Something has been bothering me about the Comm Badge.

[Wolfslice]

There is probably a thread about this somewhere around here, but you'll have to forgive me as I couldn't seem to find one through the search function.

My problem is with the Comm badge. Namely, how could it possibly sync live during the initial call?

"Riker to Captain Picard..."

Now either everyone on the ship hears him say "Riker to," or there would have to be a significant delay while the entire hail is repeated to just the Captain, after the fact. Neither seems to be the case.

I just had to get this off my chest ;p

 

[Deckerd]

Voice recognition is around now. I imagine it's much more sophisticated in Trek world, so saying the name routes it to the desired recipient. The 'significant delay' would be less than a second.

 

[Wolfslice]

But presumably the delay would need to span the length of the message, at least until the recipient is named, no? Might only be a second delay or so, but I don't see how the voice recognition would factor into shorting the delay.

The only thing I can really think of is that the computer can pick up slight iterations in the person's voice and take a guess at who it's directed to, then transmits it live (maybe using a relative of universial translator technology ).

 

[Deckerd]

No, the speaker hails the person at the other end and waits for a response. This is always the case.

 

[Wolfslice]

No, the speaker hails the person at the other end and waits for a response. This is always the case.

well I wasn't doubting that at all, rather just the length of time in between the message being sent and received.

The recipient hears the message in full, and therefore the delay would have to span the length of the beginning of the message until the recipient is named, however long that takes. Unless, as my last post suggests, the computer can recognize who it's being sent to BEFORE that person is named, thus shortening the delay.

Since the audience never experiences this delay I've always assumed the communication was meant to be perceived as instantaneous.

 

[Deckerd]

Sigh

It goes like this:
Riker: Riker to Captain Picard
Picard: Picard here
Riker: blah blah blah blah

Where does the big delay kick in?

 

[Wolfslice]

It goes like this:
Riker: Riker to Captain Picard
....................Riker to Captain Picard (offset to the point at which the Picard begins the hear the message in comparison to it being spoken in real time)
Picard: Picard here
Riker: blah blah blah blah

The delay spans from the beginning of his message until the recipient is named. In this case "Riker to." Not sure where I'm miscommunicating with you here ;p Even a short delay like that would be noticeable.

Anyway I can tell this is annoying you, so I'm gonna just go to bed .

 

[Timo]

There are three ways such a scene can play out.

1) A is on camera, hails B. Camera turns to B, who responds.

2) A, on camera, hails B, who is off camera. B responds.

3) A, off camera, hails B, who is on camera. B responds.

Now, the first scenario presents no problems. Whenever the camera moves, we can say that there was an arbitrarily long cut in the shot, and any commbadge delays would happen during that cut.

The second scenario presents no problems, either. A could hail B with an arbitrarily long phrase, and B could respond even while the tail end of A's phrase is coming out of B's commbadge. The absence of the camera from the receiving end would hide any commbadge delays.

The third scenario mirrors the first, but the rationalization we need is subtly different. We cannot tell if A started his hail when B hears him start the hail, or perhaps slightly earlier. The latter would explain away commbadge delays: A's hail would be kept "on hold" until the computer resolved the recipient (that is, heard the "to B" part), and only then piped to A's commbadge.

There is no scenario where both A and B would simultaneously be on camera, because nobody in his right mind would use a commbadge to contact somebody who's in the same shot with him. So we never actually face the problem of the commbadge delay directly. But the contrast between the mirror scenarios 2 and 3 forces us to indirectly face the problem: in 2, we hear that there is no delay even when there obviously ought to be one, and we have to evoke the "B responded before listening to the whole thing" rationalization in addition to the "the computer kept the message on hold while establishing the recipient" one. In 3, we don't and can't use the overlap rationalization. It then becomes a bit weird how people in certain scenarios always overlap, while people in mirror scenarios never do... Not impossible or aphysical or anything like that, just statistically weird.

But the delay problem is very real, and the saving grace is that the delay never is very long - because, just like Cruella sez, the phrases used for opening the conversation are short, and the delay thus ought to consist of just two words: name of speaker and "to" (plus whatever reaction time the computer requires - probably close to zero).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wolfslice]

Hmm. Well while all these scenarios are certainly valid, they all do revolve around there being an actual delay, and that delay being concealed by editing. Not sure how that sits with me, since the delay has never been established in the canon itself (as far as I know!)

I do like the idea that the computer picks up subtle clues in As voice that leads it begin it's hail to B before B is named. I mean that's sort of what the universal translator does, right? Translates almost preemptively?

