Hi Alex,

Interesting.

I wouldn't distinguish between the Navy/Marines/Army/Scouts. If you do you have to think of three, four or five level two/three medals, one for space, one for planet, one for vacuum etc. Although you may want an "in the face of the enemy" "not in the face of the enemy" track.

You've got the commonwealth stuff, which is the Victoria Cross/George Cross lineage type thing comes in (as well as orders of knighthood but that might not work)
You've got republican lineage type thing such as the Presidential/Parliamentary/Congressional/Legion (medal) of honour
And you've got the Soviet lineage type thing such as the Hero of/Star of where ever you are from

You could do something akin to the VC by melting down a Vilani dreadnought/cruiser/destroyer from some important battle where boarding actions while costly were instrumental in Terran victory. Name it after the UN Director General at the time make it a cross and you've got your highest order for bravery in the face of the enemy (the reason why the VC resonates so well and separate honours with its name continue as part of commonwealth honours systems is due to this type of thing (heroic action by a bunch of people who claimed victory via their sacrifice). In the same way as the George Cross you can introduce another cross with some other UN Director General's name for not in the face of the enemy ...

Then go with say the Legión de Honor de la Asamblea (Assembly Legion of Honour in Spanish) as you're number two order for bravery in the face of the enemy and then Dìqiú yīngxióng (Hero of Earth in Mandarin), as your third. Or you could swap them around Hero 2nd, Assembly 3rd.

You could then be into something like the Croix de Guerre, as say the Najam Al'ard (Star of Terra in Arabic) with different palms for different levels of "mentioned in dispatches".

Then leave it at that with just major campaign medals, along with your long/good service medals.

That way you don’t cover people's chest with ribbons that devalue the ones above, and you only get medals for noteworthy stuff as opposed to "just turning up" (If you're wearing the uniform you must have passed basic training, you don’t need a medal for it).

That's probably a very British perspective on things, and I'm sure that other have different opinions, but that's my take on the highest orders from across the world and putting them into the official languages of the UN in a way that makes sense to me.

Hope this helps stir your imagination.

Best regards,

Ewan

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxx@simplelists.com <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> On Behalf Of Alex Goodwin
Sent: 15 January 2021 19:25
To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
Subject: [TML] Terran Confederation decorations?

I couldn't find anything solid on TC decorations in GT:ISW.

p46 - Arpad Kovacs being "twice decorated for heroism".

p89 - VIlani preference for decorating units instead of individuals, explicitly called out as a contrast to the Terran approach.

Obviously this has direct relevance to Parental Advisory, given the canonical 2nd, 3rd and 4th Imperia have been well and truly butterflied away.  (Given this mob's luck, though, I can't rule out a brute-force-over-underpants crash-landing on Cymbeline).

In timeworn Trav fashion that's older than I am, I have to come up with something.  Or, hit the TML up for same.

Especially in this "Burgess Shale" period (with apologies to Herren Pick und Zeitlin, https://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/othroads/burgess.html), I can't come up with much better than the awards for specific TC service branches broadly descending from the parent service(s) that had most influenced them.

As a quick refresher, we have:

TC Naval Service - them wot the AZS kicketh out of them, the crap.  What any other interstellar state would call the navy.

TC Marines - homo sapiens bootus bootus.  These nutcases really WTF the Vilani out, as they don't have the decency to be naval personnel doing naval things, or army personnel doing army things, but naval personnel lowering themselves to do army things.

TC Army - primary responsibility is to deal with enemy forces within bombardment range (p62) - usually about 40,000 miles (~64,000 km for us metric types).  This subsumes wet-naval operations and what the 3I would call COACC, as well as sub-synchronous dry-naval operations.

--- IMTU LINE - ABANDON TEN BUCKS ALL WHO CROSS HERE ---

TC Naval Service Scouts - not specifically addressed in GT:ISW, I had to fill this mob in as a couple of PCs had rolled up time in "the Scouts"
(thank you oh so very little, Mongoose).  The branch of the TC Naval Service the Admiralty would prefer to forget exist.

As the pseudo-subspecies name suggests, the TCM are very strongly influenced by the Royal Marines.  This is both directly (such as some git with a badass moustache writing "Fly, You Fools!" - as at 2129 AD, the majority of the TCM's flag officers are RM transferees) and through the influence the RM has had on other amphibious services.  This would suggest UK awards carrying across in some fashion - Victoria/George Cross definitely, not sure about lower level decorations.  The Elizabeth Cross would also fit, except that it lobbed nearly 20 years after divergence from OTL.

Unlike the TCM, the TCN is not so clearly dominated by one "parent"
service, as it was mashed up from the various national forces previously operating under UN command. So, in the immortal words of the Muppet admiral, Animal, "WHAT DO?" - would the TCN go for a new set of awards rather than try to follow the TCM's lead?

TCN Scouts - much as for the "proper" TCN.

TC Army - No clue.  Thoughts?

Alex

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