Does anybody have an idea of what the modron language sounds like? I'm tossing around the idea for a fiction and would like to know. Is it canonized anywhere, or is it all just speculation?
I've always pictured modrons communicating like R2D2? Does anybody have any ideas?
Now that I think about it, maybe they sound like the adults from Charlie Brown. You know, that low-pitched humming sound.
Modrons communicate between each other by telepathy, as far as I remember, so the fitting description might be that of psionic components.
I currently DM an introductory planescape travel (they just go from town to town and do some minor adventures) but I'm a lazy bastard so we just did two sessions this year 
. Anyway, one of the players is a modron wizard and he stated that modrons should definitely speak Lobian - human language created for communication with computers. Look it up on google if you're really that interested in it
the 3.0 manual of the planes web enhancment for the modrons says they talk in "thier own precise, mathematical language." but what they would use it for is beyond me. and as is well known, 3rd edition didnt exactly do any favors in portraying the modrons. and it seems theyve all but disappeared in 3.5.
let X equal the modron language
let Y equal accuracy
X = Y
therefore the conclusion can be drawn that the modron language is accurate. and mathimatical
tell this to a modron:
X=0 Y=0
so X=Y
and so we can assume: 1(X+Y) = 2(X+Y)
1(X+Y)=2(X+Y)/(X+Y) =
1=2
I've always pictured modrons communicating like R2D2? Does anybody have any ideas?
Yep, we have them sound like R2D2 
R2D2 is like the first modron
I like Zzyx's point. Normal human languages are fraught with inconsistencies and vagueness of meaning. The modron tongue would probably resemble the language of symbolic logic.
[x][Sx ( Ex]
Read, "For all things, if any thing is a Slaad then it is also the enemy."
Meaning every Slaad is the enemy.
Thus, there is no problem understanding someone. When someone tells you something there is no interpretation. Their meaning is explicit and unmisunderstandable. Unless, of course, you don't have a complete grasp of the modron language in which case misunderstandings are easy as the language is very complex.
Now, in terms of sound the language could be anything. It could incorporate psionic and auditory communication as well as differently pitched beeps, grunts, clicks, whistles, words, or numbers. I'd really have it as a series of undecipherable clicks and beeps (yes, very much like R2-D2).
Good try, though.
Secondary Assertion: All variables are known. Meaning of your statement is 0=0. Boolean indication of truth is confirmed. Division by zero error occurs post conveyance of meaning.
Like a vastly more complicated form of Lojban/Loglan.
Only problem being, these languages are actually very easy to learn. The Modron version would have to be incredibly complicated to justify the Intelligence requirement for non-Modrons... perhaps a massive (and mandatory) system of case markers and additional descriptors for predicates? (For instance, imposing time-space-gender identification on all predicates, including seperate affixes for "unknown", "undefined", "unimportant", "inapplicable", "variable" and so on.
You're all a bunch of nerds with this math stuff. Wait, aren't we all nerds for even contemplating the mathematical language of a non-existant race on a plane of pure law? 
I don't think modrons would use binary. It is too inefficient. We use it IRL in computers because we have not yet evolved an efficient way to do discreet tertiary encoding and transmitting using mechanical/electrical devices. (Wow that was a lot of big words for not saying much.) Plus, modrons have the different levels of complexity (monodrone, etc.)
*MY* theory is that it doesn't matter what it sounds like so long as the meaning is represented in mathematics, the "universal" language. So one modron using chirps and beeps might be understood by another that is using harmonic frequencies, and vice versa. To the non-mathematical, it might sound random or different.
Think about language-independant telepathy. It must use some underlying, innate or universal "language" to get the meaning across.
Heh... a thought just popped into my head... what if telepathy is really using mathematics? That means that the chaotic tanar'ri that use telepathy are actually using uber-lawful mathematics to communicate. Suckers!! :twisted:
Heh... a thought just popped into my head... what if telepathy is really using mathematics? That means that the chaotic tanar'ri that use telepathy are actually using uber-lawful mathematics to communicate. Suckers!! :twisted:
LOL thats actually really close to the jist of chaos theory. A seemily logical system built on Chaos that abides by though unpredictable logical systematic rules.
Heck, I think Shemmie's done an experiement that effectively used DNA, enzymes and a testtube to make a calculation. I'll have to ask him bout that... I may have misheard him.
Well, of course, if this is modrons we're talking about duodrones probably speak in binary, tridrones speak in tertiary, and quadrones use quadary; all the way up to decatons with their base-ten language.
It should be like Orwellian Newspeak, but in the ultimate edition, after all the revisions they intend to make, as someone else suggested in the thread. It fits the role perfectly: a way of speaking that is so precise that there is always exactly one way to interpret and to express any concept and the exact meaning is always known, down to the precise degree. If it could just be based less on Common (English). But the Party had the same intentions that the modrons would want: every person will think one way because everyone's language will have only the vocabulary to express one way of thought. Ambiguous terms and synonyms are eliminated (e.g. "massive" is eliminated because it could refer to mass or to size. Instead, one uses "doubleplusbig.") They could have their own words, rather than use Common, but then you wouldn't get the effect because it would be incomprehensible noise anyway.
