Questions on Ringo's Human-Posleen War series.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I did wonder though, why they couldn't replace the guns once ammo started running down. I assume that an earth made weapon wouldn't have enough firepower but who knows. The gravguns have the fringe benefit of being able to do slight damage to a lander, but I'm not sure how important they consider that.

The gravguns were designed to be fully compatible with the ACS suits, and they couldn't start a new production line in the middle of the war.

[Eleas]

I found it difficult to put down A Hymn Before Battle. I was laughing so hard at the absurdities, power armor - wanking, and general abuse of logic in that story that I didn't really know up from down. Yeah, we're really lucky that, once the aliens provide us with the technology, we have all those fucking Science Fiction Authors to help us to envision new weapons! Cause, you know, with this technology we no longer have to take into consideration the idea that we possibly don't want to waste 95% of the technology's effectiveness on pie-in-the-sky creations?

Seriously, folks, this is stupidity to match the worst Voyager had to offer.

As for the heroes, we're never given any reason to care about them. At all. That's even worse to my mind. These guys are fighting a war to defend against some ridiculous Night of the Hungry Dead clones with the barest trappings of Science Fiction, and yet they don't even stop to think why they fight. To save all those common people who aren't suited or inclined to warfare? No, Ringo makes his loathing of them perfectly clear. So why?

March Upcountry and its sequels was its opposite -- the plot was character-driven instead of existing as a forum for technowankage. That's why those stories managed to entertain me. While Hymn was certainly funny, albeit inadvertently, it was also insulting to me as a reader. I would have gotten more out of rereading Graham Kennedy's Portal.

[The Dark]

Read his Starfire series (his first books). In it he has gems like having a hippy reporter (like there isn't any other type) trying go get a scoop (with some antiwar goal while the whatever human goverment in that series is in a fight for its life) in a fighter hangar and getting his legs melted off by jet exaust.

Which one was that, because I don't remember this incident.

I do remember that. I think it was in either In Death Ground or Shiva Option, but I had always assumed that little portion was thrown in by Steve White, who is more right-wing than Weber.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Read his Starfire series (his first books). In it he has gems like having a hippy reporter (like there isn't any other type) trying go get a scoop (with some antiwar goal while the whatever human goverment in that series is in a fight for its life) in a fighter hangar and getting his legs melted off by jet exaust.

Which one was that, because I don't remember this incident.

I do remember that. I think it was in either In Death Ground or Shiva Option, but I had always assumed that little portion was thrown in by Steve White, who is more right-wing than Weber.

It was in The Shiva Option :

Vincent Steele didn't recognize the sound behind him. If he had, he might have been able to move in time. But instead of immediately flinging himself out of the way, he turned in place just as the hatch cover irised open . . .
. . . and discovered that the "alcove" in which he'd hidden himself was the hatch end of the high-speed magazine tube which delivered fighter ordnance to the bay.
There were six FM-3 missiles on the transfer pallet. Each of them was four meters long and sixty centimeters in diameter, and the pallet was traveling at well over two hundred kilometers per hour.
All things being equal, the reporter was unreasonably lucky that it only hit him at the mid-thigh level. He was equally lucky in the quality of the medical services aboard Angela Martens, and in the training of the corpsman who was there almost before the pallet finished severing his left leg entirely and crushing the right one into paste.
In the end, the Navy even paid for both his prosthetic legs.

I get the impression that Weber's willingness to include good left wing characters is due to Eric Flint's influence; they're Flint's characters, after all.

[PainRack]

I think in one of the later posleen books, the main character actually states that the gravguns were not his idea and a simple high RoF, heavy assault rifle/lmg would have been more effective to give to the suits but someone had decided they needed a nifty space ray gun.

Mighty Mite himself mentions it.........

Which is kind of insane actually. Why on earth would a former military consultant(I believe that was his job then) be involved in designing military equipment? Sure, laying out the specs, that I can understand. But actually designing equipment?

Its clear from the Posleen gift to him that he was the one responsible for saying that suits should have anti-matter reactors and all kinds of characteristics and equipment. Why on earth would this have been designated to him as opposed to a comittee of engineers?

Not to mention that Ringo apparently believes that a thousand one kiloton nukes would do more damage than a single meagaton nuke in Hymn. And this confirms to him the "doom" of fighting for Earth.


