The Invincibility of the CS?

[jtjr26]

Is it just me or I the only one fed up with the plot armor surrounding the CS. I love the setting in the Rifts world but now with the minion war upon us the CS is set up to be the champions and defenders of North America. I mean they just finished a long brutal with Tolkeen but now they are going to be trying to hold what they got with the Minion war breaking out around the world. Once this is settled probable with no change to the status quo, except the CS getting stronger, then it will be the long ignored threat posed by Xiticix and then probable something else. I don't want the CS destroyed but I would love to see a change in the power dynamic change instead of everything flowing through Chi-Town and the Emperor.

I would love to see Iron Heart, Missouri, El Dorado and maybe even Lone Star be scene more as equals rather than be dictated too. One of my favorite Palladium Fantasy books was The Western Empire, partly because it gave a great breakdown of the internal politics and how loyalty to the throne ebbed and flowed depending on the region they were in. There the Emperor was powerful but could not outright dictate too the various regional powers but had to play the influence game. In Rifts unless you home-brew the crap out of it CS politics is boring. I know a high level politics game might not be everyone's jam but from time to time I find it adds a new element to story and game play.

In many other gaming systems its fairly common for for the established power of a land to be taken down a peg or two from time. Some setting upend the status quo completely. I find from official story material PE loves this notion of playing a honorable morally conflicted character in the CS but for gods sake lets get something new. How about fleshed out more of the continent or skipping ahead 20-30 years or something.

Anyway just my 2 cents worth. Cheers.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Thing is it's not "Plot armor' in the traditional sense.

It's a combination of 2 things.

1) Writer's incomprehension of large numbers.

Coupled with, ironicly enough.

2) Numbers of troops vs populations, threats.

The CS Wins the fights it gets in because it has MILLIONS of troops it can mobilize and pour onto the field. Those troops have high grade military weaponry (For rifts earth, only a few groups have better tech and it's not THAT much better). It's really that simple. When other kingdoms can field 500... 1000, 10,000 or even 50,000 troops (Rare) the CS just shows up with 200,000 and stomps them.

It's like "The 300" Even though the 300 were awesome. They died, because they were out numbered SO badly. Even if they were so good, that they took out 50 for every one loss, the enemy had enough troops to do the math and come out on top. That's the CS in short.

in a post apoc setting where populations are so small, the 'big guy' can just pour people onto the field, that big guy wins.

Other than the Xits, there' no threat to the CS in North America. Noone can field a percentage of the troops the CS can.

Even with the minion war being written like it's the END ALL Of all creation, if you sit down with some paper and run the numbers, it's not that bad a thing. The CS At the end of the day has ramped up their troop count to what, about 8,000,000-10,000,000. The Minion war is bad but the CS are going to win, because,.... someone can count.

The thing is that the writers, have seldom shown they 'understand' what the large numbers mean. Be it the 4 or so Million the CS had under arms before the minion war, or the millions they sign up in short order once it 'does' start.

Depending on estimates from information in the book it's like a third, a half or even more of their population would be in the military. I did the math when the HoH book came out and to even meet the numbers for recruitment that are claimed they'd need to be inducting people at the rate of like 3 a second, 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day, for months. just to hit those numbers. that would be ------every second----- of ----every minute---- of ----- every hour----- of -----every day------ ...

Numbers seem to be chosen because they sound big and big sounds good and impressive with out thinking of the logistics or reality of the number chosen.

But that's not plot armor.

the CS Wins because it can field 100s or literal 1000s or 10,000s of troops for every one the enemy has.

I could win leading an army of prepubescent girlscouts if you give me that sort of numerical advantage and MD weaponry.

[glitterboy2098]

and lets face it. even if KS understood the large numbers, the CS would be really really hard to actually defeat by anyone else in north america. all of its possible opponents are at best the size of a single CS state, and most are smaller. so even if you scale back the numbers** the fact is that no one in north america can hope to win a straight up war with them. especially not the way the CS fights, sending its multiple states power against single kingdoms and city-states.

the only way anyone else in north america could hold off the CS (not defeat, just stalemate) would be if they created a similar scale alliance of kingdoms. basically if lazlo, new Lazlo, the (non-dunscon) federation of magic, psyscape, colorado baronies, the Tundra Rangers, and Arzno all joined together as a single unified front, sharing resources and military power. and even then, it's kinda dicy, because not only do all of those have their own threats to deal with. (xiticix, nxla, vampires, etc) that would draw off their resources and attention, but they still aren't even a third the size of the full CS, or can they boast even half the industrial might. (if Northern Gun, Wilks, and Wellington all switch sides things might be a bit closer, but those three prefer a pro-CS neutrality)

part of the reaso nthe CS has bee nable to grow as powerful as it has is because all these other groups have been fighting the existential threats that otherwise would have bled the CS dry. the CS has not had to seriously worry about Vampires, Xiticix, Nxla Xombies, Splugorth, Calgary Demons, and a bunch of other dangers. which has let them build up massive power and stockpiles, while nibbling away at the towns and tiny kingdoms on their borders. the fall of Tolkeen was the first time they actually used their immense might since the war that formed the CS in the first place, and while Tolkeen's fall was inevitable (though the timing and exact details were iffy writing) the fact is it put the CS on the frontlines against the Xiticix. a foe that could have sapped their power over time, because it outnumbered even the CS. the CS wins by just being bigger. war of attrition. the Xiticix are just better at attritional warfare.

frankly, while the Minion war going hot on rifts earth with the demon pits is gonna seriously eff up most of the rest of the world, it'll have a good effect on humblign the CS for awhile. they expanded faster than they could support for the war with Tolkeen.. and now they are having to do it again to fight the demons. a war that will be another attrition conflict. this time against an opponent that is not only more powerful in capabilities but also does very well at attrition warfare and has eons more experience with it.

the minion war is an existential threat and this time the CS is on the frontlines of it. something they have never really planned for or have any experience with. they are gonna be hurting by the end.

**and lets be honest, real history shows that a reduction isn't likely. most of their industry is geared to warfare, and they really do have a huge population to draw from in the Burbs around their many fortress-cities and from their rural populations. the real limiting factor isn't the manpower or the industry so much as getting the manpower sufficiently trained. KS's writing tends to condense the timescale of such way too much. though even that is partially alleviated if the CS practiced mandatory military training for all citizens, akin to Switzerland. then when they need a major build up they can just conscript anyone not in a vital position to serve as Cadre for the burbs recruits.

[Shark_Force]

not just you. it comes up on a regular basis. we had one less than a month ago i think, actually. maybe just over a month. not long ago, anyways.

[Axelmania]

CS hasn't won by weight f numbers largely due to the problems that magic and supernatural bring, methinks. There comes a point where more troops won't help when you are dealing with a shaoeshifting adult dragon with impervious to energy and astral projection. Psi-Bat being rather small is the present limiting factor of the CS.

Depending on estimates from information in the book it's like a third, a half or even more of their population would be in the military. I did the math when the HoH book came out

Half the.number of CS citizens, or half the number of the total human population of the Coalition States including non citizens?

I am reminded that many grunts are not citizens and are fighting to earn it for themself.

[HWalsh]

Theoretically there is only 1-2 ways to defeat the CS.

The first is by building an alliance.

The second is by building a super weapon. One they can't really do anything about. You need something so powerful, that does something so big, that even if the CS gets plot armor warning of it coming there is nothing that they can do about it. You need a mega-city killing Death Star that is somehow unreachable by the Coalition. So, assuming you could get this weapon, you have to be ready to deploy it *fast* because you won't have long before the CS is on you.

You also need to have a way to shoot it from a location they won't know about.

So... In one of the Rifters Lazlo has a "Sun Cannon" meaning they open a rift to a sun and let the energy blast through, this sun cannon is special because normally you can't do that with a Rift. So you need something like that. Something that shoots a rift that energy can pass through, then you need to channel a weapon that does MDC on the level of the sun cannon, and you need to straight up nuke the mega-cities mercilessly.

So you need a strike like:

Everything and everyone in Chi-Town takes 5d6x1000 M.D.C then 15 seconds later Everything and everyone in X takes 5d6x1000 MDC, then 15 seconds later Everything and everyone in Y takes 5d6x1000 MDC... Then, maybe then... The CS could lose an encounter.

[jtjr26]

I am not disputing the numbers the CS posses I would just like to see a little more balance in North America which is the main campaign setting. Aside from the huge external threats posed by the minion war, the virtually exponential growth of the Xiticix and the unknown that is Atlantis the CS is virtually unchallenged and will time will just continue growing. Tolkeen was never a threat the the CS and was more a byproduct of CS aggression and propaganda needing a target. I would love to see another large kingdom in North America to challenge the CS for continental dominance. I always thought having a large kingdom of Dwarves in a mountain range (Appalachians or Rockies) or something on the west coast could even out he power structure a little on the continent.

[Mack]

One thing about the CS military that's often overlooked is that it has the only expeditionary capability in North America. The CS is able to project it's forces over long distances because of it's Air Force (most notably the Death Head transports) and a network of fortified locations spanning from Texas to Illinois. Other groups on the continent don't enjoy that kind of mobility. (Arguably, Lazlo should be able to teleport significant numbers, but we've never seen it in print.)

So not only does the CS have a numerically superior force, it's able to quickly put them where needed.
(Cue Civil War General Nathan Forest: "Ma'am, I got there first with the most men.")

[Killer Cyborg]

I would love to see another large kingdom in North America to challenge the CS for continental dominance.

Why?

[boring7]

The CS does and doesn't have the most people. It can flat-out LOSE an entire army and then magically have it back a few weeks later, same with its entire population. The whole Tolkeen war was pretty bad about throwing around numbers that were disastrous and then forgetting those numbers had even existed. The Sorcerer's Revenge cost Tolkeen 50% of its forces (that's enough to BREAK an army, but as we established the writers don't numbers so well) but was supposed to have 'won' (which means the coalition army was completely broken). Instead things turned around (dubiously) and when Jericho "CS Jesus" Holmes rolled in he was supported by a brand-new and full-size army. His people didn't put Tolkeen in full retreat to behind their city walls, the resurgent Coalition Army did that.

One of the problems I have with the CS "weep for the Nazi Youth" plot business is the world is dynamic and changing EXCEPT where the CS is concerned. The Illinois Nazis are complete monsters today but learn a valuable lesson when they get rescued from their own stupid. 2 years later they're right back at complete monsterdom and have to learn the exact same lesson again. Jericho Holmes is portrayed as a loyal soldier with a sense of humanity, a good guy in a bad system who is realizing that the Coalition goes to far. Then I read his fluff appearances in Heroes of Humanity and he's practically raising a glass of wine "to evil" and giving props and respect to Colonel Lyboc for his political power-plays. No soldier's regrets, no trace of compassion, no concern for all the children he shot in the face.

