kaelio:

we know that universal translators exist in Star Trek, it’s fundamental. but we don’t really know how… graceful? that translation is. Does it have any style? i’m thinking Julian is , as we know, passing him classic human literature and garak’s reading it–

“God-will-hear = me! The past was a time before the present by some amount. I am bored and my little bag has no things inside. God-will-hear ( = me! ) looked at wooden floaty and brain said ‘climb on top of wooden floaty to acquire currency of metal disks’! Floating object would be floating in Big Wet so eyes could see Big Wet! Blood is in my body.”

and he is like what the fuck is this and 

Julian: moby dick is one of the most Famous Novels for being amazing. i can’t believe you don’t love it

garak: ………………………………………………. 😑

OH NOOOOOOOO

forestlingincorporated:

One of these days I’m going to write a fic featuring the universal translator not being so universal. Cause some words mean multiple things, or don’t have good one-to-one translations. And surely different translators - older models, different manufacturers - might translate those words differently. 

Consider, for instance, to make it spirk-y, the word “t’hy’la” - which can be translated as friend, brother and lover. This is an excellent opportunity for shenanigans. 

Can you imagine Spock and Jim taking shore leave together, and Spock pays for their hotel stay, and he just “my t’hy’la and I require a room for the night” and Jim’s translator hears “my friend and I require a room for the night” and the receptionist hears “my lover and I require a room for the night” and Jim is really confused when they get to their room and there’s only one bed. 

Alternatively, ships seem to have ship-wide universal translators, but that doesn’t mean all ships have the same translator. What the Enterprise translates as “my friend” could be translated at “my brother” or “my lover” on different ships. 

Can you imagine, captured on an enemy ship and - 

“What is Jim Kirk to you?”
“He is my captain. And my lover. I will not allow you to harm him.”
“That’s ri- wait, I’m your WHAT now?” 

Meanwhile there’s some poor baffled captain on another ship somewhere that walked away from an exchange with the Enterprise thinking Jim and Spock are an adoptive brother captain/commander team - “wish my siblings and I were that close.”