Chatter/Jargon/Lingo

As a Marine NCO as well as long time Trek fan, I am very familiar with proper and traditional naval, as well as Trek professional communitcation protocol.

Step One: Learn to say 'Aye, sir/ma'am' when appropriate. Many idle enthusiasts believe that 'Aye' means 'yes' but this is not correct. 'Aye(or Aye Aye)' is the acknowledgment of an order and statement of compliance. For example:

PROPER EXAMPLE: Captain Rook says "Helm, lay in a course to the objective."

Helmsman responds "Aye, sir."

Captain Rook asks "Helm, do you have the coordinates for the objective?"

Helmsman responds "Yes, sir"(Has Helm said Aye sir, in response to the Captain's statement, this would have been wrong.)

Another simple, but effective way, to make you seem professional is in the addressing of what we call 'billets', which is a classy way to say job. A decent Captain will always address her crewmen by their post(at least in an urgent or hostile situation)before issuing any order, so as to assure that he has their attention. Typically, it may be appropriate for the Captain to wait for that station to acknowledge that they hear the Captain, but is not always necessary if the crewmen acknowledges the order, it just saves the Captain from having to repeat himself entirely.

Preferably:

Captain: "Helm."
Helmsman: "Helm, sir."
Captain: "Lay in a course for the objective."
Helmsman: "Aye, sir!"

Obviously, aboardship and in intense situations, these sort of things are not always that well adhered to, but these are the sort of things that are drilled into recruits in boot camp. This does not scratch the surface, but I'd be happy to continue if anyone would like to know more. I have to give my players a Period of Instruction regarding this, but they're mostly enthusiasts and actors, so they're pretty receptive to this sort of thing. It really depends on how casual you'd prefer to be I suppose.

Exactly the sort of information I was hoping for and am interested in. I'm happy to read more if you want to keep posting. Or maybe we could put some info about this into a wiki or FAQ for the game.

Do you know of any online resources for this sort of thing?

You can usually find glossaries of terms, I actually have an iPhone App with them. The difficulty is learning to practically apply such terms. I can not, unfortunately, off the top of my head direct you to any of these because my 'resource' was a very pleasant man named Staff Sergeant Flannery about nine years ago on Pariss Island :) Here's a tidbit that always gets on my nerves when I see it in films: Radio operators in films, when the traditional comm failure plot device occurs, always say 'repeat', but this is bad, because 'repeat' is an order to fire upon something again...so the proper phrase is "Say again" or "Say again your last." This is more applicable in transmission than in person, but you may, at some point, feel the need to establish the term 'repeat' in it's proper function, as it is useful to understand this in naval gunnery applications.

It really is a matter of filtering what is, or is not, applicable in this format, though. I would say becoming familiar with the orientation terms Port, Starboard, Fore/Forward, Aft, Ventral and Dorsal would be integral.

Port - If the observer is facing forward, this will be the 'left' side of a vessel and the 'right' side if facing to the rear(aft)

Starboard - Being the opposite of Port.

Forward/Fore - Im going to leave this one to your imagination

Aft/Rear/Rearward - These all mean the back end of the ship

Ventral - This is the 'bottom' of a starship.

Dorsal - Top of the starship.

Head - The forwardmost portion of a vessel...and also the restrooms...

This looks like a pretty good glossary of naval terms, some of which are applicable.

http://www.valoratsea.com/glossary.htm

My personal preference is to make combat in Artemis closer to the naval style of Star Trek 2 ("She's coming about for another pass") as opposed to the more frenetic star fighter combat of other universes. Some of the glossary terms here could inspire gameplay elements to fit those elements.

Nicholas Meyer, who wrote and/or directed the even-numbered star trek movies; and Ron Moore, who was the head writer for the later seasons of The Next Generation and also the new Battlestar Glactica; were both Navy veterans. The knowledge they imparted helped star trek feel much more real - they are on a ship. this is how a ship is run. it's really cool.

"She's coming about for another pass" is exactly the kind of gameplay I envisioned when I started making this thang.