1. Due to the increased amount of spam bots on the forum, we are strengthening our defenses. You may experience a CAPTCHA challenge from time to time.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Notification emails are working properly again. Please check your email spam folder and if you see any emails from the Cantina there, make sure to mark them as "Not Spam". This will help a lot to whitelist the emails and to stop them going to spam.
    Dismiss Notice
  3. IMPORTANT! To be able to create new threads and rate posts, you need to have at least 30 posts in The Cantina.
    Dismiss Notice
  4. Before posting a new thread, check the list with similar threads that will appear when you start typing the thread's title.
    Dismiss Notice

(Extra Content) How Han's dice lead me to create Gods

Discussion in 'Random Discussion' started by Dryden Valiance, Nov 17, 2021.

  1. Dryden Valiance

    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2021
    Posts:
    49
    Likes Received:
    49
    Trophy Points:
    17
    Credits:
    349
    Ratings:
    +99 / 3 / -1
    Part One: Splinters of a Mind's Departure
    This is going to be a boring and long post, but it shows as something very small and tiny made me fall into a rabbit hole for at least a couple of weeks.
    I'm not entirely sure why I'm sharing this with you, perhaps to show that I'm obsessed with Star Wars and how intensely I've taken the task of rewriting the films. I imagined a lot of other things that ultimately didn't really take part in the story. I invented a mythology, a different number system, a new alphabet, a new timeline and a different system for measuring time. I reworked the lightsabers and the different forms of combat. There are many other things that I don't really know where to post but would like to talk about.
    Enjoy this madness.
    [​IMG]
    Has it ever happened to you that a trifle has turned over time into a small obsession? If not, you're probably not insane like me.
    I never bother about Han's dice, they were a simple prop in the orginal movie, A funny scene to spot when Chewbacca’s head knocks them slightly, similar to the time the Stortropper bumped his head on the door frame.

    But then with TLJ and Solo they became more important, becoming almost like a major plot point. So I started to pay more attention to them, and because I am obsess with Star Wars's lore I started to look for the meaning of the new symbols. However, (like many other things) there are no official information about what these new symbols means and where they came from. Yes, of course they are (probably) number, but in which order?
    [​IMG]
    I started getting frustrated with this little stupid thing, so while writing my fanfics I decided to make my own version of those symbols. I didn't want to go back to simple "points" or even numbers, I wanted to keep them as symbols. At first I decided to go with the constellation, in a galactic setting I thought it was the obvious solution. But the only constellation symbols I knew of were the zodiac symbols, so I change them into Capricorn, Aquarius, Taurus, Leo, Libra and Sagittarius.
    [​IMG]
    And they stayed in that shape for a while, but then I started questioning my decision, I didn't want to put in much effort, but he just seemed too lazy. So I scratched all the zodiac except Taurus, Sagittarius and Libra, the former because it is a rather simple symbol and appears in many archaic cultures the latter because it is basically an arrow or a sword, another very common symbol, and the latter because it reminds me of the omega symbol (and also because it is my sign). Furthermore, they are all formed by circles and lines, from this I began to develop the idea that they were primitive signs, hieroglyphics whose origin was now lost. At this point things got serious, I started looking for all the most ancient symbols possible, the alchemical symbols, the symbols of the planets, the male and female symbols, for a while I let myself be carried away by a morbid curiosity towards the symbolism (like Dan Brown, oh no ... wait ... not Dan Brown ... but Robert Langdon, do you read the DaVinci Code? It was a completely inaccurate historical representation of Leonardo Da Vinci, but it was quite successful).

