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[hellgremlin]

Let's say you're a member of a dwindling race. Only a few thousand of your kind left. Millenia of genetic tampering have ruined your own genome. Your only hope for survival is a fresh infusion of genetic material from a compatible donor. However, the only donors available happen to have a 20,000 year evolutionary disadvantage, compared to your people. It would be akin to having a bonobo liver transplanted into a human body.

You decide to tamper with the genetics of those lesser cousins to your species, in order to bridge the genetic gap. However, with your limited numbers, keeping track of favourable and harmful traits among a fluid population of billions is logistically infeasible. Instead, you devise a test involving attaching a pigment to favourable genetic markers in the test population. You wrap the test in superstition and folklore, and teach your test population to self-administer it. The test becomes a ritual. Those conducting the test have forgotten its actual purpose. You teach them which marks are "good" and which are "evil" and they self-segregate across un-counted generations according to your directives.

That's my Voluval theory. Freakin' Joves trying to hollow us out and use us for canoes.

[Matariki Rain]

That's my Voluval theory. Freakin' Joves trying to hollow us out and use us for canoes.

Yeah, it seems likely that someone's doing that, and the Jove and the Sleepers do seem to be reasonable contenders.

Do we have any information about how long the Voluval tradition's been going? (Since time immemorial?) Do we have any other suggestions of Jovian contact before the obvious stuff? Apparently they like to infiltrate (and watch)...

Also, does anyone else see the Jovian fetus-tubes and think that the pod wasn't the only thing the Jove had shared with the Caldari?

[Casiella]

Joves and nanites. They explain everything, right?

[hellgremlin]

I just thought of something. There's a "negative" mark called the Broken Shield. That's what the Ammatar mandate logo kinda looks like.

[Khloe]

Just a thought here, but perhaps the interpretations of these markings are based on historic significance.  For example, a former leader who led their tribe through a period of hardship to prosperity would have their mark remembered and seen as a positive sign for future generations.  Now imagine tribes on other worlds building their own histories and interpretations of these markings and you have yourself a diverse blend of Minmatar following tradition without all being pigeon-holed into the same status no matter where they travel.

[Saede Riordan]

I purposely didn't give Saede an outcast mark, I also purposefully made her sort of incredibly evil, because I went with the assumption that the voluval is a Jovian thingie and the Jove would have valued the presence of her intelligence more then the absence of her moral limits.

[Casiella]

I went with the assumption that the voluval is a Jovian thingie

[citation needed]

[Ulphus]

Just a thought here, but perhaps the interpretations of these markings are based on historic significance.  For example, a former leader who led their tribe through a period of hardship to prosperity would have their mark remembered and seen as a positive sign for future generations.  Now imagine tribes on other worlds building their own histories and interpretations of these markings and you have yourself a diverse blend of Minmatar following tradition without all being pigeon hoped into the same status no matter where they travel.

I quite like this Gyra. Even if the Jovians had anything to do with voluval, I doubt they will have provided an instruction manual for interpreting the signs, so I like the idea that bad marks are bad marks because people with those marks have turned out bad.

[Tamiroth]

By the way, Minmatar players probably have invented a lot of marks for their characters. It'd be cool to have a compendium thread on those in player-created content or something.

[Louella Dougans]

There's a "negative" mark called the Broken Shield. That's what the Ammatar mandate logo kinda looks like.

But, which came first? Did the Ammatar mandate choose a logo, making the mark "Bad". Or was the mark already "Bad", and the Ammatar chose it for their logo to represent something ?

It's like one of the other marks mentioned somewhere, the "Slavers fang", which is a bad mark. How is it called the slavers fang, when slaver hounds would not be encountered before contact with the Empire ? Was it always bad ? Or did it only become bad after the Empire appeared ? maybe that mark was called something else before.

[Saede Riordan]

I went with the assumption that the voluval is a Jovian thingie

[citation needed]

Quite honestly, this thread. Its obviously all heresy, but I felt like it would be interesting to have s seemingly evil character with a benign mark, and thus obviously, Jovians Did It.

[lallara zhuul]

Why would the voluval goop be benign or passive in nature?

It could have even more active than just passively doing eugenics on the whole population, it could be actively changing the genome of the Matari.

There is just a few things that I think have been disregarded in this thread.

The fact that during the enslavement bit it was not given as a ritual to the population, even now 60%(?) of the Minnie population is enslaved. So actually in the terms of the whole race it is actually a minority that gets the ritual done.

If it would be a Jovian thingamabob, then Jovians would be actively working towards getting the whole Minmatar population under the umbrella of the ritual.

I think one thing speaks highly against the uber high tech nature of the voluval.

It's production.

I seriously doubt that the shamans of the have sekrit artifact that they milk for the voluval goop.

For one primary reason, logistics.

Getting the goop from one location to the people pre-Day of Darkness would not have been that hard, but now it would be very much so. Especially since the whole logistics chain would have to be a secret as well, otherwise the invaders (Amarr) would have found the sekrit voluval Slurm milking plant.

[Matariki Rain]

Why would the voluval goop be benign or passive in nature?

Didn't claim it was. Talking about that in too much detail, though, blurs the boundaries between IC public knowledge, IC secrets (which might or might not be "true"), and OOC suppositions.

(I can't resist saying, though, that Mata uses the phrase "infection or inoculation" to describe it.)

[Makkal]

But what's it measuring?

Your 'totally not worthy of society' gene.

[Reyd Karris]

But what's it measuring?

Your 'totally not worthy of society' gene.

Genetic predisposition (key markers for mood disorders, late childhood/early adulthood onset genetic disorders, psychosis, etc.), neurology (serotonin and melatonin levels), drugs and toxins, etc.

Lots of little things can be detected, and a combination of these "markers" determine the mark. While there may not be a set interpretation, these marks could be used along with oral and written tradition to cross-reference what kind of person they may be.

In short; a really nifty way to pass down genetic testing and integrate eugenics principles into a tribal society in a culturally acceptable way, without telling them exactly what's going on.