Imralu wrote:It's part of a conworld. The world is called Qu [ʔú], possibly anglicised to Oo. I haven't written much about it but it's a bit weird. It's not a planet but an enormous artificially built habitat which is obviously located in space (not that anyone's seen it from the outside). In-story, no one knows who or what built it and why. (I know.)
This is very cool! Are the people living there aware they are in space? Is it spherical or flat? How does the sky look like? Is there a sun or is it artificially illuminated? Do share!
To be slightly disappointing, I'll tell you that it's pronounced [bànàná], low tone on the first two syllables, high tone on the final syllable like virtually all words in Ngolu. It more or less sounds like a stress on the final syllable ... so it doesn't really sound like "banana". :-(
Naaah. It just sounds like „banana“ pronounced by the Minions. ;)
DesEsseintes wrote:I also like the way slaves must refer to themselves. It reminds me of humble pronouns and kinship terms in Chinese.
The slaves in Essos in the Song of Ice and Fire speak like this, as well.
gestaltist wrote:This is very cool! Are the people living there aware they are in space?
Well, they don't have a concept of what outer space is. They can't see outside of Qu. Also, everything is in space but we don't generally think of ourselves as being in space. We're on Earth, and space is usually thought of as everywhere that's not Earth.
gestaltist wrote:Is it spherical or flat?
Neither.
gestaltist wrote:What does the sky look like?
There is no sky.
Sorry for the obnoxious, unasked-for English correction. I can't help myself with this particular thing. What ... like? or How? (like) Occasionally I see this from native speakers though, so maybe it's becoming a thing?
gestaltist wrote:Is there a sun or is it artificially illuminated? Do share!
Haha, I'll stop being cryptic!
Qu is an enormous artificially created habitat. It is presumably constructed by extra-terrestrials and appears to try to simulate conditions on Earth. There are theories that it may be a kind of ark, or a research facility to study terrestrial life. For the Ngolu, however, it is simply the world. Until fairly recently, they have been unaware of a world outside of Qu.
Qu consists of an unknown number of enormous tubes (obaqu [òbàʔú], literally "world room" or "world chamber"). The scale is enormous. Each obaqu is estimated to be around 50km long and around 6km in diameter, giving about 900 square kilometres of available surface within each obaqu. The inside surface of the obaqu is generally gently hilly, covered in lush tropical forest rivers and small seas which may divide the land into a number of large and small islands. The absence of a sky may be confusing for terran arrivals - the ground gently rises to the "north" and the "south", arching overhead. Distant objects appear noticeably bluer, but there is no sky. The Ngolu word aia [àjá] is the closest to "sky". It means the empty cavernous space within an obaqu and also "air".
Each obaqu rotates about its axis, creating an artificial gravity, at a strength of approximately 1g, which holds objects to the inner surface. This has been confirmed by the detection of a vertically oriented coriolis effect, whereby objects falling from a great height veer sharply 'southwards' around the tube as they lack most of the angular momentum of the land rushing by underneath. When rain falls, it always comes in at an angle from the north and heavy rain usually accompanied by a stiff breeze. For this reason, buildings are usually more open to the south. ('East' is defined as where the 'sun' rises in the morning. The 'east-west' axis is along the tube, north-south is around the tube. The direction of the tube's rotation is south to north.)
In the centre of each obaqu there is an ukana, a huge spoke running right through the middle. The elo is a sun-like light that appears to travel along the ukana from east to west over the course of a day. Although the elo does indeed look like a single light source sliding along the ukana, the landscape within the tube appears uniformly lit, rather than brightest near the apparent position of the elo. At any one time, the elo shines from the same angle in the sky along the entire length of the obaqu. This means that the ukana seems to be comprised of many small, highly directional lights, all of which are used simultaneously and which change in angle throughout the 'day'. When the ukana is shrouded in clouds which scatter the directional light, it can be seen as a long, straight line in the sky. At night time, a dimmer light may appear. While it does not display the crescent shape of the Earth's moon, it seems to follow a roughly similar monthly cycle in terms of brightness and position in relation to the 'sun'. In the wet season, there are storms, which are typically heralded by bright, lightning-like strobe flashes from the ukana, then heavy rain arrives, which is sprayed out of the ukana. During the dry season, there is mostly only light precipitation, but the extreme humidity and the thick, nightly fogs keep everything moist.
