u/gs_batta

Hi all, I am a newcomer on this sub, so I hope this post is fitting. I have a sci-fi setting I have been developing for the last six years, and I have about 150 pages of story written up for it as well (there will be more). It is not nearly perfect, but will it ever be? I finally decided it is ready enough to be shown to the world, even if it has its imperfections still. I got to the point now where I feel somewhat ready to put it "out there". First I thought about Wattpad, I made a very similar post in their sub, but they pointed me here, saying Royal Road may fit my story better.

The story is a reasonably hard sci-fi, with relatively little real action or fighting, if any. There are absolutely zero truly supernatural elements involved, but there are many characters claiming otherwise - to be gods or to wield supernatural might. The plot mainly focuses on the characters themselves, everyday life, the world, and their interactions and relationships, along with some philosophy here and there. It is mainly written as the MC's memoirs, as she remembers the events much later on. There are also some other chapters from other characters' PoV-s, and even surrealistic vision sequences and poems, featuring dream gods and supreme beings.

It is mainly set on the low-gravity moon of Demet, seat of the eponymous Realm. inhabited by the Demeti, highly advanced and somewhat evolved humans, different and foreign from those my MC, or we readers, know. They live in vast, three-dimensional underground cities, and their society is one founded on spiritualism, traditions and ceremony. (Space elves, yes, I know.) The MC is from the world of Pamar, a less advanced (near-future sci-fi) world Demet has been overseeing as a protectorate. She is one of the first people from her world allowed to go to Demet, and is tasked with documenting and understanding it as well as possible, as a sociologist. Being quite skeptical about the differences between their worlds, she does her best to prove to herself and the Demeti that her world, Pamar, is not to be overlooked, that its "primitive" values still hold up and are respectable. Demet, in turn, is trying to prove her, and through her, to Pamar, that it is their outlook on the world that is better.

Eventually she is sent to the court of the living god worshipped by Demet, An Neriur, as an attendant. Thereafter, the story focuses on the new perspectives she gains while there, along with the different ways her environment changes her, and she changes it in turn. Themes of what it means to be a god, what the optimal way for society to exist, and similar, are also explored.

I know it sounds quite dry, I promise it actually is more enjoyable than it seems, at least according to my beta readers I've had. Do you think this could go on Royal Road? Would there be anyone interested in this story? Feel free to ask any questions as well if you have them, I'll be glad to answer.

First of all, I am a newcomer on this sub, I hope this post is fitting. I have a sci-fi setting I have been developing for the last six years, and I have about 150 pages of story written up for it as well. It is not nearly perfect, but will it ever be? I finally decided it is ready enough to be shown to the world, even if it has its imperfections still, and some friends pointed me to Wattpad. I do not know Wattpad, AO3 or any other similar site personally, so I decided to ask here, whether I should try publishing it to Wattpad or somewhere else, or not at all for now.

The story is a reasonably hard sci-fi, with relatively little real action or fighting, if any. There are absolutely zero truly supernatural elements involved, but there are many characters claiming otherwise. The plot mainly focuses on the characters themselves, everyday life and their interactions and relationships, along with some philosophy here and there. It is mainly written as the MC's memoirs, as she remembers the events much later on. There are also some other chapters from other characters' PoV-s, and even surrealistic vision sequences and poems, featuring dream gods and supreme beings.

It is mainly set on the low-gravity moon of Demet, seat of the eponymous Realm. inhabited by the Demeti, highly advanced and somewhat evolved humans, different and foreign from those my MC, or we readers, know. They live in vast, three-dimensional underground cities, and their society is one founded on values of beauty, elegance and ceremony. (Space elves, yes, I know.) The MC is from the world of Pamar, a less advanced (near-future sci-fi) world Demet has been overseeing as a protectorate. She is one of the first people from her world allowed to go to Demet, and is tasked with documenting and understanding it as well as possible, as a sociologist. Being quite skeptical about the differences between their worlds, she does her best to prove to herself and the Demeti that her world, Pamar, is not to be overlooked, that its "primitive" values still hold up and are respectable. Demet, in turn, is trying to prove her, and through her, to Pamar, that their outlook on the world is better.

Eventually she is sent to the court of the living god worshipped by Demet, An Neriur, as an attendant. Thereafter, the story focuses on the new perspectives she gains while there, along with the different ways her environment changes her, and she, changes it in turn. Themes of what it means to be a god, what the optimal way for society to exist, and similar, are also explored.

