To Brave the Storm

[Asso]

Like Tambo I like the Enterprise novels and liked reading them. I'm glad they got Trip&T'Pol together at long last.I also want to see the Enterpise book line continue.I like reading fanfiction people can still like the fanfiction and still like reading the Enterprise books. I want to see the Enterprise books continue beyond To Brave the storm . I don't care for the Tng books for fans of the other Startrek series we'd like to see other novels published besides the same story told over and over again like a broken record like they do in the Typhon pact books.That seem to have endless sequels whilefans want Enterprise,Tos or ds9 novels.

I can understand you, my friend, indeed I will really understand.
Indeed, it is comforting to know that, eventually, Trip and T'Pol come to be together, as is logical and should be.
Long it's the way, rough it's the road, sweet it's the landfall of a perilous sea.

[tambo2063]

would that ear bud thing work like the universal translator?? trip & that princess from season two had no trouble understanding each other, also didn't it let the delegates at the peace conference on earth understand each other as well. just wondering

[Reanok]

Thanks Asso for understanding. Like I said there's books that are well written and wonderfully written fanfiction that I like to read. and fanfiction that's badly written the writing is a mess the characters don't seem to make any sense at they're not like Trip& T'Pol we like or know or the other Enterprise crew either. I just finished reading some new stories and they were badly written.Not on this site but they certainly needed to be rewritten and edited that's for sure.

[Transwarp]

would that ear bud thing work like the universal translator?? trip & that princess from season two had no trouble understanding each other, also didn't it let the delegates at the peace conference on earth understand each other as well. just wondering

I don't recall Trip and the princess using UT's. Didn't he just thaw her out and BINGO, they could talk to each other? (Seems like another OOPS on the part of the show's writers.)

I always understood the UT to be a device that would translate your speech into mine. You say something in your language. The UT 'hears' it and then repeats it in my ear, in my language. When I reply I speak in my language, and *your* UT repeats it in your language. In this scenario, both parties must have a UT to communicate. But in the book, only Trip had one. OOPS.

Okay, but what if you only need one UT? How would that work? You speak, it translates in my ear. Got it. Then I speak and... what? A loudspeaker around my net repeats my words in your language? That would work, but it would be rather obvious I wasn't speaking your language, don't you think?

Okay, how about this... I subvocalize what I want to say in MY language, and the UT translates it for me, and I just repeat (out loud) the string of gibberish that the UT said in my ear...

This would let me communicate, but there is no way I could pass myself off as a native speaker. In addition to the awkward delay while I whispered what I wanted to say to myself, then listened to the translation, I would be tripping over the unfamiliar sounds and mispronouncing most of what came out of my mouth.

But even if the UT would let you sound like a native (which it can't) how would you know what to SAY? The proper forms of address. The forbidden topics (do Romulans have a fetish about revealing their age like the Vulcans do? I dunno. Does Trip?) The accepted gestures (shrugging, nodding, hand-waving). There is more to communicating than just stringing words together.

Sorry, but I don't see any possible way Trip could pass himself off as a Romulan without knowing a hell of a lot more than he knew. If I wanted fiction that ignored the hard realities, I'd watch Saturday morning cartoons. (Do they still have those?) I require more from the fiction I read. Especially if I have to pay for it.

Any commercial writers out there who might happen to read this, take heed. Do your homework when you write! If you see a flaw or an implausibility in your plot, you must address it. (If you saw it, then we did too. In fact, we see them even *if* you don't.)

[Cogito]

I don't recall Trip and the princess using UT's. Didn't he just thaw her out and BINGO, they could talk to each other? (Seems like another OOPS on the part of the show's writers.)

I always understood the UT to be a device that would translate your speech into mine. You say something in your language. The UT 'hears' it and then repeats it in my ear, in my language. When I reply I speak in my language, and *your* UT repeats it in your language. In this scenario, both parties must have a UT to communicate. But in the book, only Trip had one. OOPS.

I saw that episode quite recently, and I remember that Trip did have a UT and went through the usual rigmarole of 'teaching' it Fishstick's language. It involved her saying a couple of sentences, which apparently was enough for the UT to extrapolate her whole language. And, naturally, they didn't use the UT at all after that. It is not remotely credible, but that was never going to get in the way of a convenient solution to the 'language barrier'.

[putaro]

I'm with Transwarp on the UT. Didn't they show a lot more communication difficulties in the first season? Then they just kind of glossed over it - which makes sense because it's a pain to show and it doesn't add a lot to the plot. And most episodes it doesn't add a lot to show them using the UT because it would just serve to slow the action down. However, in trying to pass someone off as a native, the current explanations for the UT just don't work.

There's different kinds of bafflegab they could have used to pull it off (training through mindmeld by a rogue Romulan?) and if the rest of the story had been compelling to me I might have been willing to overlook it. But it wasn't so it kind of nagged at me the whole way through.

Personally, I'd like to see novels that are more "science fiction" than the kind of political/war novels that seem to be the norm.

[Cogito]

I always thought of the UT as something that could listen to speech in one language and repeat it in another language. Maybe out loud, maybe via an earpiece. That wasn't how it was shown on TV (we didn't hear them speak in 'alien' and then hear the UT translate), but given that the aliens clearly were speaking English it's also clear that they were not in fact using a UT. The UT is just an excuse to gloss over the problem.

In the case of Trip as a spy, doesn't the fact that they had a mission for him in Romulan space pretty much imply that they had sources there already? Sources that would have had to know how Romulans talk and look and act. All it needs is some sort of accelerated learning program, and a cover story to explain whatever accent he had when he spoke Romulan.

[Transwarp]

All it needs is some sort of accelerated learning program, and a cover story to explain whatever accent he had when he spoke Romulan.

Sure. As putaro said, there's lots of ways that Trip's mission *could* have been pulled off. But the actual book did not use any of them. Instead, the problem was simply ignored.

But I have an even deeper objection to the book's plot, which is that the whole 'secret agent' mission was just an incredibly convoluted, highly improbable, and ultimately unsatisfying mechanism for explaining *the_abomination*. There are much better, cleaner and more believable ways around it. If you doubt that, just go and look at the dozens of finale-fixes in the fanfic archives.

[Kotik]

If you doubt that, just go and look at the dozens of finale-fixes in the fanfic archives.

Which is, why I don't sign up to that 'save ENT profic' campaign that some former members of this board launched on their new site and the TrekBBS. Why in the name of all that's holy should I petition for more commercial mediocrity, when I can get a vastly superior product for free?