Hold up, hold up, didn't I promise to scour my notebooks?
Grabbing the first notebook to hand, a pocket sized jobber I first used for Arabic vocabulary.
[RANKS IN THE BLOODY NAVY]
Livtenńt—commissioned officer who can command a small interstellar vessel such as a brig (for exploration, transport, reconnaissance, pickets, escorts to cargo or transports in groups of 3+) or a fast interplanetary vessel like a cutter (antismuggler, antipirate, fast transport). Less lucky livs command a watch or a portion of the crew of the great interstellar ships.
Outside of spacecraft command, a livtenńt serves many roles in orbital docks and wellside ports: construction, comms, intelligence, batteries, and the impress service.
Livs who command a brig or cutter, or who stand out in wellside service, are usually the officers promoted to Cmanŕ. Livs who possess technical competence without genius or ferocity may spend a great many decades as junior officers on the great interstellar ships before graduating to the command of a transport or exploration vessel. The only chance of promotion for a ship-board junior liv is a ship-to-ship action or negotiation.
One of the paradoxes that make up the Bloody Navy is the tension between the independence desired of an active, enterprising livtenńt—capable of commanding a tiny overgunned torchship and called upon to move with alacrity and dash against oversized adversaries—and the subordination demanded when that same officer is required to serve as one of two to a dozen juniors aboard the large interstellar ships, the Frigates and Rated Vessels. Subordination is more a matter of form than deprecation: livs must give pro forma duty to their superior's wishes, yet must sub rosa demonstrate the superiority of their own insight and experience. Cue shenanigans and intrigue.
Cmanŕ—The oldest commissioned rank in the Bloody Navy: in the Old Rotations, the Cmanŕ was a wellside or orbital military officer commandeering the services of a commercial vessel and given commission to make whatsoever changes were required of the ship to make it a fighting machine. These cmanŕs came from the station or planetary militias and usually brought along a retinue of volunteers and aides eventually to be commissioned as livtenńts.
As the Old Rotations ground on into Contempree Times and the Ongoing Crisis, ships began to be built for military purposes from the get-go, and the older gunned-up commercial vessels were surpassed by ships of the still not particularly professional Bloody Navy. The Cmanŕ became a middle rank, the officer commissioned to a vessel now called a sloop or corvetto. These are long range interstellar vehicles, smaller and less well armed than the Rated ships. Sloops are heavy anti-pirate ships, or, effectively, licensed pirates themselves; corvettos more commonly have convey support and long range patrol roles. Flotillas of three or four corvettos are not uncommon, the Cmanŕ in charge of the pack designated Corvetto-Cḿmodoro.
The over-packed Cmanŕ list is a bottleneck for the officer class. There are only a few hundred sloops and corvettos in the Bloody Navy; there are thousands of Rated Ships. A Liv must show luck, dash and technical excellence to be promoted to Cmanŕ; a Cmanŕ must have luck and connections to actually get herself a corvetto. Then she must do something significant with the commission to be promoted to Capń.
Most Cmanŕs end up moving into roles in the Yard, or Port offices, planetary defense, or the Akademie. This is all well and good. Everyone of the Disciplined orders of the great Terhume Diaspora lives for hundreds of years, without he does something particularly stupid; only the brightest and bloodiest officers have any business being Capń, much less Amŕal.
[okay hardly any of that was actually in the notebook. I wrote about 20 lines. But this is what I've been thinking about lo, these many years since Patrick O'Brian and Bruce Sterling started devouring my brain. YOU BASTARDS!]
[RANKS IN THE BLOODY NAVY]
Livtenńt—commissioned officer who can command a small interstellar vessel such as a brig (for exploration, transport, reconnaissance, pickets, escorts to cargo or transports in groups of 3+) or a fast interplanetary vessel like a cutter (antismuggler, antipirate, fast transport). Less lucky livs command a watch or a portion of the crew of the great interstellar ships.
Outside of spacecraft command, a livtenńt serves many roles in orbital docks and wellside ports: construction, comms, intelligence, batteries, and the impress service.
Livs who command a brig or cutter, or who stand out in wellside service, are usually the officers promoted to Cmanŕ. Livs who possess technical competence without genius or ferocity may spend a great many decades as junior officers on the great interstellar ships before graduating to the command of a transport or exploration vessel. The only chance of promotion for a ship-board junior liv is a ship-to-ship action or negotiation.
One of the paradoxes that make up the Bloody Navy is the tension between the independence desired of an active, enterprising livtenńt—capable of commanding a tiny overgunned torchship and called upon to move with alacrity and dash against oversized adversaries—and the subordination demanded when that same officer is required to serve as one of two to a dozen juniors aboard the large interstellar ships, the Frigates and Rated Vessels. Subordination is more a matter of form than deprecation: livs must give pro forma duty to their superior's wishes, yet must sub rosa demonstrate the superiority of their own insight and experience. Cue shenanigans and intrigue.
Cmanŕ—The oldest commissioned rank in the Bloody Navy: in the Old Rotations, the Cmanŕ was a wellside or orbital military officer commandeering the services of a commercial vessel and given commission to make whatsoever changes were required of the ship to make it a fighting machine. These cmanŕs came from the station or planetary militias and usually brought along a retinue of volunteers and aides eventually to be commissioned as livtenńts.
As the Old Rotations ground on into Contempree Times and the Ongoing Crisis, ships began to be built for military purposes from the get-go, and the older gunned-up commercial vessels were surpassed by ships of the still not particularly professional Bloody Navy. The Cmanŕ became a middle rank, the officer commissioned to a vessel now called a sloop or corvetto. These are long range interstellar vehicles, smaller and less well armed than the Rated ships. Sloops are heavy anti-pirate ships, or, effectively, licensed pirates themselves; corvettos more commonly have convey support and long range patrol roles. Flotillas of three or four corvettos are not uncommon, the Cmanŕ in charge of the pack designated Corvetto-Cḿmodoro.
The over-packed Cmanŕ list is a bottleneck for the officer class. There are only a few hundred sloops and corvettos in the Bloody Navy; there are thousands of Rated Ships. A Liv must show luck, dash and technical excellence to be promoted to Cmanŕ; a Cmanŕ must have luck and connections to actually get herself a corvetto. Then she must do something significant with the commission to be promoted to Capń.
Most Cmanŕs end up moving into roles in the Yard, or Port offices, planetary defense, or the Akademie. This is all well and good. Everyone of the Disciplined orders of the great Terhume Diaspora lives for hundreds of years, without he does something particularly stupid; only the brightest and bloodiest officers have any business being Capń, much less Amŕal.
[okay hardly any of that was actually in the notebook. I wrote about 20 lines. But this is what I've been thinking about lo, these many years since Patrick O'Brian and Bruce Sterling started devouring my brain. YOU BASTARDS!]
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