Grrl Power #872 – Rose Iris Daisy von Petunia-Lily
Yes, the race that communicates with smell but deals with verbal languages all the time would obviously have sound friendly names, and “Aster” certainly could have volunteered that information. But that’s not what Sydney asked. She asked how to spell the unpronounceable name.
Honestly, races that communicate with scents, what do they do when it’s windy? Presumably all their buildings and spaceships have excellent airflow, and “soundproofing” a room would involve turning on a fan.
If you had an alphabet that represented every possible smell, it would be as much a pain in the ass as non-simplified chinese. Really, it would probably be a combination of glyphs that combine in certain ways. I mean if “Clur” is all those scents at once, then presumably it would be a combination of symbols for “underripe” “kovo” “nut” “moist” “summer” “rain” and “sun” at least. The fact that there’s a phonemeable word for that one specific letter for a language that represents scents is in itself a little odd, not to mention they might run out of combinations of sounds before they covered every possible scent profile.
I do think that if humans ever create either some sort of chimeric human/animal hybrids, like fox or dog people walking around, or probably more likely, some sort of bio-mod that lets people smell with similar sensitivity to canines, it won’t be long before those people start making up new words to cover all the distinct smells out there. Sure, in English right now, we can say something smells like wood, or even a specific kind of wood, but we don’t have the vocabulary to describe how people smell, beyond simple stuff like stale, fresh, acrid, or other words that simply describe the scents we infuse in our soaps and deodorants.
Imagine a bloodhound chimera detective describing how a suspect smelled to his fox chimera sergeant. He wouldn’t say that the guy smelled kind of B.O.-ey and Irish Springy and maybe he ate something with onions. He’d want to describe the specifics of what makes one human smell different from another, and he’d need new vocabulary for it. “He smelled glinty and arrus, traces of flemo and gorgol.” Etc.
Aliens with different senses would have wildly different vocabularies to accomodate for them. Imagine a race that could feel electricity like sharks. There’d be all kinds of words to cover that, and not just “zappy” and “sparky.”
So yeah. Aster should have immediately volunteered her word-speak name.
The Vote Incentive is updated! It’s the same poolside scene as last month’s Varia pic, but it’s been expanded to include 3 more Arc-SWAT ladies, all of whom have short hair on the sides of their heads because it was supposed to be a sidecut theme but I ran out of women with sidecuts. Sans bikini version is over at Patreon.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Actually, based on everything else, I’m surprised she had any vocal chords to communicate with Sydney at all.
Could be the work of a universal translator. It could work beyond auditory communication.
Though I wouldn’t want to know what it accidentally says when someone farts.
Though, if that was the case, wouldn’t a standard model be able to provide transliterations for local paperwork?
Maybe it does, Sydney never asked her to use it.
Now I’m curious if Aster would be insulted if some random human tooted?
Giving away the essence of plant growth might be an honor to her. After all, if you’re part plant… what do people use to make plants grow?
Methane and carbon dioxide, depending on night/day plant/fungus.
Blood. Blood makes the grass grow.
Do You hear the voices too brother?
It says “I enjoyed my last meal.”
Or possibly “I enjoyed my penultimate meal,” assuming human digestion time.
For all we know, It could be a Marraige Proposal.
It is when you are in prison.
That could probably just be noise. Like for us acoustic communicators, there are many sounds mostly all of the time. By far not all of them are language.
she said it was their primary form of communication, vocal is clearly the secondary. Something useful to have if conditions like raining, high winds, strong oders nearby, ect…make the primary difficult. Just as humans use hand signals in situations and conditions where hearing each other isn’t an option.
Yeah, we do tend to use a lot of hand signals. Particularly figure 4.
Most often on highways.
If you don’t know figure 4, count it out in binary on your fingers. [Exit, stage right ->]
If she was a tree I would say it is currently one of three answers for Gender. But she’s a flowering plant of some kind. So one of two answers. I once got curious about plant gender. There’s a whole page about it on Wikipedia. Trees can change theirs throughout their life and can be both simultaneously but flowers either stay one of the other or also change but are never both. I am pretty sure fungi reproduce asexually though.
Then again Fungi aren’t plants so that’s irrelevant.
Different flowers can be different genders on the same plant, so it would be more of a statistical wheel with multiple options for varying types of genders.
