Greetings 
,
As I’ve mentioned here on AWWC before, I run a Star Trek simm (collaborative writing game). Since it’s creative writing, I don’t figure it to be off topic here…if I’m wrong, please somebody let me know.
I recently had a dispute with a potential player over an issue of character design and, since I know the person to be normally a very rational and capable writer, I wanted to check my facts/opinions in a neutral setting. I’ve already asked in my simm group forums, where folks mostly seemed to agree with me, but that opens up an argument of bias.
Briefly, I run my simm on a small, highly combat-focused ship (Defiant Class, for you Trekkers out there), with a small crew that can just barely cover the necessary functions of flying and fighting the vessel under optimal conditions. This is an important story point in the background that I try to focus on. My POV character is the ship’s CO who has, through various experiences and influences throughout his career, become rather gung-ho about all his crew being combat ready. He doesn’t believe in looking for trouble, just feels really strongly about being ready for it. One area where this focus shows itself is in the desire for regular, live fire counter-boarding exercises with phasers locked on stun (there’s a limit to the level of realism even he’s looking for ;-) ). The effects of the setting are:
Setting 1: Light Stun; discharge energy index 15.75 for 0.25 seconds, SEM:NDF ratio not applicable. This setting is calibrated for base humanoid physiology, and causes temporary central nervous system (CNS) impairment. Subjects remain unconscious for up to five minutes. Higher levels of reversible CNS damage result from repeated long exposures. The discharge energy index is related to RNE protonic charge levels. Standard median-density composite structural material samples are not permanently affect, although small vibrational warming will be detected. A standard composite sample consists of multiple layers of tritanium, duranium, cortenite, lignin, and lithium-silicon-carbon 372. A standardized damage index is derived for setting comparisons; each whole number represents the number of cm of material penetrated or molecularly damaged. The damage index for this setting is zero.
My prospective simmer created a character who was a Taoist priest and pacifist, who has successfully filed for an exemption from being required to carry/use ranged weapons for religious reasons, but is willing to use martial arts skills to defend herself if pressed. He describes her skills as “ Karate, Judo, Aikido (from real life experience) and Kung Fu (from TV)”.
He feels that Starfleet would not allow a CO to utilize such exercises as a training tool because they place the crew at unreasonable risk of injury/death. The actual quote is “Having Starfleet require every person to be a paranoid psychotic and to allow such brutality among its starship captains without numerous disciplinary hearings, diplomatic incidents and multiple injuries inflicted and justified as self-defense is way beyond my belief.” I think that the demonstrated use of the stun setting and level of medical technology in the shows (where broken bones are healed completely in minutes) does not make this type of exercise an unreasonable risk.
When I pointed out the very light effects of the stun setting, his response was “Phaser's locked on stun not being able to cause injury or even death is also beyond my comprehension unless you're planning to repeal the laws of gravity and inertia”, by which I gather he is referring to the dangers of losing consciousness and falling while standing/moving and colliding with the deck, a bulkhead or perhaps falling down a ladder shaft.
I have a good deal of experience with Karate, having studied American Kenpo most of my life. “Kung Fu (from TV)” covers pretty much any form of attack/defense one might wish to incorporate, so I disregard it. Judo and Aikido I have more limited knowledge of, though I have messed around/sparred with practitioners of both, read extensively on both and have 10 years of regular training in and using non-injurious control/ restraint techniques (via a job as a hospital security officer),which are heavily based in both styles.
It’s my understanding that even “non-violent” martial arts like Judo and Aikido, employed in a dynamic situation like personal combat against a non-cooperative subject not trained in the same way, would be at least as dangerous to the opponent as a fall from a phaser stun. The systems we were trained in at the hospital removed a lot of the more effective techniques of their parent styles (throws, many of the joint locks, etc) because of the danger of injury to the patient (big no-no ;-) ). I know that both styles heavily emphasize intensive training in proper falls and flowing with locks, etc to avoid injury (and have personal experience with how hard practitioners of both can make you hit the floor). I have read that Aikido, in particular, has one of the highest training injury rates in martial arts, because most techniques are practiced full speed/full force and can exert a great deal of torque on the joints. In fact, I’ve read that upper level Aikido classes usually contain several students with taped, casted and otherwise immobilized injuries who are training anyway, which I always thought was particularly hard-core.
I told him that his character would still be required to participate in the exercises, since a real boarding party would not be likely to give her a pass, though not required to use a weapon if that violated her religious principles. When I pointed out that, if she insisted on bringing bare hands to a gun fight, she would likely get stunned a lot, he replied “I hate to tell you this but even a poorly trained, overweight old-man such as myself could disarm a person one out of three times - a highly trained professional can do much better than that” That doesn’t jibe at all with what I was taught, which was that unless you were up against a total loser who had no idea how to use his weapon, unarmed vs. armed was such a risky business that the only reason to even try it was if you were in imminent danger of death or serious injury. Particularly against a ranged weapon, where any reasonably competent user knows that the entire purpose of such a weapon is to let you stay out of reach, adding a closing and entering problem to the mix. I did point out that I could see some circumstances where it would work, such as surprising an armed opponent at close range at a corner, from behind or throwing something to distract them while you closed into range but that mostly, particularly against a crew this CO was training, she was going to end up going beddy-bye.
Obviously, if this were a real situation, the character would just be reassigned to a less aggressive posting, but this is where my simm is set. I’m not trying to get him to change his character either, as I think that in-character conflicts make for great story. I’m just looking for opinions on whether or not the scenario I’m suggesting is unrealistic and unbelievable.
