Lol oops didn't click that link. But yes
Sir_Fridge
joined 2 years ago
If you were the boss of a group of intergalactic explorers, what would you use as the "North" on the space compasses?
We curse with pus (etter), tbc (tering), cholera (kolere), plague (pest) and more recently cancer (kanker). Although that often hits a bit too close home for some people. There's more that I'm forgetting right now. I have heard people describe something bad as being AIDS. So new ones are actually being added.
One of the theories is that it came from Yiddish where diseases are also used as curses. Another popular theory is that because the Dutch population isn't very religious we switched to diseases because that's whst we feared in stead of God. The truth lays probably somewhere in the middle.
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I think you would pick a north depending on your place of origin. Probably from either their own planet or, more likely, their own galaxy.
But when you get to another galaxy you'd probably have to pick again. Galaxies aren't all oriented the same way but they do roughly spin at the same speed. So, just like earth, from a certain point of view everything spins around the north south axle. But that does not have to line up to your home galaxy. And even if they did, it might spin the other way around. Much like venus spins in the opposite direction of the rest of the planets in our solar system.
What I'm trying to say is that using a universal North is completely impractical for intergalactic space travel. So you'd probably use a local system. And where that's not possible, you'd probably use your point of origin for orientation.