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Personal log
Lieutenant Commander John van Leigh, TSN.
Stardate 160716-2237Today’s work wasn’t quite easy, and yet it got done somehow.
First, Verok was back, so I presented to him everything that happened during his absence. The orders I issued provisionally were confirmed, and Timonix, the latest addition to our crew, was promoted to full ensign. The senior officers meeting was slow, though, and we barely got to decide anything due to the lateness of most people.
I ended up in command of Hunter for the first sim, with a crew composed entirely of station personnel who was entirely unfamiliar with bridge protocol. Kennon Far and I eventually failed to get anything done, and the plan was aborted.
After that I was moved to Horizon. I let Adele Mundy remain in charge of things, just overseeing her work, which was just as excellent as expected. The thing with this new generation of senior officer candidates is that we never reallly teach tactics. They are expected to learn on the job the finest points of theory, which means there are mistakes where they could be avoided entirely, and with no fault of their own. She has a good disposition for learning, and I’m confident those mistakes will disappear as soon as she’s told.
Eventually, Allard came back to relieve me, and I took command of Lancer for the recapture of Volantis. We moved to our destination with some resistance, including a single command group. Our attack seemed to be unexpected, as the enemy forces weren’t properly concentrated. At some point we did a sector transition that put half our forces right in the middle of an enemy formation. But the biggest incident we faced on transit was an enemy group that got a lucky shot and knocked Raven‘s engines. We moved to assist quickly enough, being the first ship on the scene.
Enemy resistance on Volantis IV was tough, sure. Having the advantage of an Intelligence person as XO proved useful enough, but at the end the sector was captured with minimal losses.
Our final live-fire exercise involved some new caltron types that were spotted by patrols. I’m not too keen on facing them in battle, but we managed.
All in all, it wasn’t an exemplary performance, but it was acceptable.
//If there are people with questions, I’m happy to answer. But I’m not confident about starting a formal class within the TSN due to philosophy disagreements. For example, it’s unacceptable to go in character encouraging people to use monsters, but I personally think that captains should learn the manoeuvre anyways. Basically, I believe that commander candidates should be trained to do things regardless of their common usage, just to learn the mechanics involved. But I’m a perfectionist with extremely high standards, anyway.
//I suppose you could do some additional sims before the start of the shift for those of us that are interested. If you have the time.
//I do have the time, but I would need a server.
//The thing is, I think that being a good officer and being a good tactician are two different sets of skills. The TSN focuses on the first. Serving in character as a lawful-good guy who follows orders and has a set of morals builds towards being a good officer, and that’s just fine. But sometimes that set of morals, or even following orders to the letter gets in the way of achieving results, which is the objective of being a good tactician. If it’s very clearly understood that a tactics class won’t cover morality or protocol, I’ll go with it.
//You could approach tactics as more of a seminar thing with a rotating proctor, rather than a formal training session. This would give different COs to present their preferred styles and maneuvers without advocating one over another. You could do a session on non-traditional tactics, Verok (without volunteering him) could do one on Missile Cruiser tactics, Slate could finally give that jump drive training she’s had in her pocket for months now, etc.
That way, anybody interested in a specific topic could attend that seminar and expand their tactical knowledge in a semi-formal way.
//That sounds like a good idea! And it wouldn’t be as much of a time commitment for any single person.
//I love it as well! The main issue would be advertising it, since there are many officers that don’t check the forums.
//If we do it I think we should stream it and make it an event for the community at large. As a sort of promotion of the RP community, I mean.
That would be pretty neat. We could spread the word on the Artemis forums, /r/artemis, multiple Facebook groups…
Hell, we could upload the “seminars” to youtube after the fact, and even make mp3s out of them for offline listening!
//We could talk about this this saturday to see who else wants to do something. And we need to bring it up to the senior staff to make it official.
//So, we need speakers, someone who’s willing to assist with streaming, topic recommendations…
I would enjoy both attending and maybe even teaching one or more of these sessions. I could easily see some “sharing of wisdom” sessions coming out of this, and maybe even some lively debates. I think discussing tactics from different perspectives is a really interesting way to discover pro’s and con’s to all of them.
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