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Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete)

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Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete) Demons and Angels Seven Days to Skitter
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Yes, the show was extremely simplified. According to some of the books, Uhura was a department head, similar to how Scotty was the chief engineer, Spock and the science department and Bones the CMO.
We just didn't see any department head activities from Uhura and minimal activities from Scotty, Spock & Bones
 
Derek M said:
I could see the translator fairly quickly coming up with a translation for a language that is related, heavily influenced by, or descended from known languages. Like, I could see a Star Trek grade AI eventually figuring out Japanese if it already knew Chinese and English, because you would have enough touch points through borrowed words to work out syntax and such...

A program would have to have SOME clues, though. The reason the Rosetta stone was so important to deciphering hieroglyphics...
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Once read an old sci fi story that touched on that. Explorers arrive on Mars and discover the remains of an advanced martian civilization that died out when their atmosphere fizzled away (REALLY old story.) There was art, sculpture, writing, books... but they were stumped for how to translate any of it. There was absolutely zero commonality with any human language, for obvious reasons. They had no Rosetta stone---

Till they found a science classroom. With a table of the elements up on the wall... no recognizable glyphs or alphabet of course, but it was instantly recognizable to anyone with a high-school education just by its layout.

So they knew that THIS set of glyphs in the top left box meant Hydrogen, THIS set of glyphs in the top right meant Helium.... and so forth.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
Well, no. I suppose not. But if you're seriously wanting to turn the space ship into a gravy boat, you also need a turkey (baked) gun, a casserole emitter, and a mashed potato ray.
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Icemanau said:
Just so long as they don't have a' Pizza the Hut'...
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I just wonder about the application of Jam at exceptional velocity, surely a sticky enough substance in large enough amounts could cause issues even over shields, bonus if it is raspberry flavoured!
 
blankslate said:
What ep was that? I thought I remembered DS9 pretty well, but I don't recall that at all.
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Season 2, Sanctuary.
Derek M said:
I could see the translator fairly quickly coming up with a translation for a language that is related, heavily influenced by, or descended from known languages. Like, I could see a Star Trek grade AI eventually figuring out Japanese if it already knew Chinese and English, because you would have enough touch points through borrowed words to work out syntax and such, e.g., subjects usually go HERE in the sentence, this syntax is only used by adults talking to children, etc. I could also see it working if the aliens provide a first contact package of some kind -- like, number sequences, samples of speaking etc. A very, very basic form of that would be what humans sent out as part of the Voyager probes.

A program would have to have SOME clues, though. The reason the Rosetta stone was so important to deciphering hieroglyphics, if I recall correctly, was that it showed the same text in two other known languages. That was the start of a key that let archaeologists start piecing together the meaning of the rest of it. There are examples of what we think are writing from ancient civilizations that are indecipherable. We have no idea what they say, because they were found isolated without context, and weren't based on any known system of writing.

So, in my writing, the translator is good but not magically capable of understanding everybody...and I'm going to say that our "historical documents" of the Star Trek universe are simplifying things for television.
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As I understand it, it uses all languages known to the Federation as the database, as humanoid languages usually have some similarities to one or more of their languages, so the algorithm is able to figure out a new language very quickly.

They got into it a bit more in Enterprise, when developing the universal translator.
 
RHJunior said:
Once read an old sci fi story that touched on that. Explorers arrive on Mars and discover the remains of an advanced martian civilization that died out when their atmosphere fizzled away (REALLY old story.) There was art, sculpture, writing, books... but they were stumped for how to translate any of it. There was absolutely zero commonality with any human language, for obvious reasons. They had no Rosetta stone---

Till they found a science classroom. With a table of the elements up on the wall... no recognizable glyphs or alphabet of course, but it was instantly recognizable to anyone with a high-school education just by its layout.

So they knew that THIS set of glyphs in the top left box meant Hydrogen, THIS set of glyphs in the top right meant Helium.... and so forth.
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Really, that would only give you a set of names for the elements.

On the Federation: They should have a set of "rough, loose, unusual" organizations like the (RHJunior's) Racconian Rangers. People who will and can wade into situations where even the explorer types of Starfleet fear to tread, and WIN. Solve the problem. "Rules, smules"
For people who like a LOT more chaos and challenge in their lives.

