tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 18 21:20:50 1998
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RE: Sor Hap - Some musings
ja' Voragh:
>Thanks. But since we're speculating on imaginary geology & technology in an
>imaginary language, let's be sure we get the details right. {Dom} is
>glossed as "radan (crude dilithium)" - not crystals, at least not yet.
Your notes are defective. It makes a difference in this case.
TKD indeed defines {Dom} as "radan (crude dilithium crystals)".
>Is {cha'pujqut} "dilithium crystal" a variant form of {cha'puj} or is it the
>result of further refinement?
I see it as the difference between "salt" and "salt crystal" -- {cha'puj}
is the substance, and {cha'pujqut} is the object used to focus the energy
of a matter-antimatter reaction.
>In a TOS episode ("Elaan of Elaas" ?), the
"Elaan of Troyius" -- an obvious allusion to "Helen of Troy".
>Elaasian princess had a necklace of raw dilithium crystals, which Scotty was
>able to make use of in his "wee bairns" to save the ship from a Klingon
>attack after all the Enterprise's own Starfleet-issue crystals had been
>"burned out".
I believe the technical term he used was "completely fused". :-)
>Elaan said the crystals were common on her world, which
>explained the Klingon interest in that star system. I wonder if the further
>refinement is a careful cutting of the raw crystals to precise shapes and
>angles, along with an inspection for any crystalline faults, or
>"microfractures" as they would probably say in Trek. I remember Scot was
>worried about the irregular shapes of the raw crystals and was hesitant to
>send power through them.
*I'm* convinced that the Elaasian necklace was made of radan. There seems
to be no other reason for the word to appear in the dictionary. :-)
-- ghunchu'wI'