Ship and planet name ideas

Started by salt1219, October 29, 2013, 07:26:37 PM

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salt1219

as of right now, no one has pledged in the ship-master or void god tiers so i thought i would throw out a few ideas.  maybe in the future if no-one pledges at those levels we could have a contest here.

here's my idea for the ships name RV Icarus 2 (R-379)
here's a quick break down of what all that means
RV- research vessel
Icarus 2, because of the ominous foreshadowing :) and the two because it has happened before. (he flew too close to the sun and crashed into the sea)
R-379 that's the hull number again R is for research and the first number in the 3 digit code is the class size the last two are random. all together it makes a unique hull number.

as for the planet (which i'm told is actually a moon orbiting a gas giant) i was thinking it should be something like this... Kepler-63e  it is a un-populated rim world so it would make sense that it wouldn't have a proper name yet and just the scientific designated one.  alternately i would say the colonists would give it a name after crashing.  seeing as how they are optimistic about their new colony and happy to have survived the crash i would suggest Salvation.

so the name of the planet would look more like this Kepler-63e, Salvation
(obviously don't use the name Kepler, that one is already taken.  its just a example)


anyway those are my ideas :)

Tynan

If nobody buys the pledges I'm gonna name the ship Tynan and the planet Sylvester.

So someone better buy them.

I am joking.
Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

salt1219

The S.S. Minnow.... A three hour tour

Kelfka

Since you get 3 random characters at every beginning. The ship's name mustn't be to meaningful or to specific to it's function.

- WarPath, Sword, Invader: Military vessel
- Cloud 9, Pleasure House, Happy times: Cruise liner
- Black skull, Blood bath, No mercy: Pirates
- Hawkins, Marie Curie, Curiosity: Research vessel
- New Horizon, Enterprise, Seeker: Exploration vessel

Quote- The HMS WarPath crashed on the moon and only a accountant, a farmboy and a junky survived.
I would have difficulty believing that not a single soldier survived the crash. But a farmboy and a junky did?

It's obvious that if the ship has a specific story and function than an appropriate name would do just fine.

As for the Icarus. I really like the name. But I feel a ship with that name would be 3000 years old. Since there is a strong possibility that one of the first real Earth space ship will be named Icarus.

A ship named Minnow would be funny. Small and out of its league, it never stood a chance.

salt1219

I was joking about S.S. Minnow.   That name is already taken by Gilligan's isle
You got me thinking though, it would be cool to call it a minnow class ship.

I still would like the name to foreshadow the crash in some way.  Maybe I should look up the name of Amelia Earhart's plane.

Kelfka

Quote from: salt1219 on October 30, 2013, 07:24:02 PM
I still would like the name to foreshadow the crash in some way.  Maybe I should look up the name of Amelia Earhart's plane.

What falls better to the earth than an angel? So how about the HMS Fallen Angel

More seriously, I've pulled some synonyms of the words isolation and accident. Because that is basically what happened to the survivors. I got interesting results and highlighted my favourite candidates.

Isolation     
aloofness, desolation, detachment, disconnection, exile, insularity, insulation, ivory tower, loneliness, quarantine, remoteness, retirement, seclusion, segregation, self-sufficiency, separation, solitude, withdrawal 

Accident
blow, calamity, casualty, chance, collision, crash, disaster, misadventure, mischance, misfortune, mishap, pile-up,     

Antonyms to accident would be hilarious considering the situation the refugees are in.
blessing, boon, good fortune, good luck, lucky, success, calculation, decision, decree, intent, intention, necessity, provision,

AspenShadow

I'll go ahead and throw a few of my own ideas into the pot I guess:

I agree with the Hull-designation thoughts as that seems to be increasingly the way of the world in terms of naming vessels are going and spacecraft wouldn't be any different when produced at the same level as seafaring ships.
Classes could designate size: e.g. 1 is the largest, 5 is the 'Minnow Class', and then a generic 2 number coding system tacked on as a suffix similar to a license plate number for cars.

CMV Aurelius 2.95
CTV Levicorvus 3.26

C[t]V - Coreworlds [Type] Vessel

Militarised
Commerce
Industrial   [Mining Vessel essentially - It plumbs uninhabitable worlds for various resources]
Research
Pleasure
Terragrarian   [Colonizing Ship - From 'World' and 'Agrarian']

Ps. HMS means Her Majesty's Ship and I doubt people would remember or care about the monarchy millennia after its death.

