Non OTU: LBB S3 Spinward Marches (re)mapping in 1105

[Spinward Flow]

First preliminary step in revision: Imgur Link (3602 × 5209 png image) (recommend opening in new tab)



This version of the Spinward Marches began with the M1105 map saved on Travellermap (sector data and metadata) that I have copy/pasted into offline files for hand editing. I am using the Poster webpage to run iterations (lots and lots and lots of iterations!) of my edits to check for errors and learn how the database records and parses information.

The current changes that I have been making are exclusively to the Metadata file ... which controls the locations of borders, polity labels and Express Network routing. Updating the sector data to modify UWPs and Trade Codes will happen in a later step (because it's more detail intensive and boring to cross-check ).

Since LBB S3 (printed 1979) contains no border delineation markings on any of the maps (just notations on UWP entries), my references for where the borders "ought to have been" rely on use of maps by Fifth Frontier War partial coreward 1/3 of the sector (printed 1981) and the CT Alien Module: Darrians, page zero map (printed in 1987). There are some pretty obvious disagreements (and let's be honest with ourselves, obvious errors!) between these sources with regards to some specific details, so I've done my best to interpolate between the different CT sources provided to at least try and get the mapping of the borders right. Where borders "disagree" between Travellermap's version and LBB S3 allegiances I have given priority and precedence to LBB S3 (hence why Wardn and Olympia in Lunion subsector are independent, claimed by neither the Sword Worlds nor the Imperium). Also, the specific date used for this map follows LBB S3 with regards to ownership of the Entropic Worlds (later seized by the Sword Worlds during the Fifth Fontier War, post-1105).


The biggest and most obvious revisions to the Express Networks (plural!) happen in the Sword Worlds (Mjolnir and Gungnir return to the Sword Worlds network as shown in LBB S3) and in the almost wholesale reworking of the Lunion subsector ... with minor ripple effects on the Sword Worlds, Lanth and Mora subsector Express Network nodes.

Rather than routing through Caladbolg <J4> Biter <J3> Adabicci <J3> Lunion as we're all accustomed to seeing, I've shifted the Express network routing between Lunion and the Five Sisters to run through Caladbolg <J4> Wardn <J1> Tenalphi <J3> Shirene <J1> Lunion.

Additionally, I've decided that the Lunion/Adabicci/Ianic "misprint" is basically an "off by one" error. If you move this XBoat route coreward, you instead connect Lunion/Rabwhar/D'Ganzio, which is MUCH more sensible.

Another change to the Express Network that I've made is in Mora subsector. Instead of going from Fornice/Carey/Capon I have shifted the route slightly coreward to instead be Fornice/Mercury/Capon. This shift improves routing of XBoats between Mora and either Lanth (within 4 jumps from Mercury) or Rhylanor (within 3 jumps from Mercury) ... whereas before the routing would have involved 5 jumps from Carey to Lanth or 4 jumps from Carey to Rhylanor (so the change speeds things up by 1 jump with no loss of J2 distribution by Scout/Courier to nearby systems). I consider this adjustment to be yet another "off by one" error in the original LBB S3 that just got perpetuated.

The last change to the Express Network that I implemented was returning the link between Chamois/Trin's Veil/Spinward Marches and what I can only assume must have been Tuwayk/Gulf/Deneb as depicted in LBB S3.



As advertised previously, but just to be clear ... I haven't gotten around to reverting UWPs yet to LBB S3 (with the occasional required changes, such as Kinorb/Regina, for example, to be compliant with LBB3.77 which was the reference point when LBB S3 was published) with this project but that will take more time than this (simple? ) update to the sector's metadata file.

Once I've got all the changes I'm making dialed in a proofed for LBB3.77 "legality" of results for UWPs, I'll be able to save attachment files to this post containing all the edited data the prompts Travellermap to produce the results that I'm achieving.

For reference, I'm needing to do all of my spreadsheet work in Plain Text format (so .txt file saves to prevent data format corruption) using the TextEdit Version 1.18 (394) app for OSX on my iMac2 computer ... just in case anyone else would like to try their hand at doing anything similar themselves.



Next step ... proofing and correcting the sector map UWPs and Trade Codes to be LBB S3 compliant (and where necessary, corrected).

