Some factions need better names...

[YorkNecromancer]

So I've been listening to the 'Mechanicum' audiobook on my way into work, and something has stuck out like a sore thumb.

The Dark Mechanicum.

Apparently, that's a name they gave themselves, not an appropriated appellation, or ironic, or Imperial propaganda. This peanut gallery apparently sat down, thought: "We're not the Mechanicum any more. We're evil. Let's call ourselves the Dark Mechanicum now."

What.

That's just dumb.

Like, dumb like big dogs, dumb.

The Dark Mechanicum? Really?

See, I'd always assumed that was just what the Imperium called them, but no, no, they actually call themselves 'Dark'. They actually think they're evil. It's so stupid, so counterintuitive it makes my head hurt. Every political faction that has ever existed thinks they are the hero of their story. Everyone, from groups as different as the Civil Rights movement to the KKK. It doesn't actually mean you are the hero; just that you think you are. Look at Hitler - genuinely bought his own hype that he was the messianic saviour of Germany. Of course, you don't get to say if you were a hero; history does.

But the only people who call themselves something like The Evil Engineers (which is what Dark Mechanicum basically means, yes?) are either doing it with hipster irony, or they're a lone nutbag who is so self-hating they've actually come to believe what other people say about how bad they are.

So far, the Dark Mechanicum (even typing that ridiculous name makes my toes curl) don't see themselves as evil. At all. They see themselves as the purest incarnation of the Cult Mechanicus, rejecting the Emperor as a False Prophet who manipulated their faith for his own advantage, and banned them from researching the Daemonic, which is simply a scientific field humanity hasn't fully studied yet.

WHY WOULD THEY CALL THEMSELVES THE DARK MECHANICUS?!! IF ANYTHING, THEY'D CALL THEMSELVES THE TRUE MECHANICUS!!! You know, because they think they're moving in the true direction they were always supposed to until the Emperor stopped them. Because it's a religious schism as much as a political one. Calling themselves 'Dark' makes as much sense as Protestants calling themselves 'Mildly Satanics'.

It's just dumb.

Same goes for the Dark Eldar for exactly the same reasons. If they were going to be calling themselves anything, it should be 'Eldar', because they're the ones who still cling to the old ways from before The Fall. Their codex should just be 'codex: Eldar'. Calling them 'Dark Eldar' because that's what the Craftworld Eldar call them makes as much sense as 'Codex: Beakies' for the Space Marines, or 'Codex: Gue'vesa' for the Astra Militarum.

So: I propose that we need new names for these factions. Names they would actually call themselves that don't mean 'I AM EVIL', but instead mark out their philosophical viewpoint.

And before anyone says it, yes, there's the Dark Angels, but they get a pass because that IS deliberately trying to sound scary. Also, the 'Dark' is juxtaposed with the word 'Angel', creating an oxymoron, which has the effect of suggesting they are still good (e.g: 'angelic') but do their good deeds in ethically questionable ways (hence the 'Dark' part). For them, it makes sense.

For the Chaos Mechanicum and Evil Eldar, it makes as much sense as using a chocolate teapot as a prophylactic.

Thoughts?

[Wolfshade]

Aren't all the codecii named in high gothic so while the Dark Eldar are Eldarith Ynneas but it is a crude name by the monkeigh.

But I digress, they are some poor names, "Dark Eldar" and I do actually agree.

I think the chaos warbands have some of the worst ones, I mean some are designed to create fear others are just naff.

[Alaric]

Id actually like to hear the names you yourself have come up with, I mean yer an English teacher so you have better insight into naming than most. For meself Id like to throw in Fallen Eldar and mebbe Lords of Mars....I don't like either of those. Names are hard...how aboot Dark Eldar and Dark Mechanicum. Waitaminit....

[Tyrendian]

I don't think any of those will change, but hey... who expected Astra Militarum before it happened... and also look at the uproar that created

The Dark Mechanicum I think is actually fine, what with Chaos calling themselves Servants of the Dark Gods iirc...

Dark Eldar I kinda aggree, although they do seem to embrace the darkness themselves... Codex: Denizens of Commoragh is kinda too long and obscure to use, because the new names would have to "click" with every reader, no matter how noob, and Dark something does that very well. Hmmm...

[YorkNecromancer]

the new names would have to "click" with every reader, no matter how noob, and Dark something does that very well. Hmmm...

