askerian | Mermaids in space -- character/society brainstorming

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ofic: space mermaids

Mermaids in space -- character/society brainstorming

One major problem I have with my two-tails society in the Mermaids In Space ofic is that, um, I still have no actual character living in that society. Therefore, they're boring to me because I can't imagine "How would X interact with Liadan/Arun/Blue/One of the pirate crew?"

-A two-tail is what happens when a major genetic modification (or several) that was done to a human's genes to make the body grow in a mermaid's shape backfires. (List of the modifications and how they can fuck up underneath.) The results can be totally random, so most of the two-tails can't actually pass as normal, unmodified humans. As a matter of fact, a majority of them are crippled in some way and a lot are what we'd consider deformed. Most of the two-tails are descending from human survivors who crossbred with mermaid children who turned out not-mermaid-enough, though even to this day there are still mermaids who have crippled children and abandon them on an island, adding fresh-if-messed-up genetics to the lot. (Mermaid genetics are still unstable.)

-Two-tails practice a form of eugenism, where people whose mutations turn out to be favorable are encouraged to breed, and where every few years they "trade" healthy people in age of having children between archipelagos to strengthen the lines. Some people are strongly encouraged not to breed when it turns out their mutations are severe (though they have a narrower definition of that spectrum than we would). As a result, it most often happens that the person you love and live with isn't the father or mother of the children. That doesn't matter. It also happens that many people with favorable genetics end up making more children than they can raise, because they know couples who want children and will take good care of them. Everyone knows who they're biologically related to, but in everyday life the only thing that matters is who raised you.

-One of the mutations was empathy/telepathy. Mermaids have it, though they only practice sending thoughts, as getting in someone's head and rooting around is seen as a horrible invasion of privacy. Two-tails, being often crippled and thus in need of a high level of cooperation, have no such taboo. So everyone is always aware of people's surface thoughts and feelings, and reacts to each other's needs accordingly.
(Blue finds it creepy as fuck, because sometimes everyone acts as if they're sharing the same brain, and seeing as he's a receiver and not a sender he has no way to block out the "take place in the collective"-ness of it.)

-They live on small islands in archipelagos. There is a lot of seismic activity, which means a lot of the islands are actually small volcanos and there are tsunamis rather often. Also, three moons => complicated tides. There isn't a lot of wood to make houses or boats with but I'm sure they found something suitably alien to compensate. >.> Climate is rather tropical.

-Medicine: They probably use herbal medicine a lot (haha, I need to make up plants with fun psychedelic effects) and they practice small operations. I know they know about cesarean section, because lots of them have the same problems as the mer about giving birth, though of course the fatality rate is higher than what you'd get in a hospital. It's probably a lot lower than what you do get in a mer pod.
I wonder if some mer pods ask them for assistance -- a lot of mer see being physically crippled as something hideous and monster-like reflecting a similar defect of the soul, and if a band of young mer find a two-tails swimming around, things can get messy. But perhaps in some places it's done... Perhaps in secret, or the men pretend they don't know -- merpeople do a lot of that to save face, since they usually don't lie. Hm. Hmm hmm hmm. I'd have to define what they can offer in return. >_>

So... The major trait of the two-tails society is cooperation, enforced by telepathic awareness of everyone's needs and feelings. Basically, you can't be comfortable if your neighbor isn't, so you just do little things to make them comfortable as a matter of course (or you get away from them, but that's not really polite). The major fault in a person is selfishness.

I still have to make them a religion. I wonder if they'd worship the sun and moons like the mermaids do, but in a way that fits their society. They don't have harem-like family situations like the mermaids do... It's more of a "whoever gets along" thing, since they're really not encouraged to be violent with each other.

... Bwahaha, it's a hippies commune.

I still need to work more on their society, what they think of many key points as a group and how acceptable it is to have a differing opinion. Also, since they're on different islands, they all might have slightly different societies... auuugh.

***

You're a merperson as long as you have a functional tail. If you have other problems, such as low lung capacity or thin skin, you might not be a long-surviving merperson, but you're still a merperson. Many pods accept long fingers; webbed fingers and weirdly colored skin are purely cosmetic defects. All other defects lead to a newborn to be abandoned. A mer pod might accept a snake-mer, but the mutation is mostly present as a cultivated, bred-for line amongst the two-tails.

For reference, this is what a normal mer tail looks like.

(rare, uncommon, common, very common)
(Benign, Serious, Crippling, Mortal)

Skin color different for the lower body (purely cosmetic, implemented to make merpeople look less naked by their original creators):
-No different tail color (common) (Benign)
-Irregular patches of color over the whole body (very common)(Benign)
-Entirely of tail color (common) (Benign)

Eyes resilient to saltwater :
-Dry eyes (uncommon) (Benign)
-Blindness (rare) (Crippling)

Thicker skin:
-Overly hardened skin leading to lack of tactile sensitivity (uncommon) (Benign)
-Slower healing rate (uncommon) (Benign)
-Thin, easily waterlogged or scratched skin, leading to infection and difficulty to maintain core temperature, which leads to catching a cold easily (common) (Serious)
-Ingrown hairs (common) (Benign)

Very sparse body hair:
-Ingrown hairs (common) (Benign)
-Fuzzy mermaids! (rare) (Benign) (XD)

Augmented lung capacity:
-Completely non-functional lungs (rare) (Mortal at birth)
-Human-normal or lower lung capacity (uncommon) (Serious)
-Chronic asthma (uncommon) (Serious)

Slightly modified hipbones
-Unmodified hipbones leading to pinched nerves in tail (uncommon) (Serious)
-Unmodified hipbones leading in difficulties to give birth (common) (Serious-Mortal)

Vestigial leg bones:
-Solid leg bones, reducing tail flexibility (uncommon) (Crippling)
-Reduced vaginal opening leading to childbirth complications (uncommon) (Serious-Mortal)
-Vestigial arm bones (rare) (Crippling)
-No arms at all (rare) (Crippling)

