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[Egan_BW]

I vote against selling our tech of any kind. It's *not* that replaceable, breaks our monopoly, and what do we need the money for anyways? Money doesn't go very far in this world.

[Xvareon]

It's not really the money. It's contracts. We wouldn't be selling the high-end military gear, we'd be selling heavy machinery that our kind of people could make use of immediately. As payment, we buy out the contracts/debts of workers who would otherwise be stuck, thus helping ensure their gratitude & loyalty to us, as well as getting whatever we might need to ensure a decent quality of life for them. The company we sell to gets the ships, we get personnel and materiel. Win/win for both sides.

Hell, we don't even really have to SELL the ships. We could just, y'know... loan them out. They're no doubt FAR better than existing mining ships. We could lease them to people who can then use them to turn a profit, and pay us just as above to do so. If we need them back or they can't pay, well... we are sitting on perhaps the biggest f***ing arsenal for several lightyears around, so God help anyone who tries to screw us, we WILL get it back.

[Radio Controlled]

”I hope it’s clear to all of you that unless we want to raise a few generations onboard, we’re going to have to recruit people. Some goods for barter might help, but we shouldn’t need to pay at the point of hire too often. I think the main concern is staying in control of the Esperanza… especially if we invite pirates on board.

“While I’m gone, a few of you could try hardening the internal security, and locking down control of the ship to us and our people. That way, we can take on new hires without worrying too much about loyalty.”

“Hmm, do you really think so? How do you figure? I’ll admit I’m not very knowledgeable on the HR side of things, but I would have expected that we’d have to offer a fairly hefty sign-up bonus for the kind of job we’re offering. ”

“And sure, I could look into security, I’m not half bad at figuring things out. Though right now I’m working on crafting some stuff, so I’d need someone to take that over first.”

((Taking it IC))

"I believe we went over this already right, and that most of the crew preferred not to sell any of our find as salvage?

Personally, I wouldn't mind doing this the slower route, slowly building up here and hiring more crew from the stuff we sell. But if people want to kickstart things, then selling one of the six mining ships would indeed go a long way already."

[Xvareon]

"The problem with the slower route is that we don't have the people. We barely have enough to turn the lights on with the main ship, and if something happens while we're out harvesting asteroids, we have literally no one to spare to run turrets. And below skeleton crew is NOT an arrangement people are gonna be happy living with. Remember when I said it's not just crew, it's ensuring a decent standard of living? Yeah, that. You can't just expect people to work fourteen hours a day and have nothing go wrong. I'd rather sell or lease some of this stuff before it breaks or someone comes and steals it from us, then use the credit to buy out some debts and get more workers."

"We NEED startup capital. We NEED people. What we're trying to do right now is like using a megabyte connection to run an exabyte download."

[Radio Controlled]

"We could always sell our old salvaging ship as well. It's no fancy remnant tech vessel, but it's still a whole damn ship, so should be worth something.

... Though now I'm gonna have to embarrassingly admit I don't know who is technically the owner of our vessel. I don't even quite remember what kind of corporate structure we have, or under what contracts we are. Might be relevant, if some of the other crew wants to return home at some point with their pay.

Either way, we could also take out a big loan and use one or more of the mining ships as collateral. That way we still get it back once we pay back the loan later, but gives us some extra starting capital."

[Imp]

Hey, Dev.  What are conditions like on the ship so far for us?  How hard was that jump to do, and if it wasn't easy, what made it hard and how unpleasant was the problem(s)?

[NJW2000]

Johanna assists in using the gas scoop to gather enhanced resources, storing them in the internal cargo hold.

Spoiler: Johanna Goodwood (click to show/hide)

Name: Johanna Goodwood


Additional details: A stocky woman, of reasonable height, in her late twenties, sporting closely cropped black hair, comfortable work overalls, and numerous ornamental tools and measuring instruments.

Her father was one of several heirs to an interplanetary merchant dynasty, but himself a weak businessman and worse gambler. The inheritance largely spent and her parents reduced to clerical work on a lunar shipyard, Johanna grew up around mechanics, soldiers, merchant astronauts, stevedores and adventurers. Thriving on the rowdy and hectic environment of the docks and warehouses, she learned a great deal about the workings of commercial spacecraft, the repair of complex devices, and the shrewd dealings of interstellar merchants.

