"Back pay question for Veterans" Topic

If you were modern Regular Army, Marine, Navy or Air Force and you were put in cryo suspension for 300 years on a space vessel-what would your back pay/benefits amount to, presuming it was honored due to changes from a planetary Armed Forces to a InterStellar Armed Forces organisation?

Idea: a military unit is sent on Khans' escape route to intercept and destroy his Enhanced Human Cadre, fails and is picked up by a Federation vessel after 300 years adrift in space.

just a weird scenario idea…

Except when that enlistment contract runs out or you hit 60 years old, whichever comes first…

Except for Warrant Officers. They can stay until 62. Because Warrant Officers wrote the personnel regulations of Warrant Officers…

My packet drops in December.

Eric

Since you were in stasis you did not accrue time, so NO back pay.

Assume time accrued in cryo is allowed and its a special mission. Otherwise, why volunteer?

Pay grades change over time. When I joined in 1980, as an E-1, I got the princely sum of $501.30 USD per month, paid on the last working day of each month. It's much more than that now. Imagine how much it would go up while you were a popsicle!!

Idea: a military unit is sent on Khans' escape route to intercept and destroy his Enhanced Human Cadre, fails and is picked up by a Federation vessel after 300 years adrift in space.

Sorry nope. The organization that had made that committment no longer exists (remember at a certain point in Trek it was post-apocalyptic), and besides, the Federation no longer uses money…

Damon.

And an E-1 over 300 would still be making $501.30 USD per month.

It was Brigadier Charlton-Weedy who explained to me that, when his brigade deployed to Bosnia, nobody was paid correctly in any month the whole time they were there. One of the problems was that the pay system allowed for more pay-points for corporals than there were people in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Ministry of Defence.

In future, of course, it will only get more complicated. Before the Space Naval Infantry drop on Zebulon-7, they will need to catch up on 300 years' worth of back instructions on the administration of pay, including flight pay, drop pay, cryo pay, hard liers and chronosynclastic separation allowance. That would probably make a more complicated game than the fighting.

All the best,

John.

Except that when the Federation vessel finds the people who were in cryo for 300 years your back pay is one of those funny little oddities of pre-Federation history. They don't use money any more apparently.

See ST:TNG "The Neutral Zone" S1 Ep26.

There are guys who would volunteer for a whole lot less than 300 years back pay.

Just google 'military pay chart' and do what you want with it.

FASA Trek Mechants' book has a Credit system, assume the military system/admin carried over into the Federation and is honored, so what would base pay, hazardous duty pay, hardship and other bonus' be? Isn't there a schedule/list for this? If you were still in the armed forces, what would you get for this, without any snafus?

I think that Joe Haldeman dealt with what happens pretty well in 'The Forever War'.

But consider the tax implications…

Lister: [opening space letter] Smeg! Outland Revenue!
Rimmer: [spitefully] Oh, oh, oh, oh! Outland Revenue!
Lister: 8500!
Rimmer: 8500? That's a lot of tax, isn't it, Listy? How on Titan are you going to pay for that?
…
Rimmer: Just because we're three million years into deep space and the human species is extinct? That means nothing to these people. They'll find us.

Read The Forever War

link

79thPA – thanks, didn't think

Average came out to 5000 per month for what I was thinking--times 3600 months=18,000,000 Credits not counting special duty/bonuses--possibly 25% more

Does that sound right?

$31,526 USD?

They don't use money any more apparently.

They don't use hard currency, which is different from not using money. That said, I have no clue what a Federation Credit will actually buy you when replicators exist.

79thPA: as long as you're in a pay grade, you get any cost of living increases made. So you'd have 300 years of pay raises!!

Just think, all of your training and expertise as a specialist is now moot, all of the weapons you use are relics, and everything you thought you knew, is nearly ancient history. I would hope that the compensation package would be relatively large – then again – if the country/nation which promised the package is now no longer in existence, you could get a big fat ZERO in terms of compensation.

They might even choose to never thaw you out because they know you're a redundant dinosaur likely to present too many problems

@Meiczyslaw: You're either paying for air to breathe or the energy to feed the replicators.

Otherwise, why volunteer?

I honestly imagine they'd get far far more volunteers by offering cash up front. IE: People whose parents farm is about to be taken by the IRS or whose brother needs money for a lung transplant.

I imagine you might get a better class of volunteer that way too ~ ones who are basically sacrificing themselves for the benefit of others vs loners with no ties to society.

Postulate-1996:Khan took off in a DY-100 STL ship. (Obviously different timeline for tech than actual). There are very few DY-100's, especially during a Eugenic War raging on Earth. Another DY100 is in orbit, outfitted with cargo to help rebuild civilisatuion after a WWIII type apocalypse i.e. archives and artifacts saved in this eventuality since no one knew how the war would turn out. This is seized by the military and reconfigured to pursue Khan, a black op since the worlds' leaders didn't want the escape to be known. Intel got Khans' course/flightplan and there is a narrow window of oppurtunity to do this.

