Tour - Mess
Summary
Long table · Replicators · CO eats with crew · Rank worn loosely here
Additional Information
| Description | MESS — COMPARTMENT DETAIL One room. One long table running center, two replicator units on the starboard bulkhead, and bench seating on both sides. There is no rec room, no lounge, no dedicated crew space beyond this. The mess is the social center of the Ada Lovelace in the absence of anything else designed to be one. THE TABLE Seats roughly half the crew — seven or eight comfortably, ten if nobody needs elbow room. Shift eating is the norm on a vessel operating round-the-clock. The table is never empty for long and never full all at once. On long patrols, the off-watch crew drifts in at irregular hours, and the replicators run almost continuously. THE CO'S SEAT The CO eats here with the crew. Not a policy — a habit that became a tradition that became an expectation. The CO's place is not marked or reserved. It is, however, always available when the CO walks in. The crew has never discussed this. It simply happens. THE REPLICATORS — ×2 STARBOARD BULKHEAD Two units, standard configuration. One runs reliably. The other has a recurring fault with hot beverages — approximately correct in temperature, deeply wrong in flavor. PORT UNIT Reliable. Use for everything. STARBOARD UNIT Fault logged three times. Repaired twice. The repair has not held. Do not order hot beverages. The crew's opinions on which replicator to use for what are strongly held and freely shared with anyone new to the ship. WHAT THE MESS IS Conversations that would happen in a wardroom on a larger ship happen here. Arguments that would happen in a lounge happen here. The mess is where rank is worn loosely, where the CO learns what the crew actually thinks, and where the CRIS unit — when embarked — either integrates with the ship's crew or doesn't. Most do. The ones who don't eat in the cargo bay billet. This is noticed. It is not commented on. |