The second, related problem is that various forces keep getting retconned and altered to try and lower the moral event horizon. Groups have to become cartoonishly evil for really dumb reasons (Sorcerer's Revenge apparently engaged in mass human sacrifice for no reason even though blood magic is incredibly inefficient and stupid if you have a leyline) just so the Coalition can keep its flimsy excuse of "it's a crapsack world so our evil isn't so bad."

side note: I still can't find the section of the books where the sorcerer's revenge did all the horrible things it's supposed to have done. Literally all I could find was, "they attacked legitimate military targets, but they used evil demons (instead of evil robots) and showed no mercy to soldiers (just like the CS showed no mercy to ANYONE), therefore it was super-evil."

But mostly it's the fact that status quo is god for the Coalition States and no one else. At least for me. Tolkeen is over, the 4 horsemen are dead, other major metaplot events have come and gone, but none of those rangers and CS troopers who were rescued by d-bees have done anything. The CS general who went rogue (because he realized he was working for the Illinois Nazis) started fighting vampires and subsequently disappeared. Nearly every plot has to involve the evil Coalition as a more complex character than "mindless villain" yet they never get any character development either.

[Nekira Sudacne]

The sorcerer's revenge thing was always vauge. it hints that various Tolkeen officals, there and later in the final seige, made terrible deals with evil Powers That Be (I'm presuming this mostly amounts to a significant number of shifters making packs with evil gods/alien intelligences/demon-deevil lords for quick boosts of power, likely a number of new witches too), as the primary thing, and secondly using demons who will assuredly commit their own war crimes (Ignoring surrendering or helpless troops to eat them alive and screaming, dragging the living and dead down to hell, and suchlike)

[Pepsi Jedi]

CS hasn't won by weight f numbers largely due to the problems that magic and supernatural bring, methinks. There comes a point where more troops won't help when you are dealing with a shaoeshifting adult dragon with impervious to energy and astral projection. Psi-Bat being rather small is the present limiting factor of the CS.

Depending on estimates from information in the book it's like a third, a half or even more of their population would be in the military. I did the math when the HoH book came out

Half the.number of CS citizens, or half the number of the total human population of the Coalition States including non citizens?

I am reminded that many grunts are not citizens and are fighting to earn it for themself.

CS don't count nonhumans as Citizens.

But to answer your question people have added up the ad hoc and widely spread and heavily disputed populations of the respective states, cities etc, and for the CS to field the army mentioned in HoH it'd be half or more of the total population from those (Very questionable) Numbers presented over many different books over decades of rifts setting.

[Pepsi Jedi]

I am not disputing the numbers the CS posses I would just like to see a little more balance in North America which is the main campaign setting. Aside from the huge external threats posed by the minion war, the virtually exponential growth of the Xiticix and the unknown that is Atlantis the CS is virtually unchallenged and will time will just continue growing. Tolkeen was never a threat the the CS and was more a byproduct of CS aggression and propaganda needing a target. I would love to see another large kingdom in North America to challenge the CS for continental dominance. I always thought having a large kingdom of Dwarves in a mountain range (Appalachians or Rockies) or something on the west coast could even out he power structure a little on the continent.

There are no other large kingdoms' in NA. The largest would not even equal one of the CS's states. They were extreamly clear on this in the Tolkeen book. Lazlo said straight up, even if -all- the magic kingdoms (Good and evil) Teamed up all at once, they would be easily crushed by the CS's numbers.

If you took --every-- other kingdom in NA, including the evil ones, and they -all- some how teamed up (Never happen) Their numbers still wouldn't be a 10th of what the CS can deploy. And they can deploy them fast. People forget the CS is less than a third the size of the US. They have movement past the speed of sound. THey could literally move armies in the MILLIONS any where in their territory in a matter of hours. It doesn't take THAT long to fly from Chicago to Texas when you're doing Mach2.

[Pepsi Jedi]

One thing about the CS military that's often overlooked is that it has the only expeditionary capability in North America. The CS is able to project it's forces over long distances because of it's Air Force (most notably the Death Head transports) and a network of fortified locations spanning from Texas to Illinois. Other groups on the continent don't enjoy that kind of mobility. (Arguably, Lazlo should be able to teleport significant numbers, but we've never seen it in print.)

So not only does the CS have a numerically superior force, it's able to quickly put them where needed.
(Cue Civil War General Nathan Forest: "Ma'am, I got there first with the most men.")

Ahh. Someone else said it. LOL

[Pepsi Jedi]

The CS does and doesn't have the most people. It can flat-out LOSE an entire army and then magically have it back a few weeks later, same with its entire population. The whole Tolkeen war was pretty bad about throwing around numbers that were disastrous and then forgetting those numbers had even existed. The Sorcerer's Revenge cost Tolkeen 50% of its forces (that's enough to BREAK an army, but as we established the writers don't numbers so well) but was supposed to have 'won' (which means the coalition army was completely broken). Instead things turned around (dubiously) and when Jericho "CS Jesus" Holmes rolled in he was supported by a brand-new and full-size army. His people didn't put Tolkeen in full retreat to behind their city walls, the resurgent Coalition Army did that.

One of the problems I have with the CS "weep for the Nazi Youth" plot business is the world is dynamic and changing EXCEPT where the CS is concerned. The Illinois Nazis are complete monsters today but learn a valuable lesson when they get rescued from their own stupid. 2 years later they're right back at complete monsterdom and have to learn the exact same lesson again. Jericho Holmes is portrayed as a loyal soldier with a sense of humanity, a good guy in a bad system who is realizing that the Coalition goes to far. Then I read his fluff appearances in Heroes of Humanity and he's practically raising a glass of wine "to evil" and giving props and respect to Colonel Lyboc for his political power-plays. No soldier's regrets, no trace of compassion, no concern for all the children he shot in the face.

The second, related problem is that various forces keep getting retconned and altered to try and lower the moral event horizon. Groups have to become cartoonishly evil for really dumb reasons (Sorcerer's Revenge apparently engaged in mass human sacrifice for no reason even though blood magic is incredibly inefficient and stupid if you have a leyline) just so the Coalition can keep its flimsy excuse of "it's a crapsack world so our evil isn't so bad."

side note: I still can't find the section of the books where the sorcerer's revenge did all the horrible things it's supposed to have done. Literally all I could find was, "they attacked legitimate military targets, but they used evil demons (instead of evil robots) and showed no mercy to soldiers (just like the CS showed no mercy to ANYONE), therefore it was super-evil."

But mostly it's the fact that status quo is god for the Coalition States and no one else. At least for me. Tolkeen is over, the 4 horsemen are dead, other major metaplot events have come and gone, but none of those rangers and CS troopers who were rescued by d-bees have done anything. The CS general who went rogue (because he realized he was working for the Illinois Nazis) started fighting vampires and subsequently disappeared. Nearly every plot has to involve the evil Coalition as a more complex character than "mindless villain" yet they never get any character development either.

Much of this post is either full out false or VERY Creative interpretation of what is (and is not) In the books.

[SereneTsunami]

I am not disputing the numbers the CS posses I would just like to see a little more balance in North America which is the main campaign setting. Aside from the huge external threats posed by the minion war, the virtually exponential growth of the Xiticix and the unknown that is Atlantis the CS is virtually unchallenged and will time will just continue growing. Tolkeen was never a threat the the CS and was more a byproduct of CS aggression and propaganda needing a target. I would love to see another large kingdom in North America to challenge the CS for continental dominance. I always thought having a large kingdom of Dwarves in a mountain range (Appalachians or Rockies) or something on the west coast could even out he power structure a little on the continent.

If you are looking for a more balanced and complex geo-political setting check out South America. There is great balance and interactions between those nations.

It's pretty clear to me that Mr. Siembieda never wanted a complex or balanced setting in North America. He gave himself an out but did not use it. He wanted the CS to be a Juggernaut.

[Eagle]

The CS is supposed to be either a horrible threat to freedom, or the last best hope for humanity. Or both. It isn't supposed to be something that gets defeated militarily. You're supposed to feel bad that they're crushing these little independent kingdoms when they could have been allies. But you're also supposed to recognize that the CS is the reason why there aren't any huge monster kingdoms in North America.

The Coalition is what happens when humans stop being nice.

Quoting True Detective, the world needs bad men. They keep the other bad men from the door.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Thing is it's not "Plot armor' in the traditional sense.

It's a combination of 2 things.

1) Writer's incomprehension of large numbers.

Coupled with, ironicly enough.

2) Numbers of troops vs populations, threats.

The CS Wins the fights it gets in because it has MILLIONS of troops it can mobilize and pour onto the field. Those troops have high grade military weaponry (For rifts earth, only a few groups have better tech and it's not THAT much better). It's really that simple. When other kingdoms can field 500... 1000, 10,000 or even 50,000 troops (Rare) the CS just shows up with 200,000 and stomps them.

It's like "The 300" Even though the 300 were awesome. They died, because they were out numbered SO badly. Even if they were so good, that they took out 50 for every one loss, the enemy had enough troops to do the math and come out on top. That's the CS in short.

in a post apoc setting where populations are so small, the 'big guy' can just pour people onto the field, that big guy wins.

Other than the Xits, there' no threat to the CS in North America. Noone can field a percentage of the troops the CS can.

FQ can field a decent percentage. But we're not talking parity. Just a decent percentage. And given the type of troops, and how effective they are in fighting a defensive war.... they could make the CS pay the piper for a "victory". But, overall, yeah, your point here stands.

I agree with the earlier portions as well, particularly the part about lack of comprehension about what the numbers mean on the part of the authors.

Even with the minion war being written like it's the END ALL Of all creation, if you sit down with some paper and run the numbers, it's not that bad a thing.

IIRC, when i ran the numbers (last winter), while they could easily overwhelm NA if they sent all their bodies along, the actual population numbers of the Demons and Deevils are hillariously low. Splynncryth could invade Dyvaal and Hades and exterminate the Demons in a few weeks, just by burying them in Kydian corpses. And that was taking the listed population numbers in the Hades and Dyvaal books and generously multiplying by 10, on the assumption that most of the populations DONT live in the cities. If we stick with what is actually in the books...

Still a massive (relatively unsurvivable - still talking a few hundred million of each) threat to any single nation or single populous/settled world (in the Three Galaxies, for instance) - but as a Megaversal threat? Laughable. A joke on a cosmic scale that could be extinguished by the lowliest Splugorth on a whim. At least in Dimensional Outbreak they lampshaded it by having had the Demons and Deevils spend centuries corrupting entire worlds and systems of worlds so they'd have some non-demon numbers to back up their angst.

To further back up what you're saying... they cant send "all" their troops to Rifts Earth. They are engaged in multiple dimensions and tens of millions of of them (at the VERY least) are committed to the Dimensional Outbreak in the Three Galaxies. And this (i have not read HoH yet. Haven't been down to my friends' to borrow it) assumes that EVERY POTENTIAL HELL PIT in Megaverse In Flames opens.

The initial forces that the Hell Lords had available to found their Hell Pits? Other than the Deevils on Cuba (which have apparently been there for a LOOOOONG time already) - their forces are a freaking joke. Fifty, sixty thousand total demons (most of them lessers who cant even stand up to a grunt in body armor)? Please. Wiped out in an afternoon.

