SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread II

[Shroom Man 777]

More madness.

I would've continued by adding the following sequence:
Spoiler

It was he who foretold of all these things coming to be, it was he alone and not the false prophets who now stalked the land, not the Pharisees who were now castigated by the fire from the sky, not the sorcerers or the astrologers or the Whoracles of Dolphin. They were fools to have laughed at him, yet now he offered them a chance at salvation, should they follow his path. So they did, for after all, it was he who begged the Pharaoh to let his people go, yet the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and so did the Pharaoh confiscate Moses' slaves rather than have Moses free them. The Pharaoh instead sold them to the Pharisees and their cotton farms and glue factories, despite Moses' impassioned please.

http://i586.photobucket.com/albums/ss30 ... -yul21.jpg

The Pharaoh then unleashed his men to seize Moses, yet he ran and the Pharaoh's men gave chase, hunting him down like a dog till he arrived at the shores of the Reed See. Then from the heavens came a lance of purest white light, and the men of the Pharaoh were punished for their wickedness and turned to ash.

Thus spoketh Moses, and so likewise did he now rebuke his flock for their own wickedness, and so did they admit their own shame.

But Shep, of all people, advised me to cut off at the part that I went "fuckshit". So I ended it at Charleston Moses.

(The rest of the stuff I spoilerized still totally happened though. The government chased him for his abolitionist views and whatever, and he ran to the Reed Sea, where a misdirected Shepistani railgun strike vaporized his pursuers. Then at this great omen he became a prophet.)

EDIT:

BAH, I removed it all. In hindsight, it wasn't so clever. I'll go pursue Loinstar's Moreau story tomorrow.

Here's what I removed though:
Spoiler

NEAR the Shepistani Zone, Pendleton

Those living at the far outskirts of Dogadishu and Eel were lucky enough to have avoided the brunt of the thermonuclear bombardment. Even more so were those situated in the lands upwind, for they would be spared from the fallout. The prevailing winds came from the sea, the Reed Sea, which came through the bay and blew the irradiated particulates downwind towards the less fortunate.

http://i586.photobucket.com/albums/ss30 ... fugees.jpg

Even now, a mass exodus was occurring. Those spared from the worst of the nuclear holocaust left the devastation of their homes, seeking shelter in lands less ravaged. There were those who had subscribed to Pendleton's various privatized civil defense programs. Others had tuned in to the privatized weather stations and had the sense to flee before the winds brought fallout to their homes. There were slaves amongst them, some freed, others escapees from captivity who used the wartime chaos to make themselves scarce. There were abolitionists, cast out of their homes by the angry mobs of slaver cults who sought to burn them in mass pyres in retribution for the pox that had befallen their lands. It was pandemonium in Pendleton. For many of the population, a biblical cataclysm had transpired, the coming of the Shepistanis much like the occurrence of the book of Revelations for those who believed in the Jesus Man.

This unseemingly mob, in the ordeals of survival, had somehow come together and bonded. Those slaves who had brutally killed their owners and stolen their foods reluctantly shared theirs with freemen, those who were doctors or other professions with skills to help them and the makeshift community they formed. Many of these freemen had abolitionist tendencies, for it seemed as though the wrath of the Shepistanis had chosen the most wicked of the land to punish, namely the slave owners and foremen of the main cities who were now naught but ash, cremated by the thermonuclear flame and scattered by the wind as poisoned dust.

There were some of them who had owned slaves in their past lives, but now they huddled amongst these masses. Whole families of slaver fathers, slaver mothers, and slaver children, all slave-owners somehow paradoxically tolerated by the underclass that now sheltered them. Perhaps these slave-owners had treated their slaves kindly, perhaps even sheltered them from the harsher slave-laws of the past order, shown leniency mayhaps. Maybe the slaves showed them mercy for they had families and small children, or perhaps it was the kindly slaves of these slave-owning families that came to their aid instead of deserting them.

