rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,688Community Moderator
No... South Tacoma Way had dealerships in the 90s. My dad got a Subaru DL down there at the Subaru dealership. And I LIVE here and didn't know there was a song about Tacoma. Must be a genre I don't listen to. And it might be referencing some event in the history of the city or something. Hell... Sabaton does songs about military history so its possible.
However I do know that South Tacoma Way is more than just dealerships because it is a rather long street.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
I wouldn't say that is obscure... a lot of real-world navies used the names of ancient provinces, etcetera for ship names in the 1800-1950 period when a lot of them had more ships than they do now (and less famous people and battles to name them after).
I for example have a website bookmarked with the ship list of the Imperial Japanese Navy, with translations, and one of my characters always uses names off that list for her ships.
In real life yes, but not the STO random ship name generator which is anything but obscure. As for 'Bernicia' as with all my ship names, I run it past Memory Alpha and Beta first and then see if it exists in the real world. There was exactly one ship IRL a cargo steamer built in 1923 on the Tyne, so yes, it is EXTREMELY obscure. In all seriousness, I'm wondering if there's a geordie on the Cryptic dev team, I mean there must be. As I said even most of the people who live here are unaware of it's early Medieval name. Had you heard of it? Probably not, by the way the next random name was bleedin'n U.S.S. Asia!
I just did a search for "Bernicia ship" and came up with several hits, notably a passenger ship that delivered colonists to New Zealand in 1848 and a research vessel operated by Newcastle University from the 1970s through 2011 in addition to the one you found. I am assuming the name in the STO list came from the research vessel, probably from a list returned when someone searched for "research ships" to expand the list.
If it makes you feel any better, you are probably among a very short list of players who actually know what the name means.
No... South Tacoma Way had dealerships in the 90s. My dad got a Subaru DL down there at the Subaru dealership. And I LIVE here and didn't know there was a song about Tacoma. Must be a genre I don't listen to. And it might be referencing some event in the history of the city or something. Hell... Sabaton does songs about military history so its possible.
However I do know that South Tacoma Way is more than just dealerships because it is a rather long street.
Not sure how this is on topic, but there have been dealerships there for as long as I can remember and I just turned 50. Some of them had signage that clearly dated from the 50's and 60's - the VW dealership sign was actually pretty famous locally.
Yeah, South Tacoma Way's been (in)famous for its string of car dealerships, both major brand and Honest John's Preowned Auto Emporium-type places, at least since the 1960s. Its only competition in the area is River Road from Puyallup to Tacoma, and those have been thinning out a lot over the past couple decades (the Korum family owns most of them now).
There were a couple of buildings that were abandoned in the mid-'90s, but nothing like what happened in the Rust Belt or the Appalachians. Mostly it was businesses that just didn't compete in the "modern" market.
I assume if you lived there, enough factories closed and enough shops died from big stores moving in to write two songs about it even if it doesn't compare to elsewhere?
What we need from Star Trek is a list of rivers on Tellarus and etc, as naming after rivers seems a popular way in the canon for ship names so having a list of rivers from other federation planets would be good.
Depending on certain things, I have a feeling that the only way you'll have something remotely "unique" for a name is if you go obscure or niche. I've seen a few Wing Commander names in game, even use quite a few myself on a KDF using Kilrathi ship types for ship names. But I have YET to see another Valkyria Chronicles reference, so the USS Melchiott is pretty unique as far as I know.
But there's another factor to consider as well. The origin of a name as well as the name itself. Lets use the Lexington as an example. You could say she's named after the city, the real world navy ship, the battle of Lexington (I believe that that was Revolutionary War alongside Concord), the ship from Babylon 5 that John Sheridan served on during the Earth-Minbari War, or the ship the player flew off of for a while in Wing Commander IV. Same name, but different origins of said name.
I suppose "non-English" city names that aren't super famous could be "unique" in the sense that it's unlikely that someone else or Cryptic has thought of them before. That said if I saw USS Helsinki (which I named the ship my Andorian flew IIRC her current ship isn't named that but I used that for all the others) as random ship name my first thought wouldn't be that Cryptic stole it from me, since the name of the capital of Finland isn't exactly something that's impossible to find out (and thanks to certain Cold War era treaties it's not totally impossible that an American company would think use that name without prompting from others).