SO-you have a reinforced platoon plus a handful of scientists, techs and specialists in cryo, 20thC. archives and artifacts(no time to unload) guesstimated supplies, 2 nuclear missiles and you go…
300 years later you get picked up by either Feds, Orian merchants or Klingons.

Lotsa holes, still working on it.

No Back pay … I'm staying here … period …

anything I could say, (just using CURRENT pay, retirement and disability 'hoops') that folks have to deal with in the PRESENT….Would end up being a DH-offense….

I suspect that if they can't get rid of the 'common cold' by the 24th Century, politicians, bureaucrats, bureaucracy and
pay/credit considerations will be even WORSE/harder to deal with.

On the other TENTACLE….their med programs for things like limb regeneration/replacement (among other things), seems a lot better if ANY major part of the original body is left, (or they can 'clone' you???)….

But that 'assumes' that the lowest enlisted, will STILL have access to the same level of med benefits as the Generals, Admirals, etc???

Sgt DWW-btod

Could you imagine the first group to be unthawed and sent in to action and 1/2 get whacked the first day. That would suck, what did I spend 300 years frozen like a Popsicle for if I do not get liberty on my first day back?

VR
James Mattes

I suspect if they were reasonably smart, the governmental bureaucracy would deny any claims for back pay, for "sleeping on the job".

Heck, they might even penalize the troopers for that.

You're going to trust the army?!?!?!

I think they did similar to this in an episode of TNG. They were a housewife and musician, facing the 300 years in the future problems.

Forget back pay. Invest $100 USD in a dozen different funds, in different nations and hope to collect the results in 300 years. Have a couple law firms on retainer to keep the funds active. Sort of like Back to the Future when they had Western Union deliver a telegram 100 years in the future.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

The real answer would be "Sorry, all military personnel records for that time period were lost. Plus, it appears from media reports at the time you were listed as 'Missing, Presumed Dead' and all benefits were paid to your survivors. So sad, too bad…."

Or this one:

"We have the personnel records, but they are in an obsolete data format we can't access with our advanced technology. So who were you claiming to be again?"

A friend worked for Inland Re3venue in the 80's, they were told to get their error rate down to 80%. So they resolved to do everything right on Fridays.

Ultimate power is in the hand of the beurocrats. You'll get a chit redeemable on your home planet to be submitted within 48 hours.

I had an idea for a novel that dealt with this sort of thing in the first chapter. As I recall, you were paid whether you were in stasis or not but only time out of stasis counted towards the completion of your enlistment.

I put some thought into this a while back for a story line.

Considering the difference in time and communication would be very hard on longer voyages, I was assuming the fleets would go out under orders with a current set of all laws of the land/military. They would operate under this set of rules till they return after tour and enter the home system again. They download all the new data on the way in and dock under the new regulations/regime (possible).

This of course hinges on some sort of time dilation issue such as cryo or faster then light travel. Say a 2 year tour turns into 20 years back home but you don't age.

The story line idea was a fleet centered around a massive mother ship for lack of a better term. This super space carrier supported the smaller ships and provided the hyperspace capability. (similar to homeworld) It also housed and supported the families and dependents of the spacers. This of course keeps your morale up on a long voyage and prevents spacers from coming home to a 40 year old wife and grandkids. The plot had something to do with the fleet returning to find a very different homeworld that they collectively felt they could no longer support. Being largely self contained the entire fleet returns to the deep dark with plans to colonize the new habitable planet they discovered on the tour. Thus starting a new nation/world based on the old regime and being at war with the old. Kinda like returning from tour to find your democracy is now communist or something really off the wall like a theocracy worshiping lolcats.

Thanks guys-a lot of things to think about.

If their ship was considered lost and there was no witness, there's the key word "witness" then they have to be carried on the rosters as MIA "Missing In Action" and if or when they are recovered and they are alive then all back pay and benefits have to be forth coming pay, promotions, medical and dental.
The ship can be listed as lost, but in other words if there is no "witness" as to whatever happened to them during or after an action and they cannot be accounted for then they have to be listed as MIA
Long and detailed class I had to take as an NCO.

Since they were stuck in cold sleep, that's an involuntary extension, just like all the guys who were Stop-Lossed after 9-11.

Hmmm I am retired military.

No cryo-sleep though.

The quick and easy answer would be…

Retired from active duty after the remainder of 30yrs.

So figure the person in question had 12yrs active duty already, that is 18yrs of active duty pay.

And I would assume a set promotion schedule to establish reward for commitment, so figure E8 or Warrant4 or O6.

So pay at the considered rank, then retired pay at the same rank for the 30yrs and then the remaining 270yrs.

Then there is the pay raises to consider for the future.

So just to pluck a number, say $5,000 USD a month.

5000 x 12 = 60,000 a year x 300 = 18,000,000

Figure basic interest and a few decent risky ones…so how about 2,000,000 for grins.

So a rough number of $20,000,000 USD in today's value…extrapolate that to the setting in question.

Doesn't seem like much compared to a sports star getting 100 million a year.

So in that context…perhaps a million a year in cold sleep?

That works, thanks