The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Just a few neat things I'd like to point out about UQM.

Unzervalt- Change the spelling and add a space, get 'Unser Welt'. Sounds the same, right? Interestingly enough, that means 'Our World' in German. Coincidence?

Pkunk- Taken from a Spathi captain, Pkunky.

Orz- Taken from a VUX captain of the same name.

Androsynth names- ME-262 was the first jet fighter known to man. AK-47, popular assault rifle, etc. (I like 1040-EZ. Us Ami's know how corny that is.)

Arilou names- Patooti = archaic childs word for "butt". Go figure.

Druuge names- Kaapo, remove an a, makes Kapo, a person that ran a Nazi Concentration camp. :o Duulard, heh, obvious, Faazur = Father, etc.

Earthling names- Pointless to explain most (Kirk? Who's Captain Kirk? ::))

Ilwrath names- Gorgon was what Medusa was... uh... the rest are mainly plays on their Deific Duo's names.

Pkunk names- Wudstok. Either named after the cute bird in the Peanuts comic, or after the drug/music fest of the late 60's. It's the Pkunk, I'd guess the latter of the two...

Shofixti names (fun time!)- Wasabe is a type of radish used in hot sauces in Japan. Kudzu is a type of Japanese Arrowroot used in clothing. Bonsai! is a common cry of exuberance, etc. Ginsu means 'knife'. Katana was the sword that a Samurai wielded primiarily. 'Tora! Tora! Tora!' was what kamikaze pilots shouted before going boom (it means 'tiger').  Ichiban means 'the best'. Daikon is a Japanese white radish. Busu is similar to "bitch" in English  :P. NaniNani means "what's wrong?" (as if they dont know, big freakin' BOMB flying at them. Sarcastic little furballs.) Tanaka means "lucky". ChimChim is that annoying little monkey from Speed Racer. Ugh.

Spathi names- Jinkeze is a statement made quite often by Thelma on Scooby-Doo.

Syreen names- Ripley is the alluring heroine from the Aliens series. Sparta was a country adjacent to ancient Greece. Munro is refering to Marilyn Monroe, I would guess. Maya is probably the Mayans, who had to sacrifice virgin girls to their gods. (A virgin Syreen? Isn't that like a contridiction in terms?)

Umgah names- Ei'Ei'O. Duh. Kwik'Ow either relates to the Umgah's reverse propultion getting them close, or them getting their pupae handed to them. :P

ZFP names- NikNak is a small trinket.

When I find more interesting stuff, Ill post here again. Hope this is even slightly interesting/entertaining.

There was already a thread here a while ago very similar to this. You missed a few fairly obvious ones, though, like RinTin, TikTak, and TikTok for the ZFP, YUK and ZIT for the Vux, HAL-2001 and DOS-1.0,  for the 'Synths,  Loleelu and Oowbabe for the Arilou, Hmmmhmm, Zzzzzzz, Tzaprak, and Brrzap for the Chenjesu, Moola and Siinur for the Druuge, Endo for the Utwig, and a few others I probably missed.

For the Unzervalt one, that was actually the in-game reason why the named it such. Apparently there were a number of people of Germanic descent or something.

Unservalt IS "our world" in the language spoken by the settlers (Dutch? Danish?). It's part of the story.

Yup... 'Unzervalt' is "our world" in Dutch.  Not surprising, considering how close Dutch and German are.

Considering that German for 'German' is 'Deutsch'... yeah, it's pretty freaking close. What do the Dutch call their language?

I thought bonsai were trees, and the battle cry was 'banzai'.

I always thought it was 'phaser' not 'father'.

I never claimed to know dutch - I just remembered that there was A language around there that had it.

In German, "Our world" would be "Unserweld" which is quite close, but not the same.


As for Faazur...  Phaser works well. I don't see what's so special about "Father". The gun imagery works a lot better, considering the ship...

Bah. Antaran please remeber that not all of us are well informed about all the damnable feminine and masculine forms of words you have in your language. Unser means our, Welt means world. That you have to change the words a bit to combine them is beside the points, you're still working with the same word.

(Note in case GM turns up and tramples me into the ground, damnable as in complicated not as in "an evil language").

oops, that was a typo. I meant 't', but I typed 'd'
I should have caught that one -- after all, I remember my Goethe
"... der ganzen Welt!"
(by way of Beethoven)

Warum soll sie der ganzen Welt 'unser Wald' nannten?
(In case I screwed that up, and for those who don't know German, I meant to say,)
Why should they name the whole planet 'our forest'?

What is your native language, Lukipela?

