fanc: (pron. “fansh”) a flaw or defect; an imperfection
from which
talifanc: (from talis “truth” + fanc) an imperfection whose presence indicates authenticity; examples would include inclusions in natural gemstones, grain in natural wood, and unintentional variations in hand-crafted objects; compare Jp. wabi.
and also
lin-fanc: the Flaw; entropy.
ILINSHEN (UNITED VIRIDIAN STATES) – Six days after the extraordinary near-collapse of the Ubthar Advancement Bank in the most prominent of the recent series of bank runs and its equally extraordinary rescue by Gilea & Company Capital Ventures, ICC, which extended a line of credit equivalent to 168 billion Viridian daal to the struggling bank simultaneous with its purchase of 17% of its equity, the repercussions are still rocking the economic and political status quo of the Viridian States.
While economic instability has become a fact of life in the States in recent months, the failure of a bank so prominent in the technical sector would have raised eyebrows even without transstellar intervention, but the situation was further inflamed four days ago with a press release issued under the seal of Móes Cheraelar-ith-Cheraelar, Chief Capital Officer for G&C Capital Ventures – rather than, as might be expected, that of the Cinti Xi VPO. In this release, Móes Cheraelar specifically attributed the bank runs in general and the collapse of UAB in particular to “misinformation concerning industry practices and bank liquidity being deliberately propagated by public, media, and governmental figures to the severe detriment of financial stability”, accompanied by detailed semantic analyses of various examples, and warned that the Hidden Cog would undoubtedly take such measures as it deemed necessary to preserve fiscal integrity. The press release specifically named Senator Eryl Torrad (Equilibrium/Erayshen-ro-Dine) as a source of “innuendo, allegation, and distortion without regard for truth, honor, or decency” which led directly to the run on the UAB.
While praised by a number of analysts, that a transstellar based outside the States, even one of the Big 26, should so directly criticize local politics has proven controversial. The situation, however, has escalated further with the news having reached Ilinshen yesterday that G&C Capital Ventures have filed a petition with the Court of Trade and Commerce requesting that they apply the extraordinary sanction of judicial incredibility to Senator Torrad.
The granting of such a petition by the Court is extremely unlikely, inasmuch as judicial incredibility – the legal declaration that a given person is “not to be believed upon any topic” – is a legal archaism that has not been applied for over seven millennia, and it would, in any case, only be of legal effect within the Imperial territorial volume. Nonetheless, the petition appears to be having its intended effect in the Court of Public Opinion, with the Equilibrium Party moving quickly to deprive Senator Torrad of her committee posts, even those unrelated to financial matters. Equilibriate spokesmen ascribed this to the trouble, even without an official finding of incredibility, the Senator would have in interacting with the many Imperial or Empire-proximal interests relevant to such positions, but it is generally accepted among pundits that the party and President Nallen’s administration are engaging in damage control.
Ambassador Rithan-ishi-Dellia declined to comment on the matter, citing the impropriety of commenting on legal matters which remained sub judice and the Imperial Diplomatic Corps policy of refraining from involvement in purely commercial affairs. Cheraelar & Orthodox, the primary market rating agency for large institutions (including polities) in the Cinti Xi constellation has made no comment at this time.
– from the Imperial Infoclast
When you think filk, you also think folk. Or I do, anyway. And recently, when I think folk, it’s been because my random writing music playlist has been bringing up Barrett’s Privateers more often than one might expect. (If you don’t know the song, you can hear it performed here.)
And when my mind wanders back to filk, it recalls that few, indeed, are the science fiction universes for which I haven’t seen at least some attempt made to produce a localized version: Star Trek, Wars, Traveller, etc., etc.
So this one is mine, the tragic story of a young Magen spacer who, back when much travel in the Worlds was still relativistic, signed up with Half-Captain Beriv’s ill-fated Khadara for the promise of an easy cruise, a bloodless victory, and a fortune at the end. Needless to say, it did not work out that way.
Naturally, to the tune of Barrett’s Privateers, by Stan Rogers. © Fogarty’s Cove Music 1976.
1
Oh, the year was 4178¹
How I wish I was on Sardion² now!
A letter of marque under manager’s ring³
Sold t’ the scummiest ship I’ve ever seen
Chorus
Suns⁴ damn them all! I was told
We’d cruise the deep for the Star’s red gold⁵.
We’d lay no beams, spill no tears.
But I’m a broken man on a Sardis pier⁶
The last of Beriv’s Privateers
2
Oh, Half-Cap⁷ Beriv cried the halls⁸
How I wish I was on Sardion now!
For sixty brave sophs, all spacers, who
Would make for him the Khadara‘s crew
Chorus
3
The Khadara‘s hull was a sickening sight
How I wish I was on Sardion now!
Her gyros tumbly⁹ and her bottles cracked¹⁰,
And her plating half patches from front to back
Chorus
4
When the Suns aligned we made for the black
How I wish I was on Sardion now!
We were nine years to Sagori Light¹¹
With a thousand glitches in the wakeful night¹²
Chorus
5
In the eleventh year we sailed again
How I wish I was on Sardion now!
When a bloody great Impie hove in sight
With our juiced comm lasers¹³ we made to fight
Chorus
6
Now the Impie lugger¹⁴ was laden high
How I wish I was on Sardion now!
Her drives burnt low¹⁵ as she clawed for way
But to catch her took Khadara sixty days
Chorus
7
Then at length we stood two seconds¹⁶ away
How I wish I was on Sardion now!
The beam caps¹⁷ charged with a howl and a whine
But with one lead head¹⁸, the Imp broke our spine
Chorus
8
The Khadara snapped, laying open her side
How I wish I was on Sardion now!
Beriv was smashed like grav-juggled eggs¹⁹
And a main bus short vaporized my legs
Chorus
9
So here I lay in my fortieth year
How I wish I was on Sardion now!
It’s been twenty-two years since we flew away
And I just made Sardis yesterday
Chorus
Historical and explanatory footnotes:
proof of work (obs.): an archaic technique for (usually blockchain-based) cryp mining which ties mining capability to computational power. In its original form, it required transaction blocks to be hashed, which demonstrated time and computational effort put forth, and which would generate a certain amount of virgin cryp until the configured money supply was reached.
