Extracting fact from designer interviews.

Up for discussion are the vague answers in the Developer interviews from the VP Material Collection. You might remember the one I posted for Mystina, and the underlying problem with that attempt (besides the convoluted sentences, which I guess you have to expect from conversational text) was that I couldn't decide how I wanted to present the information. From my point of view as a site maintainer, two things are going on here:

1 - what is actually said (a more or less direct translation of what's written)
2 - useful information conveyed / information defined as "fact" in VP canon

As maintainer, I don't care how the designer is phrasing the information that Artolia is destroyed after Jelanda dies; what I care about is the fact that he says it. That's a fact. Artolia falls. That he phrases it as conjecture - "One can assume that Artolia is destroyed after her death because-- et cetera, but who knows?" - doesn't mean much to me. If he didn't intend this information to be integrated into the reader's mind as canon, then he'd say, "Well, we don't know what happens to Artolia," or, "One of these three things could happen, but Ragnarok comes first." (And even this last example would be a nebulous sort of canon that would direct discussion topics.) In the Perfect Works (ala old translation, as I haven't gotten to this part yet), Krelian's profile says he may have met Miang before she returned to Solaris at so-and-so year after his ascension. They're telling us he didn't necessarily, but why put the thought in our heads if you don't want us to think that they did meet? You have to assume.

(That thing with Artolia? Not a direct quote. I still haven't gotten off my duff to do the work yet.)

As someone who wants to be faithful to the original text so other people can see it as it was meant to be read, I can't do that. I tried to do both, and it didn't work. So my choice when I do these sections of the books is to either provide a direct English equivalent, or just give you a list of facts that are implicated by the text. (Artolia falls. Mystina was recruited from a distant area by the academy. Krelian knew Miang.)

Originally my intent was to put the raw information up here and write it in my own words for the website, with references to the originals if necessary. I also wanted to put the Japanese up to be corrected, since I barely rate as a translator at all. There are bound to be mistakes. Yet, if I decide on localized posts - which would cut out a ton of unnecessary work on my end, because I could ditch all the redundancies - then I feel kind of guilty, like I'm hiding mistakes or process secrets, even when I'm not.

At the moment I'm not sure which I want to do, but a little bit of rescheduling is in order.

Spring Semester 2008
- VP: Yumei
- VP: Nanami
- VP: Suo
- VP: Shiho (in progress)
- VP: Freya and Frei
- XG: Solarian social structure

Someday (not necessarily in this order)
- LE: Delphine
- Suiko: Sarah
- VP: Lorenta
- VP: Gandar
- VP: Hai-Lan national data
- XG: Cain and the Gazel
- XG: Miang (Zeboim)
- XG: Krelian (everything re: Solaris war)
- XG: Rico and Hammer
- XG: Shevat's Social Structure

...


Finished
Winter 2007
+ VP: Jelanda [link]
+ VP: Mystina [link]
+ XG: Ramsus [link]

Summer 2007
+ VP: Jayle [link]
+ XG: Billy's profile [link]
+ XG: Queen Zephyr (and related characters) [links: 1 - 2]
+ XG: Jesse, Prim, Stone [links: 1 - 2]
+ XG: Shitan [link]
+ XG: Minor Solarians [link]

Winter 2006/7
+ VP: Odin [link]
+ XG: Roni Fatima [link]

Fall 2006
+ VPS: items and descriptions [link]

2005
+ XG: Solarian Social Structure - basic hierarchy [link]

...


All translations can be found via the following tag categories:
-- general translation
-- Valkyrie Profile translation
-- Xenogears translation


Updates:
- 10.13.07: added older translations to the list.
- 02.02.08: added Winter '07 updates to the list.