Rokoa: Have people ever commented before that you seem able to fall asleep very easily? Is that unusual? And is it something you've always been able to do? Or is it a skill you picked up, that you've just pushed yourself to the point of falling unconscious so often that you learned how to nod off for a quick recharge whenever you feel like it?

Is narcolepsy a condition neumono can have?

>>94399
I'd imagine neumono can sense when another neumono is actually feeling respectful or not, so I'd guess that question would only apply to aliens. Though, Three Stripes' hive did demand tribute from Polo. That might have been because there was an element of disrespect to Polo's empathy, with them? Or that she didn't feel respectful enough, at least?

>>94501
Respect is in the eye (or empathy) of the beholder, though. Just cause someone intends to be respectful, doesn't mean the recipient will see their thoughts / words / actions as such. It's subjective.

Rakae 2015/08/29(Sat)15:22 No. 94522 ID: dd338c
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>Some unusual circumstance would have had to put you in your adoptive parent's sights. Something happened that made them want you, or that made them think you were their responsibility.
Well, okay, so the story goes something like, apparently there was a hive making a deal about having a kid. I don't know how it happened or what went wrong, but the hive with the father was supposed to take care of me, but in the time between conception and birth, the father's hive couldn't anymore. And the mother's hive never wanted me. I only remember a little bit of it, but what I do felt really unpleasant. So... my hivemate who ended up bringing me back - Beek's her name - coincidentally had to do an investigation on my mother's hive, something about population control. So, she found out about this story with me. The investigation went over cleanly, but Beek apparently ended up getting so fed up with the two hives, and pity for me, that she decided she'd take me in with her hive.

It was kind of a heated decision, but I'm glad it was made.

>I can only imagine taking a strange [baby] onto a spaceflight for days or weeks!
It's not actually bad, I hear! Spaceships are made so expensively and carefully that sound barriers work decently, so unless people are riding coach which feels like living in barracks, that isn't an issue.

Polo 2015/08/29(Sat)15:23 No. 94523 ID: dd338c
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>Polo, have you ever heard of there being some sort of predator-neumono hybrid? Is such a thing even possble?
Only in theory and jokes, but such a thing has been proven to be impossible. Predators are too different than neumono. If it happened, there would have to be technological interference to make it happen.

>Or is this just another story made up by the sort that'd claim there's at least half a dozen of you running around in parallel time-worlds or whatever.
Probably.

Agent Polo 2015/08/29(Sat)15:23 No. 94524 ID: dd338c
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>Grumpiness is not a measurable entity
>Agent Polo, would you and your grump meter care to rebut?
No.

Twins 2015/08/29(Sat)15:23 No. 94525 ID: dd338c
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>If rogues generally leave in clumps, then I guess there isn't as clear of a divide between a bunch of rogues leaving and a schism?
The difference is that rogue clumps just have a shitton of rogues that go their separate ways, a schism means the hive divides into two hives.

>Like, you guys say you're not a minihive, but if it had been ten of you instead of just two, could you have been?
Probably not. Like I said. My counterpart and I did not have a mutual understanding at first, we fought a shitton, and it's baffling how we ended up putting up with each other. If we got along swimmingly then there's still only two of us, and we still wouldn't have been a hive like you know. If there were 10 of us and we got along swimmingly, then there we go, minihive if not a full hive.

>Or a combination of these?
Safe bet.

>How does a schism go down, generally, to anyone who knows? Is it something that builds up and happens all at once.
Yeah, that's right. Usually it's a long time in the making. Not to say that that isn't a messy process. Full of delusional behavior for everyone.

>So, if a rogue was formerly part of a hive that is now splitting in two, and they went rogue for the same reason part of the hive is splitting away, can they then go to the split-off hive and be all "yes this is my hive but without the problem I had before" and bond with them?
Probly. Take too long and I they just forget why they went rogue in the first place, and so others doing it for the same reason isn't gonna mean shit for them. But if just a little time passes, then yeah they can turn back around and hop on the bandwagon.

Raox 2015/08/29(Sat)15:23 No. 94526 ID: dd338c
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>How does the neumono legal system handle schisms?
A lot of paperwork and a lot of arbitrators and therapist neumono to try and sort everything out.

>Hives seem to hold a lot of their property in common, so a split-up seems it would be like a messy divorce times 20.
Yeah. Yeah, it is.

>And the kids! The ones young enough to not be fully hive-bonded yet, that would be super difficult.
Most of them are hive bonded, that happens real early, it's just that they're malleable and can go into whichever split without too much issue. It's still messy. They've still got to make a decision which side to go to, and some of their buddies might end up on the other side.

>Do ultrahives maybe have some sort of arrangement contract that their hives have to sign, saying that if they ever do have a schism they have to play by certain rules and accept external judgement and so on? How do you handle whether hives that have split are beholden to agreements made by the formerly unified hive?
Yeah, and that rough too, go figure. Trying to get hives to fill out anything for that is usually met with disdain. Thoughts of 'how dare you ever think we'd schism or have rogues' and so forth. But it happens, and that's where the arbiters and therapists I mentioned come in. It's almost always external judgement to say who gets what. It's not always fair, but a neumono going through a schism is a neumono at the most unreasonable point of his or her life.

>How do you handle whether hives that have split are beholden to agreements made by the formerly unified hive?
Most these neumono have it made as clear to them as possible that just living in the ultrahive means it comes with certain deals, understandings and terms. This kind of shit is one of them.

>If a Queen or King is usually seen as the representation of their whole hive, are some hives touchy about how theirs is treated? Like, they'll expect or even demand more formality and politeness toward theirs from others, compared to how they'd expect their ordinary members be treated?
Sometimes yeah. It's discouraged, because if the king or queen is considered high and mighty, chances are, the hive itself considers it high and mighty to match. But it happens. Understandably, hives are pretty protective for their royalty.

>Though, Three Stripes' hive did demand tribute from Polo. That might have been because there was an element of disrespect to Polo's empathy, with them? Or that she didn't feel respectful enough, at least?
Those tribals are tribals in an odd situation. Normally, however, tribals would kill a neumono who didn't show respect. Neumono who did show respect would either be killed anyway, or "allowed" to offer tribute. I believe the concensus on the reason is that, aside from wanting free stuff, the hive would want the outsider to prove their respect, as the hive typically will consider the outsider's empathy untrustworthy.

Jessica 2015/08/29(Sat)15:24 No. 94527 ID: dd338c
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>Gee, Jessica, all the question was was whether you and Kappi had noticed any common hobbies or anything with each other, and if you'd like, played video games or something. Your response makes you seem like you read it as implying something else, though. Have you been bothered by people in the Hub implying/assuming things?
Oh.

