Talk: Great Britain

Undo revision 89074

Note removed as it is unnecessary. Trek canon matches human history up to the 1960s unless otherwise stated in an episode or film. – Trek 14:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm not going to make any more changes. But I would suggest that someone add SOMETHING that explains that the term Great Britain is used in a way in the Star Trek universe that differs from the correct usage in the real world, if only to prevent people from making the same mistake I did when I corrected "Great Britain" to "Britain" earlier. --Leckford 15:59, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

In all fairness to you "Britain" is fairly widly used short hand for "Great Britain", which was why I moved the text to here and setup the redirect. However the list here should demonstrate how the nation should be referanced and prevent anyone making the mistake of changing "Great Britain" to the short version again. – Trek 16:29, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Great Britain and United Kingdom

Okay, I'm confused. According to the Great Britain wikipedia article, that's the name of the island containing England, Scotland and Wales, whereas United Kingdom describes the nation-state itself. Does anyone else read it this way? Should changes be made to reflect this? --usscantabrian 02:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I was watching this whole thing between Trek and Leckford when it happened, and held my tongue. Since the article is talking about the nation I definitely feel it should be called "United Kingdom." --TimPendragon 06:03, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Most likely, even if Ireland does pull away after being unified in was it 2025, it still means the other nations are still united under one kingdom. Or are they implying in Star Trek that the monarchy doesn't exist by then? Not sure... but I think it should be UK depsite what the people on Memory Alpha say. --usscantabrian 23:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

We know Reed's family wanted him to serve in the Royal Navy instead of joining Starfleet. That implies things haven't changed too much by the 2150s. --TimPendragon 00:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

MA also got in to a tangle because there is no canon evidence for the existence of Wales so you can’t define the United Kingdom at all! :-) There is an actual problem if you’re writing about characters in the Trek universe, in that I know I can’t say Fred is from the USA, because in TOS they say there is no such institution anymore—but they don’t say much about what that part of the world is called in their time period! This is exacerbated by "Encounter at Farpoint", in which Q claims that none of the nation-states and cities we are familiar with survived the nuclear holocaust—except perhaps he was fibbing, because many major cities and nations have been mentioned since. We end up with this odd feeling that we know more about Bajorans than we do about contemporary Earthians. --Leckford 01:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this article shouldn be changed to United Kingdom, because there are at least two mentions of other political entities other than the United Kingdom in this article - the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Optimal Republic of Great Britain. If there is more information specific to the political entity United Kingdom, it that should be in a separate article, in the same way as Optimal Republic of Great Britain is. – Trek 11:25, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

If you look at Wikipedia, Kingdom of Great Britain refers to the United Kingdom. As a matter of fact, "Kingdom of Great Britain" is short for "United Kingdom of Great Britain". This then became the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (the United Kingdom as we know it now) when Northern Ireland was absorbed into it.

I think we are missing the whole point of this argument. Great Britain, whether we like it or not, refers to the actual island, not a nation-state, and people are using the terms as if they are interchangeable when they really aren't.

As for the Optimal Republic of Great Britain, perhaps this was a faction on the island of Great Britain that originally broke away from the United Kingdom and then eventually absorbed the entire United Kingdom. Plus I have to respectfully point out that, from what I can tell, the Optimal Republic is from a Star Trek novel and also respectfully point out some fanon series don't consider novels as "canon". Just my argument for changing this to the United Kingdom article. --usscantabrian 09:53, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

My next story - "Nuclear Time" - features the Optimal Republic of Great Britain prominently and it is already mentioned under the entry for BRS Argus (NAR-124). It isn't a faction, instead it replaces the United Kingdom between 2047 and 2079.

I do think this needs a rewrite so that Great Britain isn't refered to as a nation state though (as the nation states are England, Scotland, Wales, the various forms of the United Kingdom or the Optimal Republic at various times.)– Trek 11:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah so I agree that it could be an article on the island where these governments were based, much like North America is where the USA is based, or the North and South Islands being where New Zealand is based. That would work. --usscantabrian 21:53, 18 January 2008 (UTC)