Super Awesome Blog

Well, Cryptic has announced the winners of the Name that Ship Contest:

Emissary and Destiny are pretty cool, if not that creative. Dervish though? DERVISH?

A Dervish or Darvesh (from Arabic or Persian درویش, Darvīsh) is someone treading a Sufi Muslim ascetic path or "Tariqah", known for their extreme poverty and austerity, similar to mendicant friars in Christianity or Hindu/Buddhist/Jain sadhus.

-Wikipedia

What?  What?  What? I don’t understand this reasoning behind this name at all. Wikipedia has a number of disambiguations for the term, however none of these seem appropriate, except the last one:

• Dervishes, Sufi Muslim ascetic worshipper in a fraternity
• a nick-name for the Sudanese mahdists
• Darvish (music), a form of traditional Persian music often featuring instruments such as the Tar, Setar, Ud, Tombak, Daf, Kamancheh and Santoor. example link
• Dervish (dance), a type of dance
• Dervish (band), an Irish folk band.
• Dervishes, a class in the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, which can be found in The Complete Warrior book.
• In the Halo (video game series), Dervish was an early name in development for The Arbiter.
• In Guild Wars Nightfall, one of the additions is the Dervish profession.
• Dervish, the first of the Allied Arctic convoys of World War II carrying supplies for the USSR.

I’m glad I don’t want an Escort class ship, because the Dervish is a decidedly silly name.