There have been some obvious questions raised in the books about Universal, such as why D'wargs don't count as translators, and why true names aren't translated into something that can be said by non-native speakers even though everything else is, and I figure those will either be left as mysteries or explained later, either way they don't make much of a difference. But what about half-demons?
Does Rupert speak Universal? What about the half-demons on Nysegard? It was never mentioned, but it seems like it would be weird either way. On one hand if Rupert was speaking Universal as a student, he probably would have been found out, and if he wasn't speaking it later, it seems like it would have come up somehow, especially when he was running around with orcs. The only explanation I can think of is that it's somehow connected to the Abyss, just like the ability to reform after death. So, once a half-demon travels to the Abyss, he gets all the benefits, but until then, he's just a strong mortal.

Also, do some demons have the ability to stop speaking in Universal? Exador would have a hard time hiding if everyone heard him in their native languages.

Wow, that is a frustrating answer. I really need to read those new books.

If he isn't Dis Pater, that brings up so many more questions that I'm just going to pretend you didn't even say that and just keep waiting for the book.

Why did Rupert's incarnated body fade away like a demon's?

Hee Hee Hee

I am very fiendish, as I've said....

Actually, T-A-G has sworn that Rupert is not the result of time travel.

But, of course, that's only because that's what I told him.

Sometimes, he seems as confused by what I tell him as everyone else I talk to.

I need someone to speak Tizzish.

Ok, this is not good...

I swore I wrote a very pithy reply, but do not see it...where did it go? It was so amazingly elegant, yet now gone.

Seriously? Where did that last post go?

I think I am getting weed addled at this point.

So again, don't know where my long message went, but reading again, not sure what I wrote was exactly what you asked.

Time mostly flows the same on Earth and Astlan and most of the similar localverses. Calendars are obviously different since different planets have different days, months, years etc.

But things are basically sequential through most of the planes that can easily communicate with each other. I.e. the Time Quanta are the same.

But, not necessarily, and this is part of why the Altrusians are so difficult to contact, there are other races in other localverses where time is not consistent.

This comes back to the earlier discussion (somewhere) about what worlds are easily accessible to each other and how some parts of the multiverse are too far out there to easily get to. It's out in those boonies where time starts to get weird.

Actually, this is not my area of expertise, Phaestus and Volund are much better at this. This is something that world gates have to compensate for, so those two and their teams can explain such things better. Too much math for me to bother with.

As will be brought up in OOA:ITN, there are very strict rules in the Concord of Conciliation about intraversal time travel, however, the rules are looser for interversal time travel, because it is sometimes necessary to "effectively" time travel to get where you need to go, in other words to match up with non-syncrhonous timelines.

There is no day or night in the Abyss, so the CoC arbitrarily setup their own nights/days, Doom took the same time frame because people were going back and forth to the Courts (OK, Orcus was--not until much later did the Courts know about Mount Doom.)

The length of a day in the Courts/Doom is the same length as in Astlan, this was again arbitrary, but chosen since so many people were commuting there (willingly or not)

Since pretty much everything works in the Abyss, yes, an atomic clock would work in the Abyss, however, there could be some variances, so I am not sure the accuracy would be as good. But there are ways of compensating and one can use different decay chains from different elements, so there are similar devices in the Abyss/Doom that can be very accurate.

The World Gates, again, have a timing mechanism far more accurate than an atomic clock. Or at least more multiversally consistent and thus accurate.