Oolite Bulletins

Well, either we have a universal translator, or everyone in all 8 charts speaks a single language, as first or second language...
And besides, it's failure can hide a multitude of sins

It's not something, I don't think, that's ever been considered. It could even be a combination of the two: a universal trade language, combined with a "universal translator" to help iron out the inevitable differences in accent, dialect and larynx (or larynx-equivalent) physiology ...

I like the idea of a trade language, myself, backed up with some processing where necessary. It's less technomagical than a "true" universal translator, and it enhances the notion (which I find more interesting) of traders being a breed apart; a semi-independent separate culture within the Co-operative.

Surely we have a universal translator built-in to the comms which is why the Thargoids language comes through as semi-nonsense because although the words are being translated "literally" the body language and carapace rattling just doesn't work on a standard universal translator so the nuances of the language are lost and we get what we presume to be gibberish...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Surely we have a universal translator built-in to the comms which is why the Thargoids language comes through as semi-nonsense because although the words are being translated "literally" the body language and carapace rattling just doesn't work on a standard universal translator so the nuances of the language are lost and we get what we presume to be gibberish...

Works for me, particularly when you consider that being insectoid with a (possibly) hive style social structure much of their communication, certainly orders, is likely to be in scent form.

I personally, prefer a combination of those ideas myself.
A polyglot trader language, used by traders across the charts to organise transactions, and to bypass the (notoriously unreliable) universal translater that seems at times to have been coded by a drunken Tionislan with a pathalogical hatred of parking charges....

I happen to know that guy. He doesn't hate parking tickets near as much as he loathes reality shows. And while usually not a drinker, he has imbibed the megaweed on occasion.

I think the trade language is the natural approach, especially as it works already in many parts of the Earth.

In Tansania there are about 125 different languages spoken (they even come from four different language families(!), and some of them have as little to do with each other as Finnish, Celtic, and Han-Chinese would have), but everybody speaks Swahili as a second (trade, and national) language. In Cameroon it's even more diverse, they have way over 200 different languages, and again one or two trade languages.

Actually, if you think about it, our European/American situation that everybody in your country basically speaks the same mother tongue and you can live your entire life without learning any other language, is quite excepional even on Earth, and not as normal as we tend to assume.

Eric Walch wrote:

Chrisfs wrote:

Any ideas on how to find the Boa in a haystack ?

Like all normal traders, this one flies from witchpoint to planet. When arriving at the planet, traders make a turn towards the station.

It could be that in this system the station is quite far away from the witchpoint-planet route and you missed it because you flew directly to the station. (Random hits is placing its targets on the witchpoint-station route, ups mainly on the witchpoint-planet route)

Ah HAH! Witchpoint to PLANET!

This helped me finally finish the mission. I must have run back and forth between the witchpoint and the station a dozen times or more. I only encountered the Boa once that way and died. I couldn't find it again, but I sure made a lot of money on a sweet computers/furs milk run hopping in and out of the system hoping to find the Boa. But when I started heading for the planet instead of the station, I found it no problem every time and finally completed the mission.