[2020-02] Some novel character portraits

I really like all these portraits, they look really cool. Can't comment much on the fan fiction, since this is not a big part of my WC interest, hehe. But good job, keep it up!
 
Two translations, not sure which one fits better in this case:
Ni'aiydudapa eshmang ja'lhu Terran'hra'aiy takh karhmakslanshikthrak. = lit. "I imagine sometimes what Terrans see as sky and ocean."
Ni'aiydudapa eshmang ja'lhu Terran'hra'sa karhmakslanshikthrak. = lit. "I imagine sometimes what Terrans consider sky and ocean."
'sometimes' and 'imagine' get transposed in the translation either way thanks to the grammatical rules (such as they are).
Kilrathi could see infrared light, while they couldn’t see short wave blue and purple light Terran could see. So I assume the sky and ocean in their eyes are different. That’s the context of this line.
 
Kilrathi could see infrared light, while they couldn’t see short wave blue and purple light Terran could see. So I assume the sky and ocean in their eyes are different. That’s the context of this line.

Ah. Okay - then it should probably read as this:
Ni'dalpa eshmang ja'l Terran'hra'chodyapa karhmakslanshikthrak. = lit. "I wonder sometimes how Terrans perceive the sky and ocean."

Lunch now, editing this post with the requested line later...

EDIT: Okay...wasn't sure which line to translate necessarily, so I did both (literal translations):

Drishesh'in. Nai hastra eshji'karhsh. = "Wait a minute. I must determine the burning time of the crystal."
Ja'lhu aiydisivahe aqgux'aro ha siva'tu anruni ja'lesh garga'hadalksk. = "What characterizes a true warrior from a common murderer is the warrior fights only when they are provoked".
 
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Okay...wasn't sure which line to translate necessarily, so I did both (literal translations):
Thanks so much! It's the visible light issue related line. I'm so sorry, next time I'll pay attention and express the idea more clearly.

And, I realized I used an inappropriate word... I should have used "violet" instead of "purple". The real violet with the wave length shorter than that of the blue light is different from the purple light, although we Terran could not distinguish between real violet and some purple.

EDIT: Keep looking up the information, it's a bit complicate. What I said above might be incorrect.
 
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A question please, is Pliers' team of mechanics part of the logistical staff? Sorry for my lack of military knowledge.

"Such (logistical support) ships and those who served in them were considered to be beneath contempt. Any of fighting age who accepted assignment to one was disgraced within his clan, deemed not worthy to sire heirs for himself, but rather only to sit at the edge of the feasting tables, heads lowered, when boasts of war were shared and arm veins opened to pour out libations on the altars of Sivar. The quality of personnel could be readily inferred from this."

Fleet Action, Prologue

It's clear from this that the Empire of Kilrah's logisticians were of very low status. It follows that their logisticians needed to maintain a very humble stance in front of their pilots. If I'm not mistaken, something like Pliers calling Blair "Kid" to his face was forbidden in the Empire Force.

I would like to confirm the answer, because when I wrote lines for Mechanic Cat earlier, I had him act humble to Catscratch the pilot, which was a continuation of a tradition. And, he was very surprised when he heard Pliers refer to the pilots, including Blair, as "Kids".

I hope I've got it right. Thanks so much!
 
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Probably hundreds of lines of script were written today... probably covering three of the official plot issues.

1. The hierarchy, and the status of the Kilrathi logisticians once mentioned in the book of Fleet Action.
2. Blair, who is honoured as a prophet and savior.
3. The romantic relationship of Catscratch and Sosa.

Excuse me, are there any Kilrathi words of blessing for the lair mates in the official scripts or novels? Thanks... If not, well... let's try to make one line up?

EDIT: I upload the script file here for reference. Thanks so much!
 

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Excuse me, are there any Kilrathi words of blessing for the lair mates in the official scripts or novels? Thanks... If not, well... let's try to make one line up?

Not to my knowledge. We don't see too many female Kilrathi in the entire series at all...I think Lady Hassa and Princess Zu'kara are all who we ever see, and neither was a lair-mate. I had hoped to explore the idea of mated Kilrathi with Elegy; might still get there some day.

"Blessings", eh? How about Lekarhga'riga'vrash'h'inha lega dyahu jaqulahri... 😜😝😈

Lekarhga'riga'vrash'h'inha lega dyahu jaqulahri means "May the noise of your mating be loud enough to awaken the gods." It works for a language where there are no kind euphemisms for fecal matter...
 
"Blessings", eh? How about Lekarhga'riga'vrash'h'inha lega dyahu jaqulahri... 😜😝😈

Lekarhga'riga'vrash'h'inha lega dyahu jaqulahri means "May the noise of your mating be loud enough to awaken the gods." It works for a language where there are no kind euphemisms for fecal matter...

Come on... I design this scenario like this: The High-tech Pay-back plot ends with the mechanic leaving this message for Sosa and Catscratch before leaving the Intrepid. Then the narrative focuses back to the classroom. After the narrator says this, there's a lot of interest in what it means, and then the Kilrathi student (the boy named after Harga) do the translation. If I use this one... what would this classroom atmosphere be like.... 😜😝😈

Eh, what about this one:
"May your heirs spread like seedlings of ulanna trees."
 
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I actually just read the last five chapters of Action Stations again, and this time in more detail. The reading was really useful, but there was more emotionally draining afterwards.

This time I noticed a detail:

"The Cat (Prince Ratha) skimmed over his canopy, the fighter inverted so that he (Geoff Tolwyn) caught a quick flash of the pilot wearing a purple helmet."

The other thing is that these five chapters are extremely difficult to be adapted into a visual novel, even picking some snippets to adapt is also not easy. I'll have to think about how to do that...

My current idea is to make it into an interview with retired Imperial Claws veteran pilot Haga Kaligara.

But it's still hard....
 
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If I use this one... what would this classroom atmosphere be like....

Very awkward, I would imagine. At least, for those prudish Terrans anyway... 😈 😈 😈

Eh, what about this one:
"May your heirs spread like seedlings of ulanna trees."

Riga'hraijhaki h'innisjhamakschur takh jaqirini'irgaiulanna. I even had all the words for that one. More tame of a phrase to be sure.

Could use both phrases, of course. The one about the ulanna trees come first. Sosa and Catstratch are a little embarrassed about it, the Harga character says 'well, at least he didn't use blah blah blah as a blessing', which is either a) shockingly embarrassing to those prudish Terrans or b) something the Harga character doesn't translate - he just stands there smiling... :)



Going to be going back through the Baen novels myself in the coming days; right now I'm reading some Asimov. Might have to start with Action Stations.
 
Riga'hraijhaki h'innisjhamakschur takh jaqirini'irgaiulanna. I even had all the words for that one. More tame of a phrase to be sure.

Could use both phrases, of course. The one about the ulanna trees come first. Sosa and Catstratch are a little embarrassed about it, the Harga character says 'well, at least he didn't use blah blah blah as a blessing', which is either a) shockingly embarrassing to those prudish Terrans or b) something the Harga character doesn't translate - he just stands there smiling... :)

Thanks very much!

I actually designed these plot points:

1. A student asks what are the taboo topics in this class. The professor says there are no topic taboos, but no unauthorized holovid recording allowed.
2. The Harga character says even talking about "cat" is not considered offensive. Then a troublemaker asks what about the "f(urball)" word. The professor says "Stop it"!
3. The Harga character explains that they have special permission from the Chancellor and Baron, so it's okay to talk about anything in class. The student says since it is a permission, it could be withdrawn at any time. The Harga character trys to explain more, but the Master character (the Kilrathi in black, he was that adoped cub) stops him and says they have no right to interpret on behalf of the Chancellor and Baron.
4. Then the course starts and people start talking about history. First, the ending of the WC3 novel, then event of saving Melek's convoy in the WC4 novel (a legendary version), and finally the "High-tech pay-back" plot.
5. After the Harga character explains the the ulanna trees phrase, suddenly the trouble maker says "well, at least he didn't use blah blah blah as a blessing", the Master character replys "You seem to know a lot, 'a(pe)' word."

And...

There's actually an opening statement from the professor. Since I'm not impressed enough with the literature and history courses, the draft of this paragraph is probably so bad at the moment that I'm too embarrassed to just post it out. Click through if you're interested and can tolerate it. 😖

"Welcome to the Documentary Literature and History course. I'm Professor April."
"Over the several following classes, I hope we could do some discussions and reflections on the documentary literature, especially as it relates to the history of this century."
"As we know, this century, especially the forty years from the mid 2630s to the early 2670s, has been extraordinary."
"In these four decades, we have experienced, first and foremost, the conflict between the Terran and Kilrathi, which was, for both races, the largest warfare in our respective histories, claiming more than 30 billion lives on both sides."
"And then, humanity had came perilously close to falling into a full-scale civil war."
"We survived the crisis, allowing us to stand united in the face of the threat from the Galactic Core that began to emerge at the beginning of this decade."
"Well, recently, there has been a proliferation of literary and artistic works describing the ups and downs of this period, and many of them are high-quality documentary works."
"I'm hoping that this semester we'll be able to choose some of them for discussion."
"This is a basic introduction to this course."
"Well, it is a great pleasure for me as a professor to share ideas with students from all over the universe in this classroom."
...
"Welcome again, everyone."
 
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About "Documentary Literature and History"... I've no idea if such a course actually exists, but let me just write it off as such.

I recall a course with a title that was something of that nature while attending grad school - my M.A. is in Journalism. So it certainly sounds legit to me.
 
I came up with a very simple way to mark parts of the official plots: mark the source in text at the upper right corner when the plot starts, and mark the end of this plot with another text "END OF A SCENE".
 

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Today I updated the Harga character's portrait.

@capi3101 , I decide to let the Terran troublemaker say that line because I didn't think it would be appropriate for such a character to openly promote that line in an Earth classroom, hahahaha!

As for the color scheme for this character: First of all the outerwear I design it to be given by Melek, so it's the same color as Melek's sleeves. The other parts...
 
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I recognized her instantly without reading her name in the painting. You should use Catscratch's and Sosa's romantic relationship somehow in that story. :D
The first draft of this part is done, and althought there isn't an update for the online demo yet, the visual novel script file has been uploaded in #228.
 
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A time limited choice. At the top of the screen is a countdown bar, and below that are four choices, with the fourth one automatically chose when the timer goes to zero. The player's choice will determine the growth of favorability.

Excuse me, @capi3101, is there anything wrong with this choice? Thanks!
 
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