OOTS #1079 - The Discussion Thread

[factotum]

Exactly why she shouldn't have gotten off light... Probably would be too dark for OOtS, but in reality she should have been keel-hauled, tied to the mast and left to be pecked to death by crows.

As already pointed out, keel-hauling on a flying ship wouldn't really do much. The main reason that keel-hauling was a horrible punishment in real ships is that (a) the person being punished would be underwater for a significant amount of time and (b) the ship's hull would have all sorts of marine life clinging to it, many of which would have nice sharp shells to cut and tear at the flesh of the prisoner. Neither would be true of a flying vessel.

[anonynos]

Han shot first when held at gunpoint. He wouldn't have destroyed C-3PO if the droid had changed the course of his spaceship due to cowardice.

Well... he /might/. He'd certainly threaten it at the least.

[Unoriginal]

As already pointed out, keel-hauling on a flying ship wouldn't really do much. The main reason that keel-hauling was a horrible punishment in real ships is that (a) the person being punished would be underwater for a significant amount of time and (b) the ship's hull would have all sorts of marine life clinging to it, many of which would have nice sharp shells to cut and tear at the flesh of the prisoner. Neither would be true of a flying vessel.

Well, the flying equivalent would be to force the person to do a lot of bungee-jumping

[Kantaki]

Exactly why she shouldn't have gotten off light... Probably would be too dark for OOtS, but in reality she should have been keel-hauled, tied to the mast and left to be pecked to death by crows.

And what have the poor crows done that would even remotely justify doing that to them?

[Kardwill]

What were Andi's motivations for mutiny? My reading is first and foremost, panic; and secondly, contempt for Bandana as "just a kid". She's not motivated to destroy the world; to the contrary, she wants to live, that's what motivated her panic.




I think Andi has learned more respect for Bandana as a leader now.

I don't think her lesson here is respect : She was afraid, panicked, went berserk, took over by accident when she understood what she did (getting the crew out of danger and proving she was a better captain was her only chance of avoiding punishment), and failed miserably, putting everyone in danger and escalating the situation that made her panic in the first place. And when B took control back from her, she immediately surrendered without even a word.

Is she a little bit more willing to respect B now that she experienced firsthand the stress of command and of having people's lives depend on your next order? Maybe.
But mostly, she knows she really, REALLY, doesn't want to be in command ever again. That's the reason she surrendered immediately : She was actually content that somebody else would take the command mantle from her and people would stop asking her to give orders and save everybody. Even if that meant obeying "baby Bandana's" orders, and possibly facing harsh punishment.

[hamishspence]

As already pointed out, keel-hauling on a flying ship wouldn't really do much. The main reason that keel-hauling was a horrible punishment in real ships is that (a) the person being punished would be underwater for a significant amount of time and (b) the ship's hull would have all sorts of marine life clinging to it, many of which would have nice sharp shells to cut and tear at the flesh of the prisoner. Neither would be true of a flying vessel.

This may be more "water vessel converted to fly" though:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0951.html

it can make water landings, even if it may not be as waterproof as it used to be.

[Shining Wrath]

I don't think her lesson here is respect : She was afraid, panicked, went berserk, took over by accident when she understood what she did (getting the crew out of danger and proving she was a better captain was her only chance of avoiding punishment), and failed miserably, putting everyone in danger and escalating the situation that made her panic in the first place. And when B took control back from her, she immediately surrendered without even a word.

Is she a little bit more willing to respect B now that she experienced firsthand the stress of command and of having people's lives depend on your next order? Maybe.
But mostly, she knows she really, REALLY, doesn't want to be in command ever again. That's the reason she surrendered immediately : She was actually content that somebody else would take the command mantle from her and people would stop asking her to give orders and save everybody. Even if that meant obeying "baby Bandana's" orders, and possibly facing harsh punishment.

If she knows she's incapable of command, there is little chance she will stage another mutiny, and thus she's only dangerous if she encourages someone else to stage their own mutiny. Which seems unlikely, since no one has really leapt up and asked for Bandana to be deposed. NOMFWIC, is NOMFWIC.

[Jay R]

As already pointed out, keel-hauling on a flying ship wouldn't really do much. The main reason that keel-hauling was a horrible punishment in real ships is that (a) the person being punished would be underwater for a significant amount of time and (b) the ship's hull would have all sorts of marine life clinging to it, many of which would have nice sharp shells to cut and tear at the flesh of the prisoner. Neither would be true of a flying vessel.

True.

But this is a pirate ship. The classic punishment for pirates isn't keel-hauling; it's walking the plank -- which can be quite effective on a flying ship.

[KorvinStarmast]

If we're gonna hold everyone to IRL standards then

You are the one that dragged in RL tension into the discussion. Remember, I've been on both sides of that RL (and at times damnably frustrating) tension.