I don't like them speaking in algebra or in binary or in droid-speak. Modrons aren't robots and they're not calculators, and making them such is terribly anachronistic. They may be lawful, but binary coding and computers simply don't exist. I was even sort of bothered by Nordom's dialogue in Torment (as funny as he was) because even a rogue modron doesn't talk like a computer with a virus.
I would say their language would be like the Datpaklakpak of Star Control Three. Basically, its the traditional
(function in setence): (statement)
using Newspeak for the statments (I haven't read Orwells, and I'm going by what was said in previous posts on this)
So a sentence would sound something like this:
Statment: Doubleplusbig non-organised hostile force of Slaad primary composition approaching. Observation: Subject: hostile force rout, Indirect-rout North East, plus variable erratic. Query: Recipient: Hierarch, what response?
The Planescape Monstrous Supplement declared that "Modrons speak their own precise, mathematical language".
This suggests to me that it's like Newspeak in reverse - that is, limiting words in a way that maximises expressive capabilities, without compromising accuracy or unnecessarily multiplying vocabulary.
Such a language would have as few words as possible, and combine them in ways which, while possibly complex, are completely unambiguous. Where possible (or practical), words would be capable of some kind of overloading - that is, a word has different meanings in different problem domains - frex, scalars multiply differently to matrices, and again differently to creatures.
I hadn't thought of that, but it'd be beautiful for nouns - both because it'd baffle others, and because Modrons could probably parse it easily.
Since I don't, however, like the idea of having to wait an hour for a verb, I imagine that the grammar would probably be something fairly clean - maybe like that of Classical Latin.
*COUGH* Clean? Latin?!?! *Clean*?! *brain spazzes - mutters something about subjunctive and 4th declension nouns - dies*
Note also the 'fairly'.
Besides, I much prefer the subjunctive to nightmarish constructions featuring Konjunktiv II mixed with anything else you can get your hands on. The optative (and, for that matter, aorist) are just plain scary, too.
And let us just carefully ignore English grammar.
English grammar = Sladdi grammar...
On the other hand and this is going to sound *right* wierd... Klingon is a *remarkably* organized language. Admittedly this is probably because it was deliberately constructed instead of evolving over time under the influence of real like - but the language is *very* well done.
Klingon, eh? I'm almost tempted to dig out my Klingon dictionary...
except that it's in an exceptionally heavy box of books, under two more exceptionally heavy boxes of books, amid many other rather weighty boxes.
Have you ever read Cicero? Against Cataline gave me fits, with all the complex subclauses and using the wrong verb as the main verb. I'd say that it'd have to have ancient Greek in the mix of the how to look at it... the aorist and optative are annoying from a modern perspective, but they make sense from a certain way of looking at things. You wouldn't want to use greek word order, or all those $#%^ participles...
The greek vocab would make sense if there was more ways of distinguishing the different word meanings. Maybe some kind of inflection changes, or pitch changes. Ausic is mathematical- it makes some sense.
Marcus was just a pain like that. His letters are horrid - some Latin here, some Greek here, and here's a fun word from the provinces. :roll:
Some bits are reasonable... except that they can recurse. 'The beautiful horse of the village's messenger' can be truly frightening all by itself.
There is a *reason* I like Caesar. The man was military and he *wrote* like it too - none of this fancy crud - straight out said what he was gonna say and that was that. I went from Caesar's Gallic Wars to Cicero's Against Catiline and it just about killed me...
B.Civ is a bit whiny, though. Maybe Iulius had his priest hat on that day - it certainly fits with claiming to see Apollo jump over the Rubicon.
Well yeah. But there's also the deer with backwards knees. I'm gonna vote for the influence of too much beer, women, and men.
From Modrons to beer, women and men. I think this thread's been officially derailed.
Opps?
*returns thread to tracks*
How would Modron grammar work, though? Pure-positional? Inflected?
Inflected - ending upon ending upone ending I'd say. On the *other* hand... now *here's* an idea for you. Tonal. Math is the basis for music, and by extension a tonal language...
Or inflections and tones, for redundancy or for more expressive power.
Is it then possible that as a Modron is promoted, it gains more control over its voice and speech? That would help explain why higher-caste modrons are better at speaking Planar Trade, and why modrons of different castes seem so very alien if the language progressively changes and is only understood at all levels by Primus.
Is it then possible that as a Modron is promoted, it gains more control over its voice and speech? That would help explain why higher-caste modrons are better at speaking Planar Trade, and why modrons of different castes seem so very alien if the language progressively changes and is only understood at all levels by Primus.
I could definitely see tones and harmonics playing into it. Someone had mentioned "waiting for an hour for a noun". Harmonics could add another dimension (or multiple), therefore increase the "bandwidth" of communication.
Now I've got the idea of modrons sounding like my old dialup modem.
