The coalition as a military is a sad joke. Why?

[Cp365]

Finished reading the coalition war. And well the coalition is supposed to be the strongest military force on the planet to be feared and outmatch our modern military on a 10 ton1 basis.

How? The lack basic military strategy, and just plain common sense.

They launch nukes declaring that hey were attacking you. Why? Everyone who has ever read anything of the rifts rpg knows that the coalition has been harassing tolkein and the debees for years. Why do they not have any understanding of the capabilities of magic users.

I could understand if they never had any contact with debees. But they have had years of expirence dealing with debees and magic users. This paints the coalition not as a threat but a sheer and utter joke. No way could this coalition be a threat to anyone let alone tolkein or the fed. Of magic. They are seriously their own worst enemy, they would have been better off hiring all mercs and sending the mercs at tolkien they seem to have unlimited amounts of credits to throw at any problem.

Reading the generals, evil masterminds and brilliant strategist. My ass, these guys couldnt come up with a better strategy than all out rush them like idiots and use no strategy or logic?

Here you go. Hire a merc unit or have a coalition unit pretend to be a merc company drive right into the middle of tolkien with about 10 nukes, just one of the many merc units volunteering to fight the coalition like the other 50 or so merc units doing it for free to fight the joke of a bad guy.

Boom! Tolkien gone in a flash, problem solved. Do the same thing to free qubec, and all of their other enemies. Or wait sit back and launch countless ordinance of shells like our military currently does in literally every war, then after the smoldering fires go out after a few day then wait for it. Send the ground troups in to finish them off.

Most of the time military if attacking any target would send in advanced scout units and eliminate any and all real threats before an attack to soften the target up.

Why is the coalition inept if they are supposed to be hardened genious military leaders and feared by everyone including the splugorth.

[jaymz]

Same reason the galactic empire isn't strategically in star wars. Fictional caveat.

If they were then why bother fighting them at all ever? They have to be beatable.

[Mack]

Otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story to base a player campaign around. The point was to provide a backdrop for players & GMs. The war needed to be drawn out and not quickly won.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Finished reading the coalition war. And well the coalition is supposed to be the strongest military force on the planet to be feared and outmatch our modern military on a 10 ton1 basis.

How? The lack basic military strategy, and just plain common sense.

They launch nukes declaring that hey were attacking you. Why? Everyone who has ever read anything of the rifts rpg knows that the coalition has been harassing tolkein and the debees for years. Why do they not have any understanding of the capabilities of magic users.

I could understand if they never had any contact with debees. But they have had years of expirence dealing with debees and magic users. This paints the coalition not as a threat but a sheer and utter joke. No way could this coalition be a threat to anyone let alone tolkein or the fed. Of magic. They are seriously their own worst enemy, they would have been better off hiring all mercs and sending the mercs at tolkien they seem to have unlimited amounts of credits to throw at any problem.

Reading the generals, evil masterminds and brilliant strategist. My ass, these guys couldnt come up with a better strategy than all out rush them like idiots and use no strategy or logic?

Here you go. Hire a merc unit or have a coalition unit pretend to be a merc company drive right into the middle of tolkien with about 10 nukes, just one of the many merc units volunteering to fight the coalition like the other 50 or so merc units doing it for free to fight the joke of a bad guy.

Boom! Tolkien gone in a flash, problem solved. Do the same thing to free qubec, and all of their other enemies. Or wait sit back and launch countless ordinance of shells like our military currently does in literally every war, then after the smoldering fires go out after a few day then wait for it. Send the ground troups in to finish them off.

Most of the time military if attacking any target would send in advanced scout units and eliminate any and all real threats before an attack to soften the target up.

Why is the coalition inept if they are supposed to be hardened genious military leaders and feared by everyone including the splugorth.

Short answer: "To sell more RP Books Cp365.
Slightly longer answer: "Palladium is a company that makes the majority of it's money from selling books. More books equal more money, to keep the business going longer.

More detailed answer, in two parts.
Part 1: Palladium's writers are not military men. Their military knowlege tops out around 1980 Chuck Norris movies. This is not said in jest. It's said in truth. Their 'military' knowledge comes from old Delta force movies and what have you. (This goes for their 'real world' weapon knowledge too. Check the books. Find a gun produced after 1990.... I'll wait). Their knowledge of military and tactics is literally what they saw in old 70s and early 80s action movies. So that's how they write stuff.

Part 2: The SERIES of books was conceptualized to sell product. To sell product in a series, you need..... a series. A: This means you're going to have to ping pong the winning side a bit. The CS War campaign does this. The CS are in the lead, Oh noo massive counter attack by the magic side... here come the CS Again.... Magic again. This happens in the books.
In this same vein, if the CS Used proper tactics, scouting and pressed their advantage, they could have simply hired a few merc crews which come and go in Tolkeen all the time. out fitted them with vehicles (Non CS) and let them drive into Tolkeen 100% unaware they were working for the CS. Hired blind and in secret. Once the merc crew were in tolkeen (Say, send there to pick up a high profile magic guy to take some where else, where doesn't really matter) When the vehicles are in the city the CS pushes the button and the nukes hidden with in level the city.
There's your entire war in less than a page of text.
Oh.. wait.. one page (Or less) of text doesn't sell a book. Much less Multiple books.
the CS "Nuke" attack was not sanctioned. The guy that did it got executed. It was premature. But more over.. it should have worked.
Why didn't it work? the Mages had the deux ex machina. I.E. The "hand of god" A previously unknown magical defense that had never been seen on earth or ANYWHERE in the megaverse, including entire intersteller governments made up of mages and magic users. The shield was 100% made up 100% for the soul purpose of answering the "Well why doesn''t the CS just nuke um" Question. That's why the nukes didn't work. because they sat around and dreamed up a thing, previously unseen or unheard of, to purposefully negate that advantage.
Then..... they wrote BOOKS... to sell you BOOKS.

Sure the entire thing could be over in a page if done "logically" but the CS war campaign stretched on what. 5+ years at palladium? One page doesn't keep the coffers full for those years mate. So both sides did some stupid stuff. To ping pong the war back and forth before the inevitable conclusion.

To barrow from Jaymz above.... Have you ever watched Star Wars? One of the most beloved movies of all time, a massive part of our culture now.

The empire, which had 1000s and 1000s of star destroyers, and could glass planets from orbit.... with just those... built a space station the size of a small moon... to destroy planets with a single shot. (Want to be scared, look up "How much area the Death star acutally possessed" As you could habitate the entire thing. Not just the 'surface'.) So they built the death star. A station the size of a small moon.. can blow up planets with a button click (Well a few clicks) and.... left it 100% vulnerable to one dude plugging a shot with a torpeedo down what''s basicly an airshaft?

BOOM

Millions of troops destroyed, a station the size of a small moon vaproized.. by one kid.... hitting one shot... in an unprotected air vent?

Now.. in theory these people had the intelligence to construct a hyper space moble space station the size of a small moon that could blow planets out of space with a single shot... but noone thought. "hey maybe we off set the shaft with a few right angles so if someone does shoot a torp in there it just collapses that part of the shaft? That maybe we produce 20 shafts all with about a dozen right angle turns to vent, so even if one is shot what ever that shaft was venting doesn't back up and break down the station?

Maybe we could put ship shields on the out side of the shaft? I mean.... ships have them.... wouldn't you put a BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG ASS shield over such a vulnerable spot?

Well yes any of those things would be logical and smart.. but they didn't do it.

Why?

To drive the story. To sell tickets. If the rebels just got glassed from orbit every time the Empire showed up it'd be pretty boring, and.. well a short movie wouldn't it?

[Cp365]

Great answers, selling books over content. I really wish they would have spent more time actually creating content then trying to sell us garbage. I think this time they truly went full R*tard. There is no coming back. Thumbs up and high fives all around.

[Killer Cyborg]

Otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story to base a player campaign around. The point was to provide a backdrop for players & GMs. The war needed to be drawn out and not quickly won.

Yeah... but the actual writing kinda sucked.
It's been a common complaint since the SoT came out that the Coalition threw themselves at Tolkeen "like barbarian hordes" instead of using any kind of real strategy, and that's a very real complaint.
It was a war written apparently by people who don't understand war or writing well enough to make the tale they were telling plausible.

