(( This concept was a "spur of the moment" idea I had while discussing the roots of weird expressions with one of my friends. Its nothing impressive, but I thought I'd throw it on backstage to see if any interest is sparked. Who knows, it might give you lot some ideas of your own.
))
Among the oddities in the cluster, often overlooked are the idioms of its inhabitants – the colloquial expressions made so popular through continued communication between the races. With the help of translator programs, it has become easier to pick up on these recurring phrases. However, due to the inherent impossibility of replicating every verbal connotation, the meaning of these common terms can sometimes become confused by the literal translation; case in point, the confusion that arises from being called a “vice beetle” by a Caldari.
The phrase itself,
zukushomii, which closely translates to the aforementioned pair of words, originated from the Civire tongue. The vice beetle, a common sight on temperate Caldari planets, is not the most assuming of creatures at first sight. Typically, the insect is found in heavily wooded regions where surrounding foliage provides it camouflage from both its few predators, and its abundant prey.
Growing to just over three centimeters, the vice beetle has cleverly evolved to match its environment. A hefty, pebble-shaped body is armored by a thick shell, upon which the beetle grows small, jagged protrusions. Spotty colorations of black, tan and grey make it difficult upon cursory inspection to distinguish the beetle from the dark mulch covering the forest floor, or the rocks dappling the terrain. Thick legs with hooked appendages at their ends allow the vice beetle to cover even the toughest ground, including the trunks of trees and steep rock faces.
What gives the beetle its name, however, is apparent as soon as one catches sight of its face. From a rotund head nestled in its protective shell stretch two powerful mandibles, thickly armored and hinged close to the insect’s neck. These brutal weapons curve inward, wreathed by uniform rows of jagged teeth. When the beetle ambushes its prey, it closes these ghastly jaws around the victim. Its goal is to bite down until the angles of the teeth form a circle around some part of the prey’s body, preferably a weak joint. Once it senses a firm hold, the beetle will continue to ratchet its mandibles towards each other, using its clawed legs for leverage if necessary, until the prey either ceases moving, or the jaws meet each other.
The fortitude and strength of the beetle are matched only by its perceivably stubborn attitude, something spoken about in folk tales for generations. The vice beetle will fearlessly pursue prey even twice its size, relying on the peerless force of its mandibles to bring the largest of spiders and centipedes to their knees. Furthermore, if the beetle encounters another of its species hunting in the same ground, it will duel them to the death in a vicious display of natural selection. These matches can sometimes exceed ten minutes in length. Entomologists are perplexed even today, having multiple times witnesses the beetles wrestle with sizable rocks or bits of debris in their path, after bumping into the object and registered it as some sort of impediment.
What made the vice beetle’s dauntlessness legendary was a series of experiments carried out by a team of biologists from the Science and Trade institution. It was discovered, after extensive testing seemingly absurd tales of the vice beetle’s endurance, that when bifurcated via an incision along its abdomen, the two halves of the vice beetle will wrestle until death, the thorax using its mandibles to clamp down on the abdomen, and the abdomen clawing at the thorax with its hooked feet.
Though being compared to any type of insect would be cause for ire, the vice beetle is a predictable figure of appreciation among the aggressive Civire, who invoke the name when complimenting an individual’s commendable perseverance in the face of adversity, though it comes with an overtone of stubbornness. The idiom spread to the Deteis and, to a lesser extent, the Achura, though it continues to cause problems in interracial banter, and has on more than one occasion caused a breakdown in communication during negotiations with Federation citizens.
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Topic: Interstellar Idioms (Read 990 times)