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Emergency evacuation
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Kang
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Joined: 23 Sep 2007
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Location: Devon, UK

PostPosted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 5:50 pm    Post subject: Emergency evacuation Reply with quote

Can my ship evacuate crew to an enemy ship, in order to facilitate my ship's self-destruction? And, if so, does the enemy ship have to drop his shield to allow the transport, or is it optional for him to receive his 'guests'?

As a corollary to this, what are the allowed destinations for a ship's crew during emergency evacuation?
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Scoutdad
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Joined: 09 Oct 2006
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 6:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

while not specifically spelled out in (5E&), I'd think common sense would prohibit allowing your ships entire crew to emergency evac to an enemy ship.

and if it were to be done, the shield would have to be down. No down shield menas no transport occurs... meaning the ship did not perform emergency evac and does not self-destruct.

As for allowed destinations, I'd think it would be limited to Allied ships and bases, although a neutral ship or base might be allowable under certain, scenario specific rules.
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Davec_24
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Joined: 16 Jul 2008
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 7:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think that generally it would be common sense that you couldn't evacuate onto an enemy ship which was not willing to receive your evacuation, and you could definately not beam through a raised shield in any event. However, if for some reason the enemy lowered his shield and then agreed to the evacuating player beaming his crew on-board, I suppose you should be able to do it.

It seems unlikely that this would ever happen in game, as in most cases I'd have thought the enemy would sooner capture the abandoned ship and would therefore not facilitate the evacuation and resulting self destruction of the abandoned ship.
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mjwest
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Joined: 08 Oct 2006
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 7:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can do this to any willing ship or base. (I say "willing" because the recipient must lower his shields and cooperate with transporter activity even if the recipient doesn't spend the point of power.) "Willing" does not necessarily mean "allied", but this is how it will normally work out.

I can't see it happening very often (if ever), but if the result of holding the doomed ship's crew captive and having that ship self-destruct serves its purposes, there is no reason it cannot do so.

(The only thing I can think of is a three way battle when Enemy #1 will capture "our" ship, so Enemy #2 allows the crew to evacuate to deny Enemy #1 the capture.)

I suppose you could use a habitable planet (Earth or Vulcan is OK; the Moon is not) instead of a willing ship or base.
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Kang
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Joined: 23 Sep 2007
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Location: Devon, UK

PostPosted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 7:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm glad you made that comment, Mike, because in several CL stories, the Romulans [or whoever] suddenly find themselves with about 100 uninvited Federation guests [I've been reading the Day of the Eagle stories].

Dave and Tony, yeah, I know about the shields and stuff, I was just wondering how much SFB stuff came over into FC about emergency evacuations. Plus in the recent battle I had, a Fed Pol blew up very nicely, and there was an Orion ship nearby and just wondered if the crew could get there. Just for academic [and conscience Smile] purposes, of course; the rescue would not have affected the outcome of the battle.
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Davec_24
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 8:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Do pirates actually have a conscience anyway? I'd call it more academic than conscience-related. Wink
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Kang
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 8:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was only role-playing the pirate...... although apparently not very well.
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junior
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 6:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pirates will pick up survivors.

And then they'll collect a "finder's fee" from the respective government.

Note that pirates don't generally kidnap large groups of people to hold for ransom. But most governments have agreements with local pirates (particularly in wartime, and particularly pirates involved in mercenary work for said government) that allows for pirates to return rescued crewmen to the government for a small reward.

For instance, the LR Black Swan wrecks a Federation POL that tries to stop the Black Swan from making a high-speed getaway (Pirates don't usually duel government ships unless someone's paying them EXTREMELY well. Otherwise there's just no profit in it.). A number of crewmen evacuate and the Black Swan picks them up and puts them in the brig. They're deposited at the local crime lord's base. Two days later, the Plundered Hearts, which is performing some mercenary survey missions for the Federation (using Scout Sensors in its option slots), picks up the rescued crewmen and notifies their Federation contact that the Plundered Hearts has "rescued" some crewmen. Everyone knows what really happened, but the Federation is willing to overlook that in order to get their trained crewmen back. And all three pirates involved (the captains of the Black Swan and Plundered Hearts as well as the local crime lord on the base where the crewmen were interned who arranged to have the crewmen handed back to the Federation) make a little extra money for not doing a whole lot.

