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I must go down to the sea again - an Age of Sail quest

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well I was gonna vote for merchant but too late. Shame, it'd be nice to be a commoner without also being an ancient lieutenant.

also disappointed in your musical choices, all of you. No Stan Rogers?
 
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2. And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by
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    • Lieutenant Marran Marinos
    Diplomacy: 8 Strategy: 9 Tactics: 10 Prowess: 12 Subterfuge: 9 Seamanship: 12 Wealth: Poor

    You are Lieutenant Marran Marinos, formerly an enlisted sailor who has reached the dizzying and unheard of heights of the rank of lieutenant. For someone of your social class, you have already climbed almost as high as you might expect and your yearly salary of 100 silver stavrata is more than your parents could ever hope to make hauling in their catch. Despite your rough life at sea, you are a fairly androgynous looking young person and you primarily identify yourself as a sailor and naval officer, if you ever have to do so. You are quite capable at your job, though you will undoubtedly face other challenges in your efforts to attain further rank besides your birth, not the least of which is lacking a political patron.

    You have just returned to the bustling port city of Inoburgh after a brief visit back home to your small fishing village further down the coast, a good couple of days of coach. You have technically been a lieutenant for 18 months, but this is the first time you have managed to get a visit home--you have been on service up north, whiling away time in a stinking hulk of a seventy-four that rarely put to sea. You have what's left of your pay in your pocket, having given a good amount to your parents to help them out and also spent a rather goodly amount buying drinks for your old school friends at the local tavern during the party to welcome you back. Besides that, you also had to pay for the new uniform and sword you're wearing, after all. You wanted to make an impression when you got home and a threadbare coat and battered sword just would not do. That you are an officer makes you the talk of village and everyone is immensely proud of you. Your father, a gruff fisherman, openly wept with pride when he saw you in your sea blue coat, trimmed at the cuff and collar with gold.

    Also in your pocket are your orders, desiring that you report with all speed to His Excellency Vice Admiral Duke Alexandros Lusio, commanding His Majesty's Fleet etc. etc. for further orders. You weave your way through the cramped streets, listening to the familiar cries of fishmongers, merchants, and stalls selling all sorts of street foods until you manage to make your way to the broad avenue known as Navy Street. Here is the fantastically opulent and sprawling complex of buildings that make up the Admiralty Headquarters for Inoburgh. The Admiralty proper is in the capital, after all. You stride through the gate with purpose, receiving a salute from the marines at the gate in their yellow coats and cocked hats. You pause to look up at the billowing national flag that flies proudly over the central courtyard.

    You clamber up the stairs, passing by milling officers and sailors, all heading to and fro with business of one sort or another. Inside, it takes you a few minutes, but you manage to ascertain directions to the admirals office, which turns out to be impressively concealed behind an ornate pair of wooden doors. You report yourself to a grim looking woman in the uniform of a captain of marines, who gives you a place to sit and then sweeps inside. You wait anxiously for the next ten minutes before she makes her appearance again and ushers you inside to the office. Which is no less impressive, considering it could fit the whole of the house you grew up in several times over. The admiral is not, at fact, at his desk, but bent over a map at a table next to a tall window that lets in the early autumn's sunlight. He looks up when he sees you and you come to a respectful stop with your hat under one arm. Reaching out, you offer your orders and then touch a knuckle to your forehead--a habit from when you were a mere seaman that you haven't yet been able to break.

    "Lieutenant Marran Marinos, at your service my lord." He smiles at your response and then looks over your orders. He has the look of a kindly grandfather about him. An older man, maybe in his late fifties and going rather stout, though there's still signs of what must have been an impressive physique when he was young. And unlike many older men he still has a full head of hair, even if it is going gray.

    "Welcome, Lieutenant, welcome. Have a seat." He waves you towards a chair and follows you towards it. "Can I get you something to drink?"

    "Ah, yes sir, just a small one though, thank you."

    "Eager to get to work I see," he says with an indulgent smile. "I had wondered what I was going to do with you when I got the packet from the Admiralty. An old lieutenant from before the mast? I already have plenty of lieutenants, don't I? I'm surprised you weren't put on a ship already." You privately have to wonder the same thing. Usually you would have been assigned as a junior officer to a ship by now, but you aren't about to argue.

    "Fortunately for you," he says as he pours two crystal glasses of wine. One he holds out to you and you take it, then sip awkwardly. It's very good wine and more expensive, you suspect, than your uniform. "I happen to have something for you. One of the cutters here at the port has lost her commander--the plucky young so-and-so got himself a berth on a frigate setting sail for the Southern Spice Islands. Which means I have a ship in need of an officer and you are the officer I have available." He bends to the desk and picks up a sealed envelope, the purple wax stamped with the seal of the Navy to indicate that they are official orders.

    "I will be giving you the command of the cutter Lydia. You'll be doing rather dull stuff, really. Customs enforcement and the like, but it's a command and it's at sea." He smiles at you, then sips his wine.

