Lehola Galaxy Megathread

[Arayaz]

Now you're going to have to come up with all the words that pertain to Udj's world(s)!

Yeah, but most of them will just be transliterated borrowings . . .

But how well will Laakitlantu and Kankonian's phonologies match?

Laakitlantu's is /p pʼ t tʼ k kʼ q qʼ ʔ ts tsʼ tɬ tɬʼ m n ŋ s ɬ~ʃ x r j w/ /a aː i iː u uː/. (Whether <l> is realized as /ɬ/ or as /ʃ/ depends on a number of things; the latter is primarily used by young female speakers in the south and their children. So Laakitlantu's southern descendant will likely use /ʃ/, and the northern, /ɬ/.)

Edit: Elemtilas, have you done work on Lehola? Are you one of Khemehekis's siblings?

[Arayaz]

Blurb:

So planet #1 ("Rekeini") is running out of space/resources and decides to terraform their close neighbor system's habitable planet ("Syolat") into a resource-production facility of sorts, designing a bioswath containing oil-producing microbes, nutrient-rich fruits, ground cover that stores solar energy in such a way that it can be extracted later.

But there's a terrible disaster on Syolat that makes them abandon the project. The settlers never move in. But the workers involved in the project remain, abd eventually are the ancestors of the human populations that will ultimately spread across Syolat. Meanwhile, Rekeini is devastated by global war and politics, and eventually becomes a post-apocalyptic wasteland, though some do survive and begin rebuilding.


Sound fun? Also, dp we have a Centralized Lehola Event Timeline I could work out my times on?

(Please excuse typos; I'm writing on a phone away fromt home.)

[eldin raigmore]

... I don't want to seem like some overexcited, annoying little kid.

I remember feeling like that when I was 17.
Now I’m 71, and I don’t care if I seem like some overexcited, annoying old man!

[Arayaz]

... I don't want to seem like some overexcited, annoying little kid.

I remember feeling like that when I was 17.
Now I’m 71, and I don’t care if I seem like some overexcited, annoying old man!

This is the best inspirational quote ever.

[Khemehekis]

Blurb:

So planet #1 ("Rekeini") is running out of space/resources and decides to terraform their close neighbor system's habitable planet ("Syolat") into a resource-production facility of sorts, designing a bioswath containing oil-producing microbes, nutrient-rich fruits, ground cover that stores solar energy in such a way that it can be extracted later.

But there's a terrible disaster on Syolat that makes them abandon the project. The settlers never move in. But the workers involved in the project remain, abd eventually are the ancestors of the human populations that will ultimately spread across Syolat. Meanwhile, Rekeini is devastated by global war and politics, and eventually becomes a post-apocalyptic wasteland, though some do survive and begin rebuilding.


Sound fun?

Yep! It does sound fun! I'd like to learn more about the "global war and politics" of Rekeini.

Also, dp we have a Centralized Lehola Event Timeline I could work out my times on?

I've never created a central timeline system, but I'd like to. I just use the calendar of each planet. I also state what date and time on Earth the planet's calendar's epoch begins on. Here's an example: https://khemehekis.angelfire.com/calendar.htm

I think the Leholans will express a unified timeline via Planck time, which will be the domain of the planet Keitel. In Achel (the lingua franca of Keitel), Planck time is called meikh (pronounced /meix/).

[Arayaz]

I've never created a central timeline system, but I'd like to. I just use the calendar of each planet. I also state what date and time on Earth the planet's calendar's epoch begins on. Here's an example: https://khemehekis.angelfire.com/calendar.htm

I think the Leholans will express a unified timeline via Planck time, which will be the domain of the planet Keitel. In Achel (the lingua franca of Keitel), Planck time is called meikh (pronounced /meix/).

I meant more a timeline of events, so that I can place the events of Rekeini & Syolat in some temporal context.

[Khemehekis]

Well, I don't have a central timeline of events yet. That would require a lot of date calculations for each planet, and for many of the planets that are big players (such as Tziel), I haven't worked out the calendar as it applies to their solar year and matches up their years with Earth-years yet. This is what I have for Tziel, for instance:

Spoiler:

Tziel is a planet in the solar system Refea. Tziel has one moon, Doryak.

The sapient inhabitants are white Greys with fiery red eyes. They stand at 5'8" in height.

The Tzielites have prophecies with apocalyptic scenarios, which they live by every day. The predictions come from Sahandism, a religion based on the Lisian writings from the ancient Zanthian civilization on the continent Soza. Sahandism teaches eternal vigilance against evil, and believes that evil could be anywhere, perhaps embodied in your next-door neighbors' house. Sahandism teaches against lying, cheating, stealing, adultery, pedophilia, necrophilia and prostitution. It also teaches that people worshipping a non-Sahandist god are sinning. The personification of good is in Tana, the one god of Sahandism.