Okay, sorry. Yeah, we have common interests. Video games are included. General computer science is another. I wouldn't mess with him, but some other neumono think that we were made for each other. Or at least that I would be a good relationship for Kappi, who people are concerned about.

And usually them trying to get us to get cozy with one another starts with 'oh hey Jess I notice you like blank, well guess who also likes blank?' or 'oh hey Jess you're going to be working on similar things as Kappi I hear, you know it's really nice when two coworkers get along well right?'

It's not like I dislike Kappi, but sideline matchmaking gets old fast.

So yeah, I thought you were going that way. My bad.

>What was the first known case of interplanetary whoopy?
Belenos with human, probably in space in orbit around Belenos IV. It's not like that's the sort of thing that's recorded, but you can look at people's logs and stuff and find out they prooobably had relations with that whoever even though they never actually recorded that stuff. First belenos porn? They probably didn't even have actual sex on screen either.

First real recorded case is probably when scientists on both ends studied reproductive systems on the other, but you can bet there was all kinds of fucking going on before that point.

Sandfin 2015/08/29(Sat)15:24 No. 94528 ID: dd338c
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>Is it a pain in the ass to live in the desert with fur? Because I'm sure it gets ungodly hot and it takes forever to get to sand out of your fur.
Yeah, but ya get used to it, believe it or not. Eventually the sand just kinda hangs out, no problem, and your skin gets tough to match.

The heat though? There's a reason I keep myself indoors, specially in summer.

Nezul 2015/08/29(Sat)15:24 No. 94529 ID: dd338c
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>Compared to other lizards, what do you two think about Kexluk?
Odd. It is as though he recognized the lizard's tendency to be bad socially, but in exchange for learning how to not be a jerk, he simply has no idea how to work with large scale politics and social aspects of life.

Tulip 2015/08/29(Sat)15:24 No. 94530 ID: dd338c
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>Compared to other lizards, what do you two think about Kexluk?
At first he was terrifying! But I guess when you get to know him he might be really okay. He seems unhappy a lot though but maybe he is just having a hard time. Also lizards are unhappy a lot even though they have everything.

Rokoa 2015/08/29(Sat)15:25 No. 94531 ID: dd338c
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>Have people ever commented before that you seem able to fall asleep very easily? Is that unusual?
Yeah. It's unusual for your average nobody. But for people who were in the ultrahive wars, they either could sleep anywhere, anytime, or are dead.

>And is it something you've always been able to do? Or is it a skill you picked up, that you've just pushed yourself to the point of falling unconscious so often that you learned how to nod off for a quick recharge whenever you feel like it?
Getting a good night's sleep was always important, and my hive made all kinds of tricks for sleeping both snugly, but also lightly in case we needed to get up and flee or fight fast.

Sleeping anytime anywhere though was from a lot of practice in ultrahive wars as a mercenary. Didn't have anything to do with pushing myself to unconsciousness, cept to make it easier. Tribal warfare and ultrahive warfare were both as intense and as deadly as one another. Difference is, besides the obvious tech levels, is that tribal fights lasted seconds or minutes in a normal fight, maybe hours if we tried to wipe a whole hive out. Ultrahive warfare fighting was days or weeks in a normal battle, nearly nonstop bombs and bullets with no chance of a full night's sleep at any point.

Or at least that's how it was for the mercenaries.

>Is narcolepsy a condition neumono can have?
Yeah, but it's absurdly rare.

Dear asteroidverse, WHERE THE RAILGUNS AT!?
How common is genetic engineering among the different species?
Whiskers, why are you pink?

Story Seeker, if it's not rude, how long do kobolds usually live? And, a related question, does your world follow the trend of magic users living longer than is normal for their species, assuming they don't get themselves killed any other way?

>>94294
>Learning stuff for us is legitimately a pleasing experience.

So, what counts as "learning"? Is it just science facts, or any new experience or understanding? When you smell or taste something you never have before, or hear a new musical instrument or visit some world where you get to see what planetary rings look like from the surface for the first time, does that count? Does it apply to relationships with other people, so new friends or lovers have an extra boost to enjoying each other's company for a while, as they gradually learn everything about the other person? Or what about historical learning, are there places on say, earth, where you'll see a bunch of belenosian tourists going on guided tours through museums and old castles and things?

Speaking of history, we know ancient belenosians were all sorts of interesting and hard to know a lot for sure about, but what's known about ancient ancient belenosians? Is there much record of what you were like before you discovered the scientific method at all? Any leftovers of whatever cultures there were before they all got mashed together? And if not, how do you feel about that?

>>94522
Hey, so how did you hold up on the tropical island in the middle of summer, being probably one of the only people around with snowhive-style cold weather fur coat. Did you live in the water or what.

Are there any obvious signs of Neumono aging? I'd comment that I've never seen any elderly Neumono, but considering I don't know what an old one looks like, I wouldn't know!

So who is the most hardcore neumono survivor in history? Something like Hugh Glass's story. He had to crawl 200 miles through the wilderness after getting mauled by a bear. Fairly impressive for a human really.

Basically what is the most known and most ridiculous case of a neumono who say got half there body eaten or worse and then managed to survive on there own and get back to civilization?

Three Stripes: Hello! I'd like to know about empathy sensitivity. We know that as a predator you can do all sorts of things with your empathy that most neumono can't. But how is your receptivity to external empathy? Can you pick up details in a neumono's empathy that another neumono couldn't, or at least do so more easily? Can you detect a neumono's empathy from further away than another neumono would? Also, do you have control over the range of the empathy you send out? Like, if one neumono was 10 meters away and another neumono was 20 meters, and we say the max range is 30, could you adjust your empathy volume so only the closer neumono would "hear" you?

A related question, for neumono: Does the range at which your empathy will be detected always match up with the range you can detect another neumono's empathy, or is there variance? Are there scenarios where one neumono, moving slowly enough, can sense another neumono's presence before they get noticed themselves?

Neumono intelligence is fairly evenly distributed between the brain matter, even if the brain matter isn't itself evenly distributed. Thus, losing limbs makes a neumono dumber than normal, because they have a smaller volume of brains. At first thought, this would suggest that smaller neumono must, on average, be considerably dumber and larger neumono be considerably smarter, due to a difference in grey matter. But nothing observed supports this, with Polo, Lucera, et al being as smart as Rokoa or probably smarter than Az.