Elongated coccyx vertebras (tailbone)
-Human-sized coccyx: If linked to vestigial leg bones, leads to partially or fully separated but useless legs (common) (Crippling)
-Human-sized coccyx: If linked to normal bones, potentially functional legs (u) (Benign)
-Knee-length: either dwarf tail or more or less functional lower legs, though fused at the thigh area (common) (Crippling)
-Too-long : augmenting body mass, leading to heart fatigue (rare) (Serious)
-Scoliosis (common) (Serious)
-Elongated bone spurs, which can stretch or pierce the skin, leading to itches, infections, and, if broken, bone necrosis (common) (Benign to Mortal)

Integrated coccyx vertebras and leg muscles:
-Separate legs and tail, which can emerge from the back of the body at any point from hipbones to ankle (uncommon) (Serious-Crippling)
-Weakened or unpractical-ly attached leg muscles, making locomotion difficult (common) (Crippling)
-Improperly attached arm muscles (rare) (Crippling)

Elongated toes
-Short toes leading to slowness in water (common) (Serious)
-Very long toes, more easily breakable (uncommon) (Benign)
-Stubby or elongated fingers, lowering dexterity (common) (Benign)

Thicker nails
-Soft nails, more easily waterlogged and torn off (uncommon) (Benign)

Webbed toes
-Non-webbed toes, making swimming difficult (common) (Serious)
-Too-thin webbing, easily torn (uncommon) (Crippling)
-Too-long and loose webbing, reducing stroke efficiency (common) (Benign)

Webbed fingers up to the first knuckle
-Non-webbed fingers (very common) (Benign)
-Too-thick webbing, reducing dexterity (uncommon) (Benign)
-Webbing up to the second knuckle, slightly reducing dexterity (common) (Benign)

So far only three character ideas, and they're more physical than mental. But then I'm ~~shallow~~ arteestic and I need to see those guys before I decide what they're like. XD

-SNAKE MER. Very long backbone. Tail flukes might be normal or smaller than they should be. Heart fatigue due to increase in body mass (they'd be a fourth to a third heavier than a normal mer). It's probably one of the breeding lines, if it's efficient. The character I sketched also had elongated, webbed fingers, but with that tail he's probably better off in the water, and that might be good to help him steer.

-Most bred-for body type: Two normal-ish legs, ending in long-toed, webbed feet, and an elongated tailbone that isn't fused to the legs. Bit hard to walk (they probably move like ducks, with those toes XD) but successfully amphibious. I wonder if they would have a special place in two-tails society, and what pressures and opportunities that would give them, and how that would shape a person. Would that make them more arrogant and more prone to leading the group? Or more humble because they've been given a great gift and they have to work harder for society? Hmm. if THAT is the expectation, it might make some of them resentful that they have to work more, even if it's because they're the ones who CAN... Hrrrrm.

-Blind -- this one mostly created so he/she would NOT fit with the "blind, but compensate by seeing in some other way, as in being super-wise, insightful, or having such powers that it isn't a problem" stereotype. Being blind from birth, the person has no idea what sight is like and is therefore unable to interpret any images telepathy might transmit in a way we would call sight. (note to self, look into synesthesia for similar manifestations) Not that telepathy transmits images like a video-camera -- it's mostly notions, impressions, and sometimes words. Person would most definitely not be wise, patient and possessing unrivaled powers of character analysis.

And then of course there are the patches of color.

The original creators of the mermaids figured it would be pretty cool and more mermaid-like to make their tail look colored. So the upper body is supposed to be normal skin-colored, and since the colonists were mostly from Celtic countries that means white and pale. (why celtic? because that's where I found most of the names-that-mean-a-color I'm using. XD ... Oh man skin cancer. Urk.) The lower body can be any other color of the normal, unmodified human spectrum, any color that is a mix of red and yellow pigments (the color is often more intense than normal skin would be, though never pure red or sun-yellow), or grayish (which means the pigment cells died) -- though it doesn't dilute as well as normal humans would, so when the father has a black tail and the mother a red tail, the kid might end up with patches instead of a mix.

Also, the color tends to travel -- Liadan, for example, has a flesh-colored stretch of skin on her tail, and a couple of small gray patches on her upper arm and back. But, to give an example, Arun was wearing a black bodysuit that only left his head, hands and part of his feet exposed, and she never realized it wasn't his skin color. It would be a rare-ish skin pattern, but not impossible. You might also get inverted colors -- flesh on the bottom and tail colors on top! Or be entirely skin colored, or have stripes, or sooty eyesockets, or dots, or, hell, the map of India on your chest.

I think I really want someone with black arms up to their shoulders. and i shall call them Sasuke. *__* Apart from that, I dunno, but it's something fun to keep in mind. Ahhh, I already want to draw them. Maybe I should try that first and then try to come up with a personality. XD;

Anyway. I'm trying to get at the problem via two paths -- make up the society and hopefully I'll figure out what type of person lives in it, and patch together a body type and ...well, same thing, figure out what type of person lives in it. Still, if any of you has character types to offer, please do. (or suggestion on the civilisation, or biologic/genetic/physical "you forgot this/you're doing it wrong", go for it. XD) Writing it all down helps a bit, already.

I just have to have a fuzzy mermaid now. XD

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For construction, if they have access to large numbers of shells they probably use tabby.

They might not have trees, but do they have bamboo? It's an amazingly fast growing grass so even one growth season would yield some building material.

If they can hunt some sort of large-ish critter with useful amounts of skin that could be tanned and used for tent walls and roofs on more permanent buildings.

For areas you want your two-legs to assist mermaid births, they could trade deep water fishes/critters with medical uses. Some of those deep sea deadly things have useful venoms/poisons if prepared properly. It strikes me with the culture you have set this would be the sort of thing that would "officially not exist". The women of childbearing years would know about it and would know that if you needed the help you'd have to bring payment.

