[Dilmah G]

Mm, well I don't think the GTVA fully understood what Kappa 4 was trying to say at the time.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

They committed a destroyer, a corvette, at least one (more than one?) other warship, and multiple fighter and bomber wings.

Think of the way they committed these forces rather than the number of forces they committed. The Khenmu was first sent, alone. Only when it's destroyed do they send in another ship, and then another, and another. It would have probably made a bit more sense to rush the Ravana from the rear with all four ships and blow up its subsystems so that it can't do anything.

Mm, well I don't think the GTVA fully understood what Kappa 3 was trying to say at the time.

Fixed.

Apart from entering the Lucifer's fighterbay, this "advice" also makes me question Command's intelligence:

Avoid the beam and you won't get hit, pilot!

[Mongoose]

Apart from entering the Lucifer's fighterbay, this "advice" also makes me question Command's intelligence:

Avoid the beam and you won't get hit, pilot!

He was right, though.

I thought that order in Playing Judas was a fantastic way of illustrating that, in the grand scheme of things, your individual life wasn't worth squat to the GTA as a whole.  Command had an unprecedented chance to get all sorts of data on the Lucifer's systems, and they were going to take advantage of it, whether their pilot came back alive or not.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Oh yeah, remember what Snipes said:

Now here's an important lesson. SOC didn't mount a rescue op because they liked me. It's because I had information, and information is what keeps you alive out there.

[Dilmah G]

Yeah well, they don't have a reason to like you anymore than the other pilots do they? I mean, the GTVA's a faceless organisation after all.

[karajorma]

I thought that order in Playing Judas was a fantastic way of illustrating that, in the grand scheme of things, your individual life wasn't worth squat to the GTA as a whole.  Command had an unprecedented chance to get all sorts of data on the Lucifer's systems, and they were going to take advantage of it, whether their pilot came back alive or not.

Exactly. I'd question Command's intelligence if the didn't do that. One one hand you have a single pilots life, on the other the survival of both species against an unkillable enemy.

[NGTM-1R]

I don't think underestimating the Shivans was even avoidable.

However I'm going to come down on the side of what Command ordered in Playing Judas being probably stupid. They took a risk, to be sure, calculated, but it's not the wise sort of risk. As Heinlein once said, "Men are not potatos." It is very important for those in the military to believe that it actually does care about them as individuals, that it will not risk their lives without purpose, and most especially, that it will not send them into something they have no chance of surviving. One might regard it as a semantic distinction that a good officer never orders a man to his death directly, but to those who might actually be ordered, it is a very important semantic distinction.

Command directly ordered you to your death. This is not the action of a wise officer. (Particularly considering Alpha 1 is rapidly proving to be the most valuable flight officer aboard his destroyer! His death could have extreme ramifications for the morale and discipline of the Galatea's aerospace group, never mind the obvious loss of your most effective pilot!) Moreover, whatever they hoped to gain from it is deeply questionable. We have to assume that Shivans would have considered the obvious weakness a flight/hanger deck causes in a ship's design. To again quote Heinlein "Any race that can design a spacecraft is not stupid." The effort to order you into the hanger might have provided all kinds of fascinating information, but it's doubtful it would have revealed any key design weaknesses when the Shivans went to such trouble to design the Lucifer as an invincible craft. Even if it had, we have no reason to believe Alpha 1 could have actually transmitted his information from the hanger.

[Dilmah G]

Well I know most Commonwealth countries use the "John Adair" Leadership model when training/selecting their Junior Officers, and one of the key three points stressed is caring about the individual in a team, so I'd agree with you about their actions. But I guess to Command, it must've been a "Well, we'll never know until we look" kind of things.

[TrashMan]

I thought that order in Playing Judas was a fantastic way of illustrating that, in the grand scheme of things, your individual life wasn't worth squat to the GTA as a whole.  Command had an unprecedented chance to get all sorts of data on the Lucifer's systems, and they were going to take advantage of it, whether their pilot came back alive or not.

Exactly. I'd question Command's intelligence if the didn't do that. One one hand you have a single pilots life, on the other the survival of both species against an unkillable enemy.

And the data in your fighters computer and the sensor logs would be lost too. Yeah, a really brilliant move.

[NGTM-1R]

Y'know, Trash has a really good point there. (I know, the world's going to implode for me saying that.)

I have to assume that the fighter's capable of collecting far more data than it can reasonably transmit, so losing it is losing that data, and considering the covert nature of the mission, I doubt it's constantly transmitting a high-bandwith data stream, because somebody could detect that.

[karajorma]

We've got absolutely no proof of that NGTM-1R.

In fact, Command talking to you suggests that they're pretty damn certain the Shivans can't pick up their signals. Nor do we have proof that the Lucifer's hull would block signals.

