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Spaceship + Crew generator
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Nice find, I've got to admit though I enjoy trying to come up with naming schemes myself, reserving the more exotic ones for 'barbarian' fleets. :)
My one criticism is that whoever programmed the site only has a passing familiarity with the Navy.The commanding officer of a smaller ship may hold the *position* of Captain, but their actual *rank* would be Lieutenant or Lt. Commander.
Another thing to bear in mind, is that a vessel under weigh can only have one Captain. Therefore a Marine (or other land forces) Captain would receive a temporary, acting, unpaid promotion to Major.
Even in the depths of space in the far distant future, Naval tradition would die hard.
Naval tradition that is less than 200 years old? Just because something is used now doesn’t mean it will be used forever.Most navies are based on the British Navy, but mostly on the iteration of the late 1800s to early 1900s. Throughout the first couple hundred years of the United Kingdom’s existence, the Royal Navy was no more recognizable to us than the Roman fleets were. Different command structures, fewer ranks, etc.
I’m guessing that with increasing automation and interconnectedness we’ll see further changes in naval hierarchy. Just as the British had a rank called “master and commander” that lasted for a few decades before the duties and name were changed, we’ll likely see ranks and duties change as the jobs of admirals, captains and lieutenants merge. Semi-autonomous drone ships and subs overseen by a single person will change things up quite a lot. Space navies will change even more.
Also, the generator is just for silly fun.
I looked at the ship and crew generator. It is fun. I kept finding crew members whose hair was described as uncut. Maybe it's supposed to mean unstyled and/or messy but I kept thinking Crystal Gayle. Since we are talking space opera imagine encountering aliens with a totally different military rank structure. I think I read something like that years ago.
Yeah, Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 has weird alien ranks like "Half-Captain", "Double Ensign", and "Quarter Admiral".
http://tradewind-mvii.herokuapp.com
It’s one of the more interesting ones I’ve encountered, because you can determine things like the ship’s prefix (like USS or HMS or one you’ve made up), plus crew size, and it also generates the crew, complete with description.
I don’t know what database it’s using, but it seems mostly Western. I did get a couple Australia-based names and one that was India-based. Maybe it’s former British Empire.
The crew descriptions look like they’re based on an adjective-and-noun formula, which sometimes results in humorous bios, such as,
If she’s invisible, how do you know the rest? 😝 But it’s pretty cool nonetheless.