Motivation - Don't Use Grammar Translation

 If teaching language is just about time, why isn’t everyone bilingual? 

The easy answer to this question is that most people do not put in the time. The truth of the matter is that learning a second language feels like it is difficult. It is in fact easy and the brain does it automatically. However, the biological ease is besides the point. The person feels like it is difficult. They feel disappointed in their progress. They feel the exhaustion and the pain. They feel the toll. 

There are two obstacles that inhibit the learning of a second language that need to be overcome. The first is time wasting teaching methods that only add to the pain and prevent actual learning. The second is the lack of a real motivation for the student to push themselves long enough for the process in the brain to complete. 

Let’s take a look at teaching methods. The one that a lot of people have heard of is grammar translation. Everyone knows this doesn’t work. Everyone knows it sucks but everyone keeps using it, traumatizing yet another generation of students who will come away despising the learning of second languages. 

Imagine the classroom. The teacher writes a sentence on the board in Latin. The teacher then explains to the students that of course they can’t understand the Latin. That’s allegedly ok. The teacher then guides the students step by step to look up each word and figure out the declension or conjugation. The students constructs an English sentence. The student reads and understands the English sentence. The teacher is satisfied the students can understand.  The only way the teacher is able to check if the students understand is if the student can translate the sentence. 

But think about this. The student still can not understand the Latin. They read and understood an English sentence. No duh. Of course they understood the English sentence, ya moron. They are ENGLISH SPEAKERS.   Grammar translation does not help the student understand the Latin. It only helps the student improve their ability in their native language. So if the goal is to make the students more proficient in their native language, sure, go ahead and pretend to teach them a second language like Klingon using grammar translation. If you want them to learn a second language, NEVER use grammar translation. 

Many students have been tricked by teachers into translating the same passages over and over because the students can never recognize the passage as one they have done before until after the translation is completed. If you ask one of these students or teachers to just read and understand the second language text without making a translation, watch them as they read silently. They will be moving their lips. However, if you observe closely, they are not moving their lips to the sounds of the second language. They are generating a translation in their head on the fly and their lips are mouthing the words of the translation. They do not understand the second language. They think the second language is just their own language written in code. They don’t actually understand. 

This is why getting students to speak the second language has a hidden benefit. By getting the students to speak the brain actually tries to learn the language with its own biological process and by occupying their lips with the actual second language we prevent them from trying to generate a translation on the fly.  

Translation is a high level skill that should be taught to someone who already has a high level command of both languages.  It is not the kind of skill to be taught to beginners who still need to acquire the language in the first place. And thus grammar translation waste time. 

Now imagine I show you the schematic for a nuclear reactor. You’ve never seen this kind of thing before. I show it to you briefly and then I want to test you on it. That is not fair. And that is exactly what happens when a teacher tries to explain grammar to a student. Unless the student can produce that grammar and use it in conversation, it will be meaningless to them. 

Speaking must always come first or you are wasting time. And you never get the time back. 

Now let’s touch on motivation. The student is going to need a motivation to get them to continue the process for hundreds of hours. The motivation can be different from each child but in general it is better to make the motivation positive instead of negative. 

Motivation begins as something outside of the person but it eventually needs to transition to inside the person. There are some cases when a person would have their own powerful internal motivation to learn. A woman meets a man who speaks Spanish and she falls in love. She wants to learn his language. That might seem like external motivation but actually it is internal. She will feel the pull to learn and learn to be with him. 

External motivation is the parent teaching the child Spanish because the parents says to do it. The child might be ok with it or might resist. The goal is to change that motivation from “mom says to do it” to “I want to do it because its fun” or “I want to do it because speaking this language gets me something I want”.  

When I teach I use jokes and play games. A game is never just for fun. A game is always a means to trick the students into speaking more. I modify the rules of the game so that in order to progress the student needs to speak more and more. When I use a textbook I make fun of the illustration. I get the students to laugh at the pictures and make comments about them in the target language I am teaching. I know learning is hard on them. So why make it difficult?  Why not make it fun?  Even with as exhausting as language class can be, I want them to love coming to class. I want them to love shouting at me at the top of their lungs. 

And maybe I have a “bad guy” in my class. He is moody and wants to tell me off. I can work with this. I don’t mind. Tell me off in the language we are speaking. I’ll show you how. This and this and that are all insults. Throw them at me. Let the rest of the class laugh at how pathetic and ridiculous I am. My goal is always that the student learn and they learn by speaking, saying something that is meaningful and that lets them express their own wants, ideas, desires; and which helps them get what they need. 

Monitoring Progress

 Monitoring progress

Learning language takes hundreds of hours no matter what language you are trying to teach. Hundreds. It is a physical process in the brain.  You already have the basic outline of how to teach with the four steps.  Does that mean you just grind the four steps until the end?  In a way yes, but if we are mindful of more details of the physical process that is happening in the brain we can do better. 

So what is happening in the brain?  As for what exact chemicals are doing what and what neurons are firing what, I can’t tell you.  But I can tell you what behaviors the students will exhibit and how that comes out because of what is happening in the brain. 

When a child first hears a second language that language does not sound like human speaking.  It sounds like noise. It sounds dangerous. There is an instinct in any child and really any adult also to escape from the source of the language they don’t understand.  

From a survival perspective this makes sense. In a primitive society where violence is common the one who does not speak the same language as you is a clear indicator that they very likely will be hostile. 

So stage 0 is the aversion stage.  The student does not want to hear more of the language.  They want to put a stop to it and get away.  This is natural. It is not the student being difficult. They are reacting to what the brain is telling them to do in order to survive. 

