3 posts tagged “intro”
So, where was I? Oh, yes, poor Mr. Chalmers. He has an interesting article I've never ever managed to get anyone to read. Abandon all hope ye who follow this link "Consciousness and its Place in Nature". It's about... consciousness and its place in nature. Because no one will EVER read it (I've managed to destroy quite a few threads simply by bringing it up) I'll summarize in one sentence: Chalmers divides the possible relations of consciousness and physics into 6 very neat categories. We know from experience that neat categories do not really work most of the time, but this article is ideal for concultures stuff: pick one of the six, proclaim it to be real in your fantasy universe, and presto, the Very Advanced Civilizations you will be writing about will have solved the Hard Problem of Consciousness. :P
Anyway, my choice is "type F". Let's quote Da Man:
Type-F monism is the view that consciousness is constituted by the intrinsic properties of fundamental physical entities: that is, by the categorical bases of fundamental physical dispositions. On this view, phenomenal or protophenomenal properties are located at the fundamental level of physical reality, and in a certain sense, underlie physical reality itself.
(and from then on, let's elegantly slide into the realm of science fiction... one of my nightmares is that one of my colleagues finds this blog and decides I am posting about Real Aliens and I'm some kind of wacko. I am not! I'm just a science fiction writer in my spare time. It sometimes generates real money, even.)
These poor protophenomenal properties (ouch) are called māwal by the Ereni. The māwal relates most closely to statistical physics, but the exact details should be shrouded in mystery (as I am not a physicist - I can't be everything at the same time!). One more thing it does besides creating consciousness is governing the ways consciousness interacts with other elements of the physical world. Let's just assume for the purposes of Shiny Fantasy World that psi is real. (Which could, you know, actually be so.) I am going to abuse parapsychology literature in a similar manner I abused Mr. Chalmers above, and lift the claim of Spottiswoode et al. that solar activity is related to psi. Go here for the technical articles
In the universe of Eren, each sun has a māwal rating that tells approximately how inhibitory the effect of the sun is on māwal. Both ends of the scale are rather inconducive for civilized species to arise.
0 - disruptive to consciousness. People don't even go there.
1-2 - consciousness is possible, but what humans would call psi is not, or just barely
3-4 - average psi
5-6 - lots of psi
6+ - w00t fireballs!!
(Yes, I know that Spottiswoode et al. claim geomagnetic activity plays into this, too. That is also assumed to hold true here, so ratings will be provided in the next section for planets, not entire systems.)
Earth is a 2, Emek is a 4 and Eren is a 6+. And yes, this is why our poor miners fled - the ghosts and similar scary stuff they saw was produced by the direct action of their consciousness on the physical world. Your nightmares are suddenly real, and a small underground facility is claustrophobic already... meep! :P Note: 320 years ago, when the Emeki abandoned the moon, they had no clue about this.
(And yes, this is why the forefathers of the Emeki settled in this system, but it isn't why their settlement was abandoned.)
Imagine a normal distribution... er... bell curve. Smack me in the head when I speak too technical. Most planets are in the average range.
Māwal sensitivity varies from individual to individual, usually greatly. This often creates divisions in society: eg. in the Emek of 320 years ago, talented māwal-users were Servants of the Empire, effectively enslaved, and "employed" by the Imperial Court... and as such, not a single one of them set foot on a remote mining colony, or directed anything more than a stray thought there... the court was busy using them to spy on each other. (Talk about decadence. :P )
In the Emeki Civil War that soon ensued, māwal-users teamed up with another group and turned against the Court, but that's a story for tomorrow, IY"H. (And maybe I'll get more technical about the māwal.)
Here is a little guide to phonemes in Eren sā - I'm posting it early on because I would prefer everyone to pronounce everything the way it is intended to be! I know there are other topics that would interest everyone else more, but I'm kind of obsessed with such details... and if I were to post this later on, people would already have their own guesses on how to pronounce the names, words, etc. by the time they read this, and unlearning associations is always harder. (Or not.)
The first one is the common Latin transcription, the second is IPA. There are many interactive IPA charts, but all seem to be using some arcane method of webtrickery, so I don't know which to link that is compatible with all browsers. You will have to look around with Google a bit. I linked Wikipedia, because while it doesn't have sound samples, it does list examples from many languages, so it might serve to clarify matters a bit...
It's rather straightforward and easily pronouncible (I think)... English speakers might have problems with the trilled r and the uvular fricative, but the rest is quite simple.
Consonants:
b - b
d - d
f - ɸ
g - g
k - k
l - l
m - m
n - n
p - p
r - r
s - s
(sh - ʃ)
t - t
w - β
x - χ
y - j
z - z
Vowels:
a - ɑ-a
ā - aː
e - ɛ
ē - ɛː
i - i
ī - iː (slightly higher)
o - o
ō - oː (slightly higher)
u - u
ū - uː
And a little bit of phonotactics... possible syllable types are V, V:, CV, CV:, and CVN#. For some obscure reason, "l" is also classified as a nasal in this respect.
(For the non-phonologists: V - vowel, C - consonant, : - long something, N - nasal, # - word boundary)
So basically you can only have closed syllables at the end of the word, and even then they have to end with n, m or l.
I think CV:N# is forbidden, I don't think I ever ruled it out but I
can't seem to dredge up a single word that has such a string. Which
makes sense, but whatever. Next time: shiny pictures! Or not.
A little bit on the setting (more tomorrow, IY"H):
A few years from now, a jump point to another solar system is accidentally discovered, and humans find themselves face to face with a plethora of advanced spacefaring civilizations. The jump point leads to a system with one inhabited planet, a small moon called Eren by its inhabitants. As per the intergalactic protocol on first contact situations (who said aliens didn't have red tape?), humans have to negotiate their way into the Alliance, the interstellar diplomatic organization, with an Ereni delegation. However, things soon begin to go horribly wrong...
The Ereni look surprisingly humanoid, but they have a completely different mindset - one that the human delegation keeps on perceiving as hostile and cruel. After a particularly nasty diplomatic incident, where the Ereni are accused of kidnapping a young human, all hell breaks loose, and the UN - yes, the UN - declares war on the Ereni. Which obviously doesn't last too long...
This forms the core of the novel. The game is set a few years after that, as relations are beginning to settle down.