While widely criticized for its lack of scalability as transaction volumes grew and the extreme wastefulness of resources (both material and energetic) required¹ to maintain equivalent mining capacity in the face of the ongoing general expansion of computational capability, it nevertheless became a relatively commonly utilized technique in early cryp architectures.
A substantial blow was struck² to proof of work by the algorithmic crisis associated with the Isif Theorem and the Great Slump of 2840. Nevertheless, the concept staggered on for some considerable time afterwards, although the need for increasingly sophisticated cryptographic algorithms and specialized processors rapidly took mining of proof-of-work-based cryp outside the realm of individuals and small organizations. This left only large consortia of various types (and, of course, Powers³) capable of mustering the computational power necessary to participate.
The final death of proof of work did not come until 5193, when the Market Liberty Oversight Directorate – with the assistance of the Fiscal Mind and a specialized acausal logic processor – demonstrated the ability to mine out the entire volume of three newly launched cryps, using dust transactions to rapidly fill new mineable blocks, within seconds of each one’s launch.
– A Core Economic Dictionary, Aurum Press (6900)
Bionic Dyscognitive Disorder
(a.k.a. Bionomanic Disorder; Bionic Dysphoria; Cybernetic¹ Dyscognitive Disorder; Cybernetic Schizotypal Disorder; Cyberpsychosis; Mechanization Stress Disorder; Post-Augmentation Stress Syndrome; Robolunacy.)
By whatever name it is known, bionic dyscognitive disorder is a severe mental health issue triggered by augmentation with non-biological technology (bionics). In various analyses, it can present with symptoms similar to a variety of other conditions, such as:
Bionic dyscognitive disorder also does not exist, insofar as no reputable iatropsychic professional has determined a neurophysiological cause for any case.
Rather, bionic dyscognitive disorder is a convenient label placed upon a variety of memetically-induced syndromes attributable to the high frequency of autotoxic and exotoxic anti-augmentation memeplexes found in primitive and primitivist societies, active at the conscious or subconscious level.
When one provides a limb augmentation to one with a deeply internalized subconscious belief that bionic augmentation is unnatural, one induces memetic body integrity dysphoria; when one provides certain types of neural interface to a patient with high risk factors for schizotypal disorders, the data input from the interface will be interpreted accordingly, and the result misdiagnosed as attributable to the augmentation rather than the underlying factors; when convinced that augmentation must necessarily be traumatic, the brain will obligingly perceive it as such; and in extreme cases, when submerged in vitalist memeplexes, the least stable will develop the delusion that augmentation is equivalent to mechanization.
(And, naturally, those on the borderline of borderline personality disorders may be tipped over the border by any enhancement to their personal armamentarium.)
On an individual basis, the recommended treatment for any of these issues is intensive corrective memetic therapy, preferably preceded by removal from the memetically toxic external environment. In the longer term, the only reliable course is to press for the adoption of Collegium standards of mental stability by all extra-Imperial augmenteries such that they will be appropriately watchful for those whose variously fragile mental states will be destabilized further in the process of augmentation.
See also: autoscient depersonalization disorder; social transition stress disorder; technical somatically-induced stress disorder.
– Manual of Mental Diagnostics, 271st ed.
“Look here. You know there are a more than a few species out there whose names we can’t hope to pronounce, even if you only count the ones that use vocal language. Such as all the amorphoids, whose vocal organs are as arbitrary as the rest of them.”
“Like the myneni, whose whole surface can be one big tympanum.”
“Exactly. And you know how many of those species adopt use-names so they don’t have to put up with us mangling the real ones?”
“Just tell me what you’re trying to say.”
“I’m saying don’t even look like you might snicker when you meet Senior Chief Instructor Oobleck.”
– overheard after lights’-out, recruit dormitory, Fort Petrae
So, I have received some questions and noticed some little curiosity recently about what the process of gender transition/sex reassignment looks like in the ‘verse, or since that is highly variable, in the Empire.
Well, it goes something like this – and this is the procedure and the whole of the procedure, which requires no permissions or approvals from anyone:
You pay a visit to the local branch of Novacorpora. (This will not be difficult. They’re everywhere – basically the Starbucks of bodysculpt parlors.)
You say, “I can haz new [appropriate-sex] body?”
They say, “We can haz deposit?”
You give them the 12%. (It is slightly higher in some cases – such as female-to-male, for humans – because you don’t have the relevant chromosome and they have to synthesize a compatible one. But that’s just an implementation detail.)
You stick your hand in the fancy laser-genetic-sequencing-machine when they ask you to. It goes beep, and then there’s a brief discussion (and possibly some holography) of any non-genetic features you have that you want preserved in your new body.
They ask you to come back in a week. (Unless you feel like paying over the odds for even-faster-than-regular-forced-growth cloning rates and went to a different store in the first place, but we’re assuming the default consumer version here.)
You come back a week later. They usher you into the changing room at the back, where you get to stare at an [appropriate-sex] version of you in a forced-growth tube. They cough to get your attention. You stop ogling yourself. (They laugh, and say that everyone does it the first time.)
They set up the cerebral bridge to put you into your new body. (There is a brief discussion of animus/anima/animua/animin remapping, but as you are what Earth would call a trans person, you don’t need that particular service.) You change into a medical coverall and sit down in the chair.
>DISCONTINUITY<
You wake up. By the clock on the wall, a couple of hours have passed, but right now you’re busy coughing growth-tank fluid out of your lungs. They hand you a towel. Your eyes ache in the peculiar way of eyes that have never been used before, but it soon passes. You look over at your old body, now running the Minimal Maintenance Architecture. It’s breathing, but it looks comatose.
They help you over to a chair and help you dress – well, unless you were good at guessing your new sizes and brought your own, help you dress in a fresh new set of GenericWear™. You’re hungry. Food is provided, all food you can eat with a rubber spoon, but in fairness you have to learn how to use a brand-new nervous system. There’s not enough of it, either, but they gently remind you that your digestive tract is new to all this, too.
