Alicornutopia

hey, can you use reference for a binding with a code or a made language with words meaning specific kinds of bindings? Like "Stardad International Binding DAE-ANG-Alpha-3" or something?

Probably the same answer to the more general question about summoning circles and conlangs/codes. I think that was asked near the beginning of the thread, but not answered. I’d be surprised if conlangs or made-up words didn’t work, on account of there’s no difference between a made-up word and a “real” word. Maybe some percent of people or dictionaries in that language would need to recognize it or something?

Yeah, you can duplicate things like necklaces.

I think I'm going to say you have to use natural language to summon daeva, for a sort of handwavey definition of "natural" that doesn't include Esperanto in 1887 but might include it by 2200.

And a similarly handwavy definition of vocabulary where there’s no single word for “only able to say ‘yes, summoner’ and ‘no, summoner’” in 2014 but might be in 2200? I’d still expect there to be long lists in 2200, but common bindings like that would probably be simplified in the same way we now have a word for “sending timed content like music or video over the Internet concurrently with it being consumed”, but probably didn’t when only a few people even knew the Internet could do that in theory.

The gagging doesn't restrict them to those words, it restricts them to saying those words (or equivalent) in response to proposed deals. They can't show up and begin singing "Yes, summoner" to the tune of "Deck The Halls" or anything.

Yeah, I realized that while reading the sandboxes, which explains why Cam didn‘t say “yes, summoner” when asked if he wanted a book to read in the shuttle, or ”no, summoner“ when asked if he’d kill the killswitch lady. My point, which I made better than expected, is that we don’t currently have words in English for this exact thing, but “gag” might evolve by 2200 and presumably then could be used in a circle much more easily.

Although, my saying “2014” made me wonder: how much of the Revelation timeline is hammered out? So far, we have:
1987: Cambell Mark Swan born
2004 or 2005: He finds a summoning manual and draws a “fictional” circle. Later, he takes the codename Revelation and tries revealing summoning to the world.
2009 or 2010: He is shot and kiled for his effort, becoming a demon.
Not too much later (Max branching point): Summoning still not common knowledge; Cam hasn’t yet figured out the afterlife sorting system (although I’d bet many daeva have and the postal worker he talked to wasn’t that helpful).
Eventually: the masquerade falls, almost entirely due to Cam’s efforts.

Actually, Cam succeeds properly at the revelation in most timelines, but since Max is from a relevant sort of background I tweaked it so he didn't do so well in that instance but was still discovered and killed.

So in most Revelation worlds, summoning would be common knowledge by Cam’s death at 22? What year is the Max thread set?

Max-sandboxes take place kind of "nowish".

The whole *point* of Max is to have "You turned into a cat! You can't do that" moments with magic, so he is pretty much constricted to similar-to-real-world-plus-whatever-magic-that-is-hidden. I thought that it wasn't really *necessary* for Max and Revelation being from the same Earth, but I guess Max wouldn't resist asking from-2159-Revelation all about technology and that would likely bore Revelation?