So id have to make the assumption that for HoH/the Minion War to be even remotely plausible, HoH has to essentially make the Megaverse in Flames book useless - as the assumption has to be that all the hell pits were opened successfully with no interference, otherwise there's no credible threat at all.

The CS At the end of the day has ramped up their troop count to what, about 8,000,000-10,000,000. The Minion war is bad but the CS are going to win, because,.... someone can count.

The thing is that the writers, have seldom shown they 'understand' what the large numbers mean. Be it the 4 or so Million the CS had under arms before the minion war, or the millions they sign up in short order once it 'does' start.

Depending on estimates from information in the book it's like a third, a half or even more of their population would be in the military.

This assumes that the people they are signing up are their population to begin with. They dont count the dregs living in the Burbs and the like. However... just to put it in perspective... as of WB30 (D-Bees of NA, page 8 under "Numbers and Perspective") there only about 40 million sentients on the entire continent, humans and non-humans alike. (This is clarified that Supernatural Creatures and Creatures of Magic are NOT counted among this number - so Brodkil aren't counted, but Simvan are, for instance).

... so, regardless of the total CS population - if they have 8-10 million people under arms, thats about 25% of the entire sentient population of the continent. Of which humans (verifiably, at least) make up only about half to three-fifths of that number. (Gathering sources from known human population centers as published and assuming some padding). So they have like.. HALF of the human population of NA under arms?

Holy crap!

I did the math when the HoH book came out and to even meet the numbers for recruitment that are claimed they'd need to be inducting people at the rate of like 3 a second, 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day, for months. just to hit those numbers. that would be ------every second----- of ----every minute---- of ----- every hour----- of -----every day------ ...

Numbers seem to be chosen because they sound big and big sounds good and impressive with out thinking of the logistics or reality of the number chosen.

But that's not plot armor.

the CS Wins because it can field 100s or literal 1000s or 10,000s of troops for every one the enemy has.

I could win leading an army of prepubescent girlscouts if you give me that sort of numerical advantage and MD weaponry.

Good analysis.

One thing about the CS military that's often overlooked is that it has the only expeditionary capability in North America.

I'd say NG has it, as well. They simply don't care, or need to (until now?) use it. And their force isn't nearly as large (about ~110,000 in toto in the IMCN). FQ has it too, largely because of their former status as a CS state, but also because their GB Legions can be (speedily) Air-mobile. Yeah, they cant drop an entire field army on you like the CS can...

But they can put an entire GB Legion down in a good defensive position and hold you up until the rest of their army can get there.

The CS is able to project it's forces over long distances because of it's Air Force (most notably the Death Head transports) and a network of fortified locations spanning from Texas to Illinois. Other groups on the continent don't enjoy that kind of mobility. (Arguably, Lazlo should be able to teleport significant numbers, but we've never seen it in print.)

So not only does the CS have a numerically superior force, it's able to quickly put them where needed.
(Cue Civil War General Nathan Forest: "Ma'am, I got there first with the most men.")

Your point stands, though. Being air-mobile on a massive scale makes them truly dangerous. It's largely why i think the setting fails, actually - because they should have used that air-mobility to wipe places like Arzno and the Baronies off the map as easy-pickins Magic-using misanthropes.

The CS does and doesn't have the most people. It can flat-out LOSE an entire army and then magically have it back a few weeks later, same with its entire population.

Theyve never suffered a major population loss in recent memory (since the founding of the CS, really). Remember, they dont count the several million dregs living in the Burbs as people or citizens.

They also didn't "lose an entire army and get it back" - they suffered horrendous casualties in their main field army (including, at the time, the assumed total loss of Holmes' men) and fled - they were immediately reinforced by the similar-sized army that had been fighting FQ, which had been pulled back after the cease fire was signed. They didn't magic them up out of nowhere - they were literally a few hundred miles away fighting FQ a week prior.

The whole Tolkeen war was pretty bad about throwing around numbers that were disastrous and then forgetting those numbers had even existed. The Sorcerer's Revenge cost Tolkeen 50% of its forces (that's enough to BREAK an army, but as we established the writers don't numbers so well) but was supposed to have 'won' (which means the coalition army was completely broken). Instead things turned around (dubiously) and when Jericho "CS Jesus" Holmes rolled in he was supported by a brand-new and full-size army. His people didn't put Tolkeen in full retreat to behind their city walls, the resurgent Coalition Army did that.

We covered where that army came from, i think - but also remember that CS never committed anything like its full strength to the Tolkeen campaign. I think, at best (id h ave to go back and look) that they had MAYBE 1/3 of their forces engaged in Tolkeen, at the height of the war. They had plenty of reserves, and this doesn't even consider them perhaps drafting ISS as troops.... and that they were still taking every able-bodied human from the Burbs who wanted to fight to maybe earn a spot for their family in a CS city and pushing them through Basic as fast as they could.

The second, related problem is that various forces keep getting retconned and altered to try and lower the moral event horizon. Groups have to become cartoonishly evil for really dumb reasons (Sorcerer's Revenge apparently engaged in mass human sacrifice for no reason even though blood magic is incredibly inefficient and stupid if you have a leyline) just so the Coalition can keep its flimsy excuse of "it's a crapsack world so our evil isn't so bad."

side note: I still can't find the section of the books where the sorcerer's revenge did all the horrible things it's supposed to have done. Literally all I could find was, "they attacked legitimate military targets, but they used evil demons (instead of evil robots) and showed no mercy to soldiers (just like the CS showed no mercy to ANYONE), therefore it was super-evil."

Ill agree with your side note. I've never really seen any info in the SoT books, including Sorcerers Revenge, that made me think the Revenge was somehow super evil - at least not moreso than the CS was already being. Yeah, they didn't take prisoners. Neither did the CS, for the most part, on the battlefield (most prisoners seem to be people rounded up from towns and the like, not enemy combatants, which the CS was just gunning down). But yeah - they weren't particularly worse than the CS was being. I mean, yeah, they used Demons. Oh Noes!

I have plenty of issues with how SoT was written (Holmes in particular) but the Sorcerers Revenge never really struck me as anything other than just deserts for the CS and not any more evil than they were.

But to answer your question people have added up the ad hoc and widely spread and heavily disputed populations of the respective states, cities etc, and for the CS to field the army mentioned in HoH it'd be half or more of the total population from those (Very questionable) Numbers presented over many different books over decades of rifts setting.

I dont really find the unequivocally stated 30-40 million number in WB30 to be questionable. Its right there in plain english.

The CS is supposed to be either a horrible threat to freedom, or the last best hope for humanity. Or both. It isn't supposed to be something that gets defeated militarily. You're supposed to feel bad that they're crushing these little independent kingdoms when they could have been allies. But you're also supposed to recognize that the CS is the reason why there aren't any huge monster kingdoms in North America.

The Coalition is what happens when humans stop being nice.

Quoting True Detective, the world needs bad men. They keep the other bad men from the door.

Basically this.

Theyre a setting MacGuffin. They aren't going anywhere. Though they could stand to be tuned down a notch (which could happen and still have them be an omnipresent threat to the whole continent) as right now it doesn't even make sense that NA looks the way it does considering that the CS could have long ago wiped places like Kingsdale, the Baronies, and Arzno off the map with an afternoon of close action with no repercussions.

[Axelmania]

the world is dynamic and changing EXCEPT where the CS is concerned

The CS is probably the most dynamic and changed thing on Rifts Earth right now short of the Minion War itself. Tolkeen was a contender, as were Cyber-Knights. I suppose FoM after how Dunscon played th SoT

CS formed new alliances, dealt with many alien threats, is uplifting psychics, ending civil war...

CS hasn't won by weight f numbers largely due to the problems that magic and supernatural bring, methinks. There comes a point where more troops won't help when you are dealing with a shaoeshifting adult dragon with impervious to energy and astral projection. Psi-Bat being rather small is the present limiting factor of the CS.

Depending on estimates from information in the book it's like a third, a half or even more of their population would be in the military. I did the math when the HoH book came out

Half the.number of CS citizens, or half the number of the total human population of the Coalition States including non citizens?

I am reminded that many grunts are not citizens and are fighting to earn it for themself.

CS don't count nonhumans as Citizens.

But to answer your question people have added up the ad hoc and widely spread and heavily disputed populations of the respective states, cities etc, and for the CS to field the army mentioned in HoH it'd be half or more of the total population from those (Very questionable) Numbers presented over many different books over decades of rifts setting.

The numbers still need context. Half of outside.citizens inside the walls of a super city or half the 100k wannabe citizens living outsidem

[Eagle]

I haven't read the Minion War book, so I don't know if people are exaggerating or not when they're talking about the CS having an army of ten million people. They barely have a population of ten million, so I call "no way" on that. Either people are mis-reading it, or the numbers in the book are just dumb.

The Death's Head Transport is the thing that strains the setting, and it has been in the game since the very beginning. It's basically a Mach One hover-capable C-130. The CS should have no reason that they aren't already in charge of all of North America with that thing. You can have overwhelming force anywhere on the continent that you want within a few hours. It isn't plot armor that prevents the Coalition from losing, it's plot armor that prevents them from winning.

Ultimately, the setting doesn't hold together well without extreme GM fiat. Most of the numbers don't add up right. And there are lots of unanswerable questions like "why didn't they just do this instead?" You basically have to be willing to modify numbers up or down, by a factor of 10, at any given time.

I'm thinking that perhaps Rifts Earth itself suffers from some sort of distance distortion effect. It's bigger than it used to be, sometimes anyway. It's about 1100 miles from Chi-Town to Lone Star (Chicago to Lubbock, iirc). So a Death's Head Transport should take about an hour and a half to get from one to the other. But maybe sometimes it takes days to get there. There's just... more land in between for some reason. Tens of thousands of miles of prairie. It doesn't do it all the time, but it does it often enough. Maybe there are "safe routes" that you can find that allow transport in the normal amount of time. But they're long and out of the way, and nothing like a direct route. To go from Chi-Town to Lone Star, maybe you've got to fly over Iowa, into South Dakota, hook down through Nebraska into Missouri and Arkansas, and then over to where Dallas used to be, and then up to Lubbock. Sort of a giant "S" shape across half the continent. Maybe it takes 5 times as long, but at least it doesn't take you 100 times as long. Maybe the altitude even matters.

This distortion effect would allow for characters to journey through nearly endless deserts, or forests that seem to stretch on for an eternity. Think "Blair Witch Project" where they get lost in a forest that should be no more than a few miles wide for over a week. You could have towns that were hidden if you didn't follow the right path. Follow the winding dirt road, and it's only 50 miles to the southwest from the nearest city. Try to go a different way, and it may be a thousand miles, or you may go right past it and never even see it. It would just be one of the crazy things about travel on Rifts Earth.

