Unlike us highly-evolved felines, you stupid semi-domesticated primates want to run in packs. You wanna join gangs, circles of common interest, social groups. And obviously political parties.

I'm talking about raw prehistoric in-the-bone tribalism here.

Back when a chipped flint ax was considered high-tech, belonging to a tribe was how you survived. And how do you belong? Divide the population into two categories: In My Tribe and In Another Tribe. Or: my wonderful extended family who help keep me from dying vs those evil bastards living over there who are eating all the food.

Identifying who was in your tribe was relatively easy when the tribe was small enough so you could just memorize all the members. And then there were other subtle clues like body odor and a common language. But things got more difficult when the tribes got too big. Memorization doesn't scale.

So symbols were used. As history advanced the symbols evolved into national flags and other tribal signals. Which was a good thing, since everything got more complicated with the invention of a third category: "Not my tribe but a temporary ally". Especially when other tribes would often change their status back and forth between "ally" and "evil ogre with horns who eat babies."

Tribalism has arguably become obsolete but it is still hard-coded in circuits of mankind's reptile brain. So with the rise of corporations they sought to control hapless consumers by using Branding. This is when they moved from the tactical of Marketing to the strategic of Branding. A corporation's brand was defined by a name, slogan, design, or symbol.

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Ah, you were wondering when I would get to the point of this.

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Back in the US during the 1960s (before many of you were born) it was common for TV advertisements to feature a corporation's brand and product with a polite suggestion that it was superior to products made by the generic "Brand X". In those innocent days it was considered rude to actually mention your competitor by name or brand. But that fell by the wayside as advertising swiftly went full tribal and did their best to demonize the enemy tribe, carefully explaining why CarCo brand automobiles were steaming piles of crap so you should instead buy our product.

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But more relevant to our interest is the decreasing attention span of the target audience. As time went by corporations would lose too many customers who wouldn't stand still for a tediously long symbolic slogan like "Winston taste good like a cigarette should" and instead started to rely upon iconic symbols which could be identified in a fraction of a second. The hope was that customers would see the corporation logo as a tribal national flag, and become devoted consumers of the corporation products because they'd rather fight than switch.

A related phenomenon is how the burden of typing with that ridiculously small smartphone keyboard turned "Too Long; Didn't Read" into "TL;DR", and the rise of emoticons and other tiny icons.

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Once you understand branding, you will know why I went to the effort of crafting my Atomic Rocket spaceship-in-an-atom logo, and use it everywhere. It became the Atomic Rocket "brand", and the banner of people who like this website.

Even more: consider the Atomic Rocket Seal of Approval. Originally it was just a simple boring list on one of site's pages. But add the branding of the Seal of Approval logo, and it springs to life. There are a few websites here and there who proudly display the Seal of Approval, and any reader familiar with Atomic Rockets will instantly know that a website is part of their tribe upon spotting the Seal of Approval.

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Some may question the utility of painting a graphic image of a flag or corporate logo on a spacecraft, when spacecraft will probably be identified by their radio automatic identification system. Such people are making the flawed assumption that spacecraft will always have a reliable supply of electrical power. It is really hard to run a radio transponder if the ship's power plant is down, or if you are approaching a decade-old space derelict. This is also a good use case for Spacer's Runic.

So symbols are a powerful tool in your toolbox of science fiction creation, take advantage of them.

• 

(ed note: keep in mind this was written in 1937)

      One very common kind of quasi-human world I must describe in more detail, as it plays an important part in the history of our galaxy. In these worlds man, though varying greatly in form and fortune in particular worlds, had in every case developed from a sort of five-pronged marine animal, rather like a star-fish. This creature would in time specialize one prong for perceiving, four for locomotion. Later it would develop lungs, a complex digestive apparatus, and a well-integrated nervous system. Later still the perceiving limb would produce a brain, the others becoming adapted for running and climbing. The soft spines which covered the body of the ancestral star-fish often developed into a kind of spiky fur. In due season there would arise an erect, intelligent biped, equipped with eyes, nostrils, ears, taste-organs, and sometimes organs of electric perception. Save for the grotesqueness of their faces, and the fact that the mouth was generally upon the belly, these creatures were remarkably human. Their bodies, however, were usually covered with the soft spines or fat hairs characteristic of these worlds. Clothes were unknown, save as protection against cold in the arctic regions. Their faces, of course, were apt to be far from human. The tall head often bore a coronet of five eyes. Large single nostrils, used for breathing and smelling and also speaking, formed another circlet below the eyes.

     The appearance of these "Human Echinoderms" belied their nature, for though their faces were inhuman, the basic pattern of their minds was not unlike our own. Their senses were much like ours, save that in some worlds they developed a far more varied color-sensitivity. Those races that had the electric sense gave us some difficulty; for, in order to understand their thought, we had to learn a whole new gamut of sense qualities and a vast system of unfamiliar symbolism. The electric organs detected very slight differences of electric charge in relation to the subject's own body. Originally this sense had been used for revealing enemies equipped with electric organs of offense. But in man its significance was chiefly social. It gave information about the emotional state of one's neighbors. Beyond this its function was meteorological.

     One example of this kind of world, one which clearly illustrates the type, and at the same time presents interesting peculiarities must be described in more detail.

     The key to the understanding of this race is, I believe, its strange method of reproduction, which was essentially communal. Every individual was capable of budding a new individual; but only at certain seasons, and only after stimulation by a kind of pollen emanating from the whole tribe and carried on the air. The grains of this ultra-microscopically fine pollen dust were not germ cells but "genes," the elementary factors of inheritance (a single human germ cell contains approximately 20,000 genes). The precincts of the tribe were at all times faintly perfumed by the communal pollen; but on occasions of violent group emotion the pollen cloud became so intensified as to be actually visible as a haze. Only on these rare occasions was conception probable. Breathed out by every individual, the pollen was breathed in by those who were ripe for fertilization. By all it was experienced as a rich and subtle perfume, to which each individual contributed his peculiar odor. By means of a curious psychical and physiological mechanism the individual in heat was moved to crave stimulation by the full perfume of the tribe, or of the great majority of its members; and indeed, if the pollen clouds were insufficiently complex, conception would not occur. Cross-fertilization between tribes happened in inter-tribal warfare and in the ceaseless coming and going between tribes in the modern world.

