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Subject: 
Re: Alien and gravity
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.geek
Date: 
Wed, 18 Apr 2001 19:10:06 GMT
Viewed: 
130 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.geek, Dave Schuler writes:
In lugnet.off-topic.geek, Mark Sandlin writes:
Dave Schuler at orrex@excite.com wrote:

I just saw Aliens again this weekend, and I have another question.  Why
does a ship the size of New Jersey (or whatever its size--it's really big,
though) only hold a staff of a dozen marines?

The Sulaco was sent out on a special mission. Quite a lot of the ship was
unused at the time.

I typed up a big ol' blurb about it here:

http://news.lugnet.com/space/?n=5041

Yikes!  Looks like I asked the right guy.  But can we agree that they only
sent a dozen troops solely for the purpose of increased dramatic tension?

Yah, but the fun part is figuring out a reasonable "in-character" reason for
only sending 12 guys. :)

I got an impression of the CM that's a little bit like fire fighters are
today... a lot of training, and a lot of specialized equipment, and 9 times
out of 10, you don't need any of it.  But when you do need it, you *need* it.

I apply that 95% rule (send everything that might be needed for 95% of what
we do) to it, and figure that it applies to the people as well.  Consider
that you're taking any manpower you send *completely* out of ciculation for
the flight + mission time, you want to minimize the people needed on any
given crew.  If their number crunchers have determined that 1 marine squad
meets the 95% rule, well, that's what you get.  12 marines and a big 'ol
empty death machine.


James
Geeking about pretend stuff is often more fun than geeking about real stuff. :)



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Alien and gravity
 
(...) I think geeking gives these exchanges a bad image. Women get together and gossip, get a group of men togther and they'll talk about the mechanics of something, it's only natural. This thread maybe a discussion about things that are fictional (...) (24 years ago, 19-Apr-01, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Alien and gravity
 
(...) sent a dozen troops solely for the purpose of increased dramatic tension? Dave! (24 years ago, 18-Apr-01, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)

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