I'd have to go with something like that to explain why the Coalition hasn't won already in North America. They've got a handful of "safe routes" that they follow pretty religiously, but beyond that you never know how long something is going to take. And there's always room for another tiny little town out there somewhere.

[HWalsh]

I haven't read the Minion War book, so I don't know if people are exaggerating or not when they're talking about the CS having an army of ten million people. They barely have a population of ten million, so I call "no way" on that. Either people are mis-reading it, or the numbers in the book are just dumb.

The Death's Head Transport is the thing that strains the setting, and it has been in the game since the very beginning. It's basically a Mach One hover-capable C-130. The CS should have no reason that they aren't already in charge of all of North America with that thing. You can have overwhelming force anywhere on the continent that you want within a few hours. It isn't plot armor that prevents the Coalition from losing, it's plot armor that prevents them from winning.

Ultimately, the setting doesn't hold together well without extreme GM fiat. Most of the numbers don't add up right. And there are lots of unanswerable questions like "why didn't they just do this instead?" You basically have to be willing to modify numbers up or down, by a factor of 10, at any given time.

I'm thinking that perhaps Rifts Earth itself suffers from some sort of distance distortion effect. It's bigger than it used to be, sometimes anyway. It's about 1100 miles from Chi-Town to Lone Star (Chicago to Lubbock, iirc). So a Death's Head Transport should take about an hour and a half to get from one to the other. But maybe sometimes it takes days to get there. There's just... more land in between for some reason. Tens of thousands of miles of prairie. It doesn't do it all the time, but it does it often enough. Maybe there are "safe routes" that you can find that allow transport in the normal amount of time. But they're long and out of the way, and nothing like a direct route. To go from Chi-Town to Lone Star, maybe you've got to fly over Iowa, into South Dakota, hook down through Nebraska into Missouri and Arkansas, and then over to where Dallas used to be, and then up to Lubbock. Sort of a giant "S" shape across half the continent. Maybe it takes 5 times as long, but at least it doesn't take you 100 times as long. Maybe the altitude even matters.

This distortion effect would allow for characters to journey through nearly endless deserts, or forests that seem to stretch on for an eternity. Think "Blair Witch Project" where they get lost in a forest that should be no more than a few miles wide for over a week. You could have towns that were hidden if you didn't follow the right path. Follow the winding dirt road, and it's only 50 miles to the southwest from the nearest city. Try to go a different way, and it may be a thousand miles, or you may go right past it and never even see it. It would just be one of the crazy things about travel on Rifts Earth.

I'd have to go with something like that to explain why the Coalition hasn't won already in North America. They've got a handful of "safe routes" that they follow pretty religiously, but beyond that you never know how long something is going to take. And there's always room for another tiny little town out there somewhere.

In my setting the CS doesn't have the capability to deploy like that. Naruni, as a countermeasure, has a Ghost Fighter from Phaseworld flying around. It kills Deaths Head Transports that it finds alone.

[Eagle]

In my setting the CS doesn't have the capability to deploy like that. Naruni, as a countermeasure, has a Ghost Fighter from Phaseworld flying around. It kills Deaths Head Transports that it finds alone.

See, then they'd just never send them out alone. That also requires active intervention by a third party. And it seems like something the Coalition would go to any amount of trouble to stop. And it doesn't do anything to address the hordes of SAMAS suits and jetbikes that can cover just as much ground.

I remember when I was first introduced to RIFTS, and I asked about airplanes. The guy showing me the game said that there were dragons that would fly up and destroy any airplane they saw. Like automatically. And I wondered why all these dragons had nothing better to do than just go smash random airplanes.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

I haven't read the Minion War book, so I don't know if people are exaggerating or not when they're talking about the CS having an army of ten million people. They barely have a population of ten million, so I call "no way" on that. Either people are mis-reading it, or the numbers in the book are just dumb.

The Death's Head Transport is the thing that strains the setting, and it has been in the game since the very beginning. It's basically a Mach One hover-capable C-130. The CS should have no reason that they aren't already in charge of all of North America with that thing. You can have overwhelming force anywhere on the continent that you want within a few hours. It isn't plot armor that prevents the Coalition from losing, it's plot armor that prevents them from winning.

Ultimately, the setting doesn't hold together well without extreme GM fiat. Most of the numbers don't add up right. And there are lots of unanswerable questions like "why didn't they just do this instead?" You basically have to be willing to modify numbers up or down, by a factor of 10, at any given time.

I'm thinking that perhaps Rifts Earth itself suffers from some sort of distance distortion effect. It's bigger than it used to be, sometimes anyway. It's about 1100 miles from Chi-Town to Lone Star (Chicago to Lubbock, iirc). So a Death's Head Transport should take about an hour and a half to get from one to the other. But maybe sometimes it takes days to get there. There's just... more land in between for some reason. Tens of thousands of miles of prairie. It doesn't do it all the time, but it does it often enough. Maybe there are "safe routes" that you can find that allow transport in the normal amount of time. But they're long and out of the way, and nothing like a direct route. To go from Chi-Town to Lone Star, maybe you've got to fly over Iowa, into South Dakota, hook down through Nebraska into Missouri and Arkansas, and then over to where Dallas used to be, and then up to Lubbock. Sort of a giant "S" shape across half the continent. Maybe it takes 5 times as long, but at least it doesn't take you 100 times as long. Maybe the altitude even matters.

This distortion effect would allow for characters to journey through nearly endless deserts, or forests that seem to stretch on for an eternity. Think "Blair Witch Project" where they get lost in a forest that should be no more than a few miles wide for over a week. You could have towns that were hidden if you didn't follow the right path. Follow the winding dirt road, and it's only 50 miles to the southwest from the nearest city. Try to go a different way, and it may be a thousand miles, or you may go right past it and never even see it. It would just be one of the crazy things about travel on Rifts Earth.

I'd have to go with something like that to explain why the Coalition hasn't won already in North America. They've got a handful of "safe routes" that they follow pretty religiously, but beyond that you never know how long something is going to take. And there's always room for another tiny little town out there somewhere.

In my setting the CS doesn't have the capability to deploy like that. Naruni, as a countermeasure, has a Ghost Fighter from Phaseworld flying around. It kills Deaths Head Transports that it finds alone.

Eh... one Phase Ghost fighter isn't going to be able to cause that much mayhem.

When it is attacking, it is vulnerable (even if it takes reduced damage), and it can only remain invisible for about 200 minutes and travel much more slowly when invisible.

If isolated DHTs got shot down by it (there are likely to be survivors - DHTs embark SAMAS units as built-in escorts) theyd simply stop traveling alone (there's actually very little to no reason that DHTs would travel alone anyway. One cant put quite enough force on the ground if going outside of CS territory, so you'd likely be up against several + an escort) and travel in small flotillas. The Phase Ghost wouldn't last one melee against half a dozen DHTs (which are NOT defenseless) and their likely escorts. (A Wing of SAMs and possibly Sky and/or Rocket Cycles, as well as CS fighters).

[Greepnak]

I think the CS would be more understandable if there was a movie or something written from the point of view of a CS citizen..


which is every soldiers vs aliens movie ever. The Predator isnt something your instincts tell you deserves your patience and understanding.

Not saying its right to apply that logic 100% of the time, but how many of your wives and daughters are you willing to sacrifice in the name of greater understanding? Thats the issue the CS solves with force. It makes sense in a post apocalyptic setting. We sleep peaceably in our beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf.

[Greepnak]

In my setting the CS doesn't have the capability to deploy like that. Naruni, as a countermeasure, has a Ghost Fighter from Phaseworld flying around. It kills Deaths Head Transports that it finds alone.

See, then they'd just never send them out alone. That also requires active intervention by a third party. And it seems like something the Coalition would go to any amount of trouble to stop. And it doesn't do anything to address the hordes of SAMAS suits and jetbikes that can cover just as much ground.

I remember when I was first introduced to RIFTS, and I asked about airplanes. The guy showing me the game said that there were dragons that would fly up and destroy any airplane they saw. Like automatically. And I wondered why all these dragons had nothing better to do than just go smash random airplanes.

Flight makes everything tough, from a story perspective. I think ultimately its more about long range communications and how tough it is to *hold* anything once you've claimed it. The hi-tech makes people forget this is a setting where humans were reduced to a barbaric few for hundreds of years (by and large). The horror elements from Chaos Earth really support the idea that humanity only survived due to the heroism of a few, but the damage is done to the human spirit.

My setting has something like a 3g Ion Storm that encircles the entire planet, unleashed by actions in the Tolkeen war. (I also have none of the native american nations, and the arzno wasteland screamers are EVERYWHERE between the cities)

[HWalsh]

I think the CS would be more understandable if there was a movie or something written from the point of view of a CS citizen...

You know the CS are Nazis right? They are also the bad guys. Why the heck do you want them to be seen as the heroes when they aren't.

They are Nazis that murder defenseless women and children. There is nothing redeeming about them. I mean, sure, it's easy to see them as heroes when killing a big snarling demon...

How do you reconcile that with gunning down a human kid?

If they EVER did a Rifts movie where the CS are heroes... At that point... At that point I quit Rifts. I'll toss my books in a bin and light them on fire. There are about 5 crimes that are unforgivable... The CS has committed all of them.

[Eagle]

They are Nazis that murder defenseless women and children. There is nothing redeeming about them. I mean, sure, it's easy to see them as heroes when killing a big snarling demon...

How do you reconcile that with gunning down a human kid?

You know that happens in basically every war, right? There are at least two dozen countries where that sort of thing is happening, today. And that's in the real world, where you don't have to worry that that kid might actually be a shape-shifting dragon in disguise.

I haven't read the Heroes of Humanity book, but from what I gather from people here, it emphasizes the CS' role as evil bastards, requiring them to gun down women and children for basically no reason. On the other hand, we have virtually every other Rifts sourcebook on the Coalition, where we frequently see CS soldiers turning a blind eye to rubber forehead aliens, and sometimes even to heroic magic users who have proven they aren't drooling baby eaters. Without directly comparing the text of the new book, I can't reconcile those two positions.

You want to see how soldiers could gun down kids? Watch the following movies to get into the Coalition mindset:
Predator
The Omen
John Carpenter's The Thing
Children of the Corn
Apocalypse Now

My bet is that the Coalition's official stance is something along the lines of "if we gunned them down, they probably weren't actually human children".

[Pepsi Jedi]

I haven't read the Minion War book, so I don't know if people are exaggerating or not when they're talking about the CS having an army of ten million people. They barely have a population of ten million, so I call "no way" on that. Either people are mis-reading it, or the numbers in the book are just dumb.

The HoH book is very dramatic in it's numbers. They're not being read wrong. You have to estimate the number of dog boys but yeah the recruitment numbers are pretty insane.

In the first 2 days 500,000CS Citizens join up.
In the first 2 days 1,300,000 people from the burbs and across the states. So in the first __2 days__ they have 1,800,000 new recruits.
Over the next 3 months, 2,000,000 more come to sign up.

in one paragraph the CS added about 2 million troops in two days and 2 million more in 3 months. it says "An untold number of dog boys are manufactured' and clemency is given for any wild or run aways and they come home in droves. If we calculate 1 dog boy per squad like they had at Tolkeen for all the benifits that brings, you add in roughly another million dog boys right on top.

