U.S. Military invade The Forest island. (The Forest)

[Archinist]

The U.S. military decides to fly a drone over the island, and discovers masses of cannibals on the island, but also something else. They send a small squad of ground vehicle drones over to investigate, and discover a gigantic pool of oil large enough to fuel the world for hundreds of years. So the U.S. military decides to invade the island. What happens now? How many people would they realistically need to conquer the entire island?

I once saw a person on steam making a suggestion for the plot of the game, saying that maybe the cannibals should escape the island and "conquer the world", and that the game could also take place in cannibal-infested ruined cities, so they must be extremely powerful! Or maybe that person was exaggerating a little?

[Elheru Aran]

Needs more data. Much more.

How big is the island?

How many cannibals are we talking here?

Why are they cannibals? Is it just a matter of not being agricultural and having hunted out all the animals on the island? Would air-dropping a few containers full of food do anything?

What is their technology level? Are they Stone Age? Raygun-Gothic?

Where is the island?

You're expecting us to know all this. We don't. Hell, if they're Stone Age natives and the US military really doesn't care about them, they could just bomb the natives to hell, drop some Agent Orange and destroy the entire ecosystem. They could take the island without setting foot on it. But if on the other hand we're talking some sort of... I don't know, Atlantean race with magic powers who can fireball planes out of the sky, that's different. Or if they're actually aliens with ray guns who are wrecked on the island.

Either provide a link, or elaborate, or both. Please.

[Archinist]

Needs more data. Much more.

How big is the island?

How many cannibals are we talking here?

Why are they cannibals? Is it just a matter of not being agricultural and having hunted out all the animals on the island? Would air-dropping a few containers full of food do anything?

What is their technology level? Are they Stone Age? Raygun-Gothic?

Where is the island?

You're expecting us to know all this. We don't. Hell, if they're Stone Age natives and the US military really doesn't care about them, they could just bomb the natives to hell, drop some Agent Orange and destroy the entire ecosystem. They could take the island without setting foot on it. But if on the other hand we're talking some sort of... I don't know, Atlantean race with magic powers who can fireball planes out of the sky, that's different. Or if they're actually aliens with ray guns who are wrecked on the island.

Either provide a link, or elaborate, or both. Please.

Okay, here is a link to the wiki.

The wiki page is probably NSFW, just a warning.


http://theforest.gamepedia.com/Cannibals

The island is probably a few kilometers, maybe a dozen or so kilometers wide. In-game, it takes maybe a few minutes to walk around it completely, but I'd imagine it's larger than that in reality.

The cannibals have wooden-stone clubs and similar. They can also mount flashlights onto their body, and there are also mutant cannibals which are much stronger than the standard ones, and are resistant to sticks of dynamite, although that is probably just gameplay. The mutants appear as big balls of unarmoured flesh.

I have no idea, it's an early access game with little plot.

[Elheru Aran]

Okay, here is a link to the wiki.
The island is probably a few kilometers, maybe a dozen or so kilometers wide. In-game, it takes maybe a few minutes to walk around it completely, but I'd imagine it's larger than that in reality.

The cannibals have wooden-stone clubs and similar. They can also mount flashlights onto their body, and there are also mutant cannibals which are much stronger than the standard ones, and are resistant to sticks of dynamite, although that is probably just gameplay. The mutants appear as big balls of unarmoured flesh.

I have no idea, it's an early access game with little plot.

OK.

As I said, if the military really wants to take the island, and they don't care about the cannibals...



That, a few dozen times over.

BLAM.

No more cannibals.

[Archinist]

Okay, here is a link to the wiki.
The island is probably a few kilometers, maybe a dozen or so kilometers wide. In-game, it takes maybe a few minutes to walk around it completely, but I'd imagine it's larger than that in reality.

The cannibals have wooden-stone clubs and similar. They can also mount flashlights onto their body, and there are also mutant cannibals which are much stronger than the standard ones, and are resistant to sticks of dynamite, although that is probably just gameplay. The mutants appear as big balls of unarmoured flesh.

I have no idea, it's an early access game with little plot.

OK.

As I said, if the military really wants to take the island, and they don't care about the cannibals...



That, a few dozen times over.

BLAM.

No more cannibals.

