Re: Road to Hope
Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2024 3:35 pm
Throwback to when one of the characters was like "stop fucking. I'm trying to read"
brand new sentence right there
brand new sentence right there
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I've thought a lot about this already and #3 is right on the money. I'll go more into it later.firestar464 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 12:05 am It seems that you are going for Defeated Humans. Imma just throw out the different scenarios for humans vs aliens in sci-fi:
Destroyed Humans: Humans lose, and get destroyed. Not a single human lives, or if they do, they have been turned into livestock or mutated and contorted beyond recognition. The worst outcome for humans.
Defeated Humans: Humans lose, and get occupied. They live as an underclass but do not get absolutely enslaved.
Beaten Humans: Humans get drawn into an unfavorable settlement but do not necessarily get occupied as a whole. A bitter peace ensues, as well as a bitter exchange.
Human Victory: Humans win. They get decimated but they repel the invasion. The thing you usually see in the movies.
Human Revanchism: Not only do humans win, they enter an era of collective ultranationalism and vengefulness, and they turn around and destroy the other species. This is typically followed by some sort of galaxy-wide war due to this angering some sort of council.
The Saharan Theater was the first of the three theaters of the Kyanah invasion where they achieved a victory, with fighting lasting from July 5-August 14, 2023. As such, it gave the humans in the North American and Asian theaters an early look at what a Kyanah victory might be like.firestar464 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 12:05 am It seems that you are going for Defeated Humans. Imma just throw out the different scenarios for humans vs aliens in sci-fi:
Destroyed Humans: Humans lose, and get destroyed. Not a single human lives, or if they do, they have been turned into livestock or mutated and contorted beyond recognition. The worst outcome for humans.
Defeated Humans: Humans lose, and get occupied. They live as an underclass but do not get absolutely enslaved.
Beaten Humans: Humans get drawn into an unfavorable settlement but do not necessarily get occupied as a whole. A bitter peace ensues, as well as a bitter exchange.
Human Victory: Humans win. They get decimated but they repel the invasion. The thing you usually see in the movies.
Human Revanchism: Not only do humans win, they enter an era of collective ultranationalism and vengefulness, and they turn around and destroy the other species. This is typically followed by some sort of galaxy-wide war due to this angering some sort of council.
Its so interesting to see that the Kyanah would starve to death if they were a vegetarian and how they would be poorly if they eat human foods.Jakob wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2024 11:30 pm Kyanah are obligate carnivores, a fact which obviously influences their diet to a strong degree. Virtually all of their calories come from some form of meat, eggs, or other animal products; while some plant matter can be safely consumed, they derive little or no energy from it and would eventually starve if placed on a vegetarian diet for some reason. Thus plant-based foods are usually only added in small amounts to meat-based dishes for flavor or micro-nutrients (which could usually be gotten from meat as well); animal products are around 90% of the average Kyanah's diet, depending on the region. The actual meat consumed by Kyanah varies a lot by region and culture, with animals from all major categories being consumed somewhere in the world, but walkers tend to be the most common and crawlcritters (the closest analogue to insects) are usually avoided except in desperate times or very poor and undeveloped city-states. In Ikun's cuisine, nyruds and tyukruds account for the significant majority of all meat consumed--perhaps unsurprising as the rud suffix indicates a livestock animal--with thukukens coming in a distant third. Though cuts and preparation styles vary considerably depending on the dish. The plants that they do consume, albeit in small amounts, tend to be spices, tubers, or "nuts". These nuts aren't botanical nuts in the same sense as Earth nuts, due to the paucity of seeds and complete nonexistence of fruits. However, similar-looking structures do exist in some structured plants, where many species store spores inside hard-shelled structures that, when mature, crack open to release large quantities of spores; the immature forms of these structures are called "nuts" by Kyanah. Leafy greens are taboo in most cultures, as they are seen as livestock food and also have an emetic effect in large quantities. Attitudes towards fungi vary widely and are not taboo in Ikun, but also not very popular.
