Rebranding a Fan Film: United Federation of Planets

Our use of "Galactic Union" predated STO by about 20 years.

 

Galactic League Attack Destroyer (GLAD)
Human Alliance Plutonian Patrol Yacht (HAPPY)
Jupiter-Orion League Lookout Yacht (JOLLY)
Allied Craft and Robust Orbital Nuclear Yard Missile (ACRONYM)

 

Yep, suffixes and acronyms, ya gotta be careful ( Star Trek: Discovery, I'm looking at you!)

 

Well, if I'm writing I will usually call them (blank) Naval Force, or (blank) ground force, with Army and Navy being quick terms for it.

So, as an example Galactic Alliance Naval Vessel (GANV) would be GANV Poseidon. Then, if you use a number system, you can use class terms or shorthand for the prefix and then the number.

 

You can also use Federacy, as in the Interstellar Federacy, the Free Worlds Federacy, the Solar (or Terran) Federacy.
Then there is the simply Organization. The Organization of Aligned Races, for example.
Or Alignment, as in the Mutual Alignment of Planets.

 

AIP == Alliance of Independent Planets.

 

Here's my attempt at some analogues. I tried to make them sound almost real world.

Analogues to United Federation Of Planets:

Unified Commonwealth of Planets (UCP)
United Commonwealth of Planets (UCP)
Constitutional Coalition of Planets (CCP)
Interstellar Treaty Organization (ITO)
Interstellar Alliance of Egalitarian Worlds (IAEW)
Interplanetary Alliance of Egalitarian Worlds (IAEW)
League of Unified Worlds (LUW)
League of Unified Planets (LUW)

Analogues to Starfleet Command (Yes, I like the word COmmand ):

Space Exploration and Defense Administration (SEDA, or SEDA Command, SEDACOM)
Space Exploration and Defense Command (SEDC, or SEDCOM)
Corps of Space Exploration and Defense (CSED)
Interstellar Exploration and Defense Force (IEDF)
United Space Forces Command (USFC. USF COM, USF Command)
Interstellar Joint Forces Command (IJFC,IJFCOM, IJF Command)
United Central Command (UCENTCOM)

 

Union of Sentient Species and Races

 

I've already evaluated the all of the non-"of" versions of those names ("Planetary Alliance", "Planetary League"). I came to the conclusion that they break Rule #2 (Name should not be "similar or identical to a non-generic name already in use"). Not sure the "of" should make a difference.

Republic is actually a rather flexible term, but that may be it's biggest problem. It can mean things that are not technically republics at all. The USSR was a "republic". Therefore, for humans at least, there is some connotation of authoritarianism, even if the dictionary definition of the term doesn't reflect that. So, yeah, even though a "republic" would describe something like the Federation, or even something less centralized, it's probably not the best term.

Personally, I don't think most people refer to their country using more than one word most of the time. (The possible notable exception being "United States", but even then I don't hear "of America" a lot. And even the, I hear "U.S." a lot.) Any sufficiently complicated name will eventually get abbreviated in most conversations. Thus, the long-form name is less consequential than the eventual abbreviation, so you start with what you want the abbreviation to be, then expand on it in a way that makes sense for your particular universe.

For example, I have a preference term "Alliance". It can include a federated government without specifying it outright. I might then chose "Orion-Cygnus Alliance" as the full name because we're in the Orion-Cygnus arm of the galaxy, which hints that humanity has not yet explored most of the Milky Way galaxy.

 

That's just a bizarre leap of logic to me. Republic pops up all over the place. Might as well dismiss the term "Democratic" because of the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" aka North Korea.

 

I don't want to scare people off from using the term "Republic", per se. I just think it's slightly weighted towards a centralized government because it's been used by VERY centralized governments in the past. My personal view is that putting such terms in the name of your country tends to indicate insecurities regarding those terms (though it doesn't necessarily mean they're untrue).

 

I think very few people would be scared off by the term. Hell, in America we celebrate the term in song and prose.

Don't over think things

 

About incorrect and misleading names, a long-time example would be the Holy Roman Empire. As Voltaire noted, it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. It was a loose confederation of semi-independent states, something like the European Union. Its name came from trying to associate itself with the Roman Empire. So one might want to think of self-congratulatory names like that.