Jeerio Trise to Finds a Job

[Neek]

I just got done reading this story, and quite frankly, I'm in love with the story. I'm also amazed of your writing talent at 11 (considering, as you said, you changed only a small amount. Or was there was a greater editing job?) Do you intend on continuing with Jeerio's adventures? Or perhaps doing new illustrations?

Though, I've just a question: can Flaids naturally speak with animals, or cam animals naturaly speak, or perhaps is it that animals only talk to Flaids (or Flaids can only understand animals, which goes back to #1).

[dunomapuka]

I love it too. I was particularly amused by the idea of 'businesschildren.'

And modern Flora just has to include chillee plants.

[Drydic]

Zomp. mind if I borrow Arlemange of the Burning Mesa of the Barbarian Plains as the father of the dragons in my world?

Anyway, is the Burning Mesa of the Barbarian Plains equal to any actual place on Almea?

[Warmaster]

I must aplaud you on your 11 year old drawing skills. the later two large picutres, (with the maichmadder and the one at the end with the sword) are so adorably cute that it's almost unbearable. i think you have made me like the flaids this time around.

[Warmaster]

i just noticed the pure zompist humour here, with this line:

"I suppose I really should finish this story up and let Jeerio have a job. You all probably want to read something else"

Pure class, you had the skill even back then, pure class

[Aidan]

"I date back to St. George's poodle."

[Glenn]

I just got done reading this story, and quite frankly, I'm in love with the story. I'm also amazed of your writing talent at 11 (considering, as you said, you changed only a small amount. Or was there was a greater editing job?)

Actually, I think most of the editing was to remove Earthly and other non-Almean references; in the excerpt from the original text given on the Secret History of Almea page, Jeerio is interested in "Alchemy and Logarithms, and Kerguelen Island and Piggy Banks", and he and Twain set out "on the evening of the anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare," which was changed to "the evening before the Birthday of the Former King," matching the history of Flora mentioned in a previous thread (Flora was once a monarchy and became a republic, although the royal family continued to live on as more-or-less ordinary citizens).

Mark also mentioned (commenting on the Flaidish grammar) that in the encounter with the dragon Carnivorous Unanimous, the line "...not to let a flaid, human, iliu, or even an Ant to cross!" originally had "elf" for "iliu". (There is still a line about "Dwarfs", which can be (re-)interpreted as referring to the elcari.) I'm sure there are other touches as well...

(Kerguelen Island, incidentally, is located in the southern Indian Ocean, midway between Africa, Australia, and Antarctica. I'd never heard of it before, but I was inspired by Mark's story to track it down in the atlas last year. )

p@,
Glenn

[DF]

Hmmm...interesting.

[Aurora Rossa]

His name sounds rather English-like.

[Glenn]

His name sounds rather English-like.

Not that surprising, when you think about it--Mark was only 11 years old, after all, and with little thought of his future world-creation as yet...

(Indeed, I doubt that the words "conworld" or "conlang" even existed in c. 1970.)

My own first fantasy story (one of my few), written around 1979 when I was eight, does not necessarily have "Englishy" names as such, but it does have names blatantly borrowed from the books and movies I liked at the time (primarily The Dark Crystal).

p@,
Glenn

[Aidan]

His name sounds rather English-like.

Not that surprising, when you think about it--Mark was only 11 years old, after all

Also, Flaidish is intended to sound English-like

[Flaidish] is not a particularly alien language-- indeed, having experienced something very like the Great Vowel Shift, its orthography and phonology strongly reminiscent of English-- but it has some unusual features:

* Pronouns are not differentiated by sex, but by age: there is a separate, simpler set of pronouns for children.
* The unmarked form of the verb is the simple past tense.
* There is no definite article; rather, definiteness of the object is marked on the verb.
* Exchangeable nouns must be counted using measure words.

Which are certainly non-trivial differences. Perhaps subtler than is the fashion among younger generations of conlagers, but not trivial.

