Question, I’m not educated on the lore but, are the slomen and both species of uniima aliens on the same planet? Just curious because I thought they were post-humans due to their similar faces.
They are. It's a strange situation.
Non-earthly people having their first contact without ever understanding what space is. They would think you a madman for entertaining they are from different orb worlds.
What's next, germ theory?
This question does pop up a lot, so eventually, I really need a new pinned post.
I know this sounds weird but out of curiosity how do the uniima reproduce, lime I know they have eggs and larvae but are the reproductive organs and biology similar to the slomen?
This is extra simplified, but they are very different. Slomen and uniima both come from different biospheres and are possibly unrelated, even up to pre-cellular life. If there's a relation, it's definitely more distant than between a human and a pumpkin.
uniima with a freaky big head, arrows show things
While slomen have their reproductive organs stored in the neck area with openings in the mouth and side of the neck (where the megg connection is during 'pregnancy' for the masculine sex). Their pregnancy isn't quite like in mammals since the megg gets its own oxygen and isn't fed through blood, but with a nutrient soup. In many ways, this can make the pregnancy safer for the parent, but the fetus is less protected and will have issues if the megg isn't working as intended.
All uniima can both fertilize and create eggs. Their reproductive organs are stored deeper in the body, in the lowest hump above the tail.
To get the gene material from there, they use their strangely specialized middle limbs that are stored in the side when at rest. These small, thin limbs go through a canal to access the spermatids/eggs.
After delivering their genetic material, multiple of the fertilized eggs start developing. The eggs have a protective layer that gives them some basic materials for growth. Before laying, the membranes have started losing their structural integrity, and the egg membranes have fused into a chain. In some related animals, these chains can be sticky enough to hold onto a surface and last a while before completely falling apart (unlike in sky uniima).
Bobole shown in natural patterns, with a kula and a sloman silhouette for reference.
The second most widespread domesticated predator the slomen have would be the rounder than round big-maw.
They come from temperate climates, where they roam the forests, eating animals of many sizes (usually based on pack size). Most often, they are seen in pairs (commonly of siblings), but this rule isn't unbreakable. Sometimes, packs reach over 6 members that stay together for a long period of time before they eventually separate into smaller groups. This adaptability might be why their domestication came quite naturally. From the bobole's point of view, slomen might have been great hunting buddies.
Bobole are intelligent hunters that rely on visualizing the path of their prey more than on communication between members. This makes them both adaptable and stubborn when working in bigger groups or with slomen. The usual strategy is for one individual to stay low, watching the target, while others chase it in the other's direction. The unmoving bobola waits for the moment the target is close enough to strike it. In case it fails, the one chasing will still be available on the other side to mayhaps save the hunt.
With smaller prey, they can be useful chasing the target for slomen too. But with their stubborn attitude toward their technique, it's more common for them to help keep the watch on prey and track it.
In an active hunt, the slomen direct the bigger prey to the usually-larger-breed bobola to deal the first hit, keeping the animal in grasp for a person to kill it with a weapon.
Some breeds are very territorial. For this, you will rarely see them in Ciwa, where you could consider them outlawed. Not because they could hurt a person, but because a kula could be at risk. The sacred feral population must live on.
Unlike a dog, bobolas are not as flexible to train. Little funny tricks are meant for a kula. These orbs are loyal and follow direction, but they take a lot of time to do their natural behaviors in ways most useful for people.
The easiest is for them to protect family members from threats, which is why many cultures have at least one devoted to the household kids and follow them on their mischievous journeys even when they sneak around the adults. Of course, one must establish what a threat is early on. Nobody wants an anxious bobola who bites their aunt.
In some regions, if you were to visit a village, chances are you would see them sitting by every third settlement, either sleeping or watching you. Sellers might even take them to the markets to keep thieves away.
Now, you might find these orbicular animals somewhat similar to the put-tut, but they are hardly related. Bobola are actually genetically closer to the 'slomland' bird than to slomen themselves. Just like with the raptorial shape before the mammal overtaking on earth, the upright biped is popular with convergent evolution. However, since vertebrates of the continent don't have true tails to balance them horizontally, most bipedal animals here keep their head high.
This creature has been pretty much designed for a looong time now, but I never got to actually rendering it.
I've noticed with your all your slomen art that the slomen in them all have short headfeathers and it makes me wonder, can they grown out their headfeathers to be very big and long? Does headfeather length depend on a specific ethnicity or is short headfeathers just a fashion trend thing?
