@slate
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@xavier, No problem saying my rank hereafter. No problem with any RP solution. Even willing to RP a public apology, full demote to Cadet. Whatever makes people happy. Really, I had no idea people were upset.
I’m sorry, Blaze, that just made me laugh – “I’ve heard that you do it because you’re a high ranking officer in another group, and that you despise being a low/mid ranking officer with the rest of us.”
Rank elsewhere is irrelevant here. The speaker has either never talked with me about ranks, or somehow never grasped that I’m quite content at a TSN low-rank. Baffling drama, riveting dynamics.
@xavier “Why is it that Slate doesn’t state her rank at the beginning of a shift?”
Slate doesn’t state her rank because…
Where you sit in a room matters. Take any general mixed company meeting of about 30 people:
There are “movers and shakers”, the ones in charge, who sit at the head of the table, the front row – the place of power and importance. The place where everyone else must pay attention if you talk.
There are people that sit by the door, ready for that speedy escape. They didn’t want to be there to begin with and don’t want to be there any longer than they have to – maybe they have more important, pressing things that need to be done, or maybe they just think the meeting topic is a waste of time?
There are ones that arrive late (or almost late), that aren’t the ones in charge (because those move to the place of power anyway), who sit wherever is open, but manage to avoid any pre-meeting uncomfortable socializing.
There are people that show up to be entertained. They rarely bring a notepad or a pen. They might have their coffee or lunch. They’ll participate enthusiastically if it adds to their entertainment. They fill in the middle-areas.
And once, every blue moon, there’s someone that slips in, seemingly randomly selects a seat, not in the place of power, and not in the “back, unimportant” spot, and never by the door. They arrive casually, with the main influx of people, and have the pre-meeting social topics and discussions down to an art form, but let the conversation flow around them. Their eyes are sharp, even if pretending a lazy indifference. That’s the one who is the hatchet-man. The very top. The one who might interrupt a loud, lively discussion to say “Good input; next topic.” at almost a whisper, and the room will go silent and move on to the next topic, without even finishing sentences. This person doesn’t need to sit in a position of power. He or she IS the position of power, and everyone in the meeting knows it (except maybe a rare guest, who quickly figures it out).
My RL personality is such that I arrive absurdly early, evaluate the room, and very carefully select my seat. I switch between the room positions, not based on status or habit, but based on other criteria entirely (hardly ever the same seat as last time). I possessively claim my seat with coat, laptop, notepad, and pen, before dashing off to get coffee. I observe who sits with whom, where they sit, what they bring, when they arrive, who they talk with, and about what.
TSN is neatly (and rightfully) sorted into ranks. There’s a clear, hard line between the senior staff and the crewmen. Logically, if we were in a traditional briefing room, we’d leave the first 2 rows of chairs open and sort by rank into the rest of the rows (our role call would be impossible otherwise).
Stating rank is very much like stating where you are sitting in the room, and it’s a super important thing (consider how senior officers are excluded from having to participate). Often role call occurs just after the seniors arrive, and, to fit my personality, Slate would usually be sitting or standing somewhere she wasn’t at the last briefing, and due to the speed of time between the arrival of seniors and the start of role call, she hasn’t returned to her “assigned” seat yet – she’s not claiming any other rank or intending insult or upset, she’s just avidly interested in room and people dynamics.
The complete reason is a lot more complex, but that novel does not belong here. No harm was/is intended. I was actually quite baffled to learn Blaze (and others apparently) are so upset about a simple verbal rank. My levity joking about “not being able to pronounce ‘junior'” probably unwittingly aggravated a situation that I didn’t even know was causing distress. Does this resemble Cormier’s Chocolate War? Riveting reaction to non-conformance.
Sorry, Blaze. Feel free to in-character kick Slate in the shin.
I return for the people and friendships. Each ship in the TSN has its own flavor, from music selection to how the crew responds to orders. Is it humorous? Is it serious? Does its crew discuss ship and fleet tactics and mission objectives? Does its crew follow full TSN protocols?
