quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Sure they will! On a Galaxy class in one continous concentric circle around the saucer to make their enemies too dizzy to fight.
I can just imagine it...
Paris: "This is Captain Paris of the Federation Starship Abu Abdallah Muhammad Ibn Jabir Ibn Sinan al-Batani al-Harrani."
Alien: "I'm sorry, could you repeat that please? My closed captioning isn't working."
Hanson: "Commander, order the Liberator, the Firebrand and the Abu Abdallah Muhammad Ibn Jabir Ibn Sinan al-Batani al-Harrani to attack at vector 325 mark 8!"
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Cortez was the Spanish conquistador who conquered Mexico.
Cortez was born in Spain. At the age of 19 he sailed for Hispaniola. With Diego Velazquez he conquered Cuba and settled there until 1518 when Velazquez appointed him to lead an expedition to Mexico. With his force of 700 men he landed on the coast of Mexico and founded the settlement of Veracruz. Cortez burned his ships behind him, thereby committing his entire force to survival through conquest.
Cortez moved to Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), the capital of the powerful Aztec Indians. The Aztecs had conquered most of the surrounding tribes. Montezuma, the Aztec ruler received the Spaniards graciously, but was made prisoner and used by Cortez to rule the country. The Aztecs, angered by Montezuma's submission, revolted and forced the Spaniards to withdraw. But Cortez received reinforcements from the West Indies and from many Indian groups who hated the Aztecs because of their cruelty. With this increased army, Cortez captured Tenochtitlan in 1521 and terminated the Aztec empire. For many years Cortez governed Mexico, then called New Spain, but in 1540 he fell out of favor with the king of Spain. He returned to Spain to plead his case in vain. He died in a small village near Seville.
Sounds like he ended an oppressive empire, which doesn't seem to be too bad a thing to do.
(By the way, if you don't like my "Cortez was OK" explanation, it's also the name of several places in the US, including a mountain range in Nevada.)
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
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posted
Malinceh isn't too well-liked in Mexico, either. But hey. Times are changing & histories get revised.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: Ships are sometimes indeed explicitly named after multiple people. The The Sullivans is an obvious example, the Lewis and Clark another; but HMS Hood was also a nameshare, honoring multiple generations of seagoing heroes. The USN had at least USS Kaufmann, honoring a father and a son. And I think the Spruance did that, too.
The Arleigh Burke-class DDG USS John S. McCain, named for the current senator & his father. More his dad, but still.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
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"We have never seen any [Starfleet] ship with a famous person's name having whom it is named after specified..."
As mentioned before, the Thomas Paine. Unless you're saying someone would have to explicitly say "It's the USS Thomas Paine, named specifically after the colonial American author of 'Common Sense'.".
And, given the sentiments brought about by the current regime in the US, I wouldn't be surprised if someone revised Cort�s from "conquistador" to "libertador".
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posted
Actually, I meant primarily on the dedication plaques. If naming it for a particular person were that important, i'd expect something like "Named in honour of Admiral Joe Bloggs, commander of the victorious fleet at the Battle of Rigel XXIV" on them.
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
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There's only been one instance of that, with the S�o Paulo which said that it was "named for the people of Brazil." So.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
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quote:Q: Should a ship have been named after Cortez, considering what effect his arrival had on the native Americans?
A: If Cortez had NOT landed in northern Mexico, do you think it would have remained undiscovered until now? Fact #1: somebody was bound to discover the Americas.
Fact #2: any sufficiently advanced civilization or culture will inevitably attempt to exploit any civilization or culture not sufficiently advanced to fight back on a level playing field.
Blaming explorers for exploring has always seemed to me really kind of silly; do people *really* think that if Columbus hadn't landed here, it'd be 1994 and we still wouldn't know the world was round and that this continent was here? It doesn't matter who discovered it, the same result would've come. Somebody had to discover it sooner or later.
That's JMS's explanation why he named an Earth vessel after Cortez on "Babylon 5".
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
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posted
I don't really see how that could serve as any sort of redemption, though. I mean, somebody was bound to lead the SS and the concentration camp program in 1930s-40s Germany. If Himmler had not done it, he'd just have been deposed or even killed, and somebody else would have taken his place. There was no stopping that particular train wreck after 1933 or so.
Should there thus not be a USS Himmler in Starfleet, honoring an efficient organizer and skilled solver of the Jewish (Roma, Pole, homosexual etc.) problem? Shouldn't his honesty and devotion be acknowledged, even if some obscure political factions once used to view his career negatively, back before the founding of the Federation?
posted
There's a scene in a Trek story I'm writing where an Admiral is going through a list of ships in the area with his adjutant to see what he can form a task-force out of, and part of the dialogue goes:
VICE-ADMIRAL VINCENT (pacing) "Where's the Cortez these days?"
CMDR. PRESTON (checks PADD) "She's overseeing a first contact situation over in sector 21620."
(Vincent pauses in his pacing as they share a slightly pained look)
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
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Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
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posted
quote:Originally posted by Timo: I don't really see how that could serve as any sort of redemption, though. I mean, somebody was bound to lead the SS and the concentration camp program in 1930s-40s Germany. If Himmler had not done it, he'd just have been deposed or even killed, and somebody else would have taken his place. There was no stopping that particular train wreck after 1933 or so.
Should there thus not be a USS Himmler in Starfleet, honoring an efficient organizer and skilled solver of the Jewish (Roma, Pole, homosexual etc.) problem? Shouldn't his honesty and devotion be acknowledged, even if some obscure political factions once used to view his career negatively, back before the founding of the Federation?
Timo Saloniemi
Given the fact that Starfleet or anyone else probably don't want to name a ship after him for what he has done, a dedication to a specific person (like Thomas Paine) does only make sense if there has been another person of the same name you do not want to honor. If you have a ship named Archer because you want to honor Henry and John, it's OK. If you have a ship named Thomas Paine, you want to honor Thomas Paine, the author, not Richard Paine, the dictator from the Eugenic Wars. Going back to Cortez, the fact that the ship is just named Cortez could, in this context, mean two things: Either her dedication plaque or the hull say something like "Named for the Nobel Price winner of 2133, Richard Cortez" or USS Richard Cortez or Starfleet does not see Cortez as a dictator and murderer. Option two would cause more problems, anyway. The comparison Cortez - Himmler showed another important thing; what if one country (in the case of Cortez) sees a person as a hero while another country sees him as a criminal? Do you name a ship after Caesar because he was the famous ruler of the Roman Empire, or don't you name the ship for him for the exact same reason, because he killed thousands just to expand his empire?
Phoenix was right, there should be enough non-controversal names for every ship in Starfleet. Sadly the people who come up with new names don't use that source.
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