It seems like ages since I set out to write a post on the languages of Sinduin’s universe [download link at the end of this post].  The irony is that the subject is very simple: there is only one natural language.  Over there in the other dimension, if you are capable of speech, then you’ll be able to speak this tongue, and even if you hear a “new” word for the first time, you’ll readily recognize it to “fit” the object so named.  It’s similar to the way in which the Ancient Hindus or Jews thought that their sacred tongues (Sanskrit, Hebrew) were the natural ones and every other speech either a perversion or an invention.  Except that within the vast icosahedron that is Sinduin’s universe, the “theory” has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

This is not to say that there are not other languages.  There are, myriads of them.  When anything you say is immediately understood by everyone else, this makes for a pleasant state of affairs in principle, but it’s a bit of pain during military operations, for example.  Since the grade abilities that form such a large part of a sapient being’s defensive/offensive arsenal in the universe require verbal triggers (just like Harry Potter’s spells, IIRC), individuals have a habit of creating private languages to invoke them.  Otherwise your enemy will know exactly what you’re going to do just before to do it…

I bring this example up because it involves all of the instances of non-Earth languages in the two Sinduin Saga arcs so far.  Let me take these in turn.

14b

Sinduin generates what her German foe dubs a trapsphere after saying: “Sogosh is irin ya fadorash”.  The only word that exists in the natural language is “irin”, which is a pronoun meaning “I”.  Everything else is part of Sinduin’s private language, which could be pure nonsense or have some specific meaning word per word.  (We’ll be able to tell by looking at other passages.)  For what it’s worth, the “trapsphere” is a form of the malleability of space, the fourth grade ability.  Sinduin is a fourth grader and is thus getting out the big guns here.

44a

Sinduin employs the malleability of self to transform into a Vanaceli.  Her words are “Sogosh is irin y erginas.”  Again, the only true word here is “irin.”  Comparing this with 14b, my sense is that “erginas” means the third grade ability, as opposed to “fadorash,” which would be the third grade ability.  The “y/ya” distinction might hinge on whether the next word begins with a consonant or a vowel.  What “sogosh is” means remains anybody’s guess, though considering how long Sinduin has been exposed to our own universe, it’s possible that the “is” relates to English “is.”  Immediately in the next panel she says “Vanaceli”, the standard name for the winged creature she turns into.  This may seem reckless (or lazy) but one has to take into account the fact that she’s in the Home System, which is the safest place for an Imperial to be.

88a

The next case is Papieca’s transformation in Africa.  He yells: “Prui fam adun: hataunota!”  Here at last we get more than a peek into the natural language of Sinduin’s universe.  Thus:

fam = transform

adun = now

hataunota = rock fortress (hatau+nota)

Clearly, the Zeburaja is too impassioned and/or desperate to mask his words, and he simply says what he will do.  The only non-standard term here is “prui,” but as any well-informed Silver Sister will tell you, this is just Oxytanian slang for “I” (standard term: “pu”).

THE UNIVERSAL TONGUE

So what about the natural language itself?  Rather than write about it here, I have a guide that goes some way in answering that question.  The text is [HERE] as well as on the About page.

It’s unfortunate that I can’t portray the Malsain salute here, since Model Malsain salutes no one   It’s a pretty simple outfit: all shining white.  The Model wears a double halo, a type of accoutrement almost only seen in Imperial Monarchs these days.  I initially had Sinduin smiling, but then realized to do a real Malsain she’d have to look pissed off, so I had to change it.  I’ve already written about Malsain on this site, and the Mode will feature in the Third Arc so I’ll stop for now.

Moving on to Mode Martopion, here is Sinduin cosplaying as a Martopion shielder:

We can see the fighting salute (the lean forward being one essential component).  The two hovering contraptions are usually called glotomon (short for Glajor Tene-Minshi’), Cross-Trinitarian Eyes, which are used to keep track of what’s going on in side worlds, something like a pair of CCTV cameras.  It is fashionable among some arrogant Imperials (of which Martopion is full of) to use glotomon as accessories.  It’s pretty ridiculous, really, since the point is to use small ones (so they won’t be seen and neutralized) and of course, to position them in worlds you are NOT in at the moment.  The menacing red bolt between the two eyes in the picture probably means they’re too close to each other and are about to explode.  The Modelkin is about to get her hair fried.  But she looks cool, or so she thinks.

Mode Martopion’s mint-green robe is “broken” and lacks the usual tabard (and by tabard I mean the vertical band or drape running down the front of most Imperial robes, which actually doesn’t look like a proper European tabard at all but serves a somewhat similar function).  The lack of the tabard eventually brought about the splitting of the robe.  And here’s why Martopion lacks a tabard.

The Mode was originally from the planet Lagash (Glowgem System), which as I’ve written elsewhere before, became uninhabitable after it was literally mined to death.  When the planet was starting to show signs of collapse, Model Martopion promised she’d find a way to reverse the catastrophe.  She swore if she failed she would remove her tabard (kind of a big deal).  Well, failed she did and off came the tabard (which was purple by the way).

Mode Martopion relocated en masse to Albrajen.  Martopion’s Modelkin stopped wearing the tabard altogether, since it was unseemly for them to sport one if their leader wouldn’t.  Soon afterward, in other to assuage the hurt of having lost their tabard, and maybe to make the best out of a bad situation and pretend to others that they didn’t wear a tabard to make a fashion statement, they turned the robe into a two-piece.

SOURCE NOTE: This Imperial Robe I keep using and reusing and recoloring and modifying (slightly) comes from a collaboration between Wayii, Jan19 and Odadune.  See [here].  The original is an Egyptian-style modification of a robe inspired by one of Queen Padme’s robes from Star Wars.

The Silver Planet.  The Tetraluminous City (yellow), the Zeburaja nation of Oxytania (yellow) and the territories of Mode Karhalaun (green).  The red lines mark off the planetary poles, which are reserved for the Communication Grid.  It is a horrible angle, but I wanted to give a sense of where Karhalaun lies in relation to Oxytania and the Tetraluminous City.