Stage 1: The silent stage.  Once the child has heard enough of the second language without anything bad happening the brain adapts.  The brain realizes that the one speaking this language is not going to hurt them. So now the child becomes silent. The child didn’t choose to become silent. The child doesn’t know why they become silent. The child could be chatting away all happy and then the teacher says a phrase in the target language and the child stops talking. Silent. They couldn’t respond even if they wanted to. If asked a question they will not be able to answer. They will not be able to vocalize at all. 

What is happening in the silent stage is that the brain is trying to take in the sound system of the target language. The brain is trying to map the sounds of the second language to the sounds of the first language if possible.  

We will cover how the brain actually maps sounds to create words later. Just know that the brain needs to program a brain cell to understand a specific sound as language.  If the brain does not have a specific cell programmed for a particular sound, the student will not be able to hear it. Sure, they can physically hear it, but they can’t process it as language. So if it is language the brain needs to program a brain cell to hear and recognize that sound. 

This is why Japanese students consistently can’t even recall hearing the “TH” sound, either voiced or unvoiced, in many English words. They don’t have those sounds in their language and so no brain cell is triggered when they hear it. 

As you might guess, creating and programming a brain cell takes energy. A lot of energy.  It is said by some that the human brain is only about 3% of the mass of the human body but eats up about 25% of the energy consumed. Whatever the real numbers are, the human brain is energy hungry and learning language is definitely energy intense. So expect your students to be physically exhausted after a productive second language class. 

Stage 2: The one word stage. At this point the child begins to respond in the target language but not in full sentences. In their head they have a full, complete thought. They have a full sentence in their mind. But that is not what comes out of their mouth. One word is spoken as the stand in for the full thought. That is not because the child is stupid or is not able to form a sentence. The brain is in the one word stage and so that is what the child can say. 

Stage 3: The two word stage will be the most time consuming stage.  At this stage the student can say two words together or to phrases that are part of a sentence together. They can’t say full sentences yet. Again, they are not stupid. They are a fully intelligent human being. The brain is going through its process.  Two words come out as the representative of a full thought in the child’s head. The two words stage is also where a lot of code switching happens. 

Stage 4: Threshold. This is what we have been aiming for. This is the point when the student begins to use full sentences without hearing it first or anything written down to guide them. They go to sleep on Monday still in the two word stage and then the last little bit of brain matter gets connected and they wake up on Tuesday able to shock everyone, even themselves, by speaking full sentences.

These full sentences will not be elaborate or articulate sentences. But they are sentences. The student has passed from learning a second language to becoming a full speaker of the second language.  After threshold the tactics of the teacher need to change from second language acquisition to language mechanics and refinement. The teacher can now start to teach grammar. No, you were not supposed to be teaching grammar before this point. 

At threshold the student now owns the language. It is theirs to say whatever they want; even things the teacher might not like. The student can now use the language to express their own wants and desires; their own thoughts and feelings; their own intentions and plans. And that is exactly what we want. That is exactly what we have been aiming for the entire time. 

Active Meaningful Communication

Why does this work?  

The basic four step process for teaching language works because it starts the clock.  The four step process will not get your students to instantly remember vocabulary or how to ask a question.  Everything they were able to say with confidence on Monday will be forgotten on Tuesday.  You have to keep in mind that learning language is a physical process in the brain.  It is chemistry and it takes time. Just like it is impossible to travel from Los Angeles to New York in an instant no matter how much we are able to imagine it, learning a language needs time.  

You might begin to think that if learning a language is just about time, then why can’t the student just watch a bunch of movies in the target language?  The answer to that is watching movies wastes time and does not affect the clock. 

You’re confused. That’s fine. I will explain.  

Let’s suppose your student is a Japanese child.  You want to teach this child how to speak English.  That child will need about eight hundred hours of speaking practice. Yes. Eight zero zero. That is a lot of time. If you have one lesson for one hour a week, it will take sixteen years.  I’m guessing you want to go faster than that.  So you go back to watching movies and listening to English songs. That’s not going to advance those 800 hours. That is instead wasting time. 

Why?  Don’t worry. I will tell you why. 

In order to move that clock your student needs to engage in Active, Meaningful, Communication. Those three words are the key.  Let’s take a look at each one. 

Active.  You’ve heard of so called “active listening” before. That doesn’t have a place in the second language classroom.  Listening does not wind up that clock. Speaking makes the clock tick. Your student needs eight hundred hours of speaking practice to learn English. If you want to teach Russian it is even more time, clocking in at about one thousand three hundred hours.   If you want to teach Spanish, you are in luck. Spanish only takes about six hundred and fifty hours. 

Different languages have different linguistic features, like number of vowel sounds, grammar constructions, intonation, etc. We call this markedness. The more markedness a language has, the more hours it takes to learn the language. 

And we need to remember that learning language is a physical process in the brain. The brain kind of puts a cap on the number of hours it can benefit from language practice between sleep cycles. At most you can get about two hours of benefit each day.  So cramming 20 hours in one day will not work. Two is the limit and then rest until the next day. 

But back to Active Meaningful Communication. 

Active: This means the student is doing something. They are using the muscles in their mouth. They are using their hands. They are using body language. They are looking at someone and reading their expression. Listening to music or watching a movie is a purely passive kind of thing. Even if the student sings along with a song, that is still passive and the words of the song might just be sounds to them. 

Meaningful: This means that the words the student is speaking has some kind of meaning attached to them. You might think, how can the student understand the meaning of a word in a language they don’t know?  Easy, you provide context for the word. A picture. A gesture. You mime out the action of a verb. Even yes and no has some real world anchor that allows the student to understand the meaning. 