Frankly, while the first two books were delightful, even with its absurd logic, by the end, it just smelled too much of USwank. Right, Britain fell but Bavaria survived, even though Britain had better terrain obstacles than a single german state. The whole of Europe is overrun save for Bavaria and south of the Alps........ makes you wonder why the Posleen didn't just land in Italy as well. Oooh, the Russians collaspe even though the Posleen were stated to have been unable to make it past the cold winter front......... makes you wonder what happens to the Urals and their military infrastructure there.

Last but not least, my favourite is how he leaves portion of SEA intact and fighting against the Posleen while the entirity of China collaspes in less than a month. And instead of withdrawing to the Sichuan basin which was somehow magically overrun, despite the fact that Mao cold war decisions built up the place to be a last end fortress and that the Chinese military had enough ability left to drop nukes from there, the Chinese withdrew in the desert instead.

[MKSheppard]

Frankly, while the first two books were delightful, even with its absurd logic, by the end, it just smelled too much of USwank.

You're saying a book series in which the US Military gets everything wrong and is riddled with incompetents (I mean, WTF?) is USwank?

[MKSheppard]

"well the Waffen SS weren't that bad, after all, the US Army shot prisoners too, and they're certainly better than socialists and environmentalists"

Waffen-Wank.

What I don't understand is why they even needed to rejuve the SS when they had FAR FAR more Heer veterans alive; and without the ugly political issues.

[The Dark]

"well the Waffen SS weren't that bad, after all, the US Army shot prisoners too, and they're certainly better than socialists and environmentalists"

Waffen-Wank.

What I don't understand is why they even needed to rejuve the SS when they had FAR FAR more Heer veterans alive; and without the ugly political issues.

Because one of the authors is a Neanderthal who makes you look like a flaming liberal, Shep. And I honestly don't mean that as a slight against you. He's just one of those people who'd consider the Shep Solution lacking because it wouldn't be personal enough.

[Covenant]

"well the Waffen SS weren't that bad, after all, the US Army shot prisoners too, and they're certainly better than socialists and environmentalists"

Waffen-Wank.

What I don't understand is why they even needed to rejuve the SS when they had FAR FAR more Heer veterans alive; and without the ugly political issues.

Because one of the authors is a Neanderthal who makes you look like a flaming liberal, Shep. And I honestly don't mean that as a slight against you. He's just one of those people who'd consider the Shep Solution lacking because it wouldn't be personal enough.

I'm not sure why they consider that kind of idiotic behavior a sense of strength. Afterall, the allies won the war, not the SS and the other Nazi goons. Whatever strength can be mustered by devoting your mind to the slavish following of a racial-religious ideology and the leaders who command you is obviously no better than one and a half times it's weight in Ohio farmboys and mass-production tanks.

This sort of perverse love affair with Nazi-ism is really disturbing, especially from an American. Have they forgotten all their history? Do they have really no idea about what principles the country was founded on? If they call it like it is fine, but they shouldn't ever call themselves patriots if they hate all the freedoms that this whole nation was intended to protect. I mean, hell, socialists and environmentalists have their crazies as well (freakin E.L.F. just blew something up! Again!) but even those nutbars don't kill folks to prop up some baseless idea of racial and national purity. The SS were hardly the elite crack commandos that people make them out to be, especially compared to today, where their losses would have been considered appalling.

I have no idea why they find whiny-yet-concerned people so contemptable. Do these people want to dump healthcare and social security too? They seem to enjoy the benefits of a liberal society's safety net, including being allowed to preach their insane, dangerous ideologies, while sniping at the types of people who push that though. 99 percent of your average hemp-wearing environmentalists can't speak with any authority about the issues, but they're totally harmless compared to violent skinhead kids who can't speak about THEIR issues. It's like comparing suger candy that rots your teeth to heroin.

Can anyone tell me why these people get off on Nazi crap?

[Aaron]

Frankly, while the first two books were delightful, even with its absurd logic, by the end, it just smelled too much of USwank. Right, Britain fell but Bavaria survived, even though Britain had better terrain obstacles than a single german state. The whole of Europe is overrun save for Bavaria and south of the Alps........ makes you wonder why the Posleen didn't just land in Italy as well. Oooh, the Russians collaspe even though the Posleen were stated to have been unable to make it past the cold winter front......... makes you wonder what happens to the Urals and their military infrastructure there.

The books make it quite clear that the Posleen land essentially at random. Only in the last book do they use anything approaching tactics and only because one of them adopts human command and control techniques. After he shows up the landers are used as close air support, so much so that it actually confuses the human leaders as they have never done that before.

