Ok, I'm gonna start off a thread with the above, which I'm sure has been done to death on this site: but I'm new, indulge me. :-[
I'll start it off with my two bits worth.
In 2099 the pop was 800,000,000; in 2104 - 400,000,000 and bar various disasters such as Necropolis, Judgement Day etc the population stayed roughly the same until Day of Chaos when it dropped to 50,000,000.
Now the only real indications I have of Judge numbers are from around mid 80's to mid 90's when there were approx 300 and something Sectors with one Sector house per Sector. I think the Judge complement per Sector House was approx 300 giving a total of 90,000. Now I'll throw in stand alone groupings such as the Grand Hall of Justice, Academy, Tec, Psi, PSU, West Wall, Space corps etc and be generous and add 40 - 60,000, giving a total of say 150,000 before Day of Chaos. We were told after Day of Chaos that pop had dropped by 75 - 80% and that Judge numbers had dropped by 60%+. That in my estimation should leave approx 50,000 Judges and a corresponding amount of auxiliaries (not even counting recalled marines and other militarized groupings within Justice Department).
Now in say 2119 (off the top of my head) the proportion of Judges to cits would have been approx 1 - 2600.
In present day post Day of Chaos Mega City One the proportion should be 1 Judge to 1000+ cits.
Does my Math: a. Work out and b. if it's anywhere near the mark, what are the Judges whinging about (apart from the staggering death toll amongst the population on their watch); surely from a totally clinical point of view (and if nothing else we are told Judges are selected and trained to be almost super humanly objective and emotionally and physically tough) the Judges job is much easier now as they have more resources to expend per citizen.
I am subject to correction in my calculations but again indulge me.
Nine.
ZenArcade, you're our kind of people.
Quote from: ZenArcade on 01 February, 2014, 04:18:47 PM
Ok, I'm gonna start off a thread with the above, which I'm sure has been done to death on this site: but I'm new, indulge me ... Now in say 2119 (off the top of my head) the proportion of Judges to cits would have been approx 1 - 2600. In present day post Day of Chaos Mega City One the proportion should be 1 Judge to 1000+ cits.
You're right, the mighty
TordelBack attempted just such a feat not long after Chaos Day, in a thread which I seem currently unable to find.
The essential point is one we can probably all agree upon; that the loss of half the population but only a smaller loss in Justice Department personnel means that old chestnut about the authoritarian rule and brutal methods employed by the judges being necessary because law enforcement was faced with such overwhelming numbers concentrated in such a relatively small area no longer applies in the same way it could be argued it once did. Interesting to see where that one might lead, given the enthusiasm for questioning received wisdom which led Dredd to force the issue of mutant integration ...
Quote from: Ken Trousers on 01 February, 2014, 04:21:42 PM
Nine.
He's not wrong y'know...
(http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd359/anaconda888/1978004.jpg)
Quote(apart from the staggering death toll amongst the population on their watch)
Well, yes, apart from that.
Quote from: sauchie on 01 February, 2014, 05:51:29 PM
Quote from: ZenArcade on 01 February, 2014, 04:18:47 PM
Ok, I'm gonna start off a thread with the above, which I'm sure has been done to death on this site...
You're right, the mighty TordelBack attempted just such a feat not long after Chaos Day, in a thread which I seem currently unable to find.
First there was this behemoth - an attempt to determine the pre-DoC population, which often included references to judge numbers - http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,21095.0.html
Then we were more specific about it here - http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php?topic=30633.0
Finally the attempt was embarked upon once more in the wake of DoC, which contains Tord's aforementioned estimations of current judge numbers - http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php?topic=39264.0
Quote from: Dandontdare on 01 February, 2014, 05:56:28 PM
Quote from: Ken Trousers on 01 February, 2014, 04:21:42 PM
Nine.
He's not wrong y'know...
(http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd359/anaconda888/1978004.jpg)
That only shows eight of them, of course. The ninth judge nipped out to the bog.
Dark Jumbo, thanks for the links, really informative.
