Feminizing Imperial Ranks

[gorankar]

Who would it rile up really? Are any of them actually left? This sort of thing is unlikely to take away personnel from fixing real problems the game has for long enough to matter to me. So go for it.
Yes, lore does paint the Empire as being rather patriarchal, and yes Arissa is only barely holding the title of Emperor. And, yes, rocking the in game political boat over something many imperials would consider trivial might be a bad idea. But, I can't see players outside the lore fanatic types having much of an issue with this sort of change.
I don't think they will actually make this change, but who knows. Fdev tends to default to not changing anything most of the time.

 

[RBHM Spoons]

Does make sense for the empire to have Female rank names (for those who pick the female Commander in HoloMe)

As for Federation it's not exactly needed as all ranks near enough are unisex.

Wonder how that would work if they were to introduce ranks for the Alliance... (granted it's pointless XD)

 

[Brimston]

This is a good idea, it has always been bothering me to not be the case from the start...
And as you can see here : https://galnet.fr/rangs-elite-dangerous/
In other languages (as French) you can Feminize even a few Federal ranks and basic ranks too.

Combat​	Merchant​	Explorer​	Imperial​	Federation​
Expert/[Expert/Experte] Master/[Maître/Maîtresse] Deadly /[Létal/Létale]	Mostly Penniless/[Mendiant/Mendiante] Peddler/[Boutiquier/Boutiquière] Dealer/[Revendeur/Revendeur] Merchant/[Marchand/Marchande] Broker/[Courtier/Courtière] Entrepreneur/[Entrepreneur/Entrepreneuse]	Scout/[Voyageur/Voyageuse] Pathfinder/[Découvreur/Découvreuse] Pioneer/[Pionnier/Pionnière]	Outsider/[Étranger/Étrangère] Master/[Vilain/Vilaine] Squire/[Écuyer/Écuyère] Knight/[Chevalier/Chevalière]	Cadet/[Cadet/Cadette]

I guess other languages could have many others to feminize.

 

[rootsrat]

Well considering current Emperor being female and title is still Emperor, Empire seems not to care much about having two sets of titles

That's in the lore though. Not sure about the King etc., but the Emperor is definitely on purpose.

(Mind you could be just handwavium).

 

[tolm]

I remember when Space Ace brought this up, it was mainly objected to by men screaming the word 'LORE!'. Apparently lore is something that can never be undone. So it remains that there are only male orientated ranks.

“Lore” is one of my least favourite words that gets used more and more in the gaming communities. As if using some fancy word makes it more than just “story” or “stuff made up by the people who invented tje game” …

 

[bangermsuk]

I was thinking about this too today. The game should recognize if you play a female or male charackter and change it accordingly.

for example
Rank 8 = Viscountess
Rank 9 = Countess
Rank 12 = Duchess
Rank 13 = Princess
Rank 14 = Queen

what happen to DAME or is they too luverly for a rank!

 

[Erei]

The Empire is not patriarchal. The Emperor is female, and many senators to. It doesn't seems to have any bias toward males. In fact, the Emperor seat was disputed between 2 females.
What is strange is that the Empire is modelled upon some weird fantasy of the late Roman Empire-early feudal era. Ironically, while the Roman didn't have a female "dux" (it means general), IE Duke, they did have a female and male title for the emperor couple (Augustus for the emperor, Augusta for the empress, generally, unless they used another title, which also had a female version).


Funnily enough, it's not the first modern fiction which uses gender agnostic titles. Star Trek : Discovery had a Terran Empire Emperor, despite being female. And in SWTOR, if you play a sith inquisitor, you are called "Lord" (as in "Lord Vader") no matter if you are female or male. A point that is raised in one dialogue, as I recall.

I personally would like if Emperor stayed gender agnostic. It kinda feels like the position outweigh the gender of the holder, which make it more imposing ? IE you transcend your condition of "generic" human being, to become your title, Emperor of all the Imperial citizens.
For the other ranks, it would make sense though, and I support the change.

This is a good idea, it has always been bothering me to not be the case from the start...
And as you can see here : https://galnet.fr/rangs-elite-dangerous/
In other languages (as French) you can Feminize even a few Federal ranks and basic ranks too.

Combat​	Merchant​	Explorer​	Imperial​	Federation​
Expert/[Expert/Experte] Master/[Maître/Maîtresse] Deadly /[Létal/Létale]	Mostly Penniless/[Mendiant/Mendiante] Peddler/[Boutiquier/Boutiquière] Dealer/[Revendeur/Revendeur] Merchant/[Marchand/Marchande] Broker/[Courtier/Courtière] Entrepreneur/[Entrepreneur/Entrepreneuse]	Scout/[Voyageur/Voyageuse] Pathfinder/[Découvreur/Découvreuse] Pioneer/[Pionnier/Pionnière]	Outsider/[Étranger/Étrangère] Master/[Vilain/Vilaine] Squire/[Écuyer/Écuyère] Knight/[Chevalier/Chevalière]	Cadet/[Cadet/Cadette]

I guess other languages could have many others to feminize.

Poor example though. In French, every single common name, so any object, person, pet or item is either female or male. You don't have gender agnostic names. The gender neutral version is the male version, IE if you don't know if the name recipient is male or female. Since the character gender is always known (you pick male or female in holo me), there is no need for gender neutral titles.


