I love the Avians. Recently I got to see a screenshot posted to the /r/starbound portion of reddit that depicts an Avian 'temple' that has a design flaw; a roof. I posted a couple comments there that I wanted to share with this forum as well, and as I injected a lot of my own storytelling into the ideas I had I decided to post it here and perhaps expand it out into a full story if I am further inspired. I'm not attempting to insinuate that my conjecture is cannon, but I'd sure like it to be http://www.reddit.com/r/starbound/comments/u97q4/avian_temple_screenshot/c4tluiq I hate to say it, but shouldn't avian temples have more to do with flying or the promise of flight, perhaps open air or at least the object of worship elevated? Basically a roof over the place of worship seems out of character for a species with deep issues about flight. Open air, a platformer's worth of tiered perches, major pheonix symbology, and normal birds galore. Perhaps they collect guano from specific birds and use them to make rainbows of colored ceremonial torches. I can feel them yearning for flight, two hands in the sky like claws trying to grasp the air and haul themselves upward. Perhaps they are jealous and will be deeply offended if humans fly either in their temples, their territory, or at all, but a human quietly showing a young avian male how to make a paper airplane could shake his worldview to the core and could make him seek his own route to eternal flight with the humans. EDIT: This makes me want to write starbound fanfic. (a wild reply appears; I thought they had tech that was given to them, and they could fly? ) I continued; Given to 'them', yes, but given to who exactly? Based on the blurb and my own imagination, this is still a very primitive race. Their leaders were granted a magic artifact that allows them to create more magic, but they don't understand the science behind the artifacts, they simply know how to use them. Supply me with X materials and I will craft for you a spear that can cut your enemies at a distance. Supply me with Y materials and I will craft for you golden wings that grant flight. It's a god machine to them. They are its slaves, more or less, if they fail to serve the machines, the miracles end and another general will be selected to wield the magic. Their leaders would try to wedge it into the existing religion with more or less complete success, but the miracles do not extend universally through the society. There are still food growers, cattle tenders, explorers and miners and everything a relatively primitive society needs while the elite appear be ascending towards godhood, most obviously via the miracle of flight which can be explained as these leaders being the chosen ones selected by Kluex personally, the prophets of the gods finally revealed with divine power at their fingertips to prove their claims. The generals would be revered by almost all, except perhaps by the smartest, the cleverest young Avians, who realize that the gadgets being used by the generals is similar to other bits of ancient techno-garbage embedded in the soil, except that this technology actually functions. Perhaps they have met and communicated with other aliens of a similar technology level despite it being forbidden by the leaders (who above all else would never want to be shown as basically slaves to the god machine they serve). Such dissenting voices would need to be forcibly ejected from society, not only by the generals concerned with maintaining status but by common folk who see it as on attack on their tightly held belief system. These are the grounded, they seethe that the magic is held so tightly by the few when so many suffer. They realize that he magic is a machine and the grueling work they're now being forced to do simply enhances status of the generals even with the occasional society saving miracle such as sudden stores of tasteless food being brought forth while the people are in the grip of a famine or a set of magic far-cutting spears to fight off an attack that would otherwise cripple their society. They would not shun humans, not drive them away, but seek them out; seek out the blasphemous, powerful aliens, call to them, ask them what the magic really is and plead for teaching. I bet they would make genius pilots. Naturals. For them being able to fly the stars would be like kissing the face of their god.
Avians don't have any more direct experience with flying using wings than I do. Pilots don't take up flying because it's boring, they do it because they yearn to fly. The mechanism for flight is less important than the reality of being up in the sky under your own direction. Avians could simply have the instinct for flight without the capability. A need, buried down inside, a yearning that they channel through their religion much like some major human religions get their fervor by subverting the sex drive. If the Avian 'grounded' crewmember could convince himself in his soul that piloting the ship was like flying through the galaxy using the body of a god he could be satiated down to his very core.
So what? You seem to be saying that since driving is different than walking, driving must not be very exciting. I completely disagree. The Avians aren't simple animals, they're smart enough to channel their instinct through a religion, they could just as easily channel that instinct through another feeling of flight. People do this all the time. I'm assuming that all these races will have to have a reasonably humanoid psychology or they're not going to be very sympathetic or likable characters.
No, that's a false comparison. It's like comparing swimming to driving a boat. Or in your case it's that driving isn't like walking, not that it's not any more or less exciting. Excitement has nothing to do with the ease or difficulty of doing something.
Perhaps not all temples may have open space to remind them they have to repent/fight in the name of their god to finally get their wings again. Bigger temples could have huge opening in the ceiling in their central hub (like a coliseum) where sacred rituals are performed. Aren't they like, unable to fly for GENERATIONS? Why you think they'd make incredible aircraft pilots? That's like saying that ANY tall person will be an incredible basketball player. Unless they still have traits from when they used to fly.
huh. Interesting take on their culture. You painted a very bleak picture of their culture, Not bad, just a bit dystopian. I have been imagining a much sunnier culture for the Avians, and even developing a theology for their religion. I may post it later.
Not to mention it's not like someone that has the traits for basketball can learn how to play it or have the charisma to work with a team.