DO NOT USE TRANSLATION.  NEVER NEVER NEVER use translation ever.  If you are teaching Latin then the student must understand Latin directly in Latin. Latin is not English written in code. English is not Japanese written in code. I will have more negative things to say about translation later. For now, just know that the real world context you provide for a student to understand meaning should absolutely NEVER be translation. 

Anyway. 

Communication: For this I want to tell a story. This is a fictional story that in no way should be considered connected to any real world person. (Cough, wink)

There were these two Catholic priests.  They were sent to Africa in the 1950s to preach the gospel. In order to convert the locals and earn trust they priests were told to learn the local language. They were also told to say their prayers in the local language. In case you didn’t know a priest is supposed to pray the book of psalms seven times a day.  They have a schedule for it and it keeps them very busy. 

One priest was Marcel. He prayed the psalms in the local language of the African tribe and in seemingly no time he was speaking the local language.  

The other priest was named Karl. He also prayed the psalms in the local language but he did not learn the language. In fact he never learned the language and he had to rely on Marcel to translate for him. 

They both did the same thing. Why were the results different?  

After the Second Vatican Council the pope of that era opened up a process so that priests who wanted to leave the priesthood could go.  Karl wanted to go.  He didn’t want to be a priest anymore. Marcel wanted to stay. Does this have anything to do with learning language?  It does actually. 

When Marcel was praying the book of psalms he believed he was having a conversation. He believed God could hear him and he believed he could feel God responding to him.  They were not just empty words.  He was communicating with God. 

Karl did not believe anything was happening when he prayed the psalms. For him, he was just forcing himself to go through the motions of saying the sounds and trying to get it over with. 

The same action had a different result because for one it was communication and for the other it was not. 

Now let’s consider two students who each keep a diary. One student knows that no other person will ever read their diary. Their writing skill will not increase. The other student knows that someone will read what they wrote and then later come and talk to them about it. Their writing skill will improve. 

Why is it like this?  That is just how the brain works. If we cooperate with how the brain works we can get it to do things for us.  If we fight against it we waste time. 

So always keep in mind that we are aiming for Active, Meaningful Communication. Anything else is wasting time. 

Four Steps for Teaching a Second Language

 The basic setup to teach a second language is question and answer. Here are the basic four steps.  

1: Practice the answers. 

2: Practice the question. 

3: Students ask the question of the teacher. 

4: Students ask and answer the question with each other. 

This set up assumes there are at least two students. If there is only one student then the teacher has to step into the role of the second student so that a conversation can happen. 

Let’s look at each step in a bit more detail. Practicing the answers is basic input. This is where you are giving new vocabulary to the students. A teacher who wastes time will show flashcards to students and expect the students to be able to use those new words on their own. We will not be wasting time or making assumptions.  Let’s suppose we have a set of nine fruit names we want to teach.  A teacher who wastes time will show each fruit and have the students say the name of the fruit. Then the bad teacher will assume the students will remember that for the rest of their lives. That’s not how we do this. 

Even if the teacher can be assured that the students probably know the vocabulary ahead of time, it is still best to always use best practices.  First, the teacher needs to give an instruction to the students on what to do.  

Listen, repeat; listen, repeat. Ok?  

That “OK?” at the end is important. The teacher wants the students to acknowledge and agree to the instruction.  The teacher is not some overlord dictator.  This is a relationship that has to be built on consent and trust. 

The teachers says each word and the students repeat after the teacher. The teacher does this TWICE for each word before moving on to the next word.  

Example: 

T: Apple

S: Apple

T: Apple

S: Apple

T: Orange

S: Orange

T: Orange 

S: Orange

After the students can repeat the words in isolation it is time to put those words into a sentence. Never skip this part. 

This is a good time to let you know about a tactic we call “Staying on Script”.  As the teacher you have already worked out what question and answer the students will be asking each other later. So stay on script. Don’t expose them to the fifteen different ways to say the same thing.  Stay on script.  If you are going to practice “I like apples” then don’t bring in “I prefer” or “I would like” or “My favorite”.  Stick to “I like” for this lesson. Teach those others in isolation at a later time. 

So students have progressed from saying “apple” to now repeating after the teacher to be able to say “I like apples”. They have now practiced the answers. You just gave them the answers to the questions. 

Next, have the students listen and repeat the questions. “What fruit do you like?”  At this point in time they are just repeating sounds that might have no meaning for the students.  They might have begun to process the sound for “Apple” being related to the red fruit (or green if you are like me). Now they are practicing something that they have no context to understand.  It is just sounds at this point. So you can’t stop at step two or this will waste time. 

In step three we finally get halfway to our goal. Give a simple instruction with big, clear gestures. “Ask Me!” The students ask the teacher the question. The teacher answers. That answer is the context that allows the students to understand what just happened. They didn’t know something, they asked a question, and then received new information. Communication just happened. The students asked a question and didn’t know what the teacher would answer. That wakes the brain up to real language learning that will finally stick.  

Hint: If there are other adults watching or near the area you can rope them into this by directing the students to ask those adults as well. But be careful that the person you are targeting will be able to understand what the question even is. 

Now the students move on to step four. They ask and answer the question to each other. You can trick them into doing a bit of grinding at this point. Instead of having them ask only one time, have the students ask each other repeatedly.  Tell them the rule is that they need to answer at least once that they like each fruit on the list that you studied that day. Even if they don’t like that fruit to just go along with it for practice as muscle training for their mouth. After they have asked and answered for the whole list, then they can ask and answer a final time and say their true answer. 

Don’t be surprised or alarmed if the student’s true answer is not on the list. Give them the freedom to say Tomato as a fruit that is the one they like.  Once you give them language, now they own it. It is theirs now. Let them own it. 