Very few people were happy with SoT, and they seem pretty evenly divided on whether or not they think that the CS should have rolled over Tolkeen as if it were a speed bump, OR whether Tolkeen should have defeated the entire Coalition States, and when the vast majority of people don't like a story, that means it wasn't very well done.

"X happened because otherwise there wouldn't be a story" only works when plotting; when you get to the actual writing the job is to create enough verisimilitude that it seems like the reason why things happened in the story is because of various things happening in the story-world, NOT simply because the writers wanted things to go a certain way.
We need to believe that Frodo took The Ring to Mount Doom because of the threat that Sauron posed, NOT because "otherwise there wouldn't be a story."
And when we ponder questions like "why didn't the Eagles just FLY him there," we should NOT have "because otherwise there wouldn't be a story" as the only answer, but should be able to easily identify any number of in-story factors (like how the Eagles aren't just anybody's errand boys, or how Sauron had his own flying critters to stop air attacks, etc.).

When it comes to the Siege on Tolkeen, I idly pondered for YEARS how that kind of encounter would go based on the advantages and disadvantages of tech and magic respectively.
Then Palladium changed the capabilities of each side (CWC and FoM) rather drastically.
Then Palladium ignored most of these changes, maybe made some more changes, and wrote a crappy story where both sides acted extremely foolishly, and the winner was decided by whose machina had the most deus ex, instead of by something more interesting, emotionally gripping, and plausible.

There were plenty of ways to draw out the war without doing things like...
Starting off with the CS having Nukes, but we know they probably won't use nukes against a city that is near their own territory, and one that they presumably intend to occupy, because of the radiation.
No, wait! Now the CS has "clean" nukes that don't make things radioactive.
BUT the CS decides not to use the nukes anyway.
BUT then one CS guy DOES decide to use the nukes, and he tries it.
BUT it turns out that Tolkeen has a secret defense that gets rid of the nukes by shunting them off to another dimension where hopefully the nukes won't bother anybody.

I mean... that kind of mess DOES drag things out, but in the painful way, not in the engaging way that something by George R.R. Martin would.

[Killer Cyborg]

Finished reading the coalition war. And well the coalition is supposed to be the strongest military force on the planet to be feared and outmatch our modern military on a 10 ton1 basis.

How? The lack basic military strategy, and just plain common sense.

This has been a common complaint since the SoT books came out.

Why do they not have any understanding of the capabilities of magic users.

Right?
They should at LEAST have some class of CS soldier that has "Lore: Magic & Psionics" or something equivalent, even if not all the frontline grunts know everything.
Especially since Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers have as their primary purpose to defend the CS from the Dark Arts and such.

Hire a merc unit or have a coalition unit pretend to be a merc company drive right into the middle of tolkien with about 10 nukes, just one of the many merc units volunteering to fight the coalition like the other 50 or so merc units doing it for free to fight the joke of a bad guy.

Indeed.
And the thing is, the story would have been much more interesting if that had simply been a plot point. The CS could have tried that, and had Tolkeen outmaneuver them by using scrying, psionics, etc. to predict the attack ahead of time and/or ferret out CS infiltrators/spies/whatever.
The CS could have detonated the nukes when they were caught/confronted, which could have done some damage to Tolkeen, but only a superficial amount compared to what they wanted.
That could have been interesting.

Do the same thing to free qubec,

OR they could have put off going to war with Quebec until after they got Tolkeen sorted out, instead of splitting their military in two halfs and sending the half with the Variable-frequency laser-wielding robots to fight the side that doesn't have laser-resistant armor.

[Shark_Force]

oh, good grief.

the idea that somewhere in the megaverse there is a spell designed to deal with just about any given situation is plausible. that includes someone firing a missile barrage at you, which is frankly an extremely predictable thing for any magical nation that has ever worried about fighting a powerful technological nation would want to have. all tolkeen would have to have done for that is look around for it; it isn't some highly improbable super-advanced tactic that nobody could have seen coming, it was an obvious thing that even the dumbest person should have seen coming. now, that isn't to say that either side fought particularly intelligently (tolkeen decided it was a good idea to use a frontal assault against a force orders of magnitude larger than them,, and apparently did not leave a single person to listen to radio in case of a surprise attack from behind coming from a nation that can literally transport troops to anywhere on the continent in less than a day... and the coalition apparently must have never even *heard* of asymmetrical wars before because they very obviously were not the least bit prepared to fight one).

but in broad strokes, the CS struggling to win was not really particularly improbable. a number of I-Can't-Believe-They're-Not-Wars that the US and its allies have been involved in within the last 70 years have generally involved one side that has massive technological and numeric advantages fighting against the other side which just refuses to fight a conventional war specifically because they know they'd be at a massive disadvantage if they did so. and in this case, it isn't so much of a tech disadvantage either (tolkeen had pretty close to their level of tech all things considered, and a massive advantage in magical capabilities that allow them to do things that would give any modern general facing a guerrilla war nightmares).

if advantages in numbers and tech were guaranteed to deliver victory, vietnam and korea and afghanistan would have looked very different. those things offer a huge advantage in conventional warfare, certainly, but the idea of a small nation with comparatively few resources fending off a much larger nation with vast resources is not some crazy fantasy, it is *real life history*, and we only have to look a single generation back to find examples of it happening so I don't get how people can think it's impossible. heck, go back a ways and you'll find that there are plenty of more conventional wars where those advantages didn't bring victory, or only brought it at incredible cost... for example, those of you in the US should bloody well know about the war for your independence, which featured an army led by someone with little war experience, (eventually) trained by someone who was pretending to be an expert in such things, and backed by a group of nations that acted more like a group of squabbling children than anything else winning against the largest, most powerful army and navy in the entire world backed by an empire that was so large that they could say the sun never set on their lands and mean it *literally* (as in, it was always daylight somewhere in their empire because it spanned so much territory).

or, if not that, you might have heard of the american civil war, where the side that massively outnumbered and outproduced the other took more than 4 years to win, and frankly came pretty close to losing if things had gone just a little bit differently.

and again, i must stress that in these real life examples, the smaller, weaker side couldn't teleport or turn invisible or revive the dead or make themselves literally immune to most conventional weapons or mind control people or control the weather or pull new soldiers out of thin air given a bit of time or any of the other things that magic can do, many of which capabilities would make the prospect of facing an enemy that is fighting an asymmetrical war far worse than what it would be like in real life.

(also, as regards the death star: that port *was* shielded, and the only reason anyone was able to hit it was that a space wizard showed up out of nowhere nearly 2 decades after they had all been killed, flew down a heavily-guarded narrow trench for a few minutes while dodging incoming fire from both weapon emplacements positioned to guard said trench *and* a crack squad of enemy fighter aces who also had an evil space wizard in their ranks, and then managed to to fire missiles that made a perfect 90 degree turn through said shielded port without computer assistance with a shot that was described as "one in a million". and he very nearly didn't succeed, either. i find it hard to blame the empire for thinking they were pretty safe, there)

[Cp365]

Thank you, on the last point yeah its very clear that whoever wrote this has no clue about military, combat or anything like strategy. The barbaric horde mentality has no place in any modern military regime if this horse **** is what the coalition states has been doing they never ever would have become a force or let alone a coalition. Its not possible ofcourse 1 cyberknight could take out an entire regiment of cs troopers, he wouldnt even have to fight. They would take eachother out with incompetence blasting eachother with laser fire and mini missle attacks. The entire time the cyber knight just standing there laughing maniacally because of pure lazy writting.

[Orin J.]

Reading the generals, evil masterminds and brilliant strategist. My ass, these guys couldnt come up with a better strategy than all out rush them like idiots and use no strategy or logic?

Here you go. Hire a merc unit or have a coalition unit pretend to be a merc company drive right into the middle of tolkien with about 10 nukes, just one of the many merc units volunteering to fight the coalition like the other 50 or so merc units doing it for free to fight the joke of a bad guy.

Boom! Tolkien gone in a flash, problem solved. Do the same thing to free qubec, and all of their other enemies. Or wait sit back and launch countless ordinance of shells like our military currently does in literally every war, then after the smoldering fires go out after a few day then wait for it. Send the ground troups in to finish them off.

