Concerning Oecomene and Ilios

Andropolos

Spaceman
Hello there, long time no poster comes back.

Amazed as I am to see pioneer take form, I think we all need to pitch in to help the team any each way we can.

I must first apologize as I am only familiar with WC, not privateer or the novels. As such any errors in the thoughts that follow are my own, and I should be blamed for them, in case the ugly horror of "does not conform to what is known" heads my way.

After reading about the map of landreich in 2650 in here...

http://www.crius.net/zone/showthread.php?t=19527

I am greek and as such I can understand and recognise greek names when I hear/read them.

Oecumene or Οικουμένη means universe. As such the people living there, (most of them must be of greek origin, not only those in New Constantinople), It should be cosmopolitan, lots of trade going in, scientific hubs a plenty, ship magnates would love it and that sort of stuff. Think Onassis in space kind of people.

I would place 4 planets around Oecomene, Emporio, Folegandros, Passarona (birthplace of Alexander's mother), and Isokrates

On the other hand, Ilios or Ήλιος means sun. That to me would indicate that its people would be (again mostly greek in origin) and as contrast to the cosmopolitan oecumene, they would tend to be more often than most introvert, very religious, greek orthodox, and the like. Their plantet's names would be those of saints.

7 planets are orbiting ilios, named, Kyrios, Pantokrator, Agios, Osios, Martyr, Panagia, EnToutoNika, Meaning...Lord, Allmighty, Saint, Lesser saint, martyr, St. Mary (allsaint), entoutonika means "in hoc vinci" or "in this you win" and was the battle cry of Constantine the great when establishing the eastern roman state, which was later known as Byzantium.

In case anyone shouldn't recognise my nick, Andropolos was the captain of the ship that was destroyed in the initial encounter with the Kilrathi. I would take a guess that he might be from Ilios system, planet Pantokrator, the son of a Village priest, faithful to the bone to the principles that he was brought in and eager to serve in the navy, in the "black sea" , or space, as the people of his planet would call it.

On the other hand I can imagine a lot of families in the Oecomene sector, whose names are island names from modern day greece, most of which have made a fortune in the sea (owning and maintaining ships) as in
Naxiotis, Parios, Onassis (yea right), Laskaris, Niarchos,

or to quote Zorbas...

...The famous genius at sea is something beyond any rules of logic or rationalization. It is something like what Zorba, the hero of Kazantzakis, says: `"I cannot explain it with words, so I will explain it with dancing." It is sailing against the mainstream; it is the exploitation of certain opportunities in critical periods of shipping. It is to buy when others sell, to sail when others lay up, to order new buildings when others do not even dream of it. It is the deep belief of the Greek that the sea "becomes ill but she never dies...

In other words, what I would expect from my fellow greeks of the stars to do in the "black sea" that space wil become.

http://www.greece.org/poseidon/work/modern-times/business.html

For a small explanation on the whereabouts, the hows and whys of greek sea tycoons, and

for DA MAN...

http://onasis.gr/listcats.php?subac...767408&archive=&start_from=&ucat=6&show_cat=6

Opinions are always welcome. In case you want me to clarify something, let me know. Thanks for the hospitality and I will try to not be a lurker no more.
 
Well, quite a contribution :). Especially when it comes to specific national lore. Just personally I wonder whether the names of different star systems were given to these (replacing probably original catalogue names like NGC 1834 and such) as a tribute to some historical facts, famous and great men from terran (and that means all humanity's) history, places... not by actual nation or because it lives there. And I do not say that because I think it's wrong, but because I think it's unlikely that in 27th century there will be particular nations or ethnic minorities as we know them today. The great expansion to space, the fact that many people will begin to identify more with the virgin planet they landed and settled on than with their homeworld (be it Earth or whatever) will change Humanity. Good analogy to that is colonization of America and history of that country and its people. First, when pilgrims came to the new and savage (for them) land they considered themselves english religious fugitives - but some decades later they fought against English for their independency - not being English (Brits) anymore. It's simplified but it's a good example - history has a tendency to repeat itself.

Another fact about humanity in year 2650 - it is changed and shattered by war with Kilrathi. This war would probably galvanize people into one front - the importance of "who came from where" would fade in comparison with a danger posed by an aggressive alien race determined to wipe the whole humanity out. There is of course a great chance, that many of them would take pride in their roots from some ancient terran nation but this is probably not going to be so strong as to cause the whole system be named by ancestors of some particular terran nation.

BTW, speaking of the national flavours, in Vega Sector - Douglas Quadrant there's Warsaw system. As little as I know about WC historical events i suppose it was a first planet/system totally burned with nukes by Kilrathi - I hope the whole system wasn't inhabited solely by the last Poles in universe... ;)

it was MHO :)
Than again, everything is possible.
 
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