My treatment will be synchronic, not diachronic.  I will not cover the origin of the Modes, their development, and their gradual fall from power.  I will simply cover their structures in general terms, taking advantage of the fact that the Modes haven’t changed much in form from Ransain’s day 2,500 years ago until today.

(I have tried to come up with English names for all of the necessary terms, and will use them throughout even when they’re extremely ugly, but I will also append the original versions of the terms used by Imperials themselves, including plurals when applicable.)

Mode, Model, Modelkin

A Mode (glor) is, most simply expressed, a group of Highborn Imperials sharing the same blood.  These Imperials are called Modelkin (glorir/gloreth) and their leader is called the Model (gloralba).  Although the Mode always possesses a certain territory, the Modality (glore), birth in the Modality from non-Modelkin blood will not make one a Modelkin.  A Modality of great size and/or wealth may be home to a huge population of Lowborn Imperials partaking none of the glory of the Mode.  The proper term, no longer widely used, for such Imperials is Modedwellers (glorpikemir/glorpikemeth).

Being a child of a Modelkin is thus a necessary requirement for being oneself a Modelkin, but this by itself is not sufficient.  One must also be born in a particular place, but what that place is varies from Mode to Mode.  With some Modes, a Modelkin must be born within the Modality (and of course of a Modelkin parent).  In other, less rigid Modes, being born of a Modelkin parent within the Monarchy that houses the Modality is enough.  One principle common to all Modes in recent history is that, when a Mode possesses Modal territories in a colony planet, birth in that Modality (or in that colonial Monarchy for the less rigid Modes) qualifies one for Modelkin status, but automatically disqualifies one from being a ranked member, one of the named ones (see the next section).

As an example, consider X, a member of Mode Karhalaun on the Silver Planet.  X decides to research ancient Dolentian history, and so she spends a few years on the aliens’ two major planets: Dolentis and Ishdodeth.  At Dolentis, X bears a child.  Dolentis is a colony of the Silver Planet and Karhalaun has some of her territories there.  But no matter, this Mode is quite lenient toward her members, especially ones like X whose work might further the greater glory of the Mode.  So whether X’s child is born within or without the actual modal territories, the fact that she is born in the Monarchy of Dolentis, a Silver colony, of a Modelkin mother, already qualifies her as a bonafide Modelkin.  However, she will most definitely not be a named one.

However, when X moves to Ishdodeth and bears a second child, things are very different.  Ishdodeth is not a Silver colony, in fact this system is a major colonizer with plenty of colonies herself.  Mode Karhalaun has no legal right to any territories here, and the child is thus beyond the mode, she is a “beyondie” (chiakir/chiaketh).  (In practice, X would have made sure to give birth in Dolentis and then return to Ishdodeth to continue her studies, thus making sure her second child remains in the Mode.)

The Named Ones

Every Mode is split into two important groups, the named ones (flauchamir/flauchameth) and the shielders (grukenir/grukeneth).  The number of named Modelkin varies greatly from Mode to Mode while being fixed within each one (from as low as 10 to as high as the 600s).  Everyone not “named” is considered a shielder, and there is no distinction between the members of this group, all being considered equal.

The named ones are arranged in a strict hierarchy with the Model occupying first place.  The Model usually bears the name of the Mode for her own.  Thus, the Model of Mode Malsain will always be named Malsain, the Model of Mode Martopion will be called Martopion, and so forth (a number often follows, just as the regnal numbers in most monarchies on Earth: the current Model of Malsain is Malsain XXVIII).  The occupiers of the second and subsequent places will have fixed names as well, with the Mode’s name as a surname.  Once again, the sequence of names varies from Mode to Mode, although there are many similarities in the different lists (the higher the place in the hierarchy, the less variation is found among the Modes).  Long ago, the Silver Planet’s Modes agreed to have 216 named ones each (6x6x6 being considered lucky) and use the same exact names for these 216.  This is the so-called Silver Sequence (Flak Daiche), the first 12 names of which are listed below (with English translations, since one of the characteristic marks of a Highborn name is that they have a readily apparent meaning, something common Imperial names do not in general possess).

1. [Model's name = Mode's name]; 2. Malas (Control); 3. Dalion (Bird); 4. Palas (Power); 5. Danges (Origin); 6. Vaze (Heart); 7. Mino (Heat); 8. Rimo (Sphere); 9. Hastur (Chance); 10. Brilon (Womb); 11. Tranash (Fate); 12. Jakai (Greed).

So, to take Karhalaun as an a example, the seventh-ranked Modelkin in that Mode will be named Mino Karhalaun, the ninth will be Hastur Karhalaun, and so on.  The Model will simply be Karhalaun (in the present day, Karhalaun XXXI).

The named hierarchy is the life of the Mode.  The named ones are the leaders of the entire group, and power is accorded to each member strictly on the basis of this hierarchy.  It might come as a shock to learn that becoming a named one is, at least in theory, a matter of pure luck.  When a named one dies, her place in the hierarchy becomes open.  The next Modelkin to be born immediately inherits the position.  That is all there is to it.  Therefore, the lowliest shielder may give birth to the next Model, if the event happens to occur just after the last Model passed away.  Conversely, there is no guarantee that the Modelkin offspring of a ruling Model will be named ones.  In fact, statistically the odds are against them, in all but the smallest Modes.

Sinduin nu Karhalaun.  Sinduin cosplays as a Karhalaun shielder, doing the “Who cares about you?” salute characteristic of this Mode.  Note the traditional outfit.  The text on the tabard reads “Ka,” short for Karhalaun.

Think of this gory example: Malsain (the Model), Malas Malsain and Rimo Malsain all perish in the same accident.  Say that Malas died first, then the Model, then Rimo (instants of death being immediately relayed to Modal H.Q.).  This means that the next Modelkin baby, whether a named one of any rank or a shielder, will become the next Malas Malsain.  The next baby born will be the new head of the house, and the third one will be Rimo Malsain.  If there is no way of determining who perished first, the highest position is filled first, then the second, and so on.

