OK, how does the Universal Translator work?

[bfollowell]

OK, how does everyone envision the UT working?

In the shows, and in books that I've read, it seems to me that it just translates language as it comes in and the characters hear the translation. In reverse, they speak in Federation Standard and that spoken language is then translated into whatever alien language is required and then broadcast to them.

Things get a little trickier with person-to-person contact but, I've always assumed it was something similar. Alien speaks, character waits for translation. Maybe the translation is sub-aural, maybe the alien actually hears the unit translating. Then the character speaks in Federation Standard, which the alien hears, then the unit translates, which the alien also hears.

Now, this is where I get hung up. I'm currently reading Enterprise: The Good That Men Do, and Trip and the other agent are impersonating Romulans. They have implanted translation devices. How, exactly, is this supposed to work?! Are we supposed to believe that the Romulans these two encounter don't think something is strange when these two "Romulans" speak in this strange, alien language and then a disembodied voice speaking Rihannsu comes up from nowhere?! I mean, it's not like the translation device suddenly gives them the ability to speak Rihannsu.

This glaring issue really makes it hard for me to suspend belief and buy into this storyline. Is there something I'm missing here about how the UT is supposed to work?

 

[Idran]

The same issue's come up on every single "infiltrate the alien culture" episode of Star Trek (the Mintakans, the Malcorians, the Akaali, etc.), and the answer is basically: it literally can't and this is one of the few places where you pretty much have to buy into what Trek presents or not, there is no realistic (or even reasonable technobabble-y) explanation for how it could possibly do what it appears to do in terms of literally transforming the language someone speaks.

Between no one noticing the original language, the lip shapes matching up non-suspiciously, and the real-time translation of a language whose sentence structure might not match up at all (so the verb might be at the start of the sentence in one language and the end in the other, for example), it's just something you have to roll with.

 

[Christopher]

Yup, it's just a story cheat that couldn't possibly work as depicted. Best not to think about it too much.

 

[bfollowell]

OK. If that's the case, I guess I'll just have to roll with it.

Christopher, I'm heading quickly towards your Enterprise books. I've heard a lot of bad things about the Enterprise novels up to The Romulan War, especially Kobayashi Maru, but I've really enjoyed them so far. I heard that the novels started getting better after Michael broke away from Andy and that they really took off after you took over the series. I'm anxious to start The Romulan War arc and then on to The Rise of the Federation.

 

[trash80]

I've always assumed its virtually instant translation, i guess as well as an ear implant you need a vocal chord one too? I think the latest ENT book mentions an alien noticing the lips don't match the (translated) words being said.

 

[dansigal]

It's basically magic. Don't try to think about it or it ruins things.

 

[hux]

I'm happy to suspend disbelief for the universal translator but I wish they had explored it a little more in the shows. Sometimes it feels like the crews are all English speakers and only when they encounter alien races does the UT come into play. Some clarification here would have been nice (how many of the crew are English speakers)

Additionally, I never liked it when people would reference their own language but it doesn't get automatically translated into an English equivalent

Eg - You're such a p'tak

But overall, the technology makes sense, is necessary and works well as a cheat (if a little under explored)

 

[Kilana2]

Remember the episode "Little green Men", where the UT obviously didn´t work. Quark was talking gibberish while Rom tried to repair it by digging in Nog´s ear.

 

[Timo]

I never thought the device merely used a loudspeaker to insert an additional, translated voice to whatever the person was saying (and somehow damped out the original voice). That just plain wouldn't work in any context.

But the device could well intercept communications between the ear and the brain, and again between the brain and the mouth, and do the translating there. This implant would then be boosted by external devices that add computing power and allow the deciphering of all-new languages (whereas the implant itself only handles known languages). This would explain how our VOY heroes in "Basics" can still speak with, say, Neelix (who knows no English while the heroes know no Talaxian) or with their Kazon captors, while being unable to learn the language of the local cavemen.

