Chapter 22 - Humility and Hope
Once Adam got off the radio with Zodiac-Altair, Twilight insisted that he take Yere Kisữ’s scroll with him. He didn’t see the reason why right away, but he did so anyway, along with a pen and a large rolled-up map of the Harmonic Empire – for the inevitable conversation – and the money he had earned from working around town. Adam asked her to tag along, but apparently an occasion like this was meant to be done alone. In any case, being summoned by either Yere Kisữ or Yara Ariman entitled one to a ride on the Crown’s dime to get there, by whatever means necessary. Usually ponies would opt for the fastest way there – Adam simply followed suit.
Once he showed the scroll to the stallion in the ticket booth, he simply sent him through without another word, meaning he had brought his sack of coins for nothing. It must not have been a busy day today – he found himself in a nearly-empty coach. The only other occupants were an attendant, along with a filly and her mother – all regular ponies – riding with him.
He took his seat close by the exit, setting his stuff between him and the window, to keep them safe. This time, without his suit’s life-support backpack, he was able to lean back comfortably in the car. He noted the stuffed upholstery that lined the seat, and regretted the fact that he’d had to miss out on that for so long. He glanced out the window, and saw Twilight waving him goodbye. He returned her gesture, before relaxing for the ride ahead.
“Keylepilesje, pise,” a voice sounded behind him. Adam looked to find the train’s conductor, hole punch in his mouth, waiting for the human to present his ticket. But he simply showed the summons from Yere Kisữ, accompanied with a “Se,” and after reading it for a moment, the conductor left with a “Xurucru.” He didn’t even bother to punch it. Works for me!
As the conductor stepped out of the car, Adam started looking around his surroundings. There was a map in the car, just like the first time he was here, with several cities and towns across the Harmonic Empire marked. There was Ginzol, in a basin also named Kala-Uha. Did it come first, or did the forest? Well, technically the basin did, but which was named first?
He didn’t look down at the scroll – Lord knows it wouldn’t be easier reading it a second time – but he had a suspicion that it wouldn’t be good for a trip home. Luckily, he had his own money to buy his way back home, so he didn’t need to bum any spare change from what he suspected to be a high-class metropolis.
He felt the car shift forward, and Adam knew he was on his way to Kãtṛlat. He wasn’t sure if he should be nervous or excited to face the heavenly sister-matriarchs. Either way, it wasn’t a good feeling in his stomach. He sighed, to try to relieve the tension. It didn’t work.
“Qapata?” a light voice penetrated his consciousness. He looked down to see the filly he saw earlier had gotten up from her seat and had approached the strange curiosity that was Dr. Adam Somerset.
Good chance to practice being friendly. He smiled, but only just, and returned “Qapata.”
“Rike alvu?” she asked next.
Who am I? “Ṛs Edem alru,” he told her. “Rike alvu?” He quickly glanced up at her mother – who, while suspicious of Adam, as any mother should be with a stranger, didn’t seem to make a move to protect her daughter immediately.
“Kisữtjưke alru.” She looked down and away from him. “Pṛkele alvu.”
Oh, my sweet summer child. . . . “Eñbiru,” he replied. “Uman alru.” He showed Kisữtjưke his hand, to emphasize his words. “Bḷd vẽ alinzamu.”
“Hiþe vẽwe,” Kisữtjưke responded. Then she started to open him up a bit more. “Rike ã Kãtṛlatil ilanavu, hõ Edem?”
“Estikiq ilalru.” It was a simple question, hardly offensive. “Rike ilanavime?” He indicated her mother as well.
“Ilkiloriþa,” she simply said. “Rikeley, eñbizữrư.”
“Hõ Kisữtjưke!” her mother called out to her. “Ṛshe þesơ ezegưbưvư.” She made a gesture for her daughter to rejoin her in her seat.
“Qapata!” she told Adam, as she flounced away from the human and took her seat beside the window. He, meanwhile, occupied himself on the last word she spoke – qapata. It was a magical word, a word that he had confirmed long ago to mean both ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’ And something else, he had discovered later with Twilight’s studies, something he wasn’t expecting in a million years.
Friendship.
And yet, for all his expectations, that gloss fit the bill quite nicely. Why, it glossed perfectly like English did. Qapa meant ‘friend,’ and -ta indicated a change of a noun into a state of being the noun. That same noun ending, though it changed to comply with the phonological harmonies, also appeared in eñbide – ‘science,’ though its actual practice in the Empire also contained several elements of magic and alchemy, the latter of which he had to clarify with Twilight was obsolete.
He felt himself lean back into his seat as the train started climbing uphill. He sighed – it was a nice conversation with Kisữtjưke at least, while it lasted, and it did help take his mind off the fact that he had an impending meeting with Yere Kisữ. But some things simply weren’t meant to work out – some things he had to think about, no matter what.
···–
The train arrived at Kãtṛlat within an hour. A Terrestrial hour, or Rhyslinger? Maybe I’m getting too used to living on this planet, he thought. Regardless, he was here, and he had a job to do.
After watching Kisữtjưke and her mother leave the traincar first, he gathered up his map and sack of coins and stepped out, ducking his head down to avoid another large bruise on his scalp. As he looked around his surroundings, he saw that the city of Kãtṛlat wasn’t as busy with market activity as Ginzol was. Maybe it’s a rural thing, he thought.
Even though he had only visited twice before, he still knew the way from the train station to the Imperial Palace. He was sure that multiple ways existed between the two places, as Twilight could easily attest, and at least a few would be shorter, but he simply traveled the one most familiar to him. Clutching his meager luggage in his hands, he set off by himself on the cobblestoned road.
When he came to an intersection, he checked his left, then his right, for any traffic that might be coming along. None was present, so he crossed the street without a second thought. There on his left was that timepiece shop where he spent a few moments all those weeks ago – and inside, there was the shopkeeper, still apprehensive at the sight of him. Though now he was unsuited, which renewed his fear.
Adam couldn’t blame him.
The broad main street was on the next left, and here he saw some more glimmers of civilian life. Even though he had been on this world for a considerable amount of time, they still regarded him as an odd curiosity. “Ulazaru,” one of them called out to him.
Adam stopped and looked up to see who spoke – it was a brown stallion with an hourglass mark. “Em?” he asked him.
“Zjodḷgãdamalru, an se ã Kãtṛlatil alvu.” He scratched an itch on his hide as he spoke. “Pise þesơ sơhơvư, riqala?”
It was a rather odd and personal question, but Adam decided to humor him for the moment. What’s the worst that could happen? “Yereley ṛs zjogabaladjamu,” he answered, and even held up the scroll the Yere had sent him.
“Þepelrư,” he saw. He turned to walk away, but stopped and turned right back. “Aña ‘zjogabalnjamu’ sjơsiksơhơrư,” he added.
Crap, wrong noun class! “Ulazaru, xurucru!” he quickly spat out. He started hurrying back along to the Palace before he made himself any more of an ass than he already was.
There’s something about that noun class that makes it special, he started to think. It was a thought that had been with him for the past few weeks, but had tried to resolve it himself to avoid embarrassing himself in front of Twilight. Not out of any personal pride, no – what had just happened demonstrated to him that slight errors like that could easily build up to extreme offenses to all the Empire holds dear. Thankfully I didn’t just get vaporized right then and there, he realized.
He reached the Palace gates not long after, where four guards stood at the public entrance. Adam undid the seal and band, showing the guards his purpose for entering the ground. Wordlessly they let him through – and as he stepped through the gates into the lavish front gardens, he started redoing the band and seal as best as he could. The end result was sloppy, but it would have to do.
There were a handful of ponies here, but most of them looked like either nobility themselves or merely uniformed Palace staff. Very few ponies were outside of these two groups. Here you are Adam, in the halls of an alien Empress, the sole representative of your world and your species – including everything good about them, and everything bad. Yeah, no pressure, no pressure at all. Just waltz right in and secure your citizenship and a colony site.
. . . actually, that does sound like an awful lot to do.
As he approached the doors to the throne room, he noted that there were a few ponies here for court business gathered outside of the door. A loud knock sounded, and the doors opened, and Adam watched as a mare left the throne room, while the one waiting outside took her place.
As they walked past each other, Adam greeted her with a passing “Qapata.” She looked up in surprise – then smiled and returned with a “Hõ pṛkelegin, qapata!” and continued on her way.
Adam stood in place by the door while he waited for his turn for audience with Yere Kisữ. As he waited, he started to rehearse – in his head, of course, though that would rob him of the experience to speak it aloud to another person – the things he would try to communicate with the Yere.
Let’s structure this out first, he thought, try to do things in a certain, logical order. First, I have to gain my citizenship. I’ll have to have proved myself a productive member of Imperial civilization, and that I will not cause any trouble whatsoëver. Exile would be my likely fate, since deportation back to Earth would be difficult at this point. Although execution could still be on the table. . . . He shook his head to dispel the dark thought. Once I’ve proven myself to be one of them, then I can forward requests on behalf of the crew. We’ll need an area. . . how large again?
