IronStar
Page 58
shu’ - prefix: child of (father). Suffix: ‘-my father’
shuah - greeting; farewell; deceased
shuahsha - dying gift; ashes
shui’ - prefix: belonging to (royalty)
shui’Talam - official, royal
snath - large scavenger bird
‘ta - suffix: future tense
Takka - unit of time: 1 hour 21 minutes 39 seconds (1/20th of a local day)
Tasgath - bottom-feeding river fish, inedible
Tcha - chief, mayor
Tchae - King
to’k - hand
toka - life
tsala - enter; hello
tso’ckhai - "grass weasel" plains predator
vai’atho - city block building
vekka - enemy
wathra’ch - assign; decide; judge; weigh; test
yag’la - tree species, springy wood, used for bows
-z - suffix: plural
Pronouns
na- I
ma- we
da- you
daz- you (pl.)
paez- they (m+f)
paaz- they (no gender)
pao- she (f)
paoz- they (all f.)
pau- he (m)
pauz- they (all m.)
navo- my (f)
navu- my (m)
davo- your (f)
davu- your (m)
paov- hers
pauv- his
mave- ours, a group having mixed or unknown gender
-ve - suffix: possessive (gender definite but unknown)
-vi - suffix: possessive (genderless)
-vo - suffix: possessive (belongs to female)
-vu - suffix: possessive (belongs to male)
-we - suffix: associative (gender definite but unknown)
-wi - suffix: associative (genderless)
-wo - suffix: associative (belongs to female)
-wu - suffix: associative (belongs to male)
Numerals
Dok - one
Dat - two
Fira - three
Data - four
Dak - five
Fika - six
Nash - seven
Doi - eight
Faz - nine
Dakka - ten
Bell Codes (Two or three chimes: low and high tones rung by watchtowers or ships)
low low - all's well
low low high - enemy in sight
high high low - enemy approaching
high low high - under attack
low high low - call for cavalry (call for assistance if ship)
high low low - party of interest approaching
low high high - all clear
Appendix 6: FTL Physics
I offer these few thoughts, excuses and rationalizations for the Civilium’s FTL (faster-than-light) technology, which is based on manipulation of the (plausible but not-yet-discovered) Higgs particle. I find FTL indispensable in the plot of a space opera, but in accordance with the goal of minimal assumptions, I have attempted to avoid doing further violence to the physics of The World As We Know it. Thus the Civilium does not have FTL communications or sensors. I assure you this is as great an inconvenience for the author as for the various navies which must somehow contend with the fact that their targets can run faster than they can be seen, and that while running, they themselves cannot see. I have attempted to deal with the tactical and strategic consequences of run-or-see in a logical, and hopefully satisfactory manner.
When Higgs particles were discovered (in Kirrah’s universe), they turned out to come in two versions, later dubbed yin and yang. These are virtual particles having the same properties except for opposite spin gravitational moments, somewhat analogous to electrons and positrons. They are in fact commonly and continually produced in the so-called ‘quantum foam’, but always in equal and opposite numbers, and always too fleeting to detect.
Early attempts to produce Higgs particles artificially, appeared to be unsuccessful because they are (almost) always produced in yin/yang pairs, absorbing no energy and with no other discernable consequences. It was only by accident (but that’s another story) that the means was found to produce just one type of Higgs. The result was the production of pseudo-mass, or as a General Relativity physicist would say, the artificial curvature of spacetime.
The useful thing about artificial or pseudo-mass, is that it doesn’t have any inertia. Thus a vessel which generates such a phenomenon can in effect hold the pseudo-mass in front of itself rather like a carrot on a stick, and fall, forever faster, towards the ‘mass’. This of course requires energy, but the energy is not required from the Higgs generators. Quite a lot of energy is required to run them, but that’s true whether they’re accelerating or idling, and not a problem for a civilization with compact fusion generators.
Instead, the kinetic energy comes, in effect, from the vacuum itself. The pseudomass is maintained by an excess of yin or yang Higgs particles, which annihilate their opposites in the quantum foam, and it is in fact the resulting imbalance in the foam, which powers the process. Unfortunately for those who would like to follow the ‘trail’, any imbalance due to the passage of such a vessel is promptly erased by the effects of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.
The dangerous thing about pseudo-mass, is that there’s no reasonable limit to how much can be created in a small volume around a vessel. Since pseudo-mass produces gravity indistinguishable from that produced by real matter, early experiments tended to tear the (unmanned) vessel apart with tidal forces. This was resolved partly by more precise control of the Higgs generator, and hence of the precise shape of the pseudo-mass and the resulting spacetime curvature.
