Hoshi's Translating skills...

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Enterprise' started by Silvio Dante, Jun 20, 2013.

  1. Silvio Dante

    Silvio Dante Ensign Newbie

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    OK I realy like Hoshi. She's very likeable and believeable as a personality.

    However am I the only one who finds her immediate ability to converse with alien beings after 60 seconds of 'conversation' a tad silly..?
     
  2. Kevman7987

    Kevman7987 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    About as ridiculous as how the universal translator works.
     
  3. R. Star

    R. Star Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    There's any number of silly plot conveniences in the Trek franchise.
     
  4. G2309

    G2309 Captain Captain

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    Maybe she was genetically enhanced. Could of added something to the augment trilogy.
     
  5. FFunctionalData

    FFunctionalData Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    that would have been interesting if they ever decided to go there
     
  6. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    In Season 5 it would be revealed she was a genetically enhanced sleeper agent for Section 31.
     
  7. GalaxyX

    GalaxyX Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Man, this is one of the things that I'm willing to give Enterprise a pass for.

    At least they are trying to show that alien races have different languages and don't all speak perfect English.

    I can't picture a series trying to make this realistic though (each new species, including the Vulcans, would take at least a few weeks of interaction because each race could understand what the heck they were saying to each other. This is assuming the race is peaceful and wants to communicate and not blow you out of the galaxy first encounter)
     
  8. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    No one wants it that realistic, it would be boring as all crap.
     
  9. Silvio Dante

    Silvio Dante Ensign Newbie

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    But I hate being treated like a fool and be told she's so talented that she can communicate in an alien language after a few grunts...:D
     
  10. Captain Kathryn

    Captain Kathryn Commodore Commodore

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    You know...I just finished Season 1 of ENT and cannot understand why it receives so much hate from some other Trek fans. Just saying that first off.

    As for Hoshi's skills, yes, it is a little bit on the nutty side.

    HOWEVER. It is the ONLY Star Trek series to actually ADDRESS THE ISSUE.

    We actually see, over and over, species not being able to magically communicate through the Universal Translator. We see subtitles sometimes even!

    For me, it was much more close to home for me as opposed to the magical almighty UT never failing ever. With 2 DS9 exceptions...but those exceptions lasted all of like 5 mins. Now that I think of it, also 1 or 2 VOY exceptions but those lasted even less time.
     
  11. Captain Kathryn

    Captain Kathryn Commodore Commodore

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    This is my biggest praise for ENT. Thank you, ENT, for addressing the issue that is the most facepalming out of all Trek. Thank you for not having every single alien species speaking perfect English. Thank for you for having the UT fail from time to time.
     
  12. Nebusj

    Nebusj Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    As we saw in episodes like ``Vox Sola'' and ``Silent Enemy'', where the difficulty of communication with the alien entities dragged the plots down without giving us any sense of suspense or discovery or alien-ness or ... wait.


    I'll grant that too much stuff about Learning To Speak Their Language would get redundant, but then, Enterprise chose to set up the universe such that most of the aliens Enterprise could expect to meet would be ones the Vulcans had already met and, presumably, knew how to speak with, so that Sato's purpose would be mostly just making sure the system was running right. Of course, they could also have set up the universe so that they did a couple Species of the Week-type stories with the same species, so that a couple bits of establishing How To Speak could be used for a month's worth of stories.

    They could also have had conversations with Weekians go through Sato for the first scene or so, and let the audience take their guesses for how long this required to work out communications. This would give Sato's actor more screentime, certainly, although it would pad the story out some in the early parts with a lot of ``Glarble nord flip-flap nasblurtum'' ``He says `hi' and probably didn't mean that about your nose, Captain.''

    Anyway, the problem needed more thought when the show was set up: the easier communication is, the less primitive-and-early the adventures feel; but the harder communication is, the more every alien meeting has to be about communication. Declaring that communications is hard except that Sato presses the ``Universal Translator ON'' button leaves everyone unsatisfied.
     
  13. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'll grant that the experience of watching Vox Sola neatly mimics how they must have felt encased for hours in hardened phlegm.
     
  14. theblitz

    theblitz Commander Red Shirt

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    Could have got her hands on a Babel Fish.

    Besides, if I were an alien, I would be only too happy to teach Hoshi a whole load of new conjugations.
     
  15. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    Yes but with reagrds to the UT, the more languages that are in the database the easier it might be for the UT to lock onto a translation matrix. As it has a larger reference source.
     
  16. GalaxyX

    GalaxyX Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Apparently this happened on Risa already lol
     
  17. theblitz

    theblitz Commander Red Shirt

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    Yep.
    I wonder how many viewers were super-jealous.
     
  18. Lt. Uhura-Brown

    Lt. Uhura-Brown Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Humans appeared to be relatively late to the "Warp-capable civilization" party, so how come they're the only ones who thought to create a Universal Translator? What did all the other species do when they encountered each other before the Humans came along?
     
  19. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    Well the Vulcan's as depicted in ENT weren't exactly the sharing type.
     
  20. TheMightyQ

    TheMightyQ Ensign Red Shirt

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    When it comes to language in Star Trek, suspend your disbelief.