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Imperial Marine Motto?

http://www.military-quotes.com/mottos.htm




I think if I had to suggest
"Per Terram Ad Astra"
~ From the ground to the stars.
has a nice ring to it.

Wouldn't Ad Astra Per Terram -"from the stars to the ground" make more sense for a marine motto?

You know, I've got enough to do right now without looking through 27000 pages of printed material trying to find a reference to a motto. Why did I even open this thread, Oh Thats Right......

Simper Fi.....
Theophilus, USMC Retired.
 
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You know, I've got enough to do right now without looking through 27000 pages of printed material trying to find a reference to a motto. Why did I even open this thread, Oh Thats Right......
My guess is that you wanted to avoid looking through 27000 pages of printed material. It's a fairly good bet that if the motto of the Imperial Marines had been mentioned somewhere in canon, someone in these forums would have been able to track it down. Not 100% sure, mind you, but a good bet.

So there probably is no canonical answer to your question. That leaves you free to choose your own without contradicting canon. Sadly, it also means that when someone does eventually get around to mentioning that motto in some canonical work, it's quite likely to contradict your choice.

My advice would be to select the eight or ten ideas you like best from this thread and make up a poll, then use the one that gets the most votes. At least that way it's going to be semi-hemi-demi-canonical... sort of ;). If you add the "winner" to the Traveller wiki, it may even be picked up by that future author mentioned above.


Hans
 
To steal from an old game, I always used Nonquam non paratus (never not prepared) for the IISS motto.

But to be honest, it works well for the Vilani verson of the boy scouts as well as the Imperial Supply Corps.
 
I think you have that backwards: Ad is "to"-- you want "ad terram ex astrae"

Lee,
2 years of Latin.

ex astrum pessum (From the stars to the ground)
ex astrum ut orbis terrarum (From the stars to the world)
astra ad terram (Stars to earth)
astra pessum (Stars to the ground)

Most of the above are approximately
"From the stars to the ground"
with some variation.

Most of my latin comes from playing Ars Magica, so large grains of salt all around. :)
 
The Spetsnaz motto of, "Any mission, any time, any place" might work given that pretty much sums up the lot of a space empire's military.

My favorite is the Foreign Legion's, modified to fit the Co-Do universe of Pournelle: "You have joined the Marines to die, and the Fleet will take you where you will die." That works for the marines IMTU (which is Co-Do based).

For the drop troops it's just "Jump or Die" - another interpretation of the same.

I thought the trick was getting the other guy to die?
 
If the translator is working (and I'm not 100% certain it is) how about: "Gauisus , gauisus. Tripudium , tripudium." for the Imperial Bureaucracy and "Vos infirmus parum simianus!" for the Marines (as in this is something the Marines might say to misbehaving locals). :p
 
I thought it was "Carborundumus Illegitimati"[*] -- "Let's grind the bastards down." Or possibly "Caborundumus Populi."


Hans

[*] Correctness of my Latin endings is not guaranteed.​
Trust me on this - I"m a civil servant; we're NOT looking to screw the public. OTOH, our pointy-haired bosses DO seem to be looking to screw us.
 
Perish the tought! No! :rofl:

It's the Latin version of the motto from 3rd Light Armored Recon, 1st Marine Division, USMC.

Well actually it's from "Law of the Jungle":

The Law of the Jungle
(From The Jungle Book)

Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

The rest is here
 
Trust me on this - I"m a civil servant; we're NOT looking to screw the public. OTOH, our pointy-haired bosses DO seem to be looking to screw us.
That wasn't supposed to be the official motto of the Imperial Bureaucracy (for one thing, the IB presumably doesn't exist as an official entity but as an agglomoration of various ministries, bureaus, agencies, and offices) but 'the unofficial motto attributed to many offices in the Imperial Bureaucracy' by the general public. I think it's perfectly possible that the general public would jokingly attribute a desire to screw the public to the Imperial Bureaucracy, individually and collectively.


Hans
 
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