This can get confusing fast.
Also Aster reminds me of the Florians from Starbound but not tribalistic. Wonder if s/he/they are carnivorous alongside photosynthetic? It makes sense from a biological standpoint assuming their biology continues to follow that of a plant.
“Never both” is generally true, but not absolutely. It depends on the non-self-insemination strategy.
In the Grrlverse, given DaveB’s apparent proclivities (and the tits on that mycon woman cop) you’d probably be wrong.
Those tits might be reservoir sacs of some kind, or ballast organs like in fish. I think an aquatic world fungus people would be rather interesting actually now that I think about it.
Nope. They are tits. Mammalian protuberances.* With nipples, which erect when caressed by a finger or a tongue. Or when their owner thinks about the human male she just saw and contemplates some sexy times because, although an alien he just turns her on so very much. Or perhaps just when it is cold.
Because no matter how little sense it makes, all aliens can (and want to) fuck humans, and vice versa (and also want to). Hell, if it is a Tamer ‘novel’ all of the women aliens are universally attractive to male humans, while the alien men are typically not very attractive to female humans, or even to other alien women. Because REASONS!
.
.
~4:09
Most aliens, seem to have human DNA!!!
Trees are large flowering plants (angiosperms.) Well, except for pines and other cone-bearing trees, which are gymnosperms.
Some flowering plants have separate male and female plants, and are said to be dioecious. Some have male and female flowers on the same plant, known as monoecious. But most have flowers with both male parts (stamen) and female parts (pistil) – these are called “perfect” flowers.
Fungal reproduction is weird, and differs among the different types of fungi. Fungi generally consist of a mycelium, a mass of one-cell-wide threads (hyphae) with no transverse cell walls, so the many nuclei circulate through the shared cytoplasm. These are haploid nuclei.
Mating takes place when the mycelium of one fungus fuses with that of another fungus, so they can share nuclei. Mushrooms are formed by huge, dense tangles of these dikaryotic hyphae. The nuclei only fuse together on the gills of the mushroom to form spores.
Whew! Sorry for the techy infodump. My nerd switch got tripped.
Hah, I got the Kle reference.
I thought that was low hanging fruit, but so far it seems you’re the only one.
lol, I didn’t think my love for this comic could grow any larger, then you slip a Mlepnos nod in here and I realize, it can.
Well, I think most people thought you were just pulling their finger.
Interstellar incident one: Aster is pollenated by a bee. Discuss.
“So Mabel says, well someone must be owed alimony or a portion of the crop or something, but honey I couldn’t tell you which one. The office is all abuzz about it, but it’s none of my beeswax. So I says to Mabel, I says…”
– Miss, why don’t you start by telling us about your attacker.
– He was… 6, maybe 7 centimeters long, black and gold, hirsute, multifaceted eyes… *sobs* He had a stinger, he said he would use it if I fought back…
– We understand, miss. Can you show us on this figure where he touched you? *points to diagram of flower*
– It was… it was… there… *points to pistil* *breaks down in tears*
– Bastard… we’re gonna put this molester away, miss. I promise you that.
6 – 7 centimeters? Which planet did you say we were on?
She was being attacked. It seemed bigger, in her terror.
2-3 cm would be more accurate, it’s true.
She also wasn’t aware it was female. That’s gonna throw the cops off.
Alternatively:
Cop: Can you describe what happened, miss?
Aster: That bandit striped rogue slipped into my DMs so smoothly, I didn’t even have a chance to resist!
D’uh!!! I should have thought a bit.
Competing for the large size (15 – 24 mm), our Great Carpenter Bee, and for the smallest (2mm), the Quasihesma.
Oh yes. Oz has no native Bumblebees.
Hmph.
D’uh!!! I should have thought a bit.
Competing for the large size (15 – 24 mm), our Great Carpenter Bee, and for the smallest (2mm), the Quasihesma.
Oh yes. Oz has no native Bumblebees.
Fixed. Grrmph.
Something like 1,700 species of native bees, however.
Oooo, a freebie!
Humans actually do have much better sense of smell than people generally appreciate. It’s just that, culturally, we’re not encouraged to pay attention to it. As a result, it mostly factors into our behavior on a subconscious level.
And, of course, we bath a lot, to try to erase those signals.
