Light bulb Captured Solly fleet

Sure, you could put a watch in tactical that can do that. And a few other things...

The basic problem is the idea that you are going to get tens of thousands of people who take an oath to Talbott or the SEM seriously. Umm, no. They are neo-barbs. It's like your dealing with a Somali pirate who wants you to pledge your loyalty to the cookie monster.

kzt wrote:The basic problem is the idea that you are going to get tens of thousands of people who take an oath to Talbott or the SEM seriously.

With nearly a half million POWs vs 50,000-60,000 enlisted spacers needed, I don't think it completely unreasonable to find sufficient people who have some sense of honor.

FWIW, we've been overstating the numbers available:

Mission of Honor
Chapter 23 wrote:Solarian ships' companies, conversely, were even larger and more manpower-intensive than prewar Manticoran designs had been, and Sandra Crandall had entered the Spindle System with seventy-one superdreadnoughts, each with a ship's company of over six thousand. Even completely ignoring the rest of her task force, that had amounted to the next best thing to a half-million personnel. Tenth Fleet, on the other hand, had nowhere near that many people. A Roland-class destroyer like Naomi Kaplan's Tristram had a total company of less than seventy, and not a single one of them was a Marine. A Saganami-C, like Aivars Terekhov's Quentin Saint-James, was somewhat better off—at least each of them had a hundred and forty Marines available, but that was out of a total crew of only three hundred and fifty-five. For that matter, even one of the lordly Nikes, like her own Artemis, had a company of barely seven hundred and fifty. Which meant the total personnel of all Michelle's warships—including Khumalo's superdreadnought flagship and the four carriers of Stephen Enderby's CLAC squadron and their LAC groups—amounted to barely thirty-two thousand. Crandall's surviving forty-eight superdreadnoughts, alone, carried ten times that many men and women, and that didn't even consider the fifty thousand or so aboard her battlecruisers and destroyers.

Those numbers mean that 48,000 are needed for the SDs and as much as another 5,000 to 8,000 for any smaller ships used. That's only 55,000 spacers in round numbers from 300,000 to 350,000 POWs.

I think you're far too pessimistic about Solarians standards of personal honor, especially among common spacers and junior petty officers. It might be difficult to find enough people to give their parole, but I don't think it would be that difficult to find people who would honor that parole once given.

kzt wrote:The basic problem is the idea that you are going to get tens of thousands of people who take an oath to Talbott or the SEM seriously. Umm, no. They are neo-barbs. It's like your dealing with a Somali pirate who wants you to pledge your loyalty to the cookie monster.

I wonder if perhaps Weird Harold's idea becomes a bit more comfortable forgetting about using SLN personnell, except, perhaps for medical and educational purposes. I bet that each of the systems could come up with a couple of hundred or perhaps even more folks who could be trained for harbor watch purposes with a small core of individuals on hand to make needed repairs that would keep critical systems afloat. It would be healthy for the systems benefiting from the service offered to at least partly pick up the tab on salaries for locals who might be able to hold down such jobs.

As for the POWs, German soldiers in WW2 sometimes were sent to the midwest to POW camps and were offered the opportunity to work on farms as gainful employment. I see no reason why Sollies might not be able and willing to serve in non-sensitive roles. Then there are doctors who would probaby take their oath to Hypocates even more seriously than their oath to the SLN, although most of those doctors would probably be needed right where they are at taking care of their fellow POWs.

Don

Weird Harold wrote:With nearly a half million POWs vs 50,000-60,000 enlisted spacers needed, I don't think it completely unreasonable to find sufficient people who have some sense of honor.

How will you tell? Really, how? They may be totally dead serious about it, but that's because they intend to teach those neo-barbs a lesson they won't soon forget...

n7axw wrote:I wonder if perhaps Weird Harold's idea becomes a bit more comfortable forgetting about using SLN personnel, except, perhaps for medical and educational purposes. I bet that each of the systems could come up with a couple of hundred or perhaps even more folks who could be trained for harbor watch ...

