14

In one of the final scenes in DIS: Will You Take My Hand we see a new United Federation of Planets insignia on the wall behind the admirals.

The insignia has two acronyms, the upper one is obvious and stands for the United Federation of Planets.

The other one may stand for Fédération des planètes unies, which would be the United Federation of Planets in French. It makes further sense, given that the ceremony was held in Paris.

Why does the Federation insignia have two acronyms?

Has it been consistent throughout the whole of Star Trek: Discovery or was this the only occurrence in the series?

Is French a dead language or is it an official language of the Federation?

Why was French language superior to Vulcan, Andorian, or Tellaritan?

Please note that these are not additional questions (which should be divided into separate ones), but some points to consider when answering the question in bold.

Given that it was the final episode aired, both in-universe and out-of-universe answers are appreciated.

Image showing insignia and admirals

Community
  • 1
Edmund Dantes
  • 7,181
  • 1
  • 41
  • 57
  • 1
    It is of course a take on the UN logo, but that leaves the question, when was this first shown in a Star Trek episode? – Mr Lister Jul 13 '18 at 09:50
  • 1
    @MrLister, or maybe the NATO logo? Some word-of-God would help :) – Edmund Dantes Jul 13 '18 at 09:53
  • @EdmundDantes There seem to be several different and unrelated questions in your post (about the insignia, French etc). Can you narrow it down a bit? – Hans Olo Jul 13 '18 at 11:39
  • 4
    @Loki - that is EXACTLY why I have included this note: Please note that these are not additional questions (which should be divided into separate ones), but some points to consider when answering the question in bold. – Edmund Dantes Jul 13 '18 at 11:45
  • 1
    @EdmundDantes They look like extra questions to me, not additional notes... – Hans Olo Jul 13 '18 at 11:59
  • I've seen various historic/cultural references to French being "the language of diplomacy" - perhaps that stance survives a couple centuries hence? – VBartilucci Jul 13 '18 at 14:44
  • The problem is that's the only instance of that UFP logo, The ones we see in later series (like DS9) all look like the UN logo, but with stars instead of Earth between olive branches. None have UFP on them, let alone FPU – Machavity Jul 13 '18 at 15:02
  • @EdmundDantes - Ask and ye shall receive – Valorum Jul 13 '18 at 15:11
  • Related: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/186183/is-picard-actually-fluent-in-french, https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/56193/why-did-data-call-the-french-language-obscure, https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/34582/was-picard-speaking-french-and-being-translated-the-entire-time – ThePopMachine Jul 13 '18 at 15:22
  • I would have assumed that any abbreviation that made sense in French might also make ssense in most other romance languages. Thus I would have assumed that the Abbreviation was in Latin or Romanian. – M. A. Golding Jul 13 '18 at 15:52
  • "Fédération des planètes unies, which would be the United Federation of Planets in French" - literally, it's more like "Federation of United Planets". – O. R. Mapper Apr 12 '22 at 20:00

1 Answers1

12

According to the show's producer Jordan Nardino it's the French version of UFP (United Federation of Planets) which makes sense since the ceremony was in France.

For those asking, FPU is UFP in French 'Federation des Planets Unis' (did I get that right?)

Via Twitter - (with grammar corrected)

You might wish to note that this should read 'Fedération Unie des Planètes' since it's a united federation of planets rather than a federation of united planets.

Valorum
  • 689,072
  • 162
  • 4,636
  • 4,873
  • 1
    Oh yeah, Valorum again. How am I not surprised? :) – Edmund Dantes Jul 13 '18 at 17:27
  • 7
    @EdmundDantes Some say he's a time traveller from the future who knows the answer before you've asked your question. Some say he's a supercomputer cluster directly connected to the StackExchange network. All we know is, he's called the Stig... wait... Valorum. – T.J.L. Jul 13 '18 at 17:38
  • 1
    @EdmundDantes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wrSsIVqHpM – Valorum Jul 13 '18 at 17:40
  • I guess they picked "Fédération des Planètes unies" to match the French name for the United Nations: "Organisation des Nations unies" – Roujo Jul 17 '18 at 12:45
  • @Valorum - That was funny... – Odin1806 Aug 05 '18 at 14:50
  • "Fédération Planétaire Unie" ("United Planetary Federation") is a close match to the original name in English, and it's stable when I switch languages back and forth in Google Translate. Maybe that's what Jordan Nardino meant. Whether it sounds right to a native speaker of French, I can't say. – Gaultheria Jul 16 '19 at 04:19