The Lojban Online Game World
What do most people think of when they think of languages? Nations. Ordinarily, learning a second language is done to live, work, or vacation in another country. I proposed to the Logical Language Group that we officially sanction an online game to serve as an imaginary internet nation where Lojban is spoken. It appears at this point that it will take place in a text-based online game, which is in development now.
Those who make a nominal donation to the LLG would be mailed a naturalization certificate. No proficiency in Lojban would be necessary for citizenship. It is permissable to be a citizen without visiting the nation or participating in play.
Citizenship confers access to the online game. Every characteristic of the nation, including its name, its flag, its physical characteristics, its travelogue and its mythos, is intended to be determined by the discussion and voting of the players. For lack of an official name, I'm temporarily calling it "xartum", meaning "imaginary nation."
Originally xartum is a hump of sand only large enough to hold the founding citizens. There is a small fire, but other than that there is no light and no breeze. The hill of sand rises out of a body of water which stretches into a pure, starless, and unreflective darkness to an unknown size. It might be outdoors or indoors.
Legend has it that Lojban is the language of an ancient civilization that uploaded themselves into computers and sleep solipsistically beneath the sea. They created a logical language that hacks into root access in the fabric of reality... the kind of language which you could speak to a genie without fear of being misinterpreted...
Is that the true backstory, or is it just legend? Is it magic? Is it (as Arthur C. Clarke once said) technology sufficiently advanced that it is indistinguishable from magic? That's up to the game process to decide. A player character has the power to summon a command prompt in midair and type Lojban into it. Create a description in Lojban of a building / species of animal / acre of landscape / non-player character who lives there, and it will come to pass. Someone who knows Perl will receive the request and implement it in the interactive text adventure game world. In cases of spells contradicting each other, majority or precedence wins.
Although you do not have to speak Lojban to adventure in the land as it forms out of the nothingness around us, all spells must be cast in correct Lojban. The ancient Precursors (or whatever power makes manifest our descriptions of xartum) respond to no other.
What will happen first? Will a stone collosus, graven with the architectural features of ziggurat temples, rise from the water and begin laying down mountain ranges and forests? Or will four white walls and a white roof appear, with glowing letters reading in Lojban, "Welcome to the Singularity. Please avoid requests that cause paradox. Thank you and have a nice eternity. -- The Management."
Comments
rachelann1977 on Dec. 27, 2005 2:03 PM
This would be a great way to get more people interested in Lojban. I would learn Lojban to play this game, and I'm pretty sure Chuck would, too. Great idea!
matt-arnold on Dec. 27, 2005 7:15 PM
Thanks! Would you really? That's cool! You can read more about the game software development here:
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=The%20Lojban%20MOO
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