BernardDooveWasRight

Several Chakat stories involve some character saying that they've studied up on Chakats, and everything they learned came from the Chakat's Den website. And the information always turns out to be right. I haven't seen a single story where they arrive on Chakona and someone says, "I don't know what you've been reading, but its a load of crap. We're not anything like that at all." A lot of times this doesn't even make sense, as the characters are in the future and you don't know how long that website's going to be around. This probably happens to a lesser extent on other websites with other authors.

Examples: ... After a moment of silence shi asked, "So you've read about chakats?"
 * A character turns into a Chakat, remembers reading about what they've turned into on Doove's website, and therefore knows exactly what to expect from their transformation.
 * In The Colony, a whole airplane full of people are turned into Chakats. For some reason, the government read Doove's website, and the geeky kids that were taken onboard knew all about them from reading the same website.
 * "That's it," he agreed. "Anyway I've read what a chakat is on the Internet and it fits. And those are the words for chakats. 'Shi', 'hir', and 'shir'."

"A little. I ran across them while searching for stuff about centaurs." "I wish I had. I'd've loved to read the stories. I heard there were pictures, too?" ''"Mm-hmm." Taurger decided this was a good time to change the subject.'' -The Colony: Taurger's Bad Day (www.furry.org.au/chakat/Stories/Taurger.htm)

Again, in Taurger's Tale:

''"Now the other one. Pitty-Pat said you had read what was on the Internet about chakats." "Looked it over. I was looking for hippocentaurs, really." In response to Katherine’s questioning expression, he explained, "Horse centaurs. Classical Greek. Half human, half horse. They’re called equitaurs if they’ve got horse heads." When the doctor nodded, he added, "Nobody remembers the word, but everybody knows what they are." "Okay. So did you read about chakat empathy?" "The stories had several psychic powers." "Other power? Such as?" Taurger shrugged. "Telepathy, telekinesis... the stuff people usually think of as psychic." "And chakats could do all of them?" "Naw, just empathy. Why?" "I’m wondering what we are supposed to be able to do with it. Now squeeze my fingers." "Oh. Well... they’re supposed to be able to sense the emotions of almost any animal, or at least people. Different people would have it to different levels, and some of them were supposed to be able to project feelings, too. Stronger empaths could even send physical sensations. All pretty short range stuff. I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout that." "And what have you decided?" "Maybe it’s not psychic. Maybe it’s pheromones." "Oh?" "I know a lot of people are saying stuff about being turned into ‘fictional creatures’. Figure they’d really hit the roof if anybody started talking psychic powers. So what if we don’t feel emotions, but smell ‘em with these fancy noses?"''

Also... ''Goldeneye grinned at hir former commanding officer. "I stumbled over it too, Colonel," shi said, "but Taurger got me caught up pretty quick." "Shi read the Internet site," added Pitty-Pat.''And... ''"Isn’t ‘denmate’ supposed to mean you’re lovers?" May asked. "In the stories," Pat explained, "or so Taurger says. But we’re sharing a den, so what else would we call ourselves?"''And... "Ya know, I read some of the chakat stories, and they had a saying. ‘Tail high.’ I only mention it ‘cause yours seemed ta be draggin’ a bit."

More:

“Before you all start asking a lot of questions, I'm going to be telling everyone later today, everything I've learned about Chakats, what they are, and why we might be Chakats, so please save your questions about Chakats until then.”(www.furry.org.au/chakat/Stories/TheColony-index.html)

Ummm....he got his information from someone else, and we heard the long explanation, so why not let them talk while he does something else, something that doesn't bore the reader?

''Oh yeah, the people. I said I've never played Dungeons &amp; Dragons® or any of those other games, right? I may be a computer geek but I'm not a nerd. But I have heard some about it, and in that game there's supposed to be all these different races. Well, that's true here.''-From Craters by McClaw, at the Chakatheaven Yahoo group

''What Starpath and Whiptail are, are chakats. That's something I knew about before waking up here, because somebody wrote about them and published their stuff on the Internet in some science fiction stories. That's one of the reasons I was so shocked to see and hear them, it's like having the Nautilus surface and Captain Nemo ask you if you'd like to go for a twenty thousand league ride. Or getting beamed up to the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701D, please; despite the Utopian idiocy of the stories that ship should be a lot more comfortable than any of the others) and offered a vacation cruise.''-Craters by McClaw

Another theory:''I've had this explained to me and I kind of get it, but it's still a pretty wild idea. Apparently, there are lots of realities, most of them running parallel with each other. They aren't completely isolated, though, and what happens in one can sometimes influence another. Most commonly, this ends up as dreams or thoughts, and a lot of times they end up getting written as stories. So maybe somewhere in another reality there really is something like the starship Enterprise, and maybe somewhere there's a Luke Skywalker who has to fight his dad to save his version of the universe. If there are, I hope I don't visit them. Gatcha!''

Anyway, that's supposed to be why this Australian guy in my world described chakats so I could read about them.

-Craters by McClaw