Please help me with some technobabble

[Kaje]

In our ttrpg campaign we are currently traveling through alternate universes Sliders-style and I would like my scientist character to modify her cellphone to work in any universe that has cellular tech. This is something she should have the capability of doing as long as I provide a semi-convincing technobabble explanation. Can this community please help?

[ShadowSandbag]

For a number of years now, work has been proceeding in order to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a transmission that would not only supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters. Such an instrument is the turbo encabulator.

Now basically the only new principle involved is that instead of power being generated by the relative motion of conductors and fluxes, it is produced by the modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive diractance.

The original machine had a base plate of pre-famulated amulite surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented.

The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots of the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremie pipe to the differential girdle spring on the “up” end of the grammeters.

The turbo-encabulator has now reached a high level of development, and it’s being successfully used in the operation of novertrunnions. Moreover, whenever a forescent skor motion is required, it may also be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocation dingle arm, to reduce sinusoidal repleneration.

[qube]

OK, hmm ... lets see ... you'll need a couple of things

• firstly you'll need to figure out the frequency bands on which the network is working, and you'll have to tweek the RF transponder chip in your phone to work on said frequency (for example, IRL, 3G works on 900 megahertz to 2 gigahertz). I suppose scanning the frequencies near a tower or active cellphone would do the trick.
• next up you'll need to figure out the protocol (the "lanugauge" 2 computers talk to each other) that's used. I presume you'll activate a sniffer program, analyse the packets, and run it through a recombinator.
• Now you just format your SIM card, install the new sub-routines, and you're half way there.
• biggest issue you'll have is actually getting to use the network (consider your phone also is able to connect to the network - but if you don't pay a provider , you're not making any calls). However, most networks have a emergency service (even without a pin code, you can call 911).
  I would suggest piggybacking on the emergency service network, reroute your call to a switchboard, exploit a backdoor of the mainframe and hack yourself onto the full service network.
• Also best to mod your GPS chip & spoof your geolocation data, making it harder for your calls to be traced

(disclaimer: about 80% of that is actual hack & tech speak. I'm ... 99 ... no ... 95% sure, Real Life networks are protected against what I'm proposing ... I hope .. Make that 90% )

Edit: iBut, whatever you do, do not - I repeat - DO NOT, inverse the toriod magnetic field. You'll mess up the virtual particals in the eather.
(that's just word salad - thatnks to a lot of Planarwalk clips on youtube)

[Telok]

https://www.electronics-notes.com/ar...-generator.php

Punch the button untill you get 3 to 5 decent phrases, reorder to your preference.

[Pauly]

I’d throw the word ‘quantum’ in the mix and suggest it’s picking signals from a multiverse.

[farothel]

Do what they do in Star Trek: reverse the polarity on your phone and you're good to go.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Do what they do in Star Trek: reverse the polarity on your phone and you're good to go.

Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow is Dr Who (specifically Jon Pertwee)

How about saying that when they left their original world, there was a network base station close by and there's a residual connection back to that through the generated wormholes, aided by quantum particulate resonation and dark matter interaction.

Which also allows you to turn it off as and when you want to.

[Vahnavoi]

Let's approach this from opposite angle: why an universal cellphone is stupid on a conceptual level and why you'd never expect such a thing to be possible.

Namely, all cellphones are radiological devices. They transmit and receive information in form of radiowaves, with each piece of technology designed to work in particular frequency and wavelength. This puts an actual physical limit to size of a device because the device needs an antenna to capture and send radiowaves of the requisite type.

Furthermore, cellphone networks use different messaging protocols: that is, how the information is encoded in the radiowave, how it can be de-encoded, how different devices are programmed to recognize and respond to said information, all of these vary. Even tiny differences in these between sender and receiver makes two-way communication impossible.

But you're not letting any of that demoralize you. You want your universal cellphone, damn it! So, what do you need? First, you need an adjustable antenna capable of detecting presence of the kind of radiowaves used for cellphone network. This, is easy. The same rules that constrain size of cellphones mean that you can fit a telescopic metal antenna capable of doing this in your back pocket.

Second, you need a powerful general computer capable of sorting signal from the noise. If you live in a world that already has, say, smartphones, you can pack a device capable of doing this in a similarly small shell. The hardest part is the third part: software required to solve encoding of whatever network you're trying to break into, so you can receive and send messages using the right protocol. Repeat with me: there is no universal algorithm capable of breaking arbitrary encryption in limited time, nor can there ever be. When bringing your computer-antenna-combo in contact with new networks, you're just hoping they are using weak encoding within capability of your general computer to crack.

[Mr Blobby]

'It's simple, really. The general laws of science are either identical or very similar to our own Earth in the worlds we've visited so far. This means the general 'technological pathways' for cellphone technology shall normally be found and so, exploited for communication - in fact, it was one of the few technologies which didn't have viable competitors, unlike say the internet or internal combustion engines...'

Then what Qube said. Much of the resulting issues shall be of compatability (with the network frequencies, not having a service provider etc) mainly due to the fact while the 'general path' was kinda obvious, the details aren't. With my GM hat on for a moment, I would be tempted to simply say in reply;

'That's well and good... but you have no way to charge your phone!'

After all, there's nothing to assume this alt-world chose the same voltage as ours, and the assumption this world shall use compatable plug / pins for the phone is slim to nil (though I suppose making your scientist more an engineer type and having them constantly rewiring / making adapters for it would work).

However, to the above point regarding the millions of little details to make it work, we need to remember that it's somewhat likely the PCs shall be visiting alt-worlds somewhat similar to ours, otherwise they'd constantly be having to deal with new languages they don't understand.

[Segev]

"I just need to adjust the frequencies my phone is attuned to to match the local towers, and then run a decryption algorithm of my own design that will discover the encoding structure their digital communication system uses. 90% of the time, it's so similar to ours that I don't even need to do anything, and each time I find a new one that's different, that 90% creeps up just a little bit more."

[Mutazoia]

https://www.electronics-notes.com/ar...-generator.php

Punch the button untill you get 3 to 5 decent phrases, reorder to your preference.

I much prefer this one...