The icon of the Imperial Fleet
The civil fleets comprise all of the privately-owned civilian voidships of the Imperium of Man, granted the right to operate along commercial or passenger transit routes defined by the Imperial authorities. The civil fleets are considered a part of the overall Imperial Fleet by the Adeptus Terra.
Although the vast majority of the faster-than-light-capable voidcraft of the Imperium are actually part of the Merchant Fleets, there remain several thousand other civilian voidships in the Imperium that are owned and registered by private individuals, small-time traders known as "Free Traders," highborn families, corporations or other commercial cartels. All such privately-owned, interstellar-capable voidships must operate only along Warp routes licensed and approved by the Imperial Fleet authorities, usually bureaucrats of the Adeptus Administratum who are responsible for regulating all shipping and transport within a given segmentum of the Imperium.
These route licences must be bought and must be renewed after a fixed time, usually a hundred standard years. This means that few privately-owned voidships like to risk the effects of time dilation on long journeys; their operating license might run out before the ship has completed its journey through the Warp.
Civil fleets usually bid for route licences as they become available from the Imperial Fleet, the route going to the fleet prepared to pay the most for it. This system enables the Imperium to maintain interstellar Warp routes which, for whatever reason, it finds inconvenient to maintain using Imperial Navy fleets.
In addition to providing route licenses, the Administratum also issues individual licenses that are valid for only a single interstellar voyage. Many of the smaller civil fleets, particularly those of struggling small-time Free Traders, manage to survive entirely in a hand-to-mouth fashion by purchasing such single-journey licenses as they need.
Exactly who captains a civil fleet voidship is entirely up to the owners. In many cases the owner is also the vessel's captain. With in the larger civil fleets, such as those of noble houses or corporations, the owners appoint a captain who is effectively also their employee.
See Also[]
- Adeptus Administratum
- Chartist Captains
- Imperial Fleet
- Merchant Charter
- Merchant Fleets
- Navis Imperialis
Sources[]
- White Dwarf 139 (UK), "Interstellar Travel," pg. 17
- White Dwarf 140 (UK), "Interstellar Travel," pg. 50