Here (again) are my (somewhat long-winded) thoughts on how to construct easily-recognizable, read color-coded for your convenience, sides in the conflict (both specifically in Evergreen’s Honor of the Queen, and keeping it consistent forwards ... and backwards if Top Cow should be interested):
Useful convention: Wedges should always be show when an outside shot is made (at least in shots where focus has shifted from a different ship or planet- or station-side). This has the benefit of adding a second way to indicate orientation and make the ships even more color-coded for the audiences convenience (see below for a way to do this that is not
overly inconsistent with canon).
Wedge colors should (to my way of thinking) not be heraldic tinctures applied over the whole wedge in one solid coloring, but rather a heavy aurora borealis-like wash moving over the transparent wedge, emanating from the nodes (along visible strands) and spreading towards the edges.
This would have the advantages of allowing the ship to be intermittently visible through the wedge when that is desirable (although this is not canonically the case for double-wedge military drives), and making the strands connecting the nodes to the wedge visible, as a combined standing and running rigging, will increase the visual sailing ship analog, with the wedge as the sail; Warshawski Sails by extension may be seen as spinnakers (adding a slight curvature to both strands and the two Warshawshi Sail disks could be used to imply strain, again indicating directionality). During maneuvering the strands on one side could be brighter than the other to further reinforce the imagery.
Wedges 2-4 times as long as the ship, and flag-shaped with rounded edges, to make them narrower over the beam, will give a sense of orientation (very rounded edges could take the shape a third of the way towards an oval).
Keeping the wedge open even when the ship isn’t moving will give a clear sense of which end is forward once the first scene, which should be a zoom-out rather than zoom-in, has established that the pointy hammerhead end (frustum taken as close to a cone as seems needful) goes with the open throat of the wedge, and the flat (cylindrical) hammerhead end goes with the narrower kilt.
One establishing scene, and thereafter whenever the audience sees a wedge, they will know what end of the ship is which. The throat should of course be more open when a ship is traveling at speed than when not, but as there are only really four common speed settings used in the Honorverse (as opposed to the velocities they represent for a given vessel), this should still allow the narrowest setting to be discernibly non-parallel, to show orientation of ships that are not under acceleration.
The four speed settings I identify are as follows:
1: floating in orbit/coasting (parallel in book canon); a 10 degree angle in the film/other visual media would establish orientation.
2: escorting at merchanter speed (the Merchies would be showing the setting 3 angle, as they are traveling at their safe maximum speed, unless they are in convoy with larger Merchies), say 20 degrees or less; the amount less depending on how much the warship is out-massed by the merchanter. Thus wedge angle would be an additional visual aid for the viewer in estimating relative mass/size between ship traveling in company.
3: cruising at full normal speed (80% of full military), say 26 degrees.*
4: Full Military speed (100%, no compensator margin; this should be the “ridiculous angle”, say 30 degrees).
(
http://www.mathsisfun.com/angles.html scroll down to “try it yourself” to see what the angles look like).
*A rule of 10 degrees plus 0.2 degrees per % of inertial compensator maximum could be used; this would become interesting when/if Storm from the Shadows is made, as a subtle visual clue to viewers that the Manties are running at only 70% (24 degree angle versus the 26 degree norm, the SLN didn’t notice ... let’s see if the viewer is more attentive
, it is one of those little breadcrumbs that say’s the moviemakers have done their homework).
Specific Color Schemes:
Wedge colors: I am aiming to evoke a subconscious recognizable scheme from some galaxy far far away for the good guys, without copying it for the baddies (nor either’s sad devotion to some ancient religion ... ).
Hull colors: I will use the Canonical colors, but stretched as much as possible for increased distinction
e.g. (actually i.e. for the hull colors):
Manticoran ships: Clear Green auroras wash over the wedges, Snow White hulls (maybe with detailing in Gold for a visible tie-in with the crew’s colors; the White as the inversion of the uniform’s Black), round-ish hammerheads (both frustum bow, cylinder stern), Black hull name/number in identical-sized font for all classes (fills a lot of the forward taper on small ships; only little on capital ships, for added sense of scale).
Grayson ships: Clear Blue auroras wash over the wedges, Light Blue hulls (e.g. same as the crew’s tunics, with the detailing done in the Dark Blue of their trousers), round-ish but more primitive/less sleek look over all (more stuff sticking out, etc.), Black hull name/number, slightly different/old-ish font.
So Clear Blue and Green colors for the most visible aspect of the BLUFOR, with white and Light Blue for the detailing.
OPFOR should in contrast have less good-guy colors, so reds, purples and unnatural greens (foreshadowing their distant past as good guys, and later change to same status) seem appropriate. As we also have a canon white for the Havenites, we will render that as a dirty tarnished white.
