My expectations and other thoughts on Salmonids in Raiders...?
ive seen ppl speculate the white stuff on the salmonids is a 'fungal infection'... mmmm i don't think this is the case. we're on the spirhalite islands with giant salt grinders getting upgrades and making weapons with "spirhalite shards". it's salt on the fish LOL
I think that the salt on the salmonids helps to preserve them(maybe like salt-cured meat?) and make them stronger. maybe it's like a last ditch effort to preserve their deliciousness, as they look pretty spawned out? ...or it's just a natural effect of being on the islands for so long, but regardless i think it has some sort of effect on their abilities.
I think the Salmonids will just be seen as obstacles (WE'RE RAIDING THEIR SHIT YUPPP). the salt might influence them mentally, like how glowflies do, but not like theyre completely without agency.
i mentioned this in my reaction but i did notice that the salmonids here have more salt crusted on them compared to the introductory shots.
As for why their "ink" looks like that, my thinking is
A: fish oil
B: it looks like that to give off the feeling of decay
or both??? I'm really not sure.
When it comes to 'save our salmons' i will be genuinely surprised if that comes to fruition. i think 'save our salmons' was some plot idea from splatoon's 3 early development that was scrapped amidst the mess of covid…. ive lost hope of it being relevant.
but if it IS relevant again for raiders, then it could be more of a "the salt is harming them/these salmonids have less agency" framing but. doubtful. i think the most i can hope for is if raiders gives some more cool salmonid lore that paints them in a vaguely sympathetic light?
if i am wrong about this i will not be upset...but it just looks like the splatoon team is going in on keeping salmonids as a dedicated enemy faction, so im keeping my expectations low lol
now for something completely different:
i'd kind of forgotten about this concept art for some years until after the raiders trailer because...yup. the splatoon team reused an old salmonid concept from splatoon 2's development!
the labels from left to right:
Sakeheads (Chum salmon)
sponge and tong hammer->
Silverheads (Coho salmon)
Redboy (Sockeye salmon)
so fun fact i learned from a conversation a few years ago with splatoon dataminers diam and ramdragons, there were originally going to be 3 kinds of Chum salmonids, labeled as CoopSakelienWeakA, B, and C. only A made it to final, while B and C were scrapped. they speculated from this concept art that Silverheads was B and Redboy was C.
interestingly, in real life, chum salmon that's too low of quality to be used for sushi, called buna salmon, is graded with A, B, and C!
A buna: 15-30 days away from spawning, some markings start to appear
B buna: just started to go upstream, a bit stronger markings
C buna: swam upstream already, really strong markings, the worst chum meat u can possibly get, meat starts at 50 cents per kilo
so maybe A wouldve been the strongest, and C (Redboy, which looks like the salmon in raiders) would've been the weakest and more spawned out? this is just speculation though, and i honestly dont expect it to be relevant, i just wanted to share LOL. from this concept, the original idea was that all the salmonids would be representative of different species rather than just chum.
which leads me to another point...
This concept, plus that 2018 Famitsu interview that mentions all the salmonids we see are the same species, basically confirms that all salmonids we see in salmon run are based on chum salmon! ...this is info i wish i could put in my salmon lore video
Even keiji salmon, the kind that little buddy is, is also a kind of chum salmon.
It seems like some of the bosses and locations being named after other real world salmon species (i.e chinooks, steelheads, sockeye station) is just localization making puns (like capn cuttlefish being a squid).
….it might not be that the spirhalite salmonids are "more spawned" than the inkadia/splatlands salmonids but rather its something as simple as "spirhalite salmonids are evolved sockeye salmon, while inkadia/splatlands salmonids are evolved chum salmon" and there's nothing more to it.
...inb4 the most basic type of spirhalite salmonids are still called chum, ironically
... idk just wanted to put some of my rambling thoughts and different possibilities i see out into the world before the game comes out. i dont like to be too concrete in my speculations.
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