The Infamous Green Marine from Episode 13 burst onto an unsuspecting world sometime around April of 2009. I had my excuses. I was in a hurry. I had only the crudest of materials and software. And to be honest, I’d hadn’t done much drawing since the last time I broke my arm, so my rudimentary artistic skills had atrophied to the point of nonexistence. The result was a milestone in the history of graphics disasters!
The best thing one can say for the fellow is that his outfit bore some vague resemblance to the uniform of the Royal Marines. The rest of the figure went horribly wrong. He was standing at what might have been Order Arms in some entirely different universe from our own. His weapons was a rifle-like scribble — suitable for defense against an army of hostile scrawls, perhaps, but of dubious value against more mundane opponents. And as for his complexion, a friend of mine observed, “Ah, I see that the Royal Marines is recruiting zombies into their ranks!”
The IGM has finally mustered out and retired to run a pub for poorly-drawn green people somewhere in the Old Country. His replacement is pictured above on the right. I’ll admit that this new recruit still has some problems. It’s hard to make something that’s only 120 pixels long recognizable as an Enfield. I’m sure his sergeant would find fault with his stance. And he’s holding that rifle like it’s a dead rat. (Perhaps this is some new drill from the Manual of Arms that was developed for the vermin-infested trenches of the Great War. “Company… Order… Rats!”) But is he an improvement over his predecessor? I leave this for you to decide…
[Friends of the Infamous Green Marine needn’t despair. The hunch-shouldered green guy is not gone forever. He shall receive a page of his very own in the Extras section once I decide upon the best way to do him justice.]
I’m sorry that this is so very off-topic, but I just stumbled upon this site today and have been reading through the archives. In Chapter 21 (and the rest of the story), the crew really should be using “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right”.
I’ve been enjoying the story tremendously, it’s really quite well done. I’m not an expert in period Royal Navy jargon, but I’m reasonably certain that they would be using “port” and “starboard”.
Good eye, Dann! I was wondering when someone was going to call me on that. The Royal Navy Airship Service mixes aircraft and naval practice, using ‘left’ and ‘right’ for turns and ‘port’ and ’starboard’ for bearings and directions — i.e. “Turn right until we’re heading toward that island to starboard.”. Also, the commander always specifies the direction of a turn, no matter how small the heading change may be, to make it clear whether or not he wants to turn the long way around. The alleged reason is clarity, to reduce the chance of an order being misunderstood in a fast-moving noise-filled environment. But it also seems to make things a tad easier for the reader community.
Of course, it’s quite possibly that I slipped up in some episodes, and used ‘left/right’ for directions and ‘port/starboard’ for turns, rather than vice versa. If you spot any places where this happened, feel free to send me an email or post it to the forum. I’ll fix it right away… and you will join the Honorable Ranks of Proofreaders!
Interestingly, if I remember from 40+ years ago, “port” and “starboard” were the official terms for the sides of the ship and the direction for the helmsman, but rudders were referred to as turning “right” or “left”. Thus, a command might be given for “hard right rudder”, or “ten degrees left rudder”, or the lead ship in a line, such as a carrier, might transmit “Be advised my rudders are right”.
I somewhere picked up the tidbit that the origin of “port” was “larboard”, but was too easily confused with “starboard”, as any idiot would have expected. How did that name even get started?
I believe modern commercial practice also uses ‘right/left’ for turns and rudder position. In fact, that’s where I got the idea. But since I was deliberately inventing a tradition for the RNAS, I didn’t try to track down what all the different practices were on our world for different services and nationalities back in the 1920s. One of the many things that is now on my To Do list. Which has grown quite long
Hi guys,
I just found the website, but I thought I would chuck on my 2-cents worth.
The US Navy use right and left when giving direction (turn) orders. The Royal Navy used (and as far as I know still use) the more traditional port and starboard.
Calling the left side of a ship the ‘port’ side came about because in the really old days that was the side of a ship that was tied to the dock in a port. Early sailing ships were controlled by tillers that were almost always hung off the right side where they were easier for a righthanded man to manage them.
Hi Rick,
Thanks for the input about the Royal Navy! I will certainly use this. I’d decided that the Airship Service has it’s own traditions, but sooner or later, Everett or one of his men may end up on a surface ship, and I’ll want to get things right.
The traditional explanation for the origin of the terms ‘port’ and ’starboard’ (steer-board) is almost certainly true, but it does leave some questions unanswered. Ships built according to the ancient Mediterranean tradition had two side rudders: one on each side. I cannot help but wonder what terminology they used. (”Flavius, turn to steer-board! No, no, the other steer-board!”) And it appears there were some ‘left-handed’ Viking ships, which had their single side rudder mounted on the left. Did this lead to confusion? Did Erik Left-Hand have to begin each voyage with a review of what he meant by the ’steer-board side’? We may never know