Naming conventions
Moderator: LadyTevar
- Supreme_Warlord
- Youngling
- Posts: 149
- Joined: 2002-07-04 12:04pm
- Location: East Ham, London, United Kingdom, Europe, Earth, Sol System, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Universe
Naming conventions
Hello fellow would-be-bestsellers,
Just wanted to get your opinion about something. I am having to create ships designs for my own personal scifiverse so I wanted to ask what kind of naming convention you prefer. i.e. shoud ship classes be names (as in Nimitz class, etc.) or numbers (as in Project 1145.1, etc).
Personally, I prefer the project # convention.
Thanks.
Just wanted to get your opinion about something. I am having to create ships designs for my own personal scifiverse so I wanted to ask what kind of naming convention you prefer. i.e. shoud ship classes be names (as in Nimitz class, etc.) or numbers (as in Project 1145.1, etc).
Personally, I prefer the project # convention.
Thanks.
For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation will suffice.
Men don't follow titles, they follow courage!
________________________________________
100th post on Wed, 28 Apr, 2004 15:23
Men don't follow titles, they follow courage!
________________________________________
100th post on Wed, 28 Apr, 2004 15:23
- NecronLord
- Harbinger of Doom
- Posts: 27384
- Joined: 2002-07-07 06:30am
- Location: The Lost City
Names are easier to remember.
I find it a hell of a lot easier to remember that Romulus' Ascension is a Veritas class destroyer than I do to remember that it's a : Type 4 Destroyer, Project 131, {Build number 231-135/a.} though both are equally true.
I find it a hell of a lot easier to remember that Romulus' Ascension is a Veritas class destroyer than I do to remember that it's a : Type 4 Destroyer, Project 131, {Build number 231-135/a.} though both are equally true.
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
- Peregrin Toker
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 8609
- Joined: 2002-07-04 10:57am
- Location: Denmark
- Contact:
- Stormbringer
- King of Democracy
- Posts: 22678
- Joined: 2002-07-15 11:22pm
- Soontir C'boath
- SG-14: Fuck the Medic!
- Posts: 6853
- Joined: 2002-07-06 12:15am
- Location: Queens, NYC I DON'T FUCKING CARE IF MANHATTEN IS CONSIDERED NYC!! I'M IN IT ASSHOLE!!!
- Contact:
Why numbers? It's not like we would know it's the 1701 Enterprise etc. His ships are his own. If he would add numbers it would mean he would have to put it in a list into a prelogue to know what ships he's talking about.
The id number 111 Pussy Fucker class Suckerpunch......meh.
Cyaround,
JAson
The id number 111 Pussy Fucker class Suckerpunch......meh.
Cyaround,
JAson
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
- Soontir C'boath
- SG-14: Fuck the Medic!
- Posts: 6853
- Joined: 2002-07-06 12:15am
- Location: Queens, NYC I DON'T FUCKING CARE IF MANHATTEN IS CONSIDERED NYC!! I'M IN IT ASSHOLE!!!
- Contact:
Yes but why even bother? I know the USS Enterprise is a carrier and know what one would look like. That's enough description there or we can even add the carrier class that it is. Numbers especially in a fanfic will be meaningless regardless if used in real world. I don't recall ships called ISD Mark I Chimaera Operating # 102 b or things like that.
Numbers is just too minor a detail to include.~Jason
Numbers is just too minor a detail to include.~Jason
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
I think you should use names. Giving a ship a name that has conotations or alludes to something else is far greater to the reader who can put two and two together.
Writer's Guild 'Ghost in the Machine'/Decepticon 'Devastator'/BOTM 'Space Ape'/Justice League 'The Tick'
"The best part of 'believe' is the lie."
It's always the quiet ones.
"The best part of 'believe' is the lie."
It's always the quiet ones.