Adam unfurled the map of the Empire. Some time ago, he had transmitted a photograph of this very map up to the ship, so Commander Darcy could see what sort of latitudes and longitudes on which the Harmonic Empire worked. Once he saw it, the commander transmitted the coördinates for the four corners of the plot of land that he deemed to be ideal for colonial development. When he connected the dots together, the resulting red-inked square outlined a large area in a desert south of the Kala-Uha. If he had to guess the area size, it would be somewhere in the ballpark – no pun intended – of three hundred square kilometers. Good enough for a self-contained city, but if they had to expand, what then?
Adam noticed that the desert wasn’t entirely uninhabited – a small town named Njelezơl laid southsouthwest of the marked area. Hold on, he thought, haven’t I seen that place before? He searched his mind, trying to piece together what the source could be. . . and then he realized it was from that foal’s book he read on the first day on the surface, the place he thought was a penal colony. But no, he had later learned, it was simply a trading outpost, one founded on apples of all things.
If any human prospectors discovered minerals on Rhysling, fit for mining, Adam hoped that the two settlements would not come into a conflict. They focused on their orchards, whilst mankind would focus on mining. Though they should have mines of their own, he thought. For now, though, he rolled the map back up for later presentation.
And just in time, too – he felt the hard knock reverberate through his rear, and as he stood up with a start, the doors opened to let the other pony out. Neither of them said a word to the other as they passed by – mostly since the human already had too much on his mind.
“Hõ Edem Zơmṛzed,” a voice rang out. Adam looked to see it came from Yara Ariman, who had apparently opted to join her sister Yere Kisữ in deciding this matter. “Vẽ þesơ wõgakvu.”
Adam sighed, and complied with the Yara’s command – stepping on unsure feet into the throne room. The doors loudly shut behind him, granting him privacy for the meeting between him and the Imperial Sisters in such an intimate matter. When he was in front of him, he knelt before them – I hope they take this to mean a gesture of respect.
“Vẽ þesơ sjḷakvu.”
Adam stood back up, again as ordered.
“Vẽley Ơhqer sjơsikriơhvư?” Yere Kisữ asked Adam.
He nodded. “Em, sjosikrirư.” He made sure to get the words right – the last thing he wanted to do was to screw up his very first spoken words of Ơhqer to the Yere and Yara – aren’t they really the same word? – and prove both himself a liar, and Twilight a failure.
“Ãtirlaj rĩkiqa vẽ sjơikridjeþư?” she then asked, with a tilt of her head.
“Em.” Okay Adam, be a little more transparent. You’ve got to gain their trust. “A mưlwe Iñgḷner sjơikrirư.”
“Iñgḷner?” Yara Ariman raised one of her eyebrows. “Riqala?”
“. . . fưsữlsikritjeþư?” Adam thought he could feel sweat run down his face. This isn’t happening. . . this isn’t happening. . . this isn’t happening. . . ! Surely their language is one they treasure above all else, and any outside interference to upset and ruin its perfected harmony would not be tolerable. Yet here he was, teaching an Imperial citizen his own language. Surely this would spell his own death – !
But the Yere burst out laughing instead. “Vẽley kḷpali alvu?” she asked.
Adam was confused. He hadn’t heard that word before, ‘kḷpali,’ so he didn’t quite know how to answer. He could guess from the context that it meant ‘scared’ or ‘afraid,’ but now was absolutely not a time to jump to conclusions. The best course of action was not to say or do anything at all.
“Ezegley aldḷgãwu,” Yere Kisữ followed up. And then she really surprised Adam: “. . . for Twilight taught me too.”
Adam was at a loss for words. He didn’t know how he was supposed to respond to the fact that Yere Kisữ, ruler of the Harmonic Empire, would stoop to learn an outsider’s language. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I should be the one fitting in here!
Adam finally mustered the will to speak. “Why?” he asked. “Why did Twilight teach y – ” Gotta be more respectful here. “ – Her Imperial Majesty English?”
“I have always wanted to try something new,” she answered. “When you have lived as long as I have, soon all becomes stale – becomes the same things before.”
That’s one way to put it. . . but is that really true? A thousand years? Adam pondered how such a thing would work. Perhaps if they can teleport themselves or other objects and beings at will, they can figure out immortality. Or that’s just normal for them, in which case. . . yeah. Sorry, Twilight.
“My sister, however,” she continued, “has not been so receptive to the English voice.” She glanced at her blue-hued counterpart.
“Ingl-voice hard is,” the Yara demonstrated. “Ơh-voice more good is.”
