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Do people in Star Trek understand what animals say? The people in that universe have a "Universal Translator". They can understand languages the device didn't heard before. Why not animals?
Wednesday, 12-Nov-14 12:56:24 UTC from Choqok-
@broniebrown That implies animals have an actual coherent language and not just a single sound that vaguely means "who wants to dole me"
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@broniebrown you have to realize that the technology is already really stupid; how do they explain the science of the device translating a language it's never heard?
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@rarity Magic. The same magic that can alter "DNA" within seconds and alter the whole body within a short time.
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@broniebrown I hate Star Trek science
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@broniebrown Because they do not have coherent languages, but rather "warning and anouncement" tjirps ( for birds ) and possibly meow's for cats ( cats are not known to be really vocal at that ) ... I believe I saw a few case studies about birds and at least 1 about "cat's can probably understand us but they do not care enough" ... As such holding up a working "Universal Translator" that works next to a tree with tjirping birds it would probably like [its nice here] * 18, [lets look for shelter ?] * 5, [possible threat here] * 2, and [watch out, I am going to land here] * 3
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@rarity There was a DS9 episode where they encountered a new species of bipedals. One of them ( obvious fat lady kind ) would not shut up. The doctor asked "How do we communicate ?" upon which someone said "we wait for the universal translator to pick up". since the fat lady was talking her ass off the changeling said "well that should not be a problem"
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@critialcloudkicker what do you mean by obvious fat lady kind
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@rarity Basically those who could fill the position of "overtalkative overbearing auntie" with flying colours.
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@critialcloudkicker I remember. But remember Voyager. They encounter a new language every day and it was recognized immediately.
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@broniebrown Is it true that Star Trek teleporters work by killing you and then creating a new you somewhere else?
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@thelastgherkin The molecules from the body will be disassembled and reassembled somewhere else. I think you can call it "killing".
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@rarity There are well established algorithms, commonly used in codebreaking designed to wring meaning from structured noise. The Voynich Manuscript has been the target of a lot of such software (admittedly with negligible success, but that's more owing to the nature of the document than the software)
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@broniebrown Voyager was/is an Interpit-class starship. It had the possibility of scanning/scanning entire databases prior to establishing first contact, ( or radio-comminucations ). Deep Space 9 ( Terok Nor ) was a converted Cardassian space station in orbit of Bajor ( Chief Miles O'Brien continuously complained about loving his job that there was constantly something to fix ). Even though Voyager was taken from the alpha Quadrant 2 years earlier than Deep Space 9 was "founded" it makes sense that DS9 was not equipped with exploration abilities hardware & software. Or it was not a priority to fix since "What's the chance of meeting a new species out here ?"
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@thelastgherkin There was an episode where that was covered. Some people who did not wanted to use a teleporter, ever, made those claims. Then at a later date on Voyager the doctor referenced that teleporter disease has no longer been a concern since they made use of some sort of "new age" spools or something
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@critialcloudkicker It doesn't solve the "problem". The universal translator has to understand what is written in the computers. Also there were numerous episodes about pre-warp civilisations.
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@broniebrown If you have 3000 exahertz to throw at a problem or a mere 500 gigahertz because you needed to come up with something on the spot. Well, that could explain the "problem"
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@thelastgherkin That's not how Transporters (claim to) work. No. They scan your body down to its quantum state, break it down into "subatomic particles", transfer those particles to the ship, where they're then encoded as energy and beamed through subspace (shortening the journey time) where they're then decoded from energy and reassembled using the data stored in the ships computer. People are concious, and at several points, actively molested by various energy beings, during the beaming process, so it definitely doesn't kill you.
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@rarity In one Trek book I read, it took a minute for the translator to learn the language, for whatever it's worth.
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