Chapter 2 cover

[javcs]

Any information storaged in any format, which need any kind of equipment to view it, is useless to loroi.
With or without encryption.

Except for the one's they salvaged the necessary equipment for.
Remember, they were working on the Bell's wreckage for a while - they would have grabbed as much as they possibly could - at least, in terms of equipment and such - probably wouldn't have grabbed a lot of the clothing (he's only one person, after all, and in a worst case scenario, they can stick him in clothing from the Union). They might not know what everything does, or what it should be connected to, but I'd wager they have a fair amount of salvaged equipment.

[Gudo]

Being on a critical diplomatic mission, I'm going to assume that any sensitive data on the Bellarmine (including personal "literature") will be encrypted. So it's very unlikely that the Loroi will be able to view anything that Alex doesn't intentionally show them.

Well, anything that he can show. Even if all the recreational material is encrypted with the same key (books, movies, music, etc.) Alex would have to have access to the requisite equipment to access the material, the storage medium the material is on, and the encryption key in a useable format. Passwords or biometrics are probably being employed so the encryption part in is a synch. Everything else though depends on what the Loroi have gathered. Maybe they didn't get the drives with common-password material. In that case, there's nothing he could do. There's no reason to believe he could crack into personal files or mission critical files, etc.

Fortunately for him though, Alex should be able to provide power to any recovered devices. He was on damage control after all, heading out to check the breakers. So he's got to have enough electrical training to tell the Loroi what he needs. Communicating what exactly "12 volts" or "13 ohms" is might be a bit of a challenge, but nothing he's not up to. Odds are he knows the units in Trade.

Question: Was Alex's role aboard the Bellarmine chosen with this in mind? There are allot of roles to fill aboard a ship and each of them has their advantages, but I can't think of one that would relate to the wreckage of the Bellarmine better. Certainly the best person to explain to the Loroi (and thus the audiance) human technology and capacity would be an engineer or mechanic of some sort.

[Grayhome]

Perhaps they have a few movies on board that got salvaged by the Loroi teams. I would think that the Death Stars from Star Wars would earn some attention, not to mention a few other Sci-Fi movie gadgets.

[Mjolnir]

Fortunately for him though, Alex should be able to provide power to any recovered devices. He was on damage control after all, heading out to check the breakers. So he's got to have enough electrical training to tell the Loroi what he needs. Communicating what exactly "12 volts" or "13 ohms" is might be a bit of a challenge, but nothing he's not up to. Odds are he knows the units in Trade.

Recovered devices are very likely to have backup batteries/supercaps...there's a decent voltage reference. Use that to power some devices up and take measurements from their regulated power supplies to get a more precise one. Describing polarity shouldn't be too difficult, it's hard to confuse proton and electron masses. No need to determine the size of the ampere or ohm, apply power at an appropriate voltage and the equipment will draw what it needs. If you want it, though, there's likely something recovered from that ship that uses discrete resistors with their values marked, which gets you both when combined with voltage. That gets you watts as well...volts*amps.

They probably already know his units for time, just not their names. They just need something with a clock display, and those aren't exactly scarce. If they couldn't manage that, he can give them the frequency of his radio and they can work out the size of a second with decent precision. A good time/frequency reference might be a good idea if any of the equipment is AC powered (though such equipment usually isn't super-picky about the frequency). The second also gets you joules when combined with watts...mostly useful in his situation for describing things like weapon capabilities.

For a rough start at length, he likely knows his height, but he probably remembers that the speed of light is 299792458 m/s, or at least a few digits of that. A kilogram is very close to 1/1000th the mass of a cubic meter of pure water at 4 degrees C. Degrees C of course being 1/100th the temperature difference between the freezing and boiling point of water at one atmosphere...what they're breathing is close enough for most purposes, and his suit had a pressure gauge. Kelvin is the same sized unit referenced from absolute zero.

With mass, the mole is easy to describe if he ever needs it, and I can't think of any reason for him to need candela. Other than that last, that's all the SI base units, from which all the others can be derived. Another useful unit to describe might be the food calorie: the energy required to raise the temperature of a kilogram of water by 1 K. They may be surprised at how many he needs.

