“Is your trick messing up the cameras?” Rei asked.
“No, the cameras are untouched,” MINIMCOM said. The hybrid computer/spaceship winked back into view. He was exactly where he was before. Then he disappeared again. Then he popped back into view again. Then he was gone, this time for good.
“What the he..,” Rei stopped speaking. He glanced over at Rome. “What the heck?!” Rei asked. “What are you doing?”
“It is magic,” MINIMCOM said with cybernetic delight.
“MINIMCOM, do not fool around,” Rome said sternly. “What are you doing?”
“I took a page out of the book inscribed by the Deucadons,” the former space tug replied. “I simply project a sphere, a froth, might be a good word, of PPT tunnels around me. Light and radiation pass through the tunnels from one side to the other.. No light reflects so you cannot see me. The tunnels are very short range and I can choose what frequencies pass through them. Unless you knew I was here, you would not know I was here.”
“Hmm,” Rei uttered a single syllable. After he considered it for a bit, he spoke again. “So it’s like you’re invisible? Sleek!” he said admiringly. He looked down at his instruments. “But I can still see you on the MIDAR screen,” Rei said. “So your cloak isn’t perfect.”
As soon as Rei said it, the image on MIDAR screen went blank. Rei glanced over at Rome. She switched the MIDAR off and on again. The instrument was working. There was simply nothing there.
“As I said, I can control what frequencies travel through the tunnels, including those use by MIDAR.”
“Buddy, I gotta hand it to you,” Rei said, laughing. You really are a magician.”
“Yes,” MINIMCOM replied sounding very self-satisfied. “I believe this capability may come in handy when we get to Earth.”
MINIMCOM was right, of course. This ability came in handy many times over. However, in the upcoming novel The Milk Run, you will see an instance where this shield can be disrupted or even destroyed leaving a starship (in this case Junior) naked and visible.
Entry 3-022: January 17, 2015
What is a lutteur?
The word lutteur is Vuduri for wrangler. The term is mentioned several times in Rome's Revolution when Rome was describing her previous occupation.
So what does the term lutteur really mean? In English, the word wrangler usually applies to jeans or Jeeps but as a profession, it typically means a horse wrangler, a herder/tamer etc. In Rome's case, she is not physically wrangling anything.
Here is the conversation she had with Rei attempting to explain her occupation:
“I am a computer lutteur and data archivist,” she replied.
“I think I understand what an archivist is,” Rei said. “Do you do a lot of archiving?”
“Yes. There is much data to be stored. Or there was. There are only two of us, myself and Estar.” Rome pointed to the woman sitting at the far table. “We were responsible for making sure that all the research performed here was captured and returned home.
“OK, I get that. But your other job, what did you call it?”
“A lutteur?” Rome offered.
“Yes. So what’s a lutteur?” Rei asked.
“It is a, eh, wrangler, perhaps?” Rome replied. “Yes, I am a wrangler. For OMCOM.”
“What does that mean? Do you wrestle OMCOM or something?”
Rome looked at him and pushed her lower lip out. “No, nothing like that. Lutteurs are in charge of enabling the memron fabrication facility. We did not ship OMCOM here. Instead, we grew him after we arrived. That is somewhat involved. There is a specific sequence of distribution and activation. Plus once he is activated, we must always make sure that he does not access the memron fabrication equipment himself.”
“Why is that?”
“Because OMCOM,” Rome said, pointing her finger toward the grille mounted in the wall, “cannot be entrusted with that himself.”
“How come?” Rei asked her, confused, again.
“OMCOM’s kind, the computers, they constantly crave more processing power. They are always contemplating deep issues and believe that more computing power would allow them to solve more problems faster. Also, they are forbidden from accessing or creating Casimir pumps for any reason.” Rome put her palms on the table and leaned forward. “That is the most important part. We must continually check to make sure that no Casimir pumps are ever built or enabled.”
So really, a lutteur is part engineer, part mother, part cop and part maintenance worker. You think OMCOM needs a mother and a cop? You'd better believe it. Wait till you see what he does in the upcoming novel The Milk Run. He really, really needed it.
The painting shown below was done by Barry Nehr and is available for purchase. You can click on the picture to go to Barry's site.
Entry 3-023: January 18, 2015
Are we somebody's simulation?
The basic premise of the upcoming novel The Milk Run is that our universe is just one tiny particle within an infinite set of larger and larger universes. Recently, I came across a description of The EAGLE Project. EAGLE stands for Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments.
Basically, these scientists over in England are simulating the entire universe using super-computers. Even with all the computing power available to them, the smallest "particle" they can resolve has a mass roughly a million times that of our Sun. So it isn't really simulating our universe down to the atomic level. But it raises an interesting question which is very Matrix-like. If we can simulate a large scale version of our universe, what if there are aliens out there with infinitely more powerful computers and they are merely simulating our universe. How would we know?
Oddly, there are people out there who are considering just such questions. A scientist named Nick Bostrom has studied this question and come up with what he calls the Simulation Argument.
