Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x05 - "The Examples"

[PiotrB]

fascinating, thanks. Is this a common solution in polish society or it’s just a Star Trek thing?

This is one form, but it is imperfect because it is misleading when referring to one person in the plural. Additionally, it is also not perfect, because although it corresponds literally to they, it also has a masculine form 'oni' and a feminine form 'one'. In the case of Adira, the translation uses the form referring to masculine groups. According to this website there are 4 more forms in spoken language and the most common is the equivalent of the English 'it'. This form was used AFAIR by the Netflix translators in Sex Education. It is gender-neutral and its drawback is that it usually refers to animals, inanimate objects or children.

 

[Sci]

So what is the rationale for bringing the civilian to the prison complex?

From a legal standpoint, Captain Burnham bringing Book along is a Starfleet captain hiring a private contractor to assist in the mission.

Edited to add:

Book privately owns his ship -- it is not Starfleet property, and he is not a Starfleet officer. To whatever extent he conducts missions, he's clearly a civilian working on a voluntary basis with Starfleet rather than as an officer under Starfleet authority.



No one gets to assign him "desk duty." It's his ship and he can go wherever he wants. He's not accountable to anyone else.

Well, Starfleet is an operating agency enforcing laws and regulations within territory claimed by the Federation. Book is residing within the Federation, and probably subject to its law (and as long as he resides on a starship, the Captain's word is generally law).

Sure, but that's true of everyone. I was referring to Book's status as a civilian -- he doesn't have a Starfleet commission, he isn't part of the Starfleet chain of command, he can come and go freely from the Discovery and indeed from Federation space in general, no one can issue orders to him (except insofar as they may issue orders to any civilian shipmaster). He's not accountable to anyone else for his choices except insofar as we're all accountable if we break the law -- but it's not like his day-to-day choices are supervised by anyone else in a chain of command or as part of a political structure. He's just a guy, and he doesn't work for anyone else.

Starfleet has a duty to protect its citizens, and some sort of mantra to protect the innocent in its path as well. If Book is a danger to anyone, he should absolutely be placed into some sort of care facility and treated. But, you know, he hasn't demonstrated anything approaching dangerous behavior, and he has the Captain's trust, atm, regarding his activities.

And he is by no means a danger to himself or others. He's not suicidal and he's not violent. He has consistently acted to protect other people, especially since his homeworld was destroyed.

In the 23rd century, Harry Mudd needed to forge a "master's license" to operate a civilian starship, and we can presume that others like Rios have one and probably regularly updates the Federation on his activities. The 32nd century is still a wild west, and Starfleet probably can't enforce such control over its own Federation citizenry, let alone this refugee from a lost planet.

Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if he had to submit an application for a shipmaster's license or some equivalent document in order to obtain standing permission to dock his ship aboard the Discovery, but even then it's not like he needs the UFP's permission to own the ship generally, since it presumably was/is a Kewjian ship subject to Kewjian law.

ETA #2:

Does Book's ship have a name?

 

[jackoverfull]

This is one form, but it is imperfect because it is misleading when referring to one person in the plural. Additionally, it is also not perfect, because although it corresponds literally to they, it also has a masculine form 'oni' and a feminine form 'one'. In the case of Adira, the translation uses the form referring to masculine groups. According to this website there are 4 more forms in spoken language and the most common is the equivalent of the English 'it'. This form was used AFAIR by the Netflix translators in Sex Education. It is gender-neutral and its drawback is that it usually refers to animals, inanimate objects or children.

interesting, thanks. Languages are often imperfect (just think of English, where without context you can’t know if “you” -and now “they”- is plural or singular).

I just talked to my girlfriend, who saw the second season of sex education in Italian, and she tells me that the two non binary characters there were called non binary but addressed as females.

And, by the way, she’s quite an open person but wasn’t even aware of the existence of non-binary people until seeing those characters and finds the whole concept hard to grasp and somewhat troubling. As said, we’re products of our society, it takes time to abandon what we’re told is the only way (if I am to listen to her father even homosexuals are still abominations...).

