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Weird ship names requested.


Xavier Onassiss

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I'm working on a new campaign concept for Terracide: the PC's are going to be crewmembers on a deep-space salvage vessel. Up to this point I've used consistent themes for names of the various ship classes in Terracide, but for salvage vessels, I'm going to deliberately break this rule: it's going to be a complete hodge-podge. Most salvage vessels are going to be old wrecks which were converted from some other type for salvage duty, so their won't be any pattern to their names at all.

 

The PC's craft will be Coprolite. (It's a fossilized piece of crap.) Their company, Esoteric Logistics Incorporated, owns a couple of others, Swiss Navy Project and Occam's Cordless Electric. Their rival company, number one competitor, and general pain-in-the-butt is Salvage Etranger -- I don't have names for any of their spacecraft yet.

 

I've got a link to a list of ship names from Iain Banks' Culture series, so I've seen those already. Any other suggestions for names would be most welcome.

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Re: Weird ship names requested.

 

It seems to me that since there isn't really a naming scheme perhaps one of the best resources you could find is a list of registered ship names for private boats.

 

A list of pet names could also work, or if the tradition of ships being "female" continues then a loney spacer might start naming his fleet after old girlfriends or his exwife.

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Re: Weird ship names requested.

 

The Adam Quark

 

The Dubious Enterprise

 

The Maltese Millenium

 

The Debt Star

 

The Travesty McGee

 

The Busted Flush

 

The Goddardam

 

The Beagle

 

The Trafalgar

 

The Aspiration

 

The Post Dated Check Loan

 

The Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary likes "The Otto Palindrome"

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Re: Weird ship names requested.

 

It sounds like your ships are named by the crews, or by some random bureacrat. So, for crew names, I suggest you look up what U.S. WW2 bomber crews named thier aircraft. Some got pretty odd...

Hang the Expense VII (The aircraft commander named all his aircraft "Hang the Expense"... and went through seven.)

Bigassedbird

Just A Snappin

Rosie's Riveteers

Swoose (part swan, part goose)

Flak Bait

Miss Me

Bock's Car

Ruptured Duck

50 Mission Crush

Queen of the Sky

Dragon and his Tail

Hari Carrier

All acccompanied with 'racy' artwork.

 

American PT boat crews also named thier craft...

Slewfoot

Aces and Eights

Lucky Longshot

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Re: Weird ship names requested.

 

50/50 - read "fifty to fifty". That was the name of a Ship in game Grandia that jumped/floated over the giant granacliffs. With the words of the captain: She get's across or not, that's why she is called the 50/50". Ideal if you have any jump drives and the crew isn't so certain about if she makes it...

 

"Dante Shepherd" - I always considered naming a explorer ship after the author of this webcomic:

http://survivingtheworld.net/

Certainly gives a long history from explorer to salvage vessel...

 

How about Titanic/Britanic/Gigantic?

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Re: Weird ship names requested.

 

Guy: "Hey Galatea? How about spending the weekend with me in my new boat? I named it after you!"

 

Guy: "Hey Brianca? How about spending next weekend withme in my new boat? I named it after you!"

 

Guy's Buddy: "Okay, I just heard you call up two women with different names and get dates by saying you named your boat after them. What are you going to do, repaint the boat next week?"

 

Guy: "No. Look, that's my boat."

 

Proudly painted on its side:

AFTER YOU

 

 

Or you could use

MY GIRLFRIEND/ MY BOYFRIEND

 

 

I wonder if I should explain the references from the list I made up? Granted, Dubious Enterprise is obvious to all and Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance is funny even if you don't catch the reference, but I doubt everyone will get Travesty McGee....

 

Edit: I'd propose The Green Base Packer but that's too much of an inside joke.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary explains that Otto Palindrome is a character from Quark, a short lived TV series about an interstellar garbage scow and therefore very appropriate. Lucius adds that this may be true, but that's not why the palindromedary likes the name.

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Re: Weird ship names requested.

 

I wonder if I should explain the references from the list I made up? Granted' date=' Dubious Enterprise is obvious to all and Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance is funny even if you don't catch the reference, but I doubt everyone will get Travesty McGee....[/quote']

 

For Travis McGee, self-described "salvage consultant" and protagonist of numerous detective novels by John D. Macdonald. I notice you also included his houseboat domicile, the Busted Flush.

 

My dad was a big fan, although I've only read A Tan and Sandy Silence myself.

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Re: Weird ship names requested.

 

I'll see about those campaign write-ups. Our first meeting won't be until 10/22, actual play will begin in November. Terrible timing, with the holidays coming around right after that, but it's not like I'm gonna wait two months while someone else takes away the opening at my FLGS.

 

 

edited to add: In case anyone hasn't seen the thread in the Player Finder forum, I'm running this game in Urbana IL and there are still openings if you'd like to join in.

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Re: Weird ship names requested.

 

Suddenly, I remember a campaign based (loosely) on the "BlackHawk" comic books. We all named our planes, of course, but it started serious and quickly turned bizarre. So, we had...

Golden Falcon

Iron Eagle

Silver Hawk

Clay Pigeon

Rubber Duck

Lead Zeppelin

Blue European Swallow

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Re: Weird ship names requested.

 

Answering my own question here, with a few I've come up with and felt like sharing:

 

Smoke Test

It Was Like That When We Found It

Another Fine Mess

What Was I Thinking

Beyond Our Memes

Can We Fix It?

Final Offer

Straight On 'Til Morning

Grounds 4 Divorce

Red, Inc.

Lake Shore Drive

Non-Linear

Penalty Box

Tastes Like Chicken

User Friendly

Won't Be Home

Finders Keepers

 

And my new favorite: In God We Thrust

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Re: Weird ship names requested.

 

How could I forget - science fiction's greatest barely spaceworthy salvaged ship!

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40170[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40168[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40169[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40171[/ATTACH]

 

The Savage Chicken!

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The Millenium Palindromedary

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