Re: Ship Naming Convention (was: RE: What, no messages?)

Allan wrote:

> >How could you get the Picts without the Kelts or Celts (depending on 
> >your bent)?	
> 
> You'd THINK I'd mention the Celts. However, my understanding is that
"Celt"
> covers a wide range of people that also includes the early Germans and
Gauls
> (but not the Franks, if I remember correctly and I may be wrong). You
make a
> point, though.

Hm... while the early Germans certainly had lots of cultural traits in
common with the Celts (or, at least, several burials and lots of
artefacts
with Celtic appearences have been found in Denmark and IIRC Scania),
Celtic
and German languages are very different indeed. If the "early Germans"
were
indeed Celts, they weren't German at all. 

The Franks definitely weren't Celts. Britons, Gauls and Caledonians were
Celts, as were the Galatians (as in St. Paul's "Letter to the
Galatians")
but the Picts probably weren't - at least the surviving traces of their
language doesn't resemble the Celtic languages very much.

....

To bring this post vaguely on topic: I don't use human fleets, except in
B5
or similar "set" backgrounds. I recognise about 90% of the human ship
names
mentioned in this thread from Weber's Starfire sourcebooks, so I try to
make up my own - based on which fleet I use. For example, my Kimbere
commonwealth fleet borrows a lot from Welsh words and names, though
heavily
distorted - the name "Kimbere" itself is derived from Cymru ("Wales" in
Welsh), and it features the DNs Arklood (Arglwydd = Lord) and Prenn
(Brenin
= King), the missile cruisers Seetoor and Seetied (Saethwr, Saethydd =
Shooter/Archer), etc. (I said _heavily_ distorted, didn't I? <g>)

The Tel-Aearon Star City (started out as GW Eldar, but have... expanded)
and Haterakan Imperial (GW Imperial, with additions - kudos to the one
who
spots where I stole the name of the empire from :-) ship names follow
the GW naming conventions, influenced by the "real" names of the models
-
for example the "Rending Talon", "Burning Lances", "Soaring Falcon" and
"Roaring Tempest" (conversions of a Silent Death Talon and Lance
Electra,
and the new GW Falcon and Scorpion (which replaced the old Tempest grav
tank) models, respectively). In the Imperial fleet, there are such proud
ships as the "Bulwark of the Faith", "Invulnerable" (also called "Old
Faithful" - she's an Ironclad, for those of you who know the GW
background
to that model...), "Emperor's Crown" and others.

> Quite true. I like battle names, myself. My favourite ship name is the
Vimy
> Ridge. I also like some weirdnesses you'd NEVER see in real life. In
the
> GenCon game last year, I had Debacle class ships: The Dieppe, The
Stalingrad,
> and The Somme.

Don't bet on it - an ESU fleet could have a Stalingrad SDN! I doubt if
the
NSL would, though :-)

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson

"Life is like a sewer.
What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry