Fleet Heraldry, and Worldbuilding Rabbit Holes (Patreon)

A brief digression now about why it’s taking me so long to make myself a Stardancer cup like the ones Taylitha’s always filling at some meeting… because not only have I drawn her and the women of the Stardancerwith those cups for years, but I’ve wanted one for about as long! But Fleet ships have coats of arms full of symbols… and symbols are condensations of real world experiences, history, culture, information. It’s no good for me to slap something on a cup without thinking about it. Was I the only one disappointed when merchandise from movies didn’t look exactly like the characters in it? Only the real thing will do!

Which means I have to decide what goes on the coat of arms for a starship, other than the obvious (the symbol of that particular ship, which in the case of the Stardanceris a dancing Karaka’An among the stars). Later coats of arms (among us humans) record the history of a family, institution, or person… it felt like a wasted opportunity to slap a dancing cat girl on a shield and call it ‘good enough.’

But then, as always, you fall down a rabbit hole. What data would the Pelted feel appropriate to convey about a starship? Fleet has been around for almost as long as the Alliance, so it’s got nearly five hundred years of history behind it… a history that’s tangled up with Earth’s, but as seen through a confused and often not well-informed lens. That means I get to design heraldry as conceived by people whose perception of heraldry is superficial. No doubt they’d grasp the visuals better than the meaning and richness of the historical versions. I am free, then, not to hew too closely to human norms unless it suits me, especially visually.

We have to start, as with all such things, with a use case… the Pelted’s, not mine. What would the Pelted want those coats of arms for? And I suspect it’s to give each ship a unique visual identifier, partly to make claim to a history they’re ambivalent about but determined to rise above, and partly to foster the esprit de corps they were smart enough to realize they needed, even for ships that come more in peace than in war.

My goal, then, was to have a customizable template that gives a unique result for each ship—and in this case, it has to be a particular hull, because the ship name might be re-used. Here’s how that broke down:

The easiest part was the charge: that being the symbol on the shield that is specific to that ship’s name (like the Stardancer’s dancing girl). Every ship has a new one created for them… which means someone is drawing ship’s charges. And given the number of ships there are in Fleet, that means a team of people are drawing charges.

Pause a moment with me to savor the realization that there’s a Fleet department that does nothing but keep track of, update, and design heraldry. That idea was so amusing that I spent a couple of days coming up with random factoids about them, including where they worked and how. (“They need a place to work. It’s probably near Fleet Central. But in a historical archive. What should I name a historical archive? Probably after the founder of Fleet. Who was that? Quick, I should come up with that person.” Etc.)

Anyway, the ship’s charge is the easy part. The next easiest was the crest, because Fleet uses an eagle on their flags. Obviously an eagle. But wait, there are ships that aren’t Fleet Regulars! What about Fleet Investigation Agency? What about Special Forces? First Voice? Obviously, we need MOAR BIRDS. (More birds it is: owl, falcon, and dove respectively.)

Another opportunity arose in the shield, because shields in heraldry come in dozens of shapes. I was going to pick the obvious one when I thought: ‘wait, why not use the variety somehow?’ Which is how the shield shape came to be associated with the ship class. The battlecruiser gets the spiked heater, but for instance, a warcruiser like the Sunshield that came to Taylitha’s rescue in Either Side of the Strand would use a tower shield.

After that I had four different quadrants to fill, and when combined they had to describe a specific ship. I chose to use the top flourish for crew elements—the left for crew type (feminic, masculic, or mixed complement) and the right for navigation style (Platy-assisted or standard). The bottom flourish I decided would be about the ship’s context beyond its hull… so on the left, the charge of the shipyard that built the ship, and on the left, its home port.

Pause a moment as I realize I need to design an entire new set of rules for starship and shipyard coats of arms. Pause again when I think: ‘oh, wait, every ship is going to have a home port, how does that work.’ This is how worldbuilding works: one quest begets another, and you have to choose which of the escaping thoughts to chase and which to save for another day.

So, later for starship/shipyard designs. When I square the visual symbols away—or at least, enough away that I can figure out the Stardancer’s—I get to the scroll on the bottom. Obviously the ship name goes in the center, but I have another chance with the left and right to add more data… and if I can, how can I not! So on the left, the ship’s enrollment date (when the name was first used for a ship in Fleet), and on the right, the commission date for the present carrier of that name. Here I had several long moments of unease, because now I have to decide how the Pelted decide to keep names, and whether those names are always assigned to a specific ship class—are all Stardancersbattlecruisers? Or were they sometimes scouts or couriers?—and then, more unnerving, how Fleet decides a ship is a particular class with five hundred years of design revisions under its belt. The first Fleet battlecruisers looked nothing like Alysha’s, 470ish years later… did they still call them battlecruisers? What makes a battlecruiser? (I’m thinking it’s the number of armaments).

A worry for another day! At least at this point I have a serviceable template that creates a portrait of a specific ship: the service, the ship class, what kind of crew it carries, its navigation system, where it was built and where it returns for refits, when it was commissioned and how long its name has been a thing in Fleet.

As long as I was doing all that, I thought… why not add some options for honors? So I did. Ships that have initiated a first contact have coronets above the shield. Ships that participated in major battles will have crossed swords. Ships that participate in multi-species initiatives will have supporters on either side of the shield: one Pelted, one alien. And ships that took part in the First Chatcaavan War get the battle honor mark, but one sword is replaced by four parallel claw marks.

Very good, I think, congratulating myself. Now you can tell the history of a ship’s honors by its coat of arms! And then I think: ‘oh no, but the coat of arms is everywhere: on the walls, on patches, on dinnerware and linens… even on a rug in the center of the bridge!’ So I am guessing it’s a good thing ships go in for regular refits, because that would be the time all that iconography is updated.

Finally, Alysha as captain gets her own version, one with a commander’s lance. The lance has meanings, too, but I got symbol exhaustion at this point and figured I would leave it for now. Or better yet, to apply to people for ideas. My discord peeps were extremely helpful brainstorming symbols for various shipyards and starbases, so maybe I’ll hit them up again!

This information finally allowed me to create a draft of the Stardancer’s coat of arms, which you see attached. But I’d also like to try making one for the Silhouette, the ship that goes skulking around the border during the Princes’ Game series, because it would have so many different elements: a corvette’s round shield, FIA’s owl, etc.

When a cleaned-up version makes it to a mug, shirt, sticker, or whatever… you’ll know how much went into it, and that it’s the real deal!