"Surely you are not Sirius."

"I am Sirius, and don't call me Shirley."

Isn't that for "Airplane!" ?

The problem with Sirius the star being in the game is twofold:

First, the real Sirius is a two-star system, with a white dwarf star orbiting the large white primary. There isn't any system matching that description in Freelancer. If it wasn't for this fact, I'd've assumed the white star in New York system is Sirius.

Second, the scale of the game. Our Sol is only about two or three systems away from Sirius as the real stars lie. If one of the stars in the game was Sirius, the game would have to include our Sol somewhere, which it doesn't. This could be explained away by saying Sol is there but not connected by jump gates - but if Sol were within the sector they'd probably just call the sector Sol, not Sirius.

The scale of the game is also called into question by the in-game information text for Freeport 9. It says the station is the only human settlement "for hundreds of light-years in any direction." Even if we discount neighboring Crete, if it's hundreds of light-years from Omicron Theta to Rheinland, then the game universe must be a few thousand light-years across, and couldn't possibly include Sirius without Sol.

perhaps the sirius sector is in an different arm of the Galaxy? or perhaps an entire galaxy..

Hence my theory.

"This is your captain speaking. We have now arrived at the sector known only by it's codename: Sirius."

"So what'll we call this sector?"

"I dunno...maybe Sirius?"

Isn't there alot of precedence right here on Earth with different places getting the same name? I hear there's a Paris and a Cairo in the United States. And let's not forget common street names; how many towns and cities have an Elm Street?


- the First Evil

There is a difference...

Explorers who chart unexplored regions tend to give them unique names. That's why North America isn't called "Europe."

Settlers who followed the explorers to establish villages and towns on the other hand tend to have a nostalgia for their old home towns... Which is why there are plenty of towns and cities with the same name.

The way I see it, the people who wrote up the Freelancer storyline didn't put much thought into where they are going to set the story. If they set it in the region of Serpens for instance, there would be little debate that it's FAR from earth.

they diddnt give much thought to place names either, they could have made unique names for planets/bases instead heres how i think the meeting went:

DA Dev1: "So, who has the job of making up place names?"

DA Dev2: "You did."

"DA Dev1: "Oh.. yes.. thats.. right... I uh.. have.. yes.. um...the way i see it... *looks at globe sitting on shelf* I was uh.. thinking that... We should use current place names from earth!.. Yeah, thats right."

DA Dev2: "Sounds good."



Edited by - TheJkWhoSaysNi on 08-06-2003 14:14:21

there is a californai and a amerika in holland

in america r hundrets of villiges and towns called holland

new york early name was new amsterdam

and y they called america america was beco's the first who founded america was named america

and there is north america, south america and middle america (don't ask if there was also a person named like that , co'z i don't know)

in michigan, there is a place called hell. guess someone was homesick

---

and y they called america america was beco's the first who founded america was named america

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Nope... The guy who discovered the New World was Christopher Columbus. You know, 1492, Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria and all that.

They did name America after an Italian navigator named Amerigo Vespucci though, who did not establish any colonies or towns or anything like that.

Let's also remember that most of the Milky Way regions we see in the night sky have ALREADY been named ever since the times of the ancient Greeks. America was named America because it had no name to begin with-- Nobody in what was "western civilization" knew it existed before 1492!



Edited by - Chandrasekhar Limit on 09-06-2003 11:02:55

That´s not entirely true, Chandrasekhar Limit...

The Vikings allready established a colony in North-America long before Columbus.

And to give u guys something to think of: On mummies of several Pharao's in Egypt there have been found traces of Tabacco, something that, in that time, only existed in America...

"In one dimension, I find existence. In two I find life, but in three, I find freedom..."

Well, if you want to go that far back, then you are forgetting the "Native Americans" who first crossed over the Alaskan land bridge during the Ice Age, pre-dating the Vikings by a few tens of thousand of years.

Anyway, the premise still holds-- The Vikings, upon discovering the new land, did not decide to call it "Norway" either.

I always thought that the colonists naming planets and stations after Earth places was a sort of memorial to those places they can't go back to. It's a way of remembering the past.

Also, my point about the "Sirius" name is that it was originally supposed to be a codename to misdirect any Coalition spies. The colonists used "Sirius" for the sector name because they couldn't agree on a better one.

That or the New York, New Tokyo, New Berlin, and New Bretonia systems were all called "Sirius" at first until they all got back into communication with each other. Realizing that having five "Sirius" systems would cause (ahem) serious confusion, they agreed to call the sector Sirius and renamed their systems something patriotic.


- the First Evil

That still seems to be reaching a bit and here's my reasoning:

1) The sleeper ships couldn't have gone far. Their level of technology for intersteller travel is not that extensive-- 800 years later they only managed to explore part of a local cluster of stars. If their transport technology is more advanced, we would have seen the game arena span a major part of a galaxy or galaxies.

2) If they haven't gone far, then they are still within the region of the Milky Way near Sol. If that's the case, why wouldn't the colonists be able to decide on a name for the region? The Greeks of Antiquity already did it for them-- They already named all the star clusters and regions visible from Earth out to a couple hundred light years with names like Orion, Cassiopaea, Taurus, Gemini, Ursa Major, Sagittarius, The Pleides, Sirius, Polaris, Pollux, etc.

3) Why use "Sirius" as a code-name? There are better, non-descript code-names that wouldn't telegraph their intentions like the name of another star system would. Something like say "Shangri-La."

4) I'm sure the Coalition was tracking them all the way out of the solar system and noted their bearing and speed. That would have made the use of a distractive code name moot I think. "Comrade General! The Alliance Fleet is heading for the general direction of the star system Sirius. Shall we pursue?" "Nyet. We will consolidate our control over this solar system first before we decide whether or not to hunt them down."