     In this race, then, every individual might bear children. Every child, though it had an individual as its mother, was fathered by the tribe as a whole. Expectant parents were sacred, and were tended communally. When the baby "Echinoderm" finally detached itself from the parental body, it also was tended communally along with the rest of the tribe's juvenile population. In civilized societies it was handed over to professional nurses and teachers.

     I must not pause to tell of the important psychological effects of this kind of reproduction. The delights and disgusts which we feel in contact with the flesh of our kind were unknown. On the other hand, individuals were profoundly moved by the ever-changing tribal perfume. It is impossible to describe the strange variant of romantic love which, each individual periodically felt for the tribe. The thwarting, the repression, the perversion of this passion was the source at once of the loftiest and most sordid achievements of the race. Communal parenthood gave to the tribe a unity and strength quite unknown in more individualistic races. The primitive tribes were groups of a few hundred or a few thousand individuals, but in modern times their size greatly increased. Always, however, the sentiment of tribal loyalty, if it was to remain healthy, had to be based on the personal acquaintance of its members. Even in the larger tribes, everyone was at least "the friend of a friend's friend" to every other member. Telephone, radio, and television enabled tribes as large as our smaller cities to maintain a sufficient degree of personal intercourse among their members.

• 

     But always there was some point beyond which further growth of the tribe was unwholesome. Even in the smallest and most intelligent tribes there was a constant strain between the individual's natural passion for the tribe and his respect for individuality in himself and his fellows. But whereas in the small tribes and healthy larger tribes the tribal spirit was kept sweet and sane by the mutual-respect and self-respect of the individuals, in the largest and imperfectly sane tribes the hypnotic influence of the tribe was all too apt to drown personality. The members might even lose all awareness of themselves and their fellows as persons, and become mere mindless organs of the tribe. Thus the community would degenerate into an instinctive animal herd.

     Throughout history the finer minds of the race had realized that the supreme temptation was the surrender of individuality to the tribe. Prophets had over and over again exhorted men to be true to themselves, but their preaching had been almost wholly vain. The greatest religions of this strange world were not religions of love but religions of self. Whereas in our world men long for the Utopia in which all men shall love one another, the "Echinoderms" were apt to exalt the religious hunger for strength to "be oneself" without capitulation to the tribe. Just as we compensate for our inveterate selfishness by religious veneration of the community, so this race compensated for inveterate "gregism" (unselfishness or selflessness) by religious veneration of the individual.

     In its purest and most developed form, of course, the religion of self is almost identical with the religion of love at its best. To love is to will the self-fulfilment of the beloved, and to find, in the very activity of loving, an incidental but vitalizing increase of oneself. On the other hand, to be true to oneself, to the full potentiality of the self, involves the activity of love. It demands the discipline of the private self in service of a greater self which embraces the community and the fulfilment of the spirit of the race.

     But the religion of self was no more effective with the "Echinoderms" than the religion of love with us. The precept, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," breeds in us most often the disposition to see one's neighbor merely as a poor imitation of oneself, and to hate him if he proves different. With them the precept, "Be true to thyself," bred the disposition merely to be true to the tribal fashion of mentality. Modern industrial civilization caused many tribes to swell beyond the wholesome limit. It also introduced artificial "super-tribes" or "tribes of tribes," corresponding to our nations and social classes. Since the economic unit was the internally communistic tribe, not the individual, the employing class was a small group of small and prosperous tribes, and the working class was a large group of large and impoverished tribes. The ideologies of the super-tribes exercised absolute power over all individual minds under their sway.

     In civilized regions the super-tribes and the overgrown natural tribes created an astounding mental tyranny. In relation to his natural tribe, at least if it was small and genuinely civilized, the individual might still behave with intelligence and imagination. Along with his actual tribal kinsmen he might support a degree of true community unknown on Earth. He might in fact be a critical, self-respecting and other-respecting person. But in all matters connected with the super-tribes, whether national or economic, he behaved in a very different manner. All ideas coming to him with the sanction of nation or class would be accepted uncritically and with fervor by himself and all his fellows. As soon as he encountered one of the symbols or slogans of his super-tribe he ceased to be a human personality and became a sort of decerebrate animal, capable only of stereotyped reactions. In extreme cases his mind was absolutely closed to influences opposed to the suggestion of the super-tribe. Criticism was either met with blind rage or actually not heard at all. Persons who in the intimate community of their small native tribe were capable of great mutual insight and sympathy might suddenly, in response to tribal symbols, be transformed into vessels of crazy intolerance and hate directed against national or class enemies. In this mood they would go to any extreme of self-sacrifice for the supposed glory of the super-tribe. Also they would show great ingenuity in contriving means to exercise their lustful vindictiveness upon enemies who in favorable circumstances could be quite as kindly and intelligent as themselves.

     At the time of our visit to this world it seemed that mob passions would destroy civilization completely and irrevocably. The affairs of the world were increasingly conducted under the sway of the spreading mania of super-tribalism; conducted, in fact, not intelligently but according to the relative emotional compulsions of almost meaningless slogans. I must not stay to describe how, after a period of chaos, a new way of life at last began to spread over this distressed world. It could not do so till the super-tribes had been disintegrated by the economic forces of mechanized industry, and by their own frenzied conflict. Then at last the individual mind became once more free. The whole prospect of the race now changed.

     It was in this world that we first experienced that tantalizing loss of contact with the natives just at that point where, having established something like a social Utopia throughout their planet, they were beset by the first painful stirrings of the spirit before advancement to some mental plane beyond our reach, or at least beyond such comprehension as we then had.

     Of the other "Echinoderm" worlds in our galaxy, one, more promising than the average, rose early to brilliance, but was destroyed by astronomical collision. Its whole solar system encountered a tract of dense nebula. The surface of every planet was fused. In several other worlds of this type we saw the struggle for the more awakened mentality definitely fail. Vindictive and superstitious herd-cults exterminated the best minds of the race, and drugged the rest with customs and principles so damaging that the vital sources of sensitivity and adaptability on which all mental progress depends were destroyed forever.

• 

The symbol of the Third Imperium established by Cleon I (the first emperor) when the empire was proclaimed. Images show him standing before the original banner with a golden yellow sunburst against a black background, representing Capital’s type G star against dark space.