What kind of child can learn a second language?

 What kind of child can learn a second language? 

The first thing to point out is that this method is not just for children. Children are usually the intended students but many adults as well decide to take up a second language.  Both children and adults can learn a second language with this method. 

The kind of student who can benefit from this method are those who already know at least one first language. This method is very specifically meant to teach a second language and not a first language. In the rare case that a child does not even have a first language, it is likely that the method used here will not work.  

For children that do have even the most basic ability in a first language, this method will be 100% effective in teaching them a second language. Yes, 100%.  

The child is rambunctious. Doesn’t matter, they will learn. 

The child is developmentally slow? Doesn’t matter. They will learn. 

The child has health problems. Doesn’t matter. They will learn. 

The student is an 80 year old woman who doesn’t like learning. Doesn’t matter. She’ll learn anyway.

The textbook we have access to is terrible. Doesn’t matter. They will learn. 

The teacher is not a very good teacher. Doesn’t matter. The students will learn. 

We’re lost and don’t know what to do.  That’s why this book exists.  Follow the method in this book.  Put in the time.  

The secret is this; it really doesn’t matter if the teacher is terrible and can’t even speak the language they are teaching. It doesn’t matter if the textbook is garbage. It doesn’t matter if the student has autism or brain damage. Follow the method in this book and every learner will learn.  Good teacher or bad teacher. Great textbook or garbage textbook. Genius students or Forest Gump’s even dumber cousin. None of those things matter. The only thing that matters when teaching a second language is the clock. 

Time is the most important thing. You have to put in the time. It is a lot of time. It will be a lot of time no matter if the student is naturally gifted or takes extra time to learn tasks. A teacher who wastes time is the enemy.  A teacher who talks too much is wasting time. The way to get student to learn a second language is to get the students to speak the language. They need to speak the language for up to a certain amount of time depending on a trait in the language we call “Markedness”.  I’ll explain more about that later. The important thing to keep in mind for right now is to get the students speaking. Not listening. Speaking. 

But you ask, if the students don’t know the language how can we ask them to speak it? I will address this. Don’t worry. You’ll think it’s magic when you see it work.  

The teacher’s job is to listen. The student’s job is to speak.  The most basic set up for this is two students speaking to each other in the target language and the teacher will be listening.  

If we imagine a lesson is one hour and for the entire hour the teacher speaks then the teacher has taken up 100% of the talk time. If the teacher has one student and the student asks questions that the teacher then answers we can say the student got 50% of the talk time and the teacher got 50%.  If there are two students and the teacher gives them some basic instructions and then the rest of the lesson the students talk to each other, then we can say the teacher used 10% of the talk time and the students used up the other 90%.  That is the goal.  

And that is why good teacher or bad teacher doesn’t matter. That is why good textbook or bad textbook doesn’t matter. The actual mechanism for learning language is a student using their voice. 

How to teach any language to each child, even if you don't speak it

 How To Teach ANY Language To Your Child

Even If You Don’t Speak It

By: David Billiot

The promise of this book is that by using the method explained in this book you will be able to teach any language to any person.  It will not matter if you can speak the language or not. You will be able to teach a student, a group, a large class, or even an institution full of hundreds of people. You will be able to teach them up to the point where they become speakers of that language.  And again, you will be able to do this even if you yourself can not speak the language you are teaching. 

You might immediately believe that I am promising too much and won’t be able to deliver. What makes this method any better than any other method?  The reason is that it works.  If you want to teach a second language to a learner you need this method because it is the one method that works. It is the one method that induces the human brain into activating language learning.  

How do I know it works?  Because I’ve seen it work. But you should not believe me just because I say it. You should not believe me because I say I have have such and such degree or have over twenty years of experience both teaching language and teaching others how to teach language. You should use the method and see the results for yourself and then you yourself will know that it works. 

So, who is this book for?  

Let’s answer this by pointing out who this book is NOT for.  This book is not aimed at the academics with terminal degrees in the ivory towers of the elite universities. Those people would object to everything in this book purely based on who is writing it. Let’s face it, I have the wrong last name and the wrong skin color for those people.  This book is not for them. It is not intended to spark debate.  Neither is this book for the senators or regulators in the government who want an excuse to make laws or make policy.  

This book is a practical manual on how to teach. It is meant for someone who intends to teach another person a second language.  Not a first language. For first languages taught to infants do not use this book. This book will teach you how to teach someone a Second Language. That means they need to already know one. This book is not meant to be read and then put down. The method described in this book is meant to be used. 

So who is this book for?  

A high school Spanish teacher who knows their old method failed and wants to find one that is actually effective  

A homeschool parent whose child wants to learn Japanese and the parents have no idea where to start

Religious parents who want to pass on the language of their faith to the next generation but they themselves never learned properly (Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Coptic, Syriac, etc.)

Any parent from an ethnic group who has seen the decline of their local language (Cajun French, Creole, etc.)

An American who has taken a job to go overseas and teach English and wants to actually do it right instead of being a human tape recorder relegated to reading from a book and then standing quietly in the corner while the actual teacher lectures to a silent class in the local language 

A company that wants to do business with another company in a different country and wants the employees to be able to communicate well with each other 

A student who wants to know if the teacher they have right now is doing what they are supposed to be doing or is wasting the student’s time and likely also money 

So if you want to learn a way, in fact THE way, to teach a second language to your student, stay with me and I will give you the key to unlock their potential. 

Plasma Extractor Story guidelines

Story guidance for “flight of the Anasazi”, a novel by David Billiot

Historical summery. 

2351: Earth scientists invent plasma extractors

Plasma extractors: Giant replicating machines that can siphon material like hydrogen from the sun and fuse it into heavier elements, produce power, and print complete components. 

