Dragon1
Rear Admiral
Hi everyone! I was just going over the Star*Soldier manual and saw something very interesting that I have not before noticed. The manual references both the TCN (Navy) and the TCSN (Space Navy). While this is easily explained in that the TCSN was the service that the player belonged to in WC1/2 and the TCN was later added to differentiate between the fighter service and the capship service in later installments of the franchise, it may actually come to clarify some of the inter-service confusion that exists throughout the series. Incidents where Blair is a naval officer, then a space force officer, and then back to a naval officer, such as in the WCM, may begin to make some sense if the navy and the space force are actually branches of the same organization.
We see TCSN pop up in the name of academies or to describe military personnel operating in space in general irrespective of what they do (fighter pilot, destroyer helmsman, etc...). TCN seems to apply to specific designations such as the Torgo TCN base, or it is applied to individuals in the capital ship service (Captain Hugh Paulsen, TCN v. Colonel Christopher Blair, "Confederation Space Force Reserve").
Using the World War II analogy, this may equate to the U.S. armed forces where before the inception of the Department of Defense there existed two separate departments - the Department of War (Army) and the Department of the Navy.
Just as a speculation, the Terran Confederation armed forces may have been established similarly, with the TCSN operating as the branch that administered all space operations and the TCA which carried on planetary operations.
For example, the situation could have been broken up as follows:
1. TCSN (All space service personnel)
TCN - Capital ship service and fighters which supported the capital ships
TCSF - Fighter and bomber service which operated independently of the
capital ships (pre-McAuliffe Battle-Line formations)
TCMC - The Marines which operated independently of either of the
aforementioned.
2. TCA (All planetary based personnel)
The Army itself.
Perhaps separate element forces for air, sea, and/or strategic missile or
rockets.
3. In-System security and other paramilitary operations.
This could explain why we see both TCN and TCSN in the 28th century documentation and how major characters fluidly move between naval and military rank structures. What do you guys think?
We see TCSN pop up in the name of academies or to describe military personnel operating in space in general irrespective of what they do (fighter pilot, destroyer helmsman, etc...). TCN seems to apply to specific designations such as the Torgo TCN base, or it is applied to individuals in the capital ship service (Captain Hugh Paulsen, TCN v. Colonel Christopher Blair, "Confederation Space Force Reserve").
Using the World War II analogy, this may equate to the U.S. armed forces where before the inception of the Department of Defense there existed two separate departments - the Department of War (Army) and the Department of the Navy.
Just as a speculation, the Terran Confederation armed forces may have been established similarly, with the TCSN operating as the branch that administered all space operations and the TCA which carried on planetary operations.
For example, the situation could have been broken up as follows:
1. TCSN (All space service personnel)
TCN - Capital ship service and fighters which supported the capital ships
TCSF - Fighter and bomber service which operated independently of the
capital ships (pre-McAuliffe Battle-Line formations)
TCMC - The Marines which operated independently of either of the
aforementioned.
2. TCA (All planetary based personnel)
The Army itself.
Perhaps separate element forces for air, sea, and/or strategic missile or
rockets.
3. In-System security and other paramilitary operations.
This could explain why we see both TCN and TCSN in the 28th century documentation and how major characters fluidly move between naval and military rank structures. What do you guys think?