Westerners bath a lot – many other cultures use more oils and perfumes, and smell is part of their interactions, such as having personal bubble size of “close enough to smell them”.
http://www.sirc.org/publik/smell_culture.html
https://hbr.org/2012/03/your-coworkers-dont-see-the-of
This page gave me a flashback to the old Sci-fi show ‘Alien Nation’ when Matt Sikes (Human) and his partner George Francisco (Alien) are going through the names immigration gave the aliens who are called ‘Newcomers’ while working on a case of some sort. Sykes chuckles that one is named ‘Polly Wanna Cracker” and that Immigration ‘must’ve had a field day’ Then George looks at him and says something like ‘Do I even need to remind you what Sikes means in our language?”
Yeah this page captured the dry humor of first contacts perfectly.
I think originally George Francisco’s first name was Sam in the movie.
Sam Francisco. Because the bureaucrats giving out names to the Newcomers started getting really bored.
They should have kept it Sam for the TV show though.
The show went off the movie. Met Gary Graham some years back. :)
Cool. Did you ask him why they changed the name Sam to George?
Because in the movie, Detective Sykes said (paraphrased), “No, I am absolutely not going to call you Sam Francisco. I’ll call you George.” Like Matt says, the TV show follows the movie.
NAME: “Scent of a Woman”
My name is gunpowder with overtures of smoked bacon and mushrooms.
Reaper Burrito at your service.
One of the closest languages to Fleurian would Kanji, a Japanese written language (taken from Chinese). You start with a base symbol, then add lines to change it into a different words. BTW, I do not speak or write Japanese, I just watch a lot of Anime.
Kanji is not a written language, it’s a part of the Japanese written language. There are also not one but two syllabaries, hiragana and katakana. Each has its place in the written language.
The “Do you have, or are you, an exotic fruit or vegetable?” cracked me up! XDDD
Best line on this page.
so is her name clur or aster? i dont get why she said clur but sydney gave her the name aster
Sydney asked her to spell her name, and “Aster’s” name is spelled Clur, Briml, Evan, etc. They’re a bunch of letters that don’t exist in English because they represent complex scents.
It might make more sense to those of us familiar with the names of letters which English disposed of so many of like the thorn and ash, though it’s returning a bit.
I had a Champions character once who was an alien. It had made several interstellar voyages, without FTL, without a ship. Yes, that takes thousands of years. Yes, it was a very patient Alien. It arrived in Louisiana with a giant ‘SPLUCK’ noise, and after it managed to unstick itself from the mud bank started rolling around (it was spherical) seeing the world. It couldn’t speak, but it could change colors rapidly. Its name was Silver chartreuse offwhite red black.
It didn’t mind the spoken nickname “Silverblack” that they tagged it with, But It was offended when someone trying to reproduce its proper name got a color wrong and flashed ‘Silver green offwhite red black.’
‘The kle is silent’ – Melipnos
Playing civilian customs officer seems like a poor use of Archon’s time, even for PR reasons. Some of the highest-paid, military-trained government employees in the US are doing a simple job for which they’ve had no specific training and are almost completely unqualif…
Actually now that I say that out loud, it sounds on-brand for anything politically charged.
Playing civilian customs officer in the middle of the street of one of the world’s largest cities seems like an even poorer use of Archon’s time.
Imagine the civil lawsuits from people taken for aliens when they aren’t! Mimes, buskers, Dennis Rodman, the list is endless! Not to mention that any time spent harassing these poor citizens is time not spent collecting information from actual aliens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=1AVcqaVxd4o&feature=emb_logo
Ha, guessed the right movie but I was expecting this scene.
Awesome page. Great new vote incentive. I’m a patron. A scream of pain from 8 years ago holds whole new meaning for me: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-72-punk-busted/
Random thought: But did Sydney accidentally round up a local, *I think called Aegean for classical mythos in this series*, with the Cyclops?
I mean we know the Veil keeps humans from seeing the more inhuman ones completely, hence Kaiju guy at the Twilight Council who had walked in through the front door. and the Veil has no grip on Sydney anymore, so when sent to round up aliens from the tourist bus, I could see her accidentally rounding up a local with them.
Is that a Starjammers reference I see? If so she’s probably more like the character as it was originally than what they turned her into.
Yup!
An example of a race that communicates with smell on Earth would be “Ants”, and maybe “Bees”.