2402: Walerton corporation proposes using the plasma extractors to help terraform Mars and Venus. However, even after hundreds of years both planets remain uninhabitable due to adverse conditions. 

2460: Walerton abandons Mars and Venus. 

2525: Greyma company proposes using a swarm of high density ships called “mass tugs” to collide and combine Mercury, Venus, and Mars into one planet that would be nearly the same mass as Earth. The government formally rejects the proposal. 

2617: Alan Slate proposes using the plasma extractors to print a copy of Earth and place it in Earth’s same orbit, just on the other side of the sun.  Many people criticize the idea because of the enormous amount of matter that would have to be siphoned. The government formally rejects the idea. 

2798: Onictech launches an interstellar mission to another star against government protest.  

2951: Onictech ships arrive at Alpha Centauri and begin constructing plasma extractors in order to build a duplicate Earth and Moon system compete with gas giant. 

3170: Onictech claims to have successfully created a planet with Earth’s same mass, chemical composition, spin, and tilt in the habitable zone of the Centauri system. The planet needs to be terraformed and the company is welcoming settlers who want to leave the overcrowded Earth. 

3170: Mintoba corporation launches their own mission to colonize Wolf 359. 

3171: Earth government reverses their objections and launches a mission to colonize Bernard’s star. 

3171: The religion of peace & brotherhood launches a mission to colonize Sirius. 

5240: The colony in the Centauri system loses contact with Earth. 

… 

Process used for colonizing a star system. 

One plasma extractor arrives in the system and goes into orbit around the star. It uses magnetic fields to pull protons and electrons from the star. It uses this plasma for fusion to create heavier materials. This creates useful materials as well as a massive amount of energy. 

The plasma extractor replicates itself several times before the heat and radiation of the star completely destroy it. 

The ever growing constellation of plasma extractors begin creating mass tugs. Mass tugs are high density ships. A swarm of mass tugs are able to orbit in a pattern that will pull objects out of their current orbit and into a new one.  The mass tugs clear the habitable zone of all objects. 

The plasma extractors create several world spires. These massive objects are the starter frame for a planet to be built upon. 

The plasma extractors also store a massive amount of energy in the form of hydrocarbons to be used later if needed. Mass tugs pull the blocks of hydrocarbons into a higher obit.  

Material from the plasma extractors begin being sent to the world spires to create a planet.  The goal is to create a planet that is the exact same mass, chemical composition, spin, and tilt as the Earth. Such a planet will have a magnetic field and can be terraformed.  The planet will also be orbited by a moon that has the same characteristics as Earth’s moon. If there is no gas giant in the system then an appropriate amount of hydrogen will be pulled from the star to great one. 

A planet on its own will not have life on it. Humans need to arrive and terraform the planet. At first the planet is hot and the crust is thin.  The humans that arrive convert their interstellar ship into a space station. They use the plasma extractors to create materials to build additional space stations and being dropping materials they need down to the planet surface. 

In the next stage, the colonists build domes cities.  They have to convert the regolith of the planet into soil. 

Once the ocean is seeded and the air is not toxic anymore the people leave the domed cities and build open air settlements. 

Terraforming is a massive effort that takes generations to complete. It is often the case that with all the manpower and brainpower of the people going into getting life to take root on the planet, other skills like spaceflight are slowly lost over time. The humans need to get bacteria, fungus, plants, and animals to not only exist but thrive. Nearly everyone is involved in terraforming or agriculture.  

Not all star systems were suitable for a habitable planet. If a star was too much larger or too much smaller than a G type star (like Sol, our sun), then the challenges involved in terraforming were too great and the colony would fail. All life would be lost. 

… 

More than twenty five thousand years later, using a new calendar system 

Stars are not stationary.  Every star in the galaxy is moving.  While two stars might be close to each other (if lightyears apart can ever be considered close) at one point in time, they drift away. Radio is too slow to keep in contact with the people living on other stars. All colonies lose contact with each other.

2276: A pilot named Mark Adakai from the planet Florida in the 18 Scorpii system is the first human to fly a ship with a true faster than light engine. 

FTL: These engines are dangerous and unstable. The scientists and engineers who make them don’t actually know how they work. The engines create local gravity in the ship. They also compress space around the ship. 

2286: Mark is sent using FTL on the “first ever” interstellar mission to another star.  His ship is called the Anasazi. He overshoots and ends up on the other side of the galaxy. Mark, like everyone of his home planet, believes that life and especially intelligent life only exists on his home planet. His is completely surprised to find humans living on a planet just like his own on the other side of the galaxy. 

FTL allows communication between the stars as well as the movement of people, plants, and animals. The fastest way to send a message in the FTL era is to just go there and say it. 

… 

A thousand years after Mark Adakai’s flight in the Anasazi

Humans have reconnected with each other.  Radio is still too slow to keep in contact so news travels person to person when ships arrive from other systems. 

AI chips are put into just about everything meaning that a game console, a watch, and even a toaster are pretty much sentient.  

Sentient machines are classified according to a system. 

Atypes: These machines are fixed in place and can not move. Anything from a vending machine to a toaster is an Atype.

Btypes: These machines can move. They are usually on wheels. A robo taxi or a food delivery bot in a restaurant would be a Btype. 

Rtypes: These machines have a humanoid body plan but are obviously a machine.  Sometimes they are bare metal exposed to the environment and sometimes they have fake plastic skin covering up their robot parts like an animatronic. 

Dtypes: These machines were designed to look as human as possible. From a distance they would be mistaken as human.  The skin covering this machine is not just there to hide the gears inside. The skin, eyes, nose, and mouth are all full sensory devices allowing the machine to learn more about the environment it is in. 

