Conlanging adventures 001

As you may or may not know, I am writing a fantasy novel. Given this is a novel where the characters are sentient beings that communicate verbally, it logically follows that they use a language for the purpose. Given that this is in a fictional universe, chances are, the language will not be English.
At this juncture, I had to make a choice between the two paths that were before me:
1. Assume that the language that everyone speaks is the base language of the setting, so to speak, and make it equivalent to English.
2. Do the above, in a way, but create the language from scratch so that I can use the intricacies of the language in my writing (translated to English, obviously).
Guess which one I chose?
So, having chosen to go down the rabbit hole, I set about creating the language.

Origin

So, languages don't just show up out of nowhere. They tend to evolve out of something. There are few language isolates. So, I decided to give my language a family. This meant a parent language, and a bunch of other related languages. This was one of the best and one of the worst decisions I ever made.

Sound system

First of all, I didn't want this language to sound like English. That's boring. So, how did I go about it, you ask? Simple. Make the basic sounds in the language very different.
So, how did I go about it?
The first step is to get yourself an IPA chart. There are many wonderful ones on the internet (I found this one very useful). Step one, in the bag.
Step two is the difficult bit - figuring out how much of the chart to put into my language. Even this younger, naive me had the sense to not put the whole thing into my language. I also had the sense to let go of the sounds that I couldn't hope to make. Given that I am most decidedly not monolingual, that still left me with a lot of the chart. So, what is someone who is most decidedly not a robot to do?
In the end I made the tough decision to let go of most of the chart. The sounds I chose were:
Vowels: The schwa, a 'u' sound (like in pull), a 'e' sound, two 'o' sounds, two 'ah' sounds, and the 'er' sound (basically, schwa with a sort of r at the end. I don't do that in my natural English accent).
Consonants: Mostly what you get in English + ñ, unvoiced w, a trilled r, ts, and pf.
Sounds good, doesn't it? Certainly I thought so at the time. The consonants weren't too much of a problem, to tell you the truth. The vowel system, on the other hand, turned out to be a complete mess at least in this iteration.
Plus, there is this rather inconvenient detail; you see, single letters do not a language make. I had to make words out of them. This is where my lack of research caught up with me.
You see, most languages have these nifty patterns when it comes to how sounds can be put together. For example, in an English syllable, you can have up to three leading consonants (optional), one or two vowels (at least one vowel mandatory) and up to five trailing consonants (optional and thankfully some of them are silent). I didn't realise this at the time.
So I set about creating the words. How, you ask? Of course I used the tried and tested technique of using a random number generator to pick letters randomly. Don't get me wrong - I use a variation of this system now. The pitfall was that I neglected to fix the possible vowel and consonant combinations.
The end result was a near unpronounceable mess exacerbated by the insane vowel system. I used a random number generator with a normal distribution, with the vowels numbered 1-8, which made it worse. So the end result contained ample vowel and consonant bombs even with me selectively ignoring letters given by the random number generator. It sounded nothing like what I thought it would be.
So, after a while, and after some deliberation, I did the sensible thing, and started over.
This time I went with just seven distinct vowels. I dropped the /ts/, /pf/ and ñ, and added aspirated consonants instead. Then, the most sensible thing I did was to define the possible consonant and vowel clusters.
That done, I could actually create words. With a random number generator, true, but now they sounded like actual words.

Grammar

Ah, my favourite subject in school, the reason I absolutely loved learning languages (NOT TRUE!).
You see, trying to build a language without grammar is like trying to code without a compiler (yes I have heard of interpreted languages and assembly and machine code. May be this is a bad example? Meh, you get the idea).
The problem is that there is no such thing as a universal grammatical system. There are so many ways to format a message to another human being. For a conlang, you can go with any system you want to or even invent one. Not being a linguist, I decided to take the conservative route and get my inspiration from indo-European languages.
I had to narrow it down further - English falls into this category, as does Latin, Sanskrit, and Russian. I decided to draw inspiration from Latin at first.
There was a problem with that - I don't know any Latin. Still I really liked the case system and the flexibility it gave the sentence structure. So I decided to borrow that with no understanding of how it worked. I think ought to tell you, at this point, that my mother tongue is Sinhala.
So, continuing with the story. I had to learn how the case system worked. There were very few practical Latin courses online, so I decided to go for the next best thing - German. Don't facepalm too hard - a concussion will not be pleasant.
Still, it gave me some understanding, and I learned to say the very important phrases 'Hilfe, das Pferd frisst die heilige Kartoffel' and 'der grün Bär ist unsichtbar' (thanks, Duo!). That accomplished, I set out to get the language working.
I still had trouble with the case system. I was ploughing along when one day, the problem was magically solved by a random wiki walk. It allbegan when, for some reason I started researching Sinhala phonology, which lead to grammar, and boom, everything was cleared up just like that. You see, Sinhala has a case system. I've been speaking it my entire life. That cleared everything up instantly.
After that, there were a few more things I had to brush up to get the language working - deal with articles, expressing time (I decided to go with verb tenses), word order (not very important with cases, but you need the natural, default order. Plus there are times when some order is necessary even with cases), expressions, politeness levels, and so on.

Miscellaneous

Other things I had to consider include the number system (I came up with a pretty interesting one), colour names, and compound words. The latter was a fun outcome of learning German but how the words combine is somewhat different.

The extended family

I already mentioned that I came up with an extended language family. That could have remained a piece of trivia in the novel if not for one fact - every named character in the novel so far except for two speak languages belonging to this language family as their mother tongue.
So, yet again, I was at a crossroads. Yet again, I chose the more difficult option. No, I didn't flesh out these languages quite so much, but I did develop the basic phonology and grammar. Still, given what it added to the story - totally worth it.

