Re: Re: [GZG] John's Shipbuilding

["Eric Foley" <stiltman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, there's two major factors at play here.  The first is how much an 
interstellar culture cares about the lives of their warriors.  The second is 
how expensive it is to actually support a living crew in the first place. 
In real life, these two things have come together in our own space travel 
enough that we just don't send manned craft over longer distances than low 
Earth orbit very much, and when we do it's often more just to say that we've 
accomplished it than for any real mission purpose that requires them to be 
there.  The sheer amount of extra biomass you have to haul around to service 
a living crew is enough that if it's not mission-critical to have one there, 
you just wouldn't bother.

However, in a military situation it's not hard to see a scenario where you'd 
want a living commander, just because the one thing that humans still do 
better than computers is to grasp the complexities of what their superiors 
back home really want and be able to make a decision on the spot that will 
reflect that.  There are some maintenance and other issues that are based 
off of this, but a culture that can move a large vessel over interstellar 
distances probably has also developed the technology for ships that can 
automate their own repairs to a degree that it's not worth having a living 
crew just to keep the things running.

Once you get to that point, one of two things is likely to happen in any 
starfaring culture that does, in fact, care about their warriors' lives. 
One is that you would have a living commander or chain of command with a 
fleet where almost all of the grunt work that science fiction loves to put 
in the hands of living crews is automated and modularized.  If the fleet is 
in a winning situation, the commander just executes the battle plan with 
whatever operational crew he needs on his flagship.  If it's not, the manned 
elements would likely withdraw to a safe distance while giving orders to 
their subordinate unmanned warships for whatever holding actions or suicide 
missions are needed to pursue any other critical missions that the fleet is 
required to do, and the manned ships themselves then becomes their own 
escape craft.

E

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "McCarthy, Tom (xwave)" <Tom.McCarthy@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <gzg-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 9:26 AM
Subject: RE: Re: [GZG] John's Shipbuilding


> Another factor to consider when determining whether to scuttle your
> ship, or even whether to take to the escape pods, is the chance of
> survival.
>
> Depending on the setting, some ships may be incapable of rescuing
> survivors from other vessels.  Submarines, in WW2, had to think hard
> about rescuing survivors in some cases.  In space, air, food and water
> will be in just as short supply for those ships.  It depends on the life
> support capability and the speed of jumping somewhere 'green' or being
> resupplied.  And all that presupposes they breathe air you can breathe,
> eat food you can eat, drink water you can consume.
>
> Even if the opposition could rescue you, what are your chances if they
> don't ?  In any given battle, what are the chances there's any land
> nearby for your lifeboat to reach ?  In the Tuffleyverse, fighters
> aren't FTL capable, so escape pods probably aren't, so your chances of
> getting somewhere green from many of the battle sites before life
> support fails may be slim.
>
> In the end, spacemen simply may not believe there's any chance of
> surviving if the ship is lost.  And from there, it's a pretty short leap
> to building ships with insufficient (or no) escape pods and lifeboats.
> And economically speaking, that's a big cash savings so it's not
> unrealistic that someone will suggest it.  So maybe most ships have just
> some shuttles, EVA suits, and the like, but no real plans to escape if
> the ship is lost.
>
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