Diplomats remind people of snake oil salesmen on First Contact.
 
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FaerieKnight79 said:
No, you really don't. While the movie has it's moments, it's overall not particularly good. Funny, but not good. And several of the jokes fall flat if you didn't grow up before the advert of DVD. Or pay much attention to geek culture of the time.
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Heresy! It hast been decreed that all films by Mel Brooks, our Prophet, shall always be characterized as funny and good.

But seriously, yea the films are dated but I'd argue that it isn't required to be born before the new millennium to find them funny since most of the jokes still deal with topics that are relevant.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
No, you really don't. While the movie has it's moments, it's overall not particularly good. Funny, but not good. And several of the jokes fall flat if you didn't grow up before the advert of DVD. Or pay much attention to geek culture of the time.
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I disagree the movie is quite good, but it hasn't aged very well in terms of it's references. I was born in the 90's and I can understand it mostly, the main thing to remember is that for the most part it is a parody of Star Wars with other Sci-Fi scattered about, the rest is a combination of puns and late 70's through mid 80's American cultural references (as an Australian I see some of these as absurd).

But still, if the FAMILY do re-purpose food stuffs as weaponry what do you think the side effects could be?
I know this all started from a misunderstanding of Gravy Gun, but honestly I think the family would love to have some non-lethal take down measures for enemies, the more embarrassing the better!

Imagine Klingons defeated by their ship being flooded by custard or tapioca, the Trade Federation droid army slipping on endless banana peels, the mentos and cola rockets taking out the Borg, JJJ's office being filled with witchetty grubs (or cooked tarantulas), the Joker being hit by banana cream pies every time he touches a gun (or laughs, or blinks, or breaths) and the Ancient Ascended being tortured by having perfect chocolate cake placed before them constantly (that they cannot eat, for some reason I keep thinking of them as similar to the Auditors of Reality).

That is besides all of the serious impacts items moving at a decent clip of non-standard properties colliding with or occupying spaceships, the materials that Saurial already has access to that would be devastating in ship to ship issues are enormous in quantity, one of the best I can think of is the thioacetone which they used to take down Coil.
 
E M Berner said:
Heresy! It hast been decreed that all films by Mel Brooks, our Prophet, shall always be characterized as funny and good.

But seriously, yea the films are dated but I'd argue that it isn't required to be born before the new millennium to find them funny since most of the jokes still deal with topics that are relevant.
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While Mel Brooks did make several rather amusing movies, none of them are 'good' movies. Hilarious, yeah some of them are. But not good movies. Personally, I'd consider Ice Pirates to be a better movie then Spaceballs. And that is commonly acknowledged to be a pretty bad movie. Which it is. But it's a fun movie. At least it is if you're not going in expecting a totally serious movie.
 
Neruz said:
The Family would probably make Nick Fury become the embodiment of his name and transcend physical form through sheer incandescent mass of paranoid indignation.
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We do actually get to see some Nick Fury interaction in multiple chapters of Taylor Varga's omakes into the marvel world if you haven't already read those.

RHJunior said:
Once read an old sci fi story that touched on that. Explorers arrive on Mars and discover the remains of an advanced martian civilization that died out when their atmosphere fizzled away (REALLY old story.) There was art, sculpture, writing, books... but they were stumped for how to translate any of it. There was absolutely zero commonality with any human language, for obvious reasons. They had no Rosetta stone---

Till they found a science classroom. With a table of the elements up on the wall... no recognizable glyphs or alphabet of course, but it was instantly recognizable to anyone with a high-school education just by its layout.
[[Image of the Periodic Table]]
So they knew that THIS set of glyphs in the top left box meant Hydrogen, THIS set of glyphs in the top right meant Helium.... and so forth.
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Troy Guffey said:
Really, that would only give you a set of names for the elements.
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If it would even give us names of the elements. The Periodic Table is not some god given design. It's a design that makes sense in multiple ways, and can help you tell things about an element by their location within it. It's not the only periodic table designed by humans though, and we have multiple examples from human history where humans use something that might not be entirely logical or optimal for historical reasons. Some common examples are the name atom or electricity going from negative to positive poles. You can of course debate those examples, and you could come up with multiple other examples that are probably better, but those are two that are brought up a lot, so I figured people would be familiar with them.

