An Excerpt from: The Office of Ship Manning: Purpose, Founding, and Basic Operations
By Brinley Blake, 4th of his name, 26th Lord of Sky City Wing Ward.
PURPOSE:
The purpose of the Office of Ship Manning (OSM) is as delightfully simple as it name implies: to organize and direct the manning of the ships of His Majesty's Star Empire. And, as the old ground bound saying goes, nothing simple is ever easy. A sub-office of the War Department, the OSM has to balance the needs of the Navy, the System Defense Forces, the Star Empire Merchant Marine, the Surveyor's Corps, the Royal Marines, and the Army. The OSM also, as an impartial party, has to handle all inter-service transfers between the forces it serves. Thirdly the OSM also serves as a clearing house for all conscripts not already dedicated to the Offices of Ground- and Space Installation Manning.
FOUNDING and BASIC OPERATIONS:
Founded in May of 8105, ten months into the First Star Empire – Golrak War, the OSM was created initially as both a measure of bureaucratic sanity and political compromise. Rare as those two things may be in concert it was surprising common in the later months of the first year of the First Star Empire – Golrak War as the initial fear and confusion wore off. With the initial assaults either driven off or contained to planetary surfaces, sky cities, and orbital habitats sanity began to prevail. The War Department in particular began a massive reorganization of its conscription programs. Out of this and all of the political horse trading and angling for advantage, the records of which would fill eight omnibuses at least, emerged a simple branching flow chart that all of the armed forces of the Star Empire actually agreed to.
The various recruiting and volunteer programs were consolidated down so that each force had one and only one program and central bureaucratic organ to run it. The conscription programs were centralized under the War Department and immediately reformed. Press-gang and pay to not serve programs were eliminated, basic health requirements were standardized, and the entire feed of conscripts was funneled down to a a mere three of Offices for further distribution: The Offices of Ship -, Space Installation -, and Ground Manning.
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This was good and sane for the conscripts as well. Having just been scooped up into the Service of the Star Empire and His Majesty, a conscript is understandably confused and afraid. Basic universal training and testing reassures him or her, and movement orders to report to the local branch of an Office named for where a conscript will be serving further serves to reassure. The conscript is shown there is a clear process and can even look this process up on a publicly available flowchart.
As we are concerned with the OSM, we shall follow our theoretical conscript there. Having reported for duty they are put through basic training. No matter what branch of the armed forces they will end up in they will be serving aboard a ship, so their training focuses on that. From the chain of command to basic drill to safety signage and procedures everything needed to serve aboard ship is taught or refreshed. Also more specialized medical exams are given and aptitude tests performed that will determine which branch of the armed forces a conscript will be sent along to. This service is based around and runs in parallel to the services own basic training programs. In the vast majority of cases this ensures that a conscript will graduate from OSM basic and be handed over to an armed service directly into specialist training. In times of war this often means that conscripts are sent directly out to a ship's company to receive the needed training from the cadre of longer-service offers and crew aboard ship 'in the field.' In times of peace, or at least in the ongoing 'cold war' with the golrak, the armed services have the time to put conscripts through specialist training either 'shore side' or aboard dedicated training ships before dispatching them out into the fleet.
The other primary function of the OSM is, as previously mentioned, to serve as an impartial intermediary for inter service transfers. While the Star Empire takes great care and pride in it's efforts to stamp out corruption, cronyism, nepotism, and retribution it can still happen. Thus the OSM handles the transfer, including recommendations for initial placement in the new service, instead of the services in question. While this does not eliminate corruption and so on it does insert multiple levels of documentation and review into the process and give a neutral third party for a wronged individual to appeal to.