Drama is all about taking characters and pushing them until they break, one way or the other.

Andi broke.

You reveal who you really are under stress—stress doesn't magically turn you into someone else unrelated to who you usually are.

Stress is what brought the break.

In a way "breaking" a character in a narrative (or in RL, but we do not do that to our fellow humans) is you take away all his means and things he does and thinks to life a normal life and confront him with a situation where he has to behave based on his most basic instincts. "

The Marines call this boot camp.

Back to our regularly scheduled program.

A comment on redemption.
Rich has in a number of strips commented on redemption, and in a few posts that Jasdoif doubtless has in his index.

Bandana recognizes that Andi panicked at the worst possible time, demonstrating that she is utterly NOT cut out for command. When the pressure was on, she cracked and cracked early.

Bandana, by showing mercy (strike 1!) but also accountability and boundaries (you won't live to strike 3!) and punishment for wrongdoing (share split by rest of crew) not only dispenses justice, but she also opens the door for Andi to redeem herself in a future situation where the ship needs her. In a previous strip her point to Andi was being good at your role. Whether Rich chooses to wander off and show Andi redeeming herself in a subsequent strip remains to be seen, but the door is open for a penitent Andi to make good because Bandana has set up the opportunity for that to happen, rather than just tossing Andi over the side.

(I've seen the military justice system do both in the past: punish but open the door for redemption, and dispose of / write off the discipline case ...)

[ChillerInstinct]

I'm a good person and unless the need for an engineer is something that the ship needs before anything else, I would have tossed her overboard at this strike.

That's the thing, though. They DO need an engineer, there's no time to replace her, and even if there was, finding and training a suitable replacement is just not feasible right now. Even then, for all of her character faults, no one knows the Mechane's inner workings like Andi does.

They need her, and Bandana knows it. Regardless of alignment, sheer pragmatism dictates that Andi can't simply be killed, or imprisoned, or banished, etc. That's a good part of the reason Bandana's way of handling it is so elegant in its simplicity. Andi COULD, in theory, try to get away with whatever she wants again, because she's not expendable. But no one's going to back her up next time, and given the circumstances any "victory" she could win in a best case scenario would be Pyrrhic at best.

[factotum]

This may be more "water vessel converted to fly" though:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0951.html

it can make water landings, even if it may not be as waterproof as it used to be.

That strip implies to me that the Mechane has not been in water for a very, very long time. Any marine life that might have been left on the hull will have died and likely dropped off long since, even assuming they didn't take the opportunity of the ship being out of the water to clear the fouling--which it's likely they *did*, since doing so would save weight and reduce drag.

[Matt620]

I hope this stupid meandering plot of the Mechane crew ends and we can get on to the real story.

A quintessential lesson on why some minor characters should never be given expanded roles.

[littlebum2002]

This may be more "water vessel converted to fly" though:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0951.html

it can make water landings, even if it may not be as waterproof as it used to be.

I think you're missing a significant part of the physics involved. In a normal ship, the person being keel-hauled will float in the water, therefore being dragged along the bottom of the ship. On a flying ship, they'll just dangle at the end of the rope until they are pulled up the other side. No matter what's under there, it's not going to scrape them.

[Peelee]

This may be more "water vessel converted to fly" though:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0951.html

it can make water landings, even if it may not be as waterproof as it used to be.

Devil's advocate: an Airbus can make a water landing. Doesn't make it a good idea.

[Jay R]

Devil's advocate: an Airbus can make a water landing. Doesn't make it a good idea.

But then you can make keel-hauling work!

[nocoolnamejim]

Add me firmly onto the side of the people who think that Andi got off WAY to easily and to a lesser extent so did the entire Mechane crew.

For example, they could easily have untied Bandana immediately after she woke back up. It took a Picard speech by her to get them to flip back to Bandana's side enough to do the obvious and remove the emotionally unstable, idiot incompetent from command. I understand they were, at first, just going along with Andi's orders because they were in the middle of a crisis and Bandana had been knocked out cold but after Bandana woke up and there were no more Frost Giants around and they didn't immediately restore her to being in command they became complicit in the mutiny themselves to a certain extent. (Although you could make the argument they were to busy with other things to untie her.)

I understand that for the moment Bandana needs the crew's support, but by the same token, she also needs to be able to trust in the future that they won't go along with future betrayals and will have her back in a crisis, something that they definitely did NOT do in this arc. To top it all off, they're going to end up getting a BONUS by dividing up Andi's share of the loot? They get off completely free for their role and get a bonus to boot?