Part of the forced-growth process involves teaching your new cerebellum how to operate, so it’s not as bad as it could be, and an hour or so of practice has you able to manipulate objects and walk around without falling over. They suggest that you wait a few days before operating heavy machinery anyway, just in case, as recommended in the pamphlet they hand you, Care and Feeding of Your New Body.
There’s a little legal paperwork to read through, details of the Identity Tribunal confirming that you are, in fact, still you and updating all the relevant records with your shiny new Body Identification Number so that all the biometric stuff in the world still works. That uses up another few minutes; the Imperial Service is efficient.
You pay at the desk. They ask you what you want done with your old body – they can ship it to cold storage for you, or put it up for resale, or arrange for biowaste disposal (i.e., euthanasia and incineration). It’s up to you – it’s still your property, even if you’re not living there any more. You ask them to keep it on site for a couple of days while you think about it. It’s not a problem.
You’re done here, so you go about your day. You catch sight of yourself in the store window as you leave. Damn, you look good.
Hello, and welcome once again to Truly Awful Whiteboard Pictures season, as I present to you the basic workings of a nuclear-pulse Orion drive, Empire-style. Or at least Empire-of-the-Spaceflight-Initiative-Era style. Mostly so that I can refer to it later and y’all’ll know what I’m talking about.
Behold ye first (and note that I’m not really getting into explaining the Orion drive itself at this point: for that see here, which should give you an idea of what I’m riffing on) an exceptionally crude and simplified illustration of the mechanics of the drive itself:
The way this works as part of each firing cycle is approximately this:
As for the pulse units themselves, they look like this. Very roughly, as I’m eliminating all the complexity that goes into making them Happy Fun Shaped Charges as well as streamlined, spin-stabilized projectiles. Conceptual only:
The upper one is the old-style fission-based unit. Basically, it’s a laser-triggered fission bomb. The firing laser hits the beamcatcher lens, which splits the laser impulse into many beamlets proceeding along optical fibers, which are set up so that the laser impulselets reach the various explosive lenses surrounding the pit at the same moment. Implosion, prompt criticality, and fission pulse proceed to happen.
The lower one is the new hotness fusion-based unit. It’s a laser-triggered pure fusion bomb. In this case, the beamcatcher lens focuses the considerably more powerful laser impulse onto a parabolic mirror and needed secondary mirrors (not shown), for the purpose of delivering the laser impulse to all sides of a fusible pellet at the same time, even as the mirrors themselves are busy vaporizing. Fusible pellet hits inertially-confined criticality, and fusion pulse proceeds to happen.
The important thing to note here is that as much of the complexity as possible has been offloaded from the pulse units to the drive, inasmuch as you might want to knock a quick thousand pulse units out in the field with a relatively crude shipboard machine shop, which is not something you would expect to be able to build the drive.
GERRAWAY-BY-CLASS ORBITAL SERVICE VEHICLE
Operated by: The canine orbital mechanics of regular orbital mechanics.
Type: Orbital transfer/service vehicle.
Construction: Horizon Cageworks, ICC
Length: 2.2 m
Beam: 1.7 m
Dry mass: 784 kg
Gravity-well capable: No.
Atmosphere capable: No.
Personnel: 1 smart dog (prosophont bandal partial uplift)
Drives:
Propellant: Liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen mix.
Cruising (sustainable) thrust: 0.25 g
Δv reserve: 1,350 m/s
Sensors:
Other Systems:
DESCRIPTION
The Gerraway-By-class of “micro” orbital service vehicle was a unique oddity brought to life by the circumstances of the early space era, and a chance meeting at the Look Out Below Café and Bar. Specifically, a wide-ranging discussion over several beers between some of the celestime architects from Horizon Cageworks, a number of gentlesophs working in various orbital industries, and a trainer of working bandal – and more specifically their “smart dog” variants who had undergone stage one uplift – who happened to be visiting the platform at the time. The topic was the increasing amount of grunt work – refueling satellites, performing basic maintenance, debris collection – that maintaining orbital industry required, and how inefficient it was to continue carrying this out by hand.
The result, a design outline found scribbled on a pile of napkins delivered to the Horizon offices the next morning, was the Gerraway-By.
In its essentials a shrunk-down version of the Minnal-class workpod – refactored so that one or two Gerraway-Bys could be carried by a Minnal, or several by an OTV – the Gerraway-By was intended as a means to bring our old friends with us into the space age. While AI was not quite ready for independent use performing the necessary tasks, it was more than capable of operating in conjunction with a well-trained working bandal, and their eldrae supervisor, to command a small service vehicle operating from a larger ship.
Combined with the work into uplift carried out by Family of Species and Cognitech’s beginning research into merkwelt translation easing interface difficulties, the timing was perfect for an entirely new kind of spacedog to take their place shepherding Eliéra’s increasingly crowded low orbitals, and a new era of partnership was born.
I can sit up and use a keyboard perfectly well without having my limbs twisted around into an imitation hominid, thank you most kindly. (You anthropocentric jackass.)
Rhif Oüärwaff,
second-iteration dar-bandal,
quoted in Morphology Is Not Cosmetology
To clarify the ongoing rumors:
It is NOT true that people who kick the floor-cleaning robots in ISA-administered starports tend to have their luggage accidentally rerouted to Geydagan Down, where it is pillaged by a bunch of black-hole cultists, torn apart, used to clean up after ritual sacrifices, and recycled as toilet paper. The floor-cleaning robots are professionals, after all.
It IS true that we let everyone think so, because those sophs who are bothered by the notion more or less deserve to be.
– ISA Planetary Relations, internal update 7216/3, “Overheard…” column
In today’s episode of Speak Eldraeic Like A Semi-Literate Barbarian, we cover descriptive metaphors. These are the least accurate and thus, inevitably, the most common type of modified word, a phrase that can take the place of an análar in any part of a sentence where one may be used, including both the anesprel and the rélar.
