I don’t really know how to structure this question, but yeah, why is always Naval and never Aviation?
Naval terminology is cooler.
“I’m the Captain of the USS Enterprise.”
Vs
“I’m the Colonel of the Exploration/Reconnaissance/Fighter craft Enterprise.”
The purpose of Air Force is to monitor the skies, project power at a distance, and provide air superiority.
The purpose of Navy is to put a floating fortress off your shore and bombard your cities, carry around materiel, men, and aircraft, and patrol a vast volume of ocean.
So Navy structures fit the mission better, and this has been true since early SF.
Space is an ocean. That’s why there’s space whales.
It’s a ship. You use ship terms.
More specifically because travel in space is nearer travel underwater like a sub than flying in a plane.
Because space is an ocean.
Seriously mate, you didn’t warn about the TVTropes link? Some of us need to go to bed!
I was a good two hours on that bloody site, yawning my head off but unable to look away.
Because people don’t live in an airplane together for long periods of time. Pilots in sci fi are often aviation themed, but captains are naval because spaceships beyond our current level are closer to battleships, cruise ships, or aircraft carriers than fighter jets or passenger liners.
spaceSHIP
I wonder if it has much to do with the USAF being a relatively new service with a proportional cultural impact, coming into being as a service in 1947. Up until then, combat aviation was subordinate to the Army and Marines. This would point to a preponderance of Army/Navy WWII vets among the show’s consultants and audience.
You’ll sometimes see aviation terms for the little fighters that launch from the larger ships, like in macross. I think it’s a matter of scale, really. An airplane will usually have single digit crew, maybe double digit. A warship will have hundreds, and the bigger the ship the more the crew.
Because they’re way more like ships than they are planes – Planes don’t stay in the air indefinitely or take long voyages, have large crews, etc – They often treat the fighter pilot space ship people like AF though – Like if I have a ‘carrier’ with a bunch of smaller ships on it
“Why do they use” is a question. “Why they use” is an explanation.
Downvote all you like, I’m gonna keep correcting people who make this mistake.
I believe you mean, “Even if you, ‘down-vote,’ my comment, I shall continue to correct people who have made that mistake.”
I meant exactly what I said, and it is grammatically-correct casual English. Unlike ‘why in sci-fi they use Navy ranks?’ Or any of the hundred other ‘how to fix problem?’ examples I’ve seen, over the last decade.
This is a growing error and I am doing the bare minimum to help people stop making it. I’d understand if you find it overly prescriptivist. I’d understand if my phrasing was somehow impolite or unhelpful. But I have nothing kind to say about people mocking the effort.
Don’t you know? Correcting someone’s grammar or spelling is ableist and you have to just try to understand the fountain of garbage that people spew or you’re literally Hitler.
I feel like especially in titles space is at a premium so omitting words that aren’t actually needed to avoid ambiguity in the given context is fine
When the missing word is do, I am unmoved by concerns about space.
Space warfare is much closer to naval warfare on Earth, so naval tactics and strategies are more transferable when applied to space. For example: taking weeks to maneuver, and firing at your opponent 100,000 of kms away.
Air sorties are typically completed within hours, because it is ultimately limited by the fuel they can carry.
It’s called a spaceSHIP
I agree with what everyone else is saying, and…
Time of deployment on the vessel naval crews can be deployed from months maybe even years. Air crews are deployed for hours maybe a day. If the flight crew has a disagreement, they just have to hold their tongues long enough to land, and then they can deal with it on the land maybe even get reassigned etc etc
More analogies from naval service apply to spaceborn service where crews will be isolated for long periods of time.
I gotta imagine that each planet in a sci fi setting would have its oen airforce, where as the compasion of space to a vast ocean makes sense for the organization tasked with patroling it.