Historically, it should be noted that several Modes have toyed with the practice of preventing named ones from begetting named ones (whether by forced celibacy or sterilization, or by simply disqualifying their newborns from assuming names even if their births have occurred at the required times).  The policy has often been seen as a corrective to power accumulation in certain Modal bloodlines.  However, most Modes throughout history have judged it best to leave such matters to fate, even if it is the fate of dark, backstage maneuverings.

Incidentally, while parents of shielders are allowed to give their children whatever names they wish, it is standard practice to attach to their names the word “nu” followed by the Mode’s name.

Salutations

The reader might wonder if these Modes will not all increase size by leaps and bounds, considering the fertility rates of the Empire and their ever lower mortality rates.  The fact is that, while this article has so far a given a decent overview of how one becomes a Modelkin, and which rank if any, one acquires within that group, it has not touched on the matter of how one ceases to be one.  It is actually an extremely common occurrence for a Modelkin to be cast “beyond the mode”.

When a Modelkin becomes of age, she is bound to offer salutations (grunyauns) to the Model on a yearly basis.  Becoming of age means ascending to the second grade or reaching the age of 72, whichever happens first.  The salutations can range from precious gems and mineral ores in some wealthy Modes, to a certain number of enemy body parts in some of the more martial Modes.  The quantity and quality of the “dues” for the salutations is the same for every single Modelkin, and is constantly being updated by the more powerful (and hopefully wiser) members of the Mode.  The prestige of a Mode depends to a large measure on these salutations, which counters the temptation for the unscrupulous to lower and debase the dues so as to keep as many Modelkin in the Mode as possible.  And of course, the salutations are always one of the main sources of income for a Highborn house.  Therefore if, in a desperate time of intermodal war (and here I speak necessarily of the distant past, as such wars are unthinkable in Sinduin’s day, and illegal to boot), the powers that be in the Mode reduce the salutations to a pittance in order to have enough soldiers to continue fighting for her, they are at the same time assuring that no one in the Mode will offer much for that year (not even the named ones and wealthy Modelkin) so that what they have saved in physical power they have squandered in financial strength.

If a Modelkin fails to offer the salutations even once, she “goes beyond” and is stripped of membership in the Mode.  The way of return is by garnering an ever larger sum (say, 10 or 20 years’ worth of dues) and offering them as the tribute for a single year.  Re-admittance is decided on a case by case basis.  Of course, if the readmitted Modelkin fails to pay her dues a few years later, she is again expelled.  This life happens to many a Highborn gambler.

Often, children of these beyondies can return to the fold if, after coming of age, they are able to offer up the salutations.  Some of the friendliest Modes allow even the great-grandchildren of a expelled Modelkin to rejoin the Mode if they manage to offer the salutations and keep them up every year.  On the other side, a few extremely strict Modes do not even allow the children of former Modelkin to rejoin.  In any case and as can be expected, the numbers of the Modebloods (glorlamia/glorlamians), the non-Modelkin descended from the Mode, always eclipses the number of members of a Mode.  Not a few of these are still very proud of their ancestry and yearn to somehow return to the fold.  99.9% or more will fail to ever do so.

Three Cases

Here are some facts and statistics on three modern-day Modes.  Although there is no such thing as an average Mode, Karhalaun could be said to be somewhat on the small side, whereas Martopion and Malsain are two of the largest Modes in the Empire.  The figures lay bare Mode Malsain’s long-held strategy of procreating ad nauseam while maintaining salutations at a very steep level (thus the skewed proportion of Modelkin to Modebloods), though of course what the statistics do not show is the elaborate network that Mode has established to funnel resources to the poorer Modelkin who are deemed “blessed” by the high and mighty.  “Sow everywhere and reap but a twelfth of it,” is what they say.

FWIW, those who present a bouquet of different types of ears are particularly celebrated in Mode Martopion.

CREDITS: The background for Sinduin’s pic is from bob4artist, the cargo ship is from papapapa.

[NOTE 3/31/13: The population figures on the table are for the first trinity only.  The math required to extrapolate the stats for the higher trinities is too much for me, but in any case the numbers should be on a much smaller scaler, especially after the third trinity.]

The single (artificial) horn identifies this Aretine as a low-ranking noble.

Though defeat during the First Dolentian War (4967-54 BC) came as a great shock, Imperials recovered quickly and took up with gusto the task of expanding their borders in the regions of space allotted to them by the Merciless Myriad.  The Midnight War refers to the conquest of the Aretin System (4880s BC), a significant event for a number of reasons:

1) Aretin was not that far from the boundary line with the Dolentian sphere of influence, and the Empire was able to prove to her own satisfaction that Dolentis would not act outside of that sphere (not even on a large planet so close to it); 2) the conquering army was a combined Gorgon-Hiuronite force, and the fact that these planets, which had never been close historically and had been enemies during the Unity War seven centuries earlier, were able to carry this operation off successfully was a testament to the power and cleverness of the Silver Planet, who sponsored and promoted the endeavor; 3) that the conquest itself was so irregularly accomplished set a precedent for future generations of Imperial soldiers and officers: if one could do what was done in Aretin and get away with it, then anything was possible for the bold and daring.

Aretin had a large and thriving native population of sapient beings: the Aretines.  The planet was ruled by a despotic dynasty.  Imperial intelligence had a clear grasp of the workings of Aretine society and politics, and the Council was extremely confident that such a top-heavy system would be easy to topple.  However, there was one rather vexing problem: the Aretines could reach the third grade, and the King of Aretin held his court in Isis in the third trinity.  At this point in time, there were less than a hundred third-graders among the Imperial race, many of them scholars not at all inclined to test their mettle against anything but the secrets of the universe (indeed, many of them were in Dolentis pursuing studies at the time).

A crude solution presented itself: annihilate the fertile Aretine population in the first trinity and wait for old age to take care of the leadership in the third trinity.  It is debatable whether Imperials had enough ammunition to even accomplish this task, but the question was moot anyway because Dolentis had sternly warned the Empire against committing wholesale genocide of an alien species, and Imperials were not itching to pick another fight with the Dolens.  Not just yet.