Oooooooh!! Thank you for the construction info. *____* Also, bamboo is possible, I figure it resists floods rather well, if it's flexible? I had this image in mind that they would have a lot of houses floating on the water so that they'd just go up and down with the tides, and they could float away to some deep area of the sea if a tsunami was coming so they wouldn't get smashed on the rocks, but I'm not sure if that would actually work... They'd have to have a lot of advance warning, wouldn't they? Hrrm. I need some kind of info on how tsunamis are created and unfurl and everything.

Tanned skin, noted. And ooh, poisons. You're right. Thank you, thank you ^_____^

Well what makes tsunamis so destructive is when the water depth is less than the wavelength and it starts to feel the bottom. The drag on the bottom makes the wave "pile up". Far out at sea it just a very long wave swell, it's only dangerous when it gets close to land. Just how one develops depends a lot on the contour of the sea floor. One coming into something like the east coast of the US would have about 6 miles of continental shelf to pile up on before it hit the shore. One coming into Hawaii would only have the relatively short distance of the mountainside underwater so it would build and crash very quickly.

We can predict them now because we have satellites that can monitor their distance to sea level precisely enough to know when a large wave is passing under them. I suspect that with the technology your characters have they wouldn't be able to predict it in time to get far enough from land to make moving off that useful.

You're making me dredge stuff up from classes about 15 years ago you know. :D

A quick site on the formation of tsunami.

*makes sweet, sweet love to you~* ♥♥♥

In a totally platonic and non-creepy way, of course. >.>

*makes sweet, sweet love to you~* ♥♥♥

♥♥♥

In a totally platonic and non-creepy way, of course. >.>

Aww... *pout* ;)

*Delurks*

Jute is a flood-resistant plant, and it grows quickly and you can weave stuff out of it. Bamboo idea is good. =D They can make stuff out of mud, or live altered caves. ooooh, massive cave network....

And two-tails can still live mostly on fish, right? And there can be an illegal goods (plants, materials, AND services) trade going on. Plants like medicinal herbs, services like, as you said, childbirth things, materials like.... stuff to make baskets out of (and I am for some reason totally imagining a mer-lamp, made of that glowy thing on the deep underwater fishes).

And about tanned skin, remember that the original ....creators(?) had constraints too. Like maybe only having caucasian volunteers/test subjects. But you could still add tanned skin if you want, I guess. ;D

Ooh, jute! Now I have to figure out of the original colonists would have had a reason to import it. Bamboo, I think, can be decorative, but jute? I don't know. XD;

Ohh, I wouldn't be surprised if they had cave networks. *__*

Mer-lamp! Bwee, now I have the image in mind too. ♥

XD Tanned skin as in animal skin that's been treated to use as a tent or blanket.

thank you, thank you ^^

That's okay. =D
I really like/appreciate it when authors put research into their stories, so I love seeing posts like this from you.

....Underwater cave-network that have pockets of air (seen Atlantis? XD. I can totally picture the merpeople going there to raise the youngest children, or using it to farm some kind of rare plant....OOH! TEMPLE.

I'm going off to draw a mer-lamp now.

The original creators may have tried to make the skin MORE resistant to UV and the like. That might actually help explain the wandering patches of color.

Oh, and you forgot to mention "arms fused to vertebrae as well" as one of the potential complications. Also - telepathy is a modification as well, and presumably it therefore will present a gradient of mutations...

I figure the arms can't fuse with the vertebras because there's the ribcage in the middle -- but actually that could create some very badly deformed people. ... But i'm not sure they could survive being twisted that badly very long. D: Will have to research, thanks.

I like the artificially UV-resistant idea. *__*

Poor Blue and his collective-mind issues. D: I imagine that'd give just about anyone thee creeps. But how much would it effect him? Would he just be aware of them/him of them? Or would they start trying to 'subvert' him by adding him to the collective (taking care of needs). Or would he subconsciously go along with them, realize what he's doing and get pissed?

And on another entirely, how would Liadan react to the two-tails? Would she be open-minded (so to speak), or reluctant, or willing to at least try and get along (after all, Blue and Arun are two-tails, and they aren't so bad).

The social structure--or what you have of it so far--seems really interesting. But how would the trading happen? You mention that these are small volcanic islands, with little wood. How would the transportation happen? (What the mers do for c-sections? But not all mers do that...) Would there be any negotiation about who would be traded? Would it be families or just individuals? How would trading impact hierarchy (of there is one--collective mind and all that.) How often? Would any trading happen when the protags are around? If so. would they go with the traded? (Would they need to island-hop/get to specific place? Is this viable; would they be forced to stay because they were 'traded?')

As far as what the mers can offer in return for cesarean sections, perhaps rare plants or animals/animal products from the deep? Stuff that two-tails can't get, but would have practical use, like medicine. After all, that would be a pretty fair trade, in my book. Or maybe foodstuffs?

The social structure kinda sounds like Communism, or at least what that 'utopia' strives to be. Everyone helps everyone else for the good of all. Or yes, hippies. HIPPIE LOVE FOR ALL! 8D

As for religion, wouldn't volcano/ocean/earthquake type gods fit more? After all, those forces of nature have a little bit of a greater impact. (Agro-type cultures worship rain/sun/earth gods, fishing/seaside worship weather/ocean and so on and so forth, hunter/gatherer worship forest/tree/predator gods.) If it is a different sort of gods/religion, it should mirror or have marked similarities to the mers. (Each area/island/ have slightly different gods/beliefs/patron? Think Greek polis.)

Please explain 'vestigial arm bones'? I think I get it, but I'm not sure.

The snake mer could do fishing, no? If he or she is better suited to water, bout couldn't survive there, it would seem a viable place in two-leg society, and it would give it a reason to be a desirable trait. Would it be more or less desirable/efficient than normal-ish webbed two-legs? And as the society seems to revolve around making everyone happy so you can be, these would do more work, but what would happen in order to keep them from becoming resentful? (Gift from the gods/demigod status/god-touched status?) That status might make the others resentful, but they do less/easier/less dangerous work, so would it balance? Balance is key, here...