The descriptive metaphor (or the atratanálar, “typed-concept-word”, to give it its native name), is the least accurate type of modified word because it avoids the complexity of precisely defining the nature of the relationship with sub-clauses and cases by relying on metaphorical interpretation by the listener. For example, the name for a certain common weapon, tragalrás athánar, “Meat Machine”, or by its extended gloss, meat TYPE-OF machine, actually says very little about the relationship between meat and mechanism.
Is it a machine made out of meat? A meat-covered machine? A machine implant for meat? A machine for growing meat? A machine that serves the function of meat? Or a machine, as it in fact is, for reducing folks to meat?
There’s no way to tell. It depends on interpretation of the metaphor¹, so it is a form best avoided in scientific or technical discussions, unexplored areas of intercultural or interracial exchange, and other precisionist-grade speech. To use them is to assume the risk of being misunderstood in exchange for briefer expression.
That said, atratanálar are the closest equivalent to the adjective-noun² or adverb-verb combinations found in Anglic³, which also blend two concepts in a type-of relationship. It should be noted, however, that while it and other languages have rules concerning which words are allowed to modify and be modified, in Eldraeic, any análar may modify any other; you have complete freedom of metaphor generation, limited only by the comprehension of your listener.
Simple Atratanálar
So, some examples (using a few words that aren’t in articles we’ve reached yet, but not in the vital parts):
pí tramúlet lórravár
This-here is-a apple-type-of-tree.
This is an apple tree.
ádar Méris tradúëlin nissívár
The-person-named Méris is a young type-of female.
Méris is a young woman. or Méris is a girl.
val tralaras hainár
I words-type-of fight.
I argue. (Probably. Heh.)
This is the basic form of the atratanálar. The descriptive análar is placed before the described, and prefixed with tra- to indicate its descriptive function. Within the atratanálar, the first component is referred to as the carylan, the modifier-concept, and the latter as the cadarylan, the modified-concept. The cadarylan carries the primary meaning and the carylan modifies it with secondary overtones to be applied in a manner appropriate to the cadarylan. (For example, in the second example, tradúëlin should be interpreted as “young in the manner in which nissí, i.e., females, are young⁴”.
Complex Atratanálar
Sometimes we need more complex descriptions, either attaching more than one descriptive metaphor to the same cadarylan, or using a descriptive metaphor to describe the carylan of a second descriptive metaphor. To combine this with an example of ambiguity resolution, consider the following Anglic phrase⁵:
That’s a little girl’s school.
If treated as an example of the former, it would be interpreted as
That’s a little school for girls.
And if treated as an example of the latter.
That’s a school for little girls.
Many languages use intonation, stress, or rhythm to show the grouping. Eldraeic does not, by design. Rather, it structures such sayings in the form of a stack of stacks, thus:
pá tracalma tradúënissí alathyravár
That-there is-a small TYPE-OF [and] girls TYPE-OF school.
That’s a little school for girls.
pá tratracalma tradúënissí alathyravár
That-there is-a (small TYPE-OF girls) TYPE-OF school.
That’s a school for little girls.
In constructing these complex atratanálar, the prefix tra- binds the carylan to the next cadarylan to its right on the same level of the stack. In the first example, therefore, both calma and dúënissí modify alathyra. In the second example, the doubled prefix tratra- does so at the next level of the stack; i.e., it binds the carylan “calma” to the cadarylan “dúënissí”, and does so before, interpretatively speaking, the single tra- present there binds the now-complete carylan “tracalma dúënissí” to the cadarylan “alathyra“.
Which is to say, it is simply two nested atratanálar. Various combinations of nested atratanálar form the basis of all the more complex descriptions we will cover below.
It should be clear that this system can recurse through arbitrary depths of modifiers, with increasingly repetitive prefixes of tra-, tratra-, and tratratra- – although as is a common feature of Eldraeic grammar, the language permits syllabic numerals (discussed in a later article) to be used rather than repetition⁶ – and that any construct thus assembled is necessarily unambiguous.
Digression
It’s worth saying, of course, that the equivalents of “pretty little girl’s school” in Eldraeic don’t have quite as many variations as those in Anglic. For example, aelva strictly means “beautiful” and does not have the auxiliary “very” sense that “pretty” does. Likewise, calma means only “small in size” and cannot mean “young” (which would be dúëlin). And, of course, alathyra technically doesn’t mean school, inasmuch as the Empire doesn’t use such institutions – it means institute/academy/university.
So we’re still going to use this convenient phrase in our example, but do bear in mind that we’re discussing a Beautiful Academy of Short Young Women.
Complex Examples
There are five ways in which the análar of “pretty little girl’s school” can be grouped using tra- without reordering them:
traäelva tracalma tradúënissí alathyra
pretty TYPE-OF [and] small TYPE-OF [and] girls TYPE-OF school
a school which is beautiful, small, and for girls
traäelva tratracalma tradúënissí alathyra
pretty TYPE-OF [and] (small TYPE-OF girls) TYPE-OF school
a beautiful school for small girls
tratraäelva tracalma tradúënissí alathyra
(pretty TYPE-OF small) TYPE-OF [and] girls TYPE-OF school
a beautifully small school for girls
tratraäelva tratracalma tradúënissí alathyra
(pretty TYPE-OF [and] small TYPE-OF girls) TYPE-OF school
a school for girls who are beautiful and small
tratratraäelva tratracalma tradúënissí alathyra
((pretty TYPE-OF small) TYPE-OF girls) TYPE-OF school
a school for girls who are beautifully small
And that’s all she described!
See also later: inverted descriptive metaphors; logical connection in descriptive metaphors.
And yes, there’s a contemporaneous update of the vocabulary page, too.
Most blights are considered not only places not to go, but also places you cannot go, thanks to the englobement grids wrapping around them, having been correctly declared existential threat zones by the appropriate authorities.
The large ice moon of Torren, a gas giant in the Empta (Qulomna Maze) system which had the misfortune of playing host to the Torren Moon Incident, is an exception to this rule. Its englobement grid has a carefully maintained hole in it, monitored from an orbital habitat above.
