Intergalactic Summit

The following serves as a public statement about the realignment of my crew structure towards a voluntary co-operative, posted for the benefits of my employees, in recognition towards my personal ideal of openness and transparency it is available for public view.

1) On Hierarchy;
There is a certain inevitable hierarchy that will arise due to my nature as a capsuleer and your nature as crew; With the publication of this document I am hereby announcing my intention towards the minimization of the effects of this natural hierarchy towards a flatter, worker focused structure.

2) On discrimination, and Open and Voluntary membership within the organization hereby termed thereafter as 'The Cooperative';
All members of the cooperative have the right, upon agreeing to the principles laid out in this document, to join or leave The Cooperative as they see fit. The Cooperative will not discriminate on membership on any basis of Gender and Sexuality, or Religion, or Race. All members of The Cooperative hereby agree to abide by these principles in full, both in letter and spirit of this founding document. There will be no discrimination on the basis of class or category.

3) On rewards for membership, and Democratic control of the Cooperative;
All members of the cooperative agreeing to abide by the terms of this document in letter and spirit are hereby granted one share within the Cooperative. This share entitles the member to one vote on any matter pertaining to The Cooperative, in addition to whatever financial value it holds through the labour of the collective members of The Cooperative. Votes will be called for any matter involving the overall status of the Cooperative including the formation or joining of any Capsuleer corporations hereafter. A member of the Cooperative, upon deciding to leave the Cooperative will sell their share for a commensurate amount of planetary currency of their choice.

3.1) The exception for military personnel;
In recognition of the fact that military situations involving the potential destruction of the ship, and in recognition of the fact that the capsuleer member of the Cooperative is in ultimate control of the ship, members of the Cooperative joining the crew of any militarily equipped vessel owned by the Cooperative and the capsuleer member agree to follow the orders of the Capsuleer during any period of violent conflict, either ship based or otherwise, and will have voting rights related to the conflict suspeneded until immediate hostilities are ceased.

3.2) On voting;
Direct democracy being a sufficient and ideal system for the operation of the Cooperative, all members of The Cooperative up to and including the Capsuleer member agree to hold to the results of any referendums held. All referendums will have voting be made mandatory. All referendums will have an 'Abstain' option which if it gains consensus will result in the recasting of the referendum, and a second vote. In cases where more than two options exist, referendums will be cast with a Single Transferable Vote and ranked voting preferences. The Capsuleer member of the Cooperative holds one vote. Non-capsuleer members of the cooperative hold one vote.

3.3) ISK and Planetary currency;
The majority of the money earned as ISK will go into the Cooperative for expansion of activities both immediate and ephemeral, subject to votes and referendum as outlined in 3.2. In acknowledgement of the fact that ISK is not generally accepted as a currency for non-capsuleer members for general purchases, non-Capsuleer members of the Cooperative will be compensated in planetary currency of their choice, either into a personal account or a third party account as outlined by the member.

4) Autonomy and independence;
All agreements entered into by the Cooperative must be designed in such a manner as to maintain the democratic control of the Cooperative. If outside capital is raised through any manner unrelated to the labour of the non-Capsuleer members of the cooperative it must be done in such a manner as to maintain the democratic nature of the cooperative.

5) Education, training, and information;
The Cooperative is responsible for providing training and education necessary to the operation of the Cooperative and for the general betterment of the individual members. University educations in the sciences, the social sciences, and the trades will be provided for the members and the immediate family of the members if asked.

5.1) Freedom of information;
The Cooperative is aligned with the idea of absolute freedom of information to all members of the Cooperative except where such information would cause unnecessary risk to the lives of other members of the Cooperative or any allies thereof.

6) Cooperation with other Cooperatives;
The Cooperative is, in general, aligned with other Cooperatives otherwise unrelated to The Cooperative, except in cases where such Cooperation has been determined by referendum by the majority of the members to be against the letter and spirit of this document. Such non-cooperation will be made to be public knowledge by the Cooperative.

7) Concern for the Community
The Cooperative works with members of the community in its immediate environs generally towards goals of the improvement of humanity as a whole, social justice, and the general uplift of humanity into the transhuman era.

---

Any member of the entity soon to be constituted as The Cooperative who does not wish to abide by the letter and spirit of this document will have their employment contracts terminated and a fair termination fee in planetary currency of their choice provided.

Thank you.
Zenda Villeneuve
Capsuleer member of the Cooperative

Suggestion denied, emphatically.

Taken a look at the Zephyr lately?

As to this Collective... you realize you are, in fact, abdicating responsibility here, right? That you're pushing a lot of additional burden onto the shoulders of your crew under the guise of 'democracy'?

What do your hydrosystems techs know about politics in New Eden, or best trade practices? But you've got them voting on how you'll react to them.

They have jobs. Their jobs are to keep parts of the ship working, and ensure that when something needs to happen, it happens. You have a job, too. Your job is to be looking at the big picture, to be the bloody ship's captain. To lead, not to simply throw everything up to mob rule.

