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I find my population curve goes a bit sawtooth around the 50-70 mark. Unsure precisely how I got past it apart from patience and plenty of watchtowers. Glad you’re enjoying it though! My current game is on Ancient Warriors (?) setting. It’s been interesting - you start in the Neolithic so your tech is relatively advanced and you can progress to farming and herding fairly quickly. The problem is that you also start with the usual handful of villagers, so task management is rather more tricky.

To provide but one counterexample, Somalia might dispute that. As for space piracy - meh. If you want to build a setting that makes it feasible then go for it. It’ll be contrived but there’s no reason why good stories can’t be written in contrived settings. It’s a pretty dumb idea though.

Big. Bad. Banana. A highly intelligent species in which bunches of individuals spend most of their time nourished by and plugged into their Ur-Tree. To Terran eyes they resemble bunches of overgrown bananas. That doesn’t sound so bad though. Well you haven’t seen what happens when something threatens the Ur-Tree. Applying strict vulcanesque logic, one bunch will sacrifice themselves to save the many. Through an accelerated aging process, the bodies of the Chosen transform into a mush of toxins barely held together by a decaying outer shell. Then they fall on whatever threatens them...

Following on from @steuben‘s post, without knowing anything else about his worldbuilding (so this might be completely wrong), it looks like his drive would be pretty good for an interstellar trader, or an exploration vessel but probably less good for a combat vessel. Basically, it’ll work well for any application where you’re either not spending a high percentage of your flight time in a substantial gravity well, or if the stuff you’re doing in that gravity well isn’t time critical. A trading vessel might be slower than molasses near a planet but most of its time is spent in interstellar space where its speed is far less restricted. Likewise for an explorer - depending on their sensor tech, they might be able to do most of their exploring at an acceptable range from the system star, only heading in-system (and taking the speed hit) if they find a particularly notable planet. Even then, slower in-system travel isn’t necessarily a problem if you can be gathering data on the way in and out. Whereas the drive might not be as useful for combat vessels, if those vessels spend most of their time in-system, in relatively deep gravity wells. Trying to outright prevent a particular drive from being used for particular role is difficult, without tying yourself in increasingly complex knots. Making a drive a sufficiently poor fit for a particular role that other factors (such as economics) mostly prevent it from being used is far easier and less prone to introducing plot loopholes. Even better, the workarounds needed to compensate for an imperfect FTL system can drive a lot of plot. Battletech is an excellent example - it’s FTL drive basically doesn’t work at all unless it’s in locally flat space and worse - doesn’t play well with standard fusion drives. Net result - extensive use of dropships to ferry stuff to and from the FTL vessels and pretty severe limits on transit time (even though this is a point-to-point instantaneous jump drive) due to the need to recharge the drive core using solar arrays after each jump. Incidentally, my slightly snarky response to @Spacescifi‘s reply to my post is ‘stuff the drones with concrete’. Bulk up their mass to the point where they can be used against larger ships. Heck, if you want a relatively compact drone, stuff it with tungsten rods and make your primary weapon even nastier. Now I’m sure you could find a reason for that not to work either but I’m also fairly sure I could figure out a counter to those reasons too. I’m not trying to be mean to @Spacescifi - just pointing out the problem with trying to have a single purpose FTL drive.

Hmmm. It seems a bit odd that your Trader drive can detect small masses but not large ones when intuitively you would think small ones are harder to detect. More hand waving required. I’m also thinking that, as written, your drive would be rather useful for piracy. Lurk in the Oort cloud, ping for targets in-system of a suitable mass range, jump in to within 30km and take out your target. For battle tactics, it would allow for some very nasty ambushes using autonomous FTL drones equipped with adequately large nukes. Sure, you’ve just lost an expensive FTL drive but your enemy is also down one drive plus the even more expensive warship wrapped around it. It’s a nice idea but I think it would be quite difficult to design a drive for a specific role, whilst excluding others. Edit. And from a writing perspective, I’d personally find it easier to start with a given drive technology and then figure out how trading, exploration and (if necessary) combat would work given the limitations of that technology. So - what @Shpaget said, effectively. But that’s just me - there are as many ways to write as there are writers, so I can imagine your way around working for others.