 

[DaveyNY]

I know it sounds high & mighty, but it would be a lot simpler for everybody if the foreign language markets just adopted the English pronouns like they do English names.

There aren't that many of them that it would be too cumbersome.
And there are already a lot of English words that are used that aren't translated.

 

[Sci]

I know it sounds high & mighty, but it would be a lot simpler for everybody if the foreign language markets just adopted the English pronouns like they do English names.

There aren't that many of them that it would be too cumbersome.
And there are already a lot of English words that are used that aren't translated.

My impulse would be to defer to the general consensus of the non-binary communities in those countries for how they want non-binary people to be referred to.

 

[DaveyNY]

My impulse would be to defer to the general consensus of the non-binary communities in those countries for how they want non-binary people to be referred to.

Which they will still be able to do.
But currently, that's not working out so well in far too many places and is causing more grief than good.

 

[nic3636]

I know it sounds high & mighty, but it would be a lot simpler for everybody if the foreign language markets just adopted the English pronouns like they do English names.

There aren't that many of them that it would be too cumbersome.
And there are already a lot of English words that are used that aren't translated.

But is that enough ? Maybe we should just do away with all these pesky foreign languages and have everyone speak English

 

[Jadeb]

But is that enough ? Maybe we should just do away with all these pesky foreign languages and have everyone speak English

Don’t you mean Federation Standard?

 

[jackoverfull]

I know it sounds high & mighty, but it would be a lot simpler for everybody if the foreign language markets just adopted the English pronouns like they do English names.

That can be wildly unpractical for a variety of reasons, from the pronouns sounding like something else to the fact that it doesn’t solve the issue of gendered words and verbs at all.

sure, we can use they in Italian, which will sound like dei (“of whom” or “gods”) to most, but what do we do with all the related verbs and adjectives, which in Italian ALSO reflect one’s gender?

My impulse would be to defer to the general consensus of the non-binary communities in those countries for how they want non-binary people to be referred to.

when that exists...

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

I know it sounds high & mighty, but it would be a lot simpler for everybody if the foreign language markets just adopted the English pronouns like they do English names.

There aren't that many of them that it would be too cumbersome.
And there are already a lot of English words that are used that aren't translated.

The "they/them" solution is actually a pretty clunky awkward one and grammatically a mess so if other languages have a better way of doing why switch to "they" which would be confusing

 

[DEWLine]

Dubbing changes sure, but nothing will change for the english releases.

Noting the date and time you said that to me...and resuming the discussion of the story itself.

 

[Captrek]

The "they/them" solution is actually a pretty clunky awkward one and grammatically a mess so if other languages have a better way of doing why switch to "they" which would be confusing

It’s not really a grammatical mess. The singular “they” takes the same verbs as the singular “you.” It’s not inconsistent, it just takes some getting used to.

I for one appreciate that DISCO is helping me get used to it. If I spend enough time hanging around here talking about Adira, it will eventually become completely natural to me.

 

[Tuskin38]

Noting the date and time you said that to me

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I gave it a 6. Like the rest of this season, it's not doing anything terribly wrong. But the big bad this season is super boring. There's no interesting direction this season. But every episode gives us some kind of redeeming value.

This season isn't doing anything terribly bad. Just not anything interesting either.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Does Book's ship have a name?

Not yet, it's still known as "Booker's Ship".

 

[jackoverfull]

It’s not really a grammatical mess. The singular “they” takes the same verbs as the singular “you.”

this is because the “singular” you is actually a plural you originally used as a courtesy form which supplanted the original singular second person thou, which had its own verbal conjugations. As with most evolving languages, English is a mess.

 

[Sci]

Does Book's ship have a name?

Not yet, it's still known as "Booker's Ship".

Well that's just against the entire spirit of Star Trek! The one thing all ST shows have in common is anthropomorphizing ships by giving them names. Petition Paramount to give Book's ship a name!

(What should we name it?)

 

[jackoverfull]

Millennium Falcon sounds good.

 

[DEWLine]

Merchant Vessel Memory of Kwejian?

 

[DaveyNY]

The Queen Grudge