Unfortunately for some, feather length is genetic and tied to sex and ethnicity, and a fully mature feather doesn't grow any longer.
Different parts of a sloman's body will have different feather types of various lengths. Though nothing as complex as that of an Earthly bird, they also molt and replace their old coat and deal with pin feathers.
So if someone isn't fond of their head feather length, they will have to fix it up each molt and hope to not get a terrible haircut that lasts with them for a whole season.
But feather extensions are common and a traditional modification in many families across the slom cultures, especially for women.
"Hairdressers" have a very important role in sloman society. In places, they can be valued as high as the local medicine people.
I have a question regarding the land uniima and their back head eyes
Basically, do they still work? Like in sky uniima they're basically just the simple light detecting eye that the other eyes can already do (if I can remember correctly) aaand with the land uniima it seems like their eyes have evolved to be more "face eyes" if that makes sense.
So I'm wondering if their back eyes work at all or if it's the same sky uniima situation, because the back eyes for them tend to be covered by their unii-feathers or by something else
So sorry if these images are too big or if this ask is a bit long,,, on phone so that's why the screenshots are so big, if they are
The back eyes in land uniima are usually even less functioning than in sky uniima, yes, and many individuals may have them greatly reduced. It can depend on the community.
In Sky, they can still detect some obvious movement (but other eyes and the brain do most of the lifting).
In Lands, most will experience a sort of subconscious understanding of "day and night" awareness when their side and front eyes are fully obstructed. Some will feel discomfort and turn if you wave your arm right in front of their back eyes, and some will actually struggle to notice.
Communities living in areas with large flying predators and annoying flying buglets are more likely to have better function in them.
But eyes are complex structures that need a lot of energy. While losing function, they don't visually shrink or sink under the skin as much in the unii relative groups. The eye casing and skelet can be useful as armoring and even some very minor tissue attachment.
Very hard to answer in a single post so I focused on visual art here. Here are some few sketchy examples from both species.
There's a wide spectrum between the single species' cultures and even bigger between the two species. But there are many convergent art forms where the biggest differences lie in style as slomen and uniima see the world differently (color, space, person recognition...).
Slomen
In slomen cultures, art is commonly created for a community. Either to decorate a space or gift to a group etc. The least rare exception would be gifts for family heads but those usually see it as an obligation to share it with the rest.
So portraits of only one person are very rare. Art pieces also tend to be large, as the average painter group (in Ciwa) consists of 5 members and a mural-making group can be around 20. When they agree on the base motives, each artist executes their part with the resulting piece having all sections equally over-detailed.
Ciwan and general sloman visual art is often about fitting as much as possible experience and telling many stories without focusing on one single aspect (unless it's to highlight a higher-ranking member such as a matriarch). Art that can be touched is preferred.
Ciwan style of people drawing focuses on little facial detail, drawing people more idealistic with expression being shown more in body language. Individual indicators are primarily stripes and markings, sometimes holding a token of their occupation.
Uniima (sky)
In sky cultures, visual art is very popular and used in practical senses too. Ueema cultures commonly exchange art as information in case of language barriers and use it for documentation when they can afford it.
The structure of sky settlements, being that of thousands of microstates, leads many to compete in presentation. Having the most inspired architecture and decoration is why many become artisans which then bleeds into other parts of society.
Art is a job for one and it's full of competition. A good artist acts as their whole company, creating advertisements inside and outside their home, traveling, and inserting oneself into events.
Sometimes, uniima stylization can be realistic and practical but very often it's not and becomes hard to read for outsiders (even other uniima cultures).
Many artsy movements wash over regions in a year, inspired by people, cultures, and faded cultures like those of dead microstates that had little to no outsider contact.
The people drawing style spectrum over ueema cultures alone is overwhelming as they don't work as a single culture and many have a style native to their small area.
Most honor the individual great, including self-portraits and private pieces. The best indicator of who is the painted/crafted individual is the crest and beak shape, after that marking spacing and color + often accessories showing off a uniimas status, skill, and faith stance.
Some styles will include noise visualization to show the person's voice or other non-visual information to make the piece truly pact with context about them.
"The Queen of the 'city of demons' used to be an inspired one. You might think them absent now, but they dreamt of your birth."
