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How much does the ship’s CO tell the crew
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Random_Axe
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PostPosted: Mon May 07, 2018 10:16 pm    Post subject: How much does the ship’s CO tell the crew Reply with quote

I’m banking on the RL experience of some of our users.
In my campaign our PCs are on Sullust and have been posted on a Sullustan Space Defense Force Attack Carrier as fighter pilots. Think Battlestar Sullust-ica.
So the Ship is going on a routine atmospheric maneuver, but its Top Secret purpose for the maneuver is to surreptitiously perform a detailed terrain scan of a region on Sullust (for instance, the Great Lakes) which area has been of great interest to the PCs because the Imperials have an illicit base operating there and they’ve been dying to get more information about this Imperial operation.

My question is, does the rest of the crew outside of the command staff know exactly where they are going to be performing the atmospheric maneuver? The ship will be on alert, and the pilots will be on stand-by, but how much briefing do the ship’s section chiefs get on the precise location of the action? Does the general rank-and-file crew on a real warship or aircraft carrier know exactly where they are when they go on “routine maneuvers”? Specifically will the PCs themselves learn from the CAG that they are going to be very close to the “Great Lakes” area? Or is that something that is held secret by the commanders?
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 12:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not Navy, but I grew up an Army brat...

Something like that will be on a need-to-know basis. The crew will know that they are doing this routine atmospheric maneuver. About the only people who know about the Top Secret Scan will be the CO, the XO, and the people directly involved in the scan. The person DOING the scan might not even know exactly what it is they're looking for... it will be "Do this scan at this point, then dump the data to my pad." They might even use a droid and then wipe its memory when its done.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 1:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As a navy bub i can answer that well..
The general crew would get something like a 1MC (ships intercomms all decks) "Morning crew, Admiral Blib blib has tasked us with doing a routine atmspheric maneuver in the AHSHSHSA region. This should take no less than 9 hrs, all decks set zebra, send manned and ready reports to the bridge".

And at MOST the XO, CDO, OOD, Ops officer and maybe the Flight / sensor officers will be brought in on the TS portion of the mission.
Xo - Executive officer, think VP
CDO - Command duty officer, basically someone representing the ship as the CO if the CO is not on the ship (99% of the time only when in port)
OOD - Officer of the Day/deck. The person in general charge of running things, whether at sea (space) or when docked in port. When at sea the OOD is always on the bridge, and controls the bridge crew. In port, generally he stands on the main gang plank for crew coming in.
Ops officer - Operations dept head. In charge generally, of CIC (Combat information center), the hub of sensor data and often the control center for weapons.
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Mamatried
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PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 1:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think most of what I was to say have been said.

Think that every crew member knows where they are , that they are on a mission, that their job is so and so.
The gunner knows what to target, but doesn't need to know why
etc etc
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 7:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The crew in Haldeman's Forever War didn't know squat. It was always need-to-know.
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Zarn
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PostPosted: Wed May 09, 2018 2:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also, if there's a compliment of Marines on board, you should make sure they've got enough crayons to eat so that they can be confined to quarters with no hassle during an evolution like that.
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Wed May 09, 2018 9:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Zarn wrote:
Also, if there's a compliment of Marines on board, you should make sure they've got enough crayons to eat so that they can be confined to quarters with no hassle during an evolution like that.


That's not fair to Marines.

You can accomplish the same thing with a looping gif.
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Random_Axe
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PostPosted: Thu May 10, 2018 9:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
As a navy bub i can answer that well..
The general crew would get something like a 1MC (ships intercomms all decks) "Morning crew, Admiral Blib blib has tasked us with doing a routine atmspheric maneuver in the AHSHSHSA region. This should take no less than 9 hrs, all decks set zebra, send manned and ready reports to the bridge".

I get that the T-S activity is strictly confined to the very few top members of the command tree. But you're saying that the location of the atmospheric insertion is pretty much free knowledge?

The question kind of got me to wonder how much a starship maneuver compares to a sea-ship maneuver. As a mundane crewman on Earth I can imagine you are pretty much aware in general that you are north of Indonesia or east off Taiwan on any given day, but as Douglas Adams reminds us, Space is Big. My theory is there's not much point (not to mention, not much opportunity) to look out the window on a Space Cruiser (tm) and hope to recognize anything significant about your current 10-20.
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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PostPosted: Thu May 10, 2018 9:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One of the big dramatic frictions in TLJ is that Admiral Holdo doesn't tell Poe (and I assume a lot of people) her plan to evade the Imperials. This is why Poe commits mutiny.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu May 10, 2018 10:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There was a TNG episode once that showed this exact thing from the POV of a group of noon crewmen (possibly Ensigns or Cadets on their first cruise). Each worked in different departments, so each got to see different aspects of what was actually going on, which led them to an (incorrect) theory as to what was actually going on.

The point is, the captain may keep things compartmentalized, but there will always be some crew who are either briefed in or close enough to catch the edges of it, and thus relaying it to the shipboard grapevine.
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Fri May 11, 2018 9:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
There was a TNG episode once that showed this exact thing from the POV of a group of noon crewmen (possibly Ensigns or Cadets on their first cruise). Each worked in different departments, so each got to see different aspects of what was actually going on, which led them to an (incorrect) theory as to what was actually going on.

The point is, the captain may keep things compartmentalized, but there will always be some crew who are either briefed in or close enough to catch the edges of it, and thus relaying it to the shipboard grapevine.


...and, my JROTC Chief told me, is part of why gossip is so heavily discouraged. If I know A and you know B, we might wrongly put them together to get C, while the real answer is Q, because we're missing the six other letters that would let us reach that point.
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Sutehp
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PostPosted: Fri May 11, 2018 1:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
CRMcNeill wrote:
There was a TNG episode once that showed this exact thing from the POV of a group of noon crewmen (possibly Ensigns or Cadets on their first cruise). Each worked in different departments, so each got to see different aspects of what was actually going on, which led them to an (incorrect) theory as to what was actually going on.

The point is, the captain may keep things compartmentalized, but there will always be some crew who are either briefed in or close enough to catch the edges of it, and thus relaying it to the shipboard grapevine.


...and, my JROTC Chief told me, is part of why gossip is so heavily discouraged. If I know A and you know B, we might wrongly put them together to get C, while the real answer is Q, because we're missing the six other letters that would let us reach that point.


Technically, there are 14 letters between C and Q, not six. Razz

But I guess that just illustrates Nexx's and CRM's point. 8)

Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
One of the big dramatic frictions in TLJ is that Admiral Holdo doesn't tell Poe (and I assume a lot of people) her plan to evade the Imperials. This is why Poe commits mutiny.


Oh dear gawds, entire lakes of ink have been spilled about this resulting in the decimation of the Resistance. People everywhere have pointed out that this was a HUGE plot hole in Leia conceding to Poe's leadership at the end of TLJ ("What are you looking at me for? Follow him.") when in the real world, that sort of mutiny would have gotten Poe thrown into the brig at the very least. Poor Communication Kills indeed.
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Last edited by Sutehp on Fri May 11, 2018 1:32 pm; edited 2 times in total
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Fri May 11, 2018 1:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Random_Axe wrote:

I get that the T-S activity is strictly confined to the very few top members of the command tree. But you're saying that the location of the atmospheric insertion is pretty much free knowledge?


Maybe not the exact location but something on the line of "we've been tasked with doing an atomspheric insertion, somewhere around the Blah region of the planet. All hands prepare the ship"/
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