Militia Paradigms?

given the rate that militia ships are blown sky-high and their general useless-ness against massed talons or kilrathi, is it too much to apply logic and suppose that just maybe the militia would prefer to fly a paradigm or other capship if they could get their hands on one? No-one likes to die, even if they have to break canon.
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You should probably read the rest of this thread, where we logically discuss why a militia wouldn't have a ship of the line.

AHA. The mention of a hospital ship clued me in. There are two factions that would likely have such ships associated to them: Militia and Confed. Especially in backwater systems, sometimes the "Space Ambulance" Tarsus/Galaxy isn't effective enough because it isn't BIG enough. That I think is the best use for the Drayman in the Militia...and it would definitely need supplies on occasion. Perhaps it went to an uninhabited system on a call for aid, for example after some mass battle? There are reasons that a large hospital ship would be needed, even by local governments. They wouldn't be the most COMMON things, but it wouldn't be too alien to have one or two around.
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The best analogy to Wing Commander's hospital ships are probably... you know, Navy hospital ships. You generally don't find cities and towns that have hospital ships floating around instead of regular hospitals.
 
(((You banned kilolima now? God you are such an ass. Sorry to everyone if I'm being blunt, but that's what you're proving to be. I call'em as I see 'em.)))

My bad ^^;
 
I didn't ban kilolima - someone else must have (and for something wholly unrelated to this). I'm not the only administrator here.
 
You really need to take a step back from all this. I've told you over and over again that I don't want to take over your project if you want to stay in charge -- you just need to say so. I warned you that the voting thing was a bad idea... etc. I give good advice, about Wing Commander and about how people here work. You need to listen to me in that capacity rather than assuming I'm some jerk who wants to ruin your project because I'm a "retro". Creating an intentional divide in fan groups is a stupid, horrible thing to do, and *everyone* needs to work to avoid it.
 
LOAF: Your analogy fails in some respects, even when applied to original privateer.

For example: Pender's Star.

No planets, no bases, yet I always saw militia there. The way you write it, it sounds like militia ships shouldn't have jump drives, though?
 
Militia != police.

Now the militia may be the only body capable of policing the trade lanes and space around a solar system but they are a military organisasion. Please correct me if I am wrong but the closest analogy I can imagine is the militia is very much like the Cost Guard.

If so then most of the ships would be short range. The cost guard sees more action than any other military force. And you can bet they do equip themselves to handel any siuation.

Here is a modern USCG cutter.
WHEC-378.jpg


You can find a larger list here.

Considering the USCG opperates in relitivly safe waters (not likely to face any ships of the line) it uses smaller ships than I would expect a space militia close to the front lines to field. A militia would not equip to stop an incursion (way to expensive) but to delay one tell the Navy (confeds) could be mobilised.

Converted Drayman seem the most obvious choise, it wouldn't be strong enough to fight off a dedicated attack but would put the fear of lasers into most pirates.

LOAF knows more than I do though. If the Militia were to have a Cutter sized vessle what would they use?
 
The Coast Guard already has an analogy in Wing Commander -- InSystem Security, which is a branch of the government. They take care of things like 'civilian' SAR.

In reality a militia in reality is more or less a group of civilians who form a military unit themselves. Privateer treats militia as analagous to the police... complete with donut jokes and bartender rumors about them undercover cops.
 
US Coast Guard, operating out of Mayport, Florida, seized 4 tons of cocaine off a ship off the coast of Columbia in South America. Comparably, Coast Guard, operating out of San Francisco, seized a drug ship 200 miles of the coast of Equador.

I live in FL and in my county we have 2 Sheriff's helicopters, both equipped with FLIRs, non-shake mounts for weapons and those high-powered lights. If Apaches could be had, we would have them.

IOW, the Coasties operate FAR from home port and the law enforcement uses the most it can find or afford.

Without ever playing the original WC, it's pretty obvious that the militia is more of a National Guard than a local county mounty and would have, if it could have found one, any ship that does/did the job.

The other thing, not knowing the local politics or wanting to either, it would be far better to stop bickering over the BS details and fix the game which is definitely not ready for Prime Time at the moment.
 
Yeah it seems to me the canon FUBARed the concept of a militia, so they could shoehorn in donut jokes. Being in the USCG is very serious work. If you operate in FL you will get shot at. But even the damn cook in the navy makes fun of the Cost Guard, but that dosn't mean that the guy getting shot at is any less of a warrior because his boat is smaller. But like I said this seems more like a WCU discussion.
 
Eh, again, the militia isn't the Coast Guard - not in reality and not in Wing Commander.

InSystem Security, which appears in Wing Commander 2, is Wing Commander's Coast Guard.

ISS is certainly something that WCU should include -- along with a whole mess of other factions: Home Defense squadrons, 'border' militia units and the like. But that's all a discussion for another forum.
 
The way militia is usually defined, it sounds a lot like the National Guard we have now. Of course there's all the donut jokes in Privateer, as noted :) InSys does get mentioned in Privateer too, the pirates always tell you to watch out for it. I always assumed they meant the militia. Maybe they did at the time? Was InSys fleshed out later or is that always how it was?
 
They don't really *do* anything in the game that would liken them to the Coast Guard -- there's no "militia" plot, and they're really only relevant when you're a pirate.

As far as I know, the only time the Privateer factions are formally defined is in the Playtester's Guide, which has this to say about the militia: "Militia forces are local mercenaries hired by individual planets for security purposes. They are friendly towards Confederation forces and are initially indifferent to your presence. However, they will attack you if you are allied with pirates or if you are caught smuggling contraband goods. You are apt to encoutner militia pilots in the vicinity of any inhabited planets other than pirate bases. Militia forces are allied with the Confederation, so your behavior towards Confederation fighters will also determine your relationship with the militia." (p.56)

If you want a Coast Guard equivalency, you really want the ISS -- the Wing Commander 2 script literally refers to Blair's assignment to the ISS as being the "equivalent of the Coast Guard". The ISS are part of the Confederation (/federal) government instead of employees of local planets.
 
I'm not trying to define militia as the Coast Guard, that was others earlier in the thread ;)

Just wondering how we know what the militia does beyond Donut jokes, and your quote from the guide does nicely. Funny how InSys is mentioned so much, it really would lead one to believe they were talking about the militia. Oh well, they aren't the only faction mentioned in the game that never makes an appearance.
 
Oh, yeah, the Playtesters Guide can be pretty valuable at times -- if you can Amazon up a cheap copy, you should. It's got all the percentages for random encounters in the original game.
 
I think the confusion comes from the (mis)use of the term militia. Militia tend to be am unpaid (or paid volinteer) local military force capable of battle. What you are describing are security guards, not a militia. And I though the border worlds were not on the best of terms with the confeds. Would the ISS even be welcome? Or would a real militia make up for this role?
 
I think the confusion comes from the (mis)use of the term militia. Militia tend to be am unpaid (or paid volinteer) local military force capable of battle. What you are describing are security guards, not a militia. And I though the border worlds were not on the best of terms with the confeds. Would the ISS even be welcome? Or would a real militia make up for this role?
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Militia is a pretty encompassing term -- it's used in the real world to refer to a variety of different "non professional" soldiers. (The term actually has a decidedly negative connotation these days, as modern "militias" tend to be assosciated with radical anti-government groups.) The word shows up throughout the US Constitution, as there hasn't always been a standing professional army.

Historically, though, in a more 'frontier' sense, militias were the non-professional units formed for civil defense and the like. When the Civil War broke out, it was the pre-existing system of militia units that formed the Confederate army. (The same thing happens in Wing Commander, in 2672 when the Union of Border Worlds is formed - existing border militia units become the Outerworlds Navy.)

Re: the Border Worlds. The systems in Gemini aren't part of the Union of Border Worlds. They're Terran Confederation star systems that happen to be on the border. The "Union of Border Worlds", made famous in Wing Commander IV, doesn't come into existence until after the war. In 2669, there'd certainly be ISS units assigned to bases in the border (the "Border Worlds" are basically where the war was fought).
 
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