Wow that's a sparkly ribbon, especially for people who can't use magic or just turn miscellaneous objects into light sources. Is using such a sparkly ribbon as a decoration for a different item a conspicuous display of willing to spend resources on a visitor from an uncontacted species, like they've clearly been doing at other times, or do they just have a nonmagical cheap means of making things really sparkly?

"Arithnu! Good to see you in closer proximity. Is this another kind of image tablet, or something else?" Griffie asks.

Arithnu nods. "So, I don't know if it has been explained to you how the tablets around here work?"

"Not the principles behind them, no. They're touch-sensitive, they communicate with your infrastructure, they're seemingly made of non-elemental glass and metal, they emit light which I guess means there's a special light-emitting technology in there since you can't just do light illusions?"

"Correct. The way we run a lot of the tablets is that they are just interfaces to the machines on the ship. That way we can easily reallocate resources between tasks and don't have to worry about damage to the tablets causing data loss. However, this isn't always what you want. Sometimes you want a tablet that can go anywhere, or… at least anywhere it isn't destroyed, and still function. This tablet is one of those."

"We also got together and pooled our compute credits to make a distillation of the language model. Uh, basically we said that we wanted some of the time we get deciding what the machines do to have them sit and think about your language, until they figured out how to do it as a habit rather than as a big complicated thing that needed the bigger machines. So now, it fits on this tablet, and we translated the interface as well. So even if you decide you don't want to be on the ship, either for a little time or just to leave, you can still have this. It is sort of a belated 'welcome to our world' gift to give you independence."

Arithnu puts the tablet through the slot.

Griffie takes the tablet. "This is really nice of you! Thanks, everyone. While I do plan on staying on the ship for now, the logic of the gift makes sense."

"So you said the language-understanding fits on the tablet, which suggests that the structure is more general-purpose than mere translation. Is that correct?"

"Yes. The key principle of general computation was invented by the trio of Eothe, Tyilim, and Aelical long ago. Much of the data is processed as two-state information, with some analog processing for a certain kind of reasoning. Your dictionary included the word 'computation' but not a word for the general device, our machines have been translating it as 'machines' or 'systems' depending on context, I believe."

Griffie looks like they have just developed an exciting hypothesis. "Tell me more about two-state information?"

"Well, I'm not an engineer in the area, but the basic concept is mathematical. Any number that can be expressed at all can be expressed using a series of parts each of which have only two states. In fact, any data at all can be expressed as such. There are often ways that are more or less efficient, but you can imagine doing it by imagining all the ways that data could be, and putting them on a list, and then the number that represents that data is simply where it appears on the list, which can then be expressed as a series of of parts each of which have one of the two states, so everything can be handled uniformly."

Griffie looks excited and flaps their hands. "Wow! So you've gotten translation effects done with general-purpose discrete information handling! My friend is going to be so excited! Uh, my friend invented what he calls 'Discrete Storage', and it also uses two-state information for storing data, but all we've really done with it so far is store books more compactly and automate looking for a word in a document and simulate some stuff about rotating pieces of paper relative to each other and drawing on them in a very simplistic way. Apparently it has a lot more potential than that though?"

Arithnu, along with quite a few of the other people around, blink. "Yes, it is a very potent path. Though actually I believe for efficiency the translation actually uses some non-discrete components as well. I'm not an engineer though, so I couldn't tell you exactly what the balance is. Your home has only recently begun on this path, and your friend invented it?"

"Well, I don't necessarily know it's never been invented before, but it seems plausible to me that this is the beginning of the path for my home. And yes, my friend did. He got frustrated about wanting to copy a lot of books but not having a way to carry them."

"Well. Good for your friend! I hope your world honours him accordingly! Would you like me to show you how to use the tablet? It sounds like it probably has a lot more features than you are used to."

"He got paid pretty well for making the system operate with a base chunk size of 16 information-units, which had some religious significance. He's sold some models since then and I think there's a librarian who's a big fan, but the technology is definitely in its early stages. And yes, I would like you to show me how to use the tablet. Since we can talk now you hopefully won't need to use a parchment texture to mean 'write here'."

Religious significance? Arithnu can wonder about that later. For now, it's time to help out the new alien!

Arithnu and his friends demonstrate the tablet features. The translation software can currently translate between Sylvan and any of the 77 most common mercurial and human languages, "though you shouldn't actually need most of those, it's just there are already compact models of them in the ship library". There's a system for adding vocabulary from other languages, "but it won't form a high-quality model of those languages on its own, you'll need to connect to a bigger machine, like the ship systems, for that". There's also language-learning software, designed to teach a user who already knows one language the tablet has a model of any other language the tablet has a model of.

The tablet has a many-function calculator, using notation Griffith finds totally unfamiliar, many of them representing mathematical functions Griffith doesn't recognize. "There's also math textbooks and encyclopedia articles on there, and you can copy mathematics-learning games from the ship's library if you like. The humans were hesitant to show you our most advanced mathematics, but we insisted. Honor demanded it."

