If you've already scoured the website and blog for lore, this is old news, but this book is written with the expectation that most readers will be completely unfamiliar with setting. Instead you will simply have to bask in the light of narrative context.
Transcript
Idrisah: It’s like bug ferrets, right? Big families with lots of adults all married into a coterie?
Panel background: A swarm of stick figure ferrets is labeled with "8-40" and combined male/female symbol.
Talita: Er… it’s… closer to bees. Or meerkats, I’ve read? Clans have a matriarch responsible for bearing young, their partners, And the majority are caretakers, who don’t participate in reproduction.
Panel background: A pyramid of centaur stick figures shows clan structure. On top is the "Matriarch," one female centaur with larvae on their back. below that are the "Entourage", a small group of mostly male centaurs married into the clan. Under them is a much larger group of "Workers" who are a mix of male and female, mostly consisting of the matriarch's children, but a few are married in.
Talita: I didn’t run into other centaurs very often, living on Nexus Jovia. But their first question was always about my clan, and it gets awkward fast when I say I’ve never been in one.
Inset panel: Talita is sitting in a public area in Nexus Jovia, looking up in alarm from her tablet as a pair of centaurs silhouetted in the foreground call out to her.
Talita: That is, when they speak English.
Idrisah: Have you ever tried picking up a centaur language?
37 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 158”
Ruby
She contexts my narrative until I immerse
Jackie
I can’t recall if its been said, are the matriarchs entourage typically just in a relationship with her or does it slip into polyamory with (non childbearing) relationships within the entourage as well?
0xabad1dea
I recall somewhere in the lore it says that some matriarchs are tolerant of relationships as long as they avoid pregnancy, some are only tolerant of homosexual relationships, and some do not tolerate any tomfoolery at all
S0glet
Oh jeez Idrisah I think you forgot your talking about a species thats languages aren’t very studied on right now!!/hj
Adrienne
Ahh, I do love the centaurs… and those look like they are Pahk centaurs, judging by the guide on the planet page, cool! And it’s interesting to see that maybe different groups have different times of year when their antlers grow.
Vinemaple
IDRISAH
WHAT THE FRACK?!
You were JUST talking about what a fake you felt like, studying Arabic and Urdu!
You deserve to be the butt of the mother of all punchlines on Saturday, for making a comment like that.
At least you didn’t phrase it with a “Why don’t you just…” !
Teod
“A centaur language”, lol. It’s probably hard to even figure out which one would be the correct one to learn. There was a really unfortunate story IRL about adoptive parents teaching their foreign child a culture and language that later turned out to be completely wrong. I think it was a Chinese/Japanese/Korean mix up?
Although centaurs probably have their own “common” that might work like english for humans, but it’s not a sure thing.
ossumsauce
I would assume the most accessible language for people offworld would be the Shess language, but Talita is a Sunchaser. She can’t even reliably get high quality food, I doubt theres many online resources to learn a language from a Nomadic group
Aqua Fellstar
But it’s also said that nomads are more often offworlders so yeah, so I think there would be a bit less compared to Shess, but that’s my thinking!
JoB
I remember it being said that the centaurs coming to Nexus Jovia are mostly diplomats, so they may be a more even mix of centaur cultures than those willing/compelled/forced to become off-world workforce …
eden
I can definitely see that happening, especially since that’s what happened with bug ferrets and bfl-1 and bfl-2. (the first contact was with a group of bug ferrets that had a very obscure language)
several pigeons
Huh. I like that Idrisah signs “marriage” in the first panel. It makes sense that she’d sign habitually, even when Gillie’s not around. Cool detail!
JoB
Gillie is what, four meters?, to Idrisah’s right, hopefully still focused on her computer/work. If not, we might see some funny misinterpretations … 😉
Graham_Cheshire
Poor Talita. Hope she gets at least one Centaur friend in the future willingly to look past her oddities, she’s awesome.
oods
wait are the married-in nonsexual workers joined to the matriarch, members of the entorage, members of the mateiarch’s children, or to the clan as a whole? all of the above or multiple?
Jay Eaton
Depends on culture. Generally, the clan as a whole. You can read a bigger explanation here: https://jayeaton.site/RunawayToTheStars/Sophonts/Centaurs/Culture#Marriage
Chrysalis
No matter how familiar I am with a setting’s lore, it’s always a treat to see it worked into the story. There’s always a little extra flavor depending on which character’s explaining it!
galacticmackerel
my thoughts exactly!!!
Elijah Emory
I’m still imagining how crazy it would be to put rings into your own antlers/tucks while they’re still attached, but they’re not like teeth, entirely different thing, so it probably doesn’t hurt at all, but it *feels* like it would hurt to me, a silly human. Fascinating.