Writing system

One more thing. Having created a language for a piece that is completely in a written medium, you would imagine that I was satisfied. Not so. There was no need to develop a writing system - no one was going to see it anyway. Yet I created it. Was it crazy? Undoubtedly. Was it worth it? Yes.
For this, I took my inspiration from Japanese, in a way. This is why I made the parent language a logography. The language in question ended up with an alphabet derived from characters in the parent language (simple explanation. The in-universe explanation is a little bit more complicated).
Perhaps you are wondering how I fitted a language with verb conjugation and a complex case system into a logography. I'll just say I took some inspiration from Chinese and Japanese. The end result is very functional if not exactly pretty, but it works.

Final thoughts

There are a lot of things I didn't talk about here, but I will get to them in a later article (accents, dialects, and all that stuff, for example). I touched on a lot of topics here, but I didn't go into detail - perhaps, that, too, will be another article.
In conclusion, it was difficult. Writing conversation in this language is still difficult for me. Still, given the layers it added to the story, to the characters, the character interactions, and all that, it was completely worth it.

Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!

The children of Mars - Chapter 02

I had to act, and act fast. Deimos was no mere supernatural creature, as you may have guessed, but a force of nature. A force of nature with the ability to induce pass panic and terror in people for no good reason. A force of nature who fed on people's fears that he amplified to feed himself. That in turn would make him more powerful.

True, a rampage by Deimos would produce a lot of magical energy in the world around, true. Whether I would be to harness it was another matter altogether. Besides, how would it affect other humans around me? What was the council even thinking?

First, I had to calm down, and think. I had dealt with a lot of crazy stuff in the last year, like university. This wasn't going to be much worse by comparison. Now, the first thing to do was to start monitoring the news. I turned the TV on. I simultaneously started looking for any traces of a mass panic online. Neither medium indicated anything of the sort. Was it outside the country? Deimos should have started doing something by now.

I kept monitoring the news, but there was no indication of anything like that. Finally, what happened was I fell asleep in front of the TV until I was woken up by the alarm. I seriously considered skipping lectures, but then I realised - Kathy was there. I couldn't possibly monitor all media, and my knowledge of this world was still limited. Kathy was already convinced I wasn't from this world, and if she did spill anything, chances are, no one would believe her. She would make a good ally.

By some miracle, I made it to university in one piece and in time. There was a short break during the first lecture, but I decided against speaking about it to Kathy at the time, because of two reasons - one, I slept through the lecture and woke up halfway through the break, and two, Kathy would want an explanation ranging from fifteen to thirty minutes long by my estimates, which wasn't possible during a ten minute break.

We usually had lunch together. This was starting to make me a little nervous. I hadn't checked the news properly in hours, and Kathy wasn't sitting near me. I pushed these thoughts away forcefully - they were just the sort of thing that would make me vulnerable to Deimos on the off chance he was hanging around here.

"What's up, Murdoch? you look a little nervous," said Ryan suddenly.

He was also one of my classmates - one who preferred to remain quiet most of the time.Why had he noticed my existence? Why had he bothered to comment on it? Was I becoming paranoid? No, I couldn't allow this. I was making myself the prime target for Deimos. Perhaps it was a good thing - but then, who would be able to stop him? Renard? No, he would be way too busy with his own schemes.

"Yeah, you look really pale," said Kathy, "did something happen?"

"No, no, nothing at all," I said, "I need to go to the library. Bye."

I ran away as quickly as I could - perhaps too quickly. The others stared after me. I didn't care. I had to get somewhere and check the news. Trying to team up with Kathy wasn't worth my sanity. I got to one of the library computers, and started browsing the news. All the news appeared to be political so far.

I was reaching this conclusion when I felt someone put their hand on my shoulder. Understandably, I reacted, the way I knew how to - by getting into position to cast a spell, before realising who I was facing. It was Kathy.

"Oh, it's just you. What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Are you going to tell me the truth? I know something's going on with you..."

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you as well," I said, "look, let's go somewhere a bit more private, okay? I get nervous when surrounded by people under these circumstances."

She looked slightly amused, but agreed. We met outside the library. She was waiting for me to start the conversation, obviously, so I did.

"First of all, you were right about me..."

"I knew it!"

"And, look, don't panic, but the council back home has released a supernatural entity into this world. It's dangerous, and I want your help finding it out, quickly. I've been here for about an year, so I'm not very good at looking for the news I want to find, plus I can't monitor everything all the time..."

"So, can't you use like, magic to find it?"

"No. I'm all out of magic. Wait, did you just believe everything I said, just like that?"

"I know you're not a liar. So, what are we looking for?"

"Mass panic, terror, or possibly one person or the other attacking people like crazy, perhaps?"

"Mass panic aside, I doubt the news will report anything like that. Are you sure this thing is in the country, to begin with? No one's going to report..."

"No, I'm not sure. Look, Kathy, just keep monitoring the situation, and if anything crops up, call me. You have my number, right? If you see anything of the sort, don't get involved. I might be able to use the magic leaking off it to do something, but don't fight it alone, or you might be possessed as well. Do you understand?"

Kathy nodded. She didn't seem concerned at all, which worried me a little. Did she even believe me? Was she leading me on, recording the conversation to go laugh at me later with friends? If that was the case, it would be her loss. They would know I was telling the truth when I warned them about Deimos. But what if this got out? I would be a wanted man here as well.

"It's going to be alright," said Kathy, suddenly, "You've dealt with this kind of thing before, right?"

"Y-yeah," I said, "we have ten minutes until the lecture. I'm going to check on the news until then."

I couldn't keep checking the news during the lecture. The tension, sleep deprivation, and post lunch sedation effect all took hold all at once, and I fell asleep shortly after the lecture began. Still, it was a terrible nap. I had nightmare after nightmare, and almost woke up screaming in the middle of the lecture hall. Luckily, I was fully awake before I could actually scream. The nap had been only ten minutes. I looked around the class in confusion. It was then that I saw Ryan. He was staring at me intensely.