[TrashMan]

IIRC, doesn't the debrief mention the tech going over the fighters logs?

It kinda makes sense for most data to be stored locally.

[karajorma]

Not if you have the bandwidth to transmit them and an uncrackable encryption system. Pretty much every military commander has wanted more information about what his troops are up to. If they could transmit that data back safely they would.

[NGTM-1R]

That such a transmission can be detected?

How else would it be passed, except subspace? Command reacts without light-lag in the mission. The Shivans are the masters of subspace; they could detect it. They can probably accept you are communicating with an outside source infrequently and assume it's Shivan forces already insystem. A continous subspace transmission and other communications are unlikely to be overlooked.

We have no idea how the Lucifer's shields work at this point, or its hull, all we know is that it's apparently impervious to all possible weapons. If you're suggesting they're not using subspace, this impervity must, of necessity, include most methods of transmitting information. (Otherwise you could use them as a weapon against it.) So Command would be idiots to assume you can transmit inside the Lucifer, or they're using a transmission method that would compromise the possiblity of a successful mission.

Pick one.

[Kie99]

The thing that gets me about that Kappa 3 mission is that you can order Kappa 3 to depart as soon as he arrives, but nothing happens if you do.

I thought that order in Playing Judas was a fantastic way of illustrating that, in the grand scheme of things, your individual life wasn't worth squat to the GTA as a whole.  Command had an unprecedented chance to get all sorts of data on the Lucifer's systems, and they were going to take advantage of it, whether their pilot came back alive or not.

Exactly. I'd question Command's intelligence if the didn't do that. One one hand you have a single pilots life, on the other the survival of both species against an unkillable enemy.

That's a fair shout, but considering the Lucifer has an invisible wall over it's docking bay, it killed suspension of disbelief for me.

[karajorma]

That such a transmission can be detected?

How else would it be passed, except subspace? Command reacts without light-lag in the mission. The Shivans are the masters of subspace; they could detect it. They can probably accept you are communicating with an outside source infrequently and assume it's Shivan forces already insystem. A continous subspace transmission and other communications are unlikely to be overlooked.

Except that we know full well that the Shivans communicate via quantum pulses whatever the **** they are. Any communication which isn't of that type is going to stand out like a sore thumb.

Furthermore you don't explain what the **** the Shivans thought was going on with the stealth mission in FS2.

We can play the assumption game all day going round and round over who made the biggest one but basically this comes down to a simple fact. Did mean to portray Command as stupid giving that order. No. So either my assumptions or ones similar to them are correct.

[NGTM-1R]

Except that we know full well that the Shivans communicate via quantum pulses whatever the **** they are. Any communication which isn't of that type is going to stand out like a sore thumb.

Which is even more reason to assume your fighter isn't transmitting the whole mission, only Command is transmitting to you. And therefore commiting your fighter, with all the data it has already, to enter the hanger, was stupid.

Furthermore you don't explain what the **** the Shivans thought was going on with the stealth mission in FS2.

Inter-wing communications are presumably not strange, even for the Shivans, if you want to try and mask them. Short-ranged radio can almost certainly be masked somehow in the emissions of your fighter's engines/shields, or laser-based comms for line-of-sight undetectable communications. That doesn't work for transmitting through the Lucifer's hull or for Command in Playing Judas.

We can play the assumption game all day going round and round over who made the biggest one but basically this comes down to a simple fact. Did mean to portray Command as stupid giving that order. No. So either my assumptions or ones similar to them are correct.

And you can read 's mind now?

[Ziame]

As for the "playing judas" first time i played i SOOOO HOOOPED i would enter it and go on a Descent-style mission to kill reactors


Though i think they realised that'd be lol shame.

[Dilmah G]

I think would win the dial-up internet of the day if they did that.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Yes, but not when they wanted to deal the destroyer's death blow. I mean, seriously, what kind of blunder resulted in heavy bombers attacking without a fighter escort? That's basic stuff they missed, and you sure as hell needed a fighter escort for that mission on higher difficulties. Well, it's do-able, but it'd be a little easier with a competent escort. And I mean, it's a FRAKKING DESTROYER! It should've turned around and given that Sobek a wake-up call, and on that note, I don't think it sortied any bombers to deal with it either. Really, it's a major ship, and being taken down by a wing of bombers, Serapis fighters, and a lone corvette that was barely trying is shameful at the least.

If computers were more powerful at the time, I see no reason why it shouldn't have turned into a larger engagement. And when the Ravana realises it's getting its ass handed to it, it should just power up the drives or call in some backup.

Your complaints are more related to mission design rather than command decisions.

That's a fair shout, but considering the Lucifer has an invisible wall over it's docking bay, it killed suspension of disbelief for me.

Your desire to enter the fighter bay should end with a wing of Basilisks comes streaming out.
Most players never hit the wall.