Lieutenant-Captain, Lieutenant-Major, there are darned Lieutenants everywhere....

When I was making my preparations for the 'Battlecruiser Alamo' series, one of the elements I had the most fun with was creating the tables of rank. This is something that has often bugged me with science-fiction in the past, with television SF by far the worst culprit; naval and military terms are thrown haphazardly about with no regard for logic, reason or tradition, the latter being the most important of all – for essentially all the military ranks stem from some long tradition or another, often now totally irrelevant – but yet the rank remains. I had lots of fun here; given that the series opens with the merger of three militaries into one, I had to create five tables of rank, two for the Triplanetary forces (one Fleet, one Espatier) and one each for the other three services. I have a nice complicated table, but I'll break it down here one at a time. (I'm pondering polishing this as an appendix for one of the books...)

Martian Space Service

General, Colonel-General, Lieutenant-General, Major-General, Colonel, Major, Captain, First Lieutenant, Second Lieutenant, Third Lieutenant

Fleet Sergeant-Major, Squadron Sergeant-Major, Staff Sergeant, Technical Sergeant, Sergeant, Senior Corporal, Corporal, Private First Class, Private Second Class, Private Third Class

Mars, in the series, was colonized mostly by the United States, though with some immigrants from the United Kingdom, Canada, and a few other places; hence these ranks take the Army as their guidelines, following the model of the USAF, though with a few variations. Colonel-General is a rank used extensively in Asia, Russia and parts of Eastern Europe; it seemed to fit nicely, avoiding the need for a 'General of the Space Service'. Third Lieutenant – well, I read Starship Troopers, and let's just leave it at that. As for the enlisted ranks, those are much more conventional – but Sergeant-Major, instead of 'Regimental', or 'Company' (and I know those are titles, not ranks – but then most ranks started out as titles) breaks down as 'Fleet' and 'Squadron'.

Callisto Orbital Patrol

Fleet Commander, Flotilla Commander, Squadron Commander, Flight Commander, Senior Flight Officer, Flight Officer, Junior Flight Officer, Recruit Officer

Master Astronaut, Senior Flight Sergeant, Flight Sergeant, Junior Flight Sergeant, Senior Astronaut, Astronaut First Class, Astronaut Second Class, Astronaut Third Class

This one was treated rather differently; I decided to follow the same sort of design process as used when creating the RAF ranks – essentially, starting from scratch, taking a few bits and pieces where appropriate. Callisto was colonised by Russia and the 'European Federation' mostly, so that had a role as well – and again, title has become rank in short order, with the flag ranks following the French pattern of describing what size of command is appropriate – a fleet, a flotilla, a squadron, or a single ship. The enlisted ranks were rather easier here, again taking inspiration from the RAF.

Titan Militia

Commodore, Captain, Commander, Lieutenant, Sub-Lieutenant, Midshipman

Petty Officer, Senior Spaceman, Spaceman, Recruit Spaceman

The Titan Militia was pretty easy; it was settled by the East African Federation mostly, with some from the 'Indochinese Union', but it suggested Royal Naval ranks as a baseline, especially as I established that this was the smallest fleet, the moon having being settled on more of a shoestring. This was to be much more of a 'part-time' service, implied in the 'militia' term; so they didn't need anything like as many ranks. It boiled down to replacing 'Airman' or 'Sailor' with 'Spaceman', and trimming down. Actually, a lot of inspiration also came from the early US Navy rank structure, before the first Admiral rank was created.

Triplanetary Fleet

Admiral, Vice-Admiral, Counter-Admiral, Commodore, Captain, Lieutenant-Captain, Senior Lieutenant, Lieutenant, Sub-Lieutenant, Midshipman

Senior Petty Officer, Chief Petty Officer, Petty Officer, Junior Petty Officer, Senior Spaceman, Spaceman First Class, Spaceman Second Class, Spaceman Third Class

This one, naturally, I paid the most attention to, but did it after I'd established the planetary ones; the peculiarities of the setting meant that it would have to draw inspiration from the others, but couldn't be a direct copy – the militaries involved would not have gone along with it! So – I went to Russia for the ranks, the four flag ranks ranging down from 'Admiral' to 'Commodore', with 'Counter-Admiral' replacing 'Rear-Admiral'. 'Lieutenant-Captain' was my alternative to Commander, if only because...I liked the sound of it! The idea was that it was the lowest rank of independent ship command, and that 'Captain' should be in it somewhere; the enlisted ranks were fairly conventionally drawn, because I wanted that to be more familiar.

Triplanetary Espatier Corps

Brigadier, Colonel, Major, Lieutenant-Major, Lieutenant, Ensign, Cadet

Sergeant-Major, First Sergeant, Master Sergeant, Sergeant, Lance-Sergeant, Corporal, Lance-Corporal, Private, Recruit

If this looks US Marines, its meant to – but I drew in an additional tweak to reflect the 'combined' nature of the services by incorporating the European rank of 'Lance-Sergeant', which I first saw in the Polish armed forces. I actually rather like the sound of it, if I'm honest! And Ensign? Well, that was originally an Army rank; it seemed an interesting alternative to 'First' and 'Second' Lieutenants...especially as there were going to be a lot of Lieutenants running around anyway! The other new rank, Lieutenant-Major, I humbly submit as my answer to the age-old 'two Captain ranks' problem; evidently someone in the service decided to end it once and for all be eliminating the rank of 'Captain' and replacing it with 'Lieutenant-Major' instead; it goes well with 'Lieutenant-Captain', I think, and you can expect to see this one cropping up...

The Price of Admiralty: Author's Notes

(Warning – Some Spoilers)

The 'Battlecruiser Alamo' series went through an awful lot of iterations before it finally hit home; I think I did four complete drafts before the final one, most of them bearing little resemblance to what I actually ended up publishing. In a way, this is a series that has been in my mind for the last twenty years, ever since I started to read science fiction in a big way, and I think one of my primary influences was a book written by Stewart Cowley, 'Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD'. This was an art book, a collection mostly of Chris Foss artwork, but it had connected text describing the ships within, and a lot of effort had been made to create a consistent universe. More – it came at a great time, as I had also picked up a book called 'Flight to the Stars' by James Strong; this book was a description, from a 1960s point of view, of how interstellar exploration and colonisation might actually take place. Heady stuff for a ten-year-old!

At the back of a book was a list of 'Stars within Twenty Light-Years'. Well, I was lost here. I spent ages pouring over the names, stars such as Procyon, Tau Ceti, Groombridge 1618; all of them seemed full of promise and potential, and that's really the genesis of the setting. I wanted an interstellar setting, but one that used real stars – I wanted my heroes to go to Lalande 21185, to Ross 128, to Van Maanan's Star. (And yes, Frontier: Elite 2 was also a bit of an influence here as well. I spent months playing that game.) When I got around to actually writing in this setting, well, it was a foregone conclusion that this was the sandbox I would be messing around in.

Then came the core of the book itself, the heart of the plot. Optimism. There has been a tendency for a long time for 'anti-heroes' to come to the forefront, for people to have to do bad things to succeed. I never really bought into that, not properly. Maybe I spent too much time watching Star Trek when I was a kid, but I wanted to have an optimistic setting, one where there was a determination that the future is to be better than the past, that questionable acts can be avoided. In short...I wanted heroes. Not anti-heroes, but people who would do the right thing for the right reasons. And so came the Interplanetary War; because the best way to show that off would be to have this as an improvement from darkness in the past.

Thence the war; well, this has some elements of the American Civil War because they are unavoidable, but I drew primary inspiration – as, I know, many others have before me – from the War of Independence. Three colonies, each for different reasons, choose to secede from the increasingly tyrannical United Nations of Earth, and form their own state, the Triplanetary Confederation, which starts out as a loose alliance but increasingly becomes tighter over time. At some point, I really must write some books set in this time, but for the moment, aside from the odd flashback, I'm writing in a period a decade later, when the wounds of the war have healed and mankind can begin to look outward again.

My priority was always to keep things realistic. I didn't want to just create a setting filled with self-defined rules, I wanted to get into the guts of how space flight, space colonisation, and space war would be. (And so came the Third World War and the eco-caust of the mid-21st century. There had to be a strong reason why millions of people would flee Earth; it being on the verge of destruction seems like a good one to me.) Warfare doesn't involve death rays and photon torpedoes; the Battlecruiser Alamo is equipped with missiles and a large laser cannon. There are 'screens', but that simply denotes the range where Alamo's counter-measures become most effective, rather than presenting any sort of physical 'forcefield'. Ships have to spin for gravity, or get it from acceleration, or just live without it...and people get spacesick if exposed to zero-gravity, because generally it is artificially produced. (Lots of evidence that humans like gravity, you see...so that just makes sense.)

Ah, yes...the name itself. Well, I've always been a bit of a sneaky fan of the Texas Republic. It's the romantic in me. And that goes double for the Alamo itself; I still like the John Wayne film. (Mind you, I'm the person who actually likes 'Green Berets'.) That there haven't been any warships named Alamo seems odd, in a way – though I suppose the Navy likes to name ships after sea battles. It had a nice ring to it, as did Battlecruiser – there really wasn't any justification further than that for the name. The idea of a class of ships named after 'glorious last stands' came a lot later, though it gave me a lot of fun picking them out. (Yes, I have a provisional list – and so far, I've named five of them in books either published or in the process of being published. One left, and I'm holding that for a while.)

The length was a bit of an accident; I was shooting for 80,000 words and ended at 76,000, and the last thing I wanted to do was pad out the story. (When the next book came out at 72,000, I decided that 70-80,000 was probably a good benchmark for the series long-term, though I suppose it might expand a bit in the future. I don't want to go under it, though.) I actually think this is a good length in any case; long enough to keep someone occupied for a few commutes, or a few lunch-breaks, or a couple of evenings. My personal use of the Kindle is far more 'take on journey' than 'sit down and read', though I must confess lately I've been reading it in bed – maybe my tastes are changing a bit!

When it finally came to write the final version (there were four earlier drafts, none of which had much resemblance to the ultimate book), it actually went surprisingly smoothly. By that point I knew the setting and the characters to the point that I could answer questions about them, I almost felt as if I was 'living' in that world. (Heck, I still do!)