12-13-2015, 09:51 AM
(12-12-2015, 10:41 PM)Gonzogonz Wrote:(12-04-2015, 01:53 AM)YDH Wrote: So here's a question. Do avali have mounts? Do they domesticate animals at all, or rely solely on hunting for their meat?
I'm imagining an avali mounted atop a giant chocobo-like creature.
Addendum: Given that the Avali's primary sense is hearing, and that their ears basically shut down when exposed to loud noises to avoid damage, would a device that emits a continuous loud tone essentially render them "blind" until someone switches it off? Or am I misunderstanding the effect of "relaxing the inner ear?"
I can see this being used against them in infantry combat by races with a narrower hearing range... human or apex soldiers running a noise generator that is deafening/blinding to Avali but outside their own frequency range. I assume the solution for this would be for Avali infantry to have enclosed helmets with additional sensors that can compensate and shut out the interference.
as for your first question, i've already asked that and Ryuu pretty much just said "not part of the Avali thought exercise; unimportant" though i agree, it'd be neat to see Avali mounted on some form of creature.
though from what i know, domesticating creatures (while they are not obsolete due to better tech) is rather difficult. Europe and such had a handful of easily domesticated creatures, which early on gave them a boost. but now that we have cars, we rarely see horses moving our stuff around.
that and given the world of Avalon is a pretty harsh place compared to something like central Germany, i'd doubt there'd be a whole lot of easily domesticated wildlife suitable for riding or large-scale transport.
and given Avali were nomads who preferred to travel light, i'd guess they didn't have much access to much more than hand-pulled sleighs. and even that might not have been fully practical.
but i'm not the creator, maybe Ryuujin has been toying with the idea since last i asked him and he has a fitting answer and a new little tag to the Avali lore regarding domestication and mounts as well as a few new additions to the flora and fauna to the wiki. (because it really needs it. Avalon might be harsh but there's more biodiversity in the valley of death than on that iceball)
Given what I know about the process of domestication (which I'm admittedly not an expert on), domesticating animals isn't difficult so much as only creatures with certain traits can be domesticated. They have to be social, calm around people, instinctively fall into dominance hierarchies and are willing to subordinate to humans, etc. Lacking any of these traits renders a species undomesticateable. In other words, it's the traits of the animal, more than traits of the environment, that determine whether a species can be domesticated.
When dealing with an alien species, there's another question to address: is the alien civilization suitable for domesticating animals? Humans are very good at bonding with things that aren't human (we bond with rocks for crying out loud!), but maybe Avali aren't. Predation seems much more central to their identity and behavior than it was for us, so maybe it's more difficult to break down the "us and them" mentality that forms barriers to inter-species relationships. They bond very tightly to each other, but not to things that aren't Avali. Predators in general tend to behave in very "I-it" ways. They kinda have to--if you think of your prey as a living, feeling creature, you'll have a hard time bringing yourself to kill it.
This could potentially explain their continued antagonistic relationship with humanity, even though centuries/millennia have passed. As an American, I consider the British, Germans, and Japanese my allies, even though we were historically enemies. We can reframe other people and animals from things to people fairly easily, but maybe Avali can't. Maybe a stronger "I-it" mentality among Avali makes it more difficult to connect with other species. If they think of humanity as an "it," then there's no possibility of forgiveness or friendship in their minds.
The more I think about Avali, the more I feel like they would be kind of xenophobic. Not in the sense that they're isolationist or want to wipe out everything that isn't them, but more in the sense that as a society, they just don't make friends with alien species.
This is cool! I just asked about mounts as a curiosity question, but this line of thought has helped me connect the dots and given me new narrative ideas for my machinima!
At least until Ryuujin comes around and josses it all.
Another thing I've wondered... we as humans share our world with a number of evolutionary relatives of varying degrees of closeness--chimps, gorillas, capushins, etc. Are there Avali-like species that are almost but not quite sapient? Or did the predator thing get in the way again and prompt the Avali to drive their cousins to extinction through competitive exclusion like we did the neanderthals?