An allance warship crewed by treecats?

Where is the communal literbox?

Remember we can now have Treecat Marines. Remember all the double takes of the Queens Own and PGS when Nimitz and Fire Watch showed up packing pulsars?

saber964 wrote:Remember we can now have Treecat Marines. Remember all the double takes of the Queens Own and PGS when Nimitz and Fire Watch showed up packing pulsars?

The above should be tagged as a spoiler.

Theemile wrote:

Vinea wrote:
If you size the ships and environmental plants for tree cat sized crews the ships can be smaller right?

OK, crazy thought - a properly built treecat ship would be impossible to board - all the corridors would be treecat sized, with treecat climbing hardware, not stairs or ladders. With the exception of a few main corridors, you would literally have to rip through the ship to board it.

down side, after a few attempts, no one will try to board such ships and just nuke them...

Can you imagine the nightmare that changing air filters on such a ship would be? There's just so much hair...

Theemile wrote:

Vinea wrote:
If you size the ships and environmental plants for tree cat sized crews the ships can be smaller right?

OK, crazy thought - a properly built treecat ship would be impossible to board - all the corridors would be treecat sized, with treecat climbing hardware, not stairs or ladders. With the exception of a few main corridors, you would literally have to rip through the ship to board it.

down side, after a few attempts, no one will try to board such ships and just nuke them...

Can you imagine the nightmare that changing air filters on such a ship would be? There's just so much hair...[/quote]

Chances are it will never happen. Remember that the treecats are not generally great with tools. They prefer to let the two legs
do those chores.

They would work well is some capacities but not others. Clearing debris when a ship is damaged requires real size and muscle, for example.

And Uncompromising Honor goes into some of their limitations with regards to human technology and thought. Seems like treecats are a long way from being able to handle ships, air cars, computers, etc.

But they're still very very useful where their special strengths do lie. But even power armor might be a stretch at the moment. The basic moving around I'm sure they could do, it wouldn't have to be much different than the skinsuit motion. But learning the weapons, sensors, controlling the comms, calling in fire support all the things you need to do to be an effective military force while wearing the power armor... Those seem a bit beyond their current capabilities.

Vince wrote:

saber964 wrote:Remember we can now have Treecat Marines. Remember all the double takes of the Queens Own and PGS when Nimitz and Fire Watch showed up packing pulsars?

The above should be tagged as a spoiler.

Uncompromising Honor?

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Jonathan_S wrote:And Uncompromising Honor goes into some of their limitations with regards to human technology and thought. Seems like treecats are a long way from being able to handle ships, air cars, computers, etc.

But they're still very very useful where their special strengths do lie. But even power armor might be a stretch at the moment. The basic moving around I'm sure they could do, it wouldn't have to be much different than the skinsuit motion. But learning the weapons, sensors, controlling the comms, calling in fire support all the things you need to do to be an effective military force while wearing the power armor... Those seem a bit beyond their current capabilities.

I beg to disagree...
Yes treecats would have a problem with regards to interfacing with 'abstracting' technology as explained in Uncompromising Honor but once you give a 'cat a physically objective technological control, they're a natural.
See how Nimitz couldn't handle the holographic sites but became a marksman with the laser pointer. Honor also noted that Nimitz understood proper weapons handling and range safety. I would say that a treecat could and would adhear to whatever two leg protocol was in force to get the job done.
Also note, when Honor got Nimitz his current skinsuit w/ the augmented thruster pack, he once again was a natural.

So yes treecats would NOT naturally control anything that used a graphic or textual UI but I bet if someone retrofitted an aircar with a 'tiller' or a (force feedback) joystick they could operate it just fine.

As far as a mech suit is concerned, the usual concept is that for most operation the suit will be directly controlled by musculature activation, so treecats will have no problem there. Weapon/option selection can be external (have to push a button on the suit). For internal controls, don't bother with a HUD but do use tongue and tail switches - treecats have eight control appendages to humans five. I think they will be 'wicked' great in a mech suit!

As far as comm goes, that is not a problem either. Small unit infantry tactics already favor hand signals; so the standard hand signals would just be learned once by someone like Nimitz or Fire Watch and it would be 'sung' to any spec-ops/recon/raider 'cat. Telecommunications would be achieved by hand sign capture (via camera or haptic glove) at the sender and holographic hand sign rendering at the recipient. Honor & Nimitz have also shown that 'cats can communicate by 'pantomime video', so if there is enough bandwidth commands and/or instruction can be delivered in a likewise fashion.

In fact treecat to computer interface would be gestural - the system interface would be a bot that could sign. 'Cats would most likely treat the system as a really literal and stupid two leg that had no mind glow. With this in place, Nimitz could theoretically catch a ride to the Palace - |Take me to Soul of Steel's nest| - in a properly outfitted vehicle.

Lastly, I see no problem with treecats commanding large units and employing tactical and strategic command & control. Treecats may not intuitively understand math above first year algebra but they do understand groups and group management. We already know that 'cats do strategy - they hid for centuries, they em-placed controlled adoption, they unilaterally emigrated off planet and setup a colony on Grayson, and finally, they changed the rules of engagement and revised and expanded the adoption program. Tactically, I can see a treecat as command all the way up to flag officers - by their nature they would be macro-managers. Orders would not be to the formation commander but to the formation itself; a treecat flag would tell the division to block the enemy's thrust and would trust the division's officers' cadre to 'make it so' as if the division was a singular entity.

I've rambled too much so I'll stop now

-David S.