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Alien language -- one for all you geeks

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H-Hour:
Does anyone have any objections if I use the attached image as the general style for an "alien alphabet"? It would be used in the alien base map, maybe in screens on UFOs, etc., if I ever get around to it. I just want some symbols I can throw up on things and came up with this real quick.

Am I stepping on any known sci-fi cliches I should avoid?

morse:

--- Quote from: H-Hour on November 17, 2010, 05:54:56 pm ---Am I stepping on any known sci-fi cliches I should avoid?

--- End quote ---

Hardly. Most of the people won't be surprised even if all alien captions would be in english, so they don't pay much attention to what alphabet it's written in.
On the other hand, if you want this to be "hard scifi", you should thing about poor aliens who will be forced to read these symbols. I mean, before making pictograms just as creepy as possible, remember that their main purposes is to be distinguishable from each other and to be easy to draw by hand (or whatever limbs these aliens have).
We, of cause, have some hard-to-draw alphabets ourself (chinese for example), but the most common is a way more simple latin. And if at some point our spaceships will fly into space to conquer other planets, it's captions will be undoubtedly in latin.

Hertzila:
I'm not sure if this link will be of any use but here goes.

Also, this might not have anything to do with the designs but remember that they should be readable in the infrared spectrum too since one of the aliens use it.

geever:

--- Quote from: H-Hour on November 17, 2010, 05:54:56 pm ---Does anyone have any objections if I use the attached image as the general style for an "alien alphabet"?

--- End quote ---

Have you seen this? http://ufoai.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=ufoai/ufoai;a=blob;f=base/pics/techs/alien_communication.jpg;h=2547ef24a7a5993d830e24e50707f891539004ec;hb=HEAD

-geever

Duke:
H-Hour,
that looks really cool.
I also remember that the Ultima-series invented it's own 'ancient' writing which you could decipher with a little practice. And it was *fun* :)

On the other hand:
- will aliens use an alphabet ? Maybe.
- does radiant support text on eg. signs ?? I don't think so. Only bitmap.
- would aliens with a hive mind need writings at all ? I mean the hive mind could tell them which door leads to the storage room and which to the toilet...
Maybe writings could be useful to *unburden* the hivemind...

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