So that's 5 million in two paragraphs in the book. Add that to the 4million or so they had after tolkeen and you're up to 9,000,000 troops, with out adding in the ISS forces.

It goes on later to say that even full size mercenary groups can join up. Be given a CS advisor and BOOM thrown to the front lines. You can even use your own equipment and keep your inturnal command structure.
Criminals can have their slates wiped clean. Just .... sign up and go to the front lines.

Now.. the 9,000,000 number is 'soft'. We don't know for SURE how many dog boys are being made and marched out into service. It could be lower than previous deployments (It'd be stupid, as they'd be needed ever so much more in this conflict) but that could roll the number down or UP. They might produce MORE dog boys as they showed their extreme worth in the Tolkeen conflict. Conversely they might produce less.. So the 9million could be 8.5million or.. 10million straight off the bat. and technically there's 200,000 unaccounted for in the first two days as it was technically 1.8 million new people in the first two days, but when talking about literal MILLIONS of people you tend to round the numbers. 1.8 becomes 2 for ease of typing and communication.

The number also doesn't factor in all those mercs that are signing up and keeping their own units and what have you and are being rapidly deployed to the front lines for fodder while the 'real' troops are trained and moved around. so the 9,000,000 could go up signifigantly where they able to be counted. from 100,000 to 2,000,000, no firm numbers are given what so ever on that.

Which is to say... no. People aren't misreading the HoH book.

The numbers really are that dramatic.

And as stated previously it's an indication that the writers don't really understand large numbers (Not a jab. -most- people don't really understand large numbers except by abstract concept). They used numbers that sounded impressive. "Lets say.. 500,000 here.. and ... 1.3 million there. that's a lot of people!" "Yeah sounds good' With out realizing that 1.8 million people singing up in two days would be a logicsital nightmare and a SIGNIFICANT portion of the human population. The CS has roughly the population of California. lol Add in another 2 million and you've more than doubled that initial number, but if you get about 2 million in 2 days you gotta have others trickeling in and it can't be 'less' than the initial 2 day bump so... 2 million there.... Ok And Dog boys but.... Lone Star is only so big so lets not paint our self in a corner by saying just how fast those test tube wienerdogs are being pumped out and leave it at "untold". With those two paragraphs the CS's military, Already dwarfing anything in NA, at 4,000,000 or so troops was more than doubled.

That's literal by the way. 2 paragraphs on pages 8 and 9 and they added 4 or 5 million troops under arms and doubled the CS's military might.

Though there are no 'firm' numbers on the CS population. Estimates by going through the books and adding up the states, cities and what have you over the decades(Clearly not a firm head count) Indicates between 20 and 45,000,000 humans in the CS.

[Eagle]

I haven't read the Minion War book, so I don't know if people are exaggerating or not when they're talking about the CS having an army of ten million people. They barely have a population of ten million, so I call "no way" on that. Either people are mis-reading it, or the numbers in the book are just dumb.

The HoH book is very dramatic in it's numbers. They're not being read wrong. You have to estimate the number of dog boys but yeah the recruitment numbers are pretty insane.

In the first 2 days 500,000CS Citizens join up.
In the first 2 days 1,300,000 people from the burbs and across the states. So in the first __2 days__ they have 1,800,000 new recruits.
Over the next 3 months, 2,000,000 more come to sign up.

in one paragraph the CS added about 2 million troops in two days and 2 million more in 3 months. it says "An untold number of dog boys are manufactured' and clemency is given for any wild or run aways and they come home in droves. If we calculate 1 dog boy per squad like they had at Tolkeen for all the benifits that brings, you add in roughly another million dog boys right on top.

So that's 5 million in two paragraphs in the book. Add that to the 4million or so they had after tolkeen and you're up to 9,000,000 troops, with out adding in the ISS forces.

It goes on later to say that even full size mercenary groups can join up. Be given a CS advisor and BOOM thrown to the front lines. You can even use your own equipment and keep your inturnal command structure.
Criminals can have their slates wiped clean. Just .... sign up and go to the front lines.

Now.. the 9,000,000 number is 'soft'. We don't know for SURE how many dog boys are being made and marched out into service. It could be lower than previous deployments (It'd be stupid, as they'd be needed ever so much more in this conflict) but that could roll the number down or UP. They might produce MORE dog boys as they showed their extreme worth in the Tolkeen conflict. Conversely they might produce less.. So the 9million could be 8.5million or.. 10million straight off the bat. and technically there's 200,000 unaccounted for in the first two days as it was technically 1.8 million new people in the first two days, but when talking about literal MILLIONS of people you tend to round the numbers. 1.8 becomes 2 for ease of typing and communication.

The number also doesn't factor in all those mercs that are signing up and keeping their own units and what have you and are being rapidly deployed to the front lines for fodder while the 'real' troops are trained and moved around. so the 9,000,000 could go up signifigantly where they able to be counted. from 100,000 to 2,000,000, no firm numbers are given what so ever on that.

Which is to say... no. People aren't misreading the HoH book.

The numbers really are that dramatic.

And as stated previously it's an indication that the writers don't really understand large numbers (Not a jab. -most- people don't really understand large numbers except by abstract concept). They used numbers that sounded impressive. "Lets say.. 500,000 here.. and ... 1.3 million there. that's a lot of people!" "Yeah sounds good' With out realizing that 1.8 million people singing up in two days would be a logicsital nightmare and a SIGNIFICANT portion of the human population. The CS has roughly the population of California. lol Add in another 2 million and you've more than doubled that initial number, but if you get about 2 million in 2 days you gotta have others trickeling in and it can't be 'less' than the initial 2 day bump so... 2 million there.... Ok And Dog boys but.... Lone Star is only so big so lets not paint our self in a corner by saying just how fast those test tube wienerdogs are being pumped out and leave it at "untold". With those two paragraphs the CS's military, Already dwarfing anything in NA, at 4,000,000 or so troops was more than doubled.

That's literal by the way. 2 paragraphs on pages 8 and 9 and they added 4 or 5 million troops under arms and doubled the CS's military might.

Though there are no 'firm' numbers on the CS population. Estimates by going through the books and adding up the states, cities and what have you over the decades(Clearly not a firm head count) Indicates between 20 and 45,000,000 humans in the CS.

Yeah then the numbers are just stupid. And wrong.

I went through RUE just a few days ago for a topic in a different thread (they give a population breakdown for each Coalition state), and adding up everything I got 11.5 million people for the CS. And that was being fairly generous. California has almost 40 million. Now you could increase the CS' population a bit by saying that there are a lot of humans in areas near the CS that aren't actually in their territory. But there's no way they're getting an army that large, that quickly. There probably aren't 10 million able-bodied adults in all of North America.

So either the CS is just lying and inflating its numbers for propaganda purposes, or the only way I could see them getting remotely close to that is if they're counting armies of other factions that have become allies. Your town throws in with the Coalition, you get counted as part of the 10 million. So let's say that Northern Gun has 50,000 soldiers or something. And the Manistique Imperium has 30,000. And Free Quebec has 300,000. And Kingsdale has 20,000. These guys call you up on the first day and say they're willing to help. And you go "hey, that's 400,000 new recruits to the Coalition!"

But yeah, those numbers are just screwed.

[Pepsi Jedi]

I haven't read the Minion War book, so I don't know if people are exaggerating or not when they're talking about the CS having an army of ten million people. They barely have a population of ten million, so I call "no way" on that. Either people are mis-reading it, or the numbers in the book are just dumb.

The HoH book is very dramatic in it's numbers. They're not being read wrong. You have to estimate the number of dog boys but yeah the recruitment numbers are pretty insane.

In the first 2 days 500,000CS Citizens join up.
In the first 2 days 1,300,000 people from the burbs and across the states. So in the first __2 days__ they have 1,800,000 new recruits.
Over the next 3 months, 2,000,000 more come to sign up.

in one paragraph the CS added about 2 million troops in two days and 2 million more in 3 months. it says "An untold number of dog boys are manufactured' and clemency is given for any wild or run aways and they come home in droves. If we calculate 1 dog boy per squad like they had at Tolkeen for all the benifits that brings, you add in roughly another million dog boys right on top.

So that's 5 million in two paragraphs in the book. Add that to the 4million or so they had after tolkeen and you're up to 9,000,000 troops, with out adding in the ISS forces.

It goes on later to say that even full size mercenary groups can join up. Be given a CS advisor and BOOM thrown to the front lines. You can even use your own equipment and keep your inturnal command structure.
Criminals can have their slates wiped clean. Just .... sign up and go to the front lines.

Now.. the 9,000,000 number is 'soft'. We don't know for SURE how many dog boys are being made and marched out into service. It could be lower than previous deployments (It'd be stupid, as they'd be needed ever so much more in this conflict) but that could roll the number down or UP. They might produce MORE dog boys as they showed their extreme worth in the Tolkeen conflict. Conversely they might produce less.. So the 9million could be 8.5million or.. 10million straight off the bat. and technically there's 200,000 unaccounted for in the first two days as it was technically 1.8 million new people in the first two days, but when talking about literal MILLIONS of people you tend to round the numbers. 1.8 becomes 2 for ease of typing and communication.

The number also doesn't factor in all those mercs that are signing up and keeping their own units and what have you and are being rapidly deployed to the front lines for fodder while the 'real' troops are trained and moved around. so the 9,000,000 could go up signifigantly where they able to be counted. from 100,000 to 2,000,000, no firm numbers are given what so ever on that.

Which is to say... no. People aren't misreading the HoH book.

The numbers really are that dramatic.

And as stated previously it's an indication that the writers don't really understand large numbers (Not a jab. -most- people don't really understand large numbers except by abstract concept). They used numbers that sounded impressive. "Lets say.. 500,000 here.. and ... 1.3 million there. that's a lot of people!" "Yeah sounds good' With out realizing that 1.8 million people singing up in two days would be a logicsital nightmare and a SIGNIFICANT portion of the human population. The CS has roughly the population of California. lol Add in another 2 million and you've more than doubled that initial number, but if you get about 2 million in 2 days you gotta have others trickeling in and it can't be 'less' than the initial 2 day bump so... 2 million there.... Ok And Dog boys but.... Lone Star is only so big so lets not paint our self in a corner by saying just how fast those test tube wienerdogs are being pumped out and leave it at "untold". With those two paragraphs the CS's military, Already dwarfing anything in NA, at 4,000,000 or so troops was more than doubled.

That's literal by the way. 2 paragraphs on pages 8 and 9 and they added 4 or 5 million troops under arms and doubled the CS's military might.

Though there are no 'firm' numbers on the CS population. Estimates by going through the books and adding up the states, cities and what have you over the decades(Clearly not a firm head count) Indicates between 20 and 45,000,000 humans in the CS.

