I love your interpretations of AL-AN! What are your thoughts on how AL-AN speaks / communicates?
I imagine AL-AN as very very intelligent... to a point where he has to cut down everything he thinks. Not quite because he thinks lower of others intelligence, but moreso that Precursor thoughts are beyond anything that can be captured in language or communication. So everything he says isn't what he means, but rather whatever is close enough.
It does go the same way for him however, he can't quite fully understand whats going on as much as he learns about it, giving him a bit of obliviousness. Sort of like trying to imagine the viewpoint of a second-dimensional creature - We can make comparisons and simulations and come very close, but we'll never truly know, and likewise he will never truly know what humans experience even if he observes it.
Okay, okay, thoughts on Al-An speaking and communicating. So English isn't Al-An's first language. In fact, I'm not sure he has a first language. Architects are telepathic. They probably don't need to use words to communicate, they just transmit their thoughts directly using whole concepts. Using language adds an extra step he doesn't normally need.
Architects do have a written language, but I figure that's either a product from before they built a species-wide network to store all their information, or it's a programming language, for communicating with machines. Probably both. Either way, I don't think it involves using words as representations of sound. I think it's more like hieroglyphics, where each symbol or group of symbols represents a concept. It wouldn't be possible to read the Architect language aloud.
So Al-An using verbal language to communicate feels to him like he's writing something rather than doing his version of speaking.
He does have a couple of interesting verbal patterns though. He always uses a lot of overly complicated words instead of simple words (they are more precise, he protests!) like he downloaded a dictionary and then started using all the words in it regardless of how commonly they get used in actual everyday speech. This is fine with Robin because she has a PhD, and you don't get that far into college without having a good vocabulary, but it does make it difficult for fic writers sometimes (don't look at my thesaurus history!) He also never, not once, uses a contraction in the game (I checked.) It's always 'do not' instead of 'don't,' or 'I am' instead of 'I'm.' This may in fact be because he downloaded the dictionary and only knew how to use vocabulary contained in it. This is great because it provides an interesting tonal contrast every time he talks to Robin.
Also, when and how did he learn English exactly? I figure he couldn't have been completely cut off from the outside world in that cube. Sensory deprivation for a thousand years while still conscious the whole time would be hard on any species, no matter how advanced. It might be moreso for Architects because they're used to being connected to the network at all times, which is probably a lot of sensory stimulation. Anyway, the storage cube has to have sensory input from the outside world because if it didn't, he wouldn't be able to hear Robin when she talks aloud in the storage sanctuary. But I figure his cube also had access to transmissions, possibly even interstellar transmissions. How else would he begin to suspect that Alterra's motivations didn't align with his own?
Furthermore, we know that humans have been in space--even in the local area of space--for a long time (relatively speaking.) According to the wiki, the wreck of the Mercury II is anywhere between 30 and 100 years old. (Also, fun fact, there's a data download that indicates the crew of the Mercury II intercepted Al-An's distress signal. He's been asking for help for at least 30 years, minimum.) Al-An could have been intercepting signals and trying to figure out what they mean for just as long.
Oh, speaking of Al-An's distress signal, it's actually Morse code. The specific pattern he uses is SOS, an internationally agreed upon pattern to indicate distress, usually used by ships. How the hell did he know how to use that? I figure he has to have learned it from somewhere. Maybe human spacecraft continued using SOS as a basic distress signal even in space. Think about how many ships must have been shot down over the years by the quarantine enforcement platform that was only necessary because of Al-An's mistake, and how many survivors tried to send an SOS signal out because they had no other communication methods left to them. Think about Al-An intercepting those signals and wondering what they meant even as the signals all faded as their senders slowly succumbed to the deadly bacterium that he was responsible for accidentally releasing into the environment. Think about what he must have felt when he realized what the signals meant. Think about how he must have felt when he realized he needed to use it himself if he wanted to survive. Yeah.
But on the topic of interstellar transmissions and how Al-An learned English, it's entirely possible he intercepted all those transmissions with no context and had to reverse engineer the entire concept of a verbal language. It's also possible he received transmissions in multiple languages and had to separate them out. He might be able to speak multiple human languages as a result. He's probably been sitting in that storage cube puzzling over these weird transmissions for decades! He's been doing amazing anthropology science on them! And then Robin comes along and he's able to actually use what he learned! He's doing such a good job at communicating! He's going to get a good grade in Human!
And then because he's pragmatic he went and downloaded all of Robin's PDA data, including the dictionary that would inevitably need to be built into the AI program.
But yeah, I think he finds language as a concept very limiting. It's limiting for us too though, we just don't really think about it all that often. Language is always, always an approximation. We cannot transmit thoughts directly, we can only use symbols, metaphor, simile. Words themselves are symbolic of the concepts they represent. So it's not so much that Precursor thoughts are beyond anything that can be captured in language or communication as it is that verbal and symbolic language and communication are simply inadequate for capturing thoughts, no matter the species. But we're used to it and Al-An isn't, so he struggles with it more.
The same thing also applies to Al-An's ability to take the perspective of humans. If you really stop to think about it, nobody can ever truly understand another person fully, not even other humans, simply because it's impossible for us to experience other people's experiences. Even if we did experience other people's experiences, it's still possible we wouldn't know what to make of what we found. People have different sensory perceptions. Some people have four retinal cones in their eyes instead of the usual three. Some people have synesthesia and can taste colors. If anything, Al-An has an advantage; not only is his species telepathic, but he's also experiencing Robin's sensory perceptions directly. He might not know what to make of those sensory perceptions, especially since he's used to different sensory organs, but he still probably understands Robin better than just about anyone. His problem, and the reason why he's so oblivious sometimes, is that he lacks context for a lot of the stuff Robin says and does.
Like, think about it. His culture has incredibly different social conventions. He spent his entire life in a pseudo-hivemind where all information, including thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and factual data, were shared freely across his entire species. He's going to have a hard time with empathy and perspective taking because he's never had to do it before; he's always just been handed the information directly. He doesn't have that kind of link with Robin. He can't actually read her mind, or else he would have no need to ask her questions. The best link he has with Robin is her sensory perceptions, which give him clues about her thoughts and emotions, but still require him to guess.
But guessing is hard if you don't have any practice. He's also missing a lot of information about human culture. He's never seen a movie. He doesn't know what a meme is. He doesn't even understand the concept of sarcasm because telling falsehoods, even obvious ones for rhetorical effect, is simply not something Architects do. A lot of humor is going to be beyond him simply because he's never heard of any of the things it's referencing. He's missing sooo much context! An entire species' worth of context! That's why he comes across as oblivious or tone-deaf sometimes. The good news is, that means he has the ability to learn. It'll just be difficult for him. He will struggle. That struggle is honestly part of his appeal as a character.