However, a device that takes in the Romulanese coming through the ears, turns that into English, allows the user to think of a response in English, and then turns that into Romulanese for the lips to speak, still doesn't meet the criteria of the UT: we see in VOY "The 37s" et al. that the device actually translates not just from, but also to multiple languages at the same time!

Perhaps the better bet, then, is that only the incoming signal is intercepted and translated, and everybody has a UT of his or her own implanted so that they understand what is being spoken to them in an alien language? Their brain simply ignores the lack of lipsynch, just like the human brain naturally does (or then the UT tickles the brain a bit to facilitate the self-deceit).

However, this doesn't work with "The 37s", or with DS9 "Little Green Men", as the receiving parties in both cases are primitive humans who decidedly lack UT implants! "Little Green Men" is easily explained by the device inside the Ferengi affecting their output, perhaps making their lips say things in English - but "The 37s" cannot be explained that way, as Janeway can't really be speaking in three languages at the same time.

What are we left with? Well, holodecks show that the UFP has mastered the trick of having forcefields (?) create localized and directed sounds while hanging in empty air. Such tech could allow the UT to create virtual loudspeakers for every person present, sending the proper sound signals in their direction while damping out unwanted signals. That does not sound like something our ENT or even TOS era heroes could be relying on, though!

All that said, though, an implant should nicely explain the events of the ENT novel, if we assume it simply makes the human heroes speak Romulanese! That is, the version where the implant alters the way the lips move by messing with the signal while it travels from the brain to the lips (*) is certainly doable with ENT tech and in the plot circumstances involved.

Timo Saloniemi

(*) Simplifying a bit, of course. The intercept would probably happen somewhere between the language centers of the brain and the motor centers that their cues from the language centers, after which the whole sound-generating apparatus in our bodies would be producing Romulanese rather than English without even noticing anything amiss.

 

[Thrawn]

^ Or, to summarize that post more succinctly, "Yup, it's just a story cheat that couldn't possibly work as depicted. Best not to think about it too much."

 

[Idran]

All that said, though, an implant should nicely explain the events of the ENT novel, if we assume it simply makes the human heroes speak Romulanese! That is, the version where the implant alters the way the lips move by messing with the signal while it travels from the brain to the lips (*) is certainly doable with ENT tech and in the plot circumstances involved.

Given the level of ENT technology shown on the show and in the books, how on Earth do you say that something like this is doable with ENT tech? The UT on Enterprise was barely more than a fancy version of Google Translate, given the sort of comments Hoshi made while using it over the course of the series. If you take Rosetta as part of current Treklit (and I can't think of any reason not to), the idea of neurological analysis as part of the universal translator was barely even conceived of at the time, even.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Now, now, let's be rational here.

The Universal Translator, in its various forms, is the favoured technology of a race comparable to the Q, or perhaps exceeding them. As such, it is woven into the metaphysical construct of the multiverse, by these peoples' hand, that if one is using, carrying or implanted with such a device, then reality will bend to accommodate one. The translator doesn't just deal with languages itself, it also serves to access the power of this unknown super-race, so, for example not only allowing the Romulans to understand Trip but arranging matters so that they believe he is actually speaking Rihannsu. Or, more to the point, so that in their reality he truly is. One might say that there is the very slightest deviation, wherein Trip and a given Romulan are communicating through some form of anomaly that intersects two otherwise identical timelines, one in which Trip is speaking English only to have it be rendered Rihannsu, and one in which Romulans are listening to (and watching, because of the lip thing) someone speaking Rihannsu unaided; these are laid over each other with only the slightest irregularity. Any mental uncertainty is quashed by the awesome power of the race in question.

Thus everyone hears the other person speaking their language, not the other person's own. There are some moments where the power fails, however, and the two timeline sheets don't integrate effectively. Swear words are particularly likely to prove a problem, in that the race in question were rather puritan and so the multiverse still suffers the occasional mild shock to the system upon encountering them.

