General Information and Common Duties

[Roger Davis]

General Information and Common Duties

Information that is common to many or all military personnel can be found collected here rather than repeated ad nauseum in various threads.

1. Becoming an Officer
2. Emergency Duties

[Roger Davis]

Becoming an Officer
A Colonial Officer can earn a commission by one of three ways:

• Military Academy – They have attended one of the Colonial Military Academies, earned a four year college degree (typically in the hard sciences), lived in pseudo military life for those four years of school, received military training in their spare time, and graduated with a job waiting for them in the service (and an obligation to serve and repay that great education).
  
• Civilian Officer Training Program (or what might be known as ROTC) – They have attended a civilian institution of higher education but simultaneously joined an officer training program. Thus their college experience was a mix of the discipline and training of the Academies and the freedom and partying of civilian college.
  
• Officer Candidate School – This is a program for those who have already attended college or possibly even never attended (including “mustangs” who started as enlisted and are now officer candidates, although they might also go from enlisted to an academy and then come out as mustang officers). OCS is an abbreviated 2-3 month program that prepares candidates for being a military officer and nothing else.

The schools in that order go from most prestigious to least prestigious (with certain schools within each subdivision being more prestigious than others). For the most part, an Academy trained officer will be better educated and generally better prepared than others. (All things being equal of course. You could be really smart and talented and only go through OCS while some idiot somehow makes it through the Academy.) While Academy trained officers will be able to advance swiftly up the ranks, those from “lesser” schools might have to attend senior/staff officer schools before being promoted into higher ranks.

All three options (with the possibility of a few schools and programs being oddities) have no tuition and even might pay the student a stipend while he attends. This sweet deal is in return for obligatory military service upon graduation. One must pay off the debt with their time, pay a huge lump sum if they suddenly don’t feel like serving anymore, or go to jail.

Technically, one can also be “battlefield commissioned” during times of war. If an enlisted person has shown extreme valor and skill in combat, officers are in short supply, and there is no time to send him to school for a few months or even years, then one can become an officer this way. This is the most uncommon way to become an officer, only occurs during war time, and technically is not a commission but more akin to a brevet (basically getting all the responsibility but only half of the prestige and none of the extra pay).

[Roger Davis]

Emergency Duties
Most emergencies (particularly during war time) will see many crew members busy and preoccupied with their own combat duties. However, if a crewmember is not busy in a critical function or is found outside of their action station during such a crisis, they will be expected to perform certain duties.

Damage Control
At times the ship might suffer considerable damage either from enemy attack or from something as relatively mundane as a faulty gas pipe explosion. Whatever the source, any crewmember might be called upon to perform damage control duties. The primary DC responsibility falls on the engineers who are trained to perform major repairs, deal with chemical and radiation leaks, etc. Typically the rest of the crew will merely be limited to fighting fires or moving wounded while those more specialized personnel get to the heart of the problem.

Close Quarters Combat
Repelling boarders is the primary sphere of the marines, but all crew members are expected to take up arms and defend the ship in times of emergency. Depending on the situation, potential direct orders, and the initiative of the individual a crewmember might merely hold position and kill anything that comes through the door, move to help defend a crucial position, go on the offensive, or tag along to support a marine squad as they go about clearing the ship.