[Grayhome]

I believe that the Orgus were able to provide Humanity with trade standard measurments.

[Gudo]

Portable and stand alone devices are likely to have batteries and such and yeah, that would be an great way of getting a voltage reference. "Just measure this battery. Whatever it spits out is what we call 12 volts." Doesn't really work in the case of integrated equipment (say, a terminal computer or the ship's point defense weapons.) but so long as you get at least one power source, that doesn't really matter.

I don't think that will be necessary though. He is on a mission to seek out aliens. I'd be shocked if the crew of Bellarmine wasn't instructed in the basic scientific units in Trade. Science and Math are, after all, the only genuinely universal language and probably how the Orgus and Humans first stared communicating (beyond pictures.) I'd bet Alex knows that unit for, say, voltage in Trade is the "blefa*" and 1 blefa = 3.56 volts and so on.
*I of course have no idea what the actual Trade unit for voltage is.

Now that I think about it, why wouldn't all the text on the Bellarmine be in Trade? The entire crew can speak and read it and there's no downside to using it exclusively. It would give the crew more practice at Trade if nothing else. Odds are, any equipment would have "3.37 belfa" and other relevant information stamped right on it. In Trade.

It would actually be pretty cool trying to figure out the units and their conversions from scratch but it won't have to happen.

Also, Grayhome posted while I was typing

[Mjolnir]

Portable and stand alone devices are likely to have batteries and such and yeah, that would be an great way of getting a voltage reference. "Just measure this battery. Whatever it spits out is what we call 12 volts." Doesn't really work in the case of integrated equipment (say, a terminal computer or the ship's point defense weapons.) but so long as you get at least one power source, that doesn't really matter.

Even integrated equipment will likely have RTCs with battery backup.

I don't think that will be necessary though. He is on a mission to seek out aliens. I'd be shocked if the crew of Bellarmine wasn't instructed in the basic scientific units in Trade. Science and Math are, after all, the only genuinely universal language and probably how the Orgus and Humans first stared communicating (beyond pictures.) I'd bet Alex knows that unit for, say, voltage in Trade is the "blefa*" and 1 blefa = 3.56 volts and so on.
*I of course have no idea what the actual Trade unit for voltage is.

It's a different dialect. Alex didn't know how long a solon was, their equivalent of a second.

Now that I think about it, why wouldn't all the text on the Bellarmine be in Trade? The entire crew can speak and read it and there's no downside to using it exclusively. It would give the crew more practice at Trade if nothing else. Odds are, any equipment would have "3.37 belfa" and other relevant information stamped right on it. In Trade.

It might also slow them down or cause human errors at a crucial moment, while still being incomprehensible to this particular group of aliens.

[Solemn]

Perhaps they have a few movies on board that got salvaged by the Loroi teams. I would think that the Death Stars from Star Wars would earn some attention, not to mention a few other Sci-Fi movie gadgets.

Hm.

When humans are learning a new language, one of the common modern ways of teaching it is to use dubbed and subtitled movies, in order to better immerse the audience in the use of the language.

So it seems possible to me that movie night on the Bellarmine involved watching human movies dubbed into Trade, in order to explain Alex's deftness with the language.

But the movie's dialogue generally have to meet a few criteria. For instance, it ought to be simple enough for the audience to follow it somewhat even without the dialogue, because they're going to miss at least some of it. It ought to reflect standard use of the language, rather than eccentric, colloquial, or highly individualized variants, because the audience ought to learn from it. It ought to be easy to translate both denotatively and connotatively and retain the same meaning, because fuck puns.

So things like Shakespeare are right out because Shakespeare loved him some clever wordplay, and that doesn't really translate well into different words.
You also don't want your ship's staff going into space with their use of language shaped in part by translations of nonsense or obscure memes, although Jardin is living proof that you just can't stop some people. "Take me to your leader," "Get out of my mind," etc.
Comedies in general ought to be more situational or physical than verbal, but aren't necessarily beyond translation.