Yeah then the numbers are just stupid. And wrong.

I went through RUE just a few days ago for a topic in a different thread (they give a population breakdown for each Coalition state), and adding up everything I got 11.5 million people for the CS. And that was being fairly generous. California has almost 40 million. Now you could increase the CS' population a bit by saying that there are a lot of humans in areas near the CS that aren't actually in their territory. But there's no way they're getting an army that large, that quickly. There probably aren't 10 million able-bodied adults in all of North America.

So either the CS is just lying and inflating its numbers for propaganda purposes, or the only way I could see them getting remotely close to that is if they're counting armies of other factions that have become allies. Your town throws in with the Coalition, you get counted as part of the 10 million. So let's say that Northern Gun has 50,000 soldiers or something. And the Manistique Imperium has 30,000. And Free Quebec has 300,000. And Kingsdale has 20,000. These guys call you up on the first day and say they're willing to help. And you go "hey, that's 400,000 new recruits to the Coalition!"

But yeah, those numbers are just screwed.

Your estimate seems on the very low in for population in the CS. It's come up many times.

That said. *shrugs* I'm telling you what the book SAYS.
500,000 citizens in 2 days.
1.3 Million from the burbs and other places with in the CS in the same 2 days

Then 2 million more in 3 months.

"untold number of dog boys" (Which I fully addmit is an estimate, but based on previous deployments)

The numbers are not what the "CS is telling people" So it's not the CS lieing.

The numbers are given as a fact from the book, we're -told- this is what happens.

The writers don't have a firm concept of large numbers. And as with most ANY Palladium book, what's come before is not always referenced against 'what sounds cool/good for this book"

One of the newer books has _______DIRECT_________ Contradiction on longevity and life spans from the previous book (Lone star) Lone star goes into it for pages, the new book just side swipes it and the numbers are radically different for no reason. Happens all the time in palladium books.

Thing is HoH is the 'newest' Rifts book we have, and it says the CS gained 4 million human troops and an untold number of dog boys on top of what they already had in 3 months.

[kaid]

Also one of the things that lends to the CS survival is they actually have some defensive depth. Places like tolkeen or lazlo take out 1-3 cities and you pretty much just wiped them off the map. The CS not only has very strong fortress cities but has a number of them spread across a pretty wide area. So unlike most of the areas in north america it's not something you can just surround a city or two and concentrate all your attacks there and punch it out.

The minion war/xiticix/splugorth are the current visible threats. The first two if left unchecked could build to numbers where you simply would run out of munitions before you could hope to make a dent in them. In the case of demons/devils you have the problem of a large chunk of their invasion forces can shape change to cause chaos and terror with infiltration tactics. The CS and their use of psychics and dog boys are probably one of the more resilient to this form of attack because they are so paranoid and have some decent defenses to detect and exterminate this.

Splugorth if unchecked by other forces could punch out any earth nation if they chose to simply by flooding in multiple planets worth of military. But doing so would trigger the doomsday scenarios by other powers and could lead to wide spread city buster nukes being utilized. Splugorth seem to like their island to putter around on no point causing people to flip out and wreck their nice digs with radioactive fall out.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

The CS has roughly the population of California.

No, the entire Continent, from Mexico to Canada, has about the population of California... and they aren't all human. That's sentient, non-supernatural, non-creature of magic people, humans and D-Bees. (WB30).

Though there are no 'firm' numbers on the CS population.

There's an extremely solid 14 million (pre FQ leaving) in SB1/r, and then the figures in RUE match up to that fairly closely. (Actually, numbers NOT reprinted in SB1r, so, canonicity of that number is now in question.)

Estimates by going through the books and adding up the states, cities and what have you over the decades(Clearly not a firm head count) Indicates between 20 and 45,000,000 humans in the CS.

Looking through all the books i have (which i think is all of them that cover NA), there's nowhere close to this. Best estimate (if you ignore the outright statement in SB1 and/or RUE) is maybe 15-17 million, and those are extremely clear (keep in mind, this is CITIZENS; this does NOT count the millions of sentients living in the 'Burbs that aren't citizens). Nowhere near 40 million, which, as i pointed out, is the entire sentient population of the whole continent.

Now, i 100% agree that books often contradict each other and that the writers have no grasp of large numbers. (See: Dimensional Outbreak / The Three Galaxies in general).

[Eagle]

Your estimate seems on the very low in for population in the CS. It's come up many times.

That said. *shrugs* I'm telling you what the book SAYS.
500,000 citizens in 2 days.
1.3 Million from the burbs and other places with in the CS in the same 2 days

Then 2 million more in 3 months.

"untold number of dog boys" (Which I fully addmit is an estimate, but based on previous deployments)

The numbers are not what the "CS is telling people" So it's not the CS lieing.

The numbers are given as a fact from the book, we're -told- this is what happens.

The writers don't have a firm concept of large numbers. And as with most ANY Palladium book, what's come before is not always referenced against 'what sounds cool/good for this book"

One of the newer books has _______DIRECT_________ Contradiction on longevity and life spans from the previous book (Lone star) Lone star goes into it for pages, the new book just side swipes it and the numbers are radically different for no reason. Happens all the time in palladium books.

Thing is HoH is the 'newest' Rifts book we have, and it says the CS gained 4 million human troops and an untold number of dog boys on top of what they already had in 3 months.

Okay, and I'm telling you that the population is nowhere near that high, which is what RUE says.

[glitterboy2098]

ok, so show us the evidence. give us a point by point calculation of the the population, with page referenced citations for each number you use.

[Eagle]

ok, so show us the evidence. give us a point by point calculation of the the population, with page referenced citations for each number you use.

I did that exact thing like four days ago. I'm leaving work now but I'll see if I can find the post when I get home.

[Eagle]

Rifts Ultimate Edition, pages 24-28 give rough population estimates for the Coalition States.

Missouri: estimated 225,000 citizens and 50,000 squatters (pg 25)
Arkansas: Fort El Dorado has 139,000 people, with 80,000 more in little towns and villages (pg 26)
Lone Star: Lone Star City has 33,000 people, Amarillo 1800, Wichita Falls 18,000, Odessa under 1,000 (pg 27)
Iron Heart: 700,000 humans, 100,000 non-humans, 100,000 squatters (pg 27)
Chi-Town (Iowa half): Iowa section has 1.3 million (pg 27)
Chi-Town (Illinois half): "hundreds" of small towns, pop 1,000-10,000 and a dozen large cities, pop 150,000 to 240,000 (pg 28)
Chi-Town itself: pop 2.2 million plus 3 million in the 'burbs (pg 28)

So, let's presume that the "hundreds of small towns" means like 300, with an average population of 5,000 for each of them. I think that's generous but let's go with it. 12 large cities with an average of let's say 200K. This gives us a population total of 1.5 million scattered around small towns, 2.4 million in the large cities, and 5.2 million in and around the fortress city. That's 9.1 million in the Illinois side. Iowa adds 1.3 million, and the rest of the CS adds 1.16 million.

The entire population of the Coalition adds up to just over 11.5 million people.

Page 89 of the Coalition War Campaign book indicates that the CS has an army of over 10% of the population. That gives them a total army of 1.1 million and change (depending on how much over 10% they are). So... who is flying these SAMAS suits? Remember, you've got a lot of people who are wearing basic dead boy armor. You've got mechanics and military police, file clerks and truck drivers and all sorts of other things in the army besides fighting men. Even if the Coalition has an incredibly small tooth-to-tail ratio, that's still a lot of people who are not SAMAS pilots.

For some historical perspective, in WWI, about 1/3 of our forces were support. By the end of WWII, 60% of our european theater forces were support. By the Gulf War, 70% of our deployed troops were support. In 2005 Iraq, that figure had shrunk back to 60%, unless you include civilian contractors over there and then the support figure is back up to 75%.

Source: http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/d ... h_op23.pdf

Let's assume that the Coalition has super-tech that requires little maintenance and they exist in an action-adventure setting, with an author who has never heard of tooth-to-tail. They operate like GI Joe where they have one guy who is the mechanic for the entire unit. Let's say they have 20% support personnel. That still brings you down to like 900,000 combat troops.

[glitterboy2098]

looks like you forgot the other Burbs around the other CS cities (CWC pg197). there are burbs around every coalition city and stronghold, not just Chitown. we aren't given hard numbers, but we are told they rarely number more than 200,000 per (CWC pg200). that right there adds a couple million more people.

you've also left out a number of fortress cities.. Waukegan for example, with (per PA105) 700,000 people in the fortress city alone (a mostly completed city that will be twice the size of chitown itself when finished. will have 2.5 million when filled) (CWC pg200)

also, per SoT:Aftermath, Chitown's population is 2.2 million, with 4 million in the burbs. (most likely they'll be moving that extra million over to Waukegan) it also says that in PA100 it had 2 million people in chitown, with 3 million in the burbs around it. suggesting that the CS recruitment drive in PA105 (RUE and CWC) prior to the siege on tolkeen actually did deplete their population a fair amount, it just grew back. (it also seems to imply the army itself is not always factored into the population of a region)
actually i would suggest looking at the CS section of Aftermath for revised calculations, as it goes into rather more detail on several of the individual CS cities and strongholds outside the fortress cities themselves. for example, in PA109 the dozen small cities in the IL side of the state of chitown have 200,000-300,000 people each (Aftermath pg137)
RUE's numbers are reprints of the RMB's, set in PA104ish, Aftermath is set in PA109, making aftermath's numbers the ones to use.


it is also worth noting we are told many time in CWC's section on the burbs, and in adventure sourcebook 1: chitown burbs, that the Burbs around the CS cities exist in a kind of limbo, with no real record keeping or central organization. to be part of the burbs you just have to be present in them, and merely entering them means you enter into that same sort of legal limbo.. which means that a lot of the people who join up from the burbs during those recruitment drives may well be from places outside the CS (like Ishpiming and the like) who just traveled to the burbs to do so. once you are inside the burbs, the CS stops asking questions about where you are from. as long as you meet the criteria for a recruit, you're in. so it is likely that they get a lot of people from Ishpiming, the colorado baronies, lazlo, new lazlo, the magic zone, the new west, etc. that hold views on magic and Dbees that alienate them from their home kingdoms, or who are willing to put up with some anti-magic and antii-Dbee viewpoints in order to get a chance at a better life.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

looks like you forgot the other Burbs around the other CS cities (CWC pg197). there are burbs around every coalition city and stronghold, not just Chitown. we aren't given hard numbers, but we are told they rarely number more than 200,000 per (CWC pg200). that right there adds a couple million more people.

you've also left out a number of fortress cities.. Waukegan for example, with (per PA105) 700,000 people in the fortress city alone (a mostly completed city that will be twice the size of chitown itself when finished. will have 2.5 million when filled) (CWC pg200)

also, per SoT:Aftermath, Chitown's population is 2.2 million, with 4 million in the burbs. (most likely they'll be moving that extra million over to Waukegan) it also says that in PA100 it had 2 million people in chitown, with 3 million in the burbs around it. suggesting that the CS recruitment drive in PA105 (RUE and CWC) prior to the siege on tolkeen actually did deplete their population a fair amount, it just grew back. (it also seems to imply the army itself is not always factored into the population of a region)
actually i would suggest looking at the CS section of Aftermath for revised calculations, as it goes into rather more detail on several of the individual CS cities and strongholds outside the fortress cities themselves. for example, in PA109 the dozen small cities in the IL side of the state of chitown have 200,000-300,000 people each (Aftermath pg137)
RUE's numbers are reprints of the RMB's, set in PA104ish, Aftermath is set in PA109, making aftermath's numbers the ones to use.


it is also worth noting we are told many time in CWC's section on the burbs, and in adventure sourcebook 1: chitown burbs, that the Burbs around the CS cities exist in a kind of limbo, with no real record keeping or central organization. to be part of the burbs you just have to be present in them, and merely entering them means you enter into that same sort of legal limbo.. which means that a lot of the people who join up from the burbs during those recruitment drives may well be from places outside the CS (like Ishpiming and the like) who just traveled to the burbs to do so. once you are inside the burbs, the CS stops asking questions about where you are from. as long as you meet the criteria for a recruit, you're in. so it is likely that they get a lot of people from Ishpiming, the colorado baronies, lazlo, new lazlo, the magic zone, the new west, etc. that hold views on magic and Dbees that alienate them from their home kingdoms, or who are willing to put up with some anti-magic and antii-Dbee viewpoints in order to get a chance at a better life.

