Also, I second “Mistress.” It sounds nice and official.

In the begginning of the game,the female character could have the option to deceive others into thinking she was a man and therefore to participate in the war. Or she could try the harder path and try to participate as a female.

Then at a certain point in the game, she would be discovered, and depending on her habilities and reputation different outcomes could follow.

I this this opens a lot of posibilites

On one hand, it’s historical fiction, and I’d like to play with all the gender bias in place and struggle to surpass them. (Ladies, as much as you like to imagine a female centered society, I like to imagine I’m the underdog who has to succeed under such a bias of being the underpowered sex.) I’d rather have it written as a second game (release the male version, then write the female version) than to spoil the chance to be the underdog. (Or hell, allow us to choose which sex is superior, if any, along side our own sex)

Then again, if we’re throwing out the historical part and just doing a period themed or alternate universe thing, then just make up titles, or rerank them so it makes sense (ie – Lord/Lady & Sir/Dame vs Sir/Lady, -/Dame). Don’t worry about historical accuracy when you start playing with social dynamics, worry about how the titles would have come to be. If you’re in an female centric society then Lady will convey more power than Lord, and you just need to put in a few lines of dialog where the Lady outranks the Lord to establish that in the reader/players mind.

Another way address these kinds of issues it to make an all female or mixed ship under female command as a “special case”. Think of how racial (ie “Negro”) units and companies were formed in the past.

I really don’t care deeply about gender preferences and how it plays out so long as it fits the story. If you make the environment and the NPCs believable I will enjoy it either way. In the end, I’m just as happy imagining I’m male or female. If it really bothers me, I can just swap all the genders in my head anyways. ^_^

I think the opposite of lady is lord, and if you are careful with your contexts the relative ranks will get real clear real fast. The only reason people think “gentlemen” is the opposite is that announcers have dropped the first clause from the traditional greeting “My lords, ladies, and gentlemen…” (where by gentlemen they mean gentlefolk and not just the males – the statement assumes or confers a class baseline on the audience.) Softening it with the slightly more casual ‘milord’ in direct address might help, but honestly I don’t know if I’m saying that because I already have a feel for the forms of address.

Ladies of the Admiralty does sound so… sissy, doesn’t it. And yet, I think with careful writing, you might subvert that.

Regarding the objectors who call this a whitewash: My sense of internal drama has been hamstrung for most of my life into making up male heroes because I hadn’t seen enough counterexamples. Every time as an adult that I’ve read a well-done AU that turns the tables or warps gender (the comic Digger, LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness), I’ve run face first into my own toxic gender assumptions, and that’s a great, great good.

I think you’ll have your hands full being at least marginally conscious of other very problematic period *isms, and I wish you good luck with that, but I don’t think the inability to address everything at once makes this a bad idea. I want to see the Ladies of the Admiralty. Mistress Midshipman Gement, reporting for duty, ma’am!

Ladies of the Admiralty sounds just fine to me, but maybe you should use “Dames”. Thing is, Dame sounds just as weird to me, like something out of “Guys and Dolls”.