So, are we discussing in here?
Mystic Ward
15 years ago
Mystic Ward
Twentyfamilies Gypsy
I think that looking at all the arguments they all have merit, however, coercion would still be my first choice :P . Beastspeaking can be acheived with the use of Brydda's hand signs. Farseeking may facilitate communication, but is that really necessary in a Land of relatively small size. Empathy would be the only talent that could possibly be better for the people of land to have and use as it would discourage violent behaviour, unless of course its a demented form of empathy like that possibly possessed by Ariel. ;D
15 years ago
Fri Oct 24 2008, 01:24pm
I think a big thing that came up (especially in our coercer group, because let's face it, it doesn't have a good reputation) is the idea that whatever power we pick, it could be abused. Also, I think we need to have a look at how regular people are going to react to the new power.
Coercion: quite easy to be abused, because a good deal of it is afterall making other people do what you want.
Farseeking: Some good points about communication, but whilst that might be what's needed, is it really going to make everyone on level ground? Of course not, the farseekers will become the elite, the ones with all the information. And how do you make sure they pass on the right information? Maybe the people of the land would be more willing to trust than we would, because they live in an age where messages are passed by messenger and letter rather than phone, but I think if this happened in our society people would start to hate the farseekers more.
Beastspeaking: Again, a bit useless to the people of the Land because they could just learn the signals. Not very easy to be abused or to be suspected of being abused.
Empathy: The talent that always comes across as all lovey and nice, but that's just because Elf equates it with Dameon, who is nice. But really, it's the same as coercion almost. Whilst they might not plant thoughts, they plant emotions. Emotions are hugely related to how you react to situations. If someone makes you angry when you should be calm, isn't that the same as planting a thought in their head, because you're changing their reaction to the situation. Same the other way, making them calm and accept something they shouldn't. Even if no one treats the talent this way, the fear would be among the people that you could, so you couldn't trust your own emotions anymore.
I think empathy might be the most harmful talent to cultivate, because the people of the land would lose their trust in their own emotions and themselves. How do you know what's yours and what's someone else's plant in you? I guess coercion might come second there, because again you could lose the trust in yourself and your thoughts. Even if no one is actually abusing any of the powers, it's what the people think they could do, and so what they are afraid of.
So, that leaves me with farseeking or beastspeaking...
Oh, and another thing, is it ever mentioned that the signals give the beasts the full ability to communicate? Are they able to fully express themselves? If you equate it to people who rely on sign language, they can fully express themsevles, but most people can't understand it. It's a foreign language almost. And even if you know some, you can't communicate fully with the person, it must be so frustrating. But at least you could resort to writing it down, but beasts can't do that.
Ashling Guildmistress
15 years ago
Sat Oct 25 2008, 12:14pm
Ashling Guildmistress
Mage
It's hard isn't it :P because, really - whatever power someone has, there is always someone who could potential abuse it.
I think the reason Empathy isn't considered a 'scary' talent is because everyone who seems to possess it has such a sweet and approachable nature, such as Dameon or the twins.
But then, we forget that we suspect Ariel has some form of warped empathy.
[act]ponders[/act]
Mystic Ward
15 years ago
Mystic Ward
Twentyfamilies Gypsy
Some really good points there Cat-eyes. I hadn't thought of empathy in that way before. I do think that beastspeech does enable full comunication as Brydda was suposed to know and be helping the lowland beast guild. They were going to teach it in their schools as well. But there is good and bad in every talent just as there is good and bad in those without talent and you could easily stuff up the messages to beasts deliberately so where do you draw the line and say this is the best one. Personally I'd like a combination of three or four.
I think it really depends what way you come at it from... like with Beastspeaking... if the ability to beastspeak didn't exist in the first place, the finger speech method wouldnt have been able to develop as an effective method of communication. Thats where i thought provided the most interest... the way you came at the question... to me cultivating and nuturing a talent should really start from the beginning. And so i think beast speaking would be useful, so that animals could get a 'voice' rather than relying on human activists.
I think coercion, in the sense of it's ability to be abused, and make people do things they don't want to do, would probably be least benefitial. While the points raised where strong, i'm not convinced overall that it would provide the greatest benefit to the people of the land.
