Training plan Submitted to Commander Aren Ban by Ensign Miraj Derani

Posted on 03 Feb 2018 @ 5:58pm by Ensign Miraj Derani

915 words; about a 5 minute read

Training plan
Submitted to Commander Aren Ban by Ensign Miraj Derani

Introduction:
Historically starship designers are rarely pilots,. As such they do not have an instinctive appreciation of the nature of space. Primarily that its big, really big. Unfathomably big. And it has no gravity. (surprising as it sounds, a quick examination of Starfleet ship design in the last two hundred years shows that ship designers don’t seem to realise that since they design ships that have engines at the back, and clear up and down. Ships are sleek and streamlined, and pleasing aesthetically, but designs are hardly efficient, concentrating the majority of thrust to the rear, instead of dispersing all over The Borg are probably the most efficient, the only thing holding them back is an insistence on cubes, not spheres.

These design choices have a consequent restriction on the creativity of the people who pilot them, making them think they are sitting in stately vessels sitting in a sea on a gravity normal world, or possibly constrained by the rules of Aerodynamics, none of which is true. The following exercises are to help pilots relearn the truth about space, and develop more daring, flexible, and creative ways to fly.

Lesson 1
Up is relative

Objective: To break the instinct to move in a single plane of activity when in space flight

In space, where there is no gravity for the body to decide which way its facing, up, or down, or any direction is really arbitrary, but any experiences of flying in atmosphere, or in orbit, is another contributor to the all pervading tendencies for pilots

Exercise 1: Which way? To get used to having no up and no down, participants have to navigate a maze. Blindfolded, in zero gravity, to remind the brain and body that the doors of perception swing many ways.

Exercise 2, Tag, You’re It. Quite simply a war game. The pilots must face off against each other in a battle simulation, with one proviso. Any strike to the forward sections of the opposing ship(s) do not count. The aim to to encourage thinking above and beyond straightforward broadsides and work to get the ship in a position so the forward facing phasers can shoot something other than the forward (and usually most powerful), shields.


Lesson 2
Banking is for Bolians

Objective:To break common maneuvering instinct, which is to continue moving froward whilst turning, and maneuvering with increased turning circles

Whilst the speed of maneuvers on a ship is limited by the capacity of the inertial dampeners, most Fleet dampening systems are far more powerful than are typically given credit. Even ships of the line can turn on an internal pivot point under certain circumstances.

Exercise: Sit, Stand, Roll over. The pilot has to change heading to match a randomly selected set of headings, without leaving a fixed area of space. The change in headings come increasingly faster, and the space they are allowed to move in becomes increasingly smaller until the pilot can flip, roll and spin around the central pivot point of the ship, without moving the absolute position of that point in space.


Lesson 3
There is no spoon

Objective: remove the false man/machine divide

A ship is an object and a pilot is a person.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Even a crusty old tramp freighter a hundred years over due for scrapping still contains more processing power than the average humanoid brain. Ships have preferences , and needs, and hungers the same as any living being, its jsut they are not seen as that . There will always be things that are easier to work one way rather than the other - Thats a preference. There will be times when a ship is operating at full efficiency and still feels like it can givemore - that's a hunger. Human beings often can’t understand things on a rational level, but can still process the multiple sensory feedbacks they get from sitting in a ship, by imagining a conversation. Their unconscious converts what they are taking in into what they think the ship is telling them. Dismissing it as daydreaming, hallucination, or fantasising misses a powerful opportunity to improve.

Exercise: Getting to know you: Get naked and crawl into various parts of the ship, find a comfortable place to sit and slow your breathing, and start talking to the ship, ask it about how it feels, what it thinks about this part of them. Imagine them responding - find out what gender they are (not all ships are female), do they like this part? what would they change about it? What do they think about you. Tell them about yourself. Feel the ship around you, know what it's like against your skin at warp, high impulse, low thrusters, on umbilical support.

Whilst it sounds silly, it will help assimilate your suspicions and knowledge of both the ship, and yourself, and when you don’t hesitate to hold a conversation with a ship, you won’t hesitate to know what to do when flying.


Lesson 4
Drive it like you stole it

Objective: use risk to synthesise the above learnings

Exercise: Grand Theft Spaceship. Steal a ship at least 200 meters long, and get it at least two sectors away before surrendering. Pursuit should be first engaged, and then avoided. This should not be done in a holodeck. Real risk is everything.

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