I’m mostly with @ProtoJeb21 although haven’t seen much of the animated stuff so can’t comment on that. The original trilogy still holds up well and Rogue 1 made for a very good direct prequel. Of the five movies after that, I would say The Last Jedi and Revenge of the Sith were my favourites. Or they were at the time of watching. RotS didn’t stand up so well to a second viewing a year or so later. I suspect the same may be true of TLJ although the noticeably better acting may save it. Really though, the original trilogy told a fairly simple story but told it well and finished it well. They’re very self-contained which is why I think they’ve held up so long.

To @IncongruousGoat, @superstrijder15, I’m happy to talk about this as for as long as you’d like and I’m absolutely floored by the idea (not to mention deeply impressed with the results!) that folks are writing translation programs for my fictional language. With that said, I’m thinking it might be better to move the more technical discussion off-thread and set up a PM conversation between ourselves and anyone else that wants to join in? I really don’t want to sideline anyone’s efforts though, so I’d be more than happy to post updates on this thread and, if the relevant authors are okay with it, to post any and all links to Old Kerba dictionaries, translators etc. on the first post, under the list of chapter links. Sorry if this comes across as a bit mean but I’m just conscious that not everyone reading this thread may be quite as enthusiastic about the nuts-and-bolts of Old Kerba. A big thanks to those that are though - chatting about this always brightens up my day!

Good question, The only adjectives we've seen so far (I think) are the comparators min and man for smallest and biggest (roughly speaking - in English that could translate to various similar words depending on context). Usual prefix/suffix rules apply and add shades of meaning: min-satha - smallest deeds man-satha - greatest deeds balskila-man - not the biggest knife The last is slightly pejorative in the same way that one might describe a person as 'not the sharpest tool in the box'. So, all we have so far is that adjectives are modifiers that attach to the noun. I guess adverbs could be modifiers that attach to the verb, although I haven't really played with that to see whether it makes verbs too cumbersome to parse. Adverbs might need to be a separate word, and where an adverb is capable of an opposite, it's placement relative to the verb would indicate whether that opposite applies. Adverbs will also need a very clear marker syllable I think (similar to the ly suffix in English, so that they can be easily picked out). Oh - and a new noun has just occurred to me. Mus - which translates to dot or speck. As in: "That's not a mun - that's a minmus of <redacted> on your emulsion!" For better or for worse, the nickname stuck.

Hmmm. I know next to nothing about coding so have no feel for how feasible this is, but it might be easier to use the standard definitions of verb and noun, locate those in the sentence, and then treat everything else as a modifier that can be applied to either or both of those categories? Oh - while we're on the topic, I'm thinking aban would be a suitable verb affix denoting tense. Word order applies (borrowing your idea!) - so when used as a prefix it denotes the future tense, when used as a suffix it denotes the past tense. (Which says something about my kerbals, I think - the future is positive whereas the past is negative) So, for example: Jeb binr Elton - Jeb understands Elton. Jeb aban-erbr Bill- Jeb is going to speak to Bill. And some time later... Jeb Bill binr-aban - Jeb did not understand Bill. It's a bit 'See Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run.' but it's starting to get to the point where we can string some actual sentences together here.

Yep! I can also see it being helpful as a grammar checker for me - if it comes out with a more or less accurate translation then that's a good sign that I haven't mangled my own fictional language. Or - as was the case above - if it's a bit off, I should probably check my working. Not sure how you'd write this into your program but bel, bal and on aren't verbs so much as case markers. I may have the terminology a bit muddled (I'm not a real linguist) but they signify a property of the noun they're attached to, rather than an action performed on that noun. So belad-onmansatha unpacks into belad-on-mansatha, or even further into belad-on-man-satha. Satha - noun(plural) - deeds man - adjective - biggest, largest, greatest on - case marker signifying dependence or reliance on the noun. bel - case marker signifying that the subject is being used by a third party to perform the noun. belad - third person singular version of bel, signifying that the subject is being used by us to perform the noun.

That's pretty darn close! Indulge me - try running Jebediah eb belad-onmansatha through your translator. That should produce something a bit closer still.