Highly radioactive craters humans cannot control but supernatural creatures may thrive in is not tactically viable, and neither is any strategy where you're depending on forces with powerful presciencts not twigging to your plan and gaining almost a dozen nukes to lob at you if/when they do. Not to mention quebec needs to be captured as a nation and not a ruin for the coalition's sake.

Also they DID launch shells at them, tolkeen's magic defenses was able to eat them up effortlessly as i understand it. That tactic is mostly viable modern-day because we have a much more limited counter to missiles than wizards apparently have anywhere it's an effective tactic.

Most of the time military if attacking any target would send in advanced scout units and eliminate any and all real threats before an attack to soften the target up.

Why is the coalition inept if they are supposed to be hardened genious military leaders and feared by everyone including the splugorth.

Combating unknown elements more capable than you at mobile small-unit warfare and better able to recoup losses (how many of these dang things just regenerate?) with guerrilla tactics is just losing highly trained troops to attrition. Massed-unit warfare is the best counter they had to magical forces, as slowly bleeding them was counter productive and sustained bombardment was only effective in areas where it was wasteful overkill. This isn't syria, they aren't going to be sitting there without the resources to rebuild and replenish their forces between ops because all that's doable with magic, making an given person potentially a factory, hospital, or armory by themselves.

in conclusion, "nuke 'em" isn't a strategy, it's just murderous bluster and you shouldn't consider it under any circumstances.

[Braden Campbell]

I wrote an essay when this series first came out, giving a plausible explanation for why the Tolkeen war looked like WWI. I will dig it up when I get back to my main PC.

The short answer is: Free Quebec leaving the Coalition created a two-front war at the worst possible moment for the CS, and they had to reserve their nukes and aircraft to ward against the threat of Quebec nuking Chi-Town.

ADDENDUM - having dug out this nearly 20-year-old document, I have (re)discovered that it is 8 pages long. If you want a copy, PM me.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

RE: Teh Nukez.

I am open to being wrong here, as i have not read the Siege books in some time, but im nearly 100% certain that people are mis-remembering the "Nuke 'em!" strategy.

Remember that EVERY power in NA that has decent high-tech manufacturing can produce "nukes" - Nuclear Multi-warhead LRMs. These are "clean" nukes, we're told, that dont leave appreciable radiation or fallout. That's as far back as ... maybe even the RMB. But very early on, we're told that the "nukes" in the missile list aren't dirty, pre-Golden Age nukes.

Its re-stated in SB4: CS Navy when it talks about the fact that the CS now has the capability to produce "real" nukes - Tactical Thermonuclear Missiles. But it goes on to state that they only have a few hundred, and that Prosek wont use them (for a number of reasons) except in the WORST possible invasion scenarios. (In fact, an invasion of the Americas by the forces of Atlantis is "unlikely" to be enough to convince Prosek to use these).

In my memory, the "nukes" launched at Tolkeen were just LRMs. The "clean" kind that everyone has. For the CS, its a potentially viable strategy to just bombard the area with hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands of these to flatten a city. I do not recall ANY mention in the Siege books of the CS *ever* discussing/considering using their Tomahawks and other full-up, thermonuclear devices on Tolkeen. Even the guy who kicked off the war (by accident on purpose) when he "bombarded" Tolkeen with Nukes (and thus forced them to reveal the Rifts Triangular Defense thingy) was simply bombarding them with LRM strikes, from his LRM launching vehicles (detailed in Mercs; the modified Mark V APCs that have the entire volume filled with LRMs). Which, against any non-magic using enemy that isnt on par with the CS, FQ, or NGR (or better), would be quite effective. Its unlikely they could muster enough countermissile fire to shoot them all down, and each one that hits a building is quite likely to destroy it and kill everyone inside.... in most towns, at least. If they did this to Arzno, one of the Colorado Baronies, Kingsdale, etc, it would probably work extremely well and kill a lot of people and effectively level the city (remember that most tech based cities, most civilian buildings aren't MDC or if they are, are very light MDC) Against another high-tech power, though, this is unlikely to work at all as places like Chi-town likely have hundreds of SRM and MRM batteries for counter-missile/anit-air capability and they can afford to flush 4 missiles each to kill an incoming nuke.

In Tolkeen... probably not so much, as the entire place was built of MDC materials and/or converted to such with Metropolis. Also keep in mind with the massive amount of PPE available at Tolkeen via the triple-nexus, they can effectively create extremely durable MDC building materials (they can Create Wood out of thin air and then turn it into Ironwood, point-for-point; an SDC door has a couple hundred SDC - that turns into a couple hundred MDC. An SDC wall made of wooden planking (think overlapping planks/shiplap) would be similarly tough)

Similarly, the OPs "they could have just rolled Nukes (im assuming he meant the "real" Nukes that the CS wont use, because the LRMs would barely hurt a single building with those ~80ft blast radii) into the middle of Tolkeen and set them off and blown the whole place up" - wouldn't really have worked out that well. Yeah, nukes flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki - but those cities were built of flimsy SDC materials (largely wood). Tolkeen is MDC from the ground up. The blast of even full-up nukes would he heavily contained by buildings that have hundreds or thousands of MDC each. It would have been bad, but it it would by no means have flattened Tolkeen, even if they used full up, old-school thermonuclear warheads.

But we're still stuck with "the CS wont use them, even if the Splugorth invaded from Atlantis" - because NO ONE uses them.

As far as almost every society on Rifts Earth is concerned, the Cataclysm was caused by thermonuclear weapons. Almost no one knows (potentially, NO ONE knows) that it was just sheer bad luck that said thermonuclear exchange happened at literally the WORST possible moment (Secrets of the Atlanteans dangles a possible "Sunaj did and set it up on purpose" plot thread but its not a canon 'this happened', just a 'it might be true') to cause the chain reaction of PPE flaring that caused the Cataclsym..

So what they THINK they know is that Thermonuclear exchanges can cause things like the Cataclysm. So they wont use them, except in possibly the MOST desperate situations, which the invasion of Tolkeen does NOT constitute.

Even other Dimensions dont use full-up Nukes/WMD. In the Three Galaxies, for instance, there is no mention of anything like Thermonuclear or equivalent Anti-matter weapons being used; in fact, given the wording of the Lanator Accords, it seems that most of the societies in the 3Gs are well aware of the danger posed by such weapons and refuse to even make them. Their own laws prevent them from even using "clean" LRM and CRM nukes and anit-matter warheads to bombard from orbit.

Even the Splugorth dont appear to have or use such weapons.

So, the CS likely wouldn't have used thermonuclear weapons on Toilkeen even if they could have - because for all they know, setting off such a device at a Ley Line Triangle could cause something worse than the Cataclysm.

I mean, look, im not defending the Siege books - theyre pretty terrible on the macro scale (a lot of the specific adventures and plot hooks - going looking for something, stopping an attack on a single village, etc, are fine), but i think the "Nuke 'em" thing (or more, why the CS DIDNT) is perfectly clear and not at all as people are remembering it.

The only "nukes" used against Tolkeen were the regular, off-the-shelf military LRMs. I dont recall even a mention of them even considering using their thermonuclear weapons, against Tolkeen OR FQ.

[jaymz]

Even the Splugorth dont appear to have or use such weapons.

They have access to anti-matter missiles instead. Same damage way cleaner

[taalismn]

Tyrannies in real life have had a tendency to survive overly long, even when the military acts irresponsibly and contrary to the long term survival of the state. The Coalition dials this to 11, even though it has the justification that they ARE defending a bastion of (human) civilization against monsters to motivate themselves(as opposed to, say, Cambodia, who made the mistake of attacking Vietnam, just because Pol Pot hated Vietnamese....the Khmer Rhuge promptly got themselves -shredded- by the professional Vietnamese military who decided enough was enough and counter-invaded). .

[Hotrod]

No, wait! Now the CS has "clean" nukes that don't make things radioactive.

