- Making the universal translator useful in communicating with the Opterans will require the completion of a Gated Challenge composed of a Task and an Extended Task. The Tasks likely will necessitate a return to the sensor pod for the use of its specialized equipment, but the Player Characters are free to begin the process any time they choose. It could be immediately after their first encounter with the Opterans or after an extended period of exploring the planet.
- The first Task, which must be completed before moving to the second, is employing the universal translator to construct a syntax matrix that deciphers the tetryon-based communication and encodes it as audible language. This will allow the crew to understand the Opterans. Doing so is a moderate challenge, since this is what the universal translator was designed to do. This is a Reason + Science Task D4.
- Failing to complete this does not prevent the construction of a tetryon communication translator. Rather, failure allows the Players to Succeed at a Cost, creating a Complication in the form of a miscommunication between the crew and the Opterans due to an imperfection in the technology. A miscommunication may lead to a garbled message at a critical moment or a mistranslation that could cause inadvertent insult on either side.
- The Extended Task poses more of a challenge because it will force the engineering officers to find innovative new uses for existing technology. In order to allow the Starfleet personnel to speak to the Opterans in the tetryon-based language, they will need a means of manipulating tetryon radiation as the Opterans do. Linking the universal translator to a transporter component such as a phase coil resonator (taken from a transporter) will do the trick, but this Extended Task has a Work track of 18, a Magnitude of 4 and a Base Difficulty of 4. The Basic Task is Reason + Engineering.
- This Extended Task may only be attempted 5 times before the phase coil resonator burns out. If it burns out, the players may start over with a new phase coil resonator, but they only have a finite supply of these (four).
- The principal rolls may be attempted by anyone using Reason + Engineering, but each Player Character may assist only once, using whatever Attribute + Disciple combination makes sense. (For example, perhaps the medical officer uses Insight + Medicine to provide information based on his scans of Opteran biology; the science officer Presence + Science to communicate her knowledge of tetryon physics.)
- Figuring out how to apply the universal translator to the tetryon-based language transforms the crew’s discourse with the Opterans from a basic exchange of gestures and body language to a relationship in which either side is capable of communicating complex and specific thoughts. Once the crew has completed the Challenge, either successfully or unsuccessfully, the Players gain access to a means of direct communication with the Opterans. This new device, which can be attached to a tricorder, records the wavelength and frequency of tetryon bursts from the Opterans and translates them into audible speech. Conversely, the device also translates speech into tetryon bursts that can be understood by the Opterans.