The original banner in the Imperial throne room is still black with a yellow sunburst. The Imperial Interstellar Scout Service uses a red sunburst; the Imperial Navy, yellow; the Imperial Army, black; the Imperial Marines, maroon.

In 247, the Eliyoh (a nonhuman minor race) joined the Imperium. To that race the symbology was unimpressive. The Eliyoh vision centered in the far infrared, which resulted in distinction between the official colors of black and yellow being impossible. So the Empress Porfiria declared that the symbol would have no official color.

Berlin and Kay also found that, in languages with fewer than the maximum eleven color categories, the colors followed a specific evolutionary pattern. This pattern is as follows:

1. All languages contain terms for black and white.
2. If a language contains three terms, then it contains a term for red.
3. If a language contains four terms, then it contains a term for either green or yellow (but not both).
4. If a language contains five terms, then it contains terms for both green and yellow.
5. If a language contains six terms, then it contains a term for blue.
6. If a language contains seven terms, then it contains a term for brown.
7. If a language contains eight or more terms, then it contains terms for purple, pink, orange, and/or gray.

• 

(ed note: Each zodiac "sign" designates a 30° arc of right ascension. The 12 signs cover the entire 360°. In reality the constellations comprising the zodiac have a variable number of degrees they span. And one Earth month also covers 30°. The vertex of all the arcs is the center of the Sun)

"But you're going in the wrong direction. A.T. headquarters is in King sector, about five months from Belt City."

"Five months?"

Paulsen laughed this time; a free laugh. "Oh, that's orbital distance, not the time it would take to get there. It's a Beltish system of direction. We use Earth's orbital velocity as the standard of distance for an asteroid—the way you use a clock face as the standard of position for an airplane; or a globe of Earth for the standard of reference in a spaceship.

"For instance, in an airplane—the way it's going would be twelve o'clock. If somebody comes up on it at a ninety-degree on the right, say, above it, that would be three o'clock high. Tells a guy where to look.

"But that wouldn't do you any good in a spaceship. Which way's up? The way you're facing or the way you're going? And are you in an acceleration couch lying down, or a couch-chair like ours? But— well, you've got the 3-D Plan Position Indicator. It's a globe. You use it like a globe of Earth for your reference."

Paulsen pointed to the global PPI. The faint glow of orange grid reference lines made it look very much like a skeletonized globe of Earth. The navigation stars that the computer selected from the multitude of stars around them shown as bright yellow dots on the outside surface of the globe. In the center of the globe was one green spark that represented their own ship. Any outside object, Stan knew, would be represented by a red spot within the globe; or if it were a planet or other sizable object, it would intrude as a large red ball. The north-south axis of the globe was in line with the ship's axis; north the direction in which they were going, south the direction from which they were pushed.

"You're in a squadron, diving on the Earthies, and you want to tell the other ships which one you're taking. You use latitude—not many of them; about twenty, forty and sixty degrees of latitude. Then north and south is like in the scope here; north is the way you're going. East and west is a reference from where you're sitting—east is the right side of the scope from here. Then farside and nearside, meaning farside of the scope or near. So if the ship you're after is—well, I don't know how to describe it except to say 'north forty farside east.' That would mean ahead of my ship at an angle of about forty degrees on the far side of my PPI scope and on an east angle from me. Get it?"

"I think so."

"But an asteroid—well, A.T. is in a position that puts it in line with a spot on Earth's orbit that's five months Earth speed further along that orbit than Belt City. So they're five months apart." ( 5×30° = 150°)

"Then you just mean that's its relative position?"

"Yep. Wouldn't take more than two weeks to reach it in this crate. But now, if you want to say where an asteroid is in the Belt, not relative to you in distance, but just where it is, you use the zodiac sign. For instance, Belt City's just entered Taurus; and A.T. is in Libra. Distance is in months; position is in zodiacal sign. Right?"

"Sure. It's easy once you think about it. Makes sense."

"Then there's the other part, the sectors. They're named like a deck of cards—ace, king, queen, jack, ten. The Belt's not evenly spaced around its orbit, you know. It sort of divides up into five sectors, with a fair amount of fairly empty space between. So you've got the sectors to contend with too. Think you can manage?"

"I guess so. Distance, Earth orbit; position by zodiac. Sector's a card game: Is that what's immediate?" Stan asked happily.

Approaching the container ship in San Francisco Bay, the tugboat looks like a pit bull puppy chasing an eighteen-wheeler. When the vessels are an arm’s length apart, the ship’s mate throws down a line. Now leashed to the ship, the tug can push and pull it around the bay. Big ships can’t easily slow down or maneuver by themselves—they’re meant for going in a straight line.

Tugboat crews routinely encounter what few of us will ever see. They easily read a vessel’s size, shape, function, and features, while deciphering at a glance the mysterious numbers, letters, and symbols on a ship’s hull. To non-mariners, the markings look like hieroglyphs. For those in the know, they speak volumes about a particular ship and also about the shipping industry.

Oceangoing vessels carry over 80 percent of the world’s trade, with more than 90,000 merchant ships plying international waters. Tankers, bulk carriers, and container ships—the largest things on Earth that move—are by far the most important modes of transportation of our time. They convey billions of tonnes of goods every year, bringing us everything from cars to crude oil to containers jammed with fidget spinners.

Those who work in ports or on the water have a good view of the proceedings; tugs may have the best view of all. These photos get you closer to ships than most people will ever be.

“The sides of ships have their own sort of beauty,” says photographer David Webster Smith, who is also a San Francisco tugboat engineer. “As soon as I can, I get my camera out.”

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• 

Most ships have clues to their identity emblazoned on their stern, often in the same order: owner, name, port (or “flag”), and International Maritime Organization (IMO) number. American President Lines (APL) owns this ship, christened the Mexico City, and it sails under the flag of Singapore.

The owner, name, and flag may change over a ship’s lifespan, but the IMO number stays the same as mandated by an international maritime treaty. Like vehicle identification numbers, IMOs help thwart fraud. Do a web search on an IMO number and the ship’s full history pops up.

Curious about those yellow-green, fortune-cookie-shaped objects along the lines? They’re anti-rat devices, foiling rodent attempts to scrabble from dock to line to ship.

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• 

Why would a ship owned by a South Korean company (Hanjin) list its port as Panama?