Adam rolled his eyes. Twilight was once there herself, as was your own sister, he wanted to say – but to avoid disrespecting either of them, he held his tongue.
“That is for another time,” Yere Kisữ took over. “I think you want to be a citizen of the Harmonic Empire; is this right?”
“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty, that is correct.”
“Then I shall make it so.” She cleared her throat – a prompt for a previously-unseen scribe to take up a quill and paper, awaiting dictation. “Ṛsiþẽ, Yere Kisữ, sơhơriþẽ: Edem Zơmṛzedley sulatal a kala estikiq Ơhestisḷ aldjamu.” She waited for the scribe to finish writing, then turned her attention back to Adam. “It is done.”
“Thank you, Your Imperial Majesty.” Adam bowed before her.
She raised a hoof. “Please, Adam – I enjoy that you want to show me respect, but you can call me Yere Kisữ, or simply Yere – everyone else does.”
“I understand, Your Im – Yere,” he caught himself. His face started to warm up again from another round of embarrassment.
“I understand as well this ends the matter?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not quite, Yere.” Now to discuss the more important matter – a landing site. He pulled out the other scroll of paper. “This is a map of the Harmonic Empire,” he indicated. “Permission to approach the throne, Yere?”
“You may approach.”
Adam started unfurling the scroll, making sure the ink hadn’t smudged at all. It hadn’t – it never did – but he was still paranoid, even now. Once he was sure they could see the map, he showed it to them. “Do you see the area indicated in red, Yere?” he asked.
She had to squint at the spot he mentioned, but eventually she said “I can.” She looked back up to him. “Why is it marked?”
Alright, time to lay the cards on the table. “You might not believe me at first, Yere,” he stated, “but I did not travel to the Harmonic Empire alone.” He pointed up to the ceiling of the throne room. “Beyond the sky, beyond the stars, is the land from where I came.” Never mind that it’s another planet in another star system – baby steps, Adam! “We came here by a ship – a ship that can sail the stars. It took us a long time to arrive at the Empire.”
Clearly Yere Kisữ found herself intrigued by what the visitor was saying. She tilted her head as he spoke. When he finished that last thought, she asked him “Why did you come here?”
Oh. . . . “In truth, Yere, we still may not know the answer,” he confessed. “If I must guess, maybe we wanted to seek out the answer to a question: are we alone?” He chuckled – softly, to make sure she mightn’t hear it. “Of course, I know now we are not.”
The Yere started furrowing her brow. Uh-oh. “How did you find us in the first place?” Her tone wasn’t what he would describe as ‘cold,’ but he still knew he had to proceed with caution.
“It was many, many years ago. We wanted to know more about our own star system. We did not know much then – we still don’t now. But we did find this:”
Adam knelt down, flipped the map over, which was blank on the other side, and with the pen started making a rudimentary sketch of his solar system, making sure to delineate each of the nine planets and the asteroid belt. “This is our star system,” he said. He pointed to the third planet from the star. “Here is our home, Earth.”
“Earth,” Yere Kisữ echoed.
“Earth,” Yara Ariman intoned as well. Adam was intrigued to find that she could easily and perfectly pronounce the dental fricative, yet she had to stoop to mixing English words with Ơhqer grammar. “Earth-lay you-of home is?”
He nodded at her. Turning his focus back on the rudimentary starchart, he pointed at the largest planet of the nine. “Here. . . we found something we did not expect to find – a wormhole.”
“What is ‘wormhole’?” she inevitably asked.
How do I phrase this with her limited English vocabulary? “It is a hole in the stars,” he answered. “One end is here, the other – ” again he pointed straight up – “in the sky, near the Empire. We did not know this world existed,” he continued, tapping the ground with his pen, “until we saw it. We did not know the Harmonic Empire existed until I came here.”
“So now you do know,” the Yere stated. “Will you leave?” By her tone, she didn’t sound frustrated with his presence, nor anxious about him leaving so soon. It was a simple question, and it demanded a frank answer.
“We do not know if we can leave,” he said, and sighed – here came the hardest part of the conversation. “We were hoping to make a new home for us on this planet. We did not expect the Empire to be here.”
He stood back up, picking up the map and scrolling it back shut as he rose. “That is why I was sent here. My duty was to learn to speak the Harmonic-Voice, and to teach it to the rest of my kind who came here with me.” He held up the furled map, shaking it just so. “I have succeeded in my job, but I also had another – to make an agreement with the Empire, about where our kind may make its home.”
“Are you harmless?” she asked, completely out of the blue.
What? Uh. . . . “I am harmless, yes.” Where is she going with this?
