Page 211: Grand Theft Umiak Cruiser

[inxsi]

“I have already chosen my side. Give me a weapon, and I will fight for you.”

This would be my response to the people who saved my life, from the perspective of a military veteran.

His role is Diplomat. Any choice he makes he may well be making for his entire species!

And of course, he doesn't know he has been "saved" yet.

I think that even if the Umiak discovered that Alex assisted in the boarding action here, they would be willing to overlook it if another human ship makes contact with the Umiak and comes to terms for an alliance. He might end up disavowed by the TCA and (in the unlikely event the Umiak ask) turned over for justice, but the TCA seems to be to be pragmatic enough to do so (and in a sense, this is a possibility that Alex agreed to on this mission).

Also, depending on how you count it, half of that saving was from Stillstorm (and Fireblade who was working on Stillstorm's orders). I wouldn't say the Loroi have welcomed him with open arms. I'm interested in seeing to what level he ends up committing and why as the story progresses.

[Curlysan]

“I have already chosen my side. Give me a weapon, and I will fight for you.”

This would be my response to the people who saved my life, from the perspective of a military veteran.

But Alexander is not a veteran, he is fresh out of the academy.
I also doubt that he is good with handheld weapons or that he knows how to operate a Loroi weapon properly.

Alex's basic training should have included small arms familiarity. That said, you're right in that he's no combat veteran and may soil himself or be excessively rash, who knows. With limited knowledge of how to treat wounded humans & the short supply of digestible food; his ability to recover from even relatively minor wounds is suspect in the long run. His value to the Loroi is more of an Intel asset. They are treating him accordingly. He may not like that, but it's a realistic look at his situation/value.

[Demetrious]

Nope, it's a Type-KT cruiser, those have around 300 bugs on board.

This alone means Alex could play a significant role without ever touching a weapon, because the deciding factor in their success isn't going to be direct combat per-se, but in managing to access the right control interfaces to do something like force-venting the ship (or doing it the "hard way.") Of course, just getting that far will give Fireblade et al more than enough bugs to handle.

Given the perilous odds, even if all Alex manages to do is keep himself alive that'd count as an impressive achievement, because as his minder has said they definitely can't spare anyone to protect him.

Also, everyone talking about the bugs being sluggish in 1G should remember that they're quite nimble in their native low-g environment and the characters are currently onboard an enemy warship, who's artificial grav is set to their sub-1G optimal (as Alex himself noticed.)

1. The Loroi weapons don't have familiar features like trigger guards or iron sights because they are meant to look futuristic and alien. We suppose that an ultra tech weapon has more advanced features. Iron sights are not the only type of sight.
2. Gun sights weren't a feature of regular military firearms until the late nineteenth century. Surely we are not to assume that nobody hit anything during the first 500 years of their use?

Interesting note here - personal weapons often lag behind the cutting edge of tech by 100 years or more, due to the extreme reliability demanded of them. There's currently some contention among Firearm People as to whether red dot sights are reliable and rugged enough to justify the total omission of a back-up iron sight (on both rifles and pistols.) Firearms, and especially sidearms are the last thin line between life and death, and life is priceless. Thus the issue is always in constant tension between "most rugged, proven and bulletproof option available" and "when fighting for your life, even the slimmest advantage is worth having."

Fortunately, a TL-11 civilization zooming around with antimatter drives still has a wide-open field even under that standard, making this entirely a matter of artistic license. You'd be very hard pressed to come up with something unjustifiable in your setting as presented. Personally, I think a wee holographically projected sight that is only visible in a cone behind the gun (i.e. to the user) would be highly practical and also look pretty cool.

Y'know, if it should happen to come up.

[Cthulhu]

Alex's basic training should have included small arms familiarity. That said, you're right in that he's no combat veteran and may soil himself or be excessively rash, who knows. With limited knowledge of how to treat wounded humans & the short supply of digestible food; his ability to recover from even relatively minor wounds is suspect in the long run. His value to the Loroi is more of an Intel asset. They are treating him accordingly. He may not like that, but it's a realistic look at his situation/value.

Basic training with small arms may consist of "point this end towards the enemy and press this button". After all, the chances of getting into a firefight aboard a scout ship are almost zero. But even if he had some training with human laser pistols, he does not know how to operate a Loroi blaster or where to shoot an Umiak, especially a hardtrooper.

