I love the idea of the "cities" being giant art sculptures and science journals at the same time! And getting their trained crabs to build it for them, however you build fantasy corals. My little brother, who studies math, says that most mathematical formula can be represented as 3D-structures in several different ways, and often you can only get back to the original formula if you know which system they were using. So obviously there are codes hidden in the sculptures, and it depends on which corals you use and which part it's built on, etc. etc. Different "cities" sometimes have rivalries because they're "built on" different theories and if one is disproven a lot would have to be taken down, or very different area of mathematics and they each think theirs is more important, or some put more emphasis on aesthetics than others, and one of the complicated parts is that theoretically you could hide messages in the sculptures if you use a different formula->sculpture mapping system... Or maybe you have young dolphins one or two generations later who want to build coral cities just for fun, putting together formulas how they fit and look well and not according to some scientific principle. (Different dolphin tribes further away aren't interested in mathematics but tell each other long epics and sagas instead!) You could find enough possible murder motives!
Dolphins and Fishers, or one of each, working together would be great, and depending on the POV it would be very interesting to describe the other's surroundings and try to solve a crime despite such a different culture. Rodney and Teyla really would fit very well! I wouldn't worry too much about it: they're not too distinctive to people who aren't very into SGA and easy to "disguise" a bit, and from what I've heard filing off serial numbers has become more and more popular anyway ;)
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My little brother, who studies math, says that most mathematical formula can be represented as 3D-structures in several different ways, and often you can only get back to the original formula if you know which system they were using. So obviously there are codes hidden in the sculptures, and it depends on which corals you use and which part it's built on, etc. etc. Different "cities" sometimes have rivalries because they're "built on" different theories and if one is disproven a lot would have to be taken down, or very different area of mathematics and they each think theirs is more important, or some put more emphasis on aesthetics than others, and one of the complicated parts is that theoretically you could hide messages in the sculptures if you use a different formula->sculpture mapping system... Or maybe you have young dolphins one or two generations later who want to build coral cities just for fun, putting together formulas how they fit and look well and not according to some scientific principle. (Different dolphin tribes further away aren't interested in mathematics but tell each other long epics and sagas instead!) You could find enough possible murder motives!
Dolphins and Fishers, or one of each, working together would be great, and depending on the POV it would be very interesting to describe the other's surroundings and try to solve a crime despite such a different culture. Rodney and Teyla really would fit very well! I wouldn't worry too much about it: they're not too distinctive to people who aren't very into SGA and easy to "disguise" a bit, and from what I've heard filing off serial numbers has become more and more popular anyway ;)