Umm. Well, the oil pool is actually right on the surface, you see, and they need to preserve it a little. So they can't just bomb everything. And plus the cannibals also live in deep underground caves, by deep I mean 50 meters+ underground, so unless they want to ruin the oil they can't really bomb everything, since lighter surface bombs will not work. Also let's just say that the cannibal's cave actually interweaves with the oil pool as well.

[Esquire]

EDIT: Ninja'd, but posting anyway.

How large is the island? How many cannibals are there? Do they have any particularly unusual characteristics?

As history shows all too clearly, an effectively arbitrary number of Stone- or Iron-age tribesmen can be defeated by even small premodern military units (Zulu War, etc). The US, which has no need to physically patrol every inch of dirt, could get away with the minimum required to maintain a perimeter around an oil-extraction facility. An infantry company or two would probably be sufficient; all you need is enough people to lock the gates and man a couple of machine-guns mounted on towers.

Cannibalism doesn't give superpowers; it's just an inefficient food source that opens its practitioners up to all sorts of crazy diseases.

[Archinist]

EDIT: Ninja'd, but posting anyway.

How large is the island? How many cannibals are there? Do they have any particularly unusual characteristics?

As history shows all too clearly, an effectively arbitrary number of Stone- or Iron-age tribesmen can be defeated by even small premodern military units (Zulu War, etc). The US, which has no need to physically patrol every inch of dirt, could get away with the minimum required to maintain a perimeter around an oil-extraction facility. An infantry company or two would probably be sufficient; all you need is enough people to lock the gates and man a couple of machine-guns mounted on towers.

Cannibalism doesn't give superpowers; it's just an inefficient food source that opens its practitioners up to all sorts of crazy diseases.

Okay, well in-gameplay terms, the cannibals are much faster than normal humans, and can leap right over spiked fences that are much taller than normal humans, and climb trees with ease. The mutants can also smash through cave stalagmites and knock down trees. (I think) In-game, the mutants can also survive multiple sticks of dynamite, although when you actually look at them, they're just big piles of gooey pale flesh which really shouldn't be able to survive what they do.

They are quite strong, though and can leap about 10 meters into the air for about 10 meters distance, or at least on what you see in-game. There is also a fire-throwing unit which throws physical bottles of oil or fuel similar to molotov cocktails at the player.

[Esquire]

Still doesn't help. Even assuming none of it goes away when correcting for gameplay considerations, none of those qualities will protect the cannibals from machine-gun fire. If they can't cross a mile in less than a few minutes and withstand multiple large-caliber bullet wounds, they can't defeat a prepared modern infantry unit, and we haven't even brought in heavy weapons yet - let alone armor or aircraft.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

How about what possessed them to fly a drone over some random island in the first place?

How could a single spot on the globe with a limited ecosystem have enough oil to fuel the world for hundreds of years?

The island is probably a few kilometers, maybe a dozen or so kilometers wide. In-game, it takes maybe a few minutes to walk around it completely, but I'd imagine it's larger than that in reality.

The cannibals have wooden-stone clubs and similar. They can also mount flashlights onto their body, and there are also mutant cannibals which are much stronger than the standard ones, and are resistant to sticks of dynamite, although that is probably just gameplay. The mutants appear as big balls of unarmoured flesh.

I have no idea, it's an early access game with little plot.

Early-access game with no plot is more like it.

[smartass]I suppose NSA hacks can simply type in "veganmode", and the Government takes over the island, no fuss, no muss.[/smartass]

Alternatively, if the world at large doesn't know the island's inhabited, the US Navy can simply decimate the island's inhabitants with air piracy and TLAM strikes from offshore, followed up by an amphibious assault. Call it an exercise.

(and, if word should leak out that the island is inhabited, Uncle Sam can simply say they're ISIS/al-Qaeida soldiers, and this was one of their secret bases. Would also explain the drone overflight)

The real challenge for the US government would be in keeping this to themselves. The moment the rest of the world knows about the endless supply of oil, they're going to be clawing each other for a piece of the action, or for exclusive control of the island, fair means or foul. And, not all of the competiton will be other governments, but also multi-national corporations, many with the wherewithal to hire PMCs.

And, then there will be the libertarian loonies, who will want to go Galt and set up their own peaceable kingdom on the island, and who may be hellishly rich enough to afford the fee of an average private military company/contractor(say Cliven Bundy and his jerkoffs out West) to defend their occupation of said island.