Another simplified example to see if I understand this concept correctly... the modron word for tiefling might be "tHem" and the modron word for aasimar might be "thEm". A monodrone would just hear "them" and not understand that there's a difference.
Or, there's a dozen different meanings in New York for "Forget about it.", but a Floridian wouldn't be able to appreciate the difference.
That's the use of inflection... considering you can get so many meanings (at least in english) out of a single word just by inflection.
That's not *quite* the same as a tonal language which uses the pitches you speak in to denote meaning. By tone I'm not talking like tone of voice - I'm talking the music *note*. I've heard someone, if I'm recalling the conversation right, once explain that 'ma', 'ma' and 'ma' in Chinese spoken in different tones, ended up meaning 'mother', 'horse', and something else that I cannot for the life of me recall, based on tone. It wasn't just inflection - it was a fully gramatical and dictionary change in the meaning.
And for that very reason it seems like, each time a Modron's promoted, it should learn how to speak with a new note or notes; as the complexity of a modrons role increases, so too does the complexity of what it can express. Each unit's expressive power is a superset of its subordinates, and a subset of its superiors, ensuring that the flow of information is incredibly efficient.
Imagine the Modron word for Tiefer/Aasimar is planetouched, and can refer to the state of being planetouched or to planetouched individuals. A base Modron might not need to know there's a difference - planetouched are planetouched, and that's all. A higher-ranking Modron, however, might know that a note adjusted upwards means Aasimar and downwards means Tiefer. An even higher-ranked Modron might know that how far the note is adjusted depends on how strongly the subject's celestial or fiendish traits express. Lastly, higher Modrons yet may be able to use multiple notes for the same word; a high and a low note simultaneously may indicate planetouched with both celestial and fiendish traits.
A monodrone need only use a single tone, while Primus could be capable of six or more octaves; indeed, sensates might go to regulus just to listen to hierarch modrons talking.
Higher levels potentially have more vocal cords to be able to produce simultanious notes?
That's a pretty reasonable explanation, methinks.
And then Primus could confuse non-Modrons by giving directives for all modrons as compact strings of highly-expressive chords.
There should be very few words in the language ("words" includes tones, harmonics, etc.) You combine them in specific order to make them, so you end up making little codes. For example, the name for the Abyss would be something like "planeouterchaosevil". There is only one way to say it, though, because there is only one way to describe each aspect of it. There is no other need, because every modron shares one way of thinking.
Modrons are creatures of pure law; 'Good' and 'evil', to most Modrons, should be an absolutely alien concept.
'Planelowerunordered' seems a little more fitting; prefixes and suffixes indicate word form, while tone for 'plane' could indicate region and tone for 'unordered' indicates degree. This is overloading all over again.
A base Modron without the needed tonal capacity probably doesn't even need to know that the Abyss exists. While there's still only one way of describing aspects of the plane, those same aspects can be used for other objects.
Word order probably shouldn't be fixed, either - 'planelowerunordered' and 'unorderedlowerplane' should be equivalent, since all Modrons should understand that (a + b) + c = a + (b + c).
In a world like Planescape, where good and evil have physical forms, a modron should understand what they are, if not what they mean. A modron should know (at least a heirarch modron) that the difference between a celestial and a fiend is that one is a good exemplar and the other is an evil exemplar. The real meaning of "good" and "evil" are still lost, because compassion or contempt for others have no meaning to a creature who does not recognize the individual. A modron should be able to tell you that certain planes have an overriding evil quality, and others have an overriding good quality, and so on. If you asked a modron what the qualities of a fiend are, it could probably recite a list of criteria or parameters of behavior, but it wouldn't understand why these irrational creatures were so self-directed.
Hmm...this gets me thinking what do the big froggies speak?
Answer:
Foucot, Deridah ect. Death of the author, and words mean exactly what they mean at the time.
IN other words. Slaad language is all of the above. What the slaadi observe is part of what the world is saying to the slaadi. Surprisingly or not, this often means that in slaadi the phrase "Please oh gods! NO! Don't eat me!...." translates to "Hello, I'm bob. My favorite color is blue. Please eat my face."
Answer:
Foucot, Deridah ect. Death of the author, and words mean exactly what they mean at the time.
IN other words. Slaad language is all of the above. What the slaadi observe is part of what the world is saying to the slaadi. Surprisingly or not, this often means that in slaadi the phrase "Please oh gods! NO! Don't eat me!...." translates to "Hello, I'm bob. My favorite color is blue. Please eat my face."
EDIT: But of course that's the topic for another thread.
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I've always pictured modrons communicating like R2D2? Does anybody have any ideas?
Clicks and whirrs from their clockwork should punctuate their speech, as might the hiss and puff of steam.
I can also see them speaking to one another in Binary. Which might be what R2D2 is doing, come to think of it, but Modrons wouldn't sound so electronic - they represent an earlier order of technology.
They could also speak in Orwell's Newspeak, accompanied by HTML tags when appropriate. What was that I just said about an earlier order of technology? I'm weak.
I think they might sound like someone speaking inside a tin bucket.