Minor caveat: nuclear weapons that air-burst produce negligible fallout. This includes Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and pretty much any weapon targeted to maximize its destructive area. The messy, nasty fallout comes from the fireball touching and vaporizing the top layers of soil (Castle Bravo being a good example). Airbursts distribute their fission fragments so widely that their fallout is too dispersed to be a health threat.

Of course, the prompt radiation from these weapon detonations, along with the heat, flash, secondary fires, blast, flying debris, and collapsing buildings tend to make for plenty of long-term nasty health effects for people who survive inside affected areas.

[jaymz]

No, wait! Now the CS has "clean" nukes that don't make things radioactive.

Minor caveat: nuclear weapons that air-burst produce negligible fallout. This includes Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and pretty much any weapon targeted to maximize its destructive area. The messy, nasty fallout comes from the fireball touching and vaporizing the top layers of soil (Castle Bravo being a good example). Airbursts distribute their fission fragments so widely that their fallout is too dispersed to be a health threat.

Of course, the prompt radiation from these weapon detonations, along with the heat, secondary fires, blast, flying debris, and collapsing buildings tend to make for plenty of long-term nasty health effects for people who survive inside affected areas.

Quite true seeing as how Hiro and naga are thriving pretty well these days after rebuilding in general.

[Axelmania]

Why do they not have any understanding of the capabilities of magic users.

They DO, just not as comprehensive an understanding as actual magic-users would, which makes sense.

I could understand if they never had any contact with debees. But they have had years of expirence dealing with debees and magic users.

Experience with SOME mages/D-Bees doesn't mean you're knowledgeable of all their aspects.

This paints the coalition not as a threat but a sheer and utter joke.

Not really:

Spoiler:

they won

No way could this coalition be a threat to anyone let alone tolkein or the fed. Of magic.

Elaborate why? Your criticism is too general. I see how they could be a threat overall even if some antics of certain unstable generals don't see the wisest.

They are seriously their own worst enemy, they would have been better off hiring all mercs and sending the mercs at tolkien they seem to have unlimited amounts of credits to throw at any problem.

They don't have unlimited wealth. Enough mercs would know the dangers involved here to jack up their rates higher than it might cost to outfit some grunt to do it.

Reading the generals, evil masterminds and brilliant strategist. My ass, these guys couldnt come up with a better strategy than all out rush them like idiots and use no strategy or logic?

I seem to recall the nuke salvo was a single rogue general who ignored High Command.

Why are you painting the entire CS by a rogue actor?

Here you go. Hire a merc unit or have a coalition unit pretend to be a merc company drive right into the middle of tolkien with about 10 nukes, just one of the many merc units volunteering to fight the coalition like the other 50 or so merc units doing it for free to fight the joke of a bad guy.

Putting all your eggs into one basket like a "sneak in a nuke" plot is probably prone to getting clairvoyants uncovering the plot.

That could be why it's necessary to just gradually whittle the city down with tens of thousands of separate actors. Too many plots for clairvoyants to spoil.

Boom! Tolkien gone in a flash, problem solved.

Maybe you're underestimating mages? Or psychics? You don't just drive a nuke into a city with fortune-tellers abound.

That's similarly why a lot of "just drive X into Chi-Town" plots probably fail.

Why is the coalition inept if they are supposed to be hardened genious military leaders and feared by everyone including the splugorth.

They're not inept for avoiding the use of your 'drive in a nuke' plan which would be bound to fail due to clairvoyant interference.

Same reason the galactic empire isn't strategically in star wars. Fictional caveat.

If they were then why bother fighting them at all ever? They have to be beatable.

Empire did a lot of strategically sound things. Individual members of it sitting on their laurels obviously couldn't compete with hardened rebels and force-sensitives, but I don't think we should condemn the entire empire.

One thing I would probably theorize with Prosek and Palpatine is that they are paranoid about being betrayed and so might keep very intelligent officers at arm's length (example: Thrawn in SW Rebels) rather than by their side, which is why they might be competent in distant missions but have vulnerabilities close to their command structure.

The empire, which had 1000s and 1000s of star destroyers, and could glass planets from orbit.... with just those... built a space station the size of a small moon... to destroy planets with a single shot.

I think the reason for the Death Star could've been more about range than about damage. It's superlaser could fire 2 million kilometers, apparently.

Assuming the largest star destroyer (the Executor-class Star Dreadnought) had the longest-range main gun, what exactly do you think that range was?

One reason why range is king is you don't want a target firing back at you.

The most logical explanation I can see for the death star is that some planets had defensive batteries with range rivaling or even exceeding even the best destroyers, so the Death Star would be built to defeat hardened positions without being shot back at.

To use Starcraft for comparison, this was a big reason you would use things like Siege Tanks or Guardians or Reavers. Yeah they have great damage, but the low mobility and low ROF made them not-so-good in standup fights. The biggest attraction was being top tier range.

(Want to be scared, look up "How much area the Death star acutally possessed" As you could habitate the entire thing. Not just the 'surface'.)

Are you talking about the volume?

So they built the death star. A station the size of a small moon.. can blow up planets with a button click (Well a few clicks) and.... left it 100% vulnerable to one dude plugging a shot with a torpeedo down what''s basicly an airshaft?

BOOM

Millions of troops destroyed, a station the size of a small moon vaproized.. by one kid.... hitting one shot... in an unprotected air vent?

Now.. in theory these people had the intelligence to construct a hyper space moble space station the size of a small moon that could blow planets out of space with a single shot... but noone thought. "hey maybe we off set the shaft with a few right angles so if someone does shoot a torp in there it just collapses that part of the shaft? That maybe we produce 20 shafts all with about a dozen right angle turns to vent, so even if one is shot what ever that shaft was venting doesn't back up and break down the station?

Maybe we could put ship shields on the out side of the shaft? I mean.... ships have them.... wouldn't you put a BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG ASS shield over such a vulnerable spot?

Well yes any of those things would be logical and smart.. but they didn't do it.

Why?

To drive the story. To sell tickets. If the rebels just got glassed from orbit every time the Empire showed up it'd be pretty boring, and.. well a short movie wouldn't it?

I take it you haven't watched Rogue One?

The primary plot of that film was basically to fill this supposed plot hole.

Kind of like how the recent story arc of Doctor Who filled a supposed plot hole about the maximum number of regeneration cycles vs pre-1st docs in a flashback.

Both basically blockbuster No-Prize candidates.

Were either of these conceived by creators all along? Probably not in the form we saw them, but perhaps they intended some vague idea resembling what was eventually made canon.

the story would have been much more interesting if that had simply been a plot point. The CS could have tried that, and had Tolkeen outmaneuver them by using scrying, psionics, etc. to predict the attack ahead of time and/or ferret out CS infiltrators/spies/whatever.

The reason this didn't happen adjacent to the Siege is probably because the CS tried and failed several times at this decades ago and figured it was a waste of resources because clairvoyants kept uncovering plots.

splitting their military in two halfs and sending the half with the Variable-frequency laser-wielding robots to fight the side that doesn't have laser-resistant armor.

Is this some comment about skelebots? They tend to alternate between CV-213s and Dead Man's Railgun where appropriate.

whoever wrote this has no clue about military, combat or anything like strategy.
The barbaric horde mentality has no place in any modern military regime
if this horse **** is what the coalition states has been doing they never ever would have become a force or let alone a coalition. Its not possible

Why do you view the CS as a barbaric horde? Compared to who? Tolkeen and it's armies of sub-demons?

ofcourse 1 cyberknight could take out an entire regiment of cs troopers, he wouldnt even have to fight. They would take eachother out with incompetence blasting eachother with laser fire and mini missle attacks. The entire time the cyber knight just standing there laughing maniacally because of pure lazy writting.

If we actually gamed out that Thorpe fight from SOT4 I bet we could kill him 9/10 times. GBK didn't even use his mini-missiles, pathetic.

The explanation of this is of course that Erin Tarn has super powers. Which is entirely legal because she is a Scholar/Adventurer class. She clearly used them to aid Thorpe in some way.

EVERY power in NA that has decent high-tech manufacturing can produce "nukes" - Nuclear Multi-warhead LRMs.

What exactly do you mean by "decent" though? Which communities besides the CS do you think can produce LRMs?