**

Speaking of the Akaali, Idran, I like how the translator breaks down in "Civilization" during the discussion about pet animals. I like to assume that it's not bad timing or a random breakdown, but that Riaan's attempt to mention a native animal is specifically what caused the device to splutter.

Archer: I have a similar one. I talk to my dog.

Riann: My mother bought me a tousorobco once, but it tuployo pludak...

How does tousorobco translate? What's a comparable animal both biologically and in terms of cultural significance, so that the translator can substitute something? It should just have said [translation error], but there was too much obvious from context for it to return that, I'm betting. And while it's trying to find some suitable translation for what it knows is a workable noun with a reasonable translation and can't, it starts missing the rest of her speech and falls behind and it's all too much for its feeble little circuits. Shouldn't have mentioned the dog, Archer.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

To paraphrase something a famous stage conjurer once said, when asked how he did a particular trick:

It works rather well, don't you think?

 

[Idran]

To paraphrase something a famous stage conjurer once said, when asked how he did a particular trick:

It works rather well, don't you think?

I thought that was Okuda when asked how the Heisenberg Compensator worked?

Speaking of the Akaali, Idran, I like how the translator breaks down in "Civilization" during the discussion about pet animals. I like to assume that it's not bad timing or a random breakdown, but that Riaan's attempt to mention a native animal is specifically what caused the device to splutter.

Archer: I have a similar one. I talk to my dog.

Riann: My mother bought me a tousorobco once, but it tuployo pludak...

How does tousorobco translate? What's a comparable animal both biologically and in terms of cultural significance, so that the translator can substitute something? It should just have said [translation error], but there was too much obvious from context for it to return that, I'm betting. And while it's trying to find some suitable translation for what it knows is a workable noun with a reasonable translation and can't, it starts missing the rest of her speech and falls behind and it's all too much for its feeble little circuits. Shouldn't have mentioned the dog, Archer.

Oh, definitely; I think you mentioned that in your Run-Through thread, and I've pretty well settled in agreement on that since then too.

 

[Kor]

This is easy. The universal translator works the same way the transporters, warp drive, subspace, and replicators work.



Kor

 

[Idran]

In all seriousness, I really would put it on a level beyond all of those; those at least make some sense within the setting, but the UT doesn't even do that when taken at face value.

 

[bfollowell]

This is easy. The universal translator works the same way the transporters, warp drive, subspace, and replicators work.



Kor

Who would've ever dreamed that a Klingon could be so, logical?

Thank you for clearing that up for me!

 

[rahullak]

It's magic... any sufficiently advanced technology. Like Babelfish.

 

[Kilana2]

It works like a real time dubbing. Out of sync, though.

 

[Christopher]

The problem is that translation could never work fluidly in real time. Lots of languages have different word orders from one another -- for instance, one would have the noun at the start of the sentence, the other at the end. If you're translating from the latter to the former, you wouldn't know what the subject of the sentence is until the sentence was finished, so you couldn't start translating it until then. Any attempt at an instant, real-time translation would result in a bizarre, Yoda-esque word order, and that wouldn't fool anybody.

So the premise that UTs could be used to pass as native speakers of a language just can't be justified. It's always going to be something of a narrative cheat to move the story along.

In my original story "The Hub of the Matter," I made the translators implants between the speech center of the brain and the vocal apparatus, so that they'd intercept the words you planned to say and have them come out of your mouth in the listener's language. That would be sort of like how translators are shown to work in Trek, except that if both parties were using that kind of translator, we'd see and hear them speaking each other's languages. And it'd only work with languages that are already known.

I have another, as yet unsold original work where I'd originally written the characters as hearing the translations of alien speech fed into their ears, but then I realized, under influence from the age of texting and augmented reality that we live in, that it might work better if they actually saw subtitles projected onto their retinal implants (with computer annotations as needed to explain complex or ambiguous concepts in the alien language). That way, they could actually hear the alien speech clearly and it would be easier for them to learn it over time.