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"Gone native" is the name given to a catastrophic loss of selfhood that afflicts those trapped within the Reproach, the ruined and besieged district overrun during [[The Tyrant Philosophers/Shrievsby|Shrievsby]]'s campaign. The condition strips its victims of every prior identity and replaces it with a borrowed courtly persona drawn from a dead Maric aristocracy: the afflicted adopt antique titles, speak in an archaic Maric idiolect that belongs to no living nation, adorn themselves in looted finery, and dance without cessation through a landscape crawling with beasts and soldiers that they have ceased to perceive as threats. It is not a madness the books name in clinical terms, nor a curse traced to a single supernatural agent; it is a dissolution of the self into a performance of civilisation that the world has long since abandoned.

The term carries particular weight in the military context of Shrievsby's campaign, where the condition does not spare trained soldiers. By the time Shrievsby and the survivors of his squad are holed up in a house within the Reproach, half the squad has been lost, and many of those lost have gone native. For Shrievsby, the dread of this fate compounds with fear of the [[The Tyrant Philosophers/the School of Correct Speech|School of Correct Speech]]'s vengeance for linguistic transgression, making the condition a double annihilation: the self consumed from within, the body punished from without. The term thus functions in the novel as both a diagnosis and a threat, the two words that end a conversation and mark a person as already no longer present.

Across the single book in which it appears, the arc of the condition is one of irreversible spread: it moves through civilian populations, overtakes military units, and is revealed to the reader and to Shrievsby in the same breath, in two words that admit no recovery.

== The Term ==
=== Meaning ===
In the world of City of Last Chances, "gone native" denotes a total psychological and behavioural conversion whereby a person trapped in the Reproach sheds their former identity entirely and assumes a courtly persona of the antique Maric aristocracy. The afflicted adopt noble titles, speak exclusively in an archaic Maric idiolect that no longer corresponds to any living political order, wear looted finery, and dance endlessly. Crucially, they lose all perceptual and behavioural response to the physical threats surrounding them - beasts, soldiers, and horrors pass unacknowledged, as though the district's terrors have ceased to register as real - ch 11.

An outside reader might assume the phrase carries its colloquial English sense of a coloniser adopting local customs. In the books' usage the direction is inverted and the stakes are absolute: the victim does not adopt a living culture but is consumed by a dead one, and the "native" they go toward is not a present community but a ghostly courtly script no longer recognised by any nation. The Maric spoken by the gone-native is explicitly described as belonging to no surviving political order - ch 11.

=== Usage ===
The phrase is used as a clinical, almost administrative shorthand within Shrievsby's military context. When Plummel responds to the starvelings of the Reproach in antique Maric, using a courtly greeting that reveals her condition, the state of affairs is named in two words: "Gone native." - ch 11. The revelation is stated flatly, without elaboration, functioning as a verdict rather than a description. That the term is deployed so tersely by those who use it indicates it is a recognised category within the campaign's vocabulary - a known diagnostic for soldiers and civilians alike, requiring no further explanation among those who know the Reproach.

Shrievsby's use of the concept is filtered through dread: he fears both the condition itself and the vengeance the [[The Tyrant Philosophers/the School of Correct Speech|School of Correct Speech]] would exact for the linguistic transgression it entails, and this combined fear outweighs his fear of the Reproach's physical terrors - ch 11. The term therefore indexes, for him, the loss of both self and institutional protection simultaneously.

=== Origin ===
The books do not state where the term originates or when it entered military or civilian usage. No etymology or first-appearance is given.

== History ==
=== City of Last Chances ===
In the Reproach, the ruined and besieged district of [[The Tyrant Philosophers/Shrievsby|Shrievsby]]'s campaign, a condition known as being "gone native" afflicts those trapped within its boundaries. The afflicted shed their former identities entirely, adopting courtly titles and an antique Maric idiolect in place of any prior selfhood, and they lose all reaction to the physical threats that surround them - beasts, soldiers, and horrors passing unnoticed or unacknowledged, as though the district's terrors have simply ceased to register as real - ch 11. In behavioural terms, the gone-native wear looted finery, dance endlessly, and treat the beasts and monsters of the Reproach as invisible, while speaking a dead courtly Maric that no longer belongs to any living nation - ch 11.

The condition is not limited to civilian inhabitants. By the time [[The Tyrant Philosophers/Shrievsby|Shrievsby]] and the survivors of his squad are holed up in a house in the Reproach, half the squad is gone, and many of those lost have gone native - ch 11. Shrievsby's dread of this fate, and of the vengeance of Correct Speech, outweighs his fear of the Reproach itself - ch 11.

The condition's progress within the squad becomes visible when [[The Tyrant Philosophers/Plummel|Plummel]], a member of Shrievsby's squad who has been reporting actions to [[The Tyrant Philosophers/Nasely|Nasely]], responds to the starvelings of the Reproach in antique Maric, using a courtly greeting that reveals she has gone native - ch 11. The revelation is stated in two words: "Gone native." - ch 11.

Among the starvelings themselves, one gaunt figure - a scarecrow of a man - calls himself Count Dirovesnic and addresses Plummel and Shrievsby in the same antique Maric idiolect, fully inhabiting a courtly persona that bears no relation to any surviving political order - ch 11. Shrievsby shoots him dead, but the condition persists in the rest of the dancing, finery-clad, emaciated inhabitants who continue to treat the district's predators as though they were not there - ch 11.

== Relationships ==
* '''[[The Tyrant Philosophers/Shrievsby|Shrievsby]]''' - Commander of the squad operating in the Reproach. He shoots the gone-native figure Count Dirovesnic dead, but the condition persists in the remaining inhabitants, confirming that killing one afflicted person does not end the affliction in others - ch 11. His dread of the condition and of Correct Speech's response to it exceeds his fear of the Reproach itself - ch 11.
* '''[[The Tyrant Philosophers/Plummel|Plummel]]''' - A member of Shrievsby's squad who had been reporting actions to [[The Tyrant Philosophers/Nasely|Nasely]]. She is revealed as gone native when she responds to the starvelings in antique Maric with a courtly greeting - ch 11. Her conversion transforms her from an informant into a symptomatic case, severing her prior loyalties and perceptual framework.
* '''[[The Tyrant Philosophers/Nasely|Nasely]]''' - The officer to whom Plummel had been reporting. The revelation of Plummel's condition severs this reporting relationship, as the information source is no longer a functioning self - ch 11.
* '''[[The Tyrant Philosophers/the School of Correct Speech|School of Correct Speech]]''' - The enforcement body whose vengeance Shrievsby fears alongside the condition itself. The gone-native speak in an idiolect that constitutes a linguistic transgression by the standards of Correct Speech, making the condition doubly punitive in his estimation - ch 11.
* '''Count Dirovesnic''' - A gaunt, scarecrow-like figure among the starvelings who fully inhabits a courtly persona bearing no relation to any surviving political order, addressing Plummel and Shrievsby in the antique Maric idiolect. He is the gone-native individual who receives a name, a title, and a death at Shrievsby's hands - ch 11.

== Notable Quotes ==
:"Gone native." - narrator, ch 11

:"Count Dirovesnic" - the scarecrow-like gone-native figure, self-styled, ch 11

== Tags ==
#condition · #identity-loss · #psychological-state

[[Category:The Tyrant Philosophers/Terms]]

The Tyrant Philosophers/gone native - Revision history

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