My interest was mainly in Karkat's knowledge particularly, since he doesn't hunt, RP, or have a weird obsession with any of those Alternian animals that we know about; how much does the average wiggler learn about Alternian fauna, beyond "kill it before it eats you"?
He doesn't really care, but he's on the internet a lot; there's things you just absorb over time. XD I think he hasn't been with ground troops yet so they've only briefed him and other people in his situation about potential combat abilities so far. Uh, to be honest, they're kind of gathering data still, so there's a lot they don't know. Or give a fuck about. The social arrangements will be more relevant to learn about once they land on the planet and start making the survivors submit, but that's not karkat's job so no one bothered to teach him jack shit. The one thing he knows about human biology going in is that they have red blood just like he does, but that's mostly cause assholes insisted on him specifically seeing it. :/ they're going with the orbital bombing approach first to cow the survivors, and as a pilot karkat wouldn't have to deal out hand to hand fighting anyway, or even firearms, he's not supposed to fight outside of his mech.
I am totally intending a scene where all the kids (or like half of them) have a pillow fight or something and end up on the same pile of pillows laughing themselves breathless and then just resting there together. karkat is SCANDALIZED. Then Dave and/or Jade drags him on with them. D: D: D:
Then Dirk says something about enjoying choice asses and then Dirk and Karkat have a convo about butts and who has the choicest (karkat's vote is either jake or jade. :X), and somehow Karkat relaxes because it's not that pale anymore. I really want to find some space to put this scene in, it'd be hilarious. No idea where it would fit, though. :X
And then once they meet their people again he'll be all casually shooshing John quiet or being bump-distracted by Dirk or Jade and the other trolls will be like SHOCKING. Bwahahaha.
Although honestly, I'd figure on ALL the alien mech-pilots being super dangerous; they're clearly elites with powerful political pull and extremely well-trained fighting skills. Yeeeah, he's seeing that. XD He's also seeing that here he is, an alien who almost killed a lot of their guards, and they don't have fangs or claws and they're allowing him to go entirely free, even when they sleep around him, like there's nothing to be scared of. That's pulling all the alarms he has, to be honest. XD
I started thinking about that, actually, and how Equius isn't a mech pilot, but Nepeta is, and began wondering: are all the mech pilots lowbloods? The trend is to lowblooded pilots, yeah, since they usually have a lot more to prove so would protest less against he risks and it's a really dangerous job that yet doesn't demand ten years of training. If they know how to strife hand to hand they should adapt to piloting a biomech pretty fast. It's a cheap option. Higher command demands longer training, and produces mostly behind-the-lines officers. Vriska is a pilot on Karkat's ship, but she's on the highblooded end of the scale, most of them are brownbloods.
Equius is actually in training, and by virtue of the hemospectrum he will then end up with the job of Chief Engineer for the whole ship, which the cerulean training him to replace her is not too happy about, but them's the breaks. Then again since eq prefers tinkering with his own projects to supervising others' and doing paperwork it's also way likely he'd keep her on as his official assistant and not change a damned thing. But he's kind of highblooded for the engineering corps as well, generally they trend to green, but he's pretty much a little genius and it's kind of understood that he won't do maintenance all his life, he's just learning the ropes and then he'll go into inventing and designing new things, and that'll be really useful in the long term. He was the one who insisted he board the same ship as his moirail, though, else they'd have sent him to a mildly more secure location.
Technically all mech pilots have the same rank except for briefly granted team leader positions while on missions (they're trying to see which ones of them distinguish themselves as command material) and they're all under the authority of some tealblood who doesn't come into real fighting range, but there's a pecking order. Karkat was assigned as team leader several times based on his scores and half his troops undermined him at every turn by refusing to listen. The teal knows, but that's the point, if he can't make himself respected with his handicap it's seen as normal that the rest of his cohort would attempt to get rid of him. (and if they get themselves killed well, they were stupid not to listen to good sense and survival instinct no matter what it was from.)
If he survived his training sweep with command experience he could be assigned as a permanent team-of-eight leader on some other front, but that's about as high as he would be allowed to climb, realistically, even though officially he should be able to rise higher.
