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> That said, I think it's very icky to have aliens named after stars,
> especially the Terran names for those stars. I would much have
> preferred names like "Chuck" to names like "Antares." (Mega Bloks
> Planetoids, anyone? Not that "Zzyax" was much better in terms of
> being stereotypical alienese.) I always felt that "Alien Nation"
> did an excellent job with the problem of alien names, accounting
> believeably for tweakish human nature.
Oh, of course... absolutely. I'd love to see names that were
completely invented words with no 'earthling' equivlant.. However
the naming scheme they chose could be interpreted in two
acceptible ways that I see:
1) They're named after those stars in their own language, and
the human explorers merely translated it.
2) The martian names are unpronouncable (or not easy to,
or the humans have no idea how to translate martian), and
thus the humans decided to start naming the martians themselves.
--
-Bones- "Being Optimized for Nocturnal Exploration and Sabotage"
= http://www.necrobones.com/ = NecroBones Enterprises
"Mr L F Braun" <braunli1@pilot.msu.edu> wrote in message
news:G5GC5I.97B@lugnet.com...
>
> Hm, where's John Ladasky when we need him? :)
>
> In lugnet.year.2001, James Brown writes:
> > In lugnet.announce, Jon Furman writes:
> > > Has anyone else noticed the distinct name sharing going on between life • on
> > > Mars and battlestar galactica, the most horrilbe, yet strangely
> > > entertaining, space saga known to man?
> > > The air tube hangar comes with minifigs named Riegel, and Cassiopeia.
> > > While the excavation searcher has a character named Vega. I
> > > hope that Starbuck, apollo and Adama are not next!
> >
> > Nah, They're drawing from two different sources. Life on Mars is naming
> > characters after stars & constellations; BG used names from classic Greek • &
> > Roman mythology(1). There's just a lot of cross-over, that's all.
> >
> > 1:When not naming them weird things, like Starbuck or Boomer or Boxy.
>
> Where do you think the stars got their names? :) Well, most
> of them, anyways; Rigel (not "Riegel" or whatever they transliter-
> ated) is, I think, Arabic in origin as many stellar names are.
> There's a lot of overlap. I do, however, think it's cute that
> you get Castor and Pollux together in a set. ;) [2]
>
> BG also used names and ideas from Judaeo-Christian theology;
> that whole "13th Tribe" and "12 Colonies" thing was Hebrew. And,
> of course, Lorne Greene couldn't be "Adama"--the Universal Father--
> without it! And...there was a lot of Ancient Egypt in the imagery.
> I think the idea was that they'd take everything from the Ancient
> World, toss it in a cauldron, and borrow liberally to give the whole
> some feeling of historical veracity. However, that still doesn't
> explain where the Cylons fit in...
>
> That said, I think it's very icky to have aliens named after stars,
> especially the Terran names for those stars. I would much have
> preferred names like "Chuck" to names like "Antares." (Mega Bloks
> Planetoids, anyone? Not that "Zzyax" was much better in terms of
> being stereotypical alienese.) I always felt that "Alien Nation"
> did an excellent job with the problem of alien names, accounting
> believeably for tweakish human nature.
>
> Just my two pfennig,
>
> Lindsay
>
> [2] Castor and Pollux being "the twins", IIRC a naked-eye double
> star.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Battlestar Galactica on Mars?
|
| Hm, where's John Ladasky when we need him? :) (...) Where do you think the stars got their names? :) Well, most of them, anyways; Rigel (not "Riegel" or whatever they transliter- ated) is, I think, Arabic in origin as many stellar names are. (...) (24 years ago, 12-Dec-00, to lugnet.year.2001, lugnet.space)
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