Talk:List of references to Earth in Star Wars

Earth References
I have a fairly long list of all of the Star Wars characters who have been given Earth names. Would it be appropriate for your Earth References page? -LtNOWIS 06:21, 24 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * Sure! I might cut it down to just Earth surnames, though, if the list gets too big.  A lot of characters have Earth first names.  &mdash; Silly Dan  14:18, 24 Nov 2005 (UTC)

I've been thinking about these Earth references for a while myself. You might also want to consider the use of the term "parsec," which is based on the diameter of Earth's orbit around the sun. Supposedly the Earth and Sol don't exist in the SW galaxy, Book of Imperial Shuttle Plans notwithstanding, so why would they still use parsecs? And the New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels has a number of corporate logos that have English words or at least English lettering. The CEC logo is a good example. If this was an error, they'd have fixed it for the New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology (which came out over a year later), but they didn't. Also, in the Corellian Trilogy (can't remember which book specifically) Han Solo mentioned knowing a recipe for a drink called a "Mutant Zombie Cooler." The word "zombie" has a unique cultural etymology, which suggests the existance of substantially similar mythology in the history of the SW galaxy. &mdash;Darth Culator  (talk)  16:23, 24 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, parsec and English lettering could be mentioned (X-wings are an even better example), but I wouldn't count Mutant Zombie Coolers unless someone else mentioned voodoo, or the recipe included rum and apricot brandy. (What else would you call the shambling undead, even if the Sith animated them?) &mdash; Silly Dan  16:53, 24 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * Logos obviously aren't in English. They're supposed to be "translated" from Basic. Like this: http://starwars.wikicities.com/wiki/Image:CSAPoster.JPG. And I would consider the X a symbol, not a letter in the case of X-Wings. For example, B-Wings look nothing like a B, and Y-Wings remind me nothing of a Y. And I agree about the zombies, don't forget Korriban zombies. But I would guess parsecs do belong in that list (I reckon a Star Wars parsec would be the diameter of Coruscant's orbit around its star, like a standard day or standard year is based on Coruscant). --Master Starkeiller 16:58, 24 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * You're right about A-Wings and B-Wings, but Y-wings are clearly Y-ish. You've got the middle part (cockpit) and the two arms branching off (engines). Speaking of English use for no reason, though: Knight Hammer.  &mdash; Silly Dan  19:54, 24 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * I would consider that a translation too. --Master Starkeiller 20:18, 24 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * I disagree, as the pun doesn't work in most languages (Marteau de la Nuit becoming Marteau des Chevaliers isn't a joke in French, for example.) Anyway, it's a user subpage, and shouldn't be taken too seriously. 8)  &mdash; Silly Dan  20:29, 24 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I mean like a translated pun. It's hard when you got to translate a pun, but you gotta do it when it's in a book. You might change the words somehow, but you must make it work. Like the way they translated Voldemort's name in different editions of the Harry Potter books. --Master Starkeiller 12:13, 26 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * Your Earth References page is awesome, Silly Dan :-) I hope you don't mind that I added some entries without posting them here first. It probably deserves to be a page in its own right, rather than a user sub-page. --Azizlight 06:44, 27 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * More so than my version of the very-POVish List of goofy creations. Btw, might I ask if A and B-wings look more like their Aurabesh counterparts, rather than in English? -- Riffsyphon1024 06:50, 27 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * Does Tatooine = Tataouine count? --Azizlight 07:08, 27 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes it would. -- Riffsyphon1024 07:10, 27 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't count any measurements or other mundane English words (most words have origins intimately tied with Earthly situations). However, you might want to add ships named after Earthly mythology, such as the Chimaera, Basilisk, Gorgon, Hydra, and Manticore.  jSarek 11:34, 27 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * There's a frigate called Antares Six (seen in Dark Empire) as well. And Antares system. Kriffin' weird that ships and systems in the GFFA have the same name as a star in the Milky Way... Well, there's only a limited amount of words to use in the universe, I suppose :P --Tinwe 12:10, 27 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * Captain Wankle definitely deserves a mention somewhere :-) --Azizlight 14:36, 28 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * I think he goes under names, as it might be an alternate spelling of "Wankel", as in German engineer Felix Wankel, and no one in the comic comments on his name (though this may be because he was commanding a Star Destroyer's worth of Stormtroopers, and Bungo just had a few spare packets of blue sauce.) &mdash; Silly Dan  17:17, 28 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * It might also be a play on wank, which is why it is so funny :-) --Azizlight 04:01, 30 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * But not "wanker"? -- Riffsyphon1024 04:20, 30 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * In my defense, I knew that. 8) &mdash; Silly Dan  04:27, 30 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * I wrote a blog about it recently, but a lot of Americans didn't seem to get it ;-) I guess it's a British/Australian thing.--Azizlight 04:31, 30 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * Don't forget Thule. Kuralyov 19:08, 1 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * Don't forget the dinosaurs of Trammis III. Thanos6 04:44, 2 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * Here's a big one: Kyle Katarn, Jan Ors, and Meck Odom all use e-mail (and call it such) in Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire. Kuralyov 20:17, 2 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * The article on Tholian says it also exists in Star Trek. Should we add this? -- Riffsyphon1024 06:05, 8 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * Definitely. Good catch!  &mdash; Silly Dan  13:36, 8 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * How about adding Yoda and Revan to the name list both are Earth names? Yoda Ahmish and Revan Middle Eastern. Seriously though it's surprising how many of those made up sounding names are real! - HavetStorm