Either way, they were all in it together. Together they starved, together they trekked, together they succumbed to disease and deprivation, together they hauled coffins filled with their dead. Together they sought to avoid the blandishments of the postnuclear hordes of marauders, and cultists who sought fresh sacrifices to appease the Shepistani destroyers lurking in the dark heavens. Why not? Their sacrifices so far had stayed the Shepistanis' hand from wreaking further devastation. The Shepistanis in space could see the altars they had built, and all the sinners they had burned atop them, and they were pleased. So long as this continued, the megadeaths would stop.

Near the unpolluted shores of the Reed Sea, they came across a strange man. Clothed in robes and clutching a staff, with grayed hair and strange steely eyes, and wearing sandals on his feet. He joined their band and gradually, through his wise sayings, they began following his words. They did so for he spoke nothing but the truth. For was it not the wickedness of their society that brought these plagues upon the land? Indeed, it was. And this man knew better than others, for he was none other than the great abolitionist known as Charleston Moses.

http://i586.photobucket.com/albums/ss30 ... VIF00Z.jpg

[Magister Militum]

Just a head's up: I'll be messing around with my military stats in order to get them to line up with my current expectations. That, and my opening post won't be coming until tomorrow. Writing battles against pissant barbarians on the fringe takes time.

[Simon_Jester]

Holy shit, Shroom, you mean to tell me you decided not to post something because it was too bizarre?

Wow. The end really is REALLY FUCKING NIGH...

Much easier to kill an unarmored civilian in his home or in the street than it is to kill a power-armored soldier walking along on his routine.

Not really. This is the future as well. The same SUPER SPACE RPG that can be fired into a abolitionist's house to blow out the first floor; can also be used to blow up a power armored soldier and wound/damage his comrades.

The catch is that a SUPER SPACE RPG is inevitably going to be more expensive than a simple pipe bomb. You can blow up a collaborator with a pipe bomb as easy as with a super-space-bazooka, but you can't blow up a patrolling MI with one.

Also, given the transit times and the degree to which a fleet can efficiently blockade a planet in this setting, getting arms from off-planet is difficult. You have to stockpile in advance, and historically the Pendletonians did not stockpile heavy anti-armor weapons for fighting enemy heavy infantry.

Their hereditary tactics are those of the Space KKK, not the Space Iraqi Insurgents. Their entire military strategy revolves around harassment and annoyance, for a good and simple reason: fighting as Space Iraqis, they can't kill enough Anglians fast enough to drive them off the planet. Killing thousands of Anglian soldiers risks creating a permanent Anglian commitment to 'finish the job,' because of the way the Anglian government tends to work. In that respect, they're more like Victorian Britain or Republican Rome (who responded to a defeat by sending more troops to avenge the dead), and less like turn-of-the-millenium America (which takes ongoing casualties as a sign that we shouldn't be there).

Merely making it ludicrously expensive to keep those soldiers on station and making it seem like efforts to reform the planet are getting nowhere does not have that risk. So the Pendletonian strategy of delay, harassment, and disruption of reform efforts is arguably very canny, and likely to work for the same reasons that the KKK and their allies' strategy worked in the American South (reducing blacks to a state little better than the slavery they'd escaped for many decades). If it fails this time, it's going to be because it is now a matter of national prestige for Anglia to reform them: the Coalition is watching.

I think Shep's idea is that the Pendletons planned ahead and stockpiled these weapons for the fight against the anglicans, which happens every other generation it seems. It's doubtful they could of gotten them in during the lead up to the battle with the gap blockaded, at least not in significant numbers. But with things like the Chamarrans having previously not been very picky about buyers when selling surplus armaments and the pendletons having enough cash to afford what for a shithole is quite a significant anti orbit/ anti air defence grid...yeah, i predict pain and suffering and i'm glad i'm not annexing the place.

This is a point. The caliber of their air defenses (I view their ability to engage low orbit targets as a logical extension of air defense) suggests that if they wanted they could stockpile large numbers of antitank weapons for use against occupation troops.

The question is whether they will do so: will they decide that it's worth the ability to kill Anglian occupation troops by ones and twos while they're in full armor, in exchange for the risk that Anglia will feel compelled to throw more and more bodies at Pendleton until the rebellion is crushed, and that Anglia will respond to increased casualties by harsher occupation policies that they're not prepared to counter?

