Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbers?

[C.E. Evans]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

To me, planetary names in the Trek Universe are an entirely arbitrary thing. Some are named after their primary while others have official names. Even those with official names may have more than one, IMO (one spoken by its indigneous population and another by outsiders).

An obvious example would be Vulcan. Let's say that was merely the name Humans gave that planet (and it comes out that way through universal translators). On the Federation star charts, however, it may be actually 40 Eridani Alpha II. But in their native language, Vulcans themselves simply call their world "Fred"...

 

[Yeoman Randi]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

<snip>




There's a scene in the novel Andor: Paradigm by Heather Jarman where a Human and an Andorian are discussing their world's names. The Human says, "It's called Andor? I always grew up thinking it was called Andoria." The Andorian shrugs. "I grew up thinking Earth was called Terra."

THAT is a GREAT line!

Ok, so from reading everyone's answers, generally, it pretty much means the planet-in-question's placement from the sun.

Can anyone think of a Star Trek example where the term PRIME was used when talking about a planet? That would indicate the original planet and not a colonized planet? Or has Trek only used the numbering system?

 

[Yeoman Randi]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

And i have to wonder why all the different Star Trek writers (of the series and not books i mean) didnt all abide by one rule? Give each planet its own name or go with the numbering system.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

Yeah, but, again, why not just leave it untranslated if that's the case?

If the aliens call their world yarish'Latert-grash, meaning, "Home of the heroic people," then just call their world yarish'Latert-grash instead of translating it and call the inhabitants whatever they call themselves in their language.

We would have probably known about those planets and stars long before we encountered them in first contact. Therefore, the names must be from maps that could be hundreds of years old. We only make exceptions in some cases it seems, like Vulcan, Quo'nos, and Cardassia.

Yeah, that's why I like the name "Cardassia Prime". It would actually make sense for the people of Cardassia to start using that name, since we know they have other heavily colonized planets in the Cardassia system. Even though they may have named the other Cardassias something else in their language, I think the modifier makes sense in that case.

Which I just noticed, Yeoman Randi, answers your question.

(Another example would be Adigeon Prime.

Also, within the Cardassian Union, there are several examples of other worlds called "Prime," which may indicate they were the first to be settled, in that system.)

 

[captcalhoun]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

there's also 'Tellar Prime' IIRC...

ah, yes. and this page shows several more 'prime' planets:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/index.php?title=Category:Planets&from=T

 

[Rarewolf]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

Why Veridian III rather than Veridia III? The natives of that star system would be Veridians of Veridian

 

[Timo]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

The star's name probably ends with the letter "n". "Gabon" isn't the possessive form of a place named "Gabo", either... Nor "Toulon" the possessive of "Toulo". The names simply end with "n".

Even if we allow that that could be a coincidence, what about Romulus and Remus. There's no way in hell those are the local names.

We learn from ENT "Minefield" that the Romulans address themselves with a word that sounds like "Rumaleen". Or at least that is what Hoshi Sato hears them use. Perhaps she misunderstood, and "Rumaleen" means "Ugly Unidentified Vessel" while some other word in that transmission was the correct word for the Romulans' self-identity. But Sato translated most of the message correctly, it seems.

It's probably a combination, then: humans know there are people who call themselves "Rumaleen" on a planet that has a twin planet, and it doesn't take long before "Rumaleen" is twisted to "Romulan" and the planets become Romulus and Remus. A bit like the name Apache was apparently coined by perverting a Zuni word into Spanish and then adopted into other languages including French where it became a synonym for "hooligan", so that many armchair etymologists today happily believe the French twisted some native word so that it would sound like their preexisting word for hooligan... People in the Trek universe might be just as confused about the origins of the term Romulan as we are about Apache.

I'm all for the idea that Starfleet uses systematic Earth-originating names for alien stars or untranslated native star names, plus Roman numerals, for identifying alien worlds because alien planetary names translated would simply mean Earth or Dirt or Home. Sure, our heroes could go for an untranslated native planet name, but it's more systematic to go for the untranslated native star name because that's what the heroes already do with all the other star systems and planets, the ones without native names.

That works for Bajor as well, since the star's name (slightly abbreviated) is still Bajor in the novelverse or backstage universe, and could be that in the canon universe as well for all we know. Okuda did do a 'gram about the layout of the star system, with labels and all - can we be sure it didn't end up on screen?

