: Spaceships - It or She? I'm writing a Science Fiction novel and describing a space ship. Sea Ships are usually feminine, while space ships don't seem to be either feminine or neutral. Would you stick to one? Or would you

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Ask yourself what the traditions of your space navy are. Does its culture trace roots back to a wet navy? What was the pronoun tradition of that navy (the Russian navy uses "he", for instance)? Were there sociopolitical reasons that the tradition would be challenged or altered along the way? Does the captain get to choose the ship's gender? Do the crew argue about it?

It's very human to anthropomorphize one's favorite machines, so use of some gendered pronoun does seem likely.

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I would remove the captain entirely from that sentence. You are talking the ship and the confusion in the sentence comes from injecting the captain into the thought cold. It has the potential to provoke the reader to think about how the captain, whom we have not emotionally associated to the ship yet, is reflected in what Herbert was observing. It can break the reader out of the reality you are trying to create.

Herbert could see The Invincible, and she was truly a beauty. [...] As
Herbert walked through the ship, he couldn't help but notice that the
people on this ship were loyal to her.

You have already been referring to the ship in the feminine so changing midstream can confuse the reader. Since the ship is a she what is the "it" the author is referring to.

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The way a character thinks of a ship tells a lot about the relationship between the character and the ship. For example:

Someone who thinks of the ship as an inanimate tool will naturally tend to refer to it as an "it"
Thinking of a ship as a "she" implies a more sentimental approach, pretending that the ship is an individual, maybe even actually considering it to be a full person. This is common because it's been common for sailors to ascribe personality, desires, and a sort of free will to the ship.
But your own setting could have its own customs and idiosyncrasies! Maybe in your world, ships are individuals with personalities, but they're bizarre and otherworldly, so people think of them as individuals but not female (or male), and use "it".

Generally speaking, that's where variation in reference comes from - different ways of thinking of ships. Either form of reference you choose should be fine and unobtrusive, as long as you use it consistently (throughout the book, or per character). If they relation between people and ships isn't interesting or important to you, just choose one and go with that. If it is, then figure out what best suits your world and your characters. Either way, recall that the choice of how to refer to the ship is individual - different characters can refer to the ship differently; but a single character will generally stick to the same reference method at all times.

Regarding the last option you suggested, I would advise you to avoid alternating the reference between usages of the name and plain old "ship". This is not common or proper - and you'll notice it precisely undermines my central point here, which is that the way people feel about the ship as an "individual" affects the way they refer to it. Since their feelings for the ship - their awareness of it - stays consistent, the way that they refer to it will stay consistent as well.

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I'd definitely stick to one or the other. As to which one--your call, I'd say. Do you want the ships to be unique and admired (she) or uniform and taken for granted (it)?