Subject: Well, yes, but they all seem to work differently.
Author:
Posted on: 2013-06-09 21:08:00 UTC
For instance, Edgar's translates Quenya but not Sindarin, Eledhwen and Christianne's translate(s)...neither, actually, and most of them don't seem to translate Sindarin or Quenya, since most missions contain the original text of the badfic, without the Sindarin/Quenya/Grelvish mix being even partially translated by the translators (I would love to write that now, though: "Fair morning it is to thou a;sldkfh ladies of the Man" Legolas said. The agents traded startled looks.
"Okay," one of them said. "Usually the English bits aren't so badly worded. What's going on?"
There was some shuffling, and a lot of shrugging, before the youngest of them responded. "I think we all forgot to turn off the Sindarin translation on our Universal Translators," he said, and they all started to sigh and roll their eyes.
"Of course it would be that," the oldest said, and reached for her translator. "I suppose now we know what the Elves get from these Suefics now, at least."
"If someone mangled Hebrew that badly and claimed to be fluent, I'd be pretty mad," the fourth of their number said.
"Oh, wow," said the one who had spoken first. "I had both the Quenya and the Sindarin translation enabled. I think that was a mix."
"Make that 'if someone mangled Hebrew that badly, and threw in bits of French, and then claimed to be a fluent Hebrew-speaker'," the fourth muttered, and joined the others in adjusting the translation options.)
So basically, yes, they have universal translators, but...every translator seems to operate under different rules, or at least be capable of doing so, and most people don't seem to have Sindarin and/or Quenya translation enabled. Hence the confusion.
~DF