[CJvR]

IIRC the Italians did get a few landings and handled them as well as could be expected, the survivors went into hiding in the Alps and Appenines.

The Germans did rejuvenate every WM-vet they could find before even considering the SS. Only after the carnage of the first landing did they drag the SS-vets out of senility to get one more cadre for one more corps.

[PainRack]

You're saying a book series in which the US Military gets everything wrong and is riddled with incompetents (I mean, WTF?) is USwank?

Why yes. Because the US is the only government to retain some form of coherent defence and organisation, whereas Russia, Britain, China and whatnot, despite having better terrain features utterly unsuitable for the Posleen get smashed.

Of course, one can say that its germanwank instead, because Bavaria gets off unoccupied.

The books make it quite clear that the Posleen land essentially at random. Only in the last book do they use anything approaching tactics and only because one of them adopts human command and control techniques. After he shows up the landers are used as close air support, so much so that it actually confuses the human leaders as they have never done that before.

Except that Mike explictly states that the Posleen has known lander tactics allowing them to predict possible landing sites and attack. One of the features was that they like to land near coastal areas and then spread out from there. That's why the US gets to keep their middle portion mostly intact, other than the fact that they still retained sufficient anti-lander capability to stop the Posleen from airhopping ahead.

[Aaron]

Except that Mike explictly states that the Posleen has known lander tactics allowing them to predict possible landing sites and attack. One of the features was that they like to land near coastal areas and then spread out from there. That's why the US gets to keep their middle portion mostly intact, other than the fact that they still retained sufficient anti-lander capability to stop the Posleen from airhopping ahead.

Where is that? Because the second book I believe states that they come in at random, one even lands in the middle of a town for christ sake. I'd appreciate a quote. My books are packed.

[Aaron]

IIRC it lands in a mall or grocery store parking lot.

[PainRack]

Except that Mike explictly states that the Posleen has known lander tactics allowing them to predict possible landing sites and attack. One of the features was that they like to land near coastal areas and then spread out from there. That's why the US gets to keep their middle portion mostly intact, other than the fact that they still retained sufficient anti-lander capability to stop the Posleen from airhopping ahead.

Where is that? Because the second book I believe states that they come in at random, one even lands in the middle of a town for christ sake. I'd appreciate a quote. My books are packed.

It was in the second book as well. Posleen landings are random, but they're determined by various characteristics, such as their propensity to land near the coastline as opposed to in the continent itself. IIRC, the initial landings in the US were mostly in the coast, with 2 scattered landings inland.

Unfortunately, I really don't have the time to do the research for that so..... meh.


What I really disliked however was the way the Chinese got shafted. The Posleen landed at the coast and within a month or so, the Chinese are fucked. Its as if the Chinese had suddenly abandoned 60 years of Cold War planning and abandoned the Sichuan Basin utterly. Britain also gets the bad end, because it claims that Scotland was flat terrain.

[Aaron]

It was in the second book as well. Posleen landings are random, but they're determined by various characteristics, such as their propensity to land near the coastline as opposed to in the continent itself. IIRC, the initial landings in the US were mostly in the coast, with 2 scattered landings inland.

Wait, the Posleen aren't in full control of their equipment are they? Doesn't the "Net" (or whatever it's called) determine landings and whatnot for them?

What I really disliked however was the way the Chinese got shafted. The Posleen landed at the coast and within a month or so, the Chinese are fucked. Its as if the Chinese had suddenly abandoned 60 years of Cold War planning and abandoned the Sichuan Basin utterly. Britain also gets the bad end, because it claims that Scotland was flat terrain.

Yes alot of people got shafted in the books. China should have been able to hold out longer by virtue of it's large Army for one. And part of Scotland is rocky highlands which the Posleen can't navigate so they should have been able to pull back into there.

I enjoyed the books but there's alot of wank in them.

[Black Admiral]

And part of Scotland is rocky highlands which the Posleen can't navigate so they should have been able to pull back into there.

That's what we did, as per WotR (it's mentioned that the UK held on to - roughly - everything north of Hadrian's Speedbump).

[Aaron]

That's what we did, as per WotR (it's mentioned that the UK held on to - roughly - everything north of Hadrian's Speedbump).

Is that the Rhine book? Haven't read that one yet.

[Black Admiral]

Is that the Rhine book? Haven't read that one yet.

Yup, that'd be the one.

