Talk: Tal Celes

Bajoran Name

Sorry about that, I just figured with her friend Billy calling her Tal and the officers refering to her as crewman Celes we would follow the rules of Bajoran naming layed out in TNG/DS9. Celes being the sirname and Tal being the given name, it would therefore be writen Celes Tal. Tyrant 15:54, 17 Jan 2005 (CET)Tyrant

She is credited as "Tal Celes", therefore that is the name we use. -- Michael Warren | Talk 15:56, Jan 17, 2005 (CET)

How about a comment at the bottom of the page addressing the discrepancy? Tyrant 16:15, 17 Jan 2005 (CET)Tyrant

Is her name written out like that in episode credits? Otherwise, I don't see how we could accord the Encyclopedia or STARTREK.com ( your probable source for this credit ) more credence than actual dialogue? -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 16:16, 17 Jan 2005 (CET)

This was not a matter of canon debate really, I was not trying to give more credit to anything else, and I didn't get the info from StarTrek.com, I just thought that the fact that her name seems to break from all other Bajoran names to date seemed worth mention. Tyrant 16:27, 17 Jan 2005 (CET)Tyrant

I'm questioning DarkHorizon: where is she credited as Tal Celes?: That might make a difference is how we interpret the credit. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 16:29, 17 Jan 2005 (CET)

Eh? It comes from StarTrek.com, also TVTome.com, and IMDB.com. Since StarTrek.com lists the episode credits as they are seen in the end titles, I see no reason to doubt it. -- Michael Warren | Talk 16:43, Jan 17, 2005 (CET)

As far as I am concerned, if the argument "her named was listed as 'Tal Ceres' in the end credits, so that must be right" is justified in this episode, then the same argument is justified in Star Trek 6, and we should really be calling her "Uhuru" instead of "Uhura". End credits have been wrong before, and if the end credits are the only thing that disagrees with the well established Bajoran naming convention (I can name at least half a dozen Bajoran characters who support the family name first convention), then we should simply disregard it. And in any case, we've got no onscreen evidence to support that she prefers her name in anything but the Bajoran configuration.--Tiberius 11:07, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not a matter of credit, it's a matter of dialog, she is Bajoran, so based on their established naming style, if her name was Tal Celes her friend would have been calling her by her sirname and her superior officers would have been addressing her by her first name, until Janeway got comfortable with her and started calling her by her last name. You see the oddity of this? Tyrant 16:33, 17 Jan 2005 (CET)Tyrant

Heh, sorry misread on my part, thought you were talking to me. And for the record I am not looking to have the part moved, just thought it was worthy of a comment on the bottom of the page. Tyrant 16:35, 17 Jan 2005 (CET)Tyrant

Yes, I do think it's worthy of a comment - I think it's likely that the Voyager scriptwriters just forgot about the Bajoran name order. -- Michael Warren | Talk 16:43, Jan 17, 2005 (CET)

Well, we've disregarded STARTREK.com before -- and her name was probably never arranged "Tal Celes" anywhere on screen, right (since traditionally VOY didnt put each acotrs name with a character name in the beginning guest credits? Wondering why we have to slavishly honor this, if it never appeared writted or spoken onscreen? -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 16:46, 17 Jan 2005 (CET)

I'm going to bring this back up again. It seems to me as if all the good arguments are on the side of renaming the article "Celes Tal"... yet that never happened. In fact, the only argument in favor of leaving it Tal Celes was "thats what StarTrek.com said", which is just an awful argument IMO. Unless theres an Okudagram to prove this wrong, I think her familial name (the name her superior call her) should be listed first, and her given name (the name her friends call her) should be listed last.– Hossrex 08:57, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

