Star Ship Typology.

Ship Typology is a plague on sci-fi. It seems every universe has a new and different way of doing things. Drawing form the age of sail, cars, the warships of the second world war, and just about everything else. Now I know I alone am going to claim this will solve the plague, however I am going to attempt to provide some context on the different archetypes and pros and cons of the systems and how I’d would use them.

Starting at the first system we used, the age of sail rating system. This is generally a two part nomenclature, best surmised as “Type” “Job”. Meaning a First Rate Ship of the Line, the First Rate portion tells you what type its in, Ship of the Line tells you that it’s job is to sit in the line of battle. It is important to think of the era and technology that spawned this system. Ships were made of wood, with hand tools, by largely, hopefully skilled, craftsmen. Blueprints were less formal plan and more concept, and requirements. This type of classification was required because navies, and merchant companies, were looking to get a better understanding of their fleets yet couldn’t produce what you or I would call a class. This is good for effectively unique ships, either due to the shipyards not being able to produce them or there not being enough ships to make formalized classes worth the effort. Because of this many merchant fleets still use this as their formal typing system.

Taking this to the stars, I find this good for any fleet that can be called a “Scrap Fleet”. Where ships are often pulled from junkyards, debris fields, or even underneath couch cushions, and not built keel up in a dock yard. It also works for navies with organic ships. Ones that grow, and mature though out their lives. Perhaps not the best for the organic ships with minds and personalities, yet it can fit rather well. I also like this for civilian fleets when or where captain driven modification, is the culture. Sure Her Majesty Snuffles started out as a Conair class light cargo freighter, now she’s a Con-pass long hall. I often see this paired with a system where the ships are owned by the captains and the cargo companies arrange the contracts to good effect.

Moving forward into the Ironclad era ships then started to provide more repeat products, ship classes became not only possible but into practice. This is when jobs started to become the type, and the class is an example of the type. Presented Class Type it is where we begin to see the root of the systems commonly found as the default across space. This change happened because of the industrial revolution and the ability to blueprint and then repeat, with a high degree of commonality, that blueprint. Generally speaking this is something the far futures of interstellar travel can do as well, which is why I suspect it is one of the more common systems. The issue stems from the typology.

I find issues with there being either too narrow, or too large types. What is the difference between a destroyer and an assault destroyer or a star destroyer? I can see the argument for a modifier such as, light or heavy, if the role becomes very well defined. For example a light, unmodified, and heavy cruiser. The light cruiser is lighter, faster, and more fragile than the cruiser. The heavy cruiser is heavier, slower, and tougher than the cruiser. While it offends my sensibilities that there is an unmodified cruiser; it works. As long as the different buckets are more or less appropriately sized, and any modifiers are left to denote subdivisions within the same bucket. Make sure that those subdivisions are similar enough that you don’t need to spin off a new class, yet different enough that they are no longer 1:1. Provided one keeps that in mind bringing this set up to the stars is easy and often effective at both keeping everything straight and giving context from the system.

However I think there is a better way, and that comes from the system that evolved out of the ironclad era and into the the second world war. This is when the idea of a class of ships gets properly formalized. Due to increases in technology the ability to build two identical ships finally came into maturity. Because of this ship classification shifted from job, or role, to capabilities. A destroyer was defined by what a destroyer can do, a battleship was based on what a battleship can do. With subclasses, again pointing to cruiser with the Light, Heavy, Battle, and Large, subclasses which had a large number of shared traits but a large number of differences.

This is where I see most writers, and I call out writers specifically because they are the worst at it, ending up and using their understanding of the previous system. Meaning one can get wonderfully confusing designations such as Assault Fleet Destroyer, or contradictory ones such as Fleet Light Carrier. Thus when using this typology system; start by defining the role and then adjust any sub divisions as required. Throw in a few treaties or other political documents to force some of them and one would end up in a system rather close to that at the start of the second world war.

Regardless of how one classifies ships thinking about what the requirement was for the base of the system and determining how that fits the state of the ships, and how the people use them.

I know I went a little long, it’s a complicated subject and one that all Sci-Fi seems to run into. Mil-Sci-Fi, or however it’s to be shortened, often finds this is a landmine. One where often ignoring the typology is better than using the wrong one.

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