Good idea with the blindness, give more of a...realistic feel to things, more flaws. But what niche would they fill? (watch the young, weave/other craft) Or would they be burdens to everyone else? Might create resentment, though.

Would there be another modification to combat skin cancer/other illness/disease? If mer/two-legs are pale, why not modify for skin cancer while doing everything else?

I don't have much input about the genetic/biologic/anatomical bits. (there's a reason I'm not a scientist or artist. @_@) There are a LOT of variables to think about, so things are most likely going to be a bit complex.

Ooh, fuzzy. ~~I shall hug him and squeeze him and call him George. >3>~~

-I think Blue would have one monster headache. XD He can block people out, but not reliably. Also I don't think they have many personal space issue, and touch makes mental contact a lot harder to block. (now that I think about it, since they have to help each other so much, they really would have no qualms about peeing in public. D: I don't know about having sex, though other people would probably be aware of that even if they hid.) I think he'd tend to start looking for the person calling, and then go "wtf" and be angry at himself. What makes it really weird for the two-tails is that he can't send back, so they're not aware they're swamping him, and his anger and defensive attitude would come as a total surprise for them.

-Liadan: I think she would pity them. She wouldn't think to fear them because all mer have this view of two-tails as weak and sickly. Men would be disgusted, and some women too, but since mermaids are the ones who actually give birth to the kids, there would probably be an element of "you poor thing." She's also curious and easy to get along with. Still, she would find them fascinating in a very weird, "i wouldn't want to live there but it sure is shiny" way.

-Travel: They do have floating materials, from floating seaweed, giant underwater pseudo-fish creatures' bones, and bamboo if I decide to add it. (Mers don't do C-section, the women just die. That, or they do an emergency slash-the-belly-open if the mother wants the child saved more than she wants to live, but since they only do that if the birth is really not happening, they often end up with a dead kid too. ;_;)

Trades between islands are probably a matter that is decided collectively. Food and shelter are collective goods, though if you find a handful of yummy but not especially nutritious or otherwise special shrimp, you can share them with whoever you want. I think people organize themselves in families/neighborhoods, where a few people are in charge of cooking what everyone else from that family brings in, and if you have a hungry neighbor you also feed them. Some people might go from place to place to be fed, if they have no link to one family, and in exchange offer services or other things to members of the family... I'll have to think on it.

There is a hierarchy, though it's not very structured -- more like "council of people who collectively decide", and then underneath there's hunters/fishermen, house builders, cooks, and child-rearing people, more or less of the same importance. They tend to lead when they're in their own sphere of influence, but will give way when they're in someone else's. When you're in dangerous parts of the sea, there is a leader, because if danger comes you can't waste time looking for a consensus, but they train and share their thoughts on the best courses of action before they dive there. Otherwise it's kinda : one expert says "I think it would be good to do like this" and another says "i agree on this part of your idea, but it would be even better if we added that" and the third one goes "that would work, if we take care to remember this, any objections? No? then let's go like we agreed." Or sometimes they even disagree, but if they can't decide and it's important, they bring in someone uninvolved but competent in this field and go with their opinion, provided it also works. XD

People who are traded go voluntarily. It happens rather often that living day-in day-out around someone will make you not be able to stand them, especially if you can read thoughts, so it's better to leave than to poison the atmosphere. Or they just want a change of scenery. It's common enough to come back home after a few months or years. The crew won't be traded because they're honored guests... and also because the island who got them really wants some of their genes first, and they don't agree easily. XD (and also because the crew would shoot them full of holes if they tried, but they're not trying. so.)

-About the sex--why not have it as more polite to have sex where they can't be seen, such as inside. In a 'ok, I know you're going at it like bunnies, but I don't necessarily want my kids seeing that. And how do they view sexuality? Especially concerning the kids. You mention the fact that people are aware, what impact--if any--does this have on what kids know/when sexual maturity is reached (in the sense that it's ok.) (this totally isn't so I can plot fic. Hush. >>) And as far as peeing in public--what about sanitation and such? Are they aware of the need for cleanliness? They prolly don't have any, but I prefer to have stuff spelled out to me. (If not, it'd prolly drive Arun bonkers. Blue too, at least a bit 'ew, gross, get awayfrommestoptoooouuching! DD:)

Dude, who would imprint as your sibs/parents, then? D: What's the feelings towards incest, both of the genetic and those-who-raised-you kind?! D8 Gah. Doggamn brain, this has little-to-no use. ~~Well. 'Cept for psychology, which is shiney like a ninja, hee. @O@~~ Blargh.

-(I meant the what the mers give in return for c-sections. *cough* Sorry I wasn't clear enough. nOn;)

-That hierarchy would KILL anyone with an (overly) organized mind. xD And the people-trading makes a lot of sense.

Totally out to the blue--no, not that one--but how/where do the mer sleep? You may have already said and I didn't see or forgot. If that's the case, I'm sorry.

-Actually I'm not sure they would even hide when they have sex. They'd make a token effort at being in a private place, but I'm not sure they'd be too bothered. I know mermaids often have sex in the middle of the pod's current "camping" area because it just isn't safe anywhere else. People just pretend not to see them. XD (bwee fic.) And urine is sterile so it wouldn't matter much if they didn't wipe, and most people are in and out of the sea all day. I'd worry more about the other one, but since it tends to stink they probably have designated places for it. XD Just, you know, many can't "go to the bathroom" alone anyway.
I don't think they're very dirty, but they're not as clean as we are, definitely. Arun would be rather interested, actually, but then he sees it from a researcher's POV.

Your siblings, parents and uncle/aunts are the ones you were raised with, and having sex with them is incest. Your genetic family aren't, but if you have a bad gene, breeding with them is inadvised. ^^

-oops. XD Probably deep-water fish with medicinal properties, or weird plants or something. Maybe special seashells.

-organiwhat? >D Yeah, it's really not the place for a military type. They'd explode. "What chain of command? Those who know about the situation explain to others who don't, is all. Isn't that easier?"