Farseeking does have communication benefits, which would be beneficial. Cat's point about them becoming elite though i think stands with whichever talent you cultivate, well that's how i see it. If people have the ability to do more then someone (and the mindset against misfit abilities must have changed for such an idea) they are going to be seen as superior in terms of the skills they possess. I concur it has teh ability to be mis-used, like any of the abilities do.
And i agree with Cat on the empathy and coercion similarities. For me, it really comes down to farseeking or beastspeaking and I think it's really difficult to pick between these two, which i see as the most beneficial.
So, um, does anyone else have anything to say?
If no one replies, tomorrow I'll put a bit of a summary of what the four of us have said in the thread.
Mystic Ward
15 years ago
Mystic Ward
Rebel
I'll agree that it should either be beastspeaking or farseeking, but I'm leaning more towards farseeking.
Empathy and coercing are definitely out because they're both manipulative Talents and no matter which way you spin it, unTalented people won't be comfortable with them.
I choose farseeking over beastspeaking because it will be of more use. Of course the handsignals aren't as good as actual beastspeaking, but at least we still have a way of communication. If we eliminate farseeking altogether it would really decelerate the Land's potential to evolve; imagine how long it would have taken us to get where we are if we still communicated via carrier pigeon or messages that had to be physically delivered.
They could just invent the phone like we did :P
I think the consenus is coming as Farseeking...
Yeah, farseeking would be good. It would definitely benefit the land in terms of trade, communication, learning, etc.
And with Beastspeaking, you could just use Brydda's hand-signals.
Just a question, but are we supposed to be basing our decision on which Talent we think is best, or on which talent we think was argued in the best way? Because our decision might be different if we were going to decide based on who had the best argument (which is what you're supposed to do when judging a debate, isn't it?). For instance, some people had very hard/challenging topics to argue, and they did a good job.
I think we're using the information presented, and our own ideas, to come up with which talent we think was best in this thread.
For which team was best, PM the moonfairy your vote for who should win :)
I don't think this section really ties in with who won the whole thing, because we're not arguing in teams anymore and you can go against your team because you don't think your talent is really that good to cultivate. So if you think a particular team was awesome, vote for them to the moonfairy.
Whoops, forgot to sumarise this into the other thread last night. Eh, there's only about 5 posts anyway...
15 years ago
Mon Nov 03 2008, 10:19am
I think basically we're saying that -
1. Coercing - the ability to control people. What does this bring to mind? A few phrases that jump out are; Abuse of power, one type of people having the power to completely monopolize another, and ordinary folk living in fear. Sound good to you?
If coercing was the Talent that we nurtured, there would be no trust. People would be constantly living on edge - never knowing when they or one of their friends was being manipulated by a coercer. The damage that coercing would do to society far out-weighs the good.
2. Empathy - the abilty to sense and control people's emotions. On the surface this seems like a harmless Talent, but is it really? Empathy is really no different from coercing - you are still controlling people's minds. Empathy may actually have worse consequences than Coercing.
Imagine if you could never be sure that your feelings were real. What if you were desperately in love with someone, but you could never know if it was your own love or someone planting the love in your brain? This would tear down trust in society. People would not only be suspicious of other people, but they would be suspicious of themselves - their very emotions.
3. Beast-speaking – the ability to communicate with animals. Not a bad ability on the surface, but do we really need it? What about Brydda’s finger-speech? That could be adopted by Untalents as well as misfits. Untalents are still quite suspicious of animals and would not easily accept this power.
4. Farseeking – this would be quite a useful power. And more importantly, its use would have no devastating effects upon the community. Farseeking is not scary and will not make the Landspeople distrustful. Indeed, once they learn of the benefits of Farseeking they would probably be glad to accept it.
Farseeking provides better communication, the chance to learn from other cultures, and opens up possibilities in terms of trade.
Mystic Ward
15 years ago
Mystic Ward
Twentyfamilies Gypsy
Very nice summary Avialle. I would maybe add that farseekers as with all talents have developed mind shields so that their thoughts can not be invaded if they choose to have a private moment or two.
It looks like all us the Farseekers have it. (Though I'd rather be a coercer |:| ) not really, I'd love to be able to talk to animals though!