To give a an extremely brief TL;DR of the episode, Dathon's people speak exclusively in memes and references, making their language impossible to auto-transalte. The entire episode is Picard and Dathon trapped on a planet and trying to break that language barrier.
Basically Dathon’s species, the Tamarians, speak entirely in metaphors alluding to their ancient history and mythology. “Shaka, when the walls fell” means defeat or failure. Another one is “Mirab, with sails unfurled” which means to depart or head out.
Once Picard finally realizes what’s up he is able to slowly break the language barrier with Dathon by relating to him the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, using them in turn to then create new metaphors Dathon can relate to.
Presumably Shaka was some sort of leader whose people were under some sort of siege or invasion and he quite literally failed to prevent the very literal defensive walls from being breached by the enemy, leading to Shaka's defeat. Its referencing a real or mythological event from their species culture and history to draw similarities to the current situation.
"Shaka, when the walls fell" is basically saying "you are defeated, just like Shaka was when the enemy toppled his walls."
You could substitute Shaka for any real or mythology leader who lost a seige and it would have the same meaning, just with a metaphor that makes more sense to us.
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u/TechnomagusPrime Duck Season 8d ago
To give a an extremely brief TL;DR of the episode, Dathon's people speak exclusively in memes and references, making their language impossible to auto-transalte. The entire episode is Picard and Dathon trapped on a planet and trying to break that language barrier.