We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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This isn’t one of your holiday games The naming of planets is a difficult matter. Sedna may have strong references for the Inuit, but it means nothing at all to most of us. You could argue that Sedna is more thrilling than the planetoid’s original designation, 2003 VB12, but it doesn’t conjure up a fitting title for inclusion in Holst’s The Planets.
However, the sinister appearance of a red planet (and possible moon) reminds me of Dr. Who’s deadly enemies, cursed to wonder the frigid spaceways, enshrined in their tombs. Is this not the tenth planet, home of the Cybermen? And surely there can be no more fitting name than Mondas.
Prepare for child-like logic, silver suits and a puzzling vulnerability to gold.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Why can’t it be called Planet Calvin? It seems like something Spaceman Spiff would discover.
What the hell have the Inuit done for us lately? Nothing.
Here’s a taste of the “childlike logic” (from “The Tenth Planet”, no less):
CUTLER: Now look, I don’t know who you are or what you are but we’ve got two men in space, if we don’t act now we won’t get them back alive.
CYBERMAN 1: They will not return.
CUTLER: Why not?
CYBERMAN 1: It is unimportant now.
CUTLER: But… We must get them back! When…
(Cutler tries to hold the Cyberman’s arm but it knocks him away.)
CYBERMAN 1: There is really no point. They could never reach Earth now.
POLLY: But don’t you care?
CYBERMAN 1: Care? No, why should I care?
POLLY: Because they’re people and they’re going to die!
CYBERMAN 1: I do not understand you. There are people dying all over your world yet you do not care about them.
I’m puzzlingly vunerable to gold myself. Especially in Ingots.
Surely it should be Persephone ? That name has been rolling around for decades as the possible name of a putative trans Pluto planet.
On the down side it’s already been incorporated into various astology predictions, to explain why current readings don’t work.
I’m with Tim on this one, it should’ve been Persephone, or possibly if not her, then Artemis. All the major Greek or Roman equivalent Gods are represented in the planets, especially the powerful sons of Cronos (Zeus, Hades, Poseidon):
Mercury – Hermes
Venus – Aphrodite
Earth – Gaia
Mars – Ares
Jupiter – Zeus
Saturn – Cronos
Uranus – Uranus
Neptune – Poseidon
Pluto – Hades
Women are fairly unrepresented, so the next planet should be female. There’s a great link between Hades/Pluto, and Persephone, alas the young girl he kidnapped, but I like Artemis, the huntress, guarding the edge of the solar system.
Others could be Athena, Hestia, Tethys, or possibly even Apollo, but as Apollo is a late upstart God seeking to supplant Zeus/Jupiter, maybe he’s better off out of it.
I especially like Tethys just for the sound, but Sedna, jumping out of the Greek/Roman classical pantheon, for some politically correct leftist juxtaposition, is just plain stupid.
Go Persephone! (or Artemis 🙂
I think it should be called ‘Rupert’.
BTW, I’m looking forward to the hoops the Astrologists will jump through if 2003 VB12 IS classified as a planet, without a Graeco-Roman deity’s name.
…And Sedna is rising through Capricorn…errr…giving you an incredible desire to eat cold whale fat…
So much better to say,
…Artemis the Huntress is rising through Capricorn slaying the beast and making you feel ravenous for carnal desire…
Now there’s money in that second statement, and newspaper sales, so, for once, I’m putting my faith in astrologists, and hoping they force the issue to go Graeco-Roman.
I wonder what weird mythological planetary symbol they’ll come up with? 🙂
I’m with Persophone. As an added bonus, Arthur C Clarke used it in passing in several of his novels as the name of a tenth planet out way beyond Pluto. (Although Mondas is good, too).
Arthur C Clarke has Persephone in several books, I think it has a better ring myself.
“Planet X”, of course.
As in “Where are we going? Planet Ten! When are we leaving? Real soon!”
Sorry Andy
Tethys is the ninth of Saturn’s known satellites:
http://www.nineplanets.org/tethys.html
BTW Is fiat currency a dastardly plot to get rid of the common use of gold, so the cybermen can take over?
My tin-foil hat stops me thinking.
How about some non-deity names, like:
Mongo
Krypton
Hoth
Magrathea
Tralfamadore
Klaatu (only if it has two moons – to be named Barada and Nikto)
Aw make it a friendly name, just drop the “S”
Familiar name to me. I play a video game called Planetside and the bases on every continent are named after the gods of some obscure ethnic pantheon. Sedna is a Bio Lab.
Either way, I think they should have stuck with the Roman gods.
Persephone would be nice.
This planetoïd has a very very elliptic orbit that ventures in the darkest and coldest corners of our patch ‘o space.
Very similar to Persephone going to Hell and back at every season, in the Greek mythology.
Or just call it ‘Gordon’.
In case it’s full of ladies.
All Canadians will agree, I think. Heh.
How about following Not The Nine O’Clock News’s suggestion: Bumole (pronounced “Byou-mo-lay”).
What a ridiculous thing to say! The British (yeah, the French & Spanish too) go to North America, commit genocide against an entire race of people and you can’t even name a hunk of rock & ice at the edge of the solar system after something that means something to them? Instead you want to name it after an old Dr Who plot device? How deeply offensive. You know what, go ahead and name it after the (fictional) Cybermen’s home planet. In the future when Great Britain is covered by ice and the (completely non-fictional) Inuit rediscover it, I hope they call it Telos and do just like Dr Who did: make sure the imperialists never rise again.