Name pronunciation guide

On the subject of language, here's how I imagine the characters' names being pronounced, with some basic linguistic explanations.

• Jinai
  • Ji like gym
  • nai like night
  • Emphasis on 2nd syllable
  • Her name is Aorin so the phonetics are derived from Malay and Indonesian
• Anqien
  • An like khan
  • q like chip (but narrower/sharper)
  • ien like yen
  • Both syllables have emphasis but "An" is intoned at a higher pitch and "qien" has a slight upward bend like the end of a question. Imagine you're saying "Anqien?" every time lmao
  • As a Helfi-yu name, the phonetics are derived from Mandarin Chinese - 安潜
• Xye
  • Xye like xylophone
  • Belan, so the phonetics of the name just come from English
• Zera
  • Ze like zen
  • ra like terra
  • Emphasis on first syllable
  • Zera's family is from Sonora, whose language was meant to be kind of like Old Spanish with Hies Loricoda mixed in, but I don't trust myself to be able to do that justice, so let's just say it's pronounced like in LatAm Spanish.
• Telaki
  • Tel like telephone
  • a like art
  • ki like key
  • Emphasis on second syllable
  • Another Aora name, so the phonetics are from Malay / Indonesian
• Iki
  • I like each
  • ki like key (but with a slightly softer k)
  • Emphasis on second syllable
  • A Niro name, phonetics derived from Japanese - 息
• Lujang
  • Lu like loo
  • jang like jungle (but closer to ch)
  • Equal emphasis on both syllables, Lu is intoned at lower pitch than Jang
  • Her name is Helfi-yu, and the phonetics are derived from Mandarin Chinese - 炉彰
• Janda
  • Ja like...jar
  • n
  • da like dark
  • Emphasis on first syllable
  • This is also an Aorin name, so phonetics derived from Malay / Indonesian

Profile theme colours

Jinai: #93485b

Anqien: #48938f

Telaki: #b73c88

Lujang: #498443

Iki: #840e84

Janda: #a96012

Xye: #90ad47

Zera: #808485

Sailing and flight

So, technically, the Niro-Helfi race is an "air sailing" title: it's effectively the same as sailing except that in the final leg, competitors are allowed to use Threads to levitate the boat, which makes the vessels go much faster, and also makes the race more dangerous.

Thread is a divine energy associated with the deity Ihir, and is central to Eagles and Swans but also drives flight in some Offshore races: it gets explained in detail on its own wiki page. The Thread network in Helfi is somewhat thinner than the one in Astra (which was greatly favoured by Ihir and strengthened at one point in its history). So flight and levitation are not quite as reliable in Helfi (exemplified by Gumeiyen, the city that collapsed into the sea) and became less so over time.

Even so, there is dense enough a network of Threads in a several mile radius of Helfi for it to be used as a gimmick in the inshore races. And boy, if it isn't a popular gimmick that rakes in tourist dollars. In the interest of safety though, the official ruling is that a rigid part of the race yacht must still be touching the water at all times, hence the hydrofoils.

Because of the geographical restrictions of Threads, air sailing races can really only be organised in Astra and Helfi, giving these two countries a monopoly on the entire business.

There's also the fact that Weaving is, in fact, a finer motor skill than most sailors are not initially trained in, so it takes additional practice to learn to manipulate Threads. In Astra, this was previously taught as a school subject, until they invented devices that allow even the untrained to—at the very least—grip and move Threads.

In the hallowed sport of air sailing, these devices usually take the form of gloves, namely attractor gloves. You can see Anqien wearing one in some art—having grown up in Helfi, they're more familiar with Threads in general, and the team decided they should be the Weaver between the two.

Thread Networks

Kept the best (heaviest) stuff for last :)

The concept of Thread networks was first introduced in Eagles and Swans—Ruthenia and her peers in Astra use devices called messengers, which operate on the same principles as Offshore's filographs, albeit in a far more "analogue" fashion.