Karkat has no clue what to think about the genetic engineering, so at the moment he's trying not to. it's obvious they're valued and their opinions respected, so he's not sure it's all that bad, maybe it's normal for humans??? Trolls would never bother, but that's because they already practice casual eugenics on a species-wide scale and their mode of reproduction prevents them from tainting the slurry and it would be seen as an abomination to produce trolls NOT from the Mother Grub. I think they'd be seen as soulless/not real trolls but monsters/not part of the collective species. That would make for good lab mice but not good fighters. and besides Condie would REALLY not encourage anyone trying to figure out a way to breed without the Mother Grub, when the control of the Mother Grub is with G'lbgolyb what allows her such a tight-fisted control on her whole species. Hmmmmmm. Innnteresting thoughts. *__*
Re:shipping: It's a Karkat thing. :X Actually it's a conciliatory impulse that would make him an excellent auspistice; he wants the group to function smoothly so he's looking for the best arrangements. trolls are heavily discouraged to get involved in anyone not their quadrants, but if it was natural to them they couldn't work together well enough to become a conquering species; it's mostly cultural. Instinctively trolls are as likely to be busybodies same as humans. It's embarrassingly nosy and weak-hearted from his part, though, as it runs against the species' ideal of hardening your heart to anyone not your in-clade. Even Nepeta is seen as nosy, and she just observes, she doesn't meddle trying to make her ships canon. :(
Mercy killing is a big thing in troll culture, as they don't bother with heavy medical options for lowbloods and often it's the only and last nie thing you can do for someone you care about. It's understandable that a quadrant would refuse to admit they need to do it, the poor thing, but at the same time it's seen as a moirail's duty to determine when the pain is too grave and they can't help anymore. :X Karkat estimates that John is in denial. They don't really bother with shrinks on Alternia, since they have moirails, unless they're the interrogation kind, and often those are telepaths as well so hey, finesse, what, so major trauma and uncontrollable PTSD are not seen as curable and there's a huge pressure from outside the quadrants to get rid of the disturbance by justifying it so that it's a proof of weakness from the PTSDing troll and that anyways it's the kind of thing that just never heals. Once you break you're just considered broken forever, they give you maybe a couple of weeks to see if you can get a handle on it but... as a result lots of trolls who have camouflageable levels of PTSD (that's A LOT OF THEM) hide the hell out of it and heavily self-medicate with booze and various intoxicants. :X
LMAO. Calling John's lusus in, uh... it's WEIRD? When karkat thinks romance + lusus for him it's bestiality. But this one is a human lusus! uh. What's going on? What? What? oh god my poor brain. Also he was fucking baffled why John did actually NOT pap his goddamn moirail, i mean okay he sucks at it but it's still HIS DUTY and he should TRY BETTER she is going to get culled if you can't soothe her john what's wrong with you that you leave her to someone elese goddamn aliens D: D: D:
Re: You asked for all the things! This may or may not be all
He doesn't really care, but he's on the internet a lot; there's things you just absorb over time. XD I think he hasn't been with ground troops yet so they've only briefed him and other people in his situation about potential combat abilities so far. Uh, to be honest, they're kind of gathering data still, so there's a lot they don't know. Or give a fuck about. The social arrangements will be more relevant to learn about once they land on the planet and start making the survivors submit, but that's not karkat's job so no one bothered to teach him jack shit. The one thing he knows about human biology going in is that they have red blood just like he does, but that's mostly cause assholes insisted on him specifically seeing it. :/ they're going with the orbital bombing approach first to cow the survivors, and as a pilot karkat wouldn't have to deal out hand to hand fighting anyway, or even firearms, he's not supposed to fight outside of his mech.
I am totally intending a scene where all the kids (or like half of them) have a pillow fight or something and end up on the same pile of pillows laughing themselves breathless and then just resting there together. karkat is SCANDALIZED. Then Dave and/or Jade drags him on with them. D: D: D:
Then Dirk says something about enjoying choice asses and then Dirk and Karkat have a convo about butts and who has the choicest (karkat's vote is either jake or jade. :X), and somehow Karkat relaxes because it's not that pale anymore. I really want to find some space to put this scene in, it'd be hilarious. No idea where it would fit, though. :X
And then once they meet their people again he'll be all casually shooshing John quiet or being bump-distracted by Dirk or Jade and the other trolls will be like SHOCKING. Bwahahaha.
Although honestly, I'd figure on ALL the alien mech-pilots being super dangerous; they're clearly elites with powerful political pull and extremely well-trained fighting skills.
Yeeeah, he's seeing that. XD He's also seeing that here he is, an alien who almost killed a lot of their guards, and they don't have fangs or claws and they're allowing him to go entirely free, even when they sleep around him, like there's nothing to be scared of. That's pulling all the alarms he has, to be honest. XD
I started thinking about that, actually, and how Equius isn't a mech pilot, but Nepeta is, and began wondering: are all the mech pilots lowbloods?
