The Backwards Mask

[Dreadnought]

Reminiscing 2

Lemme throw in a little bit about the code-names that I've thought about recently. While I never got to play the game myself, the game books made it QUITE CLEAR that players were to choose a two-syllable code-name, and that that's what they'd be known as most of the time. You even go through all the sidebars which have quotes and stuff, and if it was made by an RCES person, the attribution is made to a code-name, not a real name. Very rarely was a real name used for such a person, though they did tell you who was who for most people.

That is a correct statement. Two-syllable "taccodes" were one of "Frank's morning ideas." He would frequently have a new idea which would be the first thing he'd talk about when he came in. One such was "To absent friends," and two-syllable taccodes was another. I think they often had to do with whatever movie he watched the night before (I can only assume Top Gun in this case). Taccodes was one I was kind of, "meh," about, but I think a lot of people probably liked them, and they did give a handle/feel/gimmick to the "Star Vikings." So I laid my reservations between the lines. The two-syllable thing I thought was kind of constricting, but it would have saved VFA-136 the trouble they got into for assigning "Romo's Bitch."

Dave

 

[TheDS]

My opinion is that it was a good idea. Consistently using two syllables for names has many advantages when you consider military radios are NOT as easy to understand speech from as the movies would have you believe they are. Using multiple syllables to convey information is helpful. Most of the phonetic alphabet (Alpha for A, Bravo for B, Charlie for C, etc) uses two syllables to make it easier to tell the difference between b, c, d, e, g, p, t, v, and z for instance. Two syllables is also 50% shorter than three syllables without losing much in clarity.

I had no problem accepting it. The main problem is that there are only so many handy 2-syllable words. Sometimes 3 has its uses. I would have allowed a 3 syllable codename if my player couldn't come up with one having just 2.

 

[Leonidas]

Taccodes

The biggest problem I had with taccodes in the Brunette books was that they supplanted the characters' actual names. Bonzo, Whizbang and Mercy were the worst offenders. To me, it made the characters feel very shallow (a problem I had with most of the characters in the story).

I'm sure it wasn't TNE canon, but Brunette also implied that *everyone* associated with the RCES carried a taccode. Did this include the janitors and interns as well? That seemed forced and more than a little cheesy.

Plus, they just felt impractical, particularly since they retained the names over time and no two RCES people could have the same one. I'm all for using codenames in military sci-fi, but there's a reason you would want to cycle them out after each operation. If I had a unique callsign that everyone uses to identify me on a daily basis, there is no way on God's green Earth and Ernest Hemingway I would *ever* use it on an open channel during an RCES mission. That seems like a good way for any surviving bad guys to track you down.

So, there are many things about the TNE setting that I really enjoy (either when writing it or playing it), but this wasn't one of them.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Just my Cr 0.02 on taccodes....

Taccodes are like callsigns. In my experience, real world military pilots use those to allow for quick identification during short communications. They tend to be one syllable and only rarely are two syllables, plus they are usually associated with an entertaining story from that pilot's past.

Tom Cruise's callsign of "Maverick" from Top Gun would not have made it because it took too long to say.

(Plus, admittedly, after spending time on a carrier and doing helo refueling on a frigate, Top Gun's aerobatics have nothing on what you can see during your typical Navy air show.)

 

[aramis]

Just my Cr 0.02 on taccodes....

Taccodes are like callsigns. In my experience, real world military pilots use those to allow for quick identification during short communications. They tend to be one syllable and only rarely are two syllables, plus they are usually associated with an entertaining story from that pilot's past.

Tom Cruise's callsign of "Maverick" from Top Gun would not have made it because it took too long to say.

(Plus, admittedly, after spending time on a carrier and doing helo refueling on a frigate, Top Gun's aerobatics have nothing on what you can see during your typical Navy air show.)

Maverick works because it's normally said "Mavrick"...

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Maverick works because it's normally said "Mavrick"...

My example has been defeated by common pronunciation.