Since it’s Star Trek, I feel the need to be pedantic. The universal translator can translate languages it has never heard before, on the fly, to English and vic

Since it’s Star Trek, I feel the need to be pedantic. The universal translator can translate languages it has never heard before, on the fly, to English and vice Versa. There are a few episodes, (*e.g. “Darmok” TNG) featuring failures of the universal translator. We have nothing remotely close to a universal translator. To your point, however, those are examples of fiction inspired successes, not cautionary tales that sadly came to pass.