posted
Just a side note, but don't you think ship names are getting a little stale. Well I got to thinking, this show takes place 400-600 years in the future. I.E. they should be looking at 20th century artists like we would look at middle ages or renaissance (don't get all snippy on chronology please, i'm just generalizing). So here's my question, when are we going to see a USS Jimi Hendrix, or USS Jim Morrison, or USS John Lennon. These are as influential an artist in music as anyone, so if there's a USS Prokofiev, then I want a USS Kurt Cobaine.
One of the things I liked about Babylon 5 (and believe me there weren't that many) was that they had a ship named Shwartzkopf. A modern general, but from a future perspective, a historical one.
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I think it might be a little early to say which contemporary artists will still be famous in 400 years. Sure, Kurt Cobain is considered very influential now but might be forgotten in another 20. (By the way, Prokofiev's been dead for less than 50 years). I don't think we have enough historical perspective. Of course, I don't know any Starfleet vessels named after musicians. The British have a HMS Shakespeare, I think, but we the USN doesn't have a USS Tennesse Williams (maybe they should!)
------------------ When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
posted
So. its still only a show. they're taking guesses about everything else, no reason to guess on who or who won't be influential. Okay, maybe Cobain wasn't the best choice, but hendrix has been around for a while.
posted
I highly doubt "Smells like Teen Spirit" will go down in the annals of history on par w/ van Beethoven's fifth symphony, or "Come As You Are" alongside Mozart's requiem.
The day a Trek show has a USS Sean "Puffy" Combs, I quit watching... *L*
------------------ "Even the colors are pompous!" -a friend of mine, looking at a Lexus brochure
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
I'm guilty of naming ships after modern musiciaisn,. actors, TV characters & the like...but I bury them in my classes. They're like Easter eggs to find. It's fun. But I'm not prominent about it.
------------------ "'I don't CARE who started it, I'm tired, and I WANT QUIET!!!!! Or I'm going to come up there and flatten the BOTH of you!' And he meant it. And we'd stop. Or he would." --Foreign policy as laid down by First of Two's dad
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I've named ships after cartoonists; characters in Marx Brothers movies; comic book characters; old Soviet movies; characters, ships, vehicles, and locations from famous SF novels and movies; playwrights; pin-up artists; friends; etc. I have more than 600 named ships, so even the usual sources (older ships, spacecraft, admirals, planets, mountains, adjectives, explorers, gods, cities, scientists, battles, political leaders, mythological animals) weren't enough. Most of my references are usually obscure enough that they're either not recognized or could plausibly refer to another person, place, or thing of the same name. So, I wouldn't name a ship, USS Jennifer Lopez, but I might name one William Gaines (publisher of Mad magazine), Dallas (captain from Alien), Merkw�rdigliebe (Dr. Strangelove's real name), or simply Lopez. So Hendrix is a common enough name that it might or might not be Jimi. However, Cobain is fairly uncommon and too familiar.
------------------ When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
posted
I actually ran that name by Bernd, but he never heard of it. I don't defend it's use other than to say the name's meant to be a joke. "Merkw�ridigliebe" is a weird name, but at least it's obscure. Cobain and Lennon, on the other hand are perhaps too easily identified as being named after Kurt C and John L.
------------------ When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
posted
There are many strange names in Germany, even one that translates as "pig-head" and another one that is also the German word for "f*ck". But "Merkw�rdigliebe" doesn't exist.
------------------ "There is an intelligent lifeform out on the other side of that television too." (Gene Roddenberry) Ex Astris Scientia
posted
These are interesting issues, but all credability would be lost with me if there were ever a USS Cobain et al. If you want influential musicians then why not USS Johnny Rotten? He spearheaded punk culture in the 70's, but it still counts as a significant musical influence doesn't it?
I agree with TSN on this. But the other points made lead off to another tangent. Why are so many of the ships named after English speaking influences? The likes of the Prokofiev and the T'Kumbra may be amonst the exceptions, but the trend remains....
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Because the people coming up w/ the names are Americans, and they use the first things that come to mind.
Bernd: Which word for "fuck"? I actually have some German ancestors whose last name was "Ficker", which, according to my German dictionary, would basically translate as "fucker". I'm hoping it's just a corruption of some other name, really... *L*
------------------ "Even the colors are pompous!" -a friend of mine, looking at a Lexus brochure
posted
I don't have much information on this ship 'T'Kumbra'. It is presumably canon, but an official class hasn't been assigned.
As far as I know it's possible that it derives from 'Kitumba'. This was to be an old Star Trek: Phase II story. Many homages have been made to these old unused scripts, indeed the TNG episode 'Devil's Due' was a Phase II script. In Phase II Kitumba was to be some kind of legendary Klingon warlord.
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