The 33 things I will do should I ever become a starship captain:

Cafe Society
1

Inspired by the evil overlord list: Here are my first 33. I’m shooting for 100.

  1. Primitive planets that attempt to screw with me and my crew will experience planetary bombardment. Primitive in this case means can’t shoot back.
  2. Reality-twisting ways of travelling will be developed into weapons posthaste.
  3. My ship will have guns. Lots of guns. I don’t care if I have to slave 100 hand weapons to fire in unison, I will be able to shoot things.
  4. My ship will have aftermarket thrusters. I don’t care if I need to strap tanks of compressed gas to my hull, I want to be faster and more agile than people looking at my make and model think I am.
  5. Sensor malfunctions will be treated as full alert situations until the cause has been tracked down and the ship has been thouoroughly swept.
  6. Medlab’s surgery and recovery suite will come with full-body restraints. All non-crew brought into medlab will be restrained, and observed 24/7.
  7. My ship will not have a brig. If I need you alive, there is heavy sedation. If I don’t, there’s the air lock.
  8. I will respect my elders and betters. That is, I don’t need someone alive, and I have the time, there will not be the airlock. There will be whatever my ship’s propulsion system uses for intake in atmosphere.
  9. Spare parts of everything will be carried. That includes a spare ship, if possible.
  10. Targeting computers that take more than a tenth of a second to acquire shooting solutions will be replaced with my calculator watch.
  11. If a deception is necessary to ensure that, e.g., a superior force does not realize that we do have the droids they are looking for, the members of my crew who have shown the tact and subtley of rock will be confined to quarters and/or sedated.
  12. Said deception will only be maintained until said superior force has turned it’s back and given me time to draw my sidearm, literally or metaphorically.
  13. My longtime adversary who has come to warn me about a new great threat will find a certain narcotic quality to his quarter’s atmosphere once we have what information we need from him.
  14. Alien races that resemble cute adolescent girls are all either toxic, feral, or evil. They will be exterminated on sight.
  15. All members of my crew will train in basic hand-to-hand and weapons use, and augmented by whatever technology is available, especially the noncombatants. If you take my engineer hostage, expect to find your genetilia in the next room.
  16. Should, by some happenstance, we run low on rations, and should some smart-ass alien attempt to scalp local food supplies to us, said alien will be reminded that cannabalism only applies within the same species. The reminder may or may not include salt and pepper.
  17. If 1, 3 and 13 fail to keep my slate clean of longterm enemies, I will invest in some sort of built-in kamakaze system. Bad guys always gloat, and they usually do it in person, on ships with very thin hulls, and I’ll be damned if I can’t take one of the bastards with me.
  18. Quirky planetary economies will be expoited to the fullest extent of my cargo hold.
  19. My shipboard computer will have an easily accesable hard reset switch and easily checkable backups of all critical software.
  20. The alien menace that can only be stopped by particle-X will be kept in a particle-x field and used as an offensive weapon whenever possible.
  21. Brand identity be damned, if I capture a ship wholly superior to the one I’m commanding, I’m keeping it.
  22. Even if the ship is marketedly inferior, I can usually sell it for something or crash it into someone.
  23. Assuming we are within a reasonable distance to a planet with breathable atmosphere, any sort of invasion will be answered by getting the crew into pressure suits and dumping atmosphere.
  24. Any attempt to take command of the ship through blackmail or hostage situations will be met with counter-offers along the lines of “Yes, we’ll all die, but we won’t have spent our last hours being flayed, broken, burned, stabbed, and whatever spacefaring tech can do to what is left of you after all that. If (Insert blackmail/hostage situation) is not removed, this will not be said about you.”
  25. Large-scale deals with parties of unknown character will be conducted in neutral territory, with our ship available to perform #1 if the deal goes sour.
  26. If not given the oppertunity to actually finally kill my longtime rival, I will possibly settle for permament incurable paralysis and-no, wait, I’ll just kill him. Safer that way.
  27. Virtual reality systems: bad idea. Will not be implemented, at all.
  28. I will acquire detailed, preferably writtern information on any native laws and customs that cannot be solved by application of #1. A challenge to the field of honor at dawn, for example, will be met with a sniper before sunrise.
  29. There will be snipers, if I have to beg, borrow, or become one myself. There are surprisingly few interpersonal situations that can’t be solved with high-powered weapons and a fast getaway ship.
  30. My ship will have damn good locks. If the local tech level is insufficent to identify crew members from random trespassers, the arcane technology of passwords on the doors will be employed.
  31. Every third burnt-out alien hulk that does not needed to be raided for parts or the like will be ignored or destroyed, depending on practical considerations.
  32. I will use the old tactic of tying a really big asteroid to my bow, accelerating to max local velocity, and cutting the ropes and letting the asteroid be a huge battering ram at least once a week, provided I have sufficent targets. Planetary governments who are trying to hunt me down will soon have more pressing matters, such as planetary evacuation, on their minds.
  33. If I encounter a recurring enemy who is not yet a longtime adversary, I will consider the possibility of killing him with kindness. This will be one of the few situations in which I will possibly accept half measures.