Johanna privately observes the totemic religion practised by the engineers and navvies of the shipyards of her youth. While she discusses most things freely, this is a subject she is a little more reticent on.

How did she arrive on this ship, you ask? By setting off for fame and fortune, of course!


Specialty: Logistics

Secondaries: Engineering, Diplomacy

[Devastator]

Hey, Dev.  What are conditions like on the ship so far for us?  How hard was that jump to do, and if it wasn't easy, what made it hard and how unpleasant was the problem(s)?

The jump itself wasn't too hard.  You set in the course from the bridge or the navigation room, set the computers to do a bunch of calculations for the jump, and then spent the next few hours running down the pre-jump checklist, eventually powering up the jump engines and hoping nothing failed after you checked on it.

..It's also remarkably empty here.  People literally have to remain in radio contact and check in as they move places, because people can be isolated by a kilometer of empty corridors between them and the next person.

It's like you're Space Ghosts.  Not the most reassuring thing.

[Imp]

It's like your Space Ghosts.  Not the most reassuring thing.

Deep introverts may not have the expected reaction to this situation.  Neuroatypicals exist!

I point out that things are not that dire, and we seem to have time and options to find the right people.

[Xvareon]

Not that dire, huh? XD  We are well below minimum crew, with an AI that wants to be an effective ship, and do we expect our own crew to follow our idea forever? There's probably no harm in going at it for a bit just so we can try it, but if something goes wrong, which it will eventually, we just don't have the capacity to fix it. And if we start looking like we can't fulfill the ship's desire to be a proper vessel, it may choose to act in its own interest.

[Imp]

Not that dire, huh? XD  We are well below minimum crew, with an AI that wants to be an effective ship, and do we expect our own crew to follow our idea forever? There's probably no harm in going at it for a bit just so we can try it, but if something goes wrong, which it will eventually, we just don't have the capacity to fix it. And if we start looking like we can't fulfill the ship's desire to be a proper vessel, it may choose to act in its own interest.

Well, I'm not for arguing or trying to decide for us all.

I don't see a lot of logic in some of your claims.

1) The AI wants to be an effective ship, but it's been here 'lost' for a very long time.  It was able to 'call for help' on specialized coded frequencies or openly, as well as it could probably try to sail elsewhere by itself to some degree.

None of that happened in the very long time, it's not going to happen now without one of us telling the model that's what we want done.

Slow and steady is in the ship's range of values, it didn't look more like a proper ship before we got on it, and we're doing fine by reasonable evaluation standards.

2) 'Expect our own crew to follow "our" idea' - you pretty clearly don't follow this idea currently.  It's not 'ours' though it may have the majority, or not.  Each of us makes our own call, and can't make the choice of anyone else for all we likely follow consensus or someone tries to dictate.

3) What don't we have the capacity to fix?  Letting people on board who could overpower us, especially if they also outnumber us - that can go bad so many ways.  The ship's got tremendous redundancy and tremendous shield capacity.  Unless there's someone you want us to go help or bully that you haven't told us about, there's no clear rush and no emergency except if we create any.

That said, you're you and one of us here and you got a voice and all the ability to think and persuade or make mischief or whatever else you do.  You kinda sound like a preferred solution in search of a problem, but I'm pretty mellow and just gonna talk, myself.  Mostly just to AI.

[Xvareon]

Fair enough. I'm just saying, according to what's been presented for us, we either need more crew or more automation, or a full redesign of the ship to allow it to work with fewer crew. If not, I'm curious what else we do with the ship(s) we found other than sit on them. But you know my opinion, and I'm not trying to dictate anything. Hence my question to DM about if Jake would know who could provide personnel, not me trying to commandeer the helm and drive us there.

[Egan_BW]

Use one of the miner ships to begin mining, so that we can produce consumer goods.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name: Kaitaryn

Additional details: A fiery redheaded dwarf catgirl from a high gravity terrestrial planet which regressed to medieval technology. She joined a passing pirate flock and gradually became a master of spacejet combat. Now at a venerable middle age of 235, she seeks greater challenges, and also more profit.

Specialty: Piloting

Secondaries: Logistics, Ground Combat

Light personal armor, Remnant Tech
Energy Rifle, Remnant Tech
Energy Pistol, Remnant Tech