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Who is in command on a scout vessel?

Norris researches Scout command structure

Norris: Please, please good Scouts. I am in haste. Who commands your ship?
Scout#1: No one commands our ship.
Norris: Then who is your leader?
Scout#1: We don't have a leader.
Norris: What?
Scout#2: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take
it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.
Norris: Yes.
Scout#2: But all the decision of that officer have to be ratified
at a special biweekly meeting.
Norris: Yes, I see.
Scout#2: By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,--
Norris: Be quiet!
Scout#2: --but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more--
Norris: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
Scout#1: Order, eh -- who does he think he is?
Norris: I am your Arch-Duke!
Scout#1: Well, I didn't vote for you.
Norris: You don't vote for Arch-Dukes.
Scout#1: Well, 'ow did you become Arch-Duke then?
Norris: Using the power of an Emperial Warrant,
that granted me full executive power in the face of the Zhodani Invasion, I, Norris, declared myself to be Arch-Duke.
That is why I am your Arch-Duke!
Scout#2: Listen -- self appointment based on the misuse of emergency authority is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power
derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical
documentation forgery.
Norris: Be quiet!
Scout#2: Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power
just 'cause some distant authority figure threw a piece of paper to you!
Norris: Shut up!
Scout#2: I mean, if I went around sayin' I was the Empereror just
because some unknown person in a distant land sent me a letter they'd
put me away!
Norris: Actually, there is a lot of that sort of thing going on these days.
 
This reminds me of an old D&D joke (80s vintage)... Someone asked the CN character what his alingnment was. "Guess!" he yelled.
 
Jame said:
The only reason I am scared is 'cause of the chirpers...
Click to expand...
No canonical evidence for the presence of Chirpers on Regina, though. That doesn't mean there aren't any, of course, but there is evidence that if there are, they constitute less than 1% of the population. Which could still amount to seven million of them.

I've worked on the history of Regina for many years and never even considered the possibility of a Chirper population. As one of Yaskoydray's 'outlets', it's quite possible that there are some (or were when the first settlers arrived in 75).

I just made a few die rolls and the result was that there are 30,000 Chirpers on Regina. Probably a single small reservation in the outback -- the Miimanru Reservation on Ishimir. (All this is profoundly non-canonical, of course).


Hans
 
Rancke2 said:
I just made a few die rolls and the result was that there are 30,000 Chirpers on Regina. Probably a single small reservation in the outback -- the Miimanru Reservation on Ishimir. (All this is profoundly non-canonical, of course).


Hans
Click to expand...

Bump that up to 350,000 and submit it to Marc. It could become canon... :devil:
 
Hmm, to me the answer for who commands is it depends.


Regular assigned operations like courier/comms, assigned pilot and any crew.


Other situations, I think they assign 'best person available' to mission command.


The whole no-rank and JoaT thing just screams get the job done in a not pretty adhoc way. That says 'whoever is lying around the scout base and knows the planet/can talk their way through/damn good surveyor/well he'll do' mission team come together ALL the TIME.


Trains are not 'commanded' by their pilot locomotive engineer, but by the conductor. Since scouts practically by definition are pilots, it would be something else to decide on, and scouts don't strike me as an organization that functions that much on seniority.
 
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It pretty much depends on who's onboard, what the mission is, and current circumstances.

In theory, seniority and capability would indicate who the team leader is, or at least the specified mission leader would consult that individual.

The commander of the vessel is responsible for it and the safety of those onboard, and can take control at any point if he feels that the safety of the vessel and/or it's crew is jeopardized, subject to a later review board.
 
Like others have mentioned, higher command would designate the chain of command. A scout ship crew is so small, it would be simple to create a chain of command.

Its like asking whos in charge of an airplane.

So imo, its probably the person the higher authority chooses for that command position, theyll put him in the senior pilot spot, and he is responsible for the ship. Then higher command designates crew positions per mission and ship requirements, then fills those positions. Higher will establish the chain of command then, based on the service tecords of the crew members.

There arent ranks but there are positions. Commander or captain or skipper or person in charge is a position. Higher will select someone with the qualifications for that position, technical, administrative, and psychological. Imo the most sensible is an experienced pilot like in an airplane. Check crew structure on a b-17 or a b-52 bomber.
 
That is one thing that always bugged me about the Scout career, the idea that there was no rank system, and in theory, every Scout was as good as the next. Quite simply, that does not work in real life, especially when a ship is involved. It anything goes wrong, someone is going to be held responsible, and if no one is technically in command of a Scout-manned ship, then everyone is going to stand courtmariial nd everyone is either going to be equally guilty, or they all get off. Getting off is not going to work. The fact that all Scouts are immediately given the Pilot skill just adds to the confusion.

