Redial the Gate: Past and Present

[fignewton]

redial_the_gate is now up to Past and Present. sidlj's recap is up at the comm, and it looks like we'll have some good discussions there.

I'm due to post some Kira-Linea meta on the comm on Thursday, but in the meantime, I want someone to handwave one thing for me, please: How in the world could Sam (not Daniel-the-linguist!) read Linea's diary? Are we expected to believe that Linea wrote her private thoughts in English?

ETA, because some people were confused:

No, really. Plain, handwritten English!




::listens to chirping crickets::

Comments

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

pretend that someone from offworld will use handwriting script exactly like 20th century North America and that Sam will be able to read it easily

Yeah, that's because it's *stupid*. And one more example of sloppy writers who either a)don't know what they're doing or b)don't respect their audience.

To make it work at all, I have to pretend that the diary is *written* in foreign, in a script that Sam can read (which she has mastered in between figuring out Goa'uld tech and fighting off Jaffa in her copious free time...la, la, la...)...I didn't say it was a *good* theory. I'd be thrilled to find out there's a way to fanwank this and make it work, but I really don't think there is one.

I suppose if you subscribe to the Stargate-as-universal-translator thing, you could say that very occasionally the traveler gets the understanding of the written language as well as the spoken, so Sam sees the diary as English even though it's really in whatever Kera's native language is.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Sam sees the diary as English even though it's really in whatever Kera's native language is.

Since we haven't stepped through the Gate, what's our excuse?

Kidding. I do wish sometimes, though, that the props/writer folk would put a little more thought into things.

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, it's science *fiction*, right? That means the rules don't apply to them. Internal consistency is irrelevant. Common sense doesn't apply. */sarcasm*.

Yeah, a little more thought would be good...

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

That's what fanfic writers like you are for, anyway. :)