-Mer sleep in nests of floating seaweed. They braid them together. Often some part of them is underwater anyway, but as long as their face isn't, that's okay. They have rafts made of "bones" from giant underwater fish, but those are hard to climb on without capsizing them, so they're reserved for carrying stuff and when they want to put children out of the water.

-Ok, as long as a token effort's made. xD Adn duh, they're surrounded by water. I thnk I lost my brain there, oops. Hm, I was under the impression that Arun was a bit OCD, or overly-structured, or something I can't think of right now--but again, duh, researcher 'this is new and interesting.' *headdesk* See why I like things spelled out to me? xD;

Ok, that makes sense.

-Yeah, my syntax was fucked up. >>;

-*cacklecackle* Hm, none of the protags are going to headexplody, are they? I don't think so, but, yeah, spell it out. n_n;

-Ooh, cool idea. And there's the seaweed again!

-Arun is only OCD about organizing his research. XD But I definitely don't have a solid grasp on him yet, so it's not surprising he gives people impressions I didn't intend. I don't know him enough to write him properly yet.

-Liadan will be confused. She's used to a clear chain of command -- Father => right-hand man => subordinate men/older women depending on area of expertise => younger women => children. And the men also arrange themselves in a hierarchy inside the group. Seeing as two-tails don't base things on gender half as much as they base it on how crippled you are...

-It's only an utopia if you aren't a private person at all. XD There are still introverted, reserved people in this society, and for them it's kind of horrible. And it's stressful not to be able to hide some of your feelings -- say, your best friend likes X, but you can't stand the sight of X, but they aren't actually a bad person and make your friend happy. You'd want to shut up and let them be happy. It's not really possible there, and that creates some tensions. XD Also being ambitious, proud, or competitive are seen as bad traits to have -- even though they're often a path to improving yourself or inventing new things. This isn't a society that's going to invent a great many things that aren't related to health, fish-farming and comfort.

-ooooooooohhhh volcanos/deep sea. Yes. *__* Some of their beliefs would overlap mermaids' then. Maybe the moons but only as tide bearers, like a minor deity... *ponders*

-vestigial = kinda like ostrich wings. XD They're still here, just kinda useless. (okay, i know ostrichs use their wings for steering, but. yeah.) Vestigial bones would be tiny, weak and probably incomplete, and would make the limb crippled and stunted. I don't think they'd develop muscles at all if there's no support? Must research research research.

-Snake mer would have to do fishing, yeah, i'm not sure how they could do anything else. XDD I don't think they compare much, because both snakemer and webbed-legs would be successful body-types and hey, as long as it works. D; ... Duck legs are probably seen as the more versatile type, though, but they're probably slower in the water than snakemer. (hahaha god-touched means crazy in that world. Oh hey, i have to figure out what they do with their own crazies.) They probably are honored more than others at parties. Also, they probably tend to get flirted with more. XD

The blind would fill whatever niche they can, depending on their personality and aptitudes. There are lots of people who can't do much, but they all find some way to contribute, even if it's just telling the kids stories so they won't get in people's legs.

Yeah, i'll do that for the skin cancer, thanks ^^

♥ Phew. ♥

-Ohthankgod. I was almost afraid there would be little to no strife. That'd be creepy, it would. But dude. MARX WOULD CRY HAPPY TEARS TO SEE THIS PLACE.

-Happy to tickle your fancy. ;D

-Ok, that's what I thought, but it was more along the lines that the arms are vestigial to begine wit, and that mutation had to do with, well, I dunno. Something wrong with the vestigial arms.

-Snake mer climbs trees? Oh wait, there aren't any. Hm. (Hah, 'gods-touched' was thinking-typo. It usually means crazy, but you know what I meant. Hm, if the crazies are a danger to themselves and others, are thy culled? They serve no purpose, and are dangerous. But if they're harmless, they do they same as the blind, or they pretty much stick with the kids--like taking care of them? (storytiem! :D Interesting stories, no?) Or they never become 'adults'? When are two-legs adults anyway? Coming of age-thing? They were from mers...) Must resist urge...No duckbutt jokes, no. Whut.

Oh, and music? Singing, instruments, what?

XD Haha. They're human beings, of course there's strife. I have to figure out a couple of ways for them to get rid of the pressure, by the way, because being pushed to be nice and cooperative for so long must mean they accumulate quite a bit of rage somewhere deep down. Maybe a festival where they ritually kill an effigy at the turn of seasons? And maybe there's an available "private time" when if you claim it, people will carry you off to some quiet part of the island people don't go, and you're excused from acknowledging other people's emotions. Some distance should be enough to block it. Then a hour or two later they come to get you back. (if they can walk, they can take the time off on their own. >_>) Of course if you take times out too often you're seen as selfish, but it's still a fairly normal practice. ... Hm, I like this.

-♥

-XD Ahh. (btw i just drew a guy with a vestigial arm and tail -- his tail is normalish, but a bit short and it tapers too fast, and his feet/flippers are tiny and just wrong-looking. I'm just glad I'm not doing detail work right now. XD;;;;

-Gentle crazies probably are never recognized as adults, so they'd have no responsibilities. Hm, so they wouldn't breed either! Innnnteresting. Merpeople don't see it like that. You bleed, you're a woman, the end. They just don't let them raise the kids. Dangerous crazies are probably put down or "let go". They can't afford it. ;_; They probably see it as possession... hmmmmm.

I dunno -- if they have bamboo, anything they can do with bamboo. Bone flutes and xylophones, and they sing, and those who can dance, and they have oral epics they retell and things like that... No string instruments.

-And they don't condone violence, so no bloodsports. But what about hunting? No that'd be a form of agression. Music/art? Lots of screaming songs? xD;

-[heart]

-Haha, I R idjit. ;O

-What about the guys, though? What makes them men? And they have a menstral cycle? Is it monthly, and wouldn't the blood be a problem (predators)? Hah! I knew there had to be some culling somewhere here! Not that it's a good thing, but really. WE do it, for gods' sakes. And that begs the question what about the really, really selfish ones--the kind that hurt the community time and again? Or the abusers (are they considered crazies?)? What are the taboos and punishments? (Are they similar to the mer's that Liadan could prevent the other two from making huge blunders?) Evile spirits, bwahahahaha? >D

There's nothing to hunt, I think. No big land animals. Though there could be rats... >_> Hee! screaming songs! I like the idea.

