Orcish fantasy world invades modern Japan

[Simon_Jester]

It's his choice of words: "They have raided other worlds... but for some reason want to end earth now. I think the reason is supposed to be because humans, dwarves and orcs were all friends or something, but then... elves which I made up, elves died from lack of nutrition and disease at hands of humans, and orcs made dwarves slaves in Orc Town over there."

It's almost as if he himself doesn't really know why things are happening in his own stories.

And we know several of his other scenarios are 'inspired' by random Flash games or the like.

[Lord Revan]

I suppose that could be it. though it could just be result of his chronic lack of forethought in pretty much anything if he never went beyond "wouldn't it be cool if this happened" narative structure of the story that would help him to anwser the "why" just isn't there. Essentially he's throwing random "cool" things into a blender (metaphrically speaking) and we're dealing with the resulting mess.

Admitbly I could be wrong as I try to interact with teens and people with the mental maturity of teens as little as I can get away with, so you would be the expert of that field not me.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, either he talks funny, or he is in fact parroting stuff someone else came up with at least in part. I'll leave it at that.

[The_Saint]

As another education staff type I'm backing Simon, this smells of 2nd hand.

My question to the original scenario is: so Orks pull some F-14 Tomcat blueprints out of their arses AND the resources necessary AND the magical dwarves can magic up a fleet of Tomcats AND fuel AND weapons... I'll grant you all that....

How in all the hells do the Orks get flight training, ground-air communications (with a portal that prevents em radiation), forward tactical/strategic targeting.... OR ANY FORM of air-power doctrine???

Riddle me that?

((Along with all the other what-ifs people think of after reading these threads I suddenly had a thought: Orkish F-14 fleet vs North Korean air force, who wins))

[Archinist]

As another education staff type I'm backing Simon, this smells of 2nd hand.

My question to the original scenario is: so Orks pull some F-14 Tomcat blueprints out of their arses AND the resources necessary AND the magical dwarves can magic up a fleet of Tomcats AND fuel AND weapons... I'll grant you all that....

How in all the hells do the Orks get flight training, ground-air communications (with a portal that prevents em radiation), forward tactical/strategic targeting.... OR ANY FORM of air-power doctrine???

Riddle me that?

((Along with all the other what-ifs people think of after reading these threads I suddenly had a thought: Orkish F-14 fleet vs North Korean air force, who wins))

I got the idea from thinking about that really amazing HFY web original about a bronze-age mythological army of orc-like creatures invading modern earth, and GATE. The rest I just made up myself.

Also, the Orcs were supposed to invade the city, and while they are invading, supply carts would show up out of the portal and the orcs would start piling cars, small airplanes, phones/computers, scientific/engineering books of both practical and non-practical (for the average man) levels, knowledge books about modern humans, various histories, etc into the carts, which would immediately turn around and go back to the Orc City, where the dwarfs would look at the items.

If there are no military airplane graveyards in Japan, let's just say there actually is one, and it's right near the portal.

The Orcs do not care too much about strategy or how much EM radiation they emit, they're Orcs! They don't need strategy anyway, they have modern fighter jets, they could just fly them into buildings or into important military objects while firing the guns madly. A modern fighter jet, even flown by a incompetent pilot is still extremely difficult to bring down, I would assume. The Orcs would also be flying much faster and 'tighter' as well, since their bodies can withstand higher g-forces and pressures than humans can.

The Orcs could also replace the missiles with homemade Orcish firebombs on the outside of the craft, which could either be manually released, or just detonated by ramming the entire craft into the target. Hell, they don't even need military aircraft for some targets. Any decent ute with bombs could be a major threat.

Also, the airships are not actually airships suspended in the air, but giant metal platforms supported by bronze piston legs.

[Esquire]

The Orcs do not care too much about strategy or how much EM radiation they emit, they're Orcs! They don't need strategy anyway, they have modern fighter jets, they could just fly them into buildings or into important military objects while firing the guns madly.

How will they define what 'important military objects' are? How will they coordinate strikes effectively? How will they avoid air-defense networks and hostile aircraft? These are all rather important questions, and all fall under the strategy you say they don't need?

A modern fighter jet, even flown by a incompetent pilot is still extremely difficult to bring down, I would assume. The Orcs would also be flying much faster and 'tighter' as well, since their bodies can withstand higher g-forces and pressures than humans can.

