You know, one of the things I probably enjoyed far more than I really should have is just thinking up ways in which things that are normally just hand-waved away for sake of convenience would potentially be done. And one of the things that I've put the most thought into in this regard is language. In the Consortium universe there is no simple universal translator that will automatically let you speak and understand everyone perfectly and instantly. On top of that languages evolve, they change. With sufficient separation from each other, the English language as spoken on the Earth would seem quite different to the English Language spoken on the Moon. And with all the different species and languages branching off from each other over the centuries unless you grew up with someone odds are very low that they'd definitely understand you.

And once you get around that hand-waving, I've found it actually creates a new level of depth for how each character handles the problem of understanding other people. Now for conversations through a computer this can be automatically translated "in real time" by means of a slight delay in the signal. But in person there are three main ways of communicating. Via telepathy (requires being telepathic), the Language of Intent Spell (closest thing to the normal universal translator but highly controversial) and the Translation Orbs (which require carrying around a golden ball and waiting for it to translate everything you say). And I'll admit that there are times when I do get lazy and don't immediately address how they're talking, but I actually found just how they handle things adds a whole lot of extra depth to the characters, giving more insight to who they are in how they handle it. It just creates extra work.

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