Benedict Adamson wrote:
>Surely they are `blinded' no ore often than a group of humans wearing
>head lamps (as miners do), and perhaps less, since the transmission
>is continual rather than continuous.
? Sorry, you lost me. :( If the uz are all using an *identical* ping, then IMO they'll have trouble distinguishing between all the returning signals -- AFAIK, part of Sonar (and presumably of Dark(sonar)sense) is that you know your own location. Signals released from other sources would be confusing.
So to me, it'd be like humans using head lamps in a hall of mirrors -- tough to figure out where you and everthing else are when you're squinting from the glare of everyone else's lamps.
(I suppose that if trolls all had different pings but could distinguish others' pings, then the analogy above would be using head lamps with differently-colored filters.)
Frank Giles, UzHeretic, wrote:
> Let+s say you+re Drosophilla, a sonar-only value trollkin serving the
> Two-Legs-Can+t-be-seen clan. You+ve been ordered to help arrange food
> for a feast to celebrate an important visitor.
Whew! I'd be thinking, "Thank Xiola Umbar *I'm* not the feast!"
> Question: Your life may well depend on noticing how upset everyone is.
> How does darksense help you do this? No ones density, outline, texture,
> or state of hunger is changed by this potentially life threatening (for
> you) condition.
I'd think facial expressions could be picked up, as could (more
importantly) body language. (And of course, there's still sound. If she's
screaming "Argh, argh, I've got big teeth to eat you" then You Know).
> Time slows to a crawl. Do you dare ping it?. Is it Auntie Crush? How do
> you find out?
I'm not convinced a troll picks up other trollish sonar releases, but
let's say it does. Trollkin then have a wonderful and underrated survival
feature: eyes.
Uzko don't rely much on their eyes, but trollkin (with their crappy sonar) have better eyesight than the average troll. In the case above, this is *great*. Aunt Crushie, with her cruddy eyesight, can't see you looking at her! So you sneak peeks to gauge her mood, without her noticing.
The *visual* scan/search abilities for trollkin might thus be surprisingly high...
> What is the mechanism for idendifying individuals by sonar?
What is the mechanism for identifying individuals by sight? They look
different. Presumably, the (extremely sophisticated) Dark(sonar)sense
return from one individual can be distinguished from that of another.
> In order to pole play we visually oriented hoomans have to be able to
> "visualize" how the senses of our characters work. Over all we+ve
> blended visual imagery into darksense to a huge extent. All the evidence
> indicates that it makes the world really very different.
'S a fair cop. I think a troll is "feeling" the world (I do love the idea
of "seeing" textures), but the visual references tend to creep in. :(
Jamuz Fruzetta
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