- RedImperator
- Roosevelt Republican
- Posts: 16465
- Joined: 2002-07-11 07:59pm
- Location: Delaware
- Contact:
I'd give them names unless I had a reason not to. The name of the first ship in the class becomes the class name. IRL, ideally, the names follow some kind of theme (i.e., states first for U.S. battleships, and later ballistic missile submarines, or cities for cruisers) but not necessarily (the Nimitz class carriers, had they followed a theme, would have been named for admirals, but politics has gotten them named after presidents, the majority of them Republicans).
IRL, the ships would also be assigned a hull number. The U.S. navy uses an alphabetic prefix to designate the type of hull and a number. Ships are assigned numbers in chronological order (so the BB-62 U.S.S. New Jersey is the sixty-second battleship built by the Navy). Other navies use different systems (the Russians, IIRC, gnerally just assigned numbers at random. In fiction, Starfleet's NCC numbers seem roughly chronological, but there are odd gaps, like the Constituiton class U.S.S. Constellation being numbered NCC-1017 instead of a nice, logical NCC-17xx number). You don't have to specifically mention a number, but it seems ridiculous that a space navy wouldn't number its ships in some way.
IRL, the ships would also be assigned a hull number. The U.S. navy uses an alphabetic prefix to designate the type of hull and a number. Ships are assigned numbers in chronological order (so the BB-62 U.S.S. New Jersey is the sixty-second battleship built by the Navy). Other navies use different systems (the Russians, IIRC, gnerally just assigned numbers at random. In fiction, Starfleet's NCC numbers seem roughly chronological, but there are odd gaps, like the Constituiton class U.S.S. Constellation being numbered NCC-1017 instead of a nice, logical NCC-17xx number). You don't have to specifically mention a number, but it seems ridiculous that a space navy wouldn't number its ships in some way.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963
X-Ray Blues
X-Ray Blues
- Sea Skimmer
- Yankee Capitalist Air Pirate
- Posts: 37390
- Joined: 2002-07-03 11:49pm
- Location: Passchendaele City, HAB
Re: Naming conventions
The flaw with the question is that the Russians also named their classes and the USN gave and gives ship designs numbers.Supreme_Warlord wrote:Hello fellow would-be-bestsellers,
Just wanted to get your opinion about something. I am having to create ships designs for my own personal scifiverse so I wanted to ask what kind of naming convention you prefer. i.e. shoud ship classes be names (as in Nimitz class, etc.) or numbers (as in Project 1145.1, etc).
Personally, I prefer the project # convention.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
- Supreme_Warlord
- Youngling
- Posts: 149
- Joined: 2002-07-04 12:04pm
- Location: East Ham, London, United Kingdom, Europe, Earth, Sol System, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Universe
Re: Naming conventions
I was trying to avoid doing both to reduce the amount of background detail that I would have to create as quite a few ships of various kinds are involved throughout the story.Sea Skimmer wrote:The flaw with the question is that the Russians also named their classes and the USN gave and gives ship designs numbers.Supreme_Warlord wrote:Hello fellow would-be-bestsellers,
Just wanted to get your opinion about something. I am having to create ships designs for my own personal scifiverse so I wanted to ask what kind of naming convention you prefer. i.e. shoud ship classes be names (as in Nimitz class, etc.) or numbers (as in Project 1145.1, etc).
Personally, I prefer the project # convention.
As for the confusion on whether ships should be named or not, I think the question was a bit misunderstood. The individual ships themselves have names (for obvious reasons), but I wanted to ask your opinion on what would be better for the class that the ship belongs to.
In any instance when a ship is mentioned in the story, it will obviously be referred to by its name, although it will also have a registry number. In the very rare instances when its class also needs to be referred to, I wanted to use numbers (i.e. Project ####, etc.).
For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation will suffice.
Men don't follow titles, they follow courage!
________________________________________
100th post on Wed, 28 Apr, 2004 15:23
Men don't follow titles, they follow courage!
________________________________________
100th post on Wed, 28 Apr, 2004 15:23