    At this time began the idea of transforming these symbols into ancient gods (I am a great lover of ancient mythology and it seemed like a good opportunity to seize). Thus the Taurus became the Red King, inspired by Shennong, the Chinese god of knowledge, but also Satan. Libra became the Black Knight inspired by various gods of the dead such as Hades or Osiris and also Zeus and Bacco. The Sagittarius split into two twin symbols: the Blue Huntress ispired by Diana (nut also Elune, the Moon goddess of Wow) and the Golden Warrios inspired by Ares/Apollo and Eracle. The symbol of the Aquarius has become the Green Nimph, inspired by Mother Nature while that of Capricorn has completely changed becoming the White Virgin inspired by Venus, but also Varda, Tolkien's goddess of the stars.
    [​IMG]
    But the symbols had gotten too complicated and I wanted something more primal. Then something very trivial hit me, the Libra symbol is like a 2 reflected with a line below. And even the symbol of Sagittarius, if you rotate it a few degrees and lengthen the lines, remind of a reflected 4. Then I tried to use the same principle for the rest of the number. With 5 it was pretty simple, but with 1, 3 and 6 things got complicated. A reflected 1 is very similar to an M, which is not very rare as a symbol because the zodiac also has 2 "M" symbols (Virgo and Scorpio), but I didn't want to use one letter per symbol so I went back to the initial idea of Taurus , but I changed his horns a bit to something more like a crown. For the 3 I decided to keep the symbol of the bow and arrow because if you turn it over on its side it becomes very similar to a 3. The six was the hardest to make, because it is very similar to the five and it was difficult to tell them apart. In the end I came to the union of two circles, inspired by the symbol of a fish and the letter Y (which in ancient times was also a female symbol, I will allow you a few seconds to understand why).
    [​IMG]
    Finally I was not very satisfied with the 4 and 6, so I decided to change them further
    [​IMG]
    In the second part of this discussion I will talk more deeply about the mythology of these Old Gods and how from these six symbols I created a base 6 alphabet with 24 symbols.
    I'm sorry for these rumblings. I think I need to write them down so they stop haunting me. I will use this thread to share all the extra content that does not have to do directly with the story, if someone may be interested I am happy, otherwise it doesn't matter ... sooner or later I will run out of topics to discuss and I will not disturb you anymore.
     
    • Great Post Great Post x 2
  2. Use the Falchion

    Use the Falchion Jedi Contrarian

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2015
    Posts:
    2,573
    Likes Received:
    11,264
    Trophy Points:
    90,417
    Credits:
    12,073
    Ratings:
    +12,943 / 27 / -10
    Love the work so far! Keep it up!

    Last year I created a little pitch for a sequel to a video game that I hadn't even beaten yet and was pretty luke-warm about. (I like the game for what it is, but I'm not a giant fan of it.) The pitch wasn't more than five pages. A few months ago I revisited that idea, and it's 70 pages long now with over 40 original playable characters, as well as a sequel idea, pitch, and character sheet.* Sure, that's mostly lists of information, but it's still a LOT.

    Suffice it to say, I completely understand.

    *The sequel to my main idea is FAR more contained, with only 12-15 playable characters instead of the 40+ from the first one.
     
    • Cool Cool x 1
  3. Dryden Valiance

    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2021
    Posts:
    49
    Likes Received:
    49
    Trophy Points:
    17
    Credits:
    349
    Ratings:
    +99 / 3 / -1
    This actually reminds me of another obsession I had for a project some time ago, maybe even fifteen years.
    I am also a huge fan of Marvel comics, so much so that in another forum my user was BigOneMarvelFan and for almost two years I think I worked on a Warcraft III mod with Marvel characters (there weren't many video games at the time with many different characters, it was before the MCU).

    Then while I was working on it came LEGO: MARVEL SUPERHERO which was pretty much what I was trying to do but 100 times better so I gave up. But I remember that in one of the first levels you had to save the president of the United States of America, who at the time was Barack Obama (so I think it was 2010, so technically the MCU had just started) and you could unlock a secret bonus in which the president instead of a passive NPC became a controllable Jedi with the name Obama Bara Kenobi.

    However my question was more about movie or star wars related media. I didn't thought about videogames, what videogame what is it?
    --- Double Post Merged, Jan 13, 2022, Original Post Date: Jan 13, 2022 ---
    So, I think two months are enough for the second part, but only one person showed interest in this discussion, or my fanfiction.
    So help me Use the Falchion, you're my only hope ... I mean fan... I mean ... you're my only fan so far.
    It was a little bit underwhelming at first, I would like more people have showed some form of interest, or disgust, or hate, or ... something. But I'm kinda fine now, these past holidays have been very ... weird, for the first time in my life it was quite difficult to find a reason to celebrate Christmas, the world is turned upside down and something I was hoping would last a few months or at most a year it never seems to end. Writing Star Wars fan fiction was also my way of cope, something to work on. Given my failure I had decided to let it go, people obviously don't care about my ideas and I couldn't find a reason to continue sharing, but today I said to myself: Blast it! Blast me! I'm no better than anyone else, there are hundreds of threads I don't even open. If I want to share my thoughts, do it! If someone listens, fine: if someone criticizes me, accept it! If no one opens my thread, don't be sad or upset, I've probably done the same thing to many other users on this forum and I'm probably missing out some interesting conversations in doing so.
    I will slowly try to be more active in this forum, I will finish my summaries of my fanfiction as well as this discussion and then we'll see.


    Part Two: The Old Gods
    section A: Foreword

    I have always had a strong passion for mythology, especially the Greek one. But I am fascinated by any myth and legend that hides deep meanings in simple stories. But in Star Wars the story is mostly simple, there are not many legends or mysticism, despite talking about space wizards. I dig the episodes of Clone Wars in The Ones, but there is no mythology in there, they are entities, characters, we never really understand who they really are, their powers, their motivations or their origins.

    So as I was writing the fourth trilogy, I started thinking about a Genesis for the Star Wars universe. I picked Abeloth as the main villain, so I had to write down his origins, or at least have them in mind. In the original lore Abeloth is the "mother" of Ashla (the light side) and Bogan (the dark side) who later became corrupt in an attempt to become immortal and were later imprisoned by her family. However, while I enjoyed tgat's story, I found it a bit incomplete and insufficient to meet what I wanted to aim for. So I took a step forward and wrote history from the beginning of space and time.​

    Part Two: The Old Gods
    section B: The Myth
    [​IMG]

