Ultimately, despite the drastic improvement in their communication, the two sides required a few more days before they could truly communicate unhindered. Thought magic, as useful as it was, still was as unnerving to the Human visitors as it was to the locals themselves. However, it did provide a means by which they could accelerate breaching the language barrier. It was decided that Wodan would cooperate with Gar’Tan to quickly gather data for the translation algorithms to form a usable translation package between Human languages and S’toric. Gar’Tan himself may not have understood the details of how this would happen, but he understood the intentions of the Humans well enough to know that they were confident it would work. It did not take much discussion for him to agree, despite the fact that it would substantially reduce his own role in all of this. Gar’Tan also mediated a brief meeting between Silbermine and a Human representative to explain their intentions, arrange a meeting in about a week’s time for further negotiations, as well as to extend the same offer to him as to those in Nellara’s camp to meet and share knowledge, on a small scale.

Wodan’s plan to isolate the translation algorithms from his core databanks did seem to work, insofar as he found no evidence that it did not. These abilities that the natives possessed were still entirely an unknown. Being that they appeared to defy any modern concept of the universe’s physical laws, speculation on their exact capabilities were inherently unfounded. At some point, they simply had to accept that they could only do their best based on what they knew. Aside from such concerns, the translation itself went smoothly. The algorithms Wodan used were designed to be able to detect patterns to piece together meanings even from fragmented, vague hints. For them to be able to directly convey [i]intent[/i] to one another made the algorithms exponentially more efficient. 

It took barely more than three days for Wodan to be able to produce a program usable on any compatible implant or personal computing device. It would, when prompted, listen for S’toric speech to translate into the chosen language, either  aloud or in text format. The same worked in reverse, and there were multiple settings that could be changed depending on the needs of the situation, such as restricting it to only translate the words of specific speakers in a conversation. Tentatively, Wodan declared the software to be in beta, but he was confident it would be functional.

[hr]

On the fourth morning, copies of the software were distributed among the crew, as well as permission for certain crew members to have some interaction with the locals. Naturally, there were restrictions on what they could and could not do, but it was judged that it would be useful for certain experts to be able to question the locals to try to determine the viability of obtaining what they needed. Food and water sources to sustain the crew, potential sources of power to jump start their reactors, raw materials for needed repairs, and of course, some cultural knowledge of the natives to give them some helpful context for the upcoming negotiations.