[Shroom Man 777]

Holy shit, Shroom, you mean to tell me you decided not to post something because it was too bizarre?

Wow. The end really is REALLY FUCKING NIGH...

I was questioning its thematic appropriateness and the adequacy of the literary symbolism, since having Moses go on about the Pharaoh isn't in-keeping with Pendleton's rustic aesthetic, whereas it is narratively more acceptable to have Bragulians and Shepistanis fucking about as per the literary conventions and troperisms of dialectical materialism.

The catch is that a SUPER SPACE RPG is inevitably going to be more expensive than a simple pipe bomb. You can blow up a collaborator with a pipe bomb as easy as with a super-space-bazooka, but you can't blow up a patrolling MI with one.

Is a SUPER SPACE RPG going to be that expensive, though? Power armor is in regular usage everywhere, while guys like the Chamarrans and Bragulans and Pfhor and Sovereignty and whoever are likewise mass-producing anti-armor weaponry. In the future, these SUPER SPACE RPGs would be no more expensive then RPGs or LAWs or MANPADs of today. Look at how anti-tank weapons proliferated in Middle Eastern insurgencies.

Also, given the transit times and the degree to which a fleet can efficiently blockade a planet in this setting, getting arms from off-planet is difficult. You have to stockpile in advance, and historically the Pendletonians did not stockpile heavy anti-armor weapons for fighting enemy heavy infantry.

They have thousands of nuclear-tipped SAMs, man.

Their hereditary tactics are those of the Space KKK, not the Space Iraqi Insurgents. Their entire military strategy revolves around harassment and annoyance, for a good and simple reason: fighting as Space Iraqis, they can't kill enough Anglians fast enough to drive them off the planet. Killing thousands of Anglian soldiers risks creating a permanent Anglian commitment to 'finish the job,' because of the way the Anglian government tends to work. In that respect, they're more like Victorian Britain or Republican Rome (who responded to a defeat by sending more troops to avenge the dead), and less like turn-of-the-millenium America (which takes ongoing casualties as a sign that we shouldn't be there).

The Anglians really don't strike me as the Roman-type, to be honest. The Romans, and the British Empire, were no strangers to brutality. Whereas the Anglians seem more reluctant to get their hands dirty. Knowing Shep, he would probably find the Anglians more analogous not to turn-of-the-millennium America, but say... America circa '1977-'81.

Seriously though, I mean if the Anglians were previously deterred from making a long-term commitment due to the annoying logistics and distance and shoal-stuff involved, I doubt they'll be enthusiastic as as Romans or Brits.

But it's Steve's guys, so I'll shut up.

Merely making it ludicrously expensive to keep those soldiers on station and making it seem like efforts to reform the planet are getting nowhere does not have that risk. So the Pendletonian strategy of delay, harassment, and disruption of reform efforts is arguably very canny, and likely to work for the same reasons that the KKK and their allies' strategy worked in the American South (reducing blacks to a state little better than the slavery they'd escaped for many decades). If it fails this time, it's going to be because it is now a matter of national prestige for Anglia to reform them: the Coalition is watching.

Yeah, I can buy that they'll do their resistance KKK style, or in a way that's unlike the Iraqis or the Vietnamese or Afghans. The Pendletonians are pampered Victorian-era slavers, not a bunch of hardened third-world guerrilla bastards. Steve can explain the relative lightness of COIN through this.

Either that, or he can have Pendleton suffer a religious cataclysm like the Book of Revelations come true for the Astarians.

This is a point. The caliber of their air defenses (I view their ability to engage low orbit targets as a logical extension of air defense) suggests that if they wanted they could stockpile large numbers of antitank weapons for use against occupation troops.

The question is whether they will do so: will they decide that it's worth the ability to kill Anglian occupation troops by ones and twos while they're in full armor, in exchange for the risk that Anglia will feel compelled to throw more and more bodies at Pendleton until the rebellion is crushed, and that Anglia will respond to increased casualties by harsher occupation policies that they're not prepared to counter?

