Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => General Non-RP EVE Discussion => Topic started by: Graelyn on 22 Feb 2012, 18:50
-
Well, a lot of em, for various reasons. Some just sound stupid, don't fit right, or just cause confusion.
Feel free to add your own.
Empire, Empire Space, The 5 Empires - There is only one Empire, and the other 4 shouldn't be too keen to casually call themselves this. It's also confusing to the new folks, who must think that only Amarr space is +5.0sec...
Alternatives - Concord Space, Enforced Space, The 'Inner Sphere' (or something equivalent)
POS - I know they're not supposed to be officially called this (towers are supposed to be called Starbases), but as soon as POS became the nickname (the term wasn't some kind of cutesy compliment, CCP...) they just let it stick. News releases and stuff are guilty too, shoehorning the term to mean 'pilot-owned-starbases', which is wrong too, since many of our missions show the towers in use by every group under the stars, egg or no, and usually with much cooler looking attachments....
Alternatives - Starbase, Space Tower (no.), something....tower-y?
Gallentean/Caldarian - We all know it's supposed to be THE GALLENTE PEOPLE and THE CALDARI PEOPLE, but somehow even though we all mocked the shit out of TonyG for it, these terrible words have slowly spread into the rest of the lore, into the chrons, and now even into RPer vocabularies like some sort of rabid space syphilis. Fuck that noise.
Alternatives - Use of these godawful terms is an automatic 50DKPMINUS.
MERCS - We've got to head this one off at the pass quick. With the release of DUST getting closer and closer, the designated term to address these new supersoldiers is commonly being seen as 'mercs'. Even the overview stuff leaking into our EVE builds marks DUST stuff as 'Merc Stuff'. Nien! That term means a lot in a universe where more than half of all armed force in existence is already for sale. This will get especially misleading when DUST players attach themselves permanently to Alliances and factions. They're not for hire at that point, they are the actual army of a group.
Alternatives - Dusters? Is that too clunky? (Oh god, here come the DUSTERS....snerk) Something else?
Finally, the big one, and the one I feel strongest about by far.
Us.
CAPSULEERS
I have cringed every time I've heard this term in the history of ever, this supposedly terrifying name of the dark demigods that roam the viscous and bloody oceans of the skies oh my god what a dorky name I bet they're in the chess club. :bash:
Even CCP didn't like it, as the first years of lore barely touched the term, instead referring to the players only as 'pilots', which apparently (and correctly) was eventually judged to not have enough Oomph. They needed something else, and 8 years in we still need that something else.
Worse still, the term does not even refer to the group it is meant for, IE player characters. There is currently no 'lore term' for a player character, especially when capsuleers serve as NPCs all over the place. Every 'empire' (argh) has hundreds of them in their employ directly and on a short leash. Every rat you fight in a mission that's flying a T2 variant? Guess what! NPC in an egg. It was one of the things in Empyrean Age that Tony got dead on. Roden sure isn't a player character either....
There needs to be a new term, something that differentiates a mere guy in an egg from the independent, monitored by CONCORD, able to form into near-sovereign recognized nations as a group type of pilots that truly taint the dreams of people like Omir, Kosakami, Sarpati, and Kuvakei.
Alternatives - The Unbound? That's the only one I've come up with so far...
Anyways, those are mine, how about yours?
-
"Brutor". By far the worse term in EVE.
-
1. As an addendum to the Empire/empires bit - I see (and often find myself) referencing 'the great nullsec empires' to describe some of the longer-existing alliances and blocs. It's not really a sperate thing, but it just adds another layer of confusion to the whole matter.
2. CONCORD vs DED - it's my understanding that the DED are the people who actually come out and shoot you or otherwise act as CONCORD's enforcement arm, while CONCORD is the overreaching organization - but the two terms get used interchangably a lot (partially because NPCs do the same thing).
-
For those infomorphes who actually run around surface locations - Grunts, Ground-Pounders, Sobs (Sons of Bitches) or Apes. (The last is a nod to Heinlein.)