It was also alleviated by the production of a pair of curved fields, one nested within the other. The resulting field diagrams look like a double-walled tube, if you stand back and squint just right, hence the name Tubedrive was coined. The combined effect was to give a reasonably flat, stable gravity inside the Tube, while allowing quite monstrous field gradients outside. The practical limits on a vessel’s speed became the engineering limits on keeping the inside space free of destructive gravity gradients, which becomes more difficult as vessels grow larger, and to a lesser extent, heavier.
Another inconvenient consequence of creating pseudo-mass at sufficient density to drive a vessel, is that any material substance nearby would be drawn into the Tube as though into a black hole, with all the resulting tidal heating, radiation, accretion disc and other untidiness which would quickly vaporize anything material in the vicinity, including the imprudent vessel. Thus no atmosphere landings by Tubedrive.
Once Higgs generation was possible, it took theoretical physics some time to catch up with advances in drive engineering. One breakthrough came with the realization that the drive did not, in fact, violate conservation of momentum laws, but simply exchanged momentum with a volume of space that theory claimed was rather larger than the observable universe. The fact that such an explanation was proposed, then accepted by mainstream physics, gives some insight into the desperate state of theoretical physics at the time. The circumstance under which it was later experimentally demonstrated, is one of the ingredients to another story ("Upfall").
The net effect of all this is that a Regnum Tubeship could initiate its ring of Higgs generators, build its own custom black hole, and fall below the event horizon. While inside it could continue to accelerate, turn or stop, dragging the massless black hole along with it like a fly in a bubble. The only energy required to perform this feat was the few megawatts to maintain the Higgs field, and to dump surplus heat into radiators.
Appendix 7: Author’s comments
Technology
In writing this story, I have followed several strategic goals. One is that I would ask my reader to believe as little new technology as possible, consistent with the needs of the storyline, and two, that the technology would be integrated in a plausible and thoroughly consistent way with the laws of physics as best we know them today. Thus we have FTL trave
l but not FTL communications, and laser-guided particle beam weapons but with strict limits on their firing, imposed by energy storage capacity. The c-fractional bombardment scenario is as real as careful application of the equations of Special Relativity can make it, and here and elsewhere, I have done my best to make sure the math works and the physics is realistic. If you’ve ever winced to see a space ‘fighter’ bank and zoom in a vacuum like a WW2 fighter plane in atmosphere, you will understand why I feel strongly about this. Science Fiction should not contribute to the popular dumbing-down of science.
The “universal translator” is another area where I have attempted a higher standard of realism. Kirrah’s computer, and Civilium computers in general, are not mind-readers and require some minimum amount of data to assist with translation. In other words, she has to learn the old fashioned way. Her computer is quite clever, and capable of correlating sounds with images of lips, body language and context to present her with its best guess of meaning. And of course, many of the idiomatic and cultural contexts can only come with experience. But it still takes work.
A word about Runes:
In the course of recording this story, the author made use of the Millennium Runes™, a 53-symbol set following the principles of the ancient Futhark (Norse) runes, but re-imaged for life at the beginning of the 3rd millennium.
I gave these runes to the Talamae culture, but unlike most Terrans, they don’t use runes as a way of fortune-telling or demanding psychic answers to difficult questions. It was understood that the tablets and symbols function to jog the mind free of its old habits, to open new ways of looking at issues, and thus to release the wisdom already present in the supplicant. In other words, the runes functioned to draw forth the wisdom of the person using them, rather than the other way around. In fact the Talamae word for rune-drawing, ito’lae’mara, literally means ‘wisdom drawn forth’, that is, drawn forth from the user.
If you asked a Talamae whether the runes themselves were sacred or wise, they would have looked at you in astonishment and said, ‘Of course not, they’re just pieces of stone or wood with markings on them.’ Then they would go right on using them in ways that might seem most remarkable, to Terran-trained minds.
When rune-drawings are mentioned in this story, the runes recorded herein were the runes actually drawn by the author for that place in the story, using the first symbols drawn. No attempt was made to ‘adjust’ the symbols or fit them better into the story. They are recorded exactly as drawn, blind, the first time in each instance.
If you are interested in learning more about the Millennium Runes™, contact the author. They became available on Terra in the first few hours of the 3rd millennium A.D. The fact that the number of chapters in the story is equal to the number of runes in the set, was noted only at the end of the story and is, as far as the author knows, another complete ‘coincidence’.
Regarding ath’lae’mara:
The Talamae priests in this story practice a healing technique called ath’lae’mara, or ‘light-drawn-forth’. Like the runes, this element of the story is real. Each instance of ath’lae’mara in this story is based on events witnessed by the author, either in his own practice of one of the so-called ‘energy-based’ healing techniques in use today, or while observing another practitioner at work. On Western-culture Terra in the early 21st century, this technique goes by several names, including Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch, Attunement, and Pranic Healing. One presumes a culture in which this was studied and used for millennia, would have skills beyond our own.
Huntsville, Ontario
October 2013
Appendix 8: Maps