В кратце:
Много людей нужно потому, что:
1. Половина механизмов не понятно как работает. Про закидывание плазмы лопатами в плазма-топку - это утрирование, но в целом все примерно так. Там где могла бы справлться автоматика, работает грубая людская сила. Ну, все равно что в наших реалиях авианосец на весельном ходу. Черт, опять утрирую.
2. Фактор масштаба. Этих механизмов на корабле длинной в несколько киллометров не один и не два.
3. Высокая смертность. А также риск высокой смертности => про запас
4. Необходимость постоянного поддержания работы всех ситсем => несколько смен
4. Наличие различных специалистов, обслуживающих команду, а не корабль.
5. Семейная преемственность.
+ это ведь город в миниатюре. Зачем в городе много людей?
"Да простят меня FFG и авторское право. Еще раз."Serving
Aboard a
Starship
”Every man shall work his fingers to the bone to accomplish the
task at hand. If that proves insufficient, he shall work them to the
marrow!”
–First standing order of Captain Krassus, Battlefleet Gothic
A Rogue Trader is master of his vessel, and his trusted
retainers direct its workings with only slightly less
authority. However, no matter how absolute their
word, the Rogue Trader and his fellow Explorers are only
the tip of the iceberg. They stand at the top of a vast pyramid
of men and women ranging from the educated and highly
trained command staff aboard a starship’s bridge, to the
specialist crew-members who know something of the vessel’s
arcane inner workings, to the armsmen who enforce discipline
with the truncheon and protect the vessel with shotcannon
and sabre. At the very bottom of the pyramid are the ratings,
the dregs of society drafted aboard the ship. Only rarely do
ratings prove their worth and are subsequently elevated to
serve amongst the upper ranks of a starship’s crew. Usually,
their lives are comprised of brute labour, and all too often
are cut tragically short. There are no shortages of accidents
waiting to happen aboard a starship, and that’s discounting
the myriad dangers lurking outside the hull.
149
IV: Starships Expanded
This is one of the reasons that many Imperial vessels sail
with exceptionally large crews. Of course, an Imperial ship is
a gigantic vessel, often multiple kilometres in length. Often,
the understanding of the marvellously complex technologies
woven into a certain ship’s design have been lost to both its
creators and its crew. Although a ship’s systems may have
once performed certain vital tasks simply and effectively, none
remain who can operate them—or the systems themselves
have degraded to the point of uselessness. Raw manpower
is a crude but effective substitute, whether employed in the
sweating chain gangs who haul a ship’s macrocannon into
firing position, or the groaning, foot-powered tread wheels
that open and close the louvres shielding a starship’s mighty
attitude jets.
That being said, it is possible for many Imperial ships
to operate with smaller crews than their optimal crew
compliment. Some do just that, especially the smaller systemships
that operate within civilised and defended Imperial
systems, and never leave the protective embrace of local
Navy patrols. Beyond those systems, amongst the vast gulf of
interstellar space, it is a far different story.
Few trade routes within the Imperium can be considered
truly safe. Even the most populous sectors abound with a
thousand threats—pirates, mutant renegades, pocket xenos
empires, and even the dread minions of the Dark Gods. In
addition, a single ship is extremely valuable—representing
decades (if not centuries) of construction, and centuries or
millennia of service. There are planets worth less to the
Adeptus Terra than a single transport. Therefore, it is common
practice for even the most unassuming tramp freighter or mass
conveyor to be outfitted for war. Adamantium armour and
void shields for defence, a few batteries of macroweapons to
hopefully drive away a foe. And, of course, a crew population
beyond the minimum needed for day-to-day operations—a
surplus to absorb the inevitable casualties from fires,
explosions, decompressions, and desperate boarding actions.
FAMILIES AND DYNASTIES
That is not to say, however, that every crew-member aboard
a starship—save perhaps the captain—is doomed to a slow
death through privation and servitude (possibly interrupted by
a very quick death through combat or fatal accident). Many
crew, especially amongst those who are skilled enough to
make themselves vital to the ship’s smooth operations, adapt
to their life amongst the stars, and even thrive. These voidborn
learn to love the countless corridors and passageways of
a starship, from plasma drive to pointed prow.