Ken Trousers, hilarious :lol:
Richard, I was just being systematic ;)
Sorry Dark Jimbo re the Dark Jumbo typo, I'm having serious jip with thepredictive text on this Amazon Fire Tablet.....work properly ye jury rigged b*****d!
Quote from: ZenArcade on 01 February, 2014, 04:18:47 PMthe Judges job is much easier now as they have more resources to expend per citizen
Most of whom are at best in shock and grieving, in a half-destroyed city, lacking resources and desperate. And there's little or no replacement—the Academy of Law is gone, and so Judges getting gunned down are not being replenished. Manpower might be up (for now) but the circumstances are far more dire than they've been for the majority of the strip's run, certain epics notwithstanding.
As the Great Waits once wrote, 'been round the block so many times I'm feeling carsick'.
Which is by way of saying I can't commit to this thread, even though the spirit is willing. Best of luck with your calculations, and remember to always carry the Justice 1.
Indigo Prime, you make some very valid observations, in particular concerning the Academy's irreplacability. But I'm still not convinced.
You correctly point out the trauma inflicted on Street Judges. Certainly in the Cold Deck story, Dredd muses on 20 year Judges (I think) crying. But again given the training they've underwent they should quickly subordinate this emotion and as Dredd said keep waving the stick. The citizenry cowed, cold, hungry should if any thing easier controlled. What happened after this irrespective of the scale is at heart a disaster management issue and Justice Department, who, after all it has under went since its inception would seem to be an organisation well attuned to tasks of this nature.
The immediate disaster relief from other Mega City's would ameliorate the initial food/medical/shelter requirements.
The City's infrastructure damage whilst widespread would be quickly repaired (or at least the smaller areas required to house a denuded populace) given 22nd century technology and the automated nature of labour within Mega City One.
In terms of the short term law enforcement difficulties (as you point out Judge numbers are up), getting PSU going again would be a priority; in terms of mid to long requirements, it would appear steps such as external Judge recruitment meets some of the needs. In the longer term the Academy would have been immediately re-established and would be putting out Judges within at most 15 years or one can visualise sooner if accelerated training with mass utilisation of clones were used. By this I don't even mean accelerated growth (however doable that is), but from the sense that you're taking less of a chance of a tried and tested strain not working out.
This is all beside the point, as has been pointed out earlier by Sauchie, there is a smaller population, more space, potentially more infrastructure and resource can be directed at this population (the best case scenario) or the resources of Justice Department with their experience and adaptability can be brought to bear on a smaller number of citizens (the worst scenario).
Again I point out that I'm new to this forum and spent many years away from the joys of this comic and accordingly am open to correction.
Quote from: ZenArcade on 01 February, 2014, 10:54:58 PM..but from the sense that you're taking less of a chance of a tried and tested strain not working out.
Like Fargo's, you mean? I'm seeing that one as 2 runs from 6 balls. Oh alright, I suppose Dredd and Rico II are both boundaries, but Kraken clearly beat up the umpire's granny.
(not getting involved very busy not getting involved very busy not getting etc.)
:lol: TordelBack
Dredd - worked out ok
RICO 1 - not so hot
Kraken - a rum cove I'll agree
RICO 2 - happy days
Dolman - Prodigal son, but a good egg
The wee classier in that Unanium city do hickey - not her fault
At least 5 or 6 others - jury's out.
I don't know what the attrition rate's like for non clones (I'd say it's high); so you're running a not too bad rate from old Eustaces progeny.
Quote from: ZenArcade on 01 February, 2014, 11:38:12 PM
The wee classier in that Unanium city do hickey - not her fault
And
not a clone, no matter what sonic screwdriver Mr. Carroll employs! See also: Nimrod.
You're right, the attrition rate for cadets is surely higher. However when Fargos go wrong they
go wrong. How many failed cadets take 60 million citizens with them?
TordelBack, sorry again about predictive text typos. I meant wee lassie....uranium city.
Ok this Kraken dude. Now if memory serves, he was not a true Justice Department clone (was he not part of a bunch of zygotes Morton Judd stole when his coup attempt failed). I'm sure post Day of Chaos Justice Department cloning personnel with lessons learned from the Kraken disaster, would, be to put it mildly, a bit more circumspect in their total ownership of the material and processes from start to finish.
Quote from: ZenArcade on 02 February, 2014, 10:35:10 AMOk this Kraken dude. Now if memory serves, he was not a true Justice Department clone (was he not part of a bunch of zygotes Morton Judd stole when his coup attempt failed). I'm sure post Day of Chaos Justice Department cloning personnel with lessons learned from the Kraken disaster, would, be to put it mildly, a bit more circumspect in their total ownership of the material and processes from start to finish.
I'm not sure there was ever any suggestion that Kraken's flaws were a result of a dirty test tube. His problems - overwhelming and absolute self-abnegating zealotry which eventually turns into despondent self obsession under the weight of nagging doubts, causing misery and suffering for those around him - follow the same pattern we've seen Fargo, original Rico and Dredd follow * as well.
* in Origins, Brothers of the Blood, and Tour of Duty, repectively
He was haunted by dreams of Judd though, and was brought up to destroy Justice Dept.
So, no blame attached...
Yes, the core characters traits outlined by Sauchie are there in several, if not all of the Fargo clone variants. The Kraken charachter, however spent the years during which formative character traits become ingrained, in an environment and in a moral environment which was the anthesis of that espoused by Justice Department. I think an organisation like Justice Department would have a basic lessons learned ethos predecating its future actions in relation to the clone developmental process. I simply do not think they would by nature be supine in this matter; instead surely they would be guided by the Einstinian adage (I paraphrase).... stupidity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.
Sorry Steve I was busy formulating and typing my reply and missed your post, which more elegantly reflects my reply. Z
The case of Kraken and Judd is an interesting one. Judd is effectively the Dredds' creator, as suggested by those 'double d's', but despite being clones of the very man whose regime he is trying to overthrow, and whose weaknesses he is aware of, he continues to use the Fargo bloodline in his own Judda. He must see the potential for single-minded brutality and unswerving loyalty to an ideal in the genome, but like Justice Department before and after him he thinks he can stamp out the introspective questioning streak that ultimately makes the McFargos so unpredictable (and at the same time so potentially great).
Genetics aside, a lifetime of indoctrination followed by years of contradictory indoctrination might be seen to represent special circumstances in Kraken's case. But we still have no real answer about Rico I.
TordelBack, the issue of Rico 1 is problematic. My personal opinion is the Dredd and Rico 1 clones were produced at the early phase of the technological process. There are errors and dead ends in the inception of any totally new technology, the initial Manhattan project, Alamagordo fission detonation went ahead even though there were serious misgivings about neutron flux reactions basically igniting the planetary atmosphere.
Justice Department were probably just a little less lucky than Fermi et al with Rico 1. However even he whilst deeply flawed didn't cause any great amount of damage (as a plus he seems to have begat a noble and loving daughter). So even with Dredd/Rico 1 we have a 50% success rate with a lot of lessons learned.
I'm going to disagree, and say that I think the issue isn't any kind of flaw, either inherent or as a result of the processes employed: the struggle to search for, define and to do the right thing no matter what, and the potential to judge oneself against those standards, fail and fall, are what define the whole Fargo bloodline, and what make it so valuable. Dredd isn't a great judge just because he's a mindless bully, it's because he's a mindful one, for all that his process of self-examination is agonisingly slow.
McGruder sees this way back when the issue of Dredd's origin first crops up. When it is suggested that Dredd's doubts be dealt with surgically she says this "would diminish the man".
Churning out Fargos will inevitably result in perceived 'failures' because they are all balanced on a knife-edge. Rico's descent into criminality is merely his answer to the question all his brothers face. Interfering with the pattern to create 'improved' models like Nimrod and Paris isn't going to work, because it's the struggle inherent in the very human baseline Fargo that's unique and special, not speed or strength or quick decisions.
Quote from: Steve Green on 02 February, 2014, 11:06:06 AM
He was haunted by dreams of Judd though, and was brought up to destroy Justice Dept. So, no blame attached...
