The 35
https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-old-gas-mask-worn-senior-man-image26394507
A, ENVIRONMENT
Welcome, I'm glad to see we have a sentient visitor! You'll have to pardon my mask, I'm using one of the older models while mine is repaired. There was an accident when I was netting, you see, but I digress! You're here to learn about our culture and how we live. Well! I suppose first thing's first, you'll need to know the lay of the land as it were.
Come, look at this map. As you can see, we're arranged along the ancient road that was once called 'The 35'. It's where our name originated after all. You are where you live and all of that. You'll see the ocean laps right on the waterward side of The 35 that whole area along the coast is covered in the mangroves you saw when you were coming inside. There are daughter-domes scattered all along the coast, each with it's own daughter-pack of the younger 35ers tending to their stretch of the Road and the Water. From the Wastes far landward come many of the large beasts I'm sure you're familiar with as well as occasional bands of Uneducated or Non-Sentients, the latter being the more dangerous of the two.
Now I'm sure you're interested in the flora and fauna out there. The mangroves are made of about seventeen types of ocean dwelling trees. You can see they form a good canopy oversea as well as natural channels to kayak through. That canopy is nice as it prevents almost all of the burns you'd get from being on open sea. The leaves over-head fall into the water and create their own soil environment underwater. There are several fruit bearing ocean shrubs that are quite tasty. Here, I have a couple for you to taste, the blue one we call salt-berry and the green, fist-sized fruit is called a... well it's really hard to articulate it's name in a way that you'd understand, you know, song-speak and all of that, I suppose we can call it greenfruit and be done with it. It's quite good and quite a prize, you'll find, though somewhat rare. There's these nasty, little amphibians that love to make their nests in clumps of the greenfruit. In this language our name for them would translate to 'Nasties'. Their larval form is quite toothed and voracious. They can grow to be about the size of your forearm and eat any animal matter unlucky enough to swim or fall into the water near them. They metamorphose into those orange, yellow, and red winged, bladder looking things you see floating in the air around the tree-tops. They're nectar and sap eaters in that stage, very good eating. When I'm out fishing in the water, I try to carry an air net to see if I can't catch one or two. You have to be careful, though, they have the ability to spew an acidic mucous mass about the size of your thumb and they aim for the head. Hence the netting accident that sent my mask in for repairs, I missed a floating nasty and it caught be full in the breather.
Oh! That's also something you've likely noticed. With the constant wind from the ocean, almost all of the landward toxins aren't present here. You can get away with wearing a very limited breather in your mask. The gasses, here, are mostly the kind that can make you feel rather giddy and then pass out if you pull your mask off. Are you familiar with nitrous oxide? It's concentrated all along the coastal regions so it's good to have at least a filter running unless you enjoy going unconscious while laughing.
You can see the brown soiled beaches extend from the water past The 35 and into the foothills. The fields you see there are cannabinoid. Our histories say they were the easiest way to pull radiation out of the soils. The fibers are used in almost everything from netting, to clothing, to just about anything else. Parts of the plant are even edible. As you can see they can grow to be rather robust and if not cultivated and cut back you can get wild forests of the stuff that you see further landward. All sorts of things live in the non-cultivated forests. Some of the larger mammals can be a nuisance or even a menace, even the herbivores. There's a rather large one I believe your people call and Ohptophaunt? The one ton, green, slow-moving things that have ears about half the size of their body? They eat the leaves of those trees out there. A lot of the plastics in the doming for our residences are cannabinoid in nature, derived from those very leaves, and Ohptophaunts seem to think that plastic is a delicacy. I once awoke to one of them eating the walling of my dome. Others had to come help me chase the silly thing away because by the time I'd woken, there was enough gas in my dome to make the whole thing seem rather silly to me. Well, until I got my mask on and breathed for a few minutes, then I realized how much time and effort it would take to repair the dome. I wound up having to just build an entirely new one. Took less time than repairs, I'd imagine.
Oh, of course you see we have our horses. They're used for transportation as well as agricultural work. We have a separate vat just to clone the horses, and the ones you see don't need masks, to breathe outside. So they are considered to be 'native' now. These might be the only horses to survive The Cataclysm, but who is to know?
The climate here is warm. There's a wet season and a dry season. Thankfully the dry season is longer. As they say 'Masks when dry, give an easy sigh. Masks and rain, oh what a pain!' Because of the prevailing winds from Seaward we don't get any of the acid storms that you're used to. So you can see our doming is much less robust and everything doesn't have to be covered in rubber. Likewise the radiation is kept at bay as well. We still fix the soils as we always have and that pushes the radiation farther and farther away with each generation. Now it's positively idyllic, weather -wise, which is why there are so many darned critters along the coast now. We seem to constantly be discovering new species.