Sure, the natives apparently do use the word Bajor for their planet as well as for their star - and for other purposes, such as naming the one disapora group in "Ensign Ro" the "Bajora". But that's just icing on the cake, as far as our neo-imperialistic heroes are considered: the untranslated name of the star is what they go by, generally, and they don't care if the untranslated name is a proper name or an expression meaning "The Star" or a word meaning "That Glowing Thing" or whatnot.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Triskelion]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

Federation Standard ("in plain English, Doctor," said Picard), is the language of most planetary names. Some named before visiting (Alpha Centauri), some named after getting to know the people (Q'onos). It's not imperialistic referring to them by Fed names - after all, the Fed isn't forcing the planets to change their names. It is just another language.

Perhaps they wanted to avoid the "Tom Brokaw Dialect Fit":

"Rebels have seized power in NEECALLLAGWA!! and took all the ice cream boats."

I was wondering what they designate for moons, if anything.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

Maybe moons would be a letter?

Like if its orbiting Gamma Reticulae II it'd be Gamma Reticulae IIB?

I dunoo, I think moons mainly have names, if I remember correctly.

 

[Timo]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

Also, a couple of those Alphas and Betas probably refer to a specific member of a binary or a ternary, rather than to the position of the star in a constellation. Say, we might have Alpha Ceti, which is the brightest star in the Cetus constellation, but also (Mu) Ceti A or (Mu) Ceti Alpha, which is the brighter of the two stars in the Mu Ceti binary, the dimmer then being Mu Ceti B or Mu Ceti Bravo. That's how it goes in current terminology, too, except that the A in Mu Ceti A wouldn't be spelled out. But the official spelling out of A is "alpha" in late 20th and early 21st century phonetic alphabet...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Myasishchev]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

It's what we do in real life too.

Like Earth, it could be called Sun 3 because it's the third planet from the sun. I like Sun 3 better than Earth, I think I will start calling it that.

I prefer Huma, home of the Humans.

There's a scene in the novel Andor: Paradigm by Heather Jarman where a Human and an Andorian are discussing their world's names. The Human says, "It's called Andor? I always grew up thinking it was called Andoria." The Andorian shrugs. "I grew up thinking Earth was called Terra."

I didn't really like that bit. If an Andorian can co-opt a Latin word, what's the harm in using the English one? Terra isn't even ethnocentric, it's just anachronistic and weird.

Now if he'd called it "Galosha III," then it'd make sense. Although I interpret that scene more as explaining away the completely irrelevant discrepancy between calling the Andorians' home planet Andor/Andoria/Ondorya

Of course, the discrepancy that I noticed most immediately was the one between the DS9R Andor/whatever and Enterprise's. "The Archipelago"? Really? 1)On a gas-giant's moon 2)on a gas-giant's frozen moon?

 

[Sci]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

It's what we do in real life too.

Like Earth, it could be called Sun 3 because it's the third planet from the sun. I like Sun 3 better than Earth, I think I will start calling it that.

I prefer Huma, home of the Humans.

There's a scene in the novel Andor: Paradigm by Heather Jarman where a Human and an Andorian are discussing their world's names. The Human says, "It's called Andor? I always grew up thinking it was called Andoria." The Andorian shrugs. "I grew up thinking Earth was called Terra."

I didn't really like that bit. If an Andorian can co-opt a Latin word, what's the harm in using the English one? Terra isn't even ethnocentric, it's just anachronistic and weird.

Now if he'd called it "Galosha III," then it'd make sense. Although I interpret that scene more as explaining away the completely irrelevant discrepancy between calling the Andorians' home planet Andor/Andoria/Ondorya

Of course, the discrepancy that I noticed most immediately was the one between the DS9R Andor/whatever and Enterprise's. "The Archipelago"? Really? 1)On a gas-giant's moon 2)on a gas-giant's frozen moon?

Andor: Paradigm was written and published long before ENT's Andor episode. But I don't know if we can definitively say that the Andor seen in ENT was actually a uniformly cold world; all we saw were its arctic wastelands, after all.

For whatever it's worth, though, the novel The Chimes At Midnight establishes that the Andorians were undertaking a terraforming effort in the mid-23rd Century to, well, promote global warming. Though The Chimes At Midnight is a Myriad Universes novel set in an alternate timeline where Spock died in childhood.

 

[Timo]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

In "Aenar", Shran identifies the Aenar grounds as the "Northern Wastes", suggesting they are less hospitable than the planet in general. Yet in a following scene, he waxes poetic about how living in an Aenar-like environment is good for the body and soul, and how he himself grew up not seeing the sun till he was fifteen. This suggests his home wasn't all that different from the Northern Wastes - yet it doesn't establish that all of Andor would be as bad. For all we know, Shran prides himself for being one of the very few ordinary Andorians who can tolerate the polar climes of their world, while the majority of the population lives in the lusher middle latitudes.