He was the first one to notice my escalating panic during lunch as well. I inevitably jumped to the obvious conclusion. I had to be sure. If it was Ryan, he was only possessed. Still, if he was possessed by Deimos, I would be able to draw in some magical power. There should be some hanging around the area.

With my right hand still on the desk, I put my left hand under the desk, and tried to gather magical energy on to it. At first, there was no reaction, but soon, I started gathering magical energy. It wasn't a little - I could feel it surging through my arm - a felling I hadn't felt in about a year. There was no mistaking it. I kept going - I wanted to see exactly how much energy I could gather. I was watching the entire lecture hall intently. No one seemed to be reacting to it - not even Ryan.

The supply dried up pretty soon. I had gathered enough magical power to regain some base level powers, hopefully. A spell to locate Deimos would take more power than I managed to gather, but this confirmed my suspicions. Ryan was likely possessed by Deimos.

Now, I was wide awake. I was barely paying attention to the lecture, but Ryan seemed quite focused on it - a significant anomaly given his nature. There was a short break during the lecture, and I went out with the others as usual. So did Ryan. I didn't try to speak to him, but I watched his quite intently. The break was quite short, and the lecture resumed son afterwards, and I watched Ryan all through it.

Once the lecture finished, Kathy dragged me out by the arm. That was definitely going to get me teased to hell and back afterwards, but there was no reasoning with Kathy in this mood - because she was definitely worried about something.

"Stop staring at Ryan. Everyone's starting to notice it," she said, the moment she dragged me outside the class, "What's going on with you?"

"Did you notice anything odd about him?"

"What? No, I didn't notice - wait, are you trying to say he's whatever you're looking for? He doesn't look particularly terrified or panicked..."

"But he's good at sensing it - at least he noticed me panicking rather quickly. That's odd, don't you think, especially given the type of guy he is?"

"It's not that odd," said Kathy, "pull yourself together. This is getting ridiculous..."

"I know for a fact that Deimos was in that classroom," I said, "or, at least..."

"What's going on with you?" asked Ellis, "you were glaring at Ryan the entire time. Did something happen?"

This was another of my friends. He wasn't really the type that would notice a lot of things.

"Wait, he was?" asked Ryan, "I didn't see - I mean, I noticed he was worried, but then I forgot all about it - what's going on?"

There was one way I could find Deimos, once and for all. It was risky, but at that time, I was desperate. I switched to my language.

"Deimos, I want to talk to you, alone."

None of the three people around me reacted. Kathy looked slightly puzzled, and Ryan and Ellis stared at each other. He was either disguising himself well, or he wasn't among the three people here. I tried absorbing magical energy again. There was a little of it around, but it wasn't enough to confirm the presence of Deimos. Perhaps he had already passed by here and left the class. I pushed the three around me out of the way and rushed back into the lecture hall. It was nearly empty. I got to my seat. There, I tried checking for magical energy again. The levels were residual. Either he had left, or he was hiding his presence very well.

What could I do? I stuffed the books back into my bag as fast as I could, and brushed past the three of them, without talking to them. Right now, I could not. I made it back to my room in record time. I wanted to be alone, I wanted to think. What could I do now? How was I going to get Deimos to reveal himself?

I was sitting on my bed, thinking, when I heard a familiar voice. I had heard it in the holding cells next to the lab ever so often before, so I recognised it right away.

"Did you miss me?"

"So you finally showed yourself. Tell me, who did you possess?"

"I'm not stupid. I just came to tell you something. I will possess you. I will make you suffer. You had your turn making my life hell, and I will do the same to you."

"Go ahead and do that," I said, getting to my feet, "this time, I will make sure no one but me can set you free."

"All in good time," he said.

"We need to talk..."

By then, Deimos was gone. During the conversation, I had managed to acquire a good amount of magical power leaking off him. True, it was nowhere near the levels I had back at home, but with this, I wouldn't be completely helpless. In addition to that, I knew I was his target.

So, what would Deimos do to hurt me? What did I fear the most? I feared nothing much, really - not in this world. While I was friends with Kathy and all of them, I didn't care for them. I did care about my grades, but the exams weren't an immediate threat, and anyway Deimos would have to possess multiple professors for that to work. He could try to injure me physically, but he had made no such attempt. How was he going to hurt me?

I was pacing up and down in my room when suddenly, Another hologram appeared in my room. It was the head of the council, finally making contact with me. I stopped in my tracks, and waited for him to speak. I wanted to hear what he had to say for himself.

We glared at each other for a second, and then he decided to speak.

"I believe you are aware of the situation, at least partially."

I said nothing. I didn't even bother to nod in agreement. I waited for him to finish what he was saying.

"The keystones are all gone. Phobos is free in the city. He had caused minimal damage so far, but the chaos keeps spreading. I want you to come back as soon as you. For that end, we have released Deimos into the world you're in now, as per your request. You can use the energy he will leak to regain your powers, and return. You will return, contain Phobos, repair the keystones, and then you can go back to that world to recapture Deimos."

I didn't say anything.

"What is your reply?"

"I will do what I think is right."

"The right thing to do is to save your country from this disaster, like you did..."

"Please don't waste my time. The discussion is over, President. Please close the hologram."

He didn't - at least not right away. I glared at him for about a second, at which point he did turn it off. It was then that the reality of my situation came crashing down on me again. I crashed on my bed, and stayed there, staring at the ceiling. I don't know how long I stayed that way, and I don't know when I fell asleep like that, driven by pure mental exhaustion, with the room's light still on. All I know was that I was still there in the exact same position I went to sleep in when the alarm went off in the morning the next day.

I forced myself to go to lectures the next day. Deimos would be there, surely. I was already on the lookout for his presence as I entered the campus. I could feel the residual energy left behind as I walked in to the building. I certainly felt his presence in the lecture hall. He was definitely there, and he had apparently grown in power.

