Talk:Hive (planet)

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Okay, if the planet's name translates, literally, into "hive planet," why are we sticking it at the Japanese name?--Rosicrucian^Talk 03:26, 20 July 2009 (EDT)

I mean, putting it at its romanized Japanese name may make this look more cool and distinct, but it doesn't change the fact that this is a planet that has fallen victim to the Japanese Transformers fiction habit of naming planets as literally as possible. Let's just hang a lampshade on it and be done with it.--Rosicrucian^Talk 03:36, 20 July 2009 (EDT)

"the Japanese Transformers fiction habit": The Japanese name for Mars is 火星 (Kasei), which literally means "Fire Planet" (Well, actually, they use "sei" indiscriminately between planets and stars, and thus the character has the actual meaning of "stellar body", but I'm going off topic). All of the planets have similar names ("Sky King Planet", "Wood Planet", "Soil Planet", etc.). That's how the Japanese language is, not how a niche set of writers name planets. In that context, it's a proper name, just like Zangetsu, which translates into "Crescent Moon", or Mugen, which has three different meanings. If you're going to take it adamantly literally as "hive planet", well, then it's not a proper noun—it's just a planet that's a hive, then. —Interrobang 04:06, 20 July 2009 (EDT)

Or "stellar hive", depending on how you interpret the Kanji. —Interrobang 04:11, 20 July 2009 (EDT)

...I'm not usually receptive to this kind of argument, but i think Interrobang makes a good point.

We should note that it's called "Hive" in the RTM dub though. -Derik 04:10, 20 July 2009 (EDT)

Move

Okay, with this second move, I have to object. I was okay with it being at "Susei", as that was at least a kind of name, but this is now basically a fucking descriptor in another language, and it just makes my eyes curdle looking at it in the middle of otherwise English sentences. Also, The Ark calls it "Hive". So let's just move the damn thing to Hive so it has a proper name in a language we speak. - Chris McFeely 15:14, 4 April 2011 (EDT)

Well if both Omni and the Ark books call it Hive, then yeah, to Hive it should go. --Detour 15:17, 4 April 2011 (EDT)

Baka! I object! McFeely-tachi gokusu neko-chan shogei! Nihongu Klinzhai kasahstan alibaba! Er... yeah. Agreed.--Nevermore 15:23, 4 April 2011 (EDT)

I fully agree with everything Chris said. --Khajidha 15:33, 4 April 2011 (EDT)

Chris is right. This is, after all, an English language wiki project.--Anonymous X 15:51, 4 April 2011 (EDT)

Expecting proper names in Japanese to not be "descriptors" is ridiculous. It's kinda how the language works, sorry. Or do Thunder Lightning, Mighty Dragon, and Morning Moon not have proper names now? Furthermore, if your problem is that it's a "descriptor", then why the hell are you proposing moving it to the proper name of "Hive"? Either "Hachi no Susei" is a proper name or "hachi no susei" is a descriptor translated into "the beehive celestial body". Pick one. (PS: Jim Sorenson is not and never will be an authority on Japanese planet names when he can't even get basic Romanization down.)

But a single planet keeping its proper name across languages is a THREAT TO OUR ENGLISHNESS. Never mind, then. —Interrobang 16:14, 4 April 2011 (EDT)

Y'know, two out of three of those examples? Written in katakana to emphasise their specialness as proper nouns, rather than using the... kanji or hiragana, whichever the other alphabet is, as would be the case for ordinary words. I have always been behind translating random Japanese into English where it works and makes sense to, and this is just one of those times where it's more conducive to forming sentences and not looking like we're weeaboos, like, for instance, Unicron of Light. (And those three examples of Sorenson's are the product of using reeeally old lists from Usenet, rather actually tackling the language.) - Chris McFeely 16:26, 4 April 2011 (EDT)

And even then, fact remains the Hasbro-approved Ark book uses the name Hive. --Detour 16:30, 4 April 2011 (EDT)

