Okay, I now have a question-what does Eldrae dating/courting look like? Do they have anything equivalent to Tinder/Match/OkCupid?
Hell, what would an Eldrae rom-com look like?
As I said on the Discord, “With formality and extravagance. (And with lengthy engagements, considering that life is looooong.)”
But that is not much, so let me expand a little.
The formality is a nearly always honored tradition, because it cuts down on misunderstandings, and cutting down on misunderstandings cuts down on casualties . When dealing with a passionate race and moments of passion in particular, a misunderstanding the night before can, all too often, turn into pistols at dawn. All so messy, and thus best avoided.
But, y’know, flirting is fun and infinitely preferable to crude bluntness, and hence the myriad customs of the tranelith affĂĂ«n (approximate gloss: “rose dance”). Those who haven’t grown up in Imperial society are advised to consult and, indeed, memorize the relevant chapters of Madame Allatrian’s Garden of Exquisitely Correct Etiquette before attempting the steps.
As a side note, as part of this, it’s worth remembering the different social attitude towards “public privacy”, and the corollary that would-be suitors are likely expected to have done their due diligence with regard to figuring out their counterpart’s tastes and preferences before the fact.
As a second side note, I should remind at this point of the reason why the most casual sort of relationship one is likely to see is delesessqámél (approximately translated: “friends with benefits”); namely, telepathy/telempathy, and those certain moments at which it’s really hard to avoid broadcasting. Without established trust, intimacy, and genuinely caring about each other, that tends to make sex a distinctly unpleasant experience for the psychologically normal. (i.e., similar to Tattletale’s issue in Worm .)
So, that kills off much of the market for Tinder-like apps.
People tend to meet:
- in the course of daily life (work included; proper management of valëssef makes for a much less toxic environment for that sort of thing);
- there is the Season (Yes, very similar to its Victorian/Regency counterpart, except for all strata of society and ages mingled, and all over the place.);
- and finally, there are matchmakers. Both professional, and just in the form of assorted elder aunts who would never dream of arranging a marriage, but are simply delighted to configure events such that the right people meet at the right time.
And then there is the Transcend, for its constitutionals, which shamelessly cheats and arranges more meet-cutes than the most shipping obsessed fanfic writer as part of its drive to make the best possible universe possible.
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The mental image here now makes me think…namely of a young Miles Vorkosigan-Eldrae that figures out how to get himself recruited and assigned to the Fifth Directorate and given a very distant assignment. Something that will hopefully last years (but for him…he spends more time in transit than solving the problem), because it is safer than dealing with Aunt Alys, whom has been very sincerely trying to find Miles just the Right Sophont to marry and have grandchildren and great-grandchildren that she can play with and…
So, Miles keeps getting himself assigned to even more dangerous assignments, and surviving them. Then, one day, he gets called in by a VERY senior member in charge of the Fifth Directorate. Why? New assignment, he’s going to be working the home front for a while. And, if he can just find a nice sophont to marry and have children with, that would be nice…because Lady Alys has been elegantly emphasizing that she would really like grandchildren to spoil and she has been Frowning With Displeasure about the lack of this to all the proper authorities.
Nobody wants to make Lady Alys escalate from Frowning With Displeasure. Even Elder Gods are terrified if Lady Alys starts to go beyond Frowning With Displeasure.
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I am probably missing some relevant points here but did I just witness the Powers That Be doing casual mind-editing for the purpose of arranging a meet-cute? I am assuming the guy was longing for such an occasion to happen and it got fulfilled, because that’s about the only way I can come up with that might fit both the scene and the Eldraeic attitude towards messing with other people’s choices and decisions.
Not mind-editing, as such. The way joining the Transcend works is that you one of its soul-shards is basically grafted into your mind-state, so to think of minds as Minskian societies of mind for a moment, it becomes another voice in the chorus.
One of the functions that the Transcend (or, rather, its archai Unification) does in its mission to square the circle of providing perfect liberty and perfect coordination at the same time is to run a whole bunch of coherent-extrapolated-volition extrapolations and simulations to work out which particular crazy random happenstances potentially lead to optimal outcomes for those involved, and then, as essentially the collective mind of all its constitutionals’ guardian angels, tweaks things appropriately.
But it’s not an edit. The soul-shard is basically speaking up in the mental chorus to say “It would be a good idea if you went and got a cup of coffee right now,” and Transcendent constitutionals generally pay a great deal of attention to having impulses like that as they almost always lead to good outcomes. (Justified pronoia, if you will, because there really is a massive conspiracy going on behind the scenes to make your life better.)
On another note, there’s also some question regarding the
part of it. The soul-shard effectively allows the participation of various of the constitutional’s mental agents in the Transcend, and vice versa. They don’t achieve identity of identity - it’s not a hive mind - but it does blur the lines of identity in interesting ways.
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Thank you for the answer! This will give me more material for further thoughts and probably questions. The Minskian context definitely helped to understand what was actually going on in the scene.
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Lady Alys sounds worthy of ascending to eikone-status
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Just on a much-delayed addendum to this conversation, in my recent Girl Genius re-read, I happened upon this page:
Girl Genius (girlgeniusonline.com)
…and should like to take a moment at this time to mention that manifesting as a conveniently-timed falling book titled “How They Met” would be another great example of the contents of the Transcend’s toolbox for arranging fortuitous meet-cutes.
(That the contents of the book are also extremely accurate, including in all likelihood the parts that haven’t happened yet, on the other hand - well, that’s because the Transcend is also kind of a showoff.)
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So, basically, they subtly nudge/encourage their constitutionals towards an outcome which is beneficial for all parties involved?
A one-sentence biography of the Transcend, if it ever decided to write one
Such is its customary practice (or that of its dedicated submind for that purpose, rather), indeed.