There's always a bullet to the head, a rad pit fallen into, a visit from the sisters, a letter from a meddling kid, unhappiness at the Academy, or a visit from Randy Fargo and the boys to explain why the many lives of Eustace Fargo always seem to follow the same course, from absolutism to abandonment. When there are so many different explanatory causes, but always the same result, you have to wonder whether those causes are really what's at the root of the problem.
I agree with both the last two posters for I guess different reasons. I suppose Justice Department could take either a subtle approach or indeed a brutal approach to the dichotomy at the heart of the Dredd clone issue. The subtle approach I guess could involve breeding/cloning (whichever) positive character traits through to the next generation of clones. I suppose akin to canine breeding, but in a Petri dish. The brutal approach would be something akin to McGruders suggestion with a few tweeks. The basic morality would be hard even for Justice Department to countenance, but they do have a kinda end justifies the means thingy sitting uneasily near the heart of their philosophy.
All of my views and attempted suggestions get away from the need for an environment where stories can be told.
Quote from: TordelBack on 02 February, 2014, 11:56:29 AM
the struggle to search for, define and to do the right thing no matter what, and the potential to judge oneself against those standards, fail and fall, are what define the whole Fargo bloodline, and what make it so valuable. Dredd isn't a great judge just because he's a mindless bully, it's because he's a mindful one, for all that his process of self-examination is agonisingly slow.
McGruder sees this way back when the issue of Dredd's origin first crops up. When it is suggested that Dredd's doubts be dealt with surgically she says this "would diminish the man".
Churning out Fargos will inevitably result in perceived 'failures' because they are all balanced on a knife-edge. Rico's descent into criminality is merely his answer to the question all his brothers face. Interfering with the pattern to create 'improved' models like Nimrod and Paris isn't going to work, because it's the struggle inherent in the very human baseline Fargo that's unique and special, not speed or strength or quick decisions.
Spot on. Rico 1's criminality was a more cynical response to the same despair that would start gnawing away at his more obdurate clone brother seven or eight years later, but Rico always was quicker on the draw than Dredd. All the Fargos, including Vienna and Dolman, have followed that same pattern of doggedly pursuing a single goal in the belief it represents the answer to their problems, and then retreating in disillusionment. In Vienna's case she abandons her attempts to win the attention of her uncle/father/grandfather through the theatre as a result of similar trauma to those described above in relation to Rico 1 and Kraken.
Quote from: ZenArcade on 02 February, 2014, 11:14:01 AM
Sorry Steve I was busy formulating and typing my reply and missed your post, which more elegantly reflects my reply. Z
No problem!
- Steve
Again guys some interesting views. I was probably more interested originally in Demographics etc; I'll give other forum members a chance to contribute (if they have the will).
Ps Now that I've posted over 50 times do I get promoted from sub-basement to basement sewer droid: I met a really shabby old droid the other day called Alan 1 who said this was the case. :)
Quote from: ZenArcade on 01 February, 2014, 10:54:58 PMYou correctly point out the trauma inflicted on Street Judges.
I was thinking more about the citizens, who will be desperate and more likely to fight. They feel utterly let down—again—and could provide more of a handful per capita than before.
QuoteThe City's infrastructure damage whilst widespread would be quickly repaired (or at least the smaller areas required to house a denuded populace) given 22nd century technology and the automated nature of labour within Mega City One.
But this still requires money, and the stories have repeatedly pointed out that MC-1 is essentially bankrupt now. (Quite how the city's economy worked in the first place, I've no idea—I guess it was a satirical swipe on maxed-out capitalism, running on a vicious cycle of debt and rampant consumerism.)
Quotegetting PSU going again would be a priority
Money. Manpower. Expertise. All down or gone.
Quote from: ZenArcade on 02 February, 2014, 01:04:51 PM
I was probably more interested originally in Demographics etc;
I tried and failed to find another post-DoC thread where we teased out the new demographics, but here is a summary of my own thoughts on Judge numbers from the 2007 thread linked to above:
QuoteComing at from another direction, we were recently discussing the '8000 blocks' figure (based on 400mil citizens at 50,000 a block, a measly 50-or-so blocks to a Sector), and how at a mimimum of one judge per block, you ended up with say 10,000 street judges. I suggested suport staff (including pilots, teks, wardens, wallies, meds, admin, tutors, PSU, psis, various specialists) should be 10 times that number, giving us 100,000 by another route.