Finding a periodic table from an alien civilisation that we know nothing about also relies on them actually having physical periodic tables (maybe they were only digital, or they didn't use them as teaching aids, or maybe they were on a material that decayed before we could find them?), and it relies heavily on them actually formatting the table into an actual table with squares etc. for us to be able to easily recognise it. It would be easy to come up with a isomorphism of the Periodic Table that most people didn't recognise at a glance.

Still, if they used the exact same layout as us, or similar enough, it could be used as part of a basis in their numbering system as well.
 
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Or the table could even have elements such as "fire, aether, void, spirit" or other non-scientific things. Heck, it could even be some sort of puzzle or word game.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
Or the table could even have elements such as "fire, aether, void, spirit" or other non-scientific things. Heck, it could even be some sort of puzzle or word game.
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Not in that exact grid in what on second glance is a science classroom.
Clearly there's a number of Rosetta's stones in the universe, and while not the only configuration, any lifeform that records things onto walls would find the Periodic Table as we have it to be one of the most efficient. It is after all, a table. A spreadsheet. And apparently these particular martians communicated in spreadsheets the same way we do.
 
I'd have thought the Family could have fun with a 'dessert' gun... Turns the opponent's ship into structural marzipan and other materials, as described in the 'historical documents'... Might have to boost the structural integrity fields, a bit, as well, but well worth it.

Don't imagine some of the more serious races would appreciate it...

For extra fun go for animated liquorish gagh...
 
Ace Dreamer said:
For extra fun go for animated liquorish gagh...
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I can't quite remember but I think it's a Harry Potter fic where he introduces the Klingon to peanut butter when they are trying to gross out a federation diploteam with gagh. The Klingon quickly agree that in the future they should present food all parties find appetizing, they find peanut butter extremely disturbing.:D
 
JoshuaSweetvale said:
Not in that exact grid in what on second glance is a science classroom.
Clearly there's a number of Rosetta's stones in the universe, and while not the only configuration, any lifeform that records things onto walls would find the Periodic Table as we have it to be one of the most efficient. It is after all, a table. A spreadsheet. And apparently these particular martians communicated in spreadsheets the same way we do.
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But that's the thing. Who's to say that a completely alien culture will even use a periodic table like we do? What we consider the most layout may be something another species would never have thought of. The chart could have been for anything. And how would the explorers know it's a science class room to begin with? They can't read the texts after all. And probably wouldn't recognize any of the tools found in said room, if there are any. No, it would be assumed just based on the grid without any supporting evidence. For all the researchers would know, it could well be a chart for some sort of spiritualist belief system. Or a set of rules. Or any number of things. Without any context, the chart is useless for translating a language. What made the Rossetta Stone so important is that it had the same exact text in multiple languages, several of which could be translated. But that chart doesn't provide any context beyond what is assumed to exist without any proof.
 
E M Berner said:
I can't quite remember but I think it's a Harry Potter fic where he introduces the Klingon to peanut butter when they are trying to gross out a federation diploteam with gagh. The Klingon quickly agree that in the future they should present food all parties find appetizing, they find peanut butter extremely disturbing.:D
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That's part of the Lone Traveler collection by dunuelos. Can't really say I recommend it, he went to some weird places with that story.
 