The majority of the Ngolu live in one obaqu, where they have spent all of their lives. The existence of other obaqu is food for rumours among the citizens. At each end of an obaqu, there is a huge wall. These walls are generally like craggy cliff faces, often with waterfalls with sources high up towards the hub. In the main obaqu, the western wall is unscalable but the eastern wall has a route that may be climbed. This begins in an area that is heavily guarded by the balu and is not accessible to lower ranks. As one gets climbs closer to the hub, the force of gravity becomes less and less. Close to the hub of the tube, where one is essentially weightless, one must be careful not to slip away from the wall. People who slip away from the wall float for a while before beginning to fall to their deaths, slamming into the ground from the north to the south. In the very centre of the hub, the ukana is attached. Near this, there is what looks like a cave opening. It can be found by looking for swifts and bats which may fly in or out at around sunset and sunrise. Entering the cave is unusual. In near total weightlessness, and in darkness aside from the faint glow of glow worms, one must clamber along the oddly textured walls, usually fighting a rather strong wind. Bats and echolocating swiftlets are everywhere. Following the cave, one eventually comes to the point where the rotating obaqu joins onto the non-rotating structure it is attached to, which is quite disorienting. At this point, six passages radiate away. Many of these passages are very long dead ends but a few of them, if followed for a long distance (estimated to be around 7 kilometres), lead to other obaqu. It is hypothesised that there may be thousands of obaqu suspended in a triangular lattice framework, however accessibility between them depends on the openings and closures within the latice.
How the idea has developed in my head:
Spoiler:
I've had the idea for a world like this since I was very young, reading about possible ring-shaped space stations and saw a picture a bit like this in a book. (Actually, it may have been this exact image.) I thought there'd be more space inside if it's a tube instead of just a thin ring. Of course, a tube makes natural lighting harder. As a teenager, I had a world like this in my head where strips of land alternate with transparent sections of the tube covered in shallow seas. (Kind of like this, except I imagined rings going around the tube instead of strips along - I think the mirror set-up here is pretty smart.) In such a habitat, the sun or whatever star the thing orbits, would seem to constantly swing around - depending on the speed of the tube's rotation, which would depend on the diameter to ensure Earth-like gravity. I think a constantly moving light-source would be kind of exciting, but for a proper day-night cycle approaching that of Earth, artificial lighting would have to be it. I thought of a sun spoke through the middle of the habitat. At some point, my brother bought A Second Chance at Eden by Peter F. Hamilton and I saw that all of the ideas I've ever had have been had before, but that's OK. I enjoyed it. Here's some of the artwork made for it. His habitats are living beings, which I think is cool too, but they're a good deal smaller than what I want to work with.
I wonder why you didn’t decide to make the otaqus somewhat bigger 900 km2 is still a very small area. No big-scale warfare for your folks... Also: I don’t think bats would comfortably live in near-weightlessness. But maybe they would.
One question I still have is natural resources. In these small otaqus, big deposits of metals (or other things) are unlikely. How have you approached resource management for your world?
gestaltist wrote:This is a very unique idea. Love it.
I wonder why you didn’t decide to make the otaqus somewhat bigger 900 km2 is still a very small area. No big-scale warfare for your folks...
Lol. Not otaqu, obaqu, from oba 'be a room/chamber' + qu 'be the world' / 'be Qu'.