Perhaps for PCs, to borrow the term I have seen SF pilots use, captain* or maybe even free-captain. PCs own their ships, own entire stations and regions of space. Those who choose to align themselves to an NPC faction have done so freely and are not obligated to follow the factions they choose. We are free to align with whoever we want and there is little mechanical impact if we betray our fellows or depart from the group we join. *I tend to down play captain used for my characters, since my characters are infomorphs first, starship captains second.
Minmatar Republic space, Gallente Federation space, Khanid Kingdom space, Ammatar Mandate space, Intaki Syndicate space, etc. However, as a group, they might all be called space empires.
Capsuleer territories are an bit more cumbersome to name, but free-captain empires or free-empires might work.
-
I always thought of null-sec as the outer-rim. Much more elegant term.
-
For my part, I try (or tried) to actively use terms like 'State space' 'Federal space' etc. to denote where I were or went or needed to go or knew of folks or whatever. Whenever the need to say or mention any actual area in space came up either IC or OOC I'd be painfully sure to use the proper term.
Also ties in with terms for the different peoples around the cluster, for instance; people speak of 'Caldari' in Caldari space, 'Minmatar' for Minmatar space, and 'Amarr' for Amarr space. But also 'Gallente' for Federation space. ARRRGH. This one has been a pet-peeve of mine since... forever. IT'S Federals, damn it! At this point the Fed is the only one of the 'big 4' that don't hold to "by X for X" where X can replace Amarr/Caldari/Minmatar in both places. To state that the whole Fed is run by the Gallente is entirely wrong and miss-leading, both IC and OOC. A result of this is the re-inforced impression that the Gallente somehow 'rule' all others and helps fuel the miss-conseption that unhappiness in the Fed is wide-spread for all other member-cultures.
Anyway, in short, I prefer this; Amarrian/Amarr Imperial space, Minmatar/Matari Republic space, Caldari State space and Federal space, to completely avoid and miss-communications.
There are a few others, like I agree on 'POS'. Heck, 'Starbase' works just fine, or just 'Tower' because you can then supplement it with it's function "Research Tower", "Security Tower" "Industry tower" etc, or just remove 'base' from the first term - Research Star, Industry Star, Death Star etc. etc.
Null-sec space and the "Empires" out there (I'm cynical and think of these, IC and OOC, as a collection of wanna-be jokes with no compare to the actual Nations or the ASCN who was the closest to ever gain 'empire' status in null) are just one collective term - Null factions. There is no point referring to individual ones; they die off and get replaced to fast to get a lasting term. The fact the Curse Alliance got mentioned in a cron as a major impact on Angel space pisses me off; they vanished about as fast as they came and every null-faction is about as much of an 'impact' on the NPC factions as CA was. Basically if the impact they had was that bad, the NPC factions in null should have stopped existing years ago, making this a lore-breaker as well as a miss-nomer.
Lastly; I don't really see what's so bad about the name Brutor - am I missing something obvious or anything?
-
Lastly; I don't really see what's so bad about the name Brutor - am I missing something obvious or anything?
The definitive dark-skinned race in EVE having a name that sounds like it's related to "brute" and "brutish" is an ongoing source of WTF.
-
Two years on I see POS and still think "piece of shit" Till I actually knew what a POS was I just assumed players were just venting frustrations out in channels about blowing up people they disliked.
-
CAPSULEERS
I have cringed every time I've heard this term in the history of ever, this supposedly terrifying name of the dark demigods that roam the viscous and bloody oceans of the skies oh my god what a dorky name I bet they're in the chess club. :bash:
Even CCP didn't like it, as the first years of lore barely touched the term, instead referring to the players only as 'pilots', which apparently (and correctly) was eventually judged to not have enough Oomph. They needed something else, and 8 years in we still need that something else.
Worse still, the term does not even refer to the group it is meant for, IE player characters. There is currently no 'lore term' for a player character, especially when capsuleers serve as NPCs all over the place. Every 'empire' (argh) has hundreds of them in their employ directly and on a short leash. Every rat you fight in a mission that's flying a T2 variant? Guess what! NPC in an egg. It was one of the things in Empyrean Age that Tony got dead on. Roden sure isn't a player character either....
