Things that should happen in a Sci-Fi story with a Universal Translator
One character who constantly makes bad puns … except the UT totally fails to translate them. “I guess you could say he … had a bad time”, “Well, I don’t think they’ll be … visiting again any time soon”. There’s some other aliens of the same species who groan every time
A group of aliens who share a common language get into a discussion about grammar … but the UT translates the word they’re arguing about the same way every time. “It looks like they left in a hurry … or is it ‘left’?” “You’re expressing uncertainty, so you have to use the subjunctive form ‘left’” “No, you don’t use the subjunctive here, you’re expressing a deduction based on evidence, so you have to use the deductive form ‘left’” “Wait, you say ‘left’ for the deductive? Are you from the Southern Continent?” “Yes, I am. Wait, what’s it in your dialect?” “We say ‘left’ where I’m from”
A character unexpectedly becomes angry at another character. At the end of the episode you find out that the first character had switched verb forms to a more affectionate form when speaking to the second character and was mad that they were ignoring the obvious indication of their feelings
The captain nearly derails tense diplomatic negotiations because of a UT slip up, inadvertently implying a definite claim to a particular planet, as opposed to a tentative claim subject to negotiation
The crew is visited by a group of aliens whose UT is a few centuries out of date, so they’re greeted with Early Modern English
An alien recites the equivalent of Jabberwocky and the UT just completely gives us “’Twas something and the something something did something and something in the something …”
The thing with Early Modern English has happened with one minor recurring character in X-Men comics. It’s a start.
arcticflakes