In other words, once this gets out, the cannibals will be the United States Armed Forces' least worry.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah. Basically, even mutated, Stone Age level savages are pretty much a non-concern whatsoever.

If carpet-bombing won't do the job... that's what JDAM's, television-guided munitions, and bunker-busters are for. Oil fires can be put out; if the oil pool is THAT big, burning off a few hundred thousand gallons aren't going to make much difference (and hell, they might just run a line UNDER the fire and suck the oil out from underneath).

Should they actually have to set foot on the island and root out the cannibals... that's what APC's and IFV's are for. The cannibals don't seem to possess much tactical sense. If they hide in the caves... fine, just blow the cave entrances, bottle them up and let them starve.

This only poses a difficulty if you think the military are at a similar or only slightly advanced level of technology. Guns and bombs simply change the equation completely.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Umm. Well, the oil pool is actually right on the surface, you see, and they need to preserve it a little. So they can't just bomb everything. And plus the cannibals also live in deep underground caves, by deep I mean 50 meters+ underground, so unless they want to ruin the oil they can't really bomb everything, since lighter surface bombs will not work. Also let's just say that the cannibal's cave actually interweaves with the oil pool as well.

The real world ain't like The Beverly Hillbillies, son. Jed Clampett, his coonhound, and his squirrel rifle can't strike oil just by shooting at the ground, nor are there any oil deposits that are "right on the surface." That's why you have to actually, you know, drill for oil.

Even if the cannibals live in deep underground caves, they're not deep enough for a bunker buster or a B-52's bombload, both of which can be precision guided to hit their caves, and not harm the oil deposits, because, this isn't WW2. Modern sensors and satellites can distiguish between oil and people in caves.

Unless, you are make the preposterous suggestion that the cannibals are actually living in the oil pool, or in close proximity to it, both of which would be dertimental to the cannibals remaining cannibals(try lighting a fire in a confined space with petroleum vapors sometimes). Even then, it would be a simple expedient to bomb the people, remove the rubble, and recover the oil.

[Archinist]

Yeah. Basically, even mutated, Stone Age level savages are pretty much a non-concern whatsoever.

If carpet-bombing won't do the job... that's what JDAM's, television-guided munitions, and bunker-busters are for. Oil fires can be put out; if the oil pool is THAT big, burning off a few hundred thousand gallons aren't going to make much difference (and hell, they might just run a line UNDER the fire and suck the oil out from underneath).

Should they actually have to set foot on the island and root out the cannibals... that's what APC's and IFV's are for. The cannibals don't seem to possess much tactical sense. If they hide in the caves... fine, just blow the cave entrances, bottle them up and let them starve.

This only poses a difficulty if you think the military are at a similar or only slightly advanced level of technology. Guns and bombs simply change the equation completely.

The island is not suitable for APCs and IFVs due to the fact that it is full of trees. The AFVs would not be able to move barely at all, and would be useless.

The oil is really only there to discourage people from talking about bombing the cannibals, it doesn't actually exist in the game. Making a line under the oil would require drilling through the cannibal-infested caves, so there would be some infantry fighting there. Some of the stronger mutants can bash great rocks out of the way, so they would definitely do some damage to a light AFV if they got in melee range.

There are also great mounds of dead modern people here and there, and abandoned campsites of modern people, and some shadier things to do with the modern people such as a giant metal vault door, an underground stash of dynamite and dead rescue workers (no follow-up rescue team or news at all??), so the military might want to figure out what was actually going on the island first.

So let's just say that the military is greatly discouraged from the usage of heavy bombs due to risk of damaging the oil pool, and since this oil pool is extremely important, a one-of-a-kind treasure, they would probably look after it a little better than dropping bombs everywhere, especially if that wasn't required.

Okay, let's just say that the oil pool is indeed exposed on the surface in a massive wide-open crater which is filled with oil. Let's also say that the majority of the cannibal's caves are looped around and through the oil pool, in small 'pockets' of cave and air directly under the oil. Some oil even drips down the cave walls and are used by the cannibals for making fire torches, candles, and throwable fire bombs.

It's a fictional natural island, so anything is possible!

And there is the fact that the U.S. would probably not want to take ANY chances at all, what if the plane malfunctioned and caught fire and crashed into the oil pool? Or the bombs were faulty and exploded in the oil pool which caused the entirety of the oil to pour out into the ocean? That wouldn't be very good.