Also, the theme in Qu is not big-scale warfare but smaller scale bastardry within a cultural group. There is only one cultural group there, as far as the Ngolu know at this stage, so there are no wars, but the Ngolu system of rule is brutal and there are occasional bloody coups. Also, 900 square kilometres is intermediate in size between Hong Kong and Tonga, and with a population size roughly that of Tonga's, so it's like a small nation on Earth. Actually it's roughly the size of the city I live in, but with population 1/35 of the size. (Just take Berlin, get rid of 34 out of 35 people, cover it with rainforest and role it into a tube with a giant glow-stick in the middle.) And that's just one of the obaqu. There is room for expansion, should the rulers of Qu ever decide to relinquish power over their 'secret places'.
gestaltist wrote:Also: I don’t think bats would comfortably live in near-weightlessness. But maybe they would.
Ah, I didn't mean to imply that they live there. Of course, that's what one thinks when there's swiftlets and bats in a cave. I was going to mention more.
I forgot to mention that at the point where the six passages radiate away towards dead-ends or other obaqu, there is also a passage that goes more or less straight and leads to another obaqu which is relatively near and in line with, not parallel to the main obaqu. The main obaqu, by the way, is called (obaq)ujomua ('home world (chamber)'), shortened in casual speech to ujua. To those who know of its existence, the nearest neighbouring obaqu is called (obaq)uzeio ('new world (chamber)'), known informally as uzo. It was discovered comparatively recently, around 100 years ago. It is used by the ruling classes for combat training, leisure and anything which they want to be hidden from the eyes of the citizens. It is presumed that there is also an obaqu in the other direction, behind the western wall of ujomua
Ujua and uzo are directly out of phase with one another with regard to the day-night cycle. When night falls in ujua, dawn breaks in uzo. The heat difference creates a pressure difference that causes the wind through the cave. The swiftlets and bats don't live in the cave but actually migrate from one obaqu to another, the swiftlets living in perpetual day, sleeping (on the wing) through the middle of the day the bats in perpetual night, sleeping (hooked onto a wall somewhere) through the middle of the night. Qu seems to have been around for long enough that evolution has had time to do its thing - there are many species which are recognisably different from their relatives on Earth and some that are unrecognisable - and the swiftlets and bats seem to have adapted to take advantage of the dawn/dusk feeding time. There would probably be other migratory birds except the caves are so dark, echolocation is required.
All of that being said, I believe the bats do breed in the dead-ends of the passages.
gestaltist wrote:One question I still have is natural resources. In these small otaqus, big deposits of metals (or other things) are unlikely. How have you approached resource management for your world?
This is not a naturally formed world, so big deposits of metals are very likely if that's what the creators intended to place there. I haven't yet fully worked this out. I want the Ngolu to have access to metals but I can't quite fully work out why the constructors would have specifically wanted the humans in their habitat to have had access to metals. I have a few ideas about this ... or perhaps the rocks used in constructing the landscape simply happened to be metal rich. Fossil fuels, however, are absent. Animals larger than humans are also absent and this means that all labour must be done by human power. I want them to have metals so they can build giant, multi-person bicycle chariots to drive the king around in. Maybe this technological level is a bit unrealistically high for so small a population? I want them to have come a long way in mechanics for these bicycles to work and I also want them to have water-wheels ... although wood is enough for this.
I missed your post Imralu. Thank you for the answers. I love this setting and I hope to hear more from you about it and about the language.
The idea of the elites keeping the knowledge of other obaqus secret is neat. How do they guard them?
Regarding resources:
- „bicycle chariots“ don’t look like a plausible invention to me. Humans rarely invent something that isn’t useful at some stage. For bicycle chariots to be invented, people would have to invent bicycles first. And bicycles aren’t particularly usable in the rainforest. Good ole litters would be my choice of transportation for notables.
- wouldn’t people try and mine the obaqu’s walls, at least at the ends of the tube? This might have disastrous consequences, of course. What material are the tubes and the corridors between them made of?
gestaltist wrote:The idea of the elites keeping the knowledge of other obaqus secret is neat. How do they guard them?
There's quite a large area of land which is out of bounds for non-balu and the climbable path that goes up the Eastern wall is within this area. The area is guarded by guards.
gestaltist wrote:- „bicycle chariots“ don’t look like a plausible invention to me. Humans rarely invent something that isn’t useful at some stage. For bicycle chariots to be invented, people would have to invent bicycles first. And bicycles aren’t particularly usable in the rainforest. Good ole litters would be my choice of transportation for notables.
