+++Stellar Fleets+++

The Imperium's interstellar ships comprise merchant vessels, warships, civil craft and several other specialised types. These are organised into three specific fleets: merchant fleets, civil fleets and warfleets. Each of the Segmentae Majoris has its own merchant, civil and warfleets.

So for example, the Warfleet Solar is the warfleet of the Segmentum Solar, the Merchant Pacificus is the merchant fleet of the Segmentum Pacificus, and the Civilis Tempestus is the civil fleet of the Segmentum Tempestus.

SEGMENTAE REGISTRATION

All interstellar spacecraft are registered as belonging to one or more of the Segmentae fleets. Registration allows a ship to be identified, and permits the fleet authorities to record and administrate shipping within each of the Segmentae.

A ship which is not registered in a Segmentum may only travel to that Segmentum with the special permission of the fleet authorities. This is purely an identification measure. An unidentified and unregistered ship is assumed to be hostile, and would be attacked and destroyed.

MERCHANT CHARTERS

Each merchant ship serves its fleet under an arrangement called a merchant charter. The different types of charter are described below. They all take the form of a feudal oath sworn to the fleet authorities on behalf of the Emperor. A captain may not register his vessel with the fleet authorities until this oath has been sworn and a record of it entered at the Segmentum Fortress for that zone and on the Segmentum Fortress on Mars.

Hereditary Free Charter

This is the most coveted and most highly honoured form of captaincy. It is also the most ancient. A hereditary free captain nominates his successor, and that successor swears the oath of allegiance and thereby becomes the new captain of the ship when its current captain dies or retires.

The captain is 'free' in that he may trade freely within the Segmentum where his fleet is based. Many of these old captaincies are based in all five of the Segmentae Majoris. Although the hereditary free captain is theoretically an Imperial servant, his obligations are few. The ship may trade where and how it pleases within the confines of its charter.

Hereditary Charter

Hereditary captains may pass their ships to favoured, or related, successors as described above. As well as inheriting a ship, the captain inherits a route or routes, and can only carry cargo and passengers along this route. Some routes are more profitable than others and so are more highly regarded.

Free Charter

Free captains are appointed to command individual vessels by fleet officials. They are usually established fleet officials themselves, having worked their way up the ranks to a position of responsibility. Free captains may trade as they wish within the Segmentae, except they are usually forbidden from trading along established routes. Instead, they roam the less-densely populated sectors, areas where regular services are either not needed or would be too costly to run.

Fleet Charter

A fleet captain is appointed to his position in exactly the same way as a free captain, but plies fixed routes like the hereditary captain. This is the least prestigious level of interstellar captaincy, and is also the least secure. A fleet captain may be deprived of his command and given a shore posting at anytime, his ship reassigned to someone else.

A Typical Charter

A typical example of a merchant charter is the cargo ship Amaranthus which has been captained by the Sorensen family over the last nine thousand years. It is one of the oldest ships in the Merchant Ultima fleet, with a hereditary free charter registered in the 32nd millennium. The ship has undergone several major rebuilds since that time, the last being two hundred years ago. The Sorensen family has amassed a considerable fortune in its time, and now owns a number of interstellar craft.

CIVIL FLEETS

The civil fleets contain privately-owned interstellar craft operating along routes licensed by the fleet authorities. Civil fleets usually bid for route licences as they come up, the route going to the fleet prepared to pay the most for it. This system enables the Imperium to maintain routes which, for whatever reason, it finds inconvenient to service from its own craft. It is also a good way of raising revenue. As well as route voyages, the fleet administration also issues one-off licences for single trips. Many of the smaller fleets manage to survive entirely in a hand-to-mouth fashion reliant upon one-off licences.

FLEET ORGANISATION

The three fleets of each of the Segmentae Majoris are organised and administered by the fleet authorities in that Segmentum. This organisation is part of the Administratum -the great bureaucracy of Earth and government of the Emperor. The officials of the individual fleets are responsible in their turn to Segmentae fleet officials, who are responsible to the administration of the Segmentum as a whole. The highest official in each Segmentum is its Lord Commander and of these the Lord Commander of the Segmentum Solar is the foremost, often taking his place as one of the High Lords of Terra.

The following list briefly outlines the important ranks in the organisation of a Segmentum's warfleet (often also known as the naval fleet).

Warfleet Commander

The highest ranking of the military officers is the Warfleet Commander. He is in charge of the entire naval contingent of a Segmentum, numbering many thousands of warships. There are only five Warfleet Commanders, one for each of the Segmentae Majoris. They rank equally, although command of the Warfleet Solar is generally regarded as the most prestigious position.

The Warfleet Commander formulates the naval fleet strategy throughout the entire Segmentum, overseeing repair schedules, supervising construction programs and ensuring the general space-worthiness of the fleet. His personal staff is divided into armament, maintenance, design, construction and a thousand other working committees.

Space Commanders

Under the Warfleet Commander are individual Space Commanders responsible for naval operations within each sector. The Space Commander is based at the Sector Fortress, along with other sector-level administrative staff of the Administratum and other branches of the Adeptus Terra. He must answer not only to his naval superior, the Warfleet Commander, but also to the Adeptus Sector Commander in overall charge of the sector.