 

[Timo]

For all we know, there's a time machine built into the circuitry. FTL computing might have this side effect...

Or then there's nothing supernatural at play there - and the computer merely pipes the hail to everybody until the hailer deigns to reveal the secret of the recipient's identity!

Really, this very down-to-earth problem would have had a very down-to-earth solution if the writers had stopped to think it through. Just have all Starfleet personnel trained to hail with the format "Picard, this is Riker calling". Then the delay would be minimized and probably inaudible.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deckerd]

The universal translator is a bit trickier. If you're having a conversation face-to-face then it must work like the babelfish.

 

[Timo]

Or then the third party, the audience, also has its own UT - and it works by letting the brain fool itself into filling the gaps. That's how the brain normally likes to work anyway...

Okay, that's pretty much like babelfish, yeah. But I've always believed that the UT, or some prime component of it, is implanted somewhere between the ear and the brain so that it preprocesses the language but lets the brain sort out the rest. The placement would ensure that the brain doesn't notice anything "amiss" and doesn't "believe" in gaps in the conversation, but instead performs self-diagnostic and interprets even a Swiss-cheese conversation as an integral whole.

That's a small price to pay for interspecies communication. But Starfleet-internal commbadges should be let to work on a simpler principle...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deckerd]

In Farscape, Crichton couldn't understand what everyone was saying until one of the skutters, or whatever they were called, injected him with something. I don't recall anything in ST about people being modified so the UT works and then you would have the problem of the aliens being talked to. How do they understand English? Sorry, thread derailment. Ignore if you wish.

 

[Timo]

"People being modified" need not be an explicit plot point. After all, nobody in a 1970s cop show explains that people wear wristwatches so that they can tell the time. But implanted UTs would seem like a natural assumption, as implants are pretty common in Trek overall.

A system that consists of a microphone, a translating computer, and a loudspeaker... Now that creates more problems than it solves, because we don't hear two voices, untranslated and translated. But an implant not only eliminates the extra voice, it also explains the lipsynch: the brain adapts, and simply refuses to believe in lip-unsynch.

For all we know, the implant is not in the ear but actually in the language processing area of the brain, so that not just the input is modified - but output, too, is processed, so that people may end up speaking Klingon without even noticing it. That's usually not necessary, though, because input translation should suffice if everybody present has it.

Slightly on-topic, it's sometimes claimed that the UT resides in the commbadges. Or perhaps it's a net-based system, and merely works through the commbadges. However, our heroes maintain knowledge of already familiar alien languages even when their commbadges are removed (VOY "Basics" is an excellent example). They only lose the ability to learn new ones. So there could well be an implanted UT, something every UFP citizen has basically from birth, and then there could be a Starfleet system where the commbadges boost the translating capability by featuring some processors of their own and in addition tying into the resources of the nearest starship or other Starfleet asset.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Wormhole]

A wizard takes care of it. Directs the call to the proper person, eliminates any delay.

Oh sorry, not Star Trekky enough? Fine, then quantum mechanics makes it possible.

Problem solved.

 

[scotpens]

^^ Even simpler: Everyone speaks friggin’ English. Just like the Germans, French, Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, Chinese, Turks, and everybody else in most Anglophone movies ever since the beginning of talkies.

Just go with it.

 

[Shatnertage]

How about this alternative?

The comm badge actually has a contacts list embedded into it. By touching the badge at a certain spot, the caller can send a message directly to someone on his list. I'd guess you'd have "bridge," "general ship," and a few of the folks you usually work with on the list.

Of course, the locational sensing is so subtle, we don't see it onscreen, and since it's second nature to everyone by now, nobody even mentions it.

So Riker can call Picard directly, and just says, "Riker to Picard" to let the Captain know who's calling, and to make sure he's got the right person.

Works for me.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The recipient hears the message in full, and therefore the delay would have to span the length of the beginning of the message until the recipient is named, however long that takes.

My current DVD recorder permits instant playback from the beginning while it continues to record the same show. So any 24th century communicator delay is only going to be the first three words of the first sentence: eg. "Riker to Picard..." and the recipient tapping his badge after hearing a chirp.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I used to try to figure out the com badges, but then I realized there's no real logic to it. Sometimes they talk into the air, sometimes they hit the com-badge.

 

[C.E. Evans]

^^^
The TNG Tech Manual actually said a bit about that. Tapping the commbadge isn't really necessary aboard a ship because the computer can open or close a comm channel by voice command, but it is considered a good habit for crewmembers to observe nevertheless for times when they're away from the ship and the commbadges have to act as standalone units, relying on their own battery power for transmissions.