I'd always figured Iron Heart or Northern Gun could (since they make Castle Bombers) and I would figure Titan Robotics (due to it's special backer) and Naruni Enterprises also could...

Aside from those three (four total) who else in NA do you think could manufacture missiles?

But we're still stuck with "the CS wont use them, even if the Splugorth invaded from Atlantis" - because NO ONE uses them.

I'm sure there's some context in which Karl would use them, but the Splugorth would have to be doing more than merely invade (they'd need to be on the verge of winning, with some human colonies safely out of the blast radius) to meet that criteira.

As far as almost every society on Rifts Earth is concerned, the Cataclysm was caused by thermonuclear weapons. Almost no one knows (potentially, NO ONE knows) that it was just sheer bad luck that said thermonuclear exchange happened at literally the WORST possible moment

You sure about that?

I could've sworn I recalled something about even Tarn herself not knowing what caused it... I'll get back to you on this if I re-find whichever journal entry I'm thinking of.

[Blue_Lion]

It is hard for a writer that is not a tactical expert to write that way.
I would point out from military experience that common sense is not common. I have seen quite a few living brain donors in our military.
(my opinion on the CS fallows)
The CS army always seamed to have a more of a peasant army mind set outside of its elite forces. The focus being to have them blindly fallow orders. (like how some of the old Warsaw pack counties treat their soldiers.)

While not every one in the CS is evil the upper leaders are, and corrupt, so they push a policy of social ignorance and blindly following orders. This spills over to the military. This means while for most their military it is easy to mass troops for a push at the drop of a hat, they are poor at thinking for themselves and guerrilla warfare. Grunts win by having more numbers/tech than their opponents something the CS has in spades. Because the government/military has control of information that is available to the people they do not have to deal with negative news linked to large losses we do. The corrupt leadership does not care about loosing disposable troops as long as they get what they want. (CS if I recall right the CS is described as using tactics dating back to WWII for their grunt forces.)

-Note that does not apply to elite forces.

Magic while typically worse than technology in large scale toe to toe combat, like swarms. It is a better at guerrilla warfare. Military history shows that guerrilla warfare can stop larger better equipped military forces. If a magical and technology force where equally tactical savvy magic will always be able to do guerrilla warfare better. Add in the home field advantage of a defender and the magical forces could hold a larger technological force at bay.

Both the tactics of the CS and Tolkeen where horrible.

[Axelmania]

Both the tactics of the CS and Tolkeen where horrible.

I don't find such generalizations to be very provoking of good conversation, can we talk about some particular tactics that come to mind in forming your opinions?

[Mack]

I've got my own head canon about the CS military leadership. This isn't directly supported by any text, just an over vibe I get.

-- Company Grade Officers (2Lt, 1Lt, and Capt) are generally competent, and don't have to worry about playing politics. They are largely judged and promoted based on their merits.
-- Field Grade Officers (Maj, Lt Col, and Col) are informally required to play the political game, and to toe the party line. Their promotions are partly based on competence, but also partly on displaying the appropriate fealty.
-- General Officers (Brig Gen, Maj Gen, Lt Gen, and Gen) must excel at the political game. They understand that their stock rises and falls based on the whims of the CS leadership (High Council and the Proseks).
-- The High Council understands that loyalty to the Proseks trumps everything. Failure to do so means a swift demise.

Competence alone will only get you so far in the CS ranks (see Larson of Larson's Brigade). I can see many an officer who was promoted just beyond his capabilities because he adhered to the CS ideology and had the appropriate 'sponsor' from the higher ups.


What that means for the overall CS military:
-- They are generally well led at the tactical level. Platoon / Company level engagements are well executed.
-- They are moderately well led at the operational level. Battalion / Brigade level engagements proceed with some difficulty and have a level of inefficiency.
-- They are poorly led at the strategic level. Division and higher level engagements are fraught with challenges.

In the field, a company could perfectly execute it's assigned mission but that mission may not be aligned with a campaign's strategic objective, creating a wasted effort.

So the CS can easily execute small scale conflicts. But the larger a conflict grows, the less they are able to handle it. Attack a magic village just inside the Magic Zone? Not a problem. Conduct a war on two fronts against prepared enemies (Tolkien & Free Quebec)? Big ole problem.

[Orin J.]

I've got my own head canon about the CS military leadership. This isn't directly supported by any text, just an over vibe I get.

-- Company Grade Officers (2Lt, 1Lt, and Capt) are generally competent, and don't have to worry about playing politics. They are largely judged and promoted based on their merits.
-- Field Grade Officers (Maj, Lt Col, and Col) are informally required to play the political game, and to toe the party line. Their promotions are partly based on competence, but also partly on displaying the appropriate fealty.
-- General Officers (Brig Gen, Maj Gen, Lt Gen, and Gen) must excel at the political game. They understand that their stock rises and falls based on the whims of the CS leadership (High Council and the Proseks).
-- The High Council understands that loyalty to the Proseks trumps everything. Failure to do so means a swift demise.

Competence alone will only get you so far in the CS ranks (see Larson of Larson's Brigade). I can see many an officer who was promoted just beyond his capabilities because he adhered to the CS ideology and had the appropriate 'sponsor' from the higher ups.


What that means for the overall CS military:
-- They are generally well led at the tactical level. Platoon / Company level engagements are well executed.
-- They are moderately well led at the operational level. Battalion / Brigade level engagements proceed with some difficulty and have a level of inefficiency.
-- They are poorly led at the strategic level. Division and higher level engagements are fraught with challenges.

In the field, a company could perfectly execute it's assigned mission but that mission may not be aligned with a campaign's strategic objective, creating a wasted effort.

So the CS can easily execute small scale conflicts. But the larger a conflict grows, the less they are able to handle it. Attack a magic village just inside the Magic Zone? Not a problem. Conduct a war on two fronts against prepared enemies (Tolkien & Free Quebec)? Big ole problem.

Realize both conflicts are snipe hunts caused by glory-chasing officer corps while more insidious threats are getting away with murder inside their borders? Someone else's problem.

[Mack]

Realize both conflicts are snipe hunts caused by glory-chasing officer corps while more insidious threats are getting away with murder inside their borders? Someone else's problem.

Not the direction I was going, but if that's what works at your gaming table, sure.

[Hystrix]

There was a lot of bad writing. I didn't hate the SoT books, but they could have been better.

One thing that still bugs me and I think is indicative of how badly portrayed BOTH sides armies were.

There is a line from SoT6 bottom of page 12 top of page 13 where it states that "The Coalition Generals have forgotten about the Summer Solstice only nine days away..."

Wait.

A professional army that has been fighting magic wielders for years and this nation in particular for 4 years just...forgot?

Look there's this little thing called military intelligence (in the US Army it's called S2 or G2). Any organized army has an S2 at the battalion and brigade levels, and a G2 section at higher. These forgetful generals would have had SOOOOOO many meeting and staff syncs reminding them of the Summer Solstice because it mattered and they had experienced it before. It would have been beat to death in ALL battalion and higher level Command and Staff meetings. Literally NO ONE could just forget. Even if the CS Army structure is different that the US Army (everything written show structural similarities), no generals anywhere make decisions in a vacuum. They would have some kind of advisers.

Now this is one example, but I think it illustrates the authors inability to understand basic military tactics.

Not that it was all bad. Plus, in the authors defense, this CS/Tolkeen War was a huge undertaking and Rifts game mechanics aren't designed to handle large battles and wars.

I have always used SoT as a background anyway. In my games that I have run I just ignore some of the more egregious stuff. A war happened or is happening. What you do with it in a campaign is more important than what's in the books.

[Nekira Sudacne]

ofcourse 1 cyberknight could take out an entire regiment of cs troopers, he wouldnt even have to fight. They would take eachother out with incompetence blasting eachother with laser fire and mini missle attacks. The entire time the cyber knight just standing there laughing maniacally because of pure lazy writting.

If we actually gamed out that Thorpe fight from SOT4 I bet we could kill him 9/10 times. GBK didn't even use his mini-missiles, pathetic.

The explanation of this is of course that Erin Tarn has super powers. Which is entirely legal because she is a Scholar/Adventurer class. She clearly used them to aid Thorpe in some way.

Or the scene displayed the other 1/10 time and Erin Tarn has no superpowers.