Networking is a big deal in Offshore, and the deuteragonists' sponsor team is even a networking company to underscore that—but it doesn't get explained in detail, so *rubs hands together*

Thread networking basics

As mentioned in the wiki, every single Thread radiates out of an origin point and criss-crosses with others, forming extensive networks across the landmass, and sometimes to neighbouring islands. (Imagine lots of starbursts of Threads across the land.) In Helfi, there is an industry dedicated to locating these origin points (nexuses) and constructing nexus stations on them, which compute and manage connections on all Threads radiating out of that nexus. Currently there's somewhere in the range of 40 such nexus stations in Helfi.

Every filograph has a signature that identifies it in the network. In Year 492 Astra, this was signified by the little code sigil that you'd have to draw to identify your recipient (kinda like a phone number). In Year 621 Helfi, filographs still use these signatures, but the user can transmit their signature to an acquaintance's device by touching devices (abstracting the signature to software, kinda).

So how does the networking function? In 492 Astra, the user would have to address the message to a geographical destination as well as a recipient device, and pray (literally). In 621 Helfi, the network is much, much smarter. There are a few axioms for the operation of this Thread network:

1. Endpoint devices (filographs) are always on and always discoverable.
2. Devices can move freely in and out of the range of any given nexus (i.e. the range of its radiating Threads).
3. Thread nexuses are always intersecting at least one other nexus' range via multiple redundant Thread crosses.*

To keep the network up to date about every device's whereabouts, nexus stations are always pinging along their radiating Threads, and filographs receiving a ping will always identify themselves to the pinging nexuses. Through this continuous handshake, they'll determine which neighbouring nexus is the closest, and choose it as its parent. When it does, it will tell all nexuses within range who its new parent is, request a handover from its previous parent to its new parent, and then forget its previous parent.

Routing protocol

Each station keeps track of a table of devices that it has seen as well as who it said its parent was, in the past N days, where N varies by company and individual station equipment. It shares that list with its direct neighbours (i.e. those that are 1 Thread cross away), and this is the basis of the network. On average it takes about 3 or 4 crosses, but never more than 7, to get a message from one nexus to any other.

When a filograph sends a message, it will first transmit it, alongside a request for the recipient device's location, to its parent nexus. The nexus station will hold the message, and try to locate the recipient device. (a) If it can currently see the recipient (i.e. it is also the recipient's parent or one of its neighbours is), it moves to the transmission step immediately. (b) If the nexus/one of its neighbours has seen the recipient device in the past N days, it communicates to its most recent identified parent, and eventually discovers its current parent by following the chain of handovers, then moves to the transmission step. (c) If the nexus and its neighbours haven't seen it in the past N days, then it runs a graph search based on lowest weight (closest neighbour) first, until it finds a nexus that has seen it, then it continues like scenario (b).

Because there's only about 40 nexuses in Helfi, this graph search is not computationally costly, but different networking companies like to boast that their stations compute faster, remember devices for longer, etc. when really the searches rely on the network as a whole.

Anyway, once the sender's parent nexus has confirmed it has found the recipient, it will finally move to the transmission step—remove the message from hold and transmit it along the identified route. The recipient will acknowledge receipt back along the same route. Then the nexus station will finally add the recipient's current parent to its table, facilitating future searches for it.

Free lines

How about those radio-esque communication devices that the sailors in Offshore use? Since engineers discovered how to manipulate and reconfigure Threads ("free lines"), some custom remote communication solutions have created devices that connect multiple transmitter/receiver devices together with Threads. Threads have some fun properties, like being extremely stretchy, and not really being physical to anything in a matter phase, so they cannot be permanently cut except with the same tools used to manipulate them. But free lines are susceptible to electrical and heat interference, as well as deity interference...

Networking companies

Networking companies tend to branch into every aspect of Thread communications, from filograph design and innovation to identifying nexuses, to building nexus stations, to even laying their own Thread lines. They're all in the business of improving the network, as a whole, but each company will tend to stake a claim on a certain part of the country and then bring its A game to developing the Thread network in the area.