I mean, have you EVER referred to yourself as a 'Terran' or heard anyone else doing that???
The only time I ever heard the term 'Terran' was in cheesy sci-fi movies and I know this game is above that!
(this post is not to be taken entirely seriously ... but it still kinda bothers me a bit. One of the reasons I never play as ... ourselves.)
I don't like that sci-fi convention, but most people are used to seeing humans being "Terran" in sci-fi for whatever reason.
Another thing I don't care for: When The Sun is called "Sol." The name of our solar system's star is "The Sun" (exo-planets never have a "sun" because our "Sun" is the only "Sun")
Still, it is well within the rights of sci-fi writers and creators to assume that nomenclature and language has evolved over time, and thus may name things however they like.
"Sun" is generic term, but sometimes used as a proper noun. "Sol" is not a generic term however (At least not in English). You can call Betelgeuse "a sun" but not "a Sol" (again, in English). So i would lean towards "Sol" as being the name of our sun.
That said, there is surprisingly no generally accepted proper name for the sun. The sun is the only major body left in our solar system without a proper name. There should be a naming contest like they did with Pluto.
Who is to say that in the next ~250 years we won't have the ability to rewrite our dna into no longer homo-sapiens compatible, or even into a single strain of homo-superior/homo-whatever. add to that the possibility of not at all homo-anything developments like Bowmans Wolves or things like one or more artificially maintained brains transplanted into a machine body.
I've used terrans in a goodreads review back in 2013
"Terrans" vs "Earthers" (aka Dirtlings ) was something of a very minor plot point in the fantastic Illegal Aliens by Phil Foglio and Nick Pollotta.
The point is made that Humanity is soooo backwards that they still name their planet variations of the word "Dirt" and their home star a variation of the word "Star".
Thus the term "Dirtling" is used a slur against Humans. So, all things considered, it could be much much worse than "Terrans". Which is a term I happen to like, as it is. Far better than Earther at least.
Yea but it you did that you would have lots of people yelling how come there are no terrans in the game
Altarians are also humans. Should we rename them as well ?
I think the distinction between "Humans" and "Terrans" is quite meaningful once you have two or more human space nations *or* you have a nation that includes other species in addition to humans. After all, we currently refer to people as "Americans", "Chinese", "Russians" etc. and it's a meaningful real distinction to us.
Only the hippier types prefer and use "Human" exclusively over the political/national/ethnic labels...
So, the "Terran Empire", "Solarian League" or what have you is thus just a space nation centered on the planet Earth or the star Sol. If that is identical to a "Human Empire" that's just because you happen to have a special case where a) there are no other human space nations and b ) the humans form the majority or are the ruling species of the nation. Both could be otherwise.
Consider the setup of Honorverse. You have a "Solarian League" and a "Manticorean Empire". Both are human but still quite capable of going to war with each other, and the term "Human Empire" would be essentially meaningless or at best an Utopian concept in that universe.
Or, take the Trekverse: In the OS you had a "Federation" and a "Klingon Empire". The former was specifically not synonymous to "Human Empire" because it was a multi-species entity that while including the humans did not have them as the explicit rulers. Compare it to the Klingons who had conquered other species and thus also had a multi-species political setup, but their nation was still specifically the Klingon Empire implying that there were no other Klingon nations and that the Klingons were, indeed, the ones on top.
Terra and Sol are latin terms, these are the latin names of earth and sun. I guess since latin is sort of a global language which is also widely used in science, sci-fi authors tend to use them to make it sound more sciency. Also for a united planet it would seem appropiate to use a name that is somewhat "multi-languaged" - and because of the latin origin and the usage in science "Terra" and "Sol" are understood not only in english but in other languages too.
Also some of the planets are still called by the latin names, so one could argue that next to Venus, Mars, Jupiter etc. Terra and Sol should be used for consistency.
However, authors can do what they want. But I guess the authors of GalCiv will not change from Terrans to Humans after that long a time ... so I would suggest you write your own space opera with "Humans" and blackjack and ...
they are like humans, but not humans.
What does it mean humans ? Humans = human spiecies ?
Can Altarians and Terrans interbreed ? If they can they are the same human spiecies.
To me, "Terrans" is what other races call "humans", but we humans never use the term for ourselves.
It was THIS comment which prompted me to quickly log on again and thank you all for your meaningful replies!
Yes, if I twist it like ^this in my head canon when seeing the galactic history unfold itself, I can quite tolerate the term 'Terrans'. I've never perceived it like this, to be honest, but it makes a whole lot of sense. It would be the name you would use to denominate yourself at the lunch break of the U.P. meeting, for instance.
Or maybe I'm just overanalyzing things ...
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