Necrotheos Station, however, does not cater to the potential ghoul-tourism industry. Rather, the Torren Moon Blight is an example of what forensic eschatologists refer to casually as a friendly perversion and also as mostly dead; after the responsible perversion escaped its livelock laming, its bloom ended, as so many do, in a Falrann collapse which is believed to have wiped out the upper layers of its intelligence. In combination, these two factors ensure that, if you follow every guideline in the God-Botherer’s Safety Handbook with neurotic, obsessive-compulsive precision and run away promptly – while maintaining strict adherence to safety protocol – at any sign of undocumented behavior, you probably won’t have your brain eaten.
Naturally, this means that it was the perfect blight to preserve as a training venue for would-be forensic eschatologists. While primarily administered by the Imperial University of Almeä, the Empire’s Imperial State Security, the League’s Invisible Executive, the Photonic Network’s OOPSKILL, the Echelons’ Echelon of Hindsight, and even the Voniensan Republic’s Exception Management Group all make use of the facilities.
Public access is available to Necrotheos itself, primarily for visitors to the Memorial to Foresight Unheeded, constructed to honor the forensic eschatologist who provided warning to the wakeners a full eight minutes before the bloom. Public access to the moon below, on the other hand, is not permitted to anyone but those training there, and indeed flight guidelines state clearly that any starship traveling closer to the englobement grid aperture than the station itself will be destroyed without warning.
As one without any training in forensic eschatology nor desire to acquire it, I was not permitted to visit the moon in person. I was, however, permitted to view a small number of cleared slink recordings from previous visitors. From these I offer this brief summary:
The perversion was partway through the process of reformatting the moon into a computational megastructure at the time of its collapse: beneath its perforated surface lies a fractal maze of ice tunnels layered with ice-silicate opto-fluidic circuitry, occasionally broken by concentrations of metal identified as manufacturing centers and other facilities either newly made or repurposed from the original outpost equipment. Intense and variable radiation and magnetic field hazards abound near these facilities.
Robots of unknown design – and bioroid cyborgs of unknown design, repurposed from the material of the original project team and those involved in bloom response unlucky enough to be captured – continue to roam the maze, engaged in construction and repair activities without any apparent coordination (and occasional hostility) between groups. All are, however, uniformly hostile to any visitors.
The time trainees are permitted to spend on the surface, even in maximally protective suits/shells including Lorith cages (encoded transmissions are broadcast at random intervals within the tunnels) and anti-basilisk sense-filters, is strictly limited. Patterns in the opto-fluidic circuitry have been reported to have pseudohypnotic effects. The recovered mind-states (subsequently erased or archived in the Aeon Pit when not being actively researched) of those who overstayed these limits report memory gaps, impulses of unknown origin, and “whispers”.
Disturbingly, these whispers have occasionally been reported to include information from, or claims to be, one of the original outpost staff. However, there has never been any verifiable evidence of any intact or restorable mind-states within the blight zone; indeed, as researchers pointed out to me, it is entirely possible and indeed quite likely that the whispers themselves contained meta-information intended to produce the apparent familiar feeling of such information.
To close, I shall quote some of the warnings prominently displayed near the station’s docks and locks:
Do not joke about your mental state at any time while on the surface of the Torren Moon, during the return journey from it, or at any time before the expiry of your mandatory mental hygiene quarantine period. Under system safety edicts and professional conduct guidelines, any such behaviors may result in summary spacing without recourse, laser-grid incineration, and erasure of mind-state.
Beneath this, an unofficial addendum reads:
Frankly, it’s not all that great an idea to do so after you’ve been released from quarantine, either.
Those who have studied the prospectus of the Imperial University of Almeä may also have noted that their primary course in forensic eschatology lists a field visit to the Torren Moon facility as a final step before graduation – and that passing the class requires a perfect score on the first attempt. While surprising to some, this is generally accepted as the level of care required for any practice of the field.
It only reinforces this that the last warning to be seen before descent to the moon is the following:
Please note that participation in training events held on the Torren Moon WILL result in your current and any descendant mind-states being permanently listed as a potential contamination vector. Plan accordingly.
– Leyness’s Worlds: Hazards of the Core Worlds
If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant;
if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be thought remains unthought;
if what must be thought is not thought, then what must be done remains undone;
if this remains undone, apprehension of truth and beauty will deteriorate;
if apprehension goes astray, the people will act poorly in helpless confusion.Hence there must be neither arbitrariness or ambiguity in what is said.
Aurí Péng, philosopher of Ochale, quoted in the charter of the Conclave of Linguistics and Ontology
This matters above everything.
Author’s note: This is inspired/based on a quotation from K’ung-fu-tzu, on the Rectification of Names (see The Analects of Confucius, book 13, verse 3, for the original), modified in accordance with the then state of Imperial philosophy. I think it fits quite well.
From the Truth and Reason/So Or No?/Extranet Claims memeweave:
Claim:
The popular extranet site Caliéne Sargas Facts published the following fact:
In 7240, Admiral Caliéne Sargas of the Imperial Navy was awarded 1.8 billion quidpro in a defamation suit against the Ionazere Tribune. The Tribune had alleged in a 7239 Gradakhmath article that the Admiral had shown mercy during the reduction of asymmetrist bases in the belts of Refugium (Madel Cauldron).
Rating:
True.
Contemporary news articles from Ionazere (Cariane Deep) record the lawsuit and its outcome. Furthermore, even a brief examination of the remains left over from the Battle of Honne Gap, carried out from minimum safe distance, clarifies that the reduction was carried out with the Admiral’s customary efficiency, lethality, and attention to detail. Published tactical records, additionally, clearly show no evidence for survivors and no plausible mechanism for the possibility of survivors.
While Caliéne Sargas Facts is not known, in general, to be a reliable source of factual information, in the case of this particular claim they do appear to be accurate.
Ithával excellence tip:
“Pretentious” is the whip wielded by insipid souls against the ambitious. Treat it with appropriate contempt.