Ikun is a melting pot city-state with hundreds of specialty stores and restaurants selling food from all regions of the world--with varying degrees of authenticity--but has its own mainstream cuisine as well, which is obviously high in meat. Nyrud or tyukrud steaks are an obvious choice--either as-is or with other ingredients on the side and sauces to dip it in--and a favorite of picky eaters and/or lazy Kyanah, but plenty of other options exist. Whole nyrud ribs are usually shared by entire packs (nyruds are very large animals) with each member taking turns to take a bite out of it. On the other end of the scale, ground-up nyrud, tyukrud, or other meats can be mixed with the eggs of these very animals and smaller amounts of the aforementioned tubers and "nuts" to create a sort of "salad". This mix can be eaten as is or stuffed into the gas bladder of a juvenile thukuken, or a tyukrud stomach, or wrapped tightly in cooked skins or thin strips of roasted meat. Various blood or animal oil based sauces exist, which are used to provide flavor and moisture. Fried bits of wingbeast wings and thukuken gas bladders, flavored bone marrow, and jerky-like strips of dried meat are common snack items. Meat cubes, consisting of one or more ground meats stuck together with eggs and sticky sauce and shaped into a cube, and sometimes subsequently fried, can be eaten as either a snack or full meal, depending on their size. Lower-grade meats are sometimes dried, powdered, and used as a condiment on other dishes. Spices are heavily used in Ikun and most northern cuisines, though in the far south, where spice plants are typically not as common, there is more of an emphasis on flavoring meats via salting and drying, or cold smoking. Hatchlings, whose teeth have not yet fully developed, eat chewed up and regurgitated food, which can be provided by any adult in their pack, or sometimes even older siblings; Kyanah have a specialized pouch in the upper esophagus to store food for this purpose.
As Kyanah biochemistry uses water as a solvent, they do naturally drink water more than anything else. Packs with a lot of money are often water snobs who will pay a premium for water that was bottled in some particular city-state, usually one with historical or religious significance, or just one that has a particularly nice mineral profile--despite the fact that any mineral profile can be created synthetically, and the Water Distribution System tends to mix water from different regions anyway. Flavor packets are commonly used to enhance the flavor of water; these tend to be savory or even bitter rather than sweet. As Kyanah haven't evolved to consume large amounts of sugar, and a lot of the bacteria found in spoiled meat on their planet produce saccharin as a by-product, so sweet tastes are generally avoided (the average Kyanah really wouldn't like cake even if a biochemically compatible version were somehow made). The blood of various animals, most commonly nyruds, is also drunk, either straight up--it's often considered to be very refreshing on a hot day, when chilled--or as the base for various sauces. This substance has a distinct indigo hue, much like the blood of the Kyanah themselves, or most other animals on their planet, for that matter.
It appears that ethanol has a fairly similar effect on Kyanah as on humans and alcoholic beverages have thus existed for thousands of years. However, the means of creating the Kyanahs' alcoholic drinks is quite different; it relies on strains of microbes unique to their planet that produce alcohol from amino acids rather than carbs or sugars. Naturally, this means that most such drinks are produced from "fermented" meat or blood. Roontkak, made from tyukrud blood, is the most popular alcoholic drink, both in Ikun and the broader world. The Kyanah have also been able to replicate this process using plant-based proteins found in tubers, nuts, and fungi. This process was discovered a few thousand years after the meat-based alcohols and tends to produce a slightly weaker drink, but it's rarer and harder to make, so tends to carry a connotation of culture and sophistication, while something like roontkak is seen as a lowbrow drink for the masses. Common plant-derived alcoholic drinks include roontyeti, from the tubers of the tyeti plant, and roonwerkdda, from the nuts of the werkdda bush. These tend to have spread to Ikun's region of the world from the far north and far south, where suitable plants for making alcohol are more common. Either alcohol category can be distilled to create the Kyanah version of hard liquors, which are usually denoted by the suffix -tyot (literally "strong" or "dominant").