B. Cultural Knowledge
norms-
Oh, you want to know about our cultural norms and values and such? Well, one of our first norms is to wear your mask, even in a dome. Our personal masks are decorated and extensions of our personalities.
Another norm would be that all of us are vat-born. That is, we are the product of genesis from the cloning of embryos. Our histories tell us that more primitive forms of genesis ceased working advantageously due to radiations and toxin. It's only logical, really.
Sex? Oh yes, we still have sex, it usually doesn't end with procreation. This will key into another norm, our entire society doesn't divide itself into sexual binary. Each person is a microcosm of everything out there, and with the advent of the Vats and non-procreation these gender ideations and roles fell to the wayside, we use the same pronoun for everyone, I think a literal translation would render them all as female, since all embryos start out that way. All of our people are both sentient and educated. The Mothers see to that as we develop. All of us learn how to plant, grow, cultivate, forray, defend, and produce some sort of art. We learn to read, we memorize the histories, we learn to manufacture and to repair. That is 'Educated'.
Sentience is derived from the moral education, and we all have extensive schooling in our sentience. Not like the non-sentient bands that come from the Wastes from time to time seeking only to devour and to destroy.
From an early age the Arts are cultivated as well. Sometimes it takes longer to find one's artform. So occasionally, a sad soul can't find it and become one of the Artless for a time. It's normal for Artless to trek up and down The 35 going from dome to dome and bringing news as they go. The idea of this journey is that they will be exposed to as many arts as possible and hopefully find one they have both a desire and talent to perform.
Some people stay Artless for life. I personally think their Art is actually the journey itself, but that's just my opinion, and I can assure many would attribute that to the fact that I am an old fool, probably the best kind of fool, actually.
values-
Well, you can see we value education. Without it society as we know it would have broken down. We'd no longer be able to create and modify the machines of our existence, like the Cloning Vats, the Domes, the Filters, and the Masks, just to name a few.
We value Sentient morality. Each of us learns to care for ourselves, first. One must be able to replace one's own mask before they can help another, but they are expected to help each other as much as they can. We wish to create more than we we destroy, but we do understand the need for destruction, we never glorify and revel in the act.
We value the individual and individualism as well as community. We all survive, together, though each of us has to know how to do so on their own. Each person is truly unique in their thoughts, desires, expression, and Art. We aren't expected to be simple conformists, but to follow our own paths to the betterment of the entirety of the 35.
We also value living with our environment and and transforming it to pull out the unnatural toxicity and radiation that we as a species unleashed during The Cataclysm. We will one day return this all to it's natural state. Though we recognize that 'The Natural State' may have changed drastically from what it was pre-Cataclysm. We must learn to live in the new balance of whatever this is going to become.
worldview-
Our worldview, eh? Well, there's a lot to it, but I'll try to sum it up to some degree. We protect ourselves and our community from those things that are uneducated and non-sentient who come from the outside. We use our Arts for the betterment of self and community. We will one day return this all to it's natural state. Those cannabinoid forests out there took scores of generations to grow and they pulled the radiation out of the very soil. We keep planting further and further out. Who knows how far they go, now? Those who plant in those farthest reaches are still educated and sentient, but they really aren't The 35, anymore. No, this is where it all started. This is where womankind started to remake the world after it we had destroyed it. This is where Re-Creation started.
symbols-
Welcome, I'm glad to see we have a sentient visitor! You'll have to pardon my mask, I'm using one of the older models while mine is repaired. There was an accident when I was netting, you see, but I digress! You're here to learn about our culture and how we live. Well! I suppose first thing's first, you'll need to know the lay of the land as it were.
Come, look at this map. As you can see, we're arranged along the ancient road that was once called 'The 35'. It's where our name originated after all. You are where you live and all of that. You'll see the ocean laps right on the waterward side of The 35 that whole area along the coast is covered in the mangroves you saw when you were coming inside. There are daughter-domes scattered all along the coast, each with it's own daughter-pack of the younger 35ers tending to their stretch of the Road and the Water. From the Wastes far landward come many of the large beasts I'm sure you're familiar with as well as occasional bands of Uneducated or Non-Sentients, the latter being the more dangerous of the two.
