Project: Federation ship names in batches

[Fullphaser]

posted on December 25th, 2008, 2:18 pm

Last edited by Fullphaser on December 25th, 2008, 2:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

A lot of Starships are named after foreign people, places, and ships (USS Yamato - named for the Japanese Battleship Yamato).

So are US and British ships =P

Take for example: Wasp class amphibious assault ship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Triarii]

posted on December 26th, 2008, 3:33 am

Last edited by Triarii on December 26th, 2008, 3:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

I must say, it's very graftifying to see some discussion about this... Remember that the names for a given class don't all have to come out of the one "theme"... As T-Man implied back in the "nitpicking" thread (and I find this quite plausable), it's entirely possible that a given production run (or a "batch", as T-Man originally called it), would have names all centring around the same theme, the next production run seeing a group of ships with names unrelated to the names of the ships of the previous run, but related to each other, they themselves having had their names centred around a given "theme", different from the "theme" used in naming the pervious batch of ships...

The Akira Class was named after a Japanese animated film of the same name

Yes, but Akira is also Japanese for "brightness", which is a far more plausable namesake than a film, much as Excelsior is Japanese for "higher", which would also be a good name...

You know, I think it's a good thing that the "r" got dropped, because then we don't have to attempt weakly to rationalise why Starfleet would name a ship (let alone an entire class) after a music album... I much prefer the genuine mystery of "Steamrunner" to the sheer ludicrosy of "Streamrunner"...

For the moment, I'll take Fullphaser's idea on board and add a "mountain ranges" category for the St(r)eamrunner class... Unfortuneately, the world has so many mountain ranges that I have no idea which ones to use, beyond of course the canon Appalachia and the obvious Himalaya and Ural ranges... I suppose I might use the Andes as well (it is the world's longest "exposed" (whatever that means) range according to Wikipedia), but do you guys have any further ideas?

posted on December 26th, 2008, 3:47 am

hello, i was wondering if there was anyway to get the classes as names. what i mean is, the U.S.S. Sovereign as a sovereign class, USS Galaxy as galaxy class, USS Akira as akira and so on. Everytime i play make my own personal flagship with a name that sounds familiar. I wouldnt mind having names like Enterprise and Defiant in the game, but im sure others wouldnt want that as much.

posted on December 26th, 2008, 7:48 am

Because Federations primary mission is to seek out new life and civilizations, I don't think that weapon names would suit federation starships very well (except defiants and avalons)

posted on December 26th, 2008, 9:05 am

"We can accomplish things" theme:

these are all "old" battleships

HMS Indefatigable...blown up in the Battle of Jutland...maybe we should rename it to "Von der Tann"  *lol*
USS Constitution ...an old wooden Frigate
HMS Illustrious .. a British flight carrier

except
Endeavour ex Earl of Pembroke ...was a North-Sea Coale freighter and the ship of James Cook

so you can rename it to famous ships or something like this

posted on December 26th, 2008, 12:18 pm

Because Federations primary mission is to seek out new life and civilizations, I don't think that weapon names would suit federation starships very well (except defiants and avalons)

Pray tell me, exactly how much exploring can artillery ships or tiny destroyers (Steamrunners and Sabres respectively) actually do? Not to mention that Steamies had names like "trebuchet" and "ballista" and so on in Armada I... Between the threats represented by both the Borg and the Dominion, Star Fleet began focusing more on the military side of things, the apex of this change in doctrine of course being the Defiant, but as far as small ships are concerned, for science and exploration and all of that good stuff, Star Fleet has the Nova anyway... It's generally accepted that the Sabre is a pure combat vessel like the Defiant is...

"We can accomplish things" theme:

these are all "old" battleships

HMS Indefatigable...blown up in the Battle of Jutland...maybe we should rename it to "Von der Tann"  *lol*
USS Constitution ...an old wooden Frigate
HMS Illustrious .. a British flight carrier

except
Endeavour ex Earl of Pembroke ...was a North-Sea Coale freighter and the ship of James Cook

so you can rename it to famous ships or something like this

First of all, there have in fact been ships with the name "HMS Endeavour" and the reason the names are familar is becuase navies (but the British navy particular) favoured "pompous" names like Illustrious, Constitution, etc... I'd rather divide these sorts of names up into word types... I was thinking a group of "defensive" sounding names (Defender, Guardian, Protector, etc.) could go with the Akira or Excelsior II... However, if you can think of a better name for the theme than "we can accomplish things", I'd be mighty grateful...

posted on December 26th, 2008, 2:00 pm

Even before the Borg, I can see Starfleet with Military-style names. Despite what people want to believe, Starfleet may be peaceful but it has been a Military from day 1.