Well, Aftermath's numbers would be closer to the original 14m quoted in SB1 (non-revised), which i think makes them a bit more reliable in the first place. And that 14m quote in SB1 was for citizens, and did not take into account the Burbs.

[Killer Cyborg]

One of the big issues with CS population numbers is that there are various kinds of people in CS territory:
1. Citizens
2. Human non-citizens.
3. Non-humans.

A lot of the time, we're just given a "population: x" number, without any indication what kind of population it's talking about.

In SB1, for example, we're told on p. 12 "perhaps an additional 10 million D-Bees, mutants, and other intelligent non-humans also live in those territories."
On p. 13, we're told, "D-Bees and Other Mutants Population: Zero," with the explanation that the CS government does not allow non-humans to become citizens.

At the same time, we're told that the psychic population of the CS is 12%, and that "people considered psionic mutants include those with minor, major, and master psychic powers, mind melters, bursters, and psi-stalkers. Most of the latter work in the military.

In combination with the "mutant population: Zero" passage, it seems that the CS had at the time as many as 2.88 million psychics living in the CS, many working in the CS military, with none of them being counted in the general population numbers.
Granted, the would be counted in with the 10 million non-humans mentioned on p. 12, so the overall estimated population of the CS at that time would still seem to be 24 million beings.
The point is that when RUE or other books list a territory's population as being a certain number, that could well NOT include even minor psychics, and it might not include non-citizens.
That makes it hard to really say for certain what the total real populations of a region are.

[eliakon]

So basically...
The CS population numbers are just sort of dart-boarded out when ever needed on the theory that "meh, what ever"
Almost as if the numbers don't really matter because the population figure is really "Population: Enough"

[Pepsi Jedi]

Your estimate seems on the very low in for population in the CS. It's come up many times.

That said. *shrugs* I'm telling you what the book SAYS.
500,000 citizens in 2 days.
1.3 Million from the burbs and other places with in the CS in the same 2 days

Then 2 million more in 3 months.

"untold number of dog boys" (Which I fully addmit is an estimate, but based on previous deployments)

The numbers are not what the "CS is telling people" So it's not the CS lieing.

The numbers are given as a fact from the book, we're -told- this is what happens.

The writers don't have a firm concept of large numbers. And as with most ANY Palladium book, what's come before is not always referenced against 'what sounds cool/good for this book"

One of the newer books has _______DIRECT_________ Contradiction on longevity and life spans from the previous book (Lone star) Lone star goes into it for pages, the new book just side swipes it and the numbers are radically different for no reason. Happens all the time in palladium books.

Thing is HoH is the 'newest' Rifts book we have, and it says the CS gained 4 million human troops and an untold number of dog boys on top of what they already had in 3 months.

Okay, and I'm telling you that the population is nowhere near that high, which is what RUE says.

Well HoH is newer than RUE and it says they're there. So.. Do with it what you want. I'm not really sure what you're trying to argue. It's in the book man. Take it or leave it. I didn't write the thing.

[Pepsi Jedi]

So basically...
The CS population numbers are just sort of dart-boarded out when ever needed on the theory that "meh, what ever"
Almost as if the numbers don't really matter because the population figure is really "Population: Enough"

With out putting too fine a point on it. Yeah. Exactly that. "What sounds cool today" seems to have much more weight than "What have we written into cannon 20 years ago".

[Axelmania]

I think the CS would be more understandable if there was a movie or something written from the point of view of a CS citizen...

You know the CS are Nazis right? They are also the bad guys. Why the heck do you want them to be seen as the heroes when they aren't.

They are Nazis that murder defenseless women and children. There is nothing redeeming about them. I mean, sure, it's easy to see them as heroes when killing a big snarling demon...

How do you reconcile that with gunning down a human kid?

If they EVER did a Rifts movie where the CS are heroes... At that point... At that point I quit Rifts. I'll toss my books in a bin and light them on fire. There are about 5 crimes that are unforgivable... The CS has committed all of them.

They are never called Nazis, enough fancruft plox.

Gunning down defenseless people sometimes happens if you are mistaken about them being defenseless.

Or with lone psychopaths who the CS eventually rejects.

EDIT: This post does NOT violate any rules. - NMI

[HWalsh]

They are never called Nazis, enough fancruft plox.

Just because you're unable to understand what the CS is meant to be, doesn't mean the rest of us aren't. They're meant to invoke Nazis, they use Nazi symbolism, they wear uniforms based on Nazis, they draw 100% clear parallels to the Nazis.

Your insistence that they aren't Nazis is more "fancruft" than anything I've ever seen.

Gunning down defenseless people sometimes happens if you are mistaken about them being defenseless.

Idiots incapable of discerning who their enemies are shouldn't play with guns. I don't buy for a second that every CS soldier who committed genocide at Tolkeen thought they were real threats. Less than 2% at best. We know the one CS character perspective we have darn sure knew they weren't threats.

If the CS soldiers are really that ignorant, cowardly, and stupid then someone needs to strip them of their power. It should be given to someone like Lazlo who have proven they're ready for the responsibility to possess that kind of power.

Or with lone psychopaths who the CS eventually rejects.

Like Chalk? Who the CS put there on purpose? Knowing that he'd react the way he did and launch an unwarranted attack? Like Karl "Adolf" Prosek? Joseph "Goebbels" Prosek? Dr. "Himmel" Bradford?

The CS wants genocide. The fact that you're infatuated with the CS and can't see their evil is, frankly, disturbing.

[Axelmania]

Meant to invoke doesn't make you what you invoke. A guy in Childhood's End or even Smaug in the hobbit films basically invoke Satan but they aren't literally Satan. Stormtroopers aren't Nazis either.

Being unable to discern a shapeshifter doesn't make you an idiot. Flawed argument.

Soldiers.are 15% evil 5% anarchist, other 80% are the good alignments: principled/scrupulous/unprincipled.

If any genocide happened during the Siege it was a small part of it and only a sma portion of soldiers, if any, would perceive it that way.

Your one CS perspective and judging millions of soldiers by that one man... Or your 2%... Struggling the follow the process here.

States.have no desires. People do. Speak for the people.

Who besides Karl knew how far Chaulk would go?

Isn't nuking the main city a decent way of sparing the surrounding farm.towns which King Creed dragged into the battle? America did the same in WW2. The Coalition's Pearl Harbor.was.the FoM invasion.

For all their "seceding" Tolkeen certainly didn't try to stop the FoM invasion. They also stayed away when Joanna was kidnapped. But they get involved to attack the CS if it tries to stabilize Minnesota.

[HWalsh]

States.have no desires. People do. Speak for the people.

The people are fools. Too stupid for their opinion to possess weight.

Who besides Karl knew how far Chaulk would go?

Pretty much everyone who knew Chalk? Or had access to his records?

Isn't nuking the main city a decent way of sparing the surrounding farm.towns which King Creed dragged into the battle?

King Creed? Oh right. King Creed murdered his own diplomat. King Creed slaughtered innocent villages in Tolkeen territory. King Creed wanted to genocide all deebees and magic practitioners on Earth.

King Creed is the cause of the CS invading. He didn't like try diplomacy... Oh wait.

He totally did.

America did the same in WW2.

Ha! Wow. Uhm. Just wow. You're equating Tolkeen not attacking the CS and spending decades trying to open diplomatic channels to a sneak attack against an American navel base.

That... That almost is too ridiculous to warrant a reply.

Also, wow, just... Wow. Insinuating that the US wanted genocide against the Japanese is... Wow.

The Coalition's Pearl Harbor.was.the FoM invasion.

If Tolkeen were part of the FoM when SoT took place this might be valid. Since they weren't. Well... Nope...

For all their "seceding" Tolkeen certainly didn't try to stop the FoM invasion.

They had no diplomatic ties or alliances with the CS. They tried to set such up, but the CS refused. They were under no obligation to interfere in a conflict between the CS and the FoM.

They also stayed away when Joanna was kidnapped.

If there were any treaties or pacts between the CS and Tolkeen this might matter. Due to the CS repeatedly refusing such, Tolkeen was under no obligation to help the CS.

But they get involved to attack the CS if it tries to stabilize Minnesota.

Minnesota was Tolkeen territory. The CS was destroying stability, not creating it, in another nation's sovereign territory.

[boring7]

Oh boy...THIS BS again.

One amusingly overlooked fact is that not only are the Coalition meant to evoke images of Nazis (and it's getting LESS subtle, the face-masks now have little 'SS' storm-trooper bolts on them) but the Coalition is WORSE than the Nazis. Failing to murder children is supposed to get a Deadboy shot and his family punished. There's none of that in the history of Nazi Germany.

Now, it's not that hard or that unreasonable to try and make Nazis human. The treatises and commentaries on "the banality of evil" and how most people who do terrible things are just trying to be good soldiers for bad leaders and blahblahblah. You can DO that, the Coalition Fluff successfully DOES that. You have stories all the time where some Deadboy or sergeant or other "good soldier" is confronted with the horribleness of what his side is doing and learns a life lesson. And then that person is never seen in the plot again, ever. Or if they are they have conveniently forgotten the lesson and are raising a glass in respect to the cartoonishly villainous Colonel Lyboc (or as I call him, 'starscream').