A modern fighter jet, flown by an incompetent pilot, will bring itself, no enemy action required. And while it's possible that an orc-piloted jet could turn more tightly than a human-piloted one, that offers no advantage as it still couldn't outturn a missile. Jets do not have WWII-style dogfights.

The Orcs could also replace the missiles with homemade Orcish firebombs on the outside of the craft, which could either be manually released, or just detonated by ramming the entire craft into the target. Hell, they don't even need military aircraft for some targets. Any decent ute with bombs could be a major threat.

No, it isn't. At best you've made an outsized and hilariously inefficient and underpowered cruise missile, piloted by an untrained barbarian instead of a well-programmed computer. Well done.

Also, the airships are not actually airships suspended in the air, but giant metal platforms supported by bronze piston legs.

Ask yourself how well bronze will stand up against modern armor-piercing ammunition, then please explain how this is better for the orcs.

[Lord Revan]

Oh and anything that can be called "bronze" (which is a fairly well known alloy) have limits as to what you can build from it and still stay intact. Build anything too heavy and the thing will collapse under its own weight with no enemy actions needed, oh and the Statue of Liberty and similar large bronze monuments are build around a steel armature to allow them to stay intact.

[Archinist]

Oh and anything that can be called "bronze" (which is a fairly well known alloy) have limits as to what you can build from it and still stay intact. Build anything too heavy and the thing will collapse under its own weight with no enemy actions needed, oh and the Statue of Liberty and similar large bronze monuments are build around a steel armature to allow them to stay intact.

Similar to how the famous bronze statues have been reinforced with steel, the bronze used here has also been reinforced with melted wood, which has been liquefied and rubbed deep into the bronze metalwork, greatly increasing strength.

The Orcs do not care too much about strategy or how much EM radiation they emit, they're Orcs! They don't need strategy anyway, they have modern fighter jets, they could just fly them into buildings or into important military objects while firing the guns madly.

How will they define what 'important military objects' are? How will they coordinate strikes effectively? How will they avoid air-defense networks and hostile aircraft? These are all rather important questions, and all fall under the strategy you say they don't need?

There will be few AA defense structures at first, since the governments have no idea that somehow the Orcs managed to steal a few old papers and rusting planes and turn them into a fully-functional fleet of over 100 F-14s.

The Orcs can use their brains and attack what looks important. It doesn't have to be military, it could even be a civilian gas pump or oil field.

A modern fighter jet, even flown by a incompetent pilot is still extremely difficult to bring down, I would assume. The Orcs would also be flying much faster and 'tighter' as well, since their bodies can withstand higher g-forces and pressures than humans can.

A modern fighter jet, flown by an incompetent pilot, will bring itself, no enemy action required. And while it's possible that an orc-piloted jet could turn more tightly than a human-piloted one, that offers no advantage as it still couldn't outturn a missile. Jets do not have WWII-style dogfights.

The fighter could twist extremely tightly around and around and around whilst deploying flares (the orcs know the basics) until the missile loses it or runs out of fuel. The orcs are not that incompetent to crash the plane, as they are highly resistant to g-forces and therefore can do almost any maneuver they wish.

The Orcs could also replace the missiles with homemade Orcish firebombs on the outside of the craft, which could either be manually released, or just detonated by ramming the entire craft into the target. Hell, they don't even need military aircraft for some targets. Any decent ute with bombs could be a major threat.

No, it isn't. At best you've made an outsized and hilariously inefficient and underpowered cruise missile, piloted by an untrained barbarian instead of a well-programmed computer. Well done.

Not inefficient. The Orcs could capture large passenger aircraft and fill them up with fuel and then fly directly into cities, killing hundreds of thousands of people. They could also strap bombs to pickup trucks and ram them into enemy infrastructure.

Also, the airships are not actually airships suspended in the air, but giant metal platforms supported by bronze piston legs.

Ask yourself how well bronze will stand up against modern armor-piercing ammunition, then please explain how this is better for the orcs.

It's still 100mm of metal, which would easily defeat even HMGs. Plus it was been reinforced with 10mm of melted wood.

[Crazedwraith]

"melted wood"?

[Lord Revan]

"melted wood"?

IIRC wood (like any other organic material) would melt if heated in oxygen free eviroment that said I wouldn't re-enforce anything but I thinking this is just another poor handwave to block undesired paths.

not mention that weight goes up thru volume and the thicker the sheet of metal is the heavier it is. There's a very good reason steel is used in large scale construction and bronze isn't and copper isn't that rare.