On the subject of feeling electricity… as a retired Electronic Tech that worked around high voltage power supply circuits. That creepy tingly feeling of high voltage ozone on your skin is something you learn to respect and avoid.
And you are correct in that words do not cover the subject, as it is something that must be experienced to put the proper “Fear of God” into you.
As someone who worked with high-voltage BATTERIES, I can concur. I correlated that high-voltage almost-tingle with the grim reaper peeking out from behind the curtain.
The batteries I worked on were 420 Volts and over 70 Amps. There were places inside the system that, if you touched them, you would instantly die. That death would involve possibly one of the most painful deaths you can imagine, too.
[Don’t try at home]
Well I found the 9volt batteriss on the tongue was the *only* true way ton test them. However; 120volt a/c always seemed t9 be less buzzy than then the 9volt for that. 240 v a/c does have a bit more kick, but mot enough I could not let go.
I tended to find ‘electric’ quite harmless (to me), but tben again I also never tended to need any ground straps either. Other people i onew had terrible problems with static and electronics. Some people can’t use microfiber bed sheets as it causes too much static zapz for them … me i’ve never had that issue.. Maybe Tesla was the same way
Just stick your hand between the bars of a connected TV directional antenna. And you know b*&%y well there is no power connected.
I understand that it is meant to be comedic rather than serious, but a better way to handle it would have been:
“That name would be unpronounceable to humans, (do you mind/you will need to) go(ing) by a verbalized name (?/.)”
“here are some suggestions: hezibah, Aster…etc, please pick one to go by while you are on earth”.
And other than that, why the hell are actual customs officials not handling this with archon acting as advisors?
Probably because there are no customs officials hanging around in Times Square? And they have not been trained to/or are accustomed to dealing with actual aliens. If one of them freaked out and caused an incident, it may result in ramifications which could severely harm Earth. So it may be overkill sending ArcSWAT, but is playing safe.
In due course I imagine a rush program will train specialist customs officials and/or temporary interim arrangements may be made to send regular ones to intercept landed spacecraft, after this one (or they may even be on their way). However I am sure that Earth officials will put in regulations that spacecraft will only be allowed to land at specially designated spaceports.
The UK for instance already has a couple being set up at the moment (albeit that is at a future time in comic terms – but having seen actual aliens on Earth, it is fair to imagine the process would have been speeded up).
New York has at least 3 airports, with at lease some customs officials. The aliens are already going to be interacting with a bunch of people so the possibility of customs officers freaking out isn’t a concern
The UK spaceports are oriented rather more towards outgoing cargo being launched to orbit, rather than for potential incoming personnel. A Customs team could probably get to the Newquay (Cornwall) spaceport easily enough, as there’s a civil airfield on the same site that handles flights to other European countries. The other proposed sites in the Highlands and Islands aren’t so close to any such infrastructure.
What I want to know is this: since she has no obvious nose, how does “Aster” receive scent information? Skin? An orifice that’s easy to confuse for something else is actually a nose?
I assumed it was the “flowers” in her hair and/or antene. Although her entire skin and/or hair could be capable of picking up scent, especially if she takes in any air for respiration that way. Alternatively she may smell via her mouth. There is no reason why aliens need to have the same kinds of organ arrangements that humans have evolved.
Not all pheromone detecting species on Earth have noses, many have such receptors inside their mouths, antenna, hairs along their legs, abdomen, ect… so really even though this alien has some human like traits (lets blame the xenogenesis aliens for that one and move on), her sensory system could be anything, the flowers, antenna, hair, surface skin receptors *after all while mammals generally only have tactile receptors on our skin, there are some animals that have taste receptors on their skin, so scent receptors along other parts of the body wouldn’t be too far off*
and to be honest I WISH mammals had evolved external olfactory scent receptors *I know the limited space, clusters of nerves localized, diverged from taste receptors a very long time ago reasons* but…the way it works is disgusting, tiny airborn particles of the substance physically enter an air passage in the center of my face…like oh you smell feces…its because tiny particles of it are INSIDE your nose.
At least a surface scent detection would be like oh..I can wash this off me…but no…you had to evolve in a direction that not only has it inside the body but requires the body to then defend against its own system by producing sludge mucus to expel the excess particles that get in there.