More than 70 percent of the world’s commercial ships sail under what’s called a “flag of convenience.” This means that the ship is registered in a foreign country and sails under that country’s flag, usually to reduce operating costs, sidestep taxes, or avoid the stricter safety standards of the owner’s country.

By far the most popular flag of convenience is Panama, with Liberia and the Marshall Islands fast gaining ground. For these countries, the fees companies pay to fly their flags are a significant source of revenue.

There’s another thing about this ship worth mentioning. See the crew members up on deck, at the far left and right of the photo? They’re actually dummies dressed as mariners, meant to fool pirates into thinking someone is always on watch.

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• 

These marks, called load lines, show the maximum load a ship can carry.

Load lines owe much to a British member of Parliament named Samuel Plimsoll. Worried about the loss of ships and crew members due to overloading, he sponsored a bill in 1876 that made it mandatory to have marks on both sides of a ship. If a ship is overloaded, the marks disappear underwater. The original “Plimsoll line” was a circle with a horizontal line through it. The symbol spread around the world; additional marks were added over the years.

The letters on either side of the circle stand for the ship’s registration authority. AB is the American Bureau of Shipping, one of 12 members of the International Association of Classification Societies, which sets and maintains safety standards for more than 90 percent of the world’s cargo ships.

The marks and letters to the right of the circle indicate maximum loads under different climatic conditions. Salt water is denser than fresh, cold water denser than warm. Since water density affects ship buoyancy, different conditions call for different load lines.

W marks the maximum load in winter temperate seawater, S in summer temperate seawater, T in tropical seawater, F in fresh water, and TF in tropical fresh water, like that of the Amazon River.

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• 

This ship is equipped with what’s called a bulbous bow, a protrusion low on the bow. Contrary to its ungainly appearance, the bulb actually reduces drag, increasing speed and fuel efficiency.

The white symbol that looks like the numeral five without the top line alerts tugboats to the presence of the bulb, which under certain conditions may be entirely underwater. Tugs need to be aware of the protuberance to avoid running it over as they maneuver around the ship, possibly damaging both the bulb and the tug.

The white circle with an X inside signals the presence of a bow thruster, a propulsion device that helps the boat maneuver sideways, a boon for getting on and off docks.

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• 

The numbers arranged in a vertical line—called draft marks—measure the distance between the bottom of the hull (the keel) and the waterline. If the water comes up to the 10-meter line, for example, that means 10 meters of the ship is underwater.

Where the water hits the draft lines tells sailors if the ship is overloaded, and—when compared to the reading on the opposite side of the boat—if it’s listing to one side.

To the left of the draft lines are different versions of the bulbous bow and bow thruster symbols. BT|FP tells you the position of the bow thruster: between the ballast tank (BT) and the forepeak (FP), the forwardmost part of the ship. It’s important for a tugboat operator to know the location of the bow thruster, as it creates turbulence that the tug would rather avoid.

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• 

Two tugboats approach an oil tanker near the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. This photo is taken from a third tug that’s moving in on the ship, guided by white arrows pointing to “chocks” that house small but strong posts called “bitts.” The tug fastens lines to these bitts.

SWL 50t means that the safe working load for each bitt is 50 tonnes. Once the tug has fastened a line to the bitt, it will exert no more than 50 tonnes of pulling pressure as it helps the ship brake or negotiate docking.

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• 

Are these bird cubbies, rusting in the sea air? Not quite. The cavities are, however, known as pigeonholes. They’re part of an in-hull ladder that allows mariners to climb up the side of a barge. Unlike cargo ships, flat-bottom barges are not self-propelled. They’re usually towed or pushed by tugboats, though in the early days they were hauled up rivers and canals by horses, mules, or donkeys on an adjacent towpath. Though barges are often unstaffed, they occasionally must be boarded, for instance when a line needs to be thrown down to a dockworker. Pigeonholes give the boarders a leg up.

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• 

A ship’s paint job isn’t primarily about aesthetics or branding. When you see this two-toned effect, the paint closer to the waterline is often of a different chemical composition, one that holds up better to immersion. Even more than preventing corrosion, a hull coating that may be underwater has to guard against the slime, algae, and barnacles that cling fast to a friendly hull.

What’s so bad about shellfish and microorganisms hitching a ride? The crusting of barnacles, mussels, and bacteria—called biofouling—creates drag, slowing ships and upping their fuel intake by as much as 40 percent. Foreign species can also invade ecosystems and outcompete native species for food and space. To remove the hitchhikers, the ship goes into dry dock for scraping or power washing.

Enter preventive measures, like antifouling paint. Early iterations contained copper and even arsenic, which effectively poisoned the organisms but also the water. Modern antifouling coatings are more eco-friendly, and there are always new systems being floated, such as creating a hull surface that mimics shark skin, since, unlike some whales, sharks don’t tend to harbor barnacles.

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• 

The white rectangle edged in yellow—a pilot boarding mark—tells the maritime pilot where to board the ship. Maritime pilots (also called harbor or bar pilots) are experts on the navigational hazards of their home harbor and crucial characters in the drama of maritime life.

The pilot catches a ride out to the ship on a boat about the size of a tug, scrambles up a ladder hanging off the clifflike side of the ship, and takes over for the captain just before the ship comes into port. The rope ladder may not yet be deployed when the pilot boat approaches a ship, so the boarding mark is an important guide.

The white marks on the red are battle scars, reminders of scuffles with docks, other vessels (mostly tugs), and the sides of canals.

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• 

A maritime pilot would board this ship using the two ladders pictured. First, he or she ascends the rope ladder, sometimes called a Jacob’s ladder, alluding to the biblical Jacob, who famously dreamed of a ladder connecting heaven and Earth. Partway up, the pilot sidesteps onto the relative security of the diagonal gangplank, called an accommodation ladder.

Sometimes the pilot makes do with just the rope ladder. According to IMO regulations, if the distance from water level to deck (which changes according to ship load and sea conditions) is more than nine meters, the ship must deploy an accommodation ladder in addition to the rope ladder. Nine meters or more is a long climb on a rope ladder, especially under difficult sea conditions.

Boarding and disembarking are probably the most dangerous parts of the job. Getting off the ship, pilots may let go of the ladder and use what’s called a manrope to help them onto the deck of the pilot boat. That way they’re less likely to be crushed between the pilot boat and ship.

