They are faction ships that follow the style guidelines which can be found at the end of this [Blog][1].
We’re not satisfied that the current story material we do have is strong enough to base I:B lore upon let alone Infinity, and writing is not a top priority for us right now. I:B simply does not need the type of backstory/lore behind it that Infinity will.
[1]: http://artofinfinty.blogspot.com/[quote=“Naiba, post:40, topic:244”]
can hardly blame you guys for the mess of ideas we came up with
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The backstory we do have did not come from the general community, it was mainly written by a few very early dev’s back in 2005/6, and supplemented by the small community writing/advisor group we had going for a few years.
I still prefer Hammer over Hammerhead. I guess I don’t like naming ships after earth life forms, the ppl who built and named these ships are far removed from growing up on earth. Not to say they could not look up what a Hammerhead was, but it’s not something that would be in the forefront I think.
I will say, the ship names are not super critical, we do not have to delve into every aspect of their meaning and make sure they fit the ship exactly. I think most ppl know when they see a name, that it’s a good fit for the ship. This is not a science project.
I know that, but a good chunk of the posts in the old forum were full of idol speculation, guesswork and stuff people made up (and that other people repeated, assuming it to be cannon.) that never ended up getting officially corrected. The assumption that the Geo’s calendar system was the same as ours for dates on the timeline, being the most notable.
Me too, Fits the implied role (from the ship’s aesthetics) far better.
There is not much we can do about forum rumors/speculation and the like. We didn’t have the resources/time to correct that info back then, and we certainly do not have it now while trying to prepare our crowd funding campaign.
As I have said before, the only faction information the community should concern themselves with are the style guidelines, which do talk about each culture a bit. All the old writing/forum speculation needs to be left in the past, it simply does not apply to Battlescape development.
As I said before, I’d prefer we stay away from earth animal names. There likely would not be any bulldog’s (as we know them) in the SFC. (Though I suppose a Bulldog could be some mythical creature)
This is a fair point for wild animals, like the shark example you mention above, but unless the colony on Geodesa was a Mars One type settlement, domestic pets would likely have made the trip. They probably would have had bulldogs, though whatever they call bulldogs on Geodesa at the time of the exodus would probably look nothing like modern bulldogs, and the bulldogs that would be kicking around during the time of Infinity probably wouldn’t look much like the bulldogs from the time of the exodus.
Still, the original style guidelines called for ships that didn’t look like animals, so I don’t see why they should be named after animals, either.
Even for wild animals, whoever colonized Geodesia probably brought, cloned or made some in order to create a stable ecosystem - something that the Exodus people probably did again. And even then, if they have legends about Earth, they may well have legends about Earth animals, even mythical/extinct ones like dragons, yetis or dinosaurs.
Or they may have close enough animals so the translation convention would use the familiar names. “Sure, its legs may not be articulated the same, but it is quadruped, has hooves, eat grass and can be used as riding beast so we can call it a horse anyway.”