The Space Commander has direct command of a portion of the Segmentum's warfleet. A typical command comprises about 50 interstellar ships, although the number would obviously vary depending upon the needs of the sector. Fifty ships is very few when you consider that a typical sector has between 30 and 40 thousand stars forming a cube with sides approximately 200 light years long!

These warships are divided up into patrol vessels, ships on permanent station in one star system and the reserve fleet. The reserve fleet is usually stationed at the Sector Fortress.

Group Commanders

Group Commanders are in charge of a portion of a sector's fleet. They are sometimes based around the Sector Fortress or, more often, on one of the permanently-manned docking stations in one of the sub-sectors. Group Commanders are responsible for patrolling and keeping order within sub-sectors and inter-sectors around their base.

A typical command consists of a sub-sector base, non-combatant staff and a couple of squadrons of ships. One squadron is usually a patrol squadron, while the other is held in reserve to meet specific threats.

Group commanders often serve as Battlefleet Commanders when the need arises. The Battlefleet is a temporary force, summoned to meet a single crisis or defeat a particular enemy. It usually consists of spaceships from only two or three neighbouring sub-sectors at most. The Battlefleet Commander is generally the most senior of the Group Commanders whose warships are involved in the battle.

Squadron Commanders

A Squadron Commander is in charge of a squadron of spaceships. He is also a ship Captain and leads his squadron from the bridge of the ship he commands. A typical squadron might be three spacecraft of which the Commander's ship is one.

While the Battlefleet Commander dictates the overall tactics of the force, the Squadron Commander's task is to make decisions about the formation and manoeuvres of the spaceships he leads.

Captains

Captains are in charge of individual ships. In terms of fleet organisation, they are the lowest ranking officers - on their own ships, they are absolute commanders. On a spaceship that is vast beyond belief, crewed by tens of thousands of men and women, the Captain's position is one of huge prestige and honour. To the spaceship's crew, far distant from the higher organisation of the fleet, their Captain is the voice of the Emperor and the symbol of supreme power in their ship-bound lives.

ILLEGAL SHIPPING

The Imperium is large - large enough to hide in if you really want to! The Administratum has a great deal of control over interstellar shipping one way or another but, even so, there are illegally-operating interstellar craft. These ships are owned and operated by unregistered merchants, smugglers and even by pirates. They are taking a grave risk, because any unregistered ship is automatically assumed to be hostile by naval forces.

All illegal ships are at a considerable disadvantage compared to registered vessels. Navigators are, on the whole, loyal citizens. They are also quite rare. Interstellar travel without a Navigator is relatively slow because the maximum distance a ship can jump is only four or five light years compared to five thousand. There are navigators who will work on board illegal ships, but they are few and far between. The vast majority of illegal interstellar shipping is therefore locally-based, usually operating within a group of close sub-sectors or from peripheral inter-sectors.

UNREGISTERED SHIPS

There are many reasons why a captain may be tempted to run an illegal ship Planets all have local laws governing what can and can't be imported and exported. Some planetary governments also charge an import duty or have complex quarantine laws. The cargoes and passengers of official ships are always carefully checked and recorded. Many routes are the property of hereditary captains or are operated exclusively under a fleet charter.

There are all sorts of people, including Imperial Commanders, who may wish to circumvent one or other of these obstacles. Even registered ships may be tempted to break the law occasionally if the price is right, but they run a far greater risk because their craft are very easily identified and traced.

PIRATE SHIPS

Interstellar pirate ships operate in a similar way to unregistered traders, but their intentions are far more sinister. Few Imperial Commanders will tolerate pirates in their System, so most pirate bases are within otherwise uninhabited Systems. Some pirates operate exclusively against registered shipping, others are indiscriminate in their choice of victim. Pirates and unregistered traders often collaborate, sharing information and sometimes using the same facilities.

pirate's usual mode of operation is to lie in wait just inside a system's jump point. If the target is leaving the system, the chances are that any accompanying sub-stellar craft will have turn back by now. The pirate leaps upon the craft, aiming to board and remove the cargo before the ship jumps. Although a pirate could attack and destroy a cargo vessel, little would be accomplished doing so.

ENEMY RAIDERS

Mm are interstellar craft belonging to enemy forces. Of ~m, exaedy whose enemy they are depends on whose side m Ut on! Imperial Commanders are prone to quarrel with their neighbours. In these quarrels one side may be prepared to hire illegal ships, even pirates, to attack and destroy a rival's shipping. Such fights are common, but are directed mainly against sub-stellar craft belonging to the foe. It would be extremely stupid for an Imperial Commander to attack Imperial fleet vessels - to do so would invite immediate and uncompromising retribution. Needless to say, mistakes do happen, and Imperial Commanders often find themselves on the wrong end of an Imperial Planetary Assault unit.

The other enemy raiders encountered by Imperial fleets are those of alien races, foremost amongst which are the Orks, Eldar and Tyranids. Most battles with aliens are relatively small-scale conflicts with only a few spaceships on either side. Sometimes a major war will break out with large battles fought between powerful fleets. The war may spread across several neighbouring star systems and might take years or decades to resolve.

By far the largest war currently underway is against the Tyranid Hive Fleet Kraken. The Tyranid fleet threatens every race in the galaxy as it literally consumes the populations of the planets it conquers in its insatiable progress. Already the south-eastern arm of the galaxy has fallen to the Tyranids.