Why does cutting off an arm reduce intelligence but being naturally smaller doesn't? Do neumono have a fairly constant amount of neural tissue and the only variation is how densely packed into the body it is? If so, would Polo lose a larger proportion of her mind if she lost an arm than Rokoa would, and has anyone tried to find out how much total grey matter it is? Is there any variation in the amount between neumono?

>>94727

Same reason that smaller humans aren't dumber from having smaller brains? Most neural material is used for motor control and other bodily functions, rather than "intelligence". The less body you have the less brain you need.

>>94737
If that were the case they wouldn't get dumber like they did in canon when they lost limbs, would they?

>>94738

Having less brains by your own nature, and which your body has properly set up and laid out and used to, is very different from suddenly having less brains than you did a second ago before that giant monster bit your arm off. And it may not be just the raw loss of amount of brains that causes the temporary mental incapability, but more the shock and blood loss and needing to reroute your remaining brains to pick up the slack. Which would explain why in the case of Katzati, she regained her senses before regenerating her arm. And it would also go some way to explaining why a very experienced fighter like Rokoa could apparently condition themselves to be less mentally affected by lots of damage.

>>94738
I don't think canon has shown someone to be demonstrably dumber after losing a limb, unless you count that warhiver who was reduced to a single leg before he died (who would have counted as severely brain damaged at that point).

Katzati predominantly showed signs of physical and emotional shock at the time of her injury and the immediate aftermath, and didn't demonstrate a noticeable reduction in intelligence in the subsequent thread.

>Do neumono have a fairly constant amount of neural tissue and the only variation is how densely packed into the body it is?
Another possible variation might be the degree of redundancy. We already know memory storage has to be redundant to prevent body part loss from incurring large scale memory loss.

Another trade off is, the more spread out a network, the harder it is / the longer it takes to talk with itself. A distributed brain is why neumono have terrible reaction time compared to species with a centralized nervous system. It's possible this means there are diminishing returns on a larger scale, or that this puts hard limits on the amount of neural tissue, as you speculated.

>>94745
Fairly sure it was demonstrated in the very first thread of Polo Intermission; the tourist lost a limb.

>>94746
Rikek never lost a limb. Polo shot him in one of his stomachs, which left him kind of wonky for a while.

>>94747

No, it was when he got half crushed by the moton, I think.

So, how good is neumono regeneration at reattachment? Like, I assume that with modern medical techniques it's obvious that you can try stitch a limb back on, with a glue gun to seal arteries and so forth, but what about when things are less regined? In pre-uplift days, for example, if some ravening beastie bit your whole arm off, but you and your buddies killed it and pulled your arm back out, could you jam the stumps back together, lash them in place with some rope or do some rough stitching with a hole through a fang and some leather strips, and then expect any improvement over just waiting for your arm to grow back on its own?

Rokoa: So you've told us you like dumb action movies and shows. Is that only dumb guns-and-explosions movies, or does it extent to, say, dumb martial arts movies? Also, have you ever watched any variant of fist of the north star, dragon ball z, or similar?

>>94767
I think the reattachment one's been answered before, and the answer was "it'd work really really well" to the point where you could even just slap someone else's limb on and it'd heal very quickly, but natural neumono regeneration would eventually convert it into more of "you". You could say the Rokoa-darts were like that tiny bit of Rokoa saying "oh, good, an entire donor body to regenerate with, all I need to do is fix the fact that it's not me!".

>>94801

I'm pretty sure that question was about proper surgical reattachment, though. This question is about, like, whether the regeneration would figure out how to restore blood flow quickly enough before the limb starts to decay.

Hey, Itcher! I just realized that we don't actually know anything about your past. Were you born and raised on the Asteroid, or did you crash on it? If you did crash, where are you from originally? Where did you get your skills, and do you have any education in anything we haven't seen you use? Is there any unusual story as to how you got into the Zozu family? If you are an "immigrant", do/did you have any blood relations you lost contact with?

Story Seeker 2015/09/12(Sat)19:21 No. 94813 ID: dd338c
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>Story Seeker, if it's not rude, how long do kobolds usually live? And, a related question, does your world follow the trend of magic users living longer than is normal for their species, assuming they don't get themselves killed any other way?
Kobolds living healthy, good lives, can live for many decades! However, most don't live good, healthy lives, and so the effects of aging are sped up and we may only last two or three decades. But, but again! There are relatively accessable magical means to slow our aging to a degree, so a kobold living an unhealthy life but with access to those healing magic that can cleanse out the system, it may be back up to several decades. That is, of course, not counting the various non accessable magic leading to such things as, say, immortality, which would defeat the purpose of the question!

And so, in short, as little as 20 to 30 barring premature death, but kobolds in their 70s are hardly of a legendary matter. And to clarify your second question - as it was answered that magical means can slow down aging, it does not matter if the kobold itself is the one with the magical capability or simply the recepient!

Penn 2015/09/12(Sat)19:21 No. 94814 ID: dd338c
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>So, what counts as "learning"? Is it just science facts, or any new experience or understanding? When you smell or taste something you never have before, or hear a new musical instrument or visit some world where you get to see what planetary rings look like from the surface for the first time, does that count? Does it apply to relationships with other people, so new friends or lovers have an extra boost to enjoying each other's company for a while, as they gradually learn everything about the other person? Or what about historical learning, are there places on say, earth, where you'll see a bunch of belenosian tourists going on guided tours through museums and old castles and things?
I was talking about the latter, before. That's why our guided tours and documentaries and all that are so serious and dry, we can get the pleasure out of just knowing plain, raw facts. We get a sort of different pleasure out of learning stuff for ourselves, like as you said, meeting new friends and learning about them, or visiting a ring with planets. It's still good! Just different. Peop- belenos still like that! But then, so do most people. For us, just hearing random facts like 'in the space year 14, Pegasus was the first, privately owned cruise ship to go faster than light' gets us thinking and more interested than other species would typically.

>Speaking of history, we know ancient belenosians were all sorts of interesting and hard to know a lot for sure about, but what's known about ancient ancient belenosians? Is there much record of what you were like before you discovered the scientific method at all?
Oh, that's basically prehistory! It's even more speculative and vague than stuff about the empire itself. I mean, there was a really long time between us learning technology and us blowing ourselves up, and after awhile the information on ancient belenos - by ancient standards - got to be sparse and speculative. So now, you can probably imagine just how hard it was to find the bits and scraps of bits and scraps!

>Any leftovers of whatever cultures there were before they all got mashed together? And if not, how do you feel about that?
Not really, and, uh, to be honest... I don't care that much. I mean I'd like to learn about it, but not much more than any other plain subject.

