Human Fleet Enters The Battlefield I HFY I A Short Sci-Fi Story 

If it is time for humanity to take its first steps to stars, why does Earth already have a powerful fleet?

Will there be a part two? Great story line.

That was hilarious. Thank you

Remind me a little bit of they answered the call but I still look forward to more stories

Night in space?

Crossed arms is a defensive stance, not peaceful.

How does a translation (presumably delivered via machine translation) carry an accent? Sure it would have its own accent (or perceived lack of one), but it would not carry an accent through. Since the goal of such translation is to make it easy to understand, a desire to replicate the accent of a totally alien language would be asinine. Let alone the idea that language could be non-verbal. Is this just another example of not knowing the difference between 'accent' and 'dialect'? A dialect might or might not have a distinct accent. A specific accent does not have to be tied to a specific dialect. Accent is how you say something. Dialect is what words and phrases you say. E.g. is a small river a 'stream' or a 'creek'? If 'creek' do you pronounce it to rhyme with 'reek' or 'rick'? That is dialect. For an example of accent; Do you pronounce the letter R in the word "carver" or not? Sounding similar to 'cava' or 'cahvah', or does it actually sound like it is written? (this is specifically an example of rhotic vs non-rhotic accents... do not be confused by the difference between a rhotic dialect and a rhotic accent, here I am using rhoticity purely in the context of accent... yes language gets complicated) Dialect plays a major role in translating. One of the utmost importance as words can change meaning over either time or distance. So understanding the specific dialect that a language is translated into and an understanding of the dialect of the original language really matters. Accent on the other hand needs to be mercilessly purged, for the sake of clarity. caveat: There of course could be a person acting as translator, in which case accent would play its part, but in such a sci-fi setting, that would not be implied as the given norm for the trope is automatic machine translation. addendum: Having a mother with a masters degree in speech & language pathology really helps a person appreciate matters such as this. edit: btw, I only have one answer to the question I posed at the beginning, but the story didn't use it. Simply put, the translation needs to be delivered by the alien tech and needs to be somehow shown to do so in order for it to make sense. (it could also be explicitly stated, but one of the first lessons in writing is 'show don't tell'. In other words, limit exposition. Here it could have been as simple as 'there was a slight delay as the 's computers translated his speech' or something simple like that. But would have been better with a small conversation about the limits of speech with a species you have yet to have any contact with. That is, if you actually wanted to have accent come into play in that conversation with the admirals. Not that I would say such an addition would be warranted in this particular story.