What's in my hangar
22nd May 2012 – 5.43 pmThere are still a few days left before my ship-naming competition ends, and there are loads of great suggestions already. I'm thrilled that I'll have a ship with a good name! In case you think this is just a way to get some attention, let's take a look in my w-space hangar and see what my current ships are called.
| Ship class | Ship type | Ship name | Origin of name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Battlecruiser | Drake | Bunny, Moose, Otter | Hell, I don't know. There's a silly card game called Bunny Bunny Moose Moose sitting on my shelf, and I am a big fan of Otters, and I get flustered and can't think of proper ship names before I undock! I should have started with a different ship type and hidden this entry somewhere in the middle of the table. |
| Excession | Named after the Iain M. Banks novel which is perhaps my favourite of his, where the name is an expression for a rather wonderful concept. It's possible Surface Detail has surpassed Excession as my favourite, and not just because of its vivid and terrifying depiction of hell. But I appear to be getting straying from the point slightly. Euthen Arran may be on the right track here, and his flagrant flouting of my arbitrary rules isn't doing him any harm. Take note! | ||
| Oracle | Tallest Purple | Named after the Almighty Tallest Purple in the Invader Zim cartoon, voiced by the excellent Kevin McDonald. The name had to be elided because of the bizarrely short character limit, which is a little disappointing. | |
| Strategic cruiser | Tengu | MCP III | Covert scanning ship, named after the Master Control Program from TRON, a film I liked an awful lot until seeing it fresh on the big screen a month or so before the release of the sequel. I still like the concept, but it now feels too much like a series of vignettes that aren't connected as coherently as they could be. This is the third incarnation of MCP, the others having been destroyed. The previous Tengu to fill this function was called Pengu, because I'm Penny and it was a Tengu. I actually stepped up my imagination with MCP. |
| Jeeves, Wooster | Fin named our Sleeper Tengus. They are a reference to the P. G. Wodehouse characters. | ||
| Legion | Jeff Ks 3rd Prophecy | I have no idea. I found Jeff K amusing back in the day, and there is an Amarr hull called Prophecy. That's about it. This is the third incarnation of the ship, having got the others blown up stupidly, and the character limit doesn't even allow the possessive apostrophe, let alone 'third' in the name. | |
| Marauder | Golem | Perdedor | Used for engaging Sleepers outside the home system. The previous Golem was destroyed, and so I didn't expect this one to last too long, hence the name, which is a reference to Beck's song Loser. The first Golem I named Bronze, because of its colour and as a really weak reference to a Dungeons and Dragons monster. As evidence that I can't think of good names, I just couldn't bring myself to name this one Bronze II. |
| Stealth bomber | Manticore | Lorem Ipsum III | Filler text, letting me name the ship quickly and leave dock without it having the default name. The name has stuck, even after losing a couple of Manticores since first using it. |
| Heavy Interdictor | Onyx | Limited Reason | Fin thought of that name, which is probably why it doesn't sound silly. The Onyx I named was '6502 Inside', as a play on 'Intel Inside' and because I owned a C=64 as my first computer. |
| Destroyer | Cormorant | Marxian Principles | From the times before the Noctis I salvaged in the destroyer. Yeah, it's a pretentious reference to my philosophical leanings. That's what happens when I try to think. |
| Interceptor | Malediction | Sad Panda | I dunno. It's an expression, I like pandas, the ship got named. It's not the worst or laziest name I have in the hangar! |
| Recon ship | Curse | Curse of Penny | Yeah, good one. That's really imaginative. I trust I don't need to explain this one. It's still not the laziest name, though. |
| Black ops | Widow | Neko Ninja | Cloaky, dangerous, I needed a name. The Neko Ninja are cat ninjas from the comic Usagi Yojimbo, which is populated with anthropomorphic animals, and was the best I could come up with. Beyond collapsing wormholes, the Widow doesn't get out much, so the name can't embarrass me often. |
| Derelict | We stole this ship, so it has a name that I cannot take credit for. | ||
| Battleship | Navy Issue Apocalypse | Merc's Apocalpse Navy Issue | Yeah, we stole this one too. |
| Assault ship | Vengeance | Vengeance | No, really. Quite obviously my laziest name, I don't think I've used the ship since getting it. But I did actually name the ship after its class. Browsing the hangar I thought that maybe I just brought it in and had forgotten about it. Nope, I just couldn't think of a name. That also makes me wonder what happened to Beaker, the Sacrilege. I don't think I saw that in the hangar. Anyway, the heavy assault ship was named after the Muppet character, for reasons that seemed more apparent at the time. |
| ORE Industrial | Noctis | Toffee Crisp | 'Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside' is how I once referred to podding salvagers. I have no idea what chocolate bar used that slogan, and I wanted to undock, so I just picked something that sounded likely. |
| Transport | Crane | Tigress III | I think the Crane may have been my first Tech II ship, back when I was still carebearing around as an industrialist in empire space, hence the rather cuddly name. Druur Monakh may need to supply another entry to the contest. |
So there you have it. Some obscure references, lazy choices, and just plain uninspiring ship names. I really do need your help. And I'm willing to pay. Head over to the competition post and add a comment with your suggestion of what to name my Loki covert scanning strategic cruiser, and be in with a chance of winning 100 million ISK!
7 Responses to “What's in my hangar”
Dime bars were smooth on the outside, crunchy on the inside. Armadillos were smooth on the inside, crunchy on the outside, Armadillos!
Dime, the surprising alternative to Armadillos.
Sigh...childhood in the '90s was pretty awful
We have neither of those bars in Blighty. Not that I know of, at least. A bit of searching has found that I probably got the expression from Calvin and Hobbes.
Armadillos do sound crunchy on the outside and smooth on the inside, though.
We did have Dime bars in Britain, don't you remember the Harry Enfield adverts?
I don't, but I think I should.
Why not Bertie?
Great list of names and ships. WH dwellers - unlike nullsec people (hello Jester) tend to have fewer and more beloved ships. For us, the ship is more a home than a tool to use. As for naming, I tend to name mine either after military aircraft (all my Iterons are called C-130) or funny things that happen (my helios is called POS-Bait. Read my blog who that happened ;-) ). And of course, when I am solo scouting in nearby systems, I rename my ship to "pjharvey" or "-AHARM-" in the hope that it instils a few seconds of fear and paralysis into the locals allowing me to slip away...
You'd have to ask Fin, Gwydion. I suppose the name fits with how the books are known.
Thanks, Splatus. I assume naming your ship after me gives you a minute or two of opportunity as the targets Google to see who the hell pjharvey is.