Now I'm sure you're interested in the flora and fauna out there. The mangroves are made of about seventeen types of ocean dwelling trees. You can see they form a good canopy oversea as well as natural channels to kayak through. That canopy is nice as it prevents almost all of the burns you'd get from being on open sea. The leaves over-head fall into the water and create their own soil environment underwater. There are several fruit bearing ocean shrubs that are quite tasty. Here, I have a couple for you to taste, the blue one we call salt-berry and the green, fist-sized fruit is called a... well it's really hard to articulate it's name in a way that you'd understand, you know, song-speak and all of that, I suppose we can call it greenfruit and be done with it. It's quite good and quite a prize, you'll find, though somewhat rare. There's these nasty, little amphibians that love to make their nests in clumps of the greenfruit. In this language our name for them would translate to 'Nasties'. Their larval form is quite toothed and voracious. They can grow to be about the size of your forearm and eat any animal matter unlucky enough to swim or fall into the water near them. They metamorphose into those orange, yellow, and red winged, bladder looking things you see floating in the air around the tree-tops. They're nectar and sap eaters in that stage, very good eating. When I'm out fishing in the water, I try to carry an air net to see if I can't catch one or two. You have to be careful, though, they have the ability to spew an acidic mucous mass about the size of your thumb and they aim for the head. Hence the netting accident that sent my mask in for repairs, I missed a floating nasty and it caught be full in the breather.
Oh! That's also something you've likely noticed. With the constant wind from the ocean, almost all of the landward toxins aren't present here. You can get away with wearing a very limited breather in your mask. The gasses, here, are mostly the kind that can make you feel rather giddy and then pass out if you pull your mask off. Are you familiar with nitrous oxide? It's concentrated all along the coastal regions so it's good to have at least a filter running unless you enjoy going unconscious while laughing.
You can see the brown soiled beaches extend from the water past The 35 and into the foothills. The fields you see there are cannabinoid. Our histories say they were the easiest way to pull radiation out of the soils. The fibers are used in almost everything from netting, to clothing, to just about anything else. Parts of the plant are even edible. As you can see they can grow to be rather robust and if not cultivated and cut back you can get wild forests of the stuff that you see further landward. All sorts of things live in the non-cultivated forests. Some of the larger mammals can be a nuisance or even a menace, even the herbivores. There's a rather large one I believe your people call and Ohptophaunt? The one ton, green, slow-moving things that have ears about half the size of their body? They eat the leaves of those trees out there. A lot of the plastics in the doming for our residences are cannabinoid in nature, derived from those very leaves, and Ohptophaunts seem to think that plastic is a delicacy. I once awoke to one of them eating the walling of my dome. Others had to come help me chase the silly thing away because by the time I'd woken, there was enough gas in my dome to make the whole thing seem rather silly to me. Well, until I got my mask on and breathed for a few minutes, then I realized how much time and effort it would take to repair the dome. I wound up having to just build an entirely new one. Took less time than repairs, I'd imagine.
Oh, of course you see we have our horses. They're used for transportation as well as agricultural work. We have a separate vat just to clone the horses, and the ones you see don't need masks, to breathe outside. So they are considered to be 'native' now. These might be the only horses to survive The Cataclysm, but who is to know?
The climate here is warm. There's a wet season and a dry season. Thankfully the dry season is longer. As they say 'Masks when dry, give an easy sigh. Masks and rain, oh what a pain!' Because of the prevailing winds from Seaward we don't get any of the acid storms that you're used to. So you can see our doming is much less robust and everything doesn't have to be covered in rubber. Likewise the radiation is kept at bay as well. We still fix the soils as we always have and that pushes the radiation farther and farther away with each generation. Now it's positively idyllic, weather -wise, which is why there are so many darned critters along the coast now. We seem to constantly be discovering new species.
B. Cultural Knowledge
norms-
Oh, you want to know about our cultural norms and values and such? Well, one of our first norms is to wear your mask, even in a dome. Our personal masks are decorated and extensions of our personalities.
Sex? Oh yes, we still have sex, it usually doesn't end with procreation. This will key into another norm, our entire society doesn't divide itself into sexual binary. Each person is a microcosm of everything out there, and with the advent of the Vats and non-procreation these gender ideations and roles fell to the wayside, we use the same pronoun for everyone, I think a literal translation would render them all as female, since all embryos start out that way. All of our people are both sentient and educated. The Mothers see to that as we develop. All of us learn how to plant, grow, cultivate, forray, defend, and produce some sort of art. We learn to read, we memorize the histories, we learn to manufacture and to repair. That is 'Educated'.
Sentience is derived from the moral education, and we all have extensive schooling in our sentience. Not like the non-sentient bands that come from the Wastes from time to time seeking only to devour and to destroy.