The Expedition against Aretin

Therefore in 4883 the Gorgon-Hiuronite invaders implemented the following scheme: a large fighting force under Hiuronite leadership was sent to the second trinity to assault the capital planet.  In the meantime, a smaller squad under the Gorgons penetrated the capital city of Aretin in first-trinity Briga and extracted the Prince of Aretin, the King’s only son and heir to the planetary throne.

The Prince was tossed in a sack and brought out to the desolate sixth planet in the system, called Great Aretin.  In the meantime, 20-odd third graders were sent as envoys to Isitic Aretin.  They announced the Prince’s capture and laid out their demands.  It took seven years for the King to even entertain them, as he awaited confirmation of the veracity of Imperial claims (the third-grade Aretines had no way of knowing what was going on in the first trinity until one of their number had ascended first to the second, then to the the third grade, and the Empire was not about to give the enemy access to their own metacommunications).

During this long period, the Imperial envoys were in many ways hostages themselves.  They were not allowed to leave Aretin or even be replaced by other third-graders.  The King toyed around with the idea of a hostage swap, the immediate return of the Prince in exchange for his Imperial “guests”, but the latter were quick to point out that they were quite expendable to the Empire whereas the Prince was quite literally one of a kind.

The messenger confirmed that the Prince had disappeared and was probably in Imperial hands, but he also informed the King that the invaders had been repulsed in the second trinity and that they were likely not as strong as they said themselves to be.  The information on this point was inaccurate, since the second-grade Imperial force had attacked and withdrawn of its own accord, the intention being to force the planet to put its outer defenses on high alert in the second trinity, and hopefully to have the Aretines issue commands to the same effect in the form of breams down to the first.  The point was that if the first-grade Aretine forces were concentrated on the perimeter of their planet, then the Prince’s extraction would be easier.  Alas, the Aretine messenger took the quick pullout to mean that his countrymen had a chance against the Empire and his optimism infected the King.

Great Aretin

Still, the tyrant was not about to lose his only son and heir, so he haggled with the Imperial envoys and agreed to the following demands: incorporation of Aretin into the Empire as an allied system, safeguarding of the Aretine dynasty’s rights and privileges, release of the Prince into Aretine custody and the leasing of Great Aretin as an Imperial base to ward off attacks from any potential common enemies in the future.  The King also requested a third-grade Imperial bodyguard, and the Council agreed to look favorably upon the issue.  The year was 4876.

The treaty was communicated to the Silver Planet and then relayed back to the first-grade squad holding the Prince hostage.  And here is where the Midnight War earned its moniker.  For Dalion Jurmuin, a Gorgon Highborn and leader of the effort in the first trinity, had fallen in love with the Prince.  She requested he be kept back one more night and then released.  For their part, the third-grade envoys in the Aretine capital had set up a visual feed through Silver’s metacomm system so that the King could assure himself the next morning that the Prince was being handed over to his people as promised.

Dalion Jurmuin absconded that night with the Prince.  When on the next day the King stared at the Imperial screen and saw his Aretines in Briga scratching their heads and waiting for his heir to show up, he grew impatient, then wary.  The tiny Imperial contingent in the throne room was put in a seemingly impossible situation.  Not knowing where the Prince was, they preempted any retaliatory action by seizing his father and taking him into the inner chambers (two-thirds were killed in the process of fighting off the royal guards).  Details are sketchy, but the King perished within the half-hour.  The seven remaining Imperials proclaimed the absent Prince the new King and awaited tensely for a response.

Aretine cannons began bombing the inner chamber area.  The Imperials scrambled to generate a low-level Sparker force field to protect themselves, but as it was cube-shaped it was weak around the eight vertices and the Imperials were forced to block these areas as best as they could.  Imperial third-grade transformation technique was only in its infancy, and there was one body less than the number of points requiring protection, but with a lot of switching and swearing the Sparker held until the Aretines stopped firing (the Aretines’ own employment of transformation was limited to size increases for threatening and crushing and size decreases for deception and escape).  Cooler heads prevailed as some of the Aretines feared for the Prince’s life and the extinction of the dynasty, so they held back.  It is also possible that some preferred the young man to the old King and were not too unhappy about the Imperials had done.

Crude but effective third-grade morphing.  The Imperial retains her basic form, yet several changes are noticeable.  The legs have become elongated for support.  The hair is generating an air current to increase the defender’s pressure on the Sparker’s weak point.  The abdomen has swollen and hardened to defend the same point.

The Council dealt with the situation as best she could.  The third-graders in Isis were continuously reinforced from the Imperials ascending to that grade, and they forgave and forgot Dalion Jurmuin her escapade.  In exchange, she agreed to let the Prince take his throne twenty years hence, in 4856.  In the meantime the Aretines were told that the Prince was learning from the Imperial, and even Dolentian, cultures so he would be ready for a triumphant return as an enlightened ruler.  He himself obliged by presenting himself on videos greeting his people and speaking in the vaguest of terms of his education (in fact he spent most of his time with Dalion in a Jurmuin palace in Gorgo).

In 4859, the Gorgon Highborn ascended to the second grade.  Two nights later, the Prince of Aretin was found dead in his chamber.  According to Dalion, he had died from love.  Some would argue the possibility that she ordered him killed so he could not cheat on her much more probable.  Mode Jurmuin was a powerful house in Gorgo and Dalion had many responsibilities.  She could have easily met her lover in the Silver Planet within flayer field every so often, but apparently she would not trust him when she should be absent by political necessity.

Imperials had occupied key sections of Aretine space in the first three trinities by now, and so when the announcement that the Prince had died of natural causes came, Aretin had no real hope of resistance.  The Empire did allow for a distant cousin to serve as a puppet ruler for a few decades, but when he died the dynasty was deposed for good.

The Aftermath

Aretine society deteriorated with the passing on of its native dynasty.  During the fourth millennium B.C. the Empire built up Great Aretin as a massive military base, employing millions of Aretines in construction work.  The Aretines did not have the sturdy physical constitution required of the work and losses were staggering.  Still, the Empire had so little respect for Aretin that she preferred to work its low-productivity inhabitants to death rather than transport better skilled, higher productivity workers from elsewhere.  It was a matter of economics.

