Odo oddities + Translator issue?

[mattpa]

Odo doesn't eat... He doesnt have a stomach, he tried it once, but the results were 'messy' and he'd rather not talk about it.

So...how exactly does Odo talk?

He doesn't have lungs, or a vocal chord etc. Where exactly does the sound come from?

Has an explanation ever been given for this, or even attempted in the series/books/interview panels etc?

Or is it just one of those things we aren't meant to notice.

Like for instance how the universal translator is meant to make everyone hear their own language, but then Worf can say something in Klingon and Dax translates for Sisko or someone, explain how that is meant to work exactly when Worf is already speaking Klingon, unless English is meant to be a Federation standard language, and worf is actually speaking english, not klingon, which I've never thought it was.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Eventually he learned how to drink, or at least give the appearance of drinking. He lived, he learned.

 

[TheSeeker]

He doesn't have lungs, or a vocal chord etc. Where exactly does the sound come from?

I'm pretty sure changelings replicate the species perfectly, so when he's in solid form he'd have all the necessary anatomy to speak.

 

[mattpa]

I'm pretty sure changelings replicate the species perfectly, so when he's in solid form he'd have all the necessary anatomy to speak.

But then he would be able to eat...

He explains this when speaking to Kira at one point asking her what does she see when see looks at him...He looks like a man but its all a cheat.

 

[TheSeeker]

Speaking is a much simpler process than consuming and metabolising food. Talking is essentially inflating a balloon and controlling how the air exits to produce a sound. I'm sure it's a relatively simple task, even for Odo.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Maybe the UT translates the undulating blorps and bloops of goo into Federation Standard.

 

[Verteron]

In Star Trek Picard, we learn that:

Spoiler: Star Trek Picard Season 3

Original Changelings couldn't perfectly replicate internal organs. Vadic and other members of her group were part of "Project Proteus". The intention was to engineer an evolution in the Changelings that would allow them to completely replicate the anatomy, physiology, and cell biology of any species and fool blood screenings and other methods of detection, thereby acting as "perfect spies" for the Federation.

It worked, as Crusher remarked during an autopsy of one of them who was killed by a phaser (usually Changelings explode when subjected to directed energy weapons).

The implication is that even experienced Changelings weren't replicating perfect internal humanoid anatomy, although perhaps had a way of fooling sensors - perhaps by either holding a device that could produce fake sensor readings within them, or being able to produce fake readings themselves even if they are not mimicking the actual biology.

A lot about the Changelings remains mysterious and cloaked in their own lies about the origin of their species and the history of the Dominion.

However, creating a set of vocal cords and pushing air through them doesn't sound nearly as difficult as creating a full circulatory system or a fake brain. I think it's perfectly possible Odo could do this, and so could the others.

The issue with eating is that he may not have been able to produce stomach acids and enzymes required to break down food leading to him carrying around a bunch of partly chewed up food inside himself which would certainly be messy to manage and dispose of!

 

[NCC-73515]

Speech is purely mechanical, digestion requires the relevant enzymes, acids, etc

 

[trekshark]

Worf was likely speaking federation standard except for the one off klingon words, or when he was serving on a klingon ship.

But that doesn't answer why the translator occasionally doesn't translate one off words and phrases.

 

[Verteron]

But that doesn't answer why the translator occasionally doesn't translate one off words and phrases.

When Riker was on IKS Pagh as the first officer, the Captain told his crew to 'speak in their language' meaning Federation Standard (which is mostly English).

This suggests to me that (a) Universal Translators weren't habitually used on Klingon ships (although given they are a homogenous culture, perhaps less necessary than for Starfleet crews), but (b) that the entire Klingon crew, including lowly crewmen who had never seen a human in the flesh before, were all apparently completely fluent in Federation Standard, to the extent of understanding Riker's smutty joke.

Perhaps all Klingons are taught Federation Standard (and maybe, Romulan?). It might be an advantage to know the languages of your neighbours, since you never know when you might meet them in battle. Maybe Klingons even have a knack for languages, or maybe it's just drummed into them during their education / military training.

What this would mean is that most of the Klingons we meet on the show are speaking Federation Standard untranslated, and when they interject with words of Klingon, the universal translator doesn't just wake up and start translating those single words since it's obviously for effect.

 

[kkt]

Meh. The Universal Translator is just a way for them to talk with whoever they meet without a long wait while linguists try to figure out the alien of the week's language or bringing a translator along to every scene.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

There's probably a translation programming setting that automates the non-translation of any alien phrase that follows a rank or title (an alien name) or prefix (a ship's name). Any name in the crew complement of your ship would also be added, and you could customize the settings to include or exclude anything you wished.

If the translator is connected to brainwaves, it may be able to read the intention behind your mentioning a word and leave off translating something you wished to say verbatim in the other language.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Universal translators are like bathrooms:they're invisible unless you need them to be visible.

 

[Lynx]

And he can play the occarina when Vic Fontaine sings the James Darren hit "Goodbye Cruel World" !

 

[matthunter]

Speaking is a much simpler process than consuming and metabolising food. Talking is essentially inflating a balloon and controlling how the air exits to produce a sound. I'm sure it's a relatively simple task, even for Odo.

Right, which is why the majority of species on this planet can do the latter but not the former...

Even accounting for the fact you mean vocalisation, rather than speech - which only humans on this planet and possibly cetaceans have managed... come on.

 

[Verteron]

Right, which is why the majority of species on this planet can do the latter but not the former...

Even accounting for the fact you mean vocalisation, rather than speech - which only humans on this planet and possibly cetaceans have managed... come on.

Eating/nutrition is essential for all life, whereas making vocalisations is only needed for creatures that live in air and have some communication element to their behaviour.

So of course it's not present in simple animals, because amoebas don't need to communicate with each other or anything else.

This says nothing about the relative complexity of those features, it simply speaks to necessity. Lifeforms don't just have features because they 'can', nor is it some sort of tech tree, creatures evolve features that are advantageous, and lose vestigial features they no-longer need over the eons.

As for the comparison:

Making a machine capable of precisely reproducing human speech is something we nailed when the phonautograph was invented in 1860.

Comparatively, medical science is still decades away from understanding the full nuances of our own digestive systems and the enzymes that are responsible for digestion, which is why so much can go wrong with our guts.

Clearly the latter is more complex.