How?

[Retsopmi]

How the hell can you meet a race for the first time. Yet have your language software understand them. Explaine this.

[LordDave]

Universal Translator. See, it was discovered that languages all follow mathematical properties that can be extrapolated and interpreted with only a few spoken words as reference.
I know, sounds impossible, but that's the Trek Explanation.

[MichaelArn99]

How the hell can you meet a race for the first time. Yet have your language software understand them. Explaine this.

Indeed, it makes first contact much easier. For example, first contact with the Vulcans went a lot better than with the Ferengi, whose Universal Translator failed upon crashing on Earth. :)

[Allardyn]

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

[Starisa]

I have only a few things to say...Darmok and Jelad at Tenagra!!

[Decius]

Not all races could be understood right off the bat with the universal translator.

On another note, it moves things along faster rather than watching the crew trying to figure out the alien language on every other show. :p

[spokechecker5000]

Its true this might be an unlikely senario for real life but I have to say it will make thinkgs so much easier for trek purposes. I am all for the UT! It would really be nice if they came out with something like that for real!

[Cathbadh]

Except for Farscape when they just all ran around with nanites doing the translation as they heard it. I remember the episode they were supposedly dragged back to Earth and the 3rd person perspective showed them all speaking different languages.

The Peacekeeper language sounded completely inhuman... Wierd pops and clicks everywhere.

[MichaelArn99]

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

Temba, his arms wide!

Good point.

[wilton84]

Temba, his arms wide!

Good point.


thats it ill go over here and you kill the dam thing now i under stand now you half dead

[The.Grand.Nagus]

Universal Translator. See, it was discovered that languages all follow mathematical properties that can be extrapolated and interpreted with only a few spoken words as reference.
I know, sounds impossible, but that's the Trek Explanation.

That is the best and most simple explanation your going to get :o

[USS_Parallax]

Universal Translators make no sense since language is the least senseical thing known to man more often then not folloing absolutely no pattern and as a language evolves the amount of patterns shrinks to less and less.

[The.Grand.Nagus]

Universal Translators make no sense since language is the least senseical thing known to man more often then not folloing absolutely no pattern and as a language evolves the amount of patterns shrinks to less and less.

Thats why its called science ficiton :p

[Varrangian]

The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix, formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear, you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language.

Oh wait sorry wrong series! Still more plausible:p

[Duckdee]

A wizard does it.

[The.Grand.Nagus]

A wizard does it.

Thats a secret! The Starfleet Wizzard caste is highly classified and is not to be discussed :mad:

[Cathbadh]

Too late. Now that the secret is out we might see Starships carrying Elves into battle. Bets on Blizzard rolling out a Star Trek expansion for WOW soon? ;)

[k.mpok]

Got to love Klingons. :)

The UT was less perfect in their translations into Klingon. In the sixth Star Trek film, the characters are seen relying on print books in order to communicate with a Klingon military ship, since Chekov said that the Klingons would recognize the use of a Translator.

hehe as to how it works its simple.

universal translation is made possible by a small fish. The fish was first inserted into the auditory canal where it feeds off the mental frequencies of those speaking to its host. In turn it excretes a translation into the brain of its host. Since the invention of the UT the little fish is kept in the Captains quarters.

See The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the creation of Babelfish for details.

[Trekkie]

I think that, for game purposes, all of the communication issues will be explained away with the universal translator but it would be interesting to see a mission or two where communication is one of the problems the players must face.

[JMD10222]

Got to love Klingons. :)

The UT was less perfect in their translations into Klingon. In the sixth Star Trek film, the characters are seen relying on print books in order to communicate with a Klingon military ship, since Chekov said that the Klingons would recognize the use of a Translator.

hehe as to how it works its simple.

universal translation is made possible by a small fish. The fish was first inserted into the auditory canal where it feeds off the mental frequencies of those speaking to its host. In turn it excretes a translation into the brain of its host. Since the invention of the UT the little fish is kept in the Captains quarters.

See The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the creation of Babelfish for details.

LOL I forgot about that one. NICE :p:D

[TheMasterpiece]

Dont question star trek abilities. i learned this along time ago

[beowulfx]

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

Cake and Pie at IHOP

[Mysticone622]

Thats why its called science ficiton :p

that and 300 years in the future(400 by the games date), god people still living in 2008

[ninjakiller1]

we might have English only as using in different races in the game. Like Klingon's and Romulans and different will have ability like shouting or smile or waving or any other will have different in race to communicate but like we will use chat to type to read eachother our conversation.

[RookActual]

It may be interesting to deal with the occasional UT 'failure', though.

[k.mpok]

It may be interesting to deal with the occasional UT 'failure', though.

I agree. It would add a role and purpose for those officers that fill out the Communications field.