Is that characteristic of the Anglians, though? If it were the Shepistanis occupying them, that would be a good question to ask.

[MKSheppard]

Also, given the transit times and the degree to which a fleet can efficiently blockade a planet in this setting, getting arms from off-planet is difficult. You have to stockpile in advance, and historically the Pendletonians did not stockpile heavy anti-armor weapons for fighting enemy heavy infantry.

Except you know; the place has been invaded six to nine times before by the Anglicans ALONE. So there is a reason to stockpile arms caches. Also; as Shroom pointed out; Power Armor is now de-rigeur in this universe even for basic infantry; so weapons would have been upgraded -- I mean shit; if you equip your people with power armor; you need to upgrade your own weapons to defeat other people's power armor; and that weaponry trickles down through amoral arms dealers.

Their hereditary tactics are those of the Space KKK, not the Space Iraqi Insurgents.

Except you know, this time the Anglicans have annouced their attention to annex Pendleton; the last six to nine times it was just a routine filibustering expedition.

[Shroom Man 777]

You know what we need? Well-defined space criminal syndicates, that's what. Space Mafia. I can have Bragulan expats, like guys who fled the oppression of the Bragulan Star Empire, form a small BRAGULAN MAFIA that can specialize in all sorts of arms trafficking, gun-running and pseudo-mercenary activities. For fun, the IBGV can infiltrate these bozos to gain a presence in the interstellar underworlds. They'll be like your hardcore Russian Mafiya guys with shitloads of AKs and mil-spec equipment who nobody wants to fuck with, far more uncivilized and brutal then your typical cultured Italian Mafiosi or Yakuza who've got rules. But consequently, this limits their influences, unlike the Italians and the Yakuza whose restraint allows them to integrate nicely with all sorts of corporates and politicians and stuff.

Now we need Space Colombians.

[Ryan Thunder]

Now we need Space Colombians.

From Space Gran Colombia?

[Lonestar]

I was planning on having the "Robot Mafia".

[Shroom Man 777]

Loinstar, sent you diplomatic communique.

[Simon_Jester]

The catch is that a SUPER SPACE RPG is inevitably going to be more expensive than a simple pipe bomb. You can blow up a collaborator with a pipe bomb as easy as with a super-space-bazooka, but you can't blow up a patrolling MI with one.

Is a SUPER SPACE RPG going to be that expensive, though? Power armor is in regular usage everywhere, while guys like the Chamarrans and Bragulans and Pfhor and Sovereignty and whoever are likewise mass-producing anti-armor weaponry. In the future, these SUPER SPACE RPGs would be no more expensive then RPGs or LAWs or MANPADs of today. Look at how anti-tank weapons proliferated in Middle Eastern insurgencies.

Nitpick: I said that, not Shep.

You're right up to a point. Look at it this way. There are two broad models for how to stage an insurgency.

One is Space Vietnam/Iraq, where the guerillas launch attacks on the occupying military. The short-term goal is to bleed the occupying forces and goad them into cracking down in ways that outrage the public and boost the strength of the guerilla movement in the long run. Proving that the occupiers are willing to "destroy the village in order to save it" is a great way to leave the population angry at them. They may still think your guerillas are jerks, but as long as they think both sides are jerks, they'll stay out of the way or choose to ally with native jerks against foreign ones.

The other model is Space Postbellum South. In this model, you do NOT see large scale attacks on the occupying army. Instead, most of the insurgents' attacks are directed against civilian targets alone. The goal here is to terrify the population into noncompliance with the occupiers, and hopefully cause the occupiers to give up the exercise of trying to run the country when they have to keep replacing their native allies every few months.

In the Space Iraq plan, it makes sense to cache huge numbers of anti-armor weapons; you're going to need them. But there are problems with that plan. One is that it relies on your enemy being casualty-averse: they must be convinced to withdraw their forces by the fact that you are inflicting a steady stream of (realistically) light losses on them at high cost to your own forces. Not every occupier can be driven off this way. Another is that it relies on the occupier being unwilling or unable to commit the level of force needed to outright shut down your guerillas, rather than just keep them from being too big of a nuisance.

