/||\          ----------------------------------------------
      / || \              UCIP Starfleet Command, Eighth Fleet
     /  ||  \                  U.S.S. Coronado, NCC-97901
  .-/   ||   \-.       Fleet Captain Tebrun Lora Kor,  Commanding
  ./    ||    \.     ----------------------------------------------
  .-_-. || .-_-.                  Simulation  Teaser
   -_  \||/  _-.                  -[ SD 240203.25 ]-

 _________________________________________________________________________
/ Simulation Teaser                                                       |
/ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 

 Asking an Apori to repeat something was pointless.  One of the
 disadvantages of their heavily contextual language was that if you
 asked an Apori the same question twice, you got exactly the same
 answer back with no variations.  It wasn't like listening to a human
 at all.  Brian Aldur presumed that they'd make terrible witnesses
 under cross-examination.  It was probably impossible to trip them up
 or find inconsistencies in a story once they told it.

 What you had to do instead was thank the Apori for its time, wait for
 it to leave, then go back to the raw data that had gone into into the
 universal translator during your conversation and try to take the
 context apart.  Iktakto could load hours of contextual data into only
 a few minutes of the complex Apori speech.  That was the advantage of
 their language.

 So, that was what Aldur was doing, with the assistance of Fleet
 Captain Rel'ao Narque.  The two men were on U.S.S. Stirling, which
 had just arrived in Reor orbit and was preparing to follow Blackrazor
 to Pitstop.

 What concerned Aldur -- what worried him, if truth be told -- was the
 implication of one of the Apori's statements.  Frowning very slightly,
 Aldur listened to the playback again.

 "I'm not sure I understand this... how exactly do the Pfhor generate
 this bubble that is isolating the Pitstop system?" Aldur was asking
 on the playback.  Iktakto's reply was long and complex, and he and
 Narque watched the corresponding ideograms appear on the universal
 translator display.  Well, Aldur did.  Narque seemed to be deeply
 involved in the complexities of the translation's supporting data for
 one of the universal translator ideograms.

 When dealing with a known language, the universal translator operated
 by converting each concept in the message to a sort of "psuedo-
 language."  That psuedo-language used broad, global concepts which
 could generally be applied to any language: food, family, home, star,
 planet, rest, death... the more universal the concept, the more
 likely its ideograph appeared in the universal translator's raw data
 display and the easier the language would be to translate.  When
 dealing with an unknown language, the translator first tried to find
 these global concepts in the new language to use as the basis for the
 first translation matrix.

 After a long delay, the translator spat out Iktakto's response to
 Aldur's question.

 "The perversion calls down the aid of the One in this.  The One makes
 it possible for their ships to delve to the layer below the layer of
 the sun, sunray, and lifeworld," Iktakto said... at least according
 to the universal translator.  As Iktakto spoke, the corresponding
 ideograms highlighted, indicating that for each there was a wealth of
 contextual data attached.  It was the contextual data that Narque and
 Aldur were going through.

 What bothered Aldur: "the One" had been assumed to be the Apori word
 for God... probably the broadest concept there was in the universal
 translator.  The raw translation data confirmed Aldur's speculation,
 using only four ideoograms to form the first part of the second
 sentence.  On the raw data display, the pseudo-language represented
 in English was simple and clean:

 GOD-HELPS-OUR-ENEMY.

 Aldur had heard the expression "God is on our side", of course.  He'd
 just never been on the losing side of that expression before.

\_________________________________________________________________________
\ End Simulation Teaser                                                   |
 ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ

 Crew Roster:
    Commanding Officer:        FCapt. Tebrun Lora Kor    (Jester)
    Executive Officer:         Cmdr. William Daren       (Daren)
    Marine Commandant:         Col. Jeremy Ironside      (Fraser)
    Command Liaison:           Cmdr. Savant              (Savant)
    Chief of Operations:       Cmdr. Olme Tlaloco        (rev)
    Chief Tactical Officer:    LCdr. Sieven Drexler      (Brad)
    Assistant Tactical:        Lt. Kyle Marcy            (Marcy)
    Intelligence Officer:      Lt. Kariasa Ma'Aru        (Kari)
    Chief Science Officer:     Lt. JG Kathleen Hammond   (Kath)
    Company Commander:         1Lt. Jacob Prescot        (Shadow-FjP)
    Wing Leader:               1Lt. Craig Serrold        (Aggie)
    Chief Engineer:            Cmdr. Zunite Oswald       (Sonya)
    Assistant Engineer:        LCdr. Jack C. Farley      (CCC)
    Assistant Engineer:        Lt. Aramis Skylooker      (LewisSharp)
    Systems Specialist:        Lt. JG Caring-Thoughts    (Alffred)
    Chief Medical Officer:     Lt. Jason Thompson        (Thompson)
    Civilian:                  Alados ha-Soron           (McC)

 On Extended Leave of Absense:
    Chief Flight Operations:   Lt. JG Ananda Wilk        (Baralu)
    Wing Leader:               2Lt. Andrew Stylus        (JadeFalcon)

 Positions Available:
    None!

------
Jester

Fleet Captain Tebrun Lora Kor
Commodore Selectee
Commanding, U.S.S. Coronado, NCC-97901
http://www.jestertrek.com/coro2400/