Hehe may I ask about evil Callie?
(The evil/brainwashed) Callie here functions a bit differently… as I also use her to explore what exactly mud mouths are… and the octarian’s relationship with their ally, Salmonids…
Explanation under the cut. 🚧
Due to constrained relations between them and the other main dominating species— (salmonid/octarian vs inklings)— most Inklings, namely younger generations, are more desperate to fix and mend the relationship.
(There is plenty more to this! But I don’t want to make this come across as far more convoluted than it needs to be, so here have this for now:📒)
Octavio contacted Callie directly, albeit in secret, telling her that he has plans that would be a step forward in ending the tension between the Inklings and Octarian-Salmonid groups. What he had introduced was a new type of “ink” that would make their species “salmonid friendly”, and he wanted Callie to be the one to be the first public appearance with this new Ink in hopes to reach a wider audience…
Most of that isn’t true— but to Callie— who is a direct descendant of a war leader, was raised as an agent, and lives in a fairly dangerous city zone that floods, that sounded like a better step towards a better life, and she went for it.
This ink is known as MUD— and this “ink” isn’t technically ink at all, as mentioned in a previous post, most inks are a synthetic toxic poison, designed for warfare, but this ink on the contrary, wasn't designed by Inkfish, it was designed by Salmonids.
MUD is a slimy corrosive ink designed to rival Inkfish’s ink, namely in salmon runs and Ink Wasted territories, one that blends into the grounds and spreads out quickly and efficiently much like Inkfish ink, but one that corrodes Inklings by absorbing into them, and leaves salmonids completely safe from any burning effects.
The Octarian were the ones tasked with creating this new bio-weapon, as an added benefit being it would not affect their species, (they would be safe from it regardless, considering Salmon-Runs are an Inkling exclusive event, and Octolings were surprised when they learned about them.)
They tried different methods of testing it, and ultimately, the project failed— Mud uses both Salmonid and Inkling DNA in its creation, and when Mud was being developed, it melted Salmonids like Ink typically does due to its hyper-corrosive nature, but because it carried Inkling + Salmonid DNA, the salmonid’s skin would attempt to mimic the properties of inklings and constantly try to reconstruct itself into the “swim” form, which made Salmonids a walking (or rather, squirming) sludge, these monsters became known as MUDMOUTHS, and are not truly considered alive, since they run exclusively on the Running Instinct that exists in Salmonid DNA.
And in turn, when the ink was absorbed into Inklings— the previously noted “running instinct” would have an almost Kraken-Esque affect on inklings before corroding and splatting them.
The running instinct would work as intended, everything they eat immediately converts to growth in preparation for an arduous journey, they’re extremely aggressive, and they have a desire to return to the salmonid birthplace.
Mud would splat inklings upon prolonged contact, but Inklings who were test subjects for mud were slowly injected with Mud over a course of time. These subjects were disoriented and had a sort of “positive” aggressive attitude that didn’t falter even in the face of family or friends.
They are easy to persuade and it’s unclear if this is due to the pain of getting the ink-content in their bodies replaced by this synthetic fake-ink, or if the running instinct muddles their thoughts. It’s probably a healthy mix of both.
Dj Octavio, kept Callie by his side, since in her current state her mind would be too fogged up to dispute or make sense of what he’s making her do.
He planned on using Callie to stir up trouble in Inkopolis solely for the sake of rising tension. Octavio is constantly searching for reasons to make Inkling’s an enemy in the eyes of everyone who sees them, and painting Callie— a well known public figure; a known descendant of Captain Cuttlefish— as vicious would do wonders for allowing most people to view the Octarian as a force that would more desirably be backed up, it would reinforce their armies. And make them overall stronger if people felt they had reason to target Inklings.
He didn’t get this far due to Agent Four’s interference.
But, he got to accomplish many theft missions using Callie— which included robbing Inkopolis of some of the Zapfish Generators, which are giant machines that are powered thanks to the Zapfish, and thanks to the Zap-Ink— ⤵️
(Above image is from here) — Octavio was able to use said generators to restore power to many of the war-affected bio-domes that have been obsolete for decades, WITHOUT the need for a Zapfish.
But his reasoning can still be dumbed down to a petty move on Octavio’s part— who despite having a safer ground in the domes due to a good trade relationship with Salmonids and a vast space away from water— he still feels bitter about losing the remaining lands. And because of this the Octarian are plenty more war driven, and they are more likely to easily fall to the fervor of these schemes and battles.
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Uncharismatic Fact of the Day
Though they may look unassuming, brown trout are actually one of the most diverse vertebrates in the world! Populations and individuals can look wildly different from each other, to the point where many groups were often mislabeled as entirely separate species, and they have a remarkable ability to adapt to any environment. In fact, there is more genetic diversity between populations of British brown trout than there is between any population of the human race.
(Images: Three morphs of brown trout (Salmo trutta) by Eric Engbretson, David Miller and Jon Beer)
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