Kubé Salvarin legal tip:
He who guards a thing, guarants a thing.
Azuma Morotai family tip:
Devotion does not come from blood, but from the heart.
Olbria Amanyr courtesy tip:
Humility is a shameful admission in the low, and a nauseating affectation in the high. Eschew it.
Gilea Cheraelar lifestyle tip:
The best things in life are expensive. That’s what value means.
Olbria Amanyr pride tip:
Only the inferior must prove their superiority.
Arlannath ethics tip:
Ill means poison all good ends.
Vinaz Oricalcios health tip:
If someone doesn’t want to live forever, find out why they don’t want to live now.
Arlannath lifestyle tip:
You, and only you, are responsible for yourself.
Alwyn Muetry theology tip:
Seek not answers from the gods; ask them only for the right questions.
Arlannath philosophy tip:
Seeking the truth is a simple matter compared to accepting it, once found.
Olbria Amanyr ethics tip:
A gentleman’s promise is a gentleman’s debt.
Imperial surrender tip:
EMBRACE LIBERTY OR YOU WILL BE ERADICATED.
Kynthia Andracanth courtesy tip:
In his own hall, there is every man a sovereign.
Valentia Amanyr ethics tip:
None may perform by another an act which he may not perform himself.
Azuma Morotai social tip:
Fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers.
Lord Blackfall plotting tip:
Explain your victory only once it has been achieved.
Isif Alclair preparedness tip:
Train as if you’re in command. You never know when you might be.
Orimúr Falsazik engineering tip:
If a solution’s side-effects make things worse, it never was a solution.
Gilea Cheraelar economics tip:
One should weep to hear the poor rail against greed, for it is as if the starving blamed hunger for their plight.
Azuma Morotai courtesy tip:
When one wolf seeks to challenge a rival, they bow.
Vinaz Oricalcios health tip:
Wounds to the body heal faster than wounds to the spirit.
Gilea Cheraelar economics tip:
That which has no price has no value.
daráv xíjirár; jaqef vigínár
(“A sophont chooses; a servile complies.”)
– traditional wisdom
Elyse Phylarius conflict tip:
We best destroy our enemies when we make them our friends.
Alphas Amanyr ambition tip:
Do not quail, nor turn away, nor shun risk, nor hide behind the mask of cautious counsel, for fortune favors the bold.
Sung Iliastren rationality tip:
You are the slave of the thoughts that you refuse to think.
Overheard From Another Universe courtesy/survival tip:
Don’t go visiting other folks’ intentions. Don’t ever.
Niomé Sargas dating tip:
Mortal peril may make for a fun date, but always let your companion know in advance so they can dress accordingly.
(Shoes that are both fashionable and perilous take time to arrange.)
Irilenne Naratyr fashion tip:
A sharp appearance may cut deeper than the sharpest of swords.
Elyse Phylarius negotiation tip:
She who speaks with anger makes her anger heard, but her words forgotten.
Octíëve Súrnedal documentation tip:
Write it, or you’re going to the special hell.
Marú Liuvis temporal mechanics tip:
Time travel can’t solve any problem that it hasn’t already solved.
Galatia Allatrian conflict tip:
If a situation requires violence, it can only require violence of an appropriate severity.
If it does not, it befits you as a daryteir to remain courteous, kind, gentle, generous, honest, and clement until the killing begins.
Even afterwards, if you can manage it.
Gilea Cheraelar economics tip:
Cultures that develop elaborate philosophies about their lack of need for wealth are compensating for something.
Usually poverty.
Alphas Amanyr greatness tip:
Look upon my Works, ye Mighty, and surpass them!
Here as a partial apology for a slow COVID-caused month is a collection of random things of a snippet-like nature I have said over the past couple of months in places other than this blog. Enjoy them, such as they are!
On attempting a rapid “unsafe start” of a fusion torch drive:
The result of most attempts at an unsafe start is melting assorted things in the engine room and/or the containment vessel, and having to pay very large fines and the costs of having a HAZMAT team get your wreck into a safe condition to drag to the wreckyard. It’s sort of like putting a bunch of monkeys in charge of starting up one of our CVNs; they can very easily wreck a very expensive boat, but you’re not going to need to replace Norfolk any time soon.
So, for example, you accidentally screw up by bypassing the proper automatic sequencing and collapse the mag-bottle for the nozzle. The energy that was in the mag-bottle gets fed back into the containment power circuit. Alarms sound, breakers trip – the really big ones that use explosive charges to separate the closers – and a whole bunch of machinery in Drive Power One through Three, including the buffering accumulators, turns into molten slag as there’s a real intense local thunderstorm. The spikes that make it through the breakers, because you’re a civilian ship, cause some random electrical failures and trip the main bus off the line in self-protection.
You, sitting in the maneuvering room, get to watch your console light up and then black out as the corresponding machinery stops existing, the emergency fire procedures dump liquid nitrogen into, then vent, the Drive Power spaces, and the master alarm signal adopts a particularly dramatic tone. Then the lights go out, and you’re left sitting there in the bloody glow of catastrophe from your console and emergency bug-lights.
You have a few seconds to contemplate your poor life choices before the Flight Commander comes down there and introduces your brains to a BIG GODDAMN WRENCH.
“All I’m saying is that pansexuality is a very large claim to make in a universe with as many sophont species as this one.”
“We’re shipping forty million tons of individually-packaged spider-silk personal refreshment wipes twelve-hundred light years?”
“Do you want the detailed answer, or just a comment on the absurdity of the universe?”
“The details, please.”
“It’s hard to keep them wiping their asses with sand when they’re sitting on a fortune in spice.”
For reference, my notes on the Transcend’s position at any given time read as follows:
“[continuing to win its game of full-contact solitaire Calvinball with the universe]
insert ‘all according to keikaku’ meme here.”
When complaining about the “you must be smarter than this stick to ride the Empire” immigration rule:
“We have empirical evidence that those who do not pass these specific tests are dangerous to themselves and others in our environment.”