Rakae 2015/09/12(Sat)19:22 No. 94815 ID: dd338c
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>Hey, so how did you hold up on the tropical island in the middle of summer, being probably one of the only people around with snowhive-style cold weather fur coat. Did you live in the water or what.
I basically had to live in either the AC or make a run to the water. Actual summers are really rough for snow neumono without the right cooling down tools. And even then, it's my least favorite time of year.

I'm not the only one though, a lot of snow hives do migrate out to where jobs and stuff are, so you'll still find snow neumono out in the big cities who just kind of disappear in the summer and come out en masse in the winter.

And with advent of ac and a surplus of water, there's even neumono who live out in the deserts, now.

Biles 2015/09/12(Sat)19:22 No. 94816 ID: dd338c
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>So who is the most hardcore neumono survivor in history? Something like Hugh Glass's story. He had to crawl 200 miles through the wilderness after getting mauled by a bear. Fairly impressive for a human really.
Hey, that'd still impressive for a neumono depending on how bad the mauling was. Yeah we can regen, but we'd have to find food anyway, and doing that by ourselves injured that badly is a feat.

For us, though, I'm fond of Awp Rozu Vinehanger, a redgrass neumono who was doing a delivery mission up in the northern snowlands to deliver some supplies to a labratory. Had a party of 15 with only 4 neumono, some scientists and other technicians involved. Halfway there, the plane went missing in a place where there was virtually no civilization, least, not yet. Was tough to find since there was a nasty snowstorm and the communications went out a bit before the crash, but a week later they found it under a 600 foot lake. Looked like the party hung around the plane waiting for rescue, but got annihilated or taken captive by a local snow hive tribe, but I don't know what came of that other than that it looked like the whole party got killed.

A bit over 2 years later and a bit over a thousand miles away, Awp found a working telephone and a hell of a story to tell. And it did include having to run a good ways with injuries. Got in some messes with the native wildlife, and at some point had to run and hide her trail for a full day and night from one of those snow hives before she got a chance to pull out the spear that went through her head. She had a fair bit of footage and recordings to go along with it too.

Rokoa 2015/09/12(Sat)19:24 No. 94817 ID: dd338c
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>WHERE THE RAILGUNS AT!?
Not on the asteroid, for starters. Our railguns are huge and all, and bigass guns like that get to be too big a target. Specially when all they have to shoot at are small, outdated vehicles unless you wanna fight the supernova or something.

You want bigass guns, you'll need to either find Belenos IV, or space faring capital ships.

>Does the range at which your empathy will be detected always match up with the range you can detect another neumono's empathy, or is there variance? Are there scenarios where one neumono, moving slowly enough, can sense another neumono's presence before they get noticed themselves?
We've got variance. Normal range is 30 meters with a standard deviation of about 1. Which means a below average neumono has a 2 meter window where he can sense an above average neumono, but the latter can't sense him. There's also a tiny, two foot range where some neumono can be sensed just slightly.

>Effects of losing a limb
It disorients us. I'll elaborate.

If we just lose an arm, then there's plenty of brain redundancy left to pick up the pieces and rewire the thoughts. While that's going on, though, the average neumono who's not used to losing arm is gonna be disoriented and half responsive while rewiring, and probably has some lingering grogginess for awhile.

Lose upwards of 20% to 30% though, or even just have it damaged, and that could be upward of a week of being a functional moron. Enough redundancy to not become a vegetable and die, but a lot of that gained intelligence goes down the shitter until it regenerates. Much more than that, and then that's when living is in question.

Back to limbs. Most of our brain is in our torso and head. Losing a limb or two is just gonna cause that half hour of disorientation and that's it. That's probably from the blood loss, shock and all that adrenaline shooting stuff as much as any brain loss. Definitely not enough brain loss to get dumber once they get a chance to rewire their thought pattern.

>When [Rikek] got half crushed by the moton, I think.
Yeah, that's a good example of brain damage. Limbs might not've been lost, but when brain gets kicked with a boot, the limbs' brain may as well not be there.

Anyway, there's more brain matter in bigger neumono, but it doesn't seem to help redundancy all that much. Probably just more brain to match more body to coordinate. Brain sizes vary too even in similar sizes, but so far all science has to say on the matter is 'could mean anything.' Losing an arm is still disorienting.


>So, how good is neumono regeneration at reattachment? Like, I assume that with modern medical techniques it's obvious that you can try stitch a limb back on, with a glue gun to seal arteries and so forth, but what about when things are less regined?
First, yeah, with modern medicine, you can tack on all sorts of body parts and have it get assimilated if it's in the right spot, absorbed if it's not.

For premodern medicine, pretty goddamn good I'd say. Long as the connections are more or less in place when you slap it on. That means the arm or whatever's gotta be about the same size and in the same point. Can't slap the chopped arm that only reaches to the bottom of a bicep to the shoulder and expect the live neumono body to say, cool, that's a bicep, I'll just connect that for now and then fill in the gap. Just won't work.

Assuming it's done without some kind of intelligence and matching parts, then that shortcut can and does come in handy. And like you said. Stitching it with some raw rope like some kind of B movie works just fine, long as you don't mutilate the arms too badly in the process.

>So you've told us you like dumb action movies and shows. Is that only dumb guns-and-explosions movies, or does it extent to, say, dumb martial arts movies? Also, have you ever watched any variant of fist of the north star, dragon ball z, or similar?
Fuck yes it extends to martial arts movies. Martial arts are about as sacred as shooting guns, so it can be just a joke as anything. I don't watch really old shit, but stuff like this hasn't gone completely out of style, specially not since neumono got their mitts on a cam.

I don't numb my brain on it like Kappi does, but I've got my guilty pleasures too.

Itcher 2015/09/12(Sat)19:24 No. 94818 ID: dd338c
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>Where did you get your skills, and do you have any education in anything we haven't seen you use?
I used to be an accountant. And I mean a real, honest to god accountant, with an office to himself and a pen in place of a gun and a diploma instead of a safe. For a real business too, one that made me move to some off planet in the middle of nowhere. Cept that business, out on the fringes, got into some real lucrative business when they dealt with pirates instead of fought them. Real dangerous business, too. Had a real poetic buddy who said "I dealt with the financial veil between the legal and illegal." Anyway, shady shit meant I was eventually on the move, and shadier shit meant I was on a ship that was getting outside solar system from less than reputable means. The whole thing reeked like a trap, so I got outta there via an escape pod.

