Making first contact - the cheat's way

This week I'm re-writing Genehunter.  In it I have a human crew making first contact with an indigenous species of big cats, the U-Vai.This raised the question of how to keep the story moving when the two species know nothing about each other and can't speak each other's languages.

I've resorted to a couple of tricks to get around this problem.  First, I have a viewpoint in the head of one of the aliens, Yull.  Getting into his head means I can tell the reader about the cats' society, culture, and concerns without having to worry about the language barrier.  The big cats do have a language, and they speak proper words.  (I'm not sure whether that modification to their vocal chords would mean the couldn't roar, but I want them to roar, so they do that too.)  being in Yull's head allows me to tell the reader relevant history long before my human characters discover it.

Second, I've cheated by letting the two species have universal translators.  They both have tech, so I've figured that they might be able to find a way to exchange binary files.  It's unlikely that they'd receive the complete databases I've miraculously had my characters doing, but this is fiction, and I have to do what's needed to keep the story moving.

In reality, even if the two species had such help, making a first contact would be a cautious, long drawn out process. But I want to send the two species on a journey together, to figure out what's happening at the other end of the continent.  So  I need them to be able to communicate and agree to travel together on this adventure,

I've made Yull a young leader, but wise in ways some of the older members of his tribe are not.  That means he's more open-minded, a dreamer, more able to cope with the culture shock of meeting people who came to his world through the 'deep black'.  And his son Villjo has a youngster's lack of fear, and makes friends with Aris, my human heroine, easily.

I've tried not to make the contact too unrealistic. It does involve Aris spending long hours with the language teaching programme actually learning the language.  But in the end the demands of the story must prevail.  And now they're ready to set out on their big adventure,

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Plain and the short story collection Otherlives.  Find out more at www.wendymetcalfe.com