    In the beginning there was only Shinnong, the Red One a being generated from primeval fire with six horns forming a crown. He was the first and only inhabitant of the Void. He had all the knowledge but no one to share it with. Soon I begin to feel loneliness, so from the darkness of Space she created his first child; Bosandi, a cheerful and playful dark-skinned man, with this creation the passage of time also begins. To combat boredom Bosandi invents music, games and to stay active by eating. Bowandi brings great joy and pride to his father.
    After some time driven by the success of his first creation, Shinnong decides to create two other beings, the twins Moonar (a goddess with blue skin and pointy ears) and Ermael (a man with a lion's head). They immediately turn out to be very competitive and suggest that their father subject them to strength tests to prove which of the two is the best. Shinnong thus begins to create monsters and other creatures and assists as their children fight him. Moonar develops magical abilities as Ermael becomes a formidable warrior.
    Meanwhile, Bowsandi, sidelined by his father, begins to question the beliefs of his father, who seems to create beings only for his personal enjoyment without a specific purpose. Shinnong begins to claim to be called King out of respect for the role he played in the creation of all the others, this insinuates further doubts in Bowasandi's mind leading to a confrontation with his father.
    Unpleased with his son's accusations, Shinnong is convinced to create another being: Gaiarda (a green-skinned water lily) giving her for the first time the ability to create Life, the same ability that made him superior to the rest of his family. In this way he frees himself from the responsibility of being the only creator and shows his good intentions.
    A long period of peace follows, in which the four brothers develop a strong bond, the Green Nymph creates monsters, the Blue Huntress and the Golden Warrior fight them, and Bowsandi decides the winner. Now it is Shinnong who is set aside, to attract the attention of his children he decides to work on one last project: the creation of the Perfect One, a pure and powerful being, to show everyone his superior abilities. Eventually he creates Nimowe, the White Virgin, a beautiful woman with glowing skin. Her birth brings new light into the Void with the creation of the stars, this power and beauty of her arouse the envy and jealousy of all the other gods.
    Only Bowandi recognizes Nimowe's grandeur and vows to protect her at all costs, shocked by that statement Nimowe begins to call him "His Black Knight". Over time, the other siblings accept the new arrival as well and they all seem like a happy family again.
    But this is not the case: the Red King begins to develop a morbid interest in his latest creation, the beauty of the White Virgin begins to drive him to madnessa mixture of lust, envy and jealousy begin to cloud his mind.. However, Nimowe's purity prevents him from satisfying her perverse instincts, so he elaborates a twisted plan: he convinces The Golden Warrior to rape her by telling him that for him it is the only way to create her life. In this way she hopes that after her violence Nimowe goes to take refuge with him and she can begin to seduce her.
    But when Nimowe escaped she goes to his Black Knight instead, who can't believe her words, With Moonar he immediatly goes to question the Golden Warrior. Ermael confesses that it was the Red King who convinced him and is not sorry for what he did because everything the King sayed must to be right.
    At this point start the War of Gods between Bowandi and Moonar against Shinnong and the Golden Warrior, while Gaiarda creates a refuge in which to hide her younger sister. The Red King kill his eldest son, who however, being a god, does not die completely, he resurrects with the head of a skeleton with luminous eyes.
    The war never seems to end until the Blue Huntress convinces her twin brother to rebel against their father. Ermael, Moonar and Gaiarda thus manage to trap the Red King in a prison of the void by placing the Black Knight as a guardian. The Blue Huntress and the Green Nimph follow Nimoe into the creation of a new universe. The Golden Warrior repentant for what he did goes into exile, however from that act of violence will be born Amaransta and Zukoi, the entities of the Dark Side and the Light Side. They too will rebel against her mother, leading her to madness and transforming her into the corrupt being of Azeloth (the goddess of Chaos).

    Part Two: The Old Gods
    section AYSYWCR*: The Meaning
    *Are You Sure You Want To Keep Reading?



    I wasn't sure if sharing this story, it takes a rather dark turn. Talk about sexual abuse, which for many is not a topic that should be part of the Star Wars franchise (and probably not even of this forum) and you will be right. But I'm writing a different kind of Star Wars, so I'm sorry to bother you. This story is actually based on a cruder and more realistic version of the third chapter of Genesis, the one that deals with the Original Sin. Except that instead of an apple, the forbidden fruit is a virgin (the only goddess with that name, which implies incestuous relationships among the others). But the focal point of the myth is not violence or lust, is duality and duplicity It also deals with beliefs and morality. Every god have a double meaning, they rappresent different concept there should be in antitesi but are often connected.

    [​IMG]
    The main source of the Red King is obviously Statana, he is the one who tempts man to sin. He is the god of evil ... but he also comes from God. It is God who creates the forbidden fruit, and God who creates a man capable of committing sin, from a certain point of view the main responsabile of the Original Sin is God himself: he created the man, the woman, the snake, the apple and the garden of Eden. It may seem absurd to bring together God and the Devil in the same character but it is an intrinsic paradox in the story of Genesis, if God created everything, then God also created evil.
    There are also many other references in the story, could one think of the Red God as a creator who ends up loving/hating his creation to the point of wanting to intrinsically destroy and annihilate it by depriving it of the only quality for which it is loved by others: purity.
    There are also references to fire which for many cultures represents life and the beginning of everything, our universe was born in a great explosion of fire. Fire also represents knowledge, it is what differentiates men from animals, it is the first invention of humanity. But fire is also dangerous, uncontrollable and capable of consuming everything, fire is madness (I also admit that the name "Red King" came to mind in alliteration to the character of the "Mad King" of GoT, but it is the only simile between the two).

