Space Opera Fans discussion

A lot of space opera stories involve meeting new aliens. Some of them just invoke a universal translator, such as Star Trek. I really like seeing alternatives to this. Here are a few I thought of today. Can you add others?

1. Listening to air traffic control broadcasts and watching the planes and runways to see what happens. Fair Trade: An Alien Invasion Story by Mackey Chandler.

2. A computer that displays pictures in a set order getting the alien to talk, first nouns then verbs then more complicated ideas. Eventually the computer has enough vocabulary to get main ideas across. Several books use this, one is Jatouche by S.H. Jucha if my memory is correct.

3. Similarly a learning tool with pictures that are displayed when certain keys are pressed, and the user provides the noun or verb that matches. The Pride of Chanur by C.J. Cherryh. In that book, new modules are added once first set is finished.

4. For trading, just put a few blankets down with one item for barter on each. If aliens just take the items, leave. If they swap and you like that swap put a similar item down. Ideally they will place an item for consideration next to the offered one and you can decide to reject, accept, or if your item can be divided put out a smaller amount. Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein

Of course, there is always just openmindedness. In Hellspark Tocohl is very well trained in languages, but the real difference is her willingness to expand the concept of language.

Oh yes, the method Tocohl used is a great one!

It's been a while since I read Project Hail Mary. I don't remember how he managed to communicate with the alien. Was it reasonable? or was it, in Teresa's words, handwavium?

Some series have a galactic common language or a language used for commerce.

Others don't address it really at all (Stargate SG-1 and Babylon 5 come to mind).

Brandon wrote: "Some series have a galactic common language or a language used for commerce.

Others don't address it really at all (Stargate SG-1 and Babylon 5 come to mind)."

A shared language of some kind is required, but when a new set of aliens arrives we need some way to teach it to them or learn how to translate their language into the shared one. That’s sometimes just not possible of course. I’m thinking of a set of aliens from The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet by Mackey Chandler who communicated using a matrix of images and not linear words of any kind. The aliens in Hellspark don’t use any audible language either.

Betsy wrote: "Of course, there is always just openmindedness. In Hellspark Tocohl is very well trained in languages, but the real difference is her willingness to expand the concept of language."

I think it's generally accepted that human children are able to learn languages more easily than adults. Perhaps open-mindedness plays a role in that. But that doesn't mean adults of other species would lose that ability in the same way humans do. That being said, even in the case of human children, some passage of time is required to learn a new language, and that to me is why you see so much handwavium. I'm sure there are writers who just don't want to deal with it, but it also can interrupt the flow of the story.

Teresa wrote: "2. A computer that displays pictures in a set order getting the alien to talk, first nouns then verbs then more complicated ideas. Eventually the computer has enough vocabulary to get main ideas across."

I think it’s in Hogan’s Code of the Lifemaker that does something similar, where they have a computer learning how to translate. Remarkably similar to how it was done in real life several decades later.

Teresa wrote: "2. A computer that displays pictures in a set order getting the alien to talk, first nouns then verbs then more complicated ideas. Eventually the computer has enough vocabulary to get main ideas across."

Not long ago, TYT host Ana Kasparian stated that she taught herself English by watching Sesame Street after a traumatic first day of kindergarten when she first realized there were languages other than Armenian. Not only is that an adorable story, but in this context it raises the possibility of teaching English to an alien translation device by feeding it episodes of Sesame Street. :)

Embassytown by China Miéville offers a fascinating example of alien-human communication: the featured aliens, the Ariekei, have two mouths that each speak simultaneously, so to communicate with them the human colonists had to produce clone twins who are able to speak simultaneously as well.

The Ariekei language also doesn’t allow for falsehood or metaphor, until their contact with humans allows them to expand the language’s possibility space.