The religion teaches that one day, Tzielites will begin living in unprecedented sin, justifying the sin as good rather than evil, mingling with other peoples, creating half-Grey hybrid children by mating with other sapients and believing that their new, alternative ways of living are just as good as the traditional ways. The role of other planets and the universe as a whole will increase in Tzielites' lives, and Tziel will have less of a role for Tzielites. People will also begin seeing Tana's face in various places, and ordinary people will begin hearing voices. Particular astronomical events, such as the conjunction of Yarasha with Yamasha or syzygies among Shaleya, Doryak and Omega, are also predicted to be markers of this time. Many fear that this day is already here and what they are seeing now is a harbinger of the coming of the worst. Once these things begin to happen, famine will strike the planet. Screaming reptiles will streak across the face of Tziel, setting their plants and animals ablaze and burning down houses, wives and children. Clouds of giant grey gas will float over Tziel, scorch the earth and block out the sun. Many bird and insect species will become extinct. Giant black crustaceans will come out from the inside of the planet and move to the mountains, then cohabit the rest of Tziel with the Greys. The cetaceans will abandon the oceans, and all swim away through a hole in the air to other planets. Reptiles will become the leaders of Tziel, and each reptilian ruler will own 400 Tzielite slaves. The Tzielites will also become slaves to a new interplanetary confederation that spans Lehola.

Large portions of Tzielites live in poverty. These unfortunate ones await the eschatology promised in the Lisian -- a final battle wherein Tana (who resembles a giant Grey with owl's ears and carries a black stick) battles Kokhu (a Janus-faced crocodile with a rod of fire). Good Sahandists will be revived from the dead, and will live for the rest of eternity assuming Tana wins. The Sahandists believe that living a good life will help Tana win the battle.

Tziel has tourism for its ancient city-state sites, which are well-preserved. The first civilization on the planet, Nomokha, dates to 2017 B.S. (before Sahandism).

Families consist of a mother and a father with an average of 4.3 children. Children are brought up in large families and sent to schools for mandatory education at age 4. They graduate at age 14. Schools on Tziel are religiously affiliated. Corporal punishment is common in homes. Parents beat their children on the temples, and run a razor across their back. Tzielites have a last name inherited from their father first, then a first name.

The government prosecutes sins recognized by Sahandism. The fundamentalists compromised with other Tzielites by allowing multiple parties, and allowing Tziel citizens over 15 to vote every 10 years for the congresspeople from their registered party. These parties include the Sahandist Socialist Party, the Open Freedom Party, the Lisian Attachment Party, the Communist Party of Tziel, the Global Trade Party and One Grey Nation. There is proportional representation of these parties among the 700 congresspeople in Tziel. However, the elected congresspeople vote on who the president will be, and because they hold such a vast plurality in congress, the elected president is always a Lisian Attachment Party leader.

90% of Tzielites consider themselves Sahandist. 40% of Tzielites are fundamentalists who believe in the apocalypse. 33% of adults on the planet are illiterate, and cannot even read their own Lisian.

Male Tzielites wear silver coveralls and black boots; women wear black tech vests, white pants and boots.

Tzielites drink cocktails of blood, water, hormones and the fluids from the spleens of other mammals.

There are 10 billion sapients living on Tziel in all. They have had a one-world government since 12483 A.S. (after Sahandism).

Most Tzielites study Kharitian, a descendant of ancient Zanthian. It is an SOV language.

These calculations would require working out the mass of solar system's sun (Refea, in this case), and deciding on the number of AU of each planet from the sun. In the case of Refea, I want green plants, and I want multiple planets to be able to sustain life. I just haven't done the research yet on how to make that all work out.

(Read this post for the story of how the Tzielites colonized Shaleya.)

[Khemehekis]

But how well will Laakitlantu and Kankonian's phonologies match?

Laakitlantu's is /p pʼ t tʼ k kʼ q qʼ ʔ ts tsʼ tɬ tɬʼ m n ŋ s ɬ~ʃ x r j w/ /a aː i iː u uː/. (Whether <l> is realized as /ɬ/ or as /ʃ/ depends on a number of things; the latter is primarily used by young female speakers in the south and their children. So Laakitlantu's southern descendant will likely use /ʃ/, and the northern, /ɬ/.)

