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USS Cortez? Really?

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How about a Starfleet ship named after an ALIEN pioneer, like the first Bolian who flew faster than light, or the Andorian who was first to make first contact with another race, or the first Tellarite to circumnavigate their globe? As I stated before, the UFP's ship naming system is way too Terra-centric. No more Earth history names for ships!

Perhaps a Starfleet ship is named based on the race represented by the largest proportion in its crew. Remember the USS T'Kumbra? Its crew was all Vulcan, so naturally it got a Vulcan name...
 
names and crew complement would be tied to the shipyard. Ships built in Vulcan shipyards would get Vulcan names and crews. Crew complement would be unlikely to change due to planet specific atmospheric and temperature calibrations, so new crew would be of mostly the same species. We mostly see sol system ships and crews.
 
Star Trek, of course, plays on stations all over the world. Do the names of the various ships get their names changes when the show gets dubbed into a new language? Maybe into something that more familiar to the local viewers and their culture. Anyone ever seen (heard) something like this?
 
Never here in Finland, no. IIRC, they tried something like that in "Relics", probably out of ignorance: they had Picard saying that the bridge simulation there looked like it came from one of the old "Perustuslaki-luokka" (lit. "Constitution Class") ships. But that was an isolated incident, and for example "Excelsior class" stays "Excelsior-luokka", without clumsy attempts at translation.

Character and location names stay unchanged, too. Although they play a cute trick with "Borg" here, deliberately using it as singular rather than plural all the way. "The Borg is on its way to Earth" is a nice way to convey their collective nature, dontcha think? It's like Mother Nature came to visit whenever there's a lone storm.

Timo Saloniemi
 
The names of vessels could change with changes in command, only the registry numbers remaining constant. It's not something we do in our current military but Starfleet is NOT the U.S. (or any other) military.
 
Character and location names stay unchanged, too. Although they play a cute trick with "Borg" here, deliberately using it as singular rather than plural all the way. "The Borg is on its way to Earth" is a nice way to convey their collective nature, dontcha think?

That's what I always do when writing fanfiction. "A Borg" refers to an individual ship, not to an individual drone.

The names of vessels could change with changes in command, only the registry numbers remaining constant. It's not something we do in our current military but Starfleet is NOT the U.S. (or any other) military.

The Russian military does that, IIRC. Not with changes of commands necessarily but I think they change the names periodically with refits and changes of mission.
 
Yet the driving force usually was and is that the holders of the previous names had become politically unpalatable... There was no taboo against naming ships after living people in the Soviet navy, and some of those red stars were ascending, some were descending.

Changing of names was a relatively rare occurrence, really. What may confuse the casual observer at first is that the ships changed pennant codes when they changed missions or homeports. USN ships have changed pennant numbers at times, too, even though they are intended to identify an individual ship rather than a mission - the changes were rare things, such as when the USN couldn't immediately decide on how to number the Kidd class, surplus from a failed export sale.

Starfleet need not be the Soviet Navy nor the USN, of course. We've seen some changing registries, including the rather blatant case of USS Yamato, a few honest errors in DS9, and the hull-differs-from-interior numbers of USS Prometheus in VOY. Perhaps there actually is a Starfleet tradition on such things?

As for changing the name when the crew changes... It's pretty absurd today to think of changing "the crew" when one expects only a certain percentage of it to change, and to change basically every week. But Starfleet may do things differently, NASA fashion: training a thousand people to act as a single unit for a years-long mission, and training another thousand as a backup unit, and never mixing the two. We never really see this in practice, but one might argue it is alluded to in ST2, and through the fact of the TOS or TNG heroes sticking together so tightly.

FWIW, the dedication plaque for the Captain's Yacht of the E-E included the name of the Captain. Obviously, the plaque would have to be changed whenever there was a change of command - and the implication is that Picard named his Yacht personally, so the name would probably change as well. Certainly Sisko appeared to name his runabouts, which probably came from the factory with a pre-assigned registry and a guideline for choosing the name (apparently containing the single phrase "Pick from this list an Earth river name not yet taken."). Such practices are a bit unlikely to extend to big starships... An officer may "own" an auxiliary craft, but it's more like a starship "owns" her officers. But one never knows.

Timo Saloniemi
 
That doesn't mean that I won't acknowledge when a European is a war criminal, an imperialist, and a man guilty of genocide. Hernán Cortés was all of the above, and the fact that the Aztec Empire engaged in those same crimes against humanity does not justify committing genocide against them, either.

You see, there's just one big problem with your assessment. Cortez never engaged in a campaign of genocide. Ever. Hell, he ruled the Aztecs and even married one (in Catholic vows, of course). Hell, many of the Aztecs at the time rallied to him, since the kingpriest was rather fond of sacrificing entire castes on a whim for displeasing gods!

Was he a greedy imperialist? Sure. But it realy seems to me that there's a cadre of people with vested interest to lay all the sins of humanity on famous white people.
 
