Hatrack River Writers Workshop: I need a touch of help...

This is topic I need a touch of help... in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by starsin (Member # 4081) on :

Ok...so in my F&F post for a short story I did once upon a time, they (the critique-ers...) said that I was "borrowing" a term from Babylon 5. I didn't know it - I don't watch Babylon 5. I was currently using the Psionic Corps, but that's not liked very much...apparently Walter Koenig beat me to it.

So...I need a name for a branch of the military that consists of all users of what would be considered "magic" in it's complete and technical sense. It's futuristic, so take that into consideration. The members of said branch range from piddly widdle guys who can only talk via their minds to the guys like the MC who are so Bad a.. that they defy imagination. If I ever do make it into publishment, credit will be given...not like that matters much, right?

- starsin

Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :

I posted a couple of suggestions in your short story post.

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 21, 2007).]

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

Babylon 5 is not the only milieu to use PsiCorps to describe the organization where Telepaths serve in a militaristic fashion.

Babylon 5 itself 'borrowed' the term 'ranger' from Tolkien.

But since everyone else borrowed the same term, its not a big deal.

If its a secret organization, the name can be anything and not have to relate to Psychic abilities.

Corps Three (third eye)

Etc.

Its funny that you ask for help coming up with a name for this so that you can 'borrow' from an unknown instead.

Posted by RMatthewWare (Member # 4831) on :

The C-Section (Cerebral Section, also works for clairvoyance)

Okay, seriously:
The Psi-Regiment
Tele-Soldiers
Empaths

Or, are you looking for nick-names:
PR (psi regiment)
M-Paths (mental telepathy)
OSC used 'Swipe' in Hot Sleep
Mind-thieves
Scanners

It really depends on how they're thought of. Are they honored or despised? My guess is the latter. Who wants someone reading their thoughts?

I think you really just need to research words. Go to dictionary.com, look up words and search synonyms. It doesn't have to sound perfect, anything will do as long as it conveys your point.

Matt

Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :

Ranger is also part of the US Military Army CORP

And "C-Section" makes me think of pregnancy.

[This message has been edited by Zero (edited March 21, 2007).]

Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :

Black Arts Society? Some play on Black Arts? BAC - Black Arts Corp?

Sorcery Society?

You could borrow from the Power Rangers - Mystic Forces

Mystic Corps

Hex Corps

Jinx Gang

I'm just messing around, but then thinking like a military person, they'd probably come up with a long and involved name for it w/a short form that's a bizzare acronym. Like the
Department of Prestidigitation and Anomalous Events - DPAE (Dee-Pay)

Paranormal and Pre-Cognition (used in Minority Report) Events and Metaphysical Order

This word came up in the thesaurus listing:
thaumaturgy,

No idea what it is, but it's probably a word the military would love.

Good luck!

Posted by tnwilz (Member # 4080) on :

The Mage-guard.

Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :

Matt, Scanners was a movie. As a matter of fact, it should be remade. With todays special effects, it could be so much better.

Pantros, Ranger was already a military term when Tolkien modified its use.

KatTi precognitive/precogs have been used before minority report,too.

If you are going to borrow from Power Rangers, OSC, Brian Lumley, and Movies, wouldn't PsiCorps just be considered a coined phrase anyway?

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 21, 2007).]

Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :

quote:

users of what would be considered "magic" in it's complete and technical sense

you got me wigging out over here.
I don't know what that sentence means.

Maybe you could give them a cynical nickname like 'the vatican' or something

(you may be aware that the word 'vatic' refers to visionaries and prophets)

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

hoptoad, think of it as being along the same lines as Clarke's Law ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.")

Posted by RMatthewWare (Member # 4831) on :

quote:
And "C-Section" makes me think of pregnancy.

Yeah, that was the point, I was kidding

Matt

Posted by arriki (Member # 3079) on :

re c-section

why not reverse

Section C -- handled right that could be really ominous

He flipped through the folder. Normal stuff. Then he stopped. A report from Section C. What the H was Jones doing that involved those guys? He quickly closed the folder and put it in the reject pile. Section C. He shivered. Nobody wanted telepaths in the barracks or anyone who had anything to do with them.

[This message has been edited by arriki (edited March 22, 2007).]

Posted by trousercuit (Member # 3235) on :

Remember that the military loves acronyms.

"Untouchable Psionic Yokels with Ominously Recondite Specialties" comes to mind. Or something like that.

Posted by mfreivald (Member # 3413) on :

Negative:
Necrons
Covendron
Coprophanes (That has some fairly demented roots)
The Puce Berets
Black Squadron

Positive/Neutral:
Clarindials
Merlidian Force
<something> Order
The Order of <something> (Dragon? Hummingbird? Magic Knights? Flatulance?)
White Platoon

(I don't expect any of the above are any good, but as long as we are brainstorming, who knows what might jar an idea?)

Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :

so are we saying that there is a sci-fi army with a division that chants spells over APCs, divines the enemy's movement in a silver cup and dance naked around oak trees to importune nature spirits to hedge up the enemy's way?

Or are you talking more along the lines of Allison Dubois and the Ghost Whisperer.

"Tell me Mr Dead Enemy Combatant, where are your friends hiding?