posted on December 26th, 2008, 3:07 pm

First of all, there have in fact been ships with the name "HMS Endeavour" and the reason the names are familar is becuase navies (but the British navy particular) favoured "pompous" names like Illustrious, Constitution, etc... I'd rather divide these sorts of names up into word types... I was thinking a group of "defensive" sounding names (Defender, Guardian, Protector, etc.) could go with the Akira or Excelsior II... However, if you can think of a better name for the theme than "we can accomplish things", I'd be mighty grateful...

maybe just a "famous ships" as a name?
i dunno. i mean, the constitution and the enterprise are also well known names nowadays

[Triarii]

posted on December 27th, 2008, 2:28 am

Last edited by Triarii on December 27th, 2008, 2:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

Just a quick reminder guys... If you see an idea in this thread that you like but I have thus far decided not to use, if you put the weight of your support behind it, I might just use it after all...

Even before the Borg, I can see Starfleet with Military-style names. Despite what people want to believe, Starfleet may be peaceful but it has been a Military from day 1.

The cool thing about Starfleet is that it serves a dual purpose, being a scientific exploratory institution during times of peace and the military arm of the Federation during times of war, the most obvious pre-Borg example being the conflicts with the Klingons during TOS, which didn't go away after the Organian peace treaty, rather the conflict simply became a cold war instead of a shooting one, which itself really didn't go away entirely untill the Ent-C sacrificed itself... Indeed, even in times of peace they'd need to send ships to patrol the borders of neighbouring powers, perform anti-piracy duties and so on... And since we know Starfleet (as least as of the Dominion War) operates pure warships (and quite a number of them in fact), I think it makes perfect sense that they might have given some of these pure warships more milistratic sounding names...

But that's beside the point, we'll put wether we want the names of weapons on the ships down to a vote... I personally vote in favour of the names... Now I won't just assume Tyler's and Zebh's votes, you guys are free to change your minds...


Vote: Should we use the names of weapons (trebuchet, ballista, broadsword, halberd, etc.) as the names of some of the ships on this new list?


Yes: 1
No: 0
Abstain: 0


Also, no one has yet voted on the question of wether the "great cities" theme should apply to Sovereigns (as I suggested) or Excelsior IIs (as penumbra suggested)... I'm personally going to abstain from this vote as I don't mind either way... I'll put both of these votes up in the thread's opening post as well...


Vote: Should the "great cities" theme (Paris, London, Moscow, etc.) apply to Sovereigns or Excelsior IIs?

Sovereigns: 0
Excelsior IIs: 0
Other (specifiy): 0
Abstain: 1

posted on December 27th, 2008, 3:30 am

Another idea you could use is to have name be avatar specific; for example, the Mayson Akira in my game has one set of name and registy's while the Risner one has others. The Mixed-tech ships also have unique name/numbers. It would allow two people to be Federation with a different avatar and not have the same ship name.

For military-themed names: Yes
For 'great cities' theme: Other; all ships should have a theme, but some names should apply to random Classes.

posted on December 27th, 2008, 10:24 am

Well, I don't think that military themed names should be excluded totally, only assigned to some classes. I don't like the idea to have a nebula-class vessel named USS Halberd.

The great cities theme sounds good, but I think that they should assigned to some classes instead of all classes, too.

posted on December 27th, 2008, 10:28 am

i think the name uss paris for the intrepid class, not cus of the city, but cus of the person

posted on December 27th, 2008, 12:17 pm

Well, I don't think that military themed names should be excluded totally, only assigned to some classes. I don't like the idea to have a nebula-class vessel named USS Halberd.

I'll take that as a "yes" vote for weapon themed names for Sabres and Steamrunners... It was never my intention to give Nebulae such names...

i think the name uss paris for the intrepid class, not cus of the city, but cus of the person

Yea right, Star Fleet would name a ship after convicted fellon Tom Paris... Sure....

Anyway, maybe I should put a few themes under "general", which I'll assign semi-randomly to a few different classes or something like that when I get around to actually implimenting the names (which I really don't want to start doing untill I have an adequate list)... What do you think?

[Optec]

posted on December 27th, 2008, 1:15 pm

Last edited by Optec on December 27th, 2008, 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i have just started organizing a few lists by myself, but i will happly take any input the community can get

we should get arround 100 names for each non-credits-limited ship class, credits-vessels can have less, like about 30. I like the theming ideas of this topic. I will try to get all of them in

as soon as i got a list assembeled i will upload it

posted on December 27th, 2008, 1:58 pm

I look foward to it... Thanks in advance...