Posted by: Oresus
Posted by: Ruby of the Blue
And they somehow know English.
Courtesy of translation software advanced enough to acquire and incorporate idioms.
But how is the knowledge of the language acquired?
Tapping into a human's thoughts, perhaps?
But if this were true, why didn't the Monitor know that Chief didn't know what the rings or the Flood were, having had been assuming Chief knew about all of that the entire time when he was rambling in The Library?
Talk about benefit of the doubt.
Or a plot hole.
However, given that the Monitor (at least in Anniversary) detected the Pillar of Autumn before the UNSC got on the ring, he could have scanned the Autumn's (or Cortana's) information and downloaded the language and synthesis through there. But that's a bit of a stretch considering the fact that you'd think the UNSC would lock down all information exclusively to itself (and maybe to other UNSC ships) according to safety protocols.
But then how did Tangent know English?! And if he was speaking English, how did the Prophet of Regret understand him, going with his response of "AND, I am..."?!
Maybe Chief's translation software kicked in, and Tangent was only speaking in Covenant, in which that's how Regret understood him?
And maybe Tangent acquired the Covenant's language through their entire fleet and High Charity (or from Regret's ship) entering the galaxy? Perhaps in the same way he acquired English from the Autumn.
[Edited on 10.19.2011 12:18 AM PDT]