This character is the ruler of the aforementioned "city" in their younger years. Before Hydra (the heir) was born, they were a source of small legends, very capable in their deeds and words, even if it rarely benefited the average folk. They would spend long days making art, especially puppets, commissioning tailors for the clothing and metalworkers for the joints. Those puppets would often take the form of people and ideas, including personal deities (like the one in the background of this image).
Before this.
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They learned the craft of making.
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Then they mastered it. Sculpted the image of the perfect heir, or maybe themselves?
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They made what was on their mind. An heir who lived in the real world. Their skill started slowly failing them.
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Then they only made. They didn't remember what, but they made it. They made it as many times as they could. Until it was the last time.
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Hydra only ever got to remember them as they were during their mental decline. Others had to tell Hydra the stories of that past glory, if those were even true.
I could show the more present version of them sometime. And their personal deity, too. The two-headed pickle monster. Yes yes.
Two adult sky uniima. One is walking forward while the other stands with limbs spread to the side, showing one palm. Between them is a single plump larva.
You can see more variation between groups with the extra cere (nostril) skin creating fleshy caruncles.
Another thing to point out would be two mouth fingers on the top jaw and a single one on the bottom. These have bones, though the little "frills" on them are muscle.
Here is an approximate scale compared to a human. Important to remember- while slomen are humanoid, they are smaller than humans.
Species info:
Sky uniima are primarily an arboreal species that mainly lives on a single large forested land with many surrounding islands. While their range is much smaller than that of land uniima (a distantly related species of sophont), their specialisation allows them to occupy the more extreme parts of their biosphere and spread all over there.
Sky unii generally build smaller societies with unique languages/dialects and cultures, even when these settlements aren't too far apart. Still, in modern times, cooperation is highly encouraged in the more politically active areas. This isn't an issue for most, as uniima have an extraordinary sense for picking up languages. Sky uniima learn new tongues especially well, even in older age, and many more-traveled ones can speak over 10 separate languages.
Their way of speaking is through the crest, creating multiple 'simpler' sounds at once. Unfortunately, they can't mimic other sophont ways of speech very well like this. Writing is the best next thing.
Sky uniima also show emotion using sound. This tune comes from the base of the crest and can be heard over speech. To our ears, it might appear like a humming/rattling sound in a chamber, but we would have a harder time separating it from other noises. The secondary way of emoting is the stretching and inflating of the facial markings.
Yes, the censored region is their unsafe for work area.
Approximately 23 years ago, a young man of uniimic biology is taken in by the court to serve in the coven. As he is taught the high ways, he is told about an event of the recent past, described as old.
Not even 6 years earlier, the nation of Ciwa had a stable relationship with a sky uniima collective from the southern islands, giving them an open gateway to the ueema and the rest of the central land.
This relationship was greatly weakened after one of many intercontinental trips taken by the two species, when one of the uniima envoys was lost in Kuiqua, the political and religious capital of Upli'ta-kaw (Ciwa).
Death is not considered a rarity for those traveling to alien lands, where one can easily get poisoned by local sources or badly kept rations. It was automatically assumed the uniima would have died. However, it would be quite unlikely for an alien body to come unnoticed.
After long conversations, messages, and threats, the ciwans had failed to give the collective information about their lost envoy. It's unclear how the parley ended, but the uniima withdrew from Ciwa in relative peace and with a lot of gifts.
Only a few know the whole scale of what happened to the delegation member. But most had heard the old complaints about lack of knowledge, the lack of an upper hand on alien biology. How unreliable aliens are with information. Or how they must have been vivisecting slomen for years. Be it an accident, an intent, or a misstep, nowadays every court member would be against it.
Neal has grown to think in similar ways. But it's not as effortless for him.
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It's easy to think that nobody would notice one of many visitors disappearing with the lack of oversight and the distance between the political bodies. The slomen had sent many more than the uniima would usually send; they would barely read the loss records, and they didn't ask for the bodies to be brought back unless it came to a higher caste member. Anyone would have been terribly decomposing on the long journey.
On the other hand, the uniima sent trained individuals, and read all taken back from the trip. The tension from a war was still palpable to them; many had lived in those times, while most slomen were a new generation.
The communication that was taken back about the envoy made it clear that things went wrong. One of their colleagues also said the envoy had a bad relationship with the locals, but never trailed off alone.
The last time they would see them, it was after an argument about alien emotions, or the lack thereof. When they met with the slomen, they had acted as if they didn't even know the person. Acting like they couldn't tell them apart, how they don't remember how many came. "It was ridiculous!"