Centuries later, it so happened that a Supreme Commander of the Eternals in Hiuron, named Durtain and a descendant of one of the warriors in the Midnight War, became very much obsessed with the conflict.  She decided that Dalion Jurmuin was a paragon to be emulated, and instituted the color of midnight as the standard hue for her elite fighting group as a tribute to the famous Gorgon.  Durtain perished in the Second Dolentian War (3275-3269 BC), but the Eternals wear midnight robes to this day.

That’s all, I just wanted you to see it.  What?  You want me to tell you a bit about the scene?  Oh, it’s nothing to write home about.  What?  You insist?  Alright, alright, I guess I can spare a few words…

The planet is Targa Oreon, in the Exotics (second trinity).  The time is right around 210 years ago, when the Targans rebelled from the Empire.  The characters featured are a Glapachiko (from Melgam Glapakins) and a Mara (from Bluesong).  They are heading back to Imperial Army base after a hard day’s fighting.  On paper, this is a fearsome combo.  Glapachikos are loyal, sturdy and they can smell the blood of others of their kind from miles away, a convenient skill to have in environments with limited communications.  Maras are just as sturdy, quite agile in combat and they can communicate with each other psionically.  In other words, the warring potential of these creatures increases exponentially the more of them you put on the battlefield.

EXCEPT THAT Glapachikos like to banter and play around, so if you put a large group of them together they tend to get sidetracked.  And Maras, sadly, work under a thick cloud of suspicion in the Imperial Army.  There have been far too many cases of insubordination and even sabotage of operations involving this species, which is only natural considering the way in which Imperial Constat evicted them from their home planet of Maratania.  So you could say an Imperial riding a Zeburaja is worth a hundred Gaplachikos riding Maras…  Still, these guys must be pretty good if they’re out there.  And by the way, I know that the Mara looks like a shaggy black horse with red eyes but it isn’t!  It’s an alien being that can talk you (and drink you) under the table, trust me.

Background pic from [here].

Merry Christmas World~

P.S. The wolf pic is from the wonderful ~ITSDura.

1. The tenth and final installment of the Imperial Battle History series won’t be coming out for a while yet.  The history of Ransain’s exploits is pretty much all set up, but I’m having a hard time retelling events the way I want to.  So hopefully at some point or another I’ll be able to complete the series in just the right way.  I mean, it’s not like it’s going to be a nail-biter: Ransain is like the Captain Harlock of Sinduin’s universe, she always wins.

2. By the way, here are the first two SS arcs in one [download].

3. I’m actually an alien and this story is partly autobiographical.  Also, I changed the blog theme!

4. I had said earlier that the third arc, titled Bright Lights, would come out in late 2013.  The script for that arc is pretty much all done, and chances are good it will come out in its present form and with exactly the same name, but when it comes it will be as the fourth arc and not as the third.  The reason is I have a new third arc, tentatively titled Chronosebleed, which will appear earlier in 2013.  This story is currently in development but the name says it all: it will be about buck naked time travel, otherwise known as my two favorite English compounds one after another.  Anyone who dares mention a certain film series will be t-e-r-m-i-n-a-t-e-d.   Laters.

None of the so-called Hundred Wars* involving Ransain (born 864, died 365 BC) bore the gravity or the import of the Unity War or the Dolentian Wars.  To put it bluntly: the Empire would have survived if Ransain had never existed.  And yet as a personality, Ransain left an imprint on her people that remains unparalleled in Imperial history before or after her.  The Empire would have survived, but it wouldn’t have been the same.  And whatever the future holds for Imperials, it is certain that Ransain’s mark will remain on it.  The ambitious children of Sinduin’s time still grow up wanting to be Ransains, after all.

A portrait of Ransain adorns the walls of Sweetsea Electoral Office, Naxis.

Ransain’s life is the stuff of legend, from her spectacular victories abroad to the far more significant struggles at home.  Imperial flags and insignia bear so-called Ransain’s rings, really the frames of the red spectacles she insisted on wearing even after she didn’t need them.  Whole collections of her sayings exist, grouped around particular subjects, such as her prominent nose.  While at the top of her career, those who envied Ransain used to joke she had her nose everywhere.  Once, the heroine overheard a modal stewardess complaining in precisely these terms.  Ransain made her presence known, and asked:

“I have my nose where?”

The stewardess, surprised at seeing Ransain before her, was finally able to stammer:

“Under your eyes, Great Ransain.”

“Indeed, and do you know why?”

“No, I do not, Great Ransain.”

“So it can lead them to see everything.”

The stewardess, happy to see that Ransain was apparently not about to strike her down for her insolence, then commented:

“Now I know why it is between your ears as well.”

Ransain is also responsible for many popular Imperial sayings.  Where people used to say “Lash me lash” (“You are you”) to mean “Accept your limitations, you are what you are”, now they usually say “Ransain me Ransain” (“Ransain is Ransain”), with the implication “…but you are not her, so accept your limitations” etc.

Politics in the Revo System and Related Colonies

Ransain was born in Entera, one of the planets seized in the first wave of conquest generated by the Imperial push into the Storm Systems.  Entera was colonized by Dani, herself a colony of Trillian in the Revo System.  Ransain was a third-generation Enteran and her ancestors hailed from Dani.  Although her more distant ancestors arrived in Dani from Hiuron, and not from the Revo System as was the norm, her military career began in that very system.

Ransain before an Imperial War Flag featuring the so-called Ransain’s Ring.

The Revo System was a long-standing oddity within the Empire.  The main planet, Revo, was populated of old by a race with remarkable similarities to the Imperials.  Imperials called Revons cousins to their faces, and aberrations behind their back.  If you saw a picture of a Revon, the only noticeable difference might be their teal-colored eyeballs.  If you met them in person, well, other differences would immediately strike you.  The main issue was, pardon the pun, the blood.  A Revon body produced (rather, produces, since Revons survive to Sinduin’s day) enough excess blood per day to fill six Revons, and these aliens poured it out (from their mouth, ears, nostrils, etc.) continuously lest they burst.  The upshot was that their bodies regenerated even faster than Imperial ones, and they could survive injuries the latter could not.  Like Empedocles in our own universe, Revons believe thought is blood.