-I was gonna say "maybe when they get hair" but in general they're not very hairy at all. XDD I think it depends on the person... hm. Will have to think on it.

Yes, it's monthly, and probably a problem, though at least there are no sharks. x___x

Very selfish ones are told to take a boat and go do things to survive on their own, since they won't do them for anyone else. Abusers, depends how bad the problem get -- i think with two-tails they just separate the victim and abuser and hope it doesn't happen again, as long as there was no serious wound. One of the big punishments is shunning. You don't talk to the person, you don't look at them, you don't think at them, they can serve themselves from the common food but no one else will hand it to them and they are encouraged to do it when everyone else is asleep. It's pretty bad.

Liadan will probably do her own blunders. D; The two civilisations are very different. At least she's earnest and willing to work, so that counts for a lot. Arun is willing to work too, though he's a clumsy guy who's only smart in his normal fields of competence. Common sense for such a place? It's not that common to him and he wasn't trained for it. XD Blue is going to be twitchy and wary and very tense, and they might not ask/expect him to do much anyway because he feels dangerous to them and they don't want to provoke him. But then he feels perpetually in danger, too, because where he comes from rain is acidic and it's rare to see people going outside. All their streets are covered. He's slightly agoraphobic, so the open horizons are going to make him really uneasy. XD

You'd be surprised about invention. Many people invent out of simple love of tinkering and experimentation and happen to chance on something useful. They don't always begin with an end in mind.

Of course they're going to invent a couple of small things with what they have available. But the biggest scientific discoveries always happen in times of war. War moves people to push the boundaries of science and technology. Afterwards only those inventions are used for other things. This is not a civilisation that's going to come up with plastic and electricity on its own.

Lurker, but...

How is menstruation dealt with in both societies? Because I can imagine some sea-predators being attracted to a mermaid's blood.

For the two-tails, I think a girl who isn't used to the extreme swinging emotions in a telepathic society could cause some havoc? How would those crippled to not be able clean themselves deal?

Because of the genetic modification gone wrong, would there be a higher infertility in two-tails? Even more infertility cases of an offspring between a two-tails and mermaid because of genetic differences?

Also, do the two-tails have a form of writing, or drawing? What kind of games/entertainment have they developed that could accommodate such a wide variety of people with their options of things to make it out of? And looking at an above post, you can make a string instrument as simple as guts strung over a turtle shell.

Sorry if this seems to be butting in ^^;;

♥

Hmm, about menstruation, I think mermaids just pack absorbant plants in there and wrap things around their hips so it won't fall, but some blood might still leak through. Thankfully nothing on this planet has anything close to a shark's ability to smell blood. Well, nothing that lives in shallow areas, and that's mostly where mer pods stay. I don't think they make any special allowances for the women during those days, except maybe letting them stay with the children in the middle of the pod for safety and less moving around. But it just means they get to mind the kids, which is exhausting in itself.

Two-tails women might get more leeway. And since some are sterile, I think they might celebrate it when they get their period. Not that it means they're fertile but they'd think so anyway.

I don't think it's very common for either mer or two-tails to menstruate at an early age, or even that regularly. They're not that well-fed and they live a stressful life... Hm.

The reproductive organs weren't modified, so the reason why two-tails get less children is often incompatibility. There are more instances of natural abortions, and children with such heavy defects they don't live, but they're careful about who breeds with who and after a few centuries I think they have a good system worked out. Still, it's common enough to have spontaneous abortions that it's not a surprise.

If they can't clean themselves, someone else does it for them. hahaha buckets XDDDD didn't they get sore?

In general, two-tails and merpeople don't reproduce together. i'm sure it happens sometimes but it's really rare because the two groups hardly interact. (Also if the mother is the two-tails it's likely that she was raped. It's also possible for male two-tails to find a mermaid and rape her, but less likely because they tend to be less violent, and they're used to listening to people's emotions as a matter of course. They'd have to be real bastards to enjoy themselves anyway. Also, mermen often drift off alone as teenagers, but they rarely let mermaids get out of sight of the pod. Of course a meeting could still happen, but, well, rarer.)

The result depends on the kind of genetic stability the two-tails had achieved, and what kind of mutations he has. If he has real legs, the child will most likely be badly crippled because they're nor compatible. If he's the kind who has a pseudo-tail, the child will lean more toward normal mer type. But it's not an exact science, lots of it is pure chance. You could get a full-mer child, or a just-like-daddy child... Not sure a mer pod would keep the kid anyway because even if he looks normal they'd consider him to have tainted blood and he'd risk giving it to his children even if it doesn't show up in him. Whereas the two-tails have this tradition of taking in foundlings and trying to shore up their genetics by all means available to them.

Oooh guts over a shell. X3333 That's right, I totally forgot strings were often made of guts. Thank you for the reminder ^^ Games, uh, i dunno. Maybe word plays, or "i spy" or things like that. As for physical games I dunno.

>delurking<

Would there be a certain amount of training/ physical therapy to overcome some of deformites' effects? Like working on lung capacity with breath work and stuff.

Next, the snake-mer-- with the heavier mass, would it be more advisable for them to spend most of their time in water, tending to watery things? Like shellfish/oysters/clams or waterplants like alge or something? Keeping out dangerous fish/ water animals?

What about a secondary set of eyelids?

Religion/society- maybe with the telepathy, it makes it easier to see the 'all are one' theory. One with each other, one with the island, one with the stars, that kind of thing. Night time navigation by the stars? Or, maybe a study of Hawaii is in order, considering all the volcanic activity and stuff.

Most societies tend to start smithing/metal working eventually, too- would that apply at all?

Medicine- besides herbal stuff, maybe some type of energywork, like etheric touch or reiki or something? Pressure points? Though, I think alot of the pressure points would have changed...

