I have three space ships travelling in a convoy. They reach a point in their journey where a decision needs to be made about what course of action to take.

Ship one: Captain and First Officer (Commmander)

Ship two: same as above

Ship three: Admiral and First Officer (Captain)

My question is: What level of etiquette is required between these six officers? Would First Officers refer to their superiors as "sir" or "ma'am" in this setting? Captains to the Admiral?

I say, it's your world, your time period. Create your own etiquette (sp?).

Edit: That sounded a bit harsh, so let me add: Have fun!

Adding smiley to show goodwill.

Whether or not you choose to keep that "tradition" of respect for your story is entirely up to you.

Even still, in closed quarters (private meetings), first names or last names (and even nicknames) will prevail among the senior officers. The reason is simple: They are still human, still people, just like us -- they are no different than any of us. In "lesser" company, military etiquette is STRICTLY observed, and Sirs and Ma'ams will be used profilicly.

That's how it works now.

One thing to consider, is this admiral's flagship his regular command? If not, then he should probabaly include his current ship's regular XO.

The Admiral is not in command of a ship, but a fleet. Therefore he has a captain, called Flag Captain, in comand of his Flag Ship, and a ship's XO. Plus, he would have his own staffers, ie his own XO. Decisions pertaining to the flag ship but not to the fleet are under the direct order of the captain, not the admiral.

If the admiral's XO has the RANK of captain, he cannot be called Captain, as that title is reserved for the skipper of a vessel. In fact, any officer with the rank of captain gets an unofficial "promotion" so as not to demote him (Commodore, Rear Admiral or Vice Admiral--if my memory serves me correctly.) If there are Marines, or any form of ground troops, on board and one of the Marines has the rank of captain, he becomes a Major to avoid any confusion. To complicate matters, on smaller ships the ranking officer might be a Commander in rank, but is adressed as Captain. Complicated enough for you?

Proper address in public would be sir or ma'am, or rank, taking the above into account.

In an informal setting, during senior staff meetings or in the officer's mess, last names are usually used, but that depends on the admiral (or senior officer present). Generally speaking first names are avoided except in one on one conversation if the captain and admiral know each other well enough. Once again it depends on the admiral.

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Well, most of what I know about space fleet etiquette comes from reading the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. You might want to read one of the Honor books to get a feel for it.

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And wetwilly, for future reference: I am completely untrollable. The reason is simple: I don't care, and you can't troll a troll. So keep going if you feel like wasting your energy. I'll have a laugh, too. I'm already laughing.

Besides, I see your from Ohio, wetwilly. From my nearly five years spent living in Ohio (Cleveland and Kent), I know you just can't control those urges... Ohio just happened to be the worst state I've ever lived in. Hated every day of it. Too many reasons to list them out.

Now, do we want stop acting childish and stay on topic, or do we want to continue this until it reaches levels of stupidity that has never before been known by mankind?

Leo Mehalic mehalic@usna.edu

The Naval Academy website, btw, is http://www.nadn.navy.mil/

I would explain nicely what I needed and why, and ask to be directed to an appropriate officer if this individual cannot answer.

You might also try getting information from Britain's navy, too. After all, they were the world's top naval power long before the U.S. was, and have centuries of tradition behind them!

Officers close in rank to each other may often drop "customs and courtesies." As a LT, I've been "instructed" by a Capt and a Maj to call them by first name. It's perfectly acceptable to call members by their call signs. I would never refer to a senior officer by just their last name, or first name unless given permission. Call signs is a different story though.

Also, in the event that I can call a senior officer by their first name, it is ONLY in appropriate situations. That depends on nature of the meeting (how formal or not it is) and who's present... In your situation, it would be HIGHLY inappopriate because of the inclusion of the admiral. Such an apparent sign of disrespect would likely earn a stiff backlashing if you know what I mean.

An admiral is the equivalent of a general. I can't imagine ANYONE calling a general by their first name unless they too were generals. He on the other hand, would use their first names depending on the tone of the meeting. If he's pissed at them, it's probably rank only. If he's in a good mood, anything goes.

Hope that helps.

