Andrew Boulton
The Adminator
Actually, military ships (wet or space) are great for disaster response. Even warships have valuable transport, recon, comms, and medical facilities.
http://www.operations.mod.uk/garron/index.htm
How fast does the Imperial Navy react?
- Thread starter rancke
- Start date
Actually, military ships (wet or space) are great for disaster response. Even warships have valuable transport, recon, comms, and medical facilities.
http://www.operations.mod.uk/garron/index.htm
For 200 years the entire infrastructure of Kinorb has been supplied by the same contractor. For reasons I'm not at liberty to divulge (but feel free to speculate
) every piece of electronic equipment supplied by the contractor fails simultaneously, up to and including emergency power generators. The starport, having been built by another contractor, is all right. So is any equipment that has been privately imported, but there isn't much of that. Also, rather mysteriously, the seven HQ buildings of the seven subcontractors (Power, Communication, Waste Management, Transport, Import/Export, Tourist Agency, and Police) and the orbital defense systems.And weapons still work, too...
As I implied in another post, when the response from Efate arrives, it should be able to restore order fairly quickly. I'm not going to worry about the details. Until then, there's a fairly decent set of system defenses -- enough to deter casual Vargr corsairs. Or rather, there was, prior to the 5FW; the defenses got mauled pretty badly in the war and haven't been replaced nearly as fast as one would have expected.
Finally, there are several (3-6, average 4.5) 1000-5000T passenger liners arriving from Boughene every day. The first 16 days after the disaster, arriving ships will be carrying passengers who will want to return immediately, all but eliminating available berths. For the next two or three days, ships won't arrive at all, as the ships that were just about to jump to Kinorb when the news of the disaster reaches Boughene all cancel their jumps. Many of them will elect to return to Efate with their passengers. A few will disembark their passengers and hasten to Kinorb to help. From around the 18th day, one or two ships per day will arrive empty, ready to take home survivors.
Hans
Hans,
Wow...
First Heya and now this. The entire cluster is, as an old chief of mine was found of saying, "screwed, blued, and tattooed".
An isolated cluster hard against the rimward border of the Imperium experiencing two major disaster so close to one another. That's just too much to be coincidental. Hard questions are going to be asked, deep suspicions aroused, and a huge amount of Imperial interest focused on the region in the near future.
Here's some advice to anyone with the slightest bit of shadiness in their past, present, or future: Get the hell out of the Kinorb Cluster now. Cash in, sell out, close up, take a loss, and get away. There's going to be more law and more guns looking under more rocks than any decent man ever wants to see in his lifetime.
I'd head down Keng or Wochiers way myself, maybe see if I could work my way trailing to the Towers cluster from there. The Towers cluster looks good, close to the border and the duke who has jurisdiction is way off in Pretoria. That cluster is as far by x-boat from Pretoria as the the Kinorb cluster is from Regina.
It's always good to have parsecs between one's self and them.
Regards,
Bill
Wow...
First Heya and now this. The entire cluster is, as an old chief of mine was found of saying, "screwed, blued, and tattooed".
An isolated cluster hard against the rimward border of the Imperium experiencing two major disaster so close to one another. That's just too much to be coincidental. Hard questions are going to be asked, deep suspicions aroused, and a huge amount of Imperial interest focused on the region in the near future.
Here's some advice to anyone with the slightest bit of shadiness in their past, present, or future: Get the hell out of the Kinorb Cluster now. Cash in, sell out, close up, take a loss, and get away. There's going to be more law and more guns looking under more rocks than any decent man ever wants to see in his lifetime.
I'd head down Keng or Wochiers way myself, maybe see if I could work my way trailing to the Towers cluster from there. The Towers cluster looks good, close to the border and the duke who has jurisdiction is way off in Pretoria. That cluster is as far by x-boat from Pretoria as the the Kinorb cluster is from Regina.
It's always good to have parsecs between one's self and them.
Regards,
Bill
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For those of you who think this is rather cryptic, Bill is referring to an adventure set on Heya that I've talked to him about in private. But, Bill, Heya is just pretty averagely screwed up, wouldn't you say? Kinorb, OTOH, is a tourist paradise where every prospect pleases...