Corrections and suggestions are welcome!

2

34.If I notice that one section of my crew is experiencing unusually heavy casualties during landing parties, I will make sure I don’t call attention to this fact by making them wear distinctive uniforms. This wold increase the likelihood of their noticing their high casulaty rate which could lead to low morale, insubordination, and even thoughts of mutiny.
35.While we’re on the subject of landing parties and casualties, I’ve noticed an unhealthy statistical correlation between the two. This is why I will not personally participate in any landing party to a planet unless I have complete information about what will be found there. I will leave it to other, more expendable, members of my crew to enjoy the discovery of new dangers.

3
  1. The guiding principle of upgrading my ship will be “augmentation not replacement”. Whenever possible I will leave the existing system in place and in working order whenever I add on a new system. This will help me minimize unpleasant surprises such as finding a new technology has unanticipated drawbacks or an enemy has designed a way to exploit my latest technology. I want to have a fallback system available whenever possible.
4

But we wouldn’t need any of that if we could just emit a short pulse of tachyon particles. We could get a large enough pulse if we re-routed the engines through the deflector dish!

5

  1. Manual controls will be real manual controls and not more computerized gimcracks to foul up at the worst possible times.

  2. Anyone under the age of 18 who attempts to set foot on the bridge will be shot.

  3. I will not have computer controls of critical functions be enabled by voice command. Digital recorders are too common.

  4. If there are, in fact, spaceborne lifeforms, should one of them attach itself to my ship, I will not spend precious hours trying to remove the thing in such a manner that it is not harmed, but will kill it immediately. It’s my ship, and I don’t want some damned space lampry sucking up my ship’s power.

  5. Primitive planets are there to be fucked with. What good is having a starship and being able to travel the galaxy if you can’t have any real fun?

  6. Should I temporarily lose command of my ship because it has been taken over by some genetic freak from 200 years ago that I defrosted (assuming I should be foolish enough to do such a thing), upon regaining control of the ship, I will immediately execute the genetic freak and his followers rather than marooning him on some planet where he can spend years plotting revenge.

  7. I reserve the right to bitch slap any of my crew who insist on constantly bickering with one another.

6
  1. Any member of my crew who shows signs, clear or ambiguous, of deceit, treachery, duplicity, or outright evil, will be immediately and irrevocably sacked, regardless of how many soft-hearted senior officers insist that “he’s not a bad guy”.
7

Er, 44, that is. On that note:

  1. Ambassadors of alien races who request to do weird-ass things aboard my ship “in accordance with the rituals of the homeworld” that have no obvious benefit and a large potential for unintended consequences, will be ordered to go pound. If they actively protest this decree will be transported back from whence they came, or into deep space, whichever is more convenient.
8

  1. I will not have explodable consoles on my bridge. I will have consoles installed on my bridge that either have fuses or are low voltage consoles that remotely operate the real consoles located in a room with a fire suppressant system.

  2. If I ever go back in time, I will set up an interest bearing account in my name.

  3. I don’t have time to teach you human emotions.

  4. If nearly omnipotent beings offer me near omnipotence, I will take it and immediately plot the demise of said beings.

  5. If external sensors are showing a ‘ghost image’ or ‘reflection’ that is keeping a parallel course to my own, I will immediately open fire upon it.

  6. All AIs will have a sentience scanning program installed that checks for evolving sentience on a regular basis and deletes it.

  7. In addition to all the scientific personnel needed, I will have teams of laywers, accountants, entrepeneurs, and homesteaders aboard to commercialize every resource available, with me getting a sizeable finders fee.

9

#31 is a poor idea.

Salvaging technology is a great idea. Even if they are not more advanced than you, they will be different from you.