From an early age the Arts are cultivated as well. Sometimes it takes longer to find one's artform. So occasionally, a sad soul can't find it and become one of the Artless for a time. It's normal for Artless to trek up and down The 35 going from dome to dome and bringing news as they go. The idea of this journey is that they will be exposed to as many arts as possible and hopefully find one they have both a desire and talent to perform.
Some people stay Artless for life. I personally think their Art is actually the journey itself, but that's just my opinion, and I can assure many would attribute that to the fact that I am an old fool, probably the best kind of fool, actually.
values-
Well, you can see we value education. Without it society as we know it would have broken down. We'd no longer be able to create and modify the machines of our existence, like the Cloning Vats, the Domes, the Filters, and the Masks, just to name a few.
We value Sentient morality. Each of us learns to care for ourselves, first. One must be able to replace one's own mask before they can help another, but they are expected to help each other as much as they can. We wish to create more than we we destroy, but we do understand the need for destruction, we never glorify and revel in the act.
We value the individual and individualism as well as community. We all survive, together, though each of us has to know how to do so on their own. Each person is truly unique in their thoughts, desires, expression, and Art. We aren't expected to be simple conformists, but to follow our own paths to the betterment of the entirety of the 35.
We also value living with our environment and and transforming it to pull out the unnatural toxicity and radiation that we as a species unleashed during The Cataclysm. We will one day return this all to it's natural state. Though we recognize that 'The Natural State' may have changed drastically from what it was pre-Cataclysm. We must learn to live in the new balance of whatever this is going to become.
worldview-
Our worldview, eh? Well, there's a lot to it, but I'll try to sum it up to some degree. We protect ourselves and our community from those things that are uneducated and non-sentient who come from the outside. We use our Arts for the betterment of self and community. We will one day return this all to it's natural state. Those cannabinoid forests out there took scores of generations to grow and they pulled the radiation out of the very soil. We keep planting further and further out. Who knows how far they go, now? Those who plant in those farthest reaches are still educated and sentient, but they really aren't The 35, anymore. No, this is where it all started. This is where womankind started to remake the world after it we had destroyed it. This is where Re-Creation started.
symbols-
The Mothers
https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-woman-holding-baby-clip-art-image2996096 
The 35
https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.117563563.0113/flat,1000x1000,075,f.u1.jpg
Education
https://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/brainmachine.jpg
The Vats
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/58/25/9c/58259c39e1988ec35cfd19d6f0e6a282--water-photography-photography-ideas.jpg
Sentience
http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/4ef582a01d054b15b5d63ade8d737315/3d-illustration-human-face-stylized-in-fiber-optics-in-a-concept-of-hrkh9g.jpg
classifications of reality-
How do we classify reality? Well one of the ways is through the Arts. You have kinetics, healers, painters, sculptors, programmers, mechanists, growers, well... just so many of them. Oh and the Artless, of course. I myself am an Empath as well as a Culturist and a Teacher. I suppose that's why I like to.. well...meet new people, learn about them, and well teach everyone else.
Another way we classify reality are the various flora and fauna that seem to be constantly evolving around us. We have to name them something. Nasties, Bluefin, Wetweed, Greenfruit, there are countless varieties of those as well.
Another way we classify reality are the various flora and fauna that seem to be constantly evolving around us. We have to name them something. Nasties, Bluefin, Wetweed, Greenfruit, there are countless varieties of those as well.
C. Structure /Social Organization
So you wish to know more about how all of these things fit together? Well, it all starts and ends with the Vats. There we gestate lovingly in the waters of the Vats. Each of us is fed lovingly the precisely needed amino sequences needed for growth from embryo through ability to exist outside the confines of the Vats.
Yes, there are those who are sick or physically or mentally defective. Those are not Sentient and are discarded. The Program uses the best combinations and modifications of Our Genome to render superior beings.
From the Vats, the Mothers take us. The Mothers are the Eldest among us at the end of their cycles as their Arts begin to fail. The Mothers lovingly care for the Vatlings upon their birthing from the Vats. The Mothers attach us via Mind-Umbilicus to Education and we begin to learn. The learning is at a much more rapid rate than would be otherwise attainable. The ancients laid the initial programming for Education and it has been modified to become better by the the Programmers and by the Program Itself. In a few short years we have all of the knowledge necessary to survive, thrive, and rebuild the environment.