Kelfka

Quote from: AspenShadow on October 31, 2013, 07:04:00 AM
Ps. HMS means Her Majesty's Ship and I doubt people would remember or care about the monarchy millennia after its death.
I know. 8)
Don't count the monarchy out just yet. RimWorld is filled with planets in the medieval era. And if they can revers engineer star travel fast enough (without destroying themselves in the process), the monarchy might still be running strong.

nomadseifer

Let this idea sink in...

A less arbitrary way to name both the ship and planet would be to attach the names to a given storyteller or biome or something of that sort.  Additionally, the 'plate number' could be associated with the random seed generator.  I know Tynan seemed to support the idea of random seed usage like in Minecraft. 
For example:

The Class of ship would correspond to the storyteller.
Alpha Class = Randy Random
Beta = Cassandra
Gamma = Phobe

The Name AND plate number would correspond to the random seed. 
There may be 20 nouns and 20 adjectives that give a name of a ship.  That's 400 different combinations.  Then a 4-digit number would give 10000 combinations.  A full name would be 4-million combinations.  Some nouns/adjectives. 
NOUNS
Firefly = 01
Traveler = 02
GalaxyTrucker = 03
etc...

ADJECTIVES
Broken = 01
Reputable = 02
Defiant = 03
etc...

Planets would be named based on the primary Biome/Planet Type
Desert = Drylandia
Snowy = Whitelandia
Jungle = ThickWetLandia
etc...

So, when talking about your game to someone, instead of saying "My game was set to Desert Biome, with Phoebe Friendly, and random seed = 03 02 5591, you would just say, "My Gamma Class ship, The Defiant Traveler - 5591, crashed on Drylandia." and someone could recreate it from just that statement. 

Obviously the names for everything here are for example only, but I think the structure of the idea is a good one. 
Love of an Idea is love of god - FLLW

Zannick

Given that no one grabbed the ship and planet name tiers, I like the idea to generate them based on initial conditions.

Quote from: Kelfka on October 30, 2013, 11:29:50 PM
Quote from: salt1219 on October 30, 2013, 07:24:02 PM
I still would like the name to foreshadow the crash in some way.  Maybe I should look up the name of Amelia Earhart's plane.

What falls better to the earth than an angel? So how about the HMS Fallen Angel

I disagree with the reasoning here. For a consistent world, the ship probably wouldn't have been named something that foreshadows its demise; how would the namers have known?

Note also that it might not even be a realistically interesting name. Most commercial airlines don't name their planes today (as far as I know) aside from serial numbers and general body type classifications like "737-800".

Kelfka

Quote from: Zannick on November 01, 2013, 09:02:25 PM
I disagree with the reasoning here. For a consistent world, the ship probably wouldn't have been named something that foreshadows its demise; how would the namers have known?

Note also that it might not even be a realistically interesting name. Most commercial airlines don't name their planes today (as far as I know) aside from serial numbers and general body type classifications like "737-800".

I think what Salt meant by foreshadowing is that name of the ship should be a reference to a real tragic event. For example if it was named the "Electra" than it would a reference to Amelia Earhart's plane that disappeared in the Pacific in 1937.

salt1219

#11
@zannick  funny you should mention a Boeing airplane.  I work for them as a mechanic.
i currently work on 777-200/777-300 (both passenger and freighter for each model) i used to work on the 747 program.
with some luck our site will be the home of the new 777-X

anyway back on track, all airplanes have a unique tail number.  as for the name, its more of a boat thing and they also have a unique hull number (like the tail number)

boats and planes use many of the same building terms because Bill Boeing used to make boats (also furniture).
for example Waterlines (up/down), buttock lines (left/right), inboard/outboard (toward or away from the outside in 3 dimentions), forward/aft

Tynan

Salt you're a jet mechanic and you didn't put that in your Pirate background? Dude, one of the default backgrounds is already an illegal shipwright!
Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

salt1219

Quote from: Tynan on November 02, 2013, 10:13:27 PM
Salt you're a jet mechanic and you didn't put that in your Pirate background? Dude, one of the default backgrounds is already an illegal shipwright!

I didn't think what i did was that interesting to people. :P

EarthyTurtle

I think being a jet mechanic is pretty cool.