Agreed that it has to click; there's nothing to say there couldn't be an 'in-universe' names (Adeptus Astartes) and a 'real-world' name (Space Marines)... But at the moment, the names are just dumb. And using 'Dark' as the adjective for a noun has been a tedious cliche since at least 1996; it's exactly as awesome as a half-vampire, half-werewolf with a black trenchcoat and twin silver-plated katanas, a long black ponytail (but with a single white streak), cat eyes, whose secretly a member of a secret society called The Dragonborn, an ancient sect of angel monster-hunters who were once bad but turned from the darkness and now use those powers to fight the evil and AHHHHHH MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT F**KING STOP EVERY F**KING G**F**KINGD*MNED CLICHE AHHHH IT MAKES MY BRAIN HURT SO MUCH WITH HOW F**KING LAME IT IS!!!

Christ I am so sick of regurgitated f**king cliches being sold as though theyr'e The Kewlest Thing Ever. There's playing to the tropes, deconstructing them, reconstructing them, and then there's just using them thoughtlessly, and 'Dark Mechanicum' is just the most pathetically crappier-than-a-piece-of-crap-which-smells-like-a-crap-that's-doing-a-crap, imagination-free brainfart any writer could possibly have come up with.

'Dark Mechanicum', Christ.

*headdesk*

Id actually like to hear the names you yourself have come up with

That's the tricky thing. Assuming this is purely in-universe, rather than appearing on a codex anywhere? I don't know. Hence why the thread.

The more I think about it, the more I think it would be great if Dark Eldar was just Eldar; if we acknowledge that they're what the Eldar come from, and it's actually the Craftworlds who are the 'freaks'. The tricky thing is that a lot of the good names are taken, hence why Haemonculi are called that instead of 'Cenobites'. The obvious thing would be to use some stupid Elvish word, but made-up languages make me almost as angry as the lazy use of the word 'Dark'. You need something that sounds roughly like an English word, to convey the appropriate level of unpleasantness, but without being obvious. (Like every bloody Sith Lord in Star Wars: 'Oh, his name's Darth Sidious. Is he insidious? I'd never have worked that clever pun out.')

I've always kind of liked Hebrew as a source. There are some lovely naming conventions in that, like how the suffix 'el' means it's an angelic name (Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, etc...), or the way that the suffix '-im' denotes children (So, say, the children of Seth would be Sethim). The problem there is that the Imperium has already got all the angelic stuff, so you're kind of stuffed.

Isn't the 'official' Eldar word for them 'Ynnitach'? We could use that. Sounds a bit silly though. Stupid, rubbishy made-up gibberish.

And then there's all the horrible 'space language' tropes you need to avoid, like the [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunctuationShaker]punctuation shaker[/url] or using a 'y' instead of 'i' because it looks cool (What the f**k is a 'wyrdvane'?! Why call them that when 'sanctioned psyker' already sounds amazingly awesome?! Seriously, 'Wyrdvane'?!! Just f**k off. [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LanguageTropes]I am sick of bad writers and their bad use of tropes[/url])

So yeah, not really sure.

I still like the idea of the True Mechanicum. Maybe something like the Mechanicum Veritas, or whatever it would be in GW's peculiar latinate? Or perhaps the Mechanicum Liberum, 'the free mechanicus', to show they have thrown off the shackles of Imperial Dogma. Maybe Liberum Omnissiah Filium, 'The Free Sons of the Omnissiah'?

[Fueldrop]

I vote we name all codexes based on the Orks:

Codex: Humies.
Codex: Panzies.
Codex: Spikies.
Codex: Ded-'ard 'umies.
Codex: 'Umie meks.
Codex: Spiky 'umie meks.
Codex: Panzie clowns.
Codex: bugs.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

I'd give my right arm to rename half the Space Marine chapters. I think ADB summed the general tone up best when he joked about naming one of his own the Painful Dolphins.

Here's my homebrew chapter, the Adjective Animals!

[Fueldrop]

I'd give my right arm to rename half the Space Marine chapters. I think ADB summed the general tone up best when he joked about naming one of his own the Painful Dolphins.

Here's my homebrew chapter, the Adjective Animals!

HEY! The Marauding Squirrels are a proud chapter with a long and storied history thank you very much! Why, back when he was a scout their chapter master choked an Avatar of Kaine to death with his bare hands! Their tank ace, holder of the unique title "The spear of Squirrels", once took down a chaos Imperitor Titan with nothing but the storm bolter on his wrecked Rhino. To this day he refuses promotion and only drives Rhinos. Their master scout once took down the Swarmlord with a single shot from a bolt pistol at 5 miles range, in the dark.

Granted, he was then eaten by the gaunt he was actually aiming for, but still...

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Largely agreed. I also have a bit of an issue with the extreme they take with the nounverber naming style. Bloodcrushers - they crush blood!

[Fueldrop]

I'd be happy with the "Dark Eldar" being renamed "Commorragh Raiders" if we want to keep the Craftworld Eldar as just that.