Last thing- is there a kind of heat/breeding time enginered into the biology? ? Do they bother with periods? Does the weather/climate affect breeding patterns?

Hmm! Well, I think they'd all work to the best of their abilities because the society can't afford to feed everyone if no one but the 100% healthy works, so they'd all get at least some exercise. But actual physical therapy... Ooh, that could be a leftover from the original colonists. Maybe they have people for that. *__*

Snake-mer would have to stay in the water a lot, because moving on the ground would be extremely awkward for them.

Secondary eyelids aren't in human genetics, and that's mostly what the people who created them did, twist existing genes into shapes that were convenient for them. They didn't introduce totally new things, I don't think.

ooh. Religion... maybe they worship the group-presence. *ponders* the sense of unity? Maybe sometimes it feels like one real being. And all islands have different personalities for their "collective mind"? heeeeeee. A study of hawaii is indeed in order. >__>

Don't think so, they'd use obsidian and find it good enough for their purposes. When it's not health-related they tend to go with whatever they have that's good enough. though there's lots of copper on this planet, so maybe...

Pressure points, yes, probably, the rest would be more faith healing than anything real. I like the idea that they'd have to guess at the pressure points for each body *__*

No heat, they're genetically human. They have irregular periods due to not eating as well as we do, but otherwise that's it. The planet doesn't have a lot of seasonal variation.

bwee, thank you for the questions ♥

'I like the idea that they'd have to guess at the pressure points for each body *__*'

Maybe they could muscle test? Basically, using the body as a rod or pendulum.

If the planet's biomass is much farther along than algae and moss -- which it would be, if only because the colonists brought crops -- you can have palm trees (coconut and banana) and will almost certainly have grasses (wheat, barley, corn, rice; flax, hemp). You don't necessarily have to have the crops available, since cultivars like corn will revert to wild-type in just a few generations, but wild-type is still useful. Off the top of my head, palm leaves, coconut fibers, and long grass can be used for thatching, insulation, tinder, bedding, rope, rough fabric, and grass skirts.

As for the telepathy, that's a brain modification, so you could get some serious miswiring going on. Migraines, synethesia, tumors, personality disorders, psychosis... and with telepathy itself, you could get dissociative identity disorder, identity crisis, and neurosis caused by childhood trauma (like when somebody in the group dies a gruesome death).

I was reading today about Polynesian navigation, too. They had stunningly advanced astronomy due to being tropical mariners, based on which stars were at zenith for islands at different latitudes. (I'll have to reread for longitude.) Your twos and mers could easily be very good astronomers, and with the need to memorize so much, it would be deeply embedded into myth and song.

Given that Blue has it too, despite being of completely different origins, I think it's likely that the introduction of psionics is an older, better developed, and hence more stable alteration.

Ironworking is pretty simple and pretty useful even at the very crudest levels. Even the worst iron tool is likely to be substantially better than a stone equivalent... except for the rust thing. I can easily see a form of trade arising where the two-tails put a big chunk of their economy into craftsmanship and such, producing wood or other goods for mer pods to use and taking in iron ore picked up from the right spots on the seabottom for refining.

Really, underwater is an immensely inconvenient place to try to live civilised-like.

Hm. Do any mer pods go in for kelp and fish farming? Or would that take a higher population density than they have?

With all the vulcanism going on, I'd think it more likely for them to prefer obsidian to metals. Readily available anywhere volcanic, can be worked with minimal tools and no fire, has and keeps a better edge than most blades... you'd probably want shells, coral, and bone for handles, though. Fish don't have much in the way of bones, but whale and seal equivalents can get you that and wax (ambergris and tallow), oil, leather, and sinew (for softer, stretchier strings).

With wax and sinew-string to help seal containers (coconut and sea shells, pouches made from stomachs and bladders, etc.), the twos could have a valuable commodity in both dry goods and liquids like palm wine.

Not sure they have much iron on this planet. They'd have a lot more copper. I'll have to look into how they did stuff with it. Though they probably use obsidian more, if only because it's easier to handle.

Mer and two-tails don't trade openly. I think the only trade is between mermaids and two-tails healers, actually, because mermaids often need help giving birth and they need someplace to leave their children if they turn out to be too malformed to stay in the pod. Two-tails aren't that advanced yet, and apart from bamboo they don't have any wood. Most of the plant life was imported from Earth by the colonists, and the big trees didn't survive the floods.

Mer only keep animals that can follow because they're nomadic. And it's pretty hard to put a leash on a fish. XD; They have some types of beasties that are dog-like in intelligence levels and can be tamed, and they regularly take seeds of useful plants to plant it farther down their path since they'll often come back the same way (that's one of Liadan's jobs), but otherwise they don't farm. They can't afford to drag too much stuff around; with all the storms they already have an interesting time keeping their babies from drowning and their essentials from sinking to the bottom of the sea.

♥

Yeah, telepathy is much older and more stable by now, though there are still variations in ability. There aren't any physical problems with it anymore. I love the disorders idea though *_*

Oh yeah, the astronomers thing was planned, people with no maps tend to be great with that, but I'd love more details because that's about all I know about it. XD;;; Will research. The myths and songs to memorize them idea is great *__*

Ooh, neat!

Mutant mermaid hippies? Awesome.

So they're all mammal, then? They sounds sorta sealish.

Well, yeah. They're genetically human. Very fucked-up human, but in theory they could crossbreed. Granted it would probably be difficult for a number of reasons. XD

...I just want to delurk to tell you how much I love you.

No, seriously. One of my favorite reasons for reading a lot of sci-fi and fantasy (both manga and books) is because of details like this, both psychology-wise and physiology-wise and what impact one has on the other and vice versa, and um. This, as well as all other Mermaids in SPACE related stuff is just making that part of me scream in joy and happy X3 It reminds me of happy, happy hours reading Sheri Tepper and dissecting everything.