His wife wasn't Aztec. She was Tlaxcalan or Mexica, iirc. It was Aztec subjects who rallied to Cortez, also.
 
His wife wasn't Aztec. She was Tlaxcalan or Mexica, iirc. It was Aztec subjects who rallied to Cortez, also.

I thought she was an Aztec subject, though I suppose that really could mean one of several ethnic groups that the Aztecs actually WERE engaged in genocide in...

Anyway, point being, Cortez isn't as offensive in name as has been illustrated. Plus, the starship Cortez is either celebrating his achievements as an exporer or a warrior, depending on the ship.

Say, for instance, there's a USS Jefferson, it would be clear that the homage was for the man's drafting and work on the Declaration and Constitution, and decidedly NOT because he was a slave owner.
 
1st thing it a usa tv show so they named ship after people we know ! 2 do not bash you own history they men where HEROES they went where no man gone FOR REAL before! You would not be here to bad mouth them! 3 thing we name ship after great people so we will never forget them had a sense of history ok! so what you should said is "thank you" and we will never forget ps rip! thank you Cortez Coumbus i am here becase of you thank you! every ! remember and be proud of your history love dr;)
 
His wife wasn't Aztec. She was Tlaxcalan or Mexica, iirc. It was Aztec subjects who rallied to Cortez, also.

I thought she was an Aztec subject, though I suppose that really could mean one of several ethnic groups that the Aztecs actually WERE engaged in genocide in...

Anyway, point being, Cortez isn't as offensive in name as has been illustrated. Plus, the starship Cortez is either celebrating his achievements as an exporer or a warrior, depending on the ship.

Say, for instance, there's a USS Jefferson, it would be clear that the homage was for the man's drafting and work on the Declaration and Constitution, and decidedly NOT because he was a slave owner.
Except that Jefferson's role as a writer of the Declaration and Constitution can be separated from his role as a slaveowner, and he is mostly famous for the former - while Cortes' role as an explorer can't be separated from his role as a warrior or conqueror, because that was the kind of explorer he was. Spanish conquistadors didn't explore out of curiosity or to make contact with other cultures, or because they were eager to free poor oppressed Aztec subjects. They went to explore in order to control those territories so they could exploit gold, other metals and other resources that Spain wanted.

Pretty much for the same reasons that the Cardassians occupied Bajor.

1st thing it a usa tv show so they named ship after people we know ! 2 do not bash you own history they men where HEROES they went where no man gone FOR REAL before! You would not be here to bad mouth them! 3 thing we name ship after great people so we will never forget them had a sense of history ok! so what you should said is "thank you" and we will never forget ps rip! thank you Cortez Coumbus i am here becase of you thank you! every ! remember and be proud of your history love dr;)
Um, Columbus and Cortes have not gone where "no one had gone before"... They went where lots of people have gone before, and in fact, where lots of humans were already living. :rolleyes:

Besides, the fact that Starfleet are "explorers" who are supposedly peaceful and non-imperialistic should be the main reason why they should not honor people like Columbus or Cortes - unless they want to send the message that Starfleet are also that kind of "explorers" and that Federation is an imperialistic, hegemonistic, colonizing force. :shifty:

However, it would make perfect sense if Terran Empire had ships named after Columbus or Cortes...
 
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2 do not bash you own history they men where HEROES they went where no man gone FOR REAL before!

Um, no. Fail. The Europeans who arrived in the Americas after 1492 went where many, many people had gone before -- most prominently, the entire native Human populations of North and South America.

And the fact that they went where few Europeans had gone before does not change the fact that they also committed atrocities against the native inhabitants they encountered.

Say, for instance, there's a USS Jefferson, it would be clear that the homage was for the man's drafting and work on the Declaration and Constitution, and decidedly NOT because he was a slave owner.

Given as how Jefferson was responsible for the so-called Louisiana Purchase -- a purchase made from France rather than from the people who actually lived on those lands -- and that he refused to support Haiti in its battle for independence because it was the product of a successful slave rebellion, I don't necessarily know that I agree that the Federation ought to have a U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson, either.
 
And Sci once again proves my point once again. A historical white man must be perfect to be honored. We're not free to honor their achievements, even within their appropriate contexts.

And, once again, Cortez DID work to liberate the land from the Aztecs, as his Catholic mandate demanded when they discovered human sacrifices. Yes, he put Spain in charge of the area, but it was positive for the people living there. There is a balance of things, and I do not like the idea of perfect being the enemy of good.
 
Given as how Jefferson was responsible for the so-called Louisiana Purchase -- a purchase made from France rather than from the people who actually lived on those lands -- and that he refused to support Haiti in its battle for independence because it was the product of a successful slave rebellion, I don't necessarily know that I agree that the Federation ought to have a U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson, either.
I don't think the Federation would even give much shrift to a lot of Jeffersonian economic and political ideology in the first place.
 
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