[Crazedwraith]

"melted wood"?

IIRC wood (like any other organic material) would melt if heated in oxygen free eviroment that said I wouldn't re-enforce anything but I thinking this is just another poor handwave to block undesired paths.

From a quick google, not really.

[Lord Revan]

"melted wood"?

IIRC wood (like any other organic material) would melt if heated in oxygen free eviroment that said I wouldn't re-enforce anything but I thinking this is just another poor handwave to block undesired paths.

From a quick google, not really.

either way it's not gonna re-enforce anything. things have meanings and those meanings matter, anything that's melted cannot be really used as structual re-enforcements as liquids cannot maintain any single form with is kind of important for something that's meant to be a structual re-enforcement. There's a reason why you re-enforce concrete with steel and not water.

[Archinist]

IIRC wood (like any other organic material) would melt if heated in oxygen free eviroment that said I wouldn't re-enforce anything but I thinking this is just another poor handwave to block undesired paths.

From a quick google, not really.

either way it's not gonna re-enforce anything. things have meanings and those meanings matter, anything that's melted cannot be really used as structual re-enforcements as liquids cannot maintain any single form with is kind of important for something that's meant to be a structual re-enforcement. There's a reason why you re-enforce concrete with steel and not water.

No, the wood is melted down into an easily spreadable paste, similar to very thick paint or glue, then it is thickly applied to the bronze with a glorified paintbrush, where it is then beaten into the bronze with a specialized hammer thing, with holes drilled into the bronze each few meters and liquid wood poured in, which act as 'checkpoints' for the wood mixture in order for the melted wood and the bronze to truly mingle. Then it is left to set, and after a few hours, the wood has turned into an extremely hard and tough solid material.

[Crazedwraith]

Do you ever not double down on your idiocy?

[Archinist]

Do you ever not double down on your idiocy?

What are you talking about? This is merely a more detailed version of what was already included in the OP.

What is wrong with melted wood armor? It's a fantasy world where dwarves and orcs are allowed, so surely they can have some species of trees and vegetation that have very unique characteristics exclusive for their world only?

[Bernkastel]

First, it's a stupid idea. Second, it's the sort of thing you should have stated at the start. At this point, it just amounts to pulling shit out of your ass.

[Archinist]

First, it's a stupid idea. Second, it's the sort of thing you should have stated at the start. At this point, it just amounts to pulling shit out of your ass.

But... I did include it at the start. What I wrote just now is simply a more in-depth explanation of what exactly the wood does and how it is applied.

From OP:

The airship is armoured with 100 mm of pure bronze coated around all of it's body. The bronze hull has also been reinforced 10 mm of melted, liquified wood spread like butter all over the interior of the hull. This is to increase structural integrity and overall armour strength and also looks very fancy, increasing orc morale.

Less relevant, but useful for showing that liquid wood can be used for a variety of purposes.

The orcs also have developed a close-quarters "shotgun" weapon, capable of firing many tiny particles of sharp metal at high velocity by using both pressured steam bottles, similar to ammunition magazines. The steam bottles, which can be used with mostly any hand-held steam weapon are pre-packaged bottles of pressurized steam stored into a liquid wood and bronze container. They are loaded into the firing chamber, sitting directly before the projectile of the weapon, while the weapon's chamber is sealed and the projectile is rammed tightly against the bottle.

[Crazedwraith]

Do you ever not double down on your idiocy?

What are you talking about? This is merely a more detailed version of what was already included in the OP.

What is wrong with melted wood armor? It's a fantasy world where dwarves and orcs are allowed, so surely they can have some species of trees and vegetation that have very unique characteristics exclusive for their world only?

The conversation goes:

you: melted wood makes bronze stronger.

me: that's stupid and wouldn't work.

you: more detailed explanation of 'melted wood' that does not in anyway address the point that it's stupid.


Now you're saying 'it's magic! I don't have to explain it.' Why not just say their bronze is magically stronger than regular bronze? Why included more and more details on fundamentally stupid stuff?

[Archinist]

Do you ever not double down on your idiocy?

What are you talking about? This is merely a more detailed version of what was already included in the OP.

What is wrong with melted wood armor? It's a fantasy world where dwarves and orcs are allowed, so surely they can have some species of trees and vegetation that have very unique characteristics exclusive for their world only?

