one of my favorite things about star trek is how people will routinely be in some first contact situation and get a computer built by some civilization they know literally nothing about to do stuff for them, whereas i, a 21st century computer professional, am basically incapacitated if i sit down at a computer running the same operating system i use but configured slightly differently or try to use a telephone manufactured by a different company than the one i'm used to.
@brennen There are no problems which cannot be explained by unusual energy fluctuations! ;-)
Nevertheless don't think about the translator too hard either...
@grin the whole premise of darmok is basically incoherent if you think about it too hard, and also a beautiful poem.