There needs to be a new term, something that differentiates a mere guy in an egg from the independent, monitored by CONCORD, able to form into near-sovereign recognized nations as a group type of pilots that truly taint the dreams of people like Omir, Kosakami, Sarpati, and Kuvakei.
Alternatives - The Unbound? That's the only one I've come up with so far...
Tony (augh! stop throwing things!) seems to have taken to having in-universe characters refer to us as "Empyreans" - and it does seem to refer directly to the "unbound" class of capsuleers, as I think I've even seen other egger characters use the term to refer to us.
EDIT: to answer the question:
KHANID FAMILY, KHANID KINGDOM, KHANID BLOODLINE
Someone dropped the ball royally during development of RMR, and decided to make the Khanids an asian bloodline, despite the fact that it was a splinter faction named after a True Amarr Royal House. Suddenly the Royal House had to be retconned to have taken its name from a lesser race out of... admiration? Honour?
As an Amarr roleplayer I've countless times had to explain the differences between the three Khanids, how not all Blood-Khanid live in the Kingdom, how Bloodline Khanid cannot be members of the Royal Family...
They could have simply chosen the Ealur, but noooooo...
I have no idea how to fix this shit, short of renaming one of the three.
-
Royal Khanid/Imperialist Khanid... as for the family, I've no idea. Least they could do was clarify the difference in PF and the info sources.
-
In case it helps, EM dialect prefers "towers" and "customs offices".
"Podders" is do-able. "Eggers" sounds like breakfast. "Capsuleers" are either steampunk explorers or from the Golden Age of science fiction. "Empyreans" are from a marketing or recruitment drive. The awkwardness of them all reminds me that the technology is a relatively new thing, possibly still searching for names that fit it. Our best bet would be to come up with some terms that work, and use them lots.
Distinguishing between PC and NPC pod-pilots gets tricky when you're in a PC group that's aligned (albeit independently and deniably) with one of the factions which also supposedly has podder employees.
-
Privately owned Starbase.
-
Lastly; I don't really see what's so bad about the name Brutor - am I missing something obvious or anything?
The definitive dark-skinned race in EVE having a name that sounds like it's related to "brute" and "brutish" is an ongoing source of WTF.
This. Its flat out racist really. I die a little bit inside every time I have to use the term in RP.
-
Considering how much it gets used, and how much I love it, the name of our currency irritates me.
We had to add a "K" to a word just to make a pun about Icelandic money? Really? Everyone in the universe is dumb enough to spell it "kredit" just this one time?
-
Apes. (The last is a nod to Heinlein.)
As someone whose RP includes considering anyone not suitable for the pod a lower form of humanity that are regularly referred to as "cattle" or "apes", screw Heinlein (I've really been meaning to pick up that copy of Stranger in a Strange Land sitting on my bookshelf, but keep getting sidetracked)!
Incidentally, the word "capsuleer" has always bugged me and while endlessly debating the master race with Mata IC I think we've both stumbled over possible alternatives without ever really settling on a good one. It's just awkward.
-
Considering how much it gets used, and how much I love it, the name of our currency irritates me.
We had to add a "K" to a word just to make a pun about Icelandic money? Really? Everyone in the universe is dumb enough to spell it "kredit" just this one time?
This is your inner spirit telling you to give me all your ISK Senn. Just the name upsets you.
-
Perhaps for PCs, to borrow the term I have seen SF pilots use, captain* or maybe even free-captain.
"Captain" has its uses... enough of them that I find it too ambiguous for our need here. I like "freecaptain", but it has particular connotations in the anarchist sphere: not all pilots want to be addressed as something they find as loaded as "tovarisch", and "free" is a word weighted with significance in EVE. They're both useful, but neither of them is "it".
Minmatar Republic space, Gallente Federation space, Khanid Kingdom space, Ammatar Mandate space, Intaki Syndicate space, etc. However, as a group, they might all be called space empires.