So let's just say that the U.S. are taking NO chances with bombing the island, and are only assaulting the island with ground vehicles, infantry and light CAS units. If they take heavy casualties they can bring in heavier equipment, however.

The cannibals could probably survive in the caves for a while even without a proper source of food, and it is important to remember that there are dozens of well-hidden cave exits and entrances scattered across the entire island, and that the caves themselves stretch across the island in dozens of different pathways.

[Elheru Aran]

...so you want the US military, without the US Air Force, which is part of the US military?

You cannot start a scenario with one set of parameters and continue changing the parameters as you go. That's simply not going to work.

'a fictional natural island so anything is possible'-- WRONG. It has to be within the bounds of reason. And right now you're stretching those bounds wayyyyy far...

[Archinist]

...so you want the US military, without the US Air Force, which is part of the US military?

You cannot start a scenario with one set of parameters and continue changing the parameters as you go. That's simply not going to work.

'a fictional natural island so anything is possible'-- WRONG. It has to be within the bounds of reason. And right now you're stretching those bounds wayyyyy far...

I said they have 'light CAS support', which means they get all their attack helicopters, anti-armor/infantry A-10s, utility helicopters, etc. So they still get their air force, just not all of it.


How is this any more unrealistic than your average anime movie, where there are bright pink elvish high school girls who can destroy entire universes by waving their hands around, or summon great cthulhu beasts by whistling at the air? I mean, I doubt the U.S. military would want to bomb a island which contained a fragile supply of "just" THE WORLD'S LARGEST EVER OIL SUPPLY even with their accurate modern guided bombs.

Why would they even waste valuable bombs and munitions on destroying a stone-age civilization, when they could effectively combat them with AFVs and infantry anyway, at least according to their expectations, since they don't know the full capability of the cannibals yet?

There are also plenty of successful fictions where they totally leave all bounds of reason...

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Okay, let's just say that the oil pool is indeed exposed on the surface in a massive wide-open crater which is filled with oil. Let's also say that the majority of the cannibal's caves are looped around and through the oil pool, in small 'pockets' of cave and air directly under the oil. Some oil even drips down the cave walls and are used by the cannibals for making fire torches, candles, and throwable fire bombs.

It's a fictional natural island, so anything is possible!

Fiction does not mean anything goes. As we've told you time and again, if it doesn't make sense, no one will want to read it/buy into it.

But, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, for the moment, at least:

1)Cannibals' caves looped around the pool. Precision strike to take them out and leave the oil pool intact.

2) Cannibals' caves looped through(that is to say, in) the oil pool. They die of asphixiation, and wouldn't be cannibals anymore. Or they barbecue themselves from a single spark, and wouldn't be cannibals anymore.

3) Oil pool is a massive, wide-open crater. Boy, you just made everyone's job easier in recovering the oil.

And there is the fact that the U.S. would probably not want to take ANY chances at all, what if the plane malfunctioned and caught fire and crashed into the oil pool? Or the bombs were faulty and exploded in the oil pool which caused the entirety of the oil to pour out into the ocean? That wouldn't be very good.

Aside from the fact that you can't eliminate chance(or freak accidents like the kind which occur on Archinist World), they're not going to take that into account, except to consider the potential reward is greater than the potential risk.

And, if one of the strike planes were to suffer a mishap, it would either RTB, or if forced to ditch, would so far enough away from the target as to not affect, due to the plane continuing to move forward, as it falls. Aircraft just do not drop straight down.

So let's just say that the U.S. are taking NO chances with bombing the island, and are only assaulting the island with ground vehicles, infantry and light CAS units. If they take heavy casualties they can bring in heavier equipment, however.

No, let's not, because the Joint Chiefs and their civilian superiors will think "potential reward>potential risk." If they wanted to take no chances, they wouldn't bother with the operation at all, and someone else will take the island, because they were willing to take chances.

See, the real world doesn't work a certain way, just because you say so.

The cannibals could probably survive in the caves for a while even without a proper source of food, and it is important to remember that there are dozens of well-hidden cave exits and entrances scattered across the entire island, and that the caves themselves stretch across the island in dozens of different pathways.

All of which can be targeted by bunker busters, other precision-guided munitions and special forces. Just ask the Taliban.