 

[Spinward Flow]

Second step in revision: Imgur Link (3602 × 5209 png image) (recommend opening in new tab)

This image uses all of the metadata that I finalized in the OP.
The only changes here are to the sector data updating UWPs in the Chronor subsector (only) in order to validate and verify my work process to weed out any bad habits that might be prone to producing errors.

I was really shocked by HOW MANY EDITS I needed to make in just the Chronor subsector.
UWPs that got revised away from LBB S3 UWPs on maybe 30% of the world entries.
Travel codes got added that weren't there in LBB S3.
Stripping out some (but not all) of the extraneous T5 codes that do not make sense in CT.

Long story shorter ... it's a slog ... to implement the necessary reversions to get back to LBB S3 1105, mainly because the database info and formatting is so fiddly/exacting, but I think I've developed the necessary workflow habits that will let me catch most issues in a sufficiently discrete iterative process that can ultimately yield the results that I'm looking for.

I also found this in LBB3.77, p2 that helps explain some of the weirdness of why the Express Network routes around the Spinward Marches the way it does.

That this basically means is that only A-A/A-B/B-B can be J4 links.
A-C/B-C are limited to J3 links.
A-D/B-D/C-C are limited to J2 links.

This puts some really serious limits on the inclusion of C/D/E starports in the Express Network and kind of "foils my plans" that I'd long held (such as the Lunion/Rabwhar/D'Ganzio J3 links since Rabwhar is a type D starport and thus "not allowed" to have J3 links) while conversely confirming my supposition that Carey/Mora (type C starport) is an error since type C starports can't make J4 links (see above table) so the Express network node needs to be moved from Carey/Mora to Mercury/Mora.

With the Power Of Database Editing™ I could easily bump Rabwhar/Lunion from a type D to C starport to permit the change I was looking for ... but on second thought it's probably best to remove it in the next iteration when I revert the Jewell subsector (next) to LBB S3 UWPs.

In the interests of transparency, I'll be periodically updating this thread with my progress as I complete more subsectors so there can be a kind of "rolling report" showing how things change when reverting the Spinward Marches to an LBB S3 1105 compliant dataset.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Hmm ... found another "that's not allowed" connection on the Express Network that will require correction to bring it into compliance with the LBB2.77 table above.

Going by the LBB2.77 rules for Express Network links (it wasn't called that originally in LBB2.77, but that's what it evolved into), a type C starport is the minimum for a J3 connection ... so Marastan/Glisten is out of compliance with the RAW.

Here is what LBB S3, p26 has to say on the subject.

So ... different government type (Balkanized instead of Captive), Law Level 1 instead of 4 ... and Not An Amber Zone (unlike Travellermap M1105).
Also, a conspicuous absence of a Scout Base ...

Simplest solution would be to bump up the starport grade to either C or B to bring the world into compliance with RAW, but given the rest of the UWP in LBB S3 ... I'm thinking that an upgrade to type C is as far as can be expected under the circumstances.

So many basic/fundamental discrepancies to have to clean up ...

 

[mike wightman]

I find it amusing that you are only now discovering that S:3 was written with 77 rules rather than 81

Yes the trade lanes chart is responsible for the x-boat routes, but the authors of S:3 applied DMs that are not in the rules as written (and did the same with other parts of the UPP string).

 

[Spinward Flow]

I find it amusing that you are only now discovering that S:3 was written with 77 rules rather than 81

Since LBB3.77 and LBB3.81 are mostly congruent with each other, there aren't that many "disagreements" between the two versions (aside from editorial layout and formatting of the information).

I still have to refer to LBB3.81, p16 for a consolidated (all in one place) listing of CT Trade Codes ... which are defined differently from T5 ... so I need to be mindful of those changes when editing my Sector data file to bring it into congruence with LBB S3 (in addition to all the other changes I'm needing to make from what is T5 M1105 recorded on Travellermap.

but the authors of S:3 applied DMs that are not in the rules as written (and did the same with other parts of the UPP string).

In other words, there are various levels of fiat cheating going on, here and there, all over the map.

Marastan (above) is just yet another example of this in multiple ways.

1. The type D starport can only support J2 trade route/express network routing, yet it has TWO J3 links to type A and B starports ... a clear violation of LBB2.77 RAW.
2. Population: 7 yielding Government: 7 works perfectly fine (2D-7+7).
3. Government: 7 yielding Law Level: 1 is yet another obvious violation of LBB2.77 RAW (2D-7+7).

In both instances, the circumstances give every impression of being an Off By 1 type of error.