I did get a few strange looks from Kathy and co when I walked in, but that was expected. I nodded to them as I took my seat. Kathy came and sat next to me. Before she could speak, the lecturer came in. I was glad - I was convinced Deimos would possess someone close to me, and I needed time to study the situation.

Now the magical levels were back to residual levels. I was listening to the lecture, but scanning the rest of the class at the same time, while drawing in the magical power I could. I still didn't have enough for a search spell, but with my improved baseline sensitivity, I was starting to sense that it came from the front row, near Ryan and Ellis. Now I had to figure out how to draw Deimos away from them.

I never got so far. The moment the lecturer announced the break, Ryan suddenly leapt onto his chair and jumped over it, right at me and Kathy. I knew what it was right away, but before my conscious mind could process what was happening, I had jumped to cover Kathy, and both our chairs fell backwards, leaving the two us, and now Ryan on the floor. Ryan rolled off, and immediately got to his feet, brandishing a pen in a perfect ice-pick grip.

------------------------------------END OF CHAPTER TWO-----------------------------------------

None of the characters or places described in this work are representative of any real people, incidents, or the like.

Please do not post this story on other sites or on any other media. Instead, add the link to this blog post.

Thank you for reading.

The children of Mars - Chapter 01

Okay, where shall I start? 

First, my name - or at least the name I use here is Murdoch Wright Sitz. As I have come to realize later, and as you may have guessed already, I got it out of a random name generator. Currently, I am a twenty year old university student - yes, I managed to trade some of the stuff I had on me when I landed here.

So, how did I end up here? Basically, I screwed up - or rather, the thing I was so close to finishing blew up in my face. No, that was not a figure of speech. That is how I ended up basically falling onto this planet (though luckily, the actual fall was maybe a couple of metres at most), with no idea of where I was, or the language, or the society, or basically anything, all alone.

Let's get straight to the story. There were lectures in the morning that day (stupid idea, really. Why don't they start after noon and end at, maybe six o'clock?) so I had to be at university by nine. I actually made it in time. The lecture went fairly well - I mean, imagine having to listen to stuff you've heard a million times already and trying not to fall asleep (I didn't succeed, entirely).

There were lectures in the afternoon as well, so I planned to grab lunch at the university canteen. So I joined a group of friends for the purpose. Some were expecting me to explain the lecture to them, but thanks to the aforementioned issue, I had a little trouble with it. The others quickly started gossiping. It was quite boring, to be frank. I excused myself quickly, and thought I'd go to the library - there was a book I wanted to borrow. It was a short walk, and I was halfway there, when someone suddenly called my name. As in, my real name, not Murdoch.

This was after a lecture, so it took a second to register. I turned around, and almost screamed. Before you judge me, I was, and still am an academic. The guy standing in front of me was someone I was acquainted with due to my previous work. I'll only tell you that this guy is not a human, and is definitely bad news if you cross him. Also, he's definitely not from this planet/universe/dimension/whatever.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. 

"Looking for you."

No, this was not a sweet gesture. This guy probably needed my help and sought me out on this planet. I had to escape the situation. I had to think of a solution, fast. Before my confused brain could come up with an appropriate response, he spoke again.

"Okay, the situation is a bit serious, which is why I bothered to come all the way here. Fundamentally, we need you back. Immediately."

There had to be a catch, somewhere. "Explain the situation first."

"Well, it's sort of complicated. Remember Phobos? Yeah, he kind of showed up. After you magicked yourself away, there isn't anyone else who can actually figure out how to get rid of him. We desperately need your help."

This did sound quite serious, but a year of dealing with spam email later, I wasn't so keen to believe him right away. The core argument was far from solid. I wasn't the only one who could figure out how to deal with Phobos. Besides, it wasn't like he'd turn into a natural disaster unless you let him. I decided to probe a little further.

"What did he do?"

"Possessed a kid, caused havoc, abandoned the kid and possessed a soldier, and that soldier has currently dropped off the map. The problem is, given you disappeared, the rumour is that you're dead, so none of them are afraid to do as they please. You have to come back."

"What about the keystones?"

"Seriously? They broke when you disappeared. That's the issue. You have to figure how how to reconstruct them."

That really was serious. Without the keystones, the state would be vulnerable to almost all supernatural threats. The strangest, most magnificent state in the world - the one I helped build, to begin with - would be destroyed in short order. Something had to be done about this. I just might be able to repair the keystones. I had to get back.

"Okay, how do I get back?"

"I was hoping you'd know. I can't take you with me, given you're a fundamentally different being."

This was fun. 

"This is probably not the best time to tell you this, but there is no magic here. Yeah, there is a little here and there, but it's nowhere near enough for me to transport myself back, provided I knew my way back."

"Look, if I bring the keystone fragments with me, can you repair it?"

"What makes you think that's possible? No, someone else will have to do it. I can tell someone how to do it, but..."

"Okay, then tell me."

"You know why I won't. But what I can tell you is how to find Phobos. Will that suffice?"

"Yo, Murdoch! Who's that? A friend of yours?" asked Kathy.

She was also going to the library, apparently. This was one of my classmates.

"He's a friend of mine," I said quickly. That's the best thing I could think of, despite the fact that the thing in front of me could generously be described as humanoid. Kathy did have something of an imagination, which probably explained her rather unusual reaction.

"I see. Does your friend have a name?"

"Robin," he said quickly, "name's Robin."

I resisted the urge to facepalm. Kathy, however, was happy with the answer, and was apparently planning to continue the conversation. I had to get her out of here, fast, if I was to give 'Robin' the formula to find Phobos. 

"So, are you cosplaying?" asked Kathy. 

"Ah, yeah. You see, we have to go to the - uh - the next convention - not the one here, it's still too far away, but since Robin here is a professional, so - um, we need to discuss it in secret. You see, it's all top secret. Could you please leave us alone for a while? I'll join you in the library? Look, I know you have ideas, but we're running out of time now, so..."