I know it sounds quite dry, I promise it actually is more enjoyable than it seems, at least according to my beta readers I've had. Do you think this could go on Wattpad? Would there be anyone interested in this story? Feel free to ask any questions as well if you have them, I'll be glad to answer

https://preview.redd.it/ek95gf92ffdh1.png?width=674&format=png&auto=webp&s=2b685ef358391a1ecec7abca1f5877478efe1fe9

This is the current Slovak Cyrillic conorthography I have been developing and consistently using for the last 6 years as a hobby, and as a way to make note-taking less boring. I can read and write this as easily as normal Latin Slovak.

Goals and principles

My first goal and principle was to map the existing Slovak language, as it is, onto the Cyrillic script. This meant I couldn’t take away any feature that is already in the language or its orthography (like the i-y duo). Everything represented in the Latin Slovak orthography is also present here. The system is intended to be fully reversible: every text written in this Cyrillic orthography can be converted back into standard Latin Slovak.

My second goal was to make the script as understandable and logical to users as possible (using advice from some dyslexic friends and learners of Slovak), so that, insofar as it was possible, everything would be read just as written. This means I added some rules to represent linguistic phenomena and pronunciation rules that are not visible in the Latin orthography.

Vowels

Standard vowels a, á, ä, e, é, i, í, o, ó, u, ú, y, ý map onto their counterparts as shown in the chart. Each of them, except for ä and y ý, has a specific iotated version, so the standard Cyrillic vowels а, а́, е, е́, э, и, и́, о, о́, у, у́, ы, ы́ are never pronounced iotated, not even at the beginning of words.

Iotated vowels: Я, я́, є, є́, ё, ї, i̋, ю, ю́, if not preceded by Cyrillic і, represent the common j+vowel clusters, such as ja (I) – я, je (is) – є. However, they are only used for native words, not foreign ones. Therefore: Jozef – Йозеф, but bojovať (to fight) – боёвать: native Slovak j+o sequences use ё, while foreign words retain йо. This makes ї quite uncommon, ё and i̋ show up essentially only in conjugated forms (such as krajín (gentive plural of krajina, country) – краi̋н) and since long ó only occurs in loanwords, a theoretical long iotated o (e̋, perhaps) is impossible.

ІЯ ІЄ ІЮ: Slovak also has so-called dvojhlásky, diphthongs, namely ia, ie, iu and ô. Ia, ie and iu are transcribed as shown. The special Cyrillic letters і and ў never represent an independent vowel, instead, they mark the weak i and u element of the Slovak diphthongs. In all cases, grammatically, the diphthongs function as a single long vowel, they form a single syllable. There are, however, situations where the i sound may be followed by a, e or u without turning into a diphthong, usually in foreign or compound words. In those cases, иа, ие, иу is written. There are also words, e.g. kopija – spear, where there is a full ja group, in its own syllable no less, following i, this word would thus be represented as копия.

ЎО: Ô is represented as ўо, to better show its phonetic value of [ʊɔ] or [wɔ]. Since there are a few words beginning with ô (most notably ôsmy – eighth), this is the only situation where ў can naturally stand at the beginning of a word and be capitalised in normal writing.

ОЎ and others: There are also not commonly discussed diphthongs, usually created during conjugation, where the vowel u, usually following another vowel (most commonly o, less commonly a (auto (car) - аўто), even more rarely other vowels), transforms into something resembling a weak [w]. (E.g. veľkou slávou (with/by great glory) - велькоў сла́воў.) These diphthongs function identically to those discussed above.

Sample text 1, the lyrics of the song Slovensko moje, otčina moja

Словенско моє, отчина моя, кра́сна си ако рай.

На твоїх голіях на́дгеры тро́нія, в у́доли́ шуми́ га́й.

На твоїх поліях си спієвалъи, отцовія наших працовалъи.

Словенско моє, отчина моя, кра́сна си ако рай.

Ей, ма́м отчину в свете єдину́, кде радостне са гра́м.

Ту́ си милуєм, єй штьастіє праєм а срдце своє да́м.

Ту шумія горы а потокы, Ва́г спієва кра́сне им до ноты.

Ей, ма́м отчину в свете єдину́, кде радостне са гра́м.

Consonants

Most of the consonants of the Slovak Latin alphabet map directly to their Cyrillic counterparts.

ДЬ ТЬ НЬ ЛЬ Exceptions are the “soft” consonants ď, ť, ň, ľ, which I kept as digraphs with ь acting as the “soft sign”. The consonants d, t, n, l are also automatically palatalised, “softened” in Slovak when followed by e, é, i, í, or the diphthongs ia, ie, iu, thus creating the same sound as ď, ť, ň, ľ. Due to how common this is, this change is not represented by the Latin soft sign (a diacritic) in writing, and I kept this feature in my orthography. (Deti – children becomes simply дети, despite both d and t being palatalised.) If I represented ď, ť, ň, ľ using unique letters, it would cause unpleasantries (consider for example meď (copper) – medený (made of copper): it is nicer to have медь - медены́ than a theoretical pair like меџ – медены́ where I use џ for ď).

