Yeah, pretty much this. I've never set out to establish a definitive reason for it, because she's never investigated (she doesn't really care), but I suspect it's because Toph was born blind (as opposed to someone who lost her eyesight to injury or illness later in life).

I doubt there's anything inherently wrong with the quarian immune system at the species level - evolution doesn't work that fast. It's an environmental syndrome, and it doesn't apply in Valhalla. For that matter, there's nothing to catch there anyway.

Out-of-band, it's because her blindness is such an integral part of her character design that she's kind of not Toph without it. That may seem a little heartless, but there you are.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

The fact that, canonically speaking, quarians can link their suits together and adapt to one another after a period of brief illness makes it pretty definitive that this is the case as well.

The quarians could actually probably walk back to not needing their environmental suits aboard quarian ships; it likely wouldn't be super-hard to do from a purely technical standpoint. But there would be some guaranteed percentage of deaths involved and it would be a very time and resource intensive undertaking, one that they'd then have to repeat if and when they retook Rannoch and had access to the pathogens and parasites they evolved symbiotically with.

Within the context of UF, assuming something doesn't happen to change the status quo ante (such as peaceable contact made with the Geth Consensus or Tali'Shukra coming back from her survey mission being all "Hey, uh, guys? We're the proud owners of an unspeakably ancient genocide machine that we've mistaken for a habitation ring. Go us?") I imagine some conflict eventually arising between quarians who are all 'fuck yeah, lets settle on Halo and stop living like lab specimens' and Rael'Zorah-esque hardliners who declare "Rannoch or Bust."

>Out-of-band, it's because her blindness is such an integral part of
>her character design that she's kind of not Toph without it.

There are ways you can edge around that, but they mostly involve doing some AU contortions that end up being the entire point of the story, which is something UF has done before but would certainly not be called for in this case.

I read a pretty decent Steampunk ATLA AU once where Toph had replacement cybernetic eyes made of metal that she should use her metalbending to pop out of her head and fly around and spy on people with. It was sort of neat.

-Merc
Keep Rat

Much like poor Asuka Langley-Soryu can't ever just be a content Bavarian pastry chef. She just aint Asuka without the cray cray.

------
Jon Helscher

Oh God, it was me. I was the grognard all along.

This is probably also true.

>Maybe she'd like
>to try this whole "reading" or "TV" thing sometime, but not enough
>that she wants to completely change something that's so fundamentally
>a part of who she is.

Besides, there are people for that, at least the first part.

--G.
The Valhalla Public Library basically has every book ever as an audiobook read by Stephen Fry. Even though he hasn't read most of them.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

There's an element of that, although they can also control it to a certain extent. The joke in the studio was that Toph's old friends among the Einherjar assumed she didn't actually know she was a teenager again, because she can't see herself in a mirror, until someone finally pointed it out (probably Sokka, probably in response to an act of sexual aggression, 'cause hey, we're all dead now, why keep pretending).

Since Toph knew perfectly well what had happened to her, this presumably led to a variation on the classic "You mean I'm not white?!" scene from the 1989 Pryor/Wilder comedy See No Evil, Hear No Evil. "What do you mean I'm not legal?! This is a scandal! Goodness gracious, do you know how many adjustments have to be made? What's everyone at the club gonna say?"

--G.
"Does Katara know?!"
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

You're assuming that, in life, Sokka did not provide the genetic payload that eventually turned into Lin, which remains quite the popular theory. :)

I would kind of like this to be the case, if only because I'd like for at least someone among the Gaang to not simply end up the life partner of the first person they ever kissed, and it's worth noting that Suki has been conspicuously absent from 'where are they now' information provided as part of Legend of Korra. That said, I really doubt Nickelodean is prepared to portray kissing cousins onscreen, despite that being perfectly legal for the vast majority of the people in the US. And any kind of polyamory would be RIGHT out.

-Merc
Keep Rat

Well... Fine. I can be customer-focused.

(probably Katara, probably in response to an act of sexual aggression, 'cause hey, we're all dead now, why keep pretending).

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

That day is not today.

Suki is totally more Tophs type tho.

-Merc
Keep Rat

"... you can go ahead and let me drown now."

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

...
Think of the royalties, man! If he could ever collect, it would probably put him in the top 0.5% of Galaxies Wealthiest list. :)

Brian

Further proof that UF-Vahlalla is Heaven. That, and the ice cream.
--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."

Some say that she's the greatest earthbender of all time, and that she's packed by weight and not by volume. All we know is...

--G.
"Ow. OW! I'm on fire."
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Do it! Do it! You KNOW you want to...

Actually, _has_ Top Gear done a special (presumably only for local broadcast) set in Asgard?

Because it seems like the sort of thing they'd do.

Shalon Wood

This week on Top Gear:

"Thor in a reasonably-priced chariot"
"Cats vs. Goats... are we just kidding ourselves?"
"And the Stig gets a taste of real horsepower: Sleipnir."

---
"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends