 December 13, 2012 - 6:35am | I think the Common Muster was as important to the Frontier as the Articles of Conferderation were to the United States. They laid ground work and got things moving in the right direction. Intellectuals on the ground spent time thinking about its pros and cons and were prepared to propose more sweeping measures that probably would not have passed without the prior document/experience. I think to characterize the situation in which the common muster would be possible there has to be government owned vessels and perhaps this was the norm leading up to the first muster. There are perhaps privately own and companythe vessels but this will become the norm after SW1. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 13, 2012 - 7:43am | One easy way to make the ships more likely to be mostly govenment owned is to jack up the cost. If they are too expensive to be owned by private individuals and most small companies than only big companies and governments can afford them. It's like airplanes today. You're average joe isn't going to go out and buy even a small plane, its just too expensive. But governments and the airlines (subsidized by the government) can and do operate aircraft. And in the middle to have some companies and private individuals having small planes but not large ones or only a few. In fact, maybe during the SWI period, a lot of corporate held ships were government subsidized. That gives the governments the hooks they need to deputized the ships for the musters. Much like today if needed the US govenment could commandeer most of the airline fleets for troop and cargo transport if a serious war broke out. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
December 13, 2012 - 8:30am | I like that. Perhaps the commandeering played out differently species by species- as Terl describes for humans, point of honor involved with the yazirians- with the Star Exodus in the recent past and the basic idea of the Fo1 being "we're all in this together" the commandering among the yazirians would be very different then for the humans or vrusk. Vrusk would almost be a business contract, especially since most vrusk colony govs are actually run by a board of vrusk companies. Hatzk Naar's raid started in Dramune and would have dealt with Inner Reaches ships before moving on to hit Cassidine, Prengular and finally be stopped at Lossend. Most likely the Muster was human and yazirian ships representing the majority. Possible for vrusk/dral ships in human/yaz space to be notified via subspace to join the muster I guess but most likely the bulk was yaz and human. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 13, 2012 - 3:53pm | I have always pictured the Frontier like the US Colonies. Each colony had its own militia but then the French riled up the Indians and a general muster was called. Things went well and everybody who wasn't dead went home. Then a new big bad finally had to be dealt with so a second general muster was called and a hero rose up and led them to victory. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
