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Right, so the discussions in the bar have prompted me to think more on how stations work, and in particular the Promethean Command base where we are currently located. There is a lot to think about here with how everything operates, so this post might be a bit sporadic. I have already considered a lot of this, but have some questions that still need answering, and we can make some tweaks here and there. Here goes:
Personnel
On the Command base, there are TSN officers who act as the “ground crew” as it were. Then of course, stationed there are us, the bridge officers. Of course, there are plenty of other crewmen and NCOs around (like Chief Warrent/Petty Officers etc). I’ll go into these later. We know a lot about bridge crews already really, and as they are only really resident on the base, I will leave them for another post. In this, I will concentrate on the base personnel.On a base, there will be a Command and Control centre. We already have some familiarity with this. In C&C will be officers who communicate with our ships during a mission, acting as a link between TSN Command and whichever ships we have deployed. There will be a number of personnel in C&C, including sensor analysts like Zac Turnez, comms specialists etc and an overall C&C commander who is in charge of coordinating all those officers. Basically, this is the team that relay orders and key information, process analyse data we send back, and generally monitor our mission (during a game, the GM plays this role).
There are then other teams aboard the base too. We’ve met Frank Edwards. He is an NCO, ranking “Chief Warrant Officer” and is responsible for the maintenance, docking crews and dam con teams aboard the station. It is a big job, so there are several other Warrant Officers and NCOs that support him. From this team, we draw our Dam Con personnel. The crewmen are on a rotational cycle of maintenance around the station, acting as docking crews, who resupply and prep ships for launch, help handle ships coming in to dock and general servicing and repair of ships, and of staffing dam con teams and servicing and repairing ships whilst active and in the field. All these personnel are part of the 4th Light Division HQ. They are the staff and personnel that support the operation of the Division. If we were to relocate to a new base, most of these personnel would come with us, with a few left to maintain Promethean Command.
Ok so those are my ideas so far for personnel on a base. I’ve not included “catering” (which would include bar staff like Guy) as I am in two minds how they should fit in to the structure.
Some questions that need answering though:
How do we get to and from our ships? When we are off duty, we are on the base (Promethean Command). Are our ships parked up in the ship yards, or docked with Promethean Command? If they are in the ship yards (this is where they start in the Sandbox – I can change this though), how do we quickly get across to them? Generally, we are working with the idea that star trek like transporter technology doesn’t exist in the TSN Universe. If it doesn’t we need to decide how to transfer personnel and equipment quickly. Should we have some kind of short range transporter technology, or do we rely on shuttles, or even direct transfer through docking ports?
I’ll add more thoughts on other bits of protocol and operations on a base in this thread too. Any tweaks we need to make ( @Matsiyan , you seem to have some good ideas and can spot the odd thing we can tweak e.g. Major Johnson) or suggestions you have, feel free to post them. Any questions too to stimulate thoughts is a good one as well!
On the structure side of things see below – sorry for bad editing (i’m at work)
See below – it is editable.Started off a basic structure – showing the Station Commander and four sections.
Navy is the 4LD
Marines is self explanatory
Operations is the stations personal. Command staff, defense officer, engineers etc..
Facilities are people like Guy, (cleaners, waiters…etc)Please feel free to change the structure, I just made this one up to start the document.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q0UsljTBOqCXf73b-YMQRfVXK1HeH7vdSXPzY-13EGQ/edit?usp=sharing—
In my opinion we as ship personnel do not have any authority, the command staff of the station would be alerted and they would be in command.
We would just be put on alert ready to move the out ships.As for getting to our ships – In my opinion we should have a QRF (Quick Responce Force)
Ships docked at Promethean kept at a state of readiness, that can be ready to launch in 15 mins (like the V Bombers were during the cold war). Lets say it’s Lancer and Ravan that is QRF one week, those crews would be informed and have to be ready to go at a moments notice, so no alcohol for them that week. (RP opportunity at the bar posts).The rest of the fleet would be in the ship yards, powered down. And powered up when required. And that crew will shuttled across when needed or in prep for a duty shift.
I like the idea of having a ship docked as a QRF, whilst the others power down properly in the shipyards. On a scramble, the QRF move out first, followed by the other ships when we have shuttle across to them, should they be required of course.
