Yes brain drain. Why live in a ship when you can live planet side? Or another ship but not your home/family one.
Fellow student is cute, so why go back? Money is better planetside? More stable? Fellow ship culture persons wants to marry you, so you go back to her/his ship and now they need an engineer like they had you planned for. Temp help? One voyage or ?? Passenger or working your way/for passage to next port. Some planetside might like the Gypsy life style, so never know? Ship genetesist might like it as well? Shang haied or ??? Mike Alaska Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T -----Original Message----- From: Johannes Trimmel <[email protected]> Sender: [email protected] Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:46:35 To: The GURPSnet mailing list<[email protected]> Reply-To: The GURPSnet mailing list <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [gurps] Space Gypsies and Genes? On Wed, 13 Jun 2012, Onno Meyer wrote: > Johannes wrote: >> A bit a mixture of Onnos versions would be the ship as basically a mobile >> family farm. It's not really a different culture then that of the the >> people around it, at least in the view of both the "farmers" and the >> surrounding culture. It is a different lifestyle though. Occasionally >> someone marries in, occasionally some child leaves the farm/ship to take >> up an ordinary job. > > Hello Johannes, > > you're talking about a social organization, not the actual > farming, right? > > The patriarch/matriarch owns the ship, his or her spouse > is by default the XO, the heir is being groomed to take > over in due time, and non-heirs must make up their mind > if they want to stay in a subordinate role or strike out > on their own. > Yes social organisation. >> Some positions might be filled with people, for whom freight crew is a >> temporary job. Seasonal crew would be one of the primary pools for people, >> who marry into the family. > > * A starship arrives in a system and visits a number of > worlds/stations. Extra cargo handlers are hired at the > first port, with a contract running to the last port, > unless they sign up for a flight into the deep dark. > > * Every couple of years, the ship goes to a station for > a complete overhaul and upgrade. The ship's engineers > are in charge, but they hire both tech consultants > for their current expertise and shipyard workers to > get things done faster. If there is something really > new in the upgrades, they will have to entice an > expert to join the crew permanently. And you ahve short term replacements for faimily members, who are gone, left the ship for good for some reason, or are away for a while like for getting an education. As you have mentioned in the snipped part of your post below. >> If you have actually a distinct space gypsy culture you also need to think >> how the number of ships and population growth get correlated. > > * 3E has cabins (500 cf for one or two beds) and luxury > cabins (1,000 cf for one or two beds) with the option > to add extra empty space. My flat is quite small, but > well over 4,000 cf for one person. > > So say the default is one luxury cabin per person and > another 1,000 cf of empty space. If the population is > growing, they can turn that empty space into cabins, > or divide the luxury cabins into standard cabins, or > have people double up in luxury cabins (either crew > on opposite shifts or couples on the same shift). > > From the time a baby is born to the time a kid needs > his or her own room, there is plenty of time for the > necessary modifications. > > * You could assign the same volume to each couple, no > matter how many kids they have. That makes them > think twice about another brat. > > * Have a strong social expectation of zero population > growth. Everybody is parent to two children. If one > crewmember dies before the expected childbearing > age or has no children by then, the slightly younger > generation is expected to make it up. > > * Merchanter's Luck by CJ Cherryh had two family ships, > one dying out with just one family member left and > one getting crowded, with no promotion prospects for > the youngsters. Some kids saw an opportunity, to the > dismay of their cautious elders ... > There also is the matter of how many ships in total exist. That can change due to ecconomic conditions. A space gypsy culture will most likely mean, that there will be little reaction to short term market fluctuations. But it will have to react to long term trends. And if their social model fits well to a certain trend and the trend changes, things can get interesting. >> A central >> population control authority, that does long term planing, or ad hoc >> decisions by individual families/tribes? Ritually throwing surplus >> population out of the airlock (if you are nice, while in port)? > > If there was a central authority, population control > wouldn't be the first thing on my mind. If they provide > insurance for ships, they're already in the ship-buying > or shipbuilding business. Again, there would be years, > even decades, of lead time before the new generation > needs their own ship. > Sure a central authority would not be there purely for family planning. A central authority would be one obvious answer on how the total number of ships is regulated. If you want to use it actually in a game, you'd have to additionally answer what they are (council of elders,priesthood), where they are based, and what powers they actually have. >> Shanghaing people >> who will not be missed all that much, and if they work hard for a couple >> of years, they can get promoted family members? An officers caste and >> slaves, whos number is more flexible? > > * Even galley slaves were more fiction than fact, with a > few notable exceptions, and rowing was relatively easy > to supervise. Would you really trust a slave watching > the fusion reactor? Ten lashes if it explodes, double > wine ration if not? > There'd be positions better suited for new slaves, where misbehaviour would be less catastrophic. I suppose the first job of a slave would be to clean non critical parts of the ship. And the crew learns how the slave reacts to sticks and carrots and based on that might promote him, or eventually throw him out of the airlock. _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
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