• Upgrade the starport from D to C and there's no problem with the express network routing.
• Downgrade the government type from 7 to 6 and there's no problem with the law level -OR- upgrade the law level from 1 to 2 and there's no problem with the law level.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Third step revision: Imgur Link (3602 × 5209 png image) (recommend opening in new tab)

This increment includes editing of the Jewell Subsector UWP data to be compliant with LBB2.77 RAW standards.

Made a modification to Cronor / Chronor (world and subsector) to better match CT Alien Module: Zhodani, p20 (published 1985) to better conform to the Zdetl language structure provided years after LBB S3 was initially published (in 1979).

Of course, if I'm going to do that, might as well verify the "validity" of the world naming/spelling under the rules of Zdetl, then I might was well update the names of all of the Zhodani controlled worlds in the Spinward Marches to follow the phoneme structure provided by Alien Module: Zhodani to give the coreward/spinward subsectors of the map are more distinctly Zhodani dominated feeling in their naming conventions for worlds that have been held by the Consulate for generations.

Hmmm ... looks like some retconning of the status of Winston, Entrope and Anselhome happened between LBB S3 (1979) and the Spinward Campaign (1985). In LBB S3, Winston, Entrope and Anselhome are recorded as being part of the Darrian Confederation, but in the Spinward Campaign, p14-15 (which oh so helpfully has historical maps showing borders at the start and end of the 1st through 4th Frontier Wars!) clearly shows that dominion over these three worlds was held by the Darrian Confederation up until the beginning of the Fourth Frontier War, but by the end of the Fourth Frontier War these three worlds had been captured by the Sword Worlds Confederaton. Guess I'll have to fix that back to the way it was in time for the next revision update.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Okay, here's fun little tangent.

If I had to "Zdetl-ize" the spelling of the sounds of the names of the worlds controlled by the Zhodani Consulate in the Spinward Marches ... how would that work and what would it look like (and better yet, SOUND like)?

So these are the phonemes used by the Zhodani language pulled from CT Alien Module: Zhodani, p20:

So if I take these phoneme rules and "transliterate" the phonemes used in LBB S3 (and Travellermap) into the Zhodani language pro-nunciation ... what comes out the other end?

Well ... I honestly think it's more interesting than the legacy Imperial world names.
Even though there are some rather obvious difficulties in transliterating the phonemes of some words into Zdetl.

Qronor subsector (11)

Hex Imperial Name	Zhodani Name
0101 Zeycude	Ziekod
0102 Reno	Reno
0103 Errere	Er’er
0104 Cantrel	Kiantlel
0202 Thengo	Tlenjo
0303 Gesentown	Kretsen
0304 Chronor	Qronor
0307 Atsa	Atsa
0608 Ninjar	Ninjar
0610 Sheyou	Shiezho
0705 Cipango	Shipanjo

Jewell subsector (6)

Hex Imperial Name	Zhodani Name
0904 Chwistyoch	Shtish’ioq
1004 Esalin	Esalin
1103 Clan	Qalan
1201 Ao-dai	Ao’dia
1401 Foelen	Folen
1402 Farreach	Fiarrich

Qrerien subsector (6)

Hex Imperial Name	Zhodani Name
0412 Sansibar	Sianzhibier
0511 Terra Nova	Teria Novia
0512 Asmodeus	Azhmodiezh
0613 Lebeau	Lebo
0614 Querion	Qrerien
0712 Rapp's World	Rapz Vodr

For anyone with an interest in OTU history, according to the Spinward Campaign, p15 ... all of these worlds have been under the control of the Zhodani Consulate since 986, the end of the Third Frontier War. By 1105 (the date of my map revision), each of these worlds would have been inhabited by Zhodani for generations (probably 4 minimum!), which I figure is long enough for any "old imperial" names to have essentially fallen by the wayside by 1105 and localize pro-nunciations of the legacy names from imperial days to become the above list.

To be clear, the Zhodani Alien Module had to wait 6 years after the publication of LBB S3, so I'm not casting any aspersions on the writers in 1978-79 for being "insufficiently Zhodani" with their choice of world names (and spellings). Everything about LBB S3 made it quite clear that all the data presented within was compiled from IISS records and thus had an imperial "slant" to everything.

But now we have the benefit of hindsight (and the Zhodani module with the "invent word sounds" system), so I figure this is as good a time as any to bring the Zhodani controlled worlds in the Spinward Marches into compliance with how the Zhodani would pro-nounce the names of those worlds in their own language.

