I wasn't sure how much detail to go into in that first dialog line but I worried this concept might be a bit esoteric to people who are not used to thinking about singular they, so I tried to provide enough context for it to parse. I very often hear English speakers using singular they to refer to abstract hypothetical parties, but for most people it seems to represent a quantum genderless state only until they (ha) are presented with a specific individual. Taken out of hypothetical, they will automatically and unconsciously assign a gendered pronoun based on secondary sex characteristics, stereotypes, and social cues. Which is fine, using language frequently requires making snap assumptions of strangers, but it does get annoying fast if you exist outside of typical gendered social expectations. Talita is experiencing a novel edition of this problem, since this fictional version of English assigns her no gender by default.
As for why Jovian English does this, commonly held conceptions of human gender identity and sex don't neatly apply to non-human aliens. Some aliens chafe with human assumptions for a variety of social factors (particularly avians) and human cultures that frequently interact with aliens will often use gender neutral language for diplomatic reasons. There are also entire populations of unisex humans in RttS, many of whom favor neutral language.
Different human languages deal with the issue in different ways. Jovian English uses they/them, Martian English uses xey/xem, Hindi uses a masculine default but sometimes assigns linguistic gender based on the sex of centaurs and avians (going off gamete size, e.g. duns are male), Portuguese uses masculine or gamete-based defaults but some documentation favors Sistema Elu to refer to bug ferrets and unisex humans, Chinese lacks gendered pronouns (in speech) but frequently assigns female familial terms and characters to dun avians, bug ferrets, female centaurs, and unisex humans based on their ability to give birth.
Transcript
Bip: I saw on your resume that you go by "she/her" instead of the Jovian default pronoun for aliens, gender neutral singular "they/them."Talita: How many of my files have you read?
Bip: Only your public ones.
Talita: Also, that’s not the same thing as “woman.”
Bip: Well, given your education and work history, flawless English, Jovian cultural mannerisms, and human-like body language… I figured you could only be a cross-species foster case.
Talita is taken aback.
B: So pretty likely you’d also have a human cultural identity.
T: You’re certainly astute. …If presumptuous.
Talita looks irritated, but her mood shifts as she recalls the symbols on the outside of the ship.
Talita: Bip, was your last crew centaurs?
37 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 72”
Bear-on-a-tricycle
Okay, so I discovered this wonderful comic and this wonderful world and this wonderful artist some time ago and I have always wondered how Talita was separated from her family so young. This page here makes me feel like her parents were on Bip’s ship and they met a tragic end. Just a hunch I have. If there’s anywhere that does explain how Talita lost her family, please link me to it. 🙂
Apollo235
I’m also really curious if that mystery will get a specific answer or nah
zaratustra
There’s a set of short stories called Growth Chart, it’s in Jay’s store and also the patreon
1d4Nadg
Long story short:
No one knows how Talita lost her clan. She was dropped in front of the Nexus Jovia orphanage freshly after her pupation (about 6 months old). The huans tried to return her to a passing centaur clan to bring her back to her home planet, but they refused, suggesting she should be culled instead. It was perfectly reasonable considering centaurs biology and culture, but humans have a strong “cute factor”, and couldn’t just kill her, so they decided to take her in and raise her.
It was a bet, growing up as an alien among humans is kinda traumatic, and centaur medical science is both underdeveloped and basically unknown to humans. Even her food had to be specially made. But they made it work! The forster worker who raised her also decided to assign her a gender to facilitate her integration, and she really took to it.
theplushfrog
I believe this post talks about what happened with Talita? It doesn’t say much about her family, but it seems to say they’re likely fine and just forgot/abandoned her, which is very sad from a human perspective and is why she ended up in human fostercare. Keep in mind, however, that this lore might have changed since Jay wrote it as much of the story has been tweaked since originally created.
https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/658658527894749184/centaur-aliens-start-small-and-dont-stay-that
I couldn’t find a more recent version, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, just that Jay has a LOT of lore scattered everywhere, which I’m sure will eventually make its way to the series if it can.