Or telekinesis

Or all of the above?

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited March 25, 2007).]

Posted by starsin (Member # 4081) on :

Um...hoptoad...your first paragraph was so of the mark that it was actually funny. No..they're not tree huggers, sorcerers, etc. I don't know about Allison Dubois and the Ghost Whisperer, No, they're not Hey...mr dead guy...talk to me. It's like telekinesis type stuff. Think like Pug from Feist's books, just in the future and not as...I can't find the word - too early...

mfreivald...what does Coprophanes mean? I tried to look it up on the 'net and couldn't find anything about it. The black squadron sounds kinda cool though.

trousercuit...I'm not even going to go there...

Arriki...nice thinking. I could pull something like that off as an "official" type of name.

KayTi - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thaumaturgy

Babbler, I saw your posts...just looking for a more diverse pool to fish ideas from.

That's all I got at the moment...at school messin' around before class starts. Will peruse ideas more in depth at home.

Posted by trousercuit (Member # 3235) on :

hoptoad:

quote:
so are we saying that there is a sci-fi army with a division that chants spells over APCs, divines the enemy's movement in a silver cup and dance naked around oak trees to importune nature spirits to hedge up the enemy's way?

That would be, like, the awesomest special forces unit evar.

Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :

he meant coprophage someone who practices coprophagy.
If the division in question is prone to such behaviour then you can probably call them the borborygmus-ites.

Perhaps it was the word magic in you first post that is misleading. If you are talking about specifically 'psionic' faculties and there is a scientific explanation existing in your world for these abilities, then even if the effects are 'indistinguishable' from 'magic' they would not be considered 'magic. Regardless of whether they understand the scientific explanation, they would still know there was one.

ps: first paragraph was supposed to make you laugh, so.... glad you did.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited March 25, 2007).]

Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :

Um... something that I think would be important to answer this is, what do you call the magic in your world?

If you call it "illusionism" or something, it might tie into the military unit, "Military Illusionism" or whatever. That's just an example, the point is it needs to, I think, be consistant with how it is referred to in casual speech in your world.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

If it's military, it need have no meaning...after all, "tanks" are called "tanks" because when they were building the first ones, they needed a term to throw people off the scent when they asked what they were building.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

quote:
"tanks" are called "tanks" because when they were building the first ones, they needed a term to throw people off the scent when they asked what they were building.

I've never even wondered why they are called tanks, though I do know that they are considered the cavalry of the modern army.

Thanks for sharing, Robert Nowall. That's a great story and actually makes a kind of sense.

If a writer were to do something like that in a story, it would be best if a couple of the characters were to wonder why it's called a less than obvious name.

If readers don't understand why you've done a particular thing in a story, they may find it distracting, confusing, or, worse, not worth remembering.

Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :

It's true. If you have a top secret fighter-jet your army is using and you keep calling them "motorcycles," it will probably confuse the hell out of at least one reader.

[This message has been edited by Zero (edited March 25, 2007).]

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Ya gotta beware, though...a motorcycle can be a "chopper," but a helicopter can be a "chopper," too...also, I believe, an old-fashioned machine gun can also be a "chopper" as well. Whatever you call your whatchamacallit, stick with it, and the reader will, too...

Posted by trousercuit (Member # 3235) on :

I could imagine a specific kind of jet being called a "flying motorcycle" informally. Maybe it seems to roll on its own, so the pilots call it a motorcycle because it's so easy to tip.

Or, um, to get back to the original topic, maybe these psionic marines actually do fly motorcycles. Regular motorcycles. You know, that fly because their riders telekinesis them up there.

Flying, flaming motorcycles. Or tanks. That'd be wicked.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Of course it's all a little off-topic considering this started as a discussion of "Psionic Corps." I doubt this specific term originated with "Babylon 5"...variants on "psionics" are nothing new...it does sound like something that would pop up in those fifties-sixties stories out of Campbell's Astounding / Analog, though.

According to the info I have at hand, the term "psionics" was first used in the late Jack Williamson's story "The Peddler's Nose" in 1951---at least, first used in a science fiction story. (A surprising number of familiar SF terms were first used by Williamson, including things like "matter transmission" and even "genetic engineering.") Who coined it or where it originated, or even where Williamson picked it up, I don't know.

Posted by mfreivald (Member # 3413) on :

Actually, I derived it from the word coprophiliac, which is worse. I used the -phane ending because I liked the way it sounded.

I like to disquise these kinds of things if I am using them in my words. Usually, by the time I have settled on something, it has warped into something unrecognizable, and I don't even remember how it started.

I'm also not condoning that way of coming up with names as a good way to do it. I am generally not happy with my results. I was simply thinking of evil and disgusting entities, and that's the word that came to me, so I worked it in.

Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :

ah... mayhaps they could be the "telekinetic engineers"

Posted by starsin (Member # 4081) on :

This is perhaps going to confuse some...but they're like "mages" with the social status of the Jedi, but the reputation of the Sith...make sense? They're capable of amazing things, but nobody trusts them. And they're part of the military...confusing, huh?

Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :

that makes perfect sense...

so how about "seemingly diabolical super-charged brain soldiers"
or sedsuchbras as I would call it.......