    "I would like to ask a favor of you, though. First, the son of my sister's brother-in-law has decided she wants to go to sea and he needs a ship. This won't be for long, of course, since I'm hoping to get him onto something a bit more promising, but he needs some time at sea. I assume you'd be willing to take him as one of your midshipman? The last lieutenant took the other two with him when he left. And... Well, secondly I have a granddaughter, my daughter's child, and she and her husband want to get her a start on her career. So I was hoping you'd do the usual thing and put her name on the books to help her along. What do you say, Lieutenant? Good start to your first command?" He raises his glass in a sort of toast, waiting for your response.

    [ ] You scratch my back: He has offered you, rather generously, command of a vessel. Sure it's a piddly little revenue cutter but you could just have well ended up as the junior lieutenant on some godawful transport or some three-decker at anchor. The cutter gives you a chance to be at sea and to show that you have promise. Besides, this sort of thing is usual in the navy and it wouldn't hurt to have good relations with the admiral commanding your port.
    [ ] That goes a little far: You're happy to take on the actual midshipman, he'll be able to learn how to be at sea and be useful on board the cutter. Putting the girl's name on the books though? It goes against your sense of propriety and fairness. You've seen midshipman who hadn't had such advantages passed over for seniority by squeakers two and three years younger because on paper they have been at sea longer.
    [ ] Politely decline: As grateful as you are for this opportunity, no captain likes to have their ship interfered with unnecessarily and you would like to pick both of your officers if you can, thank you very much. You understand his position, but you couldn't possibly do something like this. It's rather dishonest, isn't it?
     
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    • [X]That goes a little far

    Not sure what 'putting a name on the books' means, but it sounds sketchy.
     
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    ColdGoldLazarus said:
    [X]You scratch my back

    Not sure what 'putting a name on the books' means, but it sounds sketchy.
    Click to expand...
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    It basically means entering them as being a member of the ship's company while they are not, in fact, in the ship's company at all. It means they'll have more years at sea recorded in the "official" ledger, which means they have a better shot at an earlier promotion.
     
    [X] That goes a little far: You're happy to take on the actual midshipman, he'll be able to learn how to be at sea and be useful on board the cutter. Putting the girl's name on the books though? It goes against your sense of propriety and fairness. You've seen midshipman who hadn't had such advantages passed over for seniority by squeakers two and three years younger because on paper they have been at sea longer.

    Eugh. I don't want to argue too much with an admiral about something like this, he certainly is being generous. And I'm happy to take on the midshipman, since he can be helpful (even if he is awful at his job.) But I don't think it'd fit our character to cook the books this early.

    ColdGoldLazarus said:
    Not sure what 'putting a name on the books' means, but it sounds sketchy.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    It means the girl would officially be on the ship's crew manifest, but not set to sea with us. She'd get seniority without actually doing the work. Pretty common practice both IRL and in-universe, sadly.
     
    [*] Flirt.

    more seriously, I think putting her on the books is a bit much. Haven't decided if we should use the midshipsman or not
     
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    Let's get the admiral on our side.

    It's not strictly honest but we'll face trouble enough without making enemies.

    [X]You scratch my back
     
    As a note: you know that you would normally have two midshipman and the sailing master as your officers. Presumably the sailing master is still onboard, but otherwise selection of the other officers will be up to you personally. What the admiral is asking of you is not not unusual and while technically illegal, no one is ever prosecuted for it and it's sort of an expected thing to do in the Navy, though usually you ask your friends and former shipmates.
     
    [X] That goes a little far: You're happy to take on the actual midshipman, he'll be able to learn how to be at sea and be useful on board the cutter. Putting the girl's name on the books though? It goes against your sense of propriety and fairness. You've seen midshipman who hadn't had such advantages passed over for seniority by squeakers two and three years younger because on paper they have been at sea longer.
     
    [X] That goes a little far: You're happy to take on the actual midshipman, he'll be able to learn how to be at sea and be useful on board the cutter. Putting the girl's name on the books though? It goes against your sense of propriety and fairness. You've seen midshipman who hadn't had such advantages passed over for seniority by squeakers two and three years younger because on paper they have been at sea longer.

    Nepotism is common practice, but we could be screwing over people in a bad way with the fraud.
     
    [X] You scratch my back: He has offered you, rather generously, command of a vessel. Sure it's a piddly little revenue cutter but you could just have well ended up as the junior lieutenant on some godawful transport or some three-decker at anchor. The cutter gives you a chance to be at sea and to show that you have promise. Besides, this sort of thing is usual in the navy and it wouldn't hurt to have good relations with the admiral commanding your port.
     
    [X] You scratch my back: He has offered you, rather generously, command of a vessel. Sure it's a piddly little revenue cutter but you could just have well ended up as the junior lieutenant on some godawful transport or some three-decker at anchor. The cutter gives you a chance to be at sea and to show that you have promise. Besides, this sort of thing is usual in the navy and it wouldn't hurt to have good relations with the admiral commanding your port.

    Well, when in Rome. It wouldn't help us at all to piss off the Admiral, and he's been good to us so far, better than most would be. Besides, like the post earlier said, we need a sponsor if we don't want to be eaten alive by the politics in the Navy.

    Still, glad the option that won was the one it was. We'll be depending on our crew out there, and they know we're one of them.

    To celebrate;
     
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