Oh, on second thought, no need. You're positing that these cannibals are living in caverns filled with toxic and explosive natural gas(a derivative of crude oil), so they'll all be dead anyway.

Game over, dude. Game over.

[Zixinus]

Are there even land drones? I know that there are for minesweeping and stuff but drones used for scouting?

Modern militaries like what the US has is equipped to deal with things like biological weapons. Even the player can avoid getting inflected in the game simply by washing blood off himself, indicating that the disease that makes mutants out of people is transmitted by bodily fluid. Which isn't a problem when your standard armament is an assault rifle and you have CBRN suits.

So even the inefficient route of sending soldiers to the island to clear it out with small arms is practically a curb-stomp. Especially once you factor in things like vehicles (not even tanks, just armored troops transporters armed with heavy machine guns). The mutants may be physically superior to regular humans but not when the regular humans have assault rifles and machine guns.

Yes, the mutants are tougher and they have weird variations that are tremendously more tougher than a regular human. But when you have assault rifles and heavier weapons (machine guns, grenades, not to mention mines plus equipment like night-vision goggles) the problem is quickly and simply solved by putting in more and bigger bullets. The cannibals on the island are mutants, not zombies, they are mortal and alive, they will die before they can even get near the soldiers. If the game's player character, James, a relatively average person who is a good survivalist, can fight off mutants then trained and well-armed soldiers definitely will. The guy talking about how the denizens of the Forest overtaking the world does not know what he is talking about.

The island isn't terribly big, so the cannibals could be exterminated under a few days or a couple of weeks, tops. The only reason they would slow down is if they want to contain and study the infection, which is a dangerous but not altogether bad idea. The infection is definitely scary but very interesting, learning how the hell it came to be or how it works might be important. If it happened in nature once, it can happen again elsewhere so it is better to learn about it early than later. Practically this will mean that the infection will be alive only in a laboratory. The potential to use it as a biological weapon is there but it needs to be studied first. Hell, it might reveal an organism that could be helpful for more benign purposes.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

How is this any more unrealistic than your average anime movie, where there are bright pink elvish high school girls who can destroy entire universes by waving their hands around, or summon great cthulhu beasts by whistling at the air? I mean, I doubt the U.S. military would want to bomb a island which contained a fragile supply of "just" THE WORLD'S LARGEST EVER OIL SUPPLY even with their accurate modern guided bombs.

Aside from otaku only watching those kinds of anime for fanservice, and this not being your average anime, even fare such as Inyuasha or DBZ, where the level of sheer stupidity is over 9000 most times, depicts the real world acting the way we know the real world is supposed to act. Even in Gintama which is supposed to be an outrageous satire of manga and anime, the real world behaves how we expect the real world to.

And, in the average anime, elements which are supposed to suspend our disbelief are given a logical, consistent set of rules to follow.

Why would they even waste valuable bombs and munitions on destroying a stone-age civilization, when they could effectively combat them with AFVs and infantry anyway, at least according to their expectations, since they don't know the full capability of the cannibals yet?

Because one of the most basic rules of warfare is never underestimate the enemy. Another is that munitions are ultimately cheaper than bodies, and that the aim of the modern military is to minimize their own casualties, because spending your warfighters' lives like water is very bad for morale, and whats' bad for morale erodes combat effectiveness.

There are also plenty of successful fictions where they totally leave all bounds of reason...

Successful at the box office, maybe, like that Twilight crap, but widely reviled throughout the Internet and in meatspace, because it's just that fucking stupid.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Are there even land drones? I know that there are for minesweeping and stuff but drones used for scouting

DARPA and the US Army were experimenting with scout drones as part of the cancelled Future Combat System program. I don't know if that's been continued or not.

NASA has, of course, used land drones for scouting and exploration, but these were adapted for non-terrestrial enviroments.

[Elheru Aran]

Re land drones: what do you think bomb-disposal robots are, pretty much? A R/C car with a battery-powered webcam stuck on top would qualify. Or you could just use one of those toy helicopters with a camera onboard and fly it at ~4' above ground. Wouldn't be much difference.

Admittedly flying drones are rather more common, because that's easier than developing an all-terrain land drone. But they're working on it...

[Archinist]

Okay, let's just say that the oil pool is indeed exposed on the surface in a massive wide-open crater which is filled with oil. Let's also say that the majority of the cannibal's caves are looped around and through the oil pool, in small 'pockets' of cave and air directly under the oil. Some oil even drips down the cave walls and are used by the cannibals for making fire torches, candles, and throwable fire bombs.