"Okay, okay. Just, I'm available if you need any help. Bye."

With that, Kathy left, so I could return to what I was doing. Luckily, I had a notepad on me, so I quickly scribbled the formula on it. Whether 'Robin' would get it was doubtful, but there were other people he could contact if he wanted to get it explained to him.

I tore that page out and gave it to him. With that, he left right away - almost too quickly. Still, I was in a bit of a hurry, so I rushed off to the library. It took be a couple of minutes to locate the book I wanted, and I went to the desk to check it out. It was there that I ran into Kathy again. She had just checked out one of the books, and was waiting for me outside.

"Hello," she said, "so, I kind of want to talk to you. Can we walk to class together?"

"Yeah, sure," I said, "continue."

"Who are you, really? You're not from this world, are you?"

There is no way she could know. This was her overactive imagination, as usual.

"I know you're thinking of an excuse, but tell me, Murdoch, which school did you go to? Also, what are the names of your parents, or guardians? Where were you born? Where did you spend your childhood? And when is your birthday?"

Unfortunately for her, I had my cover story down. I answered all these questions in the very order they were presented to me. Big mistake.

"You know, that's a good way to find out someone using a cover story," she said, "so, that's a cover story, and an incredibly well thought out one. What was your friend? He wasn't human now, was he? and you weren't speaking to him in English for the first part of the conversation which is highly unusual given your backstory. So, where are you from? You're either an alien or a magician. Which is it?"

"And how did you reach that conclusion? Besides, I wasn't speaking English because that's not his native language."

"I won't tell anyone about him," she said, "just tell me when you're ready to talk about it. Try to stay awake during this lecture at least."

After that, things fell into the usual pattern again. The semester had just begun, so studies weren't too difficult (except for the odd assignment). Kathy seemed to have forgotten the incident entirely. Sometimes, when I was free, I would think about what was going on back at home, but all the information I had was a brief conversation with one person. Sometimes, my doubts would creep back in, but I pushed it out of my mind forcefully. I didn't live there anymore, it wasn't my problem.

Two weeks passed without incident. That day was unusual from the start. First, there was a power cut at my apartment. Then I nearly got run over by a vehicle trying to cross the road. Next, I managed to trip over my own feet at the university gate. After that, I thought no more disasters could occur, but I managed to walk right into the door of the building at the university. Then the morning lectures started, and it was a section I knew inside out. The only silver lining was that the afternoon lectures were cancelled, and I could research as much as I wanted in the university library.

I did go there that afternoon (having crashed into the library door and tripped over the threshold - both being places I've navigated before without incident). I soon found the shelves I was looking for, and started browsing it, trying to decide whether I wanted to read any of the books there. I was absorbed in the this task when someone spoke behind me, in the language of my country (a fact I didn't realise at the time).

"Browsing libraries as usual, aren't you? Are you satisfied with yourself?"

"Any reason I shouldn't be?" I asked, and turned around me. I recognised the person at once.

"Ella? What are you doing here? How..."

"This is obviously a hologram, and I could locate you, yes - figure out how I did it. I mean, if Renard could pull it off, there is no reason..."

"So did you find Phobos..."

"What do you think?"

"Funny, the formula should have been..."

"Don't be stupid! Phobos was never free in the city! Now you've gone and given him the key to finding him, and..."

"Then are the keystones safe?"

"Of course not! You destroyed half of them with whatever you did, and someone else - I guess Renard - finished the rest. They're gone. If they were intact Phobos wouldn't even be a problem..."

"Wait, so Renard got the formula, and used to find Phobos, and set it one the city?"

"No he hung it on his wall! Stop asking stupid questions! Now, get yourself back here the way you ended up there, right now, or I'm going to come there expressly to..."

"Wait, Ella, there is no magic here, I can't make my way back unless you can open a tunnel from there. Can you do it?"

"Look, there was one armed mob on the south side of the city, and someone was caught trying to break into the academy, someone disrupted communications to about a quarter of the city - Phobos is feeding, and it's growing. I can't possibly find the resources needed to open a portal. You'll have to do it from that end, somehow."

"But..."

"The only reason I was able to use a hologram was because there is at least some magic there. At least, tell me, what formula did you give him?"

"It's an experimental one that I've been working on. I'll give it to you as well. You should be able to find Phobos every time that way."

"You can't..."

"let me finish. If I am going to get back there, there is only one way to do that. Get Renard, or someone else like him, to visit this world, regularly. Can you do it?"

"But - okay, I'll try raising it with the council. Now give me the formula - we're running out of time."

I sketched the formula, and it was enough for her - she was one of my brightest colleagues after all. After she disconnected, the true meaning of it all dawned on me. I had put my entire country in danger, and worse, given to tools to control a dangerous force of nature to a conniving, ambitious, trickster. I knew his character, and yet I let him fool me completely. Was he using some sort of spell to control my mind? Impossible. There was no way he could control my mind.

"So, another friend from your world?" asked Kathy, suddenly looking into the aisle, "I thought I heard someone talking in the same foreign language again, so - hey, are you alright? You look pale."

"Y-yeah, I'm alright," I said quickly - too quickly. Kathy caught on right away.

"So, what really happened?"

"Nothing, really. I'm just feeling a little off, that's all."

She didn't buy it, as far as I could tell. She suggested going out for some fresh air, but I managed to shake her off for the time being by grabbing a random book and walking away as fast as I could. I got through the rest of the day without suffering any major injury. The power was back on when I went back home. I thought the worst was behind me, so I decided to spend the evening relaxing. I had just taken up a book, when a hologram appeared right in front of me. It was Ella again.

"The council decided they need you back right away," she said, the moment she appeared, "they're planning to arrest you - I think so, anyway, I'm not supposed to contact you until they allow me to, so don't reply, and let me finish this quickly. The only supernatural entity we could find to send to you was Deimos. he's already on earth. Please, please, be careful."

