Talk:Simas Osis (Individual Vincent-class WarShip)

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Ship name/identity

This ship is a problem. In the first second naval battle over Huntress, Clan Smoke Jaguar has only three WarShips: a Liberator (Korat) and two Vincents (Azov and Ripper). The Azov is the first Vincent to be destroyed and after its destruction there is only one surviving Vincent, which is named ... Simas Osis.

This seems to be a case of author error, but what do we make of it? Were there three Vincents over Huntress, or were there two, with one named both Ripper and Simas Osis? The narrative is pretty clear in multiple points that there were two Vincents, so I don't think we can go with the former. That leaves us with one Vincent having two names.

As it currently stands, this article has an explanation where the two ships are different vessels, and the discrepancy in the novels is made out to be an "in-universe" misidentification. I don't think that works very well, because the primary narrative is all told from the Smoke Jaguar perspective. Unless there are other sources to support the separate existence of Ripper and Simas Osis, I think we're better off merging the two articles and adding an explanation that the two names come about through an error in the primary source. Tosta Dojen (talk) 12:11, 10 August 2020 (EDT)

Unfortunately, with a canon source name-checking three Vincents during the battle, by name and class, we can't simply merge two of them together and presume that it's an author error; the options for clarifying this are essentially that either CGL clarify the discrepancy by changing one of the ship names in a reprint of the novel, or someone clarifies it with a question on the Ask the Writers forum at the CGL official forums, and cites that ruling here. I've not been on the CGL forums in a while because of how busy work is, but you can see from my user page how I filed questions and logged the answers. Assuming that CGL give a clear answer, it may be that they declare that one of the ships arrived during the battle unnoticed, and joined in, or another detail completely. However, we can't simply rule ourselves on what the actual answer is, only note the discrepancy and possible explanations for it, because we don't create canon, only record it. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 15:52, 11 August 2020 (EDT)

Fair enough; I've read up on Canon and Policy:Canon, and I'll see about posting an inquiry when I have the chance. But it seems to me that creating canon is exactly what the article does currently. It casts the discrepancy as a misidentification, which is just as speculative as any other explanation. Tosta Dojen (talk) 10:53, 12 August 2020 (EDT)

Inquiry posted. Tosta Dojen (talk) 11:50, 17 August 2020 (EDT)