Why Scouts are the best.

[Liam Devlin]

Maspy wrote..""And no back up when you ...."

Arrrr, so ye admit that scouts need back up.
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An it IS nice to have friends in strange places betimes when yer backs against th' proverbial wall (or Reft as th' case maybe), Mr Flynn/Maspy. A (wo)man is judged in life by the number O friends he/she has at his/her funeral, not th' material possessions. Ssame by the number of & caliber of his enemies.

"A man without enemies, is no one."-Ancient proverb of Terra.
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"Belters are the true rough and tough loners of travelled space(and untravelled)... So, me and my fresher may have indepth discussions about life and those soft fluffy things (I think you call them women), but what others don't know won't hurt them. Wait I shouldn't have said that. Did you hear something??? Milkshake!"
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Ever read "Heavy Time" by CJ Cherryh, lad? Good Belter's novel there. Even the women in it are as hard as the rocks they mine. (ahh but what gems they be!)

"Scouts Out Front!"

You can be out front! I don't want people following me!
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Tis a command of my mundane soldier hood, lad. Scouts do you no good "in the rear with the gear".
And its not paranoia if they REALLY are out to get you (or your claim).

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"If ya cant pee in the tall grass, don't run wit da big dogs!"
-Gabriel "Hard Luck" Fynn to the fresh corpses of claim jumpers ???/???/Reavers Deep .
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Nice place the Deep...reminds me of Pre Frederick the Great Germany in space--balkanized out the wazoo, er fresher! Been there, done that. Sold the T-shirt and holo rights to TJ.

 

[TheColonel]

In my campaigns IISS was known as "The Lucky or the Dead". Sure they have the rep of being the Jack-of-All-Trades but will always be considered an also ran in prestige.

 

[cgriffen]

Scouts are usually interesting characters, but often come out of the character generation process as jacks of all trades, but masters of none.

If you want a character who can fight and have some modicum of space skills, the marines are the way to go.

My favorite character type? Marine corps flight school graduates. Best of both worlds. Basic training from the corps and navy space training.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Chris Griffen posted: "Scouts are usually interesting characters, but often come out of the character generation process as jacks of all trades, but masters of none.

If you want a character who can fight and have some modicum of space skills, the marines are the way to go.

My favorite character type? Marine corps flight school graduates. Best of both worlds. Basic training from the corps and navy space training.'
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AYe, Scouts do get the run of many skills, but seldom "stacked" very deep. SInce being a Scout is somewhere between being an explorer/Hunter Trapper/Mountain man type of person with a circuit judge/ US Marshal of space tossed in, as well as Cavalry Scout (Sorry for the Western Movie genre theme, but there they are) being J's O all Trades suits em.
If yer packin the punch though, I have to concur with Starpilot here--Navy Training Flt School/ and small arms/ ground tactics Marine Flyers are a good safe bet.
I've used a few as decent NPCs (even in my RC TNE campaigns 1-3), the person you turn to when that lander has to get there on the dime, drop off and make change. (And maybe whup Arse a bit id the locals are nasty minded!)

 

[cgriffen]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
If yer packin the punch though, I have to concur with Starpilot here--Navy Training Flt School/ and small arms/ ground tactics Marine Flyers are a good safe bet.

I used one as an NPC, too, in my merc campaign a few years ago. The PCs were primarily ground pounders, but one of their employees was a marine flight school grad named Francis Pizarro. Pizarro was a bad-ass pilot but had the weaponry skills to help provide cover fire when they were dusting off after a ticket.

Great character and much beloved by the PCs for the number of scrapes his ample piloting skills got them out of. It's not easy to maneuver the big, unseemly Christmas ornament that is the Broadsword mercenary cruiser.

 

[Liam Devlin]

The one in my campaign's name is Donise Donyaati, female NPC. Has trouble with male authority figures who think a gal marine in a Navy outfit is best served with her skirt over her head or under the desk.(busted back from Lt to Ltjg twice for assaulting a superior officer--charges were dropped, but the rank was removed--she laid em both up in the infirmary for 3-4 months each), once more for crashlanding during training exercise (captured enemy command post, ruined the lander!). Code named "Iron Maiden" (for the music she plays, not some butch stereotype.
A Balduri who doesn't act like she's from there...more like an Oriflamman (hot tempered, Mouth any sailor would blush at (language that is), and takes whom she wants (male or female wise). Being from a Heavy world, she's stronger than she looks. Got moved from FTRs CAS missions to landers her last time out in the Wilds. Three landers went down, hers came back, and went back for the crews of the other two.
That lander barely made into orbit the last trip up. Nobody complains about the music piped through the comms anymore...

 

[themink]

I suppose scouts are OK if you don;t mind deing mediocre.

Calling them a "Jack of all Trades" is an equivocation. What you actually mean is "Can't do anything properly".

Let's face it, if they were decent with ships, they'd be Naval. If they were warriors they'd be Marines. The only thing they are any good at is driving making sure star charts are accurate. It's an important job, but nothing to get medals for.

I've heard all the stories about intrepid scouts deep behind enemy lines - They all take place a long way from an unbiased witness. The stories get taller the further away they get.

Scouts out front - So we can keep an eye on them

PS - Just trying to inject a little vigor into the discussion

 

[Rodina]

IMTU, as I've noted before, the Imperial Navy is a much more autonomous entity - it has political goals and aspirations of its own - and the Emperor has to play ball with them to get what he wants (IMTU, note, the collapse of the Rebellion would have been virtually impossible as the Fleets would have refused the Emperor's orders to abandon the frontier... but that's MTU); the Scouts, however, are far more loyal to the civilian government or, rather, more willing to take orders, act with real initiative and at the expense of their own careers.