The trend is to lowblooded pilots, yeah, since they usually have a lot more to prove so would protest less against he risks and it's a really dangerous job that yet doesn't demand ten years of training. If they know how to strife hand to hand they should adapt to piloting a biomech pretty fast. It's a cheap option. Higher command demands longer training, and produces mostly behind-the-lines officers. Vriska is a pilot on Karkat's ship, but she's on the highblooded end of the scale, most of them are brownbloods.
Equius is actually in training, and by virtue of the hemospectrum he will then end up with the job of Chief Engineer for the whole ship, which the cerulean training him to replace her is not too happy about, but them's the breaks. Then again since eq prefers tinkering with his own projects to supervising others' and doing paperwork it's also way likely he'd keep her on as his official assistant and not change a damned thing. But he's kind of highblooded for the engineering corps as well, generally they trend to green, but he's pretty much a little genius and it's kind of understood that he won't do maintenance all his life, he's just learning the ropes and then he'll go into inventing and designing new things, and that'll be really useful in the long term. He was the one who insisted he board the same ship as his moirail, though, else they'd have sent him to a mildly more secure location.
Technically all mech pilots have the same rank except for briefly granted team leader positions while on missions (they're trying to see which ones of them distinguish themselves as command material) and they're all under the authority of some tealblood who doesn't come into real fighting range, but there's a pecking order. Karkat was assigned as team leader several times based on his scores and half his troops undermined him at every turn by refusing to listen. The teal knows, but that's the point, if he can't make himself respected with his handicap it's seen as normal that the rest of his cohort would attempt to get rid of him. (and if they get themselves killed well, they were stupid not to listen to good sense and survival instinct no matter what it was from.)
If he survived his training sweep with command experience he could be assigned as a permanent team-of-eight leader on some other front, but that's about as high as he would be allowed to climb, realistically, even though officially he should be able to rise higher.
Karkat has no clue what to think about the genetic engineering, so at the moment he's trying not to. it's obvious they're valued and their opinions respected, so he's not sure it's all that bad, maybe it's normal for humans??? Trolls would never bother, but that's because they already practice casual eugenics on a species-wide scale and their mode of reproduction prevents them from tainting the slurry and it would be seen as an abomination to produce trolls NOT from the Mother Grub. I think they'd be seen as soulless/not real trolls but monsters/not part of the collective species. That would make for good lab mice but not good fighters. and besides Condie would REALLY not encourage anyone trying to figure out a way to breed without the Mother Grub, when the control of the Mother Grub is with G'lbgolyb what allows her such a tight-fisted control on her whole species. Hmmmmmm. Innnteresting thoughts. *__*
Re:shipping: It's a Karkat thing. :X Actually it's a conciliatory impulse that would make him an excellent auspistice; he wants the group to function smoothly so he's looking for the best arrangements. trolls are heavily discouraged to get involved in anyone not their quadrants, but if it was natural to them they couldn't work together well enough to become a conquering species; it's mostly cultural. Instinctively trolls are as likely to be busybodies same as humans. It's embarrassingly nosy and weak-hearted from his part, though, as it runs against the species' ideal of hardening your heart to anyone not your in-clade. Even Nepeta is seen as nosy, and she just observes, she doesn't meddle trying to make her ships canon. :(
Mercy killing is a big thing in troll culture, as they don't bother with heavy medical options for lowbloods and often it's the only and last nie thing you can do for someone you care about. It's understandable that a quadrant would refuse to admit they need to do it, the poor thing, but at the same time it's seen as a moirail's duty to determine when the pain is too grave and they can't help anymore. :X Karkat estimates that John is in denial. They don't really bother with shrinks on Alternia, since they have moirails, unless they're the interrogation kind, and often those are telepaths as well so hey, finesse, what, so major trauma and uncontrollable PTSD are not seen as curable and there's a huge pressure from outside the quadrants to get rid of the disturbance by justifying it so that it's a proof of weakness from the PTSDing troll and that anyways it's the kind of thing that just never heals. Once you break you're just considered broken forever, they give you maybe a couple of weeks to see if you can get a handle on it but... as a result lots of trolls who have camouflageable levels of PTSD (that's A LOT OF THEM) hide the hell out of it and heavily self-medicate with booze and various intoxicants. :X
LMAO. Calling John's lusus in, uh... it's WEIRD? When karkat thinks romance + lusus for him it's bestiality. But this one is a human lusus! uh. What's going on? What? What? oh god my poor brain. Also he was fucking baffled why John did actually NOT pap his goddamn moirail, i mean okay he sucks at it but it's still HIS DUTY and he should TRY BETTER she is going to get culled if you can't soothe her john what's wrong with you that you leave her to someone elese goddamn aliens D: D: D: