Tigress class dreadnaughts

[Timerover51]

At least some (the Lexington class) were, but IIRC the Yorktown class ones and the Ranger and Wasp (BTW, this ones and the Hornet seem to be the only ones not named after a battle) were built as carriers from the begining

The first US carrier was named the Langley, after Samuel Langley, who worked on flying a steam-powered aircraft and then an internal-combustion one with US government support. Lexington and Saratoga were battelcruiser conversions allowed for by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, while the fourth carrier was named Ranger, commemorating John Paul Jones ship in the Revolution, the fifth carrier was name Enterprise, after the famous schooner Enterprise of the Barbary Wars and War of 1812 Yorktown was after a battle, with Wasp and Hornet were named after sloops of war from the War of 1812. The Essex was named for the light frigate Essex, which achieved fame under the command of David Porter during the War of 1812.

Basically, what you have in carrier names are battles or historic earlier ships. The Franklin Roosevelt, one of the Midway-class ships, started the system of naming carriers after famous Americans.

As for the names of the Tigress class, rather than contriving feminine-sounding names from various cats, I would go with naming them after predators.

 

[rancke]

By the table in TCS a 500,000dtonne ship takes 232 weeks, potentially modified as shown below.

Thank you. That's more like it. That would be 4 years 164 days (1624 days) for the first ship and 3 years 204 days (1299 days) for subsequent ones. As for modifing the time spent, I'm going to determine that with a bit of random die rolling.

Perhaps start with a roll on a table like this:

1 Early (roll a die twice, take lowest result in weeks)
2 On shedule
3 On shedule
4 Minor delay (roll a die twice, take lowest result in weeks)
5 Medium delay (?)
6 Major delay (?)

On all results impose a final 2D-7 days variation.

Any suggestions for the magnitudes of medium and major delays? I'm thinking perhaps 2D in fortnights for medium and in months for major. Or perhaps roll one die, on a 6 roll again and add 5, continue until not rolling a 6.


Hans

 

[Vladika]

Thank you.

You are most welcome.

Perhaps start with a roll on a table like this:

1 Early (roll a die twice, take lowest result in weeks)
2 On shedule
3 On shedule
4 Minor delay (roll a die twice, take lowest result in weeks)
5 Medium delay (?)
6 Major delay (?)

On all results impose a final 2D-7 days variation.

Any suggestions for the magnitudes of medium and major delays? I'm thinking perhaps 2D in fortnights for medium and in months for major. Or perhaps roll one die, on a 6 roll again and add 5, continue until not rolling a 6.
Hans

I like your delays. Strikes, labor shortages and political interference can cause serious delays. I think you shortchange yourself on early completion though. Just take the straight roll. We are looking at a possible early completion of only 12 weeks out of 232. That's just over 5% at best.

 

[Hyphen]

Thanks Hans!

I'm just gonna hafta use "Sabertoothed Tigress" somewhere...

;-)

 

[McPerth]

The first US carrier was named the Langley, after Samuel Langley, who worked on flying a steam-powered aircraft and then an internal-combustion one with US government support. Lexington and Saratoga were battelcruiser conversions allowed for by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, while the fourth carrier was named Ranger, commemorating John Paul Jones ship in the Revolution, the fifth carrier was name Enterprise, after the famous schooner Enterprise of the Barbary Wars and War of 1812 Yorktown was after a battle, with Wasp and Hornet were named after sloops of war from the War of 1812. The Essex was named for the light frigate Essex, which achieved fame under the command of David Porter during the War of 1812.

Basically, what you have in carrier names are battles or historic earlier ships. The Franklin Roosevelt, one of the Midway-class ships, started the system of naming carriers after famous Americans.

You're right, and there were also other carriers in WWII that were not named after battles. iI fact, now that I could check it, it seems only the Lexington the Saratoga, the Yorktown, the Bunker Hill, the Ticonderoga and the Antietam seem to be named after battles in WWII.

 

[Condottiere]

It was a new ship class, and by virtue of having battlecruiser conversions, sort of inherited a tradition of battlefield names.

The new one of naming Presidents as the namesakes of the largest expression of American power projection and prestige is one of propaganda, a combination of soft and hard power in a single form, sort of deifying both the holder and more importantly the office, as a force multiplier to public perception of any foreign policy decision the current occupant of the Oval Office makes.

Thus, the Tigress class should actually be named after powerful Third Imperium Emperors.

 

[rancke]

Thus, the Tigress class should actually be named after powerful Third Imperium Emperors.

The Tigress class is not the biggest class of battleship in the Imperial Navy. It's just the biggest we've heard about. The Imperial Navy have more battleship classes than the three featured in Fighting Ships:

"Although some older battleships of greater displacement remain in service, the Tigress class is the largest line-of-battle vessel currently in service with the Imperial Navy in the Spinward Marches." [FS:38]​

Presumably there was already a battleship class named after emperors back when the Tigresses were first laid down (however long ago that was). There's a reference to a "new Cleon class of battleriders" on p. 40 of FS. (Pretty low production run that must be, even with the Barracks Emperors, unless they also use names of RoM and Siru Zirka emperors. Which is quite likely.)


Hans

 

[Cryton]

Hans, have you thought about using breed names. Might work for you.

examples:

Siamese
Himalayan
Burmese
Abyssinian
Rex

Just a thought.

~Cryton

 

[Cryton]

Sorry for the double post, but had to add on particular type of Tigress, if it's not already on your list:

The Cougar.

~Cryton

 

[rancke]

Hans, have you thought about using breed names. Might work for you.

examples:

Siamese
Himalayan
Burmese
Abyssinian
Rex

Yes, I've thought about them and decided against small cats of all kinds.

I've come within an ace of using 'Graymalkin', because it's such a lovely name, but however fearsome a witch's familiar may be, when all's said and done it's still only a small cat.

Unless it's a large felinoid on some alien planet. I have the original Imperial settlers[*] of Arden being romanticists who were very fond of Shakespeare (hence Arden from the Forest of Arden), so maybe they named one of the local animals after the cat in Macbeth.

[*] As opposed to the original Sword Worlder settlers that I unfortunately forgot to mention in Sword Words. ​

Sorry for the double post, but had to add on particular type of Tigress, if it's not already on your list:

The Cougar.

That's the fifth ship on the list, 18515 Cougaress.


Hans

 

[Cryton]

That's the fifth ship on the list, 18515 Cougaress.


Hans

Not quite the same type of "Cougar". That one is a named after a female Terrestrial Feline. The "Cougar" I was thinking of is explicitly female, is referred to simply as a "Cougar" and hunts Younger human males...

:rofl:

 

[rancke]

Not quite the same type of "Cougar". That one is a named after a female Terrestrial Feline. The "Cougar" I was thinking of is explicitly female, is referred to simply as a "Cougar" and hunts Younger human males...

:rofl:

Ah, I see. But that sort of cougar is not a great cat. So like the Golden Lion and the Golden Leopard, she's not suitable as the name for a Tigress class dreadnaught. :nonono:


Hans

 

[Condottiere]

The Cougar was the original prototype.

The Cheshire is an experimental stealthed version.

 

[rancke]

So I'm looking into extraterrestrial sources for names for Tigresses, to begin with actual great cats (descendants of great cats transplanted by the Ancients). Does anybody know of canon references to worlds where the Ancients transplanted Earth flora and fauna? I know there was one world with a very extensive terrestrial biosphere mentioned somewhere. I thought it was in Milieu 0 in connection with the Solomani Hypothesis, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

According to Wikipedia, the last subspecies of Panthera to diverge was the American lion around 340,000 years ago, so extraterrestrial lions and tigers and leopards and jaguars could be genetically identical to present-day Terra lions and tigers and leopards and jaguars. But they'd definitely be classified as separate subspecies, I believe. And some populations on strange worlds could have diverged into separate species in 300,000 years, couldn't they?

The other source of extraterrestrial names would be animals from different biospheres with greater or lesser similarity to great cats that had been named after lions and tigers and so on.


Hans

 

[aramis]

According to Wikipedia, the last subspecies of Panthera to diverge was the American lion around 340,000 years ago, so extraterrestrial lions and tigers and leopards and jaguars could be genetically identical to present-day Terra lions and tigers and leopards and jaguars.

No, they can't. They might still be interfertile, but even 15000 year old human fossils DNA lacks a few mutations we have.

A quick google turns up a study with a mammalian mutation rate of 2.2E-9 mutations per year per base pair. Lions have 2.4E9 if I read the data correctly

So 2.4E9 x2.2E-9 ≅ 5.3E0 base pairs per year in the genome; 300KYears, 300K base pair mutations. If we presume that 99% are failures, that's still 3000 base pair mutations, but most of those will be adaptive. And given that, for example, the snow leopard is just a handful of mutated base pairs.

Odds are each such world will be radial adaptation away from common, so while they might be readily identifiable as Pantera, they're not likely to be genetically indistinct. You just look for 3-10 unique non-expressed mutations (which are likely to be fairly stable, since they neither add nor subtract survival potential in most individuals).



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11792858
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130917/ncomms3433/full/ncomms3433.html

 

[rancke]

No, they can't. They might still be interfertile, but even 15000 year old human fossils DNA lacks a few mutations we have.

That seems to me like a quibble. I meant for practical purposes they could be geneticaly identical, since the purpose is to distinguish between different species and subspecies.

That said, I have been trying to come up with names for entirely new species of Panthera. That is as different from lion and tiger as leopard and jaguar are, not just sticking a modifier in front of one of the existing names. No luck coming up with anything that sounded genuine so far.


Hans

 

[aramis]

That seems to me like a quibble. I meant for practical purposes they could be geneticaly identical, since the purpose is to distinguish between different species and subspecies.

They won't be. Anything the Ancients moved will be noticeably and genetically distinct. Each world may have 1-5 new species, and yet may remain genus Pantera.

For naming them, well, might I point out that a lot of unrelated species have wound up with (Locative) (species) format names. Such as the Horseshoe Crab vs the other crabs - far less related than crab and shrimp are, but more obviously similar in appearance.

And the "Tasmanian Tiger" wasn't even a placental... but a Thylacine. And the hundreds of species of Duck are mostly named for regions. Similar for Geese.

So, except where really wide divergence into absent niches happened, lots of species will be commonly called "___ Lion" "___ Tiger" or "___ Panther"... and most of them on transplanted menageries worlds will still have one or more subspecies in the original niche... and thus Terrans are likely to call them lions, tigers, and panthers.

For the ones that are known primarily by Vilani names, again, it's likely to be based upon the names for any big cats which were close to Vland‡. And those are likely to be named for the local Vilani analogues, again by (Locative) (Prototype). So, pick a random number of species names, generate the prototype pouncer's names, and then apply a zillion locatives.

Same process for other significant languages.

Some fun can also be had by using non-english Terran names.
Just hitting translate.google.com and copying the transliteration below the translation....

Language	"The Panther"	"The Tiger"	"The Lion"
Japanese	Hyō	Taigā	Raion.
Ukrainian	Pantera	Tyhr	Lev .
Byelorussian	Pantera	Tyhr	Lieŭ .
Hmong	Lub tus tsov dub.	Tus Tsov.	Tus Tsov Ntxhuav.
Thai	Phæn the xr̒	S̄eụ̄x	S̄ingto

----====----​

‡ If there had been significant numbers of introduced species besides the humans on Vland, the Vilani would have had a far better theory of diseases. Humans seem to be the only macrobiotic terran life described as being on Vland...

 

[rancke]

They won't be. Anything the Ancients moved will be noticeably and genetically distinct.

I don't understand how you can say that with such uncompromising certainty. As I understand it, the last subspecies of any of the Panthera to diverge, the American lion, did so 340,000 years ago, before the Ancients did their thing. The last divergence into separate species (lion and leopard) was 800,000 years ago.

If you had said that populations transplanted to other worlds would be more likely to diverge (due to environmental pressures of strange new habitats), then I'd agree. But surely the evidence I just quoted shows that it is perfectly possible for a population of Panthera to remain substantially the same for much longer than 300,000 years.

Each world may have 1-5 new species, and yet may remain genus Pantera.

I wouldn't even contemplate divergences large enough to create separate genera in just 300,000 years. Though I haven't actually checked on how fast mammals can diverge that far, so I could be wrong there.

For naming them, well, might I point out that a lot of unrelated species have wound up with (Locative) (species) format names. Such as the Horseshoe Crab vs the other crabs - far less related than crab and shrimp are, but more obviously similar in appearance.

And I fully intend to make use of that sort of name. One reason for my question about canonical worlds with terrestrial flora and fauna. I expect I'll have to come up with a goodly numer of non-canon[*] worlds like that by myself, but I don't want to miss the one or two that has already been established.

[*] But canon-compatible. ​

And the "Tasmanian Tiger" wasn't even a placental... but a Thylacine. And the hundreds of species of Duck are mostly named for regions. Similar for Geese.

And the alien vaguely felinoid species that I intend to come up with wouldn't even be the same sphere.

So, except where really wide divergence into absent niches happened, lots of species will be commonly called "___ Lion" "___ Tiger" or "___ Panther"... and most of them on transplanted menageries worlds will still have one or more subspecies in the original niche... and thus Terrans are likely to call them lions, tigers, and panthers.

Possibly. Possibly not. On Earth separate species of great cats have distinct names. All the ones called "_____ Lion" and "_____ Tiger" and so on are subspecies. So I'd still like to come up with some distinct one-word species names. Unfortunately, I haven't had any luck so far.

For the ones that are known primarily by Vilani names, again, it's likely to be based upon the names for any big cats which were close to Vland‡.

That's a very good point. For new hitherto unknown species Terran taxonomers could easily turn to the Vilani names. "This great cat diverged from the Sylean Lion some 250,000 years ago, but it's definitely a distinct species by now. What did you say it was called? Kaadshanashkhaa? Bit of a jawbreaker that. We'll call it a kashan. Taxonomic name: Panthera kashan. That'll do.

And those are likely to be named for the local Vilani analogues, again by (Locative) (Prototype). So, pick a random number of species names, generate the prototype pouncer's names, and then apply a zillion locatives.

Well, I do want a tiny bit of originality too.

Same process for other significant languages.

Some fun can also be had by using non-english Terran names.
Just hitting translate.google.com and copying the transliteration below the translation....

Language	"The Panther"	"The Tiger"	"The Lion"
Japanese	Hyō	Taigā	Raion.
Ukrainian	Pantera	Tyhr	Lev .
Byelorussian	Pantera	Tyhr	Lieŭ .
Hmong	Lub tus tsov dub.	Tus Tsov.	Tus Tsov Ntxhuav.
Thai	Phæn the xr̒	S̄eụ̄x	S̄ingto

Thank you for your effort, but I feel that if I start down that road, I could probably name all 200+ Tigresses just from Earth alone, and what would be the fun of that?

‡ If there had been significant numbers of introduced species besides the humans on Vland, the Vilani would have had a far better theory of diseases. Humans seem to be the only macrobiotic terran life described as being on Vland...

Agreed. I don't plan to introduce any Vlandian lions or tigers or bears.


Hans

 

[aramis]

I say it with fair certainty* because the data says that genetic drift is a clock like thing, and speciation is not the same as genetic stability.

We speciated some 200KYA, but are genetically distinguishable from H. sapiens antiquus. Hell, we're even morphologically distinguishable from them, despite the scientific consensus that we are them.

Thank you for your effort, but I feel that if I start down that road, I could probably name all 200+ Tigresses just from Earth alone, and what would be the fun of that?

Actually, I think you'd be hard pressed to get past about 100 - too many are just borrowed. The Japanese Raion is due to a pronunciation issue; other versions of Lion are mostly "Lion."

 

[Condottiere]

The Japanese for Tiger is Tora; though you could name a pocket battleship 手乗りタイガー Te Nori Taigā.