Lens of Deciphering?
 

I'm curious, can a Lens of Translation be taught a cipher? So that it could be used basically as a magic "secret decoder ring" kind of gizmo?

I ask because a cipher is technically distinct from a language. For example, the color "black" is "noir" in French. So a Lens that knows English and French would translate those two back and forth. But in a cipher, "black" might be "cmbdl" from a simple rot-1 alphabetic substitution. This isn't actually a word in another language, it's the same word but enciphered. Should a Lens still work when a word is enciphered by a standard rule, or does it operate solely on the principle of a lexicon, where it knows the equivalent words between two languages based on their meaning?

On a tangent from this, I pretty much assume that when a word exists in one language with no equivalent in the other, a Lens renders it phonetically in the target language. Like how in Star Trek some words in Klingon or Vulcan don't have Terran equivalents, so they use the original word in the native language.

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

I would consider a Code or Cipher to be a written language. Teaching one to a Lens of Translation is functionally no different from teaching it a language with a different writing system than your own — say, Runes instead of Roman letters.

Imagine a slightly different scenario: the foreign Word has a direct corollary in your language, but there's a slightly different underlying concept, so the intended Meaning is not quite the same. (Bushido versus Honor, Mr./Mrs./Ms. versus '-san', etc.)

Or even more confusingly, consider this: the Japanese differentiate between 'Green' and 'Blue' at a slightly different location on the color spectrum than Westerners — so there are certain colors that an English-speaker would call 'Green' while a Japanese-speaker would call the same thing 'Blue'. (Traffic lights, for example.)

So what does the Lens of Translation do when it sees the Word 青 ('ao', 'blue') but the color it's referring to is one the owner of the Lens would call 'green'? Does the Lens know how to distinguish intended Meaning?

If it doesn't, then what you really need is a Lens of Interpretation. Because there's a big difference between a Translator and an Interpreter, and that sort of stuff right there is what it is. (It's also why automated translation generally sucks, because algorithms can't be taught to recognize subtle nuances.)

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Exactly. That was part of my considerations as well, and why I thought the Lens might leave truly untranslatable words in their original tongue. For example, "déjà vu" has a much more complex meaning than just what the words mean individually in French. So a direct translation of them would miss out much of the intended meaning.

Since a Lens has to be "taught" a language, I think that it's actually the skill and preconceptions of the translator doing the teacher that affect the final result. So if one translator considers the Spanish word "grande" to correspond to "big", that's what their Lens will translate it as. But one who teaches the Lens that "grande" means "large" will result in that translation. Thus one gets a much more individualistic experience with various Lenses, and it's even possible that those Lenses taught by highly skilled translators would be more sought after.

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Ciphers are easier than translation for exactly this reason. There might be some sophisticated mathematical concepts behind the design of a crypto algorithm (or there might not!), but the actual execution is usually intended to be as easy as possible -- especially historically, when you're be doing it by hand -- and the meaning of the plaintext is irrelevant, even detrimental if it affects the ciphertext, because then the ciphertext is carrying some meaning that you could correlate.

I'd make decryption/encryption a different spell. You could always enchant one Lens with both spells if you like. But in practice, the intended recipient of your message probably already reads the plaintext language.

A universal decryptor I'd avoid except as a plot device. If the PCs had one, that's very nearly the same as saying that encrypted messages just aren't a point in the campaign. The exception is that little window where only the PCs know about and have the universal decryptor, but other people still think their encryption is secure, so they keep using it. Usually that's a fleeting secret, driving a stage of the plot -- hence the plot device. You might somehow work it in to some sort of secret magic campaign where the PCs are outnumbered rebels or monster hunters that rely on that edge just to survive -- also a plot device.

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Right. I have no desire for a "universal translator" in TFT, that would spoil much of the game world for me. I'm just working on backfilling for myself how Lenses function. If they can handle a cipher, then they are capable of learning "rules", since ciphers are rule-based methods of encoding. If they are simply magical dictionaries ("noir" equals "black") then a cipher would be outside their abilities and need to be another kind of Lens, as suggested.

The Telepathy spell does get around translation and language issues between two people, but is useless insofar as written text is concerned. So it's not a universal solution, though a very good one where feasible. I can imagine a number of societies having bans on telepathic devices, however.

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

What if you entangle two lenses to be one-time pads for each other?

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Just don't reuse your 'one time' pads of the Anglish will break your diplomatic code with Project Venice and learn you are trying to steal their top secret bread recipe.

I could see some encryiption codes being treated as individual languages. I wouldn't think an agency would want more than one code to their native language, just for simplicity sake.

And what if the encryption is based on a book? Word 6 in Paragraph 5 of page 143 of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Or you use the oval cut in a piece of paper that you place over the important bit. There are lots of 'mechanical' encoding systems that a lens just might not be able to duplicate.

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Well, I would argue that a Lens of Translation cannot be a mere dictionary, because that would be next to useless — because any word-for-word translation from one language to another is always going to come out as half-senseless gibberish. It's more than just the Vocabulary that differs, it's the Grammar — any two languages you choose will have different cases and tenses, different structural rules, different word order, and so on.

