Creating Your Own Military Ranks

[Mithras]

I'm having bags and bags of fun creating all the background and the worlds for my Traveller setting. Its set in the Hyades star cluster (just behind red giant Aldebaran if you look carefully), and I'm running it totally seperate from canon, isolated and different - though it could quite easily fit into OTU in 2800 - the time my game is set, just into Twilight, although I makes no reference to canon.

Anyway I'm having fun describing the military, the Unified Star Force, and the mobile infantry carried by the USF, the do-anything go-anywhere Strikers, organised into two Striker Battalions operating at either end of the cluster.

Creating names using this page in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_comparative_military_ranks) was fun, and I also managed to lift a great series of rank insignia from another website (the International Encyclopedia of Uniform Insignia - http://www.uniforminsignia.net/index.php?option=com_insigniasearch&view=insigniasearch&Itemid=53) for added authenticity. Its great using non-American rank titles now and then, and moving away from the well-known US and UK rank insignia as well, to give the military a feeling of otherness.

My unified rank and insignia table swipes the bold and elegant insignia of the Angolan Army, and mixes in some Belgian and Russian rank titles, with a lean towards the Air Force. The Hyades cluster folk don't talk about ships and navies and boats and vessels, only craft, vehicles, star and space forces and such. Likewise they have the Strikers, instead of Marines ...

Anyway, hope you get a similar use out of these great websites.

On with the world creation!

 

[leo knight]

Thanks for the links.

Great minds must think alike, since I was tinkering together a setting near ths Hyades, too. It's a nice location: close enough to Earth, but not too close, with name recognition. And, if you use the Imperium map, it's Rimward of Earth, away from any *ahem* Imperial entanglements.

Please feel free to post anything we could steal... uh, use for inspiration. Yeah, inspiration!

 

[Mithras]

Hi Leo!

I've created a hex map for the Hyades, and I used this image to do that, have you seen it?

Thanks for the links.

Great minds must think alike, since I was tinkering together a setting near ths Hyades, too. It's a nice location: close enough to Earth, but not too close, with name recognition. And, if you use the Imperium map, it's Rimward of Earth, away from any *ahem* Imperial entanglements.

Please feel free to post anything we could steal... uh, use for inspiration. Yeah, inspiration!

 

[Mithras]

Wikipedia is full of data of course, and all the stars are listed there:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_of_Hyades

I've found that most stars are K, G and F,with some A's. But since I want my players (sons) to see the stars they will be flying to, I've changed the brightest A stars to Gs and Ks and Fs and given them Traveller worlds.

I might have other bits and pieces, have you got anything?

 

[leo knight]

Holy Guacamole! That's awesome.

I don't have much graphically to show. I still don't have my own computer, so most of my stuff is pen and paper (TL3?). I drew a large scale map of the slice from Earth out towards Taurus, out as far as the Pleiades. The Hyades seemed like a nice piece of real estate. I had rolled up two subsectors, and kind of merged them together in a more crowded subsector, with a 7 hex "mega hex" left blank. I had planned to use it as a sort of "Badlands", an area with iffy navigation, but a haven for pirates, renegades, and such.

Sadly, I've only run one session, and none of this prep has seen the light of day.

So your sons have graduated to Traveller from "Dragons"? http://http://www.geocities.com/mithrapolis/games.html

 

[Darkhstarr]

For my campaign I came up with the Shirudukukashi Reshirud (Shirudak Reshirud for short), skull shaped officers pips used by the semi-piratical vilani warlords of the Spinward Marches before incorporation into the Imperium. The Imperium Border Squadrons still wear them for officer indentifications. They are also used by pirates, privateers/mercs, some small transport firms, & free traders in the Marches & Beyond the Imperium.

NAVY: 5 Skulls: Admiral, 4 Skulls: Captain, 3 Skulls: Commander, 2 Skulls: Lt. Commander, 1 Skull Lieutenant.

FREE TRADER: 4 Skulls: Captain, 3 Skulls: 1st Officer, 2 Skulls: 2nd Officers, 1 Skull: 3rd Officer.

PIRATE/PRIVATEER: 5 Skulls: Admiral. 4 Skulls: Captain, 3 Skulls: 1st Officer or Mate -Lt. 2 Skulls: 2nd Officer or Mate -Lt., 1 Skull: Sgt.

 

[Mithras]

He he! Yes, we play Basic Dungeons & Dragons in the winter and Spring, just started Keep on the Borderlands last night, and we played Classic TRav last summer (with some Mongoose tweaks). While we play D&D this spring I'm relaxing, creating a newTRaveller setting and everything....

So your sons have graduated to Traveller from "Dragons"? http://http://www.geocities.com/mithrapolis/games.html

Dragons was great to start with, I recommend it for young children ! Thanks for taking a look at some of my 'stuff'!