Battlefleet Koronus is the unofficial title for Passage Watch 27 Est (also shown at least once as Passage Watch 27-Est).

So what does "Est" mean?

I had considered that it might be an abbreviation for "established" but there is genrally no period following it unless it comes at the end of a sentence, so it's unlikely to be an abbreviation.

I also know it could be an attempt at using Latin, but I'm not seeing it.

Any insights would be appreciated.

I won't pretend to know, but it could just be a name.

I wouldnt' know either, but as quite a few terms are roughly based on latin it would translate as 'is'. I also believe that in some language it means 'east' and of course a small village in my country

wolph42 said:

It does appear to mean "East" in French (I don't know French, so I'm just going off of the internet here), but I'm not sure how that would apply to the Passage Watch. It's rather far to the "Galactic Northwest" more than anything. As for the Latin, that seems to make even less sense.

I had also considered that perhaps Est is a code word for the Battlefleet War Cant letter 'e' - much as the US military uses Echo, but that's just a wild-ass guess.

I'd always assumed it was derived from a Carto-Imperialis code (although that's as good as saying "it's random". There is apparently a system behind Carto-Imperialis codings, in-universe, but it's not anything that's been published or leaked in real life) for either the Rubicon II system, or the Furibundus system, or the Koronus Passage itself, or even the general region.

Of course, it could be derived from an acronym (which opens up more room for speculation), or a corruption/abbreviation of aestimare (used by the administratum for certain tithe calculations; no idea what it means exactly).

Alasseo said:

Do you have other examples of this Carto-Imperialis code? I've not seen it before.

As for an acronym, I find it unlikely. It's not presented in all capitals and acronyms seem pretty uncommon in Imperial works that I've seen.

I looked up 'aestimare' and it seems to be Latin for "to appraise/assess" or something like that. Not sure how that makes any more sense…

I like the brainstorming, keep 'em coming!

Aestimare is an Administratum code to catalogue planets under Imperial control. The 3rd edition rulebook had a list of all planetary types (including tithe grades, population range, etc), and the aestimare was part of the traits. Here is one potential explanation of the code. It's as good as anything I could come up with, so until I see anything to the contrary, I'm running with it (and have assigned aestimare B1 to my DW team's base of operations ).

As far as "27 Est" is concerned, I did notice some planets with similar names in FFG's material, such as 47 Kapella or 88 Tanstar. So maybe 27 Est is simply a world of some significance to interstellar trade - a world that serves as a sort of marker point for said passage?

I suppose there are many ways how it could be interpreted.

Lynata said:

Yet there's no mention of a world named Est, nor of a Station of Passage with that name. If it's going to have significance, then it should have gotten a mention…

Unknown said:

It's actually quite common for an acronym that's been around for a while to lose its capital letters, or to only retain the initial capital (and become a proper noun). Laser, for example, began as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. In a 40k example, the Rhino APC was originally known as the RH1N0 (which was the design code for that STC template. It was originally designed as an agricultural vehicle, IIRC).

Offhand, the only other Carto-Imperialis codes I can think of are 5213X, which is the coding for Ghül; and 56-Izar. I could probably find others on a dedicated fluff trawl, but…

The history in BFK notes that the predecessor is Void Patrol Septimus Est. Here we have a recurrance of the "Est" with a Latin name for seventh.

It is also told that there was a first Passage Watch Est, seeming to indicate that the numerical value rises possibly with each new commanding officer?

HappyDaze said:

I thought it could perhaps be located outside and simply in the vicinity of the sector, or that the BFK has the task of patrolling the Expanse in addition to the passage, but then I suppose it would not make much sense to make such a solid connection between the fleet's name and the region if it were not dedicated to the latter…

Lynata said:

According to BFK, they do send their long-legged ships (frigates and light cruisers) out on Long Patrol into the Expanse, but their heavy ships (roughly one dozen cruisers and a few battlecruisers) along with the short-legged raiders (like the Cobra) spend the overwhelming majority of their time in and around the Maw.

Actually, the flagship of Thypus, Herald of Nurgle is called Terminus Est.

divum est terminus =

The Sky is the Limit.

Est = is

Passage Watch 27 is?

Or… from wiki

Other meanings

Terminus Est is commonly translated from the Latin as "This is the end", or literally "It is the end." It can also mean "this is the limit", "this is an end" (due to the lack of the definite article), or "this is the border". However, Severian interprets the phrase to mean "this is the line of division," and Typhon translates it as "this is the place of parting."

While it is not strictly in accordance with the grammar of the original Latin, it might perhaps be considered appropriate by some to rephrase the translation "This is the end" as "It is finished." This adjustment would provide a further nod to Christian symbolism, as in the section below.

Actually est = to be or a state of being something.

'This is Passage Watch 27'. would be one way of reading it.

It is.

Maybe that is a reference to the sea denial naval doctrine of maintaining a fleet "in being", i.e. if it is in being then it is , it exists.

Though to be honest sitting in port to maintain yourself as a potential threat without actually doing anything doesn't seem like something the Imperial Navy would go in for, even though it would kind of make sense for a Passage Watch.

HappyDaze said:

I seem to recall there being two Mechanicus void stations, one names something-er-other Est 17 and the other whatchamacallit Est 14 (iirc), but the latter one was mostly abandoned (possibly destroyed). They are both on the Halo Fringe, near the Void Dancer's Roil Warp Storm (iirc, the AdMech uses the remaining void station to monitor the Warp Storms near The Maw, and watches for junk vessels that get spat out so they can salvage anything that remains. I simply cannot find the supplement this is mentioned in, one of the Rogue Trader ones possibly, but perhaps The Lathe Worlds? I have over fifty supplements and Core Rules books here, and I just can't think where to begin to look.

In any case, punching Scientia Est Potentia (a Blood Ravens "motto", I believe) into Google's translation gizmo translates as Knowledge Is Power.

Est translates as is.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Alekzanter said:

Are you thinking of the two Mechanicus facilities on either side of the Maw? One is on Skiri (in the Rubycon II system) and the other on a tiny planet I forget the name of in the Furibundus system. They are Altar-Templum-Calixis-Ext-3 and Altar-Templum-Calixis-Ext-17 .

So that's Ext, not Est, unfortunately.

You know what I think the answer really is? It's just Latin-sounding gobbledegook dreamt up by a writer with a deadline that doesn't actually mean anything.

Plynkes said:

According to Into 'The Storm, the station located in Port Wander is Altar-Templum-Calixis-Est-3, with its brother station in the void being Altar-Templum-Calixis-Ext-17. I mean yes, someone did make up these names, I'm just wondering where you see the Port Wander station as being named differently.

They are both "Ext" in my copy of Into the Storm . Page 250.