Masadan ships: Purple auroras shot through with frequent yellow ”flickers” wash over the wedges, Scarlet hulls with Gold or Yellow ”sash” stripes diagonally across both broadsides (mirrors the Scarlet and Gold uniforms), angular and primitive ”junkyard job” look over all (lots of stuff sticking out, etc.), Gold or Yellow hull name/number in Ye-Olde-Bible-Gothic font, complete with elaborate initial letters (but no images of false idols obviously). This color palette should say bad guy to most people (at least if Yellow is used in place of the uniform’s Gold), agreed?
Havenite ships: Poison Green auroras wash over the wedges, Skull White or other darkish/broken white* e.g. ”light gan-Green-e”-ish hulls, angular (e.g. square-ish) hammerheads, Dark/Poison Green hull name/number in a different, but ”near-modern” font. Should emote as a Fallen/Poisoned-with-Evil-Thoughts former good guy palette, right? (To link in with the Green top & Grey trouser uniforms, Grey could be used for detailing, again strengthening the link between outside and inside shots by reusing the same colors).
Anti-Ship Missiles: For visual distinction from the ships, let’s go for Orange auroras washing over the wedges, searingly bright Azure-White beams from the lasing rods when they detonate, with sidewalls turning the rod of light into a cone of lesser intensity.
Counter-Missiles: Again for visual distinction, let’s do Yellow auroras washing over the wedges, wedge-intercept with an attacking missile should be a spectacularly bright flare, Blue-White with Orange/Yellow streaks to make them stand out from the laser rods (visualized if needed as a few individual drive nodes burning on for a tenth of a second on power surges while spinning off the wreckage).
Further Notes (forwards compatibility):
*: Andermani ships: by canon Gray, so make that a Dark Gunmetal Gray, thus leaving room for Skull White or some other broken white color for the RHN to offer a clear difference to the Snow White of the Manties. Thus:
Andermani ships: Clear Green auroras wash over the wedges, Dark Gunmetal Gray hulls, hammerheads of some other shape(e.g. oblate), White detailing (based on the IIRC White uniforms), Blood-Red (light enough to be seen ... maybe with a white outline) hull name/number in an easily legible yet Gothic-inspired script.
Later on the good guy’s aurora colors should shift to represent the admix of the Grayson innovation to the other alliance navies’ ships, so a Clear Blue-Green for the early Manticoran Alliance upgrades (e.g. Minotaur), a Murkier Blue-Green for the Havenites (and Andermanies) as they catch on, while the Manticoran Alliance have moved on to reuse the original Clear Blue color of the Grayson ships by then.
The (Invincible) Solarian League Navy ships: the same kind of Murky or Poison Green auroras as the Havenites started with still wash over their wedges, Unfortunately their uniforms are White with shoulders (for Mess Dress uniform: tunics) Color-coded for Branch, but the hulls could be any pick-a-bad-guy-color (e.g. Blood Red) with White detailing, hammerheads of some ”edgy-nasty” shape (decahedral, octagonal, hexagonal; likely with flanges at the seams), White-or-go-fish hull name/number in some over-officious-looking font.
Erewhon SDF ships: What? Do I have to do all the work?
Wedges as per the Alliance (lacking a bit behind) ... how about a Pale Yellow for the hulls? (This “yellow for unknown force” foreshadows the on-again off-again nature of their alliance with Manticore) … detailing in … Maroon? For some reason, Maroon comes to my mind as their uniform color, but I cannot find any Canon text-evidence one way or the other, so either someone else will have to do the research, or if undefined they may have to be made up (this is generally the case for the entries below too). Cap-ship shape like the SLN (they buy their capital ships from the same supplier), else get creative; same for font.
Mayan “Navy” ships: As SLN until their deal with Erewhon, then wedges as Erewhon, rest standard SLN (until the “hypothetical” clean break).
“Rembrandt Trade Union” Navy ships: Maybe vaguely like the Erewhonese, as they buy/franchise-build Solly designs ... add enough differences to be distinct (mostly more primitive/clunky, and a different hull color scheme, e.g. Brown or some other earth color), similar for the Nuncians and other small fry good/neutral guys.
Mesa & New Tuscany: Echos of the Masadan or Solly color schemes (i.e. “the evil colors”) if undefined*, with the Mesa ships being Erewhonese-modern in shape, while the New Tuscany ships are Masadan-crude in appearance (and probably have ill-tuned nodes, for the same yellow wedge-flickers also, if less frequent that those Masadan home-builds).
*N.B. the Mesan Alignment Navy colors are Maroon and Green, but the Mesan Space Navy wear different colors, IICR they look more like overdone current-day USN uniforms (from Torch of Freedom chapter 44: “hectares of braid and … tall caps whose visors dripped old-fashioned "scrambled eggs",”).
Beowulf SDF ships: Somewhat like SLN/Erewhon, but without the “edgy-nasty” flanges, and a more good-guy hull color … again, I cannot recall what their uniform colors are supposed to be … if they have to be made up, a Blue and Red Together “hero color” scheme might work; or that most underused of martial colors, Pink? As detailing on a mostly White hull that is, not as the primary color component.