    [​IMG]
    Bowandi is based on the Grim Reaper and many of the gods of death. However he also based on Bacchus and Zeus, two gods famous to entertain themself with the pleasures of Life. I find the relationship between life and death fascinated, because one has no meaning without the other. Death is the punished God give to Adam and Eve: before the Original Sin they were both immortal, so in the Bible from the very beginning death it's seen as a “bad” thing, and this concept influenced our modern culture. But I wanted to take a different approach for my stories,
    I specifically create this character to explain how death is seen in "my" Star Wars universe: as a natural part of life, which is what many people try to agree with but not so many truly believe. Also, death is not "permanence", the Black Knights do not die, which tries to point out that if you live a righteous life and take a stand for the right causes you will never be forgotten, he is not called a knight because he is on horseback but becaus he is the first to fight for what is right, it derives more from the idea of the chivalric code (I am also a huge fan of the Arthurian legends). Time of course is also extremely interconnected with the concept of Life and the meaning of Death, if time doesn't exits there are no reason to fear Death, but also made life futile because we will not have a past to learn from neither a future to look forward or even a present to enjoy, Time defines our existance.

    [​IMG]

    The twin gods are mostly based on Diana and Apollo, but also Ares and Venus. In the myth of Genesis they represent Adam and Eve. However, the Blue Huntress is not complicit in what Adam / Earnel does, it is not she who tempts Adam but rather she is the one who tries to make him come to his senses, and she who in a certain sense heals him. This change also reflects the decidedly distorted view that Genesis gives to the woman, portraying her as a temptress in a similar role of the snake rather than a positive character, as someone capable of giving love and trust even to those who do not deserve it. In my Star Wars universe the Blue Huntress is adored by many alien races, including for example the Nightsister of Dathomir, who are witches devoted to the Moon but also the Togorians who, despite their race look exactly like the Golden Wariior, are a race of hunters and worship Moonar. Most races in fact only recognize the Three Sisters as goddesses, while some other races pray to the Black Knight. In deliberate contrast to our culture where we have a male God and fear Death.

    [​IMG]
    The Golden Warrior is heavily inspired by the Greek hero Heracles, whom many remember for his superhuman strength (almost a superhero archetype) and for his 12 Labors, but Heracles was actually a tragic hero: his journey begins when killing his wife and children after being driven mad by Hera, it's a story of redemption, which is also what Star Wars ultimately is.
    The duality of the character lies in representing both the Hero and the Monster, the fine line between strength and violence. I understand that his actions will be perceived as off-putting to some people, but in Star Wars we also accepted that the "hero" of the film is a man who slaughters an entire village of sand people and kills a group of youngling without batting an eye. I wonder where you want to put a line, but Star Wars is already a pretty dark universe.

    [​IMG]
    Gaiarda represents Nature, who is not really a character in the book of Genesis. He represents an alternative vision to the divinity that is placed between the properly divine (the Red King) and the human (the Twin God). She has the ability to create life, but she doesn't do it out of pride or self-indulgence like Shinnong, she does it because that's what she was created for, she does it without thinking, selflessly. She is the symbol of how nature can be both beautiful and dangerous. Also, antithetical as she may seem, she also represents science and technology: she is a goddess who takes the place of God and becomes the "favorite" of humanity. Finally, her creation of monsters upon her is actually a reference to the painting "The sleep / dream of reason produces monsters" and to the conflict / relationship between reason and imagination. The Green Nymph was a negative character before the war because she just did what she was created for, after the war she started doing what she wanted by creating animals and plants instead of horrific monsters.