Depending on your scope, their defining characteristics might be that they're signatories to the Yulai accord, policed by CONCORD, or that we pod pilots can't have claims to their space recognised. Let's see what we can develop.
EDITED TO ADD: How about the Yulai zone, along the lines of the Schengen zone or the euro zone?
-
Quote-instead-of-edit fail from phone.
-
Apes. (The last is a nod to Heinlein.)
As someone whose RP includes considering anyone not suitable for the pod a lower form of humanity that are regularly referred to as "cattle" or "apes", screw Heinlein (I've really been meaning to pick up that copy of Stranger in a Strange Land sitting on my bookshelf, but keep getting sidetracked)!
So, you might use something a little less derogatory for another infomorph/immortal (DUST Clones) versus the baselines?
-
Considering how much it gets used, and how much I love it, the name of our currency irritates me.
We had to add a "K" to a word just to make a pun about Icelandic money? Really? Everyone in the universe is dumb enough to spell it "kredit" just this one time?
This is your inner spirit telling you to give me all your ISK Senn. Just the name upsets you.
I keep telling you, I can hate ISK's name, but she's my baby and we're in a long, tumultuous relationship now-a-days.
-
I've always just referred to highsec as 'the republic' 'the federation' 'the state' and 'the empire' its always worked well for me.
The word Gallentean I really don't have a problem with, it sounds correct to me.
The word caldarian should be buried alive in burning manure.
I think the way to change things is to come up with our own, better terms, and use them noisily, until other people adopt them.
-
I think the way to change things is to come up with our own, better terms, and use them noisily, until other people adopt them.
This.
-
"Facepalm" is one...oh...EVE lore, not RP? Right (heh)
I always thought Gallenteans was correct. It's all over the lore, not just from TonyG. Even the Gallente(an) showinfo for a Gallente character. I also like Hamish's "privately-owned starbase" for POS.
I agree empires is also a misleading term. The Caldari State and Minmatar Republic are not empires in the sense they are not expansionist or are truly multi-ethnic (multi-ethnic as in the sense of completely foreign, not native like the seven Minmatar tribes. Achura are hanger-ons and probably like 2% of the State etc.). The Federation is an "empire" though I doubt they'd want to call themselves that because of its negative connotations, though perhaps "superpower" suits, alongside the Amarr Empire.
Capsuleers I wouldn't know about, but I agree that the distinction should be made. Also, yeah, mercenaries is derpery.
-
One way to look at it is "empire space" == "CONCORD-monitored space". CONCORD may not do jack shit to capsuleers in lowsec for the most part but they do monitor the goings-on. Also, highsec+lowsec are the "baseliner/human empire", for lack of a better term. Capsuleers don't have control or sovereignty in those systems; we can only take control of nullsec - "Capsuleer space" - and only some of it at that.
Also, regarding facepalming: it may have been turned into a stupidly common/overused meme, but at its core, it is nothing more than a single word used to describe an action: putting your own hand(s) to your face in an expression of dismay/exhasperation/etc., so I really see nothing wrong with it. (tl;dr, Hipster Morlag says "I facepalmed IRL back before it was a meme.")
-
I palm other people's faces, is that passé too?
-
Considering how much it gets used, and how much I love it, the name of our currency irritates me.
We had to add a "K" to a word just to make a pun about Icelandic money? Really? Everyone in the universe is dumb enough to spell it "kredit" just this one time?
Mea culpa. I'm the guilty party. As far as I know, I was the first to start using the term "InterStellar Kredit" in my fiction, it spread from there. :P
-
There's only one term I'd ditch, if I could.
"Baseliners".
What. The fuck. :|
-
I like 'baseliners'. It's got the implications of average, ordinary, boring, thirteen to the dozen, faceless masses and so on and so forth. It's a damn near perfect word to describe the greatest majority in New Eden from the vantage point of the evolutionary elite. It dehumanizes them quite nicely, making the millions that die by capsuleer hands (or F1 keys, whatever) just mere statistics.