Icemanau said:
Yes, the show was extremely simplified. According to some of the books, Uhura was a department head, similar to how Scotty was the chief engineer, Spock and the science department and Bones the CMO.
We just didn't see any department head activities from Uhura and minimal activities from Scotty, Spock & Bones
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Of course, whenever you have an away mission, you bring the entire command staff of your ship with you each time. It's like at work, where all of your C-level and EVP-level staff go to every meeting with a major customer or partner...and those people sometimes shoot at you, kidnap you, or make you participate as a gladiator for their amusement. (That last one is actually not that far off from some RFP processes...)
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
But that's the thing. Who's to say that a completely alien culture will even use a periodic table like we do? What we consider the most layout may be something another species would never have thought of. The chart could have been for anything. And how would the explorers know it's a science class room to begin with? They can't read the texts after all. And probably wouldn't recognize any of the tools found in said room, if there are any. No, it would be assumed just based on the grid without any supporting evidence. For all the researchers would know, it could well be a chart for some sort of spiritualist belief system. Or a set of rules. Or any number of things. Without any context, the chart is useless for translating a language. What made the Rossetta Stone so important is that it had the same exact text in multiple languages, several of which could be translated. But that chart doesn't provide any context beyond what is assumed to exist without any proof.
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Well, a periodic table is a fairly specialized thing. If you find something you think might be one, you can make the assumption that some of the symbols represent numbers. Based on that, the relationships between elements and their logical grouping would tell you quite fast if they were numbers or not, since a Martian iron atom is the same as on from Earth or anywhere else. If your deciphered data matches what you already have, you've shown your hypothesis is correct.

Basically there is a rosetta stone in that specific case, which is our periodic table. It gives well known data in a format that's reasonably likely to be used by another species who has worked out the same rules, based on physical constants.

If they don't use a visual representation, of course, it'll be a lot harder, but in that story, it held together.
 
mp3.1415player said:
Well, a periodic table is a fairly specialized thing. If you find something you think might be one, you can make the assumption that some of the symbols represent numbers. Based on that, the relationships between elements and their logical grouping would tell you quite fast if they were numbers or not, since a Martian iron atom is the same as on from Earth or anywhere else. If your deciphered data matches what you already have, you've shown your hypothesis is correct.

Basically there is a rosetta stone in that specific case, which is our periodic table. It gives well known data in a format that's reasonably likely to be used by another species who has worked out the same rules, based on physical constants.

If they don't use a visual representation, of course, it'll be a lot harder, but in that story, it held together.
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But only if it was a periodic table of the elements. If it's something else, your entire translation effort would be wasted. No, worse then that. You'd be absolutely convinced you're right, but mistranslated everything. It would be like trying to translate Japanese kanji without knowing anything bout the language or culture.

Remember, when dealing with a completely alien culture then you can't assume that if something looks like a duck and quacks like a duck that it is in fact a duck.
 
mp3.1415player said:
Well, a periodic table is a fairly specialized thing. If you find something you think might be one, you can make the assumption that some of the symbols represent numbers. Based on that, the relationships between elements and their logical grouping would tell you quite fast if they were numbers or not, since a Martian iron atom is the same as on from Earth or anywhere else. If your deciphered data matches what you already have, you've shown your hypothesis is correct.

Basically there is a rosetta stone in that specific case, which is our periodic table. It gives well known data in a format that's reasonably likely to be used by another species who has worked out the same rules, based on physical constants.

If they don't use a visual representation, of course, it'll be a lot harder, but in that story, it held together.
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The logical assumptions built into the periodic table as humans use it are as follows:

1) Sorting a list of the base elements of matter makes most sense if done by atomic number, with groupings by chemical properties affecting the structure of the table. I can think of other ways to organize things. For example, maybe the aliens structure things by base state (solid, liquid, or gas) at a specific temperature, and include simple molecules like H2O in the categorization? Or...maybe they prefer to focus on isotopes? They may have a strong preference for listing elements in the order in which they were first created in pure form. Maybe the civilization is so focused on metallurgy that their equivalent of the mohs scale is the most important aspect to them?

2) The aliens want to categorize things as a way of drawing conclusions. That's how human psychology works, to the point where its difficult to conceptualize a different way of thinking. What if the aliens function primarily through kinesthetic patterns? They know about all of the common elements, but their version of a periodic table would be a description of the process for creating pure versions of each element.

3) The aliens use a visual writing style in a range visible to humans. I could easily see key parts of the table shifting into infrared, or the whole thing being in alien braille, or based on chemical signatures impregnated on slates.

4) The aliens would use a grid-type layout with square blocks. Humans seem to prefer angular geometry, but what's to say an alien wouldn't prefer a spiral out of a central point?

So, yeah, there are a lot of things you can invent as to why a periodic table on an alien planet wouldn't serve as a very good Rosetta stone, as it might not even be recognizable as such by Earth explorers.
 
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