    [​IMG]
    And finally comes the White Virgin who is recognized as the creator of the universe. As I said before, she represents the apple itself [although the association with the apple probably derives from an alliteration between the Greek word μήλον (melon) and the Latin word mālum (male)]. Venus was often represented with an apple, in other myths apples also represent youth, health and immortality. There is also a concept of soul mates compared to the two halves of an apple. So I made the apple this kind of being perfect and pure whose brilliance gives rise to the stars. Her character is vaguely inspired by Helen of Troy: a beautiful woman who caused a war. However although I love Greek mythology I have always found it rather stupid that Elena was blamed for the war, so I wanted to make her a clear victim. But not just a victim, but someone who redefines herself and the world around her in response to what she has suffered. The war she wages actually has little to do with her, the way she chooses to overcome her abuses is literally creating a new universe by abandoning her past. Her story also tries to reflect the human condition: another punishment inflicted by God on Adam and Eve (besides mortality) is pain. Nimowe was born as a perfect being that in a sense represents ultimate happiness ... but ultimate happiness cannot exist, because life is pain (whoever says otherwise is selling something), we cannot ignore this reality. There will be people or events that hurt you along the way, some maliciously and other times just out of survival instinct. Even the perfect being can be downcast, it could be corrupted. But life also goes on, evolves, changes. The pursuit of happiness is a legitimate journey, but you should be prepared to accept the hurt and pain, because otherwise you're gone go crazy. That doesn't mean that evil or violence are inevitable, it's a prayer of hope for the ones that has suffered and feels mistreats and despair. Time will you help, but you need to act, you need to change the world around you, and you can even if you are not perfect.


    Tune up next Century for the alphabet and numeric system.
    I will also talk about my version of the lightsaber colours and the 7 styles of combat,
    and finally(?) my version of Sabacc inspired by the Tarot.
    May the stars guide you*!
    Sorry...
    May the force be with you!
    *you can't understand this reference until I'll talk about my version of Solo, it's just an inside joke beetween me and... me

     
    • Great Post Great Post x 1
  4. cawatrooper

    cawatrooper Dungeon Master

    Joined:
    Nov 14, 2016
    Posts:
    4,817
    Likes Received:
    21,974
    Trophy Points:
    149,167
    Credits:
    19,944
    Ratings:
    +26,699 / 65 / -37

    Also reminds me a bit of gnosticism, particularly the entity of Yaldabaoth/the Demiurge. Could be an interesting thing for you to look into, if you're not already familiar with it.
     
    • Like Like x 2
    • Informative Informative x 1
  5. Dryden Valiance

    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2021
    Posts:
    49
    Likes Received:
    49
    Trophy Points:
    17
    Credits:
    349
    Ratings:
    +99 / 3 / -1
    I didn't know that entity in particular, but it's very interesting, thanks.
    It is also curious that in Gnosticism the Demiurge is the creator of the material world and is therefore seen as evil, while God is the creator of the spirit world and is seen as good. In my view it is almost the opposite, the Red King is the creator of the gods, these spiritual and immortal beings and turns out to be sadistic and selfish, while The White Virgin creates the universe, the material world and is seen as good. It is a further example of how many religions pay more attention to worshiping a "fantastic" and otherworldly dimension rather than thinking and being grateful for the life we have on Earth. A thought that Bo Burh made very explanatory in the lyrics:
     