Additionally, capsaicin is a psychoactive and moderately addictive drug to Kyanah, with a sizable chunk of the population smoking the dried and powdered skins of various endoskeleton plants that have evolved to use capsaicin to deter herbivores. Though in southern hemisphere cultures, it's more common to mix it into a tea and get high on capsaicin that way. Such mixtures usually contain no more than 2% actual capsaicin; purified industrial-grade capsaisin is much stronger and more addictive and restricted by many governments. There is no minimum age for substance use (nor any minimum age to do anything else, since adulthood is determined solely by separation from the birth-pack, regardless of the age) in most Kyanah societies, so it's up to the adults in a young Kyanah's birth-pack wehther they can access these items. However, it's seen as perfectly normal in Ikun society for older children and adolescents to be given small amounts of alcohol or some of the milder capsaicin variants on festive occasions, to partake with the adults.
Kyanah in most societies typically don't use personal utensils, instead simply taking food with their hands; at most they use ladles or tongs to take food from serving dishes. Rather than using their teeth or knives, they typically use their powerful neck muscles to rip away bite-sized chunks of whatever they are eating. In formal dining environments, eating gloves are used to keep their hands clean, but at home or in more casual venues, nobody really cares. As Kyanah drink by lapping rather than sipping, shallow bowls rather than cups are used for liquids; drinks are only kept in bottles for storage. Technology has advanced to the point where synthetic meat is fairly common and cheap, using colonies of genetically engineered microbes to essentially grow meat like a crop inside industrial tanks, with artificial flavoring being added to simulate various actual meats. While often cheaper than real meat, it has its limitations; it can only create homogenous patties rather than the complex textures of an actual animal, while there's no scientific evidence that they're unsafe, many feel that they're unnatural or unhealthy. So this tends to mostly be food for the poor. However, it has also found a use as military rations during the Kyanah invasion of Earth, as it would be stupid to try to farm livestock in space, or on an alien planet in the middle of a war zone.
Eating is generally not a social occasion for Kyanah, it's seen as something of a private and vulnerable time, when they're weak and in need of nourishment, not strong and ready to defend or advance their pack's position in society (most Kyanah won't absolutely refuse to eat if outsiders happen to be around, but all else being equal, most will prefer to have only the company of their own packs). So it's very rare for them to eat or drink with anyone who isn't already in their pack, unless they don't have one yet, or want to expand it. Even ikoin who go "together" to eat out somewhere will split up into their own separate areas and just eat with their packs. So their restaurants and bars--which still exist, as even Kyanah, much like humans, often like eating professional-quality food without having to prepare it for themselves--have a considerably different layout and atmosphere. Usually there will be a bunch of stalls where diners can sit and eat while being walled off from other Kyanah while still providing a good view of the kitchen via a curtain or window so they can keep an eye on their food being prepared. Mid-range establishments will usually just have the food and drinks, and few other amenities, while higher end ones have more elaborate measures to draw in diners and justify their price points, from ornate cushions, aromatic sprays, and elaborate light displays all the way to live music, holographic movies, and other performances like reenactments of historic duels and combat challenges, which diners can either open their window to get a good look at or ignore and eat in peace.
Since the end of the Utopian Wars, the traditional Kyanah dining experience has been steadily losing ground to fast food (DakDakDak--literally FastFastFast--being the most popular one in Ikun, with over 64 locations) and drone deliveries. The former allows Kyanah to simply come in, choose from the premade meals that are currently on the shelf, pay, and leave, or (for a premium) put in a special request, though these establishments by nature have limited menus and little room for customization; they will often use AI to predict what to make ahead of time, with high accuracy. While the latter allows them to avoid the hassle of dealing with anyone outside their pack entirely, while still getting high quality food. The one exception to the general dynamic at Kyanah restaurants and bars would be those that cater to the packless; these are set up to encourage rather than discourage interaction, as their entire purpose is for young adult Kyanah who have recently separated from their birth-packs to find love for themselves. To this end, such establishments have elaborate sets of rituals and social rules to attract the attention of other individuals. As a day on the Kyanah homeworld is only about 15.75 hours, there are customarily only two meals, the very creatively named day-meal, eaten before the beginning of the workday, and night-meal, eaten after the end of the workday. Though many do eat snacks during the day, especially if working physically demanding jobs.