“I know you are, but are you?” She pointed straight up. “Is your. . . kind? Is your world?” She loomed into his face. “Please answer with the truth. I can tell if you do not.”
Adam dry-swallowed. “Can you? How?”
But instead of explaining, Yere Kisữ simply lit her horn. Unlike Twilight’s, her glow was a golden yellow, not unlike the sun her world orbited. Adam felt his head tingle lightly, and saw that same golden glow swim into the top of his vision. “Speak an untruth.”
Hmm, what to use. . . . “I have children,” Adam blurted out automatically.
Adam instantly regretted it – the tinging on his head instantly turned to fiery pain. He reflexively dropped his items and reached up to clutch his head, but the same pain started to affect his hands. He dropped onto the floor, trying his best not to writhe about too much, lest the problem be exacerbated. The pain receded a moment later, and Adam found he could stand up again.
“Please answer with the truth,” Yere Kisữ repeated.
He sighed. Here we go. . . can’t hold back the truth now, not when she means business. And yet it’s an ugly one. “Our kind strives for peace,” he spoke. “To most of us at least, it is an ideal.” He paused. No burning. On the right track. “But of course not all of my kind do.”
“I did not expect that,” she agreed. “Twilight told me one moon ago that you brought weapons with you.”
“Only one,” he clarified, “and I did not use it ever again – nor do I wish to.” A pause – and no burning sensation resulted. “As I have said before, not all of my kind want to live with others in harmony. We fight, we steal, we even kill each other for countless reasons. ‘If you seek peace,’ it is said, ‘prepare for war.’”
The Yere said nothing – she waited for him to continue.
Which he did. “We are the children of planet Earth. We explore places we should not go. We do things we should not do. Yet we do these things anyway, out of curiosity. We are children, who are only starting to explore outside the cradle. We still need to grow up, to mature, to become better.
“As far as we have come, we still have so much further to go. But at the same time, we have hope. – We have hope that we rise above our old habits. We have hope that we can live among the stars, as well as Earth. We have hope, too, that one day we may stop our ill will to ourselves. If not for us, then for our neighbors – for you.
“So will you have us, Yere Kisữ?”
The Yere looked to the Yara – then they both looked back to him. “We will talk of this. Hõ Kãtṛ, rsiþẽ þesơ siapariþã a ơhriþẽ.” She stood from her daïs – and only then did Adam get the sense of how large she truly was. Even bipedal, and even discounting her half-meter-long horn, her head rose higher than his.
“Em.” The darker sister rose as well, only coming up to her own sister’s neck. Together they walked out of the throne room altogether, leaving him alone to contemplate what he had just said.
It wasn’t until they left that he realized that at no point in his impromptu speech that the burning sensation returned.
–·–·
The two sisters returned about twenty minutes later, and sat down upon their respective daïses. Yere Kisữ cleared her throat – in preparation for the scribe to jot down a second edict:
“Ṛsiþẽ, Yere Kisữ, sơhơriþẽ: Edem Zơmṛzed a mưlzḷ njalo wõ Ơhestil iluhatjaþya. Zana mưlyezḷ wõ ziñgail Kãtṛlatsḷ kelsi ilalmu. Ezeg zana sasa esj kelte ilalmu, nize yesṛ ilsơhơriþẽ.”
This one took longer to write, but only because it was a longer proclamation. And when the scribe finished, Yere Kisữ asked him, “May I see the map again?”
Wordlessly, he gave it to her.
She unfurled it, grabbing a quill of her own, and started marking another area on the map. “What you have proposed, we cannot accept – that place you cannot use.” Her penmanship was quick and efficient – only dipping the nub into the well twice to finish. “We think this is better, for you and for us.”
How so? he wanted to ask – and then he got the answer, when she showed him the map. She had marked a new square area, in black instead of red, and instead of in the desert in the south, now it was in a large grassy plain north of both Ginzol and Kãtṛlat. It was not their first choice, on account of the possibility of disrupting local wildlife, whereas that risk was diminished in a desert.
“Thank you, Yere,” he said. “Thank you, Yara. We will strive to work together, in harmony.”
“I understand as well this ends the matter?” the Yere asked.
“It now does,” he confirmed. “Vimẽ xurucru, a qapata.” He bowed in respect, then turned to leave. As he was walking, he heard the thunderous knock that swung the doors open, letting in another two ponies together as he left.
–··–
While I’m still here. . . .
Adam found himself in front of the timepiece shop again. The shopkeeper stood there, awaiting a new sale – and it wasn’t long before he spotted the human peering in. He definitely looked nervous at the sight of the deshelled alien.
