Luke
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Post by Luke on Sept 25, 2010 8:27:55 GMT -6
If I remember the UTs they used in ENT, they were like little earpods, hardly noticable. Most of the time people who take them hostage are just making sure they aren't armed so an earpod would be easy to miss or just overlook.
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Atoz 77
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Post by Atoz 77 on Sept 27, 2010 7:45:20 GMT -6
The problem was mostly ignored in TOS. It was almost as if everyone spoke English (in fact in "Bread and Circuses", Spock specifically said they were speaking English instead of Latin as you'd expect). But sometimes when they were taken hostage, it was by telepathic races and the problem never came up.
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Sept 29, 2010 11:38:15 GMT -6
In that episode, they must have landed on that little island called Brittania. I come from Romana Magna, and believe me we all do speak Latin.
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Atoz 77
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Post by Atoz 77 on Oct 1, 2010 7:48:01 GMT -6
I have a theory that you Romans were probably transplanted there sometime in the past. The idea of an entire language and culture exactly duplicating one found on Earth calls for a big stretch of coincidence.
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Oct 2, 2010 8:39:19 GMT -6
Yes that was our thought too. Hodgkin's law can't really explain how two cultures can duplicate the same language. Although I have to say our Latin has drifted away from Earth Latin a little bit.
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Arkroyal
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Post by Arkroyal on Oct 3, 2010 18:11:48 GMT -6
Sort of like in Stargate or the VOY episode The 32s? Maybe the equipment was wrong - a computer glitch? Because in Roman times, nobody spoke English...since the main component of English would be missing in Britain. The Germanic tribes (from what is now Germany, Holland, Denmark and a few from Sweden) that formed the basis of the modern English language did not settle in Britain until after the Romans had left. If there was a Roman Empire still there surely the Brits should be speaking some form of Celtic? (Maybe you'd have guessed already but as a Historian this is an area I'm more comfortable in. )
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Atoz 77
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Post by Atoz 77 on Oct 4, 2010 7:30:59 GMT -6
And it's good to have a Historian around to correct us when we go wrong!
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Oct 6, 2010 11:24:16 GMT -6
I'll second that, Admiral! (although I have to add that I knew that Brits were Celtic but I didnt want to confuse things too much).
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Nov 6, 2010 8:13:49 GMT -6
I just watched that ENT episode "Civilization" again, and they really didn't say anything about earpods. But when it malfunctioned, Archer flipped out something that looked like his communicator.Do you think the UT was just a function of the communicator?
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Atoz 77
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Post by Atoz 77 on Nov 8, 2010 9:05:39 GMT -6
A couple of times I've wondered if the UT wasn't a function of the communicator, but there are two things wrong with this supposition. One, there have been times when their communicators were confiscated and they could still talk. And Two, if it were wouldn't the voice of the translation be coming from the communicator?
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Arkroyal
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Post by Arkroyal on Nov 8, 2010 10:28:07 GMT -6
I actually wonder whether the communicator has that as a secondary emergency function in case the earpiece goes down? (Especially if the earpiece is relatively new tech as it may have been in ENT)
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Nov 10, 2010 12:31:26 GMT -6
The only time we saw a Universal Translator in TOS it was a big bulky thing the size of a flashlight (that was Metamorphosis). So it kind of makes sense that it wouldn't fit in a little earpiece. The function of the thing would be patched in through communications.
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Atoz 77
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Post by Atoz 77 on Nov 12, 2010 9:02:21 GMT -6
I don't suppose we could posit a sort of low level telepathic field, like the TARDIS uses, can we?
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Nov 13, 2010 9:00:22 GMT -6
Heck I don't know why not. ONe of the guys in my old fan club used to say theres so much about 23rd century technology we dont have a clue about because they never bother to tell us. Like in the movie about the whales (I'm sorry I can't think of the name right now) Uhura locked in on the whale's radio tag and got a VISUAL picture of it! How did she do that? Some people said it was a mistake but Jeff used to say it was a technolgy advance we dont understnad. Maybe it is partly telepathic.
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Atoz 77
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Post by Atoz 77 on Nov 19, 2010 9:17:22 GMT -6
Come to think of it, what about the comm system itself? I mean a ship the size of the Enterprise has to have hundreds of comm channels. All you do is tap your comm badge to activate it, say Data to Laforge, and the computer automatically sorts through them all and links you up to that person's comm badge. How cool is that? Do you ever get the feeling the computer must be a little bit telepathic?
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