Babel Talk
| Star Traks: The Incongruous Voyages | |
| Episode name | Babel Talk |
|---|---|
| Season | 1 |
| Episode number | 5 |
| Writer(s) | Ronan Stafford |
| Year | 2503 |
| Stardate | 178712 |
| Chronology | |
| Previous in series | The Dating Game [IV] |
| Next in series | The Language of Romance [IV] |
| Previous in timeline | The Dating Game [IV] |
| Next in timeline | The Language of Romance [IV] |
A pirate EMP attack leaves the ship completely powerless, knocking off not only shields and weapons, but the universal translator as well. How can the crew hope to fight back against those who would enslave them and steal all their cargo when they can't even understand each other?
Summary
Reimann is finally getting his relationship with Sanchez back on track when a pirate attack leaves the ship completely powerless. The crew manage to congregate on the bridge, having to contend with a zero gravity environment, no lights and more importantly, no universal translator to understand each other. Reimann learns that absolutely nothing, including life support, is working on the ship, and there is little chance of repair. Fortunately the pirate ship was also disabled by GorDonTer, who is suffering from the lack of light as it is unable to photosynthesize. The race is on to repair the ship, or call for help, before the pirates can, or before they run out of supplies. As Reimann and Braistway prepare the ship for a long haul without power and to prepare to repel another pirate attack, Nyoko must cope with the death of one of her engineers while attempting to repair some portable power generators and fashion a radio to call for help. The pirates are able to dock their ship with the Hansean, but are captured by Braistway, Sanchez, Nyoko and Rascamontes. Reimann attempts to interrogate them, but the language barrier prevents them from understanding each other. Helped by the chef, Joss Thanatos in getting over the death of Crewman Jak Chiuginn, Nyoko manages build a transmitter, sending out an SOS, which is finally answered by the USS Misacmons.
Favorite Quotes
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Location
Featuring
- Captain Klaus Reimann
- Leanne Braistway
- Soledad Sanchez Rios
- Henry Labrapoulos
- Nyoko Sulu
- Flash GorDonTer
- Dr. Belle Scorpio
- Lucas Rascamontes
- Giuseppi Lombardo
Also Featuring
- Joss Thanatos
- Captain Marvin Jakes
Story Notes
This story featured four languages: English, Spanish, Russian (phonetic approximations) and German, with the alien pirates speaking in backwards French. A translation guide is presented at the end of the story.
Author's Comments
My aims with this story were two: first off to try and tell a 'complete power loss' story where living does get uncomofortable, and second to tell something of a darker story.
About the first one: it's my attempt at the fairly popular storyline of ship loses power, nothing works, must repair ship before bad stuff happens. The only thing with this story is that more often than not the only thing a main power loss entails is a dimming of the lights, with no real consequences. In my version when power is gone it means power is gone: no lights, no doors, no universal translator (bringing us round to the name of the story). Originally due to the lack to lights they couldn't even see each other or where they were going, but that proved so difficult to write I ended up giving them torches to use.
This also gave me a chance to throw in bits in multiple languages, i.e. me showing off my real life field of study. Also important to me was the fact we don't actually repair the ship, the best we can do is basic survival and a lightspeed message which takes 3 days to reach help. Unfortunately, no miracle of Engineering here (though I might consider building a radio from scratch in a couple of hours quite miraculous).
My second aim was based on the yin-yang principle, which is something I'm trying to adhere to faithfully in the series. This episode is darker than usual (the yin), because the previous episode was lighter than usual (the yang). Hopefully you can spot this concept in a few other things such as relationships: while Reimann and Sanchez's relationship has been rapidly improving (from divorced to become a couple again), Braistway and Nyoko's relationship has been deteriorating. Both of these relationships will reach a climax in the final episode (coming soon).
And now on to some of your comments:
About the alcohol thing, I stand corrected. But while it might not warm you for long, at least it gives the sensation of doing so, which is almost as important in these circumstances. Keeping the crew morale up until your rescued is paramount, and the alcohol gives a ncie break from the monotny of water and rations.
As for the comments on the length of the episode, this is the shortest episode of season one by some distance. Perhaps sometime I'll come back and pad the story out a bit more.
Links
The Incongruous Voyages comment thread (Star Traks Forums)
| Star Traks: The Incongruous Voyages | |
|---|---|
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Stories |
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Senior Crew |
Klaus Reimann - Leanne Braistway - Soledad Sanchez Rios - Henry Labrapoulos - Nyoko Sulu - Lucas Rascamontes - GorDonTer - Giuseppi Lombardo - Belle Scorpio |
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Recurring Crew |
Holo-Bradley - Niels - Igor - Joss Thanatos - Franz |
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Ships |
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