Since humans invented spaceships that can easily reach a speed 0.9c in just three days, space travel has become much faster. This has led to the discovery of multiple galaxies, planets, pseudo-planets, stars, and countless other celestial bodies. Maintaining a centralised registry to record their locations and names has become increasingly difficult and tedious. As a result, humans collectively created the Department of Planetary Naming.
Whenever a human discovers a new planet, they must fill out a form with all relevant details and send it to DoPN. It usually takes four to seven days for DoPN to verify the information and assign an official name to the planet along with the discoverer’s name. If you discover a planet, you can either name it yourself and get the name attested by DoPN, or you can leave the naming entirely to DoPN.
DoPN has a Planet Naming Committee, consisting of captains, researchers, and academicians, who deliberate on what to name a newly discovered planet. Usually, the committee members must decide on a name within 24 to 36 hours, as DoPN enforces a strict deadline. Previously, when no deadline was given, the committee could spend months coming up with a poor name. Since DoPN paid the committee hourly, this used to cost a bomb. Later, DoPN switched to paying per name, but the committee still took weeks to finalise names. Like I said, humans have nothing else to do with their lives, so they just keep fighting over these things. Now, DoPN mandates the deadline strictly. If no name suggestion is submitted within the timeframe, the planet is named using a random word generator, which adds six numerical digits to the generated word.
DoPN processes thousands of Planet Naming Forms every day. Many times, there are legitimate grievances that need to be resolved. For example, two ship captains may discover a planet at the same time, and their forms may reach DoPN servers almost simultaneously. Determining who the actual discoverer is then becomes difficult. DoPN communicates this to both captains and provides them with options. They can either come to a mutual agreement and file a single PNF together, or they can go to the DoPN Court.
In the DoPN Court, both captains must present their cases, including travel logs, quantum clocks, travel paths, flight manifests, and other evidence. A judge, which is an AI, then makes a decision. If the captains are not satisfied with the verdict, they are given another chance to negotiate and settle the matter. Otherwise, the captain who donates a higher amount of money to DoPN wins. As a result, most cases eventually come down to who has more money.
DoPN maintains multiple deep-space server points that are powerful and synchronised with one another. Maintaining them requires enormous resources. There is also a complete record stored on a server located on Luna, Earth’s Moon. Earth no longer hosts servers because servers function flawlessly in space. Also because, there was a rebellion on Earth during which humans destroyed data centres simply because they were bored and had nothing else to do. Boredom is the reason behind most violent crimes on Earth. Humans tend to blow things up because they are bored. As a result, most servers are now located in space, and individual humans no longer own space missiles.
One can find a DoPN office at all major space stations and layover planets. A DoPN attaché is always present to assist humans. Most attachés are now robots because captains often became angry when their PNFs were rejected due to a planet already being discovered and named. In many cases, they took out their anger on the attachés by seriously injuring them. Robots have built-in self-defense capabilities, allowing them to protect themselves from violent outbursts by captains and other researchers. Usually, the robots simply electrify themselves. If a captain has a big gun and destroys the robot anyway, it is not a major concern because robots can always be replaced.
The DoPN database currently contains over 3,609,732 planets, and the number increases every day. DoPN employs 1,032 human beings and countless robots. The DoPN headquarters is located in São Paulo, Brazil.
While naming a planet is the right of the discoverer, some discoverers are trolls. They give planets strange names such as NakedBooty17 or BigBozonka69. Before registering such names in the directory, DoPN sends a “think twice” email to the discoverer. If the discoverer remains firm, DoPN registers the name as it is. Discovering planets is difficult, and space travel itself is challenging. Even if trolls are doing it to troll the universe, they are still putting in the effort, and that effort deserves recognition. There is even a planet officially named Ass.
Some academics are skeptical of this process, but the law is clear. Whoever discovers a planet has the right to name it. Despite this, academics maintain their own directory, which is essentially a clone of the DoPN directory. They assign planets boring names such as ACOM9768 or TROP2298. The DoPN directory is open for anyone to clone, and DoPN does not object to this practice.
However, conflicts sometimes arise between captains and onboard academics. Academics often use their own directory to refer to planets, which enrages captains. Captains believe they deserve exclusive naming rights because they are the ones discovering the planets, while academicians are trampling on those rights. On one occasion, a captain threw an academician off his ship into space because the academician refused to call the planet they were approaching “Greater Chennai,” as named by the captain, and instead kept calling it ROKMO9984. The captain was sent to jail, but the trial took eight years. Justice in space is difficult. One must rely on human moral values rather than a book of rules stored on Earth.
DoPN employs people from all countries, planets, moons, and galaxies. The only requirement is passing an entrance exam, which is fairly easy. Anyone can become part of DoPN. You simply need an average IQ and enough patience to deal with captains. That is all. DoPN provides all its employees with weapons and self-defence training, because you never know what might happen in space or even on Earth.
