The origin of the term "U.S.S." is originally "United States Ship," a form commonly heard by persons dealing with US naval vessels in any capacity. This is one of a great many such terms used in the real world wet-navies. Even in the original proposal, just such a term was used in the "excerpted orders" - "SS Yorktown"
The following is a non-exhaustive sampling of real world ship name prefaces:
FV: Fishing Vessel, Factory Vessel
MV: Motor Vessel
RMS: Royal Mail Ship {UK}
SS: Steam Ship
RV: Research Vessel
USS: United States Ship
IJN: Imperial Japanese Naval (ship)
JDS: Japanese Defense Ship
HMS: His/Her Majesty's Ship {UK}, Hans/Hennes Majestäts Skepp {Danish}
HMAS: His/Her Majesty's Australian Ship {Australia}
USCGC: United States Coast Guard Cutter {US, rarely used except formally}
RFS: Russian Federation Ship {used for Russian vessels, but not by the Russians!}
The Writer's Guide for Star Trek gives "United Space Ship" on page 1 (3rd visible page in the PDF). It should be noted that this appears to be the guide for season 2 - it makes no reference to Checkov, but does reference season 1's success.
ISS would be "Imperial Star Ship" - imperial being the adjectival form indicating ownership by an Empire; in the case of Star Trek's Mirror Universe, the Terran Empire. While this is not specified in TOS's Mirror Mirror, Enterprise's In a Mirror Darkly, Part 1 has Hoshi saying, "Another Terran Empire? Another Starfleet?" This implies that the Empire referred to in the ISS is the Terran Empire in whose Starfleet the Mirror Hoshi speaking serves.
IKV is used for Klingon Vessels in fannon; it means "Imperial Klingon Vessel" and does not appear on screen.
IKS is used in DS9, standing for "Imperial Klingon Ship." Both are used as name prefixes in DS9's The Sons of Mogh, tho not for the same ship.
As an aside: We also know that the Terran Empire has fallen by the time of DS9 doing a mirror universe episode. DS9 and Voyager would therefore not be dealing with the Terran Empire.
No comments:
Post a Comment