Tuesday August 20, 2002
Book 2: The Teraport Wars — The Teraport Wars
T'okjith is yet another F'Sherl-Ganni contraction that carries far more meaning than any pair of syllables should. Contextually, it means "dangerous, barely-controlled singularity," and is used to refer to the toroidal singularity at the heart of a buuthandi's central star. The complete phrase from which the contraction was derived, " Taana ok, en cho jith dan breeka cho braa'ka cho Ganni ti ips'aa ta baala dinka-cho fatu jith," can be idiomatically translated as "The design is clever, but this <expletive> thing could sterilize a sizeable <expletive&gt chunk of the <expletive&gt galaxy if you're not <expletive&gt careful with it."

This particular phrase would not have been memorable (and certainly would not have been condensed and conjuncted and turned into a single word) had the speaker and 99% of his audience not been vaporized by a T'okjith that someone was not dinka-cho careful with.

Transcript

p'd'k'tag aide: Lord P'd'k'tag, 90% of the enemy fleet is in position.
P'd'k'tag: Don't let the T'okjith blow just yet. We want to get every last one of them. The simultanious annihilation of their entire fleet is an event that will indelibly etch our supremacy in their minds should they think to try attacking us again.
p'd'k'tag aide: Uh-oh... They just teraported out of the system... Every last one of them.
p'd'k'tag aide: Do you think that narrowly escaping with their lives will indelibly etch our supremacy in their minds?
P'd'k'tag: It doesn't send the same message, no.