Thread: Flat Black
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Old 09-15-2013, 08:46 AM   #86
Agemegos
 
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
Default Re: Flat Black

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Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha View Post
The O6 or the ship's mind determines what the ship will be doing and where it'll be going, but the normal day to day running of any ship, and the running of any department is actually done by a Petty Officer.
This "department" would consist of robots, autonomic machinery, and highly-skilled technical specialists. Nearly all routine tasks are done by automatics and robots directed by the autonomic processes of the ship's brain, that administrative routine is handled by AIs running on redundant distributed 'frames. It's tech level ten.

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Commissioned officers are basically backroom managers, NCOs are hands on floor managers.
Managing what? Routine administration is performed by AI processes running on the ship's brain.

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If you want a professional expert, a doctor, engineer, researcher, aboard who isn't a line officer, having them be Warrants is a nice option.
It's an option that every navy on Earth except the USN and USCG manages without. Making them officers but not in the warfare (unrestricted line) specialisation works fine.

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Mind this is a matter of taste, and I'm not trying to push you to change your setting, just offering another point of view.
Okay. I've heard it, I understand it, I've decided against it for both in-setting and thematic reasons.

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In the RCN series, as an example, Warrant Adele Mundy is an information expert, one of the best in her field and a scion of a leading family, but she's no line officer.
Granted the tech in the RCN series is truly weird and they have a ton of uneducated men to lead, but leading men and being a field expert are very different things.
FLAT BLACK is very different from that. There is no good employment for uneducated men in my Imperial Navy. There aren't large crews that need to be led. Rather, the robotics and level of automation are two whole tech levels ahead of a Mars rover or a Predator drone. Automatics aim and focus the lasers; robots top up the coolant. AIs running on frames deal with reporting and record-keeping and keeping track of stores. Robots take inventory.
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Last edited by Agemegos; 09-15-2013 at 09:29 AM.
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