tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 08 06:29:50 1995

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re: Sign languages


>Also, there's honour in sneaking up on your enemy, because he should have 
>been looking out better. You (as Klingon) would do that, so he should do that 
>to. Else he isn't a worthy opponent.
>There's probably a very vague, yet distinct line between doing honourable 
>things that improve your chance of succes (e.g. sneaking up, apparently) and 
>doing dishonourable things that also improve your chance of succes (e.g. 
>killing weak children).
>Sign language is very usefull, because it is tactics to not let your opponent 
>know what you're up to. Therefore I think that Klingon society has certainly 
>got a use for a very broad sign-language. Human society has only got use for 
>it when deaf people need to understand. Being deaf is probably cured with a 
>simple operation (being blind is curable too, look at Geordi) so 
>sign-language shall gradually become useless.
>Not so in Klingon society where it is an art, usefull in combat.

 When I play Klingon paintball (I play Klingon paintball, everyone else 
plays normal paintball) we use hand signals to direct other players so they 
can move on an opponent while minimizing the chance of him/her getting shot 
themselfs. The only advantage it gives you is it doesn't give away your 
position, when it comes down to firing, if you miss the first shot, all the 
sneaking is wasted anyway. As for the hand signals though, they're pretty 
simple,. holding up the right amount of fingers for the number of opponents, 
then pointing to thier location. As for directinging movement,  what we do 
is point as the person we want to move, then the location they should move 
to, if there is something in the way, we make an arc with our hand to mean 
to go over it, or a dip to indicate going under it. If we want the person to 
go around it, we make an arc in the directions they should go around it. 
Pretty simple, and does give a slight advantage, but against an experienced 
player, you can sneak all you want to, but when you come around that corner, 
it's still a out and out fire fight either way, the best you can hope for is 
he/she is looking elsewhere.
 
 But then, that raises the question of is it honorable to shoot someone in 
the back when they aren't paying attention?(or killing and unsuspecting 
prey) If you make a sound (ie. "hello") before you shoot, thier gun will 
point at you and start firing before they can see you. Then you get into the 
"well, they should be paying attention" thing. I would be intrested in 
knowing oppinions of that.

Jim
[email protected]

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