Hans
Hans,
I didn't invent the Heya Impact. It's from JTAS' Traveller News Service and thus is canonical as far as I know.
The private project you and I discussed involved a campaign aid dealing with the aftermath of that impact, not the impact itself.
Regards,
Bill
Ah, the Heya Impact! I'd completely forgotten all about that. It's set after my adventure. Yes, I agree, that will rank up there with the Kinorb Catastrope.
(For those of you who thought this cryptic, Bill was referring to a TNS newsbrief from SJG's website which features a meteor striking Heya.)
And here I thought we'd been discussing my hostage rescue adventure.
Hans
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Fly,
Not much really. You're absolutely right about the Navy having to send the right kind of ships.
In the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunamis the USN did have a carrier operating off the Indonesian coast, but it was doing little except acting as a heliport for less than a dozen transport helicopters and was withdrawn when more appropriate assets arrived.
I'd think the most immediate assets the Imperial Navy can and should bring to the party are rations, transport, and berthing in that order.
The IN should have mountains of packaged rations on hand and should be able to shift them aboard vessels relatively rapidly. Whether or not they'll get there in time to obviate the worst effects of Spinward Scout's "Rule of Threes" is another question. IIRC, Hans is working on a turn around time of more than 24 days.
Any IN warship worth it's superdense should have shuttles, launches, g-carriers, and what not aboard(1). With the planetary transport systems down, these small craft will be priceless at Kinorb. They'll provide the relief effort with great flexibility and their numbers will also be the effort's primary bottleneck.
Berthing is an odd issue. On one hand, a single AHL cruiser can't do much and neither can the various canonical escorts. On the other hand, FFW tells us that a BatRon can lift an entire combat division. I don't remember what the 154th Battle Rider Squadron can lift, but an AssaultRon can lift an army. The question now is whether the Navy is going to dispatch a BatRon, BatRons, or an AssaultRon to Kinorb and how fast those assets can be made ready for service.
The IN is faced with two choices: It can go big or it can stay home. Deploying a limited number of assets won't provide enough help, but sending the assets the job requires means dispatching a sizable chunk of the fleet. Having a big portion of the fleet involved in humanitarian operations raises its own problems however, as Jeff Swycaffer delightfully illustrated in his Exonidas Spaceport adventure.
Regards,
Bill
1 - One my pet peeves is the plethora of both official and fan warships designs that have little or no small craft. There are far too many million dTon Gargantua-class dreadnoughts that supposedly don't have a single launch aboard. I'm assuming that IN designers are more aware of the need for small craft than most of us are.
Rich Parsons
SOC-1
I like this idea as well.
I agree I would have the believe that there would be some small response teams ready to go. I say teams as it would be bad to get in one report of a dnager or tragedy and then have a second come in or maybe more trying to remove the forces from a specific location.
I agree this makes sense to me.
A good example as I can see this.
Yes, an aircraft carrier and cupply a hospital and power to places which are near enough to water and this is a very good example. And we all know that a carrier never really goes anywhere without its support ships as well.
For 200 years the entire infrastructure of Kinorb has been supplied by the same contractor. For reasons I'm not at liberty to divulge (but feel free to speculate
And weapons still work, too...
Nice plot line so far.
A bluff or posturing effect is what I envision.
Would not locals also have jumped to nearby systems to get help?
Could not some small help by "profiteers" be arriving with minimum jump time?
Just some thoughts.
I've been pondering encounters during the adventure. It seems to me that encounter tables will need a time-related die modifier. Just after the catastrophe, you're going to meet a lot of panicked people and a lot of scared-but-still-lawabiding people and some opportunistic looters. Then the panic dies down (can't be sustained), but more and more lawabiding people are going to turn into desperate people. And so on.
Here are my preliminary musings:
Places:
City (Only one of those on Kinorb, the capital with 3 million inhabitants (suburbs included).
Town.
Village.
Retirement village.
Tourist resort.
