Star trek Enterprise
um, I just thought of something else about the UT. There’s no period of adjustment or anything- the UT instantly translates even without ever hearing the language before. So, what we have is a telepathic UT that works even while being broken hundreds (or in some cases-millions) of miles away. Oh yeah, and automatically puts all alien words in a cultural context understandable to everyone (this accounts for the sled thing) except for certain Klingon words which remain miraculously untranslated.
I love Trek. [img]http://www.sadgeezer.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif[/img]
Anyway, I thought about the Klingon problem. For the purposes of continuity… um, yeah, that’s what I said.. old Klingons would have to have the cranial ridges because every representation of Kai-Less, the grand old geezer of the Klingon Empire, has them (that I’ve seen).
Here’s a possible solution to the ridges/no ridges thing. Early Klingon ships didn’t have especially good radiation shielding, the excess radiation caused their DNA to mutate, which caused them to lose some pigmentation and their cranial ridges, [i]temporarily[/i], with time their genetic structure returned to its original state, and successive ships had better and better shielding, so there was less and less mutation until the *present* day when there is none.
I’m not an afficianado of the first Trek so I’m not sure if my theory would work in all cases. For instance, if Kirk had ever encountered a some hundreds year old colony of Klingons, incapable of space flight, or if he’d ever gone down to the Klingon homeworld and all the Klingons had had the *mutation*, then my theory would need some, um, [i]modifying[/i]. All in all, I believe it covers all the bases, but I’ll have to see what y’all say.
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spooooon
dead thing pie!
Much Madness is divinest Sense-
To a discerning Eye-
Much Sense-the starkest Madness-
‘Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail-
Assent-and you are sane-
Demur-you’re straightaway dangerous-
And handled with a Chain-
– Emily Dickinson