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Definition: Live
"Live" (with the i sounded as "eye", and not as in "if") is the term used to describe Earth and Beyond (ENB) between 2002 and 2004, when the game was commercially operated by Electronic Arts (EA Games). A boxed pair of CDs containing the game's client software had to be purchased, and a monthly subscription (approx. US$12/month) paid for each account (like today, an account allowed you to create up to 5 alts).
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While some people ran multiple accounts (a common practice today), back during Live this was less common due to the expense. As a result, most people only played one of their alts at a time, and this strongly promoted co-operative gameplay (as did the the fact that every profession was designed to have exclusive abilities, making cooperation highly beneficial).
As low-cost server clustering was relatively new at the time ENB was in development, in order to distribute player load, separate instances of the game were run on four "galaxy" servers, named Andromeda, Galileo, Orion, and Pegasus. You could not interact in-game with players with an account attached to a different "galaxy", although occasionally you would meet someone who kept in contact with friends on two (or more) servers by joining an additional account to a different server.
The game was originally created by Westwood Studios and released on the 24th September, 2002. Westwood had been purchased by Electronic Arts (EA) in 1998 but, in January 2003, while the game was still running, EA decided to merge Westwood into its own operations and abolish the Westwood company and brand.
Definition: "Sunset"
The specific event "Sunset" refers to the day EA's ENB servers were turned off for the last time. This occurred at 10am USA Pacific time, Wednesday 22nd September, 2004 (3am Australian Eastern time, Thursday 23rd). A Sunset special event was held by the game's Developers on the last day, and many dormant players who had heard of the shut-down returned for the occasion. Hundreds of players across all servers held Raids throughout the day, and the Devs created & gave many presents of rare/uber ship equipment so that pilots could enjoy experiencing it in the last few hours. Skull Shields for example, became a common sight!
Definition: "Sunset Live"
Due to ENB's rebirth as the Earth and Beyond Emulator, "Sunset Live" came to be used by early Emulator players to clarify that the sunset phenomenon being referred to was that on the original live commercial version of ENB, and not the current donation-based Emulator version. It would seem that while a fuller expression would have been "the Sunset event of the original live commercial version of ENB", the adjective "sunset" became associated with the explicit word "Live", instead of the implicit word "event", and the word "Live" has gained de facto status as a noun, in itself now meaning "the original commercial version of ENB".
The ENB Emulator's current server-name, "Sunrise", is a direct reference to 2004's shut-down terminology.
Definition: "Emulator" / "EMU"
You may see the term "EMU" in this Wiki, the ENB Forum, and in the in-game chat channels. This is simply a truncation of the word "Emulator", the term used for Earth and Beyond in its current form. This term derives from the post-2004 project of some very clever and dedicated ENBer boffins, who over the course of some years figured out how to emulate the ENB server-side code with which your PC-side game client interacts.
Please remember that while the Devs and Admin staff run on coffee, enthusiasm, and a love of ENB, the EMU game server has ongoing rental costs. Whenever you can, if you can afford to, please help shoulder the financial load and log into the ENB Forum and make a donation, via the button at the top right of the Forum's front page.
Perhaps a long-time Emulator player can help explain why the term "EMU" is capitalised; for now, us later-arrivers can speculate that it might have been to distinguish the term somehow, to indicate it has nothing to do with the Australian relative of the ostrich!