dicking around with some more concepts while waiting for New Horizons AOS...
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SITE DESIGNATION: TANIS (continued)
(...) The chamber's contents can be organized into three broad groups. The first are the shields. There are 60 shields total, running along the walls between the entrance and the far side of the chamber, 30 to a side. The shields are all roughly 60cm across and are a variety of different shapes. Each one has an emblem, apparently composed of an enamel compound and protected from the elements by a thin layer of material similar to handwaved plexiglass. The emblems are again all different, though they appear to use the same form of script alibeit heavily stylized.
**HYPOTHESES: Right now we don't know what there are supposed to be or what they mean, exactly. Based on the effort the builders went to to make sure they survived intact, they put some import into them clearly. They could be the equivalent of flags or religious symbols, or advertising slogans for all we know.
Translation of the shields may be possible. The script in a very weird coincidence resembles tengwar(*) but without a syllabry or omnilingual translation is going to be a tough row to hoe. The stylization in each shield doesn't help either: imagine trying to translate the most impenetrable cursive script without knowing what each letter is supposed to look like. **
The second major discovery in the chamber is the plaque, or the stone map as the field team named it. The plaque is a slab of Valinorian basalt roughly 5m * 5m * 6cm mounted against the far wall of the chamber. It's inscribed with icons and glyphs resembling the Pioneer plaque, in that it seems to describe a way to set up a crude system of mathematics in order to provide context to the rest of the message. The rest of the message appears to be using astronomical guideposts to pinpoint five separate locations.
The third discovery is the holographic map. Activated when the field team first breached the chamber, the map is generated from projectors in the chamber roof and we believe controlled by a computer system safely buried under the floor. The map fills most of the chamber when activated, allowing researchers to walk into it and examine parts close-up. The control computer apparently maintains a near-real-time update of the map, based on checking known star locations in navigational databases against their locations in the map.
Multiple stars on the map have been marked out with specific icons of (as yet) unknown meaning.
**HYPOTHESES: The stone map is so much like the Pioneer plaque it could've come from Carl Sagan's team. It uses science to try and bridge an uncrossable cultural gap. It doesn't have any real information on the builders' species for whatever reason, but the intent seems pretty clear. The holographic map is far more complex and detailed but it seems to follow the same intent.
Our working hypothesis--which bears out through some hasty experimentation by the field team--is that the maps are supposed to lead to the same end for two different types of cultures. The holomap only activates when handwavium is present inside the map room, or at least when we clear all our gear out it shuts down, and sending in a "clean" researcher with strictly non-waved gear didn't reactivate it. If a spacefaring culture that didn't use handwavium came to Tanis, they'd find the stone map which (in theory) could be translated to show the five locations the builders thought were important. One of them is Zeta 1, we're pretty sure, since it's the zero point of the holomap. Whereas we, with our handwavium-based technology, get more information. Why precisely, we don't know. Yet.
Of interest, we think that the four non-Zeta 1 locations on the stone map are marked on the holomap with a specific icon. Checking against our maps, one of those icons rests on Sol's location. The implications are pretty heavy, but further data is required. **
((Note added x/x/20xx: "I think I've seen this movie. It didn't end well. --Mgt."))
(*) Note for deep archive: contact T. Estate for a records trawl. Probably jumping @ shadows but worth checking out to debunk for the tinfoil brigade.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
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SITE DESIGNATION: TANIS (continued)
(...) The chamber's contents can be organized into three broad groups. The first are the shields. There are 60 shields total, running along the walls between the entrance and the far side of the chamber, 30 to a side. The shields are all roughly 60cm across and are a variety of different shapes. Each one has an emblem, apparently composed of an enamel compound and protected from the elements by a thin layer of material similar to handwaved plexiglass. The emblems are again all different, though they appear to use the same form of script alibeit heavily stylized.
**HYPOTHESES: Right now we don't know what there are supposed to be or what they mean, exactly. Based on the effort the builders went to to make sure they survived intact, they put some import into them clearly. They could be the equivalent of flags or religious symbols, or advertising slogans for all we know.
Translation of the shields may be possible. The script in a very weird coincidence resembles tengwar(*) but without a syllabry or omnilingual translation is going to be a tough row to hoe. The stylization in each shield doesn't help either: imagine trying to translate the most impenetrable cursive script without knowing what each letter is supposed to look like. **
The second major discovery in the chamber is the plaque, or the stone map as the field team named it. The plaque is a slab of Valinorian basalt roughly 5m * 5m * 6cm mounted against the far wall of the chamber. It's inscribed with icons and glyphs resembling the Pioneer plaque, in that it seems to describe a way to set up a crude system of mathematics in order to provide context to the rest of the message. The rest of the message appears to be using astronomical guideposts to pinpoint five separate locations.
The third discovery is the holographic map. Activated when the field team first breached the chamber, the map is generated from projectors in the chamber roof and we believe controlled by a computer system safely buried under the floor. The map fills most of the chamber when activated, allowing researchers to walk into it and examine parts close-up. The control computer apparently maintains a near-real-time update of the map, based on checking known star locations in navigational databases against their locations in the map.
Multiple stars on the map have been marked out with specific icons of (as yet) unknown meaning.
**HYPOTHESES: The stone map is so much like the Pioneer plaque it could've come from Carl Sagan's team. It uses science to try and bridge an uncrossable cultural gap. It doesn't have any real information on the builders' species for whatever reason, but the intent seems pretty clear. The holographic map is far more complex and detailed but it seems to follow the same intent.
Our working hypothesis--which bears out through some hasty experimentation by the field team--is that the maps are supposed to lead to the same end for two different types of cultures. The holomap only activates when handwavium is present inside the map room, or at least when we clear all our gear out it shuts down, and sending in a "clean" researcher with strictly non-waved gear didn't reactivate it. If a spacefaring culture that didn't use handwavium came to Tanis, they'd find the stone map which (in theory) could be translated to show the five locations the builders thought were important. One of them is Zeta 1, we're pretty sure, since it's the zero point of the holomap. Whereas we, with our handwavium-based technology, get more information. Why precisely, we don't know. Yet.
Of interest, we think that the four non-Zeta 1 locations on the stone map are marked on the holomap with a specific icon. Checking against our maps, one of those icons rests on Sol's location. The implications are pretty heavy, but further data is required. **
((Note added x/x/20xx: "I think I've seen this movie. It didn't end well. --Mgt."))
(*) Note for deep archive: contact T. Estate for a records trawl. Probably jumping @ shadows but worth checking out to debunk for the tinfoil brigade.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"