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.
First remember that we are supposed to be hearing the translation from their native language.
Yeah, but why not just leave the native name untranslated? Sure, real languages tend to create names for other countries -- "Spain" instead of "España," "Inglaterra" instead of "England" -- but that's a function of those languages having long histories of alienation from one-another. Surely the enlightened Federation would think it better to refer to alien planets and cultures by the names
they prefer instead of making one up for them?
Aside from that though, I've noticed that in some cases the star is named after the inhabited world within the system.
For instance...we've never been told what the name of the star is in the Bajoran system. In fact it has only ever been referenced as "the Bajoran sun."
Canonically, that's true, but the DS9 Relaunch novels,
Star Trek: Star Charts, and
The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manuel all establish that the Bajoran star is named Bajor-B'hava'el.
And I don't think that the fact that the Bajoran star is referred to by name in the canon is strong evidence it lacks a name. How often do you hear people in casual conversation call our star by
its name, "Sol?"
To me that indicates that the star does not have a name in the local language. That's perfectly reasonable given that our sun does not have a proper name either.
The International Astronomical Union may not have given it an official, IAU-approved name, but it has proper names in each Human language; to say that it does not is kind of absurd. In English, the proper name for it is "the Sun," and in many Romance languages, "Sol" is is name.
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.
Perhaps the other races call their planets Earth in their native language as well.
That's entirely possible, but in that event, that still begs the question: Why not just leave the native name untranslated?
If the word
bre'el means
earth in their language, and that is what they call their planet, then why not just call their world
Bre'el instead of calling it
Bre'el IV?
As for Earth's place 'in the Trekverse' Worf also called sector 001 - the Terran system, in the Best Of Both Worlds.
"Terran" is just the adjective form of "Terra," the Latin name for Earth, so calling it the "Terran system" is like calling it the "Earth system."
"Sector 001," like all sectors, is obviously an artificial division of space, since it's not like real space has magical invisible lines dividing it into cubes the way the sector system divides the galaxy into cubes of space.
Probably because too many planets are named homeland of the great heroic people in the native lingo.
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.
