World-building of Splatoon

[VeryButter]

Okay, so I'm just gonna throw this into the thread almost directly from the Australian Splatoon tumblr.

"Acidity in water"? As far as I know, water is in the middle of the acid/base scale so unless there's a lot of pollution in the water, the water shouldn't be "acidic" at all.

Exactly, our lovely squid. There is so much pollution in the water, left over from the previous inhabitants of the Earth, that the acidity in the water reacts with the ink residue on an inklings skin.
Normal, clean water doesn’t hurt them. Natunally. :)

But then why, in game, does Cap’n Cuttlefish state that “Inklings can’t handle water” and Callie & Marie said during the Waterslides vs Rollercoaster splatfest that Inkling’s can’t swim?

With most major bodies of water unswimmabubble, do you think most inklings would take the time to learn?

I think it's pretty solid. Despite being unofficial, they got some pretty solid headcanons.

 

[Aykorn]

With most major bodies of water unswimmabubble, do you think most inklings would take the time to learn?

I think it's pretty solid. Despite being unofficial, they got some pretty solid headcanons.

Oh boy, back to the "inklings and water."

Ehh I'm not so sure about the whole acidity, I need some convincing about that.

I've actually thought up a new headcanon for why they can't swim. If their bodies really are made of ink, ink is probably heavier than water, as it could be made up of water and other compounds, and thus in water inklings simply sink. Inklings squid forms probably weigh a lot/ are pretty dense, too.

But since, like humans, they are also mostly water, they can probably drink it and shower with water (ride water slides), but if they're completely submerged they "break" from water pressure.

So ink in solid form (more ink than water) sinks, Ink in liquid form becomes soluble and disperses. Inklings are too heavy to swim and they eventually break apart.
I think since turf wars are controlled, they protect inklings from drowning like how they protect people from falling off buildings.

 

[DarkGold777]

Oh boy, back to the "inklings and water."

Ehh I'm not so sure about the whole acidity, I need some convincing about that.

I've actually thought up a new headcanon for why they can't swim. If their bodies really are made of ink, ink is probably heavier than water, as it could be made up of water and other compounds, and thus in water inklings simply sink. Inklings squid forms probably weigh a lot/ are pretty dense, too.

But since, like humans, they are also mostly water, they can probably drink it and shower with water (ride water slides), but if they're completely submerged they "break" from water pressure.

So ink in solid form (more ink than water) sinks, Ink in liquid form becomes soluble and disperses. Inklings are too heavy to swim and they eventually break apart.
I think since turf wars are controlled, they protect inklings from drowning like how they protect people from falling off buildings.

Oh my gosh. I love this theory. It also brings up an explanation as to why Inklings splat in water instead of my failsafe theory... But then again, maybe they only use the failsafe for falling from heights or DCing (or, in-universe, leaving a battle to take care of something).

 

[VeryButter]

Oh boy, back to the "inklings and water."

Ehh I'm not so sure about the whole acidity, I need some convincing about that.

I've actually thought up a new headcanon for why they can't swim. If their bodies really are made of ink, ink is probably heavier than water, as it could be made up of water and other compounds, and thus in water inklings simply sink. Inklings squid forms probably weigh a lot/ are pretty dense, too.

But since, like humans, they are also mostly water, they can probably drink it and shower with water (ride water slides), but if they're completely submerged they "break" from water pressure.

So ink in solid form (more ink than water) sinks, Ink in liquid form becomes soluble and disperses. Inklings are too heavy to swim and they eventually break apart.
I think since turf wars are controlled, they protect inklings from drowning like how they protect people from falling off buildings.

This makes a lot more sense...
World-building is fun.

 

[Aykorn]

Aside from that X-Scar, which I believe to afflict anyone who would pilot an Octoweapon. Maybe that's why we see giant tentacles emerge out of it and have the general characteristic of the 'X-Scar'.

So I wanted to bring back this idea because I liked it. Ocotarian forces stuff in general, anyone?

