The Lonely Galaxy Megathread (comments encouraged)

[lurker]

Force projectors ground Newton's third law to its room without supper. They consist in a molecule-thin sheet of crystalline material that experiences a reactionless force normal to its surface when a voltage is applied across it. The higher the voltage, the stronger the force.

Force projectors convert surrounding oxygen to ozone when running, which is why very large projectors that run continuously like you see in spacecraft cannot be used in atmosphere. The projector plates on the paws of large mechs are the largest practical terrestrial application for them.

From a Doylist perspective, I can remember vehemently not wanting force projectors to be used for aircraft or to allow things to hover in midair, while still using them for powered armor and spacecraft, but I honestly can't remember why. I think it had to do with the absence of artificial gravity in this universe, but if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them. I also don't want them to be what keeps Welkinstead's floating cities aloft.

[lurker]

Because yinrih language relies very heavily on subtle chances in volume, analog radio telephony--voice communication--proved much more difficult for monkey foxes than it did for humans. When radio signals bounce off the ionosphere, they can experience fading, which sounds like fluctuations in volume to the receiver.

A wireless communication system was developed, adapted and greatly elaborated from St. Redclaw's initial wire telegraphy signal system. This system is known cross-linguistically as some variation of <sFsc> /yip, long high strong whine, yip, short low strong whine/, which is an onomatopoeia meaning something like 'beep-boop'. Humans refer to the system as Vulpithecine Morse or MFSK (monkey fox shift keying, a pun on minimum frequency shift keying).

The system is based on a reduced set of yinrih speech sounds. Phonation and strength are not distinguished, and consonants are not present. What we're left with is a system that distinguishes only length and tone. Like Morse, there are two length distinctions: short and long. Unlike Morse, there are also two frequency distinctions, low and high, separated by 170 Hz. This yields a total of four symbols: low dot, high dot, low dash, and high dash.

Also unlike Morse, MFSK does not represent written language, but rather constitutes a language in its own right. Strings of MFSK symbols represent meaning directly, making it an international auxiliary language.

Much of the system borrows the cadence and tone of words from the prestige languages of the time period around the yinrih's first orbital flights.

The system was outmoded eventually as digital communication and eventually ansibles took over, but enthusiasts have kept the system alive even at the time of First Contact, and MFSK becomes a popular mode among Terran hams.

[lurker]

The fruit of our minds and work of mortal paws, it is but a pale imitation of thy handiwork.

Outside of liturgy during most of the year, the star hearth is concealed behind a sanctuary curtain that allows the star's light to pass through. The curtain is drawn back during liturgies, and kept open during the feast of the kindling of the fire of understanding, which lasts a week.

The star within is regarded as "an icon of an icon". Real stars are called "Icons of the Light", mere semblances of the glory that fills the empyrean. The warmth and light radiating from the star symbolizes the Light's care for its creatures.

The star also represents the fire of understanding that burns in the souls of the Light's little ones, the gift of sapience. The hearth as a whole, as a complex piece of technology, represents the fruits of sapience.

In former times, the hearth powered the homes of surrounding houses as well as the lighthouse itself. Those who lived within the geographic area powered by a particular lighthouse were expected to attend the liturgies at that lighthouse. Hearthside began the tradition of simply powering the lighthouse itself and selling any excess power back to the municipal power company to cover operational costs. After the War of Dissolution when the PIous Dissolutionists took over the Bright Way, this practice was imposed throughout the rest of Focus.

[lurker]

Here's another picture of the star hearth, this time done with toon shaders.

[lurker]

I'm impressed I've been able to keep this up for so long. I didn't even notice the 700th post at the time. Almost nobody IRL knows about this little project of mine. I feel ashamed to bring it up. I aggressively separate my online persona from my meatspace self, which is probably why I'm so averse to sharing the Lonely Galaxy outside of the internet.

Sometimes I feel like conworlding is what you get when you strip away all the curb appeal from speculative fiction. There's no plot and there are no characters except those that serve the history of your world. It's pure setting. If you're like me, you love the sort of trivial details that make a setting feel more alive but don't move a story forward. There are some media franchises I know almost solely through extensive wiki walking, without ever having read the books or played the games. WH40K and D&D being the foremost examples I can think of. I guess you can think of the Lonely Galaxy as a fan wiki for a franchise that doesn't exist.

