To me, the most unbelievable part of Star Trek is not the fact that humanity comes together in a post-scarcity society or there are thousands of sentient and non-sentient lifeforms in the universe. It's that all civilizations somehow developed communication mediums that connect with each other easily
@anthonydavis "got a phone charger?"
"no, an apple one"
"no, a cardasian apple one"
"no, the 4th gen"
@anthonydavis I've tried to come up with a way for this to actually make sense, and the best idea I've had so far is a standardized protocol that was either developed and scattered everywhere by a precursor civilization or is gifted during first contact with new civs. It would update its library of languages as a background process anytime two ships are communicating, so your neighbor's neighbor's neighbor's neighbor will probably have your language files before the first time you meet
@robotcarsley @anthonydavis perhaps a prerequisite to being able to develop interstellar travel is discovering some heretofore unknown principle that makes the optimal communication protocol obvious
We can barely keep Bluetooth devices comnected and you expect me to believe another previously unencountered species has a hailing frequency that works with our hardware and software?