Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE Fiction + Fiction discussion => Topic started by: Halete on 16 Apr 2013, 03:47
-
The Caldari Somnaishii
So named for their adoption of the slang term coined by the Megacorporate security forces, referring their vivid defacement of State property featuring prominent triangular imagery, the Somnaishii [Triangle Guerrillas], or Somnai, are a criminal faction that are based on New Caldari.
Since it’s inception, the Somnai have plagued the underbelly of New Caldari. The criminal conglomerate are heavily rooted in the State’s Grey Market, it’s dissident membership ripe candidates for delegation from the Megacorporations when they don’t want to dirty their own hands.
The Somnaishii rose from several gangs of malcontents dissatisfied with the CEOs and their perceived inability to curtail the economic hardships in the State. Despite the efforts of the corporate security forces, the gangs were able to firmly entrench themselves in abandoned infrastructure and developments across New Caldari that had run out of funding.
By adopting a hierarchy styled off of their very own home Megacorporations, along with careful delegation and a system based off of merit - well before the rise of Tibus Heth would see the coming of his ‘New Meritocracy’ - these individual gangs enjoyed success very quickly in the current climate.
Due in no small part to the communications network established by phreak ‘SSavage’, who would later go on to co-found the DarkNet ‘The Underdepths’, these gangs would come together in YC100. Overnight, the gang-heads hashed out an inner-circle that was effectively to be a Board of Directors, and the Somnai were born.
Interestingly, whilst the Somnai are publicly regarded as an ethnic Civire gang, Deteis hold many of the directing positions in the conglomerate. This isn’t apparent to the lowly, usually racially charged grunt, thanks to the web of scapegoats and delegates that orders are carried down.
More recently the gangs have come across hard times. The reign of Tibus Heth has been a curse for the Somnaishii The bolstered economy of the State has lead to the gangs being flushed out of previous abodes to make way for new factories. Member gangs have been under increased pressure from the Home Guard. Heth’s rise erased many of the concerns that the masses that made up the gangs’ front lines had with the State, causing defections and conflicts of interest. Many of the managers who used to have dealings with the Somnai from the Megacorporations have been replaced as part of Heth’s aggressive initiative to create his New Meritocracy.
Lastly, the Haadoken Summit, usually a time of great wealth and revelry for the gangs whom are involved in illegal gambling that is symbiotic with the event, marked another painful memory for the cartel in YC112, when Jan-Erik Jehkinen, a middle-aged Deteis man who had been on board the directorship since his youth, managed to steal the entire amount of revenue made that year by the group from gambling outlets.
In YC115, even as more and more of their emblems (depicting a Caldari crest that has been molten and bent into the shape of a triangle) are being removed from State property, the Somnai continue to operate. There is a faint rumour on the winds of the inner circle ushering for their member base to pursue placement in the Capsuleer program by any means necessary.
“We have been too slow to adapt. However, unlike the Nepotic dogs that Heth has been putting down in the State, we will not lay down and accept justice. The Capsuleer race are amassing great fortunes all around us whilst we toil to get by hand-and-mouth. For far too long have we let this opportunity pass by our ranks. It is time that we too had a taste of that power.” - Keisuke Nagatanien, Somnaishii Lieutenant
-
Hi there. Not sure if this is the right board. I've never done world building for EVE before. I intend to start. I'm up to scrutiny and feedback especially as my own knowledge of the lore is patchy at best. My hope is to create resources that I or other people can use for their RP whilst being inoffensive enough to the lore that most people are happy. Therefore I will take any discussion and work with it.
-
I actually really like this, a lot.
Couple of questions: Do the Triads have some sort of tattoo hidden on them somewhere to show their membership to other Triads (or something similar)? I imagine such a group goes to great lengths to keep their membership hidden from the outside, but how would they identify themselves to one another?
-
I was thinking something akin to a small programmable nanite tattoo.
Something that looked innocuous at first-glance but when scanned would produce a small script, that when run through a certain cipher would reveal a haiku. The ciphers and haiku used would change on a routine basis.
I'm fond of this idea because it's believable and elegant, with lovely imagery. It would also be a lot of fun for a player to create 'previous haikus' as kinds of Triad mnemonics.
Edit: Nanite tattoos give the wearer the option of deciding when they're visible or not, so there's that.