I agree that the command staff of the station should be in charge on a station. At the same time, we need to be able to deploy when required. I think therefore, whomever is in charge of the division at the time should hold the same level of position as the station commander. In a way, the station is there so that we as ship personnel can do our job. I think therefore that, if a QRF was to be launched, the station commander would have to know about it and possibly even be the one to authorise it. Once out of dock though, we are in control of the situation.
In terms of how it runs on a station, the station commander could appoint an officer of the watch; someone who sits on the command deck and keeps things running smoothly. Any emergencies, the station commander would be alerted, but most other things would be dealt with by the officer of the watch.
If the division needs to launch, we need to first inform the station commander. He would likely already be aware of the orders. The station commander would then facilitate our launch.
As for marines, like the way our ships and crews work, they should report their activities to the station commander and work with them. The commanding officer of the marines would be below the station commander and division commander in terms of chain of command though, answering to the needs of both.
have a look at that link and plot out what you think the Command Structure would look like. A visual aid will help.
The “Officer of the Watch” is whoever has the bridge, so if you leave the bridge you would say the Gebbens, “Your have the brigde” he is now in command and has the authorization of a commander.
So who ever is in command in ops, regardless of rank will have have authorisation to launch the QRF.I don’t really have much knowledge about military protocols, so I can’t be of much help here, but I’m interested to know what the relationship between the Navy and the Marines is. Major Johnson did call us “Navy boys”. Does each group think of themselves as the more important one? Who gets treated better? Who has more privileges? Who has a higher paycheck?
Having grown up in a military family I have seen this sort of thing a bit.
I would say it is similar between the Air Force and the Army,
The Army see the air force as “fly boys” who don’t like to crease there uniform and drink cups of tea all day whilst they do all the hard work running on the field and shooting at things.
The Air Force see the Army as grunts, just people who follow orders and know how to shoot things.It will be similar between the Marines and the Navy. The marines will see us as pussies.
Generally the Navy/Air Force would be on a higher salary than the Marines/Army
I think there should be a healthy respect between the marines and TSN crews, with the term “navy boys” being more of a term of endearment rather than disdain. They have to still work in close proximity to one-another. I think too that marines should operate like they did on old naval warships (think tall ship era). A marine detachment would be aboard the ship and would have its own leading officer and chain of command, separate from the navy personnel. However, they would still answer to the captain of the ship and conduct their actions based on the need of the ship. They are the experts in combat when it comes to firefights, boarding actions etc. They’d be loyal to the captain of the ship, and stick rigidly to tradition and discipline.
For Crew/Combat references, Babylon 5 episode “GROPOS”, Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and of course Hornblower/Aubrey-Maturin. Doc Smith Lensmen, Weber’s Honor Harrington books have some too.
Friendly rivalry and mutual reliance. The navy are the marines’ ticket home after all. The marines probably also get on better with the DC/maintenance crew because they also “work for a living” i.e. face physical danger.
In the UK, the Navy is “the Senior Service”, in terms of when Navy, Army, Air Force were established. Not sure how that might translate to the TSN.
I guess I see the relationship between Marines and TSN crews as similar to the relationship between the MACOs and Starfleet officers in Star Trek: Enterprise, at least toward the end of Season 3. That seems to be what @admin is going for from what I can tell.
I also like the idea of a QRF, although I’m not sure that would be something we could actually do in RP. It might be possible to have quasi-spontaneous missions for people to get together and have some RP fun; it would just require a bit of organizing. I’m getting on a thought roll here, so bear with me, but we could have one or two set times during the week during which these QRF missions might occur, and anyone who can commit to being on duty for that time could post on a dedicated thread (or maybe a google doc) to let people know who’s free and if there are enough for a mission. I would be interested in developing this idea further if more people are interested and if this is feasible. Is this a topic for another thread?
If transporter tech hasn’t been developed yet (or doesn’t exist), shuttles between the station and dockyards would be ideal in my mind, but then direct transfer from a station to a docked ship.
I’d like to note that if tractor beams exist, transporter tech may be just as likely, but that’s my opinion, and if transporter tech doesn’t exist (as @admin stated) then so be it.
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