No Support to changing article's name to Celes Tal. Already from the Bajoran beginning (TNG: "Ensign Ro") Ensign Ro Laren said that some bajorans have changed their name so that their surname is first and family-name second, like many humans have it. Ro, on the other hand, have chosen no to do it. There is a possibility that Tal Celes have chosen to go by the way most humans do (I am not forgetting that Japan, and possibly other countries, have the way of Family name - Surname).
About end-credits, in this case where we don't have much more to go with, i think we should go by the end-credits. Uhura was miss-spelled Uhuru in the end-credits for TUC, but then... we also had about 5 more movies to use, and 3 seasons of TOS (and TAS, but they're not officialy canon, just MA policy) that support her name Uhura. and if i don't remember wrong, in TOS: "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" spock said that her name is Uhura, and that her name came from Uhuru that meant someting...
But anyway, I think that we should go by the end-credits when the other things we have is the traditional bajoran way of putting family-name first. This would not be the first time the writers have made a mistake. remember that in TOS, the speed of a specific warp-factor could change from episode to episode? there are sure to be more inconsistence in the trek-verse, this would not be the first (or the last one) created.
Keep the article-name Tal Celes. --Rom Ulan^Hail 19:37, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Point 1: As far as I know, Memory Alpha does not accept "Startrek.com" as a canon source, meaning the name Tal Celes, as the only place ever credited as such, is non-canon. Point 2: We have no canon reason to think that this person has adopted the practice Ensign Ro described, making it an assumption. Assumptions are not allowed on Memory Alpha. Point 3: In every instance, of every Bajoran, we've ever seen on screen the Family name has come first, and the given name second. In conclusion: There is ZERO canonical reason to have her name listed as Tal Celes, and every canonical reason to have her name listed as Celes Tal. If the only reasons to call her Tal Celes are what a non-canon source credit her as, and a throwaway line by a different character on a different episode of a different shot, which may, or may not have anything to do with this matter, it really should be changed. – Hossrex 03:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I've got to go with Hossrex on this. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 03:52, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I think this was a real mistake, no one during the production paid attention. Perhaps we should ask Mike Sussman on his userpage. He wrote the story and co-wrote the teleplay for the episode "The Haunting of Deck Twelve". Perhaps he still has the scripts for these episodes and I think we can take the scripts as real canon-references. Just an idea. – Tom 05:56, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

In "Good Shepherd", three personnel files are seen. The main text isn't legible but the names are. The names are listed as follows: Mortimer Harren, William Telfer and Tal Celes. --Jörg 06:46, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Assuming "Good Shepherd" showed the personnel file, I feel comfortable in backing down from the point. Perhaps we could get a DVD screen capture? Even if it were only posted on the talk page, it would probably help to assuage further debate. If theres a canon source, I accept it without reservation. – Hossrex 07:31, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Now that I know where to look, I found it on Trekcore. Here you go. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 07:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Well I'll be hornswaggled. :) It seems as if she is one of those meshuga Bajorans who've denied their heritage in order to better integrate into Starfleet standard. I personally have an easier time pretending this was what they meant, instead of the alternative... that the writers of a show that has great emphasis on the Bajorans screwed up something so simple, and easy to remember. – Hossrex 08:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you OuroborosCobra. Now, we can see that her full name showed up in canon, and that her name is Tal Celes. We can now continue to argue for a long time, but that will not change the fact that her name is Tal Celes by our canon-rules. It showed up on an LCARS.--Rom Ulan^Hail 09:35, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Here's a screenshot of her personnel file which can be added to the artcile for further reference as well. --Jörg 11:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Standard Information

Should the general "she was on Voyager, so..." information be on here? I think it would make the page more complete. i.e.: "She was aboard voyager during (events of caretaker), and was beamed aboard the array" and the events of Endgame. (and so on and so on). -AJHalliwell 02:01, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

True... if anyone could think of a good way of wording it all, I'm all for it. My creative mind is offline today for some reason... AmdrBoltz 02:07, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
I really think that's being awfully redundant and perhaps being a little too deceptive; the character didn't exist in "Caretaker" and anyone curious about the details of Voyager's journey would be better off reading the article on the ship, which is wikilinked. We should just stick with the important facts from the appearances and references to the character. Otherwise, we can get really complex and start finding ways to link minor characters to any event whatsoever just because they may have been around, such as when Voyager's crew were stranded in "Basics" and "Displaced" or when they were affected by some malady like in "Macrocosm" or "Waking Moments." Also, I still believe that we should remove reference to "Endgame" for the same reasons, and for what I said on the featured nominations page; we don't know for certain whether or not she was alive at the end of the series. -- SmokeDetector47 // talk 19:47, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Moved from Nominations for featured articles

Tal Celes -- Great content for a minor character AmdrBoltz 01:51, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
- Ah, this was an old article of mine. A lot of nice community work added since then, I certainly support. Tyrant 03:06, 23 May 2005 (UTC)Tyrant
- Support — THOR 03:29, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
- Support, with the condition that the "Caretaker" datapoint be removed (Tal wasn't mentioned or established that far back and the info about Voyager being lost can be condensed into a sentence in the opening paragraph) and the ""Endgame"" datapoint removed (we don't know 100% for sure she survived). -- SmokeDetector47 // talk 04:43, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
- Please see the talk page regarding the addition of Caretaker and Endgame information. I orignaly didndt add it in, but it was said it should be added... AmdrBoltz 19:33, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite?