[zompist]

(Kerguelen Island, incidentally, is located in the southern Indian Ocean, midway between Africa, Australia, and Antarctica. I'd never heard of it before, but I was inspired by Mark's story to track it down in the atlas last year. )

Your remarks about the editing are on target-- though I also edited out a few lines that seemed a little too pointless or meandering.

Did you discover the interesting fact about Kerguelen Island, the one that made me remember it when I was a kid? It's something very striking, which you might discover if you spent a few minutes with a globe...

[zompist]

Zomp. mind if I borrow Arlemange of the Burning Mesa of the Barbarian Plains as the father of the dragons in my world?

Heh, I guess not.

Anyway, is the Burning Mesa of the Barbarian Plains equal to any actual place on Almea?

Sure, though I have no information on it beyond that. (The connection here is that Almean dragons were originally a legend of the Horselords of the Barbarian Plain.)

As for Nikolai's questions, I don't have any current projects involving Jeerio, but I've always liked him and might come back to him someday.

About the talking animals-- well, I don't know. On the conworlding level, animals don't talk on Almea. But obviously they do in the Jeerio story. I hate to invent metaliterary levels, such as saying that this story is fictional to the Almeans as well; I don't consider Jeerio to be any less real than Abend (hero of one of the stories I'm working on now), or Beretos. Ask me again in ten years; maybe I'll have a better answer.

[Mecislau]

Did you discover the interesting fact about Kerguelen Island, the one that made me remember it when I was a kid? It's something very striking, which you might discover if you spent a few minutes with a globe...

Heh, this was actually something that interested me around that same age.

The Kerguelen Islands, as well as Heard and McDonald Island, are the highest peaks of mountains from an ancient continent, which has been given that same name, which "sunk" several million years ago. Look on an undersea map of the world/Indian Ocean and you will see the Kerguelen Plateau, which was the original "ground" on the continent.

Speaking of which, does anyone know *how* it sunk? I've been looking for this for a while, and haven't found anything. And I don't think it's typical for a landmass semi-in-the-middle-of a plate to just sink like that.

[con quesa]

Dang, I wish I could write that well now, let alone when I was 11!

[Mecislau]

Forgot some other borrowings from Metroid:

fenand?-cold, from Metroid Prime's Phendrana Drifts
mawrei-ball, the name of the upgrade that lets Samus turn into a little ball is called the Mari Mari.

Erm, wrong topic?

[con quesa]

Erm, wrong topic?

Yep. I thought I edited it quickly enough, but you were quicker! The correct post is there now.

[zompist]

Did you discover the interesting fact about Kerguelen Island, the one that made me remember it when I was a kid? It's something very striking, which you might discover if you spent a few minutes with a globe...

Heh, this was actually something that interested me around that same age.

The Kerguelen Islands, as well as Heard and McDonald Island, are the highest peaks of mountains from an ancient continent, which has been given that same name, which "sunk" several million years ago. Look on an undersea map of the world/Indian Ocean and you will see the Kerguelen Plateau, which was the original "ground" on the continent.

Heh, I shouldn't have implied that there was just one interesting fact about Kerguelen Island. Mine was that it's one of the few specks of land at the opposite side of the earth from the US.

[Mecislau]

Did you discover the interesting fact about Kerguelen Island, the one that made me remember it when I was a kid? It's something very striking, which you might discover if you spent a few minutes with a globe...

Heh, this was actually something that interested me around that same age.

The Kerguelen Islands, as well as Heard and McDonald Island, are the highest peaks of mountains from an ancient continent, which has been given that same name, which "sunk" several million years ago. Look on an undersea map of the world/Indian Ocean and you will see the Kerguelen Plateau, which was the original "ground" on the continent.

Heh, I shouldn't have implied that there was just one interesting fact about Kerguelen Island. Mine was that it's one of the few specks of land at the opposite side of the earth from the US.

Oh.

Just like me to go for the over-complicated side of it...

[Aidan]

The Kerguelen Islands, as well as Heard and McDonald Island, are the highest peaks of mountains from an ancient continent, which has been given that same name, which "sunk" several million years ago. Look on an undersea map of the world/Indian Ocean and you will see the Kerguelen Plateau, which was the original "ground" on the continent.