[Orin J.]

One thing that still bugs me and I think is indicative of how badly portrayed BOTH sides armies were.

There is a line from SoT6 bottom of page 12 top of page 13 where it states that "The Coalition Generals have forgotten about the Summer Solstice only nine days away..."

Wait.

A professional army that has been fighting magic wielders for years and this nation in particular for 4 years just...forgot?

the CS timetable was going to have them breaking tolkeen before that happened. once they committed to the fight they were too stubborn to pay attention to the big issue with letting the fight drag out until everything blew up on them and they were handed their own old intel on why they needed to not let the comflict drag on too long.....

[jaymz]

I guarantee anyone playing in my games will soon realize the CS military is in fact very professional and very effective....

[Axelmania]

There is a line from SoT6 bottom of page 12 top of page 13 where it states that "The Coalition Generals have forgotten about the Summer Solstice only nine days away..."

Wait.

A professional army that has been fighting magic wielders for years and this nation in particular for 4 years just...forgot?

The army didn't forget, the generals (old dudes with bad memories) did.

Just assume their secretaries reminded them right after that happened.

Now this is one example, but I think it illustrates the authors inability to understand basic military tactics.

Old generals forgetting important information has nothing to do with tactics, it's just a setting feature.

I'm sure they've forgotten stuff like this before and it's led to problems though, so Karl would've implemented a "remind your generals of the solstice" policy for LT/secretaries who brief them.

So they'll soon do that... UNLESS...

What if Tolkeen knows about this policy, and being unable to compromise the CS generals (too well protected) they instead targeted their secretaries who remind them of key information like this, and compromised them instead.

For example:
Mind Wipe (when the soltice is) + Insert Memory (wrong date for solstice)
Hypnotic Suggestion (you already reminded the general yesterday, you're not booked to remind him for another week)
Hypnotic Suggestion (doesn't that general seem angry you keep treating him like an idiot and briefing him on the solstice every single day? Maybe you should just do it once a week...)

Or the scene displayed the other 1/10 time and Erin Tarn has no superpowers.

I suppose, but Occam's Razor NS is that she is obviously a super-mutant, you know that deep down.

[jaymz]

Except as far as I recall most of the generals involved are not that old....nor should they be that stupid.

[Shark_Force]

honestly, I'm not sure the solstice should have even mattered that much, unless the CS army were camping at a ley line nexus (in which case forgetting about the solstice is a comparatively minor issue; remember, psi-stalkers and dog boys can't detect magic on a ley line nexus, there's too much of it everywhere).

after all, solstice increases the amount of energy available, but only at a nexus. not to mention it does not actually enhance the power of magic at all, while being on a nexus at *any* time of day gave bonuses to range, damage, duration, and even spell strength under the old rules.

not to mention that there are ways to store magical energy for later use (scrolls, talismans, other magical creations, long-term enchantments, the energy sphere spell which was already out by this point in time, various TW devices, etc), which should really mean that the short-term spike in magical power was ultimately pretty trivial; on a normal day, a mage can draw 160 PPE per level from a ley line (or 220, if the noon/midnight spikes are separate from their normal limitation of once per 6 hours), in addition to recovering 960 PPE per day passively. on a solstice, they could draw an additional 900 PPE per level (assuming the noon/midnight spikes still occur) and still only recover 960 per day passively, which is only a significant increase when you look at a single day but which is almost inconsequential when you consider how much energy a mage can draw on over the course of a year.

(and of course, in the new rules where a spellcaster can draw on energy from a ley line or nexus without any cooldown period and are limited in their maximum capacity anyways, it is barely even an increase even for that one day, but that's hardly the only casualty of the new - and imo worse - rules for ley lines and nexuses).

that attack really could have come on any day of the year, by simply storing the energy for later use. the solstice doesn't make magic any more powerful, merely more plentiful, and that excess magical energy does not have to be used immediately anyways.

now, if the solstice made that energy available *anywhere* (while simultaneously messing with the senses of dog boys and psi-stalkers), sure you've got a problem.

[slade the sniper]

I've got my own head canon about the CS military leadership. This isn't directly supported by any text, just an over vibe I get.

-- Company Grade Officers (2Lt, 1Lt, and Capt) are generally competent, and don't have to worry about playing politics. They are largely judged and promoted based on their merits.
-- Field Grade Officers (Maj, Lt Col, and Col) are informally required to play the political game, and to toe the party line. Their promotions are partly based on competence, but also partly on displaying the appropriate fealty.
-- General Officers (Brig Gen, Maj Gen, Lt Gen, and Gen) must excel at the political game. They understand that their stock rises and falls based on the whims of the CS leadership (High Council and the Proseks).
-- The High Council understands that loyalty to the Proseks trumps everything. Failure to do so means a swift demise.

Competence alone will only get you so far in the CS ranks (see Larson of Larson's Brigade). I can see many an officer who was promoted just beyond his capabilities because he adhered to the CS ideology and had the appropriate 'sponsor' from the higher ups.


What that means for the overall CS military:
-- They are generally well led at the tactical level. Platoon / Company level engagements are well executed.
-- They are moderately well led at the operational level. Battalion / Brigade level engagements proceed with some difficulty and have a level of inefficiency.
-- They are poorly led at the strategic level. Division and higher level engagements are fraught with challenges.

In the field, a company could perfectly execute it's assigned mission but that mission may not be aligned with a campaign's strategic objective, creating a wasted effort.

So the CS can easily execute small scale conflicts. But the larger a conflict grows, the less they are able to handle it. Attack a magic village just inside the Magic Zone? Not a problem. Conduct a war on two fronts against prepared enemies (Tolkien & Free Quebec)? Big ole problem.

It is like you just described Afghanistan...

-STS


MODERATOR EDIT - Please leave the real world out of this discussion. Thanks, Mack.

[Mack]

The army didn't forget, the generals (old dudes with bad memories) did.

Just assume their secretaries reminded them right after that happened.

Militaries don't tolerate forgetfulness at any rank.

[Orin J.]

The army didn't forget, the generals (old dudes with bad memories) did.

Just assume their secretaries reminded them right after that happened.

Militaries don't tolerate forgetfulness at any rank.

Good militaries don't tolerate forgetfulness at any rank. Lots of bad ones tolerate a lot of it in the top brass.

[ryokoryu]

for the same reason Tolkien or the FoM don't just teleport a nuke into the throne room of the emperor. You seriously underestimate psychics here for starters. The coalition relies much more heavily on psychics than you would first believe by their propaganda and the main book. This is in addition to their dog packs and psi-stalkers in PSI-batalion. Every CS psychic weather it be minor, major, or master bagged and tagged has a chance to detect the incoming danger or the thoughts of the operatives involved. Spies abound, many of those human psychics are loyal to the coalition. Johnny lawligagger with just a smidge of ISP and a heart of gold believes he is a threat to people because he was born defective (according to the CS) and he senses that guy over there Is coating a nuke to be used against his fellow CS citizens, he runs and tells the guards and they see his barcode and know he knows things. they radio PSI and they neutralize the threat yesterday. Johnny's friend Tod thinks they get the raw end of the stick and like Johnny has a heart of gold. He senses that CS spy over there has it in for Tolkien and is planning to send mercs with a nuke there. To him they represent his chance at being accepted for what he was born and he knows a guy that knows a guy that gets the word out. the nuke is found and the mercs having no idea what they were doing are executed. that is all it takes.

[Axelmania]

Except as far as I recall most of the generals involved are not that old....nor should they be that stupid.

I don't think forgetting something is stupid. It's possible to be so caught up in all kinds of crazy minutiae (like terrain) and miss big longterm picture stuff like magic highpoints.

The army didn't forget, the generals (old dudes with bad memories) did.

Just assume their secretaries reminded them right after that happened.

Militaries don't tolerate forgetfulness at any rank.

Good militaries don't tolerate forgetfulness at any rank. Lots of bad ones tolerate a lot of it in the top brass.

Someone in power can certainly have underlings fill in for their weaknesses.

A lot of attention is paid to keeping an established image/structure even if someone is less capable.

