In space, no one can hear you explode messily (Was SV: Li Han?)

At 15:52 5/5/98, John Leary wrote:
>Niall Gilsenan wrote:

>     I for one, presume that some sort of rescue ships exist.
>These have no value in the combat section of the game and are not
>represented on the board or in the points count.   Perhaps some
>humanity exists in space combat after all.
>     This/these would be rescue ships perhaps on the order of the
>comverted Flower class corvettes on the North Cape run.

A few thoughts:

1) These rescue ships would probably only exist in built-up (Class 1 or
2
shipyard) systems, I would think. Otherwise, it'll just be the surviving
fleet doing it's own cleanup work. I guess I've always thought of the FT
Universe in terms of the colonization of the Americas in the 1500-1600s,
hence specilized support services won't exist outside big trading ports
and/or military bases. The smaller colonies might have volunteers
available, and they may get good at rescuing people... but probably
aren't
going to have the facilities to track down, recover and treat survivors
of
major fleet engagements.

2) To quote The Guide: Space is big. Even within a single star system,
there's a mind-bogglingly huge area to search for survivors. And unless
there are enough established rescue bases able to reach anywhere within
the
system in short order, it may well be days or even weeks before the
nearest
ship could approach a battle site. If some poor slob is ejected from a
wreck (and assuming his suit survives intact), even with only a few m/s
of
velocity, he could be a *long* ways away from the original wreck by the
time anyone can get to the area. And, he's probably not on a planned
course, just a random vector... meaning no one has any idea where to
look
for him. Hope those suit radio batteries hold out...

3) Assuming some sort of lifepod mechanism with a couple of weeks' life
support and a homing beacon, survival possibility goes way up,
especially
if one has enough thrust to head towards a colony or base (assuming
you've
got the fuel to get to its orbit) Still, how many of these are likely to
be
on a ship? Something with those kind of capabilites is essetially a
ship's
boat or gig, and it's unlikely that there will be enough capacity for
anything like the entire crew.

4) The again, who knows? Anything's possible, I suppose....

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
Jim 'Jiji' Foster / jfoster@kansas.net / Jiji @ AnimeMUCK / TIP #28 /
PPIG #42

"That's the way we all begin," said Tom Platt. "The boys they make
believe
all the time till they've cheated 'emselves into bein' men, an' so till
they die--pretendin' and pretendin'."
    Rudyard Kipling, _Captains Courageous_