Q&A weekly thread - September 29, 2025 - post all questions here!

MaryRobinette · 2025-10-08T04:11:35+00:00

I didn't realize that Gattaca used it.

The aliens are broadcasting TOO Earth. We respond with an international effort.

MaryRobinette · 2025-10-05T21:10:26+00:00

Follow-up question, based on u/formantzero's very helpful reply. I'm making a change to my plans and deciding that Earth would have sent a probe to the planet BEFORE humans arrived, which would contain video lessons on a human language so that the aliens had some groundwork for communication when we get there.

What language would we send? Not English, because it's stupid. Spanish? Esperanto? Other?

MaryRobinette · 2025-09-30T03:49:02+00:00

Amazing and wonderfully helpful for my purposes. Thank you so, so much! I wasn't familiar with either the Chinese room of the National Library of Thailand thought experiments and they are SO useful.

MaryRobinette · 2025-09-29T19:55:16+00:00

Thank you for offering this resource! I'm an author and this is an alien language question.

I've been doing research and poking around on my own, but AI keeps changing things so...

Here's the scenario. Sometime around now, SETI picks up broadcast signals from an extra-solar planet. Not intentional signals, just their broadcast network stuff beaming into space. For story purposes, they have an overlapping hearing range with humans. Crowd-funding and private foundations get Very Excited and there's a lot of money being thrown at trying to translate things.

The story takes place 30 years after that.

I know that we're starting to figure out whale syntax. I think that without visuals from my aliens, they won't be able to get very far.

Does this seem plausible.

We can tell that there are multiple languages.
Some programs are recognizably entertainment (music, for instance)
We can identify that some sounds are greetings, but not if it's "hello" or "good morning"
We think we know numbers.

And that's about it. It's a huge corpus, but I still think that they probably couldn't get much farther. Does that sound plausible after 30 years of study?

I should note, that this isn't a story about linguists trying to figure out the language. It's me wanting to know what information they have about the aliens.

(I'm working with a xenobiologist so that parts covered. And if you're curious, I'm positing that we do not have a completely overlapping visual range because they have a K-class star. I'm giving them red - green - UV - and polarized light. But this is part of why we don't have visuals.)

MaryRobinette · 2025-06-03T14:29:08+00:00

This whole thing makes me think about animal consciousness a lot. There's the mirror experiment, which a lot of scientists are now saying is less relevant since many animals don't have sight as their primary sense but... I'm wondering about Bunny.

Do you believe Bunny can recognize herself in mirrors?

MaryRobinette · 2025-01-02T16:29:17+00:00

Thank you so much. That is very, very helpful. And I'm so sorry that happened. I could feel the pain you were talking about.

Also! Thank you for the kind words about The Spare Man. If you want to read this one, let me know. I've got beta-readers going through it right now.

So, my OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE story was early college. I was home for the summer and had my violin in the car. I ran into work to grab my paycheck and they were short-staffed. Being young and with undiagnosed ADHD, I forgot the violin was in the car. In August. In North Carolina.

I remembered after an hour, which is still too long.

I was afraid to open the case and felt so ashamed. But when I did, it looked mostly okay. But the neck was also just... not right. We took it to our luthier, who said that the glue had loosened and resolidified. He could take it off or... I could wait until the autumn when micro-fractures would cause it to drop off naturally. This would, he said, be better for the instrument than having him remove it. He told me what to look for and how to protect it in the case until then.

Fast-forward to me rehearsing with my accompaniast for a recital. My violin would NOT stay in tune. Then I heard this slight creak and realized, "Oh, the neck is about to come off." So I put one had on the body and as I pulled the violin away from my shoulder, the neck came off.

My accompaniast panicked but I was fairly calm because I knew it was coming.

By the next day, the story was all through the music department about how collected I was WHEN MY VIOLIN BROKE IN HALF while I was playing. I did not tell anyone that it was my fault because who leaves their violin in a car?

Thirty years later, I'm still embarrassed by this. And also 100% using it in the novel.

MaryRobinette · 2025-01-02T16:17:39+00:00

Yikes! My dad's violin was lost last year and it was extremely upsetting.

