SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread II

[Agent Sorchus]

I wonder if the Centrality Navy is well and capable of dealing with an increased atmosphere, after all Eoghan Vessels also run in to the bottom end of dangerously high for humans, and if there is anyone the Centrality is prepared to fight it is probably me.

[Simon_Jester]

Given the sheer enormous bulk of most people's large ships, a Light might well be fairly large, at least in principle. I don't think a special operations group of 100 men is at all unreasonable, especially on a stealth ship that would most likely be designed for the purpose of inserting such units. Granted that they may well be a large fraction of the ship's overall complement, but a company-sized marine detachment for a ship of thirty or forty points is hardly implausible.

Put another way, that's 0.05 points worth of troop capacity on a ship of 30 to 50 points. Seems fair to me.

[PeZook]

Yeah, I too figured a company of troops on a dedicated spec-ops ship isn't out of the question.

[Steve]

Oh, I can roll with 100. I find it a bit excessive compared to the logical crew size, but I can roll with it.

[Simon_Jester]

Logical crew size is highly questionable in a warship when we consider that ships in this setting are supposed to be very large compared to their real life counterparts. When battleships are several kilometers long and destroyers of 5 to 10% their combat power have to be designed on a scale that makes such a thing plausible... crews are going to be big even when we allow for massive automation, unless we simply give up on the idea of having people present in all portions of the ship to monitor things.

We can do that, but at that point you need to add additional AI to the ship... and going down that road, a crew of hundreds becomes ridiculously large instead of small. So if Force Lord's destroyers have a crew of more like 500, I won't complain at all.

For reference, complement on US WWII-era destroyers was around or over 300.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

How large is this ship? It's not a question of AIs running it, but rather how many hands and feet are required when the ship gets damaged and you need a crew to fix the ship and run the ship. Never mind droids, or organics, a ship like a few hundred meters long is going to warrant a fairly large crew (1000 or so including droids) to run from end to end doing damage control.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, with AIs you can use subsentient remotes for a lot of the "crew" duties, but yeah, the need for a certain number of hands per cubic meter to work shipboard systems was a big factor in my mind.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well, with AIs you can use subsentient remotes for a lot of the "crew" duties, but yeah, the need for a certain number of hands per cubic meter to work shipboard systems was a big factor in my mind.

Well, someone has to monitor the AI, or at least have a finger on the backup switch, or something on the backup switch in case of failure, or take over if the AI fails.

[Siege]

I dunno about that. You could posit with equal validity that if the central AI is rendered inoperable the ship is a total loss as well. This is really all about the assumptions one makes about space warships, which can run the gamut from 'needs thousands of crew for every km of length' to 'is run by a handful of dudes and a single computer'. They're all just as valid insofar as I'm concerned, depending on what design philosophy your nation prefers.

[Agent Sorchus]

I do think that Space North Korea might be a little paranoid and on such a potentially sensitive mission send a higher than average number of ideological believers rather than not. ie Black Barrets easily enough to take over the ship if they think it necessary.

[Simon_Jester]

EDIT: New Dr. Susie post up.

I dunno about that. You could posit with equal validity that if the central AI is rendered inoperable the ship is a total loss as well. This is really all about the assumptions one makes about space warships, which can run the gamut from 'needs thousands of crew for every km of length' to 'is run by a handful of dudes and a single computer'. They're all just as valid insofar as I'm concerned, depending on what design philosophy your nation prefers.

Well, ideally you'd want decentralized computing- multiple AIs. One advantage of a robot battleship is that you can, in principle, design the ship to survive damage that would irradiate a human crew fatally or otherwise incapacitate them, by decentralizing the system. There's no logical reason to use a single huge central computer, or a single huge AI, as opposed to a delocalized AI "crew" with many computer cores capable of fighting the ship in a crisis.

And for less massive damage, there's a lot to be said for mobile damage-control remotes, be they biological or robotic.

[Shroom Man 777]

Awwww.... poor Mayabirdies! v_______________v

But at least she is now far away from stupid-stupid Shepistan! ^________________________^

[Siege]

Well, ideally you'd want decentralized computing- multiple AIs.

Of course, I implicitly assumed as much. Certainly USSF warcraft are built that way: if you do enough damage to destroy the shipmind, you've probably reduced the ship to a half-molten hulk already, so damage control is pretty moot at that point.

[Shroom Man 777]

It is deadite vengeance night!

Surrogates! Liberty Kincaid should now team up with a hard boiled Solarian cop who's too old for this shit:

[PeZook]

Figured you'd do that

[Simon_Jester]

Why is a Solarian cop wearing what looks like neoclassical Umerian clothes? Halloween costume party? Also,

Awwww.... poor Mayabirdies! v_______________v

But at least she is now far away from stupid-stupid Shepistan! ^________________________^

I'm trying to explore some of the logical consequences of the arguments Shep presented when we were discussing the Blitzschlag Field issue back in June or July. They're unpleasant, but they weren't my idea in the first place...

[Shroom Man 777]

Why is a Solarian cop wearing what looks like neoclassical Umerian clothes? Halloween costume party?

He is undercover!

[Steve]

You mean in terms of the Shepistani and Dominion societies being severely anti-ESPer?

[Simon_Jester]

Well, yes, but that's only the start. I'll explore the effects-as-described in a bit more depth in my next chapter.

[Shroom Man 777]

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

....

Nero the bear?

[PeZook]

Bragulan sociologists and environmentalists actually intended it to be this way. This was because during the first century of Imperator Darvyl S. Byzon's rule, many multi-centennial senior citizens had the audacity to demonstrate and fly banners "thanking" the Imperator for their "happy childhoods". When the commissars informed them that the Imperator hadn't even been born at that time, the seniors said that that was "exactly" their intention.

Your training is complete! My young...apprentice!

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Bragulan sociologists and environmentalists actually intended it to be this way. This was because during the first century of Imperator Darvyl S. Byzon's rule, many multi-centennial senior citizens had the audacity to demonstrate and fly banners "thanking" the Imperator for their "happy childhoods". When the commissars informed them that the Imperator hadn't even been born at that time, the seniors said that that was "exactly" their intention.

Your training is complete! My young...apprentice!

The post was a product of a rather demented conversation between me and Shroom, and as true Asians, I brought up the issue of old folks' homes, and things just went downhill from that point.

[Shroom Man 777]

That bit PeZook quoted was something I borrowed from one of his jokes at the Joke Thread, where SENIOR CITIZENS THANK COMRADE STALIN FOR THEIR HAPPY CHILDHOODS.

[Shroom Man 777]

Strange. I am having difficulty seeing things in my THRILLER post. I can't see the T-virus blue helix, can't see the MJ youtube, can't see the Nazi zombies (edited and replaced the picture, so now I can) and the Evil Ash.

Are the images working for everyone else? Cause, damn, I worked hard to compile them.

EDIT:

SHIT! I can't even see my sig right. Is my sig working?