Neat, but even allowing that many 'specialists' are concentrated in Justice Central and the Academy, that means that 301's sector house has only only 40-odd street judges at any one time. Oddly, this seems close enough to the number of faces we see in The Pit, and in Sector House, but still seems pretty tight.
Incidentally, the same figures suggets 500 successful graduations from the Academy each year to keep the numbers up, assuming a 20 year average career.
If you buy that highly advanced space-calculus, you can knock the Justice Dept figures down to 40,000 post-DoC, and the Academy was down to 600 total at the end of the crisis, from something more like 15,000 cadets.
I'll keep trying to find the original post-DoC demographics thread...
Quote from: ZenArcade on 01 February, 2014, 11:38:12 PM
Dredd - worked out ok
RICO 1 - not so hot
Kraken - a rum cove I'll agree
RICO 2 - happy days
Dolman - Prodigal son, but a good egg
[Jessica Paris] - not her fault
For every Eustace, there's an Ephram.
For every Joe, a Rico.
For every Rico II, a Kraken.
For every Dolman, a Nimrod.
It's only really Vienna and Randy Fargo's lot that give any ultimate sense of hope for the bloodline.
Dark Jimbo: pithy and colourful! If only Justice Department could provide them with 'prosthetic consciences'*
With respect and thanks to the late and sadly missed Iain M Banks for the phrase.
Quote from: TordelBack on 02 February, 2014, 02:07:00 PM
QuoteComing at from another direction, we were recently discussing the '8000 blocks' figure (based on 400mil citizens at 50,000 a block, a measly 50-or-so blocks to a Sector), and how at a mimimum of one judge per block, you ended up with say 10,000 street judges. I suggested suport staff (including pilots, teks, wardens, wallies, meds, admin, tutors, PSU, psis, various specialists) should be 10 times that number, giving us 100,000 by another route.
Neat, but even allowing that many 'specialists' are concentrated in Justice Central and the Academy, that means that 301's sector house has only only 40-odd street judges at any one time. Oddly, this seems close enough to the number of faces we see in The Pit, and in Sector House, but still seems pretty tight.
If you buy that highly advanced space-calculus, you can knock the Justice Dept figures down to 40,000 post-DoC, and the Academy was down to 600 total at the end of the crisis, from something more like 15,000 cadets.
Just for a bit of context, the police authority for England and Wales counts around 130,000 full time officers (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2013/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2013) amongst its ranks, covering an area with a population of around 55 million (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pop-estimate/population-estimates-for-uk--england-and-wales--scotland-and-northern-ireland/mid-2001-to-mid-2010-revised/index.html). Present day England and Wales have a larger population than post-Chaos Day MC1, but of course enjoy a much lesser population density. A better comparison might be with the Met, whose officers account for 25% (32,500 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2013/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2013)) of the total 130,000 figure, but police just 16% of the total population of England and Wales (8.3 million citizens) (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/regional-trends/region-and-country-profiles/region-and-country-profiles---key-statistics-and-profiles--october-2013/key-statistics-and-profiles---london--october-2013.html).
That estimate of 40,000 judges policing 50 million citizens post-Chaos Day
(the figure given in the Nerve Centre blurb) gives you a ratio of 1 judge per 1,250 citizens, which is more than 3 times the ratio described by the 1 judge per 4000 citizens figure arrived at by The TordelBack Institute of Fiscal Studies, above. Megacity judges now enjoy a better ratio of helmets to citizens than London bobbies, who number 1 Met officer for every 2,500 pearly kings and queens.
Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 02 February, 2014, 02:53:09 PM
It's only really Vienna and Randy Fargo's lot that give any ultimate sense of hope for the bloodline.
Yeah, it's only the Fargos who become judges who end up causing real problems, which is more an indictment of the system than the bloodline. What Fargo realised (http://www.2000adreview.co.uk/reviews/2007/images/1535/judge-dredd.jpg) after putting a bullet through his head wasn't that
he -and by extension, his clones - was uniquely unsuited to having so much unregulated power and control over the lives of others, but that
no-one should hold that kind of sway. Such absolute rule, just as in our present day, inevitably results in corruption, failure, and disaster.
