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Nico_Davout
Commander
Joined: 09 Feb 2009
Posts: 384
Location: Sevilla, Spain
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 Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2010 1:52 am Post subject: |
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| cheshire wrote: | In d20 you can also make a cloud appear about someone's head and make it rain acid. It doesn't mean that it makes sense.  |
Many things doesn't make sense in both systems. However, since it is licensed material it does exist. Weather you agree with it in *your* SW universe, it is a different matter .
BTW, from Wookieepedia: "There were some examples of people that spent so much time with their droids that they were able to pick up a fluency of the language—such as Revan, the Jedi Exile, Kit Fisto, Atton Rand, Bao-Dur, Anakin and Luke Skywalker, Wat Tambor, Kyle Katarn, Corran Horn and Cade Skywalker—although they weren't able to synthesize it."
So something like Wookiee and Basic.
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Han Solo shot first, midichlosomething do not exist, Rebel Alliance was created as in the WEG books and indoctrination theory is the true ending of ME3. |
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cheshire
Arbiter-General (Moderator)
Joined: 04 Jan 2004
Posts: 4853
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| Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:20 am Post subject: |
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| Nico_Davout wrote: |
Many things doesn't make sense in both systems. However, since it is licensed material it does exist. Weather you agree with it in *your* SW universe, it is a different matter .
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Ah, touche'!
That being the case, I don't personally care for the idea. Though, I think I would allow it if the person had a cybornetic construct like Lobot's, or something to that effect. Perhaps I would suggest it in a game if and NPC lived as a hermit spending time almost exclusively with droids.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind. |
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gollummen
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 18 Aug 2005
Posts: 159
Location: Denmark
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| Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 2:28 am Post subject: |
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When I read the "Translation" force power I get the impression that it is possible to understand binary with a really good languages roll:
"Translation
Sense Difficulty: Moderate for humans or
aliens. Difficult for droids. If the target is being
purposely cryptic add +5 to the difficulty, +20 if
the language is written down.
This power may be kept up.
Required Powers: Receptive telepathy,
projective telepathy, life sense
Effect: The character may translate a
language and speak it. The Jedi may decipher
body language, explore the spoken word, or
translate ancient Sith texts, etc. In order for this
to work, the character must first hear the target
speak, or see the works in written form (such
as an ancient text or document). It takes only
one application of this power to “understand” a
language. As long as they all speak the same
language and the power is kept up, the character
need not roll for each individual talking. Also
because they also “speak” using beeps and
whistles, droids may be communicated with
using this power.
Note that the character does not really know
the language. Once this power is no longer in
use, the Jedi is once again unable to understand
or speak the language." |
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Darth_Hilarious
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 17 Apr 2013
Posts: 129
Location: Somewhere over there --------->
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| Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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There are 10 types of people in the galaxy, those that understand binary and those that don't!
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Volar the Healer
Jedi
Joined: 04 Aug 2003
Posts: 664
Location: Arizona, USA
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| Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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An interesting question!
The obvious answer is yes, since we see several characters in the movies who understand droid beeps. I would treat droid beeps as a language like Rodian or Wookie. In my game I count all language as specialties, so put character points in Binary (or Rodian or Wookie or Old Corellian) and your character is good to go.
I suspect the smartest ancient Roman philosopher would not be able to operate a computer; a common skill today. I cannot operate a bacta tank nor repair a hyperdrive - but star wars characters can. So, I see no difficulty that star wars characters can do things we cannot.
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Last edited by Volar the Healer on Sat Apr 15, 2017 10:40 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Zarn
Force Spirit
Joined: 17 Jun 2014
Posts: 698
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| Posted: Tue May 17, 2016 5:26 am Post subject: |
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It's silly anyways. The whistling of R2D2 is clearly multitonal, and therefore not two-value binary. It can still be binary, of course - just as hexadecimal and octal are number systems that are powers of two, and therefore useful to use as a shorthand to work with most binary-style data.
It's more akin to the whistling of a modem or fax machine anyways - multiplexed symbols so that you get a better utility of the available bandwidth.
Wookieepedia says,
| Quote: | | "Binary or droidspeak was the language commonly spoken by droids. It consisted of a set of beeps and whistles strung together into what resembled sentences. The C1-series astromech droid utilized this form of communication, as did Industrial Automaton's R2 series astromech droid.[1] While difficult, some organics such as Anakin Skywalker, Hera Syndulla and Rey were able to understand it." |
For me, the key bit is "or Droidspeak". "A set of beeps and whistles" points to a set of symbols, probably with associated meaning that can be strung together to meaningful instruction or information. With a bit of work, you could probably include error correcting protocols - such as Hamming code, or perhaps a scheme similar to Reed-Solomon - similar to 'shouting' when in noisy environments.