However, it proves that the game can recognize the character gender, and change the title approprietatly, so it wouldn't too difficult to change.

what happen to DAME or is they too luverly for a rank!

Dame is a rank in UK apparently, but usually in fiction it is usually synonymous with Lady. But more posh. As such it's not a title, but a mark of respect (usually for someone higher than you in the hierarchy). This is due to some French-English weird mixing. "Dame" is french for "lady", while "sir" comes from french "sieur", used long ago, which lead to "monsieur" ("mon sieur"->"my sir"). Sieur itself is short for "seigneur" (lord).

As such it would be more suited for respect than actual rank. IE "Dame Player is a Duchess in the Imperial Navy".

 

[Northpin]

Too much fuss for nothing of relevance
We are all Commanders and i dont look at any ranks as if they have any gender attached to them

 

[Shir]

In the 3300s female empowerment has progressed to the point that king or queen doesn't make a difference.

 

[Brimston]

Ease of implementation: Easy

Maybe not as easy as you think, as this may need many changes in the database system and many new requests, as if this was not planned beforehand, my guess is this may take a lot of work for very small impact.

Still, this may be worth the effort for many Commanders ♀

 

[Fake Newts]

Handwavium aside, eliminating unnecessary gender distinctions for roles that aren't affected by gender is already something actively pursued in our time. It's therefore not a huge stretch to imagine that in the far future humans might not bother to distinguish between 'Duke' and 'Duchess' anymore, if the power held by the individual is the same and male-only primogeniture is a thing of the past.

Of course, it'd probably be worth the game pointing this out in the codex or something but the current Emperor, Harrisa Ravine Duvet, could be seen as a fairly clear indication that this is the case.

 

[Vardaugas]

Considering you can just flip your gender in the Holo-Me with the push of a button, implementing gendered language is not as easy as it may seem, considering the whole game needs to adapt, every time you hit that button. Probably would need a rewrite of the whole text pipeline. Easier to simply define all titles to be unigender.

 

[Northpin]

Easier to simply define all titles to be unigender.

Which seems to be the case.
Arisa is an Emperor

For what is of our concern, Duke is a honorary military Rank from the 34th century (and not the nobility rank of 15th century) and it is the equivalent of the honorary fed rank of Rear Admiral.
Same for King and Admiral - they are both honorary military ranks.

And military ranks hold no gender distinction. Not even today
Our own appellative, Commander, hold no gender distinction either.

 

[Erei]

Considering you can just flip your gender in the Holo-Me with the push of a button, implementing gendered language is not as easy as it may seem, considering the whole game needs to adapt, every time you hit that button. Probably would need a rewrite of the whole text pipeline. Easier to simply define all titles to be unigender.

They do it in the french version of the game, apparently. So yes, it seems easy to implement. The title would swap everytime you change your gender.

 

[Brrokk]

It's already trendy and progressive to say "actor" instead of "actress" etc., so by 3305 I expect that process will be complete...

 

[Rubbernuke]

The thing is- this is a work of fiction and can be anything. It does not have to reflect any current trend.

 

[SoanoS]

They do it in the french version of the game, apparently. So yes, it seems easy to implement. The title would swap everytime you change your gender.

That is interesting. It sounds like the code to handle gendered titles is already in the game and working in other languages. Perhaps, then it is just a matter of changing the titles in the rank database to improve the variety and make a lot of people happier.

(Edit: Changed wording to something less confrontational.)

 

[Northpin]

They do it in the french version of the game, apparently. So yes, it seems easy to implement. The title would swap everytime you change your gender.

That is interesting. If that is the case it would look like the rank table is there but the titles are just lazily copied and pasted from one field to another. Because it would make absolutely no sense to make different codebase for different language versions of the game.

French translation will be dropped from support and eventually canceled.
Like any other cost inducing feature

 

[Neilski]

French translation will be dropped from support and eventually canceled.

Lol, problem solved, eh?

Seriously though, while I support the idea of this, in 2022 you can't mod a game to add female gender-specific stuff without adding things to cater for the people who don't identify as either.
That rabbit hole would perhaps put the devs off making any changes at all.

 

[Erei]

What is really funny is people debating this, when it's really basic. We are not speaking of some obscure sub culture you never heard off where some titles have some offensive meaning or whatever. No, we are speaking about having title equivalent, which already exist and is feasible in game, for people who represent roughly HALF of the world population.
If it was reversed and the title were all female, the same people would probably argue to have male titles to, and a few would likely be in arms because the Fdev would be "pushing an agenda" or such.
It is so charged in irony, we could supply a small town if there was a way to turn it into energy.

The thing is- this is a work of fiction and can be anything. It does not have to reflect any current trend.

Maybe, but they use real life titles, not fictional one. If the king title was called "Porlopus", then sure. But King is a real life title, with a female equivalent, Queen.

Lol, problem solved, eh?

Seriously though, while I support the idea of this, in 2022 you can't mod a game to add female gender-specific stuff without adding things to cater for the people who don't identify as either.
That rabbit hole would perhaps put the devs off making any changes at all.

I don't see your point. The game is in color, but we have colorblind people and they'll ask for accessibility, so it's best if the game is black and white ? But then, what about blind people ?
As previously said, titles already exist in localized version of the game. And you can change your gender on a push of a button (ingame), so it's a non issue.