The human, however, took it as an invitation to enter the shop, coins still by his side. “Ũyatalsa zjơezegưbưvư?” he asked him, with a slight tinge of nerves in his voice.
But as Adam approached the display case to retrieve the pocket watch he had worked for all this time – only not to find it anywhere in the case. Someone else had already bought it. Drat!
Adam knew failure. He knew rejection. They were simply parts of life. One could work to achieve success and still be robbed of it purely by chance. He shrugged, simply deciding to cut his losses before his heart could break any further.
He shook his head. “Xurucru,” he thanked anyway. He slipped the coins and bag back into his coat pocket, and stepped back outside. Even if he had bought the pocket watch, which was a heavy investment on his part, he should still have enough for a train ticket back to Ginzol – the fare, as he recalled, was only three degile, or half a dege, per passenger.
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sweet new chapter
Well this was a nice chapter and woo! for getting some land for that colony.
Sure, ask for a place where you think you wont annoy te local wildlife, then find out its home to Changeling Hives, Tatzewyrms etc at least?
Then again, just what underlays that expansive grassy plain. Cant be limestone too close to the surface, be too dry, but having it further down helps stop the place being a quagmire, depending on overall altitude, just look at Florida and the Grand Canyon?
Not the first meeting with Time Turner? And did Twilight pick up something for him last time, or has Pinkie got a Suprise gift for him?
I wonder which territory did the Sisters asign to the humans?
Is it really shocking for Celestia that an explorer would carry at least a weapon to defend himself?
Also, did she use "harmless" as "non aggressive" or as "defenseless"?
I know you are a conlanger and want to show your art, but entire scenes that can be resumed to "and then he spoke with someone else" because we know squat about what's being said if we don't want to have to learn said language are extremely frustrating. An accompanying translation, of what he can understand as the whole idea of the story is that learning process, would be not only appreciable but crucial for the enjoyment of the story.
Also it kinda tells us "screw you, you couldn't understand before and you can't now either!", violating the implicit story promise that once Adam learnt the language we'd know what's being communicated. It became even worse, for not even what he says can be understood.
TL;DR: lack of translation has gone too long. Showing language is cool, forcing readers to learn it to understand the story is not.
I love the story, but please provide translations for Equestrian. This has been getting worse as it has been going on, at first I thought it was a nice touch since Adam didn't know the language either, but that is no longer the case. While I don't think you should eliminate the Equestrian, I think I speak for most readers when I say you need some sort of translation. I could barely follow any of the conversation on the train. Not all of us are good enough at language to be able to translate ourselves.
Just to reiterate, I love having Equestrian in there, I love Adam's the struggle to translate it, but while Adam might have learned how to speak Equestrian, I haven't. I want to keep following this great story, but it is hard to do so when you can't understand half the conversations.
11060714
Shocking - not necessarily.
Many beings, great and small exist and walk Rhysling. All those different peoples would provide data points.
Data: you cannot know why someone carries a weapon without knowing the circumstances and context, or outright asking them.
How to tell for sure if a weapon is a deterrent? How to tell if it is a defence? How to tell if it is intended to be used as a tool of conquering or raiding by the one carrying it? You ask.
Adam is something new to Rhysling - entirely new. The alicorns simply don't know how human beings function, they only know of Rhysling life, not other life.
He said the thing.
11060721
Yes, the reader ought to be able to understand anything the POV character does.
11060717
It’s also rather difficult to learn a language you have no translation key for...
It’s not like we can just pop over to Twilight’s tree and ask for help the way Adam can!
The problem with how we do polygraph tests is that the things it measures are basically just nervousness. Not only can that be defeated by a person who is sufficiently unrepentant or good at acting, but an innocent person will still be very anxious when being questioned for a serious crime. The tester attempts to calibrate, but that only goes so far - especially when the calibration lie is low-stakes ("the sky is green" etc).
Here's a decent shortlist of cases demonstrating why states are starting to ban them as admissible evidence - and for an extra dose of depressing bullshit, it's compiled by a company to advertise its own Totally Different And Better polygraph method that ultimately measures the same kind of broad anxiety response and would most likely produce the same type of errors.
https://www.cvsa1.com/press-releases/killer-passes-polygraph-innocent-man-fails-killer-goes-on-to-kill-again/
That bit where Adam got nervous because he got a word wrong in a language he's still learning? That would likely have flagged as a lie on a polygraph. One of the other arguments polygraphs are getting ruled inadmissible is that it can hit people doing the test in a second language who are only so certain of what they're even saying. Assuming the truth spell wasn't a bluff, it's very fortunate Celestia let Adam use English for that speech.
