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concepts:synesthesia.beacon

Synesthesia Beacon

From the moment civilizations started exploring the cosmos, they have been set into a dilemma between ceaseless conflict and desirous of communication, though conflict is also a form of communication. Instead of resorting to the violent carnage and loss of warfare, people crave more to surpass language barriers and reach a mutually beneficial understanding. Therefore, humanity started an endless pursuit toward the accurate translation of languages.

However, the problem of linguistic information losing its accuracy and becoming muddled between different writing systems seemed unconquerable. According to records, the IPC once created a Translation Dictionary that contained languages from nearly six thousand civilizations, but this could not be sued in practice due tot he huge size of the searchable database. What was even more troubling is that languages are living entities. As civilizations advanced, new phrases and slang grew rapidly, making translation exponentially harder. The Riddlers were also interfering with languages, making communication between planetary systems even more challenging.

After many years, the deceptively simple issue of “translation” was finally solved by Elias Salas, the 56th member of the Genius Society. Elias Salas proposed the following hypothesis to make communication between geniuses easier:

“The thought processes of intelligent creatures are mostly represented via inner language, just like how people would subconsciously read to themselves when looking at words and form thoughts that way.

If we can skip that step of information transmission and instead link up our consciousness, covert the codes of our inner language, then let the receiver's language processing system analyze and restore that information, then we will have no barriers in communication.”

A Manuscript on Thoughts Regarding the Art of Communication, Prologue, by Elias Salas

That was how Elias Salas created the first pair of Synesthesia Beacon prototypes. Regrettably, language was not the only communication barrier between geniuses. There was also arrogance. The members of the Society ignored his invention, and this brilliant piece of engineering marvel was forgotten for centuries.

However, the invisible restrictions of language continued to frustrated the Interastral Peace Corporation. They issed an irrefutable ultimatum to the Intelligentsia Guild, which they themselves funded. The scholars modified and labored amongst ancient manuscripts, and finally re-created the Synesthesia Beacon. The age of interstellar communication finally began.

Nowadays, the Synesthesia Beacon is the fundamental technology of all intelligent lifeforms in the cosmos. With just one injection that embeds the beacon in your central nervous system, you would be able to understand an alien language from the furthest star as if it was your native tongue.

Unfortunately, the cosmos did not become peaceful with a universal language. On the contrary, there were even more conflicts. When people could understand each other's language but had very diverse standards in life, countless fights started to erupt between groups with different outlooks. Parties sought to surpass each other, and races eagerly planned to hunt each other down. Neither Elias Salas nor the Intelligentsia Guild had predicted this outcome.

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