Now the Vatling is no more and in it's place is a Child. This takes place at about eight years of age. The Mothers walk the Children into the Interface and they begin to become Sentient. The Interface fuses Mind to Program so both can connect directly. Being in the Interface takes time. It is disorienting at first, you never smell or taste the Program as much as you do in the Interface, but as you are removed, slowly but surely your connection occurs more and more remotely. Upon full Sentience, the sum of our History and the Archives of Humanity can be called up with a thought, an errant question in the mind. Then true Sentience has occurred.
Only then do we become truly part of The 35. From about twelve years of age we range the 35 as we are The 35. We protect, we plant, we build domes. We do all the things we can with our hands to learn to apply what is in our minds. Some sooner, some later, we develop our Arts. Those who do not are still acquiring and Art or are Artless and will continue to range, maybe for all of their days.
After acquiring one or many Arts, we settle into what we are. Some stay in one dome, some range between many domes, but we work for betterment, each according to their Art or Arts.
We ply the mangroves, the waters, and the skies for sustenance, each according to their need and organized through the network of Sentience. We plant and replant cannabinoids for the necessities of life. We send some of the Sentient to the furthest reaches of the Cannabinoid forest, where they live their lives performing the rights of the First Planting, leeching the radiation put there by Humankind in their hubris that life may have it's way on Earth once more.
One day, if accident or calamity doesn't befall us, we become too old to practice Arts and we become Mothers. We care for the Vatlings and attend the Vat, Education, and the Interface, until one day our bodies fail. Then we are said goodbye to by all of The 35. We are lovingly liquefied and returned to the Vats themselves where all of us or parts of us return to this world, once more.
The Program makes certain that those who are kept among The 35 are fairly uniform. We don't divide ourselves along any demographic save Art. There are what you would call male and female among us, but we are all one thing. Our phenotype is, as you can see, makes us all somewhat similar. There are variations of skin and hair but those really mean nothing to us. The largest groups are always the Vatlings, the Children, and the newly Sentient. Those who are Sentient then exodus outward according to the Program and we are left with much the same numbers here in this place.
Yes, there are those who are sick or physically or mentally defective. Those are not Sentient and are discarded. The Program uses the best combinations and modifications of Our Genome to render superior beings.
From the Vats, the Mothers take us. The Mothers are the Eldest among us at the end of their cycles as their Arts begin to fail. The Mothers lovingly care for the Vatlings upon their birthing from the Vats. The Mothers attach us via Mind-Umbilicus to Education and we begin to learn. The learning is at a much more rapid rate than would be otherwise attainable. The ancients laid the initial programming for Education and it has been modified to become better by the the Programmers and by the Program Itself. In a few short years we have all of the knowledge necessary to survive, thrive, and rebuild the environment.
Now the Vatling is no more and in it's place is a Child. This takes place at about eight years of age. The Mothers walk the Children into the Interface and they begin to become Sentient. The Interface fuses Mind to Program so both can connect directly. Being in the Interface takes time. It is disorienting at first, you never smell or taste the Program as much as you do in the Interface, but as you are removed, slowly but surely your connection occurs more and more remotely. Upon full Sentience, the sum of our History and the Archives of Humanity can be called up with a thought, an errant question in the mind. Then true Sentience has occurred.
Only then do we become truly part of The 35. From about twelve years of age we range the 35 as we are The 35. We protect, we plant, we build domes. We do all the things we can with our hands to learn to apply what is in our minds. Some sooner, some later, we develop our Arts. Those who do not are still acquiring and Art or are Artless and will continue to range, maybe for all of their days.
After acquiring one or many Arts, we settle into what we are. Some stay in one dome, some range between many domes, but we work for betterment, each according to their Art or Arts.
We ply the mangroves, the waters, and the skies for sustenance, each according to their need and organized through the network of Sentience. We plant and replant cannabinoids for the necessities of life. We send some of the Sentient to the furthest reaches of the Cannabinoid forest, where they live their lives performing the rights of the First Planting, leeching the radiation put there by Humankind in their hubris that life may have it's way on Earth once more.
One day, if accident or calamity doesn't befall us, we become too old to practice Arts and we become Mothers. We care for the Vatlings and attend the Vat, Education, and the Interface, until one day our bodies fail. Then we are said goodbye to by all of The 35. We are lovingly liquefied and returned to the Vats themselves where all of us or parts of us return to this world, once more.
The Program makes certain that those who are kept among The 35 are fairly uniform. We don't divide ourselves along any demographic save Art. There are what you would call male and female among us, but we are all one thing. Our phenotype is, as you can see, makes us all somewhat similar. There are variations of skin and hair but those really mean nothing to us. The largest groups are always the Vatlings, the Children, and the newly Sentient. Those who are Sentient then exodus outward according to the Program and we are left with much the same numbers here in this place.
