#skuk

[paradoxbeta]

Thinking of a skuk/human crossover. A lot of skuks would love to be buildings for humans like bars, hotels, etc. Strange social enrichment for both parties

[paradoxbeta]

Who’s a better gamer? Monolith or astronomer? Oh and how would they react to seeing a skuk?

Astronomer is definitely the better gamer on account of Monolith wouldn't like playing video games and would refuse to manipulate the controls. In response to a Skuk, Astronomer would likely say something like, eww, what is that? And Monolith probably wouldn't engage at all, to the point that if a Skuk encountered Monolith it might come away thinking she's not sapient or maybe not even conscious.

[paradoxbeta]

A colored version of Yiel from the most recent sophont interview drawing for his ArtFight

[paradoxbeta]

Is it still true that skuks never meet humans?

Yes. The Skuk empire as we see it now existed in humanity's earlier stages. By the modern day Skuks would've metamorphized into something completely unrecognizable, or ceased to exist (or at least moved beyond a state we recognize as being alive). They are also situated very, very, VERY far away, so even if they existed at a time humanity would've been able to receive them they likely would've never noticed us and we would've never noticed them. The same goes for the Rajmuhats, the Skuks' neighbors. However I don't care very much about breaking canon for anything that isn't "official"/canon writing, so in any situation where it's convenient or funny or interesting Skuks and Rajmuhats will act like they know what humans are

[paradoxbeta]

I'm thinking about the skuks and I'd like to say that it is impossible to understate just how vain they can be as a species, generally speaking. On the extreme end of the spectrum, fashion and aesthetic expression comes before nearly everything else. A life spent away from style is a life spent on nothing. If its not expressed through art it doesn't matter. These guys break rigid internal diplomatic rules to collect specimens from other empires, entire bodies-- both skuk vessels and just actual alien cadavers-- are purchased and hoarded for the sole purpose of decorating them. Their culture revolves around dress-up when it doesn't revolve around scientific advancement (mostly accurate) and frying their mechanical brains to invent new sensations in new places in new states of conscious existence (more accurate). From the outside they look like a noble and vast and mysterious empire, and they are that. They lead a life of technological and cultural complexity that seems incomprehensible to pre-FTL and even some post-FTL civilizations. But they can also be your filthy rich label-whore neighbors who do mushrooms and throw parties like they're testing how long they can go running on rich-people cheese and no sleep. And they're buildings. And this is not where I expected to end up with this empire but here we are

[paradoxbeta]

Actually I want to talk about Signif and his risky diplomat behavior because I think its a little interesting and I do NOT want to give off the idea that Signif was a goofoff or unserious or in some way ignorant of the rules surrounding his duty.

Signif was and is a fantastic diplomat. He stuck through all of the rigorous courses about sensitivity, etiquette, and ultra fine motor and mental control to turn him into a fluidly expressing, seamlessly assimilating, eternally dynamic force of nature. He could merge into any human culture one day and then hop a ship and learn to merge into some Glor-Flakian culture lightyears away the next.

The reason I say Signif is "risky" and pushes the bounds of acceptable behavior is because the standard Skuk approach with diplomats is to be just about as stone cold and professional as can be with the target species without becoming hostile. Skuks are notoriously bad at gauging alien taboos, so dabbling in emotional expression beyond the bare minimum of cordiality-- AKA, going off script from what you learned in school-- often ends in the Skuks landing into uncanny "how do you do fellow sophonts" territory that massively squanders their political objectives.

(And again, I just want to seriously highlight that is hard for Skuks to interface with organics. They need to anthropomorphize themselves to standards that seem arbitrary to them, and every schematic they make is a shot in the dark as to whether the target species will like it or think it's off-putting. Just creating the standard for a diplomatic Skuk to conform to when interfacing with a standard species takes a lot of work, and then teaching the diplomat to perform that standard is a whole new beast. Things that are innate to us like eye movement, fluid facial movement, gesticulating, tone, volume, proper lip sync timing, and many others are refined skills to Skuks.)

Signif is exceptionally emotive for a diplomat and often wont shy away from expressing his true feelings to the aliens he engages with, making him the number one rule breaker. The reason why he goes unpunished is because Signif is just about the only diplomat that breaks the rules the right way. He formats his reactions in ways that toe the line between friendliness and professionalism for the target species, and in ways which seem empathetic and genuine without becoming offputtingly alien or too conformist. Alien diplomacy is nebulous territory that he has an amazing sense for navigating despite the disadvantage being a Skuk gives him, and despite the fact that all of this changes from culture to culture, situation to situation, and even individual to individual. It's like an art-- he knows the rules intimately so he can bend them, creating a more professional result: In this case seeming much more persuasive and easy to trust.

Skuks attempting to be personable is hit or miss and Signif is the only Skuk so far to hit time and time again with massive payback. So yes, he's the Skuk empire's special little boy and he gets to peacefully break the rules, though at the cost of many Skuk eyes anxiously watching his career. And as the empire places more and more trust in him and assigns him to more and more weighty negotiations, the more he must ensure that his risky method works.

Signif is basically an oc now and I'll probably make an actual oc to fill his spot in canon. But his personality originates from a minor gripe I have where No Significant Harassment gets treated like a shallow funnyman, which I think has gotten way better in recent times, but I'm also pretty good at accidentally missing the less-than-good sides of the Rain World fandom (thank god) so maybe it's still an issue, I don't know. But the point is that there is an intelligence and a resourcefulness to No Significant Harassment that sometimes gets skimmed over, and this part of the Skuk-ified AU was originally meant to bring that part of him into a more obvious light. It just sort of irks me when people describe or characterize or imply something about certain iterators in a way that sincerely suggests they're dense. But that's about everything I wanted to share

[paradoxbeta]

my friend showed me a bunch of these nifty valentine cards with planes on them so this was the logical next step

[paradoxbeta]

for how small a minority the diplomats are in the skuk population the diplomats are really out there carrying the image of the entire empire on their perfectly flat matte-metallic backs, because i cant imagine how poorly it would go letting even the most official of skuks interface with anyone outside the empire if not armed with a rigorous cultural sensitivity course. you go to negotiate joint solar system ownership with a standard skuk and the first thing you see upon entering their building is a diaphonized human on full display and all the skuk has to say about it is "oops ^_^ its ethically sourced though i think. but its such a beaut right??"