Rural.
Wilderness.
People:
Refugees, looters, patrols, rescuers.
Any thoughts?
Hans
Here are my preliminary musings:
Places:
City (Only one of those on Kinorb, the capital with 3 million inhabitants (suburbs included).
Town.
Village.
Retirement village.
Tourist resort.
Rural.
Wilderness.
People:
Refugees, looters, patrols, rescuers.
Any thoughts?
Hans
Hans; my knee jerk reaction, think of the Rodney King riots down in Los Angeles during the mid 90s. That was more social combustion than a bonafide natural disaster, but momentum of unrest pushed that segment of Los Angeles (East LA I think... not familiar with So Cal.) into a state of looting and survival, which strangely enough coexisted with law abiding types.
I'm sure there's footage of it somewhere on Youtube to give you the feel for it.
For me, locally, there was the Loma Prietta Earthquake, which shut down a lot of support services throughout the bay area. Traffic lights went out, but then came back on. Power went out, but phone service was still up. Water was still available in most places. The only place really hit hard was the Marina district in San Francisco, which could serve as a microcosm for what you're trying to achieve.
Maybe look at Pompei, or more recently the erruption in the Philippenes some ten to fifteen years ago. That was scary stuff.
My real question is this, and I'm sorry if I sound a little naive here, but would this really be in the navy's purview? My gut tells me is that local baron (or whoever's in charge) would respond with a FEMA like organization, as was mentioned a few posts back, and then back it up with support from the IN or Scouts as needed.
Just brainstorming here... if I were say a fleet captain of an SDB flotilla, and got the news, I'd pass it along if I were in the line of communication. Otherwise it's business as usual until I get orders to pack up and jump my boys outsystem. If I'm an admiral, then I inquire to the local chief of state if my services are needed. Otherwise I sit back in my office/cabin and watch the latest X-boat news feed; "TNN reports a massive world wide power failure, our man Vulf Blitzwater is on the scene......"
Sidenote; somebody beat me to the solar flare thing :smirk:
BG,
Agreed, I don't think the all wheels are going to come off immediately during this Kinorb tragedy.
Perhaps we should add another line to Spinward Scout's superb Rules of Three?
Three missed meals and rioting begins.
I think just how fast the "riot contagion" spreads will depend on just how much personal transportation is still working. If the 3 million in the capital have to trudge out on foot, we're looking at an unmitigated disaster involving both them and the surrounding region. If everyone has their own grav car, people might bug out over a greater area spreading out the numbers and increasing the chances things might stay (relatively) peaceful.
Regards,
Bill
All public transport and almost all personal transport was supplied by the contractor. Exceptions are special imports (sports cars, racers, luxury vehicles).
Hans
Totally true. I think of the Goth's siege of Rome, and how family units inside the city walls just disintegrated because of lack of food. There was order among the troops, but the typical Roman citizen was left to fend for himself. It made for a peculiar existence.
With Pompei, were it not for the fact that the disaster in question was a volcanic erruption, you might've had the same thing as with the LA riots and Watt's riots 30 years earlier. The fact that the survivors escaped by sea holds true with the air raft analogy.
Loose tangent; it also depends on the disaster though. When London was hit with various plagues law and order didn't break down. I think partially because there weren't a whole lot of people to police (not to make too light of it).
I could go on with other examples, but I need to make myself useful
With Pompei, were it not for the fact that the disaster in question was a volcanic erruption, you might've had the same thing as with the LA riots and Watt's riots 30 years earlier. The fact that the survivors escaped by sea holds true with the air raft analogy.
Loose tangent; it also depends on the disaster though. When London was hit with various plagues law and order didn't break down. I think partially because there weren't a whole lot of people to police (not to make too light of it).
I could go on with other examples, but I need to make myself useful
My original concept was "Y2K, only this one actually happens". I've even got some conspiracy nuts who predict the event and everybody else being really sceptical.
That's why the 200th Anniversary; I'm going to call the adventure "The Y2C Bug".