D. Areas of Cultural Interest-
So, I suppose to sum everything up, I should tell you what interests us as a culture. The Arts are how we categorize and divide our functions. As such there are quite a few types of Arts that define each person's existence.
We are interested also in the Flora and Fauna that surround us. We categorize those as well.
We are interested also in the Flora and Fauna that surround us. We categorize those as well.
All of us live by Water and by Road so the various conditions that beset each of them are something we pay attention to.
We live by and with our horses, who on their own seem nearly as sentient as we are. Our proximity to them lends us to be very interested in their type and condition.
We live utilizing various machines, some as simple as a plow or a gas mask and others as complex as the Interface. They are part of our day to day lives and we must differentiate them.
Thanks so much for visiting, I hope I have answered all of your questions for now. Come see me if you have any more!
We live by and with our horses, who on their own seem nearly as sentient as we are. Our proximity to them lends us to be very interested in their type and condition.
We live utilizing various machines, some as simple as a plow or a gas mask and others as complex as the Interface. They are part of our day to day lives and we must differentiate them.
Thanks so much for visiting, I hope I have answered all of your questions for now. Come see me if you have any more!
SECTION III Essay
Oh! So you did have more questions? Ok, I'll plug you in. How do our children acquire language? Well, that's fairly simple, really. When the Mothers hear a child begin to babble... you know something more coherent than gurgles? They plug them into Education. At that point they learn to speak fairly quickly. Before they are put into the Interface is usually when they try to make up new words, some of them are really good. The words are fed into the Language Algorithms by the Programmers and if the new words serves some sort of function, it is weighted and put into the linguistic archives. Since each of us are Sentient and in Interface the word sort of drops into use with all of us in a relatively short time. Another avenue for new words is when we find something completely new. Usually the person who sees it or experiences it for the first time will call it something. It's uploaded through the Interface and is usually kept. Sometimes it isn't. I mean, one fellow saw what he thought was a new kind of bird and called it 'That thing I thought I may have saw when I was walking along the beach last Tuesday'. Obviously that's a terrible name. It wound up being called a Tuesday bird after it was determined that it actually was a new bird.
Nonverbal communication? Well, there's an awful lot of that. More than you'd guess I'd imagine. We upload almost everything subconsciously, so it's readily available to any other Sentient. That's one of the... well... problems, I guess, with being always in Interface. A lot of data concerning mood and though is readily available and overlaid. It's not quite like telepathy, but quite close. Facial expressions like you're used to are almost non-existent as we wear our masks both inside and out of domes. Some masks completely expose the eyes, but those are usually temporary in nature. As I had mentioned, before, the masks are decorated by each individual. It's a representation of who they are. Sometimes you'll see different colors used in hood and hair or in the masks themselves. Midnight blue is often used for mourning as well as a new birth within a dome because that's the color associated with the Waters of the Vats.
You'll notice our people are comfortable being quite close to each other. It comes from being in the closeness of the Domes. Space is limited, inside, so we grow up always brushing up someone else. When we first venture out of dome, the space can be a bit disorienting. Agoraphobia is a problem for quite a few actually. Usually it fades away, but there are some who never get over it and stay in dome at all times. Usually there Art winds up being something required in dome, so it's never a loss. I don't think I've ever seen an Artless agoraphobe, though. The whole process of wandering from dome to dome sort of precludes that. Outsiders and those who aren't sentient are almost never let in dome, so we're used to keeping a good deal of space between us and them. They generally don't feel the need to get too close to us, either.
Socio-economics and gender? Well, we don't really value any of those sorts of things. Within the interface gender hardly matters. Occasionally there is physical reproduction which occurs, but almost all are Vatborn. Oldborn children are still educated and made sentient, but they are generally sent away from the 35. From time to time there will be something of importance, genetically, in and Oldborn's Genome and that sequencing can be incorporated into the Vats themselves. We don't really own much, personally, beyond our own masks and clothes. Sure we personalize tools and weapons and such, but any of those can be picked up from where they are made at any time. So there's no real value attached to them. With everything being communal and no real scarcity there really is no such thing as wealth. The closest things we have to status are the various Arts people are dedicated to, all are necessary so there really is no deference between them. Age? I guess age would be the only real status? Children defer to the Sentient. The Sentient defer to the Mothers. We use suffixes, on occasion. Tini for children, Omo for the Mothers. I guess that could be considered a sort of status, but many would argue otherwise.
