[OT] [HIST] Paymasters of 2183

An odd thought occured to me while 
contemplating Aliens(TM)-like environment 
where troops get shipped around as 
Troopsicles(TM). 

Do you get paid for downtime? Time dilation 
would surely wreck your life back on any planet, 
so you'd think there would be some sort of 
premium, but paying the troopie for every 
minute of their sleep makes for a high cost per 
active minute....

Now, the canon GZGverse may not have this 
bug quite as bad - jump drives seem to 
suggest that cold sleep, though used, isn't used 
for protracted journeys. A week here and there 
isn't bad. I'm thinking of a universe in which you 
lose years sometimes. It'd mean you'd fall out 
of temporal sync with friends, classmates, etc. 
Correspondingly, you'd think it would make you 
VERY close with your comrades on ship. 

Also, what useful way is there to pay soldiers 
like this? You don't load the ship up with 
money, but presumably you need enough if 
they get liberty anywhere to let them spend 
some. Soldiers like to get paid. Maybe it is all 
electronic... but if speed of money movement is 
limited to speed of ship movement, then 
interesting issues arise. 

Just something that struck me, driving home 
and trying to clear my head of Java code.....

Tomb. 
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Thomas Barclay
Instructor, CST 6304 (TCP/IP programming for the Internet)
kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca 
http://fox.nstn.ca/~kaladorn/CST6304
http://stargrunt.ca/tb/CST6304
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