It helps that most captains afford their trained crew a certain
latitude not granted to the masses of ratings. In exchange for
their specialised skills they are given larger quarters, better
meals, the opportunity for shore leave at friendly ports, and
even the dispensation to form relationships and raise families.
Often, these families pass down duties—and the knowledge
to perform them—from parent to child. On the Rogue
Trader vessel Starweaver, for example, all of the launch bay
door operators on the ship’s starboard side belong to the
Orell clan, a situation that has remained unchanged for three
centuries. On a starship’s gundecks, each macrocannon may
be crewed by a different family, who might all be embroiled
in a complex web of feuds, alliances, and unpleasant little wars
with the other macroweapon clans. Often, a good crew chief
or bosun is indispensable precisely because he can navigate
the labyrinthine political webs woven amongst the thousands
of ship’s crew.
The primary advantage to these dynasties, of course,
is that the ship’s crew essentially trains itself in many
matters. Invaluable knowledge is passed down through
generations, carefully preserved so that the families in turn
may preserve their privileges and pride amongst the crew.
That being said, there are certain risks as well. To protect
their valued positions, these crew dynasties often make
sure that their knowledge of how to operate their systems
or perform their duties remains a secret known only within
their clan. So long as they remain aboard their ship and
at their posts, this is not a problem. However, should the
status quo change, a ship could find itself in a precarious
position. During one of its battles with a dangerous Yu’vath
remnant, the raider Cerberus lost nearly an entire crew
family to a catastrophic decompression in the aft decks.
This family had been responsible for regulating coolant
lines to the ship’s secondary plasma drives. Had the ship’s
Seneschal not called for the clan’s twelve-year-old son to
serve as a message runner, not a living soul aboard the
Cerberus would have known where the emergency purge
valves were located, and the entire ship would likely have
suffered catastrophic drive failure.
ALL THE COMFORTS OF HOME
Not all starships become populated by crew dynasties and
clans. Indeed, the practice is much less likely to be tolerated
aboard a Navy vessel—and a proper warship’s crew turnover
is usually too constant for such things to be established
anyway. It is more common aboard transports and Rogue
Trader vessels, where discipline may be more lax and a ship
may go years without seeing combat.
Where crew dynasties and families do develop, a ship
tends to become as much a community as a vessel. It is
not uncommon for crew-members to do work for their
fellows in their spare time, and this can lead to
quite a thriving underground market in goods
and services. This can go far beyond rough
stills and exotic xenos avians—indeed if
something is not provided to the ship’s crew by their masters,
they likely produce it themselves. All manner of craftsmen
may ply their trade amongst the crew, producing everything
from work-boots and strong amasec to crude bionics. It is
not unknown for some ship crews to produce their own
currency, whether crudely stamped ”ship coins,” discarded
adamantium bolts, or even the knucklebones of long-dead
fellow shipmates.
Along with these trade-crafts and exchanges, many
starships develop their own black markets. These ”lowdeck
markets” trade in both contraband and illegal services—
drugs, xenos artefacts, weaponry (most ships ban common
crew from carrying weapons other than a knife), and illicit
recreation. Ships may have hidden gambling halls and pitfighting
arenas in long-forgotten corridors. There, off-duty
crew crowd the bulkheads to spend coin or trinkets at games
of chance, or bet on how many hull-ghasts the C-Deck Bosun
can slay in five minutes.
Many captains choose to ignore such activities unless
they interfere with the performance of the ship, recognising
them as a necessary evil to maintain crew morale. More
puritan-minded captains may not be so forgiving, and
may even employ agents styled off the Commissariat to
root out malcontents. Other captains take the opposite
approach—it is rumoured that Calligos Winterscale visits
his ship’s fighting pits with some regularity, and many pit
fighters fight in the hopes