Incidentally, I don't have any 'lange's ;)

I believe the origin of the Syreen (from Star Control 1), conceptually, may be tied to the classic science fiction book written by Anne McCaffrey called "The Ship Who Sang" (c. 1969).  The resemblance between the Syreen Penetrator and the brainship design on the original book cover is too uncanny to be a coincidence.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/books/n1/n9903.htm?seriesid=2232

Icemage

My mother tongue is swedish, and I'm close to fluent in the second language of my country, which is finnish. I have read german for 5 or so years, but that was a while back, so it's kinda rusty by now. Lange's? I'm sure I don't know what you mean ;)

Wow....Mistress Pern = Syreen Penetrator....

Uh, me too. All of it. Is that a coincidence or what? Värst vad världen är liten. ;)

Zdrastuyche!
My grilfriend is Russian -- currently back in Moskva to pick up her masters degree.

Her name is Ekaterina; she is finishing her masters at Moscow Medical University. Working on a visa to get back over here.

I'm from the US, living in Philadelphia; originally from New Jersey.

From where in Russia are you?

Verkligt liten... So you a fenoswede, or a swedish finn? And from around where? South or north?

Finlandssvensk (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandssvensk), Helsinki metropolitan area. Let me guess, you're studying at Åbo Akademi (http://www.abo.fi/)?

Maybe we should start a separate thread about where UQM fans are from. Any volunteers for collecting statistics? I suspect Finland is going to have a disproportionate share...

Very good, and correct you are. Impressive guess, or was it? Means we're even quite close to eachother... Hmm, maybe we should start a new thread, I never put nationality into the other introductions thread, but maybe I ought have.

Actually, your AIM user name is a dead giveaway; Google only finds one single hit on it (which tells me that you're from Hanko/Hangö, which is not too far from our cottage in Siuntio/Sjundeå).

Besides, you said that you're studying for an M.Sc. (Tech) in process engineering, which narrows the area down to the technical universities and ÅA. Most Finland-Swedes studying this are either at HUT (http://www.hut.fi/) or ÅA (http://www.abo.fi/), which supports my guess based on user name.

Any further discussion on this subject should go in a separate thread or privately, as I suspect we've thoroughly derailed this thread now. ;D

hmm.. Thanks for pointing that out, I never thought bout it. I haven't used the AIM adress in ages, I suppose I'll need to change that to protect my secre t identity :) Oh, it's too late? Darn.

EDIT: it's kinda ironic, cuz I digged up my old AIM adress rather than to put out my ICQ adress with my full name in it, for the sake of privacy. And then there's only one hit on my screen name, givin me away straight away.. The irony is killing me :)

Uncanny? It's just the classic missile shape. Compare it to the V-2 (under developement by the Nazis in WW2) [LINK]http://www.wsmr-history.org/Photos/ParkPhotos/v2.jpg[/LINK].
As for use in popular culture, how about Tintin? For example: [LINK]http://www.xasa.com/postales/comic/tintin/luna1.jpg[/LINK]. This one is from about 1950.
The thing that differentiates the Syreen ship with these (and which makes it original, despite the above), are the ribs.

I know... I am worried. On the other hand, two returning students just like her are already in the states and will start herre tomorrow. We are, so far, on a 100% acceptance rate (though there have been delays).

On the other hand, a concert recently was cancelled because the musicians (from ENGLAND) were denied visas. So it's not just you guys in Russkye.

Hate to be the one to break it to all you kiddes ( ;D ) but the syreen ship is not built to resemble a missile, or any of your other suggestions, although the race idea most certainly comes from Ms. McCaffrey's book.  Rather, it is constructed to resemble most closely.. well.. a dildo.

Think about it, but not too hard, and take a look at a screenshot of the ship.  It's called the Penetrator.  The Syreen have no men.  Hmm..

Not only that, but it's ribbed for her pleasure :D

Now obviously, I am not saying that they have sex with their spaceships, but I think it's a snide little joke.

... we know. At one point I referred to the Guardian as the 'second most ribbed-for-her-pleasure ship in the game'. I do not recall any confusion as to what was meant.
;)

True, but the "ship who sang" comparisons are certainly valid.  For instance the the specs on the ship call the ribs "psionic amplification ribs" or somesuch, implying that they're use to somehow amplify the "Syreen song".

Hey, leave my Androsynth Guardian out of your disgusting sexual fantasies! :P

As for you, EnjoyTheSauce, I meant to leave out the obvious ones, as I figured people would be smart enough to catch them. Such a critic. Honestly, if you don't like it, make your own.  >:(

It's late. I'm cranky. I think I'll go now.

No totta helvetissä.