Isn’t SolTerran mammalia wonderfully designed! All these multi-purpose organs!
Shouldn’t that be orbited women in the first panel?
Unless she is addressing the lovely chroma orb instead of the woman it is orbitting
That is a possibility, we don’t know for sure that none of them have passive abilities related to interacting with beings that communicate via scent.
Scent-based life form has no nose
to be fair a lot of pheromone based life forms on Earth don’t have noses either, like ants, for all we know what we see as hair could be her receptor organs for the scents.
I assumed it was the “flowers” in her hair and/or antene
The scent, was coming outb of the flowers, you can tell by the tiny bubbles coming out of them.
They still have scent receptors.
Wow Sydney is wearing Eye Makeup? Kewl. She is lookin’ Cute, almost as Cute as Our visiting Flower Power Girl. Too bad she can’t wear her hair down.
Eyeliner and mascara and eyebrow pencil? She always has.
fekin space hippies love it lmao
Okay, Clur has established that she can speak ‘basic’, and Sydney just explained that she can’t tell smell, why can’t Clur just vocalize those answers?
Sydney is going to falsify official documents because she’s… because she’s Sydney and that’s what Sydney does :(
It is not falsification if she writes a summary of what she has done on the document. We have no indication that she will do otherwise. On top of which we know that Archon constantly monitor ArcSWAT agents in the field, and update records remotely anyhow. So they will have full audio/visual records of the conversation and the reasons for choosing a nom de nonstinky.
Sydney just said she would fill the rest of the form out herself, which means, false (or, at best, misinformed) information regarding Claire’s gender and reason for visiting
No, ‘at best’ would be “unknown”, as she does not know. Or “appears female”, which is a useful thing to put on the form as it would help to identify “her” from the perspective of another human making use of the form in future. Whether or not she bears children, sires them, has no means of producing them or some other combination really isn’t that important compared to the fact that she is an alien.
As for the purpose of visit, I do think Sydney is being lax in not asking that. But, again, she can just put in “unknown” or “has been observed undertaking tourist activities”. Which is totally honest.
However, although they do appear to just be a ship full of tourists, it is possible that some boarded with the intention of conducting business of some sort with Earth. But, that said, it has little practical purpose in asking that at this point, given that America has no treaties with other planets, nor rules on taxes that might apply to business from offworld or the like.
Regardless of whether the answer is “business” or “pleasure”, ArcSWAT will be treating this batch of aliens the same way (as described by Maxima). So Sydney does not have to be anal and cross every i and dot every t.
;-)
Claire has acknowledged that she can vocalize, and Sydney just explained, even though she has a nose, she can’t ‘speak’ scent, so Claire could be willing to vocalize her reason for being there (and why is always ‘Business or Pleasure’? why not… both?) as well as gender (if her kind even has any)
She could be, and if Sydney was a pen-pusher, instead of a SWAT super she may have put in extra effort. As it was though, ‘good enough’ has satisfied her. The alien was given the key information that she needed, and Sydney’s pokedex has recorded enough info about the alien to positively identify her, at a later date, should that be necessary. Including information far to complex and subtle for Halo to have replicated on a questionaire.
I don’t know if ‘falsify’ is the right word. “None” or “Not applicable” or “Unknown” are all false. “Aster” is what we would call the scent of that flower’s blossoms, and might be the closest translation English allows.
Sydney ought to inform her, however, what the verbal tag signifies, and recommend that she go experience asters at some greenhouse or conservatory somewhere. If during her travels on Earth she finds a flower whose scent is a closer approximation than Aster, she might want to correct the translation.
Regarding the vote incentive, I wonder if Harem gets satisfied by just having one body swimming? Sure that one feels all cool and relaxed. But all the rest will still be hot and sticky.
Really hoping the someone pulls Sydney up for assuming Claire’s gender, specially about their reason for visiting
“Do you have, or are you, an exotic fruit or vegetable?”
NEGATIVE! I am a meat popsicle!
Now there’s a pop culture reference I get.
I just noticed something. Aster/Clur communicates through smells and she has no nose!
Her species probably “Smells” through those flowers.
But always remember: Never challenge a Flatulon to a Farting Contest.
If you get a chance to talk with one of them, ask about the classic sci-fi story in their culture “I have no nose and I must sneeze” written by the famous author Garland Smellison.
