Gender specific Empire ranks

SHADEVARI

S
Hi,

since the Empire is using medieval style titles for their ranks I was wondering why they are not gender specific? You can select a pilot gender and it is displayed accordingly but the title still shows Baron or King or whatever which looks kind of silly. My suggestion below would be to correct that.

Rank
Male
Female
1OutsiderOutsider (neutral)
2SerfSerf (neutral)
3MasterMistress
4SquireSquire (neutral?), Squiress or Handmaiden
5KnightDame
6LordLady
7BaronBaroness
8ViscountViscountess
9CountCountess
10Earl??? (history states that this is also Countess)
11MarquisMarquess
12DukeDuchess
13PrincePrincess
14KingQueen

What do you think? Suggestions for the missing title of a female Earl are also welcome. Please refrain from suggesting "Earless" since that would indicate some missing bodyparts. ;-)

Cheers,
Dj
 
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Psycho Romeo

Psycho Romeo
Rgconner said:
Even the Emperor does not get Empress.
Click to expand...
A dame is not the gender opposite of a knight. A knight is a knight is a knight.

Edit:
Apparently this isn't entirely true. A knight in a suit of armor is indeed a gender neutral knight, but a knight rank (like a Sir Lancelot) is male, to which the dame is a female.
 
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Winterwalker

Winterwalker
Suggest you could stick to Countess, for both Count and Earl (equivalents)? The rank list could dare to be different and basically you could go through this rank twice before reaching Marquess? (Could use Contessa as the junior one maybe, I think that's Italian).

I'm asking myself if there are any other gender specifics in areas that could fit ED and I'm not sure if I can think of many, that might change in a First Person walk around mode later. Arguably it's a good thing, not to distinguish at all (Bechdel Test) as what about Transgender then?? But, while it risks opening a can of worms (no pun intended) personally I don't have a massive problem with the principle of "vive la difference". It fits the Empire character so a plus one, though maybe for later. The Federation and Alliance both need some character fleshing too?
 

trollson

trollson
Squiress (f. Squire) is listed as arising in 1823 (very specific?).

Given the etymology of Squire - from shield-bearer - then an equivalent could also be "Shield Maiden".

Earl and Count are largely equivalent titles (Germanic vs Romance origins), so the question may be why are both in the list? The female equivalent for "Earl" would be something like "Earlin" or "Earlen" (Germanic feminine suffix), but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that being used.

However, titles in 3300AD are likely to have shifted in meaning in any case - consider how they have changed in the last 1300 years! There seems to be a move in current times away from gender-specific titles - consider how "Actress" has been replaced by "Actor" in the media (at least what I see in the UK). So titles by 3300 may have evolved to be gender neutral.

More interesting is why the Empire's titles are almost exclusively from 19th century Britain; no titles migrated in from other cultures?
 

Cosmo

Cosmo
It makes sense to have male and female versions of empire ranks. This could confuse people though.
 

Witherbold

W
They could have a lot of fun if there were alternative titles available for different ranks. For example an Earl's continental equivalent might be a Graf, or Margrave, and the female form of Graf is the quite wonderful sounding Grafin. Where I'm going with this is you could get away with calling yourself a Gryphon on skype and blaming your microphone for the vowels not being quite right.
 

Arry

Arry
Interesting point and well argued. However: If FD had wanted equality, I am sure they would have offered it from the start and so the ranking thing, is something for the chaps and if the ladies want to rank up. It could be seen as a tom-boy kind of thing and accept the ranks offered.

At the same time; looking at the normal way of things: Is a Lady of equal rank to a Lord? A Duchess, equal to a Duke? Are they consistently viewed, by males, as carrying the same weight, or standing, as their male counterparts? Or are these 'cosmetic titles', just that; labels just to, embellish the males position in life?
 
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