Revons did not appear to ascend beyond the second grade, and yet they claimed to have spiritual bodies in all grades (which numbered hundreds according to their reckoning) at all times.  They disdained technology and claimed to use magic, though whatever gave them their powers did not allow or encourage them to go further than their own moon and colonize the system, let alone venture beyond it.  Imperials were able to colonize the empty second and fourth planets in the system (Transrevo and Cisrevo respectively) and even Revo’s sole moon Trillian, without a fight.  Relations were relatively cordial, and a substantial community of Revons dwelled peacefully on Trillian with the colonists.

Gradually, relations between Revo and Imperial Trillian grew closer, as the Trillianites dealt less and less with their fellow Imperials in Cis- and Transrevo.  When Trillian sponsored the conquest and colonization of Dani 700 years after the Unity War, many of the Trillianite colonists sent to the new planet were Imperials who disapproved of this friendship with Revo.  (Earlier, Trillianite authorities had proposed having Revons form part of the new colony but the Imperial Council had refused to even consider the notion.)  It is no surprise that relations between Trillian and Dani were strained if not openly hostile.  Dani did her best to maintain her independence from the mother planet, while at the same time keeping a close hold on her own colonies, such as Entera.

The Revo War

In the year 815 BC, a newly anointed Trillianite councilor was arrested upon arriving at the Silver Planet to take her seat.  The move was the culmination of a long investigation that unearthed a massive conspiracy based on the systematic persuasion (and in Imperial eyes, indoctrination) of the colonists in Trillian by the aliens of Revo.  Silver scientists were able to determine that this councilor had Revon admixture in her blood, proving that the two species could somehow produce offspring together.  The Trillianite councilor was a rising star, one of the main candidates to lead the council of fifth-graders when the arrest occurred.  As much as Imperials feared Revo magic, they felt a need to act and act quickly.

Verno after the Revo War. Verno Ikuidas, Abyssal Thaumaturge and Lieutenant Commander of the Revon Southeastern Army, cannot contain herself any longer and begins to bleed in her prison cell in Cisrevo’s capital city of Tuiku.

The Council called for an invasion force to subdue Revo and destroy the Revons.  Trillian was considered compromised and was added to the invasion schedule.  The problem was supplying the force with soldiers.  Cisrevons and Transrevons had heard far too much of Revo magic to contribute any troops.  Planets outside the Revo System were loth to support what they considered a local action fraught with danger.  Dani, for her part, was eager for the chance to overcome Trillian once and for all, but was just as scared of the Revons.  Dani had a solution however: she sent troops from her colonies in her place.  It was thus that a young first-grader by the name of Ransain found herself, along with many of her Enteran sisters, in the Revo War.

The political air at the heart of the Empire was corrupt in this period, and the corruption extended down to the selection of candidates for Imperial Army command.  Many of the officers leading the Imperial force were incompetent and they fell for a simple trick.  The Revons refrained from using any of their magic, hoping to draw the Empire in.  When Imperial officers responded to this hope and landed all of their troops haphazardly, the carnage started.  The most powerful weapon Revons possessed, it turned out, was the ability to impart fear upon their enemies.  Imperial troops would not only become unable to fight and vulnerable to being cut down with ease, but in extreme cases their brains would “collapse” from the fear and they would simply drop dead.

The officer in charge of Ransain’s unit, named Kalrion, fell to this sort of attack.  Just as chaos was about to engulf the leaderless unit, Ransain began speaking in a loud voice.  She told her fellow soldiers that she wasn’t Ransain.  She was, she claimed, Kalrion.  Apparently, when the Revon fear spells didn’t work they were liable to make one switch bodies instead.  It sounded like a bunch of nonsense, even for this crazy planet, but what Ransain did next made a believer of everyone.  She picked up Kalrion’s staff and whirled it over her head, displaying the prized Dani style that Kalrion was so good at and that had, rather outrageously, earned her a leadership position without any battlefield experience.

Another Enteran fell just then, and immediately the soldier next to her started screaming that she was that very person that had died.  The body-switching was confirmed, and it looked as if those who switched bodies became impervious to any further fear attacks.  Ransain’s unit under her leadership went on to break resistance in her sector, absorb the remnants of other units in neighboring sectors, and advance on the main citadel.  By the time that a group of Revons, later to be relocated to the Exotic Systems, betrayed the citadel to the invading army, Ransain-Kalrion had a full third of all troops under her command.  Dozens of Imperials claimed to have switched bodies with their fallen comrades, and in a few cases even pairs of living soldiers were convinced they had switched bodies with each other.

It was all a great lie, as Ransain gravely said  as soon as she was questioned after the taking of the citadel.  Impersonation of an officer was enough cause for death, but the Empire could not just kill the person who had single-handedly brought about the success of an ill-fated campaign, so instead they decided to send her back to the Storm Systems with her unit, never being allowed to even see, let alone participate in, any of the victory parades in the Big Eight planets.

The highest-ranking Revon caught alive, by the way, was an Abyssal Thaumaturge by the name of Verno, second in command of one of the planet’s six armies.  She was kept in a prison cell and deprived of any of the mechanical devices that Revons use to dispose of their blood cleanly and quickly.  It is said that her cell had to be drained periodically…

NOTE: The common number base in Sinduin’s universe being 6, the “Hundred Wars” are  equivalent to 36 (6×6) and not 100 (10×10) in our decimal notation.  In any case, the number is not meant to be precise, although there are a number of variant lists purporting to list with exactitude each of these conflicts.

CORRECTION (12/5/12): Originally I wrote that Revons did not ascend beyond the first grade.  In fact, the top leadership of Revo was filled with second-graders.

Testing had begun back in the 3050s BC, on the unfortunate hostages of the flayer field attack at the inception of the conflict.  The treatment involved cutting up a Dolens’ body into eight pieces, no more and no less, and keeping these pieces apart from one another.  Each piece had to be kept at least one Dolentian mile from all others, this being in fact the very origin and significance of the “Dolentian mile” standard used by the Merciless Myriad.  What led the Empire to do research along these lines remains a mystery, but it is evident they kept their discoveries secret in the final years of the war to lull the Myriad into signing a peace treaty.