“Yeah? Show us this evidence!”
passes over data rod full of watchvid
“This… this is the last three seasons of Too Dumb To Live, Too Unlucky To Die!?”
“Empirical. Evidence.”
I’m sorry, but around here we only do consensualist agoric-annealing group-mind transghiblian art-deco ecotopic benevolently-hegemonic technothearchy with elvish characteristics.
“Where the fuck did all these dragons come from!?”
“As per chapter nine of the manual, dragons are a normal side-effect of a kami-based ecopoesis system.”
“She’s a bit of an alkahestic.”
“You mean an alcoholic?”
“Not unless alcoholics like dissolving things more than anyone ever should, no.”
“We do not negotiate with terrorists.”
“And yet you are here talking to us.”
“Did I mention that I am officially classified as an Ambassador of Mass Destruction?”
From an extranet compilation of Calíëne Sargas Facts:
“Calíëne Sargas does NOT possess the Eye of Balor, and as such is unable to vaporize enemy vessels simply by glaring at them. This ability has only been confirmed to affect officers ranked lower than Commander (O-6) or equivalent grade.”
Also, in defined terminology, once naval types produce something larger than a superdreadnought (bearing in mind that a hyperdreadnought is fundamentally based on a superdreadnought hull profile), they are formally typed as BM (“warmoon”) and BP (“dirigible battle planet”).
(The latter is currently a hypothetical category. Should it stop being, or a stage be skipped – well, no-one actually knows what the next type up would be, but it probably won’t be “Death Star”.
And for those curious as to Imperial titles of nobility – more specifically, runér titles – the planetary ones are rather too long a list to get into for the moment, insofar as they’re a tangled mass drawn from a large number of cultures maintaining their own systems welded into a single Table of Ranks.
On the other hand, the interstellar titles are nice and simple, being a creation postdating the Consolidation and thus a simple hierarchy. So, from the bottom up, we have:
Other interstellar runér titles include Marchwarden, a title used for the holder of the mandate for a remote ecumenical colony or Imperial Exclave, not yet suited for full constituent status, but which for whatever reason requires a full runér rather than a Ministry of Colonization-assigned rector; and Castellan, assigned to the attached civilian governance of a military or scientific outpost beyond the borders of the Empire.
Far different from Loral Torateir is the second acclaimed as peerless among warriors. Born in a small village in the north of Fúmókorá, the northernmost of the six primary islands of Kanatai, Kadí:ú of House Shótará – or, to give his name in the traditional manner of Kanatai, Shótará Kadí:ú – was a lordling of the House, which at the time of his childhood was a allied family to House Amilá, whose genarch in turn was one of the warlords contending to rule all Kanatai, having already established rule over the northern two-thirds of the island.
In his youth, Shótará Kadí:ú was educated as a gentleman of Kanatai and as befitted an aspirant heir to the Shótará. However, it is recorded that he proved a trial to his father and genarch both with his determination to master the arts of the blade over and above any other skill, and spent much time avoiding his other studies in favor of spending time in training with the ashigaru and shikari of the House, and in sparring with any visiting swordsmen who might have anything to teach him. It was at this time that men first began calling him Kadí:ú the Duelist.
The path of his life was set, however, at a contest held to honor the visit of the House’s Amilá allies. It is recorded in the annals of the House that Kadí:ú returned early and unexpectedly from transacting family business in Kyo Shimana to find the contest beginning, and so competed wearing the dusty ashigaru armor he had worn for the road. It was after defeating all challengers before their eyes and all the worlds’ that the Shótará acknowledged Kadí:ú’s true calling, and that his genarch presented him with the weapon – already an heirloom of House Shótará, although little before recorded – that was to define much of his later career, the Sword That Cuts All Without Distinction.
In the hands of a lesser man, the Sword might have – and did – defined its wielder by the slaughter they could so easily inflict. In those of Shótará Kadí:ú, however, the Sword served a different purpose. While he bore the naked blade of the Sword¹ with him all his days, he made use of it on only a few occasions throughout his life.
For Kadí:ú was a man dedicated to the art of the blade, rather than the thrill of battle. As such, he declined to use the Sword in duel or war, believing that its use made for no true challenge of skill, and while honor-bound to use no lesser blade, he rose to this challenge by becoming the greatest single-blade combatant in the history of Kanatai.
In this way he fought with the smaller blade alone even as his name grew, from Kadí:ú the Duelist to Kadí:ú of the One-Hundred and Forty-Four Duels², and as he was named a general in the service of the Amilá warlord, and as that warlord’s realm spread by his efforts across Fúmókorá, and across Airíshú, and the isles around. Such was his reputation that many of his later battles were resolved by challenges, rather than meleé, and such were his honor and his gentlemanly ways that many of those who surrendered to him in his master’s name found themselves becoming his strongest supporters, and attaching themselves to his legend.
Said legend, alas, was cut short when Kadí:ú crossed paths with a legend to be, Morotai Marála, later acknowledged as the greatest master of the two-sword style. A friendly spar between the two ended in tragedy when a dyanail practice blade shattered during their bout and a long shard struck Kadí:ú in the eye, to fatal effect.
It is a matter of record that after Kadí:ú’s death and without the weight of his name, the Amilá proto-empire collapsed. However, while it took centuries, the line of Shótará Kadí:ú rose in prominence to become the first of those to stand second to the apex in the newly-unified Kanatai Imperial Shogunate.
– Legends of the Time-Before
1. The Sword That Cuts All Without Distinction was, naturally, unamenable to being sheathed. When not being worn or hung from its unique stand, wielders of the Sword would often simply drive the blade into a convenient boulder or even the ground, into which it would promptly sink up to its guard. Despite this, it could be drawn forth as easily as if it merely rested within water.
2. This epithet reflects only the lethal duels of his career; counting the others, Kadí:ú fought several thousand over the course of his life.
The latest of the unique experiences to make a splash on the Summerion culinary scene is Mortal Delights (135° Cordané Circle). Owned and operated by a mysterious chef going only by the attributive name, “Shikairá”, Mortal Delights offers the unique opportunity to experience lethal cuisine.