Wait, no, scratch that. This in general reminds me of an awesome, awesome crossover of Sheri Tepper and David Brin. YAY omfg alsjflksjl <3

I love the way you've designed the tailfeet thinger, also. IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. Especially when compared to the typical fishtail mer - it's probably a lot easier to genegineer than trying to merge fishy biology and human mammal...

Random other thing: YOU HAVE POISONED ME IN A GOOD WAY, WOMAN. I was trying to explain how awesome your writing is to someone, and they were like "waiiiit... threesomes?!?! EWWW. THAT IS DEPRAVED AND WRONG you horrible person."
Me: "b-but it's cute! D:"
Hahah, and I completely used to think the same thing, too~ So thx for opening my mind!

#^____________^# ♥

... I do not think I have read anything by Sheri Tepper. What did she write? >.>

It would probably be easier to merge them with dolphins actually, but even then... too hard. XD

*petpetloves*

mmmmmnnmn. Sheri Tepper wrote a LOT of stuff, and a good portion of it has ecological/psychological implication and all that good fun stuff.

What comes mainly to mind for me is the Truegame series (humankind has sent its mutants to some other planet, (which also happens to be semisentient, btw) the planet tries to bring them into the ecological fold, the humans are like, "what no forget you, we're gonna use our awesome powers to have enormous chess games 8D" and general spiffiness ensues.

Then there's Six Moon Dance, which is again humans on another planet, messing with the ecology (THE PLANET IS STILL SENTIENT. NO, WAIT, EVERY NATIVE ANIMAL is/ THE PLANET LOL)... but this one is awesome because it's the exact opposite of Middle-East Taliban whatever beliefs in that MEN are the weaker sex, who must be veiled and whatnot so as not to stir up the lusts of women. Oh, and being a man-ho is a semi-respected career.

Finally, there's The Gate to Woman's Country, which is post-apocolyptic AWESOME. I. um. Really don't have any other words for it than that, except for an EXTREME FEMINISM warning XD;

...Damn, I need to go and dig out all my ~~dad's~~ old awesome sci-fi out again. Muwahahah.

...stupid . And stupid laptop keyboard making it hard to hit keys properly. *headdesks*

From reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (really awesome book for understanding how societies work and how they tend to evolve in response to their environment) I know that in Polynesia, societies differ substantially from island to island, based almost entirely on the island's geography. Large, fertile islands or groups of islands (Hawaii, Tahiti, Tonga) tend to have complex societies with hierarchy, taxes, etc., while smaller and poorer islands (and especially atolls) have much simpler, more egalitarian societies. Of course, among the two-tails having a central authority probably isn't essential even if their island is rich and the population is large. Still, you'd expect to see a lot of diversity from one island chain to the next, and to a lesser extent between islands in a chain.

Another thing: are all the islands volcanic, produced at subduction zones, hot spots, and occasionally at spreading zones? Or are there nonvolcanic microcontinents, or sizable continents that are mostly submerged (like New Zealand)? Because there are big differences in hazards and resource availabilty between continental islands and volcanic islands.

Also, among the volcanic islands, type of volcano will matter a lot. Shield volcanoes produced at Hot spots (like Hawaii) produce regular but fairly gentle eruptions of runny lava that flows at about a walking pace and can be avoided by people, while stratovolcanoes produced at subduction zones (like Japan) typically erupt rarely but when they do go they explode very dangerously.

If the planet's climate is same-as or warmer-than ours, you'd expect hurricanes too, which without large continents to break them could keep going for a very long time and be very nasty on the island dwellers.

Another thing that is affected by continents or lack of them is ocean circulation. Earth's oceans circulate in gyres, circles of currents that are defined by hemisphere and continental boundaries, driven by the coriolis effect. But without continents to block them, the coriolis effect should cause them to simply circulate around their own latitude, like the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. This pretty much eliminates warm and cold currents and dramatically reduces movement of heat from tropics to poles, making the tropics hotter and the poles colder. (As it is, the ACC largely blocks heat movement from the tropics to Antarctica, which is a big part of why the South Pole is colder than the North Pole.) A gyre, with its associated warm and cold currents and heat distribution, would only occur if there was an island arc or small continent that blocked ocean flow on a large North-South axis.

Hmm. The islands tend to be on the rocky side. I'll have to research polynesia geography too. (damn it, so many things to research)

All the islands I have in mind are volcanic. I think the only non-volcanic continent is at the pole and so it's covered in ice. Haven't decided for sure just yet. Don't know what type of volcanoes I want yet, though, it depends where I'll make them land. I'll decide that when I have a better idea of the plot.

Yeah, the weather is pretty sucky.

Hmm, interesting. I'll keep that in mind. Still, that's the sort of thing I need to figure from the plot and not the other way around, but it's nice to know what repercussions it would have.

Damn you, now I need to go work on my own scifi/fantasy/what-the-heck-is-that world. Shiny, shiny logic applied to the illogical. *loves* And fucked up genetics that leads to bad mutations or weird-but-workable mutations, and such strict breeding it puts the Hyuugas and Uchihas to shame. *huggle-pets-loves* You don't see logic like this just anywhere. Most beginning authors are like: 'Logic? who needs this silly logic!'

Also, I find it interesting how different your mer's are from mine. I developed a mer species that was naturally like that. The evolved from the proto-mammals, the reptiles that weren't quite mammals yet. By going back to the water so soon evolutionary-wise they were able to reclaim their gills so they're completely aquatic. And they're all hermaphrodites; save that the 'males' are smaller, more masculine and better able to impregnate and the 'females' are larger, more feminine and better able to bear young. And yes, humans-smart (what kind of story would it be if the main characters were anima- wait.. disney.. d'oh!) The telepathy is different too, that's how my mers talk, no lungs, no larynx, no audible voice. I wonder if I should post my sketches... although my art flat-out sucks, 2-D animal profile figures with no real face and don't get me started on hands TT_TT

..........Sorry for info dumping there, I just find concept comparisons fascinating. ^^;;;

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Mermaids in space -- character/society brainstorming

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loves on

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