The intent has always been to "apprentice" local to the SLN Harbor watch and use the Parolees as trainers and teachers. I haven't clearly articulated that point, but I never really thought Parolees would be a complete or permanent solution -- especially since the whole idea is to offer educational opportunities to the locals.

n7axw wrote:As for the POWs, German soldiers in WW2 sometimes were sent to the midwest to POW camps and were offered the opportunity to work on farms as gainful employment.

That was probably a subconscious inspiration for using POWs/Parolees -- at least I did know about the practice. I was thinking more of recent reading set against the royal navy's actions and practices ca 1780-1900. (The Alan Lewrie series by Dewey Lamdin if anyone is interested.)

Using these ships as training facilities is baloney except in the case of damage repair training. Can do all other forms of "training" in a warehouse, in a box, in a trailer, in a (_____). The rest(space based) can be done from a freighter. If you want actual non simulated exercise, you are not going to use SLN ships for that unless you plan on using said ships to actually defend said planets. It has nothing to do with computer "interconnection". It is called simulations.

Simulation is specific to the hardware in question and are there to familiarize yourself with the exact layout of said systems and make it second nature. Raw fundamental simulation of basic concepts for say, navigation, strategy, tactics does not need, nor want hardware specific simulators. Book knowledge, fundamental background knowledge, can be accomplished anywhere. It is certainly NOT done onboard expensive ships in space. Expensive because it is baloney to believe that to use said ships all they have to do is "turn them ON". Have to transport the air, the food, the people to prepare the food, the janitors to clean up, etc. All of whom will cost far more as now you have to pay the extra expense of getting them into space away from their families and everything that goes along with it.

This "every SLN ship is a university" is hilarious. All of said "university" is in a book. In honorverse time it is all in electronic form. If you have an E reader, you have the "SLN university". Better yet, turn your universal E reader on, viola you have the RMN "university" on said subject matter.

If you are not too lazy to read, you can learn faster than any teacher in a classroom who plods along to the dumbest kid in the classrooms drumbeat. If you need momma standing up front in a classroom writing down verbatim what is ALREADY IN THE BOOK, well you can get any stooge to do that. Don't need an ex SLN stooge. Lots of stooge teachers out there. Lots of stooge TA's standing up front "teaching" verbatim what is already in the book step by stinking step. They do not even have to know the subject. Only not lazy enough to actually read the book.

No one needs a teacher for any math related subject today. Pick up a book and a solutions manual with frequent quizes and tests and you are set. They are easily available on any subject matter. Caveat, if you are lazy and sit on your ass and do not look, you will not find. True today. Is true tomorrow as well. Covers everything from Physics, to Electrical technician/engineering, mechanical technician/engineering, to Chemistry(basic and organic), to navigation, to procedural airplane checks before taking off, even to many of the biology subject matters. We are talking mostly the sciences after all. Math applied(logistics)

Now if your books are crap that do not come with solutions manuals, go get books that do. Those subjects are learned by doing homework problems and READING. You learn by learning the step by step graphic solutions. Not by momma holding your hand. A rare few people can simply "listen" and understand a subject perfectly. Those persons are very few.

There is no reason today, to pay money to sit in a classroom "learning" math of any grade level or any of the problem based sciences. It is called a good book. If anyone reading this is in Highschool or still in College, do yourself a favor and buy a good book WITH A SOLUTION MANUAL and self teach yourself. It will be faster and save yourself a ton of money allowing you to test out of bucket loads of classes. Most books are a POS as they are published to keep "teachers" in jobs and keep said books selling. After all it wouldn't be in their best business interest to publish step by step solution manual with said fundamental books and essentially eliminate all of those high paid teaching jobs now would it? Step by step solution manuals with reasoning are available for every science based subject out there. If you look you will find them. Not those lame books that only provide "example problems" to the most obvious mind dumb of problems.

Technicians are taught by a bit of book learning and mostly all; ON THE JOB TRAINING. It helps to have someone show you where the power switch is, but after, it is working out what you learned in the classroom and applying it. Having some old salt tell you how, while it is quicker and saves you from really DUMB mistakes in the short term, does not help in the long term. You and only YOU can learn and apply what you learn. No one can learn for you.