The conversation goes:

you: melted wood makes bronze stronger.

me: that's stupid and wouldn't work.

you: more detailed explanation of 'melted wood' that does not in anyway address the point that it's stupid.


Now you're saying 'it's magic! I don't have to explain it.' Why not just say their bronze is magically stronger than regular bronze? Why included more and more details on fundamentally stupid stuff?

I'm just saying that since you don't think it would work, that it actually would work. I like to give specific reasons to how fantasy elements work, and not just say that "orc bronze is somehow magically stronger than our bronze" with no explanation.

Anyway, I was thinking that the wood would be somewhat 'springy', at least it would be springier than standard bronze, and when the liquid would merged with the bronze particles, it would cause to bronze to "take a step back" when hit by a projectile, instead of staying completely static and unmoving, it would flex backwards slightly, allowing the projectile to waste much energy and drastically reduce the projectile's damage in comparison to having the projectile slam into the stiff bronze at full force.

Also, the wooden-bronze, upon being hit by a projectile, would act very slightly like jelly, and the surface of the where the projectile hit would become dented at just the right amounts, allowing the projectile to waste as much energy as possible in denting the wooden-bronze with the minimum amount of damage inflicted on the wooden-bronze.

If a projectile penetrated the material anyway, the jelly would quickly compress down on the tunnel the projectile was carving, and actually press down on the projectile itself, drastically slowing it down. The interior of the wooden-bronze is also very rough and areas where the wood is heavily concentrated are also lined with tiny, sticky hairs which are extremely, durable and are lined with microscopic grips on their surface, which would allow them to latch onto a projectile and grab onto it, again causing it to lose even more energy, and combined with the energy lost by the tunnel 'collapsing' on top of it would create a great challenge for some older, less effective rounds to penetrate.

Since the wooden-bronze armour plate is also somewhat elastic, it would also absorb the shock wave and pressure from the actual shot impact much better, and instead of shattering, the energy would be evenly spread around, becoming weaker and weaker until nothing remains. However, the energy only spreads around if the energy is nowhere near enough to actually permanently damage the armour plating (noticeably).

If spreading the energy around would only cause the entire armoured wall to weaken/shatter, then special particles in the material would confine the energy to only the area directly affected by the shot, causing that specific area of the wall to splinter and shatter, but not badly damaging other sections of the wall.

[Simon_Jester]

Archinist?

You're boring.

Seriously. This repetitive pattern is boring. It goes like this:

1) You talk about some stuff. Maybe some of it makes sense, maybe some doesn't.
2) Someone points out a thing wouldn't work.
3) You make up a reason for it to work. A reason that misses the point, but serves as at least a weak excuse.
4) Your excuse leads to more contradictions and problems.
5) You make excuses for those excuses
6) Eventually you wander away and stop responding to people.

This is boring. If you keep acting this way, you will continue to be boring.

Why should people even bother to read your posts, if you don't listen and don't value their input, and don't actually change your ideas when there is a flaw? Instead of just making up excuses for why your bad idea is actually good. Or instead of just dropping a bad idea, admitting you made some mistakes because of a lack of knowledge.

[Archinist]

Archinist?

You're boring.

Seriously. This repetitive pattern is boring. It goes like this:

1) You talk about some stuff. Maybe some of it makes sense, maybe some doesn't.
2) Someone points out a thing wouldn't work.
3) You make up a reason for it to work. A reason that misses the point, but serves as at least a weak excuse.
4) Your excuse leads to more contradictions and problems.
5) You make excuses for those excuses
6) Eventually you wander away and stop responding to people.

This is boring. If you keep acting this way, you will continue to be boring.

Why should people even bother to read your posts, if you don't listen and don't value their input, and don't actually change your ideas when there is a flaw? Instead of just making up excuses for why your bad idea is actually good. Or instead of just dropping a bad idea, admitting you made some mistakes because of a lack of knowledge.

Well, every time I change something, everyone complains that I'm backtracking again, even if the idea is terrible.

Though, I have admitted I've made mistakes on these boards before, even on this very thread itself. I corrected the "dwarfs build USS Enterprise in 1 day" mistake and acknowledged that that was not a good idea, amongst other times.
s
Anyway, I do listen to their input. However, I really dislike just leaving things at "they are stronger" and "they have all these things", so I offer explanations for the characters having those things that normally they wouldn't have and whatnot. The explanations I offered here are good enough and probably make some sort of sense.