Personally, I prefer to think that Andor is the planet while Andoria is the empire. The same would go for Vulcan and Vulcania, or Talax and Talaxia...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[NIUPonyBoy]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

I've always wondered this: Why, in the Star Trek universe are so many of the planets, in all of the different galaxies named with numbers attached to them?

For a quick example: Janus VI, Gamma Trianguli VI, Tagus III, Exo III, Antos IV and so on. What do the numbers signify?

Was it where that planet was in that solar system? Or was it a colony thta had gone to another planet, but originated on THE planet Tagus (for example)?

Just another one of those little things that i've always wondered about. Anyone know? Thanks~!

The general rule is that planets with numbers in their names are the first, second, third, or whatever, planet from their star, which is generally just called the name without a number.

So in the Trekverse, it would be accurate to call Earth "Sol III," Mars "Sol IV," Jupiter "Sol V," etc.

What I've never understood is why planets that have native inhabitants are called "[Name] III" or whatever rather than calling that planet by the name given to it by its native inhabitants. Like, Peliar Zel II and Bre'el IV. They're apparently both Federation Member worlds, but instead of calling them Peliar Zel and Bre'el, the native names, they insist on putting the "III" after their names.

The numbering system makes sense for worlds that are colonized and have no native inhabitants, but I for one find it weird -- and if I lived in the Federation, would find it offensive and disrespectful to native cultures -- to use it on worlds with native inhabitants.

Also they call planets with numbers in a system if there are several planets with native people on them.

 

[Myasishchev]

Re: Why in the Star Trek universe are so many planets named with numbe

Andor: Paradigm was written and published long before ENT's Andor episode. But I don't know if we can definitively say that the Andor seen in ENT was actually a uniformly cold world; all we saw were its arctic wastelands, after all.

For whatever it's worth, though, the novel The Chimes At Midnight establishes that the Andorians were undertaking a terraforming effort in the mid-23rd Century to, well, promote global warming. Though The Chimes At Midnight is a Myriad Universes novel set in an alternate timeline where Spock died in childhood.

Now, I don't blame Jarman for the discrepancy there. Okay, I blame her some--or, if not her, whoever solidified the concept of Andor in DS9R--as she or they chose to abandon the traditional fanon depictions of Andor. That's very little blame, of course, as no writer should ever be beholden to the irrational whims of the likes of us.

Nevertheless, Enterprise did choose to draw on it, and if one goes by ENT, it's a bit of problem. Nothing insurmountable--I understand it's been surmounted nicely enough.

Still, it was a little jarring in Paradigm when I was reading about some islands somewhere, and realized that this was, as they say, no moon.

It's not the freezing--someone with more knowledge of astronomy than I could better explain the climate and seasons of a Galilean satellite, although I expect the revolutions around the primary to be a very much greater influence on temperature and weather than the axial tilt that is the biggest cause of seasons on Earth.

Nope, it's gravity. Tides on any Galilean satellite would be grotesqueries of those we experience. Tides on Io rip the planet half the shreds, tides on Europa crack open a shell of ice up to two miles thick--tides on a temperate, Earthlike moon should be putting tsunamis on the beaches daily. I doubt anyone on Andor lives on any archipelago, or within a few miles of any shore. I doubt they could have colonized any other continents on their moon prior to the invention of lighter-than air vessels--I'm not sure they could have even finished building a boat.

Now of course if Andor is pretty much ice-head-to-toe, I guess tides would become less of a concern, but I doubt they could be totally dismissed for navigation. Alternatively, Andor's primary might be a smallish gas giant, with the less severe tidal forces that would entail.

Some more general, rambling thoughts:

It occurs to me that a sufficient concentration of sunlight should be be able to reach Andor, because we do know there is photosynthetic life using water as an electron donor to replish the planetary oxygen. O2 doesn't stay molecular oxygen for long, and needs to be replished through a biological cycle. However, despite the lack of green life on the parts of Andor we've seen on the screen, there's still enough oxygen to support a human as well as an arbitrarily high number of aerobic Andorians. (Now, there are strong suggestions there isn't as much plant life, or as much oxygen, as there is on Earth. I would figure the blue respiratory pigment, presumably copper-based hemocyanin, of the dominant animal form on Andor and its relatives is life adapating to a thinner oxygen content than Earth-normal, though, like animal life did on Vulcan.)