Powers of the Realm · Military, naval & aerial

Military, naval & aerial

Navy

Also called the professional fleet · Crown squadrons · the British station · the naval service · the squadrons

Britannia's sea service. It keeps some powered warships, commands convoys whose commodores are obeyed beyond the letter of convoy law, patrols the lanes, keeps a presence at Port Leonis, and was a belligerent in the War for the Free Ports.

The Crown's sea service, with a deliberately divided summit: the First Lord of the Admiralty as political head and the Admiral of the Fleet as senior professional officer. Its squadrons have broken pirate flotillas in the Southern Sea. The realm's fleet, which keeps squadrons on the southern sea, suppresses rovers, runs convoy and distinguishes stations that can merely receive a steamship from those that can coal and repair one.

Named with it

  • Admiral Sir George Blackwood · Admiral of the Fleet
  • Lord Admiral Henry · First Lord of the Admiralty, political head
  • Convoy Commodore Reginald Mainwaring
  • Port Admiral Gideon Thackwray
  • Commodore Anne Harkness · squadron officer on rover suppression
  • Admiral George-Aldren Marr · convoy papers, two centuries old

Ties

  • administered by the Admiralty
  • close to House Corbin
  • broke the Black Banner flotillas
  • under the Admiralty
  • convoys protect the packet and charter-house trade
  • gave its watch and signal practice to the Aerial Board
  • directed by the Admiralty
  • Blackwood's convoy articles govern station-keeping

At the table

Captains trust Blackwood because he cancels prestigious movements when weather, stores or pilotage make the prestige irrelevant. The Navy cannot ignore practical competence, so it is one of the less closed ladders for lower-born candidates. Convoy custom rests on Admiral Marr's convoy papers, still copied out for young officers. Its northern station plans against Admiral Skall by name. The sky service borrowed its watch system, signal book and vocabulary. It evacuated Cinder Quay after the Diamond War and failed to recover the dead from the Glass Heads. Naval instructions no longer promise rescue to parties leaving recognised trade roads without authority. The naval case at home warns that trade holdings become costly positions to defend.