With that, the hologram disappeared.

------------------------------------END OF CHAPTER ONE-----------------------------------------

None of the characters or places described in this work are representative of any real people, incidents, or the like.

Please do not post this story on other sites or on any other media. Instead, add the link to this blog post.

Thank you for reading.

The silent GPS

As a part of my work, I recently had to work on a GPS unit. This is about my misadventures trying to get it to work.
The trouble began with it being a rather old unit, and as such it wasn't exactly as simple as more modern units would have been. Still, I did figure out how it was supposed to work - so far, so good. I got the components, set everything up, and expected to get a reading.
Except I got no such thing.
My immediate first guess was a communication problem - I wasn't too familiar with it after all and the power light was on. So I looked it up, and checked the cable. Nope. It's working perfectly. I checked the settings against the manual. My settings were correct.
Then I went through the manual again to see whether any of my commands or settings were wrong. Nope.
The only other option was power. On closer inspection, the unit wasn't drawing any current. So, I had identified the problem.
The unit had a fuse. That was my first suspect. Tested it - no, it wasn't blown.
Then I checked the power circuit. It said 12 V, but the GPS itself was rated to handle a range of voltages, so to be on the safe side I had gone with 11.5 V. On closer inspection I saw a 7810 regulator. The rated input is 12.5 V, but even with a lower voltage it should have given a steady DC output, though probably at less than 10 V. The GPS should have worked under those circumstances. still, nothing had worked and I was a little short of resorting to an exorcism, so I thought I might as well increase the voltage to 12.5 V. Still, no response. It simply wasn't drawing any current.
At this point, I was reaching the concluded that something was possibly fried.
The next task was identifying what was fried. It was either the power supply or the GPS. Fortunately the designers of the unit had allowed for measuring the current output. That allowed me to determine that the output power from the supply was zero.
Having determined that, I checked the supply again. Possibly there was something I had missed, something that would allow me to identify the real problem. Perhaps a small switch on the board...
There was no such thing. Finally, I closed the box, and lo and behold, on the outside of it, was a rather large power switch. It was in the off position.
I turned it on, and well, it worked.
At least, thanks to this fiasco, I had read the manual thoroughly and all the connections were right when I finally switched it on. On the flip side, I wasted quite a few hours of my life.
So, the point I want to make is, always check the obvious, and do not blindly trust power buttons.


yours truly,
Falcon-15-X-C

The Vigenere Cipher

This article is meant for writers looking for inspiration, cipher enthusiasts, and anyone interested in this topic. Don't bother using this for nefarious purposes - a real cryptoanalyst will probably pick it apart in minutes.

This is a continuation from my previous article on ciphers on simple substitution ciphers. The Vigenere cipher is the next logical step from the simple substitution cipher. Before we start, let's get the terminology cleared up:

Plaintext: The text that is ciphered, in plain English (or whatever language you prefer).
Ciphertext: The ciphered text.
Key: the key to cracking the cipher, either a number or a word, or a random selection of letters. More on this later.

So, to get started, do you remember the Caesar cipher from the last article? It involves shifting the entire alphabet by a fixed amount to produce the cipher alphabet. The whole Caesar cipher table is given below, with shifts from 0 to 25 are given below. It will be useful for understanding the Vigenere cipher.

The Vigenere Cipher works by combining several Caesar Ciphers into one. This is best illustrated with an example. Consider the following plaintext:

TEXT:            It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.
PLAINTEXT:
ITZISZNOTZINZTHEZSTARSZTOZHOLDZOURZDESTINYZBUTZINZOURSELVES

Note that all spaces have been replaced with 'Z' as discussed in the previous article. the entire text has been turned into uppercase, as the cipher we will be using here is not case sensitive. Now, let's try applying a simple substitution to it, say, Caesar 5:

CIPHERTEXT_CAESAR5: NYENXESTYENSEYMJEXYFWXEYTEMTQIETZWEIJXYNSDEGZYENSETZWXJQAJX

Several weaknesses are immediately obvious - for example, there are way too many 'E's, which gives away that they are spaces, and it all goes downhill from there. If you want to make this stronger, you could potentially use several Caesar ciphers in combination. Let's pick a random keyword - say, APPLE. (Don't judge me. If English books can do it, so can I).

To use this as a key,we have to convert it to the numerical equivalent - 0-15-15-11-4. If you want to, you can remove duplicates before this step. I chose not to in this example.

So, what does this key mean? It means that we will be using five alternating Caesar ciphers throughout the text - the first character will be Caesar 0, the second Caesar 15, and so on, until we hit the sixth character which will be Caesar 0 again. Ciphering the same plaintext gives:

CIPHERTEXT_KEY_APPLE:
IIOTWZBDEDIBOELEOHEERHOESZWDWHZDJCDDTHEMNNOMYTOXYDOJGDILLTW

The formula, by the way, is [plaintext+key, mod 26], with the alphabet at A=0, B=1, etc. Some sample calculation:

I → 8 → 8+0, mod 26 = 8 → I
T→19 → 19+15, mod 26 = 34, mod 26 = 8 → I
Z → 25 → 25+15, mod 26 = 40, mod 26 = 14 → O
I → 8 → 8+11, mod 26 = 19 → T
S → 18 → 18+4, mod 26 = 22 → W
Z → 25 → 25+0, mod 26 = 25 → Z
and so on.

As you can see, there are fewer obvious clues in here. The letter frequency count gives 8 'D's, 7 'E's, and 7 'O's, and 'H', 'I', 'T', and 'W' are present four times each. This doesn't tell us so much. [frequncy analysis from https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/quenell/s2003/ma139/js/count.html]

The most reliable way to attack this cipher, if you know the key length, is to isolate the different Caesar ciphers and to attack them separately. For this cipher, provided you knew that the key length was 5, you could isolate the 1st, 6th and so on, then the 2nd, 7th, and so on - you get the idea. Then you can attack these as individual simple substitution ciphers.