    • Like Like x 1
  6. Dryden Valiance

    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2021
    Posts:
    49
    Likes Received:
    49
    Trophy Points:
    17
    Credits:
    349
    Ratings:
    +99 / 3 / -1
    Disclaimer: The insane stupidity of a self-proclaimed genius
    Truth be told: just about everithing in this discussion is completely useless, but when I started my project I thought they were absolute brilliant ideas, I was excited to create a new universe with his own mythology, language and rules. Later I realized most of this stuff I was never been able to use in history, I spend at least two weeks creating my version of the BASIC language before realizing that I will never use it into the script.
    I arrogantly presumed to be able to be the new Tolkien, thus to create a proper universe I should have taken care of every aspect of it. There are many other examples of people who have spend time to create a made-up-language. For example, Star Trek created the Klingon that many learn and speak. Disney invented the atlantidean for their 2001's movie and those on HBO spend time to invent the Dothraki, which not even G.R.R. Martin thought of doing (wisely). So I didn't believe that creating a language was so absurd but now I'm sure it was an enormous waste of time.
    During the process I learn a valuable lesson: despite all the problems I have with this franchise, despite how some not-exhaustively-explained aspects get under my skin. George Lucas made the right call focusing on the most important parts of the story (at least in the original trilogy, in the prequels he got entangled in trying to explain how the SW policy worked) because if he focused in exploring every little aspect of the SVU would go crazy as happened to me.



    Part 24: The Cardinal Alphabet

    As you all know everything started with Han's dice. I wanted give those symbol a meaning and I came up with the idea of the Old Gods, but they were dice in the first place, so those symbol should have some relation with the numbers.
    Since the gods were 6 and no more the initial idea was to create a numberal system based 6. The senary is very unique and interesting, has a high degree of mathematical properties for its size. It also has a simple way of counting fingers, each hand has six unambiguous positions (if we start to count with a fist) which is very relevant for his origin. You see... if each number is a god, 0 (a fist) rappresent the Red King (the origin of everithing) and each finger reppresent his sons. So I was quite happy with this idea.
    Then things get more complicated. I studied the Aurebesh alphabet
    [​IMG]
    It oddly contains 34 different symbols, including some common digraphs like /CH/ /SH/ /OO/ which make sense only for an English-based language. I didn't want to embrace this overcomplicated (oh ... the irony!) and narrow concept,
    Since I had adopted a different numerical system I could also create a new alphabet, a simpler one.
    I had wasted so many energies to come up with of the symbols for the numbers, so much so then I didn't want to look for others. Six symbols, however, were not enough to create a realistic alphabet, I needed at least twenty-ish. My passion for mathematics help me again: several logical symbols, for example, are nothing but turned letters, especially A and E. Why create 20 new different symbols when I could simply flip the six that I had already?
    So I rotated the six symbols in the four cardinal point. The numeric system has become based-24 where each symbol represents not only a number but also a letter (In order to identify the symbols are always written underlined).
    [​IMG]
    I still had a minor problem, the Latin alphabet (the most common) has 26 letters. I was short of 2 letters, 2 frigging letters ... to solve the problem I had to changes a simple and almost ingenious idea in a mashing mess.
    I decided to combine two symbols together for the letter X (pronounced as "ks") would have been K + S and for the letter W (double-u) would be V + U (in Latin V and U were the same letter)
    [​IMG]
    But at this point I could not create these combined-symbols only for 2 letters, I had to create it for all possible combinations otherwise it wouldn't make sense (right?).
    I started with 6 symboli/numbers, then I had to multiply them for 4 to create an alphabet, and then I decided to combine them again: obtaining 6x4x6=144 different symbols to make this nightmarish abomination of an actual font:
    [​IMG]
    The alphabet was no longer as simple as I wanted, however it gave me the oppurtunity to incorporate another concept: the symbols are no longer simple letters but moreso have become logograms, each of which represents a word or morpheme, sometimes with mutiple meanings. I combine the Western alphabet with the Chinese writing, in a confusing but still "Basic" language.​

    Create time for wasting time

    After I finally landed on the 24 numbers I noticed a curious coincidence: 24 are the conventional hours of a day.
    So I decided to waste a lot more time in exploring the concept of Time in my Star Wars Universe.
    In fact in our time numbering we use many multiples of 6: 1 minute is formed of 60 seconds, 1 hour of 60 minutes, 1 day of 24 hours, 1 year of 12 months.
    However, in our system there are some inconsistencies: the week is made up of 7 days, while the months have a non-specific number of weeks. This is due to the fact that we measure time not following a mathematical order but based on the motion of our planet around its axis and around the sun.