Speaking of which, does anyone know *how* it sunk? I've been looking for this for a while, and haven't found anything. And I don't think it's typical for a landmass semi-in-the-middle-of a plate to just sink like that.

Never heard of it before, but looked around a bit. Didn't find any definitive answers, but

Surprising evidence recovered on Leg 183 revealed that the Kerguelen plateau had existed as a large landmass above sea level at three different times during an 80-million year period, before finally become submerged about 20 million years ago.

link

putting that together with the geologic history of the general region, I'd say it's more accurate to call it a oceanic plateau, uplifted by the processes pushing apart the major pieces of Gondwana, that has emerged several times when sea-levels dropped; rather than calling it a continent that sunk.

The Iredjolsith on Sedes is a very similar phenomena, except that it hasn't been re-submerged yet.

[Aidan]

Heh, I shouldn't have implied that there was just one interesting fact about Kerguelen Island. Mine was that it's one of the few specks of land at the opposite side of the earth from the US.

Sorry to rain on the parade again, but I'm getting coordiantes for Kerguelen island of 49 21 S, 70 12 E. That puts it opposite 49 21 N, 109 78 E. Which is just over the US-Canadian border, which, west of the Lake of the Woods, is defined as the 49? N.

[Mecislau]

The Kerguelen Islands, as well as Heard and McDonald Island, are the highest peaks of mountains from an ancient continent, which has been given that same name, which "sunk" several million years ago. Look on an undersea map of the world/Indian Ocean and you will see the Kerguelen Plateau, which was the original "ground" on the continent.

Speaking of which, does anyone know *how* it sunk? I've been looking for this for a while, and haven't found anything. And I don't think it's typical for a landmass semi-in-the-middle-of a plate to just sink like that.

Never heard of it before, but looked around a bit. Didn't find any definitive answers, but

Surprising evidence recovered on Leg 183 revealed that the Kerguelen plateau had existed as a large landmass above sea level at three different times during an 80-million year period, before finally become submerged about 20 million years ago.

link

putting that together with the geologic history of the general region, I'd say it's more accurate to call it a oceanic plateau, uplifted by the processes pushing apart the major pieces of Gondwana, that has emerged several times when sea-levels dropped; rather than calling it a continent that sunk.

The Iredjolsith on Sedes is a very similar phenomena, except that it hasn't been re-submerged yet.

Well, I don't know, but in a map in a book on Earth's geologic history that I have, it shows the Kerguelen Landmass as existing well after the breakup of Gondwana. Besides, wasn't the geography of the Earth fairly similar to it's current state ~20mya?

[Aidan]

putting that together with the geologic history of the general region, I'd say it's more accurate to call it a oceanic plateau, uplifted by the processes pushing apart the major pieces of Gondwana, that has emerged several times when sea-levels dropped; rather than calling it a continent that sunk.

Well, I don't know, but in a map in a book on Earth's geologic history that I have, it shows the Kerguelen Landmass as existing well after the breakup of Gondwana. Besides, wasn't the geography of the Earth fairly similar to it's current state ~20mya?

But the process of the pieces of Gondwana being pushed apart continues even today.

[zompist]

Heh, I shouldn't have implied that there was just one interesting fact about Kerguelen Island. Mine was that it's one of the few specks of land at the opposite side of the earth from the US.

Sorry to rain on the parade again, but I'm getting coordiantes for Kerguelen island of 49 21 S, 70 12 E. That puts it opposite 49 21 N, 109 78 E. Which is just over the US-Canadian border, which, west of the Lake of the Woods, is defined as the 49? N.

It's not a mathematical point, dude! The island extends over more than a degree of longitude, and some of it does extend above 49? S. If I'm wrangling my atlas correctly, it's opposite a small bit of Montana.

[Aidan]

It's not a mathematical point, dude! The island extends over more than a degree of longitude, and some of it does extend above 49? S. If I'm wrangling my atlas correctly, it's opposite a small bit of Montana.

Yeah, I know it's not. I guess I misestimated how much distance 12min of latitude was compared to the size of the island.