ВЬ You may also note the cluster вь, which has no equivalent in Latin Slovak. This represents cases where the consonant v, most often following o at the end of words, makes a weak [w] sound. This sound value is the same as the one of ў, they are distinguished only for etymological and grammatical reasons, in particular for distinguishing the distinct endings -ov (genitive plural masculine) and -ou (instrumental singular feminine), which are pronounced the same way but mean different things. Only rarely does вь appear elsewhere than at the end of words, and never at the beginning.

Ъ As mentioned, the automatic palatalisation of d, t, n, l described above is not marked in standard Slovak, since it happens most of the time. However, there are some (or in the case of l, many) words where this expected palatalisation does not occur. These are mostly foreign words, but there are some native cases as well. This is not marked in any way in Latin Slovak, and can cause confusion for learners or people with dyslexia and for learners. I therefore use ъ after the consonant in question to mark the automatic palatalisation not occurring.

ДЗ ДЖ Dz and dž remain as digraphs дз, дж, since they are relatively rarely used in the language, were historically (before the orthographic reform of 1953) not considered unique letters, and I wanted to keep the alphabet as short and simple as possible.

When writing in cursive, for consonants with acute accents, like л́, I tend to use the grave accent instead, to bring attention to the fact that it is a consonant, and to avoid potential confusion with и́ or even a theoretical í. To distinguish the cursive form of ґ from ч, I also tend to mark ґ with a grave accent.

Sample text 2, from the Slovak Wikipedia page on Slovakia:

Словенско, длгы́ твар Словенска́ републъика, є вну́троземскы́ шта́т в Еўро́пе. Ма́ розлогу 49 036 километровь штворцовы́х а около 5,4 милъио́на обывательовь. На североза́паде граничи́ с Ческом, на югоза́паде с Раку́ском, на севере с Польском, на вы́ходе с Україноў а на юго с Мадьарском. Країна є преважне горната́, вэчшину поврху забераю́ высочины. Зо северу сем з могутнъе́го облу́ка засагую́ Карпаты, на югу са розпрестієра Пано́нска панва. Главны́м а найвэчши́м местом є Братислава, у́радны́м языком є словенчина.

З околъиты́х шта́товь ма́ Словенско певнъе́ звэзкы предовшеткы́м с Ческом, затіяль чо предты́м конфлъиктнъе́ взтьагы с Мадьарском са в последнъей добе злъепшилъи. На Словенску тактієж жиє мадьарска́, руси́нска а ро́мска меншина. Словенско ма́ богату́ култу́рну традъи́циу, ако и множство при́родны́х а гисторицкы́х паміяток.

In an older version of the orthography, I used a “hard” i and e for situations where d, t, n, l are not palatalised. I used Cyrillic і and э for this purpose. Э was still used for representing ä as well, and і for the vowel digraphs, so in some situations, Cyrillic і hardened the preceding d, t, n, l, in others, when in a digraph, it softened them. I thought this would defeat the purpose of the orthography (being as intuitive as possible), so I changed it to the current system which uses ъ, even if, in my opinion, the older system was more elegant. Ъ was used only in extremely rare cases when a digraph did not palatalise the preceding consonant (essentially the only example of this I ever found was tie – those, written as тъіє). Below is a comparison of the current (upper text) and older (lower text) solutions.

Словенско є парламентна́ републъика, преснейшіє парламентно-президъентска́ републъика. В господа́рстве са вызначує модъернъизованы́м пріємыслом а розви́яю́цим са сектором служієб, кторы́ преважує в подієлъе так грубе́го дома́цего продукту, ако ай працовнъей силы. Доправна́ инфраштрукту́ра є взгльадом на ґеоґрафицкы́ профил країны редшіє розложена́, но в су́часности доха́дза к єй розши́енію а модъерниза́ции.

Словенско є парламентна́ републіка, преснейшіє парламентно-президэнтска́ републіка. В господа́рстве са вызначує модэрнізованы́м пріємыслом а розви́яю́цим са сектором служієб, кторы́ преважує в подієлэ так грубе́го дома́цего продукту, ако ай працовнэй силы. Доправна́ инфраштрукту́ра є взгльадом на ґеоґрафицкы́ профил країны редшіє розложена́, но в су́часности доха́дза к єй розши́енію а модэрниза́ции.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask, or if you'd like to see a particular sample text transcribed, I can do that too. Also I apologise if sometimes the terminology is imprecise, I never studied linguistics, all that I wrote is based on observations and needs for improvement that arose during use.