System 13

It occurred to me recently that I’ve not really explained why my blog is entitled System 13. Here’s the answer:

When I created my first blog at WordPress.com, I used netJosh as the title for a while, but I didn’t care much for it. I wanted my blog to have a title that held at least a bit of interesting-ness to it, so “Josh’s Blog” or “The Life and Times of Josh” just wasn’t going to cut it.

Shortly after I created my blog, I started getting more interested in science fiction, which would explain why, when I wanted to have a more interesting blog title, I turned to science and science fiction. I started digging around on Wikipedia, looking for science / space terms that could be converted to a blog title. Galaxy? Nah. Universe? Too big, and I didn’t like the ring of it. Star system? Now hey, that could be interesting. The definition for a star system, according to the almighty Google ‘define’ command:

A star system or stellar system is a group of stars (and possibly smaller bodies such as planets or asteroids) that orbit one another (systems with planetary bodies orbiting stars, are referred to as solar systems or planetary systems). Although this is similar to the definition of a star cluster, the term is generally used to describe a group of a small number of stars, often two or three, emphasizing the gravitational influence they have upon one another.

I figured I could play that to fit my blog: my thoughts, ideas, and opinions could be likened to a star system, with lots and lots of different things orbiting each other, interacting in interesting ways. Certainly a long shot, and I’m sure the science is shoddy at best, but hey. I liked the idea, so I ran with it.

The next question that might follow then, is, “what’s the meaning behind the 13?” I’d love to have an explanation, but I don’t. I wanted a number after ‘System’ to kind of mimic how stars and planets are initially named, and 13 sounded good. I wanted a simple number, one that would have a decent ring to it. For an example of what I didn’t want, here’s a snippet from a Stargate episode:

Gentlemen, these planets designated P3575 and P3A577 have been submitted by Captain Carter’s team as possible destinations for your next mission.

Hmmm. Check out my blog, it’s called System P3A577… ?
Nah, I’ll stick with System 13.

I’m going to be blogging a bit more about this. The next entry in this ’set’ will be about making my theme to match the title of my blog, and second thoughts on doing so.