Ctypes: These are NOT machines. These beings are genetically engineered from cyanobacteria. Their DNA has been altered so that they look and act like humans.  Because they are not human and are instead created they are used as free labor in environments that would be toxic for humans. One such environment is the high radiation inside a plasma extractor near a star. 

Some humans have encountered Aliens.  Because all life in the galaxy all originates from the same tree of life, the Terran tree of life; Aliens were referred to as Extra-terrestrial Life Forms. This got reduced to “ELF” and so Aliens are called elves. Not all humans have encountered them, believing they are just a myth. 

The politics of the galaxy are complex.  Roughly half of all star systems with habitable planets are independent and constantly worried they’ll be taken over. 

There are four large organizations that control multiple systems. 

1: The Galactic Republic: They don’t control the entire galaxy but they think they eventually will. They have their core worlds where everyone can vote. Around the core worlds they have the allies. The allies can not travel away from their home world. All trade and communication has to be done with the Republic. Never with an outside system and definitely never with another ally. 

2: The Empire: This is a violent society.  They separate themselves into two classes, Imperials and Dependents. An Imperial can be trusted with responsibility since he has completed military training and served in the armed forces. A dependent can not be trusted with responsibility but all Imperials are duty bound to die before any harm ever comes to a dependent. 

3: The Ziot: These worlds are commerce worlds were money is the most important thing. 

4: The pirate worlds controlled by the Muzal are run down and destitute. The pirated are basically parasites that destroy and move on. 

Rules for Time Travel stories

Time travel is often used in fiction to varying degrees of success. It is often the case the time travel stories become confusing for the audience and too much of a burden for the writer to keep track of.  

With such a perfectly fictional concept as time travel each story is left on its own to figure out what the time travel rules in their story will be. As such, nearly no two time travel stories agree on the basic rules. This causes each story to have to explain the rules to the audience because those rules will definitely be different. There is not agreed upon base to use as a shorthand for how time travel is supposed to work. 

But what if there was?  Was if it was possible for a writer to use time travel in a story and the audience already know exactly what the rules were and didn’t need them explained again.  What if a writer didn’t have to come up with a bunch of half baked and ill conceived rules that contradict each other.  

So, to help out all other writers out there, here are the three rules of time travel you should use in your story. If you understand these rules and apply them consistently you won’t have to explain how time travel works to the audience, you won’t have to worry about contradicting yourself, and the rules have drama built into them.  

1: Random is RANDOM!!!   A common time travel trope is the traveler gets the lottery numbers from the future and goes back in time to win.  But will this work?  That would be the same as a scientist measuring the position of an electron and then going back in time to measure something else and then saying the he knows with certainty both properties. But physics doesn’t work that way. He’s not allowed to know both states of the electron. Similarly, if the mechanism used to generate lottery numbers is really random, then it should be impossible to use numbers from the future to win. Going back in time means the random event or interaction has a brand new chance to throw the dice and get a different outcome. 

Now think about how many things in life are actually kind of random.  Not just at the micro scale but at the macro scale. An election night that was so close just a few people randomly voting the other way or staying home could mean a different person wins. A baby was a boy but after time travel the parents have a girl instead. 

2: The time traveler is non contingent. What this means is that the time traveler is not tethered to the past or the future. From the point of view of the universe they just popped into existence from a random fluctuation of the quantum field.  If the time traveler goes back in time to kill their grandfather, or even their own younger self NOTHING happens to the time traveler. There are no magic tentacles of time stuff reaching out to connect the time traveler to anything. The time traveler is a free agent.  

3: There is not going back to the future. This rule is a consequence of rule number 1.  It is almost the same rule but needs to be stated separately so the writer and the audience really feel the impact. If all random interactions are random and get another chance and can get a new outcome, it means that after time travel, you can never get back to the future that is in exactly the same state as before. That future the time traveler came from is GONE. It’s not there anymore. It was erased. Destroyed. Wiped away.  It never existed. It never happened. The only echo of it is in the time traveler’s memory.  After time travel an entirely new future will have to work itself out and will certainly have differences from before. If a person goes back in time to before they were conceived it means they will likely not be conceived. And even if they are with the same parents and the same DNA, that child will still be a completely different person. A genetic twin, but will grow up to have a different personality and memories. 

Sulla Is Inevitable - Chapter 11

 Sulla Is Inevitable

By David Billiot

Copyright 2026: All rights reserved

Chapter 11

Two of the attackers had been captured.  They were being interrogated for information at the station in orbit around the star Lopetua. The governor was a man in his fifties. His world was allied to the Republic and had not participated in the War of the Allies. He had been collecting reports of what had been happening and sending them to the capital. Because of FTL, the fastest way to send a message was to just go there and say it. Radio was only good for communications in one system.  It also meant that there could be little or no word ahead of time of an important dignitary arriving. 

White had arrived with the task force of only fifteen ships and the governor hurried to provide a proper welcome. However, White did not care for pleasantries. 

“What do we know?” White asked matter of fact as soon as he was brought into the headquarters. 

“They targeted the needles. These are massive subsurface structures in planets. They were likely used during the construction process to keep the planetoid hot and the core molten while the planet was being created. They also help to regulate the magnetic field.  The crust is a bit thinner at the points where the needles touch the crust.” the inspector explained. 

“Who sent these ships?” White asked. 

“We don’t know. We’ve never seen anything like them. We were able to capture two of the attackers but so far they haven’t given us anything.”

“All they say is Devin over and over again.  They are acting very odd. I don’t understand this.” the governor said. 

“The two prisoners look identical. They might be twins.”

“Are they human?” White inquired. 