I would add to this, that if all of those smells were capable of being combined into one symbol, then most likely their written language is closer to Korean, Japanese, Chinese, or one of those styles of language where each ‘letter’ is made out of many different modular parts that can be swapped out to make the word or phrase mean something different.
A scent based name actually wouldn’t be to hard. I started making one for a story I was writing in high-school but lost. It was originally based off of the five major tastes multiplied by the major food groups, but then started to change to base it off of common aromatic compounds before I got bored with it after realizing that I’d never really use it.
Reading through comments an interesting concern appeared in my head, in relation to talks about species whose vocalizations could be harmful to humans, use radiation or disruptive EMPs to communicate; something more subtle that relates directly to scent based communication.
scent is more complex than people give it credit for, a multi-billion dollar industry that has to test on animals (or volunteers) for a reason.
consider this, “Aster” sprayed out a complex organic mist/particulates for her name. While the visibility on page was likely meant for the reader to know what was happening; the way scents work the substance has to enter the nose, as well other holes in the human head would be hit as well. Scents use chemical signatures to trigger receptors.
however remember this is a foreign, complex, organic compound being sprayed towards people’s faces. A potential risk here is an allergic reaction (think pollen), when small foreign organic compounds invade the air passages in mass.
So mild, she says something and the person just starts to have a sneezing fit, worse red nose, swollen lips, reddening of the skin, watery eyes. May not be a full blown reverse War of the Worlds, but definitely a compatibility of biology issue.
We already have species whose vocalizations are harmful to humans. It’s happened several times that somebody gets off the boat in the middle of the ocean to service their sailboat (to inspect the bottom, or unplug the drain from the galley sink, or clear some crud out of the bow thrusters, or ….) and a whale comes to see what’s going on.
Whale-speak for “Wait, what the hell is that thing? Is that a seal, or a dolphin, or ….” is expressed as a sonar pulse that leaves our snorkeler dazed, bruised over their whole body, often bleeding from the ears, and sometimes too physically wrecked to get back into the boat without help. They’re black-and-blue for days.
I know, infrasonic pulses, there is a rather interesting study on prehistoric animals based on their jaw structures and size how they might sound that determined a T-Rex likely produced strong infrasonic waves that would have vibrated through your lungs and rib cages long before ever being heard; and a theory that many large predatory dinosaurs made similar sounds resulted in smaller animals developing an instinctive fear response to these; as well other predators also produce such infrasonic sounds. Why the deep pulse jaws theme type sounds are used for horror movies or action movies to get the adrenaline going; also why some military sensitive areas use a deterrent that is an infrasonic pulse as this creates a sense of dread in wandering people and that “we shouldn’t be here” feeling. From a xenobiologist angle one problem expressed with communicating with aliens is the overlap points of vocalization how much of what humans say can they hear and how much of what they say can humans hear, add too great a difference in size and/or sensitivity and these make a massive difference.
-fun fact: someone actually analyzed Godzilla’s roar (300 foot plus version), stating that if something was that big and made a sound like that, the decibel level would be so high that it would shake the ground, break windows, and kill people for hundreds of feet around it by rupturing internal organs.
but yeah, the scent based thing was kind of the focus there with our current alien guest in strip. The idea of a species effectively spraying pollen (or comparable complex organic compounds) in your face with various complex chemical signatures to denote meaning to a respiratory system like a human, yeah, a histamine reaction is probably going to happen in more than a few.
I see this in genealogy fairly regularly. Not all clerks are the same, so people’s names sometimes get spelled differently on different records. If you know how your name sounds, but you can’t spell, your’re stuck with whatever the clerk puts down. It’s worse if the clerk misspells the name. For example, I have a distant relative whose name is spelled Juanita in some records and Wonetta in others.
Also this could be an Alien Nation reference. Tenctonese is a language with a lot of clicks, so the clerks, who were probably tired and overworked on the Day of Descent, substituted their own names.
The name thing used to happen a lot with immigration to the US as well.
For a short while the French used a “universal musical language” called Solresol, before they decided to ban sign language to force deaf people to learn to lip read. The idea was to have a language of seven syllables (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti) which could also be represented as musical notes (see previous) colors (ROYGBIV) numbers (1-7) a sort of glyph that could be combined with others to form unique words (O, |, arch or dip, \, -, C, /, crosshatching for repeat syllables) or a handsign (fist, flat raised hand, flat level hand, pointing down, handshake, flat hand pointing down, pointing up). Some of the grammar rules are a little weird, the inventor thought you should answer questions by repeating them back followed with either dore (me, I am) for yes or just do for no.
