MovieChat Forums > Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) Discussion > How did Star Trek: TNG communicators wor...

How did Star Trek: TNG communicators work?

posted 3 years ago by TMC-4 (19411)
5 replies | jump to latest

They touch their badge with out saying who they want to speak with.

Yeah....I just realized how implausible that was. It would need an AI that would hear you asking for a specific person, and then connect your comm badge up through a short-range wireless signal with them.

[–] raymondoz2007 (2045) 3 years ago

implausible ...like space battles that the ships are closer then sea ships in WW2

[–] Moonglum9 (10711) 3 years ago

Or that they can infiltrate alien societies and no one notices that the disguised starfleeters are speaking like a poorly dubbed Japanese actor since their lip movements wouldn’t be matching the alien language sounds they were making.

[–] Moonglum9 (10711) 3 years ago

When they tap the badge, it wakes up the psychic space cricket inside which chirps and then reads the wearer’s mind on which badge or badges the upcoming message is intended for. Simple.

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

I actually had something similar at work around 2010, a little thing that was hung around the neck or clipped to a collar, and you pushed a button and said who you wanted to talk to, and it listened to your voice and opened a line to the next person's communicator thingie.

You had to tell it "Call John Smith". And then "CALL. JOHN. SMITH." several times, and if you had a foreign or regional accent you'd spend all day repeating yourself and it'd maybe understand you 1 time out of 10. The damn things were replaced with a sort of work smartphone for communication.