“Yes, but something has been done to them. And if they are not twins it means cloning.”

“Our enemy is destroying planets. Cloning humans is the least of their crimes.  I want to hear from the witnesses who saw what happened with their own eyes.”

“We recovered as many people as we could. Some of them were … prisoners.”

“I don’t care about that right now.” White stressed. “I want to hear from an eye witness.”

“There was one young man who might be a bit more articulate than the others. I’ll have him brought.”

Darkness was in handcuffs as he was brought before White.  He had no idea what was about to happen. 

“You no longer need those.” White said. The guard removed the handcuffs and Darkness brought his left hand to his right wrist to care for it. 

“Thank you. … Sir.”

“Do you know who I am?”

Darkness shook his head. “No, sir.”

“What did you see? What happened at Javin?”

“There was some kind of beam. It stretched off into space like it was coming from the sun. It was cutting Javin. Just cutting it like butter.”  Darkness lost his composure. He looked down and started to cry. 

“Did you lose family?” White asked. 

Darkness nodded but didn’t look up. 

“Governor Valens, what is his crime?”

“He was off world without a license. He was on an administrative hold.”

“Well, you can’t put him back, can you?”

“We’ll drop the charges.”

White nodded. 

“Sir, I don’t have any money. I need work.” Darkness said. 

“First, rest.” the governor said. 

“The Atolian fleet is coming.” White mentioned. “I’ll ask them to give you a spot, boy. Governor, let’s draw up documents so he doesn’t get arrested again.”

… 

Pulcher’s transport ship dropped out of FTL in the Brundisi system.  Pulcher himself was on the bridge and waited for the ship’s communication’s officer to make contact with White’s task force. The communication’s officer announced to the captain of the ship that the local authorities were saying White was not there. Pulcher overheard this and felt his anger rise. 

“If they are harboring the fugitive there will be penalties.”

“They say that word has come that White’s ships went to Lopetua.” the comm officer said. 

“Navigation, prepare for jump.” the captain commanded. 

Pulcher sat again in his seat and again endured the ship going into FTL.  He would be sure to tighten the cuffs around White’s wrists for this.  Pulcher got up and went to the restroom to relieve himself. When finished he looked at himself in his uniform.  He was going to arrest the vice president. He smiled. His name would be remembered for his. 

The light changing color indicated the ship was going to drop out of FTL. Pulcher rushed to get back to his seat so he could be buckled in for the moment. He got buckled just in time. Once the ship did come out of FTL it was confronted with a battle happening at that very moment. 

Pulcher’s ship was fired on by the black ships of the invading armada and the captain ordered evasive maneuvers. 

“Is White here?” Pulcher demanded. 

“We’re a bit busy.”

Pulcher was blind to the details of the battle happening.  He didn’t know what was going on. He had to hold on as the ship spun this way and that to avoid fire. Several blasts hit the ship and rocked the interior. 

“Captain, we are receiving word from White’s flagship on regroup coordinates.”

“Patch me through to White.” Pulcher demanded. 

“You’ll have to wait, sir.” the captain said. 

“If you have communications then patch me through now!”

The captain grimaced but complied. The secondary communications officer was ordered to get Pulcher on a direct line to White. 

“This is Captain Luculus.”

“By order of the Republic Senate and People’s Assembly, I demand to speak to Lucius White.” Pulcher said into the radio. 

“This is not a good time. Leave your message.”

“I will take you into custody as a traitor unless you put White on right this moment.”

Pulcher waited. The voice of Luculus did not come back. Instead the voice of the vice president himself came. “What is this?”

“Open your docking ports. My ship will dock. You are commanded by the senate to receive me.”

“Not going to happen.”

“This is a legal order from the senate.”

“I am in the middle of a evacuating a planet. Do you not see the battle?”

“Then I demand you take a shuttle to my ship.”

“On what authority?”

“The senate. They have relieve you of command. Your task force is ordered to return to the capital to be placed under the direct command of Senator Narius. You are to be taken into custody to answer for your crimes. Now acknowledge this order and obey it. You are under arrest. I will take you into custody.”

The line was silent for a moment. Then White’s voice came over. “Good luck.”

Sulla Is Inevitable - Chapter 10

 Sulla Is Inevitable

By David Billiot

Copyright 2026: All rights reserved

Chapter 10

This was a disaster. The black ships of elven make were smashing the Imperial navy that had come to prevent yet another world from destruction. The battle was taking place in orbit right above the star.  The old tactics the Empire used to use against the elves had not been working. These new ships were upgraded and much more powerful. 

The flagship had taken heavy damage and would not survive. The captain called for evacuation even knowing that the ships of the black armada would target them.  It was also very dangerous to use escape pods so close to the surface of the star but there was no choice. The ship was doomed. 

The emperor and his personal guard were rushing through the corridor of the massive vessel when the announcement system said one of the black ships had rammed them and enemy troops were boarding. 

The constant thud thud of the battle outside, the heat, and the relentless spinning red lights of the loud annoying alarm were making this moment of defeat less than dignified. 

The emperor and his guards arrived at a bulkhead door.  As someone was getting it open the emperor was thinking of what he could do.  Was this the end? Was this how he ended?  A life of service and sacrifice. A life of honor and dignity.  Damn the elves. It was wrong to let them go and not hunt them down like vermin. But that was the mistake of a previous emperor. Now this generation had to pay the price it seemed. 

The door was finally opened and the party was going to rush ahead. Someone put a hand to the emperor to encourage him to move but he did not move. 

“Go ahead.” he ordered. 

“Sire?”

“Valeria, come here.” the emperor demanded. 

