How do you handle language in space opera? I'm planning

>>54890168
Translator*

>>54890168
Look to Star Wars and Star Trek. The language barrier is broken in most cases because of universal translator software and the fact that polygots are all over the place. Language only really becomes an issue when dealing with extra-galactic beings.

Universal translators are your only option if you're not planning to introduce Solaris-tier aliens. Which would require a lot of work. And judging by your question, the campaign's focus is interacting with aliens, not failure to do so.

If you have a pregenitor race, universal translators make sense. If you don't, then if your ayyyylmaos are humanoid trained-from-drones make sense for primitives and trained-from-radio (with all the fun that can entail, imagine your entire team speaking with that Chicago newscaster accent we know from WW2 newsreels) for modern; non-humanoid will mean translation devices by default, possibly with the potential of miscommunicating when they run out of the proper pheromone for insectoid or plantoid races.

>>54890168
If you wanna be wacky, use a babel fish

if you wanna be serious, use a translator implant

>>54890168

Superintelligent AIs built by ancient aliens do all the translating. No one has ever successfully translated meaningful communication between species without their help, due to vast differences not just in culture or psychology, but psysical ability.

You try talking to an alien that communicates by infrared light pulses coupled with contextual body language, and whose sense of hearing is designed for use underwater and pretty much exclusively for telling the direction of water currents and approaching krakens.

Obviously, everyone worries that the AIs are taking advantage of their bottleneck on interspecies communication. But no one has ever caught them giving a doctored translation. Not that we would ever be able to tell.