For the Pendletonians, those are serious problems. The Anglians aren't that casualty-averse; it's more effective to hit them in the wallet than to try and kill a few of them to scare the rest off. And unlike the US in Iraq, Anglia really does have the ability to commit enough manpower to Pendleton to control the planet, at least in principle. It would be extremely expensive for them to do so, but if the Anglians saw it as a needed face-saving measure, they could do it.

And because of the sudden involvement of so many foreign nations, including all Anglia's closest neighbors, it is a matter of national face-saving for Anglia. If their occupation fails again after the Coalition partners committed so many resources (and took casualties) supporting them, they lose a lot of credibility. So the pressure will be on Anglia to get it right this time. If the Pendletonians try for a high-profile bloody insurgency against Anglian troops, that makes it even more likely that Anglia will be spurred into deploying more troops.

That's why I don't think we'll see this becoming a Space Iraq: the Pendletonian guerillas' strategy doesn't work like that of Iraqi insurgents. They don't want to goad Anglia into landing on Pendleton with an iron fist. They just want to make Pendleton ungovernable.

[On top of this, there's a big difference between the Pendletonian guerillas and Iraqi guerillas: too many of the Pendletonians are actually experienced members of the security force, and cannot be replaced. Pendleton's insurgency doesn't have an endless well of cheap manpower to throw at the occupiers the way the Iraqis do.]

Also, given the transit times and the degree to which a fleet can efficiently blockade a planet in this setting, getting arms from off-planet is difficult. You have to stockpile in advance, and historically the Pendletonians did not stockpile heavy anti-armor weapons for fighting enemy heavy infantry.

They have thousands of nuclear-tipped SAMs, man.

Note how those SAMs turned out not to be very effective against modern "amphibious" (space-phibious?) landing craft in the event. If the Pendletonians' anti-tank weapons turn out to be just as crappy, then any plans for ambushing power-armored infantry in Space-Iraq tactics are going to have to be put on hold until they can find better rocket launchers.

The Anglians really don't strike me as the Roman-type, to be honest. The Romans, and the British Empire, were no strangers to brutality. Whereas the Anglians seem more reluctant to get their hands dirty. Knowing Shep, he would probably find the Anglians more analogous not to turn-of-the-millennium America, but say... America circa '1977-'81.

Seriously though, I mean if the Anglians were previously deterred from making a long-term commitment due to the annoying logistics and distance and shoal-stuff involved, I doubt they'll be enthusiastic as as Romans or Brits.

But it's Steve's guys, so I'll shut up.

I'm trying to separate the tactical level (where the Anglians are pretty averse to getting brutal) to the strategic level. That's important: you can't just assume "oh well they don't commit atrocities so they must be casualty-averse!" any more than you can assume the reverse and figure that any army willing to massacre civilians must be really OMG TOUGH and willing to take heavy losses to win.

The Anglians are crusaders. Give them a crusade and they'll keep piling in assets to win it, quite possibly past the point where they ought to have stopped doing so. The key to Pendletonian resistance in the past has been to turn the Anglian occupation force's attitude from one of "we are on a crusade against slavery" to "we are trying to force these stupid ingrate assholes to civilize themselves and they won't cooperate." At which point they just give up in disgust.

This is a point. The caliber of their air defenses (I view their ability to engage low orbit targets as a logical extension of air defense) suggests that if they wanted they could stockpile large numbers of antitank weapons for use against occupation troops.

The question is whether they will do so: will they decide that it's worth the ability to kill Anglian occupation troops by ones and twos while they're in full armor, in exchange for the risk that Anglia will feel compelled to throw more and more bodies at Pendleton until the rebellion is crushed, and that Anglia will respond to increased casualties by harsher occupation policies that they're not prepared to counter?

Is that characteristic of the Anglians, though? If it were the Shepistanis occupying them, that would be a good question to ask.

Well, the Shepistanis would just proceed directly to "nuke everything and ignore the wreckage."