Ruby
Kinda called it, both times.
evileeyore
I love Bip, they’re such a great Antagonist for these three. Bip’ll never displace Gillie as my most favorite, but they’re a close second.
the namely namester
omg i love bip
Gar G
Love the expressions. And nice of Bip to respect her privacy (to an extent) by *only* reading the public ones
evileeyore
Oh, he’s lying so much. We’re (us cynical, paranoid audience types) are sure he’s read everything that exists in the local databases, performance reviews, people’s personal diaries, private medical histories, etc… Bip be snoopin.
Gar G
Yeah I did consider that a possibility, that they already read *everything* and is simply lying so she doesn’t freak out
Maditox
im kinda surprised you went through so much effort to convey what singular they means to people who might not be super familiar with the concept, i wouldnt have bothered too much. but then again you probably see way more confused/annoying people in your comments based on the statement you made on bip a few pages back
foca
if i’m interpreting things correctly, it seems that ‘sistema elu’ is not too widespread in common portuguese conversation in the rtts universe. is there a specific reason why it didnt catch on as a neutral language system? im brazilian and even today it seems widespread enough that even if only people in some lgbt circles will know how to use it correctly, most people at least know it exists. in a situation where unisex humans exist i feel itd be logical if it got into common usage for neutral language instead of keeping the masculine=neutral thing
Rubicon Art
I wnder how the person in the prev comment section who absolutely nailed it is feeling right now
Teod
What do you mean “Only your public ones”? It’s an entirely private tablet. How would it even have this distinction?
feesh
i assume bip is referring to files they can access by, say, googling talita’s name and seeing what pops up. her linkedin profile and whatnot
ammonoideas
the ways the different human languages gender aliens based on their cultural backgrounds are so interesting and clearly well-researched! specifically with chinese using female familial terms for duns in contrast with other languages’ tendency to gender relatively consistently based on gamete size – i imagine chinese culture would have changed a LOT between the current day and the events of rtts, but that detail fits really well with real-world chinese culture and language irt the focus on one’s familial and societal role. i love all of these little worldbuilding details and i’m so excited to see more as the story goes on
Hi
Having a gender discussion with the ghost who is now haunting her house is probably not how she saw this bing bong going down.
feesh
you can’t spell Bing bong without several letters from Bip’s name!
the namely namester
bip bop
Phasma Felis
I bet correctly gendering* Talita first try is how Bip wins her cooperation, despite being mostly a dick
*Speciesing? Identity is complicated.
evileeyore
I wouldn’t say Bip is “being a dick”. Bip has been a hardcore snoop, Talita sees it, he’s even given her the “looking up and left to show I’m lying” face to let her know he’s lying, but he’s aiming at …
Okay, it’s a fine line to tread in social circles*. Bip has assumed an awful lot, but Bip likely has a lot of info (all the local space databases, public and private) and deep systems to process, so he probably has exactly the specialized skills to pull this off (and so far has hit all the marks). What Bip is doing is called “Leaving a way to Save Face and yet give in to me”,
Bip has already determined to a high degree of certainty that Talita will go along with the request(s). But Talita needs a way to acquiesce while not letting it look like she has been forced or coerced. It needs to be her choice and it needs to look like she hasn’t been pushed into it (even though Bip is cranking hard on her levers, she knows it, Bip is all but outright admitting to it in this part of the conversation), but by lying a little bit in a very obvious way, it leaves Talita that “out”, even if that out is only with herself and her own personal expectations, codes, and ethics.
* In Bip’s defense here, Bip is fighting to survive. Even though Bip has shown an amazingly high degree of skill, capacity, and cunning… if they turned against Bip here, Bip could be shutdown or at least pretty easily confined to the Qphones… which would be imprisonment. And possibly for a being like Bip, a torturous imprisonment. So while Bip is leveraging everything Bip has into cajoling Tailta, Idrisah, and Gillie (who was won over immediately) and using every lever Bip can throw into this fight to survive, Bip is doing it in a very clever, decent, and almost “light touch”† manner. The extreme personal space and data snooping intrusion not-withstanding.
† I mean… okay, Bip is going hard with the buttering Talita up, but Bip really has done it in exactly the right way to hit all her “Help Bip” buttons, and has been a lot more light touch with Idrisah and Gillie. Heck, Bip has barely even bothered to try to sway Idrisah at all.