I've heard the theory (I don't know if I agree with it) that Octavio controls all the great Octo-weapons because we see this particular tentacle scar each time, but I like the x-scar being the mark of an octoweapon pilot.

What do you think about Story mode's Octarian forces and Great Octoweapons?

 

[Aykorn]

Alright so, I saw an incredible animated movie this week (totally watch Song of the Sea if you can) about Irish folklore, specifically Selkies, and long story short, I was reminded of this awesome headcanon I saw way back on reddit.

I just realized the reason why there are giant Tanuki and Kitsune statues watching over the plaza.
They are shapeshifters.

Inklings (and to a limited extent, Octarians) are also able to shapeshift, and doing so is an integral part of their life. Inklings revered these youkai enough to construct huge statues as guardians.

[WARNING: FAN SPECULATION/HEADCANON AHEAD]

I like the idea that there are creation myths where the youkai taught the Inklings how to transform, or tricked them in a way that backfired.
My personal favorite "creation myth" idea: The Kitsune tempted the squids into taking the form of an ancient creature, "Man", (though, like the Kitsune who cannot hide her tails, the Squid-Men could not hide their tentacles and beaks) but the squids regretted it and wanted to return to the sea they knew, once they saw how little land there was to live on.
The Tanuki offered to teach them how to turn back into squids, but he made fools of them by teaching them to turn into squids made of ink who would dissolve in the ocean.
The two youkai did not anticipate, however, that the wily Inklings would use both forms freely, and since they could not return to the ocean, they made weapons with their new hands that drew from their new ink forms, and conquered the land.
Octarian versions of this myth usually have the squids get tricked first, but then the wily octopi figure out how to take advantage of the situation and pretend to be tricked, only to then save their less-intelligent Inkling brethren by showing them what their new powers could really do.
The Inkling version maintains that the Octarians copied them after the fact.
Very old versions of the myth, at least 120 years old, say that both squids and octopi crawled onto land simultaneously.

Any other splatoon folk lore and mythology ideas? 'Cause this was soooo cool.

 

[BlueDogXL]

Maybe...
The Inklings tricked the guard into carelessly pulling that plug mentioned in the Sunken Scrolls...
Hmm...

 

[jackabee]

I think my favorite thing about the Splatoon world building is, in short, all of the world building. It's easy for people to make characters out of these essentially blank slate squids and build off of their personalities into the wider world. I'm a sucker for that stuff, no pun intended.

But as for folk lore and mythology? I'd love to think that there's some far-reaching stuff on Judd, being that he's a 12,000+ year old land mammal and has been judging an influential game since (most likely) its inception. Maybe Inklings have some cool origin myths/legends/tall tales, which he just...lets them think, because it's amusing to him. Cat wakes up in the future, can accurately determine the amount of area covered by a certain color, is treated as a cultural icon by squid people. Hey, it beats licking his own butt.

 

[redacteddd]

Since Hightide Era isn't getting a whole lotta love by people and by the PR/Advertising dudes, I like to think that in-universe, they're the equivalent of Devo, in the sense that they got famous for making quirky songs and looking weird, but it's all actually hardcore political satire that doesn't flow well with modern society.

 

[Plutoniumcube]

This is a bit unrelated, but why would the inklings look so suspiciously like humans? I mean, I don't see how they'd evolve so smoothly into that without human genetics involved as the common theories seem to go. Perhaps fragments of dead humans became integrated into the genetics of the squid eggs but that probably would be impossible.

Now that I think of it, maybe the findings of human relics may have contributed to their evolution. Due to global warming, cold blood wasn't very reliable so they adopted a consistent body temperature and became a bit more similar to humanity. After the death of humans, the squid's quick propulsion technique could have help them survive in a humanless world. The Octarians, although intelligent, may not have such an advantage. The world at this point may have most of it's life at sea due to cooler temperatures but I won't bet on it. The squid like specimens may become amphibious at this point since there may not be many natural predators. By the land, they may find helpful human tools that gave them an edge in survival. Thus, they had evolved to take advantage of such to become more human like. However, becoming as humanoid as modern Inklings would seemingly not be reasonable. From this, they may have developed their world on human technology. Perhaps they relied on the Zapfish because of humanity's mistakes. Since their wa so little land, they based their whole culture on the value of land and thus, Turf Wars became an integral part of their culture, much more than battle was to humanity as they had so many resources from humanity to advance themselves. The Octarians may have followed a similar path, however, the octopus population didn't find a need to evolve and become land based because of potential supremacy. However, they might have been pushed away at some point by predators and learned from Inklings and humans to a lesser extent and used technology to give them abilities akin to the dominant Inklings making up for the body parts they might not have.