This alone means Alex could play a significant role without ever touching a weapon, because the deciding factor in their success isn't going to be direct combat per-se, but in managing to access the right control interfaces to do something like force-venting the ship (or doing it the "hard way.") Of course, just getting that far will give Fireblade et al more than enough bugs to handle.

Given the perilous odds, even if all Alex manages to do is keep himself alive that'd count as an impressive achievement, because as his minder has said they definitely can't spare anyone to protect him.

Well, we have no idea what Tempo's plan is or how they can get rid of all the bugs in one sweep. However, I think that this may be the chance for Alex to shine, or at least save someone.

[DevilDalek]

I was under the impression the scout Corp were the best of the best, and that would have entailed some level of military training higher than point and shoot.
And since they were deliberately going in to a situation involving two hostile powers in all out war, they would have made use of as much of the Orgus intel as possible to stress test Alex and crew against it.

*watches Alex sneak into engineering and dial up the gravity compensators *

[gaerzi]

I was under the impression the scout Corp were the best of the best, and that would have entailed some level of military training higher than point and shoot.

They're scouts, not special commandos.

The thing is that they have a common training base (there's just one space cadet academy) and then depending on their grades, they're oriented towards either the scout corp of the fleet. Alex's grades destined him to the fleet but he got to join the scouts anyway. As for training, fleet members do spend a lot of time in simulators, while scouts apparently... not as much. Scout ships are lightly armed, after all.

[QuakeIV]

Regarding the whole gun sights thing, I remember there being some playing around with projecting the point of aim onto someones vision (allowing them to for instance, reasonably accurately fire from the hip) and this producing really promising results. Could be doing something like that.

[Cthulhu]

I was under the impression the scout Corp were the best of the best, and that would have entailed some level of military training higher than point and shoot.
And since they were deliberately going in to a situation involving two hostile powers in all out war, they would have made use of as much of the Orgus intel as possible to stress test Alex and crew against it.

They are indeed the best explorers, but not one-man armies. Their usual tasks consist of exploration, mapping and occasionally, search and rescue. Neither of those require shooting. Even the new mission would not include boarding scenarios, since a Scout will be utterly outclassed and outnumbered. If a first contact failed, they'd rather self-destruct, then be captured.

*watches Alex sneak into engineering and dial up the gravity compensators *

Vegeta, NO!

The thing is that they have a common training base (there's just one space cadet academy) and then depending on their grades, they're oriented towards either the scout corp of the fleet. Alex's grades destined him to the fleet but he got to join the scouts anyway. As for training, fleet members do spend a lot of time in simulators, while scouts apparently... not as much. Scout ships are lightly armed, after all.

I'd guess that the fleet members would indeed receive some additional training regarding firearm usage, since most of the ships are used as patrol and police craft. They may need to apprehend smugglers, for example, and those tend to shoot first.
The basic course from the academy is not good enough to turn Alex into a commando.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Assuming the Loroi are able to take control of the ship, there's still the problem of what to do with it. I imagine if one little Umiak ship starts going off on its own and stops responding to communications immediately after interacting with a Loroi shuttle, they'll still be in a tight spot. Especially since they don't have a sizeable crew to run the thing.

Rather than being a gun-slinging action hero, Alex might be more suited to help with this problem.

[Zorg56]

They can just follow orders, until they no longer need to, like when umiak attack loroi lines, they can just change course and wait, umiak wont have spare guns to destroy them and loroi wont be able to do that either.
The problem can appear, when there will be resupply order for torpedoes that they fired at station not long ago.

[Cthulhu]

Well, I think that realistically, their best chance would be to stow away on the ship and wait for an opportunity to flee. In order to capture the cruiser, they need to disable or kill all of its crew at once, or at least before the bugs can raise an alarm. No matter how powerful Fireblade or Tempo are, they can't do that. I doubt that there's a "flush crew" button somewhere, and tricks like venting the atmosphere or increasing the gravity won't work on hardtroopers.

However, since we need our protagonists, the "Fearsome Foursome" to triumph (or at least survive), they are going to do something truly extraordinary. Which will most likely fail, thus giving Alex the chance to save the day.