[Simon_Jester]

The problem is that you usually DON'T change things, you make excuses for not changing them.

For example, the idea of a bunch of ancient primitive barbarians having metal armor that resists modern cannons and antitank weapons isn't just bad, it's bad on a deep level. It's profoundly bad. There's a difference between bronze (a real metal that really exists) and modern steel: Steel is stronger. A lot stronger. If it wasn't, we'd still use bronze for everything. Saying that this bronze is somehow reinforced with wood (which is not a material that you can normally melt into a liquid), or that reinforcing bars "a few meters" apart will significantly reinforce the bronze, doesn't make sense. It doesn't change anything. And it's the kind of thing that makes us conclude that you have no experience doing real work with real things, and that you don't read books about how real things work, either.

And you're not really changing anything here, you're just making an excuse for keeping a bad idea- primitives who somehow have armor as tough as modern materials.

...

Now, if you'd thought of all of this far in advance, it wouldn't be so bad. But you didn't. You started out with the assumption that primitive thugs with ancient armor would be able to use that armor to protect them against modern weapons.

When you "upgrade" their armor, it doesn't look like you correcting or changing anything. You're just changing the armor you came up with so that it does what you expected it to do, after others point out that it won't.

Because you're acting as though you've already decided the orcs will win, but you don't know enough about history or the military to know HOW they win, so whenever someone points out a new fact about how the orcs lose, you make up a crude justification for ignoring that fact and saying "they win anyway."

The name for this kind of behavior is moving the goalposts. It is not welcome among mature people, because it's boring. If every time I point out a reason why the bunch of stupid barbarians would LOSE, you pull a new piece of magic out of your butt to explain why they actually WIN, then I might as well not even be in the conversation. We could save time all around if you just typed your original post, then typed "lol I win," then deleted the whole thing instead of starting a thread.

...

If you were REALLY trying to change ideas, you'd be saying things like "You're right, these 'dwarves' only exist as an excuse for my orcs to not worry about making anything for themselves. That is weak. So drop them." You'd say "you're right, a bunch of guys with swords aren't just going to be able to overrun people with machine guns, and no sane amount of bronze 'armor' makes them tough enough to do that." You might even go on to say "well, what WOULD it take for an army of X million rampaging barbarian thugs to overrun a modern nation; what equipment WOULD they need?" and encourage others to use their creativity. Or rather, let them use their creativity for something other than explaining patiently to you why your ideas don't make sense, then banging their heads on the wall when you don't really change those ideas.

The goal here is not to create a scenario in which the orcs win, or the police all die of stupidity, or the soldiers get eaten by monsters. The goal is to explore and learn about what is and is not realistic. And about what does and does not make a good story.

But to do that, you have to be willing to change significantly. Not just dial things back a little when people start to complain. Not just make up excuses for why your bad ideas are secretly good ideas. Really change.

[Lord Revan]

To add to what Simon said, when you use things like the "dwarves" from earlier it reduces the debate into kindergarden level as you clearly have a set goal in mind and are only asking for praise for your "genius" idea. That makes it boring for us as there's absolutely nothing to discuss, just like it pointless to change the driver once the car has already driven off the cliff there's no point in discussing something where the everything is essentially preset so that only 1 option is avaible, there's nothing meaningful to do there.

There's a reason I don't debate that much about abstract things with my niece (she's enough of a pain when trying to make her do things she should do) but then she's young enough that you kind of accept that she doesn't know how to behave mature. However on this board we expect people to behave mature, that's why there's a age limit for signing up, so it frustrates people here when someone doesn't behave as they should.

[Bernkastel]

Simon, Crazedwraith and Revan have explained your problem very well. I'll just add one more bit. This is all your RARs in a nutshell.

Archinist: 2+2 equals 59.6 + a rabbit
SDN Members: No, 2+2=4. How can you not see that?
Archinist: No, my answer is totally fine. We're using quantum bullshit math, so 2+2 equals 59.6+ a rabbit.
SDN Members: No, quantum mechanics does not work like that. Just accept that 2+2=4 already!
Archinist: How about "it's magic, I don't have to explain it" as a solution. Will you accept that 2+2 equals 59.6 + a rabbit now?

Then we all start bashing our heads against the wall.

Seriously, what we want is for you to go "yes, I admit this idea of mine is silly, so let's abandon it and go for something not brain-dead". Instead, you try to bludgeon us into accepting what you want us to.