In Kankonian (HH is a pharyngeal, /ħ/)

p: p
pʼ: p-hh
t: t
tʼ: t-hh
k: k
kʼ: k-hh
q: kh /x/ -- This tradition started long ago, when Kankonian speakers, who didn't have /q/, had to tell the names of the twin cities Raka and Raqa apart and resolved to pronounce Raqa's Q with their /x/
qʼ: kh-hh
ʔ: ' /ʔ/
ts: tz /ts/
tsʼ: tz-hh
tɬ: tl /tl/
tɬʼ: tlhh
m: m
n: n
ŋ: ng /ŋ/
s: s
ɬ~ʃ: sh /ʃ/
x: kh /x/
r: r
j: y /j/
w: w

a: a
aː: a
i: i
iː: i
u: u
uː: u

Edit: Elemtilas, have you done work on Lehola? Are you one of Khemehekis's siblings?

No, Elemtilas is not my brother. He's just someone with an inordinate love for the Lehola Galaxy, and for elaborate worldbuilding in general.

[Arayaz]

<snipped because my post is too long>

All right, thanks! Kankonian is beautiful.

These calculations would require working out the mass of solar system's sun (Refea, in this case), and deciding on the number of AU of each planet from the sun. In the case of Refea, I want green plants, and I want multiple planets to be able to sustain life. I just haven't done the research yet on how to make that all work out.

Artifexian's Worldsmith spreadsheet should help you out.

But also, any color of pigment is fine for any planet as long as it's not too unearthly in terms of light receiving. The asteroid belt, for example, would probably evolve fairly pale plants. But if you have, say a 1.2 solar mass sun and you're 1.18 AU away from it ─ any fairly Earthlike values ─ you can have any color plants you like.

But multiple planets sustaining life is hard. I ran through a bunch of calculations, and, for the maximum stellar mass that survives long enough to even have Earthlike life (1.4 solar masses), you need to satisfy these equations, where x is the innermost orbit (0.4 AU for our solar system; this can probably vary a fair bit), y is the spacing factor (around 0.3 for our solar system; I don't think this can very vary much), and n is a positive whole number.

Code: Select all

1.869 < x + (y * 2^n) < 2.692
1.869 < x + (y * 2^n-1) < 2.692
x > 0
y > 0

For n = 1, this is only possible in a tiny triangle of values, according to my calculations. All of these potential solutions require x to be around 2 - 2.5 or y to be over 0.5, in which case x is still over 1. A relatively plausible set of values I could find in it are x = 1.45 and y = 0.42. This is still rather hard to believe, but it gets you this solar system (not all slots have to be occupied, except #1; an asteroid belt will take up one of these slots, right before your first gas giant):

Planet #1 at 1.45 AU
Planet #2 at 1.87 AU (habitable)
Planet #3 at 2.29 AU (habitable)
Planet #4 at 3.13 AU
Planet #5 at 4.81 AU
Planet #6 at 8.17 AU
── gas giants after this location ──
Planet #7 at 14.89 AU
Planet #8 at 28.33 AU
Planet #9 at 55.21 AU

But we get more acceptable values with n = 2. My favorite is x = 1.29, y = 0.31, which gives us:

Planet #1 at 1.29 AU
Planet #2 at 1.60 AU
Planet #3 at 1.91 AU (habitable)
Planet #4 at 2.53 AU (habitable)
Planet #5 at 3.77 AU
Planet #6 at 6.25 AU
── gas giants after this location ──
Planet #7 at 11.21 AU
Planet #8 at 21.13 AU
Planet #9 at 40.97 AU
Planet #10 at 80.65 AU

Wow, sorry for this looooong post! I got carried away in the fun math.

[eldin raigmore]

….
I ran through a bunch of calculations, and, for the maximum stellar mass that survives long enough to even have Earthlike life (1.4 solar masses), you need to satisfy these equations, where x is the innermost orbit (0.4 AU for our solar system; this can probably vary a fair bit), y is the spacing factor (around 0.3 for our solar system; I don't think this can very vary much), and n is a positive whole number.
….

Isn’t 1.4 Solar masses Chandrasekhar’s limit?
At that mass the star will go supernova, wouldn’t it?
And, don’t smaller-mass stars survive longer than larger-mass stars, as long as we’re considering only stars massiver than brown dwarfs?

[Arayaz]

….
I ran through a bunch of calculations, and, for the maximum stellar mass that survives long enough to even have Earthlike life (1.4 solar masses), you need to satisfy these equations, where x is the innermost orbit (0.4 AU for our solar system; this can probably vary a fair bit), y is the spacing factor (around 0.3 for our solar system; I don't think this can very vary much), and n is a positive whole number.
….

Isn’t 1.4 Solar masses Chandrasekhar’s limit?
At that mass the star will go supernova, wouldn’t it?
And, don’t smaller-mass stars survive longer than larger-mass stars, as long as we’re considering only stars massiver than brown dwarfs?

