Starship Odyssey | ONC 2021

Chapter Eight - Field Xenolinguistics

"You are sick imaginary people who lack the mandate of the destiny of God. You speak with big words but you drink from a stranger's cup. [untranslatable noise] have the peace of God, we will show you the true peace of God. We have eaten the magic stone, and we will eat all the names of God. The uttering of the names of God will smite utterly your sky fire engine and we will drink the little crawling things of your death rain.

"When the last of us is dead they will never be a traitor to our home. A tooth cannot pierce destiny's shell. God is in mirthful recollection of the bold pride of your unholy ways. Have God's peace and you will be washed in absolution."

"Far be it for me to question the integrity of your translation algorithms," said Dr. Eisenstein, "but you're absolutely sure you got that right?"

<It would be one hell of a coincidence that the output consisted of complete sentences if I hadn't.>

"I'm inclined to agree with Odysseus's previous observation," said Dr. Eisenstein. "We're really bad at this. Although I would like to complement you on your translation algorithm for being able to differentiate 'smite utterly' from 'annihilate'."

<There's a real art to it.>

"Look, everyone, it's not that bad," said Lulu.

"You never give up, do you?" asked Dr. Birdwhistle.

"This new message should mean our next translation will be even more refined, right?" Lulu continued, ignoring him.

<To an extent.>

"I think if we really put our heads together we can figure out the specific meaning of the alien's reply and then from that infer where we went wrong. Then we send a new message. A better, clearer message. We can be as wrong as many times as necessary; we only need to be right once."

"Your optimism is bordering on recklessness," said Dr. Eisenstein.

"Oh she's well over the border by now," said Dr. Birdwhistle. "She's already established an optimism embassy in downtown Recklessness City."

"If either of you have a better alternative I cannot tell you how happy I would be to entertain it."

There was an uncomfortable beat of silence.

"Anything?" asked Lulu. "Anything besides my plan? Or I suppose we could always fly around aimlessly for a few centuries until we run out of energy and die in the cold vastness of space."

Dr. Fido had at least eight different alternate plans, but he liked them all less than both Lulu's idea and dying in the cold vastness of space.

"Optimism it is then," said Lulu, with just a hint of smug satisfaction. "So what does everyone think the intended meaning of the alien message was?"

"Broadly speaking? I'd say they're telling us where we can shove our offer," said Dr. Birdwhistle. "I'm a little more interested in the specifics though. Does anyone have any good working theories why they accused of us being imaginary? How literally should we be taking that?"

"Could be an attempt to call us liars," offered Dr. Fido.

"Given that we also 'lack the mandate of the destiny of God' it could mean we're heretics," said Dr. Eisenstein. "Perhaps they're calling our doctrines imaginary, not us."

"That makes sense," said Lulu. "We did tell them that the probe isn't holy. If our theory about their worship of it is accurate they would have taken that as us denying their God. So now they're denying ours."

"Now you're thinking like a zero-sum culture," said Dr. Birdwhistle, smiling.

Lulu bristled at the praise.

"I think it's safe to write off the business about the stranger's cup as an idiom," said Dr. Eisenstein. "Whatever it means it isn't flattering."

"So next up is the peace of God," said Dr. Fido. "We did bring up peace in our message. Peace could have innately religious or spiritual connotations for them."

"I'm inclined to take that part of the message at face value," said Lulu. "It doesn't come off as particularly friendly but remember how stilted our message was. This sounds to me like an earnest if somewhat aggressive call for peace."

<I'm not so sure of that. Based on how they use it, I don't think they think 'peace' means what we think it means.>

"Well," said Dr. Birdwhistle, "the complete annihilation and/or subjugation of one's enemies is a kind of peace."

"Oh, you," said Dr. Eisenstein.

"We can't rule out that this is how the aliens perceive the situation," said Dr. Fido.

<Good luck to them, then, because they're at least a thousand standard years of progress away from being equivtech. Presupposing, of course, that the technology they currently have is even home grown.>

"Only the three of you would find a way to interpret a call for peace as a threat. Isn't that exactly what you claimed the aliens would do when we were formulating our original message? How did you phrase it, Dr. Birdwhistle? 'War-like' aliens was I believe the specific term you used," said Lulu.

"It would be imprudent not to examine the issue from every angle, including and especially the unusual, outrageous, or absurd," said Dr. Fido. "Dr. Simian says this is even more critical in a low-context situation such as a first contact."

Dr. Fido thrust the toy at Lulu's face and shook it while it was 'talking'. 

"Are you sure you're entirely familiar with the concept of a brainstorm?" asked Dr. Birdwhistle.

"Let's just see if your brains can storm up some ideas that don't assume the worst about everyone all the time in every situation," said Lulu. "Mix things up a bit."

"Fine," said Dr. Eisenstein. "Although I'd like to know how your 'face-value' interpretation fits in with the part about how 'the uttering of the names of God' will 'smite utterly' our 'sky fire engine.'"

"'Sky fire engine' is clearly starship," said Dr. Fido.

"Well obviously," said Dr. Birdwhistle.

Lulu had been deep in thought since Eisenstein asked her question.

"It could be a warning," she said at last.

<A warning?>

"Yeah. They might be telling us not to utter the names of god or we'll be smitten utterly."

"It does fit," admitted Dr. Fido.

"It's a stretch," said Dr. Birdwhistle.

"It's going to be my working assumption until I'm proven otherwise," said Lulu.

"That just leaves all the stuff about eating the magic rock," said Dr. Birdwhistle. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"I don't think it's outside of the realm of possibility that the magic rock refers to the probe," said Dr. Fido.

"I can see it," said Dr. Eisenstein.

"Alright, so let's try and pull it all together and see how it sounds," said Lulu. "The first part of the message was something to the effect of: you're a bunch of heretical so-and-sos for insulting our new God and we don't want anything to do with you. We also desire peace and so we accept your gift of the magic rock. If you blaspheme against our God it will destroy you so beware."

<That sounds reasonable.>

"The second part seemed to be more of the same," said Dr. Eisenstein. "More idioms, more invective implying we're heretics, more calls for peace."

"I don't anticipate we'll be able to come up with an interpretation in which we would have any better reason to be confident," said Dr. Fido. "The best thing to do is just pick something and run with it."

"He's right," said Dr. Eisenstein. "It's far more likely that we're wrong but we have to start somewhere."

"Great," said Lulu, rubbing her hands together in glee. "Let's come up with our reply."