There's a reason magic truth spells show up a lot in fantasy. It's something we really, really wish there was a way to do significantly better than a coin flip.
Yeah, polygraphs don’t really work. A decent actor can pass while being nervous can make you fail.
Also, I agree with everyone else, the language stuff has gone on for to long. Most of the dialogue in this chapter is gibberish and I found myself skimming parts of the chapter because there’s little point in reading it.
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11060852
yeah polygraphs are just a party trick/game even the creator of the polygraph said he created a Frankenstien monster and regrets ever making it. Also fun fact you can screw with a polygraph test just by clenching and unclenching your sphincter.
Yeah for all that he talks about not making assumptions he did assume a pretty dumb thing when it came to the colony location. Sure, on Earth a desert would be pretty empty, but this isn't Earth. The Buffalo would throw a fit over having a city on their sacred stomp path, the Changelings would be pissed though likely less so, more likely Celestia just doesn't want to throw that on annoying and having the hive move elsewhere.
I love this story but the bits with the equestrian langusge are killing me as i am *never* gonna figure out that moonspeak. Is there going to be a translation at some point?
Ooh, nice chapter. Obtaining a piece of land in the foreign empire shouldn't be that easy, ponies are way too trusty : )
And yeah, some footnotes with translation would be greatly appreciated. Or maybe even in the separate journal entry with inner workings of the language to reiterate ourselves with. And the romanization/pronunciation guide too.
I mean it's not like this is strictly required to enjoy the story, but it'd be nice to understand what and how were being spoken : )
Qapata!
Okay, you seriously need to provide translations for the Equestrian language. It was fine having the dialogue be unintelligible when the POV character couldn't understand it, but now that he does understand it you are actively pushing away your audience. Not only does he speak the language now, he reflects on what is being said and what mistakes he's making , and no one who's reading the story has any idea what the main character is talking about.
I was enjoying the story at first, but now it is becoming unpleasant and annoying to read because of the lack of translation notes.
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Of course, modern polygraph setups will also detect you clenching your butt and you'll get called out on it.
I really like this story, but I feel like I'm expected to understand O'qher as well as Adam does, and that makes some parts very difficult to follow.
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Frankly, if the author pulls an Article 2 and has a switch-translated version from the ponies perspective, I can tooootally dig the language barrier vibe.
You could have as Fancy is a Canterlot elite, even if he doesn't interact with the main cast until the next season ...
He didn't get an answer. She just showed him another area without saying why.
11060997 Floobortnoy quin looth uf twinf berh shintyilly derl clum! (Alondro is fluent in Derp)
11060909 The secret is to carry the 3 and divide by zero.
Aight, so, im really enjoying this story.
But mate, i really wish you'd add some kind of translation for when they speak, cause not understanding what is being said can be kind of frustating.
I wonder how the Altir crew will react to the new colony location.
I'm getting an indication of the different standards of how one treats what are effectively diplomatic envoys. Doing harm (physical or otherwise) upon one is a grievous overstep of one's authority, and could be enough to qualify as a casus belli.
The fact that Celestia was so casual about inflicting pain --even if it was an impression of pain and Adam wasn't actually harmed-- is kind of terrifying. Sure, it was a demonstration, but seeing that she didn't lend him the courtesy of telling him the consequences of lying is very telling. Is this just how Celestia treats all envoys who she might see as a threat, or is she applying some 'maternal discipline' because, as Adam put it, his kin are children?
Regardless of Celestia's reasoning, that's a massive red flag in my book, and I hope that Adam isn't going to let it slide. Maybe have him mention it to Twilight or report back to Zodiac-Altair about what happened.
I'm really starting to fall out of love with this story. I could stand not understanding anything from the ponies because that was the point of the story in the first act. But now he does understand, mostly, and now there are just large swaths in the story of two characters speaking a language that doesn't exist, making it literally impossible to understand. I used to chew out each chapter as they came out in like, an hour max unless I was busy. Last chapter took two days because I lost all enthusiasm each time long parts of stuff I literally could not read came up,, and I'm honestly debating if I wanna even keep reading the fic at all at this point.
The language is starting to get grating. The MC knows the language now, so why is eveyrthing said by the ponies still in an unknown language?
Another great chapter, I'm exited to see the ponies react to the human colony and vice versa.
Also, the way conversations are written, in a way that I can still figure out most of what is being said despite barely understanding a word, is seriously impressive.
Wait… I thought Fancy was in S1?
I dare say, you should have used Prince Blueblood, as the comics establish him as a very skilled diplomat.