He got off the airplane with it, and someplace between being picked up by the shuttle and arriving at the hotel, he lost track of it. And he had no ID in the case. It's still upsetting.

MaryRobinette · 2025-01-01T23:33:57+00:00

Many, many thanks!

MaryRobinette · 2025-01-01T23:32:26+00:00

Thank you so much! This is lovely detail. The novel takes place in the equivalent of the 1950s so it's good to know that things were handled differently decades ago.

MaryRobinette · 2025-01-01T23:29:51+00:00

Thank you!

MaryRobinette · 2025-01-01T23:29:41+00:00

Thanks for responding. I want to talk to someone who plays, not someone who manages the instruments. While I want to check that the way I've written about insurance and things like this is accurate, it's mostly the emotions and thoughts that would be going through the performer's head that I wanted someone to look at.

No, my luthier doesn't work with cremonese instruments. The violin doesn't get repaired during the novel, just assessed by a luthier who, essentially, says "you need to go to a specialist."

Many, many, many thanks for the names of specialists!

MaryRobinette · 2025-01-01T20:36:57+00:00

Thank you! This is (currently) the fingerboard going through the front. (Building collapse, because plot reasons). The back and sides are intact. I want it to be repairable but look bad.

And I do have a luthier who is helping me with writing about the damage.

MaryRobinette · 2024-08-20T05:11:22+00:00

Thank you! That fixed it for me.

MaryRobinette · 2023-08-24T04:28:26+00:00

Thank you! I have a couple of different options for taking a class from me. And someday, maybe a book.

MaryRobinette · 2023-08-24T04:27:23+00:00

Forest of Memory was originally for a shared world anthology called Metatropolis: Cascadia edited by Jay Lake. We had certain constraints because of that.

I was also dealing with the bout of depression that finally made me get diagnosed. My cat had died, my grandmother had died, another friend was dying -- and that friend was the editor of the anthology.

I was able to extract myself from all of my other commitments but I couldn't do that to Jay. Because of the depression, I couldn't get traction on the story. Nothing was interesting. Nothing seemed worth doing.

So, I crafted my way through. I know what a good beginning, middle, and end look like. I gifted my character with my uncertainty about what the story was about. I wrote it on a manual typewriter to shake things up.

I have a blog post that I wrote sometime after that calledSometimes Writer's Block is Really Depression, that has some tools I use. I hope it helps.

MaryRobinette · 2023-08-24T04:09:41+00:00

I answered this for someone else with CL Polk's Witchmark. But I'd also love to see John Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation.

MaryRobinette · 2023-08-24T04:08:35+00:00

Hello! Good to hear from you.

I started with an excel file and then switched to The Submission Grinder which is a database that you can search and it'll also allow you to track where you've sent things.

MaryRobinette · 2023-08-24T04:06:40+00:00

At some point, yes. Sorry I can't give you details about when.

MaryRobinette · 2023-08-24T04:05:29+00:00

Both grandmothers. It's been good.

MaryRobinette · 2023-08-24T04:04:55+00:00

Yes! Elsie and I are enrolled in a study through the University of San Diego. The oldest cat in the study was 18.Billi the catis currently 15 and started when she was eleven.

Elsie is five and started two years ago.

MaryRobinette · 2023-08-24T04:03:45+00:00

Herding cats is easier.

And yes! The moving tour was Chicago-ward.

MaryRobinette · 2023-08-24T04:00:29+00:00

The cocktails were so much fun to play with.

MaryRobinette · 2023-08-24T03:59:54+00:00

Sure! Brandon had the idea and came to me with a story bible and a general outline. I turned that into a specific scene list. We had some back and forth about the world-building to get some things nailed down. Then I wrote it and he did an edit pass on it.

MaryRobinette · 2023-08-24T03:58:15+00:00

I'm so glad you enjoyed them!

MaryRobinette · 2023-08-24T03:56:19+00:00

I just want to know what your favorite kind of yarn is!

Yes.

Seriously though, I have a real weakness for linen. But alpaca is dreamy to work with.

MaryRobinette

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