"'Now hear this. Now hear this. Captain to all officers and men. The New Brazil reports two hyperdrives activated as she approached destination. She is returning to us and the bogies are in pursuit. We shall proceed. Stand by for hyperdrive. Stand by for combat. Glory to the Emperor.'"
-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-192 AT CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, p. 172.
In a Nomad ship in the Psychotechnic History:
"'Hoo-oo-oo...hoo-hoo...hoo-oo-oo...hoo-oo-oo...hoo-hoo-hoo - Stand by! All hands stand by battle stations! Strange spaceship detected where no spaceship has any business being!'"
-The Peregrine, CHAPTER XIII, p.120.
These are parallel but contrasting passages. The Nomads are less formal than the Terran Navy. Are such encounters occurring out there right now? I suspect that whatever is happening is very different from anything that we can imagine.
Other reading: two British women authors. I have started to read Val McDermid's detective novels and to reread Susan Howatch's Church of England novels. (Sf exists in a broader literary context.)
3 comments:
One reason for the greater formality of the Navy is that it’s personnel start out as strangers and non-spacefarers. The Nomads are all close kin and have worked together on that spaceship all their lives. The navy builds experience into procedure — into ‘the book’.
Indeed and it makes for an interesting contrast of styles.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: The Navy not only built experience, order, and discipline into personnel who were originally strangers to each other, it built in esprit d'corps as well.
And we see another bit of Naval formality in the first chapter of A CIRCUS OF HELLS: officers entering the mess hall of the Naval base on Irumclaw braced to attention and saluted the Emperor's portrait. Another way of building experience into procedure.
Paul: I think we should keep in mind that the Nomads were civilians most of the time. Altho they could convert to being military, when necessary. That too would affect how they communicated.
Ad astra! Sean
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