AUgust24 19 Spies (unnamed Orphe, Eleonora)
a/n: Inspired by the real life of Werner Lansburgh, I consider the plight of an Orphe translator.
The Orphe linguist was in a foul mood as he contemplated his video screen. His very antennae quivered with displeasure. He had just returned from a meeting with the head of the BLADE group to which he had been offering his expertise. To say that the meeting had gone badly was at least a 59.08% exaggeration.
The group manager had every marker of what humans would call sweetness, at least as far as his research had determined. Soft blond hair worn loose, dainty foot gear that added height while also emphasizing her delicate stature, additional soft floral coloring applied to her face, and a distinctively sweet artificial aroma. She was decorative, certainly, and her vocal patters matched her physical appearance: bright, light, and bubbly.
It was all deception. The human female had, oh so sweetly, insulted his judgment and denied the value of his research, in particular the report over which he had slaved all week. She had handed it back to him and then advised him to return to the basics because he was, to use her words, "missing the point."
"Bless your heart," she had said, and each syllable had felt like a knife direct to that organ. "Your little theoretical exploration are too imaginative for our uses." Little? Little?! His work was indexed and supported at every step, and he felt it was key in revealing the workings of the Ganglion empire. But she hadn't seen it the same way. "We aren't holding a symposium on theoretical linguistics with emphasis on the, let me see..." Here she had consulted directly from his work, in a way that both mocked its depth and also suggested that she had read, fully understood, and rightfully dismissed his suppositions. "Ah yes. 'Milsaadi communication trope shifts as seen through the adoption of Marnuck military slang.' Quite a mouthful, and utterly pointless. Future scholars may have time for this minutia, but we need information that allows us to act. Attack plans, fortification repairs, troop movements."
When he argued that the Ganglion would never transmit that information in a way that the Colony could intercept, she crinkled her face in a way that humans used to suggest cheerful encouragement. If anything, he felt discouraged. "You never know. Go back to the daily bulletins and find us something less conjectural and more specific."
He clicked his mandibles in fury. He'd show her. If she wanted concrete details, he could pump those out for her. He spun through the available material. Ganglion text communications were still very difficult to translate, and normally he and his fellow researchers spent considerable time selecting which transmissions to approach first. However, if she didn't care about quality, then it didn't much matter which scrap of verbiage he chose, now did it? He selected a short transmission from a backward relay. It was obvious that the majority of the text consisted of dates and times and perhaps a few humble descriptions, which would make for an even quicker translation.
"Specialists in [unclear] are reminded to [get, request, enroll for] official receipt books for [high calorie but non-meat nutritional supplement] by Thursday 06:00 [NLA time]. Further receipts will be issued in the next 5 days for advanced officers, as available."
There, he thought smugly, that should satisfy her. He appended a Very Urgent label, 97% importance. He hesitated. That number was pushing it. No one would believe it. He modified it down to 96.16% and sent the damned message.
No one was more surprised that he was when he received a commendation for revealing the location of a new Milsaadi weapon research installation.
a/n: This was stolen 96.16% from a memoir, "Dear Doosie" by Werner Lansburgh. It's been a while since I read it, but iirc he was miffed that his clever translations were not accepted, so he circled a small, unimportant newspaper insert in a minor paper, about butter rations for new staff, declared it very urgent, and helped make a V-2 rocket facility a target for the RAF.
next up: Crossover/Fusion. I'll figure something out AND IT WILL NOT INVOLVE SHULK. (Oh no, what if it does involve Shulk?)