I'm writing a science fiction novel and can't decide whether to name the human civilization Earth Republic or Solar Republic.
Changing the name also has implications on a variety of other things in the book. For instance, the military will be referred to as either "EarthForce" or "SolForce"; the navy as either "EarthFleet" or "SolFleet"; the government as "EarthGov" or "SolGov", etc, depending on which prefix I choose.
2010-11-20T14:08:24Z
It's an interstellar civilization. It spans 400 parsecs from Earth in every direction and encompasses thousands of planets.
Steven J Pemberton2010-11-20T14:36:14Z
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It depends what people think of as "home" - Earth specifically, or the Solar System as a whole? Consider - where do most of the people in the Solar System live? Nearly all on Earth, or spread out on other planets, asteroids, and space stations?
Where does most of the economic activity happen? Is one particular place in the system regarded as the centre of its culture? Where is the seat of government?
Might some people prefer one name and some the other? That could be a symptom of tension within the republic.
Just to confuse the issue further - how about "Human Republic"? (Which, if you have sentient alien species in the republic, invites accusations that it's institutionally racist.)
I prefer Solar republic, because I think SolForce and SolFleet etc have a better ring to them, a scarier ring, the connotations seem more frightening, so unless Earth is an insignificant foe, I'd go with Sol (whatever), but hey, what do I know?. Thinking about it though, if we were to join an 'interstellar civilization', then it makes more sense that we would have retained the Earth bit.
About as useful as a chocolate tea pot, I know, sorry :-)
Changed my mind again I think EarthForce sounds ominous because of it's association with humans, dark stuff.
How did you get this far without my concise input? :-)
If we were in an interstellar war, would we actually refer to our army as "Earth force"? Sounds a bit generic to me. Still a better name than Solar Republic though... all planets have suns, so that's not a distinguishing feature. It's like... If Canada and the USA would unite, and they would call themselves "Land Country", because their country is located on land! Yeah... original.
Solar, since it stretches far beyond earth_BUT_only_if_all these other planets take part in the military and government. If everything is centered around earth and_only_people_of_earth are part of the military and government, then name it Earth-whatevs, but only if.