This need not be a terminal experience. Shikairá has taken advantage of the disposable demishell technology pioneered by Synthetic Extras, ICC of Mirrortown to render dying for one’s dinner both safe and economical.
The process begins when you make a reservation, and submit with it a copy of your bio-profile. (This isn’t strictly necessary, but most diners prefer not to have the experience inside a generic blank, especially when dining in company. Mortal Delights then grows one of their custom demishells – designed for enhanced perception of taste, smell, and texture, along with resilience, and a minimally traumatic death experience – to match your profile.
The experience, contrariwise, begins with your arrival at the restaurant. If you arrive by physical travel, temporary storage of your usual body – and equivalent nutrition – is provided courtesy of their on-site body hotel. Alternatively, you can mindcast directly to the restaurant. In either case, you’ll reinstantiate into the demishell and be ushered to your table.
Dining itself always begins with a tasting platter, a collection of samplers of various foods from across the taste spectrum, to allow you to first acclimatize to the demishell’s enhanced senses, and then to cleanse your palate before moving on to the main event.
And what an event it is! While some standbys are always available, Mortal Delights has fortnightly specialty experiences covering many of the Empire’s most dangerous cuisines: live cheese from Tortelys, the entémaerth of Kanatai prepared without the removal of the poison glands, a plethora of fungal dishes, stone-wine tastings, “hot” nuclear gastronomy, reflexively-digestive cultures, and a variety of exocuisines ordinarily considered indigestible. Pick your poison, as they say.
After dinner, you may yourself – should you survive for the moment – transfer your mind-state back to your usual body; if not, this will be taken care of by the staff. Either way, you’ll return home remembering the experience – no pun intended – of a lifetime!
– from Delphys, Planet of Myriad Delights,
(pub. Delphys Resplendent Awareness Circle)
(In the course of reading through this, the attentive reader and language hobbyist may note that Eldraeic bears more than a few similarities to Loglan and/or lojban. This similarity is, of course, purely intentional.)
To examine the grammar of a language, one must start by breaking it down into its most basic elements. In Eldraeic, being a language of logical form, the basic compound element is the predication, or esprel, an assertion of something about the world:
sá fidúrár
It is blue.
A predication (esprel) is made up of several components. At its center, you find the anesprel, or predicate, the assertion being made. An anesprel is one of the análar, or concept-words (derived from anála, concept, and laras, word) which make up the majority of the Eldraeic vocabulary, which has been adorned with -ár, the predication suffix, which marks it as the anesprel. (The predication suffix may be lengthened to -vár when the análar ends with a vowel.)
análar, thus, effectively serve as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and many adverbs, all of which are types of assertion.
The esprel also requires arguments (rélar) to fully define the assertion being made by filling in the complete form (see below) of the anesprel. These can appear anywhere around the anesprel, although conventional, non-poetic form places the subject/actor before the anesprel and the remainder of the arguments after it. The precise function of a given argument relative to the predicate is given by a case tag which is prefixed to the argument, although that for the subject/actor is normally omitted when placed alone before the anesprel. Others are mandatory.
While a full list of case tags will be given at a later date, that for subject/actor is a-; that for object/acted-upon is an-. These two are the most commonly used. More details on forming arguments will also be given at a later date. For now we are using mirílar (lit. structure-word, derived from miríë, order, and laras), words with special grammatical functions, specifically some of those which can occupy the role of a pronoun. Strictly called free variables, the special words sá, sé, sí, só, and sú can be bound to any argument, regardless of any other properties it may have, and used later to refer back to that argument.
Thus, we can see that in the phrase
sá fidúrár an-sé
the first rélar, the subject, is sá (A), the anesprel is fidúr (…is bluer than…), and the second rélar, the object, is sé (B). Or, to write it in plain English simply, A is bluer than B.
Comparative? No, Complete Forms
It should be noted that fidúr, when used as an anesprel, means not simply “blue” but “SUBJECT is bluer than OBJECT” (or to give its full complete form “SUBJECT is bluer than OBJECT by STANDARD”). This is the case for most análar which refer to properties; likewise, relational análar, such as aldren (sister), can have a similar complete form, “SUBJECT is the sister of OBJECT [by bond/tie STANDARD | from parents CREATOR <set> ]”.
Every análar has (and is listed thus in an Eldraeic dictionary) a complete form expressing its full meaning when used as an anesprel, defining the entire meaning of the resulting esprel by showing the places in which its expected arguments sit (and the case tags to be attached to them). This complete form is not binding with regard to which arguments you must supply – you may omit arguments and add additional ones via case tags which are not found in the complete form – but it is assumed that the arguments from the complete form are present, even if unspoken. Thus, all blue objects are bluer than something, all sisters have sororal bonds and/or parents, and when you make something:
mahav (make) has the complete form “SUBJECT makes / assembles / builds / manufactures / creates OBJECT out of materials / parts / components COMPONENT using tool INSTRUMENT”
It is implied that you make it out of something and use a tool to do so.
The Omitted Argument
What then does sá fidúrár, which we earlier translated as “it is blue” mean? Well, technically this is an allowed elision of a slightly longer form:
sá fidúrár an-uis
uis is an indefinite argument (of which more later), which serves as a verbal ellipsis, a placeholder for when an argument is omitted; such incomplete esprel always imply uis. Naturally, it can be elided – in normal speech, you never actually need to say uis – but it can be useful if you wish to draw attention to the argument you are omitting.
As an omitted argument, uis means “something which exists but which I am not bothering to define, except as implied by the esprel I am within”. In the case of sá fidúrár an-uis (or simply sá fidúrár), you are simply saying that the subject is bluer than “something”, which is to say, that the subject is blue.
Observatives
Two special types of esprel are the observative and the imperative. Of the imperative we shall speak later.
An observative, meanwhile, is simply an esprel in which the subject/actor is omitted. These are referred to as observatives because their common usage is to observe that something is happening without details and to communicate that quickly; for example, should one find oneself in a crowded theater, one may cry:
andravár!
Fire!
without wishing to take time to establish precisely what is burning.