Fleet Heraldry
Fleet ships are all assigned a unique heraldic device, which is used on their official documentation, any ship's patches, and on ship's formal dinnerware. <ref name="fits-08"]]Faith in the Service, Chapter 8</ref>
History
This came about... when? And inspired by what?
Design
Each ship's device is assembled from a template that indicates the ship's commission date, enrollment date, commissioning shipyard, service history, ship's class, and ship's service (Fleet, FIA, etc), in addition to its unique charge.
Shields
Each class of ship is assigned its own shield shape.
- Warcruiser - Tower Shield
- Battlecruiser - Spiked Heater
- Scout - Kite
- Courier - French base
- Destroyer - Wankel
- Long-range Scout (deprecated) - Oval
Crests
Crests are used to indicate the service the ship is assigned to.
- Fleet - Eagle
- FIA -
- SF -
- First Voice - Dove
Mantlings
Mantling, Top: Indicates crew type (feminic, masculic, mixed; single-race, multi-Alliance-race, with allied aliens; with or without Platy navigator) Mantling, Bottom: Indicates shipyard that built the current vessel (on the left), and ship home starbase (on right)
Scrolls
The largest scroll, centered beneath the shield, is the ship's name (does not include the originating tags, like 'UAV').
On either side of the scroll, the left end of the scroll will have the ship name's enrollment date (the date indicating when the ship's name was first used for a commissioned ship); the right end will have the present carrier of the name's commissioning date.
Charges
The one unique element in each ship's device is their charge, which is specially designed for them and usually illustrates the ship's name.
Optional Elements
- Ships that have been involved in multi-species initiatives with allied partners will have Supporters: one silhouetted alien, one silhouetted Pelted.
- Ships that have taken part in first contacts can use a coronet above the shield. A gem will be added to the crown for each first contact they participate in.
- Ships that take part in major battles are denoted by crossed swords, which are placed where the helm would ordinarily go on a heraldic device.
- Special: Ships that took part in the First Chatcaavan War's major battles receive the crossed swords, but one is a sword and the other is four parallel claw marks.