Welcome! These forums will be deactivated by the end of this year. The conversation continues in a new morph over on Discord! Please join us there for a more active conversation and the occasional opportunity to ask developers questions directly! Go to the PS+ Discord Server.

What is the generic honorific for fellow sentients after the Fall?

16 posts / 0 new
Last post
Blue Screen of Death Blue Screen of Death's picture
What is the generic honorific for fellow sentients after the Fall?
A quick question; What is the preferred term of respectful address for a fellow sentient who has achieved autonomy and majority? Mister, Miss, Mrs & Ms. don't seem to cover all genders, species and fundamental natures of possible sentience after the Fall. Could it be that such titles no longer exist in normal parlance and esteem is gleaned through context? Or is 'Mister' even more generic in the future (Mister Saavik is just one futuristic example)? Maybe there is a complicated array of possible titles and meanings based on gender/status/relationship. There is not likely to be just one good answer to all of this. But I thank you in advance for sharing [i]your[/i] best answer, [i]Comrade[/i] players. :-)
ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture
well the problem is even more
well the problem is even more complicated by the fact that in ep there is no unified language among transhumanity. sure muses do their best to translate but i think at least 20 languages survived out there. I default to my internet stance. I assume everything is male until i have reason otherwise in terms of gender pronoun/salutation. I also imagine most people have ar tagged themselves with what they prefer to be addressed as. as for special differentiation there is probably nothing special since the uplifts would of had our language patterns forced upon them.
Pyrite Pyrite's picture
I've seen 'Gentlebeings' in a
I've seen 'Gentlebeings' in a lot of the setting resources. I think most of the time people will just use singular 'they' or just refer to people by name or title.
'No language is justly studied merely as an aid to other purposes. It will in fact better serve other purposes, philological or historical, when it is studied for love, for itself.' --J.R.R. Tolkien
branford branford's picture
It will also depend heavily
It will also depend heavily on the particular polity. For instance, I assume that the bioconservative and religious Jovians would use contemporary American or South American Spanish honorifics. More conservative factions like the LLA and many brinkers may also follow similar patterns. As for everyone else, particularly very individualistic groups like the autonomists, customs might be very parochial and inconsistent. I do agree, however, that egos will usually tag their AR with their preferred address to avoid confusion or insult.
Leng Plateau Leng Plateau's picture
Banks
Personally I prefer the Culture (Iain M. Banks) use of "Ser" as a generic honorific. This is, I think, particularly useful giving that the post-Fall solar system clearly has been culturally influenced by science fiction writers of the past. As the narrator of Player of Games put it: "Little textual note for you here (bear with me). Those of you unfortunate enough not to be reading or hearing this in Marain may well be using a language without the requisite number or type of personal pronouns, so I'd better explain that bit of the translation. Marain, the Culture's quintessentially wonderful language (so the Culture will tell you), has, as any schoolkid knows, one personal pronoun to cover females, males, in-betweens, neuters, children, drones, Minds, other sentient machines, and every life-form capable of scraping together anything remotely resembling a nervous system and the rudiments of language (or a good excuse for not having either). Naturally, there are ways of specifying a person's sex in Marain, but they're not used in everyday conversation; in the archetypal language-as-moral-weapon-and-proud-of-it, the message is that it's brains that matter, kids; gonads are hardly worth making a distinction over."
At least with Lovecraft, nobody pretends the gods are nice. And wherever you end up, there is guaranteed to be tentacles.
Jaberwo Jaberwo's picture
Comrade might see some use
Comrade might see some use among the AA I could imagine.
Lorsa Lorsa's picture
I don't think there IS a
I don't think there IS a generic honorific. There are plenty of cultures and languages present, so the honorifics will be just as diverse (and on Titan might not be used at all, since it comes from a very "first-name" culture). The protocol skill probably helps you keep track of all this.
Lorsa is a Forum moderator [color=red]Red text is for moderator stuff[/color]
MrSitouh MrSitouh's picture
I'd agree with Lorsa -
I'd agree with Lorsa - knowing the right way to refer to someone based on who you're talking to where and why is exactly the sort of thing the Protocol skill exists for.
ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture
Very true about the protocol
Very true about the protocol skill but i prefer to role play it out rather than roll play :P
Lorsa Lorsa's picture
ORCACommander wrote:Very true
ORCACommander wrote:
Very true about the protocol skill but i prefer to role play it out rather than roll play :P
Well, if you have a high Protocol skill, you could probably ask the GM questions if you are unsure yourself and expect an honest answer. Then you can role play to your hearts content.
Lorsa is a Forum moderator [color=red]Red text is for moderator stuff[/color]
Myrmidont Myrmidont's picture
If you're in face to face
If you're in face to face conversation with someone, then I would assume your muse would politely ask their muse what their master likes to be called - such requests via social network sites would be commonplace. Collective pronouns would depend more on the specific speaker and their intended audience.
[@-rep +0|c-rep +0|f-rep +0|g-rep +0|i-rep +0|r-rep +0|x-rep +0] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/theeye_fanzine_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/reints_userbar.jpg[/img]
jKaiser jKaiser's picture
Oh, those pronouns
branford wrote:
I do agree, however, that egos will usually tag their AR with their preferred address to avoid confusion or insult.
This, which leads to the amusing extrapolation that in plenty of habs, you'd have the same kind of extreme self-indulgent personalized titles/pronouns/etc. as you see in some parts of tumblr, et al. which could lead to social gaffes on both sides of the coin. At what point, for instance, does an anarchist hab get fed up with a determined individualist whose rapid personal pronoun shifts prove to be detrimental to getting anything done with them in the community? That said, in my own games, it very much depends on the faction. Scum in particular are a good way to keep protocol-minded characters on their toes, because you never know if you're dealing with a comrade-style anarchist scum or a self-styled pirate king who likes putting people off-balance with elaborate titles.
Panoptic Panoptic's picture
Considering people can tell
Considering people can tell their muses to filter out unwanted data, I can imagine some utter narcissists literally won't hear you unless you use their accepted mode of address. Hell, a scenario could be run about an investigation to find a brinkers preferred mode of address just so you can get them to hear you out.
On 'IC Talk': Seyit Karga, Ultimate [url=http://eclipsephase.com/comment/46317#comment-46317]Character Profile[/url]
Lorsa Lorsa's picture
You can't really write your
You can't really write your "preferred" honorific in, for example, Japanese though, as it depends a lot on the relative social standing. Or well, you could, but it wouldn't mean anything.
Lorsa is a Forum moderator [color=red]Red text is for moderator stuff[/color]
UnitOmega UnitOmega's picture
So, basically, the proper
So, basically, the proper mode of address depends entirely on A( the culture or clade you're speaking to, and B( the language you're speaking in. Even in AF 10, there's lots of context, cultural baggage and tone of speaking in how you address people. If possible, AR and Muses can smooth some of this out, but if it's not specific (or your GM didn't expect you to talk to a gang of arms smugglers formerly attached to a Scum Swarm who prior to the fall were part of the Russian Space Navy, but have been sharing bunks with Malaysian and Cambodian refugees for the past ten years, so thus doesn't exactly know how they would go about addressing each-other, to give an example) then you have to rely on your Protocol skill and Knowledge of the Language. There's not a "generic" culture to EP, so there's no generic address. You couldn't even get transhumanity to agree on referring to everyone as "my fellow transhumans". Though this raises the question of just [i]how[/i] good the real-time translation is in EP. If you're hooked up to space Google translate, does it completely translate all of the nuances in context of a word being used to your language, and does it do so literally?
H-Rep: An EP Homebrew Blog http://ephrep.blogspot.com/
Blue Screen of Death Blue Screen of Death's picture
Thank you, Gentlebeings
Thank you all for your replies. Real Life has kept me from replying back until now. ' Leng, thank you for the quote from Sun-Earther Iain El-Bonko Banks of North Queensferry. He is already missed. :-( I guess that the honorific question is more of a question for us Millennials rather than the Fallen. The honorific questions are probably settled by muses and ectos behind the scenes. But the actual generic honorific (when you know nothing about who you are sending to besides that they are sentient) is more for flavor text by us.