I also compare my artistic attempts for this project, both visual and literary, to getting your hair cut at a barber college. You're definitely not going to have a huge range of fancy styles to choose from, and you're taking a risk that the experience may not be perfect, or even satisfactory, but you're helping someone learn, and the price is right. I think there's a bit of joy to be had from seeing someone's raw unfiltered imagination. No focus groups, no test audiences, just the stuff rattling around in someone's brain.

The thing is, I'd never want this to be my job. With pay comes expectations, and expectations breed stress. Here there are no expectations. We owe each other nothing beyond common courtesy. I write when I feel like it, draw when I'm in the mood, etc.

[lurker]

I refuse to call it art, but AI-generated images can be a good source of inspiration sometimes. This is the closest I've come to getting an AI image generator to depict the yinrih. There are some obvious discrepancies beyond the usual AI horror show. The eyes aren't correct, they should be pitch black, and the tail is neither long enough nor is it prehensile.

But this image has helped me nail down what the Commonthroat verb <PN> /long high weakening whine/ means. I glossed it as "to squat" or "to sit like a dog", but the yinrih are plantigrade, so their feet are shorter and their tibia and fibula (or analogous bones) are longer compared to canids.

---

In other news, I made some tiny tweaks to the second part of First Contact. The usual abbreviation of "please" in Morse is PSE not PLS, and the KX3 is not the kind of radio one would normally use to do satellite communication.

[lurker]

OK, let's wash that digital abomination out of our brains with an attempt at visual art by a human.

This is a bottle of nose balm. It's fairly representative of pill bottles and other similarly sized containers. The only real curve ball compared to its Terran equivalent is the ring on the cap. The ring serves two main purposes.

For yinrih who live planetside, the ring helps them fish the bottle out of a backpack with their tail. For spacers, the ring is slipped on one of the digits while the bottle is open and in use in order to keep the lid from floating away without having to sacrifice an entire paw just to hold the lid. The outer thumb is used most often for this purpose.

A more subtle feature of these sorts of containers is the texture on the lid. It's not just there for grip. It also helps the yinrih identify the bottle by touch alone. The texture, together with the overall size, shape, and mass of the bottle, differentiates it from other similar containers nearby.

There are other similar items that a yinrih typically keeps on their person, whether in a wallet around the right foreleg or a larger bag on the chest, back, or belly. Paw wax protects the paw pads against surfaces that are hot or have irritating chemicals. perfumes as well as perfume remover (for when one's natural musk is deemed more appropriate) are packaged similarly. There are salves for treating minor cuts, which act to both treat the wound and cover it like a bandage.

[Glenn]

Sometimes I feel like conworlding is what you get when you strip away all the curb appeal from speculative fiction. There's no plot and there are no characters except those that serve the history of your world. It's pure setting. If you're like me, you love the sort of trivial details that make a setting feel more alive but don't move a story forward. There are some media franchises I know almost solely through extensive wiki walking, without ever having read the books or played the games. WH40K and D&D being the foremost examples I can think of. I guess you can think of the Lonely Galaxy as a fan wiki for a franchise that doesn't exist.

This largely describes my relationship with role-playing games when I was younger. I only played D&D for a relatively short time (basically between the ages of 10 and 12), but the gaming itself was not fun for me after a while. (I might have a different experience playing as an adult; my younger brother, who started playing RPGs after me, played them for many years, although he has mostly moved to focusing on board games and card games). However, even after I stopped playing, I continued to collect D&D materials - campaign settings, adventure modules, issues of Dragon and Dungeon magazines - because I enjoyed reading the worldbuilding elements. Like you, there are RPG settings (Tekumel, Jorune, Warhammer Fantasy) that I know primarily through descriptions of their worlds, rather than having ever played the games.

I actually think that the Lonely Galaxy has more plot than most conworlds: you have the accounts of yinrih history and First Contact, descriptions of the specific characters involved, and stories involving them, which is more story-oriented than the majority of conworlds that I have seen.

[lurker]

This largely describes my relationship with role-playing games when I was younger. I only played D&D for a relatively short time (basically between the ages of 10 and 12), but the gaming itself was not fun for me after a while.

I'm curious what drew you in at first and why you eventually lost interest. For years now I've toyed with trying D&D. My sister is n a group (currently DMing I believe) and has encouraged me to join, but their sessions last 8 hours, and my social battery is dead after about one hour of direct socializing.

