Talk:USS Portland

Namesake
The says the eponym of the USS Portland was both Portland, Oregon, and Portland, Maine. The ship's article, however, says it's unclear. Neither article cites a source. What about the many other cities named ? As of today,, with an estimated population of over 580,000 and a metro area of over 2.2 million is by far the most significant city with that name. But ca. 100 years ago that wasn't the case. It seems possible by the 24th century a different Portland might be a more likely candidate. Perhaps the predicted 8.0+ Earthquake or the eruptions of  and/or  will have destroyed Oregon's Portland in the interim and Starfleet named the ship in its memory.) I'm being tongue-in-cheek about that: while those three are real possibilities, I'm not suggesting we add such speculation – I'm merely emphazing that we don't know from canon what will have happened to these cities.

The Portland article does state the city in Oregon is visible on a map, but that map was printed before 2255. We don't know the fate of any of the current Portlands – except that in 2254 Portland, Oregon, existed – only that at most one Portland existed somewhere in the late 24th century.

But until we get background confirmation, how can we say which city/cities are its namesake? (Especially given the almost "ephemeral" importance of many US cities. It also seems US-centric, which is not unreasonable considering the writers' nationalities and likely limited political geographic knowledge.)

Maybe someone with "contacts" can confirm the writers' intent. That'd be cool.

--Cepstrum (talk) 14:23, November 29, 2010 (UTC) Oops. This was probably way to long. Sorry: my concision is terrible. Rats. I'm still having trouble grasping proper talk page usage! :(


 * If I was to guess, I would guess that it was named for Portland, Oregon, since it's closest to California(where the writers work) and it is a large city relative to other Portlands (such as Portland, Maine, for which the Oregon city was named) The city also doesn't have to exist in the 24th Century for a ship to be named for it.  There is a similar issue at USS Springfield, where that article only states that it was named for one of the cities of Springfield- we could reword the sentence to make a similar claim here, or simply remove it.--31dot 15:00, November 29, 2010 (UTC)