Hubert
if I was a centaur leader I would arrange a worker marriage for Talita. She has a good resume. IDK who the wokers are marrying though I guess marriage is not necessarily reproductive or monogamous in centaurs.
Vinemaple
You know, we haven’t met any Starchasers yet, but she would absolutely be worth the creepy “Stranger in a Strange Land” vibe she gives other Centaurs, not just for her engineering and aerospace expertise, but for her ability to understand and communicate with Humans.
Also, if you could teach her to wrestle, you’d have a potential champion on your hands, even if just because everyone else would be scared of this absolutely jacked, crazy-looking freak entering the arena.
The big drawback to this whole plan is, it’s not a good deal for *Talita,* and she’s smart enough to know it. She is not interested in going against her imprinting, she has a life among Humans, it’s not perfect, but she knows how to navigate it. She would Turn. You. Down.
Hubert
HAHA! Imagine getting a job proposition with guaranteed housing, because you’d make a good entertainer. I wouldn’t know to be flattered or offended!
Curona
Has Talita ever considered claiming to be a Skychaser Clan of One or saying she’s part of the Despacio Clan or something along those lines? Doing so might simplify interactions with other homeworld centaurs Talita encounters in the future. It can’t be that unheard of for a female centaur to go independent from her birth clan in order to establish a clan of her own, right? So Talita being a lone centaur not currently surrounded by a clan would have precedent, at least to a homeworld centaur’s mind, and would probably ease some of the awkwardness.
Zero
I’m not sure she has the confidence to pull off a lie like that. Not to mention, getting them to believe her will just encourage them to delve into more and more centaur-specific topics until they get to one that she doesn’t understand at all, and then it’ll be even more awkward with all those lies stacked up.
HAL9000
iirc, talita looks permanently freaked tf out & aggressive to other centuars because her body language is so different, which already throws a major wrench in socialisation. but that is a good idea… matriach talita starting her own clan of misfits lmao
LupusAstartis
Reminds me of a partially blind foster kitten I had. I tried to introduce him to the resident kitties and even though he was half their size they were all terrified of how “agressive” he was because he stared so much. He only stared because he couldn’t see very well. xD Eventually I found a cat he could get along with and they both got adopted together.
theplushfrog
I would assume from Talita’s social anxiety, she would be concerned about making a social faux pas by doing so, especially if she claimed to be the Matriarch of the clan she started, considering she doesn’t have any children (and seems not to want any), has no entourage, or any Centaur workers under her in this new clan.
If she pretended to be a worker of a fake clan, the other Centaurs might ask where the others of her clan are or their territory or something else, which would lead to more lies and fake stories, which would probably stress her out even more.
That said, from the website ( https://jayeaton.site/RunawayToTheStars/Sophonts/Centaurs/Culture#TheClanless ) and the fact Talita has very odd facial expressions to other Centaurs, they likely think she is mentally ill and pity her, or they think she’s a bandit and mistrust her. There’s really no winning here for her.
Vinemaple
I think she’d look ridiculous to other Centaurs if she claimed that. To put this all into perspective, when Doug contacted authorities on the Centaur homeworld, trying to figure out how to take care of and place Talita, what to do with her, he was told, “the best thing to do is to kill it before it learns to talk, it’s easiest that way.”
Tentament
Holy shit, was this stated in a comic or character ama somewhere?
Aidan
AMA, but I don’t remember which one
Furubatsu
https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/658658527894749184/centaur-aliens-start-small-and-dont-stay-that The backstory is here but to quote that specific bit; The facility was not prepared to deal with a sapient non-human in any way, and they tried arranging to send her to the centaur homeplanet, but the Jovian embassy there quickly informed them that would be a death sentence for her. Centaurs don’t really…. do foster care. Especially for random infants who can’t even talk yet. The local clans they asked for advice recommended culling her.
(This is mostly because centaurs have litters and having too many children at once can be a strain on the clans so are one of the sophonts that employ “strategic infanticide” as a means of population control.)
E
It is a little funny that Idrisah’s immediate question goes right back to learning language as if she doesn’t understand more than anyone how that would be hard for Talita.
Vinemaple
Oh. You said it this morning. Yeah, I’m hoping Talita’s gonna call her on that, on Saturday.
Lilac
I super like how the centaurs appear mammalian but act a lot like bugs in many ways i think it’s cool and awesome
Lilac
plus then Also have feathers a quality of Neither Mammals Nor Bugs. I Love Creature Design
furubatsu
AND their babies are more like bug larvae than like, baby mammals. Jay really went off in the speculative alien biology with the Centaurs
Light_In_The_Fog
frrr they have such skrunkle