The Best of All Possible Worlds: About the Translator · 8:50am Sep 22nd, 2012
OOC:
If you’re interested in seeing the watch I’m envisioning for this story, it’s the Scriblerus Club watch that Jonathan Swift gave to John Gay in 1728. For the coin, go here to see a 1750A Reichsthaler. Finally, you can get a look at Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Garden of Eden here.
For those who want to know about the “OOC” up above and the “IC” below, they are abbreviations from role-playing: players use “OOC” to clarify that what they are about to say is “Out Of Character”, that they are speaking as themselves and not as their character. “IC”, then is for “In-Character” speech.
IC:
I have had a part (although minor) in human-pony relations from the very beginning. You know that historic photo of the President and Princess Luna shaking hands/hooves on the White House Lawn? If you look at the uncropped version of that photo that appeared on all the newspaper front pages back in 2010, you will see a brown shoe poking in on the lower-left hand side--that’s me!
I graduated from the University of Chicago in 1996 with a Masters in Tibetan. I joined the Pasadena Institute of Language Studies in 2003 to work under the renowned linguist Pr. Lambert and assist in his attempts to search for and decipher signs of extraterrestrial languages.
It was for this reason that I just happened to be at ground zero when the Ponies first arrived. (I consider it a pity that future generations will not find the phrase “humanity made First Contact with an alien intelligence in downtown Pasadena” as hilarious as I do.) I was among the first group of humans allowed to visit Equestria, although there is no question that I would have been passed over for a more-qualified linguist if not for Pr. Lambert’s preference for an assistant used to his idiosyncrasies, and his misguided conviction that Equestrian was a corrupted version of Tibetan.
In the end, of course, human linguistics turned out to be completely useless in coming up with a non-magical means to translate between the two languages. The retired dragon diplomat Valerian allowed the biologists and physicists to study him casting the “Full Immersion” spell, and in this way they were able to unlock the secret of learning the language of any species in a matter of weeks by purely mechanical means. (Note #1: If you ever have a chance to meet Twilight Sparkle, do not remind her of how she utterly failed at the translation problem--she still hasn’t gotten over it. The fact that not even the Princesses could accomplish this is apparently not a good enough excuse.) (Note #2: If you ever have a chance to visit Sea World in San Diego in your lifetime, you must watch the new dolphin show. It will blow your mind.)
When most people learn that I was part of the First Delegation, I am always asked the same two questions in succession, so I will answer them now: No, I am not the anonymous author of the best-selling book Friendship Is Magic: The Adventures of a Unicorn and Her Friends in Equestria. And no, I don’t know who that author is. Sorry. Like most of those on the team who have been asked, I believe that it was written by a human rather than a pony, but you have to understand that by the end of our visit, nearly a hundred humans had cycled through the portal and visited Equestria, and thanks to “Full Immersion”, any of them that desired it could learn absolutely everything about what it meant to be a pony in Equestria.
I discovered the first season of the web-animated adaptation of the book around the time everybody else did. Nobody asked for my input while it was being made, which I will admit made me a little upset at the time, but the episodes were so good that I’ve more than gotten over that. But if anybody wants to know about any of the juicy stories that the author decided not to include in the book, you know where to reach me (and yes, I do mean the Luna stories).
I discovered this site while preparing this story for publication. This is my first major work of translation to be seen by a large audience, and I was somewhat nervous, so I hope by publishing it here first that I might have your expert opinions before I send it off to one of the literature or history-oriented journals that my author wants me to submit it to.
To address another question you might have, the author of this story made it very clear that she wishes to maintain her anonymity. She told me the reason was in order to support the “death of the author” analysis of her work (although her exact words were closer to “the imprisonment of the author in the place she was banished to”). Personally, I think this explanation is only partially true, as it was published under the author’s true name in the Equestrian Journal of Draconic Culture (the traditional repository of all cultural studies of the outer lands). I think it is more likely that she wishes to be anonymous on Earth and not on Equestria because on Equestria the author is a noted scholar known only for her encyclopedic studies on a wide range of topics, and details of her personal life are not public knowledge.
So no, I will not reveal the identity of the author of this story.
OOC:
So it's Twilight, right? Haven't even read up to chapter one, but I'm calling it anyways.
734983
What can I say? Twilight is best narrator.
But you didn't hear that from me. You heard nothing!
734983 Lol. Well wasn't exactly subtle about it now was he?
OC m8kes it look like Original Character. I think the correct a88revi8tion of Out-of-Character is OOC.
1058230
Yeah, you're right--I'll go back and fix them all. Too bad I didn't realize that twenty-two blog entries ago.
734983
Same. It's kinda obvious.
5101032
Please be more mindful when making replies to someone's old posts. Everyone's comments on this blogpost are from from over 6 years ago! This discussion is so old that you're essentially opening a new discussion with me... with only four words. If you were, say, reading an old story, then a brief comment to the author isn't out of place. But this is a much more personal, and though I know you don't mean it, I find this kind of thing quite rude.
(Sidenote: This is a much bigger deal on forums, since a reply on an old thread will bring it up to the front page and alert everyone who had the thread watched. It's called Necroing and can easily get people upset.)
Anyways, I hope this doesn't come off as me being harsh. It's really not as big a deal as I might make it sound, so don't worry about it. Have a nice day and don't forget to brush your teeth!
5101529
To be perfectly honest, you're the first person to have any sort of an issue with me 'necroing' an old comment, and I've been actively commenting for about 6 months now. Not the first to be suprised, but that's a different story. :-)
I wasn't even aware 'necroing' old comments was a thing here... I mean, I've gotten rather positive replies, all in all, even in reply to comments from 2013... But I suppose there has to be a first for everything, yeah?
No hard feelings, I hope.