Well, sometimes I wonder if I was just some paranoid moron or if my company's ship got blown up - but when I left, I can say that the company ship was in fact in one piece and did not like me bailing. So they chased me in some interceptors, so I could either try and outrun high agility and speed ships built for the purpose in a damn escape pod, or sink on down to the asteroid.

>Is there any unusual story as to how you got into the Zozu family?
Nope. I just knew I needed to find a gang, and one big enough both to provide safety and who needed someone who could crunch numbers.

>If you are an "immigrant", do/did you have any blood relations you lost contact with?
I got a sister who moves around a lot, legally unlike me, and parents who don't. Wouldn't say that we were all that close a family, but if I did get outta here by chance, I'd give 'em a hug.

>If you did crash, where are you from originally?
I was born on Belenos IV, but the job had me move to 455A-3. Which was an artificial planet, a flattering and incorrect term for a small planet turned into space station. Decent population to it and all, but that was out in the sticks like I mentioned before.

>>94818
Itcher's Sister and/or parents, actually, anyone's family from the Asteroid that isn't on the Asteroid with them, would you care to comment about your family member's disappearance on the Asteroid (regardless if you know they're alive on the Asteroid or assume they're dead somewhere out in space)?

>>94815
Can't they just... trim their coat?

>>94820
I think that's been asked before, and the answer is that fur grows very quickly to a set length. It's apparently included in regeneration. So trimming it is a fairly large effort for relatively little payoff.

No answer from Three Stripes, eh? Obviously the government wants to conceal just how well their predators can control our minds.

>>94814
Hey Penn, how good are you at security systems? I know it's a stereotype that anyone who works with computers is l33t wizkid black hat hax0r, but I figure that when you work with AIs, it would be kind of a necessity. If something's wrong with them, you have to be able to get into their guts for some metaphorical electronic surgery. And since they are intelligent, then in AI experiments especially I imagine it can be quite common that an AI will try things like adjusting its own logs or hacking into your notes to see what you think of it, so you have to be able to guard against that.

I expect AIs are very common in computer security. You could make a system a kind of electronic fortress, with AIs as guards patrolling the walls and deciding who to open the doors to and so on. Would that be accurate? With your qualifications, could you get a job fitting software security systems like that?

Three Stripes 2015/09/13(Sun)09:32 No. 94826 ID: dd338c
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>We know that as a predator you can do all sorts of things with your empathy that most neumono can't. But how is your receptivity to external empathy? Can you pick up details in a neumono's empathy that another neumono couldn't, or at least do so more easily?
Yes! That is how Three Stripes does things with neumono he has to learn everything about how they work and think and all that and then Three Stripes can start doing stuff with it.

>Can you detect a neumono's empathy from further away than another neumono would?
No all neumono put their empathy out at the same distance and it doesn't matter if Three Stripes is a predator or not because neumono might have a little different output lengths than other neumono but that output length is always noticed at that output length by anyone who has empathy.

>Also, do you have control over the range of the empathy you send out?
No Three Stripes is the same way and he has a bigger range than most neumono but that just means that neumono could sense Three Stripes before Three Stripes could sense them if they were far but not too far.

>>94664 was ignored, maybe? Maybe not.

>>94838
(This one has been noted and will be answered, just wasn't included in this round. As opposed to Three Stripes section in which was typed up and drawn and simply missed while uploading the batch.)

Dear guys who have gotten some oral attention from the neumono ladies.

What on earth convinced you that letting a mouth full of teeth like that near your dick was a good idea?

Dear neumono ladies who have given some oral attention to a guy.

How do you avoid causing horrible bedroom accidents with your horrifying shark teeth?

Rokoa: Have you ever played Russian Roulette? I'd imagine it's more popular among neumono. Or perhaps it eliminates the whole point of the game?

>>94858
I imagine it's vaguely similar to how humans avoid incisor-penis contact during oral.

>>94817
What about cauterizing a wound? For humans it burns a wound closed and stops the bleeding. How would that work for neumonos? And if you did cauterize a wound, would that prevent you from regenerating? Like if you lost a hand and cauterized it, would your hand still regenerate back or would it not regenerate? I ask because I heard a rumor about burns preventing regeneration.

Does the neumono tail armor cause any balance or coordination problems?

I know not getting shot in your tail is cool, and having an extra bullet shield behind your back is even better, but the tail volume is mostly fluff, and it's now weighted down by a comparatively bulky and metal / ceramic shell. I could potentially see that being more of a complication than just otherwise bearing the weight of the rest of the armor.

Polokoa and/or Rokolo:
When you know both the needle trick and Polo's silence technique, is there any reason to use the former over the latter?

Rokoa! Of all the neumono guys we have personal acquaintance with - Pilon, Az, Biles, Rikek, Kappi, Tirrek, et cetera et cetera - who would you personally rank in your top 5 cutest/hottest/generally attractive, and in what order? I assume the top five would be all neumono, but if not include others too. I'd like to get an idea of your tastes.

I'd ask Polo as well, but I assume she'll be reticent as ever. So, if I'm not wrong, any other girls want to give theirs, to compare? Jess, maybe? Korli?

Same question but for guys, too. Az, Biles, Raox even? Or whoever's answering another question anyway, if anyone, to make it convenient. Give us a top 5 best-looking, in your opinion, of the girls we know.

Any others who wouldn't mind giving their versions of these answers too, please go ahead! Miss? Penn, perhaps? Heck, maybe Story Seeker wants to give us the run-down on what he thinks of these beings from another world?

Polo: How are you with kids? We got told a story that made you seem like you got on well with some, at least. Do you interact much with your own hive's children? Or, perhaps, do they try to interact with you?

>>95032
>Polo: how are you with kids
>>79858

To Tin: Sorry if this has already been asked before, or if I had simply missed it, but in most of your pictures, you don't seem to have a mouth. Unlike Hok, who has a visible mouth in some pictures, I don't remember seeing you with a mouth at all. It might just be my crappy memory, but if it's one of your mutations, how do you eat and talk?

Rokolo 2015/09/27(Sun)23:42 No. 95119 ID: e750ac
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>Dear neumono ladies who have given some oral attention to a guy.
>How do you avoid causing horrible bedroom accidents with your horrifying shark teeth?

I dunno, maybe by actually paying attention to what we're doing?

Though, one little thing that always helps: whether the guy remembers who's ultimately in charge when which parts are between whose jaws.

>Rokolo: Does the word 'Tozol' have any meaning to you?

Ugh, don't even mention those guys. Seriously. I mean it, really, don't, not where any Rokoas could hear. I never should've told them that story.

>Rokolo: When you know both the needle trick and Polo's silence technique, is there any reason to use the former over the latter?