Every RMN ship in mothballs is going to be pulled out and utilized as it is better than SLN ... anything ... to cover their own territory.

As I have said all along. SLN ships will be sent to friendly Alliance worlds that currently have nothing(Entire SL, core, shell, prtotectorates) and will have nothing for many years to come. It is called on the job training for them. Ain't perfect, but it is better than waving a white flag.

SLN ships will not be used for "education centers".
SLN ships will not be used as hospitals where you cannot get to them in a timely fashion.
SLN ships will not be used as hospitals where your family cannot visit in a timely and INEXPENSIVE fashion.
SLN ships will not be used as hospitals when you can simply extract said equipment from the ship and install in pre existing HOSPITALS with pre existing hospital doctoral, nursing, orderly, outpatient care logistics paths.
SLN ships will not be used as hospitals where one cannot get two hospital beds past each other in the same hallway.

If anyone actually read this whole thing... Cheers.

kzt wrote:How will you tell? Really, how? They may be totally dead serious about it, but that's because they intend to teach those neo-barbs a lesson they won't soon forget...

You're mistaking rank and file attitudes as being the same as command-level idiots like Byng, Crandal, and, to some extent, Filareta. The latter at least hand two or three living brain cells.

RFC gave us plenty of dissenting opinion viewpoints in the lower (officer) ranks. I imagine the dissenting opinions continue on down to the lowest enlisted ranks.

Relax wrote:Using these ships as training facilities is baloney except in the case of damage repair training. Can do all other forms of "training" in a warehouse, in a box, in a trailer, in a (_____).

What are going to use for lesson plans that contain solarian level theory an examples?

Where are you going to get the computers and information access required of a early 20th century PD civilization's educational system?

Relax wrote:Book knowledge, fundamental background knowledge, can be accomplished anywhere. It is certainly NOT done onboard expensive ships in space.

Where (and when) are you going to get the "books" to conduct book learning at 20th Century PD standards?

Relax wrote:Expensive because it is baloney to believe that to use said ships all they have to do is "turn them ON". Have to transport the air, the food, the people to prepare the food, the janitors to clean up, etc. All of whom will cost far more as now you have to pay the extra expense of getting them into space away from their families and everything that goes along with it.

In a contra-grav civilization, it is easier (and cheaper) to get to orbit than it is to get to Grandma's -- unless your grandmother lives in a low-grav elder care facility in orbit, then it costs the same.

Relax wrote:This "every SLN ship is a university" is hilarious. All of said "university" is in a book. In honorverse time it is all in electronic form. If you have an E reader, you have the "SLN university". Better yet, turn your universal E reader on, viola you have the RMN "university" on said subject matter.

On Manticore, with Manticore's universal net access, that's true.

It is NOT true on Nuncio where only the president's palace has video capability for its communications suite.

It is NOT true on Kornati where communications are still carried on copper wires.

Using SDs as universities in even the more developed TQ systems like Rembrandt and Montana would indeed be absurd, but that is NOT where I propose using them.

Relax wrote:If you are not too lazy to read, you can learn faster than any teacher in a classroom who plods along to the dumbest kid in the classrooms drumbeat.

<long rant snipped>

I agree with your assessment of r/w US education policy and oportunity, but I fail to see what it has to do with education in the Honorverse -- except as a precursor to the Peep Dolist schools.

Relax wrote:Technicians are taught by a bit of book learning and mostly all; ON THE JOB TRAINING. It helps to have someone show you where the power switch is, but after, it is working out what you learned in the classroom and applying it.

In the TQ, that "bit of book learning" is a century or so more advanced than anything Nuncio had available as of Hexapuma's visit. It is also available as self-paced computer-assisted learning programs.

But if you prefer pen and paper in a poorly insulated warehouse over a shirt-sleeve environment in front of a computer terminal, be my guest.

Relax wrote:Every RMN ship in mothballs is going to be pulled out and utilized as it is better than SLN ... anything ... to cover their own territory.

