Guest Azrael Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 Can you translate numbers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikker Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 (edited) Can you translate numbers? Havent figured out numbers at all, should I? *GASP* Stewart DOESN'T do something completely irrelevant and ecsessive about the alien language at first chance?! Hey! Stop the presses! Now fronline cover! Stewart's gone sane again! Edited November 28, 2005 by mikker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 (edited) Can you translate numbers?<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Havent figured out numbers at all, should I?<{POST_SNAPBACK}> *GASP* Stewart DOESN'T do something completely irrelevant and ecsessive about the alien language at first chance?! Hey! Stop the presses! Now fronline cover! Stewart's gone sane again!<{POST_SNAPBACK}>I don't see how it is irrelevant, we are all working on Xenocide for fun, and making an Alien Language will help make the game more immersive and complete, I don't understand you, aren't your models detailed? why don't you make them 2d? why not make sprites like in the old x-com? I seriously don't see how this is excessive. Stewart: If you want/can, it'd be good, after all, they most definitely need numbers, for dates/supplies, etc, but it's ok if you don't, we'll work out a text without them Edited November 28, 2005 by Azrael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikker Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 yeah, you're right Az. Was just dramticizing my point to make it look better Yeah, numbers might indeed prove usefull. Else it could juse be 'One' 'Two' 'Tenth' 'Second' and such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 yeah, you're right Az. Was just dramticizing my point to make it look better I know, but I agree that Stewart was very very thorough with his language Yeah, numbers might indeed prove usefull. Else it could juse be 'One' 'Two' 'Tenth' 'Second' and such.<{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hmmm... maybe binary? or base 10 numeric system too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 Dates; now that's gonna be a b1tch! How would dates work for a multistellar society? As for numbers. Lets see hmmmm! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 quite possibly the dating system could be based around the solar year of the founding/dominant member of the accepted galactic authority. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikker Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 What about basing it on the current size of the galaxy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 Dates; now that's gonna be a b1tch! How would dates work for a multistellar society? As for numbers. Lets see hmmmm!<{POST_SNAPBACK}>The dates wouldn't necessarily have to be special for them. I mean, they are 'working' on our planet doing observation and stuff, it's not precisely useful to be using a different time and date setting, they would have to employ our system (maybe not with months, but with a 365 day calendar and 24 hour days). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 They could be like I think the mayans, they dont count years just days. On the other hand its still the same problem one step removed so never mind. The aliens are from earth right? Do the have 5 fingers per hand? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 They could be like I think the mayans, they dont count years just days. On the other hand its still the same problem one step removed so never mind. The aliens are from earth right? Do the have 5 fingers per hand?<{POST_SNAPBACK}>The Aliens...from... earth? No Alien species is from Earth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 I thought the aliens origninated on earth, left and came back or something like that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 That's one of the many theories out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 I thought the aliens origninated on earth, left and came back or something like that?<{POST_SNAPBACK}>That could have been one of the many backstories that are there, I think one of them was about the Cloaks being from Earth, but I am not sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 So whats the official Xenocide one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 So whats the official Xenocide one?<{POST_SNAPBACK}>Now that's an interesting question, with an interesting answer: there isn't, yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 How many fingers per hand on the aliens? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted November 28, 2005 Report Share Posted November 28, 2005 How many fingers per hand on the aliens?<{POST_SNAPBACK}>Silabrates don't have hands, neither do Ventriculants, Artopods or Terror-Discs. Morlocks, Cloaks, Vipers, Greys would probably vary (I suppose that's up to Artwork, it's too specific to have been included on any text). The Overmind is... a thing... doesn't have hands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 I think it's reasonable that it will be a place-value system; nothing weird. So, I'll pick a base and make up some numberage I guess; hang on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 In speed reading courses there is a lot of emphasis on "not hearing the words in your head". By arranging "letters" into glyphs there is the possiblity of simply learning the glyphs themselves (I suspect in english there are several hundred but less than 1000). Compare this with chinese where there are litterally thousands of characters (each representing a syllable) to learn. Anyway if one learns all the sylables there /may/ be an increase in reading speed. This idea could be expressed in the Xnet article about the language. It may not actually be true but sounds pretty good dont you think? As for the numbers I've come up with something.- it's a place-value system- it's inspired by the mayan and cuneiform number systems- it's base 64.- zero in alien is written exactly like we write zero. I'll post an image shortly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 Numbers:Read the rows left to right then top to bottom.Starts at 0 and ends at 63. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 Numbers:Read the rows left to right then top to bottom.Starts at 0 and ends at 63.<{POST_SNAPBACK}>Why at 63? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 Base 64. Base 10 has 0 to 9. Base X is 0 to (X-1) 64-1=63. These numeral are for 1 place in a place value system. I guess I should make an example hang on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 This drawing gives some examples: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 Looking good! altough, isn't it on another resolution than the text? How does a combinaiton look then? Cheers, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 Dont worry about the resolution. I usually design these things in the smallest bitfield that I can stand, then scaling up after that is a snap. I'm honored that you folks like the numbers, but it should be discussed. After all I've more or less taken it upon myself to declare unilaterally that the aliens use base 64. If you're all okay with that then fine, but maybe it should be discussed a bit; I'm not married to these numbers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 I think base 64 is perfect. If you really would like to make it mysterious: base 47, the year of the Roswell incident cheers, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 tha'd be base 1947. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 I think that'd be too far fetched.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 I know it's 1947. Do you really want to design 1947 signs? When saying '47, it's generally accepted that it means 1947. cheers, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 Actually 47 is 1947 in base 485 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 hmm, still too much. I'm refusing to go the Chinese way 64 is just fine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 Chinese uses base 10. The Mayans used base 20.The Babilonians used base 60, image learning that times-table. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 (edited) Hey! 60 looks pretty nice. It's a very versatile number, if you know what I mean. That's one of the reasons we have 60 seconds and 60 minutes. But then again, 60 is a human number. Thinking about the language. We only write 2D. How about adding some intelligence (as aliens are far more developed) and moving it 3D 4x4x4 = 64 That means it's very doable to create a 3D script. You can even project it isometricly to 2D. Edited November 29, 2005 by Thomas Torfs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 64 Jives with computers better. It can suggest I more cybernetic quality to the aliens. Plus the base is large which is "alien". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 exactly, that's why I was thinking about 3D: 64 is 4^3 which means you can divide a 3d cube into 64 pieces very easily. 4 on X, 4 on Y and 4 on Z. And if you'd like to convert it into 2D without losing the 3D look you can go isometric. I'll try to make a model in 3dsmax to explain it some more. Ever seen the movie Contact? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mad] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 64 Jives with computers better. It can suggest I more cybernetic quality to the aliens. Plus the base is large which is "alien".Hm... It works better with human computers. Not even with all. There were Computers which were using the decimal system for calculations. So why should the Aliens work with a binary code? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 Do you mean analogue computers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beetle Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 I think not, for small calulators (and old computers) there is something like Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) in short, it's used becouse it's very easy to convert it to decimal system (in fact you don't have evan to convert it). You can still find asm instructions for modern processors wich are supporting this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 BCD is still binary at the heart of it. Basically it four bit base 16 but you stop at 9. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beetle Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 Exactly, but all calculations based on it are based 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 29, 2005 Report Share Posted November 29, 2005 Not really it's still two-state gate operations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beetle Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 Hmmm, if you look at this level, yes it is, or you rather should said 3-state (including 'Z') , but from programm and data flow it is based on 10. Ok, but i think it's going a OOC a little bit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 The . . . . bookeeping is base ten . . . but the twiddling is all base 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnFleshed One Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 (edited) That's one of the reasons we have 60 seconds and 60 minutes. We are using 60 seconds 'cause ancient british had 12 fingers. Edit:That was offtopic, yeah, just don't try to put a number from one system as a base to another just because it has some qualities in that first system Edited November 30, 2005 by UnFleshed One Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 Actually that is why hours and minutes have 60 seconds and why there are 360 degrees to the circle; he WAS right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnFleshed One Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 (edited) Do you mean 6 have some properties that makes it useful for that kind of calculations? Edit:Besides that it is five (one hand) dosens? Why did they use dozen btw? Edit2: 360 degrees is because there is 60 seconds and so on. So why 12? Edit3:From wiki:In another hypothesis, twelve is the sum of ten fingers on hands and two feet. Edit4:As to the aliens, 64 is perfect, since it makes nice cube, but they will have more numbers than sounds, which makes one think... Edited November 30, 2005 by UnFleshed One Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 (edited) Just my opinion, all this discussion was WEIRD (first time I notice it); but very interesting and motivating indeed. So keep up the excelent work you are doing with it. As a side not, after reading it backwards I noticed that the numbers do not blend clearly with the rest of the script, I would try to create a concatenation rule so that each number glyph is a single glyph in itself (so no number is equal to any other number but it has a way to be constructed). And maybe use something less Computationally inclined base like 64 = 2^6 and use a more mathematically inclined one like a prime base lets say 13 or any other prime number higher than 2. I leave you with that design constrain to see what you can do with it. From what I have saw I clearly expect to have a very cool number generation system in no time GreetingsRed Knight Edited November 30, 2005 by red knight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mad] Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 Do you mean analogue computers?Hm, didn't think of it, but that could be a possibility. I don't know exactly how these computers were designed, but I remember it clearly from my computer architecture lectures, that there were designs in the 60s or 70s that were (truely, not BCD) decimal, and not binary. And maybe use something less Computationally inclined base like 64 = 2^6 and use a more mathematically inclined one like a prime base Wink.gif lets say 13 or any other prime number higher than 2.Hey, why don't we use base 7? Veeery mysterious number... or base 23? That would be kind of conspiracy theory-worth... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 Prime number? Nah. I think a power of two (two is prime BTW ) makes more sense. It can suggested a cybernetic nature to the aliens. I've been thinking that the numbers 1, 2, 3 should somehow be internally connected for clarity. I'll work on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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