The Anglians won't. Instead, they will escalate their commitment, sending more troops to garrison the planet more heavily. Only after they've ratcheted up their troop commitment to the maximum level practical given the logistics is it possible that they will reconsider their occupation policies... but by that point, if you're as small as Pendleton, there's a real risk that your insurgents have already lost just from having so many millions of troops dropped on them.

[CmdrWilkens]

Totally worthless comment but in the most uninteresting corner of the map I keep trying to come up with decent plans for something interesting but they die the death of a thousand mehs. Hopefully I'll get something out in the next week or so, work and child status obliging.

[Shroom Man 777]

Bah. If you let the Bragulans, or for that matter the other Koprulu Zone powers, do the COIN nobody would have any doubts to our willingness to stomach ruthlessnessity and the efficacy of our methods would be unquestionable.

Wilkens: Go shoot up some Orks!

[KlavoHunter]

Totally worthless comment but in the most uninteresting corner of the map I keep trying to come up with decent plans for something interesting but they die the death of a thousand mehs. Hopefully I'll get something out in the next week or so, work and child status obliging.

As the nearest neighbor to LoTR-land, I have added you on AIM if you want to do anything with Klavostan.

Wilkens: Go shoot up some Orks!

I kinda figured that offensives into the home sectors of our local Orkz have proven to be terrible ideas in the past; because as opposed to them coming to YOU to fight via piracy, this brings only that fraction of the Orks. When you attack their home areas, they ALL jump into the fight... Pirate, Mekanik, Bartender, and all!

... and then you end up seeing that warfleet you spent up in that futile assault being patched up, painted red and fueling a whole new wave of piracy... or worse, a big warfleet of their own headed right back at you.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Bah. If you let the Bragulans, or for that matter the other Koprulu Zone powers, do the COIN nobody would have any doubts to our willingness to stomach ruthlessnessity and the efficacy of our methods would be unquestionable.

Imperium Exterminatus Services. We will declare exterminatus on a planet, for a price.

[Simon_Jester]

Wilkens: Go shoot up some Orks!

I kinda figured that offensives into the home sectors of our local Orkz have proven to be terrible ideas in the past; because as opposed to them coming to YOU to fight via piracy, this brings only that fraction of the Orks. When you attack their home areas, they ALL jump into the fight... Pirate, Mekanik, Bartender, and all!

True. This is probably why Umeria has so much trouble with the ork colonies in the Badlands, too.

Bah. If you let the Bragulans, or for that matter the other Koprulu Zone powers, do the COIN nobody would have any doubts to our willingness to stomach ruthlessnessity and the efficacy of our methods would be unquestionable.

Imperium Exterminatus Services. We will declare exterminatus on a planet, for a price.

Well, I can't argue the unfairness of that.

Rocks aren't free, after all...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well, I can't argue the unfairness of that.

Rocks aren't free, after all...

Rocks are quaint. We don't use rocks.

We simply use warp guns to shatter the crust.

[Steve]

Sorry I've not posted in a while, not been writing. Completely distracted by the finale to Avatar: The Last Airbender.

[Shroom Man 777]

BLARGH! Less talk, more explosions, or lesbians, ok.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, I can't argue the unfairness of that.
Rocks aren't free, after all...

Rocks are quaint. We don't use rocks.
We simply use warp guns to shatter the crust.

Well naturally. They're cheaper.

[Lonestar]

By the way, saw something today that I felt was Germane to the whole Pendleotn fiasco...

[Ryan Thunder]

Totally worthless comment but in the most uninteresting corner of the map I keep trying to come up with decent plans for something interesting but they die the death of a thousand mehs. Hopefully I'll get something out in the next week or so, work and child status obliging.

Would it be any easier if you had a collaborator?

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh Steve.

[Lonestar]

Fucking Furries.

[Simon_Jester]

Indeed, the Bragulans have found that gold standard of all communist infilitration efforts:

Useful idiots.

Creepy useful idiots, but still useful.

[Darkevilme]

We Chamarrans find nothing wrong with you monkeys wanting to imitate a superior form of life, you can't be equal of course but they do say it's the sincerest form of flattery.