Quote:
Originally Posted by Ilya
“Hide and Seek”. I always hated that story because it relies on what I consider the completely unforgivable plot device: “everyone is a moron.” The spy is heavily armed; the ship carries no personal weapons AT ALL, nor any portable detection equipment. IOW, the idea of hostile landing never occurred to anyone. Since armed individual spies are known to exist at all, the above is an absurd lack of foresight.
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I don't completely remember the story and won't be defending it passionately, but I thought that the story described that while the moon was small enough to pose navigational problems for the hunter ship, it was too large to cover by personnel. Remember, the hunter ship didn't know how soon the spy pickup ship (which apparently outgunned the hunter ship quite readily) would arrive, and likely didn't want to risk having to abandon multiple landing parties if they needed to run. The hunter ship did send those two probes with cameras but the spy was able to stay relatively hidden.
Your point is taken though, the commander might've been more creative.