Questions about Visitor

[Alicorn]

Yeah, this is not anything like how I envision breeder habits.

[DanielH]

I don't know if it's answered somewhere, but what is the benefit to Promise of having her tree nearby, since it seems to be more than just sentiment and it having made a convenient home?

[Alicorn]

Promise's tree (or a tree grown from a cutting of her original tree) will keep out unauthorized intruders and grow furniture for her. There is also a hefty dose of sentiment, though.

[DanielH]

Memory seems to be important here; for example, if you forget somebody's name,they are no longer your vassal. If you forget an order, is it still binding?

[Kappa]

If you briefly disconnect your ability to understand language while someone is giving you an order, does the order still take effect?

[DanielH]

Kappa, do you mean where you hear the sounds perfectly but don't associate meaning with them any more than I associate meaning with sounds in Chinese? If so, I doubt the order would take effect immediately because the Lord Ruler's hack works, but I'm curious about whether it would take effect as soon as you reinstated language comprehension, whether you'd need to retroactively parse the sounds, or whether it's completely ineffective. If not, what do you mean?

[Kappa]

Yeah, that.

[Alicorn]

If you forget an order, you may find that you carry it out anyway if it requires only physical actions. If it requires mental actions, you will proceed to try very hard to remember what you're supposed to be thinking of, until something else happens.

The language thing probably depends on how the "disconnect your ability to understand language" works, including the possibility of retroactive parsing and whether fairy "plain speaking" can cut through it.

[Kappa]

I mean, when fairies plainly-speak, I hear and see them as though they are speaking a language I know, right? As opposed to hearing them make incomprehensible noises which are magically granted meaning regardless of my understanding. So if my brain were to stop doing the thing where it parses meaning from sounds, then the meaning would not reach me. I'm pretty sure, anyway.

But that brings up interesting questions... like, if a fairy plainly-speaks to someone who has the capacity to understand language but hasn't learned any, what happens?

[Alicorn]

Yeah, that probably would work.

I think you can understand a fairy plainly speaking if you haven't learned any languages because you just haven't, but probably can't if you haven't learned any languages because you are four minutes old.

I haven't decided yet how or whether plain speaking applies to sign languages or enable people who know how to lip read to do so to fairies.