You can have stories where the world is so grim and dark and gritty that the nazis are the good guys. Where threats come from all sides and "can't be bargained with. can't be reasoned with. don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear! And absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!" Where the 'heroes' are nazis because EVERYONE is a nazi. But humans are just fine (often better than in the coalition states) in a HOST of regions which are all HAPPY to make deals and be diplomatic while the coalition can't stop invading its neighbors and starting fights. There are LOTS of "good guys" or "better than the CS" guys out there, yet the CS is supposed to be somehow sympathetic.

You can have a major separation between the people of a state who are people, and the state itself which is totally balls-to-the-wall evil. But again, any lessons learned in one book are forgotten by the next and just as much time is spent trying to defend the actions of the state (which are just crazy and evil) as is spent talking about individuals.

The Tolkeen war was started by the Coalition. "Hunting criminals" by burning entire towns. The Juicer Uprising was started by the Coalition trying to manipulate and ultimately murder thousands of people with borrowed alien tech. The Minion War spilling onto earth can be attributed to the destruction of the people best-able to handle (or at least give advance warning) it in Tolkeen. The Xiticix invasion could be rather quickly reversed if the CS were capable of combining its heavy artillery with Tolkeen or Lazlo Special (magic) Forces.

The Coalition actions and decisions make humanity less safe. The portrayal of the CS as "humanity's last hope for survival" suggests humans deserve to go extinct. Kevin's desire to have his cake (complex morality exploration/character development) and eat it too (cartoonishly-evil CS that is always ready to be the villain tomorrow) breaks down the whole play.

So basically...
The CS population numbers are just sort of dart-boarded out when ever needed on the theory that "meh, what ever"
Almost as if the numbers don't really matter because the population figure is really "Population: Enough"

With out putting too fine a point on it. Yeah. Exactly that. "What sounds cool today" seems to have much more weight than "What have we written into cannon 20 years ago".

That's pretty much exactly what I said.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Oh boy...THIS BS again.

Indeed. Some people take a few homages and run away with it in their minds.

One amusingly overlooked fact is that not only are the Coalition meant to evoke images of Nazis (and it's getting LESS subtle, the face-masks now have little 'SS' storm-trooper bolts on them) but the Coalition is WORSE than the Nazis.

Dressing in black doesn't make one a Nazi. People need to get past that point.

Failing to murder children is supposed to get a Deadboy shot and his family punished. There's none of that in the history of Nazi Germany.

None of that in the CS either. It's an exaggeration used to make a point. The CS does't go around pulling kids out of crowds and shooting them either.

Now, it's not that hard or that unreasonable to try and make Nazis human. The treatises and commentaries on "the banality of evil" and how most people who do terrible things are just trying to be good soldiers for bad leaders and blahblahblah. You can DO that, the Coalition Fluff successfully DOES that. You have stories all the time where some Deadboy or sergeant or other "good soldier" is confronted with the horribleness of what his side is doing and learns a life lesson. And then that person is never seen in the plot again, ever. Or if they are they have conveniently forgotten the lesson and are raising a glass in respect to the cartoonishly villainous Colonel Lyboc (or as I call him, 'starscream').

It's usually just ignored that we're told straight up that while some of the leadership are evil that the troops by and large themselves are not. As you said. We're shown repeatedly that the troops themselves are not all evil, but some of the leaders are, and yes, some cartoonishly so. (That's an artifact of the CS being made in the 80s for a 'PG" audience of 12 to 14 year olds)
People just refuse to look at the world view of the fictional people through their eyes, and like to lump them in. "Cuz black uniforms with lighting bolts!"

You can have stories where the world is so grim and dark and gritty that the nazis are the good guys. Where threats come from all sides and "can't be bargained with. can't be reasoned with. don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear! And absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!"

Which IS the setting that the CS Finds itself in.

Where the 'heroes' are nazis because EVERYONE is a nazi. But humans are just fine (often better than in the coalition states) in a HOST of regions which are all HAPPY to make deals and be diplomatic while the coalition can't stop invading its neighbors and starting fights.

Thing is they're not. "Just fine" Much less in a host of regions other than the CS. The humans aren't 'just fine' in the NGR. They're not 'Just fine' 'anywhere' on Rifts earth, because Rifts earth really is a hostile environment that's beseiged by every sort of devil, demon, alien invader from a thousand worlds and dimensions.
The only way people approach fine, is though military might to defeat allll those threats that come for them.

There are LOTS of "good guys" or "better than the CS" guys out there, yet the CS is supposed to be somehow sympathetic.

No. There's some smaller groups of "Less bad than the CS" out there. None nearly as large or infulential. Hell, the CS even had to bail out the NGR.

You can have a major separation between the people of a state who are people, and the state itself which is totally balls-to-the-wall evil. But again, any lessons learned in one book are forgotten by the next and just as much time is spent trying to defend the actions of the state (which are just crazy and evil) as is spent talking about individuals.

You're mistaking a purposeful part of the setting for ignorance or mistake. The fact that the leadership is largely evil and the people itself largely good is a PURPOSEFUL SETTING PIECE. It allows for more role play that way and a veriety of different stories.

The Tolkeen war was started by the Coalition. "Hunting criminals" by burning entire towns.

The humans would say that the tolkeen war was started by Alien Invaders fortifying a strategic staging point on earth, the humans' planet close to the humans territory.

The Juicer Uprising was started by the Coalition trying to manipulate and ultimately murder thousands of people with borrowed alien tech.

If you ignore the fact that every one of those people were highly paid roided out mercenaries that made their lives by killing people for profit, you can spin it that way.

The Minion War spilling onto earth can be attributed to the destruction of the people best-able to handle (or at least give advance warning) it in Tolkeen.

Well that's just a lie. I'm sorry but that's not even a perceptual slant. It's just a lie. the Minion war came to earth because earth is the interdimensional crossroads and the war has been going on over the megaverse for thousands of years. It had frak all to do with Tolkeen. Seriously. I get it you're trying to slam the CS but you don't need to lie to do so. the 'truths' are enough. Faking them just makes your argument look weak.

The Xiticix invasion could be rather quickly reversed if the CS were capable of combining its heavy artillery with Tolkeen or Lazlo Special (magic) Forces.

Not really. Not with the numbers presented. People also fail to realize that while the CS (Currently) has about 10,000,000 under arms, Tolkeen and Lazlo are tiny. It's like going "The US can take on this major world threatening event, with the aid of Cuba and Tasmania!" Well.... while a few guys from Cuba and Tasmania would help. it's not like it's a drop in the bucket compaired to the other forces.

Again. People don't understand large numbers and the CS's 10,000,000 under arms vs a few thousand from the other kingdoms.

The Coalition actions and decisions make humanity less safe.

Provenly false in every way. Their actions make it less safe to be a demonic or alien invader on earth, but for humanity, the CS is by and large great.

The portrayal of the CS as "humanity's last hope for survival" suggests humans deserve to go extinct.

Because they're fighting demons invading their planet? How dare they?

Kevin's desire to have his cake (complex morality exploration/character development) and eat it too (cartoonishly-evil CS that is always ready to be the villain tomorrow) breaks down the whole play.

Not really. They're just different plays on different days.
Don't get me wrong. I think soem of the cartoonish elements are dumb.

But there's cartoonish elements all the way across rifts. Floopers? Butter Trolls? 50 other stupid things? Remember this was written mostly in the 80s and 90s for 12 to 14 year olds.


I get it. You think the CS are Nazi's. It's actually pretty common shallow thinking. Most people go "Black uniforms. Skull motiff. = NAZI's" and then try and conform every other aspect to support their jump in logic.

The CS are NOT nice to alien invaders on their planet, and are an artifact of a planet decimated and attacked for literal 100s of years by said alien invaders, standing up and trying to rebuild humanity.
Their leadership is often (But not always) Evil, but the people are straight up said NOT to be. That evil in the CS is a distinct minority.

So.. Take it for what you will. I've no doubt that logic will fail to change your mind. The people that just go "NAZI NAZI NAZI!!" Aren't really participating in debate. They're screaming their view from a soap box. It's the internet. that happens A LOT.

It's just not how the CS are actually presented in the books. It's a very shallow surface glimpse and deduction based on appearance and little else.

[SycophantNagaraja]

I've always seen the parallels between the CS and the Nazis ever since I picked up the first books and I've never felt like I was on a soap box for using that frame of reference to my players (who also tend to see the same things without my descriptors).

Not that I have a dog in this hunt but I'm curious how they 'aren't'. I see a lot of heated debates that seem to only amount to countering points made by people who feel they are. Rather than actual points made to why they aren't.

[boring7]

-Kevin Sembieda literally said, "yeah, they're the nazis but with more skulls."
-It is canon that failing to go full genocide-purge on civilian D-Bees results in court-martial and (potentially) execution.
-The "leaders evil/troops good" is NEVER ignored in these threads, also "some" severely downplays just how much of the CS leadership is puppy-kickingly evil.
-Rifts has a LOT of good-guy groups out there, these groups are even (occasionally) retconned to be "more evil" and it's still not enough to make the CS a "shade of grey" in moral terms.
-"Peace through power" while refusing to make deals with other powers (like Cyber-knights, or Lazlo, or any other power that is willing to talk/deal) is not just evil, it's stupid.
-Doesn't matter if the other political groups are "smaller" or "less influential", they have power the CS could USE instead of beating its head against and it doesn't "because evil".
-No, I'm not "misunderstanding the setting." I'm pointing out the setting can't have it both ways. You can't have dynamic character development AND have status quo is god.
-Yes, the Coalition can lie to itself about who started the Tolkeen War. It's still a lie and the Coalition Leadership knows it.
-Same regarding the Juicer Uprising
-Minion War is CS' fault too. It gets a foothold on earth because they kill everybody who can actually DO something about the rifts or hellpits (takes a spellcaster to cast the close rift spell). It's like how if you destroy every medical lab you can find, it's your fault the next pandemic can't be stopped. Also I'm pretty sure the minion war is only a few years old. Age-old rivalries and cold wars don't count.
-CS' biggest problem is they have to match numbers with numbers in Xit territory. Kill a hive queen and suddenly you just have to contain the bugs while they go crazy, and Tolkeen special forces can kill a hive queen. Your analogy would work better if it was Iran's "million man army" being backed up with British Special Forces. Again, we understand your point, you either don't understand or ignore ours.
-Coalition actions make humanity less safe in every way. That's just the clear and present outcome of their actions. They kill, torture, and enslave more humans than the demons and their inability to compromise or even think through their actions have REPEATEDLY hurt themselves and other humans while leaving the True Monsters of the setting unharmed.
-If the CS is "humanity at its finest" as it murders, tortures, and pillages other humans (as well as aliens and demons) then humanity is pretty dang terrible.
-Again, even Kevin admitted they were supposed to be the space-nazis.
-The CS is not nice to ANYONE, even their own people.
-Feel free to show a SINGLE CS leader that isn't evil. Let alone 3.
-Logic is the basis of my assertions. Fallacies are the basis of yours.
-No, seriously, Word Of God is that they are the nazis.
-And yes, everything I have mentioned is from the books. Everything you have said is...well it's actually a misrepresentation/strawman of me.