” “universal musical language”” except, to tone death people.
They have a written language… So as well as the ‘forms’ for the computer they should use a ‘sign’ area to get people to write their names in their native language. That way they can still log and search for those characters later.
maybe next time.
this is a scramble situation. This tour bus didn’t call ahead, they have nothing set up, so they are pretty much on damage control right now.
PS: it is also implied they didn’t go through the regular tourist industry for Earth either that aliens had been using for millennia. This is basically the guy who advertises on craigslist or has that sketchy website who says he can take people on tours of the local area, but he’s got a beat up pick up or van and your group rides around in the back next to his tools and an old scruffy surfboard and the whole place smells like a combination of weed and pine trying to cover up the weed smell. and he just drops you off and nothing else, saying everyone has to be back at the parkinglot of the place he has no legal connection with by a certain time to get a ride back across town or out of town to his property to get back to their cars. And you know if you end up walking your car won’t be there because this sketchy dude will have to towed and insist you have to pay HIM because you didn’t follow instructions. Even though when you think about it you could have just driven yourself to the location, as he didn’t do a thing (except maybe read some local history about the place off a pamphlet…the same pamphlets you see are in the tourist gift shop when you get there.
What are Sydney’s two ideas for names for this visitor references to?
Hepzibah is a Marvel comics character, a humanoid skunk-cat alien who is part of the Starjammers (the group you would know right now as a house hold name instead of the Guardians of the Galaxy had X-men and related properties reverted to Marvel/Disney sooner *Cyclops’ dad is a space pirate and their captain so this thing that never showed up in any X-men movies got stuck in the vaguely worded license Marvel had with Fox *see rush to license properties with threat of bankruptcy as to why such poor contracts were made*
the other (Aster) is the name of a flower matching those in her hair.
You forget that Hepz is also Cyke’s dad’s ‘girlfriend’
I didn’t forget I was typing on my phone and felt ranting about the Fox contract screwing us out of a Starjammers movie was more important at the time and looked like I was going long *phone screens are a pain to type in*.
-also yes, what are the chances NOW of getting a Starjammers movie when people would just say its too similar to Guardians of the Galaxy *honestly if done right it shouldn’t, but enough people complain about Dr. Strange being too similar to Iron-man in origin (people who apparently forget the same people made both characters and literally made them the same sort of person only in different fields and trying to make Tony Stark unlikable while his superhero alter ego was likable…Kirby and Lee were kind of weird with where they got ideas from sometimes.
“the other (Aster) is the name of a flower matching those in her hair.” Those are her scent organs. ~ similar, to a human mouth and I suppose her “ears” as well.
Okay, Hepz is an alien cat-lady, Sydney should know that, so why in the little squidgy-fluff balls would she be tempted to call a sentient plant ‘Hepzibah’?
Because the Marvel comics Hepzibah was given that name because her name in her native ‘language’ is a series of scents. Sound familiar?
Hepzibah is also more of a alien skunk lady than a cat lady, which is probably why her species was given a scent based language by some Marvel writer.
If the “We Buy Gold” hustlers wouldn’t be charging toward Times Square en masse, I would be surprised. Assuming the New York City banks haven’t got the currency exchange guys out there already.
I feel like scent would be difficult to have as a primary form of communication. I mean, even just standing upwind from a person would effectively render them “mute”. Scent is just a very unreliable method for communicating. Not to mention, it would be the most expensive communication method. Visual signals, audio signals, vibrations, or touch each can be done pretty effortlessly. Scent requires the body to produce the proper chemicals to create the specific scents needed to be able to say what you need to say on command, which would be a massive caloric expenditure, and then once you put the scent out there, it’s at the mercy of the environment to reach it’s intended recipient, or to get distorted or lost.
Just like talking at a loud concert
Diskworld dogs and wolves are also scent-oriented.
why all the super big caps ?
I had forgotten about Gaspode, the canine version of Nobby Nobbs, even though that book is one of my favorites in the series. Can’t recall if he’s in any others.