Civilian survivors, on the other hand, would probably be ignored unless the pirate knew that someone would be willing to pay for their rescue.
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Davec_24
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 8:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That is a good point about military survivors, being pirates I imagine they would take as much money for as little work as possible - they've done the work blowing the enemy ship up, why not make money from returning the crew? Do you think they would attempt to press civilian survivors like traditional ocean-going pirates? Maybe they would make an offer of employment, as it were - extra crew will always be useful to a pirate, since that's what gives the Orion so many boarding parties!
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junior
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 9:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pirates will accept military personnel into their ranks. It costs less to train them, for one thing. But they need to properly evaluate them first to make certain that the new crew member isn't likely to attempt to sabotage the mission.

And recruiting someone whose ship you just blew up probably isn't a good idea, since they're more likely to be revenge-minded than another military survivor.
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Davec_24
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 9:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's true, I don't think I would trust a crewman whose ship (and presumably friends) I had just annahilated. What about civilians though, say the captured a freighter and took most of the crew alive? Traditional Earth pirates would usually offer them a choice of joining the crew or being cast adrift/executed, depending on what the pirate captain felt like at the time of course. Wink
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junior
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why would the pirates need to do that? There's still a mostly-functional freighter.

The typical freighter hijack probably looks something like the following -

1.) Pirate finds a likely target on a route that's not likely to have a quick response from the military.
2.) Pirate ambushes the target, and if it's a convoy then singles out one or more target freighters.
3.) Pirate knocks down the shields on the target freighter(s) and sends over marines to take control (possibly tractoring the target(s) in the process).
4.) Captured freighters are taken to a pre-designated rendevous point where the pirate's crew can off-load the more valuable items from the freighter to the pirate raider.
5.) The captured crews are left with their ships, which can probably be repaired well enough to limp to a nearby base while the pirate ship speeds away.


Killing the crew just to kill the crew is generally pointless and, contrary to what The Princess Bride tells us, a surefire way to guarantee resistance by any individual with two brain cells. There may be plenty of violent, psychotic individuals in the pirate crews (I don't know), but you don't rise to the rank of captain by doing stupid things. And giving freighter crews an additional incentive to resist you counts as "stupid" in my book.

Go ahead and threaten to throw crewmen out the airlock if they don't cooperate. But don't give them additional reasons to resist you. And the freighter that they're already in is (usually) quite capable of keeping them alive long enough to limp to a base (or long enough for help to arrive if the engines are too badly damaged for the crew to repair).
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Kang
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pirates aside, in terms of the main topic, I'm not sure you'd want to be captured by certain races anyway.

If humans beamed to a Romulan, Klingon, Lyran, WYN or Gorn ship, or possibly ISC [I really don't know!], they'd be reasonably comfortable.

But if they beamed to a Tholian ship, they'd be toast. Literally. Or, alternatively, visit the Hydrans for a really freezing experience. You can't expect either of these races suddenly to adjust their environmental controls for an area of the ship a) at short notice and b) in the heat of battle. They'd have other things on their minds.

And then of course there's the Kzintis, where their environment would be bearable, but then they tend to invite their alien guests to their barbecues....
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Davec_24
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There must be some way for (willing) ships with different internal conditions (such as Hydrans and Tholians) to accept people from other ships during such evacuations. They'd probably have some place - maybe a quarantine suite or some such - in which they could reapidly isolate and adjust the environment.

I still wouldn't fancy beaming onto a Kzinti ship unless I was a Hydran, I think they respect them enough to lay off barbecueing them. Maybe you would be OK in a General War scenario as Fed, Gorn or Tholian - they still have a bit of political sense so they'd probably see that eating allies who their race really needs at that time isn't the best plan...
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junior
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 6:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Presumeably the Tholians and Hydrans have systems in place to allow them to adjust the environment to suit the newcomers. Both races know that at the very least they sometimes need to take prisoners, and "rescued" survivors from enemy ships can be useful intelligence resources. Klingon, Lyran, and Romulan ships probably take similar measures (though some Hydrans might prefer to go down with the ship instead of transporting to a Lyran vessel...).

The same would also apply to allies. Hydrans might not have EVER fought alongside an allied race until Operation Unity (I don't know if the Alliance ever linked up with forces from the Hydran Kingdom - don't suppose SVC cares to take a moment to comment on that one?), but during the General War the Tholians fought in mixed-race squadrons as part of the Alliance.
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