Enlisted Personnel, including NCO's (Pay grades E1 - E5 -- or Private thru Sergeant)

Last names typically used, no rank unless you're around people who care about rank. Sergeants (E5's) are almost always called by their rank by E1's through E3's. Corporals (E4's) are the middle guys and, usually excited about just becoming a NCO, will call everyone with their rank regardless of who it is, and often insist on being called with their rank. This lasts for approximate 1 year until they've tired of doing it or somebody gave them a "blanket party" for being an idiot.

Staff NCO's (E6-E9) are your senior vets. When around junior personnel, they will almost always call the junior by their rank leaving off the last name. If they don't like you much, they might not even bother with your rank and just say "Hey Soldier" or "Hey Airman" or "Hey Marine" and so on. When amongst Staff NCO's only, it's first name basis all the time. By then you've been in around 10 years and you don't have time for all the BS that you used to. Besides, by this time, you should know quite a few people and have many friends that you've gotten drunk with, etc.

However, Staff NCO's will always refer to other SNCO's by their rank when talking to a junior enlisted or officer. It is a sign of respect for the chain of command and the person.

Now, in your stories, you can ignore all of this. You can do whatever you like. And in real life not all of these things apply exactly like I've said. We're all indivduals and we all respond differently.

I'm no longer in the military and most people wouldn't know I ever had been a soldier to look at me. But in entirely informal conversation with a general or admiral with whom I had some personal but non-familial relationship, I would se Admiral/General or Sir rather than the first name. I wouldn't use a last name if there was only one person of that rank present, that would be a bit weird.

And for myself, the same is going to be true of anyone that achieved a rank of O-6 or higher (O-3 and up may get that if I deem it appropriate, but I'm not going to refer to O-2s and under by rank unless I'm trying to put them in their place or something--which isn't my place).

But for officers themselves, it would probably be an agreeable informality for any higher ranking officer to call a subordinate by name rather than rank. Using the first name rather than the last implies a sense of personal recognition (this is particularly true for members of military families). For someone of the same rank, it would depend on the situation.

And if all they are doing is exploring, then why not have a more civilian hierarchy, like NASA has? Picture the astronauts and flight controllers in Apollo 13 and you've got a viable model for exploration.

But Star Trek created a tradition of military space explorers, and we are stuck with it. I think Roddenberry based his Starfleet on a combination of Horatio Hornblower and the U.S. Navy in World War II. You could do something similar and invent your own military protocols.

There's an infinite number of ways to handle your spacefarers and their organization. You can create your own psuedo-militaristic clan, or you can go for something based off of current military tradition -- whether it be Naval or Air Force or Marines (Like "Aliens" and other recent movies).

Trust me, we'll be taking war with us to the stars if (when) we get there, and trust me, there'll be humans at the controls. The ideal of the war that doesn't claim lives is almost Roddenbery-like idea in itself (reminds me of the ST:TOS episode where super-computers played virtual wars and the designated victims were "cleanly" desintegrated.

Beyond that, I do not see us trusting computers in total control of massive engines of war capable of raining death on planets from orbit. One determined hacker could too easily control a ship that way. And before you say "that's impossible, you could firewall the ship blah blah blah," think of the famous cases of hackers getting in top secret Pentagon computers, government websites and the like. No matter how tight your computer security is, someone will get into your system files. Add to that the need for human creativity in matters of tactics and maintenance, and you are getting a serious crew. Finally, like no war can be won through air power alone, no war can be won through space power alone. You WILL need troops to occupy the ground. Look at Iraq. Despite our vast technological superiority, we need marines on the ground.

The film's due out in April, I believe.

Speaking of AI fighting wars on our behalf: Can anyone tell me what the name of that story was that had two supercomputers (one for each human country at war) battling it out, and fighting a completely simulated war? Then, when the results of each battle were tabulated, the requisite number of human (I think) casualities for each side were required to go to extermination chambers?

Maybe that was a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits show... Can't remember.

Looking forward to seeing it...

This is a lot of food for thought and a lot to process first thing in the morning when you don't drink coffee!

