Im wondering about desertion and mutiny in the solarian navy

pnakasone wrote: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.

Where are you getting that?

The Marines are professionals. Not just professionals, but pretty hardcore pros at that. They don't have to respect the person to respect the position and to follow lawful orders. As professionals, they will do their jobs. So, on shipboard, part of that job is to put down mutiny. Unless they can be shown that the orders are illegal, I think it's going to be very, very hard to convince them to side with mutineers.

I just don't see them disobeying orders as quickly as some here seem to.

jtg452 wrote:Where are you getting that?

The Marines are professionals. Not just professionals, but pretty hardcore pros at that. They don't have to respect the person to respect the position and to follow lawful orders. As professionals, they will do their jobs. So, on shipboard, part of that job is to put down mutiny. Unless they can be shown that the orders are illegal, I think it's going to be very, very hard to convince them to side with mutineers.

I just don't see them disobeying orders as quickly as some here seem to.

Read chapter 30 in A Rising Thunder and Chapter 13 Crown of Slaves .

You are right as long as the orders are legal the marines will stay true to duties. But supporting a commanding officer that clearly is intent on a course of action that will get the ship destroyed and the crew killed for no real gain is different issue entirely.

pnakasone wrote:

jtg452 wrote:Where are you getting that?

The Marines are professionals. Not just professionals, but pretty hardcore pros at that. They don't have to respect the person to respect the position and to follow lawful orders. As professionals, they will do their jobs. So, on shipboard, part of that job is to put down mutiny. Unless they can be shown that the orders are illegal, I think it's going to be very, very hard to convince them to side with mutineers.

I just don't see them disobeying orders as quickly as some here seem to.

Read chapter 30 in A Rising Thunder and Chapter 13 Crown of Slaves .

You are right as long as the orders are legal the marines will stay true to duties. But supporting a commanding officer that clearly is intent on a course of action that will get the ship destroyed and the crew killed for no real gain is different issue entirely.

Also read chapter 9 of Fanatic in The Service of the Sword.

I seem to recall reading of a large scale mutiny by the German Navy in 1918 while underway, literally forcing the fleet to return to port.

kenl511 wrote:I seem to recall reading of a large scale mutiny by the German Navy in 1918 while underway, literally forcing the fleet to return to port.

Actually the HSF was in port. What they refused to do was to get underway. The German high command wanted to go out in a blaze of glory.

saber964 wrote:

kenl511 wrote:I seem to recall reading of a large scale mutiny by the German Navy in 1918 while underway, literally forcing the fleet to return to port.

Actually the HSF was in port. What they refused to do was to get underway. The German high command wanted to go out in a blaze of glory.

I could see that happening to the solarian navy.

saber964 wrote:

kenl511 wrote:I seem to recall reading of a large scale mutiny by the German Navy in 1918 while underway, literally forcing the fleet to return to port.

Actually the HSF was in port. What they refused to do was to get underway. The German high command wanted to go out in a blaze of glory.

Somewhat less well known are the 1917 mutinies in the French Army after an offensive before touted as to end the war ... didn't. Sounds familiar? Differences here being that the League in its general self-perception isn't at war yet, but on the other hand the outcome of the Nivelle Offensive were not quite as one-sided as operation Raging Justice.

Something to bear in mind, outside a war, a pay cut was enough to mess up the British Atlantic Fleet for two days.

If real history or Honorverse, every time the same: Leading officers who don´t make their homework!

It is the Job of the high command to be on the current Level of Military warfare, but we see in history and in honorverse old man who won´t realize, that their knowledge from the acadamy don´t work. They were lazy and don´t think about what you can do with Maschine guns (WW1) or airplanes and Tanks (WW2) or that someone can upgrade their missles to an enormus theat (Honorverse).

The result: Bad decisons and the loss of a lot of lives.

The solarian marines have their own secret Service because they don´t trust no longer the information from the navy or OFS. They Need real Information not phrases like "Piece of cake for you", to survive a ncombat.

So, maybe a marine commander have the Backbone to stop a ship/fleet commander if he tries something verry silly.

kzt wrote:It's unclear. A fair number of militaries have pretty much fought to the last bullet. But the whole "what are you fighting for" question with the SL seems difficult to find a really convincing answer.

When the question isn't "what are you fighting for" the question becomes, how attractive the uniform is outside the military confines. Does the populace have a positive and/or sympathetic view of the uniform or do they equate the uniform with fat, oppression and/or feebleness? Like sports teams, we identify and live vicariously through them. Few want to live vicariously through "losers". I think the best thing the Solarian League can do right now is to change that particular narrative of equating the uniform to unassailable omnipotence to that of a plucky David of a "David vs. Goliath" scenario. What ever else losing public support of the common grunt makes mutiny that much easier. Get that propaganda machine working!

jtg452 wrote:

pnakasone wrote: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.

Where are you getting that?

The Marines are professionals. Not just professionals, but pretty hardcore pros at that. They don't have to respect the person to respect the position and to follow lawful orders. As professionals, they will do their jobs. So, on shipboard, part of that job is to put down mutiny. Unless they can be shown that the orders are illegal, I think it's going to be very, very hard to convince them to side with mutineers.

I just don't see them disobeying orders as quickly as some here seem to.

There is no particular reason to suppose that the Marines are more or less professional than the sailors, let alone that they are suicidally stupid.

Certainly after the fleet assembled at Tangerine becomes a mixture of plasma and metal chips -- whether at Manticore, Haven, or Beowulf remains to be seen -- without inflicting significant losses on the enemy, there is likely to be a mutiny. Alternatively, SLN fleets will surrender very very quickly.