'A Time Lord...I mean Cybertronian...gift'?

Birdman · Post by **Birdman** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 10:54 am

Hi all,
I was wondering (mainly concerning G1 comic continuity) how both the Autobots and Decepticons were able to speak to any humans that they met and be understood, and also Nebulans, and (in fact) I seem to remember Spike being able to understand Galen as well. Is this a case of Time Lord-like 'universal translation' being extended from Transformers to those life forms in contact with them?

Post by **Best First** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 1:01 pm

I'm fairly certain in the story Recipe for Disaster:

http://transfans.tfarchive3.com/comics_ ... php?id=251

Cloudbusrt and Landmine basically have to turn on a translator to understand what the female warriorsd are saying - so it seems that the Fs are equipped with adevice that can translate most languages, or an upload systemt that makes know languages available for them. Considering how advanced they are option a seems more useful to me.

Its also possible that a similar device could have been built into the nebulan armour.

or that it was just sloppy ass writing.

Autobloke · Post by **Autobloke** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 4:32 pm

ANY science fiction story with conversation between different species has to overcome this problem. Most of the time it can just be ignored - look at all the aliens Spike and Daniel speak to in the third series of the cartoon.
Of course, unless the explanation is one that's adopted by ALL the species encountered (the microbes in Farscape, for instance), then it will always be considered a 'little shakey'.
Let's just assume that, as TFs can adapt their bodies, they can adapt their speech too.

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 10:11 pm

The first story in the Headmasters miniseries shows the TFs having the Nebulan language programmed into their systems. So a built-in translation device is very likely. The question is how did they work out how to speak English in the first place?

Autobloke · Post by **Autobloke** » Sat Apr 30, 2005 9:21 pm

Bouncelot wrote:The question is how did they work out how to speak English in the first place?

That's strange - they speak Spanish in Spain.

Darth Aux · Post by **Darth Aux** » Sun May 01, 2005 11:22 am

Bouncelot wrote:The question is how did they work out how to speak English in the first place?

Well it just so happens that the Cybertronian language is as close to English as Americanised English is. I guess they got a lucky break/crash.

KingMob · Post by **KingMob** » Sun May 01, 2005 12:48 pm

Isn't there a bit at the start of the comics where Prime and the lads all stand about and watch TV for like a day or something? Wide panel of them all in silhouette. I'd imagine advanced robotic lifeforms could 'decrypt' our language(s) with some rapidity once exposed to enough of the source code.

Shockers did the same, sat and watched TV for a bit. Maybe the other D-Cons did something similar previous to this but we never saw it. Soundwave could maybe work out the language quite quickly?

Once decrypted, any simple translation program routed through vocabulators would suffice.

Presumably Highbrow and Brainstorm tuned in to the communications network of North America at least (considering that was their destination) when the crew of the Steelhaven arrived, and that's how them lot all knew English?

Memory could be way off or I could have misunderstood the topic question as I'm rather hungover, apols if so.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon May 02, 2005 9:10 pm

Darth Aux wrote:Well it just so happens that the Cybertronian language is as close to English as Americanised English is

Ah.

That explains why Jazz's real name is unpronouncable in English, then.

Legion · Post by **Legion** » Tue May 03, 2005 3:02 pm

There was also a scene in Headmasters when the Con's receive Zarak's transmission from Nebulous they don't understand it until Mindwipe put's it through the translator... so i'm guessing they have some sort of Univeral Translator ala Star Trek...