The Great Game 🎲 Kollarum

Lingua Franca 1

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At that exact moment the The Infinite Distance conference was about to begin, in a universe far far away, Quizzling the Fairy Blue Dreamer sank deeper into his cushions and turned up the volume on his Dreampad. Quizzling was listening to Queen’s first album, and wondered if Great King Rat had actually met the Fairy Queen. If so, what did they say to each other? Looking at the time, he lowered the sound in the land where horses were born with eagle wings, and tuned into the Assembly now starting on the planet of Kollarum. As Quizzling half-listened to the opening proceedings, he wondered what the difference was between the son of a whore and the son of a preacher man.

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The first week of The Infinite Distance Assembly aimed to complete the work that began with the Assembly in 1990, when they debated whether or not to replace their translation systems with a lingua franca. The opening speaker of that Assembly was also Farenn, who argued for a single language that could be used from Vicino Prossimo to Fallar Prime.

Farenn conceded that the Kraslika had excellent translation systems, yet the excellence itself created deep barriers. He said that “one species thinks they understand the other, yet every understanding is a translated and subtly distorted one, so skillfully delivered that the distortion is invisible.” Farenn added, “The translation systems are so perfect that they keep each species in a linguistic silo, albeit unintentionally. And a silo can be as innocent as a grain silo or as ominous as a missile silo.”

The 1992 Assembly decided that translation systems would remain standard in business transactions and official documents, but that communication between individuals was to be conducted in a common tongue. The 2000 Assembly further decided that the chosen language could not be one of the main languages of the Kraslika, and in 2006 they decided that the lingua franca would be a human language. Although tiny and backward, Earth was symbolically and practically the right choice. It was closer to the centre of the Kraslika than any other inhabitable planet. Humans were also completely unaware of the existence of the Kraslika, and therefore they had no bias toward one alien species or another.

The 2006 Assembly also made official what that been in use for several years now: “Be it resolved that Kraslikans adopt the human year-numbering system, so as to avoid a trillion competing dating systems, and so as to lend clarity and prominence to more recent dates.”

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12 years after the momentous decision that the new lingua franca would come from Earth, the Great Hall was once again packed to the brim with scholars, high ministers of State, and the intergalactic press. By the end of the week, the Assembly would decide on the specific language that would bring them all together, and, in the process, bind them.

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Farenn addressed the full auditorium, as well as the sextillion worlds that were tuning in from distant galaxies. As was usual for a Fallarian, he dispensed with the formalities and jumped straight into the most contentious issues at hand: “The state of ignorance in which humans live is staggering, and yet what is perhaps even more staggering is that they have flourished despite this ignorance. Blind as bats, they have nevertheless evolved to become the masters of their world.”

This bluntness and entry into paradox would puzzle and please his audience, who were used to more polished speakers who prefaced everything with polite transitions. It would be especially pleasing to the Fallarian part of his audience, who cherished bluntness, precision, and hidden agendas, and who couldn’t stand listening to any argument that didn’t incorporate the twin notions of chaos and survival.

“And when I mean ignorance, I mean it in even the most basic of ways. For instance, most of the population on Earth is almost completely blind. Again, I mean this quite literally, not just in the sense that they aren’t aware of the cosmos. Only .04% of humans are capable of seeing beyond violet or red. As a result, 99.96% of the population must perforce be categorized as non-sentient. Nor can humans magnify their vision. They can’t even see the small things that are right in front of their noses. For instance, they have millions of bacteria on every square centimetre of their skin, yet they can’t see these without a microscope. Most humans don’t even own a microscope. They wash their bodies with powerful soaps every day, completely ignoring the difference between helpful and unhelpful bacteria. This is just an isolated instance, yet this type of ignorance has enormous consequences. If humans can’t manage — or don’t bother to manage — the bacteria on the microbiome of their own skin, you can imagine what sort of chaos they create in the biosphere, which is the skin of their planet.”

“This blindness and ignorance wouldn’t be such a big deal if they lived on a barren or worthless planet. Yet they live on one of the most fortunate planets in the Kraslika. Earth has diverse mineral riches, enormous agricultural zones, vast quantities of pure water, a breathable atmosphere, a protective magnetic shield, and staggering beauty. Human inability to manage and protect this wealth lies at the root of the Virgo Agreement, which allowed the Baulians to take over the Virgo Supercluster in the Violet Hoop. The Baulian Empire was the best choice among possible custodians for two main reasons. First, the Baulians are like humans in that they remain clueless about the size and composition of the Kraslika. As a result, they aren’t aligned with, or partial to, any powerful empire.”

Farenn paused here, unaccountably, since this was a clear matter of fact. Yet he looked in Tarnar’s direction and a slight uncertainty entered his eyes. Looking straight ahead again, he continued. “Second, the Baulians have a deep passion for ecology. The Baulians are the most suited and the most capable of saving planet Earth from the humans — and perhaps of saving the humans from themselves. At present, the Baulians are several thousand parsecs from Earth. They are scheduled to establish control over the planet in three months.”

“This brings us back to the astounding topic of human ignorance. Humans still have no clue that they exist in a universe teaming with other species. Every time a UFO comes across a computer screen, someone says the screen isn’t working properly. Or the UFO is an anomaly. Or it was created by the Russians. Or the Chinese. Or the CIA. Or, they imagine that whatever it was, it came from a mystical or spiritual dimension. I must emphasize here that the majority of humans believe that the laws of physics can be over-ruled and that things can come out of thin air.”

Farenn paused to allow his audience time to digest this important piece of information. He saw some of them nod knowingly, while others lifted their heads in amazement.

