'Morning
For those interested in noble retinue management, I stumbled across this just now which is of interest. In an article also noting that Charles, Prince of Wales, is now the longest-waiting heir apparent (the Queen is now the longest reigning sovreign in British history), it lists who is travelling with him on a flight to France and Greece for a Royal Tour with the Duchess of Cornwall.
On a jumbo jet shared with the Prime Minister for long haul flights the RAF Voyager is military tanker based an Airbus A330 capable of air-to-air refuelling and missile detection with 158 seats in three cabins on one deck they boarded:
- two pilots and 8 cabin crew
- private secretaries
- personal protection officers
- the royal doctor
- a valet
- a Communications Secretary (Julian Payne)
- an equerry (Major Harry Pilcher)
- Hugh Green (?) (if it said who he was, I missed it)
- hairdress and stylist (Jacqui Meakin)
rear cabin
- "dozens of" uniformed military personnel, engineers, soldiers, baggage handlers and other tactical officers
- five members of British press & Vanity Fair reporter
(all the journalists are later invoiced for the flight - cost comparable to an equivalent full-fare coach seat)
on landing in Nice, the Prince is received by a military band playing the British and French national anthems and an honour guard stands at attention. A red carpet leads to a long convoy of official vehicles
The rest of the article isn't uninteresting - seeing our royals from a USA point of view and a good bit on the paparrazzi following them, but I thought this was the germane bit of interest.
The article is by James Reginato, Vanity Fair, 1.11.18
OB Trav:
You're a TAS journalist who has a seat on a high noble's ship travelling from one world to another. During the week in Jump you're scheduled to have an interview with noble and at other times may be able to interview some of the staff
1) at some point you overhear a flunky planning something illegal on the destination world
2) at some point you overhear a flunky plotting against the noble
3) a couple of the personal protection officers are stricken with a nasty bug and, finding you're ex-military, you're asked to help out on landing protection until properly trained and vetted replacements can be find
4) as 3 but either they've misread the file, or you've overegged your service record and you were actually only ever a chef behind the front lines
5) in an unguarded moment during your interview, the noble let's slip something that paints him/her in a very different light to what's generally known. They either don't notice and you're free to decide what to do with the information or they realize and bring pressure to bear on you not revealing it
6) one of the entourage, perhaps even the noble, is murdered whilst in Jumpspace. You're the one with investigative ability to find who who/what/why
tc