My original question was an attempt to establish the boundaries. What's the minimum response time? What's the most likely response time? What's the outside response time? I'm aiming for a simple die roll such as "On Day X, throw 2D. On a roll of 12, a big relief fleet arrives. Repeat throw every day, adding +1 per day to the die roll".
If there is a FEMA like organization, it will most likely be headquartered on Regina. Unless there is a jump-6 ship at Boughene, Regina receives notice a week later than Efate. Regina is 9 parsecs from Kinorb, which means that jump-3 and jump-4 ships take three jumps to get from Regina to Kinorb, whereas they'd get from Efate to Kinorb in two jumps (Jump-5 and -6 takes two jumps from Regina, one jump from Efate).
I think the IN admiral at Efate would be quite justified in taking unilateral action. A difference of two jumps (about 16-18 days minimum) could make a big difference to the survivors.
Efate Base, rather than Regina Base is the HQ of the 213th Fleet. The admiral is a staunch supporter of Norris. If he wants to, I think he has the lattitude to act and the means to do it with.
In any case, if the IN admiral won't act, the Efate System Navy probably will. How do you think the US would react if 300,000 of its retired business tycoons were living in Ireland when an Earthquake levelled the place?
Hans
Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
Half the population would probably rub their hands with glee, thinking 'now let them eat cake for a change', whilst half the backstabbing nepotists in power would be wondering whether they could delay rescue long enough to ensure they inherit Uncle Ebenezer's billions.
(That's not a specific political comment, just a wry look at the human condition.)
Hans,
I've been mulling your scenario over with an eye towards the first 30 days or so. It doesn't look pretty, but that's what you're going for, right?
S.M. Stirling's(1) book Dies the Fire is probably as good a model as any. In that book, some mysterious Event messes with physics on Earth preventing certain electrical and chemical processes from occurring. The result is a world thrown back into a medieval level of technology. Another result is widespread death in urban areas and those regions surrounding urban areas. The parallels between Stirling's Event and your planetwide systems failure are considerable.
First, the 3 million sophonts in Kinorb's capital city are a time bomb. They're 3 meals away from rioting and, once the stored food is shared out by whatever means, another 3 meals from streaming into the surrounding countryside looking for more food. Your statement that many people won't have private means of transportation will only make the situation worse. The city will empty as masses of people leave on foot and those massss will destroy the regions they move into and through. The same series of events will occur around all of Kinorb's lesser cities too.
Second, the death of the cities and the regions around them will occur before news of the disaster reaches Efate, that is in much less than 13 or 14 days. There is nothing any potential rescuers can do to prevent this as the catastrophe is too large, too widespread, and effects too many of the systems that could be used to mitigate the problems. Kinorb's cities, the people in them, and the people around them are going to die well before anyone can do anything.
Third, the regions that do survive the systemic collapse will be those far enough away from the cities as to not recieve large numbers of refugees and those with some sort of food production ability no matter how small. Among other regions, islands are a good bet for surviving communities. Areas that can engage in hunting or fishing are good bets too. Just how many of these regions exist is up to you.
Fourth, any would be rescuers better be ready to turn a blind eye towards situational cannibalism as that is going to be the primary food source for over a month in some regions.
Finally, your analogy with the US rescuing retirees from a catastrophic Ireland is faulty on so many levels as to be worthless. The US and Ireland are not part of the same nation, a great deal of assistance is closer to Ireland than the US, and the US would be watching such a catastrophe in real time while those on Efate would know that the majority of Kinorb's inhabitants are already dead by the time the news reaches them.
Good luck with this one, Hans. It's far too grim for my tastes though.
Regards,
Bill
1 - I loathe Stirling as an author with a white hot passion and haven't read the book in question. I have read discussions on the effects of the Event, especially with concern to the die back, and generally agree with most of the his premises.
I've been mulling your scenario over with an eye towards the first 30 days or so. It doesn't look pretty, but that's what you're going for, right?
S.M. Stirling's(1) book Dies the Fire is probably as good a model as any. In that book, some mysterious Event messes with physics on Earth preventing certain electrical and chemical processes from occurring. The result is a world thrown back into a medieval level of technology. Another result is widespread death in urban areas and those regions surrounding urban areas. The parallels between Stirling's Event and your planetwide systems failure are considerable.
