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The Pretend Navy
A non-functional military organisation based on ships in the desert | |
People often say that joining the military is character-
building and enables one to acquire skills, and it's also
an employer of last resort to some. At the same time it
can involve getting seriously killed or injured and doing
the same to others. The naval forces of some countries
are also
quite limited because they're landlocked, so
whereas it's presumably relatively easy to enroll in the
army or air force of such countries, the opportunity to
join the navy would be relatively limited. Also, there
can be quite exacting physical health requirements for
such things, such as not being colourblind. It's notable,
moreover, that the drier a territory and the further from
the sea or ocean it is, the less likely it is to have use for
ships and to some extent the more likely it is to have
deserts or other barren areas.
Enter the Pretend Navy. A fleet of ships, and yes I do
mean proper warships with guns and stuff, way out in
the wilderness, including sandy deserts where possible.
The youth of today join up, are shipped out to the, well,
ships, where they live life on board doing all the usual
military stuff as done in peacetime, maintaining the
ships, learning skills, swabbing the decks or whatever
else it is sailors do on ships nowadays. This will have the
same character-building and skill-training effect as the
real navy, but for countries where they haven't got any
water, and it will also be somewhat harder to wage war,
meaning that a large military presence in the nation
concerned needn't be a belligerent presence looking for
somewhere to aim their cannons, and it'll also employ
people. You can either join up for a couple of years or
have a career.
Also, there should be a Martian Navy one day but we're
not ready for that yet.
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So, like a ship, but land based, where naval
values/discipline could be instilled into young
recruits? That's such a good idea even the Navy
couldn't avoid it, check out land based training ships
such as HMS Brecon, HMS Bristol. |
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"Stone frigates" are Baked and WKTE. |
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Yes, my daughter (who, for reasons yet to be fully elucidated,
is in the RN Reserves) has trained on HMS President, which is a
stone ship. |
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Paradoxically, literal floating concrete ships also exist, as do "caissons" (like the Phoenix units used for the Mulberry Harbours) which - while not truly ships (as they lack any form of propulsion) are not only buoyant, but seaworthy. |
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So, the cultural opposite of the Burning Man festival,
in the same geographical location and using the
same equipment? |
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sanding the decks, Shirley |
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