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Aliens All Speak English...


This comes up as a gripe about Star Trek often, and it is annoying. I have looked through Marc Cushman's book "These Are the Voyages - Season One" to find references to the problem in early Trek.
In production order:

Balance of Terror - "The episode is marred by a notable flaw: The Romulans speak English amongst themselves. NBC was not likely to agree to sub-titles, nor was there time or money to devise a language for the aliens." - The reference to this episode comes from Marc Cushman's assessment of the episode. I include it only because it mentions the inherent problems in using an alien language.

Miri - "Roddenberry and Spies were in immediate agreement that Miri’s world should be described as “another Earth.” This allowed for contemporary Earth-like locations and clothing to be used, thereby saving money. It also explained the use of English as the children’s language. And it was hoped this would better help the TV audience to empathize with the children -- contemporary American Earth children." - This is an unfortunate early example of the shallowness of Roddenberry's appreciation of science fiction, "another Earth", being a totally silly notion. But it also points out the practical reasoning that was inescapable in '60s TV.

Arena - "Roddenberry wrote: [Regarding] Kirk’s voiceover during battle -- obvious why you had to go this direction. Good voiceover; well handled. But let’s discuss a couple other possibilities, i.e., a) the Gorn can speak English after some effort...(the other possibilities were ways to dodge the Gorn speaking at all)" AND "Under Gene Coon’s guidance, Star Trek was rapidly becoming faster-paced. Coon felt that Star Trek could remain adult and, at the same time, be a bit more fun. Care, however, was still taken to keep the series believable. To this end, it was agreed among the creative staff that the Gorn would not speak English. Instead, to honor a suggestion made by Roddenberry, a translator device was introduced to allow the two combatants to communicate." - Again we see Roddenbery struggling with the problem... And, interestingly, a solution generated which made sense. The translator was an advanced Metron technology, however, and no Universal Translator had yet been conceived.

Gene Coon on Errand of Mercy - "We are again asked to accept the troublesome tendency of science fiction of this era to present stories on other worlds where everyone, planet natives as well as invaders, speak English, even when not in the presence of those who normally communicate in that language." - So, the worry was growing.

Unfortunately it would never be a solved problem. A Universal Translator device was introduced in Meatamorphosis (season 2) but not referred to again till the animated series. Fans and novelists often assumed that the ship's computer and communicators linked to it handled translation, but this was not in the shows. By The Motion Picture, subtitles were acceptable with alien spoken language, but TNG rarely mentioned the problem, although one of the best episodes . Its spiritual descendant, The Orville, casually wrote the technology in and mentions it fairly often...

One additional note (From Memory Alpha Wiki) Jerry Sohl, the writer of "The Corbomite Maneuver", later explained, "We were originally going to have [each crew member] carry a language translator, which would fit on the wrist like a beeper, and no matter what area of the universe they were in, the thoughts that the people were thinking would automatically be translated into English as they spoke. We got rid of that idea, and assumed that everybody did speak English." (The Star Trek Interview Book, pp. 127-128)

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I was more annoyed with the cheap "aliens look just like humans" angle in the early Star Trek shows. It's one thing to have humans colonizing other planets that Kirk and his team get to visit; it's another just to go to some random planet that just happens to have the same atmospheric setup and look as Earth (particularly the Hollywood studio backlots) and just randomly meet humans who somehow developed on their own, but their culture looks suspiciously like 1960s earth, without ever having met humans from earth, or knowing what our culture was like. It's almost on par with some of the Dr. Who cheap-ass "Brits in space" shit I kept seeing on that show.

They did much better with later Star Trek shows by at least slapping some prosthetics or weird skin-coloring on some of their "humanoid" aliens.

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Try watching your own Yank 1950's sci-fi shit - all laughable rubbery suits or tin foil men with 3rd rate actors going on about Commi.....er, aliens...

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I mostly avoid those, with the exception of "Forbidden Planet." Of course, I didn't find the hideous, farting, giant frog aliens disguised as fat humans any better.

