I'm fine with finding a different name to refer to us as, but just slapping us with a name that has strong religious implications for no reason other than 'it sounds cool' isn't really my cup of tea. EVE players dont have a fancy name. I mean, capsuleers are called that because they're pioneers inside capsules. Or at least that's what I'm assuming. I may be using pioneer wrong. Not to mention your suggestions aren't something that'd work for everyone. Capsuleer as a term still manages to embody the entire EVE Playerbase because, regardless of what they choose to do, capsuleers is still what all of them are. Calling us apostates when there are still plenty of die hard faction loyal players who see themselves more as soldiers than mercenaries is a slap to their face.

On the other hand, though, I have no clue what I could possibly suggest for an alternative. I don't know any lore to cite potential terms from that, and most terms we'd use nowadays for the kind of people were playing, funnily enough, wouldn't make sense for the kind of people were playing. So many similarities, too many differences, and some of the more 'sensible' terms, like 'gunslinger', are outdated by the setting.

And on this third, invisible hand, I could just be talking entirely out my ass.

Since there's no denying that every single one of us is a clone, and the clones all eventually 'break', or go mad, maybe something to do with sickness, insanity, or violence?

Actually, Capsuleers are quite frequently called Empyreans, especially by the Amarr who embody the most populace and largest single faction in the galaxy.

em-+py-+re-+an
/em-êpir-ô+Ön,-îemp+Ö-êr-ô+Ön/
adjective
1. belonging to or deriving from heaven.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to come off as rude here, but maybe I misunderstood. At we talking about terms that we, the players, use to refer to our in-game characters? Or are we talking about terms we, as our in-game characters, use to refer to each other?

Because if we're talking about what we, the players, refer to our characters as, it doesn't matter one iota what the Amarr say. If we're talking about an in-game term, then can't you just say whatever you want? Different races will call themselves different things and for different reasons. Of course the highly religious faction is going to use religious terms for what are basically immortal beings running their own armada and empires. And if we are talking about actual in-game terms, won't we need to come up with more than just a single, flat term for everyone, since obviously the Amarr has to be special?

But, again, I know next to nothing about the lore, so I'm speaking with nothing to back me up.

Even if the Amarr did create the first cloned soldiers in this manner, which they called Templars if I'm not mislead by the title of the book Templar One, however that seems oddly specific to them as a culture and not really encompassing what we are in New Eden.

Duster personally sounds fine to me for what we are currently. Pointless and non specialist super soldiers who are basically tossed into the sands outside places of real value and told that you're to be paid ridiculous sums for capturing jack ****.

That's surprising, coming from you, True Adamance. Perhaps delightfully so. Thank you for the different angle on the terminology.

And please the Amarr hate speech talk again?

Kinda like Orbital Drop Troopers a lot better, honestly. Makes a bit more sense being as we have our own Warbarges and at some point -MUST- break orbit in order to get planetside. Course, that being said, sort of similar to Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODST's or 'Helljumpers' from Halo).

Orbit Breakers. Maybe. I dunno. Sort of spitballing atm.

I could understand perhaps trying to offer us a new name if one could encompass what Cloned Soldiers are supposed to be in the lore however CCP has shoe horned us as nothing more than CONCORD's stooges basically incapable of operated freely throughout New Eden. What we are offered us nothing more than a general....

"You are a Super Soldier. But as a super soldier you economically don't make much sense and aren't really appealing to hire considering you could hire 100 men for the cost of one of our conflicts to operate anywhere in New Eden covertly at any time."

However if you were to say that we were Orbital Drop Troopers utilizing inertial dampening or localized teleportation technologies which produced distinct energy trails or coronas of light as we plummet to the earth or towards our space bound battlefields I could understand the term 'Arcs/Arks' or 'Angels' or some other such thing.

To me Duster talks about what kind of roll we fill now. Basically one that is all hype. We're just enforcers people call in when they want something reduced to rubble or in this case Dust. Our corposes decompose rapidly after our deaths and I like to believe that the nanites coat the entire battlefield after deployment with a fine grey layer of ashy Dust which fills the air before another new deployment or in the wind causing us to be known for that phenomena as soldiers who stride out of or under the cover of the Dust.

.... As you say I don't mean to be bitter but CCP really shot themselves in the foot by placing us under the thumb or COCORD and not fleshing out exactly how the cloned soldie economic model even works.

E.G- I Logi a battle and get paid out 300,000 ISK.

1 ISK buys and entire terrestrial family a months worth of standard provisions.

100 ISK and I could get any man anywhere in the cluster with military experience to kill for me. I could get 1000 men with unrestricted access to all of New Eden, any time, any place, covertly.

