Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/21/marvel-fans-react-to-pences-new-name-of-space-force-members.html
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Duck Dodgers?
Their motto should be one small PR stunt for tiny hands, one giant blank check for defense contractors.
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Coming from Pence, this came to mind when I heard the name he chose:
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Yep, I also assumed some kind of religiosity coming from exit door -bound Pence.
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So let me get this right:
Army = soldier
Marines = Marine
Air Force = airman
Navy and Coast Guard = seaman or sailor
Space Force = guardian
Hmmmm well I bet the air force is glad they are no longer the branch that will get picked on the most for being nerdy wimpy babies. The pretentious name won’t help them.
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The obvious candidates “spaceman/spaceperson” and “space cadet” really don’t seem any better. I guess they could have just gone with “astronaut”.
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I suppose Stormtrooper would be a little on the nose.
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I’m surprised they didn’t go with ‘Cosmonaut’.
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“Spacehand” would have worked nicely and tracks the “seaman” or “airman” without the awkward seaman/seawoman stuff.
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“Spaceists”. Rhymes with …
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NASA could get pissy, as I think they have pretty strict rules about who gets to call themselves an astronaut.
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I thought of that too, but I guess that if you can call a drone operator or air traffic controller an “airman” it doesn’t seem that far to stretch astronaut.
Other possibilities:
“Space invader”
“Star Soldier”
“Space Cowboy”
“Mandalorian”
“Paladin”
“Angel”
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Stormy Trooper
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The RAF (which I think was the world’s first air force, independent from an army or navy) had a similar problem when trying to come up with its rank structure, at least for officers. The ranks in the original proposal started fairly tamely (ensign, lieutenant, flight leader, squadron leader) but soon turned weirdly mediaeval (reeve, banneret) and then descended into pseudo-Gaelic (fourth ardian, third ardian, second ardian, ardian).
Luckily this was roundly rejected in favour of the current set of more or less sensible naval-ish ranks.
ETA:
“Gangster of Love”?
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Don’t blame me…I voted for “Spacey McSpaceFace”
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They’re saving that for the Spacey McBaseyFace that they will have to have some day. (As long as it is not the Kevin Spacey McBaseyFace).
But I don’t think there’s anything stopping the rest of us from referring to them as space cadets.
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