• 0 Posts
  • 92 Comments
Joined 8 months ago
Cake day: March 17th, 2024
  • Skua@kbin.earthtoTechnology@lemmy.world•*Permanently Deleted*
    2·
    16 days ago

    Not all instances/clients show those display names. I’m on kbin.earth and it doesn’t, I just see the underlying account name. It sounds like you’re seeing the same. But if I go look at Wheelchar’s profile on lemmy.world, which is their instance, it shows both “WheelchairArtist” and “@WheelcharArtist”

  • Skua@kbin.earthtoTechnology@lemmy.world•*Permanently Deleted*
    5·
    16 days ago

    I don’t know what the actual terminology here is. The display name is “WheelchairArtist” but the underlying account name - the one that shows up in the URL if you go to their profile - is missing the i. I have no idea if that’s a typo on account creation or something intentional.

  • Skua@kbin.earthtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•I always get them confused.
    9·
    2 months ago

    I personally subscribe to Asimov’s definition of sci fi:

    Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology.

    While Dune is full of stuff that’s just straight up magic, the story is very much about how humans handle the technology, even when the in-universe basis of the technology is essentially magic. Long before the story ever started, we invented AI, freaked out about it, and then had to figure out how to replace computers in an interstellar society. The main overarching plot of the kwisatz haderach is about the consequences of the “invention” of precognition, even if the means of the invention are very fantastical. Several major factions are basically “what if we did super advanced selective breeding on humans for a thousand years”.

    Star Wars, meanwhile, isn’t concerned with that sort of thing. It’s an adventure of good againt evil in the most classic of ways. It’s sword and sorcery. Even when a literal world-destroying superweapon is a major plot point, it doesn’t actually take much of any time to think about what this technology would do to society beyond “be very scary”. The obvious point of comparison is nuclear weapons in real life, and the development of those re-shaped culture enormously. We suddenly had this craze of imagination of all the things nuclear power might do. Humanity conquered the atom and we couldn’t stop dreaming up new ways to wield this power. Most of which were fucking insane. In Star Wars, a power orders of magnitude greater shapes society no more than a particularly big army.

    Star Wars is only interested in the characters, whatever technology is present is set dressing to allow for fun visuals. That’s not something I say as a negative either. It’s perfectly valid and reasonable for a story to take more interest in its characters than its setting.

    Disclaimer: I’m writing all this thinking only about the nine main series films. Especialy the original three. I’m sure someone has written Asimov-definition sci fi somewhere in the Star Wars canon, “legends” or not. I’ve just never delved into it much at all.

  • Skua@kbin.earthtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•If Bethesda released Skyrim today, they would have made it woke
    8·
    2 months ago

    There might be fan art, but I doubt there’s anything official. Besides how little attention anything Elsweyr generally gets (even the first ESO expansion into Elsweyr mostly had the khajiit as secondary characters), it originated in an unofficial source. Michael Kirkbride (a lead writer for Morrowind and several other important bits of Elder Scrolls stuff) wrote The Pocket Guide to the Empire, 2nd Edition with the input of community members. The Pocket Guide 1st edition came with the manual of Redguard, and the 3rd edition came with Oblivion. The 3rd edition contains a few references to the 2nd edition, which at the time had not actually been written, so Kirkbride decided to fill the gap. The relevant section, with explanatory notes from me that you can ignore if you know that stuff already, is:

    So Mane ^1 saw that Khajiit was fighting itself more than usual and donned the hairs of his many littermates and his clan and his guards until he could bear no more and then palanquin-raced throughout the lands to repeat these words: “Woah-ho now, mad cat. You fight and fight but if you will give Mane just one moment, he will show something far better, for the Mane has had many hours and fine sugar to think this over. Come now, Palatiit ^2 ; come now, Ne Quiniit ^3 . Together, just this once, Khajiit will stand tall as Alkosh ^4 , cat upon cat upon cat. And in doing so, it will climb to the moon as it has been told so many times.”

    Khajiit saw reason in these words and so it climbed and climbed, cat upon cat, for a hundred days. Much sugar ^5 was brought there to support the climbers and in the end Khajiit climbed high, so very high that it was in fact closer to Jo’Segunda ^6 than to Nirni ^7 below. At that moment, little Alfiq ^8 fell upwards and from there on Khajiit helped Khajiit up, which was down, until all were gathered there. This is where Khajiit intends to stay from now on, for who could know strife when walking sugar and not sand?

    1 - The Mane is the religious leader of the khajiit 2 - Pa’alatiin, or Pellitine, is the southern half of Elsweyr. Elsweyr is the region that the khajiit are from, and had only recently been united when the 2nd edition was written in-universe 3 - Ne Quin’al or Anequine is the northern half of Elsweyr 4 - Alkosh is the khajiiti interpretation or version of the god of time and top god of most pantheons, generally known as Akatosh to the empire and therefore in most game material 5 - Moon sugar is a narcotic with great religious significance in khajiiti society. If you’ve come across skooma in the games, it is the heroin to moon sugar’s opium 6 - Jo’Segunda, or Secunda, is one of the two moons 7 - Nirni, or Nirn, is the planet that Tamriel and the games are set on 8 - An alfiq is a type of khajiit that physically resembles a housecat but which is every bit as sapient as any other khajiit. You can actually meet several in ESO, but sadly cannot play as one. The Legends card “Frazzled Alfiq” is probably my all time favourite piece of official Elder Scrolls art

    Anyway Kirkbride’s unofficial stuff is not “canon”, for whatever that’s worth, but due to his significance to the setting and the fact that his writing is usually interesting, people often accept it as such. The story does not end there, though! The developers of ESO have a series called Loremaster’s Archive, which is an in-character lore Q&A series. In “Moon Bishop Hunal Answers Your Questions”, someone asked about the “cat upon cat” story.

    “Our scribes are currently working on the transcription of the ‘Ri’datta-ssabavezi.’ In this story, your people are climbing ‘cat upon cat’ and finally reach Jone, where they founded something called ‘Lleswer.’ But we failed to understand the meaning of this. Some at the Guild suggest it has to be taken literally, but it seems impossible. Am I right?” – Iszara the Restless, Singer of the Scenarist Guild

    Moon Bishop Hunal says, “It is the nature of myth to be true and yet at the same time mere allegory. Are you ‘right’? In this context, the question is without meaning. But do not be offended, hairless one. Many stories are puzzles with more than one solution.”

    So, canon? Maybe, maybe not. But it got a nod, and people like it.