Are BL writers forced to use copyrighted names?

[Moonreaper666]

Are the writers of the Black Library forced to change the words/names to fit with GW's copyright obssession?

 

 

Does every novel they write have to be compliant, writing Drukhari instead of Dark Eldar?

[Ishagu]

Most likely. I recall seeing the new Eldar name in a recent novel - Azuraini or whatever it is.

 

I have no issue with it as it just sounds like more gothic speak in a grim dark setting. Astra Militarum is certainly more distinct than Imperial Guard.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

I was really put off, tbh, by the first of Thrope's Legacy of Caliban series, Ravenwing, because of this. Names of units and vehicles left and right, things I'd never heard of and if I tried to find good pictures of, just couldn't. Luckily it mellowed out there, but yeah, I think it happens on occasion. 

[Kinstryfe]

They'll likely want to use the defensable names to prevent any claim that the old name being generic renders the new name equivalent and under common use. I could of course be wrong, but it's kind of like how Google hates people using Google as a verb because it risks them losing their ™ as the term becomes common usage. Totally may be wrong, but I'd imagine that "use the ™ terms for things which we produce models of" is quite likely a general rule of thumb.

[plastic_slug]

I can guarantee you Black Library has a style guide authors have to adhere to, including using whatever GW has decided is the 'proper' name of a unit/race/etc. Here is a look at the guidelines for Steve Jackson Games. as a reference- 

http://www.sjgames.com/general/guidelines/authors/style.html

I'd bet a Forge World Titan that GW's style guide is a lot more extensive than this one, but similar in tone and content. 

[Elzender]

The worst part is that this also applies to translated BL books and GW codexes (codices?), so you have English words in the middle of Spanish text. This is annoying in the codexes, as those words had always been translated and most people had become used to them. I have not read any BL novel in Spanish in a good while for this very reason, as it is frankly off-putting, breaks completely the literary style and becomes blatant product placement.

[Knockagh]

They are and always will be the uncountable ranks of the glorious Imperial Guard. Shove your Astra Whateveryoucallthemmilitaiarium! If GW are so scared that someone will start writing better books about an army with the same name they should pay their authors more to keep them writing with BL. I can live with the new Eldar names because they sold it that the names are not new at all but are the original names in the old tongue. But you shouldn’t mess with the guard.

[Marshal Rohr]

The Guard could be the Astra Militarum in High Gothic, but they need to continue to refer to it as the Imperial Guard colloquially. BL has been bad about the product placement aspect before, but it comes and goes. Hopefully they can hit a solid stride.

[Gederas]

They are and always will be the uncountable ranks of the glorious Imperial Guard. Shove your Astra Whateveryoucallthemmilitaiarium! If GW are so scared that someone will start writing better books about an army with the same name they should pay their authors more to keep them writing with BL. I can live with the new Eldar names because they sold it that the names are not new at all but are the original names in the old tongue. But you shouldn’t mess with the guard.

 

The Guard could be the Astra Militarum in High Gothic, but they need to continue to refer to it as the Imperial Guard colloquially. BL has been bad about the product placement aspect before, but it comes and goes. Hopefully they can hit a solid stride.

Yeah, Marshal Rohr has it right. Astra Militarum is "Imperial Guard" in High Gothic, like how Space Marines is Adeptus Astartes. I do also agree that it shouldn't be called Astra Militarum in the common parlance in-story, unless the speaker is A: A member of the Adeptus Terra, or B: Very pretentious

[Knockagh]

 

 

They are and always will be the uncountable ranks of the glorious Imperial Guard. Shove your Astra Whateveryoucallthemmilitaiarium! If GW are so scared that someone will start writing better books about an army with the same name they should pay their authors more to keep them writing with BL. I can live with the new Eldar names because they sold it that the names are not new at all but are the original names in the old tongue. But you shouldn’t mess with the guard.

The Guard could be the Astra Militarum in High Gothic, but they need to continue to refer to it as the Imperial Guard colloquially. BL has been bad about the product placement aspect before, but it comes and goes. Hopefully they can hit a solid stride.

Yeah, Marshal Rohr has it right. Astra Militarum is "Imperial Guard" in High Gothic, like how Space Marines is Adeptus Astartes. I do also agree that it shouldn't be called Astra Militarum in the common parlance in-story, unless the speaker is A: A member of the Adeptus Terra, or B: Very pretentious

I can live with that

[SkimaskMohawk]

From what I've noticed with Astra Militarum/Imperial Guard, is that the better books will use AM as their formal designation, but they will still colloquially refer to themselves as "the imperial guard". 

[Mellow]

High gothic always strikes me as upper class or Roman Empire sounding.

 

All lowly guardsman are generally cockney sounding (in my head)

[Ishagu]

There's nothing wrong with the new names, imo. I had an issue at first but after sleeping on it I actually prefer the Astra Militarum to Imperial Guard, just as I prefer Astartes to Marines.

[Jareddm]

My issue is simply that they couldn't stick to a standard. Adeptus Militarum or Adeptus Astra Militarum both would've worked better.

[Panzer]

My issue is simply that they couldn't stick to a standard. Adeptus Militarum or Adeptus Astra Militarum both would've worked better.

Why? They are completely different things. That's like saying it should be Space Guard or Space Imperial Guard. Adeptus and Astra are different words for different things because they mean something different. You can't just replace words with different words just to have a 'standard' lol

[Knockagh]

Astartes are warrior hero’s, proud arrogant completely full of themselves. They would use a fancy pants title to give themselves a bigger head. The guard are scumbags and nice guys, lowlifes and samaritans, rich and poor they are humanity in a uniform pushed into a wall of death by a sense of duty or fear of punishment. They need a common title to suit them. To cover the mess that they are. The lords can dress them up and parade them out with fancy names but when it comes to it they are just a mixture of folks trying to survive and get on. They are guardsmen and women.