As you can see, the resulting ciphertexts are much smaller than the original ciphertext. This makes it much more difficult to crack them. If your keyword/key phrase is the same length as the plaintext, it really will be nearly impossible to crack.

The risk of course, is the possibility of the key being intercepted. There are different ways to get around this - use a book cipher, encode your key (often a short word) in a simple substitution cipher that is not a Caeser cipher, or have the person on the other end know the keyword for the day/week/ whatever.

Variants

You can also use some variations on the Vigenere cipher. One is to take the key to its logical conclusion as mentioned above, and use a key of the same length as the message you want to send. There is always the problem of that being intercepted.

Another possibility is to use a numerical key - say, the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, ...). True, it increased beyond the number of characters rather quickly, and is strictly increasing (which can show itself in the cipher text), but this can be overcome by grouping them by digits (11, 23, 5, 8, 13, 21, 3, 4, ...). You can also consider using irrational numbers, or an irrational number of sequence multiplied by a constant - the number of ways you can play about with this is infinite.

Enjoy!

Falcon-15-X-C

Evolution of technology - a perspective

Those of us who have tried world-building, be it for a story or for some other purpose, have run into this problem at some point or the other. How would the environment affect the evolution of technology?

For this discussion, I will focus on aircraft, mostly because it is one of my favourite areas. Also, what makes it ideal for discussing this topic is that aviation as we know it developed a little over a century ago, and most of its progress is recorded.
What is discussed here is the hypothetical scenario where someone or a group is approaching the development of aircraft. How will they approach it, realistically?

Where do you begin?

Imagine a civilization is developing aircraft for the first time. Where would they start? One of the first things most people would look to is birds - provided birds exist in this hypothetical scenario, of course. They're everywhere, and they're obviously flying, and they make it look easy. This is why we have stories of this sort - Deadalus and Icarus, as well as various fairy tales.
Assuming this doesn't work, what would you look to? The most obvious answer would be gliding - like eagles, for example. Remember, it is entirely possible to glide for hours if you can launch yourself off from a height.
Lighter than air craft is another possible option. These are hot air balloons, blimps, and airships. This requires some understanding that air is a fluid, and that things can float in it. This is probably not exactly obvious to someone who hasn't encountered this before, but at least you can expect scientists to be aware of this.
Lastly, there are fixed wing aircraft. This is the type we use most commonly - with fixed wings providing lift, with thrust provided by engines. The speed of the air moving over the wings creates a pressure differential, which creates the lift necessary, in the simplest terms. The concept is easy enough to discover - try moving a plate of some sort through the air at a slight upwards angle through the air. However, identifying the accurate relationship between speed and lift, and the drag generated in the process, may take time and a lot of experimentation.

What limits it?

Material

A major problem that most early attempts at flight encountered was the lack of suitable material. In general, you want the material in question to be light and strong. Modern aircraft are mostly made of alloys (mostly aluminium based, or titanium based) and composites which meet this requirement. Most models are made of Styrofoam, or balsa wood and spruce wood, and plywood and carbon fibre may be used for specific components. Birds have 'hollow bones' - actually, it doesn't have any marrow inside, but is supported by bone struts to help it take the stresses of flight. Unless you can find material that will do the job, flight would be impossible.
In general, you will need high strength for the wings and wing attachments, engine attachments (if there are any), control surfaces, and joints in ornithopters (bird-like aircraft). You'll also need high strength for internal components of engines (depends on the type of engine).

Power

Another main limiter is power. Early attempts at powered flight were made with steam engines. These tended to be on the heavy side, which was a problem, since the engine had to produce enough power to lift its own weight and the weight of the air-frame off the ground. Lifting a higher weight needs more power, which needs a heavier engine - you get the idea. So, you're going to need a power source with a reasonable power to weight ratio.
There are more ways to produce the power necessary than just engines. You can use some form of jets (again, depends on material and someone actual getting the idea), rockets (Me 163 Komet, for example), or even an electromagnetic catapult to launch it into the air. Of course there is nothing stopping you doing the same with a catapult or a crossbow, but I am not sure the pilot will appreciate it.
In a fantasy setting, you can always manipulate the airflow around the aircraft in question directly, which will likely reduce the power requirement drastically (airbending, in Avatar the last airbender, and Legend of Korra, for example).

Controllability

Figuring out how to control a plane with no prior knowledge about it can be tough. The Wright flyer used wing warping - that is, using cables to warp the wings and control surfaces to make it turn or otherwise respond to commands. Most modern aircraft use a variation of the same - instead of warping the entire wing, they move dedicated control surfaces, like the rudder, elevator, or ailerons. An ornithopter can differential flapping and moving the tail to control itself.

Other Challenges

Size scaling

A bee does not fly the same way an eagle does. Directly scaling up things does not always work when trying to develop an aircraft. For one, if you scale length up by two in all three dimensions, the area quadruples while the volume is multiplied by eight. This is a problem because lift depends on area, while weight depends on volume. You can be in major trouble if you don't realise this (running off the end of the runway without lifting off, for example). This can happen if you're developing the entire field as you go along - people have made incredible obvious-in-hindsight mistakes in similar situations. Another is that the characteristics of airflow change completely based on the size of the object flying - but the exact mechanics are enough material for an entire article on its own.

The risk

If an automobile loses control, especially at low test speeds, you can expect the driver to walk away with relatively minor injuries. Not so with aviation. It's one thing if it doesn't take off, but if the beginning of your flight involves a jump off a tower or a cliff, things can get nasty if the aircraft doesn't actually fly. The same situation can happen if the fragile test aircraft breaks up in midair for some reason. In this case, unless the person inside can fly independently of the aircraft, or is damage resistant, he's likely to suffer some form of grievous injury if not death on contact with the ground. How the characters handle this risk - whether they test it themselves, investigate the possibility of unmanned tests, or delegate the task to others can give some insight into their character.