In terms of inter-species compatibility, as humans and Kyanah are both carbon and water based life forms, most human foods wouldn't kill a Kyanah, nor vice versa (with a few niche exceptions, such as chocolate or grapes) neither species can properly digest the other's food and would likely throw up if they tried to eat a significant amount. Interestingly, hard liquors of either species are largely exempt from this, as they're mostly just alcohol and water anyway, while weaker booze like roontkak or beer has impurities that would definitely not be appreciated by the digestive system of the wrong species. During the post-war occupation of Earth, Kyanah have also been known to import chili powder into their occupied regions, apparently for the sole purpose of smoking it.
To be fair, that's usually what happens if you try to eat alien foods. Lots of enzymes and biomolecules that your body either doesn't know what to do with, or are toxic.Its so interesting to see that the Kyanah would starve to death if they were a vegetarian and how they would be poorly if they eat human foods.
"An incident that outraged the public significantly was the execution of this individual, colloquially known in human language as a 'nerd,' who entered a restricted zone, seemingly asking if the Adminstration had built the ancient conical structures located in the zone."Jakob wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 12:40 amThe Saharan Theater was the first of the three theaters of the Kyanah invasion where they achieved a victory, with fighting lasting from July 5-August 14, 2023. As such, it gave the humans in the North American and Asian theaters an early look at what a Kyanah victory might be like.firestar464 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 12:05 am It seems that you are going for Defeated Humans. Imma just throw out the different scenarios for humans vs aliens in sci-fi:
Destroyed Humans: Humans lose, and get destroyed. Not a single human lives, or if they do, they have been turned into livestock or mutated and contorted beyond recognition. The worst outcome for humans.
Defeated Humans: Humans lose, and get occupied. They live as an underclass but do not get absolutely enslaved.
Beaten Humans: Humans get drawn into an unfavorable settlement but do not necessarily get occupied as a whole. A bitter peace ensues, as well as a bitter exchange.
Human Victory: Humans win. They get decimated but they repel the invasion. The thing you usually see in the movies.
Human Revanchism: Not only do humans win, they enter an era of collective ultranationalism and vengefulness, and they turn around and destroy the other species. This is typically followed by some sort of galaxy-wide war due to this angering some sort of council.
- There appears to be no systematic attempt to exterminate humans in occupied regions of Egypt. Millions of civilians continue to go about their lives without being detained or killed by the Kyanah.
- However, the human government now answers to the Provisional Military Administration, led by a few packs of Kyanah senior officers, with lower-ranking soldiers and human collaborators reporting to them. Most of the country is under martial law, with widespread drone surveillance, strict curfews, limitations on freedom of movement between different cities and towns, and suspected agitators and their families being jailed together or executed without a trial. They seem not to understand why there is an uproar over families being subject to this, as Kyanah society considers members of a pack to share moral responsibility for actions committed by any member, and they simply assume that families are the human analogue of packs.
- Behind the scenes, there is considerable debate among Kyanah military leadership about when and how to transition from the Provisional Military Administration to civilian government(s). The more moderate-minded packs believe that working with the humans will be necessary as they lack the population base to sustainably administer the occupied territory by themselves. However the hardliners believe this is a security risk and they're better off just keeping the Provisional Military Administration until military reinforcements and civilian colonists start arriving. Though unbeknownst to them or humanity, Project Hope was cancelled a few years after they left Tau Ceti e, and no one else is coming.
- Weapons more powerful than small arms are gradually being confiscated from the human government and destroyed. Small arms are largely left alone, as the Kyanah are aware that they need loyalist humans to be able to help police the occupied territory and prevent it from falling into chaos and anarchy, as there are only about 8000 Kyanah soldiers in the Saharan theater.
- Rogue units from the Egyptian military, along with radical Islamic groups, continue to attack Kyanah bases, but these attacks are increasingly scattered and disorganized as time goes on, and do little to no damage to their intended targets, inadvertently mostly killing human bystanders instead.