However the name of my current hometown is obscure enough that I wouldn't think it would be very likely that it would be found in random ship name lists.
One of the names that can be given randomly to ships upon getting them for the first time is USS Hilversum.
Hilversum is a small city (in international terms) here in the Netherlands. While there are a lot of broadcasting studios and other national news and media companies concentrated there, I doubt it is well known abroad and that any of the Devs knew about its existence. Unless they took the time to look closely at some maps when they created the database or whatever that those names are drawn from.
So even names of rather obscure towns have somehow ended up in the list of names used by Cryptic. Maybe some things are just better known than some people might think.
Or they just googled a bunch of random name generators for various things and copy-pasted all of them - don't forget that Cryptic is one of the biggest users of copy-paste on the planet...way more than it should be used.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
I have a book which lists the name of every single Imperial Japanese Navy warship which served in World War 2. I used it extensively. Mostly the various destroyers because there were so very many of them. Then I got tired of doing so.
I try to theme my chars and then have their ships' name fit the theme. One of my Fed chars has a Styx class dreadnought named ISS Djinn. He's Terran Empire themed. So to me having ships named after powerful evil spirits seems appropriate. On the same char, I have a Mirror Guardian named ISS Naazghuul. Over the past year, I've kinda gone with puns for names for a lot of my ships. My Jem'Hadar has the original ship Gamma Recruits were issued named, D.V. OdoWouldn'tReallyFlyThis. He also has a Ferengi Nandi warship named D.V. Past Due Notice.
On the times ingame when I run across another player's ship which has the same name as one of mine, I PM them with a compliment on their excellent choice.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
My Jem'Hadar has the original ship Gamma Recruits were issued named, D.V. OdoWouldn'tReallyFlyThis. He also has a Ferengi Nandi warship named D.V. Past Due Notice.
I have a Jem named Truly'Outrageous, flying DV Synergy.
Comments
However I do know that South Tacoma Way is more than just dealerships because it is a rather long street.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
I just did a search for "Bernicia ship" and came up with several hits, notably a passenger ship that delivered colonists to New Zealand in 1848 and a research vessel operated by Newcastle University from the 1970s through 2011 in addition to the one you found. I am assuming the name in the STO list came from the research vessel, probably from a list returned when someone searched for "research ships" to expand the list.
If it makes you feel any better, you are probably among a very short list of players who actually know what the name means.
Not sure how this is on topic, but there have been dealerships there for as long as I can remember and I just turned 50. Some of them had signage that clearly dated from the 50's and 60's - the VW dealership sign was actually pretty famous locally.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/autohistorian/6737321859/in/album-72157620831451097/
(Not my photo - I'm not THAT old.)
There were a couple of buildings that were abandoned in the mid-'90s, but nothing like what happened in the Rust Belt or the Appalachians. Mostly it was businesses that just didn't compete in the "modern" market.
What we need from Star Trek is a list of rivers on Tellarus and etc, as naming after rivers seems a popular way in the canon for ship names so having a list of rivers from other federation planets would be good.
Bring the Enterprise XCV-330 to STO
One of the names that can be given randomly to ships upon getting them for the first time is USS Hilversum.
Hilversum is a small city (in international terms) here in the Netherlands. While there are a lot of broadcasting studios and other national news and media companies concentrated there, I doubt it is well known abroad and that any of the Devs knew about its existence. Unless they took the time to look closely at some maps when they created the database or whatever that those names are drawn from.
So even names of rather obscure towns have somehow ended up in the list of names used by Cryptic. Maybe some things are just better known than some people might think.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I try to theme my chars and then have their ships' name fit the theme. One of my Fed chars has a Styx class dreadnought named ISS Djinn. He's Terran Empire themed. So to me having ships named after powerful evil spirits seems appropriate. On the same char, I have a Mirror Guardian named ISS Naazghuul. Over the past year, I've kinda gone with puns for names for a lot of my ships. My Jem'Hadar has the original ship Gamma Recruits were issued named, D.V. OdoWouldn'tReallyFlyThis. He also has a Ferengi Nandi warship named D.V. Past Due Notice.
On the times ingame when I run across another player's ship which has the same name as one of mine, I PM them with a compliment on their excellent choice.
So either the name was already more common than the OP thought, or he/she has inspired people to choose the name now.