-
It's interesting. But I get the impression that Heth just replaced one sort of nepotism with another. So I'm not sure about "the rise of Tibus Heth saw to it that nepotism was purged from their mother State."
-
Technically it wasn't removed at all, merely mitigated to some degree. The Nepotism is now just centered in himself and his group as opposed to the individual mega's. The good thing about this is that there is considerable room for the mega's to finish the half-way merit-based system Heth supposedly introduced once the whole 'loyalty to State = loyalty to Heth' period is over. They can even use it as a rallying cry, remove him, then publicly and transparently finish the meritocracy conversion he started in 110 complete with their own 'merit' elected top officers.
It's still the top who decides who has merit in the State.
-
Oh I completely 100% agree with what you're both saying. I share the same opinion. It's fairly obvious (to me) that Heth is just hand-picking officers based on their political alignment with himself.
I'll alter the wording, but I don't think that it overall affects the object of the article. But it'll give a little more clarity in regards to Heth's actions in the State.
-
The line 'well before the rise of Tibus Heth saw to it that nepotism was purged from their mother State' has been changed to 'well before the rise of Tibus Heth would see the coming of his ‘New Meritocracy’' for tone.
-
A few points of criticism, though minor things about used terms. I understand that a "triad" is typically a Chinese criminal organization. Much of the description fits the Guristas, though - though of course, the capital-G Guristas are their own organization. I don't see why there could not be lesser gangs of guri. ("guristas" translates to "naughty people", IIRC)
Then, as a cracker term, a script kiddie is a person of no technical skill whatsoever, limited to using tools made by others, for example an unexperienced ("kid") person running a DDoS program ("script"). There are some glossaries, such as the Jargon File http://catb.org/jargon/html/go01.html (http://catb.org/jargon/html/go01.html) that list real-world jargon used. Personally, I'd be partial to using just "hacker" - or, if you want to dig into older terms, a more suitable for someone misusing a router network to establish his own might be "phreaker (http://catb.org/jargon/html/P/phreaking.html)" - in this case, a fluid router phreaker.
If we scavenge a few terms from the demo scene, I could suggest "crew", probably stylized as "cru" or "kru" as the alternative for "Triad".
-
Cheers!
First off, the term 'Triad' originated as a nickname adopted due the real life Triads' use of triangular imagery. So I don't think that it's too otherworldly to imagine that the name could have come around similarly in our setting.
SSavage generally steals other peoples' work, hence my choice of the term script kiddie. You make a good point with the term 'phreaker' though. Phreaking didn't come to mind when I was writing, but I think it's a better term. I've updated the OP to reflect this.
I was hoping that it wouldn't appear that I'm stepping on the toes of the Guristas (upper case G) too much. It only makes sense to me that there would be many minor gangs in the EVE Universe. I was hoping that the purpose, tone and status of the Triads as a planetary gang, along with their corporate structure as opposed to Guristas 'biker gang' stylings would make them a distinct enough entity. Ah well. :(
-
Why triads and not yakuza or obtshak?
-
Why triads and not yakuza or obtshak?
I had a response prepared for this and then I thought 'Hey, wait a minute. This is information I should probably have included to begin with!'
And so I've added this paragraph to preface the article;
'So named for their adoption of the slang term coined by the Megacorporate security forces, referring their vivid defacement of State property featuring prominent triangular imagery, the Triads are a criminal faction that are based on New Caldari.'
As an aside; what are peoples' thoughts overall? Should I make more of this?
Is the name iffy? Should I just change it? In truth I just like how it sounds.
-
Apart from that one quibble I like it. I particularly like that, as with a lot of criminal organisations, they can claim to have started as a resistance movement, or still be one.
Do your triads have the reputation for insane violence that the Chinese ones do though?
-
I'd think that these Triads would go out of their way to avoid egregious violence. Whilst their feeding at the feet of the State, they're kept on a leash in the sense that inciting too much violence would likely provoke horrific backlash.
So I imagine that the Triads concern themselves more in the areas of trafficking, laundering and non-violent crimes. This isn't to say that they're completely non-violent though; certainly there'd be a lot of in-fighting when it comes to territory, and skirmishing with the police forces, not to mention enforcers collecting on debts owed by State members and extortion.
I also picture that the Megacorporations would seek guris for contracts involving sabotage and assassination.