Zidane
oh man i am eating up this info, cultural differences over gender and how thats expressed in language is already so interesting to me, so to have this setting take into account how this intersects or clashes with alien’s perceptions of gender, or at least their nearest equivalent of it, if they even have one, is super cool.
Tyrone the Miner
Its all embers until the last question . That´s a leap into the flames.
Chrysalis
Thank you for going into this much detail! This is the kind of social/cultural/linguistic nuance that I always appreciate, when speculative fiction authors include it, and unusual cases like Talita’s make some of the most elegant opportunities to provide in-universe explanations.
“Astute if presumptuous” kind of sums up Bip’s whole introduction so far, doesn’t it? The Sherlock Holmes approach is so fun to read about! And so unsettling when it’s used on you.
Apollo235
Oh man, I’ve been wondering how Portuguese speakers in RTTS would do neutral pronouns. As someone who speaks Portuguese at home, who is also non-binary, I’ve had some trouble finding words in Portuguese I feel fully comfortable with. Thanks for including the section on pronouns, its very helpful!
Pathfinder
I wonder what happened to the last crew, a giant hole in the habitation portion doesn’t seem to bode well, but perhaps they abandoned ship. I wonder if Bip was online to witness what happened, or if they got shut off and has no idea what happened to their crew. Why didn’t any surviving/not incarcerated crew go back to rescue Bip? So excited for this mystery!
1d4Nadg
Also Jay (can we call you Jay?) if you see this:
How common are cross species foster cases in the grand scheme of things? I mean specifically species from 2 different planets, I’m assuming avians and their 5 species would have more of those and with less consequences.
I know it’s common enough that there is a pride flag for it, but it does seem very unlikely. And it probably varies species to species, I’m guessing no centaur would raise a human baby?
Apollo235
There’s a pride flag!? Can you link it?
Green Heron
https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/667059434332225536/miscellaneous-runaway-to-the-stars-lore-around-the#notes
Pride flags (and Nexus Jovia lore) here! Slight spoilers, contains a major character not set to appear in this book but describes very little about her.
I did see Jay say on Reddit that Human-Avian cross species fostering is more common than with the other species, though the reasoning has less to do with Avians being used to cross-avian-species fostering but because humans and avians have similar reproduction strategies and senses of empathy. ‘Don’t know how to link to reddit comments but here’s the post Jay said it on:https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/rvdk6c/centaur_aliens_start_small_and_dont_stay_that_way/
zaratustra
Talita is holding the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pansexual_flag
1d4Nadg
I cannot find it again T_T
I remember a big image with flags for all cast, but Tumblr search function is BAD, and digging through the site and old posts didn’t bring anything.
Have a baby talita
https://64.media.tumblr.com/c1c6614f881f9afb6359cfb0303896d0/89855faaa59850ec-71/s2048x3072/e294a68796162043d5cf3cc165ed2a2c6d5d17c4.pnj
Ashran
Is there a collection somewhere with all the image posts?
1d4Nadg
Only if you are willing to go deep deep deep in tumblr and reddit posts, even the officail website doesn’t have everything right now.
But it has been updated recently, so it might get more comprehensive!
Peter Jensen
It seems unlikely a centaur would raise a human any time soon. Cross species fostering is something that would require considerable expense and technology, and centaurs are still somewhat behind the rest of the sapient species with regards to technology. And they don’t have a whole lot of off-world infrastructure yet, so having much to support aliens on their homeworld is unlikely. Better pack your own lunch when you go visit!
And then of course there’s the whole aspect of how they won’t even do foster care for unrelated members of their *own* species (bonus scrunkly baby Talita pictures):
https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/658658527894749184/centaur-aliens-start-small-and-dont-stay-that
eden
that and centaurs aren’t too willing to adopt kids anyway (since they’re carnivores who have large litters culling is a common practice, it’s been specified though that usually the babies gain personhood after they grow out of their first instars) when they tried returning talita that’s what a lot of clans recommended
1d4Nadg
There we have it, the REAL question!
And also a delightfull infodump on aliens, languages, and gender by Jay. Love it!