    [​IMG]
    But in a galactic numbering system it would not make sense to measure time based on the motion of a single planet because for each planet the cycle of days and seasons are completely different. So I studied the measurement system adopted in the Star Wars universe.
    In fact the SW calendar is more regular than ours, having months made up of exactly 7 weeks, and weeks made up of 5 days.
    However, as regards the years, it made a stranger decision: since it is made up of 10 regular months plus 18 days of holidays ... the holidays are not part of the months, it is as if at Christmas December ends and an extra month begins until New Year's Eve, it is extremely weird. I know that I have invented a lot of weird stuff too, but it drives me crazy the idea that they corrected the inaccuracies in our calendar, creating a month with a whole number of weeks and a fixed number of days and then added these 18 days. it is completely absurd, my OCD cannot tolerate that!​
    [​IMG]
    I had to put my insane passion for symmetry in place and fix the issue. I reschedule the Calendar using only multiple of 6 or 24. then I wanted to implement my concept of the gods in categorizing days and years. So I added a new category: cycles.​
    [​IMG]
    In this way, every day of the week, every month and every year corresponds to one of the six gods (in naming the days I used the "Five Phases" of the Chinese Tradition with the Four Elements, in the Week I mixed the Western Zodiac with the Chinese one, while only the years have a specific correlation with the Six Gods).​
    [​IMG]
    So if in our world you could be a Capricorn or a "Snake", in my Star Wars universe you can be a Green Water Lion. Some of my characters use their "astological sign" as battle-names or epithets, such as the White Tiger (my version of Darth Maul), the Golden Eagle (Han Solo), the Golden Dragon (my version of Kid-Adi-Mundi) and the Green Dragon ( my version of Sharad Hett)
    You can actually calculate your zodiac sygn using this tab as example:​
    [​IMG]
    The year 1977 corresponds to year 0 of the Star Wars universe because it is the release year of the first film. While in my version it corresponds to the year 1037 because I decided to date the calendar from the founding year of the galactic republic (although canonically the modern Galactic Republic was formed in 1032 BBY), it seemed strange to me that the people of Star Wars would date their own calendar based on the destruction of the Death Star, and as if we had dated our calendar based on the Hiroshima bomb. It's a weird date to start your history.
    By the way, I'm a White Hawk ... if I didn't miscalculate using my own tab.

    Extra Content

    The number 24 is also related to a famous Star Wars game, the Sabacc, where the value of the cards varies from 0 to 23. But I came to this relation after inventing my own version of the game.
    Writing my version of SOLO I wanted to add a scene where the characters explain the sabacc rules because I felt in the original was a big missed opportunity to show that it is a real game that everyone can play (mostly based on Blackjack using cards inspired by the Tarots). I liked the concept of having cards with negative or positive values, but I found the numbering of the "special" cards a little arbitrary. So I made some changes on my own.
    As with the original Sabacc I used the tarot as a starting point. The deck composed of 76 cards: 40 positive cards of 4 suits (cups, stars, swords and wands) ranging from one to 10, however the ace can be worth both 1 and 11 (as for poker cards); two pairs of 12 negative cards from 0 to -11; 2 sabacc swift (which force all players to discard their hand and redraw).
    In the first part of the game each player is dealt 2 cards, then take turns drawing a card, trading a card, or
    standing. Afterwards a betting round proceeds where players can call, raise, and bluff. The aim of the game is to get closer to the absolute value of 23 (with a maximum of 3 cards) without exceeding the value. The highest point (Pure Sabacc) is made up of 3 aces (11 + 11 + 1) since it is the only way to have 3 identical cards (although with different value) as for the original game it is beaten only by the Idiot’s Array composed of 0, 2 and 3 (a literally 023).
    Instead of the Sabacc Swift card you can roll the dice at the end of each turn and if you roll a double a Sabacc Swift occurs.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

     
Loading...

Share This Page