So the way I see it, the Triads definitely have the capability of violence and a footman would be thoroughly trained in the art of applying it, but use it as a tool in the trade. This differentiates them from the Guristas in my eyes, who seem to have no issues devastating entire colonies to turn a buck.
-
Considering how tied citizenship and employment are in the State, it's very likely a group like the Triads would not only delve into shady business but go through great length to provide a sense of "belonging and greater purpose" to their members -maybe to the point where Caldari outcasts consider the Triads as a necessary evil, or even respect them : neighbourhoods the Megas don't give a crap for, where the gangs provide security, various kinds of care, etc.
Tattoos are one thing, but depending on the Triads age, they probably developed a whole set of traditions to enforce a strong sense of belonging -something like their idiosyncratic version of Heiian, a version they could consider as more true than the corporations' one.
-
Wow, it's awesome that people are interfacing with this so much.
I agree completely; part of the reason I thought about using mnemonic haiku tattoos was just to skim the very surface of how deep the conditioning in the gangs would run.
It's no surprise that they modeled themselves close to home; the Megacorporations are exceedingly good at producing loyalists.
To expand on this I'd have to use this page as an Introduction and expand it with an index. Then I could have a stub for each area, such as Triad traditions, etc.
My question is, is this something people would desire? I could hash the Triads out fully, or I could develop other projects. My hope is that if I do expand on the Triads that it will be something that some people will want to pick up and use with their RP.
-
I can only speak for myself, but : I don't think I'll roleplay another character in the foreseeable future, and it's very unlikely Adreena will interact with the Triads.
But it's a great idea. As you said, people interface with it, which is proof enough :)
And maybe I'll write something about a "vor v zakonye"-inspired Thukker mafia :-°
-
As a mercenary pilot with... ahem... questionable connections working for the State Militia, I can certainly see Shin having some form of interactions with them.
-
I'm liking pretty much everything but the name at least passably.
About that: "Triads" = RL criminal organization and major, major pop fiction fodder. Yes, it's plausible that the name could crop up again for the same reasons. No, I don't think it matters: the connection is obvious to anyone who's aware of the RL ones and comes with an automatic helping of cognitive dissonance.
You're better off making up your own name than coming up with justifications for mimicking Earth. If you must use RL names for things (which I sometimes end up doing because I'm terrible at coming up with plausible words from fictional languages), I'd suggest using Google Translate. I've been using Mandarin Chinese for bits of Achuran; Caldanese naming conventions seem to owe a lot to Japanese, along with ... Finnish, was it?
Take desired meaning. Pump through translator. Poof-- significant, exotic-sounding name. Just don't be surprised if any native speakers of your chosen language start getting odd expressions when they read it.
(For a properly surreal experience, try reading what is written on a random anime magical circle. English is the arcane language of choice for anime these days, it seems. Same issue.)
-
+1 to everything Aria said.
-
M'kay. I'll reroll the name since it seems like a desired thing. Any suggestions? If not I'll throw some things together tomorrow and make a shortlist then prod people about that.
-
I'd suggest brainstorming a series of two-word names on the general theme of "thieves with honor" and punching them through the Finnish and Japanese translators.
Pick the one you like best.
Bam.
-
The clearly obvious solution. :P I know I was asking for it when I put in the name in the first place to be honest and wholeheartedly looked at it like a placeholder as I put off having to create a name. They're always the things I toil over the most.
It's difficult to get Fin/Jap amalgams that have a nice meaning whilst flowing off of the tongue.
Ho-hum~.
-
In Finnish, we do not have "indigenous" organized crime. Sure, biker gangs have popped up in the news recently. The term "vanha liitto" (old covenant) doesn't quite apply here: It is the Finnish slang equivalent for "old school", originating from the prison term for "honest" career criminals (i.e. don't touch women or children and similar code).
Digging at older terms, there's "häjy" which probably comes from the Ostrobothnian dialect version of "häijy" (mean). (Ä is pronounced as A in "mad".) Doesn't quite apply, either.
