Arioch wrote:Alex was held in a secured detention area.
The crew accommodations aboard Loroi warships are somewhat Spartan, and similar to that on submarines. Most crewmembers don't have their own private spaces, but instead sleep in the equivalent of bunk beds and share communal living spaces. Only the highest-ranking officers have private cabins.
So, just by way of reference, then...
Aboard
Tempest, which of the following would have had their own cabins:
1: Stillstorm (I'm taking this one as a given, as she is literally the highest-ranking officer.)
2: Rune-Laurel (XO)
3: Forest (Ops)
4: Cobalt (Primary FCO)
5: Red-River (Secondary FCO)
6: Beryl (Tactical Analyst)
7: Tempo (Intelligence officer)
8: Razorthorn (Chief Security Officer)
9: Fireblade (Badass/Muscle-In-Chief?)
10: Helm (No name given to my knowledge.)
Aboard the Tempest, there were offices for the commander/flag officer's use. I imagine Stillstorm to be very hands-on and would rather run as many affairs as possible from the bridge itself, but clearly some Loroi commanders like to have a private space for managing the business of running a ship. I would assume that something like a commander's ready-room would be available if the captain chose to make use of it, even on small ships?
Also, out of curiosity, how secure does a brig have to be to hold an Unsheathed in confinement? Or are Unsheathed basically given one warning to behave if and when they get unruly, and then splattered?
Arioch wrote:That assumes that the inertial damping system produces a net thrust on the ship itself, or actually negates the external effects of gravity, neither or which I think is necessarily the case. If they had true antigravity, then even the largest vessels could easily get to and from the surface on maneuvering thrusters. That would be visually awesome in a Lensman mega-space-opera style, but it's contrary to the infrastructure assumptions that I had made thus far; shuttles and space elevators would be largely unnecessary, and most ships would be constructed on the ground instead of in orbital shipyards.
I'll have to think about that.
Well, if your ship has any kind of active gravitic manipulation, you have thrust, weapons and defenses all in one handy package, Schlock Mercenary style. One Tausennegian Ob'enn Thunderhead-class Superfortress could put a decisive end to the Umiak-Loroi war. On the other hand, I'm not sure how you could have active deck gravity and inertial compensation
without having active gravitic manipulation.
The best explanation I can see is that the
possibility exists, but it's not being seriously researched by any of the combatants. It could also be something the Historians are actively working to prevent anyone else from achieving, because it's a technological leap which secures their own safety - seriously threaten the Historians, and you get
literally torn apart by ships which can use gravity as a weapon, defense, and motive force all at once.
That said, there would still be lots of call for orbital dry-docks and space elevators. Just because a thing is
possible does not necessarily mean it is
cheap, and the industries involved in building a ship might well be more efficient with the ability to leave large portions of them in microgravity and vacuum; damaged ships you wouldn't want to attempt a planetary landing with, etc.
That having been said, if you don't need microgravity, I would assume that, say, a Loroi vessel would easily be capable of landing and taking off from the surface of, say, the Moon, with only its maneuvering thrusters? That might be worth building some landing struts into the smaller vessels.