For these reasons and others, kids' movies and action movies are popular for second language classes, whereas, again, Shakespeare and the like are not. It seems likely that if there are translated movies aboard the Bellarmine, they'd follow that convention, and if there are movies that Alex would explain to the Loroi and expect Beryl to learn from, then he would also choose simple, easily-translated dialogue, for his own personal convenience.

If Alex were to either try to teach English to Beryl via English-language movies, or to show a Trade-dubbed movie to the Loroi for entertainment reasons, I'd think it would be a movie that he felt encapsulated human virtues and human culture, without being too mired down in the specifics and minutiae of human life and history and culture. Something powerful and human, yet with a certain level of emotional universality, both simple enough to appeal to a completely unfamiliar and alien audience such as the Loroi and deep enough to reward more intense scrutiny and study on the part of a race whose scholars have photographic memories.

So I think Alex's choice of movies should be pretty clear.
Rocky IV.

[bunnyboy]

Now that I think about it, why wouldn't all the text on the Bellarmine be in Trade?

Nice idea in this mission there is risk that unknown wargoing alien will just kill everyone aboard and take the ship. Then it get easily to know everything about us and our technology.

[Ktrain]

So I think Alex's choice of movies should be pretty clear.
Rocky IV.

Though on a real point, are we going to get a gander at Loroi picking through the salvage or are they just going to ship it off to another group better equipped to analyze it (or is there going to be a plot twist ;P)?

And what is Umiak food culture like? Is it cultured or do they only eat protein bars and drink muscle milk?

[Imbrooge]

So I figure this is like the Chapter 1 cover, and this is something that happens inbetween some unspecified amount of time that passses offscreen. The same way we see Fireblade holding Alex's bloodied helmet after recovering him.

@Gudo:

I think Alex makes it pretty clear he doesn't understand Loroi units when looking at the graphical battle display where he says he can't tell what the symbols mean but he could figure things out by counting the ships on display.

[Gudo]

Mjolnir, Imbrooge: I just went back through the Insider and yeah, "The version taught by the Orgus to humans is substantially different in pronunciation than that used by the Loroi..."

I would like to think though, that since the dialects have enough in common for diplomacy then they should share at least some common units of measure. Different units for time would complicate things though, as nearly every higher unit (force, power, frequency, etc) incorporates time.

[Arioch]

Though on a real point, are we going to get a gander at Loroi picking through the salvage or are they just going to ship it off to another group better equipped to analyze it (or is there going to be a plot twist)?

All three, in a manner of speaking.

And what is Umiak food culture like? Is it cultured or do they only eat protein bars and drink muscle milk?

The Umiak also have a variety of sub-cultures, but I'm guessing for the most part the fare they get aboard ship is probably about as appetizing as the goo that the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar had to make do with.

So I figure this is like the Chapter 1 cover, and this is something that happens inbetween some unspecified amount of time that passses offscreen. The same way we see Fireblade holding Alex's bloodied helmet after recovering him.

Yes, exactly.

[Ktrain]

One more query: male Loroi facial hair, does it occur or are they all pretty boys?

Edit: I really pity the Umiak. It's like a force march forward with a sword constantly held behind you.... and the food sucks.

[bunnyboy]

If Alex were to either try to teach English to Beryl via English-language movies, or to show a Trade-dubbed movie to the Loroi for entertainment reasons, I'd think it would be a movie that he felt encapsulated human virtues and human culture, without being too mired down in the specifics and minutiae of human life and history and culture. Something powerful and human, yet with a certain level of emotional universality, both simple enough to appeal to a completely unfamiliar and alien audience such as the Loroi and deep enough to reward more intense scrutiny and study on the part of a race whose scholars have photographic memories.

So I think Alex's choice of movies should be pretty clear.
Rocky IV.

Interesting. Is there some reason why the point of view is constantly changing?

If just spoken words are considered awkvard and lying, then fictious records are brobably not a common entertainment.
So many artistic ways to tell a story may be alien to them, like background music, pictureplays, montages etc.

