So, I was reading through some of the posts over at Hard Light some time back, and came upon a thread about the Shivan names being derived from Hindu theology. Specifically, the poster worrying (on behalf of Hindus?) about how it might hurt some peoples sentiments.

This got me recalling my brother's and my time playing the original Freespace when we were kids. Understand that, while my brother and I are not what I'd consider the most staunchly religious folk around, we did grow up in a VERY traditional Hindu family in India. So how did we feel when the admiral declared the enemy to be Shivans and ordered us to destroy Brahma and Krishna wings?

We laughed.

And laughed....and laughed some more. Then we carried out the assignment, pretty content with the knowledge that this wasn't a case of demonizing Hinduism so much as military code naming (we also giggled at the face palming Brahma and Vishnu were probably doing at the same time, whilst hoping Shiva wasn't paying attention).

Anyhow, like I said, we didn't think of it as offensive, but the Hardlight forums suggest that more than a few people did. So my questions are thus:

1) If you're a Hindu/ were raised in a Hindu family or are Indian, did you find the naming offensive?

2) Suppose the names were not from Hinduism and were from other religions ("Destroy the cruiser designated Mother Mary! Now stop Jesus from reaching the Jump Node!" ), would you be angered, or just assume it was code naming the same way modern armies nickname stuff?

A healthy response from a healthy mind.
I wish more people would be just like you and your brother.

My parents raised me with religious freedom, so i could pick any i wished to.
I picked none but i still believe that you have to be really insecure about your
faith to take offence from something like that.

I read an article some weeks ago saying that many star wars characters,
were fruit of racist jokes and were offensive.
Some people just try too hard to be offended.