---

     'And talking of shapes, do you know what this means? I spotted it in the mine, and a dwarf called Helmclever scrawled it in some spilt coffee, and you know what? I think he was only half aware that he'd done it.'
     Carrot picked up the notebook and regarded the sketch solemnly for a moment.
     'Mine sign, sir,' he said. 'It means "the Following Dark".'
     'And what does that mean?'
     'Er, that things are pretty bad down there, sir,' said Carrot earnestly. 'Oh dear.' He put the notebook down slowly, as if half afraid that it might explode.
     'Well, there has been a murder, captain,' Vimes pointed out.
     'Yes, Sir. But this might mean something worse, sir. Mine-sign is a very strange phenomenon.'
     'There was a sign like it over the door, only there was just one line and it was horizontal,' Vimes added.
     'Oh, that'd be the Long Dark rune, sir,' said Carrot dismissively. 'It's just the symbol for a mine. Nothing to worry about.'

---

     'What are these mine signs all about?' he said. 'That Helmclever sort of drew one at me. I saw one on the wall, too. And you drew one.
     "'The Following Dark",' said Carrot. 'Yes. It was scrawled all over the place.'
     'What does it mean?'
     'Dread, sir,' said Carrot earnestly. 'A warning of terrible things to come.'
     'Well, if one of those little sods so much as surfaces with one of those flame weapons in his hand that will be true. But you mean they scrawl it on walls?'
     Carrot nodded. 'You have to understand about a dwarf mine, sir. It's a kind of—'

     —emotional hothouse, was how Vimes understood it, although no dwarf would ever describe it that way. Humans would have gone insane living like that, cramped together, no real privacy, no real silence, seeing the same faces every day for years on end. And since there were a lot of pointy weapons around, it'd only be a matter of time before the ceilings dripped blood.
     Dwarfs didn't go mad. They stayed thoughtful and sombre and keen on their job. But they scrawled mine-sign.
     It was like an unofficial ballot, voting by graffiti, showing your views on what was going on. In the confines of a mine any problem was everyone's problem, stress leapt from dwarf to dwarf like lightning. The signs earthed it. They were an outlet, a release, a way of showing what you felt without challenging anyone (because of all the pointy weapons).
     The Following Dark: We await what follows with dread. Another translation might mean, in effect: Repent, ye sinners!

---

     'There's the Waiting Dark that's the dark that fills a new hole. The Closing Dark I don't know about that one, but there's an Opening Dark, too. The Breathing Dark, that's rare. The Calling Dark, very dangerous. The Speaking Dark, the Catching Dark. The Secret Dark, I've seen that. They're all fine. But the Following Dark is a very bad sign. I used to hear the older dwarfs talking about that. They said it could make lamps go out, and much worse things. When people start drawing that sign, things have got very bad.'
     'This is all very interesting, but-'
     'Everyone in the mine is as nervous as heck, sir. Stressed like wires. Angua said she could smell it, but so could I, sir. I grew up in a mine. When something is wrong, everyone catches it. On days like that, sir, my father used to stop all mining operations. You get too many accidents. Frankly, sir, the dwarfs are mad with worry. The Following Dark signs are everywhere. It's probably the miners they've hired since they came here. They feel that something is very wrong, but the only thing they can do about it is sign.'

---

     'Captain, I'm getting a bit lost here,' said Vimes. 'I didn't grow up in a mine. Are these signs drawn because dwarfs think bad things are going to happen and want to ward them off, or think the mine deserves the bad things happening, or because they want the bad things to happen?'
     'Can be all three at once,' said Carrot, wincing. 'It can get really intense when a mine goes bad.'

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Heraldry developed as a way to be seen and identified across a battlefield, in the clash of war. This requires high-contrast designs whose elements are clearly recognizable.

The first step in recognizability is to use the stylized heraldic forms of things. The second is to make your charges as big and bold as possible in the space you have available.

Modern corporate logos usually follow the same rules that heraldic artists used, because they want their product logo to stand out, to be identifiable even at a distance, and to be recognizable. Consider the logos of Shell, Diamond Shamrock, BMW, Dodge, Purina, CBS — all of these follow the styles and rules of heraldry.

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Most Belters decorated their suits. Why not? The interior of his suit was the only place many a Belter could call home, and the one possession he had to keep in perfect condition. But even in the Belt, Nick Sohl's suit was unique.

On an orange background was the painting of a girl. She was short; her head barely reached Nick's neck ring. Her skin was a softly glowing green. Only her lovely back showed across the front of the suit. Her hair was streaming bonfire flames, flickering orange with touches of yellow and white, darkening into red-black smoke as it swept across the girl's left shoulder. She was nude. Her arms were wrapped around the suit's torso, her hands touching the air pac on its back; her legs embraced the suit's thighs, so that her heels touched the backs of the flexible metal knee joints. It was a very beautiful painting, so beautiful that it almost wasn't vulgar. A pity the suit's sanitary outlet wasn't somewhere else.

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(ed note: In the Cluster novels, the quotation mark symbols denote which species-language is being used. " is for humans, * is for Asts (looks like a mass of coils), / is for Slashes (looks like a living disk harrow, shooting laser beams), and :: is for Quadpointers (looks like a slug with four chisles on its nose). The protagonist Herald the Healer is a Slash.)

Whorl twined to another section of his convolute residence, and Herald followed. Here in the living rock bordering a corkscrew chamber was emblazoned in relief a creature-sized Shield of Arms.

It was beautiful. The outer shield was in the shape of an ellipse set at an angle, representing Galaxy Andromeda, bordered inside by a wreath of intertwining serpents to designate Sphere Ast. Within that were the Family Arms of Precipice, resembling an ornate overhanging cliff. Herald moved his loops across it, savoring its aspects. It had superior form, texture, and color, and was, in its fashion, a genuine work of art. The King of Arms of Ast was certainly a master!

*What do you find?* The query was urgent.

/I find an excellent and flawless emblazon./

*Did you not say 'blazon' before?*

The tedious questions of amateurs! But Herald repressed his annoyance, for courtesy was vital to his profession.

