[Goober5000]

The TVWP wants to know... should we present the Terran name for Vasuda, or should we leave it ambiguous?  Post your opinions below.

Some useful listings of stars

Yes, the poll has a timeout.

[Knight Templar]

leave it as Vasuda, and, why are you asking?

Sure, the Terrans may have seen it as a different star, but, they would only not know it as Vasuda if they met the Vasudans in Vasuda, which I don't think (and doubt) they did. So by the time they got translators working, they would have talked to the Vasudans, and the Vasudans would have called it Vasuda.

[Nico]

her...
Don't you think it would still be interesting to know?

anyway, the only people to know are the V people.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by Knight Templar
leave it as Vasuda, and, why are you asking?

Sure, the Terrans may have seen it as a different star, but, they would only not know it as Vasuda if they met the Vasudans in Vasuda, which I don't think (and doubt) they did. So by the time they got translators working, they would have talked to the Vasudans, and the Vasudans would have called it Vasuda.

I was thinking we'd discover the node to the star system as called by the Earth name first, and then change it later.  We'd have a command briefing somewhat like this...

Terrans are unable to articulate the throaty sounds which make up the aliens' spoken language, but our diplomats have settled on an acceptable Terran Standard approximation for the name of the aliens' home planet.  Beta Hydri IV will hereafter be known as Vasuda, and the Beta Hydri star as Vasuda Prime.  The aliens will be called Vasudans rather than Beta Hyrdrians.

This change will take effect immediately, and is universal to all GTA correspondence.

[Taristin]

I think it'd be funny to call them Beta Hydrians for a few missions... It'd throw off anyone who didn't read this.

[Goober5000]

Hehe, that's a good idea.

[mikhael]

Delta Pavonis.

Ignore the lackwits who say 'leave it as Vasuda'. Your idea for the use of a Terran stellar designation for Vasuda Prime before they know the name 'Vasuda' is an intelligent and logical one.

[Nico]

Rigel, coz it sounds cool.

[StratComm]

But honestly, is there anything in Vasudan speech that the word "Vasuda" could have originated from?  :V: did a good job of making the Vasudans inhuman, their speech literally cannot be replicated by human vocal cords.  Therefore it would follow that terrans would not call them by the pattern of sounds that they use to identify their own race as humans cannot make those sounds.  It would have to have been a word in human language that got "mapped" to the Vasudans' word for themselves once translators got working.  No telling what that word is (perhaps some religious movement on one of the colonies or something rather than a system name) but it is terran, not Vasudan, in origin.

[Solatar]

Actually, from listening to a few vasudan voice .wav's, I think that they could produce a sound similiar to the word "Vasuda". I'm sure it would sound raspy, but it was eventually terranized.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Goober5000
Beta Hydri IV will hereafter be known as Vasuda, and the Beta Hydri star as Vasuda Prime. The aliens will be called Vasudans rather than Beta Hyrdrians.

Umm. That's the wrong way round. Vasuda Prime is the planet and Vasuda the star.

Apart from that I agree that the Terrans would have another name for the system before they contacted the Vasudans.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by karajorma
Umm. That's the wrong way round. Vasuda Prime is the planet and Vasuda the star.

That's how I would rather do it, but there's the stubborn problem of the FS1 species.tbl saying that the Vasudans live on the fourth planet of the Vasuda Prime system.

Maybe I could move the Vasudans to the first planet, Vasuda I (Vasuda Prime) and hope nobody notices.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Goober5000


That's how I would rather do it, but there's the stubborn problem of the FS1 species.tbl saying that the Vasudans live on the fourth planet of the Vasuda Prime system.

Maybe I could move the Vasudans to the first planet, Vasuda I (Vasuda Prime) and hope nobody notices.

Just say that it's called prime cause it's the most important

[Flipside]

Then possibly you are looking at a Binary System, Vasuda Prime and Vasuda Minor?

Flipside

[Nico]

Originally posted by Goober5000


That's how I would rather do it, but there's the stubborn problem of the FS1 species.tbl saying that the Vasudans live on the fourth planet of the Vasuda Prime system.

Maybe I could move the Vasudans to the first planet, Vasuda I (Vasuda Prime) and hope nobody notices.

just assume they messed up in the tbl, and that's it. It does happen, particularly in FS fluff

[Ace]

Originally posted by Flipside
Then possibly you are looking at a Binary System, Vasuda Prime and Vasuda Minor?

Flipside

That is probably the case as most stars in the galaxy are binaries.

Subspace nodes also do not relate to actual distance in light years. That means that Vasuda Prime could be on the other side of the galaxy or otherwise not visible from Earth.

Also, contact with the Vasudans probably occured before discovering this system, so the name for it has probably always been Vasuda Prime.

[Taristin]

What if we were unable to pick up their vessels on scanners and managed to happily avoid eachother until you Terrans enterred our home system?

[HotSnoJ]

Let's name it Setech (sp?)!

[Nico]

Originally posted by Ace

Also, contact with the Vasudans probably occured before discovering this system, so the name for it has probably always been Vasuda Prime.

tell me how you can assume that?

[Solatar]

Originally posted by Venom


tell me how you can assume that?

There are so many Vasudan systems we have to pass through it seems we would have made contact at some point.

Although it might be a cool twist to say the the Vasudans didn't know about inter-system subspace until the Terrans got there.