I've also provided the Zhodani Sounds Table above in case anyone else would like to "do me one better" in transliterating the imperial sounding names into Zdelt phoneme sounds (and spellings).

Just post your alternative take on what you think would be an appropriate mix of sounds and we can discuss merits here in this thread.

 

[mike wightman]

I like what you did there

 

[Spinward Flow]

I like what you did there

Me too ...
Hope you won't hold it against me for doing it.

 

[mike wightman]

Nope, it is really useful

 

[Grav_Moped]

In other words, there are various levels of fiat cheating going on, here and there, all over the map.

Reverse-engineer the TL roll for Trexalon/D-268.

It works for the wiki/fluff-text description of the atmosphere, but not the UWP Atm. code. My guess is that they revised it to be a closer competitor for Collace.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Reverse-engineer the TL roll for Trexalon/D-268.

It works for the wiki/fluff-text description of the atmosphere, but not the UWP Atm. code. My guess is that they revised it to be a closer competitor for Collace.

I'll deal with District 268 when its turn comes.
Because of how the Sector data is formatted, the UWPs are stored in a top-down/left-right sequencing order within each subsector, but then the sequencing of the subsectors is left-right/top-down. Since I'm not THAT inclined to reinvent the wheel here (ain't broke, don't fix it), I figure it's best to use the formatted sequence pulled from Travellermap so as to avoid potential errors by trying to get Too Clever™ with my editing skills (such as they are).

So at this point, I've got Qronor and Jewell subsectors more or less done (although tweaks and touch ups can still be done, like the Zdetl renaming effort outlined above, which will certainly help disambiguate my mapping effort from the "stock" M1105 Travellermap entry).
Next up will be the Regina and Aramis subsectors, in that order.
Going to be a while before I get down to the Five Sisters and District 268 ... but I'll get there ... eventually.

 

[Kakistocrat]

If I had to “Zdetl-ize” the spelling of the sounds of the names of the worlds controlled by the Zhodani Consulate in the Spinward Marches … how would that work and what would it look like (and better yet, SOUND like)?

Even though there are some rather obvious difficulties in transliterating the phonemes of some words into Zdetl.
[…]
Just post your alternative take on what you think would be an appropriate mix of sounds and we can discuss merits here in this thread.

Regarding the pro‍nunciation of the vowel R in the Zhodani Sound Frequency Table, note that “rz” is a digraph in Polish (like the “sh” in “ship” is a digraph in English). The sound of “rz” in “Przemyśl” is /ʂ/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is a consonant sound that is similar to English “sh” (which is IPA /ʃ/), except that /ʂ/ is retroflex.

Does the Zdetl Q (and the Q that’s in QL and QR) represent the same uvular sound as in Arabic, which is also transliterated with a Q in English?

Perhaps some of the world names would have Zdetl calques rather than Zdetl sound approximations? For instance, Rapp’s World might be calqued as “ru-Ulew Rap”, literally “his earth Rapp”, based on the information in the “Possession” section at the Zdetl language link above; however, there is no W in the Zhodani Sound Frequency Table. (Is there a Zdetl vocabulary available somewhere? “World” and “earth” could well be different words in Zdetl.)

(Note that the strange substitution applied here in the forums to the four letters “pro‍n” can be avoided by also inserting a Unicode “zero-width joiner” character among them.)

 

[Spinward Flow]

Regarding the pro‍nunciation of the vowel R in the Zhodani Sound Frequency Table, note that “rz” is a digraph in Polish (like the “sh” in “ship” is a digraph in English). The sound of “rz” in “Przemyśl” is /ʂ/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is a consonant sound that is similar to English “sh” (which is IPA /ʃ/), except that /ʂ/ is retroflex.

In the example given in the table, the vowel R in the Zhodani Sound Frequency Table is not a "rz" combination.
Pyrzemysl (a Polish word) is the example given to illustrate the intended sound for the vowel R. The editorial choice for the use of italics rather than something slightly more font obvious is perhaps confusing/difficult to discern in this instance. So for improved clarity:
Pyrzemysl
Pyrzemysl
Not having any Polish speaking relatives myself, this is not a familiar sound to my ears, so I have a hard time mentally "hearing" it.

Does the Zdetl Q (and the Q that’s in QL and QR) represent the same uvular sound as in Arabic, which is also transliterated with a Q in English?

