Starfleet Slang Dictionary

[Modem]

Got yet some more:

‘Surfer’ (Noun): 1) A Conn. Officer who’s an expert at warp speed saucer separation, and the riding of the residual warp-thrust/velocity to a safer locale. 2) Crew of a ship that uses ‘Soliton Waves’ as its means of travel. Term has two spin-offs: Surfer Dude (Male) and Surfer Girl (Female). Also ‘Surf’s Up’: To saucer sep. during warp.

‘Fleeter’ (Noun): A semi-derogatory term by Marines of SF’s ship-crews. (“Out of my way Fleeter…”)

‘Trespassers’ (Noun): Semi-derogatory, Ship Engineers term for starbase/spacedock/shipyard technicians during docked maintenance. (“I keep tripping over these trespassers down here…”)

‘Canned’ (Verb): To become assimilated by the Borg. (“Forget Jeff…he’s been Canned…”)

‘Can Opening’ (Verb): Act of rescuing individual from the Borg and restoring their identity/individuality. (“Get the Counselor and CMO…we got Dave, we have to start can opening…”)

[Owen E Oulton]

"Crazy Ivan?"

Warmon4, don't take this personally (because it's not - I'm not just picking on the new guy, honest!), but I'm going to use this as an example of what not to do and why.

Nope, doesn't work. It's an obscure term at best now - I don't think it'll last 375 years.

Military slang tends either to enter the common vernacular and lose their origins (like the Royal Navy terms "Letting the cat out of the bag," or "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey") or die off completely. Those that hang around do so because they have some measure of currency. When they're a reference to an enemy, they're almost always a sterotype of that specific enemy.

Even if the term did continue in use, the usage you give is backwards. A Crazy Ivan is an attempt to detect a concealed pursuer, not a telltale trace left by a concealed vessel.

This is one thing that many SF writers get wrong, especially in TV where there is rarely a quick and reasonable way to tell the audience what a new term means. As Gamemasters (or Narrators), we don't have that restriction - we can provide handouts or maintain webpages to keep our players informed, or simply tell them when it comes up in play.

I've been reviewing my Starfleet Slang glossary and have decided to reverse my opinion somewhat on this expression. I say "somewhat" as I'm not thinking of it in the same way as originally posted. (For those who don't feel like digging back, it was postulated that a sudden manoeuvre while cloaked could reveal the plresence of said cloaked ship. I feel it would more likely be when a Romulan/Klingon/whoever drops into cloak and immediately reverses course to evade pursuit. I imagine that the olnly way for it to re-enter the fleet vernacular is for some cadet studying 20thC naval tactics in a military history course to draw the comparison to a common Rommie or Klingon tacics and write a well-received paper on it. It may actually mutate to some form like "Crazy Ivanus" or "Krazy Korok" or some name more relevant to the modern era.