Translation

D

Deadman_ny

Spaceman
Stated reading Fleet Action again and the numbers are cunfusting as hell to me.
I know that the Kiltathi number system is 8-based instead of 10-baed like owrs since they only have 4 fingers/claws but when reaing it's hard to do the math.
For instance:
several sixty-fours=???
Eight-and-four= 12?
Eight-eights=16?

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Why is it whenever I'm having fun, it's wrong?
 
Yeah, that's right, except eight eights would be sixty four. It is odd, and hard to read, but I liked it. It was a good way to make the kats seem alien when you can't see them.
 
It is cool, just wish there were subtitles. ;) There is a lot of attenton to detail when they write about the Kilrathi, and it does bring them to life. Far removed from just a scratchy little image on your VDU the books, game lit and fanfic which are draw off of everything

so the first eight is multiplied by the second number? Or is it added?
and what about when he says several sixty-fours? is that

several sixty-fours sounds like several HUNDRED but in base 8 it would be like...240 since several is normally 3 like several hundred means 300 or so...oh god it's like learning metric all over again!
 
Deadman_ny said:
It is cool, just wish there were subtitles. ;) There is a lot of attenton to detail when they write about the Kilrathi, and it does bring them to life. Far removed from just a scratchy little image on your VDU the books, game lit and fanfic which are draw off of everything

so the first eight is multiplied by the second number? Or is it added?
and what about when he says several sixty-fours? is that

several sixty-fours sounds like several HUNDRED but in base 8 it would be like...240 since several is normally 3 like several hundred means 300 or so...oh god it's like learning metric all over again!
Click to expand...

In something like eight eights, it would be the last number multiplied by the first number, just like eighty is eight tens.
 
They're a lot easier than they seem, you'll pick it up in no time.

'And' is the prose version of the plus operand -- so 'eight and four' is twelve. When there's nothing, you multiply: eight eights is eight groups of eight each -- sixty four things.

(It's not actually Base-8... it's just full of eights. I think.)

(Also, note that Kilarthi do seem to have five claws on occasion... but then I've got a cat with six, so I guess it can vary.)
 
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