The encyclopedia and textbook sections also cover some basic physics, chemistry, biology, law, and regulations. Appropriate spaceship behavior, and the contents of a spaceship, are also a major theme. (A bit bluntly-passive of Boyd, but understandable for a human. Arithnu should really show Boyd some more elegant and honorable movies at their next media night. Perhaps Alliances in the Eternal Night?)

There's also a media library, featuring selected episodes of the human children's show Launch Into Literacy and the mercurial children's show The Vital War on Ignorance and Confusion, a few episodes of the new Star Trek (Arithnu insisted and personally paid for the time of the content inspector), carefully selected to be classics without the issues of the early purely-human versions, some episodes of some cooking and gardening shows (Boyd considered these among the most practical media options.) A wide range of instrumental music is present. "The humans found filtering the more story-focused media to be more difficult, though I payed them to inspect a few of my favorite stories."

The tablet also has cameras and microphones, and can take photographs, videos, and audio recordings, including integrating them into note taking software.

The notetaking software includes a handwriting option, an option to handwrite and have the system transcribe it as printed Sylvan characters matching the dictionary's print, or an option to type, with a reconfigurable Sylvan keyboard currently optimized based on letter frequency in the dictionary. Learning-to-type software is included as well. The keyboard currently has raised keys, using the texture and elevation emulation, but this is a higher-power feature which Griffith should turn off if Griffith is away from mercurial or human infrastructure for an extended period.

While Griffith doesn't have full network privileges on the ship, the tablet is currently connected to the ship's network, and can send messages to any of the people Griffith has met thus far, who appear in a directory with portrait photo, name, title, and a short description.

The tablet can be charged wirelessly from a power supply on the ship, or in a pinch by inserting the glowing portion of Griffith's necklace into a very black slot. Arithnu offers to have someone design and augment the tablet with other charging methods later, as Cornelia learns more about Griffith's capabilities, not that the tablet should run out anytime soon.

There are various options for securing the tablet which Arithnu proudly explains. "And this is your tablet. If you configure it as I instruct, we will be incapable of viewing anything you do not choose to share."

Griffie thanks the gift-givers once again, configures the security options, and experimentally photographs the gift-givers. The camera is so fast and so detailed! It would have been nice to have one while adventuring.

So much to learn, but their most focused time probably should still go to teaching the humans and figuring out the sample-stabilization spell they've been working on. Though appropriate ship behavior may also be urgent, so that can get priority too.

Arithnu reemphasizes that Griffith can call him, and leaves with the rest of the gift-givers.

Griffie begins looking over ship law.

Cornelia says that Griffith can call her as well, but she has things to work on that involve not being right by the quarantine box if Griffith is all right being left alone for a bit.

Griffie is no longer feeling undersocialized and is happy to spend some time by themself.

Cornelia heads out.

Ship law appears to primarily assume that most people on the ship choose to be there, and are not spending all of their time in quarantine.

Griffie may well be able to break ship law even in quarantine, but at least it is unlikely to happen without using spells or other abilities.

There are also rules about accessing the network and not tampering with it, but it seems to assume that such tampering is unlikely to be done by accident.

The ship law does implicitly give Griffie some additional information, like that space suits exist.

Well, given this information, Griffie can hopefully avoid breaking ship law, and at least has some idea what the expected behavior here is. Seems like a good enough understanding for now, so they can go back to diagramming the sample-stabilization spell until night sleep time.

During this, Cornelia is going to call Griffith's new tablet and ask a few questions about Griffith's higher energy spells and when Griffith can cast spells.

Every 'day', where 'day' is a unit of time length based on Suaal's sun, but does not for this purpose depend on the sun, Griffie can prepare 4 orisons, which are sphere-0 spells that can be cast as many times as Griffie desires, 6 first-sphere spells, 5 second-sphere spells, 4 third-sphere spells, and 3 fourth-sphere spells.

Orisons include 'Create Water', 'Light', 'Mending', and the smallest untargeted positive energy spell Griffie has, the one which didn't cling to the plant. The disease-recognition and the positive energy dose that stuck to the plant were first-sphere. The planetarium attempt and the flame blade were second-sphere, and the hum spell, 'Recentering Drone', would be too. 'Remove Disease' was third-sphere. Creating a body without a soul, or grabbing the soul of a recently dead person and attaching it to an available body, are fourth-sphere, as is 'Life Bubble' and 'Scrying'.

There are a lot of higher energy spells. The lightning options are the second-sphere 'Aggressive Thundercloud', which creates a movable 5-foot-diameter cloudlike sphere that shocks anyone it touches. It can be moved by the wind, but Griffie can counteract at least a weak wind, and there really shouldn't be strong winds indoors. There are other lightning spells, but one of them involves 30-foot vertical lines, which seems a bit tall for inside this place, and another one targets a 20-foot radius area. Griffith's heard of other druids with more precise lightning spells, but never prioritized learning them.

Cornelia notes this down, and thanks Griffith.