I'm not too sure if this latest big rewrite By Eyes Only is any good. It gives a lot of excess information about really weird things. Like writing 'Operations Manger Harry Kim' instead of just Ensign Harry Kim, and a lot of other stuff too. Kim is never mentioned or referenced to in that fashion on MA as far as I know. Not to mention the fact that it seems to remove information in several places. Like the removal of the fact that she once struck Harry Kim by accident. Some of the rewrite is ok. It improves grammer and syntax but that could be done without all the other edits. Need I remind Eyes Only that this is already a featured article and that it therefore is not in need of a such complete rewrite. Marjolijn 1:32 December 9 2007 (CET)

I would agree. I would also question calling Seven "Chief Astrometrician" when she was never addressed or referred to as such during the show. I don't think it is neccesary to add all the titles (or nonexistent titles) to every characters name.--31dot 00:39, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I kind of agree. Just so you know, though, an article being featured doesn't mean it can't be rewritten at some later point in time. That said, feel free to reverse/revise the edits you don't like and keep the ones you do. :) --From Andoria with Love 04:48, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

If a change is drastic enough, we should consider nominating it for removal from featured status, since it is no longer what was decided to be featured. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 08:39, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't it make infinitely more sense to revert the article, then to remove its "featured" status? If it isn't of the same level of quality as it was before, change it back. – Hossrex 08:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, here is where we get into a bureaucratic mess that we usually just don't mess with. Even if we think it is still of great caliber, if the change is drastic enough that it no longer resembles what was voted to be featured, we are supposed to unfeature it and vote on it again. Like I said, something we rarely bother with (see Star Trek Armada, which I totally revamped way back in the day but never bothered to do this for, but then again it doesn't seem to have been as controversial as this). --OuroborosCobra ^talk 08:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Cobra's right, we would need to go through the nomination process again. And if some of the edits are good and valid, it wouldn't make sense to just revert the whole thing, nor would it really be fair to the writer. --From Andoria with Love 08:58, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, in this case, the main problem with the latest rewrite seems to be that it suffers from an overidentification of the regular characters and certain events. This has been a common problem with the Star Trek: Voyager summaries on the whole. A significant chunk of them say things like "Voyager's commanding officer, Captain Kathryn Janeway" or "Voyager's Chief Astrometrician, the former Borg drone Seven of Nine" or (my personal favorite) "Voyager's flight controller Lt. j.g. Thomas Eugene Paris' wife, Voyager's Chief Engineer, the half-Human/half-Klingon hybrid and former Maquis member Lt. j.g. B'Elanna Torres." The problem now seems to be creeping into Voyager subpages as well, and to be blunt, I've never understood the need to have these endless adjectives. They make the summaries and the subpages unwieldy. If we just say "B'Elanna Torres ejects the warp core" and someone doesn't know who Torres is, they can easily click on the character's name and find out her marital status, her husband's name, her position, her heritage, her backstory and her rank. Why have it all over the site every place she's mentioned? - Bridge 13:13, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I've revised this latest rewrite. I've used some of Eyes Only's ideas. They helped create a somewhat better description of Celes. I've removed all the excess naming stuff and shortened them to simpler forms that every one understands. I've also added some more info and details on the character. I couldn't remember if Celes' roommate is ever clearly seen in Good Shepherd or if the actress portraying her was credited. I do hope this is a better edit that everyone can be satisfied with. Though I've probably messed certain things up a bit like grammar and syntax but I did my best to incorporate the older article with the newest revisions in the hope of creating a better article. -- Marjolijn 18:08, 9 December 2007 (CET)

Move for protection

This is going to heat up into an edit war pretty fast. Changes are happening on the scale of thousands of characters, and now to the point of reverting (including based on a premise that one cannot use contractions in an encyclopedia, something I have never heard before). It appears people are starting to not look at the talk page, or try discussing it here. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 18:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I semi-rv'd it... Marj, make sure that you use the proper apostrophes and quotation characters. The ones you used aren't good. I also protected it for the tie being, since it only makes sense to discuss stuff here before rv'ing 3k+ worth of text... that one's directed at you EyesOnly. Discussion, don't arbitrarily rv a whole pile of stuff and then leave an "edit warning". That just ain't couth. -- Sulfur 19:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, this is turning out to be quite a discussion, I hadn't seen that coming. But I don't see the need to protect the article already. I had already posted a message on Eyes Only's talk page to advise him to use the talk page more before making such intense rewrites or reverts. I've also already advised him not to use a minor reason like using contractions as a premise to revert an entire edit like mine. I discussed rewriting or reverting his big rewrite on the talk page here to see if others agreed that it wasn't so good. Everyone agreed therefore I set about maybe trying to incorporate bot Eyes Only's edits, the old article and perhaps a few new updates into an improved article. In the future I won't use the contractions so much, if only to make it look more 'clean' and if not then to avoid debates about it. If they're not there then they're not a problem. I am curious, did my edits make it read like a episode summary too much? I only mentioned events in which the Celes character appeared or participated. I'm not really used to writing character pages but I'll try to do better in the future. Sorry for the incorrect proper apostrophes and quotation characters. I wrote it in Word and then I realized that it's not really the same. It won't happen again. But I could use a few more specifics about what I did wrong so I can be more careful next time. I trust Eyes Only will listen to my advice so he'll understand what went wrong. Marjolijn 20:35, 9 December 2007 (CET)

