Middle States Slang?

Ideas are needed for slang in the Middle States. There are many different cultures to draw upon, from western to middle east to far east. So mix and match. You can take directly from current usage, or, for the linguistically gifted, derive some new and cool terms that the world has not seen. A good example of an invented term is "pods" which comes from "cargo pods" by shortening.

The main slangy speech is "Trade" or "Thug" as the more refined types might call it. But these slang words would be pretty common in the pidgen speech that has evolved for trade among the different cultures of the middle states. These are the terms your crew would typically use.

We need a bunch of new terms in Trade:

Police Patrol
Navy Fleet
Navy Ship
Navy Destroyer/Cruiser
Customs patrol (charges toll at border lpoints)
Mega-corp Security Ship
Mega-corp freighter/administrator
Gang of pirate ships
Pirate extortion fleet (pirate toll)

Mining site
Refining Station
Manufacturing Station
Habitat Station
Shipyard
Police Base

Pirate Base (armed, well defended)
Pirate Shipyard (repair ship, some defenders)
Pirate Raiding outpost (supply drop, full of hostile thug types)

Easy Jump
Difficult Jump
Jump that you totally botched (back at start point, damaged)
Jump that your partly botched (at destination, damaged)

Lost a wingman to combat
Critical systems failure
Opponent destroyed
Opponent suffers systems failure

You are hit by LDSI missile
Hostile ship spotted (need a bunch of these)

Cargo pod
Stolen cargo pod
Cargo fence who takes stolen cargo
Black market seller who sells stolen ship equipment

Victim of piracy
Victim of extortion (pirate toll takes your cargo)

Ok, dig up those fancy web translators, apply some creativity and post! The more unique this stuff is, the more the Middle States will begin to feel like a whole new creation, that no one has ever visited.

Police Patrol

Fuzzball, because the Fuzz have a ball whenever they catch you.

"Effin' ell, it's a friggin' fuzzball! Paste it!"

Navy Fleet

Tumbleweed (loosely phonetically similar to "Navy Fleet", too). You don't want to tumble with these weeds.

"Eff, it's a tumbleweed. Don't cross 'em, boys."

Navy Ship

Weed (see above).

"Individge'ly those weeds ain't so tough, but stick 'em in a tumbleweed and they'll make soup outta you."

Navy Destroyer/Cruiser

Big boomer.

"This is New Haven; we've got reports of a big boomer in the area. Watch yer sixes and if'n he finds you, make a friggin' trail."

Customs patrol (charges toll at border lpoints)

Feds, Federals, or Pirates (the latter is only used if everyone who hears it can actually see the government markings, and is never mentioned over an open channel).

"We've got feds up ahead. [in jest] Stow your porn, guys."

Mega-corp Security Ship

Mega-corp freighter/administrator

Lemon and Melon, respectively. This regards how sweet it is to encounter one or the other. The words are both fruit and have the same letters in a different permutation, too, so they have similarity and won't be mistaken for non-corporates.

"Heh, looks though we've got a convoy of melons ahead. Anyone want first split?"
"Sure... but if they've got any lemons, I'm gonna paste you."

Gang of pirate ships

Posse.

"Dammit, this fuzzball is all over me! We've gotta make a trail!"
"Hang on, we've got a posse comin' in! Give those fuzz your all!"

Pirate extortion fleet (pirate toll)

A shakedown.

"Mark my words, you sons of bitches. One of these days I'll be back through this shakedown and I'll be bringing friends."

Mining site

A hole.

"Geez, cuz, where are you gettin' all the chump for that kind of outfit?"
"I've got a hole out in the western fringe. Don't bother trying to look for it, though. [grins]"

Refining Station

A breaker, or any form of onomatopoeic name referring to the act of breaking down something with physical force, even though the refinement process is quite obviously not entirely physical.

"Man, I'd love to join you, but my boss'd be all over my ass. Tell you what: I'll bring this load to the breaker, then I'll chip in for a pint."

Manufacturing Station

A maker.

"Johnson, where the hell are you? I told you to take that load of ore from the hole to the breaker, and then from the breaker to the maker."
"Dammit, I knew I was *hic* forgettin' something."

Habitat Station

Probably something innocently sexual, like cuddledome, since spacers get a lot of chicks. Or so they claim, anyway.

Shipyard

Machine, short for "machine shop".

"I've gotta put into a machine to fix this damned stabiliser. Third friggin' time it's come loose in as many days."

Police Base

Donut shop. It endured the test of time.

"I'm gonna pay a visit to the donut shop and maybe paste a couple of fuzz."
"Damn, dude, count me out. I ain't takin' on a donut shop in this wad."

Pirate Base (armed, well defended)

Stress, shorthand for "fortress" but also referring to the fact that shakedowns increase in the sector from that point on. Used as a mass noun just like the ordinary word "stress" (a mass noun has no legal use of an indefinite article -- "some stress", not "a stress").

"I've been makin' runs on the Alcuin-Bedalov route for years, but it was really a deus ex in my machina when stress popped up near the Bedalov molehill."

Pirate Shipyard (repair ship, some defenders)

The classic chopshop, I figure.

"Stabiliser, huh? If'n I had a choice, I'd head to the machine in Bumpy's Star -- but steer clear of the chopshop there."