Aha, here's the thread where we really get into the fineprint of the post-DoC numbers: http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php?topic=36681.0
Here's my own opening gambit from same:
QuoteBetween 80-85% (350 million of an estimated 400 million+) of the citizens died, as against 60% of Justice Dept (numbers from The Days After, Prog 1789). However, the machinery of PSU is effectively gone, along with what respect there was for the judges. Rather than a placid-if-nuts citizenry interspersed with violent crazies and local rebelliousness the Judges now face citywide anarchy.
Most critically, only 600 cadets survived, and presumably precious few of those were seniors (who took the brunt of the rearguard action in the evacuation of the Academy) meaning there's no mechanism for replacement of casualties. The casualty rates for judges given in The Graveyard Shift (Casefiles 7) illustrate the scale of the problem.
Between 2100 and 0300 hours 7 street judges are listed as having lost their lives, with a further 25 hospitalisations. That's about 1.25 an hour. Assuming the graveyard shift (indicated as 2100 to 0500) is significantly worse than the other 16 hours, and also that this is an average night (and I think that's the whole point of that story) lets say the general casualty rate was 1 judge an hour for the day shift and even less for the latter part of the nightshift (0300-0500), giving a conservative total of 25 dead judges a day. Assume some debilitating injuries and a trickle of long-walks, Titan trips and Academy/Auxiliary redeployments, and you lose about 10,000 street judges a year.
Academy training generally takes 15 years. So that's 150,000 cadets at any one time, just to keep street judges numbers constant back in 2107, and that's without considering periodic disasters. However, what's that failure/drop out rate? Will we be very optimistic and say 25% make it to full eagle? (I'd bet it's more like 1 in 10, but assuming the largest losses are in the first half of the programme the numbers should trend lower overall). So you needed maybe 600,000 total cadets in 2107 to ensure a consistent replacement number of 10,000 successful graduations per year.
Reduce that number by 80% to reflect the vastly depleted population of 2134 and a reduced judge force that only needs 2000 new street graduations per year, or about 5 or 6 a day. That requires an Academy of 120,000 kids from 5 to 20. They have 600, most presumably pre-teens, and equally likely to include a mix of non-street types.
That's a bad place to be.
Quote from: sauchie on 02 February, 2014, 03:45:12 PM
That estimate of 40,000 judges policing 50 million citizens post-Chaos Day (the figure given in the Nerve Centre blurb) gives you a ratio of 1 judge per 1,250 citizens, which is more than 3 times the ratio described by the 1 judge per 4000 citizens figure arrived at by The TordelBack Institute of Fiscal Studies, above. Megacity judges now enjoy a better ratio of helmets to citizens than London bobbies, who number 1 Met officer for every 2,500 pearly kings and queens.
Ah, but from my completely-made-up numbers (I think) I've been arguing that there are now only about 4,000 street judges (aka helmets) left, with the other 36,000 being made up of support staff and ancillary departments. So that's more like 12,500 citizens per street judge, which is a misleadingly healthy maybe third of the number from before DoC. My casualty-replacement calculations suggest that you lose 6 of those judges on the average day, meaning the 'stock' is only good for 2 or 3 years.
TordelBack, I can only stand in awe of the extrapolations contained within your work, it is to your credit.
I guess my conceptual difficulties are at odds to the need for drama and tension in these stories. The likes of a single Academy flies in the face of what strategic planners would consider prudent, never put all of your eggs in one basket. The litany of disasters which Mega City One and Justice Department have underwent would reinforce this basic fact. I struggle to envisage a single monolithic entity, I could envisage a series of compounds, training areas etc spread through out a large area, for both practical purposes and as a basic dispersal strategy.
In terms of the daily rate of Judicial attrition again I could envisage new standard operational procedures being issued. I could envisage something akin to the CQB tactics used by army combat teams and paramilitary police units today as opposed to that used in urban battles during the last war (with a commensurate drop in casualties).