I would love to know how a lightyear is based upon the orbit of Earth. Esplin 04:03, 5 Jan 2006 (UTC)
 * It's not. Parsec is. Whoever added that didn't realize that lightyears are simply the distance light travels in one year. -- Riffsyphon1024 04:13, 5 Jan 2006 (UTC)
 * Of course I knew that, Riff! 8) What I meant was that the Earth takes exactly one year to orbit the Sun (by definition), and a light year is defined as the distance light can travel in that time.  So what I told you was true, from a certain point of view.  Mind you, we have no proof the Star Wars light year and parsec aren't based on Coruscant's or Corellia's year and orbital diameter.... &mdash; Silly Dan  04:16, 5 Jan 2006 (UTC)
 * Or, that there are supposed to be translated from some weird stuff based on Coruscant's stats. The smart Tolkien translation thing has the answer for everything. --Master Starkeiller 12:47, 5 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Hang on. I'm cofused. Is Earth in a galaxy far, far away or not. General Nai

Translations?

 * Many of these examples, of course, could be the result of clever, multi-layered, Tolkien-style "translations" from Galactic Basic Standard to English.

I thought it had been established that Basic was English. - Sikon [ Talk ] 13:39, 11 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * Can't be, as English evolved on an island in the North Sea, while Basic evolved in outer space millennia earlier. Maybe English, by an astounding coincidence, sounds exactly like Basic, but that would be silly.  &mdash; Silly Dan  01:42, 12 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * And how silly it is to have humans evolved on Coruscant? It's a fictional universe, face it. - Sikon [ Talk ] 06:22, 12 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * It is a fictional universe ruled by the principle of realism. It's supposed to be realistic to the point it can convince you it is real. Otherwise, we wouldn't need continuity, canon, retcons etc, we'd just say, "Hey, it's an imaginary universe". All the fun lies in making it look like it isn't even though it is. So Basic is a language we've never heard and has nothing to do with English. --Master Starkeiller 10:54, 12 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * You mean it's not real? What?  My worldview is shattered!  8) Seriously, a lot of these Earth references are things which may lead to odd results if we pretended that both the Star Wars galaxy and the real world were, well, real.  Of course Star Wars is fictional, and of course pretending otherwise leads to silly results.  That's the whole point of this list.  &mdash; Silly Dan  12:40, 12 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * Why did I put that Westron link there? To prove that it doesn't lead to odd results if we pretend Star Wars is real. No sir, it doesn't. It's been done before. --Master Starkeiller 12:46, 12 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * That's very true. Humans evolving independently on a world that, while similar in some ways to Earth is overtly dissimilar in others, would be a massive coincidence. But given the sheer vastness of the universe, such a coincidence is not outside the realm of possibility. Nor is the two indepently evolved human races developing identical languages an impossibility. For that matter, two entirely unrelated languages, created at different times in different galaxies, having identical sentence structures and alphabets with directly corresponding letters, to the point that puns (notoriously hard to translate) can be carried over with no difficulty...that's very low on the probability scale too. Red XIV 04:26, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Greek Alphabet Referances