- On September 1, 2023, shortly after Egypt surrenders, the Kyanah detonate a series of nukes to create a channel from the Mediterranean Sea to the Qattara Depression, which is subsequently flooded to create an artificial oasis with a hydroelectric plant, implementing the legendary Qattara Depression Project . The Kyanah have begun building a city from scratch surrounding the new oasis. Included in the Qattara Site are power plants, factories, launch facilities, and large amounts of what appears to be civilian housing. Most of the 10,000 civilian scientists and engineers affiliated with Project Hope are gradually relocated here, though some remain in orbit or at the Lunar facility. However, there is far more housing constructed than what would be necessary to support them, leading many to speculate (correctly) that the excess is intended for either humans or future Kyanah colonists.
- Thousands of human families who have been vetted by the Kyanah are permitted to relocate to the Qattara Site to help build the city and work in the factories; families are apparently strongly prefered as they remind the Kyanah of their own pack structures and are thus seen as more trustworthy than random individuals. Weapons and supplies produced here are being sent to the North American and Asian theaters, where fighting continues in full force.
- The Qattara Site is under heavy lockdown, with no unauthorized movement in or out and all communications being censored to prevent military secrets from reaching the rest of humanity. Between this and the destruction of humanitys' satellites, it's difficult for the rest of the world to know what's going on there. Nevertheless, photos and videos from the ground do gradually leak out onto the human internet. More information comes from an anonymous human worker--for his protection known only as Abdul, which may or may not be his real name--who escapes from the Qattara Site, defects to Europe, and does several interviews with the media, albeit with a mask and voice modulator to prevent retaliation against his family at the site.
- According to this "Abdul" guy, tensions between species are extremely high at the site, both both humans and Kyanah being extremely distrustful of each other. This is exacerbated by difficulties in communicating; neither species can physically pronounce the other's language, so they've slowly converged on a blend of human and Kyanah sign language, but this is rife with misunderstandings and misinterpretations that often lead to chaos and violence. Worker strikes and riots are commonplace, and suspected spies and saboteurs are summarily executed. Kyanah soldiers are constantly watching the humans like hawks, and frequently searching and confiscating their digital devices. Nevertheless, many humans don't regret coming to the Qattara Site, as the Provisional Military Administration is providing them with high wages and generous benefits, and also there's consistently enough to eat and 24/7 running water and electricity, which aren't guaranteed elsewhere, as much of the country's infrastructure was destroyed by the Kyanah air force and orbital bombardment during the initial invasion.
- While the majority of Kyanah soldiers from the Saharan Theater are stationed at the Qattara Site, they have also established a base at the Suez Canal, seeing the land as an important strategic chokepoint. This has led to fears across the world that the Kyanah will shut down the canal, but they have yet to do so; apparently they haven't yet fully grasped the economic and military significance of human ships, which aren't something they're familiar with, being from a desert planet. They do, however, often stop and search ships traveling through, and sometimes confiscate items for reasons known only to them. They also maintain a military base in Cairo itself, and a handful of cohorts are stationed at other strategic areas or sites with natural resources. Outside of these select few areas though, the Kyanah have no direct presence, and many locals haven't even seen one in person. However, humans working for the Provisional Military Administration enforce these directives in the rest of the country, with varying degrees of strictness.
- Both Kyanah soldiers and human workers are busy repairing the Egyptian infrastructure and even modernizing it to the Kyanahs' technological standards. However, such activities are largely limited to areas with a Kyanah military presence, such as the Qattara Site, the Suez Canal region, and Cairo, with most other cities and towns--many of which are still in ruins--being ignored. Outside Egypt's borders, many of its neighbors are arming themselves for war. However, the Kyanah haven't continued expanding after the fall of Egypt; they are very hesitant to over-extend due to their limited numbers and are focused on rebuilding and consolidating control. Indeed they have no particular desire to expand further, as they've already secured their main strategic goals in the Saharan theater, namely the creation of the Qattara Site.
Ha, very funny. I'll have you know that it's the Qattara Site, not the Pyramids (on the opposite end of the country) that are a restricted zone. I'll also have you know that you made me pull an all nighter doing a serious one shot fic where the pyramids come up......firestar464 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 4:59 pm "An incident that outraged the public significantly was the execution of this individual, colloquially known in human language as a 'nerd,' who entered a restricted zone, seemingly asking if the Administration had built the ancient conical structures located in the zone."