Not really! First, it wouldn't be the "needle" trick for me, because my CAI can block my neural paths without me needing to stab myself. Second, unless you just think there's simply not enough wrong with you, there's nothing you'd need the needle trick to give you that going silent doesn't. If you really want to stretch to the edge cases, then in theory there could be some extreme situations, where you couldn't manage the concentration to go silent, but where you could still use the needle trick. But the needle trick still needs focus, just a different kind of focus, so in most cases you're still screwed.

How do I explain this in a way that's simple enough for you guys... Like, let's say you knew how to levitate by clearing your mind of all worldly emotion, or something. And you'd also bumped into a fairy and could fly by thinking happy thoughts. Now, if you're overwhelmingly angry or sad or afraid, you're not getting off the ground no matter what you do. But if you're irrepressibly happy, then you still can't lift off by clearing your mind, but you can still peter pan your way into the air, because it's just coincidentally the case that being really happy doesn't interfere with thinking happy thoughts. Silence vs. the needle trick goes down kind of the same way.

Also, in this metaphor, fairy dust fucks you up.

As if snorting glittering particles off a tiny bug-human's backside wouldn't do that anyway.

>>95119
>Ugh, don't even mention those guys. Seriously. I mean it, really, don't, not where any Rokoas could hear. I never should've told them that story.
...

*grins*

*grabs megaphone*

TOZOL!!!!!

>>95139
No, no, no, you're doing wrong! Do it like this!

*turns on intercom system*

Ahem! To any and all Rokoas that can hear this! The Tozols have claimed that you're all a bunch of wimps and that they can easily beat you up!

>>95157
I'm trying to troll Rokolo, not destroy the world, you nutcase!!!!! O_o

*gets on the intercom* Disregard that last transmission! There are no Tozols here. Nope. None at all. And there are definitely no Tozols mocking you for being weak and slow and stupid.

...

Wait. F#@$

>>95177
You're the nutcase! I was at least polite enough to not mention their stupidity! DX

Wait, why does my voice sound like it's coming from everywhere? SHIT, THE INTERCOM'S STILL ON!!!!! WHERE'S THE OFF SWITCH ON THIS THING?!?! O_o

Rokolo 2015/09/30(Wed)22:03 No. 95201 ID: 5d1629
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>*grabs megaphone*

>*turns on intercom syst-

CAI 2015/09/30(Wed)22:03 No. 95202 ID: 5d1629
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>AUDIO CONNECTION MUTED

>>95202
Gave ya a heart attack, didn't we? ;-P

But you can't stop me that easily! I shall use other methods of communication and hope that Rokoa is smart enough to realize that I'm telling her that the "Tozols" are insulting her!

*starts signing insulting message from the "Tozols" in sign language*

*flashes the same message with a flashlight in morse code*

*makes the same message by waving around flags using flag semaphore*

*repeats the same message out loud in the hopes that Rokoa is smart enough to be able to read lips*

*writes the same message on a piece of paper and mails it to Rokoa* Come on, snail mail! You're my last option, don't fail me now! (In 2-3 weeks anyways..... T_T;)

Let's see you stop all of that! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! >:-D

CAI 2015/10/01(Thu)00:39 No. 95209 ID: 5d1629
File 144368517391.png - (10.93KB , 550x550 , rokoloITQagain4.png )

>But you can't stop me that easily! I shall use other methods of

>VIDEO CONNECTION CUT

>AND THE POST DOESN'T DELIVER TO HIDDEN CLONE ARMIES BUDDY, TRY AGAIN

>ONLY DON'T

>>95205
That's it, you've left me no choice! Now I shall use my amazing hacking skills to force the video and audio to turn back on!

.....Is what I would say if I had any hacking skills, which I don't.....man, I'm pathetic. TT_TT

But are you sure the post doesn't deliver there? Because someone over there has got a subscription to a weekly magazine called "CAIs Gone Wild". That means SOMEONE is getting mail, right?

>>95202
>>95209
Ralison: How much of your time as CAI leader is spent doing saves like that one? Because I am guessing a lot. (Also this explains lot about how a CAI can manage to keep anything secret.)

>>95202
Well screw you too :P
(Here I thought she'd just be annoyed, but apparently it's legitimately bad news)

>>95209
Maybe we can get one of those airplanes with the giant banners... no, then it'd get shot down... Write it in fireworks? No, I dunno how to do that and they might not be looking up.

>>95285
*blinks* My username's not there anymore? When did that happen?

... meh. Easy fix.

Anyway! Serious question time. (by which i mean seriously posing a question, not 'Answer this riddle or your friend dies' serious)

We know that neumono come in several different colors, and it's been implied through neumono legend that different neumono fur colors correspond to where your hive made their home (which makes sense - a snow white neumono's gonna have an easier time stalking prey on a snowbank than in a forest). But do different neumono hives/demographics also have different fur textures, and if so what are they?

Penn's grandmother: I assume most information about Penn is something you want to keep under wraps, and that there needs to be a cloak of invisibility over a lot of her unique qualities for the foreseeable future. But, is there anything you can tell us? Like, she mentioned a while ago that she's never gotten any sort of infectious illness in her life. And I notice she seemed to have good endurance for a desk worker. She explained it by saying she sprinted between classes a lot, but that gives a different kind of endurance than a lot of walking needs, which is what was going on, so that's suspicious.

So, what I'm mostly asking is, does Penn have... enhancements? Superior stamina, immunity to disease... maybe resistance to radiation? Longevity? Anything you can give away? Also, how much of her isn't from her... special status? Like, her parents' genes got overwritten with others, is what I take away, but genes don't define absolutely everything about a person. Epigenetics is mostly a result of the mother's condition, and maybe there was something like... if genes for belenos work like humans, then the different sexes have different chromosome shapes, so maybe whatever was able to rewrite her genes wasn't able to reform that, and that's why she's female while records seem to indicate ol' blueglass was male?

Besides all that, which odds are you won't answer... what about you? Why were you assigned to work with Penn, have you studied cases of previous individuals like her?

Rokoa: What's your favourite human food?

>>95032
>>95033

Kids: How are you with Polo?

>>95209
Excuse me, Ms. CAI? Could you turn the audio and video back on, please? Other people have questions they want to ask, but they can't get any answers if no one can see or hear the questions being asked!

Also, I'm sorry for trying to start a fight between Rokoa and the Tozols. Do you forgive me?

CAI 2015/10/06(Tue)17:58 No. 95362 ID: 1b197b
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>Ralison: How much of your time as CAI leader is spent doing saves like that one? Because I am guessing a lot.