The lone woman in the emperor’s guard turned and looked confused. She stepped forward and the Emperor reached to take off her helmet. She flinched but then let him do it. He pulled her to him and kissed her on the forehead. 

“I will make you the messenger.”

“No.” she protested not only with word but with a violent shake of her head. 

“Deny your emperor all you want but you will obey your father.”

“My lord, please. We need to get you to safety so you can …”

“Girl, listen. We have not time.” he demanded as the hull of the great ship was creaking and straining. “I did not place you in my guard so you could protect me. You are here so that I can protect you.”

“I will do my duty, father. Please. Come now.”

“Ravoren needs a new emperor. Listen carefully. When that man rises you must go to him as the messenger. Carry the words from me to him.”

“Why? Father, please.” she said as she tried to pull on his hand. 

“We fight. We die. We endure. And for what?  What is the secret of imperium? It is this and only this. Keep our people alive. That is the only thing that matters. Not wealth. Not power. Not expansion. Not even honor. Keep our people alive.” he repeated. 

“Father, you can make it.” she said. 

“Repeat the words to me.”

“You can make it.”

“I charge you as your emperor to be the messenger. Repeat the words.”

“Keep our people alive.” she said. 

The emperor looked up from her face and looked at each of the others there in turn. “Valeria is the messenger to pass on the secret to the next emperor. Your duty is to keep her alive at all costs.”

“It will be done, sire.” said the commander of the guard. In the end they had to drag Valeria away from her father. They pulled her across the threshold of the bulkhead door and then the emperor sealed it behind them. 

The emperor removed his ceremonial sash that he everyday put on his shoulder. It fell to the floor because the FTL was still providing artificial gravity to the ship. Next the emperor took off all his insignia and he was left with only his white navy uniform.  The weight was lifted. He almost felt like smiling. On the wall next to the door was the control for the fire suppression system.  The emperor used it to begin filling the corridor with white smoke. He put aside his ceremonial sword. He grabbed the ax and waited, knowing that it would not be long before a boarding party found him. No matter the cost they would not get through that door. 

It didn’t take long. Black clad soldiers started to fill the corridor but slowed when they encountered the smoke. They were tall. Too tall to be elves. They were in full tactical gear with closed faced helmets.  They approached slowly in formation. They were not speaking to each other. Whatever communication method they used the emperor could not perceive it. 

Then in an instant one of the black clad soldiers rushed directly towards the emperor. He came charging like a ram with his head low and sword aiming for a killing blow. The emperor felt a rush of giddy madness. He leaped forward to meet the threat, putting all his might into the ax in his hand. The blade of the ax cut a line through the smoke. The steel came crashing down onto the helmet of the marine. Instantly the body of the attacker slumped lifelessly to the ground.  

“Ha!” the emperor yelled as the rest of the boarding party zeroed in on him. Five of them rushed the emperor. There was clashing of steel on steel.  The emperor’s uniform was cut to ribbons revealing the physique the old man hid under his vestments. His muscles were like steel coils wrapped around his body. They sprang into action with the emperor cutting through his foes with exceptional brutality. He sliced one attacker’s arm clean off but for the next the emperor had missed. He had intended to take the soldier’s head off from the neck but instead he aimed too high and brains splattered out all over the place. 

The emperor was pushed to a wall and he pushed back against it. He forced the attacker to the ground and held his foot on the marine’s neck while he continued combat like the man under him was not even there. 

With all the initial attackers dead the emperor began to make his way down the corridor back the way he had come.  Then a second wave of marines revealed themselves.  

“Come!” the emperor shouted at them. “Come give your lives to me. My blade thirsts for a sacrifice.”

The battle began and the emperor found it almost too easy to cut through them like butter.  Two down. Then three. 

“I fight to the death.” the emperor announced as he advanced. “I breathe to the death. I sing to the death. I live … to the death. I’m right here. Come and kill me if you dare. For I was a man before I was a king.”

On he pushed and more of the marines fell at his hand. 

And once he had fought his way all the way backtracking to the bridge he found others of the Imperial crew who could not make it off the ship. 

“The emperor.” a lieutenant said. 

“These dogs have made the mistake of boarding us. That means there is a corvi.” the emperor instructed. Everyone understood. 

“It’s connected by deck eight.” one of the NCOs reported. 

“Then that’s where we go.” 

The men roared. They formed up behind the emperor and they marched.  This ship was doomed but the enemy ship could be their way to safety instead of burning up in the atmosphere of the star. 

As they marched and fought to get to the black ship that was docked to them the men started to sing as they fought. The enemy marines fell so easily it was almost deceptive. It felt like a trick. Their ships were powerful but their actual marines were … not good enough to be marines. 

“Sire, these are men, not elves.”

“I see that.”

“But they all have the same face.” 

“Clones.” the lieutenant said with disgust. 

“It matters not.” the emperor said coldly.  “We need to get to that ship.” 

The party pushed on. Forward. Forward. They could make it. There was enough time. Forward. Forward. 

… 

Valeria was listening to the radio as the escape ship blasted away, dodging fire to get to safety. She heard her father singing as he slaughtered one after another. 

“iste unta ah astanda unthede

iste unta ah astanda unthede 

iste unta veva lema onte mo

Zra

Isede onte mo

Isede onte ivila 

Isede onte ola

Ola Mia” 

Over and over the two verses were sung as the battle raged. Valeria began to have hope that her father would survive. But then, without warning, the plasma extractor aimed at the pair of ships and with the same powerful weapon that had destroyed a planet both ships were obliterated. The radio went silent.  Valeria was now the messenger. She had a sacred duty to carry the words of one emperor to whoever would be the next. 

“Father.” she said as she couldn’t take her eyes away.