From a practicality standpoint going light on both for now makes a certain amount of sense as I can buy the arguments that it's the wrong time, place, and situations for handing down more severe punishments. The ship is badly damaged and needs a repairs and an engineer. They're on a deadline right now and need to prioritize. These are good arguments for Bandana letting certain things slide for now. But I sure hope that we haven't seen the end of future punishments.

[pendell]

Add me firmly onto the side of the people who think that Andi got off WAY to easily and to a lesser extent so did the entire Mechane crew.

For example, they could easily have untied Bandana immediately after she woke back up. It took a Picard speech by her to get them to flip back to Bandana's side enough to do the obvious and remove the emotionally unstable, idiot incompetent from command. I understand they were, at first, just going along with Andi's orders because they were in the middle of a crisis and Bandana had been knocked out cold but after Bandana woke up and there were no more Frost Giants around and they didn't immediately restore her to being in command they became complicit in the mutiny themselves to a certain extent. (Although you could make the argument they were to busy with other things to untie her.)

I understand that for the moment Bandana needs the crew's support, but by the same token, she also needs to be able to trust in the future that they won't go along with future betrayals and will have her back in a crisis, something that they definitely did NOT do in this arc. To top it all off, they're going to end up getting a BONUS by dividing up Andi's share of the loot? They get off completely free for their role and get a bonus to boot?

From a practicality standpoint going light on both for now makes a certain amount of sense as I can buy the arguments that it's the wrong time, place, and situations for handing down more severe punishments. The ship is badly damaged and needs a repairs and an engineer. They're on a deadline right now and need to prioritize. These are good arguments for Bandana letting certain things slide for now. But I sure hope that we haven't seen the end of future punishments.

I think part of the reason this isn't going to happen is because Bandanna grew up on this ship. Andi was her baby sitter once upon a time. It's hard to play draconian ship captain with the people who changed your diapers.

Probably not many Heinlein fans here but the closest analog I can think of in fiction is the ship Sisu from Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy. Everybody on the ship is family. Father is captain, mother is first officer, Mother-in-law runs the entire ship and has the ship's title of something like quartermaster. One does not simply enlist in such a ship. One marries, or is adopted, into it.

You don't just throw someone like that out the airlock when they do something stupid. I mean, okay, Mal did it once . But even he let up once Jayne showed genuine remorse.

So Bandanna has more than the task of keeping good order on the ship; it's also repairing a dysfunctional family. Not to mention, Julio is the one who brought Andi aboard. Yeah, Bandanna could probably answer Julio when he asks what's happened to his chief engineer, but it's probably better to hand the entire ship back in as close to one piece as possible.

And yes, I know that it isn't exactly a family relationship but it still looks a lot closer to a family-style relationship than a corporate-style one.

ETA: Which doesn't mean Bandanna won't put Andi off or kill her if something like this happens again. But she's giving her a chance, and that's a good thing in this case. To quote Heinlein again, "Every dog gets one bite, but only one" .


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Mandor]

Nice. Also smart of Bandana to leave exactly what happens at Strike Two unspecified.

It could mean, "I'll fire you and boot you off at the first safe port",
It could mean, "I boot your behind off my ship, with one week's food and two week's water, even if we're in the middle of nowhere... or over an ocean".
It could mean, "I hack your head off and punt it off the starboard bow".

And really just lets Andi's imagination fill in the blanks.

[Mandor]

I hope this stupid meandering plot of the Mechane crew ends and we can get on to the real story.

A quintessential lesson on why some minor characters should never be given expanded roles.

Tarquin had preconcieved notions about what the story was "supposed" to be, too. Even tried to force it.

I mean, yes, OK, the story means different things to different people, and while Rich is ultimate arbiter on where the story goes and when (unless someone has mind-control rays...), some of us actually enjoy a plot with multiple threads and sideplots. The Lord of the Rings wasn't JUST about Frodo getting to Mount Doom and tossing in a ring. There was also Merry and Pippin off on a tangent with Treebeard, Pippin becoming a soldier of Gondor, and Merry befriending Theoden of the Rohirrim. And the Wheel of Time went to truly amazing lengths to have a world full of plots and subplots and threads and counter-threads.

Now, granted, a web comic, even one I enjoy as much as OOTS, is not exactly up there in that league.
But I bet there's a number of people who are quite content to just see where the story goes, instead of wanting it shaped to their view.

[danielxcutter]

But I bet there's a number of people who are quite content to just see where the story goes, instead of wanting it shaped to their view.

May I sig this? It feels important enough to warrant that.

[arimareiji]

Nice. Also smart of Bandana to leave exactly what happens at Strike Two unspecified.

It could mean, "I'll fire you and boot you off at the first safe port",
It could mean, "I boot your behind off my ship, with one week's food and two week's water, even if we're in the middle of nowhere... or over an ocean".
It could mean, "I hack your head off and punt it off the starboard bow".