I’m happy with the crew of the Phoenix. We have master-level people that know how to make the ship dance through combats, and a level of role play that suits me. We fly with a nice mix of caustic and dark humor, critique, and all-out seriousness for the protection and usage of our ship. There’s even singing sometimes. And some “let’s all be someone else for a bit”. It’s silly. It’s fun. I’m happy with it.
// competition, yes! Made slightly harder by having to match the request with the surrenders. Legolas always outclasses Gimli…
OOC/ Repeat of jump drive training this upcoming Sunday. See the post over at the Artemis forums: http://artemis.forumchitchat.com/post/online-jump-drive-training-8115206?pid=1292297021
@Feil and I are aligned on how a jump ship ought to operated for maximum efficiency. We’ve gotten a lot of sim jump drive practice with varying crews. We’ve had ships that decimated enemy fleets without taking any damage at all, and ships that sank so fast the crew was left blinking at their consoles wondering what happened.
It’s not enough to just “get there and try to kill the enemy”. Combat maneuvers require a trained/drilled crew, and those are what make a jump ship’s surprise attack so deadly. Standard warp tactics do not apply and a jump ship ought not be chasing things around on impulse. Strategic jumps should keep the ship safe while any type of attack is used.
I’d even go so far to say that “facing” is not at all part of “jump”. Turning the ship takes time and is its own maneuver, with its own energy requirements, just like loading ordnance. While turning may overlap Helm entering bearing/distance, it’s really not part of the 7-step jump process. Again, this is for that “sudden emergency jump” time-shortening. If you are doing a sudden emergency jump, you don’t care where the ship is pointed and you don’t want to eat a fraction of a second trying to bypass your fanatically drilled “facing” process. Yes, for any combat jump, “facing” is needed, but it should be thought of as a separate function.
Adele Mundy was there when the brainstorm for using “facing” instead of “mark” came up, although I forget who exactly suggested that. Feil and I (with others) gave it a trial run, and it works very well, without any ambiguity. I’ve since updated my jump drive training documents to prefer that. I left in “mark” as some crews are using that.
Terminology in a jump ship crew is crucial. While most jumps can tolerate some delay and shuffling on the crew’s part, there is no time whatsoever to spare when the ship starts to take damage. If the ship loses its jump drive, there’ll be mere seconds to get to the lifepods. If it doesn’t have enough energy to jump, its equally dead.
The “words” used have to be absolutely consistent, unique to the task, explicitly ordered, and fanatically drilled. The “jump” process has to move from conscious thought to automatic, unerring, lightning speed response. Even if the only time that degree of crew skill is needed is when the ship starts to take damage and is being overwhelmed.
The words have to bypass any need for translation/comprehension, because while that translation is fast, it’s still a fraction of a second of additional time. For example, “mark 2-4-5” (context has to be translated – “mark” has been used in other ways – “jump on my mark”). “heading” or “direction” or “bearing” (did science mean heading or bearing? these terms in a warp ship are the same thing and people have been using them interchangeably for so long that helm will have to decipher it, and the potential for science-error is high).
The words have to be clearly distinguishable and cut through other cross-chatter. A jump ship should be noisy, and not just when its crew is partying with several cases of rum. Everyone should be calling out what they are doing and when they are done, so the engineer can appropriately issue and cut power. Every tick of energy should be hoarded for that sudden emergency jump. If the syllables for the jump can be confused with other less critical functions, there’s a chance the automatic-response will be delayed with “did I just hear jump hot or beams hot; can everyone shut up a moment so I can hear?”
As I said in the “mark” vs. “facing” debate, I don’t particularly care what terms are used (well, outside of the above litany of “absolutely consistent, unique to the task, explicitly ordered, and fanatically drilled”). Each captain and crew will find out what works best for their ship and crew; no amount of my desire for interchangeable, trained jump-drive crewmen will ever change that.