 * Star Wars is full of names using letters of the Greek Alphabet, for example almost all of the Republic Commando squads use a letter as their squad name. Maybe this should be included. DarthMaul431 03:03, 6 Jan 2006 (UTC)
 * I've thought about it...that might just be another translation thing. (Maybe Delta Squad was really named according to whatever the fourth letter of the Mando'a alphabet is.)  &mdash; Silly Dan  05:29, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC)
 * My take on it is that the Greek alphabet and the Roman Alphabet are interlinked somehow in GFFA history, as perhaps an ancient writen form/forms of Basic (which would explain the direct letter-for-letter translation), with Aurebesh being to them what modern Roman characters are to us. We know both alphabets exist in some sense thanks to all the letter references in ship names - why else would they call something an X-wing? - and the aforementioned appearances of Greek letters in unit names. CooperTFN 05:49, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, there are also hebrew letters in the Black Fleet Crisis books--Erl 01:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Encylopedia Galactica is from (and is a rather prominant part of) Foundation, and was just referenced by Adams in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Kuralyov 23:53, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)
 * True, but we had a Trantor reference on the list already. 8)  (Actually, I seem to recall an interview with Douglas Adams where he claimed he hadn't read the Foundation series, as the only Asimov he had read didn't leave a good impression on him, so the term Encylopedia Galactica was a coincidence.) The term was also used by Carl Sagan in Cosmos.  &mdash; Silly Dan  02:48, 17 Jan 2006 (UTC)
 * "Immigrated species: Mice", nice "Hitchhiker's" referance.

Basic...
I thought we went past that argument on Talk:Galactic Basic Standard... - Sikon [ Talk ] 03:34, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, sorry, I wasn't watching that page. However, there's a possible counterarguement, claiming that Basic != English, buried in Abel G. Peña's essay here. &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 03:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Judging from whar is written there, it appears that the word "consecrated" may not have existed in Basic, but this doesn't make it any less English. We don't expect the names of Earth concepts to exist in the GFFA. We don't expect the words "cardinal", "pope", "mass" (in the religious sense) etc. to exist in the GFFA, even if Basic is indeed English. - Sikon [ Talk ] 13:34, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Chicken
Should this be added to one of the lists of animals as re arguments here?-- The Erl of the  talk  What I do 00:25, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * If "chicken-walker" is known in-universe, then we could place chicken in the list. -- Riffsyphon1024 19:52, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

E.T.
If it so happens that E.T.s' species is represented in the SW universe then there is a definite canonical link to Earth .TK867 07:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Language

 * The word damn was said by more characters in KOTOR and KOTOR II than just HK-47. "Hell" was also said a few times in these games.--Darth Oblivion 17:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Geese

 * G2 droids are nicknamed "goose droids." This nickname is used in-universe, implying that there are geese in the Star Wars Universe.--Darth Oblivion 00:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Good catch! Added. &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 00:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Fashion?

 * Here's an interesting one -Can a correlation be made between those '70s sideburns all the male characters were sporting in the Original Trilogy? How about some of the costumes? I know some of the Zeltron males (Bahb, Marruc, Rahuhl, Jahn) looked like they stepped off a dancefloor in the mid-80s, and Dash Rendar is a victim of the post-Road Warrior dress code for tough male heroes popular in the '90s ala. Cable from the X-Men.Tocneppil 07:31, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Ew, I don't want to think about the styles they had then. -- Riffsyphon1024 07:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)