I'm (personally) not linguistically attuned/trained enough to be able to provide a distinction/difference. To my mind/speech patterns, in this case Q is just an alternative to K with some *SUBTLE* differences that are going to be hard to convey through pure text (go figure, eh? ).
K sounds like kid (initial consonant) or like pike (final consonant)
Q sounds like king (initial consonant) or like k (final consonant)
I suppose the difference would amount to a subtle difference in "shaping of the consonant stress" with the voice (or linguistic specialist, which I am not, words to that effect). So the K would have a harder/voiced "K" sound to it, while Q would have a softer/faster "k" sound to it (a subtle difference that is more a matter of speaking style/regional accent in English, rather than an important distinction built into the phonetic rules of the English language, so it's definitely a "foreign" linguistic concept and conveys as such through spelling differences for the sounds).

Perhaps some of the world names would have Zdetl calques rather than Zdetl sound approximations?

If so, can someone with better linguistic skills than I have "compute" what the Zdetl word(s) with the same meaning be, which aren't just transliterations of phonemes like I was doing above?

Of course, even in (historically) polyglot locations such as the isle of Alba, where modern English names for places is a blenderized version of Celtic, Latin, Saxon, Norse, French (and thus ultimately also derived from Latin) mixed together over successive invasions of the island that ultimately produced the English language that we have today (which Americans then promptly messed up in their own way in the last couple centuries).

(Note that the strange substitution applied here in the forums to the four letters “pro‍n” can be avoided by also inserting a Unicode “zero-width joiner” character among them.)

I knew that such a workaround exists, but am unfamiliar with the keyboard combination necessary to produce such a result, so I resorted to the next best thing and reasoned that people could figure it out with little effort.

 

[Kakistocrat]

In the example given in the table, the vowel R in the Zhodani Sound Frequency Table is not a “rz” combination.
Pyrzemysl (a Polish word) is the example given to illustrate the intended sound for the vowel R. The editorial choice for the use of italics rather than something slightly more font obvious is perhaps confusing/difficult to discern in this instance. So for improved clarity:
Pyrzemysl
Pyrzemysl

There is only one “y” in “Przemyśl” (which is the name of a Polish city), and that “y” is between the “m” and the “ś”; there is no “y” between the “P” and the “r”. The R in the Zhodani Sound Frequency Table may indeed be a vowel — perhaps some Czech word would better demonstrate its intended sound — but that vowel wouldn’t be demonstrated by “Przemyśl”, since the “rz” in it is a digraph with a consonantal sound. In some Polish words, “rz” is not a digraph (much like the “th” in “hothouse” is not a digraph), but it is a digraph in “Przemyśl”. A Polish speaker might transcribe the English interjection “Pshaw!” in terms of Polish orthography as “Przo!”.

Not having any Polish speaking relatives myself, this is not a familiar sound to my ears, so I have a hard time mentally “hearing” it.

A short recording of /ʂ/ (the sound of “rz” in “Przemyśl”) can be heard here (OGG format) — a transliteration of the recording in IPA would be something like “/ʂa/, /aˈʂa/”. (The recording only demonstrates the sound; it doesn’t represent words in any language.) It’s much like English “sh”, but the tip of the tongue is curled up, and so lacks palatalization. That is, if a native Polish speaker pro‍nounced the English word “ship” using /ʂ/ rather than /ʃ/, there would be no hint of an English Y (IPA /j/) sound before the “i”.

I’m (personally) not linguistically attuned/trained enough to be able to provide a distinction/difference. To my mind/speech patterns, in this case Q is just an alternative to K with some *SUBTLE* differences that are going to be hard to convey through pure text (go figure, eh? ).

This is the raison d’être of the IPA — so that such subtle differences can be conveyed in pure text (albeit pure text that requires additional letters and symbols).

K sounds like kid (initial consonant) or like pike (final consonant)
Q sounds like king (initial consonant) or like k (final consonant)
I suppose the difference would amount to a subtle difference in “shaping of the consonant stress” with the voice (or linguistic specialist, which I am not, words to that effect). So the K would have a harder/voiced “K” sound to it, while Q would have a softer/faster “k” sound to it (a subtle difference that is more a matter of speaking style/regional accent in English, rather than an important distinction built into the phonetic rules of the English language, so it's definitely a “foreign” linguistic concept and conveys as such through spelling differences for the sounds).