This is kind of a scary article. There are basically two tests you can run and given the proper results, you can definitively disprove we are a simulation. A positive result does not prove we are a simulation but doesn't rule it out. A paper by Silas Beane from the University of Bonn showed that one of the tests, the upper limit to the amount of energy in cosmic rays test, is consistent with our universe being a simulation! The second test, which has to do with granularity and directionality, has yet to be performed.
So what happens if some day, that second test is performed and it, too, does not rule out that we are nothing but a simulation? Does that mean we are? No. But it doesn't mean we aren't, either. And if we are a simulation, one thing is for sure, if somebody ever pulled the plug on us, we'd never know. We'd simply wink out of existence. Maybe they shut us down for millions of years at a time, mid-sentence and then start us up again. How would we know?
Very, very creepy. Let's just hope they don't pull the plug any time soon.
Entry 3-024: January 19, 2015
Tales of the Vuduri: Year Two
It took a while but I have finally finished compiling Year Two of the Tales of the Vuduri series. Like Year One, if you've missed any of these posts over the past year, it'll be an easy way to catch up. I have published it on Amazon. You can find it if you click here. This is what the splash page looks like:
I'm trying a slightly different distribution strategy this year. Amazon will not let you sell a book for free. So I joined the KDP Select program and ran a 5-day free sale. So far, so good.
As far as the paperback, it is completely done and I am simply awaiting a proof copy. Once that is approved, it will go on sale, probably within the next two weeks. Tales of the Vuduri: Year One was 120,000 words. Year Two comes in at a hefty 140,000 words! I guess I am getting more blabby.
Anyway, if you have some time, check it out. Lots of good stuff there.
Entry 3-025: January 20, 2015
Dialects and Accents
Everybody knows when someone speaks English with a French
or British or Australian accent. And everyone is familiar with the dialects known as the Southern Drawl and the Midwest Twang. Certainly nobody can miss the dialect spoken in Brooklyn New Yawk.
The very first post I ever wrote in this blog was about how, in 14 centuries, there was no way that English would survive in any understandable form. In fact, I postulated that the language would be based upon Portuguese, not English and it would be called Vuduri after the people who speak it.
But what of the Deucadons who originally spoke English just like us and have only been on Deucado for 500 years? What would their dialect sound like after 500 years of drift? I took my hint from William Shakespeare. He wrote Hamlet in 1599 which is a little over 400 years ago. Here is a brief snippet:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death.
Does that sound like regular English spoken on the street? No. It's barely understandable. And it was only written 400 years ago.
There are two elements at play here. First, there are new (or old) words and second there are modern words that are pronounced differently. The issue regarding a dialect is how thick to make it? I think it gets tiresome reading too much dialect. Especially if it makes what the characters are saying obscure. This was the problem presented to me when I introduced the Deucadons in the middle of Part 2 of Rome's Revolution.
So I decided to just give the Deucadons a minimal dialect. I call it a mix of Brooklyn and Britain. They don't pronounce the g's at the end of words. Like the phrase fooling around. They would pronounce it foolin' around. They also use the word ya instead of you. I tweaked a few other words and gave them a few words that we wouldn't recognize in modern English. But overall, I think what they say is understandable and just distinctive enough to make them seem different.
Tomorrow, I'll give you a simple example.
Entry 3-026: January 21, 2015
The Deucadon Dialect - Part 1
Yesterday, I gave you the rationale behind constructing the Deucadon dialect. I had to make it foreign enough to be convincing as a true dialect but not too annoying that you wouldn't want to read it.
To review, the Deucadons drop their g's, say ya and naw. They also have a few words which don't have direct English equivalents.
Here is our first exposure to the Deucadon's way of speech from the middle of Part 2 of Rome's Revolution:
Rei awakened on the floor of a cave in the pitch black. He could not see anything. Even one day ago, this might have bothered him. But now, with his enhanced hearing, he just used the rustling of his clothes as he moved around to map his cell. The small cave was roughly semi-spherical with a diameter of not much more than three or four meters. The roof seemed unnaturally smooth so Rei assumed it was man-made.
He sat up. Every part of his body ached. He had absolutely no idea what they hit him with but whatever it was, his skin was tingly and he felt pins and needles all over. If he didn’t know any better, he would have sworn it was a plain old electrical shock.
His sonar vision told him that the cave or whatever it was, was blocked off with by plates of cross-hatched strips of cane-bark. In between the strips was enough spaces that sounds from the outside came in but he could tell that it was substantial enough that he could not break out.
“Enough foolin’ around. Ya know we have to kill him,” said one voice. Rei was stunned that they were speaking in English but their accent was skewed. Their dialect sounded almost like a mix of Brooklyn and Britain.
“He’s Vuduri and now they’ll know where we are,” said another.
“He’s nawt Vuduri. He’s too flaggin’ tall,” said a third.
“But look how he’s dressed. And he spoke to us in Vuduri. Naw, he’s Vuduri,” said the second voice.