It's a fictional natural island, so anything is possible!

Fiction does not mean anything goes. As we've told you time and again, if it doesn't make sense, no one will want to read it/buy into it.

But, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, for the moment, at least:

1)Cannibals' caves looped around the pool. Precision strike to take them out and leave the oil pool intact.

2) Cannibals' caves looped through(that is to say, in) the oil pool. They die of asphixiation, and wouldn't be cannibals anymore. Or they barbecue themselves from a single spark, and wouldn't be cannibals anymore.

3) Oil pool is a massive, wide-open crater. Boy, you just made everyone's job easier in recovering the oil.

Yes, but if you read this scenario you would see that it is actually very different from my previous threads of "the SWAT team arrives but they all die and turn into pots and plates then everyone dies and turns into a big potatoe". You can see it is much more logical, and is actually plausible.

Hold on. You are saying that if a single cannibal light a tiny torch, then the entire oil field would explode and erupt in a volcanic-like eruption that would destroy the island pretty much. But apparently bombs powerful enough to destroy kilometres of spread-out caves exploding inside the caves and very close to the oil itself would not affect the oil in any way?

Okay, since there couldn't possibly be much oil in a single wide crater, the oil pool would actually run underneath the surface, and tunnel away into the ground with various twists and turns that looped around the cannibal caves. The caves are also well-ventilated by the fact that there are numerous entrances on one side of the island in front of a major wind channel, and that the wind actually uses the caves as a channel to run through, and exits out through the other side of the caves, providing a good airflow.

And there is the fact that the U.S. would probably not want to take ANY chances at all, what if the plane malfunctioned and caught fire and crashed into the oil pool? Or the bombs were faulty and exploded in the oil pool which caused the entirety of the oil to pour out into the ocean? That wouldn't be very good.

Aside from the fact that you can't eliminate chance(or freak accidents like the kind which occur on Archinist World), they're not going to take that into account, except to consider the potential reward is greater than the potential risk.

And, if one of the strike planes were to suffer a mishap, it would either RTB, or if forced to ditch, would so far enough away from the target as to not affect, due to the plane continuing to move forward, as it falls. Aircraft just do not drop straight down.

Umm, well the reward for safely securing the oil is a much calmer and safer world, with far less potential for any catastrophic WWIII due to lack of resources, and generally a far more stable and peaceful world. The downsides for securing the oil in less aggressive ways is a mildly to moderately higher risk to your infantry, and that's it...?

Moreover, since the island is very small, there is even a possibility that destroying the oil well would actually cause the oil to spill out into the ocean, and since this fictional oil well is actually larger than all of the world's oil supplies combined, then such a spill would cause quite a bit of environmental damage... (if the bombs accidentally hit a weak spot of the oil well)

Also, aircraft have been 'naturally' destroyed in mid-air and have more or less dropped straight down. Not quite exactly straight down, but more or less.

So let's just say that the U.S. are taking NO chances with bombing the island, and are only assaulting the island with ground vehicles, infantry and light CAS units. If they take heavy casualties they can bring in heavier equipment, however.

No, let's not, because the Joint Chiefs and their civilian superiors will think "potential reward>potential risk." If they wanted to take no chances, they wouldn't bother with the operation at all, and someone else will take the island, because they were willing to take chances.

See, the real world doesn't work a certain way, just because you say so.

Yes, and as I already stated above, the risks of destroying the oil well would be much worse than losing a couple more soldiers, and the rewards of securing the oil well would easily be worth thousands of soldier's lives..

The cannibals could probably survive in the caves for a while even without a proper source of food, and it is important to remember that there are dozens of well-hidden cave exits and entrances scattered across the entire island, and that the caves themselves stretch across the island in dozens of different pathways.

All of which can be targeted by bunker busters, other precision-guided munitions and special forces. Just ask the Taliban.

Oh, on second thought, no need. You're positing that these cannibals are living in caverns filled with toxic and explosive natural gas(a derivative of crude oil), so they'll all be dead anyway.

I am not so sure about that. The cannibals have already demonstrated superhuman capabilities (surviving point-blank sticks of exploding dynamite, being lit on fire multiple times, easily knocking over TREES with physical strength), so I would not be surprised if they could survive in toxic environments. I mean, their INFANTS can easily KILL a grown man just by flinging themselves at him!