That is, they will have created new & different solutions to engineering problems. Solutions that you will be able to adapt for your purposes, often to great effect. Even if their gear is overall less effective, they may have one or two things that, grafted to your superior tech, will yield big dividends.

10
  1. All buxom female crewmembers shall be scantily clad.
11

#52. My warp core ejection system will consist of a small door which, when opened, will reveal a regular old hemp rope. That rope, when cut, will cause the warp core to be ejected. All crewmembers wil carry penknives.

12
  1. All semi-handsome smarmy male crewmembers will wear beards.
13
  1. All crewmembers will be buxom, female, and scantily-clad.
14

  1. My transporter pad will lock onto and beam into space any unauthorized personel during a security breach.

  2. I will occasionally use this procedure to shake up ordinary crewmen and instill fear in my crew. Beam out, chew on vaccuum for a few seconds, beam back in…a wonderful way to get someone’s attention.

  3. Though my crew are expendable, they are not easily replaceable outside my star system’s territory; therefore, my crew’s standard issue wardrobe will NOT include red shirts.

15

All crew members will be allowed to establish any type of first contact that is possible. In other words: If you can figure out how to fu–establish intimate relationships with them, go for it.

16

Right there.
Who needs any other rules?!

17

Unless there is some actualy point in doing so, standard orbit will never be low enough that atmospheric drag would present an immediate danger if for any reason the engines were not available.

If I find myself in a universe where time travel, psionics, duplication of human beings, mind control or other things that completely change the rules of the game occur, I will immediately take those things into account.

If for any reason standard energy weapons fail, I will afterwards make certain that kinetic projectile weapons are available as backups.

I don’t care how infallible they supposedly are or how many safety backups they have, force shields will always be augmented (preferably replaced) by material barriers.

Landing parties will maintain continuous voice and visual contact. Any loss of communication will be presumed to be a worst-case scenerio.

If you can travel faster than light and generate artificial gravity, you can recycle air in a spacesuit or shuttlepod. They will never “run out” of oxygen.

The bridge and the main computer will be buried in the heavily protected core of the ship.

My ship is not a spacegoing hotel. The corridors will be exactly as wide as necessary to move the largest items of equipment through them. Officers will get staterooms and the crew will sleep in bunks. The remaining volume within the hull will be devoted to more shielding, weapons and engines.

Sexual relationships onboard will be one of two alternatives: A non-fraternization policy enforced on an incest-taboo level; or else obligatory promiscuity.

18

  1. Any sexual fantasy enacted on the holo-deck will be shown to the whole ship on movie night.

  2. Anyone who uses the holodeck to enact non-sexual fantasies shall be flogged.

19

  1. All important/possibly dangerous ship systems (warp core, main computer, holodeck, etc…) will have at LEAST three, manual, physical, off switches. One on the bridge, one in main engineering, and one at the site of the system. More switches may be neccesary for things that go wrong once a week, like the holodeck. The holodeck has a cutoff switch ever 20 yards.

  2. If one of our most important crew (like, oh I don’t know, a DOCTOR, for example) is only a hologram, we will make dozens of back-up copies. Does CTRL-C, CTRL-P not exist in the future? If not, we will switch to Win XP so that we can do so. If some alien steals him…we’ll just use his backup and tell them to have fun with their new doctor.

    67.b. Said holographic crewmember shall be treated as such, a hologram. It will not be allowed to ‘expand’ it’s programming except in areas that benefit it’s main function. It will not have rights that a normal crewmember has. If it starts to develop emotion, or a too complicated AI, that version will be deleted, the reason for the emotion/AI developing will be found and erased from all the copies.

20

On second thought, the crew will get small rooms since these long voyages are hard on morale; more importantly:

(68) Anyone attempting to bring “synthahol” onboard will be shot. The only liquor on my ship better be real! If you’r a tetotaler, use soft drinks.

(69) Rather than individual transporters that make and mvoe meals to people, everyone will eat at the communal mess, except me, the Captian, and I can do so if I choose. This will enhance group-bonding and keep the crew’s morale up if they see the officers eating with them.

(70) As a side note to the above, any cooks trying to feed us salty K-rations, “mystery meat”, and brown/pink glop will be executed painfully in front of and preferably with the help of the entire crew.

Correlary to the above: if its impossible to actually copy them in that manner (i.e., its a sentient being who happens to exist in a purely intellectual silicon state) I will not promote it to doctor, but will happily make use of its services as an advisor.