>This wasn't so much a leadership duty as it was just taking advantage of speedy AI reactions, performing signal interdiction on something that would have been troublesome.

>But yes.

>Excuse me, Ms. CAI? Could you turn the audio and video back on, please?

>CONNECTIONS RESTORED.

>Do you forgive me?

>... Sure. Yes.

>BUT WE'LL BE WATCHING.

>>95362
>BUT WE'LL BE WATCHING.

That's understandable, thank you. Just one request, don't watch me while I'm in the bathroom, please. That would be VERY creepy and, trust me, you DON'T want to see what goes on in there! DX

But this also means we can have staring contests! Ready? Go! O_O
..........*blink* >_<
Dang it! DX

>>95362
.....Um, could I have a hug? Please? As a sign of us trusting each other again. <:-)

Zirkala: Healing magic is damaging to the undead, right? Should Story Seeker be careful about potentially bringing powerful healing items or other effects back home to you from his trips, and if so have you warned him about things like that? Or do you have precautions set up to negate those dangers to begin with? I'd assume you set up your ghouls with some way to not burst into flame if someone tried to heal them, for example, but maybe that's just an acceptable hazard.

Actually, if Kexluk had been around back then, would he have had a way to detect your ghouls?

Polo, what happened to that giant lung collapsing shard of shrapnel that got pulled out of you that you were gonna keep.

Belenosians: Do you ever get an urge to headbutt things? Maybe even just when you're children? I ask because I imagine tiny horned fuzzy babies bumping their heads against things and it's adorable.

Broader question to all species: Are there things your small children do that you think are cute and that other species' babies don't do?

Penn, since you've just been through the educational system, can you tell us what it's like now? Here where we are, the average age for entering college is around 18 human years, but since you're in the future and maybe educational methods have been improved, with cool multimedia and such, perhaps it's faster by your time. And maybe, with your species' knowledge-loving thing, it goes faster for you anyway? Or is the spare time filled out with a broader range of learning? Maybe you have more pre-university specialization, like a range of preparatory courses and classes for certain subjects?

To any and/or all quest characters who want to answer these 3 questions:

1. If you could be a character from an anime, which character would you be?

2. What anime is the character from?

3. Why that character?

Bonus points if you dress up as the character you want to be (it is almost Halloween after all)! XD

Belenosians: On earth, humans have a range of films, games and other media set in post-apocalyptic settings, often kind of... overblown and unrealistic in a lot of ways. Do people make historical post-apocalyptic belenosian movies, set (relatively) soon after the collapse of your ancient society? By which I mean, I assume there are historical dramas and documentaries and so on, but are there more... actiony, adventury, cheesy stories like what humans imagined from their own fictitious apocalypses?

I wondered if that would be considered tasteless (at least, tasteless in a different way from how tho stories usually are), but then, the standard human medieval fantasy setting, with a world of ancient ruins full of treasure and so on, is ultimately based on the post-semi-apocalypse of the roman empire in europe. And it has been a long time since then for you guys. So would most belenosians not care so much, and be able to enjoy such entertainments insofar as they would normally be capable of enjoying that kind of story in other settings?

Roxie, I would ask Penn this, but I think she'd be too embarrassed to answer, so could you go on the internet and look it up? I want to know how much potential trouble Penn could get herself into if she did have a one-night stand with some belenosian dude. Diseases seem unlikely in this advanced era, so I'm mainly thinking about family planning. I've heard that belenosian ladies "just start running eggs through their plumbing in response to a dude trying to fertilize it", so, does that mean they could have a kid any time? Or will one bout not be enough, do they have to try once or twice to get things going and then keep at it regularly for about a week or whatever, for it to happen? Or is it some in-between thing, like it is possible to produce a child from one night's work but the chances are really low, and they increase the longer you keep trying?

While I'm asking, how's battery life on your phones? Do you have super future batteries that last for days or weeks, or do you have some sort of thing where in cities and other built-up places there's some sort of wireless charging so that stuff stays powered?

Also, if someone asked you what is the best thing about being uplifted, that surprised you, what would you say? By which I mean, when you get uplifted I assume you get lectured at about a lot of stuff like peace and security and wealth and technology, so, what's the best thing about being uplifted that no-one told you about and that you didn't expect?

And what's the worst thing?

Is it theoretically possible for a king/queen to be a rogue? Say if everyone else in their hive died or they schismed so badly no two individuals stayed together. If so, would they stay a rogue or would they gather followers over time?

Hey Roxie, your degree is Linguistics, right? What inspired you to move into that field? Do you speak any languages beyond the galactic standard and your own hive's tribal language? What language do you like best? And can you answer something I've wondered: is it easier and/or faster for a neumono to learn a new language, so long as they have another neumono to learn it from, since you can use empathy to clue you in on meaning? And, perhaps, you have an advantage even without that, because your brains seem like they retain more plasticity for longer compared to other species?

Conversely, do neumono have particular trouble learning to make some sounds that alien languages use? Or do other aliens have that trouble? Do the different species have an audible "accent" that's just due to the different shapes of their mouths?

You're now a Heroic Spirit from Fate Stay Night.

What is your class and why?

>>95944
Also, what's your noble phantasm?

How are the ultrahive cities generally built? Are they all or mostly planned, like some aliens teamed in and went "yeah you're going to need stuff here here and here and it would be best to build here", so everything is very sensible, or were any of the cities you have now built up from previous large settlements, or military camps from the wars, or around where aliens had built stations for their various efforts?

Three Stripes, did you ever get it on with Four Stripes or Dead Stripes? I mean, there were no female Predators around, so really, those were really all your options for Romance.

Or did you think Four Stripes and Dead Stripes had a thing for each other? I think they had more in common, but opposites attract.

More language questions: Given that it's still only a few generations from uplift, do most neumono still know their former tribal language in addition to the standard? How about the other species? In the case of belenosians, did they have a single language still, as a legacy from the old imperial age? Or had they also developed different national/tribal languages by the time humans came along? In either case, do most of them still know how to speak their own, or did they drop it?

For example, Roxie, if that manipulative racist girl you met had really just wanted to pester Penn instead of riling you, could she have switched languages to try exclude you entirely, assuming you don't speak any belenosian or whatever the name of it is, if they do have a single language?

>>95983
Dirtbag just has to tease poor Prude Stripes ;}

Neumono that got barked at while trying to get hotdogs
what were your thoughts at the time?