/I did, Whorl. The 'blazon' of a Shield of Arms is the precise linguistic specification of its elements. To 'emblazon' is to render this description into physical actuality./

*I comprehend. The one is the description, the other is the carving. I feared for a moment there was something wrong with it.*

/No, your Achievement is quite in order. Azurine, a cliff of thirty-seven rocks and forty-two rills, alternately thirteen, twelve, thirteen, seven, eleven, twenty-three, pearline, all within a bordure of the Serpents Rampant./

Herald winced inwardly as he communicated, for the old-style heraldic term "rampant" was restricted to certain quadrupedal beasts of prey, standing erect on the left foot raising the right foot in stride, balancing with the left forefoot outthrust, the right raised to strike. It was technically impossible for a legless serpent to be "rampant." But the broadening of the system to include diverse Cluster cultures had forced the fudging of some terms. However, as he had informed Whorl, the local Colleges of Arms defined legitimacy. So he had to accept it, nonsensical as it was in derivation. Regardless, this remained an excellent Shield of Arms, in concept and execution.

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In a moment she was back on the subject. ::How did heraldry start?::

/Many species, in their pretechnical phases, wore special apparel to protect them from the attacks of physical weapons. This apparel was called 'armor,' and it was so encompassing that it became impossible to recognize the individual entity within it, the 'knight,' which figure is also represented in the Tarot deck. Therefore it became necessary to decorate his shield with some characteristic design, typical of his household and affiliation, so that friend could be distinguished from enemy. This eliminated the awkwardness of a knight lining up behind the formation of his enemy, supposing he was among friends. Or even attacking his friends, thinking they were enemies. The markings on the shield made everything instantly clear, even when the knights were not personally known to each other. This was the origin of heraldry. Today, all great families of all species in the Cluster have their registered Shields of Arms, even though they may never engage in combat./

::My family has a Shield! I never knew what it meant.::

/Come, I will explain what it means./ Following her directions, Herald located the Metamorphic Shield and placed it against the wall where both could view it. /Note that the shape of this Shield is elliptical, a kind of angled oval that signifies Galaxy Andromeda./

::But Andromeda is a spiral!::

/So it is. But from Milky Way it appears elliptical. (Since Andromeda lost the Wars of Energy, we suffer the additional humiliation of the ellipse. The Milky Way Shield is the fundamental shape, flat across the top, round or partly pointed across the bottom. Other Galaxies have other shapes.) Within this is the band of prints, the little four-point patterns, signifying Sphere Quadpoint. In Milky Way there are two bands, since that Galaxy is organized into segments and Spheres, but it is the same idea. Then the main design, the symbol of Family Metamorphic: a lump of edible rock superimposed on the geologic flowchart of its derivation. A distinctive Achievement—that is what the complete affair is called—recognizable anywhere in the Cluster./

::Can you recognize any Shield of Arms in the whole Cluster?:: she asked, a bit awed.

/Within certain broad categories, yes. It is my business. And this is true generally. Two completely alien sapients could meet on a barren planetoid, perhaps shipwrecked from different vessels, possessing no common language, form or status, and they could recognize each other by their Shields of Arms. That would provide their common experience. Each would know the other was sapient and civilized, and where he was from, and that he honored Cluster conventions of behavior./

The tiger stripes on Jim's mask, the war paint on Frank's, and a rainbow motif on Phyllis's made the young people easy to identify. The adults could be told apart only by size, shape, and manner; there were two extras, Doctor MacRae and Father Cleary.

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He poked his head inside, seemed about to leave, then came inside. He pointed to their outdoor suits, hanging on hooks by the clothes locker. 'Why haven't you removed those barbaric decorations from your masks?'

The boys looked startled; Howe went on, 'Haven't you looked at the bulletin board this morning?'

NOTICE TO STUDENTS

1. The practice of painting respirator masks with so-called identification patterns will cease. Masks will be plain and each student will letter his name neatly in letters one inch high across the chest and across the shoulders of his outdoors suit.

(ed note: headmaster Howe is a stupid little power-mad bureaucrat who does not understand the realities of life out on the frontier)

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Flandry stepped closer, studying them from the camouflage of a nonchalant grin. Cross-legged on a padded bench, all twenty had shaven heads and white robes like Warouw, the same tattooed mark on their brows. It was a gold circle with a cross beneath and an arrow slanting upward (⚥ combination female and male symbol using planetary symbols of Venus ♀ and Mars ♂). The breast insignia varied—a cogwheel, a triode circuit diagram, an integral dx, conventionalized waves and grain sheafs and thunderbolts—the heraldry of a government which at least nominally emphasized technology.

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“Since the days of Charan Rashuri, commander of Pride of Earth, it has been the ship commander’s obligation to recognize a moment of transition for those among his crew new to the Survey branch,” Neale began.

“I have no doubt that some among you have invested the outcrossing with far more meaning than it deserves. It is an occasion for the exchange of theater insignia. You give up the blue Orbital or yellow System ellipse you now wear. You receive the black Intersystem ellipse. But the difference in color is meaningless in itself.”

Then why do you vets call us lessers? Thackery wondered, fingering his own System insignia absently.

“Contrary to what many of you believe, this is not a promotion. The Service does not honor you by doing this. All we do here today is to mark the beginning of an opportunity for honor—honor you will have to bring to yourself in the months and years ahead. You wear the black ellipse, but you have not yet earned it.”

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Most of his fellow travellers were Trade men. But few of them sported Company badges. The majority were drifters or Free Traders, men who either from faults of temperament or other reasons could not find a niche in the large parental organizations, but shipped out on one independent spacer or another, the bottom layer of the Trade world.

There were no strict caste lines in Trade, the divisions were not by rank but by employer. The large dining room at the port was open to every man wearing the tunic of active service. Most of the Companies maintained their own sections there, their employees paying with vouchers. But transients and newly assigned men who had not yet joined their ships drifted together among the tables by the door.

They had some minutes to look around them after dialing for meals. A short distance away a man wearing the lightning flash badge of a Com-tech was arising from the table. He left two companions still methodically chewing as he went off, his wide chest — that of a second or third generation Martian colonist — unmistakable, though his features were those of a Terran Oriental.

The two he left behind were both apprentices. One bore on his tunic the chart insignia of an astrogator-to-be and the other an engineer's cogwheel. It was the latter who caught and held Dane's gaze.

