Intergalactic Summit

I must make an admission: I've not been a capsuleer captain for long. However, I've not been ignorant of the goings-on in the heavens. I have ambitions, and I have plans. Related to those plans is establishing an ethical source of crew...

While our ships may effectively be extensions of ourselves our ships still need some minimum amount of crew to operate. While many capsuleers seem satisfied with taking any hands looking for work... well, I feel that some level of deception must be going on here. No sane crewman would sign on with what he knew to be a suicidal mission... So, I believe that the standard operating procedure is to bind crew for whatever period is negotiated, and if a particular crewman happens to on-shift when the ship leaves dock to distract a sleeper drone, well, best of luck to him.

I can't countenance that sort of thing for my personal crew but I'm at a loss for what sort of system could be a viable replacement. Total automation is simply too expensive, and ethical debates aside, vitoc-addled slaves seem somewhat... untrustworthy.

The only system I can think of is to negotiate with planetary penal systems, taking convicts sentenced for life imprisonment or execution, and offering the convicts freedom somewhere far away if they serve as my crew for long enough.

It's win-win all around, I think. Anybody else got a better suggestion?

How about perfectly standard high risk, high pay contracts and don't do the suicidal crap? They all know what they're getting into and they roll their dice. I'll do what I can to nudge them towards a favorable roll, but if they come up snake eyes that's just how it is and those guys knew their odds.

Well, if my plans go through, an unfortunate side-effect will be an inability to avoid associating with criminals, anyway.

The suggestions I've received are all well and good, but they still seem to prey on those desperate enough to throw in with a capsuleer already.

I may not end up with the cleanest hands when I'm done, but I'll be damned if I didn't endeavor to not plunge them all the way into the muck!




Well, sir, you've cut through to the heart of my intent. Maybe I should have invested more time in crafting my post. I want to see what solutions others have to the issue at hand, and then to pick my own conclusions from the debris.

Informed choices. My solutions are informed choices.

My crew chiefs explicitly detail what being a capsuleer crew member entails. Those desperate to sign on are put through an intensive interview process, to judge their actual aptitude for the job at hand, while also being endowed with the knowledge of what the dangers are and what responsibilities are expected of them.

I don't want people signing on if they can't pull their weight, a barrage of mental health checks by my crew chiefs sorts out the keen from the plain suicidal. I don't want people signing on without knowing the risks either, being taught in vivid detail exactly what the chances of survival are for them for each particular posting, along with the conditions of requirement for their next of kin to get insurance pay outs, leaves no stone unturned.

You cannot argue those who fly under me didn't know what they were getting in for, didn't have a choice given the door was right there to walk out of, and didn't get something in return. I consider giving my crew a comprehensive and informed choice far better then picking up the dredges of society, saying they get a chance to walk free if they roll the dice and finding out one of them use their hard won freedom to murder another innocent soul, or break into another house, or **** another victim.

You might call it hand washing what I do, I call it pragmatism.

Utari, your insistence on being reasonable is both refreshing and irksome. You provide a solution that reflects the realities of plying the void and still ensures that the competent are willing to serve.

At the end of the day, though, when your ship gets shot to hell, any of your fine, upstanding crewmen that didn't have the good fortune to get to a pod will be just as dead as the hypothetical condemned whose executions I merely delayed.



Well, now, here's some out of the box thinking! Why not invest in the archaeotech cloning device?

I'm certain that a mental template could be found or created to create an unending army of willing crewmen. Though, the sunk costs seem kinds prohibitive. Archeological data on the device, components current methodolgies are unable to replicate, and burning through a few scientists to put it all together, (What was that booster called, again?) on top of the... discipline problem.

Still, when it's their turn to suck void, do they deserve it any less than Utari's carefully vetted crewmen? Or are they perfectly expendable?

Amazing you hinge the ethicality of your problem solely on the point of 'people die'. People die all the time. It seems your issue of ethics is not letting "good" or "regular" people die despite many, many, many life choices available to any and all resulting in plenty of deaths of "regular" people.

Yes, it's sad when they die under my command. It's also sad when they die on someone's watch, or when they die from a completely avoidable problem like crossing the path of a large moving object because they were too busy to look. It's also sad when they die, old and infirm because they didn't save for retirement and the medical bills that follow.

It's all very sad....

Your version of ethical seems to hinge on getting the most expendable solution as according to your individual vision of 'expendable', and for as cheap as possible. Interesting choice of ethical.

Amazingly I almost took this for a valid point. Thanks for the chuckle, I needed it badly right now.

Well, I think it's a good thing that you want to be ethical. That seems pretty tautological, but you might be surprised to learn how many folks don't care about ethics if it gets in the way of their profit margin. So, on that front, I'm glad to see you've got good intentions, at least.



The standard procedure in Goonswarm is much the same as it is in the rest of the cluster. As has been mentioned, pay rates on combat vessels already factor in 'hazard pay', as well as usually including KIA/AD&D insurance policies for the crew's families. Additionally, most ships maintain lifeboats for the baseliner crew, though of course these can be a less than optimal solution in the case of your hull being destroyed in a single volley, or the lifeboats launching into titan-scale smartbombs.

Now, while I understand you look at the 'pay them enough to make it worth the risk' as taking advantage of desperation, I'd ask you to consider that position a little more thoroughly. In order to get that pay, these individuals need to have a very specialized set of skills. The kinds of tasks that don't need those skills? They're already automated on most capsuleer vessels (yes, including Matari hulls). They're run via the pod interface, as effectively taking the place of the autonomous systems of the human body.

As a result, you're talking about a population of skilled workers who have options. Lots of options. They could crew a freighter. They could crew baseliner exploration, trade, or tourism ships. They could sign on with the local customs force—it's not perfectly safe, but it's pretty damned close to it. Or they could almost certainly find employment on stations, citadels, and other fixed space installations. Failing that, most of them can probably do technical work in the industries that support space-faring combat vessels.

The point is, they have options. They have a fair number of options. If they were desperate, we wouldn't need to offer hazard pay. Instead, we've got to offer enough money that these individuals—whom we need to be intelligent and motivated—choose to sign on to crew our ships, knowing the risks, open-eyed, and ready to go.

Incidentally, I don't know about operations in your section of space, but in Delve, I don't undock without all four shifts aboard. You never know when you're going to be in space for an extended period of time, dreaming up apocalyptic poetry and complaining about an itchy hull.

As for vitoc-addicted slaves... even if I were willing to ignore the ethical implications of not getting those people to treatment and shooting the person I found them with right square in the head... no. Every performance evaluation I've seen says that free men and women who have a reason to want to go home again do the job better, faster, and more efficiently.

Also, I don't have to shoot myself in the head for slaving.

Damn it, Arrendis, if you're not persuasive. I'm on the verge of conceding.

Before I admit my obvious defeat, though, I'm wondering if the conservative Amarr contigent has anything to say on the matter.

This isn't always true. Some recruitment programs for capsuleer crew pools offer scholarships that give people that education on the condition that they have to serve a certain number of tours in capsuleer crews. If they survive those required tours, then they have options. Until then, they are desperate. The numbers needed to keep our ships crewed at all times in all places - and the known risks of the job - mean that there are lots of "hiring agencies" doing whatever it takes to supply that economic demand.