Then there's the term "metsäsissi", "forest guerrilla" - sissi comes from "sisu" (grit, perseverance), meaning everything from army rangers to guerrilla to forest bandits. Our southern cousins the Estonians used to have issues with the so-called "Metsäveljet" (forest brothers) who were originally resistance fighters, with some turning to banditry after the WW2. The last of them surrendered in 1995. There's also the term "Slussenin sissit", "Slussen guerrillas", alcoholic homeless people (many of them Finnish immigrants) living in the Slussen area (including a large cloverleaf interchange and a Tunnelbana/underground station), some of them making their living by selling illegal alcohol and other petty crime. As such, the concept "sissi" might apply in this case. There are clear connections to the concepts of the Disassociated group and the non-entity caste of the State. The "freedom fighter" facet ties in to the "men of honour" concept. And then there's the banditry of the rural sissi and the petty crimes of the urban sissi.
E: Last pre-posting edit was bit in a hurry. In case someone is wondering, Slussen is in Stockholm, Sweden.
-
Damn. That is one sweet post.
I rattled off a bunch of manufactured words at home last night which are scribbled on a notepad somewhere.
One of the more pleasant sounding amalgams I came up with was 'Somnai' which is nice and simple. Roughly meant to mean 'Triangle'. So we can create a compound word here; Somnaisissi, where Somnai can remain the shorthand.
Edit: Provided this sounds good with people, I'm going to go ahead and change all references to 'Triads' at the weekend if there are no alternative suggestions or objections.
-
I might drop the beginning part, even, using only the end. "Somnaissi" has (at least the way I'd pronounce it) three syllables, flowing a lot better. If wanting to obfuscate the origin, turn the esses into sh, ending with somnai + shishi -> Somnaishi.
I was additionally thinking of other "organized crime", but nationalist organizations go to the other end of the scale to Templis & CPD (Academic Carelia Society, for example, supported uprisings in and sent military expeditions into soviet part of Carelia). However, the Finnish word for "society (club)" is "seura". Doesn't work together with "somnai" as "sissi" does (at least in my opinion).
Finally, for completeness, I'll note that I forgot to mention probhibition-era smugglers from my list of criminal gangs. The term doesn't work very well here, either: the slang term for "(illegal/questionable goods) dealer" is "trokari", from verb "trokata" (sing. trokaan / trokaat / trokaa, pl. trokaamme, trokaatte, trokaavat).
-
Your suggestion to drop the last syllable sounds good. 'Somnaissi' or 'Somnaishi' are what I'm leaning on at the moment - probably the latter.
The rest of your post was very informative and interesting. Whilst they may not work very well here I can very easily see coming back to these posts for future projects.
-
Somnaishi is more in line with how most Caldari-esque words would end, as "ishi" as a suffix tends to denote a group or rank whereas "issi" would be a singular conjunction. If you really want to emphasize the unity of the group then change it to Somnaishii, where the two "ii" at the end represent and embodied group like "jaijii" and "haanii".
-
Excellent. I'm happy with that. I'll roll out the renaming when I'm not multitasking ten tasks (a.k.a when I'm at home). Having an appropriate name gives me a much better sense of tangibility.
-
Name updated!
-
Hm. I had doubts at first glance (phoneme "somn" has associations with sleep, as in "somnambulism"), but having sounded it out ... mmmmmmm. Siiiiilky.
Good choice.
-
I'm just gonna point out that if anyone accidentally adds a 't' to the end you get something silly.
I'm probably pronouncing it wrong in my head, but now all I can think of is a bunch of street thugs. "Tha's somnaishii, shame if anythin' happened to it!"
>.>
*flees*
-
Any language creator runs into that sort of issue sooner or later. I've always both admired the integrity of creators who refuse to change the odd sounding words, no matter what they may sound like in English.
Look at Tolkien, for instance. Celeborn's Quenya name was "Teleporno"... :D
-
I really liked it! Here is my 5 Mins photoshop doodle as a gift!
(http://i33.tinypic.com/2ym95z7.png)
-
Sweetness! Thank-ye. :P
And Morwen, trust you to notice something like that. Hehe.
-
A refreshing return to Eve's cyberpunk roots.
-
+1 to everything Aria said.
But -10 for using the word 'caldanese.'
-
+1 to everything Aria said.
But -10 for using the word 'caldanese.'
It's now, what, "Napanii"?
"Caldanese" I could at least trace the origins of, even if I neither like nor trust Tony G; the Caldari have apparently identified themselves as Caldari for centuries.