Needless to say, the Dolentian hostages that never made it home had not, as the Empire claimed initially, escaped.  They were being held, in a dismembered state, in various facilities in Briga.  And now the Council declared it was her will to perform the same treatment on a number of important Dolens and on the Two-Eyed himself, who had just being reborn, and who, to the disappointment of many of his Imperial fans, was confirmed to share the classic Dolentian infant physiology.

The actual honor for dismembering the Two-Eyed was granted to Malsain XI, the ten-year old Eryamite scion of one of the most powerful Highborn houses of all time:  Mode Malsain of Ikrilath. Malsain XI had just ascended to the second-grade, and the timing of the ascension (coeval with the young Two-Eyed’s own) was deemed auspicious.

Malsain XI was flown to Ishdodeth in the Dolentian Sacred System.  The Two-Eyed had been transferred there from Dolentis both as a security measure and an act of humiliation.  Dolentian custom held it taboo for the Two-Eyed to ever step into the Sacred System and it was believed that the mere notion of his residence there would demoralize the Dolens and prevent them from organizing rescue missions, since the would-be rescuers would be force to see the blasphemous sight with their own three eyes.

The Ikrilathian Highborn wanted their leader to use one of the planet’s native daggers, but the Council held firm and Malsain XI was persuaded to wield an Akashi ceremonial dagger, one of the Imperial symbols, instead.  Her handlers had never allowed her to see a picture of the handsome permamorphed Two-Eyed so she wouldn’t pity him or worse, fall in love with him.  And she performed her task in spectacular form, slashing away with precision and strength, according to the unanimous report of the eyewitnesses. Years later, Malsain XI revealed she had sneaked a picture of the lovely Two-Eyed into her room, and had slept with it for years before ever being granted the honor of dismembering him.

Malsain XI on a tour of Ishdodeth’s Neurocrypts. We find her face somewhat marred, already at the tender age of 10, by that infamous Malsain frown.

The Council awarded the pieces to the Silver Planet, Gorgo, Meidin, Salbakion, Eluca, Glowgem, Ikrilath and Ishdodeth.  These planets became known as the Big Eight, and have kept the name down to Sinduin’s own time.  For Meidin it meant rehabilitation after a millennium and a half, brought about in large part by the fact that her technicians had been deeply involved in the ploy that thwarted the enemy expedition at the beginning of the Third War and paved the way for Imperial victory.  The distribution also sealed Salbakion’s ascendancy over her rivals in nearby Naxis.  The Naxians demanded their own piece, but the risk of holding two in the same system (Salbakion and Naxis weren’t much more than a Dolentian mile away from each other) coupled with the argument by Imperial colonists in Ishododeth that their new home had a poetic right to a piece conspired to bring the final one to the latter.

The treatment of the Dolens was effective, but apparently it was also painful to its sufferers.  Every 100 Dolentian years, when it was time for each Dolens to die and be reborn, each of his pieces would scream in agony for several seconds before falling silent again until the next century had passed.  Tucking the Dolens’ pieces in underground chambers was enough to block the sounds of most, but the Two-Eyed’s screams could not be silenced.  Those up close could just make out the word “Mercy!” emanating from the howling, even from pieces that had nothing to do with his mouth.  Imperials mocked the fact that the leader of the Merciless Myriad was now begging for mercy.  One could say, in English anyway, that the Myriad was finally Mercy-less.

Instead of relocating the Two-Eyed’s disturbingly vocal body pieces to less populated systems in the Exotics, the Empire set up festivals every 100 Dolentian years, with throngs coming to hear the Two-Eyed scream and, in many cases, to scream along with him.  Since festivals were usually under the purview of the Highborn Modes, the move was another shift in the balance of power away from the nobility and toward the centralized and meritocratic Imperial administration.

Peace between Imperials and the remnants of the Merciless Myriad lasted just over a thousand years.  There was a Dolentian phylarchy in Dolentis, and ten others in various systems of what used to be their empire.  (No Dolens or Dolentian institutions of any sort were allowed in Ishdodeth, and the phylarchical population in Dolentis paled in comparison to the new Imperial enarchy there.)  Around the year 2000 BC, the first fifth-graders appeared in the Empire.  They immediately surveyed the fifth trinity in the Near Systems, not wanting to have a repeat in the fifth of what had happened in the fourth grade during the last war.  The area was clear of Dolens.

A Mercy heretic prays at the festival. Pro-Dolentian heretics were fond of wearing helmets resembling the alien foes. Needless to say, they were easy to spot when persecuted in Glowgem and elsewhere.

For many years the small planet of Sabaino in the Home System had hosted military exercises in the various grades.  In 1945 BC, a large percentage of the new fifth-grader community gathered there for elite training.  It was then that a small host of Dolens surprised them and exterminated all.  What followed was a small-scale conflict known to Imperial historians as the Dolentian Half-War.  Contrary to all fears, the Myriad was too depleted in the fifth grade to really pose a threat, and the “war” ended by 1940.  Seven out of the eleven Dolentian phylarchies were disbanded, supposedly on the basis of evidence that they had aided and abetted the Sabaino Massacre, but in fact to concentrate the Dolentian populations and minimize the threat to the Empire.  After three and a half wars, the Myriad’s fortunes had finally run out.

There were always those who wished to revive those fortunes.  In 1907 BC, Imperial authorities unearthed a conspiracy in the Phylarchy of Dolentis which aimed to retrieve the pieces of the Two-Eyed.  Most worryingly, the conspiracy was aided by a pro-Dolentian cult in Glowgem.  Members of the so-called Mercy Heresy (the Glowgem capital’s name is Tresi, i.e. Mercy) believed that the Two-Eyed was the Imperial creator god, that he had long ago deserted his chosen race of “brides” (when a believer died, they taught, she entered the Two-Eyed’s bedchamber) because of their sinfulness, and adopted the Dolens as a result.  Now the heretics believed that by freeing and reassembling the Two-Eyed they could regain the god’s favor.  Particularly troubling for Imperial authorities was the cult’s teaching that the greatest sin the race had ever committed was the construction of the flayers around the Silver Planet.