[Glenn]

This largely describes my relationship with role-playing games when I was younger. I only played D&D for a relatively short time (basically between the ages of 10 and 12), but the gaming itself was not fun for me after a while.

I'm curious what drew you in at first and why you eventually lost interest. For years now I've toyed with trying D&D. My sister is n a group (currently DMing I believe) and has encouraged me to join, but their sessions last 8 hours, and my social battery is dead after about one hour of direct socializing.

I was attracted by the fantastic elements of D&D - elves, dragons, etc., as I had just started reading fantasy fiction a couple of years before (notably The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings). As for why I stopped - well, my classmates and I were very young, and the gaming tended to run to "Monty Haul" campaigns, where the main goal was to kill as many monsters and acquire as much treasure and experience points as possible, without worrying much about the story or backstory. (Side note: I was familiar with the term "Monty Haul" in D&D, but it was only many years later that I learned that it was a take-off on the name of Monty Hall, a TV game show host). On one of the only occasions that I served as a DM, I attempted to run a premade adventure module that depended heavily on story and atmosphere, which was immediately derailed by the players trying to kill everything in sight, and I was not flexible enough to deal with the situation.

(With regard to your comment on socializing - many gaming groups are also social groups, and socializing with friends and acquaintances is part of the activity (at least it was for my brother), although I am sure that this varies depending on the group, the people, and the venue - meeting at someone's home, at a gaming store, at a convention, etc.)

As noted, however, my real love was reading about the worlds and creatures, without feeling the need to play them, and reading worldbuilding materials remained my focus - first the World of Greyhawk, and later Kara-Tur, Dragonlance, the Forgotten Realms, the Empire of the Petal Throne (a game and setting that heavily featured both conworlding and conlanging), and other fantasy and sci-fi settings.

[foxcatdogwolf]

"Monty Hauls" are what they sell as starter sets and from what i've seen the attempts at variation from this aren't to exciting either.

[lurker]

the gaming tended to run to "Monty Haul" campaigns, where the main goal was to kill as many monsters and acquire as much treasure and experience points as possible, without worrying much about the story or backstory.

That's Action RPGs like Diablo in a nutshell. Silly monkey brain like big number. I have a silly monkey brain and I very much like big number, so I'm partial to ARPGs (though not so much Diablo specifically).

(With regard to your comment on socializing - many gaming groups are also social groups, and socializing with friends and acquaintances is part of the activity (at least it was for my brother), although I am sure that this varies depending on the group, the people, and the venue - meeting at someone's home, at a gaming store, at a convention, etc.)

When I started investigating D&D as a potential hobby back in 2019, it became immediately apparent that the stereotype of D&D as a socially awkward nerd thing was not only completely unfounded, but that you have to have a surprising amount of social awareness thanks to the group dynamics at play, like managing schedules, setting up a session zero to establish expectations for the campaign, managing IRL conflicts at the table, etc, especially for the DM. Turns out I'm too introverted for the quintessential dorky hobby.

2019 was the year I decided I had to find some outlet to help me meet new friends and network, and having established that D&D was too gregarious for me, I chose ham radio. Little did I know that ham radio is a deceptively expensive hobby. But it has got me at least one job interview, so it's paid dividends on the networking front.

Some of this passive interest in D&D has bled into the Lonely Galaxy. It's why yinrih medical professionals are called healers and why hearthkeepers were originally called clerics. The Knights of the Sun (and Lodestar specifically) are paladins in both personality and appearence (though they also draw from Space Marines from WH40K to some extent).

Ham radio has had some influences as well. Stormlight's ecstasy upon discovering human radio transmissions is inspired by an article in a very early issue of QST magazine (~1914ish I think) where the writer spoke in almost religious terms of his experience tuning around listening for other operators, comparing it to disembodied souls floating through the ether seeking communion with others. I wish I could feel what he felt, but I'm too habituated to casual instant global communication.

[lurker]

I feel like I should explain a bit of my own personal philosophy that has informed some of my worldbuilding. It's something I like to call The Headphone Jack Effect, which is a reference to Apple's controversial removal of the headphone jack from the iPhone 7.

A person is a complex and sometimes contradictory mess of wants and needs and ideas. Everyone has their own goals and their own idea of how the world ought to be. If one person is already a mess, an organization, made of many messy people, is even more of a mess. Sometimes people want the same thing, but have very different motivations for doing so.

