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News: Celebrating 30 years of Star Control 2 - The Ur-Quan Masters

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Author Topic: Star Constellations  (Read 2803 times)
mohammad2011
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Star Constellations
« on: August 23, 2012, 06:47:23 pm »

Hi everyone.

Do you know about all of the constellations in SC2? Why did they use in genitive name of constellations of SC2? I know constellation Librae is Libra, Beta Orionis (Umgah homeworld) is located in constellation Orionis aka Orion, and I don't know other...
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TarrasQ
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Re: Star Constellations
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2012, 10:57:52 pm »

Star Control II manual says something like "the races standardized the stellar map to use human names of constellations but in random order".
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storyyeller
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Re: Star Constellations
« Reply #2 on: September 05, 2012, 02:53:27 am »

Well they obviously couldn't use the constellation names for the actual stars they represent because stars that happen to look closer together from Earth have no relation in space.
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Stardrake
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Re: Star Constellations
« Reply #3 on: September 05, 2012, 04:11:57 am »

Plus, IIRC, the arrangement of stars in realspace does not necessarily match their alignment in hyperspace. (Obviously there's SOME correlation, since Sirius is still close to Sol, but it's not 1:1).

Regarding the constellation names, I think that's just the system that Star Control uses. Other races simply use it when talking to humans because it's convenient (that, or the translation computer automatically converts it, except in the case of the Spathi "Bugsquirt" example). Certainly, with humans being relative newcomers in the sector of space, it's unlikely that significantly older spacefaring races are going to adopt Terran nomenclature.
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onpon4
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Re: Star Constellations
« Reply #4 on: September 05, 2012, 02:34:42 pm »

Yeah, the names based on constellations are just Star Control/Earth's designations. The manual explains that, though it is a bit confusing with names being pulled from other stars in TrueSpace, it was considered better than the alternative of naming the stars after famous people (or perhaps it was naming them after presidents or rulers, I'm not sure).

It seems to me like it's the aliens using the human naming system on purpose, not only because of the Spathi's "bugsquirt" star system, but also because of the ZFP's "no, you idiot, in THEIR coordinate system!" and the Slylandro's "drahn".
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PRH
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Re: Star Constellations
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2012, 04:27:39 pm »

Quote
Why did they use in genitive name of constellations of SC2? I know constellation Librae is Libra, Beta Orionis (Umgah homeworld) is located in constellation Orionis aka Orion, and I don't know other...

When you say "Beta Librae", the use of the genitive form is correct, because you basically say "Beta of the constellation Libra". As for why this form is also used when referring to the entire constellation, my guess is that it was done to simplify things for players, who may not know the nominative forms corresponding to the genitive ones.
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CelticMinstrel
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Re: Star Constellations
« Reply #6 on: December 04, 2012, 07:54:15 pm »

not only because of the Spathi's "bugsquirt" star system,
It's kinda funny how the Spathi can't pronounce "Betelgeuse", yes. Tongue

When you say "Beta Librae", the use of the genitive form is correct, because you basically say "Beta of the constellation Libra". As for why this form is also used when referring to the entire constellation, my guess is that it was done to simplify things for players, who may not know the nominative forms corresponding to the genitive ones.
Or more likely the majority of people in Star Control didn't understand Latin and thus just used the common portion of the names to refer to the constellation as a whole. Which happened to be in genitive form.
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