[natehale1971]

Believe it or not, back on the Ike (USS Dwight D. Eisenhower CVN-69 - Horah that magic number)...

We talked about things like this while playing Twilight 2000...

And the hangerbays are massive... enough that you can build a decent sized village composed of three story buildings. but you really won't need that since all the open bay berthings all through the ship would be capable of being used by even civies whom would be living on the ship... and it'd really be easy for those berthings to have someone keeping track of who comes and goes (we actually had to do this when women were brought on board as part of the ship's crew).

A nuclear aircraft carrier is a small city... we aren't exaggerating about this when we describe it. It's a massive amount of volume. And in such a sitatuion, there would be alot of people who would want to live on the ship since it would be a hundred thousands of times better than living in a near stoneage village on an island.

The carrier would be the closest that they could come to the world before the nukes started to fly. not just in shelter and security, but in comfort and entertainment. When I was on the ike we had six channels on the tv (two movie channels, a 24 hour news/weather channel, a 24 hour flight deck channel and a couple other channels that depended upon the desires of the ships command staff... usually playing old music videos off of MTV back when all they did was music videos).

But we also had several radio stations (each dedicated to a different genre of music) as well.

the medical department would be worth it's weight in gold. it has almost everything a modern hospital would have... back in the early 90s we didnt have a CAT Scan Machine, but from what ive been told, that's changed.. they even have MRI machines now. it's a complete high-tech medical centre onboard the carriers. The carriers medical centres have come along way from stablizing and transfering extreme medical cases to a shore medical facility.

The remaining crew of the carrier would find themselves in the position as operating as not just techs keeping the ships systems operating, but also filling roles for security & emergency services personnel.

The ship's machineshops, print shops and laundry would become worth alot of gold... they can fabricate almost anything you can imagine given the time and someone knowing how to build or design them. the ship's single illustrator draftsman would become one of the most important persons onboard since it would be up to them to start turning out the plans for each peice of euipment the machineshop would be making...

the crew wears color coded ID cards to show were they can and can't go... this would also extend to any civilians whom are onboard as well. heck to make it easier, the ship could easily draw from the paint lockers to get the paint to color code areas in question.

the master-at-arms department would have to be expanded big time... and actual ratings filling the role would be drawn from any of the navy enlisted ranks... something that happened all the time during deployments. because many crewmen illed multiple roles to make up for the lack of personnel. and in this kind of situation that would be the model.

but instead of naval personnel filling the gaps in the galley, civies could easily fill those roles as well as cleaning crews and the like.

I guess what i'm really saying is that life on a carrier in this kind of setting and condition, would be a highly desired goal of many. and this could be used to great advantage. if you do good work, if you show yourself worthy, a prized billet of living and working on the carrier would be the ultimate goal of many surivovors living in the area around where the carrier is located.