And regardless of anything else, I imagine Wales is fine - it's cold, wet and hilly, all things the Posleen don't like, and there's nothing much of consequence there.

[Covenant]

Not to derail, but has anyone read the Worldwar series by Harry Turtledove? He seems to treat each nation and faction with an equal degree of good and bad, and no nation is totally made into a joke, and none are really over-glorified. From what I'm reading it sounds like he gave the US and parts of Germany an easy time to let them prove their genetic superiority or the triumph of Conservative values or something over them dirty hippies in Europe or those bad commies in Russia and China. That seems childish. Anyway, I think you'd find it an interesting read, and much more fair! It's an alien invasion that hits in the middle of World War II and the series goes on until the 60's or so. I remember the Lizards getting pissed as hell at the Ayatollah Khomeni and their anti-alien Jihad.

[Covenant]

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

"He seems to treat each nation and faction with an equal degree of good and bad, and no nation is totally made into a joke, and none are really over-glorified. From what I'm reading it sounds like he gave..."

First is Turtledove, second is Ringo. Both series seem to deal with an alien invasion into a factionalized, militarized Earth, and I just wanted to know if anyone else read Turtledove's take on the scenario. It sounds like you'd all enjoy it, and there wouldn't be nearly as much wank. He also uses historical characters and real locations. In one of the chapters I was amazed to read about combat that would have taken place in my backyard, and how correctly the area was described. Patton and aliens battling it out over my house was worth a chuckle.

[MKSheppard]

And I honestly don't mean that as a slight against you. He's just one of those people who'd consider the Shep Solution lacking because it wouldn't be personal enough.

Combat troops are generally like that. Especially AIRBORNE!

[MKSheppard]

What I don't understand is how Ringo and his various authors utterly FUCKED up the US Military's systems.

I mean, we've had consistent experience with drafts dating back to 1860, 1917-18 , 1940-45, The Cold War, etc. So why is it that the Darheel somehow MAGICALLY make the entire apparatus completely fucked up? There's a lot to be said for institutional inertia; "why do we need to do this because Mr xx (a Darheel in disguise) says so? Fuck him, the book says we do it this way."

I can understand a few mistakes and errors, but for the entire US Draft system to produce total incompetents uniformly across the US Army is just incomprehensible and goes well into "Writer's fiat" territory.

[Aaron]

What I don't understand is how Ringo and his various authors utterly FUCKED up the US Military's systems.

I mean, we've had consistent experience with drafts dating back to 1860, 1917-18 , 1940-45, The Cold War, etc. So why is it that the Darheel somehow MAGICALLY make the entire apparatus completely fucked up? There's a lot to be said for institutional inertia; "why do we need to do this because Mr xx (a Darheel in disguise) says so? Fuck him, the book says we do it this way."

I can understand a few mistakes and errors, but for the entire US Draft system to produce total incompetents uniformly across the US Army is just incomprehensible and goes well into "Writer's fiat" territory.

It wasn't that the draft system was fucked up it was that there wasn't enough rejuv to go around. So by the time the old timers got called up the system got fucked over by the Federations cottage industry. I will however state that there seemed to be a great number of incompetants in general in the books but I experianced that in the real military. The system doesn't deal with idiots it promotes them.

[Jetfire]

Plus IIRC, there were factions working at cross purposes, along with the Darheel themselves wanting Humans to be successful but not TOO successful, so they limited the strength on Earth wiht supply problems as much as possible.

And as typical, other than a brief mention, Canada was ignored. I suspect Ringo thinks there's a magic barrier at the 49th Parallel that blocks all the ice and snow in Canada from the states or something. As others mentionned, Canada was spared the invasion, hinted that they didn't have to do much to prepare at all, yet Russia, in as good a Cold Climate situation falls quickly? /boggle

On top of that, he had the Posleen invading (and one of the Urbs there too) in Rochester, New York. If the Posleen were hitting Rochestor, then Southern Ontario, especially its Golden Horseshoe of Manufacturing/Population and Agriculture is well within their reach. Not to mention Southern BC, the Prairies and the Maritimes (which in total is pretty much all of Canada's population, manufacturing, and agriculture ability).

*Sigh* Oh well, least it wasn't as bad as 10.5:2 last nite, where apparantly the arcitic ocean laps against Washington state, the Dakotas, and the rest of the northern states, given the lack of mention, nor even appearance on any of the maps, of the Canadian lands.