[all over taxon]

[eventextras]

At around noon, the silence was broken. The Extras resumed their idle nonsense chatter, and any citizen checking their tablet would note that voice and video transmission are available again. After a little experimentation they will also realize they have their voices back

Comments

[ voice ]

[aregulargirl]

Hello? Oh thank God, molchanie svodit menya s uma - o, yebatʹ menya.

( translation | the silence was driving me crazy - oh, fuck me. )

[voice]

[mercenaryacare]

Yīncǐ, wǒmen kěyǐ shuōhuà le? Gǎo shénme? Gāisǐ dì dìyù wèishéme wǒ bùnéng shuō yīngyǔ ma?

[translation: So we can talk again? What the? Why the goddamn hell can't I speak English?]

[Voice]

[imperial_long]

[After the first few transmissions, Long realizes voices is back-- but multilingual. Oh, now this is interesting. He can't help but being charmed, despite the fact that it will no doubt dismaying as anything to anyone else. Still....]

[He judges that more people speak Mandarin Chinese than any other language he has yet encountered; so he starts with that.]

[Mandarin] It appears we may speak, although I personally am finding English so difficult as to be near impossible. Please allow me to offer my services as a translator if anybody desperately needs to speak to someone else and if, of course, I speak mutual languages. I am reasonably fluent in most languages of Earth circa the 20th century and previous; I am afraid I cannot yet reliably converse in such tongues as Klingon, Galactic Base, and others. This is Mayland Long, please do not hesitate to contact me if I may assist.

[A slight throat clearing, and then he repeats himself in Spanish, as he's sure he's seen that several times on the tablets so far.]

Parece que podemos hablar

[Voice]

[willkeeptrying]

[The moment he finds something that sounds remotely like the syllables he can manage himself, he's off like a shot. Nevermind that it's not quite right, it's close enough that he figures he'll be intelligible. Hopefully. Maybe. It's worlds better than jabbering at people through text and having to continually stop to fix it because the buttons won't do what he wants, anyway. And it's infinitely better than not being able to speak at all. So here, Long, have some frantic Afrikaans for your trouble.]

Hello! Ek hoef nie vertaal, ek wil net...ah. Ek kan verstaan ​​dat jy! En so ek het gewonder of jy geweet het wat daar gebeur het? Omdat...

(translation: I don't need translating, I just wanted...Uh. I can understand you! And so I was wondering if you knew what was happening? Because...)

[It goes on for a little longer (he's entirely too thrilled to have his voice back, evidently), and by the end it's mostly just self-conscious babbling no matter what language it's in, but the gist (of what can be deciphered) is that he

[Voice]

[imperial_long]

[Long had worked through to Dutch which apparently triggers the slightly-babbling response he gets in Afrikaans-- the languages are very similar.]

[He waits politely until the man stops to take a breath, then interjects. His own Afrikaans is not perfect, as it is a language he has rarely had use for and, truthfully, only learned it as a footnote to Dutch in the first place because he is nothing if not a completionist-- but it is comprehensible.]

Goeie dag. It is a pleasure to have the talk understood, isn't it? Forgive my little problems with the talk. This is your first gebroken ding, yes?

[He can't think of either an Afrikaans or Dutch word for 'glitch', and settles on 'broken thing' instead.]

[Voice]

[willkeeptrying]

[If anything, Wikus only seems more thrilled that he got a response, even if it does take a little thinking to navigate the differences. At least he seems to recognize that Long's not quite as accomplished with the language and manages to slow it down a notch or two.]

No, no you are doing very well! Really, I promise you. It is nice to be able to talk to someone without having to push the little buttons to get things across. But yes! I heard that they do these things sometimes but I have never actually seen one. Or, been through one. Are they like this often, with the speaking in tongues?

[voice]

[justaddmarbles]

..h-hello? Oh! Oh thank merciful Ozma and all her emeralds, that was horrible and and and had better not ever happen again. Ever.

[ these keywords were never more apt ]

[Voice]

[aklingonside]

[The initial sensation of relief disappeared when B'Elanna opened her mouth to speak. She let out a string of curses in vivid klingon. What was that old adage? Out of the frying pan and into the fire? The hamsters obviously weren't finished with them yet.]