Hey, the TNG technical manual says it's a thing...

[cetaceanops]

Yeah, we're a thing, but that doesn't mean you can go pulling me off the Enterprise to annoy fellow Starfleet officers. Most of the ones around are from the 2200's, and cetaceans didn't start serving aboard Starfleet vessels until the advent of the Galaxy-class ship.

...plus I'm fairly sure you're not going to do anything beyond that anyways. Come back to me if you have a plan for a game, we'll talk then.

Comments

[highaboveyou]

...Wait a second.

[Keith is a nerd. He knows his TNG. But this is kind of...]

You know, there--

I mean.

Come on, where's Darwin, then?

[cetaceanops]

According to my mun, the technical manual predates SeaQuest, and the writers probably got the idea from the Uplift Universe instead.

And Darwin was a pet. I'm a ranked officer and I'd like to be treated like one.

[highaboveyou]

Hey, Darwin wasn't a pet. He was an Ensign, thank you. And telepathic.

[And he was defensive on behalf of a dolphin. What.]

[cetaceanops]

My apologies then. Neither my mun or I have ever seen the show.

[highaboveyou]

Well, you would be a ... [Mental calculations.] A few hundred years in the future, compared, so you've probably evolved a little more. At least to a better speech program than Darwin had.

[cetaceanops]

Universal translator, actually.

[highaboveyou]

...Guess they improved it from the old "hijack some whales" thing, huh?

Borrowing from Dark Mirror, which had a central dolphin character, here.

[cetaceanops]

Not really. It works great for spoken language, but dolphin and whale song translates badly at best, and usually not at all.

Works for me.

[highaboveyou]

...Now there's an interesting distinction. [He's no linguist, but he's picked up a few things along the way.] Guess it's kind of like Klingon opera. Not every song works for every set of ears.