The situation in Glowgem, a planet of vital economic importance to the Empire, became so volatile that the Two-Eyed’s piece there was finally moved to Johochir, the most isolated of the planet’s three moons.  The Phylarchy of Dolentis was disestablished, and the Dolens were altogether expelled from their ancestral region of space altogether.

There is but one last part to the story.  When the first sixth-graders appeared in the Empire, there was again some apprehension that they would be attacked by Dolens hiding in some distant corner of the universe.  Far from it, not only was there no longer any Dolentian presence in the sixth trinity, it was a sixth-grade Imperial scientist who figured out a formula to “burn” Dolentian pieces and kill the creatures for all eternity.  And so in the year 1577 BC, thirty-four centuries after the beginning of the First Dolentian War, the Empire burned the Two-Eyed’s pieces across seven planets and one moon amidst much pomp and pageantry and neutralized the Dolentian threat forevermore.  Sadly for the Empire, in the same century many of the new sixth-graders began to turn and resist her from within.  The Upa Rebellion had begun.

The Danguang are supposed to be very advanced aliens living in the Storm Systems at the edge of the Empire-ruled universe.  The males are all called Dan and look like over-sized Pugs.  The females are all called Guang and look like youngish Humans (of the Chinese variety).  Danguang are very refined and cultured and they assert wholeheartedly that they are responsible for the creation of the universe.

The problem is that Guang is an impossible name according to the rules of the universal language spoken in Sinduin’s universe.  The only diphthongs possible are ai, au, ei, ia, io, oi and ui.  Ua is out of the question.  True, I could simply have this be a dialectal pronunciation, but since the Danguang are so punctilious I imagine they will want to speak the universal language as correctly as can be.  In addition, there isn’t an ng ending, though I can imagine there might be permissible variations in the pronunciation of final n, so that some may say “Dan” where others say something closer to “Dang.”

The mismatch between name and language isn’t really a mystery.  After all, I began constructing the language this year (2012) whereas the Danguang concept is something I came up with about 20 years ago!  In fact, the names Dan and Guang have very specific roots.  Dan is short for Danmark and Dansk, that is, Denmark and Danish in the Danish language.  The reason is simple: my idea for the male Danguang comes from the dogs in “The Tinderbox” story by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen.

Guang is simply a reference to Guangzhou (=Canton) and Guangdong, places in Southern China.  At least, that’s how I intended it.  Little did I know back then that the hanzi for guang, 廣, means “broad, wide, extensive” (Jp. “hiroi”) and that in Thailand the cognate kwâang has the additional connotation of “generous, kind”, as in jai-kwâang = kind-hearted.  These are all associations that fit the Danguang perfectly.

Anyway, sitting there at the bar I decided not to give up on the word Guang, which I think is rather nice and effective for these characters.  So I reasoned that Guang must be an adaptation for my Human readers of the original, proper word in Sinduin’s language.  And now I had to figure out what that original word might be.

I handled the issue in a very Spanish way, as my mother tongue is Spanish.  First off, I added the letter a to the word, since in Spanish female names very often (almost stereotypically) end in -a.  So Guang became Guanga.  That way I got rid of that pesky ng ending.

Next, I had to break or modify that impossible vowel combination somehow.  I ended up inserting an h between the two vowels.  The h is silent in Spanish and even in English and other languages I still feel as if it is a quiet, unobtrusive letter.  Therefore this was the least violent way for me to put the word in line with the requirements of the alien tongue.  The final result, the original name of the females of the Danguang species, must therefore be Guhanga.  The full name of the species becomes Danguhanga.

When I got home that night I did a Google search just to make sure it wasn’t some horrible curse word or some famous fictional character in a story I’ve never read (I get paranoid that way)…and I discovered something really interesting.  Guhanga is a word in Kinyarwanda, the national language of Rwanda.  The word means “to create”.  Isn’t that nice?  In fact, there is a creator figure in African Great Lakes lore called Gihanga, which means “the creator”.  How fitting~

Connections

The question now becomes: in terms of the SS story, is there a connection between Rwanda and the Danguang/Danguhanga, or is this just a coincidence?  I have no clue.

Part of Sinduin’s job on Earth is to gather and report on all of these coincidences.  As she says in the First Arc, the similarities between Earth and her universe are “downright uncanny.”  One of the biggest linguistic ones, and one we can be sure Sinduin reported on at the very beginning of her stay in our planet, is the fact that the names of the 21 worlds line up with the ubiquitous Latin alphabet of Earth.  Thus, the first six worlds in Sinduin’s universe are Aym, Briga, Chanegra, Deleon, Eryam and Floy (A B C D E F).  Sinduin’s native alphabet begins with an H, then a K, and so on, so there’s no connection there.

The Home System 

You don’t need to go very far to find ridiculously glaring and disconcerting connections.  There are three main sapient species in the Home System, heart of the Empire: Imperials, Zeburajas and Epheboctopi.

Imperials look very much like Humans and Zeburajas look very much like Zebus, a type of Asian cattle.  A Human visitor to the Silver Planet might be puzzled more than shocked: what are all of these women and bulls and cows doing here?  Not only that, but of course in the second case the names are practically the same.  Raja means “king” in Indic languages and in other tongues associated with the Indian subcontinent, so that the Zeburaja is literally a “Zebu King.”

The Imperial rebels are called Upas.  Actually, if you add the above mentioned “raja” to that you get “Uparaja”, or “Vice-King” in the Indic languages.  In Thai history the Uparaja, very often a brother of the current king, would often be found plotting to depose the latter and become the next king.  Thus “Upa” comes to be associated with rebellion as well as succession (the word literally means “lesser”, I think, but as always, the lesser strive to be the greater).  It goes without mention that the fact that Upas love to morph into what can only be described as spitting images of Earth wolves is also food for thought.

And finally we come to the Epheboctopi, which are rainbow-colored octopi pretty much.  Epheboctopus is really a playful adaptation of the proper name in Sinduin’s language, which is Ephoctobopus (literally: many-legged being from the planet Ephocto).  Even so, Ephoctobopus still sounds a lot like octopus to me…