You're probably right. This idea has been around since an earlier conculture of mine which was situated on a planet and had a vast empire spread out over a couple of continents. The technological level was about Roman-Empire level or a bit above, which is of course doable with a large population and huge size of land, but I suppose that level of technology would be a bit more difficult to achieve with only 100,000 people in 900km2.
In any case, I had imagined that the roads between towns are paved and quite smooth. Once the idea of the wheel is hit upon and its efficiency is clear, making smooth surfaces becomes a priority. I am OK with litters, but I'd like the litters to be able to move quite quickly.
gestaltist wrote:wouldn’t people try and mine the obaqu’s walls, at least at the ends of the tube? This might have disastrous consequences, of course. What material are the tubes and the corridors between them made of?
I don't know what material they could be made of. Something bloody strong! In any case, clearly not rocks that the humans could dig through or chip away at. Within the strong tube material would be an atmosphere, a biosphere and a lithosphere and it is stones from the lithosphere that the Ngolu would be able to mine, not the tube material.
It's pretty dramatic to imagine someone digging through into outer space though, isn't it!
gestaltist wrote:- „bicycle chariots“ don’t look like a plausible invention to me. Humans rarely invent something that isn’t useful at some stage. For bicycle chariots to be invented, people would have to invent bicycles first. And bicycles aren’t particularly usable in the rainforest. Good ole litters would be my choice of transportation for notables.
You're probably right. This idea has been around since an earlier conculture of mine which was situated on a planet and had a vast empire spread out over a couple of continents. The technological level was about Roman-Empire level or a bit above, which is of course doable with a large population and huge size of land, but I suppose that level of technology would be a bit more difficult to achieve with only 100,000 people in 900km2.
In any case, I had imagined that the roads between towns are paved and quite smooth. Once the idea of the wheel is hit upon and its efficiency is clear, making smooth surfaces becomes a priority. I am OK with litters, but I'd like the litters to be able to move quite quickly.
I am not so sure about that. The wheel’s utility is very limited without animals of burden. Look at the Aztecs - they knew about the wheel and only ever used it in toys.
What I think (if you really want to include the bicycles): the invention of the bicycle could be inspired by some kind of mechanism found outside of the obaqus - maybe they have seen some spinning cogs or whatever? Or the realization that their world itself is spinning on an axis spurred the invention? The „bicycle chariots“ based on that realization would probably be two „hamster wheels“ with a litter attached in the middle.
Or something along those lines.
I don't know what material they could be made of. Something bloody strong! In any case, clearly not rocks that the humans could dig through or chip away at. Within the strong tube material would be an atmosphere, a biosphere and a lithosphere and it is stones from the lithosphere that the Ngolu would be able to mine, not the tube material.
It's pretty dramatic to imagine someone digging through into outer space though, isn't it!
It is not so easy to create an alloy humans couldn’t dig. But we are talking pretty primitive societies here so it is alright.
Any metals found in the obaqus would definitely be placed there intentionally. A few possibilities to explore:
the aliens left some tools to the first inhabitants: any metal tools are a result of re-forging of these first tools
the aliens tried to make this a simulation of the natural habitats and embedded some ores into the ground
there is no metal available at all (why not - it would create an interesting spin on things)
one of the obaqus is actually a „warehouse“ of sorts with either raw materials or with tools that the elite found and uses to enforce their superiority
Imralu wrote: ↑25 Mar 2015 09:12Another interesting thing is that it can be changed at a moment's notice to suit the situation and your current feelings. Deeply offended by what your friend or partner has just said to you? Just call yourself nu in the next sentence. Maybe it sounds like a grammatical tool for passive aggression, but it's an overt way of signalling a change in attitude while simultaneously being able to discuss other content. It's not "passive". Want to make it clear that you are flirting with a stranger or acquaintance? Respectfully continue to address them as vu, but indicate your openness by referring to yourself as na. Earlier, I called this the submissive stance, but it doesn't amount to grovelling. (In fact, I can imagine this being used rather aggressively as well as respectfully.) If they respond with na - ua, you're in! If it's nu - ua, they've followed your lead and adopted the dominant stance - they're not giving you an answer yet. Nu - vu is basically them telling you "Back off. I'm NOT going to touch you." Are you ill and don't think it's wise for anyone to get to close? Got a headache? Feeling tense wound up like a coiled spring? Just don't want to be touched for whatever reason? Quarantine yourself from people with inaccessible nominals.