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Where the two other shattered discoveries had been of an earlier day, this was not only of their own time but a type of craft they were able to recognize at once. Through some freak its disastrous ending had not been as bad as those which had telescoped the prospector and smashed the alien. While the new find lay on its side showing buckled and broken plates, it was not crushed.

"Survey!" Rip yelled almost before they were within hearing distance.

There was no reason to mistake the insignia on the battered nose — the crossed, tailed comets were as well known along the star trails as the jagged lightning swords of the Patrol.

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As Free Traders they had the advantage of being uniformly tunicked—with no Company badge to betray their ship or status. So that could well be the "Polestar" standing needle slim behind them—and not the notorious "Solar Queen." But each, as he passed through the inner lock, gave a hitch to his belt which brought the butt of his sleep rod closer to hand. Innocuous as that weapon was, in close quarters its effects, if only temporary, was to some purpose. And since they were prepared for trouble, they might have a slight edge over the Eysies in attack. ("Eysies" = employees of the I-S trading megacorporation)

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An officer of the Patrol, the sun making an eye-blinding flash of his lightning sword breast badge, stood behind a loud speaker.

Kartr studied him almost critically and then glanced down along the length of his own body. Their vlis hide boots and belts had survived without a scratch in spite of the rough life in the bush. And those blazing Comet badges were still gleaming on breast and helmet. Even if that Comet was modified by the crossed dart and leaf of a ranger (Patrol espatiers and wilderness operation specialists) it was the insignia of the Patrol. And he who wore it had authority to appear anywhere in the galaxy without question — in fact by rights the questions were his to ask.

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The stranger was of Terran stock but somewhat shorter than the crewmen, wide of shoulder and long of arm, both of which were accented by the bulk of the fur upper garment that he had unsealed but not taken off. Underneath he wore a green tunic of a uniform with a badge on the breast consisting of two silver leaves springing from a single stem.

"Ranger Meshler, Dane Thorson, acting cargo master, Ali Kamil, assistant engineer." Medic Tau made the formal introduction and added an explanation for his crewmates. "Ranger Meshler is now in charge in this district." (Rangers police the wilderness)

They were too far from the spy post for their features to be distinguished, but while they wore uniforms of a similar cut to those at the post, Charis had never seen these before. The black and silver of Patrol, the green-brown of Survey, the gray and red of the Medical service, the blue of Administration, the plain green of the Rangers, the maroon of Education — she could identify those at a glance. But these were a light yellow.

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Standing well to one side of the screen, Charis triggered the sweep again. Moments later she had a pick-up to the south. However, what flashed on the screen this time was no armed space man but a very familiar standby pattern—the insignia of Survey surmounted by a small Embassy seal, signifying an alien contact mission manned by Survey personnel.

And looking down at his captor in apprehension, he was aware even then of the different quality of this man. The patron wore the tunic of a crewman, lighter patches where the ship's badges should have been to show that he was not engaged. But, though his tunic was shabby, dirty, his magnetic boots scuffed and badly worn, he was not like the others now enjoying the pleasures of the Starfall.

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Vye watched the officer in the black and silver of the Patrol, a black and silver modified with the small, green, eye badge of X-Tee (trained to liaison with extraterrestrials), with level and hostile gaze.

The lizardoid was serving three booths along the wall, and doing it most efficiently; four hands were useful. There was a very drunk party of Regillians in the first. In the second something gray, large, and warty squatted. But in the third slumped a Terran, his head supported on one hand, with the elbow of that arm planted firmly on the table top. He had on the remains of a space officer's uniform which had not been cleaned for a long time. One insignia still clung by a few loose threads to his tunic collar, but there was no house or ship badge on the breast, only a dark splotch there to show he had sometime lost that mark of respectability.

Perhaps he would not have been my first choice. But the stained insignia on his collar was that of a pilot, and he was the only one I had sighted here.

A ship’s officer looked out at them from his bridge station.

He had the star and sextant badge of a navigator.

The crispness of his uniform, the depth of focus, all told Skipper this was an AI.

Of course the name badge on its chest with a banking logo did too.

MacArthur (from Niven and Pournelle's THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE) is more likely to have some sort of Imperial or Royalist symbology, and might carry personal marks signifying the presence of senior leadership (like Counts) if the leadership was aboard in an official capacity. When the political leader was aboard in an active duty military role, serving as Lt Blaine rather than Count Blaine, then no distinguishing logos for the political rank would be shown. This is like Prince Charles, on active duty with the Royal Navy, being addressed as Lt Windsor, rather than Your Highness. The squadron commodore can tell Lt Windsor that Lt Windsor has done a bad job of getting his minesweeper ready for an inspection. When Lt Windsor's Mom comes by for HRH's birthday, then the squadron commodore had better be on the pier ready to salute. If MacArthur is in a "Royalist" navy, then I'd expect a different "style" from the Strategic Star Command "style".

(The Strategic Star Command cruiser) Leif (Ericson) seems to be stuck in a different storyline, so the SAC-type logos and more aircraft-like, and less naval, marking scheme makes sense.

Another sort of "political" consideration for you to think about: Military organizations with very centrally-managed information operations and publicity campaigns tend to have a consistent "style" in their graphics, and in the integration of their uniforms and symbols. This is most evident during peacetime. Military organizations operating far from HQ, and under combat pressure, tend to be more informal. For instance, German submarines have always (as far as I know off the top of my head) been U-XXX with no other official name. In WWII, many of the subs had unofficial names and a command graphic. Most of the graphics were done by the crew and did not have that polished, commercial "look". The personality of the sub CO had a lot to do with this. The same thing goes for command mottos: there's the official motto on the ship's logo, there's the crew's version of the official motto, and then there's the crew's version of the ship's actual motto. For instance, USS DEWEY DDG-45, official motto PAX PROMPTER VIM, crew translation S**T HAPPENS, crew motto WHY US?.

