So I was wondering about why we are Commander and not Captain ...

DrStrangeLove

DrStrangeLove
Because this is a British company and most game designers tend to use military parlance from their native country.

Quick wiki search provides this, which makes far more sense than Brits adopting a NASA tradition that is an American designation.

Wiki: The title (originally "master and commander")[1] originated in the 18th century to describe naval officers who commanded ships of war too large to be commanded by a lieutenant but too small to warrant the assignment of a post-captain, or (before about 1770) a sailing-master; the commanding officer served as his own master. In practice, these were usually unrated sloops-of-war of no more than 20 guns. The Royal Navy shortened "master and commander" to "commander" in 1794; however, the term "master and commander" remained (unofficially) in common parlance for several years
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Americans tend to think the person in charge of any naval vessel is the Captain (eg, Capt. Solo). Captain != rank in this regard, it only means the officer in charge which could be as low as an Ensign or even as high as an Admiral (however, Adm. rarely capt. vessels, they tell the actual Capt. of their flagship what to do). However, that is American Navy and this is NOT an American game.
 
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Captain N

C
DrStrangeLove said:
Because this is a British company and most game designers tend to use military parlance from their native country.

Quick wiki search provides this, which makes far more sense than Brits adopting a NASA tradition that is an American designation.
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I still think that them digging up history books is more of a stretch than them simply encountering the term commander in relation to news stories about the shuttle program which was all the rage back then.

I believe the term mission commander was also used to refer to David Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey once or twice, a movie that influenced Elite in other ways.

And yes, there was also Galactica.
 

Alien

Alien
Back in 1984, NASA's space shuttle program was in full force, so I won't be surprised if David & Ian had heard of the term Mission Commander, and that's why we're Commanders in Elite and not Captains.
 
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Winterwalker

Winterwalker
Cody said:
Neil Armstrong was Mission Commander on Apollo XI - it pre-dates the shuttle program.
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This definitely says something to me about the chances of encountering the unexpected ..

Captain in the army is a lower rank, so you might be captain of a brigade but not of a battalion.
In ED the ship is all you have, you are "in command" and not under any form of "orders".
In a "command post" this can lead you to trade, explore or take missions at will
A ship's captain is "tasked" (by vessel type, Oil tanker / Frigate) his only choice being "how" to carry out task.
 

Skarwind

S
Some Sci-Fi genres use Commander as a term for someone commanding on a frigate-cruiser style ships and Captain referred to someone commanding much larger vessels. An Admiral would then be someone commanding a fleet of ships.

For civilian ships (from what I know), anyone who owns and commands their own ship and has a crew is a captain. I'm just taking these from sci-fi books that i've read and shows that i've seen so I could be wrong.
 

Cowboy Bats

C
I'm sticking to my original assertion. Commander in Elite was born of the space program. The fact that it's American is irrelevant, since in 1984 when the designation was adopted by Elite, it was the only real space program as the European, Indian and Chinese programs were nascent, and the Soviet program had fallen apart.
 

lysan

lysan
I grew up with this one :)

he was a Commander...


[video=youtube;E7SqSNQeAFM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7SqSNQeAFM[/video]
 

rowners

R
My Royal Navy ship was Captained by a Captain, but he was the Flotilla Commander, other ships in the squardon were Captained by a Lt CDR.

From Wiki: The title (originally "master and commander")[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_(Royal_Navy)#cite_note-1"][1][/URL] originated in the 18th century to describe naval officers who commanded ships of war too large to be commanded by a lieutenant but too small to warrant the assignment of a post-captain, or (before about 1770) a sailing-master; the commanding officer served as his own master. In practice, these were usually unrated sloops-of-war of no more than 20 guns. The Royal Navy shortened "master and commander" to "commander" in 1794; however, the term "master and commander" remained (unofficially) in common parlance for several years.[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_(Royal_Navy)#cite_note-NHC-2"][2][/URL] In the 20th and 21st centuries, the rank has been assigned the NATO rank code of OF-4.

A commander in the Royal Navy is senior to an officer holding the rank of lieutenant commander but junior to a captain. A commander may command a frigate, destroyer, submarine, aviation squadron or shore installation, or may serve on a staff. Formerly equivalent to the Army rank of major,[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_(Royal_Navy)#cite_note-3"][3][/URL] a commander is now equivalent in rank to a lieutenant colonel in the British Army or a wing commander in the Royal Air Force. The rank of wing commander was derived from the naval rank of commander via the usage in the World War I Royal Naval Air Service.

Commanders were pretty autonomous and had a lot of leeway when in command of their vessel. Before radio existed of course. It was also the highest rank you could generally obtain without some sort of patronage or favour in the (old) Royal Navy.
 
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Rick Venus

Rick Venus
Sire said:
This is the right answer: we are not in the Navy, nor in the Army, neither in the Air Force so we don't have a rank but, as we command a ship, we are commanders.
When you go sailing too there is a person which is responsible for the boat and the crew and he's called commander and not capitain.
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Commander? I don't even know'er!

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Cowboy Bats said:
I'm sticking to my original assertion. Commander in Elite was born of the space program. The fact that it's American is irrelevant, since in 1984 when the designation was adopted by Elite, it was the only real space program as the European, Indian and Chinese programs were nascent, and the Soviet program had fallen apart.
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You brought'er you Commander!
 

metatheurgist

metatheurgist
ZeeWolf said:
Hello? 1984 called. Honestly you 90's kids and your 'Wing commander' ;-)
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I think this is what you were looking for:
Elite: officially the longest-running space simulation series.
CHyeLPmXAAAjntu.jpg
 

Seonid

Seonid
rowners said:
Before radio existed of course. It was also the highest rank you could generally obtain without some sort of patronage or favour in the (old) Royal Navy.
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Ah the old RN, before they stopped the practice of splicing the mainbrace, but you still have wets, galleys and split rig in an attempt to confuse us (ex) Pongo's.;)
 

Whiterose

Whiterose
As most ships have a female derivation, she is a beauty etc, the term Commander is an extraction of Command Her.
Lol, its sounds good anyway.
 
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