Greetings we use? Well, 'Hello' is pretty common. It's succinct. Here a month the 35 at the Origin we tend to say 'Welcomed Return'. The old Mothers return to the 35 to be returned to the Vats as they become more enfeebled. From time to time others are required to return here to bring something physically back, that's used for them as well. If we greet one another within the Interface and brush minds the greeting, there, is usually 'It's good to smell you once more'. I know, that seems rather juvenile and likely amusing, but when minds brush there's an almost olfactory perception within the interface. Each person literally has their own 'fragrance' is the best way to describe it. There usually is no farewell within the Interface, but some like to say 'Smell you later' for no really good reason.
Now your last question, here, was about metaphor? Well I've already described the 'Fragrance' aspect of minds touching in the interface, so a lot of our Interface metaphor is olfactory in nature. If a concept is 'Foul Smelling' it generally is considered overly complex. Simplicity is 'Fair Smelling'. We try to make things as efficient as possible, especially in the interface. In fact another metaphor we used is 'Simplicity is Close to Prime'. We have no real concept of God but the Prime state, the universal one-ness we aspire to, is referred to as 'Prime'. Everyone is already a part of the Prime, though they may not realize it. Becoming the most -you- you can be often requires becoming as fair smelling as possible. 'A fair smell is indeed close to Prime'. Ha! There's another metaphor for you. We value ourselves communally and as a community... so another saying is 'Ego is lost in the Interface'. Non-sentients tend to think of themselves as the most important thing in the Universe as they know it and seem to have little concept of community. That tendency is usually referred to as Ego and the Sentient think more of group and dome than of self.
I've mentioned in dome and out of dome quite a few times. Dome refers to not only the physical structure of the place where you live, but also as a concept of home. Your home, where you live, can change with rapidity. Even temporary domes can be erected in the wilds, but 'You never forget where your Dome is' and even the smallest and most temporary of domes remind us of the Dome we are from as well as the Dome of the Sentient... or the Sentient community. So 'Dome' can also refer to the community itself and the people within it rather than just the physical structure.
Well, I hope that answered all of your questions. I do hope this makes things smell better for you. I suppose I will smell you later and someday I hope for your pleasant return if you have any more questions. Find your Prime.
Reflective Essay
Being able to play with this project was a lot more fun than I had anticipated. I'm used to tabletop gaming as well as live action role play and computer gaming. I've also authored short stories and modular adventures, so it is not unusual at all for me to come up with a new culture ex nihilo, but to think more closely about how that culture would be reflected in language and how it would use the language itself was a fun game of the mind to play. I'll have to forever include such thoughts when creating new worlds in the future.
A particular challenge with the 35 was the idea of the Vats, Mind-Machine Interface, and near Human Hive of some post apocalyptic future. How utopian or dystopian would they actually be? How draconian would they seem to our current Type Five demographic cultures? How un-human or in-human would they be? How still-human? Would such close contact as direct computer interfacing through the consciousness render mankind as cold as the computers they use or would it make them warmer toward the people they encounter? I love asking unanswerable questions like this, especially when approaching such new cultural grounds as Google and current phone technology. Today we carry these things with us in our pockets... how do we look at ourselves through the lense of the past? And how would we want ourselves to proceed into the future knowing how we have changed via these technologies as we take that seeming next step in direct mind to machine access. How, too, will the way we talk to and interact with each other invariably change for the better or for the worse... how will our language change?
Nonverbal communication? Well, there's an awful lot of that. More than you'd guess I'd imagine. We upload almost everything subconsciously, so it's readily available to any other Sentient. That's one of the... well... problems, I guess, with being always in Interface. A lot of data concerning mood and though is readily available and overlaid. It's not quite like telepathy, but quite close. Facial expressions like you're used to are almost non-existent as we wear our masks both inside and out of domes. Some masks completely expose the eyes, but those are usually temporary in nature. As I had mentioned, before, the masks are decorated by each individual. It's a representation of who they are. Sometimes you'll see different colors used in hood and hair or in the masks themselves. Midnight blue is often used for mourning as well as a new birth within a dome because that's the color associated with the Waters of the Vats.
You'll notice our people are comfortable being quite close to each other. It comes from being in the closeness of the Domes. Space is limited, inside, so we grow up always brushing up someone else. When we first venture out of dome, the space can be a bit disorienting. Agoraphobia is a problem for quite a few actually. Usually it fades away, but there are some who never get over it and stay in dome at all times. Usually there Art winds up being something required in dome, so it's never a loss. I don't think I've ever seen an Artless agoraphobe, though. The whole process of wandering from dome to dome sort of precludes that. Outsiders and those who aren't sentient are almost never let in dome, so we're used to keeping a good deal of space between us and them. They generally don't feel the need to get too close to us, either.
