[13:30:46] Temporal: you need energy
[13:31:00] Temporal: but that's beside the point
[13:31:17] Dev: Well, if we want to talk about the language, we can talk about the grammar, which I wrote about a looong time ago.
[13:31:37] Dev: And like I said then, the symbols on the pyramid would represent special verbs.
[13:31:56] Captain Vimes: What if you said "I think bacon is not delicious"? Would it change you so that you wouldn't like bacon?
[13:32:17] Dev: "Think" probably isn't in the vocabulary.
[13:32:43] Captain Vimes: Ah.
[13:32:52] Temporal: erm
[13:32:59] Temporal: but the main problem there is that it only responds to commands
[13:33:48] Dev: How is that a problem?
[13:34:19] Captain Vimes: Should the vocabulary be unable to support anything other than imperative forms of speech.
[13:34:25] Temporal: Vimes' sentence wasn't a command
[13:34:43] Dev: It wasn't grammatically correct, either.
[13:34:56] Temporal: how so?
[13:35:15] Dev: The period should have been either a question mark or a comma followed by an assertion.
[13:35:43] Temporal: ...
[13:35:46] Temporal: not that sentence
[13:36:00] Dev: Oh. "I think bacon is not delicious."
[13:36:05] Temporal: right
[13:36:38] Temporal: but, yeah, I guess it would make sense that the language is an imperative language
[13:36:49] Temporal: ... like C!
[13:37:04] Dev: .... so you wouldn't be able to say that in ... eumonish?
[13:37:22] Temporal: right
[13:37:27] Temporal: because you're not expressing a command
[13:38:11] Dev: Right.
[13:38:39] Dev: In a way, the pyramid is arbitrary, because it's only representing those words that the players will use.
[13:38:46] Dev: Plus a few extra, I guess.
[13:38:58] Dev: But the entire lexicon might be enormous.
[13:39:13] Captain Vimes: Because it's supposed to underpin the entire universe.
[13:39:47] Dev: Erm .... only in the way that EM radiation underpins our universe. :P
[13:39:53] Temporal: so why are these on a pyramid, anyway?
[13:40:17] Temporal: eumonetic energy powers life in the FoI universe
[13:40:24] Dev: If we wanted to be picky about it, I guess it should be on a cone. :P
[13:40:36] Temporal: that dosen't answer my question. :P
[13:41:20] Dev: To help the player visualize the relationship between certain eumonetic actions and energy requirements.
[13:41:25] Dev: And elemental affinity.
[13:41:37] Captain Vimes: So to use the verbs near the top would require more energy, right?
[13:41:42] Dev: Right.
[13:42:01] Temporal: ok, so, the pyramid doesn't appear in the game world?
[13:42:28] Dev: Not that we've ever said .... but now that I think about it ... maybe that's what Rheya should find outside Io in part IV.
[13:42:38] Dev: In the secret stash, when they learn about Expel.
[13:43:45] Temporal: ok, why does it exist in the game world?
[13:43:58] Temporal: who created this pyramid and for what purpose?
[13:44:15] Dev: The Antarean scholar would have been carving it himself, to create a physical copy of the lexicon.
[13:44:40] Dev: Maybe he thought Proteans and all eumonetic organisms should have access to it, instead of it remaining entrenched in Antarean culture.
[13:45:26] Temporal: why would he carve specifically these symbols into this pyramid?
[13:45:36] Temporal: when the vocabulary is really much larger
[13:45:44] Dev: What do you mean by "these" symbols? The ones I've drawn.
[13:46:00] Dev: Er... question mark?
[13:46:13] Captain Vimes: Maybe because they're all he knows.
[13:46:46] Dev: Nnn, I really meant he'd be carving the entire vocabulary onto a huge underground pyramid. I kind of like the visual, in fact.
[13:47:06] Temporal: ok, so... not like the one you drew?
[13:47:09] Dev: But that pyramid wouldn't be anything like the one the player has access to, which is entirely a contrivance.
[13:47:10] Dev: Right.
[13:47:17] Temporal: I see
[13:47:53] Dev: Theoretically, Rheya could spend days and days learning everything he's carved (it need not be complete), but the party's kind of in a hurry to stop Kydran at that point.
[13:48:06] Temporal: though, no antarean would willingly give this knowledge to the proteans... doing so would give the proteans ultimate power
[13:48:29] Dev: Not the Proteans of Io.
[13:48:43] Temporal: err
[13:49:14] Dev: So I guess it wasn't a universal thing. He was just doing it for the town. :P
[13:49:39] Dev: It's not like you could move a big landmark like that, anyway.
[13:50:06] Temporal: ... don't you think he'd be worried about it falling into the wrong hands?
[13:50:50] Dev: Sure. That's why he locked it away in an impenetrable underground chasm. :P
[13:51:10] Captain Vimes: That means he'd just be crazy. :p
[13:51:36] Dev: We don't really have any other mad scientists in the story, it's true. We need this one.
[13:51:36] Temporal: that doesn't make any sense
[13:51:52] Temporal: Myriel?
[13:51:57] Temporal: did I spell that wrong?
[13:51:59] Temporal: that looks totally wrong
[13:52:01] Dev: Miriel.
[13:52:04] Temporal: durr
[13:52:17] Dev: I guess she is a little psychotic, hrmm.
[13:53:16] Dev: Ah.
[13:53:23] Captain Vimes: "I have all the information in the world inscribed on a pyramid inside a gigantic cavern impenetratable except for some convoluted puzzle ! Nyhe he hur!"
[13:53:34] Dev: Perhaps he wasn't going to make it public until he found a way to perform Expel.
[13:55:03] Dev: And if he made notes about those plans, that would explain how Rheya finds it so quickly.
[13:56:17] Temporal: this is all over my head since I haven't read that part. -_-
[13:56:58] Dev: I thought it was the Part III revision you hadn't read. -_-
[13:57:51] Temporal: I haven't read part III or IV
[13:57:57] Dev: =____=
[13:57:59] Captain Vimes: Hey, I was wondering, is it possible to charge eumonetic ore with your life? I'm thinking no, (due to the sudden economics of a genocide) but it's still a point, seeing that there must be a way that energy got into the stones in the first place.
[13:58:01] Dev docked Temporal 1 point.
[13:58:09] Temporal awarded Temporal 1 point.
[13:58:21] Dev: Uh.... yeah, that's how they get charged in the first place.
[13:58:29] Dev: Remember, eumonetic energy is life energy.
[13:58:44] Temporal: yeah, that's the only way to charge it
[13:58:56] Dev: Wellll, we had a few other random ideas. :P
[13:59:59] Temporal: well, you can suck it from other people's lives, if they're willing
[14:00:06] Dev: But that's dangerous.
[14:00:09] Temporal: right
[14:00:15] Dev: As Kydran learned the hard way.
[14:00:31] Captain Vimes: Okay then.
[14:01:31] Temporal: remember that HP and MP are the same thing in FoI
[14:01:48] Dev: Kind of.
[14:01:58] Temporal: kind of?
[14:02:02] Temporal: there's only one gauge
[14:02:11] Dev: If you think of MP as being in the eumonite, then no.
[14:02:34] Temporal: the HP is in the eumonite as well
[14:02:37] Temporal: because they're the SAME THING
[14:03:13] Temporal: Rheya could continuously take damage and draw energy from eumonite to heal herself, for example