I had considered that the difference between K and Q might be in aspiration, e.g. English “kid” (IPA /kʰɪd/ — with aspiration) vs. “skid” (IPA /skɪd/ — without aspiration), which in languages like Hindi are contrastive (i.e. two words could be distinguished only by aspiration differences), but the K and Q example words didn’t demonstrate a contrastive aspiration difference.

If so, can someone with better linguistic skills than I have "compute" what the Zdetl word(s) with the same meaning be, which aren't just transliterations of phonemes like I was doing above?

That’s why I was wondering if a Zdetl vocabulary exists (I understand that someone has compiled a Vilani vocabulary); if not, coining Zdetl words would be part of the process. I’d guess that most placenames would be phonemically transliterated, since their etymological origins might be unknown; but some placenames, like Rapp’s World or Terra Nova, seem like ideal candidates for calquing.

I knew that such a workaround exists, but am unfamiliar with the keyboard combination necessary to produce such a result, so I resorted to the next best thing and reasoned that people could figure it out with little effort.

The keyboard combinations would vary by operating system. For example, in macOS, there is an “input source” (keyboard layout) called “Unicode Hex Input” for just this sort of thing; use a key combination to switch input source to Unicode Hex Input, hold down the Option key while typing 200D (the Unicode code point for the zero-width joiner; hexadecimal digits that are letters can be entered in either case) and then release the Option key, and then switch back to the usual input source. (Unicode Hex Input could be set up to be a login’s default input source, in which case the switching parts wouldn’t be necessary, but that input source doesn’t have the usual Option type options, e.g. “ö” can’t be entered with Option-u o while Unicode Hex Input is active.) I’d imagine that Windows has some sort of analogous Unicode code point input option using the Alt key. I don’t know if Linux uses a Compose key in a similar manner for such input.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Przemysl
Przemysl

That's what I get for being too hasty with my edits.
I get pytos.

I had considered that the difference between K and Q might be in aspiration

That's on the right track for the distinction but it's probably something more subtle than that ... or it could be something else entirely.
My default notion was that K put the emphasis of the consonant sound "click" sound more prominently towards the front ... while the Q "shifted" that consonant "click" sound to delay it more towards the middle and with a lighter emphasis so it wasn't quite so hard/strong.

Kind of a K = "strong k sound" ... Q = "softer but still k sound" ... kind of distinction.
But then I'm just some Solomani transplant, so what would I know about these things?

 

[Kakistocrat]

That’s what I get for being too hasty with my edits.
I get pytos.

A recording of a Pole saying “Przemyśl” can be heard here (OGG format), but there seems to be some initial interference during the pro‍nunciation of the “P”.

That’s on the right track for the distinction but it’s probably something more subtle than that … or it could be something else entirely.
My default notion was that K put the emphasis of the consonant sound “click” sound more prominently towards the front ... while the Q “shifted” that consonant “click” sound to delay it more towards the middle and with a lighter emphasis so it wasn’t quite so hard/strong.

Kind of a K = “strong k sound” … Q = “softer but still k sound” … kind of distinction.

From an English phoneme perspective, aspiration is typically sufficiently subtle that many native speakers don’t perceive it until it’s pointed out to them. Without an IPA transcription, I’d need to hear your K and Q suggestions to understand the distinction between them.

A less subtle K phoneme, /k͡x/, can be heard here (OGG again). It’s found in a handful of languages, including some UK English dialects, but I don’t know if they’d specifically be used in “cling” and “crown”.

In transliterations to English, generally “k” represents a “typical” K pro‍nunciation (i.e. without distinguishing between aspiration and non-aspiration), and “q” represents a “rougher” pro‍nunciation (usually a sound that’s not found in English, but gets anglicized to K by native English speakers). Perhaps /k͡x/ might correspond to Q.

 

[Spinward Flow]

(i.e. without distinguishing between aspiration and non-aspiration)

I was thinking about this as I woke up this morning and realized (by speaking softly while still waking up) that when I say the word "kid" I do indeed exhale during the K sound ... but when I say the word "king" I do not exhale during the K sound. Likewise, when I say the word "crown" I do not exhale while making the K sound at the beginning of the word.

So this is probably the best understanding of the difference between K and Q consonants when used in Zdetl.
By exhaling with the phoneme, the sound of the consonant becomes "stronger" and takes on more emphasis ... while refraining from exhaling with the phoneme, the sound of the consonant becomes "gentler" and flows more easily into digraphs with other sounds used in the word.