I pretty much chucked that whole system and worked up my own rank system, independent of Book 6.
 
timerover51 said:
That is one thing that always bugged me about the Scout career, the idea that there was no rank system, and in theory, every Scout was as good as the next. Quite simply, that does not work in real life, especially when a ship is involved. It anything goes wrong, someone is going to be held responsible, and if no one is technically in command of a Scout-manned ship, then everyone is going to stand courtmariial nd everyone is either going to be equally guilty, or they all get off. Getting off is not going to work. The fact that all Scouts are immediately given the Pilot skill just adds to the confusion.

I pretty much chucked that whole system and worked up my own rank system, independent of Book 6.
Click to expand...


Ahh but there IS a chain of command, the Bureaucracy back at base. Which I love to bits, the constant run-ins and mutual outfoxings between a band of get it done however and a more normal service just writes itself.



The ship has a mission commander. Mostly small ships so there aren't a lot of crew hierarchy to manage.



Kind of a troubleshooter/you are on the edge of a frontier/Lewis and Clark/expeditionary-mission/no one is going to rescue you thing.
 
The Bureaucrats probably view their job the equivalent of herding cats.

One of them might accompany a mission.

aliens2-badcall-640x345.jpg
 
timerover51 said:
That is one thing that always bugged me about the Scout career, the idea that there was no rank system, and in theory, every Scout was as good as the next. Quite simply, that does not work in real life, especially when a ship is involved. It anything goes wrong, someone is going to be held responsible, and if no one is technically in command of a Scout-manned ship, then everyone is going to stand courtmariial nd everyone is either going to be equally guilty, or they all get off. Getting off is not going to work. The fact that all Scouts are immediately given the Pilot skill just adds to the confusion.

I pretty much chucked that whole system and worked up my own rank system, independent of Book 6.
Click to expand...

it works like agile (which started with manufacturing and has gotten horribly twisted in software) so that the teams naturally form a hierarchy. There is a leader per mission but it has a lot less formality involved. So there is always a de facto captain but it may change depending on the specific mission. But it will be agreed on ahead of time. How strictly it is adhered to is a good question. And that kind of structure does not work for everyone, but does for self-motivated people who are good at what they do.

There is something called Belbin team roles that may apply to Scouts (used in management for teams and defines 9 types that need to be in a team for it to succeed; a person may have more than 1 role).
 
coliver988 said:
it works like agile (which started with manufacturing and has gotten horribly twisted in software) so that the teams naturally form a hierarchy. There is a leader per mission but it has a lot less formality involved. So there is always a de facto captain but it may change depending on the specific mission. But it will be agreed on ahead of time. How strictly it is adhered to is a good question. And that kind of structure does not work for everyone, but does for self-motivated people who are good at what they do.

There is something called Belbin team roles that may apply to Scouts (used in management for teams and defines 9 types that need to be in a team for it to succeed; a person may have more than 1 role).
Click to expand...

And when something goes wrong, whose head roles? Or does no one take responsibility? This is not developing software in a very safe environment. The Scout survival rate is not high.
 
This is probably something that never came up, since almost no canon ships of the IISS (Type S, XBoat, XBoat Tender, Donosev-class) have crews larger than 10 personnel. And the typical example is a PC-operated detached-duty Type S, which is going to default to whatever the players' group dynamics produces anyhow.

I have no idea how the IISS was supposed to operate a Lightning Class Cruiser (Luray Explorer, Vermilion Stance, etc.) using a nominally rank-less organizational structure, and suspect that the game writers didn't either.
 
Grav_Moped said:
This is probably something that never came up, since almost no canon ships of the IISS (Type S, XBoat, XBoat Tender, Donosev-class) have crews larger than 10 personnel. And the typical example is a PC-operated detached-duty Type S, which is going to default to whatever the players' group dynamics produces anyhow.

I have no idea how the IISS was supposed to operate a Lightning Class Cruiser (Luray Explorer, Vermilion Stance, etc.) using a nominally rank-less organizational structure, and suspect that the game writers didn't either.
Click to expand...
Yup, canon has the IISS operating five AHL class cruisers in 1105+ and historically we also know the IISS operated an unknown number of 40,000t cruisers in the 400s.
The rank structure of these ships would have to be more clearly defined - indeed the AotI chapter Coreward of the Imperium has the Agent talking to the ship's Captain.
 
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