Latin Names of Starting Ships

[ostrogod]

Hey Kids,
New to the forums here, though i've been lurking for a few days. Started playing ST again when I saw the update (for the iOS), and got sucked into the game all over again.

Anyhow, just a little post to praise the excellent names of the starter ships.
Great Fun. For people looking for the meanings:

Aeternam Vale - Farewell Forever
Aperio Caliga - Open Shoes
Danti Cautela - Warning Giver (or Caution Giver, could also have been reduced from "ex abundanti cautela", an expression used in some legal documents meaning "Out of excessive caution")
Fidei Defensor - Defender of Faith
Mortifer Telum - Deadly Bolt (should be "telum mortiferum", in classical latin, i think)
Neutiquam Erro - I Am Not Lost (My favourite name! Alternative translation: I Am Not Wrong)
Tempus Fugit - Time is Fleeting (or Time Flies. Read about this expression here.)
Vae Victus - Woe To The Vanquished (should be Vae Victis (plural) or Vae Victo(singular masculine) in classical latin. Read about this expression here.)

Vark Mordi isn't in latin, and I couldn't figure it out completely, but some google searches suggest it might mean "Metal Bite" in Sanskrit, though this is kind of a wild guess. (Alternatively "Mordi the Pig" in Afrikaans.)

Picky Beggar and Serpent's Tooth are the remaining starter ships, though they don't really need translating.

Praise to the creators for the creativity. Very awesome.
Cheers,
Ostro

[fallen]

Glad you enjoyed the interesting variety of names Thanks for sharing the translations

Welcome to the forum and we hope you stick around!

+1 Karma for you. You'll find Cory and I here every day if you've got questions.

We hope you'll leave a review on iTunes!

[ostrogod]

Thanks! And mine is the lonely review of ST RPG on the AppStore

Any clues on the meaning of Vark Mordi?

[fallen]

ostrogod - we'll have to ask Cory about that one specifically. Mordi was a character in a World's Edge campaign a number of years back, but I am not sure if it is related or not.

Because we update so often on iTunes, we are very often in the "No Reviews" state. If you'd like to help us out of this situation, please be sure to update your review after each release. Once we get about 10 reviews on the current release, we get a star rating, but until that point it is really rough.

[Cory Trese]

Vark Mordik (Vark Mordi') is a Fennrian expression that means "Honored Death" -- so of all of them, it is the one with roots farthest afield in the ST universe. The Fennrians are a race in our fantasy setting, and I just stole the word because I liked it.

The character fallen refers to was actually called "Moredie Killmore" and is unrelated to the Vark.

The Star Traders universe includes many references to classic Greek and Latin themes, although there is no direct story link to these cultures or the concept of Earth.

The type of Latin spoken and written by Star Traders is a mutated dialect, and the altered spellings and changed conjugation rules are intentional.

We would really love a Review, as fallen points out. Thanks for playing!

[Brutus Aurelius]

So, Cory Trese, what is the human homeworld in the ST universe? Or is that knowledge lost to the ages?

[ostrogod]

Ah, I wouldn't have been able to get the reference then anyway.
Maybe the next ship will be called Valar Morghulis

I updated the review so it shows, btw.

The type of Latin spoken and written by Star Traders is a mutated dialect, and the altered spellings and changed conjugation rules are intentional.

The "classical" Latin that we study today was only spoken for a very brief period of time. Even then there are some inconsistencies, in its form today it might never have been spoken in the Roman Republic or Empire. Even some texts and speeches of Cicero include "incorrect" spellings. The Roman Republic starts in ~450BC and the empire ends in the west in ~470AD (and in the east in ~1450AD). That's over 900 years for the language to change in. If we make a comparison to English, it would be nearly impossible for someone today to understand the language spoken in the British isles in 1100AD. Not to mention that after the Romans, Latin was spoken by the scholarly peoples until well into the renaissance, and by priests until today.
My point: the "mutated" names may very well have been the actual language at some point in time or another. "Classical" Latin is just a reference form today, for texts in Latin to be consistent.