Talk:Infinity Inc/Hybrid Series Gesture Code
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
I am going through currently-existing documents and collating all the gestures that have been defined in the stories, in off-line collaboration talks, or in logged chats. Lots of words -- but not all! -- are based on American Sign Language, while the grammar is in many ways similar to Standard Chinese.
No quiz will be given! Some characters use the "gesture code" whenever they can get away with not speaking. Others resist even learning it. When we're doing realtime roleplay, we tend to use emote text or //pairs of slashes// or even asterisked "*gestures*" notation rather than describe the movement of the communicator's body. Rissa-the-typist happens to be a very "visual" writer, which is how the idea of the Infinity Inc Gesture Code came along in the first place -- but if this kind of thing does not suit you as a player, please feel free to write that your Hybrid calls another one an {/em gestures, "Jerk!" and follows that with a one-fingered salute} rather than {/em flicks all of his fingers sharply outward against his thumb, and in case that vulgarity wasn't clear enough he waves a one-fingered salute}. This is very much meant to be an optional enhancement, not a requirement for participation! --Jarissa 05:00, 26 February 2013 (CST)
Grammar Notes and Miscellanea
This document is going to be a resource of all the described gestures for the associated commands, plus a few other "words" in the gesture code as we make them up. I figure I'm probably doing most of them but if you think of one, and it hasn't already been grabbed, feel free.
Not mentioned to the clients typically is that all of the Hybrids get programmed with these commands. Not all of the Deltas get the mental programming and the physical mods that make them physically capable of exact delivery of the commands, either. Sometimes it would interfere with the Art, sometimes that particular Delta just isn't expected to be bossing Alphas around and serving as a client's Lieutenant-level minion. The clients generally expect a Delta Series minion to be able to take instructions in a conversational format, rather than requiring specialized communication. Sometimes, though, an I.I. employee doesn't want to waste time chatting about it, they just want results quickly.
The gesture code mostly does not have tense (past, present, perfect/imperfect, future). It does permit order of occurrence, it has words for "before" and "later/after" and "yesterday" and "tomorrow" and "long ago" and so forth, but its only real tense besides now is the unique case of "been", past-continuous state of existence for indeterminate long time. The user of the gesture code can describe something like "tiger been eat Cheetos every day same schedule two week", or "target been make no noise after bang noise": the first case describes something that has consistently occurred on a repeating basis, the second case describes a continuing condition noted since a prior event. There's no equivalent for future-continuous because, frankly, the original expanders of the gesture code into a language did not believe the future could ever be predicted with any surety, except in discrete and isolated chunks ("trainer gonna catch you" yes, "we gonna stay together forever" not a communicable concept). Such discussions require voice usage.
Also the format for this resource document is probably going to be kludgy for a while. Several gesture-descriptions have been directly copied-and-pasted out of narratives, and not yet cleaned up for generic format at all!
Areas I could use help
- Should I break up the page into smaller pages?
- Should I include some narrative examples of the gesture code being used, to better display the grammar?
