Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Starship names

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

Where did these, sometimes odd, names came frome?

USS Crazy Horse
USS Lalo
USS Lantree
USS Shir Kahr
USS Sitak
USS T'Kumbra
USS Thomas Paine
USS Bozeman
USS Zapata
USS John Muir
USS Sarek
USS Scovil
USS Shika Maru (I only know Maru is a ship suffix/prefix used in the Japanese Navy, wich makes USS useless...)
SS Robert Fox
SS Woden

PS My favorite canon starship name is U.S.S. Silversides (very poetic!)

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"Si vis pacem, para bellum." (If you want peace, prepare for war)
- Vegetius
Prakesh's Star Trek Site

Posted by Fructose (Member # 309) on :

Crazy Horse is a Souix leader who joined Sitting Bull for the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Thomas Paine was a American writer who wrote Common Sense and The Rights of Man.

Bozeman is a city in Montana.

Zapata is was a Mexican revolutionary around 1910

John Muir encouraged the creation of national parks in the U.S.

Sarek is Spock's dad. (duh)

Robert Fox sounds like someone's name. Must have been important somehow.

Woden is "an Anglo-Saxon god indentified with Odin."

and USS stands for United Space Ship not United States Ship.

I looked up all this stuff in my dictionary. I could try harder, but I figured that the other stuff is either more obscure or from Star Trek history.

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[This message has been edited by fructose1 (edited March 11, 2000).]

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

Actually that's: UFP StarShip.

UFP: United Federation of Planets
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(-=\V/=-)

[This message has been edited by Altair (edited March 11, 2000).]

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

On my Enterprise-D cutaway poster (probably "canon-until-contradicted) it says "United Starship"

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"Si vis pacem, para bellum." (If you want peace, prepare for war)
- Vegetius
Prakesh's Star Trek Site

Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :

Robert Fox is the Federation Ambassador from "A Taste of Armageddon"

Shir Kahr is supposedly the capital of Vulcan, where Spock was born.

And, as for USS, they did say United StarShip on TOS, but, from what I think, the United is merely short for United Federation of Planets.

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"The things hollow--it goes on forever--and--oh my God!--it's full of stars!" -David Bowman's last transmission back to Earth, 2001: A Space Odyssey

The 359 Webpage

[This message has been edited by The359 (edited March 11, 2000).]

Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :

The Sitak and T'kumbra is also Vulcan, I'm guessing important historical people, there was also a Vulcan admiral Sitak in "Sacrifice of Angels" the same episode the USS Sitak was featured. I think Scovil is Russian.

USS was referred as United Space Ship in "The Cage".

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"In sporting events it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." - Homer Simpson
Federation Starship Datalink - On that annoying Tripod server, sucks don't it?

[This message has been edited by Hobbes (edited March 11, 2000).]

Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :

lalo \La"lo\, n. The powdered leaves of the baobab tree, used by the Africans to mix in their soup, as the southern negroes use powdered sassafras.

From Dictionary.com

Dunno if that's for the ship or not...

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-Frank Gerratana, March 3, 2000

Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :

Found Lalo. He's a French Composer.

Found at Brittanica.com

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"The things hollow--it goes on forever--and--oh my God!--it's full of stars!" -David Bowman's last transmission back to Earth, 2001: A Space Odyssey

The 359 Webpage

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

???

Does this mean that French composers grow on Baobab trees? I suppose that also means African cooks used French seasonings in their soups?

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

*ROTFL!*

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"Si vis pacem, para bellum." (If you want peace, prepare for war)
- Vegetius
Prakesh's Star Trek Site

Posted by David Sands (Member # 132) on :

You also mentioned Thomas Paine. He was an author during the United States' Revolution who wrote the essay "Common Sense," generally credited with boosting the morale of a war-weary army and population. At the time it sold over 100,000 copies, an astounding feat of publishing for the day.

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"Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."

"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Though Thomas Paine himself was British, no?

And though I personally prefer Sitak, it is quite possible that the ship in question was actually named after the USS SeaTac, named after the unfortunate city of the same name that happens to be located between Seattle and Tacoma.

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--
Camper Van Beethoven

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Which someone already mentioned, though not in such detail. :-)

Anyone know specifically who or what Lantree and Scovil are? I did a very little bit of looking and didn't see anything.

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Marge: "Are you comparing yourself to our lord?!"
Homer: "Well, in bowling ability..."
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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

I too think that USS stands for (United Federation of Planets Starship... not just United Starship... makes more sense seeing as Klingon ships are IKC Imperial Klingon Cruiser...

NCC is a toughy of course - some thinking its Naval Construction Contract... Matt Jefferies said that the US ships are NC - and the Russian ships just happened to be CCC... (well Soviet Ships)

I was thinking about this one day and I think that the N is actually again short for Federation

The CC is possibly anything... Federation Construction Contract fits I guess...

What about NAR - they are federation ships - the n fits but the A and the R - they are also constructed so that seems to cancel the Construction Contract for the NCC...

NAR is used for non Starfleet ships.

Federation Assembly Registration?