-
(post omitted)
-
Also, I was wondering if I could bum a cigarette off of Quinzel. Maybe a light too. <.<
Thank-you, Evelyn. :)
You may be interested in knowing then that KOKAK off-loaded a large manifest of recreational and entertainment goods onto Cynthia Gallente including;
- Soar, flavored cigarettes with a mild hallucinogenic property. Their filters are marked with a holographic hallmark that creates a veritable aurora borealis display of lights by casting colors across the smoke when exhaled. However, due to the short half-life of the micro-circuitry used in the filter, Soar only has a shelf life of several months before the hallmark decays.
So why settle for just an ordinary smoke? ;)
A refreshing return to Eve's cyberpunk roots.
Ah, a brief yet meaningful reply. Thank-you. :)
-
Distantly related: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/business/global/chinese-way-of-doing-business-in-cash-we-trust.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/business/global/chinese-way-of-doing-business-in-cash-we-trust.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)
If the megacorporations control the scrip, what kind of black market exchanges would there be? If scrip is mostly digital (as speculated in another thread), then what kind of an unauthorized currency there might be (outside of "hacking credsticks" kind of solutions).
-
I like this from what I've read so far. One thing the members could identify them as being part of the gang or 'Jengi' if you will ( which is the Finnish word for gang) if they didn't want to identify themselves as Somnaishii.
IC Vince would love this as it's direct competition to the local Guristas. He would, if given the opportunity, support this organization through indirect means - whether it'd be cheaper than normal illegal small and medium arms or narcotics for further distribution - for the sole purpose as to undermine the influence of the Guristas in New Caldari.
All in all I like this.
-
@Mithfindel: I've been thinking about this subject and related matters ('the Somnai are at times antithesis to the State, they their relationship is also symbiotic - how might this manifest in day to day life?' is the mental exercise). I'm going to be addressing on these as I expand on the topic. I've decided to flesh them out as a full project with the original post acting as a preface.
Meanwhile though I'm overdue for a Minmatar article that I haven't had time to work on!
-
Vince, I think "jengi" comes directly from English via Stadin slangi (capital region slang). If needing a word with Finnish roots, I'd prefer "kopla" which is used in the same meaning, for example as the translation of the word "gang" in "gang of four" (Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen).
-
It mostly does, but it has also set as de facto word in Finnish language nowadays for the word 'gang'. Kopla is a very antiquated word and has rarely been in use since the fifties if you don't count Donald Duck comics. It also sounds silly. Using the synonym "Sakki" would be more appropriate I reckon, as it sounds more in line with Caldari things you see in game and the player made napanii.
On slight off tangent... Caldanese sounds as stupid as Caldarian. Before the times of TonyG I remember people speaking 'caldari' instead of 'caldanese' and things being caldari in origin instead of caldarian.
Then again this haani faggotry when addressing females is new too. *shakes his old man cane*
"Back when I was young Phobos was metallic pink and the Ishkur had tesla coil tusks!"
-
Then again this haani faggotry when addressing females is new too. *shakes his old man cane*
"Back when I was young Phobos was metallic pink and the Ishkur had tesla coil tusks!"
I've always chalked that up to insidious Gallentean influence, them and their hooliganism and gendered nouns and such.
-
Then again this haani faggotry when addressing females is new too. *shakes his old man cane*
"Back when I was young Phobos was metallic pink and the Ishkur had tesla coil tusks!"
I've always chalked that up to insidious Gallentean influence, them and their hooliganism and gendered nouns and such.
Could be, but it predates my arrival on the scene. "Haani" is the title for a female citizen in the list of Napaani (or whatever) words Kyoko Sakoda sent to me in 2007.
-
I was having words with Stitcher about this months ago (haani as female vs haani as plural haan) and he made the very simple but sensible point that whilst Napaani is a manufactured, standardized language, even standardized languages are subject to regional drift when it comes to slang, usage, etc.
It does cause some confusion when two speakers are using Napaani suffixes in different ways, but I don't think it's at all unrealistic.
-
I just got done drafting a project I've been wanting to fulfill for a while (3563 words, 17271 characters not including spaces). I only found the time to get start it this morning so I just marathoned it. :bear:
I'm going to fix it up since it's just a first draft, but after that I'm up to expand on this. I could do specific Somnaishii stuff on request, or try to fill any other requests for things people would be interested in seeing fiction for.