None of you have actually answered my question. Is it a proper name or a descriptor? If it's a descriptor, then the translation is "the beehive planet" in full, not "Hive". Why do you guys think that Sorenson knew what he was talking about when he tossed "Hive" into the book as opposed to when he used "Alkalide"? —Interrobang 03:00, 5 April 2011 (EDT)

I don't know enough about the language to know if it is a descriptor, just that it sounds like one, and in another language that feels randomly dropped into sentences where we could translate it to make it look, sound and read better. I'm certainly not averse to calling it "Beehive Planet" - that's obviously what the creators were going for with the name. And... actually, hey, now that I think about it...! I'll have to check, but I think "Beehive" was the name the planet was given by the Headmasters DVD subs. Now, I'm always reluctant to lean on them as they were a bit wobbly, but in this instance, they do seem to have translated the name right. Yeah, sure, I could get behind "Beehive Planet" - it wouldn't be the only Headmasters planet that doesn't have a proper noun name like Twin Star or Paradise or Darhos did, there's the descriptively-named "Pirate Planet".

As to Sorenson's choice of name, well, again, I put it down to really old lists from Usenet, since that's what the planet was called in the Omni dub, and it's what the fandom's been calling the planet for about twenty years (because it sounds like a proper name rather than a descriptor and unlike so much else in the Omni dub, actually makes sense), rather than actually working from the original language. - Chris McFeely 07:19, 5 April 2011 (EDT)

My problem is still with the idea that anything in native Japanese can't be proper names. You can't avoid having names without some sort of "descriptor" because that's just how the language works. Like with Mars as I said before, the characters that make up the Japanese name literally means "fire planet", but it's silly to render it as "Fire Planet" instead of "Kasei", especially since it's a compound word made up of 星 (hoshi by itself) and 火 (ki by itself). It's more like Fireplanet than Fire Planet. Here, "susei" is a compound of su (which means "nest" by itself and needs the "hachi no" part to give the "beehive" meaning) and hoshi. Like Buster Darkwings said, "hachi no su wakusei" would have been the more blunt description.

PS: If how it reads bothers you that much, we could smush it together into "Hachinosusei".

PPS: If you're still going to move it, move it to "Beehive Planet", please. —Interrobang 12:46, 5 April 2011 (EDT)

As I said, I can get behind "Beehive Planet", since that's what the name means in English, it's what the DVD called it, and it's the same methodology that gives us "Pirate Planet", the name of which has never been an issue.- Chris McFeely 13:28, 5 April 2011 (EDT)

I can sort of see not using the The Ark name since the planet never appeared in English fiction. So, what standard are we settling on? And is the standard different for characters than it is for planets? We don't call Gōryū "Mighty Dragon" (his translated name) or "Icepick" (his DVD dub name). Would we have gone with "Mighty Dragon" if it matched the DVD? - Starfield 13:52, 5 April 2011 (EDT)

Sorry. I thought you were talking about the Omni dub. I always regret putting my 2¢ into these Japanese name issues. But yea, I'm still curious what the standard will be. Whatever it is, the Help page could be updated. - Starfield

The Ark gives it an English name, it should move. -LV 16:50, 4 April 2011 (EDT)

Move it to "Hive". --M Sipher 17:59, 4 April 2011 (EDT)

Yeah. Why are we arguing this? Put all that crap in a note at the bottom. When it's at Hive. -hx 10:05, 5 April 2011 (EDT)

If there were no official English name I'd say "Hachi no Susei." The name is in Japanese which is significant, since a lot of the names in Japanese fiction are actually English. But since it has an official English name, it has an official English name. It doesn't matter if it is a good translation. If it was "Stuart," that would be the name. - Starfield 11:10, 5 April 2011 (EDT)

On a related note, it is kind of strange that the episode title, Fight to the Death on Hachi no Susei!! is half translated and half untranslated. - Starfield 11:17, 5 April 2011 (EDT)

I want to change my vote! I want us to use the Latin American dub name: Planet Boing! --Khajidha 11:25, 5 April 2011 (EDT)