New Reality Seeds

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

The Navajo code-talker program was cool and all, but it was the product of a very specific technological and cultural situation. A secret language is only seriously militarily useful if you’re adequately sure that it’s secret — and who knows what The Opposition knows in Infinite Worlds? As I recall, the people running the code-talkers had something of a panic moment when they discovered that one (1) pre-war Japanese academic had taken some interest in the Navajo language.

One of the myths about this program is that the code was just Navajo. There was actually quite a lot of arbitrarily invented vocabulary (in Navajo phonology), and a spelling substitution code using Navajo vocabulary for English letters. Admittedly having a Navajo speaker would really help in breaking it, but it's doubtful it would've mattered all that much. This was a *tactical* code - it's big advantage is it was fast to encrypt and decrypt, and could be easily and reliably sent over voice channels. By the time you could send the message back to a few experts at home and get an translation back it'd mostly have been obsolete anyway. With the advent of modems and portable computers it's an obsolete concept anyway - requiring your agents to learn a new language just for a tactical code is pretty ridiculous.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by malloyd

One of the myths about this program is that the code was just Navajo. There was actually quite a lot of arbitrarily invented vocabulary (in Navajo phonology), and a spelling substitution code using Navajo vocabulary for English letters. Admittedly having a Navajo speaker would really help in breaking it, but it's doubtful it would've mattered all that much. This was a *tactical* code - it's big advantage is it was fast to encrypt and decrypt, and could be easily and reliably sent over voice channels. By the time you could send the message back to a few experts at home and get an translation back it'd mostly have been obsolete anyway. With the advent of modems and portable computers it's an obsolete concept anyway - requiring your agents to learn a new language just for a tactical code is pretty ridiculous.

That said, if two agents already knew a language which those around them, even the highly educated, didn't know, they'd have a useful means of secret communication. Useful, not flawless, but useful counts. There's a family story about two older cousins of my Great-Grandmother Sophronia (my Mother's Father's Mother) who both spoke Ancient Greek. They were working as school marms in a mining town in the 1890s. They knew they could speak to each other in Ancient Greek and never be understood by outsiders. I won't tire you with the stories, but they used what they knew to their advantage.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

I’m sure they would. Though never mind the Mycenaeans and Linear A; it’s the crosstime scholars who discover a key to interpreting the Indus Valley civilisation’s language who’ll really be jumping up and down.

Oh, yeah - the scholarly push for info on the Mohenjo-Daro of the Indus Valley would be huge.

(I first learned about the Mohenjo-Daro in the old GURPS Timeline, so if that's not what they're called, blame Steve Jackson Games...)

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

The Navajo code-talker program was cool and all, but it was the product of a very specific technological and cultural situation. A secret language is only seriously militarily useful if you’re adequately sure that it’s secret — and who knows what The Opposition knows in Infinite Worlds? As I recall, the people running the code-talkers had something of a panic moment when they discovered that one (1) pre-war Japanese academic had taken some interest in the Navajo language.

When you’ve got access to high-TL8 digital real-time crypto, you’ll do better to focus on that.

One issue would be Centrum's poor linguistics. They actually might be better in high-TL8 digital real-time crypto than in understanding Linear A, Navajo, etc.

Though Centrum does have classical scholars who know Latin & Ancient Greek, maybe Hebrew. Perhaps some of them pushed for knowledge of ancient Mycenae and/or Mohenjo-Daro. Centrum would obviously not have been that interested - until encountering Secundus.

Yet using Navajo would be risky, since Interworld might learn America's WWII Navajo code on a timeline (like a post-WWII echo).


What about using a language of the Australian aboriginees, or New Zealand Maoris? I imagine that those small native groups were long ago wiped out by the Anglo-French Empire on Centrum ('Terraustralis' was settled earlier & more thoroughly on Centrum, by an empire even crueler than the British).

And it'd be a rare world where their languages were translated into English. Even modern parallels like Gernsback or Reich-2 wouldn't have decent treatment of native groups (both being more racist than Homeline, even for the same time).

Yet there would be native speakers on Homeline.