You're right [edit: that Chandresekhar's Limit is 1.4, not that it does this]. I hadn't specifically heard of Chandrasekhar's Limit, but AFAIK, 1.4 is basically the biggest mass you can get away with in a realistic scifi world.

But, a bit more math shows that the second solar system I generated works for as low as 1.358, if you're squeamish.

EDIT: The reason I hadn't heard of Chandrasekhar's Limit is that it is not this, as WeepingElf says below.

[WeepingElf]

….
I ran through a bunch of calculations, and, for the maximum stellar mass that survives long enough to even have Earthlike life (1.4 solar masses), you need to satisfy these equations, where x is the innermost orbit (0.4 AU for our solar system; this can probably vary a fair bit), y is the spacing factor (around 0.3 for our solar system; I don't think this can very vary much), and n is a positive whole number.
….

Isn’t 1.4 Solar masses Chandrasekhar’s limit?
At that mass the star will go supernova, wouldn’t it?
And, don’t smaller-mass stars survive longer than larger-mass stars, as long as we’re considering only stars massiver than brown dwarfs?

Chandrasekhar's limit has nothing to do with this; it's just a meaningless coincidence that the same mass is the maximum mass of a main sequence star that lives long enough to give planetary biospheres enough time to evolve to the point where Earth is now. Chandrasekhar's limit is the maximum mass of a white dwarf; any more massive white dwarf collapses into a neutron star. Main sequence stars can be much more massive - but the more massive a main sequence star is, the shorter is its main sequence lifetime.

[Arayaz]

….
I ran through a bunch of calculations, and, for the maximum stellar mass that survives long enough to even have Earthlike life (1.4 solar masses), you need to satisfy these equations, where x is the innermost orbit (0.4 AU for our solar system; this can probably vary a fair bit), y is the spacing factor (around 0.3 for our solar system; I don't think this can very vary much), and n is a positive whole number.
….

Isn’t 1.4 Solar masses Chandrasekhar’s limit?
At that mass the star will go supernova, wouldn’t it?
And, don’t smaller-mass stars survive longer than larger-mass stars, as long as we’re considering only stars massiver than brown dwarfs?

Chandrasekhar's limit has nothing to do with this; it's just a meaningless coincidence that the same mass is the maximum mass of a main sequence star that lives long enough to give planetary biospheres enough time to evolve to the point where Earth is now. Chandrasekhar's limit is the maximum mass of a white dwarf; any more massive white dwarf collapses into a neutron star. Main sequence stars can be much more massive - but the more massive a main sequence star is, the shorter is its main sequence lifetime.

Thank you!

[Arayaz]

Rekeini will also be the home of Iyamri's descendants, because I've decided that it will be in the same world as Laakitlantu.

I also have an idea of a sketch of another protolang, which would have aspirates and a uvular series, because ... /qʰ/. Which can be romanized <qh> and so looks very cool.

[Khemehekis]

Yes! I have a country on Junsu (the planet with Tenta et al.) called Qhetzochin. I haven't worked out the language, but the spelling implies that the dominant language has /qh/.

[Arayaz]

I've decided to name the main language Qhici [qʰɪtʃi].

[Khemehekis]

I've decided to name the main language Qhici [qʰɪtʃi].

Qhici? I like it! By "the main language", do you mean your new protolang? Or do you mean the main descendant of said protolang?



EDIT: Oh yes, and the glomas (the time-traveling sapients) have a lingua franca with [qʰ]. There are melnays species called the jayq'in and kiq'ilay, a zetlata called a kiq'isitl, and a jekaph called a psayq'ol on their planet.

[Arayaz]

I've decided to name the main language Qhici [qʰɪtʃi].

Qhici? I like it! By "the main language", do you mean your new protolang? Or do you mean the main descendant of said protolang?

The protolang.

[Khemehekis]

I've decided to name the main language Qhici [qʰɪtʃi].

Qhici? I like it! By "the main language", do you mean your new protolang? Or do you mean the main descendant of said protolang?

The protolang.

Oh, I see. That's a great name -- Qhici! I can imagine a Leholan Pokémon going "Piiii-Qhiciiiii!" (Although it also sounds sort of like a sneeze . . . although maybe that's on my mind because I've just sneezed.)

[Arayaz]

I've decided to name the main language Qhici [qʰɪtʃi].

Qhici? I like it! By "the main language", do you mean your new protolang? Or do you mean the main descendant of said protolang?

The protolang.

Oh, I see. That's a great name -- Qhici! I can imagine a Leholan Pokémon going "Piiii-Qhiciiiii!" (Although it also sounds sort of like a sneeze . . . although maybe that's on my mind because I've just sneezed.)

I just realized that there was a possible subconscious connection to quiche. Even though I don't like quiche very much.