On 2/12/2016 8:08 PM, Richard Aiken wrote:

> Consider the time period when the xboat service was inaugerated. The
> period immediately following the Imperial Civil War was probably a
> fairly unsettled time. Even if the powers that be were willing to used
> unmanned drones as the actual couriers, someone may have pointed out a
> couple of inobvious benefits of having a sentient pilot aboard. One such
> benefit could have been to serve as an increased gaurantee that the ship
> would not be shot at or boarded . . . since destroying or stealing an
> unmanned drone would be a lot less provocative than doing the same to a
> manned ship.

Probably some combination of that, union rules, and the regs that
prohibit planes (and soon, at this rate, trucks) from moving without a
human to watch the controls, even though the autopilot is capable of
handling all routine operations by itself.

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Kelly St. Clair
xxxxxx@efn.org