FT Ship Designations - OU

What do everyone think of _ROUN_ for Oceanic Union ships?
(Royal Oceanic Union Navy). As most of the countries which make it up are
members of the
Commonwealth (pre-NAC) I was thinking this might be suitable.

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> From: ROBERTSON,Brendan <Brendan.ROBERTSON@EMPLOYMENT.GOV.AU>

> What do everyone think of _ROUN_ for Oceanic Union ships?

I'd have assumed that the OU would be a republic, sharing a monarch with the
superpower NAC would compromise national sovereignty rather more than sharing
a monarch with some minor nation on the other side of the world with which you
have only the most general interests and disagreements in
common. :-)

The existing OU forces have been labelled as "Oceanic Union Defence Force"
figures, which could imply a unified military service or may just be a general
term like the current "Australian Defence Force". I've also always been
slightly uncomfortable with the use of the term "Navy" for spacegoing forces,
preferring "Space Force" as a term more likely to emerge. Or you could go for
a construction (thanks to Dan Simmons) like OUDF:Space for your spacegoing
military.

Starships could be just "OUSS" regardless of the details.

> What do everyone think of _ROUN_ for Oceanic Union ships?

How about XXXX?  ;-)

The OU as a republic would make far more sense than, as another poster said,
sharing a monarch with the NAC. 'OUSS' as a ship designator would
then be used -- or maybe 'OUSF' -- OU Space Force (OUSN-- OU Space
Navy?? take your pick...)

I guess NAC ships would be HMS, of course -- or isn't there something
different in the FT book? CSN, I think it is -- Confederation Space
Navy?

(I like HMS, personally. More traditional -- and navies tend to be
traditional places.)

Re another thread entirely: the Hibernian Republic (Ireland). Sounds like
a great idea - even though I don't like Guiness. How about green livery
ships w/ a golden harp embelem?

Let me know...

What about the American Contingent of the NAC? USS or HMS?

> Brian Burger wrote:

> The OU as a republic would make far more sense than, as another poster

I'd always thought of the Oceanic Union as the OCU which would make the ships
have the prefix OCUS.

> At 11:33 AM 9/3/97 +1000, you wrote:

> On Wed, 3 Sep 1997, ROBERTSON,Brendan wrote:

It's a little too similar to the ROUS's from "The Princess Bride" (Rodents Of
Unusual Size).

ROUN = Rodents Of Unusual Noise?:)

> Re the Yanks in the NAC: We're all part of the NAC, so presumably

As a pseudo-Yank, I agree.  Hell, read my earlier dissertation under
"Geopolitics in Jon's Universe" - quite a bit on the whole thing of
"conquering" the LLAR.

> Joe Banderet wrote:

AFAIK, the designation is CSN or CNS (Confederation Space Navy or Confederate
Naval Ship) As it is a unified government all ships no matter where the ship
originated will use the same designation.

> On Wed, 3 Sep 1997, Joe Banderet wrote:

> What about the American Contingent of the NAC? USS or HMS?
Re the Yanks in the NAC: We're all part of the NAC, so presumably you lot
don't get USS, but have to go along with the rest of the NAC - either
HMS or CNS...

If you want USS _someithing_ , how about a minor group of American
rebels, wanting to get out from under the NAC and worship the Stars & Stripes
again...check out the French-sepratist senario in More Thrust for what I
mean. There could be a lot of those groups out in space, people with one
colony and a small navy, who mostly want to be left alone.

Thoughts?