If there's a program for individual tribals to be sent out to live among civilized neumono and aliens to get used to them and prepare their hive for full uplift, is there an opposite program? Are there aliens who go out and live with tribal hives to help them get used to aliens? If so, how well does that go down?

Hot dog stand guy: So, how did your 'dog-making skills hold up?

<person of extreme hot dog importance>: How did you become so hot dog important? Do you have importance in any other food domains? And, are neumono health and safety standards for culinary preparation more lax than for aliens, or do you just not care? Do neumono, being mostly carnivores, have a larger, more varied and more nuanced market of meat products compared to aliens?

Person who eventually won the Halloween murder house mystery: how did that go down?

Do neumono suffer from that two people walking towards each other and you try to step around them and they go the same way and you get caught in a loop thing, or does empathy preempt that. Or does empathy just mean you get stuck in the loop sooner.

If empathy stops that from happening, does it still happen in places with jammers, and does that make it really disorienting.

>Hot dog stand guy: So, how did your 'dog-making skills hold up?
Hot dog stand guy: How did your other skills hold up. *nudge nudge, wink wink*

How often do you imagine doing terrible naughty things to your customers. Is this part of the appeal of your stall.

>>95991
I dunno, asking someone if they've sexed up their siblings is a little strong for teasing.

Hey, Penn...

... ancient human thinkers theorized that, with the advent of science, individuals in a civilized society come under an impression that the world is ultimately knowable, understandable, and therefore controllable. However, even in the case where this was true (at the time it was not), no individual has the raw mental storage space to store such knowledge, or the free time to learn it all - therefore, to any individual, there would always be things that are unknowable and mysterious.

By contrast, such thinkers mused, primitive peoples were well accustomed to the idea that they were surrounded by forces they could neither understand or control. Though this left them vulnerable to superstition and mysticism, it also gave them greater courage and fortitude of mind when they encountered such unknown powers and felt their lives affected by them - whereas, when a civilized person feels their life shaken or altered by some force that they do not comprehend, they lack the same capacity to accept and endure such trials, and the contradiction with the world-view they've been raised on can result in deep anxiety, depression, or more severe neuroses.

In short, rather than the stereotype of the fearful savage, tribal peoples - and recently tribal peoples - can can keep a stronger "center" and better preserve their focus and peace of mind when faced with things that lie outside their experience and skills.

Does this match up with your experience?

Also: have you ever seen the movie your costume came from; did you have a reason (besides not wanting to wear a different costume) that Roxie thought you seemed unusually ok with the idea of a sexy costume; and, though Roxie was anxious about Milo's advances on you, on reflection it seemed like you were really not interested to begin with and were just being polite. Did you already suspect him of secondary motives, or was he just not your type? What sort of person would be your type, in regards a companion for mutual affection and mental/emotional/physical intimacy?

Roxie: Hey, Penn didn't punch you when you got home! Did you sign her up for martial arts classes? Or paintball or parkour or whatever?

...How is 'Neumono' pronounced anyway?
What species invented the word?
And is there any logic behind the word? Like for example is the 'mono' derived from the Latin word for one, or even from the Japanese word for "thing"?

>>96100
Aliens gave them the name. It's a fusion of "neuro" and "mono". So it means "one mind".

Lago commented on pronunciation here >>59940 and here >>60075

>>96100
>>96101
That's "Nyew-moe-no" not "nyur-mah-no"

>>96101
Oh wow. I went through every ITQ featuring Lago, ctrl-F'ing 'pronounce', but somehow I never thought of checking the discussion thread.

Hoy, Penn! I have questions about AI development.

First, are there different grades used to classify how "strong" an AI is? Like, maybe at the bottom you just have your regular chatbot that isn't really intelligent, and as it goes up you go to things that are smart at their jobs but not good at anything else, and up near the top you'd have things that can at least try to comprehend and figure out how to deal with things they haven't been prepared for before? Or maybe there's a different system.

Second, how simple is it to make an AI? The method to make CAI AIs, at least, seems to be very organic, as it were. It seems like it's less putting together a mechanism and more like growing, or cooking, or... fermenting? With something as complicated as an intelligence, something that can learn and adapt, it has to be a process that takes time, and must be sensitive. So I wondered: if, for example, you took the same base AI generating program and gave them to two people, and one was someone with a proper professional setup who kept a clinical distance and was always observing the AI as it grew, and the other was some dude cooking it up in his back room computer who liked just chatting with it about anything in a friendly casual way, and sometimes just left it by itself for long periods, would you end up with two significantly different AIs? Would they be different at more than a superficial level?

If so, can AI developers be identified by the AIs they've made? What I mean is, could a certain AI's quirks and mannerisms act as a sort of "signature" for their creator. Like, if you lost a usb drive with one of your AIs on it, and Arza found it, and we assume for this scenario there aren't any tags or notes or other identifiers on it, could Arza interact with/study the AI for a while and eventually go "hmm, this looks like it might be one of Penn's"?

How many AIs have you made, Penn? Is that more or less than a graduate student of your level in the field usually has made, by the point you've reached? Do you still have legal ownership of all the AIs you've made? If not, what happens to college-project AIs when they're finished? Which one of yours was your favourite, or at least, which one do you feel the strongest sentiment or other emotional connection towards?

Speaking of favourites, what's your favourite food?

>>96100
it comes from neurology and mono (as in 'one') iirc.

Any character: Asking for a friend who has a knife to my throat.

If you have a baby in your hand, and you know someone who hates you is about to burst into the room, which of the following scenarios would be the funniest:

-You're about to bite into the baby
-You look up and say "Ah, perfect timing! Could you get me some barbecue sauce?"
-*spitting and gagging* "THIS TASTES NOTHING LIKE CHICKEN"
-Throwing it at them

He's asking because he's not good at telling what crosses the line twice.

Belenosians: Does a tendency towards certain horn shapes tend to run in families? Milo and Navanna were siblings, for example, and seemed to both have a front-two-small-back-two-large shape.

Speaking of horns, are there any cultural connotations to using horns in a certain way? Like, is grabbing someone by their horns considered especially rude, or is it considered particularly vicious to actually attack someone with them, when size/shape/situation makes that possible?

Finally... have you guys come up with special pillows to accommodate horns when sleeping? Because it seems like a lot of you would have trouble lying on your back, and others trouble lying on your sides. Lying on your front seems the only position where they couldn't potentially be a problem, but that's not usually the most comfortable for most species. Unless it is, for you guys?

I see that rogues have generation numbers. Does that mean the number of generations since their ancestors went rogue? If an x-gen and a y-gen have a kid, what generation are they on? Are there any significant differences in behavior and empathic dependency between generations?