Edit: So what they think of cutting the film? Is that akward, because it look only sensored on them?

[Voitan]

If anything, there's going to be THAT guy, who never liked how small a hassle encrypting, or password protecting his handheld device is, and of course, by murphy's law, it'll be loaded with elf porn, and things even more perverse.

As for movies quite likely to be on the Bell, I'd go with 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Though I'd like to see them watch Gladiator.

Loroi would love to see a good bloodbath, and heroic struggles, but they may feel conflicted with it's political messages.

Lord of the Rings, however might be hilarious. I can see it now, 2 dozen Loroi cramped in one room oggling Legolas. Clearly doing it for SCIENCE!

[Sprawl63]

If anything, there's going to be THAT guy, who never liked how small a hassle encrypting, or password protecting his handheld device is, and of course, by murphy's law, it'll be loaded with elf porn, and things even more perverse.

As for movies quite likely to be on the Bell, I'd go with 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Though I'd like to see them watch Gladiator.

Loroi would love to see a good bloodbath, and heroic struggles, but they may feel conflicted with it's political messages.

Lord of the Rings, however might be hilarious. I can see it now, 2 dozen Loroi cramped in one room oggling Legolas. Clearly doing it for SCIENCE!

I think they would be goggling the hobbits actually. I'd think they'd look a lot like Loroi males except for the blue skin.

[fredgiblet]

A) Sheer confusion and perhaps researchers using the data to prank each other.
B) Unfathomable confusion followed by a piqued interest in the new "diplomat" Let the stalking commence.

I don't really see why. While I doubt the Loroi have a rich history of pornographic material being produced I'd be surprised if they didn't understand the concept, which leaves only the question of elves, and since the only difference between humans and elves is ears I think it'd be just a few questions about the humans with pointed ears.

Question: Was Alex's role aboard the Bellarmine chosen with this in mind? There are allot of roles to fill aboard a ship and each of them has their advantages, but I can't think of one that would relate to the wreckage of the Bellarmine better. Certainly the best person to explain to the Loroi (and thus the audiance) human technology and capacity would be an engineer or mechanic of some sort.

He's actually a pilot put on DC as punishment.

One more query: male Loroi facial hair, does it occur or are they all pretty boys?

No facial hair.

[Solemn]

I'd go with 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I tried to imagine an audience of Loroi trying to figure that movie out. Stillstorm had left early on because there weren't enough explosions, and possibly because of her absence, discipline broke down enough that what started as mere debates ended with violence breaking out between two groups. Alex started shouting "everyone calm down, it's just a movie!" before getting knocked out by the combatants.

Loroi would love to see a good bloodbath

Sure, as long as it's a kind of bloodbath that doesn't offend any of their sensibilities.

Male protectionism might be a bit of a sticking point there, depending on how strong it is with them.

The way our violent movies so often put that violence in the context of males might be a bit of a line to cross with the Loroi, kind of like taking someone who's really into Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers and other war dramas, and having them watch a very, very detailed and grisly drama focusing on child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the child soldiers as the main characters and practically every supporting character on either side of the protagonist-antagonist divide also being a child soldier.

'course, the fact that our blood is red might let it sink in on an instinctive level that, hey, these aren't Loroi males, so it's perfectly okay if they die.
That thought wouldn't exactly comfort me if I were Alex.

But I guess there might be issues with that for non-gory action flicks too. "Why did Princess Leia just shoot the male Stormtrooper with her blaster set to kill rather than stun? The Stormtroopers set their blasters to stun, so the weapon is capable of a nonlethal setting. He's a boy. Why would she kill a boy when she had another option? Was it an accident? She didn't just murder a boy--one who wasn't going to kill her--on purpose, did she? Is she the, what was the Humanity term, 'Bad Guy?' I do not--"
"NO MORE TALKING DURING THE MOVIE, BERYL."

[bunnyboy]

Wouldn't best movie be 300?
Alex could say that is historical reacting with some artistic liberties.