The company's name is derived from The Lord of the Rings where the magical palantíri were "seeing-stones," described as indestructible balls of crystal used for communication and to see events in other parts of the world
The INSANE thing to me about naming your company Palantir after the artifact from Middle Earth is the story behind the seeing stones.
By the Third Age - when the events of the Lord of the Rings take place - several of the Palantiri (plural) are lost. The danger of using the stones was twofold: 1) not all the stones were accounted for, you couldn’t know who was listening in and 2) Sauron had one of the stones.
A dark lord who wanted to rule the world in fire and ash and darkness had this surveillance tool and used it to corrupt the other known users of the seeing stones, Denethor and Sauroman. That was the plot structure of these stones. Aragon and Merry/Pippin were able to use them against Sauron, who thought the hobbits with Aragorn might be Frodo. But again, to me this shows the danger of making decisions based on spying technology. Sauron committed his forces against Gondor because his intel told him and it led to his eye being distracted from Frodo/Sam/Gollum sneaking over the mountains and into Mt. Doom.
Why you would name your surveillance company after that is beyond me. To me it would be like getting aboard a plane run by Icarus airlines or naming the next big boat/plane/rocketship Titanic.
> Icaro Air was an airline based in Quito, Ecuador. Its main base was Mariscal Sucre International Airport, Quito.
That one operated for 4 decades.
If large space transporters ever become popular, there's no way there won't be a few named Titanic. People like those names, and the context doesn't hit as quickly as the awe.
If your enemy (and the US seems to place absolutely everyone on this category nowadays) has the power to insert information at will into your spying device, it will always be much, much worse than useless.
By the Third Age - when the events of the Lord of the Rings take place - several of the Palantiri (plural) are lost. The danger of using the stones was twofold: 1) not all the stones were accounted for, you couldn’t know who was listening in and 2) Sauron had one of the stones.
A dark lord who wanted to rule the world in fire and ash and darkness had this surveillance tool and used it to corrupt the other known users of the seeing stones, Denethor and Sauroman. That was the plot structure of these stones. Aragon and Merry/Pippin were able to use them against Sauron, who thought the hobbits with Aragorn might be Frodo. But again, to me this shows the danger of making decisions based on spying technology. Sauron committed his forces against Gondor because his intel told him and it led to his eye being distracted from Frodo/Sam/Gollum sneaking over the mountains and into Mt. Doom.
Why you would name your surveillance company after that is beyond me. To me it would be like getting aboard a plane run by Icarus airlines or naming the next big boat/plane/rocketship Titanic.