Light bulb Captured Solly fleet

wastedfly wrote:

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

MaxxQ wrote:***Snip***

OTOH, I disagree that it would be quicker and easier to get someone to a trauma center in orbit than it would be to a ground-based center. Watch the approach video linked below (the Fearless Flyby vid). Takes about a minute to dock, once lined up, right? I guarantee that that's basically sped up, and that a real life approach and docking would take far longer than that, even with computer control. On the order of 15 minutes or so.

I have my pinnace approaching the boat bay at 5m/s, which IRL, would be *way* too fast. Current approach and dock procedure times can be measured in hours, including the unmanned Dragon from SpaceX. I'm not saying that it'll take that long 2000 years from now, but it will definitely take longer than I depicted in my video.

That doesn't even take into account the time to run out the boarding tube, get it pressurized, then transport the injured person through a zero-g environment (the boarding tube) to the lift(s), *then* transporting to the med bay. From the point of the docking arms attaching to the pinnace/shuttle/whatever to the injured person getting to the med bay, my estimate is roughly 15 minutes.

Let's say that that things have improved enough in 2k years that an approach to the boat bay and docking arms takes 15 minutes after lining up in orbit. Let's also say, using your estimated time from earlier in the thread, that it takes 40 minutes to get to the ship in orbit.

Well, now we're already at 70 minutes total.

Oh, wait. Nobody's discussed anything about how the injured person gets *to* the pinnace/shuttle/whatever. For simplicity's sake, let's say that there's a ready shuttle at key locations (probably major hospitals) around the planet. How do we get the injured person to the shuttle?

1) An ambulance (ground- or air-based, doesn't matter) that is sent to the site of the accident, then drives (flies?) back to the hospital. Depending on how fast these things are, I would say that total round trip might be as much as 30 minutes, probably even longer for rural areas (forex: the Harrington family home is pretty far from any built up areas - how long do you think it would take for an ambulance to get the from the nearest medical facility?).

2) The evac shuttle flies itself to the location, then goes directly to orbit from there. This has possibilities, as with countergrav, there's no worry about landing on a building rooftop that may not be rated to handle the weight (as with current medevac choppers), but it's still going to take time to get the person to the rooftop. What about areas where the evac shuttle can't fit? These things are pretty large. Sure, you can land them in a convenient parking lot and ambulance the injured party to the shuttle, but that also takes time.

Time.

That's the crux of the entire issue. For traumas (as you yourself said that this would be for), you need to get the injured party to the medical facilites as soon as possible. Well, from what I wrote above, we're looking at roughly an hour and a half to two hours from the initial emergency call to getting the injured party to the med bay in orbit. That's basically a best-case scenario, where the ambulance run is short.

As opposed to a roughly 30 minute round-trip time (again, times will vary - I'm just rounding an average for nearby and rural ambulance runs) for an ambulance to get the person to a ground-based trauma center.

***Snip***

n7axw wrote:I hate to say this, but these arguments are regurgitive and not really any more persuasive now than they were the first time. Weird Harold has won. Ye old sweats, begone! Retire from the field

Don

crewdude48 wrote:It takes a lot fewer people to make sure a ship is habitable until it can surrender than it does to navigate through hyperspace. Considering that they intentionally avoided automation, I doubt that they could go out system with less than 1500, and probably closer to 2000

crewdude48 wrote:Once they get to the target system, then they would have local apprentices, but what about on the voyage there? That would be the time when somebody would try to grab the ship. A quick Google shows current U.S. prisons have a ratio of 1 guard to every 4.5 to 6.7 prisoners, and people are calling that undermanned. At one guard per 5, at 1500-2000 crew that is 300-400 Manticoran personnel per SD. For 40 SDs that is at least Twelve thousand personnel!

crewdude48 wrote:If you want to keep these thing in LPO (low planetary orbit; it can only be LEO when it is around earth) they better not have all of the drives shut down. they need to have station keeping drives at the very least. Also, I suspect that SLN SDs are not exactly fuel efficient. One at station keeping levels will probably burn noticeably more fuel than an LAC on maneuvers.

crewdude48 wrote:the Government says "Hay, could everybody check your supply closets? We are willing to pay above scrap value for outdated learning equipment." Then tell a merchant skipper that they will pay cost plus for him to ship them to Quadrant worlds. I really doubt that this could possibly cost more than manning the SLN SDs.

crewdude48 wrote:Most people would say "Well, I have the ticket, I had better use it." However, in both cases you have payed for the ticket, so the cost of the ticket can be eliminated for the consideration. Your choices then become
A) go see a band you don't like or
B) stay home and enjoy your self.

Weird Harold wrote:Diverting Manticoran or TQ merchant spacers as "prize crews" for ferry duty would be necessary as I've explicitly exempted officers and senior petty officers from consideration as harbor watch recruits -- in large part because those are the ones most capable of hyper-navigation and most likely to be fanatic, escape at any cost, problems.

Ferry crews would cost wages and transportation home for a two-weeks to a month Temporary Duty.

MaxxQ wrote:Re: the bolded part... I have three words for you - "The Great Resizing".

To expand on that, what it means is that despite it saying that in OBS, and maybe some later books, it's wrong. Even David has admitted that and it's been addressed.

MaxxQ wrote:I have my ...

MaxxQ wrote:Well, now we're already at 70 minutes total.

MaxxQ wrote:For simplicity's sake, let's say that there's a ready shuttle at key locations ...

MaxxQ wrote:1) An ambulance (ground- or air-based, doesn't matter) that is sent to the site ...

2) The evac shuttle flies itself to the location, ...

MaxxQ wrote:Time.

That's the crux of the entire issue. For traumas (as you yourself said that this would be for), you need to get the injured party to the medical facilites as soon as possible....

MaxxQ wrote:As for whatisname's fingers, I'm pretty sure he could have had them regrown prior to the events in the book if he wanted to. It's not like the Talbotters were completely cut off from civilization, and I believe he's a rich guy politician, ... I suspect he hasn't regrown them as some sort of badge of honor.

MaxxQ wrote:
The same can also be said for prosthetics, if he doesn't regen.

You make it sound like that if only those poor helpless backwards people had proper medical facilities, there would be no deformities or permanent injuries.

Emily Alexander-Harrington might have something to say about that.

Vince wrote:As MaxxQ has pointed out, you are fighting time if you are going to chase an orbiting hospital and then dock with it. Even today, ambulances will go to trauma centers (if the injuries to the patient warrant it) only if the time en-route is short enough that the quality of care available at a trauma center outweighs the extra time spent getting the patient to the closest emergency care available (subjective call).

kzt wrote:SLN POW command will refuse this, as they have a both a requirement to and are entitled to maintain the chain of command and approve any use of POWs. Game over unless you choose to violate the Deneb Accords. BTW, if you do that it is probably more than just career death.

MaxxQ wrote:He hasn't won until no one disagrees with him anymore.

namelessfly wrote:Imagine a fleet of 12 SD(P)s, 3 CLACs, 12 Nike, 12 Saginami Cs, 12 Rollands, and 200 large freighters coming across the hyper limit to loot and pillage your village.