Game over, dude. Game over.[/quote]

And, in the average anime, elements which are supposed to suspend our disbelief are given a logical, consistent set of rules to follow.

Unless it is one of the more sensible animes, no it doesn't. For example, in one section you can have a generic highschool human character who can effortlessly butcher dozens of slow-moving zombies with just a metal stick, yet when a group of professional soldiers turn up, they fire guns at the ground and get eaten.

And then later on, that same character who butchered all those zombies and is apparently completely stoney and is unable to feel anything is suddenly physically and emotionally defeated by another character commenting on their appearance, usually in a complementary tone, as they immediately pass out and sometimes die, and/or quickly run away in terror and agony for some reason.

And plus there are plenty of other parts where characters behave completely erratically such as where a band of heavily armed soldiers/police will just commit suicide upon seeing dead bodies, will stand still and do nothing as extremely slow-moving zombies slowly slowly make their way over to them and eat them, although they just performed extremely well in a aggressive firefight against human soldiers just minutes before, or where again complimenting on a character's appearance will cause them to have a random breakdown or fly into a literally murderous rage but only some times, other times they will either just ignore them or have a positive reaction, etc etc.


[/quote]

Well, the reward of acquiring the oil successfully could potentially save the world from a world-wide nuclear way, while accidentally destroying the oil well could very well end up with half the world's oceans poisoned with oil..

Actually, Twilight is quite well-liked by the general audience, and has a 5.2/10 rating on IMDB, which is not too bad at all.

[Bernkastel]

And, in the average anime, elements which are supposed to suspend our disbelief are given a logical, consistent set of rules to follow.

Unless it is one of the more sensible animes, no it doesn't. For example, in one section you can have a generic highschool human character who can effortlessly butcher dozens of slow-moving zombies with just a metal stick, yet when a group of professional soldiers turn up, they fire guns at the ground and get eaten.

And then later on, that same character who butchered all those zombies and is apparently completely stoney and is unable to feel anything is suddenly physically and emotionally defeated by another character commenting on their appearance, usually in a complementary tone, as they immediately pass out and sometimes die, and/or quickly run away in terror and agony for some reason. [/quote]

Ignoring that, I know plenty of anime that are not even close to being as stupid as that, you are saying that we should treat your stupidity seriously because something else is also stupid? You do realise that if someone put a stupid scenario like that from anime here, it would also be laughed at and not considered deserving of respect too? Pointing at something we'd also mock and trying to use that to justify your own silliness is just absurd.

Out of curiosity, what anime are you referring to?

Actually, Twilight is quite well-liked by the general audience, and has a 5.2/10 rating on IMDB, which is not too bad at all.

I pay a lot of attention to various critics and people who analyse fiction. I've yet to come upon one I could respect who didn't at best like it for being so stupid that it became funny to them. Others despise it for having one of the creepiest romantic relationships in fiction that we're meant to like, with many other problems apart from that.

[Bernkastel]

removed

[Zixinus]

Archinist, the problem is that you don't understand how story-telling is supposed to work: a good storyteller creates a context where ridiculous and stupid things make sense as you tell them. That is how willing suspension of disbelief works. The storyteller convinces you that, within at least the confines of the story, the unlikely, impossible, improbable, strange, etc. (in other words, the imaginary) exist. Whether it is a rich guy with ridiculously deep abandonment issues managing to work that out by in bat-themed equipment that terrifies hardened criminals and actually usually wins against them. Or as simple as the dog finding its way home trough half the country back to its beloved owner (Lassie). That's how it works regardless of medium, whether we are talking anime or video games or anything. We can accept fantasy worlds with fantasy creatures because they can work in a way that makes sense to people.

Which is where you suck at, terribly due to your distorted perception of how real life works. You can't just throw every random, disjointed idea you have and expect people to just take it. You have to work on how the ideas come together, what the ideas are, how they would work, etc. Even in this crowd that is pretty receptive to impossible fantasy/sci-fi ideas. V

[Esquire]

I'll just add that this thread is way, way better than the last few, especially the OP (once basic details were added). You're making progress, Archinist. Keep up the good work.

[Zixinus]

Esquire is right: while this is still a one-sided curbstomp, it pretty much makes sense.