First, the 3 million sophonts in Kinorb's capital city are a time bomb. They're 3 meals away from rioting and, once the stored food is shared out by whatever means, another 3 meals from streaming into the surrounding countryside looking for more food. Your statement that many people won't have private means of transportation will only make the situation worse. The city will empty as masses of people leave on foot and those massss will destroy the regions they move into and through. The same series of events will occur around all of Kinorb's lesser cities too.
Second, the death of the cities and the regions around them will occur before news of the disaster reaches Efate, that is in much less than 13 or 14 days. There is nothing any potential rescuers can do to prevent this as the catastrophe is too large, too widespread, and effects too many of the systems that could be used to mitigate the problems. Kinorb's cities, the people in them, and the people around them are going to die well before anyone can do anything.
Third, the regions that do survive the systemic collapse will be those far enough away from the cities as to not recieve large numbers of refugees and those with some sort of food production ability no matter how small. Among other regions, islands are a good bet for surviving communities. Areas that can engage in hunting or fishing are good bets too. Just how many of these regions exist is up to you.
Fourth, any would be rescuers better be ready to turn a blind eye towards situational cannibalism as that is going to be the primary food source for over a month in some regions.
Finally, your analogy with the US rescuing retirees from a catastrophic Ireland is faulty on so many levels as to be worthless. The US and Ireland are not part of the same nation, a great deal of assistance is closer to Ireland than the US, and the US would be watching such a catastrophe in real time while those on Efate would know that the majority of Kinorb's inhabitants are already dead by the time the news reaches them.
Good luck with this one, Hans. It's far too grim for my tastes though.
Regards,
Bill
1 - I loathe Stirling as an author with a white hot passion and haven't read the book in question. I have read discussions on the effects of the Event, especially with concern to the die back, and generally agree with most of the his premises.
Yes, indeed. What the Chinese would call 'an interesting time'.
I've read the book and it is one of my inspirations. OTOH, the parallel is not absolute. Except for the one city, population is not nearly as concentrated. We have around 7 million people distributed around roughly a hemisphere (only one side of Kinorb is populated).
Well, there's one variable that might be twiddled with. How much food is there in the cities? Is there any way to introduce a custom of storing a large amount of food in the cities? I have one idea that might work, but I'd like to hear what other people think before I mention it.
Oh yes. I quite agree.
Are you suggesting that the problem will reduce itself to a level where the local resources are adequate to restore order long before anyone from outside the system will arrive?
As I said, this is 4 million people distributed around half a world. There's room enough. How it has been utilized is the question.
Just as MM prefers that Traveller adventures do not include prostitutes, rape, and abortions, I'm sure TPTB would prefer that aspect of the situation remain under the radar. Just as I would if I was running or playing it. This is roleplaying -- realism is a tool to make the experience more enjoyable, not less.
The only analogy I was going for was the political reaction of the American community if 300,000 Americans were involved in a disaster and the American governement decided it wasn't their problem.
Most disaster scenarios are grim if you examine them in too great detail. Hasn't stopped quite a few After the Holocaust games from being produced. GURPS:Horseclans, GURPS:Y2K, Morrow Project, etc.
However, if you've any suggestions for rendering this one less grim, please don't hesitate to speak up.
I haven't read any of Stirling's early books, as what I've heard about them made me think I wouldn't like them. But I've read his time displacement books his Dies the Fire books and the Pechawa Lancers. I think you' like them. Though I'm a little annoyed with the mysticism that has crept into his second DtF trilogy.
Hans
Hans,
I thought it looked familiar.
There could be a religious angle for your food storage needs. A religious sect in the US, the Mormons, are each supposed to keep a certain amount of food on hand at all times. Of course, Kinorbians who are known to do the same will become targets...