Support, if it is possible to just protect the article, let us continue the discussion about the article on it's talkpage (here).--Rom Ulan^Hail 19:37, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! Judas H. Priest! This is getting blown waaaay out of proportion! Who said anything about an edit war?? Relax! After seeing Marjolijn's response on my page, I merely intended to merge his ideas and mine to both our satisfactions. I have left, on Marjolijn's talk page, an explanation of why I use the 'seemingly overlong titles' etc. I also left similar thoughts on Cobra's page. I have been advised that reversion was to large a step. I understand and accept that. RELAX! NO edit war is brewing! Unprotect the page! GEEZ! *LOL*
– Watching...^listening... 20:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe we shouldn't protect pages because we thing an edit war is brewing... maybe we should wait until the edit war has begun... you know, when it actually becomes necessary to protect the page. ;) That said, these articles are not episode summaries and should not be treated as such. The more information pertaining to this character, the better... and the less information pertaining to events and characters that have little to do with this character, the better. --From Andoria with Love 23:39, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Thing is, we already did have an edit war. Despite multiple talk pages where Eyes Only is the only one stating support for the "overloaded titles", and many others opposing, they were taken away, put back, taken away, an put back again all in 12 hours. That is a war already. We then had people adding and then removing several thousand characters worth (and therefore a lot of work) with little explanation in the edit summary, and none on the talk page. Eyes Only, it would be like if we had just hit the revert button on your initial re-write. None of us did that, we first discussed it here, and then made some tweaks to it. We didn't simply revert everything you had done. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 02:07, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, well I guess it varies for different users, but I normally think of an edit war as a "three strike" deal: if something is added and removed three times, then it becomes necessary to protect, IMO. In this case, Cobra revised Eyes Only's rewrite, then Eyes Only reverted that, then Marjolijn revised it more, then Eyes Only reverted that, then Sulfur reverted that revert. In this instance, there were only two reverts. I don't think that necessarily calls for immediate protection, but then that's just me. :P --From Andoria with Love 05:22, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

According to Special: Protected pages, the protection on this page should have been removed now. I think the edit-war have been stopped, and I would like to add an image to the article, displaying her personnel-file and her name as Tal Celes. To further show in the article that that is her name, and not Celes Tal. It was something that was discussed also during the time for the edit-war. -- Rom Ulan 18:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Note the time. You posted at 18:39 GMT. The protection expires at 19:14 GMT. -- Sulfur 19:15, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Pardon. I thought I saw UTC on the timeposting there.-- Rom Ulan 19:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Tal Celes

This is italicized near the bottom (implying background information):

She was referred to as Crewman Celes (implying 'Celes' is her family name), and only Billy Telfer called her Tal (implying 'Tal' is her personal name), therefore her name would be Celes Tal according to traditional Bajoran naming. In TNG: "Ensign Ro", it was noted that some Bajorans changed the order of their names for the benefit of relations with Humans.

I think now that we have canon information demonstrating that she has broken with Bajoran tradition, this is worthy of being a major point for her character, and losing the italicized status. Being the only Bajoran we've ever seen to have switched her naming convention (likely to better fit in with Humans) would seem to be a fairly significant character trait.

Just my opinion... but it seems interesting to me. – Hossrex 20:20, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation?

This is my first visit to this wiki, so I'm not sure if it's because there's a certain way things are done here, but I specifically came here to find out how this name was pronounced. But there is no pronunciation explained here (as is found normally in wikipedia, for example).

Does anyone know this so I don't have to go find a copy of the episode to listen and find out? --70.160.97.60 14:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

It's pronounced just like "Celeste" without the "t" sound at the end. - Bridge 23:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Year sub-headings?

Is it really necessary to divide the article up into sub-headings by year? IMHO, the two headings we had ("Starfleet Academy" and "Life on Voyager") seemed appropriate enough. It's a small article and dividing it up further when she was only referenced in a couple of episodes just makes the page look messy with a lot of bunching up of text. --| TrekFan ^{Open a channel} 00:08, April 24, 2015 (UTC)

I have removed them.--Typhuss999 (talk) 00:37, April 24, 2015 (UTC)

Cool. I just think it looks neater and easier to read this way. --| TrekFan ^{Open a channel} 15:49, April 24, 2015 (UTC)