eastbound | un: what a load of pollocks

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un: what a load of pollocks | audio

So these quartz things--they're useful, but they're not forever. They could get broken or lost, and that kind of thing never happens when it's convenient for anybody. And given that it's our only translation device, that could get somebody killed if things go wrong enough.

We need to start trading basic, emergency vocabulary. So that if somebody loses their quartz, we'll still have a few words we can throw your way to keep you alive. And I mean really basic--think of the simplest, most idiot-proof way somebody could get across an idea, no matter how terrible their accent is. Bonus points if the words can't be easily confused for each other if things are hectic.

I'm not a translator so I don't know the proper way to go about this, but there's some places I can think to start: words for yes and no, friend and enemy, directions and distance, run, stop, ways to ask if somebody's alright, or say somebody's hurt, ah... [He stops, running a hand through his hair.]

Could go on, but that's a set to start with. Not sure if we can actually share this stuff over the quartz, so we might just have to swap words in-person.

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I have been thinking for a while that we should sit down and figure out which language the largest number of sentients in our group seem to share, and have the rest attempt to learn the basics of that. Sadly that language would certainly not be mine...ours?...strange as that is. [ of course he doesn't need to tell Slick of all people how disorienting it is to be someplace where nobody is familiar with the lingua franca of the galaxy in any way, shape, or form ]

Unless you think we should be teaching the rest Galactic Basic as hopefully the easiest to pick up, I suppose. Though that still presents the problem of whose version exactly we would be teaching.

That could work. But there are some words that are harder to learn than others, right? And we don't know which languages here don't get on nice with each other. [There certainly were issues he'd run into, in the few phrases they'd all had to memorize--"We're with the Republic", "Where are the Separatists?", "Put your (hands/grasping appendages) up!", that sort of thing. Saying that stuff in Ryl had been a pain. He could never get the Rs quite right.]

But I agree, until we know who's got the easiest set to work with, Basic at least has a decent track record. And the common words probably haven't changed all that much, right? [Right? He wasn't a historian or whatever, he had no personal concept of time beyond a scope of about forty years, but the Republic always bragged about being around for a thousand. That meant things stayed pretty stable.]

( ...ah. This is the sort of request and consideration that strikes — )

You served a watchpost once?

Well among a lot of other duties, yeah, we rotated through standing watch a lot. Why?

A guard's practicality.

And here I thought survival instinct wasn't just a soldier thing. [In fact, anybody duped into fighting a war they don't need to probably has less of a survival instinct than the average civvie.]

Yes. [ And carefully pronounced: ] Shi.

[He wasn't quite sure what was meant to--oh, right.]

I can sort of hear what you're saying, but the translator's getting in the way. Sounded like shèr? [That's not quite right and he knows it. He frowns down at the quartz.] Is there any way to switch that off?

Anyway, mine's

( The... longest pause, while he attempts and fails to articulate that. )

Apologies. I fail my task.

Hey, learning language things is hard, especially over a communicator. We can meet up at some point and work on it. And if we all work on learning this stuff, then it won't matter if some of it doesn't stick, we'll be able to make do.

We number a blind man. ( The call for words is therefore advantageous. ) But hand gestures are subtler.

Gestures are easier, yeah. Honestly I should try and teach everybody military hand-sign, but even without a blind person on board, it'd be difficult to get working with a mixed group with a lot of civilians. You have to know when and where to look for it to be of any use.

Too high alert?

That's one way of putting it. When things get rough, you want people to react on instinct as much as possible, right? Civvies don't work naturally with hand signals, from what I've seen. [Hells, they didn't even understand pointing half the time in a combat situation. It was a mess.]

Apologies. 'Civvies'?

Ah, right--civilians. People who don't fight. It's how we called them in the military sometimes. [When they were feeling polite, but not too polite.]

You find them untrained here.

Well, yeah. They weren't made for combat, so when things start to get hectic, they can lock up. If you can speak their language, they're more likely to do what you need them to do. [And that was pretty much his only experience with civilians--trying to manage them.]

They are not as cattle.

...I'm not sure what that is.

[[ooc: fun fact, star wars wiki helpfully tells us that the term has been used four times in the series, and all of those mentions are from before The Great Disneyfication. Thus, cows are no longer canon.]]

Groups of large animals. Producing milk.

( ooc: Disney wants to lower emissions! )

Banthas? [Milk comes from banthas, right? He wasn't sure how you got blue juice out of a big fuzzy beast, but he was pretty sure banthas were involved somehow.] Yeah, nah. They aren't dumb [sometimes], just untrained.

The same of 'civvies.'

Yeah, that's what I meant. They got the choice to not fight, and so they don't know how to deal with combat.

Duress teaches to discard privilege. They face it now.

Do we want to pair this with some hand gestures? Like what you might expect for people to work on a hunt, when silence is important.

It's a good idea, and not just when we need to stay quiet. Military's got a standard set of those we all learned, works well enough when you're taking fire and comms are down. Not sure how civilians will take to it if they're not familiar with the concept, though.

People gesture when they speak. They'll adapt, have faith!

I hope so. Getting a bit of everybody's language will help, though. Might get people more organized, like a proper unit.

Every way we bridge the distances will help.

Some of us have been working on learning the local language exactly for that purpose. It also appears a few of us actually share a common language despite not being originally not being from the same world. I can understand and talk to Master Lan and Master Wei just fine without the translators.

I figured that, but it'd be worth having ways to communicate that the locals can't eavesdrop on.

And that does happen. [Now he gets to find out if he's going to be believed this time.] We got trained up with Galactic Standard Basic, pretty much everywhere in the Republic speaks it. Archeval's speaking another dialect. [A weird one. He still wasn't sold on the rest of Archeval's story, but the language they could agree on at least.]

I am afraid I have never of ... 'Galactic Standard Basic'.

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un: what a load of pollocks | audio

[darth imperius] voice posted:

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username: absterge | audio

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Since Star Wars never tells us what Galactic Basic sounds like and Space English is boring...

lmfao beautiful

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oh for heck sake my browser ate my post last night ಠ_ಠ

oh no!

Re: oh no!

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aw hell, apologies: PhD ate me for a couple weeks there.

RL happens to everyone, no worries at all!

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wei laozu

aw hell, apologies: PhD ate me for a couple weeks there.

all is good! may want to wrap this either way though!

Sure thing!

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un: dappled pearl of the parted seas [voice]

aw hell, apologies: PhD ate me for a couple weeks there.

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