All this and you can say it to someone's face without being derogatory. How awesome is that?
When it comes to capsuleers, I tend to say capsuleers since there's just no real alternatives that I've come up with. Infomorphs get too clunky. Captains and Freecaptains carry implications none of my characters care for. What you'd care to call them would have to depend on your character, really. Beyond capsuleer which is nicely neutral, I don't think there are any terms that are universal enough for everyone to adopt.
"Soulless" would work for two of my characters I guess, since they believe the act of cloning "killed" them and the soul is already gone. Some characters might find that working. "NextGen" or "NGs" is something I saw and liked, implying that capsuleers are the next step in human evolution, which also implies that humanity is now actively guiding it's own evolution instead of just relying on random mutation. You can make similar terms that also implies superiority by default, for the characters that prefers that kind of status.
Hell. "Gods" for the right kind of character.
Beyond capsuleer, I don't think there are any words that can be universally applied to players.
-
There is nothing guided about the genetic flaw that creates capsuleers.
It's just regular evolution.
The fact that the flaw is actually something that is viable in New Eden at this time and age is just a very, very big coincidence.
I see the term baseliner as just another mean by the empires to control the capsuleer population by giving them the false sense of elitism.
The fact that the capsuleers are so rare, the usage of the term is so limited in any kind of media, outside of the media that is specifically targeted to the capsuleers, that in the scope of things it has no meaning to others than those that choose to use it.
If you would meet a regular person and call them a baseliner, in all likelihood they would have no idea what you are talking about.
Try it, talk to a person on the street about anything EVE and they will just smile and nod, thinking you're a nutter.
We've all done that faus pax in a social situation once or twice :D
-
Actually pick the word apart. "Base-liner."
"Base" refers to the bottom of a structure; a support, if you will. It could also refer to our more animalistic nature, and forgive me for saying so, but in that respect podders are no better than unadulterated humans, if not worse: a bunch of futureshocked monkeys with the power to destroy planets.
A "baseline" is a measurement standard for quality. Used in reference to a normal human by a capsuleer, it's a misnomer and an expression of extreme hubris. Which I suppose wouldn't be too out of place, all things considered: podders aren't known for their humility, after all.
But then you add the "-er" onto the end, and it sounds like gibberish. It sounds like a drug habit. "Yeah, dude, I'm just gonna baseline this crash." It suggests something one does willingly; and as we all know, the ability to become a capsuleer is not a choice but something an EVE citizen is born into.
As a capsuleer, the general citizenry refer to you as a "podder": you control a ship through a pod with tubes up your orifices willingly. Soldiers and people who never leave planets are commonly referred to as "ground-pounders". Non-capsuleers who live in space are referred to as "spacers" throughout science fiction; if they choose to live on a station, they could be referred to additionally as "platformers".
There are a million better terms than "baseliners" for humans who haven't fucked up their genome to live as clones. If anything, "baseliner" ought to be a derogatory term and not used casually in PF except where a capsuleer's personal viewpoint is being expressed.
-
And that's exactly what it is. A swear-word, an insult, propagated and utilized by eggers who assume themselves greater than they are. As mentioned it's nothing but a creation of the capsuleers themselves and/or those who are truly in control and has no real value or use by normal humans.
-
Sure, "baseliner" is a derogatory term. So is "egger" too by the way.
-
Sure, "baseliner" is a derogatory term. So is "egger" too by the way.
Yes it is. My use of it was intentional.
-
Caldarian. TonyG's greatest sin.
-
There's only one term I'd ditch, if I could.
"Baseliners".
What. The fuck. :|
It's a transhumanism term. Something to measure progress by.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseline_(medicine) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseline_(medicine))
As a misanthropic transhumanist, I find that incredibly depressing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJNRxetY6DY&feature=related).
-
The multiple definition of Khanid is something that has always annoyed me.
Not everyone who lives in the Khanid Kingdom is a Khanid.
Many Khanids live in the Empire and some do consider King Khanid II to be their leader, but many don't.