So the K sound is "more square" and the Q sound is the same thing but "more rounded" (if that kind of "sound shaping" makes any sense whatsoever) due to the difference in aspiration.

In english, that would be more of a speaking style difference, rather than something "mandated" by the structure of the language, so it's a bit of a foreign concept (if you're not a linguist, and I'm not).

 

[Kakistocrat]

I was thinking about this as I woke up this morning and realized (by speaking softly while still waking up) that when I say the word “kid” I do indeed exhale during the K sound … but when I say the word “king” I do not exhale during the K sound. Likewise, when I say the word “crown” I do not exhale while making the K sound at the beginning of the word.

So this is probably the best understanding of the difference between K and Q consonants when used in Zdetl.

I aspirate all of “kid”, “king”, and “crown”, though the aspiration is shorter with “crown” than with the other two. Typically the easiest method to perceive aspiration is to start with a word (whether an actual word or not) that begins with /sk/ (unaspirated) and then pro‍nounce it without the initial /s/ (which typically aspirates the now-initial /k/), e.g. “skid” vs. “kid”, “sking” vs. “king”, “scling” vs. “cling”, “scrown” vs. “crown”.

Whichever of K or Q represents an aspirated “k” (/kʰ/), note that this sound can also be word-final in Zdetl. A language where it can be contrastively word-final is Eastern Armenian; this recording (OGG again) has “տաք” (/tɑkʰ/ — aspirated) and “տակ” (/tɑk/ — unaspirated), meaning "hot” and “under" respectively. (Are K vs. Q, KL vs. QL, KR vs. QR contrastive in Zdetl?) Note that the initial /t/ in both words is unaspirated.

The method in the first paragraph can also be used to distinguish /t/ from /tʰ/ in English, e.g. “stop” vs. “top”. (It also works with /p/ vs. /pʰ/, e.g. “spin” vs. “pin”. Note that all of “k”, ”t”, and “p” are unvoiced, and that none of their voiced analogues “g”, “d”, and “b” are aspirated by a native English speaker.)

 

[Spinward Flow]

Fourth step revision: Imgur Link (3602 × 5209 png image) (recommend opening in new tab)

This increment includes editing of the Regina Subsector UWP data to be compliant with LBB2.77 RAW standards.

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Turns out the Regina subsector needed a lot more "error correction" than I was anticipating.

Removal of FOUR Amber Zones from Alell, Beck's World, Wochiers and Keng were needed to bring the Sector data in compliance with LBB S3, p20-21.

Dentus and Kinorb swapped their starport types (Dentus switches C for A, Kinorb switches A for C). This solves the tech level "error" for Kinorb.

Yori was a problem since LBB S3 not only records the UWP having a TL=D but also mentions at the bottom of p20 that the highest TL worlds in the subsector are Efate, Uakye, Pixie, Boughene and Yori. However, given the details of Yori's UWP, the only way that a TL=13 is even LBB3.77 "legal" is if Yori has a type A starport instead of a type C. The knock on effect of that is that Yori then becomes a logical XBoat link between Regina and Inthe (due to the revised type A starport). According to LBB2.77, p2 a J2 A-A link requires rolling 2+ (Regina to Yori) and a J3 A-B link requires rolling 4+ (Yori to Inthe), so the fact that Yori is not on the Express Network at all remains LBB2.77 "compliant" after the starport upgrade.

Regina reverts from TL=C back to TL=A (like it should be) to resume LBB S3 setting in 1105 compliance.

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I also implemented the Zdetl revision/phoneme transliteration for the world names of Zhodani Consulate worlds in the Qronor (updated), Jewell and Qrerien (updated) subsectors that I announced back in Post #7.

I don't know about anyone else, but I rather like the way that this particular naming adjustment makes the Zhodani Consulate worlds "seem more obviously foreign" to the Third Imperium naming convention "standards" that you see in the majority of the map (except for the Darrian Confederation and the Sword Worlds Confederation).

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And now I've noticed a new problem.

LBB3.77, p2

See those "roll 1+" numbers for Jump-1 from type A starports?

Yeah ... if I follow that rule I'm going to need to a LOT of revising for Express Routes of worlds with type A starports that have J1 neighboring systems. Guess I'll need to do a review of the Express Network (again) in the next update.