Socio-economics and gender? Well, we don't really value any of those sorts of things. Within the interface gender hardly matters. Occasionally there is physical reproduction which occurs, but almost all are Vatborn. Oldborn children are still educated and made sentient, but they are generally sent away from the 35. From time to time there will be something of importance, genetically, in and Oldborn's Genome and that sequencing can be incorporated into the Vats themselves. We don't really own much, personally, beyond our own masks and clothes. Sure we personalize tools and weapons and such, but any of those can be picked up from where they are made at any time. So there's no real value attached to them. With everything being communal and no real scarcity there really is no such thing as wealth. The closest things we have to status are the various Arts people are dedicated to, all are necessary so there really is no deference between them. Age? I guess age would be the only real status? Children defer to the Sentient. The Sentient defer to the Mothers. We use suffixes, on occasion. Tini for children, Omo for the Mothers. I guess that could be considered a sort of status, but many would argue otherwise.
Greetings we use? Well, 'Hello' is pretty common. It's succinct. Here a month the 35 at the Origin we tend to say 'Welcomed Return'. The old Mothers return to the 35 to be returned to the Vats as they become more enfeebled. From time to time others are required to return here to bring something physically back, that's used for them as well. If we greet one another within the Interface and brush minds the greeting, there, is usually 'It's good to smell you once more'. I know, that seems rather juvenile and likely amusing, but when minds brush there's an almost olfactory perception within the interface. Each person literally has their own 'fragrance' is the best way to describe it. There usually is no farewell within the Interface, but some like to say 'Smell you later' for no really good reason.
Now your last question, here, was about metaphor? Well I've already described the 'Fragrance' aspect of minds touching in the interface, so a lot of our Interface metaphor is olfactory in nature. If a concept is 'Foul Smelling' it generally is considered overly complex. Simplicity is 'Fair Smelling'. We try to make things as efficient as possible, especially in the interface. In fact another metaphor we used is 'Simplicity is Close to Prime'. We have no real concept of God but the Prime state, the universal one-ness we aspire to, is referred to as 'Prime'. Everyone is already a part of the Prime, though they may not realize it. Becoming the most -you- you can be often requires becoming as fair smelling as possible. 'A fair smell is indeed close to Prime'. Ha! There's another metaphor for you. We value ourselves communally and as a community... so another saying is 'Ego is lost in the Interface'. Non-sentients tend to think of themselves as the most important thing in the Universe as they know it and seem to have little concept of community. That tendency is usually referred to as Ego and the Sentient think more of group and dome than of self.
I've mentioned in dome and out of dome quite a few times. Dome refers to not only the physical structure of the place where you live, but also as a concept of home. Your home, where you live, can change with rapidity. Even temporary domes can be erected in the wilds, but 'You never forget where your Dome is' and even the smallest and most temporary of domes remind us of the Dome we are from as well as the Dome of the Sentient... or the Sentient community. So 'Dome' can also refer to the community itself and the people within it rather than just the physical structure.
Well, I hope that answered all of your questions. I do hope this makes things smell better for you. I suppose I will smell you later and someday I hope for your pleasant return if you have any more questions. Find your Prime.
Reflective Essay
Being able to play with this project was a lot more fun than I had anticipated. I'm used to tabletop gaming as well as live action role play and computer gaming. I've also authored short stories and modular adventures, so it is not unusual at all for me to come up with a new culture ex nihilo, but to think more closely about how that culture would be reflected in language and how it would use the language itself was a fun game of the mind to play. I'll have to forever include such thoughts when creating new worlds in the future.
A particular challenge with the 35 was the idea of the Vats, Mind-Machine Interface, and near Human Hive of some post apocalyptic future. How utopian or dystopian would they actually be? How draconian would they seem to our current Type Five demographic cultures? How un-human or in-human would they be? How still-human? Would such close contact as direct computer interfacing through the consciousness render mankind as cold as the computers they use or would it make them warmer toward the people they encounter? I love asking unanswerable questions like this, especially when approaching such new cultural grounds as Google and current phone technology. Today we carry these things with us in our pockets... how do we look at ourselves through the lense of the past? And how would we want ourselves to proceed into the future knowing how we have changed via these technologies as we take that seeming next step in direct mind to machine access. How, too, will the way we talk to and interact with each other invariably change for the better or for the worse... how will our language change?
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