And really just lets Andi's imagination fill in the blanks.

I don't think the Mechane's "severance" policy would be as harsh as Bozzok's, but you're right that it's best to leave it unspecified and ominous. When you regularly have to count on people to be doing their job to stay alive, you can't afford a loose cannon.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Bandana is not much of a pirate. A real pirate would have done something horrible to Andi like keel hauling or 24 lashes with a cat-o-nine tails.

Aww, I was sure the pirate penalty for treason was hanging by the yardarm. Or at least a keel-hauling.

What in the name of Julio Scoundrél gives you the idea that the Mechane has real pirates on it?

I know. A non-heroic pirate would have just killed Andi.
Bandanna is a pirate, not a paladin. So leaving Andi behind on a deserted isle (mountain peak?), giving her a good flogging, keel hauling her, etc would be perfectly in character. A stern warning with forfeiture of pay isn't.
I mean, Han Solo fired first, right?

It took a whole movie of character development before he could really be considered "heroic," and Greedo was actively threatening him. Besides, if you expect heroic non-paladins to leave former allies to die over one mistake (serious) mistake, and consider failure to do so paladin-ey, you may need to get your alignment gauge checked.
And again: What in Julio's name makes you think the Mechane has real pirates on it?

When you regularly have to count on people to be doing their job to stay alive, you can't afford a loose cannon.

Well, it might not hurt to be able to keep them a little loose, in case you need to drop them in a hurry.

[Rogar Demonblud]

What in the name of Julio Scoundrél gives you the idea that the Mechane has real pirates on it?

For some reason, this line made me want a StickTales version of The Pirates of Penzance.

[Mandor]

May I sig this? It feels important enough to warrant that.

By all means. As a default, I assume anything I post anywhere can be copy/pasted and/or used against me in a court of law.
But I appreciate the courtesy of asking.

[Mandor]

I mean, Han Solo fired first, right?

While technically true, I feel this distorts the actual sequence of events.

Han Solo was the only one who fired a shot at all.

Greedo threatened him with the gun waving it in his face. But Greedo never fired a single shot. He was blasted to oblivion first.
Unless of course you consider the travesty of the George Lucas do-over, which is heresy in some parts.

[Peelee]

While technically true, I feel this distorts the actual sequence of events.

Han Solo was the only one who fired a shot at all.

Greedo threatened him with the gun waving it in his face.

In addition to the other threat.

Solo: Over my dead body.
Greedo: That's the idea.

[NihhusHuotAliro]

One thing I was always taught with regards to guns and gun safety (my dad grew up on a cattle ranch, and my grandfathers both served time as soldiers) was that you never point a gun at anything you're not willing to shoot.

With the blaster pointed at Han and his finger on the trigger, Greedo's intent is clearly deadly. Essentially, it's self-defense.

[Peelee]

One thing I was always taught with regards to guns and gun safety (my dad grew up on a cattle ranch, and my grandfathers both served time as soldiers) was that you never point a gun at anything you're not willing to shoot.

With the blaster pointed at Han and his finger on the trigger, Greedo's intent is clearly deadly. Essentially, it's self-defense.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but Hollywood has god-awful trigger discipline.

[Luccan]

I'd like to add to the "Does Andi deserve greater punishment" discussion: they do not have time. Looking at the pros and cons of harsher punishment right now:

Pros: Andi cannot (murder or being forced to leave) or is less likely (locked up, whipped, injured, etc.) to do this again.

Cons:
1. They have to either drop her off or assign someone to watch/beat her. That's time/manpower they can't spare.

2. If they just toss her overboard or kill her in some other quick fashion, it might be negligible time, but then you have to deal with the fact that your captain just killed your Chief Engineer. And these guys are LN-CN at their worst. They don't do revenge killing, not when everyone got out alive and the mutineer just surrendered.
2a.Plus, Andi did think she was doing the right thing. She was just completely wrong. She wasn't trying to kill anyone. Also, Andi might be annoying and be too self assured, but she probably has friends on that ship, who at least are going to be grieving a dead friend, if one that makes poor decisions as captain. That'll slow things down

3. She's chief engineer and they need repairs. She got that job because she knows what she is doing and again, that would a waste of manpower. Unless she plans on putting everyone's lives at risk on purpose, she'll at least stay in line until they make their destination.

[Draconi Redfir]

I hope this stupid meandering plot of the Mechane crew ends and we can get on to the real story.

A quintessential lesson on why some minor characters should never be given expanded roles.

that was the real story though. i mean, it's there in the official comic and everything.

now i mean, if it was one of the old fanfics written by CWater or something then sure but this is official.