Pretty video. Rather heavier on aspiration, mockups and renders than actual hardware though. And I agree it's not going to happen by 2024. I would dearly love to be wrong (mail me your hats wrapped round a bottle of ketchup if I am) but I don't think I will be. Sad to say, I think all that manifest destiny stuff about striking out into the solar system for Science is just not a message that's going to resonate with enough people. Heck, it didn't back in the Apollo days when crews were setting out for the Moon on a regular basis. Space travel is still in its barnstorming days. It's the preserve of the few with the fortunate, brave and rich getting to tag along occasionally. Much like the early air tourists and thrillseekers going up for a ride in a plane. The only way I see that changing is through the private sector. Forget all the cheerleading for one company or another, the private sector has the chance (although a 'chance' is an awful long way from guaranteeing that any of them will make it, even the more familiar NewSpace companies) to do two important things. Firstly - they can move spaceflight firmly out of the 'gubmint boondoggle' trailer park. At that point, Joe Public might not care about spaceflight but they're not paying for it either, so they don't have to care. Secondly, the private sector might just make spaceflight something for the masses to participate in. Think early airlines rather than barnstormers. It's a big, probably implausible ask, but I think its the only way that the aspirational elements of that video are going to happen. And its not something that I see NASA or any other government space agency managing to do. Oh - and the orbit. According to Wikipedia, LOP-G isn't going to a Lagrange point, although I have no idea how current the article is.

Ooh, that looks like a quality tipple. Caramel colour and natural flavourings no less. Awesome bottle though - good spot!

Awww, shucks. I’m glad to have you here @GalFisk - and flattered that you tested your new button-mashing powers on this thread! On a somewhat related note, I’m getting a ‘ninjaed by reality’ feeling after reading this BBC news article. From the article (titled: Wood wide web: Trees' social networks are mapped): ”Research has shown that beneath every forest and wood there is a complex underground web of roots, fungi and bacteria helping to connect trees and plants to one another.” ”Just like an MRI scan of the brain helps us to understand how the brain works, this global map of the fungi beneath the soil helps us to understand how global ecosystems work," said Prof Crowther. "What we find is that certain types of microorganisms live in certain parts of the world, and by understanding that we can figure out how to restore different types of ecosystems and also how the climate is changing." Slightly discombobulated to find that some of my sci-fi musings about the Kerm turn out to be at least somewhat rooted (oh, I slay myself) in actual science.

As always, you’re more than welcome. And yeah - any brickbats can be heaved in my direction.

Ohhhh - speaking of cannons, I liked that shoutout. "He who accidentally shoots off his thumb has forgotten the face of his father. And his father's father before him."

If you get tired of the official books, Battletech seems to be a setting that attracts decent fanfic writers too, which is nice. The vehicles were pretty nasty in Battletech (the recent turn-based strategy offering). You can't buy them and if even if you did you'd probably still want to go with Mechs but taking a Demolisher or SRM Carrier to the face can go very badly.

Finally saw it tonight. I’m in the pretty-good-but-didn’t-rock-my-world camp, although it was a sight better than Infinity War. Which is probably why I did enjoy it - my expectations were suitably lowered.

I can see the marketing now. The Boring Company eye-patches, rum, and tricorn hats. The Boring Company does not condone trade in animals or birds so ye can find your own parrots. Arrrrr.

Thanks for all the likes, folks. Next chapter is planned out. I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that it’s largely going to be set at Site D - and my original outline turned out not to be consistent with previous Site D chapters, so needed some reworking. For the better I think. *touches wood*.

May as well get them all out of the way at once, huh? Although it was said that the Chelyaad of the legendary past - or possibly the incomprehensibly distant future - found the Gestures near as indispensable as Grail for channelling the Source. I stand by my previous post and, having seen the last-but-one version of the chapter, I must say that your last coat of polish brought everything up to a rich glow!

Twice the size of a regular chapter and well worth the wait!

Well, they came pretty close with the individual Mercury spacecraft names. Aurora 7 and Sigma 7 not so much, but Freedom 7, Liberty Bell, Friendship 7 and Faith 7 do have that 'land of the free' political vibe about them even if they weren't explicitly intended to be. Although given the geopolitics at the time, I don't really buy that.

Cheers Madrias. Yeah, I didn't think there would be this much fire either. For what it's worth I can promise that at least one chapter in the next four will be rather more uplifting. Or at least - it is in my head. We'll see what happens when it gets onto the page but I'm optimistic.

On the other hand, Artemis was also the goddess of chastity so hopefully the program won't get... Yeah, you know where I'm going with this. Or if you don't, be happy in your blissful ignorance.