King Khanid II is the head of the Khanid Family and rules the Khanid Kingdom, but he is not himself from the Khanid bloodline.
CCP, WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE INTRODUCED THE UDORIAN BLOODLINE THAT WAS ALREADY IN PF INSTEAD OF INVENTING THE KHANID ONE? :bash:
-
CCP, WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE INTRODUCED THE UDORIAN BLOODLINE THAT WAS ALREADY IN PF INSTEAD OF INVENTING THE KHANID ONE? :bash:
Because they're indistinguishable from True Amarr? :s
-
The multiple definition of Khanid is something that has always annoyed me.
Not everyone who lives in the Khanid Kingdom is a Khanid.
Many Khanids live in the Empire and some do consider King Khanid II to be their leader, but many don't.
King Khanid II is the head of the Khanid Family and rules the Khanid Kingdom, but he is not himself from the Khanid bloodline.
CCP, WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE INTRODUCED THE UDORIAN BLOODLINE THAT WAS ALREADY IN PF INSTEAD OF INVENTING THE KHANID ONE? :bash:
But thats not like the Amarrian Empire, which is filled with Amarrians who follow the Amarrian religion, but arent, in fact, all True Amarr?
-
CCP, WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE INTRODUCED THE UDORIAN BLOODLINE THAT WAS ALREADY IN PF INSTEAD OF INVENTING THE KHANID ONE? :bash:
Because they're indistinguishable from True Amarr? :s
It would have been less of a strain on ther PF to say that Udorians are a little bit different after all than to magic up a new bloodline out of nowhere.
-
The multiple definition of Khanid is something that has always annoyed me.
Not everyone who lives in the Khanid Kingdom is a Khanid.
Many Khanids live in the Empire and some do consider King Khanid II to be their leader, but many don't.
King Khanid II is the head of the Khanid Family and rules the Khanid Kingdom, but he is not himself from the Khanid bloodline.
CCP, WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE INTRODUCED THE UDORIAN BLOODLINE THAT WAS ALREADY IN PF INSTEAD OF INVENTING THE KHANID ONE? :bash:
But thats not like the Amarrian Empire, which is filled with Amarrians who follow the Amarrian religion, but arent, in fact, all True Amarr?
At least the Empress' first name isn't Amarr. Or her family.
-
Introducing the Udorians as a separate bloodline would have meant that all the characters in the Tash-Murkon family would have to be re-made, which is a big problem.
It would have been better to introduce the Ealur, who were already in the PF, and just like the Achura and Jin-Mei wouldn't have had a factional or corporate presence to worry about. The whole Khanid bloodline thing is a royal mess.
On the same note: Why not Mannar?
-
People have been face-palming and asking questions like that since the blood-line patch.
Last I saw CCP's official line was something along the lines of Rule of Cool.
They could, they did, logical practical reasoning be damned.
-
Kind of ditto Krusual, which seems to have been the bloodline prepped and ready to go when the Vherokior were launched instead. (Vherokior are not significantly worse-off for background than the other tribes, by the way...)
-
CCP, WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE INTRODUCED THE UDORIAN BLOODLINE THAT WAS ALREADY IN PF INSTEAD OF INVENTING THE KHANID ONE? :bash:
Because they're indistinguishable from True Amarr? :s
/me learned how to tell Udorians and True Amarr apart at school... <.< >.>
-
/me learned how to tell Udorians and True Amarr apart at school... <.< >.>
But can she do it when they've got their clothes on?
-
/me learned how to tell Udorians and True Amarr apart at school... <.< >.>
But can she do it when they've got their clothes on?
Magic 8-ball says definitely.
-
/me learned how to tell Udorians and True Amarr apart at school... <.< >.>
But can she do it when they've got their clothes on?
Score! :lol:
-
Introducing the Udorians as a separate bloodline would have meant that all the characters in the Tash-Murkon family would have to be re-made, which is a big problem.
I don't really see that as a problem. Back in '06 when I started to play, I do seem to remember that several heirs had Ni-Kunni character models. So, uh, they had to redo the characters anyway. (I started just after Blood was released.)