[jan]

hello I think the key thing for Alex to do is enable wireless communication on his pad by that the Historien can take controll over the ship maybe even send some of his commrads to the hole division. sorry for my bad English

[Overkill Engine]

hello I think the key thing for Alex to do is enable wireless communication on his pad by that the Historien can take controll over the ship maybe even send some of his commrads to the hole division. sorry for my bad English

Granted, that would come with its own set of complications. It's supposed to be a secret that he has been talking to the Pocket Historian.

[Demetrious]

hello I think the key thing for Alex to do is enable wireless communication on his pad by that the Historien can take controll over the ship maybe even send some of his commrads to the hole division. sorry for my bad English

... oh, my. Yes. That would be quite clever, wouldn't it? Given all we know of the Historians, their construct would likely be equal to the task of taking over the ship's primary computer; esp. given access from an interior terminal (which one would presume to be less firewalled than any external datalink for obvious reasons.)

As for explaining "his" presence, he could easily make up some story about the Umiak having neglected to stuff the Historian construct "jar" into a faraday cage before taking the shuttle into the ship's bay, and/or underestimated the range of its wireless transmit/receive capabilities. Given how closely the Historians guard information about themselves, I doubt the Loroi know much more about their formidable ELINT/EWAR capabilities than the Umiak do, aside from knowing they must be far superior given their demonstrated levels of technology. The Historian construct inserted a copy of itself onto Alex's datapad despite the databad's wi-fi switch being set to "off" and the pad itself being powered down, which is a direct demonstration of that formidable potential. It might not be too hard to concoct a story the Loroi would find plausible; esp. by the Historian himself, who will have had more time than Alex to contemplate this problem.

[QuakeIV]

Regarding people noticing the bug ship wandering off, there are pretty good odds that its a lone ship right now with nobody else nearby. If they are investigating various debris and wrecks then they probably spread out various minor ships so they could get the job done in a reasonable time frame.

[icekatze]

hi hi

I don't know what the Umiak chain of command is like, even though I suspect it is highly structured. But regardless, there's a big difference between being dispatched and wandering without orders. Also, if they want to get out of the system, they'll need to make a run at a jump point, which anyone will be able to notice.

[inxsi]

Even if the Pocket Historian can take over the computer (maybe they need to use the main projector for the Historian construct instead if it is telling the truth about the limitation of the version on Alex's pad), is the Umiak ship that heavily automated from a central location given the need to have such a large crew? And they would still need to deal with the Umiak on board to prevent them from sabotaging the ship.

[GeoModder]

hi hi

I don't know what the Umiak chain of command is like, even though I suspect it is highly structured. But regardless, there's a big difference between being dispatched and wandering without orders. Also, if they want to get out of the system, they'll need to make a run at a jump point, which anyone will be able to notice.

Well, they are at the onset of a jump zone...
Another possibility is NOT to jump when the division jumps to another star. At least, if there are no bivouac units staying behind.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Well, they are at the onset of a jump zone...
Another possibility is NOT to jump when the division jumps to another star. At least, if there are no bivouac units staying behind.

Granted, I'm not sure how big a jump zone is, but the shuttle was moving at a racing pace right before getting disabled, and they've been drifting for some hours since. I would expect them to be a little ways outside the jump lane by now.

Forming up and not jumping with the unit might indeed be a sly move, though it probably depends on how many ships are left behind to camp the system.

Maybe they just need to play keep-away along side the Barsam courier until Stillstorm and her strike group return, though that's a gamble on their fuel reserves holding out.

[ESP]

I think that this may be the chance for Alex to shine...

Next page: Alex moving mini-figs around a schematic of the Umiak cruiser.

On the subject of escaping with the cruiser: Arioch has stated that even Terran weapons are effective at close enough range. If the cruiser is in formation with (i.e. close to) the ships best positioned to intercept it, then perhaps it can blast its way to safety. Granted this will be quite a feat without a proper crew. (Edit: after reviewing the number of ships in a division and the number of guns on a cruiser, I am less optimistic about this option. I really need to work on my sense of scale.)

Incidentally, it's likely that the secret to the Umiak Lotai is found somewhere on the cruiser. If our heroes capture the cruiser, they solve the mystery.