For 100 more ISK per man I could outfit them with military grade technology.

With the remaining 100,000 I could secure them transport anywhere, kit them out with vehicles, or other state of the art supporting technology.

That's 1000 men able to deploy at a moments notice to any location in New Eden, without altering a competing corporate entity for the cost of one bloody Duster. Heck I can even kill them at the end if I want to deny it ever happened. If such is possible why would I ever bother hiring 16 nobodies when I could hire 16,000.

Never liked calling them 'Dusters' as it is a reference to an otherwise **** game title. Be like calling Capsuleers 'EVErs'. Kinda kills my immersion a bit.

Let's theorycraft a new name for them. Here's my suggestions:

Apostate - (noun)
1.a person who renounces a religious or political belief or principle.

Nephilim -
The Nephilim were half-angel, half-human 'Giants' who's rhetoric stems from a number of sources. None more prominent than the Hebrew word for 'fall', thusly meaning 'to cause to fall'. The Nephilim were, according to mythology, giants among men who were outcasted from heaven due to being the offspring of the 'rebel angels' and mankind. Symmachus even goes so far as to describe them as 'The Violent Ones', which is equally fitting as we are -literally- design for nothing more than destruction and that is the basis of the entire game.

If one of these catches on, it'd be fantastic. Of course, I'm not opposed to other suggestions. Just something to call them apart from 'Dusters' or 'Mercenaries' since Dusters derives from the game's title and breaks immersion and Mercenaries is a career choice, not a state of being. Nothing infuriates me more than everyone being called 'Mercenaries' because of the basis of high-sec matches being random NPC corps. Which, Eve devs had already confirmed that high sec missions in Eve were non-canon anyway so why should we assume Dust is any different?

I remember a very similar topic have been made a couple years ago. I remember almost anyone agreed on a certain name, but can't really recall which one.

Kinda like Orbital Drop Troopers a lot better, honestly. Makes a bit more sense being as we have our own Warbarges and at some point -MUST- break orbit in order to get planetside. Course, that being said, sort of similar to Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODST's or 'Helljumpers' from Halo).

Orbit Breakers. Maybe. I dunno. Sort of spitballing atm.

Nephilim

I could easily see some political "puppet master" types sitting in a dim room, talking about some planetary operations, the assets they have in orbit and on the ground....

One of them strokes his beard and asks: "What is the situation with our ODTs?" (ODT = initialism for Orbital Drop Troop)
A woman, standing by a window looking down at the planet replies: "We have a contingent on standby."
The bearded man motions to technician sitting at a terminal and says: "Send them in."
The technican replies: "ODTs en rounte. ETA: 5 minutes...."

Initialisms make sense. They generally sound good and official, and are quick to use. There's a reason why militaries use them. Saying mouthfuls like: dust bunnies, Wayward Soldiers, Apostate, etc? Well...

The term capsuleer is, as far as im aware, an original term. Perhaps a hybrid of pioneer and capsule, one who pioneers through the universe in a capsule, or some other suggestive meaning. But the word, at least, is original. What you suggested is not only not original, but fairly over used in the gaming industry in the last five years. Kinda cliche, even, and it instantly recalls memories of Diablo 3's hilariously bad storyline as well as the DMC reboot, and the dragon age series with its fall from grace. I would think we should avoid that, and instead look toward the creation of a new word entirely.

you're welcome.

Also: Dust bunnies. period.

As Longstrike-haani mentioned previously, there's an old Minmatar folk legend of warrior spirits called draugr or 'again-walkers.' Though the term is mostly applied to immortal mercenaries in a negative context by only the most superstitious civilians, I've found that baring the title as a badge of pride tends to yield results within the Republic. By that I mean, people will take you far more seriously and be less likely to argue with you when you are trying to peddle a mangled flux coil to a Sanmatar.

Elysians in Gallente populations is also a common term, but you have to bare in mind that in the Federation people look to our kind more as sports stars than professional soldiers. We're a source of entertainment, and some of the more... ehm... Outgoing mercenaries like that of the infamous Kirk have a rather large following. Templars seems equally prevalent in Amarr society for obvious reasons, though the APEX line of dropsuits seems to show a shift to the alternative term 'seraphs' to mark combatants not requisitioned directly by the Amarr military.

Lastly, there is Rasetsu within the State but this term seems exclusive to shock and assault troops. More often than not troops within different specialized units will have some sort of name for themselves from Raata demonology. Baku for air assault, kappa for amphibious landings, yurei for practically anything else... Frankly, the best term I suspect that we all agree on that translates well into different cultures is a type of noble soldier we call the samurai.

Has a nice ring to it in my opinion.