OOPs #219: Field Guide: A Caravan of Yinglets
Mar11
Out-of-Placers
A story of inconvenient changes
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OOPs now has a Russian translation which updates shortly after the English pages are posted!
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I think I’ve seen that scout before. 🙂
Well, this is interesting and possibly useful information…
And I can’t help but wonder if it’s also possible foreshadowing of a plot element in the future?
Chekhov’s got a gun. 😉
We got a similar “zoom out” kind of zhing just before Elim got stabbed.
I wonder just how much the central enclave wants another female in their troublesome northern enclave?
I doubt they have much idea what’s going on there. They sent a representative, but it’s a long way off and caravans move slowly. Anything the central enclave learns will already be weeks out of date. Narklet will ensure reports are sent back, and the arrival of an inexplicable female is certainly something to report – but it could be months before they can act on it.
I wonder, are the elders aware of That Thing? It’s origins remain a mystery. As does what Narklet intended for it. Someone bent on ensuring the purity of yinglet thought surely has no interest in seeing a new yinglet with a head full of human knowledge enter the game.
This raises another point too: Kass has no cover story. Something the Trademaster must surely have considered? That raises questions about the long-term plans that the Trademaster and Vislet have for her. If they wanted to maintain secrecy in the long term, they would surely have made up a plausible backstory to explain both Kass’s appearance and strangely non-Yinglet ways. Something like “lost as a child and believed dead, but really rescued by a kindly human family who raised her as their own.” The lack of any such cover story is itsself information to speculate upon: It means the pair of conspirators do not plan on maintaining the secret of Kass forever.
Seems like they have a decent baked-in story they could ass-pull at the drop of a hat.
1. Human trader gets a yinglet egg.
1a. Eggs sometimes go bad, so one getting “tossed” by a nurse that may or may not have been paid with a case of clam juice isn’t far-fetched.
2. Trader goes very far north where yinglets aren’t really seen, egg is sold, ends up in possession of lesser noble family that specializes in trade.
3. Oh crap it hatched.
4. Oh crap it’s weeehing at us.
5. Adopted yinglet daughter of family acquired.
6. Oh crap it’s a war.
7. People flee south.
8. First exposure to yinglet culture, insert shenanigans.
Last survivor of a lost enclave, or something like that. There would be options, were the intent to explain away the sudden employment of an undocumented yinglet female. But as no such story is given… if Narklet has any idea what That Thing does, it is surely only a matter of time until he starts to pierce things together.
If narklet knows about it and has seen it used, he’d probably be looking for a female human that it was used on.
If you only see it used on yinglets, the most reasonable conclusion would be “this swaps your sex” not this turns everything into female yinglets.
Yeah, I keep thinking that Kass should say he/she was raised by humans, as a human male, and didn’t even know what a Yinglet was before she came to Valsalia. Not only does it explain everything, including how she doesn’t understand her own anatomy, but it’s not at all untrue: all he/she has to do is omit the “used to be physically human but got transformed” part.
Kass does offer the start of a “backstory” in oops-23, when meeting the patriarchs for the first time. That’ll have to be the one they build upon. Details would be nice, like how the heck a yinglet would end up in Dinnland to become best friends with with Elim and then be chased *southward* to Val Salia, which is currently the *northernmost* yinglet enclave in the world.
On the other hand, clever people like Beizel and Head Surgeon Merrs are already starting to figure out the truth only a few weeks after “the day that things got significantly worse,” so Viracroix is right that the truth can’t stay hidden forever. Kass and Elim better get their story fleshed out before someone less benevolent starts to ask probing questions.
Oh wow, Kass DOES say that he/she was raised by humans! Thanks for catching that!
So yeah, all that’s missing from the third panel of OOPs 23 [ http://www.valsalia.com/comic/out-of-placers/oops-23/ ] is to say “I was raised like a human male, by human parents, as a normal member of a normal human family.” and maybe get Vizlet to warn him/her if there are any problems with that story, then the others will totally get why things are the way they are and perhaps fill in the details on their own.
What is this, font for ants?
*Insert Ken Jeong reaction image here*
Iz font for yinglet, ‘kay?
Paper is expensive! But dis was written supposedly by zhat Ran pervert guy, so dis time we are not guilty!
Ctrl-+ is your friend there, I think.
Currency appraisal for a very low fee.
“Yes, I’m pleased to be able to tell you, your silver piece is genuine. That will be one silver piece, please.”
This is a real concern in a pre-modern trade city. There will be a lot of coinage in circulation, from different trade partners. How many Baramorian quarters to a Dinnalan Crown? You can’t just weigh them, as even if all the coins are operating on some sort of silver standard they will have different percentages of silver in them. And that percentage might change depending on when the coin was issued too, as governments will sometimes debase their currency – usually in times of desperation, like a war. Then you’ve got to deal with the matter of taxation when the government wants tax in a currency other than the one in which you got paid, so you’ve got to get money changed. All that’s assuming everyone is honest – add in forgers and coin-shavers to that, and those licensed appraisal services are really essential to trade.
It also occurs to me that the requirements to be a skilled coin appraiser – keen senses, memorization of historical currency valuing tables, rapid and accurate arithmetic – combined with the respect given to such a profession means that you’d probably find a few baxxid working there.
Psst… it’s “colossal”.
…sorry…
If a gluckie cart heads North from the central enclave going 12 miles a day, and a tiplod cart heads South from Valsalia going 15 miles a day, assuming nobody in either caravan is a philosopher, how many baxxids will it take to figure out where the caravans will meet?
They probably won’t: The size of a tiplod cart means it is confined to the road network, even if poorly-maintained in places, while one advantage of a glukie is the ability to pass rough natural terrain to reach settlements with no road network connection like the enclaves.
Is the cart in this illustration more capable on rough terrain than the cart Elim and Kass were driving at the very beginning of the story? Is the terrain South of Valsalia really all that rough? Or do you just not want to do the math? 😉
Trick Question. Only the dogs know. The Baxxid will have to ask them. That said, you need at least 3 baxxid’s to talk to a dog. So the answer is Nuzzin’ matters! Buncha bones! All must burn!”