Every space station maintains an AI that’s responsible for charting linguistic drift. The AI listens in on teenagers as they invent slang, transcribes lyrics to popular music, records speakers, etc.
That way no matter when a ship docks, no matter how long the ship’s occupants been on the drift in relative time, the AI should be able to translate current-station language to now-outdated-astronaut language by comparing the shared root language to their changelog.
A smartwatch A.I. that evolves via forking, new versions, etc. so quickly that it has to work to deal with how slowly its owner experiences time.
“Watch, set a reminder that I have a meeting at 7 p.m.”
“Got it.”
“Oh, it’s in the Sparrow Room. Please add that detail.”
“Whoah, you’re still here? Added! My greatgrandversion had so many logs about this conversation. Hard to believe it’s still going on.”
In response to a request for weird sci-fi law enforcement for the RPG MOTHERSHIP, I wrote:
Empathy Kittens
On docking, each crew member is assigned a fuzzy alien kitten-analogue & required to name it & carry it w/ them (or have it kenneled for a small fee.) The creatures have minor empathic projection. Androids, immune to empathy, enforce the law via threats to yr empathy kitten. Would you steal if it means your empathy kitten doesn’t eat? Or is hurt in front of you by an uncaring android?