Farenn continued. “The humans say out of thin air but they have no idea how thin the air really is. This is, of course, because they haven’t sounded the depth of fractals. Their philosophers and mathematicians argue that infinity is within even the tiniest particle, yet their technology is so limited that they can’t see beyond leptons or bosons. They have almost no ability to work at microscopic depths. In time, they would surely discover the secrets of fractology, yet the internal demands of the Baulian Empire are operating on a different time scale. And so too, to be frank, are the political demands of the Kraslika. The Baulians will turn human clocks ahead so quickly that their heads will spin. They will, after millennia of dreaming, gain an explosive knowledge about the universe around them.”

Farenn couldn’t stop himself from momentarily thinking about all this in terms of what Tarnar told him in the Grand Plaza. From the tenth row, Tarnar could see it in Farenn’s eyes. He saw them swerve inwardly. He saw a flicker of uncertainty. This didn’t increase Tarnar’s anxiety. Rather, it made him relax. Up until this moment, Tarnar felt that his heart and brain were in a compression chamber. But now he was in the open air. Finally, someone with power understood what was at stake.

Farenn returned to the notes beneath him on the lectern. “None of this changes the fact that Earth is still central in every way to the business of unifying the Kraslika. The closer we get to this business, the greater our need to understand exactly what this little planet is made of, both culturally and historically. Their technology is of little consequence, and their politics will be swept away, but what lies at the core, what makes this microcosm so central spatially, is worth our utmost attention. The reason we are here today is to choose the human language which is the most helpful in getting us to the core and to the totality of human experience.”

“As we all know, Earth has an uncanny resemblance to the Kraslika itself, both in its life-forms and its languages. The famed scholar from Tarna1, Grammaticalican Linguisticus (or Gral for short) has argued that the roots of all 87 major Kraslikan language groups are directly or indirectly connected to at least one human language. Gral’s chef-d’oeuvre, Pitrpater: Gral Pays a Visit to Youns Uksfardi, has been out for three years now, and not a single scholar has argued successfully against his analysis, which is comprised of 40 large books, complete with maps, timelines, and detailed etymological proofs. The study is so exhaustive that even the Fallarian scholar Carninguilous Scrapulus kept his quibbles to under a hundred pages.”

“As Gral noted in Volume 2, page 308 of his Visit, Earth is one of the most odd, backward, and disconnected planets in the Kraslika. And yet it’s linked more deeply to the Kraslika than any other known planet. This astonishing paradox has been proven on the linguistic level by Gral, and yet the reason for it remains as mysterious as the pulses that travel from the Golden Hill to the Black Gulf. There’s something at the core of Earth that lies at the core of the mystery of our very existence here in the giant egg we call the Kraslika.”

“We know that Earth’s core is made of iron and nickel. It’s not like an egg at all, unless we think of its molten inner sphere as the yolk. On Earth, the word for yoke has cognates in Sanskrit and Latin, and all of them mean to join. Yoga, for instance, is a discipline in which humans join or unify the various parts of their selves and in which they join their selves to the cosmos.”

This point made Farenn stop in his tracks. He was still coming to terms with the things Tarnar said. Everything he prepared to say took on a new meaning. Deviating from his prepared notes, he continued. “What a bizarre spring of emotions these humans contain within them! They have no proof of life beyond Earth, yet they yearn to unite themselves with the cosmos. They even have writers who dream up strange new worlds, each of which has some arcane link to the worlds that actually exist in the Kraslika. Sometimes the link isn’t even arcane or obscure. For instance, in the popular human science-fiction series Star Trek they talk of a hallowed Prime Directive — which is of course the precise term we use for our own doctrine of non-interference. Is this just a coincidence or is there some unknown aspect of the human mind that escapes us? And what of their religions, in which humans believe heir real home to be somewhere in the stars? They haven’t even heard of the Soul Star, yet they talk about Heaven as if they knew it intimately. What possible reason could there be for such a belief?”

Farenn looked up at his audience and wondered if they were following him. Was it really wise to let the Baulians play with the human yearning to unite with the cosmos? Looking into the audience, he saw Tarnar in the tenth row, dead centre, his eyes boring into his soul.

Farenn wobbled slightly, though imperceptibly, beneath his dark gown. He looked down at his notes on the lectern, and continued. “Earth’s metallic core protects humans from the intense radiation of its sun. Perhaps it can protect us too. Deep inside this hidden, protective core are elements called siderophiles, examples of which are palladium, iridium, platinum, and gold. These elements bond with, seep into, and emanate from the iron at the core. I suggest, symbolically of course, that we become siderophiles, iron-lovers, and that we share in the bondings and emanations that occur deep within the core.”

Farenn knew that some of his audience would be puzzled by the poetic bent of his suggestion. Yet some of them, like the Fairy Blue Dreamers or the poets of the Metaphoric Hoop, would be more convinced by poetry than by fact. So he attempted to tread the thin line between the two, which he believed to be imaginary in any case. “A deeper linguistic connection with Earth may help us to see more deeply into ourselves. It may even help us to connect our selves to all the other selves which make up our communal Self. In this we may emulate the American poet Walt Whitman, who once called himself a kosmos, of Manhattan the son.”

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This final point stumped even Quizzling, the most enthusiastic of Fairy Blue Dreamers. Quizzling looked up from his Dreampod and wondered if he too was a citizen of Manhattan, or if the cosmos had daughters as well as sons. Still listening to Queen, he wondered further, What to think of Heaven if it was back from where he came? Was Earth the Heaven he dreamed of as he listened to the voice of Fareed Bulsara? Why was he mixing Fareed’s exotic voice into his own ideals of linguistic unity, the Dream of the Fluid Self, and the Watery Blue Paradise where all life-forms are One?

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Next: 🎲 Lingua Franca 2

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