In conclusion, the development of a new technology is a long and involved process. The presence or absence of an element can drive things in a completely different path. If they had strong, light materials and powerful engines in the renaissance, who knows, we may have started aviation with ornithopters. If it was just the material, gliding may have become quite popular a long time ago. This availability, on the other hand, could have caused other problems that we could never have anticipated. Who knows?

I haven't even begun to cover this immense topic here. If you would like to read it, I can do a much more in-depth, technical article on the basics of flight, with a better explanations of the many things I have mentioned in this article.

I hope that helps!
Not actually an avian,
Falcon-15-X-C

Designing a character

Disclaimer: All this is based on my own experience in writing.

To write any story, you will need to design some characters. For some, you may get away with under ten characters for the whole novel, but some hit the hundreds pretty quickly (*cough* fantasy *cough*).
There are many things that you have to decided about a character when designing them. I personally store all the information in a database for reference (due to the aforementioned problem of characters going into the hundreds). So, without further ado, I will get to some of the questions you have to ask and the things you have to decide.

Basic: 

Basic information about the character.

1. Full name: This may sound stupid, but knowing your character's full name will also tell you a lot about them. How many given names do they have? Which one do they use? What about surnames?
2. Preferred form of address: first name, middle name, nickname, or the surname? Or do they prefer to go by full-name basis? What about titles? Do they insist on it?
3. Age and/or DoB: Date of Birth is important only if you have the dates fixed.
4. General appearance: You may think you can get away with not defining it in a book but you'll be dead wrong (at least in most cases).
5. Right of left handed: This is important especially if a lot of action is involved, or if it fits into crime or a related genre. It'll determine how you reach for something, how you wear a bag or something of the sort, how you instinctively react to an attack, and so much more. By the way, very few people are truly ambidextrous - they may be capable of writing comfortably with both hands but may instinctively reach for something with their left hand, for example. If your characters are non-human, you can go ahead and ignore this.
6. Brief character history: It doesn't have to be long, but their general backstory of a character can shape their behavior. The bearing it has on the story depends on the type of story, of course.

Personality:

1. General temperament: Describing it may be tough, and the character may evolve away from your initial definition as you write, but putting in the effort to define it might be worth it.
2. Character quirks: Not everyone has them, but it could e a useful way to distinguish a character.
3. Communication style: Again, this is difficult to define but can go a long way in developing a character's identity.
4. Likes and dislikes: This can define a character quite well, too. For example, if one defines their dislikes as 'messy rooms' and another says 'chaos', it's quite reasonable to assume their personalities aren't too similar.
5. Dress style: Again, this can tell you a lot about them. Do they stick to a single colour? Do they prefer one particular type of fashion? Is there some article of clothing they always have (say, a scarf)?
6. Relationship with fellow sentient creatures: Some people can make friends easily, some can't. Some aren't particularly invested in their relationships with people, some are. Some only genuinely care for a small group - be it their family or their closest friends. Others will go out of the way to help anyone. Where does your character fall?
7. Relationship with machines and non sentiments: This depends on your work, but can be very important.
8. Level of intelligence: This is hard to quantify, but noting how well a character does on various criteria that measure intelligence may help.

Motivations:

1. Goals: What is your character's goal in life? In real life, not everyone has a defined goal, all your characters may not need one. How important are these goals?
2. Fears: What do they fear? Is it failure? Or the loss of something? Or is it death? Or do they claim that they fear nothing?
3. Principles: What code do they live by? Are there any principles they're unwilling to compromise?
4. Attachments: What are they absolutely unwilling to give up?
5. Approach to achieving their goals: How much effort are they willing to put into it? How is this energy directed?

Further information:

1. Phobias: Again, not everyone has those, but depending on your work, it may be useful.
2. Level of religiousness / nationalism: If you aren't willing to touch these very messy topics, it should be fine (depends on the type of story). However, this can add another facet to your character. There are various levels of religiousness, too. Some may follow the religion to the letter, but to others it's just a part of their identity, and you find people everywhere in between these two extremes. The same scale applies to nationalism.On the other end, you will find who are ambivalent to the whole concept, and others who will reject it completely.
3. Disabilities: If the entire character is built entirely around some sort of disability, mental or physical, then it is a caricature, not a character. That being said, having a disability can add a lot of depth to a character. Also note that not all disabilities, especially mental ones, are obvious at a glance (physical ones aren't exempt either - colour blindness for example).
4. Allergies: Quite specific, true, but a lot of people have them, and they can complicate things considerably. It can apply to anything organic (or machines too - like the oddly specific inputs that make them go haywire).
5. Language fluency: This may also be oddly specific, but since it determines who your character can communicate with, and how well that communication will go, so it's pretty important. Also, it's entirely possible for someone to understand a language but have trouble speaking it, or have trouble reading/ writing it.
6. Familiarity with technology: Again, possibly oddly specific, but it will determine how much your character can gather, how well they can communicate, and how fast they'll adapt to any technology that becomes available. This doesn't refer to just computers - being able to forge a sword is also being familiar with technology.
7. Skill levels: What sort of skills do they have, and how proficient are they at it? The specific skills in question depend on the story/setting. Being able to use a long sword will be useful in a medieval setting, but if your story involves a series of battles fought out of visual range or with robots - you get the idea. Incidentally, that example works the other way too.

A final note: Defining all this is a lot of work, but for me, personally, it always pays in the end. Details have a way of coming out in the narrative, and a little off-hand reference to some noodle incident, or a slight dissonant reaction can add a lot to a character.
To conclude, it's not necessary to define each and every aspect stated here for every character, and the attributes listed here may not fit every type of work. This is not an exhaustive list, either - depending on your work, you may need to consider many more criteria. The purpose of this article is to help you organize your thoughts, and hopefully, take a more organized approach to character creation.

Happy writing!