“It does nawt matter,” said the first. “We kill him and we vacate the area. If we leave now, there would be naw way to trace it back. We cannawt have them around here. Where one is, ya know there are others. They always travel in packs.”
“How did he find us, anyway?” asked the second voice.
Odd? Too odd? Hopefully not. Tomorrow, the second half of that first conversation.
Entry 3-027: January 22, 2015
The Deucadon Dialect - Part 2
Two days ago, I gave you the rationale behind constructing the Deucadon dialect. I had to make it foreign enough to be convincing as a true dialect but not too annoying that you wouldn't want to read it.
To review, the Deucadons drop their g's, say ya and naw. They also have a few words which don't have direct English equivalents.
Here is the second half of our exposure to the Deucadon's way of speech from the middle of Part 2 of Rome's Revolution:
“He must have followed Steben back here. There is naw other explanation.”
“Impossible. Steben had the necessary camouflage.”
“Their eyes. Ya know about their eyes. His heat signature maybe?”
“Our camouflage is perfect,” said the first voice again. “It’s been tested over and over. They cannawt see us,” he said. “And there would nawt be any heat radiated.”
“Do ya think we should ask him before we kill him?” said the second.
“How? Do ya speak flaggin’ Vuduri?”
“Naw.”
“Let’s just get it over with. Bukky’s nawt goin’ to be happy about this. We’ve endangered everyone.”
“Who’s goin’ to do it?” the third voice asked.
“Ya do it,” said the second voice.
“I do nawt want to do it,” said the third voice. “Melloy, ya kill him.”
“I do nawt want to kill him either,” said the first voice. “I would nawt call it one of my specialties.”
“Well someone has to,” said the second voice.
“Let’s draw straws,” said the first voice. “Whoever pulls the short straw has to kill him.”
“That seems fair,” said the second voice. “I’ll go get the straws.”
I hope you find it readable and just strange enough to make these people seem different and at the same time relatable. Unfortunately, they are going to kill Rei. That is not a good thing. Tomorrow, how he escapes with MINIMCOM's help.
Entry 3-028: January 23, 2015
The Great Escape, Part 1
In yesterday's post, we saw that the Deucadons did not know what to do with Rei so they decided it would be easiest just to kill him. Earlier, we witnessed MINIMCOM's first attempt at creating a whoosh-pop snap tunnel in Part 2 of Rome's Revolution. That first attempt did not go so well. But even a bad attempt in better than being dead.
Rei had sufficiently recovered from the Deucadon's version of a taser. While he was out cold, the Deucadons had dragged him into a small cave within the glade. There was no way out but that didn't stop MINIMCOM:
Rei decided it was time to take action. “MINIMCOM, are you there?” Rei thought to himself.
“Yes,” replied the little computer.
“Did you hear what they said?”
“In a sense. I can hear what you hear. They are not very pleasant people,” replied MINIMCOM. “And they clearly do not wish you well.”
“Do you think there is any way you can help me out of this jam?” Rei thought to himself.
“Certainly,” replied MINIMCOM cheerfully in Rei’s mind.
“Well, are you going to tell me? Is there a way out?”
“Not presently but we will rectify that situation. Please press yourself against the back wall of the cave,” said MINIMCOM.
Rei stood up and moved a little gingerly around to the back. He pushed as hard as he could into the stone. He could feel vibrations but wasn’t sure of their origin. Little stones began to fall from the ceiling. Then larger hunks of rock. Now the entire cave was shaking. With a whump and a whoosh, a one and a half meter diameter section of the ceiling crumbled and collapsed to the bottom of room.
Rei walked over and looked up and could see a shaft going all the way to the sky. The stars overhead were brilliant and he could see a reflection of one of the moons, perhaps Givvy, glinting against a few wispy clouds.
“That’s great, MINIMCOM,” he thought to himself. “How did you do that?” he thought to himself.
“Practice makes perfect,” MINIMCOM replied, quite pleased with himself.
“It’s a nice shaft,” Rei thought to himself. “But how am I going to climb up it? It’s too high for me to reach.”
“It is not for you to climb up,” MINIMCOM said in Rei’s mind. “I just wanted to make sure that I did not intermix your atoms with those of the rocks.”
Tomorrow, Rei is the guinea pig when MINIMCOM attempts to use his "transporter" for the first time.
Entry 3-029: January 24, 2015
The Great Escape, Part 2
Yesterday we saw MINIMCOM carve out a vertical tunnel that reached the very top of the cave. In fact, Rei could look up and see stars. But the tunnel was way too large for Rei climb. We know that eventually, in the world of Rome's Revolution, MINIMCOM's whoosh/pop snap tunnels became a staple for sending people and things from one place to another in an instant. But this is before.
Rei was familiar enough with science fiction and old television shows that he just went ahead and called it MINIMCOM's transporter in honor of Star Trek: The Original Series.
Tales of the Vuduri: Year Three Page 4