“Yes, battle choreography,” Tuan answered. “Battle choreography, the step-by-step plan of how our ships move and what damage they take, before we carry out the choreography to give the press some colorful images. Don’t you barbarians know anything?”
Smith contemplated the negative reactions if, figuratively speaking. he simply bit the young twerp’s head off. It would be satisfying, but might not be a favorable factor in advancing Union-Republic relations. Unfortunately, it appeared that Tuan assumed that their ranks were the same, because the equality was calculated by simply counting up from the bottom.
“Of course, Mr. Tuan,” Smith said, “it is most likely that we use the same process under a different name. That’s the standard outcome when different navies attempt to work with each other. We have faced the same issues, and come to the same conclusions, but we happened to adopted different names for the same process, for entirely historical reasons. On the other hand, sometimes different navies have found different approaches to the same issue. For example, assuming I understood my briefing papers correctly, the Navy of the Stellar Republic has more than four hundred officer ranks. We manage with a grand total of six. I am a Squadron Commander, meaning I have under me Ship Commanders, Section Heads, and Officers, and above me the hypothetical ranks of Task Force Commander and Commander of Ships. The Anglic Union Space Guard treats me as having the rank of Commodore. Now, having said that, perhaps I could prevail on your superior understanding to explain in simple language what you mean by battle choreography.”
Tuan turned pale. He had worked out that he had managed to insult what in the Imperial Navy would be reckoned to be a Senior Flag Grade Officer.
“It would of course be my honor and privilege to do so, Esteemed Sir,” Tuan said. “It is the custom of the Imperial Navy has and the other fleets with which I am familiar have, which does not include yours, that when a major set of Fleet maneuvers is to be performed, the exact details of what is to happen at every stage are worked out in advance through careful simulations. Instructions are then passed down from the nominal fleet commanders of the two sides through the task forces and squadrons and ships, so that as the maneuver advances every ship carries out exactly the pre-ordained battle plan, from the initial detection of the enemy through to the eventual victory of the forces representing the Imperial Navy. Ship crews perform precisely their parts in the plan, except of course we are not using live ammunition or energized beam weapons, so that everyone in each crew gets practice in their assigned tasks. Grand Supreme Admiral of the Fleet Thatcher is extremely thorough, so we will actually run through the same exercise several times, with different ships on the two sides, so that for example the damage control crews get their practice in dealing with damage, even though of course in a real battle there is hardly any danger that any ship of the Imperial Navy would actually be damaged. That is why the Grand Supreme Admiral of the Fleet is such a great officer, namely he carefully prepares all of his units for unlikely contingencies that it is hardly possible they will ever face.”
“I see,” Smith said. “Thank you for this highly educational explanation, which as it turns out does not correspond to any exercises that the Anglic Union Astrographic Service has ever carried out. Therefore, your battle choreography does not correspond to anything we do, so I therefore had never heard of it. Having said that, Mr. Chiang, perhaps you could give me an explanation of what you meant by prices for positions in the point, those numbers corresponding to really substantial amounts of money. This is perhaps some other custom that we simply do not happen to share, but it is doubtless a sensible custom once I understand it.”
“I would be equally honored to do that,” Chiang Jianhong said, “since it is truly unusual for a man of your celestial rank to be sitting with we very junior officers. Speaking for myself, I have been most grateful for your observations on naval issues, which I for one found highly educational. We were most lucky to hear them, for which I am grateful. The answer is that we will have exercises, and that various officers whose ships performed in an especially heroic or effective manner will have this outcome noted in their records, and in the report of the exercise to the Imperial Government.”
Smith’s ears perked up. He had repeatedly noticed the Stellar Republic Fleet officers referring to their force as the Imperial Navy, but so far as he could remember this is the first time he’d heard the Republic’s government referred to as the Imperial Government. It appeared that the world was changing again. To judge from the meal, the changes were not in the most positive directions.
“Now we do on occasion have various sorts of exercises,” Smith said, “though as we have far fewer ships the scale of the operation is much smaller and focused on anti-piracy activity, rescue of vessels in distress, dealing with shipboard emergencies such as engineering failures, and the like.” He decided not to emphasize the presence on his ships of a substantial scientific staff, linguists and planetographers. “However, if I followed, your battle choreography means that everyone knows in advance exactly which ships are going to be damaged, who is going to perform a heroic act to keep a fusactor bank from blowing, which officers give clever commands that lead to victory, etc. How does that correspond to entries in the records of officers who because of the battle choreography happened to be in the right place at the right time? Why are they complimented?”