I also don't think it's a matter of how much food is stored in cities as much as it will be a matter of the inability to share or ration that food out before people begin taking matters in the own hands. The corner shop when looted will only feed so many people, the supermarket a little more, and the warehouses more still, but how are you going to distribute it with nearly all your transportation down?
And how much of the food will be spoiled or inaccessible with the systems collapse? Will Kinorb even store or process foods as we do today? Kinorb may be TL8, but that doesn't mean it's our TL8. Kinorb member of a hi-tech Imperium in the 57th Century and there could be quite a bit of TL15 "retro-tech" about just as we've discussed how your "wind, water, and muscles" TL1 world can have still havesemaphore/heliograph telegraphs, railroads, and the like.
Sadly, yes.
The regions that cannot sustain themselves will collapse to point where they can sustain themselves. With the planetary transport net down and little transport in private hands, the capital city and the regions around are dead. Everyone is going to die by starvation, violence, or some mixture of the two well before the Fleet jumps in.
Also, because the capital's "starvation contagion" can only spread by foot, the rest of the planet's regions should be spared the worst effects IF they are have enough food, either stored or scavenged, and IF their population densities aren't too high. Smaller cities may be very well becomes "starvation bombs" too.
I'm cannot agree with that position more strongly.
We'd send aid and relief workers, we always send aid and relief workers. Hell, during the last catastrophe in Burma/Myanmar/Whatever we were seriously considering using the military to forcibly send aid and relief workers. I just don't think it evacuating 300K retirees would be high on anyone's list.
The capital city is dead, I can't see any plausible help there.
Having someone in the government or military very quickly proclaim martial law and then deploy troops, call up militia, deputize citizens to strongly enforce food stockpiling and rationing upon pain of death until help can arrive would be a good start. Is there a National Guard or some similar organization? How about prior service clubs like the American Legion? Or even fraternal organizations like the Masons? If they exist, you should get them all involved somehow.
You mentioned a SDB wing I believe. I don't know how the systems failed, but landing a SDB and plugging it into the power net could help if the net can still be used. The USN did that with a SSN in Hawaii not too long ago after a storm knocked out an undersea power transmission cable. Using them as transports can't hurt either. Turning the SDB wing's tech loose on the crashed systems wouldn't hurt either.
I finished the loathsome Draka series on inertia mostly, had to see the end of the train wreck I suppose. Put down the second Nantucket book halfway through and haven't had the urge to pick it back up. Peshawar was okay, not good, just okay. I've avoided the Dies the Fire stuff because I know I'll hate myself for reading it.
Regards,
Bill
Depending on the lawfulness of the citizens, looting might start as soon as the power goes out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_york_blackout
You're definitely looking at a Y2K scenario. Food production would be down immediately, and grocery stores don't hold on to much perishables. But the problem is when people start getting thirsty (not sure if your water supply gets cut off, too - some pressurized systems don't) or can't call for help in an emergency - this is a BIG problem once certain opportunistic people realize that no one can call the police on them. I figured with Y2K that food procurement gangs would form in less than 3 days. Vigilanties or protection gangs would start to form right away and get larger as time went on. I don't think any of that happened after Hurricane Katrina, but that was a natural disaster. If the weather is bad, looting will be less. Uncontrollable fires would be started especially if it's cold. Once word gets around that the power isn't coming back on, some people will try to leave. Matial law would have to be declared by the authorities. The starport would most likely be overrun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_york_blackout
You're definitely looking at a Y2K scenario. Food production would be down immediately, and grocery stores don't hold on to much perishables. But the problem is when people start getting thirsty (not sure if your water supply gets cut off, too - some pressurized systems don't) or can't call for help in an emergency - this is a BIG problem once certain opportunistic people realize that no one can call the police on them. I figured with Y2K that food procurement gangs would form in less than 3 days. Vigilanties or protection gangs would start to form right away and get larger as time went on. I don't think any of that happened after Hurricane Katrina, but that was a natural disaster. If the weather is bad, looting will be less. Uncontrollable fires would be started especially if it's cold. Once word gets around that the power isn't coming back on, some people will try to leave. Matial law would have to be declared by the authorities. The starport would most likely be overrun.
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