Pirate Raiding outpost (supply drop, full of hostile thug types)

Drop works fine for me!

Easy Jump

Difficult Jump

Molehill and mountain; "making a mountain out of a molehill" was used by someone mocking someone else who went through an easy jump and futzed it up, and the nouns stuck.

Jump that you totally botched (back at start point, damaged)

Jump that you partly botched (at destination, damaged)

A boom and a badaboom, in order of severity.

"Well that was a badaboom. Nice going, cuz."
"Shut your hole before I jam you into one. And give me a friggin' tow."

Lost a wingman to combat

Well, if I had lost a wingman, I'd probably say something along the lines of "dammit". I can't imagine there'd be a specific slang term to refer to the act, even if it was a common occurrence, since human life wouldn't be devalued enough.

You could use the paste slang for kill (I've already used it a couple of times) -- "Boss, everyone's getting pasted here! We gotta bug out!"

Critical systems failure

Just your everyday drifting.

Opponent destroyed

See above mention of wingmen.

Opponent suffers systems failure

Also drifting.

You are hit by LDSI missile

Caught in a fishnet.

Leader: "All right, we're blowing this shakedown. On three, slam your LDS. One... two... THREE!"
Gamma: "Damn, I've been caught in a fishnet! Double back and give me a hand here... these pirates look real miffed!"

Hostile ship spotted (need a bunch of these)

In this case, I figure old military slang would prevail. Tango and Charlie.

"Tango! Bart, move to protect the transports! Blackbeard, go get 'em!"

Cargo pod

Honeypot.

"You unload your honeypots and I'll make sure you can get back to your other honey. If you don't unload your honeypots... well, let's just say that you wouldn't like me when I'm upset."

Stolen cargo pod

Sweet honeypot.

"All right, officers. We've got rumours that a convoy of pirates is comin' through with a whole load of sweet honeypots. I want you to blast those arrogant bastards and show 'em that the law still rules."

Cargo fence who takes stolen cargo

Black bear.

"There's a black bear in Bedalov I know; pays top dollar for any sweet honeypots you can get your paws on."

Black market seller who sells stolen ship equipment

The old, tried, tested, and true pusher. Especially because sometimes the equipment you get has stuff that wasn't part of the deal associated with it.

Victim of piracy

Victim of extortion (pirate toll takes your cargo)

Schoolboy in both cases.

"Ha ha ha! Thanks for the lunch money, schoolboy! Run along home to momma now."

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Ah, fantastic! "Cal: hard left, left, oh.... damn" "Lori: Badaboom!" "Smith: Main rings driftin, capsule drive too. Who the %$@! made you pilot!?!"

Do more ideas for the station types. I like these, but machine may be too common to be destinctive. 'stress would be clear, but we can't do punctuation well in the EoC font. Breaker and Maker are great (since we don't use those otherwise).

Oh, entertainment station was missing off my list. That should be in for sure. And Junkyard station that collects ship salvage.

So is Cuz a replacement for "mate"?

Yeah, "cuz" is just short for "cousin". As Big Smoke would say in GTA:SA, "Carl, don't be prejudiced in my presence again. Everyone is my cousin."

"Stress" doesn't need a punctuation mark. It refers to the fact that a fortress appears in the sector without knowing its actual whereabouts (which is kinda important -- if everyone knew where the stress was, they would tell the police and there wouldn't be stress any more). It's very stressful to have a pirate fortress in the sector, so the two words got intermixed!

I figured "machine" stood on its own, but I guess not. I was also considering "shop" for shipyard, but that's already present-day slang for an automotive repair centre, so I figured it'd be a little too unoriginal -- it is also even more generic than "machine" is. I also considered "yard" (which refers to jail in modern slang) and "fixer" (which refers to someone who gives you outlaw assignments, or someone who collects commodities for a small fee while you're in the yard)... as you can see, shipyard is actually quite difficult to turn into slang! Perhaps "crane", "gadget", "monkeys", or "welder" might work... all except for "monkeys" refer to the actual tools used in ship repair, while "monkeys" refers to greasemonkeys.


Entertainment station... shark den, tainer. Best that come to mind.

Junkyard station... chunk, wadspot, doghouse. Again I'm not too happy with most of these, although I do like "wadspot", which is a compound word using my previously-mentioned "wad" that refers to a poorly-maintained ship.


As far as the previously-used terms are concerned, I was actually least enthusiastic about "molehill" and "mountain" for jump routes, although they did kinda grow on me a bit as I used them in context...

_______________

Torn Stars is brought to you in part by Audiosalve -- The rockin' skin moisturiser.

Those are all really good JT. I was a little put off by some of the obviously 'western' slang, such as tumbleweed etc. until I recalled Firefly, and how well it worked there. Still, it might be nice to have some associative slang that draws upon the names of things from pilots actual experience, such as asteroids, stars, gravity, thrust etc. Still, I like all those ones you made. Maybe now we need some chinese and arabic versions in the mix? Any Arabic speakers out there? Or Farsi?

I had a bunch of old school slang, which prolly would be to0 vulgar for most...so I refrained..

I could throw in some Japanese slang terms if'n u want...