Indeed, given the very flat org chart of the Scouts its not unusual IMTU to have a commander of an entire Scout base get busted down for making a mistake (usually in the interest of the government) and find him flying X-Boats or Scout/Couriers. Sort of like radio disc jockeys today, its kind of a matter of pride for operational scouts to have been fired for doing their job, and the operational scouts are such a broad community that you can always find your home in any scout hangout...

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by The Mink:
I suppose scouts are OK if you don;t mind deing mediocre.

Calling them a "Jack of all Trades" is an equivocation. What you actually mean is "Can't do anything properly".

Let's face it, if they were decent with ships, they'd be Naval. If they were warriors they'd be Marines. The only thing they are any good at is driving making sure star charts are accurate. It's an important job, but nothing to get medals for.

I've heard all the stories about intrepid scouts deep behind enemy lines - They all take place a long way from an unbiased witness. The stories get taller the further away they get.

Scouts out front - So we can keep an eye on them

PS - Just trying to inject a little vigor into the discussion

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(WEG)

Mediocre? Not good at anything properly?
My o my what a hornets nest/ can of worms you've Chosen "MinK"!
I suppose in deference to the wild-Wild west days of CT, and current image of shows like 'Firefly', one could take the JOT viewpoint towards Scouts.

Sounds like you have the makings for a good Starport brawl there!

More so than a Marine vs Navy Barfight. ( i hearken back to the traditional hurling of bar peanuts ("Missiles!) and ash trays ("Sandcasters!"), and then it was on.
Is it vigor, or vinegar your injecting? I'll check with Scout "Doc O'Malley on that one.
His question: Orally taken, or intravenous?

 

[trader jim]

be known that trader jim buys good solid info...
he also recrutes any belter down on his luck...
one leg or two....no matter.....
one arm or two....no matter.....
wanted by police..no matter.....

also will talk with scouts......
same deal..with conditions......

 

[Liam Devlin]

From the men in black.."the Admiral's Men,"
TJ..
LISAGB said--
"Merchants...money grubbing charlatons. Greedy and unscrupulous.

So there to>"

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Nuff said, merchie-gone crook!

 

[shield]

and who do you think pays for all those navy ships, marine fighters and way out scout mission.

Yes - those nasty money grabbing merchants. PS, scouts who do you think buys your maps and builds the colonies?

Cheers
Richard

 

[Liam Devlin]

Thanks for the ego deflation, RichardP, I've been overdue for one!

 

[trader jim]

careful Liam...im REAL close now...i just stole your watch and wallet.....geeezzzzz is $4.94 all you were carrying???....geeezzzz....a cheap LED
timex,that glows blue in the dark....geeezzzz...
all those charged up worthless crdeit cards.....
i got your grav car keys also.....geeezeeee.....
what a piece of junk!!!!...no one even wanted to by it!!!!......here, you can have everything back.....it all junk or worthless....ill drop it off at Starport - Lost and Found - are times getting more tough for you Admiral?????

 

[Liam Devlin]

 

[savage]

I've bailed out many a scout. I specifically recall one guy whom didn't require my assistance. Learned everything he could was captured by our enemies, provided tons of information which he thought was correct..."GhuZidts in their new spy ship and it can go an anywhere". Finally the enemy let him go because he was so helpful and spilled all of his incorrect guts. Should I be thankful or bothered that he couldn't even give us intel about his captors.

I thought the everyday guy payed his taxes, bought products that resulted in fleets, bases, and colonies. Aren't Merchants the ones that find a way of balancing profits and losses for 0 taxes.

If ya want something done. Use MI!

Savage

 

[themink]

I must admit that I forced Merchants to pay local tax whenever they did a transaction at a starport. This tax varied between nothing and exhorbitant depending upon the local givernments attitude towards trade.

But local governments don't contribute much to the imperial coffers.

For that I had an annual fee paid by any cargo vessel by the owner of record. This was exactly what the annual maintainance would have been and gave them an updated IFF beacon.

Ships which were overdue for tax either :-
i) Didn;t go near naval vessels
ii) Tried to rewire/rewrite their beacon so it could give correct details (risky)
iii) run away a lot.

Many ships which defaulted on tax were reclaimed by the imperium and auctioned off. As long as the tax was covered, the imperial officer doing the auction didn;t really care (pay tax, 10% to imperium, the rest went to the defaulting merchant). This led to lots of really battered ships in circulation and meant that you could pick up an old trader for 10% of it's book value (but still had to pay tax based on it's book value).

It's funny how the overheads work so much better if the ships cost 10%.

Note Scout ships didn't have to pay this tax IMTU

 

[savage]

Mink,
Sounds great. A tax system, struggling merchants and all that's good stuff.
Did you have government tax collectors?
Did you have worlds with different year lengths?

All good stuff.

Savage

 

[trader jim]

How many Scouts get the "perfect ship" how many Scouts Find the "perefct World" how many Scouts find the "perefect wife/wives" how many scouts find the "perfect Everything"......How many Scouts just Steal the whole damn thing....and just DESERT????......

 

[Capt. Blacklight]

Originally posted by trader jim:
How many Scouts get the "perfect ship" how many Scouts Find the "perefct World" how many Scouts find the "perefect wife/wives" how many scouts find the "perfect Everything"......How many Scouts just Steal the whole damn thing....and just DESERT????......

That's what the Navy if for... chasing down wayward scouts.

And if the Scouts are Sooooo perfect... Nah, I don't think they are worth the time to insult them.