Coronation Ceremony & Gifts

[kaolinandbone]

The gentle but insistent tink-tink-tink of a silver spoon against a teacup carries through the crowd, followed by a clear, confident voice as Lioncourt addresses the gathered guests.

"Ladies, gentlemen, and other various but no less incomparable sentients, the main event of the party will begin shortly. If you have a coronation present for the Lady Lioncourt and have not yet placed on the central table, please do so now: everyone is likewise encouraged to take a seat on one of the benches if they wish to observe the ceremony."

Comments

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

Lioncourt extends the cube to Tyche.

"I was just wondering if you could help me speed through the cube's configuration steps."

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[scatteredstars]

"Ah." Tyche takes the cube, and seems to concentrate. It expands again, and after a moment the display appears.

"I assume that you want this set up in your native language unless you have a permanent translation effect on..."

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

"No, no. This is being provided by Astra for party purposes. I would prefer the cube to be in my local language."

She leans in so she can see what Tyche's doing on the screen.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[scatteredstars]

That is the purpose of having the screen lit up, presumably, since Tyche is not doing anything with it.

The image of the button by the language option is visibly depressed, and a new page appears. It has a list of a great many languages, written in the native manner, and overflowing the visible area.

Tyche can probably fix that, but based on zir inquiring look ze is probably waiting to see if any of the ones shown match.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

Lioncourt scans the various characters on the screen.

"... This is rather strange. Some of these look familiar, but none of them are really readable..."

She eyes one set of glyphs.

"...as for... something... you? See, and... touch? This looks vaguely like old Lupinian."

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[scatteredstars]

Tyche makes an interested noise.

That entry flashes, and then it proceeds rapidly through several screens before settling on one with that character set.

"Is this the Old Lupinian script, or does it merely resemble that?" ze asks.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

Lioncourt's brow furrows.

"It's similar but not the same. Close enough that I can read individual characters, though: this is a 'kata', this is a 'mena', this is a 'doge'..."

She scans the list, then points with one finger.

"I don't recognize this character, or this one, but the rest seem to be acceptably close."

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[scatteredstars]

The screen flashes again a few times, and gives a closeup of the first letter. It makes the relevant sound.

"Change the letter to match the local one," Tyche says helpfully, handing Lioncourt the tablet. "If the sound doesn't match, wait until it finds one that does, or say it."

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

Lioncourt goes through the list of characters, speaking most of them herself. It seems that the consonants in her version of the language are more often voiced than the model being presented.

"It seems a bit incomplete, but..."

She shrugs.

"It's the best we can do at the moment."

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[scatteredstars]

"Is it missing characters?"

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

"Yes, it is. ... I need a piece of paper and a pen again. I should start carrying a notebook."

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[scatteredstars]

Tyche retrieves something that looks vaguely like a stylus, and gets the tablet to give her a blank square to write on. "There."

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

Lioncourt adds three additional characters, then hands the stylus back to Tyche.

"That should fix the major discrepancies."

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[scatteredstars]

Tyche touches the tablet, and it flashes and resolves on a page of text in the modified script.

"Comprehensibility check," ze says.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

Lioncourt frowns.

"Well, the characters are recognizable, and I can even read some of the words... the others are close enough that I can attempt sentences, but it's hardly easy. This language's very old on my world, and it's not the one I speak day-to-day. I have a working knowledge at best, even of my own version."

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[scatteredstars]

Tyche nods. "I'm going to set that as the interface language for now, in case we don't find one you're more familiar with, unless you object?"

Then they can proceed to look at the other languages.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

Lioncourt nods: It's better than anything else she's seen so far.

And, alas, it is in fact the best of the whole onboard set.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[scatteredstars]

The next step, since there were recognizable pieces earlier, is to go into the language families and look for the one(s) closest to Lioncourt's native language.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

It appears that Lioncourt's native language is in a family that would be East Asian in Eclipse.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[scatteredstars]

It records this, and any further matching information, and then Tyche hops out of what appears to be a long involved process to teach it Lioncourt's language, with an explanation that it is that thing.

The next thing appears to be biometrics setup to get it to consistently respond to Lioncourt, since Tyche noticed that being a problem before.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

Lioncourt might not have a pulse or a bioelectric field unless she wills it, but she is in fact composed of DNA, and she has eyes and fingerprints and seventy years of paranoia. A casual comment about 'biometric security' from Tyche turns into Lioncourt locking down the device with every level of authentication available to her.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[scatteredstars]

That is certainly a thing she can do! Although (as Tyche mentions when Lioncourt starts on this), if Lioncourt wants zir to be able to help finish setting this up, she needs to leave Tyche access.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

Lioncourt does so, since it's Tyche's technology anyway and ze can probably just take access of it.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[scatteredstars]

That would be impolite and would not foster good diplomatic relations. (But yes, given how good of a hacker Tyche is, there is a fair chance ze could).

The next thing to configure is appearance. It's made of smart-material (Tyche says this as though it should mean something), so it can look however Lioncourt wants it to at rest, and the only limitations on its appearance while operating is what is required for functionality.

The options here fail fairly badly at being transparent, but Tyche can talk Lioncourt through them.

Re: Tyche & Thorn's Gift

[kaolinandbone]

Lioncourt would prefer for it to look like a small wooden box, which she can fit in a pocket if neccessary. Is such a thing possible? How does it produce its screen? She inquires quite a lot about the specifics of 'smart material' and the exact degree of customization available.