Terran Alliance Ship Traditions

Homeporting

Terran Alliance starships, regardless of if they are capable of planetary landing or not, all have a ceremonial homeport. Traditionally this is a city in the member state that contributes the most (defined as a ratio of ship cost to GDP of the member state) to the construction of the starship, however other criteria have been used to determine it as well, such as staffing percentage of initial crew, random lottery, and decree of the Grand Duchess. Embarkation and debarkation of crew for a tour of duty are usually done at the ceremonial homeport - in the case of ships that cannot land the crew is assembled and boards shuttles there instead.

Ship Designation

All Terran Alliance starships have two designations - a hull number and a registry number. The hull number is closer to a serial number for the ship, being an alphanumeric code that records ship class and where the ship falls numerically in the construction of that class. The registry number includes a prefix, which is a three-letter code indicating what service branch is responsible for the ship, and a numeric code that increases sequentially for each prefix.