I have NEVER advocated using the captured ships as warships! RFC, the final word on what makes into the Honorverse, has said the captured ships are worthless as warships, and wholeheartedly agree with his reasoning.

Relax wrote:As I have said all along. SLN ships will be sent to friendly Alliance worlds that currently have nothing(Entire SL, core, shell, prtotectorates) and will have nothing for many years to come. It is called on the job training for them. Ain't perfect, but it is better than waving a white flag.

Why would the SEM offer "on-the-job training" for others, but deny it to the hardscrabble neobarb worlds of its own territory? Otherwise see the preceding paragraph.

Relax wrote:SLN ships will not be used for "education centers".

Probably not. I'm not writing the Honorverse, but I might indulge in a bit of fan-fiction to flesh-out the idea.

Relax wrote:SLN ships will not be used as hospitals where you cannot get to them in a timely fashion.

Oh no, certainly not. That doesn't preclude having them in orbit when contra-grav shuttles/ambulance are available.

Relax wrote: SLN ships will not be used as hospitals where your family cannot visit in a timely and INEXPENSIVE fashion.

A ride on a contra-grav shuttle when they are available would be inexpensive if there are a reasonable number of them. Since they are around the size of a large airliner, I would expect that one per hospital making four trips a day would accommodate any needing a ride to orbit.

Relax wrote:SLN ships will not be used as hospitals when you can simply extract said equipment from the ship and install in pre existing HOSPITALS with pre existing hospital doctoral, nursing, orderly, outpatient care logistics paths.

How long would you estimate it would take to build a six-hundred bed hospital? Or even 200 bed extensions to three existing hospitals.

The medical department of a warship should be able to treat up to ten percent of the crew; A solarian SD has a crew of "over 6,000." That's a 600 bed hospital that you want to deny the depressed economies of planets like Nuncio or Dresden.

Relax wrote:SLN ships will not be used as hospitals where one cannot get two hospital beds past each other in the same hallway.

What series are you reading?

Mission of Honor
(With Abigail Hearns in the emergency passgae of SLNS Babbage) wrote:Abigail Hearns took one more look around. The passageway immediately inboard from the emergency airlock was longer and a bit wider than it would have been in a Manticoran or Grayson-designed warship, but it looked rather cramped at the moment, with her entire boarding party and six counter-grav sleds of salvage and rescue gear packed into it. Other than that, about the best she could say was that it was still atmosphere tight.

What should be one of the smallest passages is big enough for "six counter-grav sleds" and an entire boarding party

Mission of Honor
(Aboard an intact SLN SD wrote:Major Markiewicz followed Captain Ingebrigtsen and Master Sergeant Palmarocchi out of the lift doors at the 00 Deck level. According to the schematic in his battle armor's memory, he was approximately sixty meters aft of Leeuwenhoek's command deck, and one hundred meters forward of her flag bridge. The 00 Deck corresponded to the Royal Manticoran Navy's Axial-One, the central—and best protected—deck of a warship's core hull, and Leeuwenhoek's was both broader and higher than the other decks stacked above and below it. The passage before Markiewicz was well lit, yet he felt uneasily aware of its vastness, as if he couldn't quite make out details.

Don't be stupid, Evgeny. You can see just fine. It's just that you shouldn't be seeing this much empty space aboard any warship.

Relax wrote:If anyone actually read this whole thing... Cheers.

I even read the anti-schools rant in the middle. I could wish you read my posts as closely: I've made every point multiple times.

n7axw wrote:As for the POWs, German soldiers in WW2 sometimes were sent to the midwest to POW camps and were offered the opportunity to work on farms as gainful employment. I see no reason why Sollies might not be able and willing to serve in non-sensitive roles. Then there are doctors who would probaby take their oath to Hypocates even more seriously than their oath to the SLN, although most of those doctors would probably be needed right where they are at taking care of their fellow POWs.

Don

Essentially grunt farm labor who could not possibly harm anything is your example?

You have got to be kidding me.

Stuff said SLN people onto some manufacturing facility somewhere in the back end of beyond doing something productive would be the equivalent.

Not what is proposed here.

Cumquats comparing grapefruits