Tellarite names?

Just a quick question -- I'm working on a story and planning to include a Tellarite as my XO, and I rather like the naming patterns used in the novels, but I'm stuck on one point -- I have no idea what the uncapitalized middle word means. "Chim", "glasch", "jav" and "bim" -- at first I thought these were gender markers, but then I realized that all the characters I'd seen were male.

What do these elements signify? Is this explained in any of the novels in detail?

Thanks!

 

Well, speaking as the one who invented that Tellarite naming pattern... I have no idea. I just figured it sounded cool. But I saw it as analogous to something like "von" in German names (though that just means "of," like the da in da Vinci). Possibly "Mor glasch Tev" could mean "Mor of the clan Tev" or something like that.

But other authors started coming up with other particles like "chim" and the others, and I don't know if they had any specific intention about their meaning. I suppose it's possible that they could have the same meaning in different regional languages, like "von," "da," "del," and "O'" in various human languages.

 

Well, that certainly makes it easier. I may elaborate an explanation of my own, then.

[Edited for TOS compliance]

Thanks!

 

No idea. If it's fanfic, though, you probably shouldn't discuss your ideas in detail on this board.

Personally, I like the idea that they're the same term in different languages. I get so sick of the ST convention of requiring the entire population of an alien planet to have only one language, culture, and naming pattern. Earth has thousands.

 

But in the future, won't everyone do everything the correct, American way?

Thanks for reminding me about not discussing story ideas on the board. I haven't posted here in forever. The previous post has been edited.

I understand your frustration, though. More variety and diversity within alien species would certainly be a positive step for Trek to take, in fiction or otherwise. DS9 seemed to flirt with this with the Bajorans, but never dug into it in a satsifactory way. Ditto Enterprise and the evil Vulcans.

 

i just call them all stuff like Mor, Grig, Guv and stuff.

can get confusing with Klingons tho...

have we EVER met a Tellarite female?

 

Would we want to?

 

We met a female Tellarite early in Prime Directive by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens.

Personally, I'm quite fond of the idea that female Tellarites are visual indistinguishable from male Tellarites, and that they sound the same, too, smelling different only to each other. I like to play with gender roles sometimes.

 

You were talking about different races here are sme black trill

 

Actually they do seem to be doing more of that kind of stuff in the books lately. For example in theA Time to Kill/Heal there are at least two different groups on Tezwa, and from what I've read in the descriptions, it sounds like they actually have multiple countries on the planet from the Mere Anarchy ebooks.

 

^ Similar variegation in an alien culture can be seen in my SCE novella Failsafe, now available in dead-tree version as part of Corps of Engineers: Grand Designs.

 

*is ashamed to admit he forgot that. and in his favourite trek book, too*

 

And, for that matter, in the Nalori Republic in the two-part Invincible, coauthored by Mr. Mack and self, which is in dead-tree form in Miracle Workers.

 

^ True, although that was more of a polyglot society of several alien cultures in a political union, much like the Federation itself, as opposed to the Tenebians of Failsafe, who were one species split along ethnic lines. I wonder if the Xindi might be a better example of what we're talking about here....

 

^^The Xindi were a nice try at cultural diversity within a single society, but they fell short because the different cultures were defined as wholly separate species, so it was ultimately just the same kind of racial essentialism. What was better was something like the V'tosh katur in "Fusion," a subculture of Vulcans that disagreed with the mainstream culture. Or "Judgment"'s revelation that Klingons have other castes besides the warrior caste that dominates the society.

 

So why are SCE stories published in CoE books? That seems a bit silly to me.

 

The COE books are still part of the SCE series, they just decided to change the name and get rid of the numbering. I'm sure KRAD will be along soon with more of an explanation soon, since he's the series editor.

 

The reason behind the name change was to make it more obvious to the larger readership (in other words, the people who don't come to online bulletin boards where the editors and authors post ) what the stories are about. One of the problems with "Star Trek: S.C.E." as a title is that it isn't obvious from that acronym what the series was about.

Changing the series title of the eBook line without a concomitant change in the series title of the dead tree editions would have defeated the entire purpose of changing the title in the first place.

 

My problem is that I am so used to SCE that I keep forgetting what the new title is. I think "Starfleet Corps of Engineers" is perfectly fine. It would have been better to keep the title that way.

 

I would have left the title as it was.