicts between the Human colonists and the Te-tse-te-tli settlers.
Main Characters:
Gallowsfoot of Joh's Array -- an Interface, and a member of a junior tetrad of the oldest Human-Interface in existance. He's smart, compassionate, and very dedicated to his array and lineage. Because of the importance of contacting an alien rate without a xenocidal war resulting, his array was adopted by a lineage in the first orbit around the local Wheel of Heaven, Annular Eclipse. His eldest-self (the oldest living member of his array) is Wind-in-the-Grass, who was the first contact with the Humans, and Gallowsfoot tries to keep up the reputation of his array, even though he's in a less prestigious position than he expected, and he's shepparding his youngest-self, a newly cloned tetrad of his array, who are so wet behind the ears that they don't even have individual names yet -- they're also as insatiably curious as terrier puppies, and about as bouncy.
Pri Vo Uu -- a Human terraformer, monitoring the local ecosystems. She's most concerned about a biome collapse from incompatible lifeforms (Terran vs. Te-tse-t) catastrophically interacting. She meets Gallowsfoot when his youngerself blunders into one of her monitoring sites and ruins the equipment. She's also interested in Te-tse-te-tli genetic technology, but the cloning freaks her out (as it does most Humans)
Icewind of Wind-Sings-to-Her-Child's Array -- a middleself of the solar array of Gallowfoot's lineage. She's in charge of the local lineage property, which is a pharmecutical herd. It's an important industry for the lineage, but not politically involved. This suits Icewind fine, because she's not really designed for political manuveuring -- personnel management is her speciality. She's finding Humans annoying to the point of wishing they were just considered vermin (or varelse).
Annular Eclipse, 3rd iteration -- the planetary Wheel of Heaven. Tends to be underestimated by Humans because she looks so young. She was rushed into production when her previous Iteration was killed in a sub-orbital vehicle crash; since her mindmap hadn't been updated recently, she lost several years of memory, and while she knows what happpened in the interval, it's not visceral knowledge, but book-knowledge. Thus her emotional reactions can be flat to Te-tse-te-tli *and* Human expectations.
Under Glaciers of Joh's Array -- an indiviual of the youngest-self of Gallowsfoot's array, he's been isolated from his tetrad and his mindprint is rather different from other three quadruplates. He serves as one of Annular Eclipse's four sukkals, and he looks like a prepubscent Human rather than a post-adolscent as the rest of his array. He was brought online early, with a highly edited mindprint -- a combination of the standard Joh mind, Wind-in-the-Grass' personal memories, and Annular Eclipse's own. He is just as dangerous as his name implies (in full, 'Under Glaciers Death Sleeps', a cultural allusion to volcanic eruptions under glaciers that can cause catstrophic mudslides).
Plot
Needs work -- I was thinking some sort of ecological disaster is looming, because the humans are cheating/breaking the rules/being careless about what they're supposed to let go wild. The Te-tse-te-tli aren't being careless, but they find it difficult to communicate with Humnas even using an Interface, and so are reacting by introducing even more incompatible lifeforms. They are also hissing, raiding for biologicals, and all sorts of petty border strife that might erupt into a genocidal war.
I'm willing to put this kind of thing on a filter so I don't bore too many people with my ramblings... just give me a holler if that interests you.
Tags:
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From:
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From:
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And I'm going to try to keep writing notes and maybe even get a plot out. However, not only am I a Random Access Writer, but I tend to get Kudzu Plot as well.
Pri Vo Uu is a character I wrote about in high school. I'm amazed that she's still alive in my head.
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Basically, Human souls are basically raindrops, instead of the lakes and seas that the Te-tse-te-tli souls can be, from a Te-tse-te-tli perspective. And individual raindrops are nowhere near as important as lakes and seas.
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On the other topic. I have discovered the same thing - when I craft, my writing is non-existant except for the fiber blog. When I am writing heavily - no finished craft objects. It's like I have a finite amount of creative energy and when the well is dry, it's DRY.
A balance between the two endevors is not something I've been able to find as yet.
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Writing comes in last, because I know I can finish the craft items, and sell them (whether I get a fair price is debtable). If I write a book, would I be able to sell it? I don't know.
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Nice new icon too :o)
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The icon is my new tam, which I won't be wearing again until winter. You might have missed it when explained how I made it. (http://neotoma.livejournal.com/76729.html)
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I did miss the post about the fab hat - I think it's the week I was work-obsessed. It's very nice and I can't wait to see the finished jacket too.