 

[Joseph Staleknight]

Interesting theory! So, how do Octolings fit in? After all, they're also humanoid like the Inklings...

 

[BlueDogXL]

I would say after Agent 3, they gave in and let the Octolings, under careful watch for five years, mingle with Inklings. And whooda thunk, they learned to get along like PB & J!

 

[Plutoniumcube]

There might have been a social divide that caused the octolings. Perhaps the working class of the Octarians needed such utilities and evolved as such. However, the others that may have worked in mental computation or not at all may not have evolved for such needs.

Also, the octolings may have just been a genetic experiment as a result of Octarian breeding farms should they exist. Maybe stuff like this troubled them in the end. I honestly think a good fraction of the octarians are much more intelligent than the inklings but are much more set back in terms of technology.

 

[Rustic]

the octarians are much more intelligent than the inklings but are much more set back in terms of technology.

This is the part, where I am slightly confused.

The Octarians are clearly much more advanced in comparison to the Inklings, who has the Floating platforms, the massive sky boxes, and the machines that we could only dream of? They do. In one of the Sunken Scrolls, they are stated to be working outside the realms of science, probably verging on sorcery. (HERESY!) The Octarian's even have a massive Octobot, a massive robot resembling an Octopus. (See Sunken Scrolls) Their only weakness however, is the amount of power it requires to probably power just one dome.

 

[Plutoniumcube]

@Rustic

You're right. But where I was coming at by ways of lack of technology is their somewhat archaic, at this point, approaches to such objects. They're, no doubt about it, advanced. However, their approach seems to be too inefficient to some extent. It's almost as if they're rather ambitious and focusing all of their power on such a thing. The Inklings however, seemed to be prospering in many fields due to the ideas and technologies left behind by humanity having widespread variants for models of weapons, clothes, ideas etc. that they learned from humanity. Now that I think of it, the Octarians might be a group just forced to innovate due to suppression. They are advanced in some technologies but somewhat primitive in other regards.

I know this is a pretty weak argument, but I just vomited what was on my mind.

 

[redacteddd]

Hammerhead bridge would have been finished if it weren't for the fact that it's such a good map for ink battling.

 

[Plutoniumcube]

I think I found a theory of as to why inklings die when they touch too much water: It's just evolutionarily logical. With an inkling being revived when it had been splatted for potentially thousands of years (after all how would turf wars been so culturally popular if you were puttin your life at stake for most of it's history?) I think their best bet when in water is to not risk drowning and just evaporate instead.

 

[DarkGold777]

I think I found a theory of as to why inklings die when they touch too much water: It's just evolutionarily logical. With an inkling being revived when it had been splatted for potentially thousands of years (after all how would turf wars been so culturally popular if you were puttin your life at stake for most of it's history?) I think their best bet when in water is to not risk drowning and just evaporate instead.

Inklings don't die, they only splat. Also, it's only mentioned that Inklings "can't swim", and only that, so I'm assuming they self-splat themselves somehow to avoid drowning and die for real, rather then have to splat because their bodies can't handle touching too much water (which is not proven true, if I may restate).

 

[redacteddd]

The French version makes it absolutely clear that inklings can't ever fall in large bodies of water, with Marie staying "Evolution wasn't kind to us..."

 

[DarkGold777]

The French version makes it absolutely clear that inklings can't ever fall in large bodies of water, with Marie staying "Evolution wasn't kind to us..."

Did it say anything about splatting from water contact, specifically?