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That's the problem, why is it US centric? At this point Earth is a united planet, why would they be sticking to only US spacecraft names?

Sonic Glitch wrote:Hey now, as it is a US author and US-Centric I won't blame them too much for going through the list of US Shuttles first -- it does seem to make sense based on the naming convention established in the show (NX-01 Enterprise, NX-02 Columbia). Foreign names could probably start with NX-08 (hopefully).

Or even the NX-07 Buran.

Aye, the thought had certainly crossed my mind.

Sonic Glitch wrote:Hey now, as it is a US author and US-Centric I won't blame them too much for going through the list of US Shuttles first

Why are either of those excuses?

If the author is writing about a united Earth organisation, then he should be smart enough to realise "Hey, the US isn't the only country that names ships" and thus toss in a couple of foreign names (given that I threw out four off the top of my head and could name even more, it's not as though it would take hours of research).

Similarly, that it's US-centric is hardly an excuse. In fact it's the problem.

Sonic Glitch wrote:it does seem to make sense based on the naming convention established in the show (NX-01 Enterprise, NX-02 Columbia).

That's a grand total of two names. Hardly enough to indicate that the ships were being named according to some sort of order (it wouldn't even make much sense in-universe either). Particularly when you take into account that we've seen other Earth ships that have different names.

Sonic Glitch wrote:Foreign names could probably start with NX-08 (hopefully).

Why? Is there some sort of descending list of names, based on nationality?

Sionnach Glic wrote:Aye, the thought had certainly crossed my mind.

Sonic Glitch wrote:Hey now, as it is a US author and US-Centric I won't blame them too much for going through the list of US Shuttles first

Why are either of those excuses?

If the author is writing about a united Earth organisation, then he should be smart enough to realise "Hey, the US isn't the only country that names ships" and thus toss in a couple of foreign names (given that I threw out four off the top of my head and could name even more, it's not as though it would take hours of research).

Similarly, that it's US-centric is hardly an excuse. In fact it's the problem.

Well as neither of us are show-runners or editors at Pocketbooks and I am much too tired/irritable to deal with this type of discussion right now the best I'll give you is: It is what it is, shut and deal like we've had to for years.

Sonic Glitch wrote:it does seem to make sense based on the naming convention established in the show (NX-01 Enterprise, NX-02 Columbia).

That's a grand total of two names. Hardly enough to indicate that the ships were being named according to some sort of order (it wouldn't even make much sense in-universe either). Particularly when you take into account that we've seen other Earth ships that have different names.

Maybe you didn't think of it this way, but to me it certainly made it seem like the show-runners were basing it off the space shuttle nomenclature. And perhaps the Earth Starfleet decided to save honoring the massive leap forward that was the shuttle for the ship that was to be their massive leap forward (the NX class, not the intrepid or whatever the other ship was)

Sonic Glitch wrote:Foreign names could probably start with NX-08 (hopefully).

Why? Is there some sort of descending list of names, based on nationality?

Because if you read the spoiler, NX-03 through 06 are already taken. -- my apologies I thought the last ship was the NX-07 but since it isn't, the ships 07=< (greater than or equal to) are now open to non-US Shuttle names.

Put it this way, I'm obviously a relatively strong Britishman, and somewhat UK-centric. Yet do i name all the ships in Ariel after british things?

Ummm... don't you?

Anyway, the answer for the America-centric naming conventions is simple; lazy/incompetent authorship. It's not a question of deliberately wanting to slight the rest of the world - it's a question of not bothering to think about it being set on a united planet, a/o not finding out that there is a world outside of the USA.

Well, the NX class doesn't overwhelm me with its wonderful survivability. Seems Starfleet was still using the "all eggs in one basket" theory.

By the way, for all WE know, the precursers to the NX class (ie Neptune class) could have taken all the non US names. Doubtful, I agree. But possible.

By the way, WHO comes up with a class name? I've wondered that for a long, long, time.

Graham does.

Oh yeah, I forgot

Mikey wrote:Ummm... don't you?

Anyway, the answer for the America-centric naming conventions is simple; lazy/incompetent authorship. It's not a question of deliberately wanting to slight the rest of the world - it's a question of not bothering to think about it being set on a united planet, a/o not finding out that there is a world outside of the USA.

I'll admit that I've given a fair number more UK centric names, but others i've used Russian sounding names.


On the new point of ships being destroyed, I'm hardly surprised. They never seemed particularly impressive survivability wise. They have been completely wiped by vulcans, Romulans, Mazarites, Andorians on one occasion (I think, i'm not sure however), the Xindi in various guises. They have never really been that amazingly survivable.

Mikey wrote:Ummm... don't you?

Anyway, the answer for the America-centric naming conventions is simple; lazy/incompetent authorship. It's not a question of deliberately wanting to slight the rest of the world - it's a question of not bothering to think about it being set on a united planet, a/o not finding out that there is a world outside of the USA.

In this case, the author is just using what was "intended" by B&B (I use quotes because it would be as he saw what they intended, AFAIK, they never said anything about it). So it wasn't so much lazy as afraid to stick it too them.

Intended nothing. The fact that the first two NX-class ships had the same names and numbers as the first two shuttles was pure coincidence, brought about by the combination of Starfleet's most famous ship and a homage to Columbia after her loss.

As for non-US ship names, given that Starfleet seems very fond of an obsolete WW2 RN cruiser, it isn't that US-centric.

Well, Enterprise was originally used on a British man-o-war with the only difference being a 'z' not an 's' in the name.

HMS Enterprize is actually the second vessel to bear the name, HMS Enterprise was the first, a renamed French six-rate the L'Entreprise.