I was watching this video: https://youtu.be/SSKeVRj0OY4

And it got me thinking. Two things, one related to the other, and I'll explain the first before I mention the second.

First: what is the purpose of a SSD?

My guess: power projection. Why take single ship the size of a small city, rather than a flotilla or fleet? Because it has something a fleet lacks. I think a SSD should be thought of more as a mobile space station than a conventional warship; as a staging ground, and symbol rather than a simple by-the numbers SD scaled up.

This is all my opinion, but in my mind a SSD is likely used much in the same way carriers are used today - as a mobile piece of the imperial territory from which one can stage operations, base fighters and corvettes, and house political figures when in an imperial city is not nearby.

And so secondly I wonder, much like with the Death Star, is life much different aboard an SSD than aboard a carrier or regular Star Destroyer? Are there parks, recreational facilities, families? Probably a few families, as a crew of tens of thousands can't be swapped on and off irregularly.

I read this: http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2389-bunk-sex-suicides-things-i-saw-aircraft-carrier.html

And this: http://mashable.com/2016/06/23/what-its-really-like-to-live-and-work-on-an-aircraft-carrier/#t79VoWamcPqX

Articles on carrier life. That's just 5,000 people on one ship. A star destroyer has 36,755 people on average, and the Executor had 279,144. Both in Legends and Canon these crews were mixed men and women; not necessarily a 50/50 mix, but mixed nevertheless.

Imagine every single facet of carrier life multiplied exponentially. I'm guessing that either galactic society and social norms are alien to us like social norms from the 1920's would be alien to us, the Empire heavily drugs and neuters (temporally) every single sailor and trooper to keep them sane and functional, or the ship truly is a fortress built around a city with men women and children aboard.

Or a mix of all, or none. I dunno.

For me it just adds a new level of tragedy to every SD and SSD that I see explode on the big screen. One doesn't have to sympathize with the Empire's policies to empathize with the fact that that's a lot of people. A lot of people with families, parents, girlfriends, boyfriends, and things they planned on doing once they finished their tour as a pilot or gunner or technician... or cantina barista for that matter.

So yeah, I dunno. What's the consensus? What do you think it's like on one of those ships?

Edit: There has to be a park aboard each ship at least. Those carrier articles mention crews going stir-crazy just from having limited access to the outside with sunlight. In a spaceship, there is no outside. I can't imagine a human crew lasting long at all without some sort of dedicated recreation area.

A SSD isn't a dreadnought; it's a full on military base and force-projection platform. Imagine the entire Norfolk naval station in mobile form, plus mounting some big guns: that's a SSD.

The lower docking bay looks big enough to accommodate an ISD entry; I suspect in theory it would be able to perform major field repairs on capital ships in addition to all its other functions.

The novel, Death Star, had an interesting look at what life would be like on something like a SSD. One of the characters was a bar owner.

"Hey Joe! Long time no see!"

"Hey Bob! Yeah I went for a walk."

"Really? You've been gone for months."

"Aye, I forgot how big this ship is."

On ‎27‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 1:01 AM, OneKelvin said:

'm guessing that either galactic society and social norms are alien to us like social norms from the 1920's would be alien to us, the Empire heavily drugs and neuters (temporally) every single sailor and trooper to keep them sane and functional, or the ship truly is a fortress built around a city with men women and children aboard.

Or a mix of all, or none. I dunno.

Or the Empire just has very good contraception.

A good parody of these issues - the SDSD Freudian Nightmare:

On ‎28‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 6:51 PM, Pilot Tho Makk said:

"Hey Joe! Long time no see!"

"Hey Bob! Yeah I went for a walk."

"Really? You've been gone for months."

"Aye, I forgot how big this ship is."

Pretty much. And yes, generic Imperial Navy techs will be 'normal people' - so somewhere the ship will have to have canteens, bars, sports halls, you name it. The Death Star garbage masher is a good case in point; someone has to have responsibility for that place, clean it, maintain it, have epic fights with dianogas on a fairly regular basis....

For that matter, the First Order apparently does exactly this - with people considering the Super Star Destroyers 'home' - implying that outside of really critical locations like Starkiller, they generally avoid having immobile planet-based facilities, and there are probably small technical colleges and schools on there somewhere.

"There's an extra credit field trip to see the big starboard batteries today! Miss said we're going to be passing an asteroid belt and Mister Hux is even going to let form 3b fire them!"

" General Hux, dear. If you want to make it into cadet school you need to get these things right."

"Sorry, Dad. But can I go? Pleeeaaaaase ?"

(Yes, I know Robot Chicken's Bring Your Daughter To Work Day sketch was intended as a spoof, but to an extent I can see it happening, at least with a First Order SSD)

Look at the descriptions of life aboard 40k warships in some of the Black Library novels, or the Galactica in the newer series and accompanying novels for more thoughts.

More importantly, a Civil-war-era SSD would almost never be without an escort fleet of 'normal' destroyers - so not only are you a city in space by yourself, but there's a half-dozen smaller ships in the vicinity too. Even a regular SD has several thousand soldiers aboard it, and keeping that many troopers and walkers 'combat ready' means sports halls, gymnasiums, shooting ranges, and probably space for all-up combat exercises (probably something akin to the training rooms on Kamino that you see in the Clone Wars animation)

If you've never seen "Space Janitors" on youtube, I can recommend it; and you can garuantee somewhere on an imperial capital ship there'll be someone just like that.

3 hours ago, Ironlord said:

Or the Empire just has very good contraception.

A good parody of these issues - the SDSD Freudian Nightmare:

Aaaaand this is why I always put the crew's quarters as close to their work areas as possible.

But seriously, jeeze. That puts the Death Star in a new light: some things are just too big to wrap a mind around. And can you imagine the debris field left behind? All those people...

I wouldn't salvage that Dead Space nonsense with a 39 1/2 foot long loading arm.

1 hour ago, OneKelvin said:

And can you imagine the debris field left behind? All those people...

That at least is something about right with Empire Strikes Back - the SD literally dumps a small asteroid belt of garbage before jumping to light speed!

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Pretty much. And yes, generic Imperial Navy techs will be 'normal people' - so somewhere the ship will have to have canteens, bars, sports halls, you name it. The Death Star garbage masher is a good case in point; someone has to have responsibility for that place, clean it, maintain it, have epic fights with dianogas on a fairly regular basis....

For that matter, the First Order apparently does exactly this - with people considering the Super Star Destroyers 'home' - implying that outside of really critical locations like Starkiller, they generally avoid having immobile planet-based facilities, and there are probably small technical colleges and schools on there somewhere.

Think of it as basically a mobile shipyard, rather than "just" a command ship:

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/fleet-junkie-flagship-the-technical-discussions-of-the-gffa-capital-ships-thread-mk-ii.21527953/page-838#post-54513523

On 9/1/2017 at 1:08 AM, Ironlord said:

Or the Empire just has very good contraception.

A good parody of these issues - the SDSD Freudian Nightmare:

You maniac!!

You shouldn't have given them ideas like that!

Now we have the Death Star 4 they're gonna blow it up in Episode 9 and it's all a big triangle!!! How much do you want to bet that thing runs on suns too!?!?

I was thinking Snoke's SSSD would run on rainbows and glitter.