Worldbuilders diary 1: Language

This is the first post of a series that I am hoping to continue quite far. the series is about worldbuilding (creating an imaginary world) and how hard it is.

Next post in series

This post is about languages in your imaginary world. the first thing I would like to point out is a common mistake a lot of worldbuilders make. making the language just English with different letters. this is a problem because unless the language was inspired by English in the world there would be no way anyone in the world would know to make it just like English.

here are a few sentences in the language that I made for my world. (the language is for dragons)

~shee enn shee vyk~ tck shee uhh vyn enn tch uhh riack tch unn

translates to "magic bringer (my draconic name) invented the draconic language

uhh vyk shee tyn shee vyk

translates to "storm light path" (a lightning dragon greeting)

-vyk shee vyk shee uhh shee- vyk shee *uhh vynn noth vyk* tch uhh -vyk shee vyk shee uhh shee- noth uhh *uhh vynn noth vyk* uhh vyn noth tch uhh vyn noth vyk *uhh vynn noth vyk*

The ending of a dragonic legend about the dragon great claw slaying the hydra dragon eater. then the group of part-dragons that the hydra was hunting eating the hydra.

I hope that these give you ideas for your setting's languages and I hope that you post some of your ideas in the comments.

What I think about the whole "video games cause you to be violent" debate

I have been thinking about the "video games cause violence" debate for a while and I have decided to say what I think about it.

It would honestly depend on the game. a game about shooting random people in a city might make the player think of shooting people as "fun" and therefore be a bit more likely to want to do it in real life. But a video game about building devices and then using a "spud gun" (handheld potato cannon) to defend against killer robots with farming tools will probably not lead to someone wanting to shoot a real person. Because the robots are nothing like humans and the main focus of  the game is to construct awesome devices, not to shoot at things.

Also some of the belief that video games cause violence could come from the fact that some games are so violent that only people who are violent would want to get them. Then someone could see that that kid is violent, look at the fact that the kid is playing a violent game, then say that that kid must be violent because of the game.

Why I chose slime mold master as my username

If you are reading this blog you have probably noticed that my username is slime mold master. you may be wondering what a slime mold is and why I call myself a "slime mold master." a  slime mold is a type of creature that can live as one cell but combines in to multiple to reproduce. the slime mold that I know most about is called the physarum polycephalum or "many headed slime" I got a couple of samples of physarum polycephalum as a Christmas gift a while ago (it is just awesome that my parents are willing to get me samples of physarum polycephalum) after a few failed attempts I stopped trying to grow the samples and left them. because physarum polycephalum can hibernate for many years I recently reawoke the physarum polycephalum samples that I got a few years ago.
 I chose slime mold master as my username because I am the only person I know, outside of my family, who knows about slime molds. and it sounded like a cool name.

The annoying predictions for the future that I heard

A while ago I went to a presentation at my local science center for the moon landing’s 50-year anniversary. The presentation was done by a “citizen scientist astronaut candidate” I thought that that meant someone who worked with a space agency and went into space. Judging by what she said at the presentation she sounds more like a person who does advertising and tests space suits (in pools of water on earth) for one of those companies that wants to use space as a source of money.

The first thing the presentation had was a car ad disguised as a video about a mars training center. It confirmed my suspicion that even when a car ad is trying (badly) to hide the fact it is a car ad it still uses words like “adventure” a lot.

The second thing in the presentation was a list of some of the events that led up to the moon landing. A very funny part was when the person doing the presentation messed up the photos for the first manned vessel and the first dog in space. So, the person said, “first manned vessel” and showed an image of a dog. Then said, “first dog in space” and showed a picture of a human.

The third part of the presentation was a prediction of the next fifty years. The funny thing is that I, an eleven-year-old kid who learned most of his space facts from a computer game about sending little green aliens into space, (the game is called Kerbal space program) knows that at least 75% of the “citizen scientist astronaut candidate’s” predictions could not happen. Like the person predicted that in a year we would have space armadas fighting world war three. She said that the armadas will be buildable because she said that wars cause scientific innovation. I know from experience (playing StarCraft against my brother) that scientific innovation only comes from wars if the defenders have the advantage. The reason for that is that if the attackers have the advantage the war is over fast. But if the defenders have the advantage the war takes a while so both teams try to upgrade their tech. When you have space armadas the attackers have the advantage. and even if the space armadas came late and the defenders had the advantage 2-3 years are not enough to, at our current stage of scientific innovation build space armadas.  

Then because apparently Canada can stop all wars by saying that they (the wars) are stupid, all the space armada ships could be disassembled and turned into back to the future style flying cars. The problem with that is that to make a spaceship you need a big engine that can get you out of the atmosphere. And to make a flying car you need multiple small engines that can move you around small amounts and land.

The person also said that having stuff like super expensive space hotels would make space more accessible. That is wrong because only rich people could go to space to go to the space hotel. Another thing that she said was that an international space station style will be able to go from the moon to mars without any noticeable preparation. Not only would there be not enough supplies for a station to get to mars. It would also need to survive with less sunlight and therefore less power. Considering she said it would be a surprise they couldn’t add more supplies or upgrade the solar panels. And even if they managed to do that, they would need to completely change its navigational devices and shielding. At a certain point it would be easier to launch new space station pieces to mars and build it there. Then, because the station failed and got stuck in space. A billion-dollar rescue mission occurred.

She also said that the medical breakthrough caused from going to space will allow anyone to genetically modify themselves. The problem with that is that without changing every cell in your body there is no way of completely changing your genetic code.

I have realised that this post is quite long, so I am not saying everything that annoyed me. The last thing that I am going to write about that annoyed me was when she said that it is good that mosquitoes will die out. It is only good if you would rather have a ton of mosquito’s predators (birds, bats, dragonflies, spiders, and quite a few other animals) die then have the slight annoyance of being bitten by a mosquito. (I know that mosquitos spread diseases, but I think that the diseases could be cured without destroying a ton of ecosystems) though it is tragic if animals like polar bears die, I would be more worried about mosquitoes going extinct which will destroy a ton of ecosystems.