Hey everyone! Here's Future Imralu writing from a pretty bleak timeline to necro this thread!
I just wanted to say that since I've started social distancing measures, any time I've written in Iliaqu in fluency threads or whatever, I've been very rigidly using inaccessible pronouns, even with people who I would otherwise use accessible ones with. If a disease were to sweep through Qu, assuming people worked out that the way to prevent its spread was to limit physical contact between people, the use of inaccessible pronouns would probably become nearly universal, with everyone switching to the inaccessible mode. Even superiors talking down to lower ranks would use inaccessible for everyone. Even the Taqu (king) would do this. Social distancing would have a direct effect on language use.
Having said that though, I don't think the Ngolu people would know how to avoid spreading a virus like this, but the creators of Qu would possibly intervene in such an instance.
Epic necro because I've received a couple of questions in my inbox. I haven't had a lot to do with this language for the past few years, but I haven't scrapped it completely.
Aren’t there situations where someone, even someone of high rank, needs the help of someone subordinate or of lower rank, that requires the assistant or aide to touch the care-receiver?
And might this happen even when the aide or helper or caregiver, is a kali or a muja?
For instance, suppose a patient is recovering from heart surgery.
Around him will be certified-nurses’-assistants, registered nurses, various kinds of med techs, physicians’ assistants, and doctors of medicine.
The patient might not yet be able to dress themself; or get out of bed by themself; or make it to the toilet on time; etc.
Even a homebound invalid might need help bathing, or changing their diaper, or dressing, or preparing their meals, etc.
What is the accessible-vs-inaccessible custom or habit or protocol for such situations?
That's easy and I guess this means that I didn't explain it well enough. Being higher ranked doesn't mean you have to speak in the dominant stance the whole time. Switching to another stance doesn't relinquish your dominance as the use of accessibility in pronouns is not about long-term relationships but just how things are in that moment. Higher rank just means that you are the one who can decide which stance to use in conversation with a lower-ranked person and lower ranked people have to follow it. Using accessible 1st person pronouns gives consent to the doctor or aide to touch you. Using the dominant stance in these situations would essentially be the refusal to be treated. In our world, we allow doctor's to touch us in ways and in places that we wouldn't consent to with any other stranger. Of course, you could tell a doctor you don't consent to them touching you, but if you need to be touched to be treated, then why are you at the doctor? It's exactly the same in Qu.
How is a child, too young to go anywhere or be left alone anywhere (not even at home!), without a nanny or a governor/governess, taught to speak to the nanny or governess/governor?
That depends on the standing of the family and the way they've raised their child. In general, children are lower ranked and have to acquiesce to the stance that adults use with them. They may experience consequences for refusal to acquiesce to stance their parents use with them, although kids will naturally try to push the boundaries. Some parents may indulge their kids and allow their kids to choose the stance (at times) and others may argue that that is bad parenting. With a nanny, the parents would communicate which stances the nanny may or may not use with the kids and what they should tolerate from the child.
![[:D]](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin2.png ":D"){kind=icon}
![[tick]](./images/smilies/tickic.png "Tick"){kind=small}
- 
![[:'(]](./images/smilies/icon_crying2.png ":'("){kind=icon}
- 
![[xD]](./images/smilies/icon_xd2.png "xD"){kind=icon}
![[;)]](./images/smilies/icon_wink2.png ";)"){kind=icon}
