Secrecy is one thing, but the damn machine stated that it was CALIBRATED TO DEGREES CELSIUS - meaning Celsius or nothing!
I wonder how the UFP deals with alien units of measurement / time?
- Thread starter Kamen Rider Blade
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Given that they already have the magical UT, a device usually capable of translating instantaneously, seamlessly and flawlessly, dealing with different measurement systems would be absolutely trivial.
As for the Defector, of course the UT should simply have kicked in and 'internally' have translated the Romulan request to the equivalent in Celcius for the replicator. I can only speculate the UT is so fiendishly intelligent that it understood it had a "higher" function here, which was to show the Romulan (and us) he was displaced from his home now ("no speak Romulano")....
As for the Defector, of course the UT should simply have kicked in and 'internally' have translated the Romulan request to the equivalent in Celcius for the replicator. I can only speculate the UT is so fiendishly intelligent that it understood it had a "higher" function here, which was to show the Romulan (and us) he was displaced from his home now ("no speak Romulano")....
Quite so! After all, the doors already have "drama-sensors" to know exactly when to open regardless of the proximity of a crewmember, so why shouldn't the replicators also show suitable plot awareness?
We know that the Federation uses hours and minutes as a standard, since the Bajoran day is defined as 26 hours long in DS9.
^ but how do we know those aren't Bajoran hours ? 
(other than that, I'd agree with you but not on basis of that evidence, but simply because these terms appear consistently throughout all of the series - or else they'd simply be the result of the same "translation" that renders the 24th Federation Standard they actually speak into the 20/21st century contemporary English version we get to hear .)
(other than that, I'd agree with you but not on basis of that evidence, but simply because these terms appear consistently throughout all of the series - or else they'd simply be the result of the same "translation" that renders the 24th Federation Standard they actually speak into the 20/21st century contemporary English version we get to hear .)
We don't even know how many Bajoran minutes are in 1 Bajoran hours.
And how do the Bajoran time unit correlate to the Earth / Human time units.
And how do the Bajoran time unit correlate to the Earth / Human time units.
Technically, USCM is entirely defined in metric units. So the US actually uses the metric system. It's just an oddball extension of it. And, TBH, I'm using straight metric as often as customary units.
But computationally, if you can translate abstract and nuanced ideas in real time, running a unit conversion on top of that is comically trivial. Universal Translator is magical. Like, it's probably not even possible, and if it is we can't conceive of how it might work. Unit conversion can be done on digital calculators from the 1970's, in comparison.
It might be more realistic to go with the idea that the universal translator is great but not perfect in users’ experiences, and we’re just getting the equivalent of a corrected 20th-century English language dub, which would also be adjusted for our contemporary usage. The tech must still be good enough not to affect drama, though (“Er, what did they say?”)
I'm sure the conversion is trivial if we knew the conversion factors, but if we don't; then we should use the local customary units. Or if the end user wants to use the local customary units instead of our standardized units.
If there are exactly 26 hours in a day on DS9, then they would pretty much have to be Bajoran hours.
If the planet Bajor's synodic day is exactly 26 Earth hours (no seconds or minutes plus or minus), that would be quite a coincident.
All I recall from dialogue is 26 or multiples thereof (to express several Bajoran days), but nothing like a precise breakdown to prove they are Bajoran subdivisions which someone found convenient to translate with the word hour.
And they say TOS doesn't do technobabble!
Actually, as a explanation of the concept of the UT, that's quite a simple and elegant description!
The UK is similar. Most goods will have grams, kilograms or litres listed on them, but our traffic signs still have speed limits in miles per hour or distances in miles, and I will describe my height in feet and inches, or my weight in stones and pounds!
Fight the good fight, don't forget to use your Imperial units.The UK is similar. Most goods will have grams, kilograms or litres listed on them, but our traffic signs still have speed limits in miles per hour or distances in miles, and I will describe my height in feet and inches, or my weight in stones and pounds!
But is the redesigned Constitution class 1,000 feet long to the tiniest fraction of an inch?
667 cubits.
Of course, if they're really principled about it they wouldn't even use S.I., but express everything exclusively in Planck units ....("Captain! Incoming torpedo now at 8 * 10^44 Planck lenghts ... 6.4 * 10^44 Planck lengths...impact in 1.9 *10^44 Planck times!")
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consistantly use a (fictional) alien unit of measurement.
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