intelligent nametags

[thaumobabble]

Jane alerts everyone to the existence of a new Bell, the nature of her wives and children, and the presence of her mother-in-law.

She stands ready to move in anyone who wishes to attend this new party.

Glass stands ready to receive them.

Comments

[thaumobabble]

"Jane," says Glass, and she disappears.

She's back a minute later. "I hate those worlds, I hate them, they're nasty," she says. "They're similar all right, and no others I've checked are that close, but there's a weaker resemblance between Aurum and Eos."

[prima_sequentem]

"Interesting. So a 'worldfamily' entry might be a little premature, but I think I'll put one down anyway in case we find more Sunny worlds and run out of cute sun-related things to name them after. Apart from that... a list of common intelligent species would be good, so we have some standardization for species names besides the ones that Bells happen to be. I haven't heard anyone coming up with a term for Aianon's species other than 'demon', for example, and that's also the generic term for nonhumans in the Sunny worlds. And there's some species overlap between this world and Thilanushinyel, as evinced by the two completely different types of dragons chatting over there."

[thaumobabble]

Glass nods. "I suspect Aianon's busy - I'll ask Sarion -" Presently she has a reply. "Thilanushinyel demons are also called 'Endarkened', is that taken?"

[prima_sequentem]

"Nope. See, this is the kind of thing that would go in a Worldbook."

[thaumobabble]

"I can ask Kexan what he'd like to call Chronicle dragons, but he'll probably lob the question to his grandmother; she's the king."

[prima_sequentem]

"As long as someone comes up with something at some point."

[thaumobabble]

Glass nods. "And we've also got unicorns here that aren't like the one I saw at this party, and elves. And dwarves and giants and all kinds of things, I'm not even sure I know them all, there could easily be some I haven't heard of from sufficiently faraway places."

[prima_sequentem]

"I'm not that worried about listing every single species as long as we've got distinct terms for all the ones that interact with the peal. Ooh, and there should be an entry for afterlife situation," she adds.

[thaumobabble]

"Syntropy and Alethia," nods Glass. "And maybe distinguish between worlds that were already attached to Downside and will have wakeful people there who Jane didn't wake, versus ones that were added later and will have only sleeping people or ones we've personally attended to."

[prima_sequentem]

"Good point," says Libby. "All right. Can you think of anything else?"

[thaumobabble]

"Not off the top of my head."

[prima_sequentem]

"All right, then," she says. "I'll write a test profile for Eos and see if we catch any bugs."

She thinks a little, then starts writing.

Name: Eos

Worldfamily, if applicable: N/A

Primary inhabited planet(s): Earth, Mars

Known intelligent species: Humans

Technology/magic situation: Standard technology level for early 21st century Earth; one kind of transferable magic - minting/wishcoins - and one kind of innate per-person magic - ingots, which are people with single non-duplicated magical powers.

Afterlife situation: Downside world number 74, introduced to Downside post-pealing

Safety rating and notes for visitors: Magic is nonsecret to the population of Earth but individuals may be wary.

Glass's commentary: --

List of inhabiting templates: Bell, Stella; Libby, Libby; Joker, Alice; Chainsaw, Sandy; Anna, Anna. All humans, all mints. Sandy, Alice, and Stella are also ingots.

"All right, how's that look?"

[thaumobabble]

"It does have that resemblance to Aurum. They're not as close as any two Sunny worlds, but it's not nothing."

[prima_sequentem]

"Okay," she says, and she puts 'Eos-Aurum' under Worldfamily. "Pending a better name. Maybe we'll come up with one if we find another cousin."

[thaumobabble]

Glass nods. "It's not an unusually nice or unusually mean world. It's exploitable - more than here; Chronicle is nice but doesn't natively lend itself to being cracked open and comprehended, I think, and Eos is fine with that. Most of the Earths I looked at seemed more or less exploitable in this way. It feels more - isolated than some of them. Like - it has features in common with Aurum, but not on the same layer as the Sunnyworlds. On the layer that Sunnyworlds are - using - for resemblance, Eos floats around completely alone and nowhere else I looked at does - though some of them do it differently."

[prima_sequentem]

"Interesting," says Libby. She copies this down.

[thaumobabble]

"That's a weird layer, actually..." Glass consults her lovely perfect memory. "...Where else is there to visit? Jane, can you just drop me everywhere we have regular interactions with for quick looks?"

She's gone for another minute.

"Yggdrasil has something on that layer, that it shares with all the Sunnyworlds which have it much more weakly, Sunshine weakest of all," she reports.

[prima_sequentem]

"Huh. Maybe a 'worldfamily' description isn't going to cut it," says Libby. "It'll do for now, I guess."

[thaumobabble]

"And Wellspring is distantly related to Sunnyworlds on a different layer."

[prima_sequentem]

"I wonder what the family tree would look like."

[thaumobabble]

"I have no idea!"

[prima_sequentem]

She laughs.

[thaumobabble]

"Milliways does the complete opposite of the Eos-floating thing. I'd say Downside does too, but it doesn't even compare to Milliways."

[prima_sequentem]

"That seems logical."

[thaumobabble]

"I should really name all these layers, but they don't come in a sensible order to allow for numbering, and I have so little idea what any of them mean."