Originally posted by diamondgeezer
What he said.
How about this scenario, mik: a remote outpost (such as TS), where the only military presence is the Lonewolf, her crew, and your four-man fighter wing (and maybe a few admins and techs, but not many). Are you gonna stop hundreds of determined civilians?
Yes. LOCK THE DAMN AIRLOCKS. Then pop your umbilicals and go to a standoff distance. Start plinking NOW CONSIDERED HOSTILE civilian ships that decide to come after you.
Are you gonna take responsibility for killing said hundreds of civilians if that's what it takes to stop them?
Lets see. courts martial for giving up my very expensive ship or board of inquiry for killing some pirates... hrm... I dunno.. oh yeah, KILL THE DAMN PIRATES.
Perhaps you're under orders not to kill civvies - has been known to happen, you know.
Piracy is not legal. Attempting to hijack a military vessel makes you hostile. Kill, disable, disarm, or otherwise prevent the pirates from taking your vessel.
Perhaps you're sympathetic towards their cause. Perhaps they've slipped you a bundle of small, green pieces of paper and asked you to be looking out the porthole when they sneak past your guard post.
Did you miss the whole airlock concept: you have to get a whole crew of armed pirates past the locks on the ship, into the corridors and then they have to fight their way past the ships crew, though sealed/compartmentalised spaces DESIGNED TO STOP BOARDERS FROM HAVING EASY ACCESS TO THE SHIPS INTERIOR and then take over the ship FROM THE ARMED, TRAINED AND DETERMINED MILITARY PRESENCE.
Want more? OK - perhaps they locked themselves in the engine room and bridge, and there's no other acess to the ships systems (on older ships, admitidly).
See previous note. They had to get aboard somehow.
Maybe they flooded the ship with knock-out gas? The list goes on...
This wouldn't work on a terrestrial naval vessel because of the way the ventilation system works. Why would they forget how to build compartmentalised ventilations systems in the future?
And frankly, mik, you'd make one ****e police negotiator. You'd let the hostage get scrubbed, just like that? Can you really see U.S military personel (for the sake of argument) letting their c/o get killed, saying "sorry sir, I can't let you in there, even if you have the captain hostage..."?
Billion dollar vessel armed with deadly weapons capable of killing thousands vs one man. The military is not run like the police. Try joining up, you'll find that out quite quickly.
OK, so this is probably not going to happen in the average GTVA millitary base, but for the Derelict campaign, set in a remote, relatively unsecured system, it was both plausible and a good bit of plot, so 
Civilians on a remote military base anywhere. They have to get aboard. They have to defeat the crew. They have to do all of this before the weapons, engines and computer systems are scuttled.
This might happen in some universe where militaries don't have the competency of the average minerally deficient rock. Its not plausible in the real world, and its not plausible in a future with a military organisation like the GTVA. What? they forgot how warfare, guerilla tactics, piracy, etc work over the next several hundred years? Maybe they forgot how to read? Perhaps they disbanded the military and put together a new fleet command and staff from a pool of people selected for their complete lack of knowledge of the military?
Come on. Its not impossible, but it isn't so easy that they're going to take "a few Fenrises, Leviathans, or Aeoluses". I'll grant you a transport or a freighter. Maybe even a science vessel. A warship? Not bloody likely.