Your crew members don't have time for your self-indulgent feel-good crap. They have work to do, and they have areas of specialty and skill that they need to remain on top of and up-to-date with. Do you think my jump drive technicians were unaware of the plans to relax jump range limitations on capital ships? Do you think they weren't making sure they were up on all of the changes in how that would affect the ship's performance? Do you think the ship's medical personnel didn't need to keep up with those jump drive regulation changes, in order to keep up with how the longer jumps would effect the ship's biological central processing system, ie: me?

Your crew have lives. They do their jobs, they keep on top of their fields, and they don't need you making them do your job, too. Making the hard decisions is your job. What happens when, in a totally non-combat situation, they don't all agree, some of them strenuously? Do you really think you won't see serious issues develop among crewmembers who feel marginalized and discriminated against because they don't agree with most of the crew?

Should we go take part in humanitarian efforts on this world? Most of the crew says 'no', a minority of the crew decides the majority are a bunch of callous bastards who value money over human life. Or the crew votes to do it, and then the question becomes 'are we volunteering, or looking to makea profit? If we're making a profit, how much are we shaking these people down for saving their lives, getting them medical supplies, clean water, and on and on?'

How exactly are the crew going to trust one another when they spend significant chunks of every day bickering? What does the galley serve tomorrow night? Get half a dozen people to agree on just that without someone getting pissed off, and I'll be shocked.

Your crew work hard. They do their jobs. Do yours.

They are taking responsibility for their own lives: they're signing on to crew a ship. When they feel that's a bad bet, they'll put off at the next station and your XO will hire someone else for that job. You think employees don't care about making things better for everyone around them? Everyone around them is all they really have on-ship. 'Actualized human beings'... what a load of condescending crap. You are literally accusing every crew member on every ship that isn't yours of somehow being inferior, of being just some kind of puppet. Meanwhile, you're turning over the lives of your crew to the mob.

It's just going to be for 'any matter involving the overall status of the Cooperative', right? Who decides what constitutes a matter involving the overall status of the cooperative? What's your structure for determining if a matter is valid to vote on? If it's not, who decides? Does everyone get to vote on what's for dinner? If not, being served something they dislike might impair performance and endanger the Cooperative. Blowing up would involve the overall status of the cooperative, wouldn't it? Would a mutiny? If there's no vote on dinner, does the galley staff get to vote on what they're serving? Do departments have to be run by democratic process, or can your chief engineer say 'we're running engineering like we want the ship to actually work, with a clear chain of command and decisive focus for problem-solving'? If he tries, can the department members vote him out as Chief Engineer?

I mean, I'd think who's running the 'let's keep everyone from dying when life support fails and the engines explode' department would maybe be a matter that involves the overall status of the cooperative, no?

Lead. Earn their trust. Don't just whimper for their approval.

A dentist shouldn't have any say on proper practices for performing brain surgery, a cook shouldn't have a say in item procurement aside from passing info. Just because they're on the ship doesn't mean they know enough about all functions to make decisions. Your ideas are great..... Stationside, when your crew is not on liberty nor in the field, but maintaining your ship. Your job is to safeguard them, failure is something that only yourself can be blamed for. Feel free to use your democracy idea on your ship. When inaction strikes due to it also feel free to take the blame completely. Cowards blame their charges for irresponsible leadership, remember that.

I believe it comes more down to the fact that we have some of the most efficient means to control a ship possible as capsuleers. Doling out responsibilities that we perform better is gross negligence of our duties is it not?

I think the general organizational principle proposed is interesting, and as a limited form of civilian self-governance there are certainly worse experiments to attempt. In terms of the co-operative as a whole, I believe some measure of success is possible. Hopefully, you will provide further account of your organization's endeavors as a means to augment stated intent with tangible outcomes.

As others have noted, extending the same scheme to crew operations, whether active combat duty or otherwise, is not something I would personally endorse. Many of my crews are merchant marines with hundreds of hours combat experience beyond my own, but even being a mere researcher, I am the captain. With clear delineation of objective and procedure, the crew operate as a unified body, grounded in our reciprocal roles. The chain of command is a time-tested means of collective function toward our shared goals.

I see the issue. People think I'm going to be assigning responsibility for, say, whether or not to activate a particular module at a particular time to popular vote.

This is not the case, my crew are professionals and will be treated as professionals. This document does not cover the individual operation of individual ships at individual times, but towards the overall operation of the organization.

I'm still flying the boats. What we aim towards and the goals we set is a communal effort.

All I know is with the crew members that have stuck beside me over the years, the system proposed here is done and works, Stationside.... When they have the luxury of doing work and not getting sucked into the vacuum of space and can simply quit if they don't like it. Theres no reason to be tightly run aside from security and maintenance. The second we hit the undock queue they know who they answer to and who they answer to answers to. It's their own lives and anyone worth their weight on a ship knows that.