February 3rd, 2019

Roger’s Blog

by Bill Holbrook

DOG TALK
While most of the world’s brainpower was trying to translate the Martian speech through sheer brute force trial and error, it took Palmtop to recognize it as the language of canines. This was mainly due to Palmtop’s status as cat who was cloned from a dog, and who has spent a good portion of her life interacting with a canine (i.e., her mom Laptop).
Samantha and Dave retained their childhood ability to understand animals, but that form of communication is different from comprehending a spoken language. Instead, it comes from a deep emotional connection. (Later, Palmtop did teach both Samantha and Patina Welding how to talk feline.) Samantha, even though she’d occasionally transformed into a dog, didn’t recognize the Martian connection to canine speech because she wasn’t looking for it.