Im wondering about desertion and mutiny in the solarian navy

jtg452 wrote:I think that's the only way it would work successfully, on any ship of size any way.

It's been established that the Solly Marines are about the only part of the League military that hasn't wasted away- and most, if not all, fleet vessels carry a Marine contingent. If the Marines aren't on the mutineers side, a bottom up mutiny isn't going to work. If they aren't, you have fat, dumb and unhappy sailors that can barely do their own jobs going into combat on a ship with professionals- very, very good professionals with the training needed in that specific environment- that are opposing them.

I think that may be a problem for the SLN as the marines have little confidence or respect for the majority of the navies office core. It may not take the crew that much to convince them to support the ship standing down in neutral space rather then getting destroyed fighting.

saber964 wrote:What we are likely to see in the SLN is barraty. FYI Barraty is the gross misconduct of officers.

True. But it is only a fine semantic distinction -- it is still rebellion by a ship's crew.

There is still the problem of other ships in a squadron or task force objecting to the non-participation of a ship.

In order to survive a rebellion, either by officers or crew, it's going to require some means of escape. I don't foresee a lot of "noble self-sacrifice" as suggested by munroburton.

munroburton wrote:It's conceivable that this has already happened. The circumstances of Sandra Crandall's death is still a mystery to us readers. One of the possiblities include her expressing an intent to keep charging towards Spindle and being killed for it.

Mutiny isn't necessary if the 2nd in command is a more rational officer willing to surrender. Simply 'frag' the CO and let a more reasonable person clean the mess up, even if it does mean standing a court martial for murder.

It's a subject fraught with moral ambiguities. For example, Elvis Santino - what if someone had shot him when the Peeps showed up at Seaford 9 and he panicked? She would've been court-martialled for murder and possibly executed, but the better part of 30,000 RMN spacers could have escaped the slaughter Santino led them into.

There have been cases of a junior officer killing a senior officer that was about to get a lot people killed for no purpose that where given pardons if the high command even bothered to inveterate that matter.

Weird Harold wrote:

saber964 wrote:What we are likely to see in the SLN is barraty. FYI Barraty is the gross misconduct of officers.

True. But it is only a fine semantic distinction -- it is still rebellion by a ship's crew.

There is still the problem of other ships in a squadron or task force objecting to the non-participation of a ship.

In order to survive a rebellion, either by officers or crew, it's going to require some means of escape. I don't foresee a lot of "noble self-sacrifice" as suggested by munroburton.

No, it's the legal definition. It is also the correct term. Mutiny is when the crew defies legal orders or attempts to or succeed in overthrowing the officers. Barraty is where the officers defies orders and I do mean that officers usually the ships crew is ignorant of of the misconduct. FYI the book Hunt for Red October is a fictional example of barraty. Barraty is extremely rare in most militaries.

saber964 wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:"saber964": What we are likely to see in the SLN is barraty. FYI Barraty is the gross misconduct of officers.

True. But it is only a fine semantic distinction -- it is still rebellion by a ship's crew.

No, it's the legal definition. It is also the correct term.

I'm aware to the definitions, but most of us aren't lawyers or concerned about legal distinctions unless we have to appear in court.

pnakasone wrote:

jtg452 wrote:I think that's the only way it would work successfully, on any ship of size any way.

It's been established that the Solly Marines are about the only part of the League military that hasn't wasted away- and most, if not all, fleet vessels carry a Marine contingent. If the Marines aren't on the mutineers side, a bottom up mutiny isn't going to work. If they aren't, you have fat, dumb and unhappy sailors that can barely do their own jobs going into combat on a ship with professionals- very, very good professionals with the training needed in that specific environment- that are opposing them.

I think that may be a problem for the SLN as the marines have little confidence or respect for the majority of the navies office core. It may not take the crew that much to convince them to support the ship standing down in neutral space rather then getting destroyed fighting.

I hadn't thought about the marines, and that makes sense. They play no part in the actual combat and if they believe that the navy is just going to sacrifice their lives for little to no gain they might be the ones to initiate the mutiny.

I don't think it would be hard for them to find navy personell willing to help. The only problem would be where to go after you have the ship.

Weird Harold wrote:There is still the problem of other ships in a squadron or task force objecting to the non-participation of a ship.

Non-paritipation??? We would never dream of not sortieing with the rest of the task group! Of course, when we're roughly halfway to the destination (timing it to be in the middle of the task group commander's sleep period if we can learn that information) we might suddenly drop 2 or 3 hyperspace bands, make a 80-100 degree turn away from our previous course and go to maximum military power. We then probably climb back up through the hyper bands, to 1 higher than we where before if possible.

The drop in hyperspace bands means we rapidly loose speed relative to the rest of the task group and thus the distance between us rapidly increases, and the longer it takes them to respond the greater that distance is. (Hence do it when the commander's asleep is possible!) We know from HAE that navigating back to an exact position in hyperspace is not 100% precise so they won't be to get back to exactly where we dropped. They also don't know how many bands we dropped, and we won't be at that location anymore even if they do manage to find it.

noblehunter wrote:If Battle Fleet keeps trying for straight up fights, I expect to see top-down mutinies, where captains or even admirals balk at going into the meat-grinder. It's a lot easier to desert when you can take the whole ship with you.

We've seen quite a few senior SLN officers saying, "I've got my orders ... but I'm not going to get my men and ships killed for no purpose." And then not attacking, withdrawing, retreating, or surrendering. Heck, that's why Filareta got fragged -- the Malign anticipated that he'd balk rather than do a banzai charge.

"Desserting" in the vacuum of space is even "smarter" than desserting from a naval ship. At least near land you can swim...

Which means the only possible time you can "dessert" is on leave.

Desserting from ships is space probably ~~~never happens. Now mutiny on the other hand is more probable.

Relax wrote:"Desserting" in the vacuum of space is even "smarter" than desserting from a naval ship. At least near land you can swim...

Which means the only possible time you can "dessert" is on leave.

Desserting from ships is space probably ~~~never happens. Now mutiny on the other hand is more probable.

Desserting from ships happens every day, just look at Honor's regular banquets and her sweet tooth pandering from Mac.



Deserting, or desertion on the other hand, you're half-right. Steilman and company didn't require shore-leave to do so. Of course, they planned to use a bomb and an escape pod, but they still didn't require shore leave. Merely an acceptable planet, that they could blend into so when the Shore Patrol starts hunting for them, they don't stick out like the proverbial nail waiting to be hammered.