Thanks for all the info.

babylonfreek, So if the Admiral is on the Flag Ship he would still have a Captain in charge of the ship (the Captain would have a first officer under him or her) and the Admiral would have an XO? I guess I probably need eight people at my meeting. Unless I don't bring the XO or FO from the flagship. No I probably need to have the FO there. What rank would be appropriate for an XO?

I guess I need to start watching JAG again.

Sili and Survivor, My instincts were leaning in this direction. I figured anyone under an Admiral would probably keep some form of formality even in a "speak-freely" situation. Thanks for the confirmation.

While I don't need all this info for the story at hand, this is all good resource info.

I like where some of this has been going. I think it's a good idea to discuss ideas about military in the future.

HSO, that show was from the old StarTrek, as BBYF noted. There might have been other shows that explored the idea earlier, but Kirk blows up the computer of one side to force them to fight a real war or give it up already.

RH, as I said above, whether or not it would be appropriate for the Admiral to include his own XO's XO at the meeting would mostly depend on whether he was on his regular flagship or whether his flag is only there temporarily. If the latter, it would be obtuse (but not impossible) to exclude the XO under his flagship's Captain. In the former case, it could go either way, but would probably be unnecessary.

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HSO, that show was from the old StarTrek, as BBYF noted. There might have been other shows that explored the idea earlier, but Kirk blows up the computer of one side to force them to fight a real war or give it up already.

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I must've glossed right over BBF's post an subconsciously picked up on it... because I know I didn't read that before. All right, that's a bit daft of me.

Still, I don't recall that Trek episode... The imagery in my head doesn't match up with Kirk, Spock, and Bones... but, the old noggin' ain't what it used to be when a-recallin' such thin's.

Two planets have been waging a computerized war for 500 years, and the designated victims are cleanly desintegrated. Kirk destroys the computer on one planet, and tells them that only by knowing the true price of war can you learn to overcome it, or something to that extent.

As to the meeting: If the Admiral conducts a full staff meeting, yes. The captain of his flag ship, the ships XO and his own chief of staff would be present IMHO. Maybe you can drop all the XO's, though I don't know how realistic that would be. The captain's job is to command the ship, the XO's job is to manage it. The rank of the chief of staff? Could be a captain himself, hence the whole problem with ranks. Though since they are in a meeting with so many captains (rank or position) last names without rank would probably be used, instead of Captain Who, Captain What and so on.

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If you're using manufactured troops, you can always step-up production on your canon-fodder,

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In the informal meeting, the Admiral's flagship's Captain's XO's presence wouldn't necessarily be required, but it would be impolite to exclude him unless the Admiral had already (informally) discussed the issues with him and his Captain.

If this is a temporary flag, then it would be a bit unusual for the Admiral to do anything to interfere with the chain of command like that, thus, he would go ahead and call the XO in with all the other XOs. If this is his regular flag, then the Admiral would be quite likely to regularly converse with all the officers on board, and thus it would be strange for him to not discuss this briefly with his flaghip's Captain and XO before the meeting. In that case, there wouldn't be very much reason for the XO to attend the meeting, but it would still be weird for the Captain to miss it.

So this is a two part question, basically. Are they going to discuss something that would require a formal staff meeting, and if not, is this the Admiral's regular flagship?

In three cases out of four, the answer is that the flagship's XO should be present. Only in the case that the meeting is informal and the Admiral has already gotten the XO's input would it be likely that the XO wouldn't be present.

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the Admiral's flagship's Captain's XO's presence

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Drip. Drip.

You t'ink I feenesh, I no feeneesh

I...I am

still...Em por er.

And we haven't even touched on the real disadvantage of humans on a spacefaring warship. Humans simply can't handle edge-of-the-envelope spaceflight. We require too much life support, we can't pull enough gees. When it comes to reasonable weapons, like nukes, our bodies can't even tolerate the side effects, let alone the weapons themselves.

No one has ever portrayed realistic high-tech combat in the movies. I can think of two that came close:

In Dr. Strangelove, when we saw a human B-52 crew get lucky against a Soviet SAM with a nuke warhead. I think this missile was ficticious, as I've never heard of a real SAM with a nuke warhead.

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You t'ink I feenesh, I no feeneesh

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