Hiding the wheelchair boundness of Franklin D. Roosevelt while he was in office is one thing that comes to mind. I expect we also see with some older leaders with memory problems their assistants doing their best to damage-control that.

for the same reason Tolkien or the FoM don't just teleport a nuke into the throne room of the emperor. You seriously underestimate psychics here for starters.

Prosek's armor (assuming he's always in it) has somewhere around 120MDC so instead of a rewired LRM (kinda wasteful) teleporting a dozen fusion blocks or other explosives would probably get the job done.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if Karl's SB1/CWC stats are now out of day. Since becoming more aware of Naruni Enterprises (and also considering that NGR has experimental force fields) I wouldn't be at all surprised if the CS had top-secret experimental force fields used to protect the Prosek family.

The problem is also that clairvoyants would tell him hours ahead to relocate.

Even if they didn't get the warning, he probably has Psi-Nullifiers within a few yards of he is (they might be in the next room) where their ISP would automatically react to and neutralize the PPE of incoming spells, meaning any incoming teleports would have to expend a lot more PPE to compensate and still function.

That also ignores the problem of seeing/timing the attack which I think would require some kind of Remote Viewing.

Every CS psychic weather it be minor, major, or master bagged and tagged has a chance to detect the incoming danger or the thoughts of the operatives involved.

Not EVERY psychic, only ones with appropriate powers.

[jaymz]

Oh get lost. Forgetting something (the solstice being a bad time to confront magic users) that would have been drilled into them from boot camp on about their biggest threat (magic) is the epitomy of stupidity.

[Axelmania]

Oh get lost. Forgetting something (the solstice being a bad time to confront magic users) that would have been drilled into them from boot camp on about their biggest threat (magic) is the epitomy of stupidity.

Boot camp was decades ago for the generals, basics can fade away as you focus on more advanced stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if many generals weren't so good at shoe-shining or rifle-cleaning anymore either.

Furthermore: what makes you think that this IS drilled into them from boot camp?

Knowledge of magical bonuses during solstices is probably part of Lore: Magic. You can see from RUE 233 that this is not a mandatory OCC skill of the frontline troops like the grunt or SAMAS pilot. Not even the Military Specialist (RUE 235) or Technical Officer (RUE 237) are guaranteed to have it.

Even the Dog Boys (RUE 147) and Psi-Stalkers (RUE 154) aren't guaranteed to have this skill.

So if your criticism is that the CS should make this (and probably Lore: Demons and Monsters) a mandatory OCC technical skill for all of their troops: that does seem like a pretty good idea, I'll admit.

At the same time, there is a danger to this. Not all OCCs get a decent bonus to technical/lore skills, so they could have a low % in it. If you rely on unskilled rolls, the majority of the time the troops could be getting information wrong.

It may be, for example, that magic's elevation at solstices is considered top-secret to avoid it leaking into the public and causing a panic during these periods. The information might be restricted to a small amount of people, like the generals and select officers relied upon to remind them of the information.

The compartmentalization of important information like this has some benefits but obviously a lot of risks since you have little backup.

[jaymz]

I can't eyeroll hard enough at your entire ridiculous response.

Not every little piece of knowledge has to governed by a frickin skill roll and solstices are important enough that anyone with command ability should bloody well know about them otherwise they should not be in command. Period. It is utterly asinine to think otherwise and shows your own completely inadequate ability to comprehend just how stupid such a notion as forgetting about the solstice really is.

[Curbludgeon]

There's no need for any of that. Problems in the SoT books are largely due to a combination of Coffin's talents being squandered and K.S. being inexplicably convinced his every narrative is worth a damn.

Rolls being to a certain degree extraneous, I'd argue that the utility of certain dates and times vis-à-vis ley line magic is somewhere around the 33% skill percentile. It would be nice if the disavowed book (or whatever the companion to heroes of humanity is) had additional advanced training options to complement the demon slayer MOS. At a minimum a RCSG scientist would know what's up.

[Axelmania]

Oh get lost.

I can't eyeroll hard enough at your entire ridiculous response.

These are stressful times, sometimes civility can be difficult during them. I hope we can strive to meet that challenge together Jay.

Memory too! I gotta say, as I am chronically stressed out by COVID-19 rest is compromised and memory!

This makes me think: as bad as things are right now: it's probably worse 99% of the time in CS society.

So the generals and troops are probably having even worse challenges with their memory.

Not every little piece of knowledge has to governed by a frickin skill roll

No, only those things described under a particular skill, otherwise why take the skill?

RUE 325: "provides general knowledge, theories and historical reference on how magic works, common magical powers and spells, their effects"

solstices are important enough that anyone with command ability should bloody well know about them otherwise they should not be in command.

There are a lot of important factors in warfare that those in command don't need to know the details of, so long as they can delegate those responsibilities to trustworthy officers reporting to them.

If you think it should be mandatory to have Lore: Magic at a certain % to be promoted to certain rank tiers within the CS, it seems like a decently reasonable idea to me, but I will point out that this is not a canonical requirement.

Period. It is utterly asinine to think otherwise and shows your own completely inadequate ability to comprehend just how stupid such a notion as forgetting about the solstice really is.

Forgetting important things under chronic stress is not an asinine notion IMO

I have, for example, under stress, forgotten I left my keys inside a room and locked them inside behind me, requiring me to crawl in the the window to regain access.

This is not people casually forgetting important things under calm controlled conditions: it's forgetting them when the world is falling apart.

People can forget to bathe, sleep, eat, drink, even BREATHE when stress gets extreme enough.

When Hystrix quoted a portion of SOT6p12 he neglected to include part of the context of it, which I think may clarify things for you:

And somewhere in all the strategy and planning, worry and doubt, the Coalition Generals have forgotten

Two paragraphs prior:

the Invasion Force stops to catch it's breath. Uncertain. Nervous

Saying "worry and doubt" is barely scratching the surface of how it would feel to be in this war.

This would be more stressful than anything we could possibly relate to IRL. It's an amount of stress beyond what we can actually draw realistic comparisons to.

The generals could have all been 100% aware of the solstice 10 days prior, but then when it was 9 days prior, amidst sleep deprivation (maybe 50 hour shifts on high caffeine) fighting demons, it may have slipped their mind as they focus on the minutia, thinking if they could win the battle they could put off tracking celestial high-points.

Shark Force made a decent explanation yesterday for why it isn't as major a factor as you're letting on, and I could see how it's strategical significance could take a back seat to focusing on day-to-day tactics to the point of such obsession that they forget to think back on it.

The problem here in thinking we can run the CS better than CS High Command, is the best we can ever aspire to be is armchair generals. Even if you IRL are a military general (awesome!) our modern military threats simply can't compare to what the CS has to deal with. So second-guessing how well they remember things or what they ought to be thinking at certain times, comes across as very arrogant to me.

I think we'd all be failing our HF checks and having mental breakdowns at what Tolkeen was unleashing, and be lucky to remember our own names much less when a solstice is going to give them a lil PPE boost.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Dude did you just say people just randomly forget to breathe, when stressed?

Do you sit around every second of the day reminding yourself to take the next breath? lol

It's an autonomic function.

[jaymz]

Jay is not my name so don;t use it.

People who forget to breathe? Yeah, stupid.

Forget about the solstice on chronic stress? Oh BS beyond BS and STILL f-ing stupid as is the notion of accepting GENERALS in charge of full ARMIES who regularly fight MAGIC USERS forgetting about it. You want to play the CS as bumbling morons you do that. It is STILL stupid to do so.

And if nothing else it just shows the WRITER at the time was clueless. Don;t even get me started on the mess that is Homes in the hivelands.

[Orin J.]

I was going to make an argument, but after that sad display i don't want to be seen as defending it...

[Mack]

Lock Warning.

Friends, I will lock this topic if either of the following two behaviors continue:
1) Assertations that are at best, specious.
2) Responses that include personal attacks.

Additionally, individual punishments may be administered.

[Sureshot]

Doe me personally what bothered me about SOT is that both sides were written as making some truly amateur mistakes on both sides.

The CS launching nukes on an enemy expecting such an attack. Given how vocal they have been on the CS hate of anything non-human of course Tolkien was going to be ready for such an attack. At the very least if the CS employed spies in Tolkien territory and they should have they would have been clearly told " Don't waste time using nukes Tolkien has a magic shield".