Where exactly did he get that impression of supreme cultural imperialism, anyway?
(Considers Season 8 & 9)
Oh. Right.
"According to one of our great authors, mostly harmless."
Yeah, as far as lie detection spells go, crippling pain seems like a far more worrisome option than, say, making the liar glow. This Celestia is deeply concerning on more than a few levels.
Roll credits.
He presumably still existed prior to Rarity encountering him in Canterlot. Unless you're implying that Twilight literally won't have a brother until she receives the wedding announcement, or that Rainbow Dash won't have parents until after she gets inducted into the Wonderbolts. The Bearers are not the center of the universe.
Not even remotely in the least. Picking it up this quickly is impressive, but this story has already strained my suspension of disbelief in far worse ways that you felt no need to justify in the author's notes.
And at the risk of piling on to the point of excess, you've made your point with the conlang. We're all really impressed. Feel free to add some translations in the footnotes.
I'll add to what everyone else has said about the language barrier: The narrative purpose of a language barrier is one of conflict, in this case an obstacle the character must overcome. Now that Adam can speak the language well enough to understand and be understood in turn, that obstacle has been overcome, and its narrative function has concluded.
By continuing to have a language barrier that exists only for your readers, not the characters, you demonstrate two things, that you know how to make up a language, and that you need more practice actually writing a story.
In the early chapters, I pointed out that the various details pertaining to space were not that important to the main narrative, and so their flaws could be ignored. I also thought the entire "Adam needs a job now" sub-plot was patently ludicrous, given that a surface mission to an alien planet would be on a strict timetable and would allow no margin for wasting mission-critical resources, but, again, you aren't an expert on space travel or expeditions, so fine, pass.
However, while it is clear that you know a thing or two about language, you've deliberately hamstrung yourself by failing to do with narration what the language does for the speaker: Convey comprehensible meaning. Your narrative element is now itself an obstacle to the narrative.
I'll repeat what others have said: Either append the alien language segments with translated text, or replace them with it. I'll still read the story either way because I want to see where it goes, but if you keep this up, more readers will remember this as a lesson on How Not to Write First Contact than will remember it as a reasonable take on interspecies communication.
In case the mountain of upvotes on comments asking for pony translation weren't enough, allow me to throw my hat in the ring with an actual comment asking for that, as well. Take into account all of those upvotes from people concurring with those opinions, and do something about it so that we can understand exactly what Adam understands. We the readers insist.
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I can only Like your comment once, so I just want to let you know how well you broke down and explained the problem.
Plenty of people have spoken about the problems with the language barrier still existing at this point in the development of the story, so I'll leave that alone except to say that I agree, and I'll instead focus on something I've only seen one other person talk about: Why did Celestia feel it was necessary to inflict immense, crippling pain upon Adam — an extraterrestrial ambassador speaking for his people? Did she really think she had to demonstrate suffering to him, without so much as a warning? There was nothing stopping her from verbally disclosing that lying would cause pain, and then offering him to test it for himself by telling a lie if he wished to, knowing the consequences. For that matter, there was nothing stopping her from making the consequence something else besides pain. As 11062754 said, why not something harmless like glowing? That way, even if the "lie detection" was a deception and she manually inflicted the pain to trick him into telling the truth as you said might be possible in the author's notes (which is worse!), displaying an obvious glow would just as effectively deceive him. The way they did it is just so hypocritical, "Are your people harmless? Better tell the truth or we'll torture you!"
On the matter of your author's notes; I don't understand why you (or Admiral Biscuit, I should say) feel the need to delegitimize magic sometimes. Twilight teleporting around and levitating things willy-nilly is perfectly fine, but Celestia detecting a lie is just too unbelievable? I don't get the logic.
I may also still be sore about your retcon of Celestia and Luna not actually directing the sun and moon and their reign being predicated on a deception.
Here are some ideas: color translated words written in English, and append learned words at the end.
[Word unlocked: kḷpali -> scared]
No Man's Sky was a mixed bag, but at least finding words was somewhat different.
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I'm more concerned about the fact no pony except Twilight seem to be interested in the alien walking among them: a member of a specie never seen before on that world, who travelled the space between starts just to get there.
To this point, no agent from the Equestrian government or even a press reporter has appeared to interview Adam. Not even the Princesses even bothered asking him about his people, culture, technology, etc... except (much later) for the possibility of violence.
11067725
Well as for the press, suppression by the Goverment to prevent panic? And Equestrian Agents, the best covert surveillance is the kind you never even saw. I am sure Agent Sweetie Drops and Agent Heartstrings have been quite busy making sure Adam has no clue they are watching him.