It would also be reasonable to assume PSU regardless of the initial loss of expertise, infrastructure etc being quickly established. Any modern organisation has emergency plans and runs models where worst case scenarios are envisaged and coping strategies are formulated to be set in place in more or less real time.
Anyhow as I've indicated before this would make for less tension in terms of drama and I could be talking through my hat.
Quote from: ZenArcade on 02 February, 2014, 08:09:29 PM
I guess my conceptual difficulties are at odds to the need for drama and tension in these stories
It would have been nice if the problems described above
had been the source of drama in the last year or so. As you say, Justice Department must have been rebuilding and restructuring the way it operates at every level, and been reduced to some desperate measures just to stay in control of the few populated sectors of the city in the interim, but most of that is taking place in the margins and off the printed page entirely.
There have been plenty of stories where reference is made to short staffing, but not many which use those difficulties as their dramatic impetus. The time for those kind of stories may have passed already.
Quote from: ZenArcade on 02 February, 2014, 08:09:29 PM
In terms of the daily rate of Judicial attrition again I could envisage new standard operational procedures being issued. I could envisage something akin to the CQB tactics used by army combat teams and paramilitary police units today....
That certainly seems to be the case with Beeny's team as seen in 'Wastelands'. Worth noting that we have robots, auxiliaries, soldiers, space marines and foreign transfer judges bolstering the ranks too.
I can't really agree about the Academy of Law - while your idea of training compounds makes perfect sense it's always been presented as a single monolithic building in the strip: THE Academy. And even if there
were multiple campuses, the number of surviving cadets is specifically given as 600 (although subsequent stories suggest that there were many deserters who could potentially return to the fold).
Don't be too impressed by my wafflings - they're largely pulled out of the air, and if you go through the various linked threads you'll see others have much more soundly-based ideas.
Just scoobed a few brief minutes away from work. Sauchie, you are probably right, the time for stories like this has mayby passed. TordelBack, don't hide your flame behind a bushel, I took a stand alone look at the figures for Judge/citizen proportions and came up with a nearly analagous figure (although in a much cruder, less detailed manner).
In fairness to the. Writers they put more effort into the effects of a disaster this time round; as compared to say post Acopolypse War, where we had a couple of stories about fighting robot wrestlers and a super crash fatty compound.
I suppose the reason I opened this topic is because I'm facinated by a. The physical world in these stories; b. The Mega City concept and c. How organisations, populations and terchnologies wiuld both interact and I suppose juxtapose within reasonably thought out, quasi realistic parameters..
This is a personal opinion of course....I'd just like to see a wee bit more exploration and possibly fleshing out of Dredds world.
One more thing to compete against the 'Judges vs cits' figures versus present day 'cops vs people' is that a Judges life expectancy is far lower than a policeman. Add to that the amount of Judges we have seen bite the dust after DoC and the lack of replacements due to no Academy of Law and the situation takes a startling turn for the worse for the helmeted boys (and girls) in black.
Judgerufian. We had touched on the subject of the Academy earlier in the thread.
Both you and other posters have rightly pointed out the extremly grave nature of the loss of the Academy (by far the most challenging of the plenitude of existential threats visited on Justice Department by the Day of Chaos event.
I have postulated previously several short/medium/long term measures which could be immediatly implemented to address this issue. I shall revisit this topic again as it is obviously not without merit.
Firstly: reestablish the Academy immediately. The 600 cadets could be quickley levened with a first year intake in proportion to the number of potential judges require or heck why not double that amount. Now the new intake will only pay dividends after 15 years, but (I'm given to hackneyed adages) a journey of a thousand miles must begin with one step (cheers Chairman Mao). Now the obvious retort is ok but the current judge complement will not last 15 years due to attrition. Ok (this may seem controversial) every year hundreds of cadets are dismissed as they are not up to spec) why not readmit the top 10 - 20% of each of the previous say 7 - 8 years dismissed cadets and run them through again - desperate times call for desperate measures and anyhow the standard of a dismissed cadet is surely equal in a lot of cases to an transferred foreign Judge. They could be put through the same rigurous 'baptism of fire' orientation as the foreign Judges.