[Xenith]

Yes.

 

It's been going on since the Chapterhouse case. One of the most awkward ones is in Ahriman: Exile when some "Chaos space marine warp talons" emerge through a portal.

[grailkeeper]

Chocobots put down those entertaining products from Mattel, Colonel Kha-Taffy is up to his old tricks.

 

 

 

Id be interesting if Bl ever made their style guide public in the way that the art requirements have been. Aspiring artists have to draw an ultramarine fighting an ork to show they understand 40k and its style. Its why you see that on reddit etc fairly commonly.

[Panzer]

Yes.

It's been going on since the Chapterhouse case. One of the most awkward ones is in Ahriman: Exile when some "Chaos space marine warp talons" emerge through a portal.

I'd say some authors are just less skilled at following such guidelines. I'm sure there was no need to describe them as “Chaos Space Marines“ and just writing “Warp Talons“ would've been enough. ^^

[Jareddm]

 

My issue is simply that they couldn't stick to a standard. Adeptus Militarum or Adeptus Astra Militarum both would've worked better.

Why? They are completely different things. That's like saying it should be Space Guard or Space Imperial Guard. Adeptus and Astra are different words for different things because they mean something different. You can't just replace words with different words just to have a 'standard' lol

Tell that to the Adeptus Administratum, the Adeptus Custodes, the Adeptus Ministorum, the Adeptus Arbites, the Adeptus Astronomica, and the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.

[Tyriks]

Everything with "Adeptus" in the name is semi-autonomous. Astra Militarum is not. I believe that's the standard.

[Jareddm]

Everything with "Adeptus" in the name is semi-autonomous. Astra Militarum is not. I believe that's the standard.

The Lord Commander Militant is a High Lord of Terra, as is the Abbess Sanctorum of the Adepta Sororitas. And either the Sisters of Battle are not autonomous from the Adeptus Ministorum, and thus wouldn't be called "adept" or they are autonomous and the Imperial Guard is just as much so and should have "adept" for their name as well.

[Panzer]

 

 

My issue is simply that they couldn't stick to a standard. Adeptus Militarum or Adeptus Astra Militarum both would've worked better.

Why? They are completely different things. That's like saying it should be Space Guard or Space Imperial Guard. Adeptus and Astra are different words for different things because they mean something different. You can't just replace words with different words just to have a 'standard' lol

Tell that to the Adeptus Administratum, the Adeptus Custodes, the Adeptus Ministorum, the Adeptus Arbites, the Adeptus Astronomica, and the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.

 

I'm sure I don't need to tell them how language works. 

[Tyriks]

 

Everything with "Adeptus" in the name is semi-autonomous. Astra Militarum is not. I believe that's the standard.

The Lord Commander Militant is a High Lord of Terra, as is the Abbess Sanctorum of the Adepta Sororitas. And either the Sisters of Battle are not autonomous from the Adeptus Ministorum, and thus wouldn't be called "adept" or they are autonomous and the Imperial Guard is just as much so and should have "adept" for their name as well.

None of that means they have the same level of autonomy.

[Xisor]

 

Everything with "Adeptus" in the name is semi-autonomous. Astra Militarum is not. I believe that's the standard.

The Lord Commander Militant is a High Lord of Terra, as is the Abbess Sanctorum of the Adepta Sororitas. And either the Sisters of Battle are not autonomous from the Adeptus Ministorum, and thus wouldn't be called "adept" or they are autonomous and the Imperial Guard is just as much so and should have "adept" for their name as well.

Check out, or cast your mind back to "The Binary Succession" - I'd expect an opera on the subject of the Adepta component of the Adepta Sororitas.

 

Hell, the Age of Apostasy is just the start of it.

 

Similarly, look at the tomfoolery that the Sisters of Silence went through being a component of the Adeptus (cref: the Beast Arises").

 

These other organisations exist as Adepti already.

 

To make the Guard an Adeptus would be a monumental thing, and massively hobble the dominating power of the Adeptus Terra (by virtue of the Admirals, Comandant General(?) and the Lord Commander Guilliman (except when that seat is taken by Lord Commander Guilliman Guilliman)) as the senior voices of the Imperium.

 

The council seats Twelve. And three of them are drawn from the Adeptus Terra (the Navy and Guard being subsets of the Departmento Munitorum) - so whilst fractious vs the seat taken by the Adeptus Terra delegate, that's still three seats (or more) eligible for a single Adeptus, albeit with roving and complex authority.

 

The Guard and Navy are hugely dependent on the Administratum and DM. That's an almost entirely deliberate balance against the Astartes and likely also a chief reason for the Sororitas being distinct from the Adeptus Ministorum.

 

In cahoots, but not so tight a relationship that the Ministorum has final say over the Sororitas.

 

It can be view as a halfway house two: two votes from the one interest group - the Church - but potentially pitted against one another in a way that was all bad.

 

Hell, Vandire was Adeptus Terra and became Ecclessiarch - arguably after his death that was a concession/compromise/shrewd-power-move to give the Terran priesthood five seats not three!

 

More to stably outvote those pesky Martians, mutants and psykers!

 

But elevating to an Adeptum seems... Fraught. (Again: Binary Succession. And I really need to reread TBA and ye olde Sisters lore.)