Tolkien allying with free Quebec was so out of character. FQ hates anything and everything non-human 1o if not 20 times more than the CS yet Tolkien allies with them. It's not even remotely the enemy of mine is my friend. It's having an enemy at the front of you and then having an "ally" who hates you even more than the enemy.

Both sides being portrayed poorly. My gaming table were expecting the CS to win yet it should have been a major battle winner takes all. As let's be honest the CS is too popular with the fans to lose out against Tolkien. Instead it was written as railroad where everything went wrong for Tolkien and at most the CS was given a bloody nose where Tolkien was destroyed.

[Axelmania]

Dude did you just say people just randomly forget to breathe, when stressed?

Do you sit around every second of the day reminding yourself to take the next breath? lol

It's an autonomic function.

Partly autonomic since it can be voluntarily over-ridden. I'm referring to apnea or how people do shallow breathing or breath-holding during stress. I suppose "forgetting to breathe" isn't the most accurate colloquilism since it's more like "forgetting to stop holding your breath" or "forgetting you're holding your breath" I guess?

Forget about the solstice on chronic stress? Oh BS beyond BS and STILL f-ing stupid as is the notion of accepting GENERALS in charge of full ARMIES who regularly fight MAGIC USERS forgetting about it. You want to play the CS as bumbling morons you do that. It is STILL stupid to do so.

And if nothing else it just shows the WRITER at the time was clueless. Don;t even get me started on the mess that is Homes in the hivelands.

Although some are hesitant to including data from other games, I think Nightbane WB4: Shadows of Light page 10-11's optional rules for Horror Factor could shed some light on the type of chronic stress effects we might see on CS troops (even generals)

Skill use is -80% during hyperventilation, as one example.

It is possible to get temporary, long-term or permanent insanities.

I can see people losing track of their multifaceted schedules during stressful events like that.

That is why as a safeguard I expect the CS has helpers assigned to brief and remind generals of important criteria on a daily basis.

Given how dangerous it would be if they were compromised, I expect there are several assigned to each general so that it would be difficult to compromise the information the general is receiving. You'd have to interfere with more than one at once, most likely.

We know RAW that the generals all forgot, and the text implies why (worry/doubt/nervousness) which is plausible to me.

Do note however that temporarily forgetting something doesn't mean forgetting it indefinitely. You could forget about the solstice for a couple hours and then suddenly remember it, or be reminded of it by someone else who didn't forget about it.

The bigger question here is: for how long did the generals forget about it, and is it possible that the generals' secretaries were neglect in their duties to regularly remind them of all relevant criteria that should be in mind when formulating strategy?

Doe me personally what bothered me about SOT is that both sides were written as making some truly amateur mistakes on both sides.

The CS launching nukes on an enemy expecting such an attack. Given how vocal they have been on the CS hate of anything non-human of course Tolkien was going to be ready for such an attack.

So long as we acknowledge that this is one amateur general, as CS High Command didn't authorize it.

At the very least if the CS employed spies in Tolkien territory and they should have they would have been clearly told " Don't waste time using nukes Tolkien has a magic shield".

Was that necessarily easily discerned by spies? Has it been used before? Perhaps it was a top-secret defence?

[Hystrix]

OK. I think my point was lost. It doesn't matter if a general forgets something. Its that fact that EACH general would have dozens of people constantly reminding them of all of these details. Also, you don't get to the level of general because you can't remember things people are telling you on a daily basis. Plus, how many generals would a million man army have? If the US army is any measure there would be a hundred or more generals (1-4 stars) active in the SoT.

ALL of them simply forgot?

No.

The way the SoT books present this stuff its like one guy saying to 320,000 Soldiers, "Let's get 'em boys." Modern armies don't work like that.

And Tolkeen is written almost as poorly.

jaymz wrote:

I guarantee anyone playing in my games will soon realize the CS military is in fact very professional and very effective....

[Orin J.]

OK. I think my point was lost. It doesn't matter if a general forgets something. Its that fact that EACH general would have dozens of people constantly reminding them of all of these details. Also, you don't get to the level of general because you can't remember things people are telling you on a daily basis.

it's important to accept that things are different during warfare. the coalition had planned to stomp tolkeen down before that happened. they were confident they would win and the solstice would be of no importance. tolkeen surprised them and the coalition, being what they are, were too determined to not be seen as failing to comprehend their position until they had no way to back out at all. so they doubled down on stopping it at the last second, and counted their seconds wrong. several small tactical errors compounded with hubris to ruin their day.

nothing surprising or unusual there.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

OK. I think my point was lost. It doesn't matter if a general forgets something. Its that fact that EACH general would have dozens of people constantly reminding them of all of these details. Also, you don't get to the level of general because you can't remember things people are telling you on a daily basis. Plus, how many generals would a million man army have? If the US army is any measure there would be a hundred or more generals (1-4 stars) active in the SoT.

ALL of them simply forgot?

No.

The way the SoT books present this stuff its like one guy saying to 320,000 Soldiers, "Let's get 'em boys." Modern armies don't work like that.

And Tolkeen is written almost as poorly.

jaymz wrote:

I guarantee anyone playing in my games will soon realize the CS military is in fact very professional and very effective....

All of this assumes the general staff is raised up from a competent officer corp.

It isn't, in the CS Army.

VERY few of the Generals came up through the officer corps - most were jumped straight to senior positions due to politics.

A better analogue would be the US Federal forces during the Civil War. Guys with no military experience of any kind being made Colonels or low-end generals, and put in charge of troops who barely know how to load their guns and point the right end at the bad guys (if you want a good example of this, watch Glory. Matthew Borderics character has little to no military experience, and his officers are even worse; its the experienced non-coms who are holding the thing together for the first bit. Its pretty historically accurate in this regard).

Now, i'd agree that given the size of the force involved (the initial-initial push ("Chalks Folly") was small - i think just two or three army Corps (24k men each)) in the invasion before the Sorcerers Revenge - at least 300,000 men - that there had to be SOME General Staff officers who are actually competent and came up through the ranks.

But Its also entirely feasible that in any given collection of ~20 CS Generals, that every single one of them will be dumb as a brick, and have surrounded themselves with sycophantic yes-men for staff, who are probably scared spitless of contradicting their General for fear of being sent to do actual fighting with the Grunts.

[Nekira Sudacne]

The army didn't forget, the generals (old dudes with bad memories) did.

Just assume their secretaries reminded them right after that happened.

Militaries don't tolerate forgetfulness at any rank.

Maaan, Good thing I never enlisted.

[Axelmania]

It doesn't matter if a general forgets something.
Its that fact that EACH general would have dozens of people constantly reminding them of all of these details.

Perhaps... but perhaps not? It might be considered insulting to remind a general that the solstice is a week away. It might seem so obvious that the lieutenants wouldn't want to get in hot water by treating the general like they're incompetent.

That does happen with authority, insecurity, power imbalance ... you can be so fearful of triggering someone's ire that you might avoid providing useful information to them.

you don't get to the level of general because you can't remember things people are telling you on a daily basis.

Nobody's saying the generals began their careers that way. But the aging process DOES happen and compromise the mind like that.

how many generals would a million man army have? If the US army is any measure there would be a hundred or more generals (1-4 stars) active in the SoT.

I don't think it's meant to mean every CS general in existence, but rather the group of them commanding the 6 divisions surrounding the city.

ALL of them simply forgot?

No.

"CS High Command has left that decision to the Generals on site".

It's not talking about ALL the generals, but rather just the on-site ones. IE the ones knee-deep in the dead seeing their comrades animated as zombies, probably not getting a decent night's sleep in weeks, etc.

Leaving decisions to on-site generals can help because they could have better experience/perspective but there are clearly risks to it too, as seems to be the case here.

The way the SoT books present this stuff its like one guy saying to 320,000 Soldiers, "Let's get 'em boys." Modern armies don't work like that.

You're not going to have every grunt with enough Lore: Magic % to know about solstice boosts second-guessing their orders on the possibility a general forgot.

They'll probably assume of COURSE the field general has this in mind and has made appropriate tactical choices resulting from it.