Thanks for any opinions you folks may have,
,As I’ve mentioned here on AWWC before, I run a Star Trek simm (collaborative writing game). Since it’s creative writing, I don’t figure it to be off topic here…if I’m wrong, please somebody let me know.
I recently had a dispute with a potential player over an issue of character design and, since I know the person to be normally a very rational and capable writer, I wanted to check my facts/opinions in a neutral setting. I’ve already asked in my simm group forums, where folks mostly seemed to agree with me, but that opens up an argument of bias.
Briefly, I run my simm on a small, highly combat-focused ship (Defiant Class, for you Trekkers out there), with a small crew that can just barely cover the necessary functions of flying and fighting the vessel under optimal conditions. This is an important story point in the background that I try to focus on. My POV character is the ship’s CO who has, through various experiences and influences throughout his career, become rather gung-ho about all his crew being combat ready. He doesn’t believe in looking for trouble, just feels really strongly about being ready for it. One area where this focus shows itself is in the desire for regular, live fire counter-boarding exercises with phasers locked on stun (there’s a limit to the level of realism even he’s looking for ;-) ). The effects of the setting are:
Setting 1: Light Stun; discharge energy index 15.75 for 0.25 seconds, SEM:NDF ratio not applicable. This setting is calibrated for base humanoid physiology, and causes temporary central nervous system (CNS) impairment. Subjects remain unconscious for up to five minutes. Higher levels of reversible CNS damage result from repeated long exposures. The discharge energy index is related to RNE protonic charge levels. Standard median-density composite structural material samples are not permanently affect, although small vibrational warming will be detected. A standard composite sample consists of multiple layers of tritanium, duranium, cortenite, lignin, and lithium-silicon-carbon 372. A standardized damage index is derived for setting comparisons; each whole number represents the number of cm of material penetrated or molecularly damaged. The damage index for this setting is zero.
My prospective simmer created a character who was a Taoist priest and pacifist, who has successfully filed for an exemption from being required to carry/use ranged weapons for religious reasons, but is willing to use martial arts skills to defend herself if pressed. He describes her skills as “ Karate, Judo, Aikido (from real life experience) and Kung Fu (from TV)”.
He feels that Starfleet would not allow a CO to utilize such exercises as a training tool because they place the crew at unreasonable risk of injury/death. The actual quote is “Having Starfleet require every person to be a paranoid psychotic and to allow such brutality among its starship captains without numerous disciplinary hearings, diplomatic incidents and multiple injuries inflicted and justified as self-defense is way beyond my belief.” I think that the demonstrated use of the stun setting and level of medical technology in the shows (where broken bones are healed completely in minutes) does not make this type of exercise an unreasonable risk.
When I pointed out the very light effects of the stun setting, his response was “Phaser's locked on stun not being able to cause injury or even death is also beyond my comprehension unless you're planning to repeal the laws of gravity and inertia”, by which I gather he is referring to the dangers of losing consciousness and falling while standing/moving and colliding with the deck, a bulkhead or perhaps falling down a ladder shaft.
I have a good deal of experience with Karate, having studied American Kenpo most of my life. “Kung Fu (from TV)” covers pretty much any form of attack/defense one might wish to incorporate, so I disregard it. Judo and Aikido I have more limited knowledge of, though I have messed around/sparred with practitioners of both, read extensively on both and have 10 years of regular training in and using non-injurious control/ restraint techniques (via a job as a hospital security officer),which are heavily based in both styles.
It’s my understanding that even “non-violent” martial arts like Judo and Aikido, employed in a dynamic situation like personal combat against a non-cooperative subject not trained in the same way, would be at least as dangerous to the opponent as a fall from a phaser stun. The systems we were trained in at the hospital removed a lot of the more effective techniques of their parent styles (throws, many of the joint locks, etc) because of the danger of injury to the patient (big no-no ;-) ). I know that both styles heavily emphasize intensive training in proper falls and flowing with locks, etc to avoid injury (and have personal experience with how hard practitioners of both can make you hit the floor). I have read that Aikido, in particular, has one of the highest training injury rates in martial arts, because most techniques are practiced full speed/full force and can exert a great deal of torque on the joints. In fact, I’ve read that upper level Aikido classes usually contain several students with taped, casted and otherwise immobilized injuries who are training anyway, which I always thought was particularly hard-core.
I told him that his character would still be required to participate in the exercises, since a real boarding party would not be likely to give her a pass, though not required to use a weapon if that violated her religious principles. When I pointed out that, if she insisted on bringing bare hands to a gun fight, she would likely get stunned a lot, he replied “I hate to tell you this but even a poorly trained, overweight old-man such as myself could disarm a person one out of three times - a highly trained professional can do much better than that” That doesn’t jibe at all with what I was taught, which was that unless you were up against a total loser who had no idea how to use his weapon, unarmed vs. armed was such a risky business that the only reason to even try it was if you were in imminent danger of death or serious injury. Particularly against a ranged weapon, where any reasonably competent user knows that the entire purpose of such a weapon is to let you stay out of reach, adding a closing and entering problem to the mix. I did point out that I could see some circumstances where it would work, such as surprising an armed opponent at close range at a corner, from behind or throwing something to distract them while you closed into range but that mostly, particularly against a crew this CO was training, she was going to end up going beddy-bye.
Obviously, if this were a real situation, the character would just be reassigned to a less aggressive posting, but this is where my simm is set. I’m not trying to get him to change his character either, as I think that in-character conflicts make for great story. I’m just looking for opinions on whether or not the scenario I’m suggesting is unrealistic and unbelievable.
Thanks for any opinions you folks may have
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