This would surley mean a substantial lessening of the gap to when new Judges come on-line to say 5 - 6 years.
Secondly: Justice Department would need to introduce extraordinary measures to survive in good shape until then. Again I'm not going to totally go over old ground (in terms of this thread) but I had pointed out the likes of utilisation of foreign Judge inductees, changes in SOP's, as TordelBack rightly points out there are Meks, Military, marines, auxillaries (crikey even some evidently reasonably capable citi def units). I could even invisage a recall of long walk Judges. Justice Department tactical planners could initialise an attuned response spectrum exercise (ARSE) programme to allocate increasing force levels to situations as demanded eg auxillaries take on a lot of the humdrum day today duties with low threat levels, Judges next level up, then extremly hazardous situations could be dealt with by multi-dicipline units of meks/military under the direct supervision of a Judge acting as incident co-ordinater. I could go on with other possible solutions to what seem intractable problems.
What I'm trying to say here is that it is not in the nature of organisations like Justice Department to lie down and die. Such is the almost monomaniacial level of drive inherent that what would seem to us to be hopeless would to them be a problem looking a solution.
This may all be moot. Sauchie points out earlier that the writers may have set up this paradigm shift to go off on another direction from that with which we've all become familiar if not to say comfortable with.
Quote from: ZenArcade on 03 February, 2014, 06:52:40 PM
This may all be moot. Sauchie points out earlier that the writers may have set up this paradigm shift to go off on another direction from that with which we've all become familiar if not to say comfortable with.
Wagner described turning in a final
Day of Chaos script in which the scale of death and devastation was of a much greater magnitude than he'd previously agreed with Rebellion editorial with the same glee and sense of mischief as when he recounts his days as a playground thug and juvenile delinquent in Ohio.
"I'm looking forward to seeing what other writers do with what I've left them" he said, in the manner of someone who handed back your bike with a buckled frame and both wheels missing.
I think those other writers and editors were understandably caught off balance, and the material which ran in the immediate aftermath of Chaos Day read like the follow up to the
Doomsday or
The Day The Law Died level event they were probably expecting, rather than something which effectively brought an end to the Megacity that used to be. Given the circumstances (they had a very short time to set up
Trifecta too), they did an admirable job of working reference to those catastrophic events into the stories which followed, but I still get the feeling of a holding pattern being maintained with regard to the wider arc of MC1 history today.
I don't know if they're waiting to see if Wagner fancies plotting a new direction for MC1 or if that's being worked out as we speak, but
Titan's good enough to make me forget all the nagging questions about replenishing the ranks of the full eagles and how a 90% empty city might influence attitudes towards both the mutant question and the legitimacy of Justice Department's reign - let alone how Dredd's taken to working alongside the Mechanismo units he did his best to eradicate.
Just a note on support staff for street judges - and the comparison with the Met - there are 32,500 Police Officers, about 4000 PCSO's and another 5000 members of staff.
So, only 1 support staff for every 4 officers, not 10 for every 1 as mentioned above.
One other comparison with modern day police forces is Outsourcing - from my own experience I would estimate there are another 5 to 10,000 people employed in the private sector whose work the Met Police depend on.
Which brings us to 1 support staff for every 2 officers.
Quote from: smell on 14 March, 2014, 11:35:46 PM
So, only 1 support staff for every 4 officers, not 10 for every 1 as mentioned above.
Mmmm, but Justice Dept includes all sorts of other roles: prison guards, diplomatic corps, defence and intelligence, tech and medical research etc. Plus street Judges are up and about 23.75 hours a day 7 days a week, while support and auxillary staff seem to lead more normal lives, so you'd need at least three times as many per individual Judge.
Ok. Fair enough. NHS in London employs about 80,000???, shall we use BT as tech support?
The current assumptions about a lot of the supports involved in big public/private sector organizations is that it will be automated. No big leap to see this in MC1 (the robot lawyer is an endearing and funny example). Post chaos Justice Dept will have to be on its best game in terms of resource allocation for a few years yet. Z
Could private security firms be in the offing....employment is always a big issue. Private security would be a headache for Justice Department in the long run though.