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451 8th Lift Infantry Regiment

(the Duke of Regina's Own Huscarles)

     The current regimental crest for the 4518th Lift Infantry Regiment (the Duke of Regina's Own Huscarles) was authorized in the year 1000 by the Imperial Division of Heraldry, and reflects the history of the unit since its establishment. The emergent unicorn (called the Bridled Steed) refers to the constellation spanning the Chronor and Jewell subsectors, and recalls the locations in which Huscarles fought and died during the fierce battles of the Third Frontier War. The cutlass thrusting across the crest signifies that the unit was originally formed from Imperial Marine cadre; indeed, a majority of the unit's troop strength is still derived from marine veterans on temporary assignments. The Imperial sunburst at the upper right commemorates the unit’s period of service during the opening days of the Fourth Frontier War. Finally, blazoned across the botton of the crest is the unit motto: Strike From Space. The phrase is taken from the jump troop's exploits on Menorb in the days immediately after the Civil War.

      U.S. Military uniforms feature the U.S. flag, which is worn backwards. People often ask why the flag is reversed when worn as a patch on a uniform. Not all U.S. flag patches are reversed — only those worn on the right shoulder. The reason has to do with long-running traditions and regulations created before the Civil War. The rule is that the blue field of stars should always be in the highest position of honor on the uniform.
     That position has always been the right shoulder with the flag's blue stars facing forward.

THE OFFICIAL REASON FOR THE BACKWARDS AMERICAN FLAG

     Basically, the idea behind the backwards American flag on Army uniforms is to make it look as though the flag is flying in the breeze as the person wearing it moves forward.
     The rule dates back to the Army's early history, when both mounted cavalry and infantry units would designate a standard bearer, who carried the flag into battle. As this standard bearer charged, his forward momentum caused the flag to stream back. Since the Stars and Stripes are mounted with the canton closest to the pole, that section of the flag stayed to the right, while the stripes flew to the left.
     Therefore, the flag is worn on the right shoulder, and wearing it backwards gives the effect of the flag flying in the breeze as the wearer moves forward.
     In 2003, in the beginning of the Global War on Terror, the uniform regulation for the Army was updated. Army Regulation 670-1, “Wear and Appearance of Army Uniforms and Insignia,” addresses explicitly the proper and lawful placement of the U.S. flag patch on the Army uniform.
     “The Stars are to face forward,” the regulation states. When authorized for application to the proper uniform the American flag patch is to be worn, right or left shoulder. One of the flags will, therefore, be reversed (right shoulder) in order to adhere to the regulation and custom of having the stars facing forward. The term, “Assaulting Forward” has been adopted by combat troops versus “Facing Forward”.
     The appropriate flag (color or subdued) for the right shoulder sleeve is identified as the ‘reverse side flag’.

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A hand wheel set in the middle of the inner airlock door turned of its own accord (obviously operated by someone on the other side), and the door swung back on its hinges. The older crewman indicated by means of sign language that she should step through into the ship proper. Chryse nodded vigorously, unsnapped her safety line, and did so. She found herself in a sort of antechamber where four men in uniform gathered around the airlock. She moved into the middle of the chamber, stopped, and surveyed her surroundings.

The uniforms were blue one-piece jumpsuits. Each man wore an insignia on his upper right chest — two gold, eight-pointed stars (one large, the other significantly smaller) with a silver comet arcing away from them. Besides the stars-and-comet design, the men wore ornamentation on their collars that Chryse identified as being their insignia of rank.

(ed note: the crew are from an expedition sent to the system of Procyon, which is a binary star system. Procyon A is an F5 star, but Procyon B is a tiny white dwarf. This explains the insignia's large star and small star. The expedition was sent specifically to investigate an alien faster-than-light starship seen leaving the system, which explains the silver comet.)

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Lower dropped the ship, lower. Even with nothing against which to measure her, it could be seen that she was small—only half the size, perhaps, of Latterhaven Venus or Latterhaven Hera. The gold letters embossed on her side were now readable. "SEEKER III." (And what, wondered Brasidus, of Seeker I and Seeker II?)

And above the name there was a most peculiar badge or symbol. A stylized harpy it looked like—a winged globe surmounted by a five-pointed star (Insignia of the Interstellar Federation Survey Service IFSS). It was nothing like the conventional golden rocker worn on Latterhaven uniforms.

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The floor of the hall had been cleared of seats.

Above the stage at the far end were the three closed circles of the Federation — Freedom, Peace, and Law, so intertwined that, if any one were removed, the other two would fall apart.

Under them was the Patrol's own sign, a star blazing in the night.

      The Commdor’s own bodyguard, in the confusion, had struggled to the front line, and Mallow, for the first time, was near enough to see their unfamiliar hand-weapons in detail. They were nuclear! There was no mistaking it; an explosive projectile weapon with a barrel like that was impossible. But that wasn’t the big point. That wasn’t the point at all.

     The butts of those weapons had, deeply etched upon them, in worn gold plating, the Spaceship-and-Sun!

     The same Spaceship-and-Sun that was stamped on every. one of the great volumes of the original Encyclopedia that the Foundation had begun and not yet finished. The same Spaceship-and-Sun that had blazoned the banner of the Galactic Empire through millennia.
     Mallow talked through and around his thoughts, “Test that pipe! It’s one piece. Not perfect; naturally, the joining shouldn’t be done by hand.”
     There was no need of further legerdemain. It had gone over. Mallow was through. He had what he wanted. There was only one thing in his mind. The golden globe with its conventionalized rays, and the oblique cigar shape that was a space vessel.

     The Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire!

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(ed note: The Polesotechnic League is not an empire so much as it is a merchant guild. The word "Polesotechnic" was coined by Poul's wife Karen Anderson from the Greek for "selling skills")

His gaze went to the League emblem on the wall behind her, a golden sunburst afire with jewels, surrounding an ancient rocketship, and the motto: All the traffic will bear. That could be taken two ways, he reflected sourly. Beneath it was the trademark of this outfit, the Solar Spice & Liquors Company.

Falkayn proceeded to the main office. Beljagor sat behind his desk, puffing a cigar. Above him hung the emblem of the Polesotechnic League, an early Caravel spaceship on a sunburst and the motto All the Traffic Will Bear. Computers, vocascribes, and other equipment were familiar, too. The boss was not. Falkayn had never met anyone from Jaleel before.

Malaika disappeared forward and Flinx gave his bag to the officious-looking young fellow who wore the House of Malaika arms (crossed starship and credit slip) on his cap and jacket. The man ducked into a low door to the rear, leaving Flinx alone in the small lock. Rather than stand by himself until the man returned to check him off, he moved forward to the passenger cabin and found himself an empty seat.