What does this have to do with Apple or headphone jacks? Apple is not a person, it's an organization made of many people, who, as above, are all straining in their own direction trying to accomplish their own goals. I have no doubt in my mind that some people at Apple wanted to get rid of the headphone jack to increase the sales of wireless headphones. However, there are also legitimate reasons why one might want to eliminate it. A jack is a potential ingress point for dust and liquid. The jack itself as well as the DAC it connects to take up room in an already cramped chassis. That same space-hogging hardware also adds manufacturing complexity to a device that already has a bluetooth radio which serves the same purpose.

I can see some engineer making a sincere and impassioned argument for the jack's removal just as much as I can see C suite executives tenting their fingers and salivating over the potential profits.

What does this have to do with the Lonely Galaxy? I sometimes feel like I make some groups out to be a lot worse than they actually are. For example, I made it sound like the founding of the Knights of the Sun was a cynical move to exploit the zeal of pious young men who were too stupid to realize they were being used. And yeah, some clerics were acting in bad faith, but plenty of others genuinely cared about the people who used the infrastructure the clergy controlled, and wanted to see them safe from harm. Were some knights hiding behind religion to go on a power trip? Sure. Were other knights trying to defend the weak and help the helpless because that's what their faith said was important? Also yes.

What do I think about the headphone jack? Honestly I think the increased liquid resistance isn't worth the loss of what was an inexpensive and simple solution that lasted for a hundred years precisely because it was a good idea.

Where am I going with this? I honestly don't know. It's just been on my mind for a while.

[lurker]

I think I'm going to make the star and gear with the red arch (my current avatar) into the symbol of the Pious Dissolutionists. The bare star and gear is the older Bright Way symbol, and was used by the Preservationists during the War of Dissolution. After the war when the Pious Dissolutionists took over the Bright Way, both symbols are used more or less interchangeably.

[lurker]

It is common for Wayfarers to pray for the dead. It works a bit differently than most human faiths. While the Bright Way has a similar concept to Purgatory, where the souls of the deceased are purified of sinful attachments in order to perfectly reflect the Uncreated Light in the Empyrean, the prayers aren't directed to the Light to lessen their loved-ones period of hardship, but to the dead directly, to encourage them to persevere, so they might enter the Empyrean sooner.

This period of purification is commonly depicted in art as a giant tree known as the Tree of Trials. Its branches reach into the heavens, and the glory of the Empyrean shines down through the leaves. The souls of the dead are pictured arduously climbing up the tree in order to breach the canopy, occasionally stopping to rest in the tree's branches along the way.

One of a bonekeeper's jobs is to pray for the souls of those who may not be remembered otherwise, and to relate their deeds in life to any who will listen, encouraging them to pray for them as well. In this capacity bonekeepers are known as rememberers of the forgotten dead.

[lurker]

Here's a much nicer geopolitical map of Focus

[YoungConlanger]

Recently I've had a shower thought about your conworld:
If we call the Sun's planetary system Solar, could we call the Focus' planetary system Focal?

[WeepingElf]

It is certainly buried somewhere within this gargantuan thread and I don't feel like digging through it, so I ask: What types are the various planets again? I guess that Hearthside is Venus-like, and Sweetwater, Yih (of course) and Newhome Earth-like and habitable. Are Welkinstead and Moonlitter gas giants?

[lurker]

Recently I've had a shower thought about your conworld:
If we call the Sun's planetary system Solar, could we call the Focus' planetary system Focal?

Yes, I suppose you could.

It is certainly buried somewhere within this gargantuan thread and I don't feel like digging through it, so I ask: What types are the various planets again? I guess that Hearthside is Venus-like, and Sweetwater, Yih (of course) and Newhome Earth-like and habitable. Are Welkinstead and Moonlitter gas giants?

Hearthside, Sweetwater, and Newhome are all terraformed terrestrial planets. Yih is of course habitable as well. Hearthside is an eyeball planet with the Nightless Desert surrounding the substellar point and a green belt along the terminator. I haven't done anything with the dark side yet.

Sweetwater is an ocean planet. Hearthside and Sweetwater are inspired by old theories about Mercury and Venus, with Hearthside being tidally locked like Mercury was thought to be, and Sweetwater being covered in water like old depictions of Venus (although Sweetwater lacks the permaclouds).

Newhome is essentially a copy of Yih without the ring. Welkinstead is a gas giant and Moonlitter is an ice giant.

[WeepingElf]

Thank you for the summary.