Classification of navies

Naval personnel and civilian officials make use of a series of semi-official colloquialisms to describe a navy's ability to project force across space. Space navies can be sorted into three broad categories; "black-space navies", "green-space navies", and "white-space navies".

Black-space navy
A black-space navy is one that can project force outside the borders of its parent nation and into the orbital regions of other star systems. While what actually constitutes such a force remains undefined, there is a requirement for the ability to exercise space control at wide ranges. This also implies self-contained force protection from prowler, warship and starfighter threats and a sustainable logistic reach, allowing a persistent presence at range.

While a black-space navy can project space control power into another nation's orbital regions, it remains susceptible to threats from less capable forces. Sustainment and logistics at range yield high costs and there may be a saturation advantage over a deployed force through the use of planetary-based fighter or planet-to-space missile assets, prowlers, or asymmetric tactics such as Fast Attack Craft or terrorist bombings. A black-space navy's effectiveness may also be weakened by lack of a correspondingly strong expeditionary land warfare force in the form of an army or marine corps.

Navies currently thought of as black-space navies include the UNSC Navy, the SAF Navy, and the Imperial Unggoy Navy.

Green-space navy
A green-space navy is one that operates within the borders of its nation (in friendly, or "green" space), usually as a patrol, commerce protection, and self-defence force. While green-space navies are capable of sending a few ships overseas on friendly visits, operating between their own star system, and even participating in joint-exercise with other navies, they lack the ability for sustained long-distance combat operations, either because of their ships lack the endurance for such actions or they do not possess sufficient logistics capability.

Navies currently classified as green-space navies include the Kig-Yar Privateer Alliance's impromptu "fleet" of privateer vessels, the navy of the Yanme'e Hives, and the Brotherhood of Ruskt's Self-Defence Fleet.

White-space navy
A white-space navy is one that can operate only within the bounds of a single star system, usually because the parent nation does not possess the will or economic strength to produce a larger force. As such, they are operated by single-system powers and usually fulfill the roles of patrolling, anti-piracy, and self-defence. The vast majority of the vessels operated by a white-space navy are non-slipspace capable starfighters or patrol boats, although some possess a small number of frigates or even a single destroyer as a flagship. They are so named because, whatever its classification, the light from a system's star from within the system always appears white, hence, "white-space navy".

Navies currently considered to be white-space navies include most of the system defence forces of the single-system states that once made up the New Covenant until its Balkanization after the Second Great War.

"Blue-space navy"
The term "blue-space navy" is an unofficial one often used by naval personnel to derogatively describe an air force.

Behind the Scenes
This series of classifications can be seen as a "space version" of the current system of dividing navies into the categories of blue-water, green-water, and brown-water navies.