Also, I'm assuming that unless using a translation device of some kind, you're looking at very basic (not Basic) comprehension - such as "I have a bad feeling about this" being more akin to "(THIS UNIT) (EXTREME) (DISLIKE) (THIS SITUATION)" - i.e. way better than trying to go zerooneonezerooneoneonezerozerozero (etc.) https://xkcd.com/257/ shows that there's always a relevant XKCD.
There's a sizable community around tiny conlangs, as well as boardgames (such as https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/60131/ugg-tect), and even roleplaying games based on a (very) limited vocabulary.
As a personal aside, I was once able to hear a fax machine handshake (and recognize it for what it was), as well as whistle back the ACK tones that made it start negotiating speed. I only managed it once, though, and is probably the peak of my abilities in that area.
Oh, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvr9AMWEU-c is a nice visualization of what I'm going on about when it comes to multitone and bandwidth. |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10435
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Tue May 17, 2016 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Darth_Hilarious wrote: | | There are 10 types of people in the galaxy, those that understand binary and those that don't! |
Ha!
| gollummen wrote: | How do you handle droids talking binary?
Can humans/aliens understand it?
Does it require a language rolle or perhaps a droid repair/programming roll?
I seem to remember Luke talking to R2D2, but I dont know if it is common to be able to understand binary. |
I don't think my 2010 post on the previous page is that clear. I disagree with the equation of "Binary" to "Droidspeak" (R2-D2's language). In my SWU, Binary is the language of binary load lifters and moisture vaporators, but not Artoo and most droids we hear speaking a droid language in the films.
In my SWU, Droidspeak is the general language of Artoo, BB-8 and many other droids. There are a number of dialects of it, and then within each dialect there could be many different versions (1.0, 1.1, 1.5, 1.9, 2.0, 2.5, etc.). I would say that Astromech is a dialect of Droidspeak, and BB-8 speaks a later generation version than Artoo. Any language has a culture to it, and Droidspeak is able to handle technical speak very well but discussing deep philosophical concepts would be a lot more difficult.
I think it would be extremely difficult or impossible for most biological beings to produce Droidspeak, which is why droids that can only produce the Droidspeak are programmed to understand another language and it isn't usually necessary to communicate to a droid in Droidspeak. Simple Droidspeak translation devices are readily available to translate to text of another language (like in Luke's X-Wing), so a protocol droid or other interpreter is not even required. Therefore it is very rare that biologicals would become fluent in Droidspeak, but it is certainly possible and in the game I allow it work just like any other language.
Of course being fluent in a language that one can't produce usually means only understanding and not speaking, but there are exceptions. I have an avian species some members of which have a mimic special ability to 'parrot' other sounds, and on a successful roll they can produce Droidspeak or alien languages not normally produceable by non-natives (but they have to roll for each utterance up to about 5 seconds of speech). They would have to be fluent or make the language roll per the rules to speak coherently and not in gibberish.
And there is a short story in SWAJ#1 where the Ewok Grael was in an Imperial prison for a while and learned through observation the meaning of some Droidspeak commands from a droid controller droid, and then he plays them on his flute to command simple droids into doing some things that allow him to escape. I read the story to my son who is going to play an Ewok PC, and we decided to incorporate that idea into our game. So the premise is that Ewok PC had been traveling around the galaxy for three years in a tramp freighter and his best friend is the human captain's astromech droid. While the Ewok was still slowly learning the human language, he more quickly learned the droid's language and communicated with her using a homemade flute which he remade and modified over the years to better accentuate Droidspeak. This may seemed far-fetched but I think it's an amusing idea and write it off to being a more primitive droid communication solution that the advanced civilization of the SW galaxy wouldn't think of or need because astromech droids can generally understand the language of their owners.
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Tinman
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 26 Dec 2013
Posts: 110
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| Posted: Tue May 17, 2016 11:01 pm Post subject: |
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We've only had two characters in games who could understand droidspeak/binary.
One was a droid engineer (had the (A) Droid engineering skill) and took droidspeak as a language specialization. (This is explicitly allowed in the rules as written.) He could understand a droid without a vocabulator just as easily as someone speaking Basic. He could even (as a weird hobby) "speak" droidspeak using an elaborate set of pipes.
The other was a Chadra-Fan ship mechanic who'd worked so extensively with astromechs that he picked up their language. He could even speak a "pidgin" version of it using his species' natural vocal apparatus. (They vocalize in a series of squeaks, whistles and chirps, though their language is partially pheromone based, so even protocol droids have trouble with it if not equipped with specialized olfactory sensors.) Droids would not immediately recognize what he was saying that way, but once they realized he was approximating droidspeak they could understand him well enough. Most droids are mortally afraid of Chadra-Fan though, so gaining their trust was another matter. (He was atypical of his species, in that he was much more practical when it came to mechanical work, and not naturally inclined to tinker with droids for anything but sound reasons.) |
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