Originally Posted by malloyd

One of the myths about this program is that the code was just Navajo. There was actually quite a lot of arbitrarily invented vocabulary (in Navajo phonology), and a spelling substitution code using Navajo vocabulary for English letters. Admittedly having a Navajo speaker would really help in breaking it, but it's doubtful it would've mattered all that much. This was a *tactical* code - it's big advantage is it was fast to encrypt and decrypt, and could be easily and reliably sent over voice channels. By the time you could send the message back to a few experts at home and get an translation back it'd mostly have been obsolete anyway. With the advent of modems and portable computers it's an obsolete concept anyway - requiring your agents to learn a new language just for a tactical code is pretty ridiculous.

Infinity would obviously have to invent a lot of new words, word substitution, if using Navajo, Linear A, etc. But could teaching agents those words, really just a limited terminology, be useful?

There's also the issue of written vs. spoken. A written code (which wouldn't be in the Phoenetic alphabet, but an untranslated one) could be useful when communicating cross-timeline.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

That said, if two agents already knew a language which those around them, even the highly educated, didn't know, they'd have a useful means of secret communication. Useful, not flawless, but useful counts. There's a family story about two older cousins of my Great-Grandmother Sophronia (my Mother's Father's Mother) who both spoke Ancient Greek. They were working as school marms in a mining town in the 1890s. They knew they could speak to each other in Ancient Greek and never be understood by outsiders. I won't tire you with the stories, but they used what they knew to their advantage.

A long time ago, my grandparents were once stuck in a remote part of Italy on a trip, trying to communicate with the local lighthouse keeper, when they realized they all knew Latin.

Maybe some I-Cops learn Linear A or some other language on their own. I-Cops are often recruited for language skills. They could even use it around their own superiors...

Imagine some tightly-knit I-Cop (or ISWAT) team that has learned some of some obscure offworld language (maybe had been stationed on a world with it), cracking jokes about their bosses in it.

[dcarson]

You also get the reverse. My dad was stationed in Germany by the Air Force for three years. When we came back the house they found was in a largely jewish neighborhood. So when the old ladies talked about my mom in yiddish the three years of german meant she understood them.

[AlexanderHowl]

Thera-3

In Thera-3, the eruption in 1650 BC at Thera gave more warning and was smaller, resulting in a successful evacuation of the island and the continuation of the Minoan civilization. Without its beating heart being torn out, the Minoan civilization successfully dominated the northern half of the Mediterranean Sea and the entirety of the Black Sea. By 1100 BC, the Minoan Empire has conquered Anatolian Peninsula, the Balkan Peninsula, the Crimean Peninsula, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Italian Peninsula, as well as the associated islands.

With the assistance of the Minoans, the Egyptians were capable of repulsing the Hyksos invasion of the Nile Delta, beginning a long, often divisive, relationship between the two powers. As the Minoan Empire spread north and west, Egypt spread south and west, until it stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean in 1100 BC. With the constant competition with the Minoan Empire, the Pharaohs of Egypt could not afford to indulge in the weaknesses caused by incest, and the Royal Concubines, forty-nine priestesses of forty-nine Goddesses, elect the new Pharaoh when the old Pharaoh dies.

From 1650 BC-1400 BC, the Minoan Empire and the Egyptian Empire independently developed their own forms of Alchemy. While many of the formulas were useful, it was the discovery in 1400 BC of the formula that allowed for the transformation of copper into high quality bronze without the introduction of tin that has proven to be the most useful application of Alchemy. Without the requirement for tin, bronze production has increase a hundredfold over the past four hundred years.

With the increased availability of bronze, as well as the constant trade in ideas between the Minoan Empire and the Egyptian Empire, there has been a rapid expansion in technological development. By 1000 BC, the technology of both the Minoan Empire and the Egyptian Empire is TL(1+3), with medicine being TL(1+5).

With a current year of 1000 BC, the technological development of Thera-3 was a surprise to Infinity when it discovered it thirty years ago in Q7. With their rapid technological evolution and the widespread utilization of alchemical magic, Centrum and Homeline do not have operations in the inhabited areas of the timeline. Homeline USA did establish colony in the uninhabited Hawaiian Islands twenty years ago, since it would have been a thousand years before the Polynesians discovered the archipelago. Around the same time, Centrum decided to colonize the uninhabited islands of New Zealand because it would have been two thousand years before the Polynesians discovered the islands.

