What's wrong with this Vargr?

[GypsyComet]

Per your question, I was referring to their relative talents in zero-G conditions.

While humans may "get" Vargr behavior more often than with most other races, I suspect domestic dogs are not as common across the Imperium as they are on Terra, so that body of knowledge about the Vargr's distant origins won't be ubiquitous (like it is now; we all know a dog or two). As such, Vargr will be nearly as unpredictable as, say, the Vegans are to most Imperials. Alien. The closer Vargr get to Terra the more likely they are to run into people who know their ancestry and recognize canine behavior made sentient. The results are likely to be both embarrassing and hilarious at first.

The Vargr are, at a metagame level, so common precisely because they are easy to grasp and easy to play. Some Vargr are indeed going to be within the Human normal range psychologically, while others will be outside that range.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Per your question, I was referring to their relative talents in zero-G conditions.

What would a talent be in zero G?

While humans may "get" Vargr behavior more often than with most other races, I suspect domestic dogs are not as common across the Imperium as they are on Terra, so that body of knowledge about the Vargr's distant origins won't be ubiquitous (like it is now; we all know a dog or two). As such, Vargr will be nearly as unpredictable as, say, the Vegans are to most Imperials. Alien. The closer Vargr get to Terra the more likely they are to run into people who know their ancestry and recognize canine behavior made sentient. The results are likely to be both embarrassing and hilarious at first.

People don't look at apes anymore? If I saw a Vargr, I'd probably think Vargr. Instead of domestic dog. Once in awhile I might think of a wolf pack during their infighting (if I ever saw how a wolf pack behaved). Plus, without a translator, I wouldn't know what the hell they were arguing about. And so just think typical Vargr brawling. If I was with some Vargr on a frontier world and we came across some caveman tribal types, I'm sure the Vargr would look at me and say, "Friends of yours no doubt."

Anyway, I wouldn't think of Vargr as animals. I do think of dogs as animals though, which gets a lot of dog people upset with me who think dogs are like people.

The Vargr are, at a metagame level, so common precisely because they are easy to grasp and easy to play. Some Vargr are indeed going to be within the Human normal range psychologically, while others will be outside that range.

Vargr are still an alien race around humans in my games. Just as humans are alien to them. Humans need a translator to understand them. And they can mimic some of the words Vargr use that they know the meanings of, but not carry on a conversation in Gvegh.

 

[GypsyComet]

I do think of dogs as animals though, which gets a lot of dog people upset with me who think dogs are like people.

Increasing evidence suggests that the dogs in our lives are thinking the same thing from their perspective. They don't think of themselves as funny humans. They think their humans are funny looking dogs...

The Vargr are portrayed as the only culturally diverse Major Race aside from Humaniti, though like Humaniti, there are atavistic behaviors that are often unrecognized from the inside but obvious to an outsider. that remain widely spread through their cultures and behavior patterns. A Vargr Sophontologist visiting Terra could work up a laundry list of Humaniti's atavisms pretty quickly, just as Humans familiar with dogs would see a similar list in modern Vargr. I tend to doubt that very many Imperials are familiar with dogs, though.

What a Vargr would make of a Shih Tzu or Dachshund I have no way of knowing...

 

[Infojunky]

Ok the confluence of Science and Art here in term of roleplaying Alien intelligences. I keep hearing the whole Human in a rubber suit thrown about as a criticism of how aliens are portrayed. Aliens exist all around us, look at people with Autism, or from vast divergent cultures from your own.

Now one tool to use is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs applying each level to the alien point of view, in that all living creature who we would consider out intellectual equals will have quantifiable responses to each level. Hence commonalities between all sophants.

Now take Felcher, he is an Alien in that he isn't a Human, though to brutally honest he is in the Human Line and raised in a culture that was dominated by human thinking and learning, his alien core is that he is a creature of Zero-G Mostly he and his line think in 3 dimensions and consider Human to alien in that they desire to live on the ground, plus some biological cues that are specific to his line reproduction triggers....

As for Vargr there is whole different set of said cues to meet their needs, I suspect they are a little more cyclic and and sent based than Human cues while still falling into understandable parameters. As a sidenote I have in depth conversations with my companion canine all the time, she understands that she live here on my sufferance, but the conversations are completely conducted in a shared gestural language. This level of understanding isn't universal the visiting idiot Chihuahua/Pomeranian is clueless to what is going on in these conversations, even though he was raised from a Pup in this house. (two ends of the Int scale there) My current canine companion is a Elderly Black Lab who thinks, Mostly about how her hips feel and what her next meal is going to be like (If you have ever spent time around elderly bored humans the conversation is pretty similar)

But back to point it helps to dissect what the needs are and how to portray them. Once two alien intelligences can start communicating they more similar than different in that they need to meet the same needs.

And the final bit, Dogs are dogs, they are culturally adaptable, but would you trust one to make overt life decisions for you? Not I......