Names

Operator callsigns

Callsigns are assigned by a company, not chosen, and the form tells you roughly which bloc's culture the company grew up in. Bots draw from these banks; players choose their own.

Frontier form: a thing from the outer worlds, plus a number when the company has had more than one. Kestrel-Nine, Longtail, Dry Creek, Sawback, Tinder, Hollow, Redshift, Cinder-Two, Pale Fork, Backwater, Drift, Ridgeback, Leeward, Skerry, Halfmoon, Slate, Crossfall, Marrow-Six, Lantern Jaw, Wire.

Concord form: a term from scheduling, survey or geometry. Meridian, Cold Archive, Relay Four, Datum, Interval, Baseline, Tangent, Quorum, Parallax, Ledger, Cadence, Offset, Vertex, Second Reading, Null Hypothesis (a Concord operator, to Null's irritation), Manifest, Tolerance, Register, Bearing, Sixth Sigma.

Covenant form: forge, ground, weight. Anvil-Two, Lowwater, Keld Ferrous, Bolt, Slag, Tamper, Crucible, Ballast, Rivet, Deadlift, Girder, Cold Iron, Mortise, Quench, Kiln, Bedrock, Ingot, Holdfast, Counterweight, Furnace-Three.

Null form: absence, signal, doubt. Often transmitted rather than spoken. Nullset, Gaslight, Sable Choir, Blank, Aliasing, Echo Return, Ghost Frame, Noisefloor, Unread, Static, Phantom Gain, Cipher, Zero Crossing, Dropout, Hush, Silhouette, Waveform, Nobody, Flatline, Redact.

Bloc-neutral (guild-raised operators, most players). Tallow, Rail, Serac, Glassline, Overrun, Kite, Freefall, Highwater, Mercy, Wren, Spur, Cairn, Tumble, Shear, Vane, Downgrade, Chalk, Undertow, Halden, Ashfall.

Ship and vehicle names

Machborne vehicle names are foundry marketing that stuck. Each is the plain word for what the vehicle does.

Razor

Light two-seat hover skiff. Named for its silhouette: a blade-thin hull that cuts the ground effect. Recon, beacon delivery, Runner extraction. Fast, fragile, loud.

Hammer

Medium assault vehicle, tracked, with a turret. It is the thing that hits the thing. Covenant companies field them in pairs and call them "the argument."

Titan

Heavy siege platform; a Bulwark's doctrine with an engine. Slow, needs sensor data to be worth moving, and the reason counter-battery positions exist.

Strikewing

Air-to-ground attacker. A pair of forward-swept wings around a gun, built to hit a column once and leave. Countered by Seekers and by the Skylance.

Skylance

Air-superiority fighter. Named for the Lance weapon it was originally built around; it exists so that the Strikewing has something to fear.

Carrier

Troop transport with a high-speed drop. Not a name so much as a job description, which is how the Machborne trade prefers it. Carriers insert on relay beacons and are the loudest thing on any map.

Individual hull names follow the callsign banks: a Covenant Titan is Cold Iron or Furnace-Three; a Frontier Razor is Dry Creek; a Concord Carrier is Manifest.

Planets, systems, stations

Names are survey names: whoever charted a world named it, usually for what it looked like, what it was missing, or who was on the survey team. No world is named for a god.

Core systems (Helix Concord). Halden (the first node, now inside the Break), Verrin (the first foundry world; Mach-1 line), Tessel (site of the first company war), Ostrava Reach, Quill, Meridian Station (the Concord's scheduling seat).

Frontier strands (Frontier Ascendancy). Tallow (the glacial world; Tallow Reach is its contest ground), Dry Fork, Kestrel's Landing, Backwater, Skerry, Cinder Row (a string of six mining stations), Long Valley.

The Keld reach (Iron Covenant). Keld (the forge world), Anvil Station, Lowwater, Bedrock, Quench, Girder Yard (the heavy-hull foundry).

The Sable strand (Null Collective). Sable, Nullset Station, Hush, and three systems whose names the Collective has not published and Concord surveys list as Sable-2, Sable-3 and Sable-5. There is no Sable-4 on any map.

The Break (boundary zone and interior). Cairn (contested node, first battlefield of the Mach Wars), Marrow Outer Station (the tether world; swallowed in LS 204), Halden (interior, lost), Wick, Ashfall, Ninefold (interior, lost), the Serac Belt (a string of ice worlds on the boundary). Interior worlds are referred to in past tense by everyone except the Null.

Sector names. The Lattice is divided by the survey services into strands, named for their anchor node: the Halden strand, the Sable strand, the Keld reach (a reach is a strand with more than one node). Regions of the Break are named by boundary survey: the Near Boundary, the Deep Boundary, the Interior.

Guild-name style guide

Guilds are Machborne companies. A company name should read like a name on a contract, a hull, or a foundry stamp. Guidance for players and for generated names:

Do.

• Two words, or one word and a number. Dust Ledger. Relay Four. Keld Ferrous. Sable Choir.
• Trade nouns: ledger, relay, foundry, survey, salvage, transit, manifest, crucible, cadre, charter.
• Terrain nouns: reach, spur, serac, rail, moraine, hardpan, gully, shelf, crest.
• A number as a serial, not a boast. Furnace-Three is a company that has lost two furnaces.
• Understatement. The best companies have the plainest names.

Do not.

• Titles, ranks, honorifics. No lords, legions, knights, kings, or elites.
• Abstract virtues. No honour, glory, vengeance, destiny.
• Predators, unless the company is being funny about it. Kestrel is a Frontier joke that became a callsign.
• Anything that would sound right in a trailer voiceover.

Sample bank. Dust Ledger, Relay Four, Keld Ferrous, Sable Choir, Tallow Survey, Cinder Row Transit, Second Reading, Holdfast Cadre, Marrow Salvage, Long Valley Charter, Noisefloor, Serac Belt Recovery, Halfmoon Manifest, Cairn Detachment, Quench Foundry Guard, Lee Chain, Ninefold Return (a company of Break-interior refugees; the name is their only statement), Backwater Rail, Girder Yard Auxiliary, Tolerance.

Ranks and titles (cosmetic)

Competitive ranks are foundry certification grades, in order: Initiate, Certified, Rated, Field-Rated, Vectored, Breakrated, Apex. A Breakrated operator has crossed the Break in sanctioned telemetry; an Apex operator holds a recorded MachBreak. Titles are records: "287 KM/H" is a title. So is "Tallow Rail, 1:42."