Centrum and Homeline USA discovered that they had colonized the same timeline around ten years ago, and Homeline USA decided that it could use a backdoor diplomatic channel with Centrum that did not depend on Infinity. For their own part, Centrum is grateful that someone believes on Secundus believes in central authority, and the two sides have cordial relations. They have agreed to avoid colonizing beyond their islands in the Pacific as neither side wants Infinity to understand what is going on.

In the meantime, some of the colonists on both sides have been quietly engaging in a triangle trade with the Melanesian peoples of Fiji. Marriages between the three peoples (American, Centrum, and Fijian) have increased to the point where ten percent of the population of each archipelago is mixed couples, and the Fijians have benefited handsomely from trade with Centrum and Homeline USA. Of course, it will all end with Infinity discovers what Homeline USA is doing, but Centrum is willing to let Homeline USA take that risk.

[Dr. Beckenstein]

Originally Posted by fchase8

Imagine some tightly-knit I-Cop (or ISWAT) team that has learned some of some obscure offworld language (maybe had been stationed on a world with it), cracking jokes about their bosses in it.

Well, the pc of our group belonged to first team that visited Hyboria, a myth parallel where the legendary King Conan ruled 80+ years ago. The pc are now among the few homeliners who speak Aquilonian.
It had been very useful on other timelines where nobody ever heard about Conan, Hyboria or Robert E. Howard.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by fchase8

Imagine some tightly-knit I-Cop (or ISWAT) team that has learned some of some obscure offworld language (maybe had been stationed on a world with it), cracking jokes about their bosses in it.

The Infinite Cabal party learned Etruscan. Another Cabalist hired them to find him an early Rome where the language was still alive, because he wanted to learn it, and several of them decided to join in, until they ran into a group from Reich-5.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Dr. Beckenstein

Well, the pc of our group belonged to first team that visited Hyboria, a myth parallel where the legendary King Conan ruled 80+ years ago. The pc are now among the few homeliners who speak Aquilonian.
It had been very useful on other timelines where nobody ever heard about Conan, Hyboria or Robert E. Howard.

"Do you think of Anglo-French as a cryptic language with which to conceal your thoughts from others?" -- Lord Darcy

People certainly do use languages that way, but observe that many of these stories turn out to be about the time it failed in some slightly embarrassing way because somebody who heard them did speak the language, or something closely enough related they understood.

Rather like using initial letter spelling or pig latin to keep something from your toddlers - it's fine for something minor you want to conceal for reasons of momentary convenience, but you'd never do it for something you thought it was really vital to keep from them.

[ronwit]

Back in the day when James Blish was doing his Star Trek screenplay adaptions, he wrote the first Star Trek novel Spock must Die. The Enterprise was caught on the wrong side of the Klingon Empire when the Organians vanished and the Klingons attacked. Kirk, needing to get in touch with Star Fleet, tells Uhura to send the message in straight Swahili. She has to point out to Kirk that while the Klingons might not understand the old Swahili parts, most of the technical terms in most Human languages are variations on the English words for the same thing.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

In the year 702 after the founding of the city of Rome, a family living in the Roman colony in India, had a son. There son grew to be a merchant sailor. In his fortieth year the merchant sailor discovered the path to the Spice Islands and taking advantage of his luck, gathered dozens of seedings of the clove and nutmeg trees. In many ways duplicating what Pierre Poivre(the actual Peter Pipper) did in the 18th century. Like the Frenchman, the roman managed to get his clove and nutmeg trees to grow beyond the spice islands.

Now Egypt isn't as good for clove and nutmeg as the spice islands but they have more land. In a mere thirty years Roman cloves and nutmag grown in the valley of the Nile and are cheaper even in the markets of Java and Sumatra than the cloves and nutmeg of the Spice Islands.

The wealth flowing back to Rome is mind boggling. This has led the new Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar (poppularly called "Little Boots") to call for the scholars of the
Library of Alenandria to bring seedlings, or whatever is needed, to produce pepper, cinnamon, and silk, in the empire.

Basically, a mixed party of scholars and thieves searching for valuable plants and skills with a brutal mad man breathing down their necks. It should deliver a good mix of comedy and horror.

The Cabal likes the idea of a longer lived Rome, as does Centrum. Homeline, aware of worlds were the introduction of Maize and Potatoes destablized the Roman empire. Thus all kinds of ...help? might be availible. Have fun.