Simple Example: English is usually SVO (Subject Verb Object), as in "Ragnar killed the Dragon", but Japanese is usually SOV, as in "Ragnar the Dragon killed".

Except that Japanese doesn't use articles at all, so it would really be "Ragnar Dragon killed". And you can omit the Subject if it's understood from context, so "Dragon killed". And for that matter, you can (depending on the cirumstances) omit the Object, too. So just "Killed".

It can get much worse, too. I ain't even trying hard.

So if that Lens of Translation is truly any good at its job, it cannot simply be converting the Vocabulary, one word at a time in the same order. It must be translating the Grammar too, and rearranging things to make intelligible sentences in the target language. (And it also probably must be paying attention to context.)

Which means: Yes, the Lens must surely be capable of learning the much simpler process of deciphering a Cipher (or even decoding a Code). To be honest, I would think it should be child's play, by comparison.

And I rather like the idea of using a pair of them to send Important Secret Messages, but I like even better the idea that not all Lenses of Translation are equally accurate. Maybe the cheap, crappy ones are little more than word-for-word substitution with bad Grammar, while the expensive models are progr—err, enchanted by native speakers.

Maybe such Lenses have Fluency ratings…?

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Agreed. There has to be some measure of comprehension involved in order to render the translated text worthwhile. So a cipher should be within scope for a Lens, as long as the teacher fully understands it as well.

And I do think that the translation skill of the Lens is directly related to the abilities of the teacher. Thus a Lens instructed by a really gifted translator would be a notably superior item. Just take a look at the different translations of, say, Beowulf or Dante's Inferno. There are significant differences in English, especially when the translation is by someone who is a gifted writer/poet themself. The Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf and the John Ciardi translation of Inferno are incredible works in my opinion, and miles apart from other efforts using the same sources.

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Some possibilities for story twists come to mind, too. For example, what if the party is working off a set of written directions — a 'text map' — but they were too cheap to buy a good Lens, so the one they're using is junk?

It could be an awful tragedy if their low-budget, Economy Model Lens of Translation failed to correctly distinguish between the accusative and dative cases in Ancient High Proto-Orcish, causing the party to totally botch their attempt to talk their way past the Guardian Golem…

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Ha ha, yes, there are quite a few opportunities! Some of those terribly translated product instruction leaflets come to mind too. Can you imagine trying to use an ancient artifact with instructions equivalent to those of a cheap knock-off electronic gadget? "To ensure the great happening, be always to not make quiet the sad blue thing." ^_^

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

I have the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowolf and it's the best I've ever read. The more fluent the teacher, the better the translations will be. Appropriate secret codes would be no different. Heck, you could invent a gibberish language for the sole intent of writing 'secret messages'. Voynich manuscript, anyone?

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Bingo! The Voynich manuscript was one of the books I had in mind when asking this question. It looks a lot like a cipher disguised as a made-up language and is the kind of argot that Cidri secret orders might use between their members. The Lens essentially functions as a codebook, only much faster for decoding and encoding. (For the latter, write out the text in your own language, and then let the Lens show you the translated "encoded" version, which you copy out on another sheet. Be sure to burn or erase the "plaintext" original.)

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

I wonder… if you used a Vigenère cipher, would you need a separate Lens for each keyword that might be used?

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

I'd say yes. That gets into the "programmable rules" aspect of ciphers that I was asking about. I think ciphers with straight 1:1 correlations work, but not those which use what one might term "mechanical logic". Thus the Lens wouldn't work like an Enigma machine, or anything else that requires a variable input to calculate the cipher. A Lens trained on a single fixed input might work, but would be of more limited value in terms of the cipher's overall strength.

Something like a book cipher would be right out.

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

ITL 162: "The only catch is that every wizard participating in the “teaching” must know the language being taught."

So if I teach the lens Thieves' Argot then it only knows the variant I know at that moment.

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Then I choose the first twelve pages of Mnoren History for Dummies as my keyword. And I mean specifically the rare and collectible 1st Edition, in which the original scribe's spelling errors were inadvertently preserved.

Surely if the Lens can memorize a whole language's worth of Vocabulary, it can memorize a long keyword. ;)

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

I like the idea of the separation of Translator vs Interpreter. It will help me if I use a Lens of Translation in a game.

• Can a lens of translation interpret Legalese?
  
• Can it interpret a joke for you that is in a foreign language or are you stuck with a word for word translation?
  
• Can a Lens of Translation be taught sign language and viewed through as if it were a monocle? If so, would the hand words be 'typed' on the lens?
  
• Is there an audio equivalent of the Lens of Translation? Perhaps a Earplug of Translation?

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

What if there is no written form for Thieve's Argot?

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

I don't know about making the wearer a villain. You would also have to have a black stove pipe hat, black coat, and very long mustaches to twist and you mocked your victims after having them tied to the railroad tracks or evicted from their homes.

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Presumably this is all in a silent movie with text screens to translate every so often.

Re: Lens of Deciphering?
 

Which at least answers the question about the Thieves' Argot lacking a written form. The Lens of Silent Oral Villainous Translation can just translate the title cards that appear periodically whenever thieves are conversing.