[World Building] A Future History of Space Force

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The usual reason why military space forces are portrayed as having naval traditions is that space voyages last a long time. Navies have cultural traditions and social structures that handle that, both for the crews and for the families they leave at home. For an air force, a 24-hour mission is long, but for a navy, it's hardly worth mentioning.

In the Transhuman Space setting, the US space force is part of the air force, whereas most of the other space forces are naval.

My knee-jerk reaction to suggestions that the air forces would run space is to poo-poo it because of this. However, it occurs to me that there's gaming potential and drama to be had in this - if an air force gets to do the space thing, it's just about guaranteed that they'll not listen to advice from the navy (assuming the navy's willing to give it), and that means people having to reinvent traditions and systems to deal with long voyages with no way of avoiding their fellow crew members, and that means drama and conflict - gaming fodder.