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"Who wouldn't be the one you love
Who wouldn't stand inside your love." - Stand Inside Your Love, The Smashing Pumpkins

[This message has been edited by AndrewR (edited March 13, 2000).]

Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :

According to Bjo Trimbles "Star Trek Corcordance," Jack Scovil is (or was) an American astronaut. I thought that he was a shuttle astronaut, but I couldn't find him on any NASA astronaut lists.

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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

It's seems difficult, if not unnecessary, to come up with an acronym for each variation of the registry code we know of. Grouping them together by shared properties seems more appropriate. (All Federation vessels, civilian or otherwise, start with N, Starfleet vessels are CC, unless they are experimental in which case they are X, etc.)

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"What did it mean to fly? A tremor in your soul. To resist the dull insistance of gravity."
--
Camper Van Beethoven

Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :

The only non-Trek reference I could find for Lantree: Ann "Honey" Lantree was the drummer for a 1960s British girl group called the Honeycombs. I admit, the reference is pretty obscure. Doesn't the TNG Companion have anything on this name?

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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

I read that Gene Roddenberry's first plane IIRC(yes he was a pilot) had the registry NC-something. He used it in the series but thought it was too short so he added a C. Voila!

According to the web there's an old british bloodline by the name of Scovil, tracing back to 1094, when some of the Scovils were knights (real one's).
In the 1700's it seems they moved to Wisconsin and has been there pretty much ever since. But the astronaut thing sounds better. (Although that astronaut probably is in that bloodline somewhere!)

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[This message has been edited by Nimrod (edited March 13, 2000).]

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Nimrod: Actually, I thought it was Jeffries' plane...

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Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :

As for NCC, officially it stands for NOTHING, as stated in the Encyclopedia. I've often wondered where people got Naval Contract Code from. Now if they ever state its meaning in the show, then fine, but until then it means nothing.

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"In sporting events it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." - Homer Simpson
Federation Starship Datalink - On that annoying Tripod server, sucks don't it?

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Yes I think that it was Jefferies' plane. Also that 1701 was choosen cause he discarded numbers that would have been hard to see from a distance so the eliminated, 2,3,5,8 and 9.

He also suggested that 17 meant that it was the 17 class produced and the 01 of that line. Which sorta makes sense for ealier ships - i.e. 8** for the oberth and that the new Excelsior class was 2000 - so the Constitution could have been 1700... It fall apart - maybe when we get to 24 century ships - but maybe they changed the system...

It sorta works - i wen't through the Art of ST and the ST sketch book - if you take all of MJ's designs for the Enterprise - i.e. all the variations - they nicely fit up with 17... this includes a TOS Oberth, Daedelus, Miranda and Challenger looking ships - i.e. those ships designs built with TOS parts.

then there are two more 'modern' looking ships that could be the 1800 or the 1900 and the 2000 would be the Excelsior - which makes sense if it was started only a few years after the Enterprise - that is if they assign registries when they start the project... The excelsior I assume would have been a long time in the making, i.e. Transwarp etc.

I also have a theory that after a certain number of ship registries have been assigned - the 'gaps' can be filled by newer ships... i.e. newer connies have 1600 numbers the Reliant was in the 1800's and the Sydney was 2010 - i.e. I'm sure there wouldn't have initially been many 2000 ships... so the 2010 was available to use - even thought the original line of Sydney class ships were the say 2300's or even the 500's the Jenol*n could have been built well after the first batch.

This allows new classes to be kept close together - i.e. the Danube ships - and irregularities with older registry numbers being used i.e. the ships from First Contact - maybe they just used unused registry numbers from the 50000's...

It also works with that Ambassador that falls within the 10000's either it was in the first batch of Ambassadors, or it just used an unused registry number...

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"Who wouldn't be the one you love
Who wouldn't stand inside your love." - Stand Inside Your Love, The Smashing Pumpkins

Posted by Starbuck (Member # 153) on :

Um... AFAIK, the casts of Mission: Impossible and the Original Series used to meet on a regular basis (the two shows were filmed close to each other on the Paramount lot), and some TOS actors appeared in MI - for example, Leonard Nimoy as Paris.
So maybe the USS Lalo is an affectionate tip of the hat to Lalo Schifrin, who wrote the distinctive theme for Mission: Impossible?
As for the others... well, who knows?

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

I dunno. Didn't Ron Moore write TBoBW? He wouldn't have been around on TOS...

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"To make the merry-go-round go faster, so that everyone needs to hang on tighter, just to keep from being thrown to the wolves."
-They Might Be Giants, "They Might Be Giants"

Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :

Naval Construction Contract is used in "Final Frontier" by Diane Carey

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"No matter where you go, there you are."

Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :

Fitz, books are not canon...or are you explaining where Naval Contract Code comes from?

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Federation Starship Datalink - On that annoying Tripod server, sucks don't it?

[This message has been edited by Hobbes (edited March 17, 2000).]

Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :

I wanted to explain, where it comes from.

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"No matter where you go, there you are."

Posted by Federation Shipmaster (Member # 15) on :

Shika Maru: Maru was not a suufix in the Japanese Navy, but rather usually put at the end of transport ships. Another ship with Maru, is of course, the Kobayashi Maru, which is supposedly a freighter.