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Yeah, that is not just practicality at work. Note the Rodenberry idea for Miri, as quoted above. Also The Omega Glory, which was made in the second season but which was one of Roddenberry's earliest story concepts. See also Bread and Circuses... I mean, I don't mind aliens who look like humans back when the show couldn't even afford ears for the bulk of the Romulans (most wore helmets to conceal the ears) and when audiences were unsophisticated enough to accept it. Actual science fiction fans who liked Star Trek just had to accept the convention. Later we got TNG with slight makeup variations... and we still had to accept it. Now half a century has passed and, damn, if it hasn't become accepted Star Trek canon (and how I hate the concept of canon) and we are just lucky that Discovery gave us Cmdr. Saru, Treks best humanoid alien ever.
The cultural thing comes down to hasty or bad writing (and it was often both hasty and by committee) and limits of production design - You can't afford to build and make that many totally new alien props and costumes.
The show did an acceptable thing with the planets with Earth-like atmosphere and conditions though. I'm willing to believe that there are other biospheres much like Earth out there and Trek just assumes a higher than probable number and has it's people visit such worlds by preference, presumably because that's where you either colonize or find alien life and civilizations... usually.

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I'm just saying, it was more believable to see humanoid aliens that looked a bit like us, but had things that made them uniquely different from us, like unusual body parts, different clothes, tech, building style, and how they viewed the universe, particularly in the morality dept.

It might be better not to mention STD in front of me. I'm not a fan of that show. I always liked Worf, since he was written so well for later Star Trek shows.

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All that was fixed in The Next Generation with universal translators autonomously doing the work. Although it was not discussed in the original series, we can retroactively apply that to TOS and not stay awake thinking about this..

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I don't stay awake over it. I just want the whiners to realize that:
The question was considered from the beginning and there were practical considerations.
Roddenberry had some flaky ideas along with the good ones.
Star Trek fans who are also science fiction fans have always considered these things.

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The universal translator explains it all!

I think the UT took a while to learn Gorn-speak, it wasn't that the Gorn was actually learning English, or "Federation Standard".

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I think the device probably functioned immediately... Godlike Metron technology and all. I'm pretty sure that Kirk just fucked up in that episode. He misunderstood the Metron when he said "A recording/translating device will be provided"... Kirk didn't realize it was also a transceiver, so he prattled away, revealing his state of mind and every observation of the environment that he made. Meanwhile,the Gorn kept his mouth shut and listened in on every word. Remember that later, when the Gorn speaks ("Thisss isss yourr opponent...") Kirk hears it as perfect English with just a Gornish accent...

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When threatening to beat the snot out of my little brother, I would always say" I willll be mercccifulll, and quickkkk!!"

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The simplest answer is the story is being told in English. That is why when you watch the same episode in France, somehow all aliens speak French

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Universal translators are the explanation; and they, of course, are merely a dramatic trope meant to move the story along. While it can be interesting in a novel to explore the process of learning each other's language it is an inherently long process completely unsuitable to an hour long, episodic series.

I understand the observations of episodes like "Balance of Terror," however unless you want other species to speak gibberish (by which I mean a random collection of sounds to imitate another language) with subtitles, using the vernacular (English in the original production; other languages in other countries) is the way to go.

Yes, languages can be developed. Klingon is a very developed language and there is even a Klingon Language Institute. However, conlanging is not that simple a skill or process. They committed the resources during the films and Marc Okrand did an excellent job.

But to do it every week for dozens of different species is unreasonable.

There was obviously some work on Vulcan, but I don't believe it was coordinated. Other Star Trek species not at all, though doing it for Romulan would make sense.

And yes, I've heard the opinion: who cares? Just make up some sounds. That doesn't really work. People can actually tell gibberish from an actual, constructed language if they try.

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Universal translator was the onscreen explanation. That aside Desilu and later Paramount were not spending much money on making the aliens super distinctive. They knew what they wanted to spend on a per episode basis and were going to fight tooth and nail not to exceed that. They knew that they could make money on other programming such as Mission Impossible so if another show (Star Trek) could not make a similar profit they would just cancel Star Trek in favor of another spy show, family drama, or Western that followed the sensibilities of late 1960's America.

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What about the Horta? In the sequel the Horta comes to Earth and says, "take me to your leader". So they took it to see Stonehenge.

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Hey, Hortas actually crop up in some of the better Star Trek novels. Diane Duane put a Horta on the bridge of the Enterprise (post TMP). I forget his/her name but the Horta officer wore an insignia but no uniform. Ridiculous is in the eye of the beholder.

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Hell yeah, it's inaccurate. But when you consider it was the 60's, you just gotta go with it.

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